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 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.