Julian obeys, and I slide along the wall to the other side of the table.

"Your forehead, please," I tell Caleb.

"Why?"

"Don't argue, Caleb," Julian snaps. "Whatever he does to your face will be an improvement."

"I couldn't agree more," I say as I use my red Sharpie to draw a giant F on Caleb's forehead.

"Ivan?" He gets one too. Then I step back to admire my work.

"You're lucky I didn't have a branding iron handy. If you wash off the ink before I give you permission, I will find a way to etch my initials into your skin. Every time you look in the mirror, I want you to remember that you belong to me now. I had plans for Lucas, and you f-ed them up. If you ever question my authority again, I will slaughter every person at this table."

"Why me?" I notice Leila is twitching like a Pokemon character that's about to explode. "What do I have to do with any of this?"

"I just don't like you," I tell her. "I don't like any of you. So consider yourselves banned from the lounge for the rest of the semester. And if any of you f- up in any way, I won't hesitate to kill you all."

I yank the alarm clock's cord out of the wall and march out of the cafeteria. I can hear someone rushing after me. Gwendolyn catches up at the elevator bank.

"Flick . . ."

"Feel like a little fresh air?" I ask blithely.

I don't say another word until we reach the Wolves' Den.

"Open the window," I tell her. "Let's go outside."

Gwendolyn is surprised-and not pleasantly so. Which means she's passed the first test. She doesn't know I was here for a "private chat" with Mandel.

"Who told you about the roof?" she asks.

"Guess," I say.

When we step outside, I don't feel the cold, but Gwendolyn's teeth start chattering. I wonder if that will make it any harder for her to lie.

"So what other secrets have you been hiding from me?" I ask. I keep my tone neutral. That's the rule from now on-give nothing away.

"Secrets?"

"I'm offering you a chance to come clean, Gwendolyn. I suggest you take it. Tell me what you know. What happened to Lucas?"

"He killed himself. But you already know that! They said you were there!"

"I was. I watched Caleb and Ivan murder him."

She gasps. Those big blue eyes widen and five pretty little fingers fly up to her open mouth. She looks horrified. She looks exactly how I'd want her to look. Which tells me it's all just an act. She knew all along.

This is how it feels to lose your last hope. To stop treading water. To unplug the life support.

Mandel wanted me to find out this way. I bet it was always part of his plan. I knew Gwendolyn was one of them. I knew it, but I couldn't quite believe it. Until this very moment, I thought there might be a chance that Mandel hadn't made her a monster. If Gwendolyn was capable of loving me, she might be willing to save me. But it would have taken a miracle. And now I finally see. Only idiots pray for miracles. You might as well believe in Peter Pan.

I don't care enough about Gwendolyn to be angry. But I will punish her anyway.

I let a little tremor creep into my voice. "Lucas is in a morgue downstairs. So are all the other kids who've been 'expelled' this semester. That's what happens to Ghosts, Gwendolyn. They don't leave. They die!"

"Does Mr. Mandel-"

"Of course he knows!"

Gwendolyn throws herself into my arms. "Oh my God, Flick! What are we going to do?"

I take her by the shoulders and hold her at arms' length. I want to see her lovely face. I want to watch the tears flow from her eyes. "Do you love me?" I ask her.

"Yes!"

"And you trust me?"

"Yes!"

"Good. Because I want you to come with me. There's no way to escape, Gwendolyn. So I think we should jump."

"Jump?" The word comes out flat. Finally an honest response.

"You go first," I insist. "I'll help you shimmy up the drainpipe on the side of the tower. Once you're past the fence, just close your eyes and leap. I promise I'll be right behind you."

She's speechless.

"Come on!" I urge her. "We have to act quickly-before anyone figures out that we're up here!"

I take Gwendolyn by the wrist and begin to pull her toward Mandel's tower. She stumbles forward two steps before she yanks her hand away.

"There's got to be another way!" she insists. "I know-we can sneak out of one of the alumni parties. Go to the airport and catch a plane somewhere!"

It's a nice thought. I almost wish it wasn't so obvious that my beautiful princess is just scrambling to save her own ass.

"They'll trace the chip in your arm, darling. Even if I made it to safety, I couldn't live without you. I've thought this through. If we want to be together, there's nothing else we can do! Please. If you love me as much as I love you, please come with me."

Lucas was right-I'm a gifted actor. And I'm giving an Oscar-worthy performance. Poor little Gwendolyn is totally convinced that I've lost my mind.

"No," she says coldly. "I'm not jumping."

I cradle her face in my hands. "Then maybe I should throw you," I say.

It takes a split second for her to understand. "This isn't funny," she growls.

"I haven't been joking." I bend down and kiss her cold lips. "If you ever lie to me again, I will toss you right over one of the balconies. And believe me-you won't see it coming. Do you understand?"

"Yes." She spits the word at me.

"Wonderful." As I head back toward the tower, I think about the first time I saw Gwendolyn. How she looked just like an angel. Then I come to a sudden stop. "One more thing."

"What?"

"Ivan once called you 'Rusalka.' Any idea what that was about?"

The mask drops, and I can see the monster beneath it. The Queen of the Wolves has removed her disguise.

I catch Ivan between classes. I'm pleased to see that he's still sporting a giant red F on his forehead.

"Come with me," I order. I don't even watch to make sure he's following. But when I step on the elevator, he's right behind me. I finally understand why Siegfried and Roy did what they did. It's fun having a bloodthirsty beast for a pet.

As soon as we're inside my room, I pull out my desk chair. "Have a seat." He obeys. "What does Rusalka mean?"

Ivan's jaw drops. He assumed I'd forgotten. "I can't tell you," he says. Of all the responses he might have given, that is by far the dumbest.

"Listen, I know you've got the brains of a blintz. So let me explain something to you. Things have changed around here," I tell him in a perfectly calm voice. "I don't give a shit what the ratings say. As of this morning, I am top dog. It doesn't matter how frightened you are of Gwendolyn. Right now you should be ten times more worried about me. So. Rusalka."

Ivan nods. "Rusalki are mermaids."

"Mermaids?"

"They are very beautiful."

"Get to the point."

"They come out of the water at night to seduce men. Then they drown them."

"Why did you call Gwendolyn Rusalka the first time we saw her?"

"That's what my father called her."

The Butcher of Brighton Beach? "Your father knew Gwendolyn?"

"No, he read about her in the paper. He showed me her picture."

"Which paper? The New York Times?"

Judging by his reaction, Ivan has never heard of the New York Times. "What? No. The Russian paper. In Brighton Beach."

I feel like I'm interrogating a dimwitted donkey. "Gwendolyn is from Brooklyn too?"

"No. I think she lived somewhere in the north. But she killed a Russian man from Queens. That was why she was in all the Russian papers."

"The man who tried to molest her?"

Ivan grins. "She told you there was one man?" Suddenly I'm the idiot.

"How many were there?"

"Eight. Maybe more. They all paid to touch her."

"They paid? Who did they pay?"

"Her. It was a business. She posted pictures of herself on the Internet. Made dates with men who like little girls. When they came to her house, she took all their money and bled them like pigs. Then she and her mother threw the bodies into a river. Rusalka. My father always said she was a genius."

I can't help but grimace. "The mother must have made her do it."

"That's what everybody thought. Then the cops checked out the security tapes from her mother's favorite bar. The old lady was there almost every night until four o'clock in the morning. Maybe she helped hide the bodies, but she didn't kill anyone. The men all died right after they got to Gwendolyn's house. Usually around eight at night-when Gwendolyn had been home alone." Ivan shrugs. "But who is going to cry for a bunch of guys like that? She would have gotten away with it if they hadn't matched her teeth to the bite marks."

"Bite marks?"

"On the bodies."

"She bit them?"

"She was only thirteen years old. I'm sure she knows better these days."

"Thirteen? She's seventeen now, and she told me she's been at the academy for three years," I say, doing a little math out loud. "So she must have been in juvie for a whole year before Mandel found her."

"She never went to juvie. They put her in an asylum. They thought she was crazy."

It's ten after eight in the morning. I've just stepped into the cafeteria when a Wolf races up to deliver the news. Ivan is dead.

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

DESTRUCTION, TERROR, AND MAYHEM.

Gwendolyn and I have a beautiful relationship. She tells me everything. And I haven't killed her yet.

We spend our free time alone in the Wolves' Den. All of Gwendolyn's old friends have been banished from the tower. The lesser Wolves keep a wary distance from both of us. It was number 11 who discovered Ivan's severed head in the lounge. Gwendolyn had positioned it on one of the coffee tables so that Ivan's glassy, lifeless eyes would greet the first person who came through the door. I'm sure she hoped it would be me.

Only Gwendolyn and Mandel know what she did with the rest of Ivan. But I've heard that the landing outside the lounge was flooded with gore. It flowed down the staircase and seeped under the door at the bottom. They cleaned it up before the Androids got spooked, but if you look closely, you can still see traces of blood between the floorboards.

I only had one question for the killer. "Did you bite him?" I asked.