Defiance

the outskirts of an overgrown baseball diamond, a cloud of gold puffing up around them, and we all put on the brakes, skidding to a stop.

Beer for everyone, then. My sides heaved. Half of us bent over, gasping for breath. And when I looked around at all the faces, glowing with excitement and sweat and the poreless healthy shine of wulfen, it was a shock right below my breastbone when Graves’s green gaze didn’t meet mine. Nat flung her arm over my shoulders and Alex leaned against my other side, the prohibition against touching gone for a few brief seconds as everyone collapsed together in a heap.

But I wasn’t wulfen. I was still lonely.

Well, I’d had a half hour of not thinking about him. I guess it had to be enough.

* * *

The pizza parlor looked faintly familiar, even though I could swear I’d never been in there before. It was on the fringes of Augie’s old neighborhood, a dingy hole in the Brooklyn brick wall where the fat balding proprietor cracked bottles of Corona without demur for the boys. Nat and I stuck to club soda, because she didn’t like pop and neither of us liked beer.

Beer makes you, in her words, “muy, muy flatulent-o, kiddo.” And we would both crack up.

I leaned over the air hockey table, my fingers still greasy from the three slices of pepperoni-plus I’d bolted, and popped the puck back at her. The aspect was warm oil over my skin, my teeth tingled, and the bloodhunger was a rough spot at the back of my palate no matter how much club soda I washed it with. Nat was fierce when it came to air hockey, and she had a wulf’s speed and reflexes. With the aspect all unreliable, I had to jump to stay ahead of her, and she still beat my ass six times out of ten.

Those other four times, though, I killed her. And right now, I was on a winning streak.

She snapped the puck back at me, lips drawn back from her teeth and her blue crystal earrings bouncing. I was already there, the touch flaming inside my head, and the puck shot back, banked, and thwopped neatly into the goal right past her guard.

Nat snarled, and I grinned. It felt completely natural.

“Oh, you bitch.” Her eyes glowed, and I caught a glimpse of Shanks watching us from one of the booths. Evan jostled him and he jostled right back, still staring at Nat’s back.

Or, more precisely, a little lower than her back.

“You’re going down,” she continued. “Is someone looking at me?”

I’d say he’s trying to undress you visually, but that’s just me. “Totally. Or at least, looking at part of you.”

The puck spat back out, she popped it hard, leaning a little further over the table than was strictly necessary. With her jacket gone, creamy skin showed above in an indigo silk spaghetti-strap tank top, the shoulder holster looking just like a decoration. Muscle rippled decorously in her arms. “Great. He stares, but he won’t talk.”

“Are all wulf boys like that?” I slapped it back to her, the jolt going all the way up my arm. She leaned to the side, her hand flicking out, and the sound of puck meeting the mallet was the crack of a rifle shot.

She gave an eyeroll that could have won an award. “Wulf aside, svetocha, boys are stupid. Always were, always will be, world without end, amen.”

“So how do you get him to act interested? Or get a little closer?” Like I didn’t care about the answer. My heart cracked inside my chest, I shoved the feeling down and we spent about half a minute concentrating completely on the game. She finally slugged the puck past my defenses and straightened, grinning, as I let out a groan.

“Simple. He either steps up or he doesn’t get to play.” She shrugged. “What time is it?”

I twisted to check the clock over the front counter. “We’ve got plenty . . .” But my mother’s locket chilled against my chest, and I cocked my head. The touch thrilled through me, not scraping but tingling. Still . . . “Whoops. Trouble coming.”

She dropped her mallet with a clatter and scooped up her coat. “Back door. Right through there.”

Shanks was on his feet. The other wulfen scattered, and I hoped they’d paid for the beer. Nat and I were through the steaming-hot kitchen in a flash, bathed in the yeasty cheesy bubbling-tomato-and-oregano smell before she pushed me out through a door that gave onto an alley. A rusting Folgers can full of cat litter and cigarette butts propped the door a little open, and she was up the fire escape in a trice, pausing only to brace her legs and lean down, offering me one hand. I leapt and grabbed, she hauled me up, and we were on the roof in time to see a boy in a thin black V-neck sweater and jeans saunter down the sidewalk in front of the pizza place.

Christophe. Blond highlights slid through his hair, and if we were seeing him, it was probably because he wanted us to. Letting us know that he knew, keeping tabs on me.

Nat let out a soft breath.

My heart leapt up into my throat and did its best to strangle me. Nat shrugged into her jacket and tugged on my hand; I followed her without demur. The sun was sinking lower in the sky, and we’d be back at the Schola before dusk really got settled.

Even though I was glad to get out, I also couldn’t wait to go back to the only safety I had.

How was that for weird?

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Schola wakes up just slightly before dusk when the days get longer. There’s a sort of sound to the place, one you can’t quite hear with your ears. It’s the sound of attention, of awareness—and of possible violence.

I wasn’t concerned about that so much, though. Right now I was glad I’d had the pizza, and I was concerned about staying one step ahead of Christophe. The malaika-shaped stick slid through the air, almost kissing the front of my hoodie, and I leapt back like a cat finding a snake on the road, snapping a kick at his knee. It didn’t connect, but it did force him back a half-step. I flung myself away, falling and rolling, and came up with the stick he’d knocked out of my hands. Whirling, had to get more speed, slashing at empty air because he’d twisted aside. That was okay. I had enough room to breathe now, stepping back cautiously. Every time I shifted weight, it was to sure footing.

Arcus would be proud. Don’t lose your balance, girl! the wulfen teacher would always yell. Before Christophe showed back up, he’d been the one to start teaching me how to use what little I had against a Real World opponent.

I hadn’t seen Arcus in weeks now. Not since Christophe’s Trial. I sometimes wondered what he was doing. Yet another question I didn’t ask.

The gym was empty, collapsible wooden bleachers pushed up against the walls and the entire floor covered with mats. Shafts of dusky light peered down from high windows covered with chicken wire, dust dancing through the golden beams. I was grateful I was wearing jeans, because if I hadn’t I’d’ve lost some skin when I’d done the sliding-on-my-knees trick to get away from him.

He hadn’t mentioned me going out during the day. But he’d run me ragged through the first two malaika forms and now he was kicking my ass all over the gym. I got the idea the three things were related.

Christophe snarled as he dropped into first guard, sticks held firmly but not tightly. His upper lip lifted, and there was a thin trickle of blood from where I’d caught him on the face, threading down from his patrician nose. Lucky shot, maybe, but I was getting luckier all the time. The bruising and swelling might give me a slight edge, if I could just stay ahead of him long enough.

Oh, and kick his ass before he healed up. That too.

I didn’t snarl back, but I did grin, a wide animal baring of teeth that had nothing of amusement to it. My mother’s locket was a warm spot, tucked under my tank top. The bloodhunger teased at that special spot at the back of my throat, but it didn’t reach down and grab control of me. I was too busy. If I moved fast enough, I could hold the rage off. “Hurts, huh?”