Every other day(6)

“Good to know.”

Part of me was still waiting to wake up and find out that this whole interaction had been one incredibly offbeat dream. It probably said something about my life that I didn’t doubt for a second that I’d killed three hellhounds the night before, but couldn’t quite believe that after three very long weeks, someone at this school was actually talking to me. Most girls my age spent no more time thinking about preternatural beasties than they did serial killers or the North American grizzly. Yes, they were out there, and no, you wouldn’t want to run into one in a dark alleyway, but that was about as far as it went.

Most girls my age had friends.

“So when’s your history test?” Skylar changed the subject so fast that I almost didn’t notice that we’d made it out of the gym. “The one you’re going to fail?”

“Fifth period,” I replied, trying not to be melodramatic about it. Failing a test wasn’t the end of the world. This wasn’t the first time, and it probably wouldn’t be the last, but I vastly preferred to reside firmly in B and C territory—not at the front of the pack and not at the rear.

“You’re a junior, right?”

I nodded, not bothering to question how Skylar knew anything about me other than what I’d already told her.

“I’m a sophomore, so I’m taking European History, not US, but Mr. McCormick teaches them both, so I should have you covered. Find me at lunch, and we’ll talk.”

And with those words, Skylar Hayden, force of nature and self-proclaimed school slut, disappeared into a nearby classroom, leaving me in the hallway alone.

Good, I thought reflexively. It’s better that way.

But for once, I disagreed with the part of my brain that couldn’t help but think like a hunter, even on my human days.

Maybe I don’t want to be alone, I thought back. Maybe I don’t want to be a freak. Did you ever think of that?

Cover your back.

This time, I didn’t resist. I’d spent too much time tracking down monsters to believe even for a second, even in my own high school, that I was ever really safe. Angling my back toward the wall, I headed toward my biology class. The only good thing about this morning’s assembly was that it meant that I didn’t have to listen to my bio teacher waxing poetic about the differences between natural and preternatural species.

The difference, I thought, is that the preternatural ones are too strong, too evil, and too human-hungry to live.

If the rest of the world would just wake up and realize that no, the things I hunted weren’t just misunderstood, and that studying them wasn’t going to make them any less lethal, my job—not to mention my life—would have been so much easier. But no. My life wasn’t meant to be easy.

Nothing ever was.

My muscles ached. My stomach rumbled. I could feel a migraine coming on, and I wanted nothing more than to climb back into bed. It was always like this the day after a hunt. I felt pain. I got tired. I needed to eat.

And I was anything but invincible.

Ducking into the classroom and trudging toward my seat, I looked down at my watch for the third or fourth time since I’d gotten up that morning.

Twenty-one hours and eight minutes until my next switch. Three hours until I saw Skylar at lunch.

This is going to be a very long day.





In the three weeks I’d been attending classes at Heritage, I’d learned more about primate social behavior than I’d gleaned from a lifetime of being plunked down in front of the Discovery Channel whenever my father didn’t want to deal with the fact that he had a kid. Social hierarchies, dominance displays, mating rituals … all of the above were present in abundance in our high school cafeteria. Up until today, I’d successfully remained invisible.

And then I’d met Skylar Hayden.

Apparently, she wasn’t kidding when she said talking to her would put me on the rumor radar like that. Already, I could feel the stares, like bugs crawling across the surface of my skin.

Show no fear.

If there was one thing that being what I was had taught me, it was that the difference between predator and prey was the rate of your heartbeat, the sweat trickling from your temples, the urge to shiver and run.

Twelve hours earlier, I hadn’t even been capable of fear. Currently, however, I was feeling it in spades—not that I was about to let anyone else see that. Standing straight and holding my head high, I tossed my dark, glossy hair over one shoulder. The deep brown color was streaked with red highlights, so dark that in the right light, they could have passed for black. Even in a ponytail, my hair was the perfect length for tossing.

Play to your strengths.

Another compulsion, another rule. A good hunter knew her strengths and her weaknesses, her enemies and her prey. Right now, all I knew was that the A-list crowd liked to write derogatory things on people’s lockers, that they had it out for my one and only friend at this high school, and that I was an unknown entity who had just flung herself onto their radar.