“Oh, yeah. He's dead, a voice inside her head confirmed. "No way!" Brianna backed away from him, looking around the room in panic. Yeah, you're right. That lack of pulse probably means something else.”

“She never strayed far from him though, and if she looked around and didn't see him right away, he saw a look of panic in her blue eyes.”

“He looks at her and smiles. "You're sort of dangerous, you know?" She stares at him. "Me?" "Yeah," he says sitting back. "I'm way too honest with you.”

“Loop, you shot him in the head... Fuck yeah he dead.”

“You coming?” he asked her, leaning in through the door. And then he finally really looked at me. He came to a complete halt—not just his body, but his energy. His eyebrows went right up. “Oh,” he said. I sort of flicked my hem at him, assuming what I fondly considered an enigmatic look. “This okay?” I asked. “Oh,” he said again, stepping inside the house. The screen door hit him when it closed. “Yeah. Yeah, that works.” It kind of looked like he was beginning to sweat.”

“Dimitri's voice snapped my attention back to him. "That's Adrian Ivashkov." He said the name the same way everyone else did. "Yeah, I know.""This is the second time I've seen you with him.""Yeah," I replied glibly. "We hang out sometimes."Dimitri arched an eyebrow, then jerked his head back toward where we'd come from. "You hang out in his room a lot?"Several retorts popped into my head, and then a golden one took precedence. "What happens between him and me is none of your business." I managed a tone very similar to the one he'd used on me when making a similar comment about him and Tasha. "Actually, as long as you're at the Academy, what you do is my business.""Not my personal life. You don't have any say in that.”