Charlize had that odd, faraway look on her face again. She stared out the windows like she was looking at something very different. When she spoke suddenly, I jumped.
“Eli is on his way.”
I frowned at her. “Did you call him? Is it safe for him to come here? I mean, those guys look like bad news.”
Professor Rojo snorted, looking unimpressed. “One-bloods always are.”
Hunter, wide-eyed, flapped her hands at him while Charlize made a slashing gesture across her own throat with her hand. Professor Rojo gave them a baffled look.
I glanced between them, feeling like everyone was reading from a different thriller novel or something than I was. “Um, what’s a one-blood?”
Professor Rojo turned that baffled look toward me.
“Hey, Stacia, maybe we should go with the others.” Hunter tugged at my arm, smiling nervously.
A bottle flew through the air and smashed against the wall beside the window, making all of us jump. Well, not Professor Rojo. He just looked irritated, like a biker gang was a mild inconvenience.
A few of the other bikers had started taking swings at the Dire Wolf statue as they road by, tearing up the grass.
“Shouldn’t we stop them? Can someone call the police?” My phone was busted, so even if Bash hadn’t taken it, I still wouldn’t have been able to call anyone.
Still, it was a good plan. We could call campus security, or better yet, the actual cops, and they could come and handle things. I started to turn toward the front desk where they had a land line set up, when I caught sight of one biker out of the corner of my eye.
He was a big guy, with a heavy beard and a swagger like he was the biggest, toughest thing to ever walk the world. He strutted up to the Dire Wolf statue, and what he had in one hand had a bolt of icy panic shooting up my spine.
It was a hacksaw.
He set the teeth against the Dire Wolf’s bronze neck like he was going to take the whole head off, and something in my chest popped like a water balloon.
I was so sick of these guys, with their intimidation and stealing from people. They’d made me feel unsafe on campus, and they got the royal talk, maybe my one last chance to see Bash, canceled. And now they wanted to deface our mascot? Our pride?
I wasn’t really sure what I was doing when I stormed out the door, shaking off Charlize and Hunter’s hands. But I knew I couldn’t just stand by and watch.
My heart was pounding the second I set foot outside. It was nuts. What was I doing? But something I really didn’t understand, some force inside me, had its hackles raised and its teeth barred at just the sight of those bikers. How dare they come here and start trouble on my campus?
A couple of the bikers rolled to a stop, their heads tilted back, and it looked almost like they were sniffing the air, which was super weird. One of them turned to glance in my direction, and the look he gave me, eyeing me like a piece of meat… in a pie shop made me want to take a bath.
He gave a sharp whistle, and all the others stopped what they were doing and turned in my direction.
Having all their attention on me made me want to turn and run back into the library. Maybe hide under one of the desks. But the same feeling that had driven me out the door in the first place wouldn’t let me bolt. I was freaked out, but I still tipped my chin up and stared the bikers down.
“Get out of here. You don’t belong here.”
The big bearded guy actually laughed at me, and the others joined in pretty quickly. He looked me over again, a disgusting leer on his face. He opened his mouth to talk—and say something slimy I was sure—but then his gaze landed on my neck.
Or on the tattoo that was peeking out above my stretched-out collar.
The biker guy’s face twisted with fury, red creeping up his neck and into his face. “Look at that. Even the old bloodlines are slumming it with human trash. They aren’t even wolves anymore. Just dogs.”
My heart was slamming against my ribs and my stomach felt like someone had tied a cinder block to it and dropped it off the pier, but I wasn’t going to cower. Hopefully someone had taken my advice and called the cops.
Professor Rojo stepped out beside me, adjusting his cuffs like he was about to give a lecture.
“You heard the lady,” he said. “Get lost.”
Well, none of them liked that. A weird tension rolled through the group of bikers, and they stared at the professor with something very close to hate.
“You don’t tell us what to do, you overgrown lizard. We’re taking back what’s ours.”
