Secrets and Shadows by Shannon Delany

breezed over, perfectly clean. Where the heck had he been to miss the barrage?
    “Jessica,” he said, clearly ignoring Max as he sprawled across me. “May I speak to you, please?”
    “Umm…”
    Max yawned and released me, making it clear that Derek was no threat. Cat watched my face and although Pietr kept his eyes on the clock, his fingers began to tap the table.
    “Sure.” I slid into the aisle.
    Derek slipped his arm around my waist. “Walk with me.”
    I did.
    “Look, Jessica. I real y like you. You know that. But I’m starting to think the Rusakovas are a bad influence on you. They start a lot of stuff. You’re a good girl, and I don’t want to see you fal ing in with the wrong crowd.”
    I snorted. “Derek, you don’t know me as wel as you think.” I wrote a scathing anti-jock article for the school paper. I’m moonstruck over a teenage werewolf who’s probably going to do the horizontal mambo with my psycho best friend. I’ve broken into a church and killed a mobster in self-defense. And my grade point average has fallen into C territory. “I’m not as good as you think I am. Life around me
    —it’s not normal. Seriously .”
    He grinned, dimples so deep they must’ve jabbed into his jawbone. “You’re nothing I can’t handle.”
    Chal enge glinted in his eyes. “You’re not as bad as you think,” he whispered, backing me against a wal , arms boldly bracketing my body. “And if you want to be bad, you can certainly be bad with me.”
    I shuddered, watching his pupils enlarge, eyes darkening just before he closed them and pressed his mouth against mine, silencing my protest.
    Someone cleared their throat and Derek pul ed back from me, fingers tight on my upper arm as he swung around to see who dared interrupt. My eyes opened and I saw Amy and Pietr standing across the hal way, students rushing between us, released from the cafeteria.

    Amy glared at Derek with al the venom she had, hands bal ed into fists by her hips. She hadn’t had a problem with me liking Derek until Pietr showed up. It seemed he’d changed everything.
    Pietr was staring.… I blinked. At my pendant.
    “What are you looking at?” Derek flared, his gaze jumping from Pietr’s daring eyes to my neckline.
    “Wait,” he commanded as I moved to tuck the amber heart back beneath my col ar. My fingers twitched and paused. I looked at Pietr.
    Pietr’s eyes slid to Derek’s—cool and uncaring.
    “Is this yours?” Derek snarled, slipping his hand between the pendant and my col arbone, throwing the words at Pietr.
    Pietr watched him, stil as stone.
    Derek shook my arm, and I faced him. “This is his leash—his choke chain. You’re smarter than wearing some necklace he gave you while he’s dating Sarah.”
    I looked down.
    “Aren’t you? Dammit! ” There was a snap and I gasped, feeling the slender chain give way under Derek’s grip. He hurled the pendant at Pietr.
    In one fluid move Pietr had the pendant—my heart—in his hand, his eyes never leaving Derek’s incensed face.
    “Get this through your thick skul , Rusakova. She’s not yours. Not anymore.”
    My stomach knotted, my chest so tight it was hard to breathe.
    With a growl, Derek towed me away.
    Pietr final y real y watched me.
    Leaving.
    Derek deposited me at my next class. I fought the whole period to concentrate on anything but the fact that Derek had achieved what Pietr had wanted.
    Derek had made my split with Pietr undeniably clear.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    In social studies class the next day Pietr sat in the back of the room instead of the spot beside me in the front row. Derek took the empty seat, saying he thought his grades would improve if he sat closer to the teacher and someone as smart as me.
    I wondered what that implied about the intel igence of our footbal team members since I was only pul ing B’s and C’s at best and he original y sat with them .
    Derek took ample notes throughout class, even circling a phrase Mr. Miles repeated twice