Elena drove to the school under the speed limit the whole way. If she'd just stepped on the gas, we'd have been there in less than twenty minutes. It was an hour later when we pulled into the parking lot.

Elena's Mazda Miata stuck out amidst the pristine luxury cars. I didn't understand why anyone would give a fifty-thousand-dollar car to a teenager.

Did they like just setting their money on fire?

I stared at the school building as I got out of the car. It reminded me of Hogwarts.

More of a castle than a building, the bricks looked ancient yet well maintained at the same time. It seemed like a facade like someone had recently built it but wanted the illusion of a long-standing history of prestige.

Or maybe I was just bitter about being poor.

There were no visible trees around, just yards and yards of manicured grass and stone pathways.

Students milled about the campus, so we hadn't missed lunch time. The girls dressed like extras in a Britney Spears music video, and the boys looked like posh little assholes.

"Where do we start?" Elena asked.

Elena and I split up to cover more ground.

I asked dozens of kids about Terrance. The few who recognized the name told me he kept to himself. A quiet guy with no enemies, but no friends, either.

None of them had realized he was missing.

I struck gold when I noticed a pretty brunette eating by herself.

It wasn't the downcast eyes or the sullen aura that made people keep their distance that drew my attention. It was the itch on the back of my neck that told me she wasn't human.

What were the chances she didn't know my lost nephilim?

I approached with caution, not wanting to spook her. She looked up, red, puffy eyes focusing on me. I could see the apprehensive tension throughout her body.

She knew I wasn't a mundane, either.

"Hey," I mumbled. "Are you, uh, okay?"

She shrugged, not in the mood for a little small talk.

I cut to the chase. "Do you know Terrance Smith?"

She nodded.

"Do you know where he might be?"

Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears, and she swallowed. "Don't you think if I knew where he was I would have said something?"

Good point.

"Are the two of you close?"

She gave me a look that told me she thought I was an idiot. I wasn't great at ferreting information out of people.

"When did you last talk to him?"

She scrunched up her nose like she had just caught a whiff of rotten meat. "What are you?"

There was disgust underlined with fear in her voice. She knew what I was and didn't want to give information to an enemy.

"I'm a friend."

"Friend? I don't know you. And Terrence sure as hell didn't know you, either."

Between my demon-blood setting off her alarms and my piss-poor people skills, I was getting nowhere. Where was Elena when I needed her? She could charm the pants off an ogre.

"No, I don't know him, but his parents are paying me a lot of money to bring him home."

She laughed. It came out shrill, like a cackling witch. "Now I know you're full of shit."

I gestured around. "If they can afford to send him to a place like this, they can afford my fee."

She shook her head. "Terrance is here on scholarship. His mom works in the office." She narrowed her eyes at me. "Besides, what are you, fourteen? Do you think you're Veronica Mars or something?"

I wished I was that cool.

"Something like that. Look, do you want to find Terrance? Help me out here."

"Of course, I do. I love him," she yelled, drawing attention to us.

I waited for everyone to return to their regularly scheduled program before responding. "I'm not your enemy."

"I don't know you. Why should I trust anything you say?"

"Because when you love someone, you do whatever it takes, no matter the risks, to protect them."

She studied my face for a long time, her expression growing darker by the second. I worried she'd yell again.

Instead, she nodded. "What do you want to know?"

Elena interrupted before I could respond.

"Get anything good?" She extended her hand to the girl. "I'm Elena. Pleased to meet you."

The girl didn't shake her hand but also didn't scowl at her like she had me.

Progress.

"Lilly."

"This is Terrance's girlfriend. She was just about to tell me everything she knows," I said, trying to get things back on track before the lunch period was up.

"I don't know what I can tell you. We were going to meet up at the theater on Friday. He never showed. I thought he blew me off. Went to his house the next day, and his mom told me he hadn't come home. They thought he was with me."

"Could he have been with someone else?" Elena asked.

"He had no one else. Besides, if he were okay, he'd have come home by now."

If he'd been human, I could have entertained the possibility he had run away or something. But a nephilim? Nephilim were in the same boat as me. They had to be careful lest the sentinels got wind.

My gut was telling me that this was no angsty teen acting out. I hoped there wasn't a body at the end of this search.

I asked all the questions I could think of, and while Lilly was more forthcoming than before, I still had nothing to go on.

"Can I see your phone?" I asked.

She handed over a brand-new iPhone. I wasn't jealous. Not one bit.

I struggled for five minutes to figure out how to put my number in the contacts before Elena took it from my hands and saved me further embarrassment.

"Call me if he contacts you," I said after Elena had given her back her phone.

"He's dead, isn't he?" There was no emotion in her voice.

It was heartbreaking.

"I don't know. If he's alive, I'll find him," I promised.

A foolish promise.