Stalked by Death

Alex pulled away. “I saw that little exchange between you and Tony. What was that about?”

I sighed and sat down on the bed. “Listen, I know you hate Chase, and I know he gives you a hard time, but we’re short on numbers. Hades was in my bedroom threatening me. He could’ve killed me, Alex. If Chase hadn’t —”

“No! Chase did not save you from Hades. He showed up late because he was doing God knows what.” Alex was yelling now. “He’s not the good guy. I mean, did you see the way Hades looked at him? It was like he recognized evil.”

That was crazy. Hades and Chase had locked eyes, but I figured it was only because Hades hadn’t seen Chase before. He wasn’t here at the school when I’d made the deal with Hades two months ago. “I’m sure Hades was surprised to see a new face around here. That’s all, and really—whatever it was, I don’t care. All I know is I’m alive right now. Can’t we take two minutes to be thankful for that?”

Alex pulled me to him and kissed me lightly on the lips. “You know I’m thankful you’re alive. I watched you die once, remember? After you drank Medusa’s blood.”

“I didn’t die.”

“The human part of you did.”

Sometimes, I forgot there was a difference between being human and being Gorgon. But Medusa’s blood had transformed me, made me fully Gorgon. Hades hated me for that. I’d killed the human in me, and there was no soul to show for it. As far as Hades was concerned, I owed him my soul.

“I think you should leave the school,” Alex said.

“What?” I nearly stumbled back in surprise.

“I’ll go with you. We’ll go somewhere Hades can’t find you. Just until you get your powers under control.”

“I can’t leave. I have a job to do. The Ophi from Serpentarius will be here tomorrow. It took months to get them here. How would it look if they came and I’d taken off?”

Alex started pacing. He was determined to find a way to save me. I didn’t say a word. Just let him think. Finally, he stopped. “Did you ever consider that Hades might want you to get all the Ophi under one roof so he can take us out in one shot?”

I was starting to wonder about that. We were sitting ducks here. Hades could kill us all in our sleep if he wanted to. But I had a feeling Hades was a god of his word. We’d made a deal. Sure, he was hoping I’d screw it up so he could kill me. But if I didn’t, we’d be okay. Hades would honor our deal—I hoped.

Except I was screwing up, and Chase was a big part of that.

Chapter 10

Breakfast was quick. We had bodies to bury, and I couldn’t exactly sit and enjoy my pancakes knowing Tony was digging graves on his own. I hurried the group along, giving Randy a long hard stare when he reached for a second helping of pancakes.

“I’ll take a few to go.” Grabbing a handful, he got up from the table.

“Fine. Everyone else good?”

Leticia stood up. “I’m ready. I can’t eat a thing after seeing Hades. He scared the appetite right out of me.” I was with her there.

Arianna shooed us out the door. “You all go help Tony. I can handle clean-up on my own today.”

“Ari, you’re a life saver.” I gave her a quick hug and followed the others out to the cemetery. Tony was dirty, sweaty, and dead tired. He’d managed to dig up seven graves already. I wasn’t sure how he’d done that many so quickly, but then again, he’d had a lot of practice.

“Take a break,” I told him. “Go shower, get something to eat, and put your feet up. We’ll take over from here.” Thanks to Hades, there weren’t that many bodies left. Most had fallen into the earth when he came out of it. And since we didn’t know which body belonged in which grave, we could simply dig them all up in a straight line. We’d be finished by lunchtime.

Tony stuck his shovel in the fresh dirt and wiped his brow. “Sounds good to me. Any of Arianna’s pancakes left?”

“Yeah, I stopped Randy from polishing them all off.”

“Thanks.”

“No, thank you. It was my mess, and you’ve been—” I didn’t know what to say. How did you apologize for raising an entire cemetery of corpses, drawing Hades’ attention, and nearly killing every Ophi in existence?

Tony put his hand on my shoulder. “No one blames you, Jodi. Whatever is going on here isn’t your fault.”

“Of course it is. It’s my powers that are screwing things up, and I have no idea how to fix it.”

“We’ll figure it out. I’m going to cancel lessons this afternoon. I want to do some research and make a few phone calls. Someone has to have some idea what’s happening to you. I can’t believe you’re the first Ophi this sort of thing has happened to.”

Why not? I was the only Ophi who was part human—or at least I used to be. The only Ophi who could raise our own kind without turning them into zombies. The only Ophi who was answering to Hades. Being the only anything was nothing new to me.

Tony must have taken my silence as a protest. “I mean, if that’s okay with you. You’re in charge, and if you don’t want me cancelling lessons, I can do my research this evening after dinner.”

“No. Cancelling lessons is a good idea. We’ll be digging graves and burying corpses all morning. I could use the afternoon to train these guys some more.”

Tony nodded. “We’ll figure this out. I promise.”

“Thanks, Tony.”

He gave me a small smile before walking away. Everyone else was busy digging already, so I grabbed a shovel and got to work helping Alex.

“He’s right, you know.” Alex didn’t look at me. He was focused on shoveling, and his tone was completely serious. “You have to stop blaming yourself. It’s not like you know what’s wrong with your powers.”

Sure. Except I did know what was wrong with them. I was conflicted. I liked Chase. As much as I wished I didn’t, I liked Chase. I didn’t know how long I could keep lying, especially to Alex.

He stopped digging and looked at me. “Hey, you don’t think it’s us, do you?”

“What do you mean?” Did he know something?

“Well,” he stepped closer and lowered his voice, “your powers keep going all crazy when we’re together or you’re thinking about me.”

I smiled at him. “No, I don’t think we’re the problem. You’re the only thing in my life that’s right.”

He wrapped one arm around my waist and pulled me to him. He kissed me as if we were the only two people in the cemetery, and in that moment, we were. I forgot about the others. This was how I wanted things to be. Why couldn’t it be this simple?

“Seriously you two.” Randy flung dirt at us.

“Hey!” I jumped back, trying to avoid the dirt.

“Hey, yourself. If you two don’t stop making out in front of me, I’m going to throw myself in this open grave just so I don’t have to see it anymore.”

“Funny.” I rolled my eyes.

Leticia leaned on her shovel and stared at Chase. “I think it’s romantic the way they can’t keep their hands off each other, don’t you?” But Chase wasn’t paying any attention to Leticia. His eyes were fixed on me.

Alex glared at him. “You got a problem, Chase?”

“I was just thinking.”

“About what?” Leticia was drooling a little.

“About how every time I see these two it’s something different. One minute they’re kissing, and the next minute they’re fighting. I’m waiting for their relationship to implode.”