"Finally."

  The word landed in the air between us with way more weight than seven letters had any right to have. My fingers tightened on the edge of the car door. Cold winter air bit at my cheeks.

  I watched his chest rise and fall, shallow at first, then deeper. His endless dark pupils pulsed, shrinking and expanding, each time leaving behind a little more amber.

  That wretched pull hit the moment his gaze met mine, like he somehow reached deep inside me and yanked on some imaginary string. It made my skin hot and my throat dry. It felt like the dead-end hallway all over again, except this time there was a whole swarm of eyes watching us.

  My body didn't seem to care. It reacted first, heartbeat surging, breath catching, every nerve suddenly dialed in to one point.

  Him.

  He, on the other hand, looked like someone had just been handed oxygen.

  "Hi," I managed. It came out quiet and thin, a little too high, too uncertain. My palms were already starting to sweat.

  Before I could say anything else, movement cut through the edge of my vision.

  Lara Winters stepped into the empty ring around us.

  She looked the same as before. Better, even. Her blonde hair was tightly braided, not a single strand out of place. Whatever "disciplinary measure" she had been subjected to didn't seem to have left any mark on her. She looked like nothing had ever happened.

  She strode toward us with that fluid grace I now knew belonged to the lupines. Behind her, further back by the curb, Irene hovered near another group, and just a little to the right I saw Tess with her boyfriend, both stealing looks in our direction like this was the morning show. Their gazes were glacial, but something in his eyes made me shiver.

  The moment Lara crossed whatever invisible line Ethan had set and the pack respected, something changed in the air.

  Nell went still and coiled like a cobra. Ethan's muscles clenched, then his jaw, and he forced them to loosen, the movement so intentional I could almost hear the internal snap.

  "Hi, Ethan. Nell," Lara said in a smooth, polished voice. Then she turned to me. "Oh. You're back."

  Her gaze slid over me, top to bottom, clinical and cold.

  "So are you," I said, before I could stop myself.

  For a moment, something flickered in her eyes. Her pupils pulsed once, quick, then steadied, the iris ring reasserting itself. She caught it. I saw the way her nostrils flared, so faint I might have missed it a week ago.

  She turned back to Ethan.

  "I understand this is your duty," she said, and the word tasted like something she wanted to spit out. "But if you don't want others drawing wild assumptions, it'd be better if I accompanied you. Shared your…" Her gaze raked me once more until I felt naked. "Burden."

  Nell swallowed. Around us, the outer ring of students had gone entirely quiet. It was that fake-casual quiet, the one where everyone pretended to be busy while their attention stayed locked on the same center.

  Ethan's hands curled into fists at his sides, knuckles whitening, then slowly relaxed.

  "You're right," he said, voice flat.

  He took a step back, moving closer to Lara, into safe, suitable space.

  Something in my chest relaxed at the possibility of space. At the same time, something else twisted, sharp and ugly.

  Heat flared up my cheeks. I didn't like it and it didn't make any sense, so I shoved that part down hard, like slamming a door.

  "Let's go," Nell said, moving aside for Ethan and Lara to pass ahead, then returning to my side.

  The four of us crossed the parking lot like some weird, dysfunctional unit.

  The crowd parted.

  God, I felt like I was in a cartoon, tiptoeing through a yard full of sleeping dogs with sausages sticking out of my pockets.

  A boy with sandy hair, the one who'd told me I smelled like the city, I thought his name was Matthew, or Matt, turned his head as we passed. His nose twitched. His pupils jumped wider, then darted behind me, at Ethan.

  Immediately, Ethan's gaze flicked sideways, sharp as a knife.

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  Matt blinked, flinched back as if someone had slapped him awake, then lowered his head. As I passed him, I noticed how his fingers clutched the strap of his backpack with a force that turned his knuckles white. He kept his gaze down until we walked by.

  The hallway inside looked the same, almost offensively ordinary.

  Eyes followed us everywhere. Nell stayed glued to my side like a shadow.

  "We're on schedule," she said under her breath, as if we were discussing a group project. "You have English first, right?"

  "Yeah," I said. My voice sounded wrong in my own ears.

  "I'll walk you," she went on. "Ethan has to check the lower hall. Lara will do whatever she feels like doing as long as it looks respectable."

  "I'm right here, you know," Lara said coolly.

  "I noticed," Nell replied, without looking at her.

  Ethan's gaze slid to my face for a second, then away again, like he was rationing himself.

  "If anyone bothers you, you tell me right away," he said, nostrils flaring just a fraction. "Or Nell," he added, too fast.

  "Sure," I said, because what else was I supposed to say?

  He peeled off at the next intersection with Lara at his shoulder, both of them moving in that unnerving synchronous way I now associated with lupines. His presence left a gap in the air behind us that I hated noticing.

  Nell nudged me toward my classroom.

  "You okay?" she asked.

  I wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or both.

  "My dad is currently half feral in a barn, I don't know when or if he's going to get better, and my blood apparently acts like a mix between a life-saving drug and poison gas," I said. "So, yeah. You know. Living the dream."

  The corner of her mouth twitched.

  "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "About your dad."

  I shrugged. "Yeah, well… it is what it is, I guess."

  "Broken bond's a bitch," Nell said. She didn't offer comfort or empty words. I'd learned by now lupines weren't big on platitudes.

  "Yeah," I agreed and turned to class.

  ***

  In English I was met with the standard mix of avoidance and whispers. I paid no attention to them.

  I tried to take notes. I really did. Words blurred. My mind kept sliding sideways, back to the house, back to the barn.

  Was Dad awake, could he hear Hailey, did he know where I was, that I hadn't abandoned him?

  I only realized my pen had stopped moving when the teacher said my name.

  "Ms. Blackwell," he repeated. "Is everything all right?"

  Several heads turned.

  I forced my shoulders to relax. "Yeah," I said. "Just a bit down with the weather, that's all."

  He studied my face for a second too long, then nodded and went back to the board.

  The class dragged, then blurred, then ended.

  When I stepped into the hall, the trio was already waiting. The back of Lara's hand brushed Ethan's too-still one while she was saying something to him, but the moment our eyes met it was obvious he stopped listening. His pupils were blown huge again. I watched his throat bob up and down, the fingers of his other hand clenching into a fist.

  As I walked by, the formation peeled itself off the wall, then closed around me in synchronized motion without anyone saying a word.

  "This is ridiculous," I muttered.

  "Absolutely," Nell agreed. "Unfortunately it's also necessary."

  The next period was math. The classroom still looked the same.

  Ethan's seat waited empty, and so did mine.

  He hesitated at the door for a fraction of a second, like there was an invisible line there, then stepped through. Lara followed, but didn't enter the room. She just stood in the doorway for a few long moments before she turned her head in my direction and looked me straight in the eyes. The look lasted too short to be an open threat, yet long enough to disturb me.

  Nell squeezed my wrist once, quick. "I'll be right here after the bell," she murmured, then turned and walked away.

  I stepped inside.

  The moment I crossed the threshold, something in the air changed.

  Ethan looked up at me, and as he did, I watched his spine loosen. His shoulders dropped, not all the way, but enough. His fingers, which had been white-knuckled around the pen, relaxed.

  His pupils pulsed again. Big. Less big. More amber.

  I took my seat. The chair made a small scraping sound that felt way too loud. I placed my books on the desk, hands careful, like the wrong noise might break this strange, fragile equilibrium.

  Mr. Varga started class. Equations, something with functions. I didn't really pay attention.

  Halfway through writing down an example from the board, Ethan shifted. Just enough to angle his face back toward me, not fully, just a quarter turn.

  "You look like you haven't slept in days," he said under his breath.

  I stared at the back of his head for a second. "Said pot to the kettle," I muttered back.

  His mouth did a weird thing at that. Not quite a smile. More like the ghost of one.

  "Fair enough," he said.

  Something unclenched in my chest.

  It was dangerously close to normal. Two exhausted seniors complaining about not sleeping in math. If I ignored the part where one of them was a werewolf and the other was apparently a scent grenade.

  It hit me, suddenly, stupidly, that right now, he was the only one in this school who didn't look at me like I was a loaded weapon.

  Once again he leaned back. "You're still anxious." His eyebrows were drawn together.

  "You can smell anxiety," I whispered. What was I thinking? Of course he could.

  He made a low sound that might have been a yes.

  "Just for the record, you are not helping my stress level," I said.

  His shoulders moved once, a small, almost invisible shrug. "You being here helps mine."

  The words landed like a stone in my stomach. I didn't like how that made me feel. Like I was both his curse and his salvation. It was a weight I didn't choose to bear. But I knew he didn't, either. Both of us were victims of our natures, tied down in a canoe heading straight for a waterfall.

  A part of me wanted to reach over, squeeze his hand, tell him I was sorry, that I didn't choose to do this to him. But I knew he knew.

  He had every reason to hate me, and yet he didn't. And that made warmth spread inside my chest and my stomach do a stupid, reckless flip.

  Before I could form any kind of answer, the bell rang. Chairs groaned, students surged. I shoved my notebook into my backpack when I noticed Ethan was still sitting still. His eyes were closed and he was breathing slow and deep. The rest of the classroom faded, students moving around us like blurred shapes I couldn't quite connect to reality.

  "Ethan?" I called quietly.

  He swallowed. "Just… a second longer."

  I paused. He took another long breath, then slowly exhaled. When he opened his eyes and looked at me, I could see that his pupils had dialed back to normal.

  "Thank you," he whispered when we were left alone.

  That should not have made something warm flicker in my chest.

  It really, really shouldn't have.

  But it did.

  And somehow that scared me worse than anger.