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to go. Like most cotillion events, I’d probably spend the ball avoiding crowds and trying not to embarrass myself. My goal was to
survive
these things, not make a love connection.
    Small confession: I’d never had a quote-unquote boyfriend. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a convent case or anything—I used to kiss Sammy Branson behind the Dunkin’ Donuts back in Westborough, even though Mom thought he was a total slacker. But I’d never dated anyone seriously. Or even officially.
    When could I have? Mom and I had bounced around central Massachusetts for most of my childhood, never staying too long in one place. She’d been my only constant. I was only thirteen when the car accident happened, Mom died, and I was shipped down south to live with Kit.
    My first year in Charleston hadn’t been designed for romance. At Bolton Prep I’d been an outcast from day one—a geeky freshman transfer, on scholarship, a year younger than everyone else. How many strikes was that?
    I’d had nothing in common with my classmates. My father wasn’t a member of seven country clubs, or on the board of a local hospital. Most of the attention I’d received hadn’t been the pleasant kind.
    Outside of school, my world consisted of remote islands, Kit, and my packmates. No prospects there. While Hi, Shelton, and I were as close as friends can be, the idea of any brewing romance would’ve sent us into hysterics. Not gonna happen.
    Ben, though. Ben was . . . different. I could admit it to myself, if not to anyone else. He was older, more worldly, and undeniably handsome. The only potential swimmer in Morris Island’s microscopic dating pool. I’d even had a slight crush on him when I’d first moved down here.
    But ever since the sickness, and the emergence of our abilities, we’d become a pack. To me, pack was family.
    It was better that way. Cleaner. Safer.
    “Blargh.”
    I stared at my notes, no closer to answering Whitney’s question.
    I needed a date.
    But who?

CHAPTER 6
    T he locker beside mine banged shut.
    “Why do we have calculus first thing?” Hi was fiddling with his tie. “Doesn’t the faculty understand you have to ease into a school day?”
    Monday morning. Bolton Preparatory Academy. 7:26 a.m.
    First bell was minutes from sounding.
    I was back in uniform: blue tartan-plaid tie with matching pleated skirt, white blouse, black knee socks, and simple black shoes. I wasn’t a fan, but the uniform policy kept the richer girls from morphing Bolton’s hallways into daily episodes of
Project Runway.
I was grateful for the trade-off.
    “Better to get it done early.” I shut my door and spun the combination lock. “Besides, I like math—there are no tricks, you just have to learn the rules.”
    “The rules
are
tricks.” Ben sported the standard male uniform—navy blazer with griffin crest, white button-down shirt, maroon tie, tan slacks, and loafers. “When the problems dropped the equals sign, math stopped making any sense.”
    “There’s Shelton,” Hi said, blazer was in his trademark style: inside out, with the silk lining exposed. The teachers had given up trying to make him wear it properly. “He had enough time after all.”
    “Got it!” Shelton was puffing hard, a calculus book tucked under one arm, his uniform a disheveled mess. “Sprinting back to the docks takes longer than I thought. Next time I’ll just borrow a text and get mine from your dad later.”
    “Told you,” Ben said. His father, Tom Blue, shuttled us to and from downtown on school days. “You’re lucky
Hugo
was still there. My dad’s usually on his second run to Loggerhead by now.”
    As a perk for parents living way out where ours did, LIRI provided tuition for their children to attend Bolton Prep, Charleston’s most prestigious private school. Shelton, Hi, and I were two months into our sophomore year, while Ben was beginning his junior campaign. Since driving to campus would take an hour each way, LIRI also provided daily boat