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Phillip’s light eyes rose. “My guess is someone posing as a classmate is responsible for tracking your whereabouts. They would have the most access to you during the day. Probably someone close, a friend or bully.”

“Hey now, I don’t get bullied.” I looked over my shoulder, staring at the hallway Nigel left through, and sighed.

My entire life had been mapped out for me.

It wasn’t new that I couldn’t have something other teens got to have even when they didn’t want it. But this was the first time someone else was caught in the crossfire. Still, to do what I do, sacrifice was a necessary evil. And by the looks of it, I wouldn’t be given a choice.

Not that I ever was.

“Why would you think it’s someone at school?” I asked, distracting my mind with the present conversation.

The Austrian’s smile said he thought I was adorable, and nothing rubbed me worse than feeling like a child in someone’s eyes. “Has anyone in the last few months gotten close or struck up a friendship with you?”

Confused, I carded through my memories, but I barely paid attention to the people around me that weren’t Nigel or Kate. And when he graduated, I mostly spent time with Kate. I refused to villainize my only friend, so I thought through who I shared the most classes with at school.

“Daxon,” I said softly.

Phillip went quiet, his eyes searching my face. “The blonde-haired, fast-talking gym junkie in my class?”

“Well, he’s in all of my classes.”

Phillip stood straighter and let his gaze wander my body for an uncomfortably long second. “And you never thought to question that? What are the odds of having the same kid in every one of your classes?”

Well, somebody’s sporting a seriously beefed-up God complex tonight.

Affronted, I glared at him. “If I did that, I’d question everyone. I don’t go anywhere else. I’m not worldly like you,Phil.”

Grams cleared her throat, standing. “Vivienne.”

I swallowed my sass and smiled. “Guess we should start with him and move on if we don’t find anything.”

Phillip’s amusement reached his eyes, and he strode over to me, inches away. Not one to be intimidated, I stood straighter and met his gaze with heat. His sparkly, annoyingly beautiful eyes didn’t leave mine for minutes before he finally chuckled happily and patted my head, like I was five and not two months away from eighteen.

“I think we’re going to be great partners,” he said with a bedazzling smile, making me genuinely wonder if the dude was an incubus. “Rose, I’ll come by after class tomorrow.” His fingers strayed in my hair, out of sight of my Grams’s gaze. “And I’ll see you in class tomorrow, V.”

I followed his exit with a feeling in my stomach I couldn’t put into words. When my grandmother called out to me, the trance was broken and I quickly recovered the weapons left out on the table.

Grams’s smile was despondent, probably because of Nigel.

As much as she was a hard-ass, she had a soft heart and she loved passionately. She’d said so when she met Gramps, who died when I was ten. Unlike everyone else, he was fully human and not a Hunter. The Organization made an exception for her, because Grams was one of the best they’d ever employed.

But I doubt that same exception would be made for me with a Shifter. And something told me that was why she touched my shoulder with such tenderness; she knew what it was like to want something you shouldn’t.

*

IT’D BEEN A WEEK SINCENigel walked out of our house in an angry huff, and it’d been just as long since I’d seen or heard from him.

I stared down at my phone screen in class, the numerous texts made to him left unread and unanswered. My thumb traced them before I pocketed the phone.

Kate looked over, knowing only that Nigel and I had fought and he took a leave from his duties tofocus on his upcoming exam. “He’ll call you. I’m sure of it,” she whispered, eyeing the front because Phillip was ruthless to talkers during a lesson.

“He won’t,” I said, sighing. “It’s complicated. I just...he won’t.”

Her lips downturned. “He will, V. He really likes you.”

Did he, though? Did he really? I wasn’t so confident anymore.

Put any weapon in my hand and I could tackle whatever problem arose. But leave me in the dark, no text, no way to reach out and understand what was really going on, and I was basically left out at sea without a paddle.