Her boyfriend for more than two years, until he’d dumped her three months ago.

With his arm around his new girlfriend, Britnee Fong.

The girl he’d dumped Skye for.

Skye felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over her head—both shocked and humiliated, the two forces combining to freeze her in place. Craig looked amazing, as always: tall and slim, with full lips and gorgeous eyes, his dark skin warm against the white sweater he wore beneath his letter jacket. Every inch of him was familiar to her—too familiar. It was Britnee who surprised her, someone who’d moved here after Skye had gone to Evernight and whose Facebook profile photos were all, frustratingly, pictures of her cat.

And Britnee was even cuter than she’d dreaded: stylish boho clothes, a pixie haircut that framed her face perfectly, and the same chunky-heeled boots Skye had been secretly coveting for weeks. She was a little heavier than Skye had imagined her being, but the pounds had gone to all the right places, boobs and butt—a girl might complain about the weight there, but a guy never would.

It would’ve been bad enough even if she’d been able to duck away before they saw her, but she wasn’t. Craig stopped in his tracks, and Britnee looked up at him in confusion before staring at Skye and saying, “Ohhhh.” Like it hadn’t occurred to either of them that she’d be showing up today. The gossip mill in Darby Glen must have fallen down on the job for once.

Craig smiled at her, a stiff imitation of his usual handsome grin. “Skye. Hey.”

“Hey.” She shunted the books over to her hip and looked past him, down the hall, trying to make it clear that there was somewhere else she had to be. As in anywhere else that was not here.

“Um, hi? I’m Britnee?” Just great. Britnee Fong was one of those girls who pronounced every single sentence like it was a question. Proof positive that she was both irritating and an airhead. “I’ve heard lots of awesome things about you?”

Oh, so Craig made sure to compliment his ex-girlfriend to his new girlfriend. Super classy. “That’s nice. See you later.” Skye stalked past them toward her first class, or at least where she thought her first class was. The buzzing in her head that was half anger, half pain muted the noise in the hallway around her.

At least you’re safe here, she told herself, thinking back to last night in the snow and the vampire’s strange smile as he’d watched her. It wasn’t exactly comforting.

Her first class was the Colonial History Honors Seminar, which meant that would be her homeroom, too. She tried to orient herself within the school building, but the sheer boringness of it struck her all over again. After two and a half years at Evernight Academy—with its centuries-old stone building, stained-glass windows, carved wood banisters, and arched ceilings—Skye found Darby Glen High so ugly that she wondered if it had been built this way on purpose, as a kind of punishment for its students. Cinder block walls with murals that hadn’t been painted recently or well, lockers the color of asphalt that somehow looked like they belonged in a jail more than a school, drop ceilings and harsh fluorescent light: Every single bit of it was depressing.

It hadn’t seemed that way to her back when she was at the middle school next door—an identical building. But after Evernight—

After the school filled with ghosts? And vampires? Skye reminded herself. You should be grateful for a little normal, even if it’s dull. Maybe she’d find it a refreshing change … after a while.

Finally, only a couple minutes before homeroom was supposed to start, Skye managed to find her classroom. Craig and Britnee were already in there, in the front row, side by side. Of course. She managed not to make eye contact again as she hurried to a desk in the back.

A girl with long, curly red hair who sat in front of her turned and whispered, “Hey. What’s with the drama?”

“I’m sorry?” Skye said.

“You and Craig and Britnee? I saw that standoff in the hallway. It was like a shoot-out in a Western or something.”

It wasn’t any of this girl’s business, but the description made Skye smile a little despite herself. She’d needed a smile today. “Craig and I used to go out. He dumped me for her. We just hadn’t seen each other since, is all.”

“Oh, so you’re Skye.” The girl nodded, as if satisfied. Obviously the Darby Glen gossip mill wasn’t totally out of commission after all. “Well, I’m Madison Findley. We just moved here last summer. Listen, if you ever need anybody to run interference between you and your ex, or that fat cow he’s with, just let me know.”

Britnee was no cow, but Madison was just trying to make her feel better, Skye figured—and she did, a little. “Thanks.”

The chatter in the room stilled as their teacher came in—a man at least six and a half feet tall, and seemingly nearly as wide. His bristly beard created the illusion that his jaw jutted out like a bulldog’s. His dark eyes swept the room like a SWAT team member’s laser sight for a rifle.

On the board, the teacher wrote his name: STERLING LOVEJOY.

He was so intimidating that nobody laughed at that name. Nobody even smirked. This was not a guy you wanted to catch you in the act of texting.

After that, the normal humdrum high school crap got started, and Skye felt herself relaxing a little bit, particularly when it turned out that she knew exactly nobody in her calculus class and could sit in the back, enjoying the relief of solitude.

Okay, so, Craig and Britnee were in her homeroom. She didn’t have to sit near them or talk to them, and she already had a new friend to distract her, so that was all right. Maybe she’d get lucky and they wouldn’t be in any other classes with her. Some people had it in their heads that she was a snob, but they’d probably forget about that soon enough. Probably.