At 2:00 a.m., I snuck out of my room and met Hunter and Chloe in the hall outside the ground floor guys’ bathroom.

“It’s the only one we can fit through,” Hunter explained as we stepped into the flickering lights. White and blue tiles covered the walls, just like the girls’ bathroom. “And I already shoved a pine branch over the camera outside, so we should be good.” She blinked at me. “What happened to your face?”

“Jody,” I said, explaining the bruises. “Apparently, I bug her as much as she bugs me.”

“Why are you in your pajamas?” Chloe asked me.

I looked down at my striped flannel bottoms. “Because my roommate is a tattletale,” I replied drily. She’d gotten worse since I freaked out after Nicholas disappeared and the headmistress asked her to keep an eye on me. “This way if Sarita catches me sneaking back in, I can convince her I was just in the bathroom or watching the common room TV or something.”

“Good plan,” Chloe agreed. “She’s a pain.”

“You have no idea,” I said. “She keeps trying to get me to organize my desk and iron my school cargos. Who does that?”

“Hunter does.” Chloe grinned.

“I don’t iron my cargos, give me a break,” she returned.

“But you do organize your stakes by size and weight.”

“Well, that just makes sense.” She raised her eyebrows at us. “Ready?” She stepped up onto the side of the urinal and wiggled out, making it look easy and graceful.

Chloe caught my eye. “That’s why we hate her just a little bit.”

“If my ass gets stuck give me a push.” I grinned back, trying not to slip and fall right into the urinal. The windowsill wedged uncomfortably in my belly as I wriggled out, feeling like a giant worm. Chloe followed, pushing her laptop case ahead of her.

It was snowing lightly, not enough to be really cold, just enough to make everything pretty. We darted from tree to tree, keeping to the shadows. Hunter used hand signals to warn us of cameras. We ducked into the bushes, climbed over a wooden farm fence and crossed the fields to the forest. The trail was narrow and barely noticeable, but both Hunter and I knew exactly where it led. I’d had my last date with Nicholas in the meadow at the end of the path. I didn’t want to think about what Hunter and Quinn did there.

This time, it was Spencer who waited for us on the other side of the cedars, perched up in a tree. “I thought you turned into a vampire,” Chloe teased, looking up at him. “Not a monkey.”

“Up a tree is about the only place I can hide from school patrols and Huntsmen,” he smiled, his blond dreadlocks and turquoise beads at odds with the flash of his eyes. “You guys are keeping bad company.”

“Not since you left.”

He climbed down, hopping nimbly from branch to branch. “Show off,” Chloe muttered. But she hugged him just as fiercely as Hunter did; the same way I’d hug Logan or Quinn. He stepped back, trying to hide his fangs under his top lips. Poor guy, up until recently he’d been a student at the academy and now he was one of the “enemy.”

“Use your school-issue nose plugs,” I suggested. “It helps.”

He blinked. “I never thought of that.”

“Here.” Hunter fished out a pair from the pocket of her cargos and tossed them to him. Something moved on the other side of the cedars. Everyone except Hunter froze. “It’s Kieran,” she explained, just before he came out of the shadows. “I called him.”

“I thought vampire hunters were supposed to be stealthy.” I tossed him a smile. He wore his usual black cargos and a painfully serious expression. He was going to have to learn that when you hung out with the Drakes, you had to keep your sense of humor. Sometimes it was the only shield you had.

He half smiled. “If I’m too stealthy with this bunch I’m likely to get staked.”

“True,” Hunter agreed, searching his face.

He nudged her shoulder. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, right.” She snorted.

He turned to Spencer. “How are things at the camp?”

“Messy,” he said. “I prefer the Bower. Less mind control.”

I froze. “Has everyone else figured out Solange’s new little gift too?”

“Hard to miss.”

Kieran and I exchanged a grim glance. “And Nicholas?” I asked, even though fear made the words feel like needles in my throat. “Is he okay?”

“He’s in one piece,” Spencer answered carefully. I let out a shaky breath. “But he doesn’t say much, so I really don’t know. He sticks close to Solange or he takes off alone.”

“Is she . . .” Kieran paused, clenched his jaw. “The same?”

“Worse.”

“Newspapers are calling it the Dracula Killer,” Spencer said.

“That’s not her,” Kieran and I both said in unison. I hoped I sounded more confident than he did. He just sounded desperate.

“That’s why we need to talk to you,” Hunter said. “Lucy has a theory.”

“Can vampires be possessed?” I asked.

Spencer looked briefly intrigued. “I never really thought about it, but I guess so. I mean, I don’t see why not. It would probably be pretty volatile. Vampires and magic tend to clash. It’s a delicate balance at the best of times.”