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He held her close for another moment, then he let her go, and she watched him glide down the steps, back to the Porsche, and out into the early morning dark.
29
Saber was exhausted at school the next day.
She was missing both sleep and blood, which made her feel sluggish, drowsy, and irritable. She spent the day with a thick cashmere scarf tangled around her neck, hiding her wound. Her memory of Ansel, sweet, tender, playing with her hair and kissing her neck, kept her going through the day. That, a Flintstones multivitamin, and coffee.
Rex had been missing from school. Two people told her that he had been taken to some kind of drug rehab, apparently thinking they’d had some kind of relationship. Saber wasn’t fond of Rex anymore, but she hoped that was true, that he was safe and in rehab.
“Nobody evenknewhe was a drug addict,” Caroline had said at lunch and Lozen and Saber had just looked at her.
There was a long, awkward moment.
“I told Mallory I’d meet her in the library,” Caroline went on, and got up from the table without another word.
Lozen and Saber had barely noticed that Caroline and Mallory didn’t hang out with them much anymore. They’d become an island at school, always together, barely hanging out with anyone else.
“He came back last night, didn’t he?” Lozen asked under her breath, and Saber bit into her sandwich and grumbled a non-committal reply.
“I don’t evencare, Saber,” Lozen sighed. “But when you keep things a secret it makes me think you know you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing. If you won’t protect yourself foryou, do it for me.”
Just then, Elise walked by, flanked by Sophie, and stopped behind Saber.
“Hi, Elise,” Lozen said, but Elise ignored her, and instead snapped her hand out like a snake to tear the scarf away from Saber’s neck.
“Iknewit,” she hissed, as Saber’s hand shot up to cover the puncture marks.
Lozen took a bite of a cookie from her lunch and watched passively, completely unimpressed by drama.
“Where is Derek?” Elise asked. “Iknowyou’re seeing him.”
“Fuck off, Elise,” Saber said. “Seriously, your friend Derek tried to fucking kill us.”
“You ruined everything,” she said. “I know you did. He wantsyouinstead of us now! Youruinedit!”
“Your amazing life of getting drained by vampires and fucking yuppies for trinkets?” Lozen asked cooly. “Saber ruined that for you? Boo-hoo.”
“Fuck you, Lozen,” Sophie spat. “You’re justjealous.”
“Huh?” Lozen laughed. “Jealous of what exactly? Being a vapid slut?”
At that, Sophie lunged at Lozen, who was out of her seat and shuffling back with lightning speed, cackling, taunting Sophie, who stumbled to the ground. Saber got a tingly, creeping feeling, and looked around to see no less than a dozen ravens gathered on the roof of the cafeteria, looking down at Lozen. Three more joined them, one at a time. Lozen looked up, saw them, andsmiled a wicked, vicious smile. Then she looked at Sophie, who had recovered, but was pink in the face and furious.
“I killed Derek,” Lozen said, her voice charged with disdain. “Ran him over with Saber’s BMW.”
“You stupidbitch!” Sophie screamed, genuinely losing it.
Then the ravens descended. They didn’t seem to touch her, just flutter around her, batting their huge wings, moving the air like a hovering chopper, but the effect was sudden and startling. Even Saber scrambled up from the table and backed up while Lozen, still smiling that unsettling smile, stood her ground and watched as Sophie flailed and shrieked.
Then, the ravens disappeared as quickly as they’d come, dispersing in every direction.
Elise turned to Saber, her eyes huge.
“What thefuckare you into?” she asked, shaking her head, and Saber looked back at her, unafraid.
“Dark shit,” Saber said, and went to grab Lozen’s hand, dragging her away from the courtyard.
On Wednesday afternoon they drove to Doug’s house, and shortly after they arrived, Saber noticed that Mia and Elijah showed up together, both carrying cups from Pegasus, the coffee shop downtown. The sense that everyone was meeting and talking behind her back grew, and she started feeling anxious that Lozen might say something about Ansel at the meeting.
