It had been exactly one week since Mia had gone out with her friends, and she really did feel better after that. Of course, who wouldn't? She'd bitten two separate people that night. And both of them looked pretty pale by the time Mia was finally feeling ok.

Of course, Anna had been incredibly worried. She knew just how bad it was when they waited like that. But as horrible as Mia felt when Anna looked at her like that, it was even worse coming from Carmine.

Carmine had only been doing this for about a year. Actually, Mia had been the one who'd turned Carmine in the first place. She hadn't really wanted to, but Anna had flatly refused to do it. And it was the only plan they could come up with to save Carmine's life. Both of them had been pretty concerned with how Carmine would handle it, but she ended up being remarkably good at it. Actually, when Mia had finally calmed down after their attack last week and realized that Carmine had basically done everything herself, Mia had been pretty impressed – especially since Mia hadn't exactly been helping to put anyone at ease. But even realizing that Carmine almost seemed to have a kind of natural skill for this didn't make it any less embarrassing to have Carmine feeling bad for her.

That's why Mia had assured her friends that she really would be fine after that. And once she finally had enough blood to think straight, she was sure she'd be able to come up with a plan on her own.

Of course, that was seven days ago, and it hadn't really worked out the way she'd planned. Rudi had picked up right where she'd left off, starting the very next night. Now Mia was getting ready to face her friends at lunch after another week without blood. She put her book back in her backpack carefully, getting all her things together as slowly as she possibly could. And after this, she planned on making a trip to her locker, just to waste a few extra minutes.

Normally, she would have rushed to get out of class, but she really didn't want to face her friends at the moment – she needed to compose herself first. It was kind of embarrassing to be tracked at night the way she had been. Mia had always thought of herself as being a good enough hunter that she could lose anyone who would try to sneak up on her. Ever since she'd been suspected of being some kind of demon back in her hometown, she'd been extra careful, and she hadn't had any problems until now. But suddenly, she was starting to wonder if she was slipping.

Of course, Anna and Carmine already knew about Rudi tracking her, but Mia hadn't actually told her boyfriend, Zev. And she made her friends promise not to tell Luke or Conner either. She really didn't want to admit to any of them that she couldn't take care of her own problems. And she was getting really tired of constantly asking Zev and his friends for help anyway. Ever since she'd found out what they were, it seemed like they'd been involved in every problem the girls had. Mia knew the first time they'd helped had been her idea, but still – she liked to think she could deal with some things on her own; she hadn't thought it'd be the start of a trend.

And of course, Mia wasn't exactly anxious to admit she was having a problem with a werewolf to any of the boys – especially Zev. She knew he was a little sensitive about the idea that any of them would ever hurt someone. And even though Rudi didn't necessarily know that what she was doing was hurting anybody, Zev would. And Mia really liked him; she didn't want to make him uncomfortable if she could help it. She figured it would be best to just ignore it, especially around him. And the best way to help with that would be to make her lunches just a little bit shorter.

As the next class started filing in, Mia realized she must have been sitting there longer than she'd thought. The bell signaling the beginning of class sounded, and she hadn't even gotten out of her seat yet. At least that meant she really would be late to lunch.

As she started making her way down the hall towards her locker, she stopped suddenly. Rudi was standing there, talking to someone. Mia panicked for a second, wondering if she was being stalked here at school too. But the thought only lasted a minute. Rudi was obviously deep in conversation, and she hadn't seen Mia yet. Actually, Rudi kind of looked like she didn't want to be seen by anyone herself at the moment.

Suddenly, Mia was interested. Why would her tormentor be nervous? Mia crossed to the other side of the hall. She opened her locker for a little bit of cover and settled in to eavesdrop.

"I thought you said you'd be getting rid of Anna." Rudi snapped.

"It's on my to-do list, don't worry." the other person told her casually. Mia's eyes widened as she recognized Summer's voice. "And trust me, I can be way more persuasive than you."

"Oh? Why's that?" Rudi asked.

"I told you – I know things you only wish you did."

"And you're not going to share?"

"Of course not – not with you anyway." Summer sneered. It was obvious she disliked Rudi almost as much as Mia did.

"If you're so against us, why are you helping?" Rudi asked, matching the tone.

"Because despite what you may think, getting them to break up will hurt your little group much more than mine."

"Well, we'll see about that." Rudi told her. Summer just laughed.

"Well, I'm late." Summer said breezily. "But don't worry – I'll hold up my end of the deal."

Mia peaked around her locker door and saw Summer walking down the hall. Rudi just glared after her.

Mia figured this would be a good time to get out of there. She shut the door quickly and ducked behind a group of sophomores. She tried to sneak down the hall as nonchalantly as possible. Of course, Rudi saw her. Mia suddenly wondered if Zev was that observant too – maybe she'd been underestimating him. Or was it just her lack of blood that was making her that much more careless?

"Well, look who it is." Rudi said, transferring all of her frustrations from Summer straight to Mia, as she fell into step beside her.

"What do you want?" Mia asked, abandoning her attempts to hide behind the underclassmen. She was still a little uneasy about talking to Rudi, but she figured Rudi wouldn't actually do anything at school.

"Why do you sneak out every night?" Rudi asked. So much for discretion at school.

"What are you talking about?" Mia asked.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about."

"Because you keep following me." Mia grinned like it was funny instead of really annoying – or actually life-threatening.

"That's not why – you're looking for something."

"How would you know?"

"I can tell. Trust me, I know when someone's looking for something like that."

"Yeah? How?" Mia asked again.

"Let's just say I have plenty of experience with people who don't belong."

Mia got the impression Rudi was actually talking about someone else. Suddenly, Mia almost felt bad for whoever that was; if Rudi treated them anything like this, they had their hands full.

"Maybe I'm not the one who doesn't belong." Mia told her. "Maybe it's you."

She knew she probably shouldn't bait Rudi like that, but she couldn't help it. And if it got Rudi worrying about herself for once, maybe she would finally leave Mia alone. Rudi looked at her levelly for a minute, but she didn't look quite as worried as Mia would have liked to see.

"You girls really don't know when to quit, do you?" Rudi said finally.

"What's that mean?"

"You and your pathetic attempts to lose me when you sneak out...Anna refusing to stop hanging around Luke...It just seems to me you could make things a lot easier for yourselves if you stopped being so stubborn all the time."

"Wait..." Mia said slowly. "What are you talking about Anna for?"

"I told Anna I wouldn't follow you anymore if she broke up with Luke." Rudi said.

"...You did?" Mia tried not to look too surprised, but of course it was news to her.

"She didn't tell you?" Rudi asked. But Mia could see she already knew that. "Well, maybe you should be having a talk with your friend, not me."

Rudi gave an overly nonchalant shrug, like it was all Mia and Anna's fault that this was happening – not Rudi's at all. Mia just stared at her, not quite able to believe the nerve of this girl.

Still, she had to admit, Rudi did have a point. If all it would take for Rudi to actually leave her alone was for Anna to break up with Luke for a little bit, that definitely seemed worth it to Mia. It wasn't that she didn't like Luke or anything, but she figured her life was worth a little more than their relationship. Besides, they could always get back together later. Maybe she was biased, but she didn't think it was particularly unreasonable. So now she was going to have to ask Anna what was really going on here.