I hand Lulu her purse and watch as Miranda turns and stalks away. Okay, maybe I was wrong. I feel a little guilty about jumping to—

As Miranda rounds the corner into the next hall, I see her pull something out of her back pocket.

Lulu’s phone.

I have had more than enough of this girl.

“Here,” I say, shoving Lulu’s bag into her arms.

I start after Miranda, ignoring Lulu as she asks, “What’s wrong?” Her peep-toe pumps clack on the floor behind me as she hurries to keep up. “Where are you going?”

“Miranda,” I call out as I catch up with her, dodging around a couple of jocks who are throwing a football back and forth. When she doesn’t stop, I shout, “Miranda!”

She spins around so fast, I’m surprised she doesn’t keep going full circle. She demands, “What?”

My hand is shaking as I hold it out, palm up. “Give it back.”

She throws an incredulous look at my hand. “Give what back? What nonsense are you—”

“Cut the garbage,” I interrupt, drawing on my inner Gretchen for the courage to carry out the confrontation. “I saw you with Lulu’s phone. Return it now and I won’t report the theft.”

Next to me, Lulu digs through her bag. When she finds her phone missing, she says, “You’re right. It’s gone. I know I had it before Computer Science, because Jax asked me to look up the Kiss Me Kitties concert schedule.”

Miranda looks like she wants to deny it again. I take a step closer, let my fangs drop a fraction, and say, “Now.”

Her eyes roll halfway around the hall, and her jaw clicks to the side, like she’s going to gnaw on the inside of her cheek a little before telling me where to step off.

My fangs drop a little more. “Miranda . . .”

She huffs out another breath. “Whatever.” She pulls the phone out of her purse and slaps it into my palm. Then, spinning on her heel, she calls out over her shoulder, “Losers.”

As soon as she’s out of sight, my fangs suck back into place and I gasp in a shaky breath.

“You,” Lulu says, grabbing the phone off my palm, “have backbone. Vail will be so proud.”

Every limb is shaking with the aftereffects of my confrontational adrenaline. I can’t believe I stood up to Miranda like that. And lived.

“Holy goalie,” I whisper.

Not only will Vail be proud, so will Gretchen. And, if I think about it, so am I. I never knew I had it in me. Maybe doormat Grace is finally stepping aside. Monster-hunting, Miranda-confronting Grace is welcome to take her place.

“Go long, dude!” one of the football jocks shouts.

The other one takes off at a run, racing down the hall . . . and directly toward Ms. West, who is heading this way.

“Watch out!” I call out.

But it’s too late. The jock turns, sees Ms. West, but can’t stop his runaway forward momentum.

“Whoa there,” she says, taking half a step to the side and reaching out her arm right as he passes by.

I wince at the certain disaster, but instead of jock boy taking Ms. West down with him, she manages to bring him to a dead stop without even losing her footing.

“No running in the halls, gentlemen,” she says, catching the football that jock-boy was supposed to grab and handing it to him. “That includes chasing footballs.”

“Yes, Ms. West,” the one who threw the ball says.

The other one blushes. “Sorry, Ms. West.”

“Just don’t let it happen again.” She grins at them, waves at me, and then walks away.

It takes about ten seconds of me standing there, jaw dropped, to realize what just happened. Ms. West should have been knocked to the ground, but she held him off like he was nothing. That was an amazing display of strength.

“Lulu, I have to run,” I blurt as I take off after Ms. West.

“Bye,” Lulu calls after me. “See you at lunch tomorrow.”

I rush around the corner and find myself staring down an empty hall. Ms. West is nowhere in sight. I check every classroom, every door, but she’s vanished. Standing in the middle of the empty hall, I can’t help the massive grin that spreads across my face.

Ms. West is Sthenno.

Gretchen is going to be so excited.

Since it’s such a lovely day, I decide to walk to Gretchen’s loft. It’s only a few blocks away, and after standing up to Miranda and uncovering Sthenno’s secret identity, I feel like bouncing the whole way there.

I’m just walking down the front steps at Alpha when my phone rings.

“Hi Thane,” I say as I head down onto the sidewalk. “What’s up?”

“I have to go away.”

“What?” I pull to a stop. That sounded very ominous. “What do you mean you have to go away?”

“Not for long,” he says. “Maybe two or three days.”

“But why? Where are you going?”

“I—” He hesitates and I get nervous. Thane doesn’t normally hesitate. He either answers a question or he doesn’t, no indecision involved. Finally he says, “I told Mom I’m staying with Milo. Because of our soccer training schedule.”

He told Mom that, which means that’s not where he’s really going. “Thane, I don’t like this.”

“I know,” he says, his voice gruff and unhappy. “I don’t either.”

“Why are you telling me?” I ask. “You lied to Mom, you could just as easily lie to me.”