Page 7

OVER FIVE MONTHS LATER...

I lobbed my backpack from the backseat and checked the dark circles under my eyes in the rear-view mirror before sighing.

Not going to win Prom Queen, but at least the black eye from the night before was relatively hard to see under layers and layers of concealer. Thanks to my body’s propensity towards healing quickly, tomorrow the bruise would be barely noticeable. So, it wouldn’t likely require the beauty-queen-thick application of makeup to hide it.

Someone knocked on the driver’s side window, and I turned just in time to catch sight of the blinding smile of an angel. Okay, maybe not an angel, but close. More like a gorgeous specimen of male perfection.

“Are you going to get out, or should I just leave you to do...” he paused, his smile growing. “Well, whatever it is you’re doing? Working on your resting B face?”

The moment was gone. He’d ruined it.

Spitefully, I threw the door open and caught the brute in the knees. His laughing pain was enough to calm the raging hormones coursing through these teenage veins of mine. If not that, then definitely the disarming smile he offered only a second later when I tried—unsuccessfully—to glare at him.

“You’re late,” I complained.

The crowd of my fellow “there but not happy about it” cohorts filed into school after the final bell rang, suggesting I should haul ass or risk Mr. Reed’s clown wig of shame.

No, really. Mr. Reed, my first period English teacher, was a sadist of the cleverest nature. He used a clown wig and bright red nose to punish tardy students. And unlike Nigel, I didn’t look good in everything I was forced to wear.

Some of us weren’t gods gifted with a perfect mug and drool-worthy physique. Some of us also didn’t want to unintentionally become a GIF to commemorate the moment of unparalleled shame.

“Well, I don’t really need to be here on time,” he argued.

Right. Nigel wasn’t technically a student anymore. He graduated last year, and now he worked as a volunteer assistant coach to the gym teacher, Mrs. Flank. And yes, I found her name giggle worthy. Nigel did the assistant bit all while attending his college courses.

Well, that was the story, anyway.

Nigel had become something of a partner of mine to my missions lately. In the last few months, the uptick in vampire activity had the Organization on the edge. Too many were coming into the state for no apparent reason, and even Grandma Rose came out of retirement to work with the upper crust to game plan the new surge of hostiles.

“You should be resting today,” Nigel said while trailing after me.

But I wouldn’t be distracted by his glorious beauty. Not today. I picked up speed to get to class on time. No clown wig for this chick. Definitely not when I spent all night hunting down a vampire who thought it’d be a great idea to surprise punch me in the face and take off running like some kind of five-year-old with no sense of direction and a shrill scream.

“And miss out on my fourth period Calculus quiz? I think not,” I snarked, not the least bit ready for said quiz. “What are you so late for, anyway? Trouble in paradise?”

“This,” he said, gesturing to his clean outfit and fresh, handsome man look, “doesn’t happen without careful attention. I just lost track of time.”

“Sounds an awful lot like an excuse to me,” I rebutted with a sideways grin. “Aren’t you just going to dress up in gym clothes and yell at lazy teenagers in an hour? Why even bother putting a suit on?” His look of disapproval was reward enough. “Can’t even pretend what you beautiful people go through to look so...clean.”

I just woke up like always, tamed a frizzy mess of ginger hair that would rival a caveperson, and threw on whatever pair of jeans didn’t smell like dirt.

Grams once hoped I’d play pretty princess on occasion, but when I only wore clothes to run and fight in, she stopped trying to encourage me to dress up.

She knew it was pointless.

We were never off the clock. Hunters didn’t get a night off. The only time I felt like a real teenager was when I struggled to stay awake in classes and took tests for subjects I barely studied for. Luckily, I was smarter than most and didn’t have too much trouble unless it was English.

Mr. Reed didn’t appreciate my sparkling sarcasm in my writing—called it reckless prose and marked me down for a lack of direction and formula. For a dude who put every tardy student in his class into a clown ensemble, he didn’t really have a great sense of humor.

Ironic, huh?

I waved Nigel away and headed to class. But when I closed in on the entrance, a subtle feeling of being watched struck me. I paused and looked over my shoulder, then carefully panned the area.

It was daylight and no reason to be concerned it was a vampire, but something felt off.

The silent alarm in the back of my head rang. My spidey senses were going off, and I couldn’t pretend it didn’t make me uneasy when I found nothing or no one to connect the feeling to after scouring the area three times over.

“Something wrong?”