Hunted

familiarity. I loaded up on my personal favorite, spaghetti and brown pop, and joined Damien and the Twins at our booth.

“Well, what did you guys find out?” I whispered between big bites of pasta with marinara and cheese.

“You look way better,” Damien said, his voice definitely not a whisper.

“I feel better,” I said, giving him a WTF look.

“I’m thinking we really need to go over the new vocab for the lit test next week,” Damien said loudly, opening his ever-ready notebook and taking out a number two pencil.

The Twins groaned. I frowned at him. Had he gone pod on us?

“Yeah, just because stuff is changing around here, it doesn’t mean you can let your grades slide,” he said.

“Damien, you are a pain in the ass,” Shaunee said.

“Worse. You are a damn pain in the ass with your stupid vocab shit, and I—”

Damien slid the notebook around so that we could read what he’d written below the list of vocab words.

R.M. @ all the windows. Their hearing is excellent.

The Twins and I shared a quick glance, then I sighed and said, “Fine, Damien. Whatever. We’ll study the stupid vocab with you. But I agree with the Twins that you’re a pain.”

“All right. Let’s start with ‘loquacious.’” He pointed his pencil at the word.

Shaunee shrugged. “Isn’t that something out of Star Trek?”

“Sounds right to me,” Erin said.

Damien gave them a look of disgust I knew he didn’t have to act to put on. “No, simpletons, this is what it means.” He wrote: Dragon is on our side. “So, Erin, why don’t you try the next word, ‘voluptuous’?”

“Oooh, I know what that one means,” Shaunee said, grabbing Damien’s pencil before he could pass it to Erin. Beside ‘voluptuous’ she quickly wrote: me! Then, farther down on the page, she scrawled: Anastasia is 2.

“You know I consider using texting shorthand gauche,” Damien said.

“Don’t care,” Shaunee said.

“Even if we knew what ‘gauche’ meant,” Erin said.

“I’ll take the next word,” I said. Ignoring the next vocab word, I wrote: We gotta get out of here tonight, but can’t use the Hummer. Can’t cloak it. I paused, chewing my lip, and then added, Got to be careful. N knows we’re going to try to leave. “I guess I don’t know what that next one means after all. Can you help me out, Damien?”

“No problem.” Damien wrote: We need to get out of here fast. Before they can stop us.

“Okay, hang on. I’ll try the next word. Just let me think about it for a sec.” We all ate silently while I thought, but not about the vocab word “ubiquitous” (seriously, I could have thought about that forever and not figured out what it meant).

We needed to get off campus, under my cloaking, as soon as possible. But Neferet was expecting us to try to bolt; she’d made that clear. This meant she’d be listening in to our lunchroom conversations, not just via the Raven Mockers but inside Damien’s and the Twins’ minds the second she was physically close enough to them to make her psychic eavesdropping work. Again, I thought how relieved I was that no one but Stevie Rae and I knew I’d really be running to the Benedictine Abbey instead of the depot tunnels. Thanks to my note-passing skills and—

“That’s it!”

The Twins and Damien stared at me. I grinned at them. “I remembered what ‘ubiquitous’ means!” I lied. “And I have an idea about studying. I’m going to write definitions for some of the words on pieces of paper. I’ll give one to each of you, which you’re going to be expected to study and learn. When you learn the word, pass it back to me, and I’ll give you another one. It’ll be kinda like flashcards.”

“Have you lost your damn mind?” Shaunee said.

“No,” Damien said perkily. “It’s a good idea. It’ll be fun.”

I was ripping strips of notebook paper and writing furiously on them: Get to the stables. After folding each one carefully, I said, “Just think about the definitions we’ve gone over. Don’t read the word I gave you until the bell rings for the end of sixth hour. I mean it.” I handed each of them their “word.”

“Okay, okay, we get it,” Erin said, stuffing her note into the pocket of her designer jeans.

“Yeah, whatever. You two are turning into teachers. And that’s not a compliment,” Shaunee said, taking her piece of paper.

“Just remember, don’t peek until the bell,” I said.

“We won’t,” Damien said. “And when we do, maybe we should call our individual elements to us, just to help us focus?”

“Yes!” I said, smiling gratefully at Damien.

“Speaking of.” Shaunee grabbed the sheet of paper we’d been writing on. “I’m going to take this to the ladies’ room and do my own studying with my element.” She looked long and hard at me, and I nodded, understanding that she was going to call fire to her and destroy the evidence of our “subterfuge,” which was a big word I actually knew the definition of.

“I’ll go with you, Twin. You might need my, er, help.” Erin hurried after her.

“At least we don’t have to worry about Shaunee lighting the school on fire from the bathroom,” Damien whispered.

“Holy shit, I’m starved!” Aphrodite breezed in and plopped down next to me. Her plate was loaded with spaghetti. She looked gorgeous, as usual, but a little frazzled. Her hair, which she normally wore long and flowing all around her shoulders, was pulled back in what might have once been a chic, puffed-top ponytail, but now looked actually messy.

“Are you okay?” I whispered, throwing a look at the window and giving Aphrodite what I hoped was a be- quiet-they-can-hear-us look.

Aphrodite followed my line of vision, nodded slightly, and then whispered back, “I’m fine. Darius is fast!”

From that I understood that the warrior had probably been taking her on one of his superfast runs. I briefly regretted that he couldn’t carry us all out of here, one at a time, but filed an amended version of the thought; maybe he could carry one or even two fledglings in an emergency.

“They’re all over out there,” Aphrodite said so softly I almost didn’t hear her.

“Around the perimeter?” Damien whispered.

Aphrodite nodded, shoveling spaghetti into her face. “They lurk around campus, too,” she said between bites, careful to keep her voice low, “but their focus is obviously on keeping anyone from coming or going without their permission.”

“Well, we’re definitely going without their permission,” I said. I looked at Damien. “You have to go so I can talk to Aphrodite. Do you understand?”

He started to look hurt for a second, and then I saw understanding in his eyes as he remembered I could talk freely to Aphrodite without worrying that Neferet could break into her mind and dig out what I’d said.

“I understand,” he said. “So I guess I’ll see you…” His voice trailed off into a question.

“Just go over the vocab note I gave you, okay?”

He smiled. “Okay.”

“Vocab note?” Aphrodite said after he was gone.

“It’s just a way I’m getting them to meet me in the stables right after school without them knowing beforehand. Maybe if it’s a surprise to them, it’ll take a while for Neferet to know what we’re up to.”

“And by that time we’ll be out of here?”

“I hope so,” I whispered. I leaned closer to Aphrodite, not caring if the Raven Mockers were suspicious about the two of us putting our heads together. At least they couldn’t get into our heads. “Get to the stables with Darius as soon as school’s out. Dragon and Anastasia are with us. So I’m hoping that means the cat clues were right, and Lenobia is on our side, too.”

“Which means she may help us get out of here from the weak part in the wall by the stables?”