“He busted Lucas’s nose during training,” she continued. “Last night, he punched a window and needed eight stitches.”
Last night? While he’d been with Veronica. “It has nothing to do with me,” I assured them. If I’d had claws, I would have scraped them over the lockers.
Calm.
“I happen to think it has everything to do with you,” Trina said. “I’ve seen the way he watches you when you’re not looking.”
“And I swear vessels burst in his forehead every time Gavin mentions your name,” Mackenzie said, nodding.
“Guys. Cole broke up with me. I told him I’d work on being his friend, and I will, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stroke his...uh, ego and make him smile.”
“Fine,” Trina replied. “We’ll stop trying to convince you to sex him up, but you still gotta talk to him. You’re the only one he’ll listen to.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
She ignored me, saying, “He disappears for hours at a time. No one knows where he goes. He’s paranoid we won’t keep detailed records about what we find on patrol. He gets phone calls from blocked numbers and steps out of the room so no one will overhear his conversations. Before, he kept us in the loop about everything.”
So he was still spying on the slayers. But what was it, exactly, that he was trying to uncover?
I reached my destination, freed the lock on my locker and stuffed my bag inside. “I’ll talk to him about his weirdness, but that’s all I can promise.”
Mackenzie shocked me to my bones when she hugged me. “Thank you. We, like, seriously owe you one.”
As if our conversation had summoned him, Cole turned the corner and strolled down the hall toward us. He was wearing a red baseball cap and had his hands in his pockets. I couldn’t see his newest wound. He walked past us, nodding at Trina, then Mackenzie—avoiding me. My chest constricted.
“Or maybe I won’t be talking to him,” I muttered, and took off for my first class.
Just before Cole turned the corner, he looked back at me; our gazes locked. I tripped over my own feet. No vision. But I saw hunger. Fury. Regret. Remorse. Fear. Then he was gone.
Someone laughed, breaking me from the spell he’d woven. Dazed, a little angry with myself—calm, dang it—I looked to see what was so funny. Wren and Poppy stood with a group of girls making fun of a tall, skinny redhead with freckles and braces. Wren and Poppy weren’t laughing, but they weren’t stopping the taunts, either. The redhead was doing her best not to cry.
I stomped over and, to a chorus of “Hey” and “Watch it,” shoved the girls out of the way. Glaring, I said, “You have five seconds to leave, and then I get mad.”
I wasn’t ever going to be a sedative, was I?
They might not know how good I was with my fists, but they certainly knew the people I ran with, and, paling, they left without another word. Poppy cast a remorseful look over her shoulder. Wren, too. Only she mouthed, Thank you, baffling me.
“Thank you,” the redhead said, then swallowed a sob. “My shirt... I didn’t bring a jacket today, so I can’t cover up.”
It was white and soaked with water, revealing every stitch on her bra. “Why don’t we trade?” I didn’t want her sitting in the cold and the wet and thinking about what had happened. “Your shirt goes better with my jeans.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
She brightened, and we raced to the bathroom.
“Thank you so much,” she said after we’d made the switch.
“Don’t worry about it.” Shivering, I darted to class to avoid a tardy I couldn’t afford.
To my surprise, Justin was waiting at the door. “Hey, Ali.”
“Hey.”
He opened his mouth to say more, closed it. Opened it. Snapped it closed. Finally he settled on “How are you?”
“I’ve been better.” I headed toward my seat, and he followed me. “You?”
“Fine. I’m fine.”