“You mean if we get caught here…” In the human world. “Or there?” I whispered, unwilling to say “the Netherworld” in public. Especially at school, with the tuba player still regaining his balance a few feet away.

“Either one.” Nash veered away from the dark green lockers and I followed him, ducking into an alcove near the first-floor restrooms.

“Well, I doubt Coach Rundell will even notice I’m not there.” I had American History last period, and with the football play-offs coming up, the coach had been too busy studying his playbook to come up with actual lesson plans, so we’d been watching installments of a documentary about the Civil War for the past week and a half. “But if he does, and they call my dad…” I’d have to be home before dusk for the remainder of my adolescence.

My father was trying really hard to be a good dad, and he wasn’t doing too bad a job, considering he’d been absent for the past thirteen years of my life. But he was going overboard on a few vital issues. Like quality family time—thus, our Sunday night dinners—and his need to know where I was at all times.

That was appropriate the last time we’d shared a home—back when I was three. But at sixteen, I needed a little more freedom, and a lot less nosiness.

“And if we get caught there…” I shrugged. “All bets are off.”

Nash swallowed thickly. “With any luck, we won’t have to actually cross over. Yet.” But we both heard the uncertainty in his pause. “Where does your dad think you’re going?”

“Downtown with me,” Emma said. Startled, I spun to find my best friend leaning against a bright purple chess club flyer taped to the wall behind us. “After work, we’re grabbing pizza and going birthday shopping for my mom.” Emma winked one deep chocolate-colored eye at me and smiled to show even, white teeth. She was pretty enough to be spectacularly popular, but smart enough not to give a damn, and I loved her for it.

I’d convinced a lovesick coworker at the Cinemark to switch my Tuesday shift for his Friday shift just by mentioning that he’d spend all four hours alone with Emma in the ticket booth. As soon as I said her name, he’d offered to trade entire schedules.

“I said I’d have her home by ten-thirty, so don’t be late,” Emma teased Nash.

He grinned and pulled me closer, and I wanted to melt into him. “No problem.” But I couldn’t help mentally crossing my fingers. Tod had done some digging and found out that Libby would be pulling in another dose of Demon’s Breath that night in Abilene. But Abilene was a six-hour round-trip. Counting rest stops, dinner, and however long it took to actually convince her to help us, it was bound to be a long night.

“So, where are you really going?” Em tucked a strand oflong, straight blond hair behind one ear and eyed us both with a knowing grin. “Or do I even want to know?”

“Probably not. It’s not what you think.” I sighed, wishing it was what she thought. Wishing hard.

Her grin melted into a look of concern to match Nash’s, and she tugged her backpack higher on her shoulder. “Bean sidhe business?” she whispered, glancing around dramatically for potential eavesdroppers.

“Yeah.” We’d had to fill Emma in on some basic Netherworld stuff when Nash and I had reinstated her soul, thus saving her life. And accidentally ending another, a fact which haunted me constantly. But Emma didn’t know about Tod, or that reapers even existed, and I wasn’t going to tell her anything that could bring her to the attention of any dangerous Netherworld elements. I hadn’t saved her just to let her go again. Ever.

Which is why I felt guilty asking her to cover for me. Unfortunately, I had no other options, since Nash would be with me. I really needed to find more friends….

“You’re not missing French, are you?” Panic peeked around the edges of Emma’s expression, and I laughed.

“No, just history.” Emma’s memory for foreign vocabulary was as fragile as mine for dates and numbers. I helped her out in French, and she returned the favor the next hour, in history. It was a good system, and we weren’t really cheating. We were just…helping.

I’d probably never need to know when the War of 1812 ended, anyway. Right?

“Then come on, we’re gonna be late.”

Grinning, Nash leaned forward and kissed me, but Emma dragged me back by one arm before I got much more than a taste of him. Nash winked and took off in the opposite direction. I watched him for several seconds, until Emma hissed my name, and I followed her, still looking over my shoulder.

When I finally turned, I gasped to find myself less than four inches from Sophie’s overglossed sneer. “You almost flattened me,” she snapped, icy green eyes glittering with anger that went deeper than resentment of my intrusion into her social circle.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, thrown off by the unexpected confrontation. It was easier to stay mad at her before, when her general bitchiness was superficial in nature. But now that pain and grief peeked out at me from behind the armor of her arrogance, I found it much more difficult to do anything but pity her.

Even if she did blame me for her mother’s death.

When my pride wouldn’t allow me to step out of her path—well, pride and Emma’s tight grip on my arm, refusing to let me back down—Sophie sidestepped me with a look so pompous it might have seared the soul of someone with a lesser spirit. But I could only return her look with pity, which fueled her anger even more.