Havoc by Jeff Sampson Page A

jumped forward, snatched a piece of paper from one of our notebooks, produced a pen, and scribbled down a name and number. She slid it across the table to Dalton. “Give these guys a call. I’ll let them know to expect it.”
    â€œAwesome.” Dalton held the note up to his nose. “ ‘Bubonic Teutonics.’ Cool name. What’s a ‘Teutonic’?”
    â€œOkay, well, we have to go do science class stuff,” Megan said, ignoring the question and dragging Patrick away. “See you at the party.”
    â€œHey, Megan,” I said. “I’ll call you later.”
    She didn’t, but I could tell she wanted to roll her eyes. “I’ll be waiting by the phone on pins and needles. Really sharp ones.”
    â€œShe seems nice,” Dalton said as Megan and Patrick disappeared into the stacks.
    â€œYeah,” I said softly. “She’s the best.”
    Dalton left shortly after the run-in with Megan. Being the guy he is, he apparently had other responsibilities after school. Plus, I was pretty sure if he stayed too long with me and Spencer, Nikki would get on his case.
    Spencer and I spent another hour or so looking through books—well, I did anyway; he mostly kept wandering off. I was about ready to give up on finding anything useful, when I looked up to find that someone else had entered the library: Mai Sato.
    She sat at a table a little bit away from me, her jet-black hair in a loose, messy ponytail. She hunched over her books, holding her head up with one hand against her cheek, barely seeming to pay attention to what she was reading.
    â€œSpencer,” I hissed, turning to find him.
    But he was gone. Again. Off in the stacks somewhere.
    I turned back to Mai to see her closing up her books and putting them in her bag. She was about to leave. And it hit me then—I couldn’t let her. For whatever reason, I couldn’t smell the female werewolf, not like Spencer and Dalton could. But maybe being near her would give me that same gooey familial feeling I got with the boys.
    The afternoon of shadowman research had turned out to be useless. But maybe if I could find another member of my pack, it would make all the time spent in the library worth it.

9
    OKAY, YOU’RE NOT STALKING ME, ARE YOU?
    Hands in my pockets, I sauntered over to Mai’s table as casually as I could. I did my best to look at anything but her, and then slid into a chair opposite her, pretending I spotted an interesting tome someone had happened to leave there. I flipped it open to see a cross section of a uterus, and my eyes went wide.
    Mai side-eyed me as she continued to put her books in her bags. She was almost packed up, and then I was sure she’d leave. I darted my eyes over to my table to see if Spencer was back yet so I could get him over to smell the girl and confirm whether she was, in fact, who we were looking for.
    Nope. He was still off on his blissful ADD trek somewhere.
    Leaning forward onto the table, I breathed in slowly. That same heavy, flowery perfume I’d smelled the morning when Dalton first came back to school invaded my nostrils. But there was nothing else. No wolf scent that I’d come to associate with the two boys.
    â€œCan I help you?” Mai asked, staring at me like I’d just shown up with my hair dyed the same color as hers and wearing her clothes.
    Blinking, I looked up at her. “Oh. Hi, Mai. We have homeroom together.”
    I have no idea why that was the first thing that popped into my head to say. Internally I was smacking my forehead.
    Not taking her eyes off me, she bent down slowly to pick up her bag, then set it on the table to zip fully closed.
    â€œYeah, I know,” she said. “Did you need something?”
    â€œOh,” I said. “Uh, I just smelled that perfume. It’s pretty. You don’t really seem like the perfume type, though. But it’s nice.”
    Closing her eyes, she stopped