wings of the school theater to make sure that he wasn’t around anywhere. She was stil shaken up by how easy Pietre could get to her.
Pietre wasn’t the only one she was checking for, though. Briony thought that she had spotted Fal on in the hal s earlier, but the younger vampire had made no move to talk to her. Instead, when Briony had gone over, hoping to talk things through, he had slipped away into the mil ing throng of students. Briony had caught more glimpses of him as the day progressed. She even thought she saw him talking to Pepper and Claire. Yet every time Briony tried to get closer to him, he was gone before she could say anything.
Even Maisy seemed to notice the strangeness.
“What’s with Fal on?” she asked. “I heard you two broke up again, but he’s being very distant.”
“He just can’t deal with the fact that I won’t take things further with him,” Briony replied. “Last night, he seemed to think that Kevin and I are already having sex, so I should do the same with him.”
“You and Kevin are already having… ? When did that happen?”
“It didn’t!” Briony said it a little louder than she intended, and had to wait for some of the students around her to stop staring before she went on. “Fal on just thinks I did.”
“Wel , I can see why,” Maisy said. “Kevin is gorgeous. And his body… ” Maisy gulped.
“But Fal on doesn’t seem to get that I’m just not ready.” Briony took her books out of her locker as she said it, hoping that Maisy would leave the subject alone.
She didn’t, obviously. “Wel , I suppose in one sense you have it easy. I mean, if you ever want to, you won’t have to wait long. Whereas if I ever tried to seduce Steve, he probably wouldn’t notice.”
Briony smiled at that. “True.”
“Where is Kevin, anyway? He wasn’t teaching his class.”
That was true. Instead, their normal biology teacher was back from whatever family trouble he’d had. It was a sight that had gotten a definite sigh of disappointment from a lot of the girls in the class. Briony supposed that they didn’t let you stay on as a substitute teacher when the normal one wanted his or her job back. Besides, Kevin’s attendance record recently would be as bad as hers.
Briony had other things to think about than Kevin’s job prospects, though. There was stil the issue with Pietre eating away at the back of her mind, and then of course there was now the fact that she had to try to find a dragon who probably didn’t want to be found, and then somehow convince him to help her when he had been actively trying to keep her out of the gate the last time she approached it.
Those thoughts kept Briony busy until the end of school, and then into her shift at the diner. George was a lot better than he had been the day before, although he was a lot more careful around Jil than he had been, and Jil ’s attempts at cheerfulness seemed a little more forced than usual. It seemed that everyone was determined to pretend that things were normal, though, so Briony didn’t push at it.
Fal on did show up, but he kept his distance, staying outside the diner. Briony caught glimpses of him as she tried to serve the customers. She was sure that she spotted him outside the window at one point, while at another, Briony got just the faintest impression of him from the corner of her eye, just standing there, watching her. She wasn’t sure whether it was comforting to have him around with George there, or strangely creepy.
About an hour into Briony’s shift, Kevin showed up and took the seat in the diner that he had taken so many times before when they first met. Briony smiled and rushed over to serve him, happier than she could say that he had shown up like this. As usual, Kevin found excuses to hang around, and even though the diner was busy, nobody bothered him about it. Of course, the extra customers meant that Briony didn’t get much of a chance to stop and talk to him, but she could feel his eyes on her as he sipped at his coffee.
Unfortunately, that thought brought with it ones of the other eyes that might be on her. Fal on’s. Pietre’s. That was enough to make her shudder, and