Dirty Blood by Heather Hildenbrand

  The next morning, Angela was waiting for me at my locker. “Feeling better?” she asked.

  “Much. Guess all the cold meds knocked it out of me.”

  “So?” she prompted, raising a dark eyebrow behind her glasses. I looked blankly back at her. “What happened with you and George? The one time I saw him yesterday, he was moping like a little boy who’d lost his puppy.”

  I grimaced and rummaged inside my locker for my English book. “We broke up.”

  “I figured that much. What happened?”

  I straightened and stuffed my book into my bag before facing her. “You mean, besides the fact that his head has grown too big for his body? Nothing.”

  She gave me a sympathetic look. “Are you okay?”

  “I am, actually. I thought I’d be more upset but mostly I just feel bad that it might’ve ruined our friendship, you know?”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better. I was worried you were just upset about the breakup. I almost came over after school to check on you.”

  I tried not to seem relieved that she hadn’t, so I shrugged. “I was probably sleeping it off.”

  Angela’s reference to the previous day did weird things to my stomach, but I tried to ignore it and fell into step next to her, headed to class. I’d spent the entire night basically wide awake and fending off crazy thoughts, like visions of training with a Werewolf to learn how to fight Werewolves. Or of not training, and being attacked by a pack of them in an alley somewhere.

  And of course, Wes. The way he’d looked at me when I’d gotten out of bed and the comments that might or might not have been evidence of his interest in me. And then there was the inexplicable pull between us that only seemed to intensify when his eyes held mine for a particularly long moment. Was I actually attracted to him? Or was it all a product of simply feeling his animal presence?

  The more I thought about it, the more I decided there was no way he’d been flirting. Making fun of me? Likely. Flirting? Not so much. I was pretty sure he’d been somehow involved with Liliana. Which, of course, brought me back to the fact that I’d killed somebody. The fact that the “somebody” was also a “something” made it a little easier to process but part of me felt guilty enough to march right into the police station and hold out my wrists for cuffs. All of it just added up to complete, impossible, surreal weirdness; I had no idea what to do about it.

  “Tara, did you hear anything I just said?” Angela asked.

  We were standing outside the English room now. I forced myself to pay attention under Angela’s scrutiny. “Sorry, I guess I’m still a little out of it.” I would’ve felt badly for the lie I kept perpetuating about being sick, but the statement I’d just made was actually the complete truth. I definitely felt … out of it.

  “I said, Sam was asking if we wanted to go to the mall and get dresses for the dance next weekend,” Angela said, a little impatiently.

  As if the mention of her name had summoned her, Sam waved at us from across the sea of bodies that crowded the hallway and began weaving toward us. “Hey, guys.” Without waiting for a response, she rushed on. “You would not believe what Cindy Adams wore to school yesterday.” The first bell rang and Sam ignored it. “Ohmygosh, it was this plaid homemade thing. Hi-larious. I have a picture on my phone. Look.”

  “You weren’t even here yesterday,” said Angela.

  Sam shrugged. “I know, but Jenny Slater was, and she has homeroom with Cindy so she sent it to me. I laughed for, like, twenty minutes.”

  “You weren’t here, either?” I asked.

  Sam winked. “My Tuesday night was sort of draining.”

  I shook my head. “Your social calendar makes me tired.”

  “Which is exactly why I’m entitled to a day of recuperating,” she said, flipping her hair.

  “Plus, Macy’s had buy one, get one on the eye shadow I love.”

  I rolled my eyes and at her prompting, glanced at the phone she was holding out. It was pretty bad. “Wow, nice,” I said with a laugh.

  To be fair, Cindy Adams was the closest thing I had to an arch nemesis. When we were in sixth grade, she and I had run against each other for student body president. I hadn’t even wanted to do it, but the teacher didn’t give us a choice; our office had been assigned to us. Cindy couldn’t have been happier. She’d wished me luck and then thrown herself into campaigning, making elaborate signs and even preparing a speech to give on the morning announcements.

  Unfortunately for Cindy, in sixth grade it’s all about who you know, and Cindy’s circle of friends was considerably smaller than mine. When she saw that everyone was going to vote for me, she started playing dirty, spreading rumors and lies to bolster her chances.

  Several different rumors flew around, the nicest being that she’d found me in a compromising position with her cat during the last sleepover we’d had. Yeah, you’ve got to be pretty twisted to come up with the stuff she did. Needless to say, that was the end of whatever friendship or civility we might have had. She won the election, which would’ve been fine by me, except now I couldn’t stand her. So, we’ve enjoyed a quiet, though vicious, rivalry ever since.

  As a result, seeing her in an outfit like this sort of made my day. “Where did she get this and why does she think it’s cute?” I asked as Sam pocketed her phone.

  “I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t have a friend to tell her how bad it is.” Sam flashed an evil smile. “Maybe we should be those friends.”

  “Maybe we should,” I agreed.

  The warning bell rang, and we all scattered to make it to class.

  “Find me at lunch,” Sam called, sailing down the quickly emptying hall, her dark hair billowing out behind her.

  ~ 8 ~