Chapter (Adam part 3)

"Here," I say, thrusting the Beretta into Ted's hand.

"What the—" Ted scans the dance floor. "Where'd he go?"

But I've already taken off.

"Grab Lila," I yell back at Ted. "And meet me out front."

Ted utters some pretty choice expletives after that, but no one even notices. The music's too loud, and everyone's having too good a time. I mean, if they didn't notice us shooting at some dude with a ketchup-filled water gun—or a few seconds later, that dude literally vanishing into thin air—they're hardly likely to notice Ted shouting the F word.

I reach the pillar and look down.

She's there, panting as if she's just run a marathon or something. She's got the crossbow clutched to her chest like a kid's security blanket. Her face is as white as notebook paper.

"Hey," I say to her, gently. I don't want to startle her.

But I do anyway. She practically jumps out of her skin at the sound of my voice and turns wide, frightened eyes up at me.

"Hey, take it easy," I say. "He's gone. Okay?"

"He's gone?" Her eyes—green as the Great Lawn in Central Park in May—stare up at me. And there's no missing the terror in them. "How—what?"

"He just vanished," I say with a shrug. "I saw him looking at you. So I shot him."

"You what?"

I can see that the terror has disappeared as suddenly as Drake did. But unlike with Drake, there's something in its place: anger. Mary is mad.

"Oh my God, Adam," she says. "Have you lost your mind? Do you have any idea who that guy even is?."

"Yeah," I say. The truth is, Mary's pretty cute when she's mad. I can't believe I never noticed before. Well, I guess I've never seen her get mad. There's not a lot to get all heated up about in Mrs. Gregory's class. "Lila's new man. That guy's such a loser. Did you get a look at his pants?"

Mary just shakes her head.

"What are you doing here?" she asks me in a slightly stunned voice.

"Same thing as you, apparently," I say, eyeing the crossbow. "Only you've got way more firepower. Where'd you get that? Are those even legal in Manhattan?"

"You're one to talk," she says, meaning the Beretta.

I hold up both hands in an I-surrender sort of way. "Hey, it was just ketchup. But that's definitely not a suction cup I see on the end of that thing. You could do some major damage—"

"That's the idea," Mary says.

And there's so much animosity—Mom keeps encouraging Veronica and me to instead use descriptive language to express ourselves—in her voice, that I know. I just know.

Drake's her ex.

I don't know but I hate to even think Mary and that....eww...

I have to admit, I feel sort of weird when I realize this. I mean, I like Mary. You can tell she's pretty smart—she's always done the reading when Mrs. Gregory calls on her—and the truth is, the fact that she hangs around Lila, dim as she is, proves at least she's not a snob, since most of the girls at Saint Eligius won't give Lila the time of day… ever since that cell-phone photo went all around school of exactly what she and Ted were doing in the bathroom at that loft party downtown.

Not that there's anything wrong with what they were doing, if you ask me.

Still. I'm kind of disappointed. I'd have thought a girl like Mary would have better taste than to go out with a guy like Sebastian Drake.

Which I guess goes to prove that what Veronica's always saying about me is right: What I don't know about girls could fill the East River.

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