Page 93 of Raised By Wolves

Well???!!!

I can’t help smiling. I look over at him and shrug. He rolls his eyes. Gives up on me for the rest of the period.

But when the bell rings, he leaps up and says, “Okay, now I’m demanding an answer.”

I’m nervous and grinning as I slip into the hall. I don’t know why I can’t just say yes. Or no. Oranything.

Even though his class is in the other direction, Waylon hurries along beside me. “Do you want me to beg?” he says. “Because I will totally beg.”

And then he falls on his knees in the hallway. My cheeks flush hot as fire. He’s going to make a scene when all I want is to be as invisible as possible. Which—let’s be real—has never been evencloseto invisible.

I start to walk away from him. But he follows me, still on his knees. “Kai, wait!”

I turn around. “You’re making a fool of yourself!”

“You know me well enough by now to know that I don’t care. You and me,” he says, “are iconoclasts.”

“I always thought of myself more as an outcast.”

Waylon shakes his head. “You can’t be cast out of anything that you never truly tried to get into,” he says. “Look at you. You were always too interesting for this school.”

Well, I might not be here much longer.

“Get up,” I say. “Please.”

“Say yes.”

“Will you get up?”

He nods.

“Fine. I’ll go to the dance with you. For ten minutes.”

When he stands up, his smile’s so big and bright I can hardly bear to look at it. “I’ll pick you up at seven,” he says. Then he blows me a kiss and runs off to class.

CHAPTER 73

“WHAT’RE YOU DOING?” Wendy has wandered into the room I now share with Holo to find me half-dressed, up to my shins in a pile of Lacey’s clothing.

“I’m going to a dance,” I say grimly, yanking off a checked top I’d hoped would be fine but instead made me look like I was wearing a kitchen tablecloth. “And I’m supposed to look nice or something.”

Wendy sits down on the bed and tucks her bare feet under her. Her hair is clean and braided; she smells like Ivory soap.

Lacey, especially, has welcomed her in like a sister. She and the chief give Wendy lots of space; they happily eat her foraged salads; they don’t ask any prying questions about her past. And I know Wendy’s trying to settle in, too. But she’s so shy and skittish that sometimes she bolts from a room the minute someone else walks into it.

It’s like living with a deer, Lacey had whispered.

“A dance,” Wendy repeats thoughtfully. “Are you going with a boy?”

“A guy,” I correct her. “Yes. His name is Waylon.”

“How strange.”

“His name?” Personally I think Holo is a weirder name than Waylon—not that I’d tell her that.

“No, just the idea of going to a dance.” Her eyes get a curious, faraway look in them. “With a boy.”

Guy, I think but don’t say. I pick up another top and hold it up to my chest. Pink is not my color. Red’s even worse.

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