Arianna let go of Leticia and came to me. “Carson did everything he could, but the corpse…his bite was too big to repair.”
Carson stepped closer to me. “One of Randy’s smaller arteries was severed. I didn’t have the medical equipment needed to save him.”
“Then get it!” Leticia yelled.
“It wouldn’t matter now,” Chase said, and it was the first time I saw him look sympathetic toward anyone here besides me.
“Why not? We can get the equipment Carson needs and bring Randy back,” Leticia said. “Jodi can do it, can’t she?” She sobbed when Carson shook his head.
I didn’t want to break down and cry like a baby in front of everyone. I was supposed to be the leader. The strong one. But the look on Leticia’s face when she realized I couldn’t help Randy was too much.
“Leticia, I—”
She turned and ran upstairs. I knew in that moment she hated me. I was the one who had gotten Randy hurt. If I had stopped that zombie, Randy wouldn’t have been bitten. This was all my fault.
Tony went over to the couch. “Chase, will you help me move Randy? We can bury him in the mausoleum. There are some empty caskets in there.”
“Sure, but can I help Jodi first? I’d like to take her to her room and help her get cleaned up.”
“No,” I said. “Randy should be our top priority. I’ll help you both.”
“No way, Jodi.” Chase grabbed me by my shoulders. “You need rest. You drained a lot of your powers.”
“Chase is right,” Arianna said. “Why don’t you go upstairs and take a nice warm bath? We can take care of Randy.”
“A warm bath sounds like Heaven right about now,” Lexi said. I’d forgotten she was even here.
“Your bathroom doesn’t have a tub,” I said to her.
“Yours does, and I’m sure my fearless leader would be more than happy to accommodate me.” She gave me a wicked smile and started to walk away, but Arianna grabbed her roughly by the arm.
“Lexi, you’re fine. Jodi is the one who needs the hot bath, so I suggest you go to your own room for the time being. I’ll be up to check on Jodi shortly, and if I find you anywhere near her bathroom, taking what she needs, I’ll have you back at Serpentarius before sundown.”
Lexi glared at Arianna and shook her arm free. “Whatever you say, Mother.”
My heart stopped. Mother? No way. Lexi couldn’t be Arianna’s daughter. That would mean Abby was Arianna’s daughter, too.
Lexi stomped upstairs as I stared at Arianna, waiting for her to tell me it wasn’t true. She looked at me and sighed.
“Not all Ophi are good, Jodi. Sometime we fall for the wrong ones.”
So Arianna had fallen for a bad Ophi? An evil guy who passed his evil qualities down to their twin daughters? I grabbed my head, putting my hands over my ears. My palms stuck to the partially dried blood trailing down the sides of my face. “You sent Abby away. It nearly killed her—made her evil.”
Arianna sighed. “She was obsessed with power and proving herself. I thought sending her to Troy and Victoria might scare her out of it. But when her letters arrived and all she talked about was how great it was not to hold back her power, I knew I’d lost her.”
“So, you stopped reading the letters and returned them unopened.” I remembered the drawer full of letters Abby had kept.
“I thought if she knew how upset I was…maybe she’d come home.” Arianna nodded to Chase, unable to continue talking about Abby. “On second thought, you take Jodi upstairs. Run her a bath and then wait for her in her room. Keep Lexi away from her.”
“Sure thing.” Chase took my arm, but this time my blood didn’t react. I stared at his hand on me, wondering why his touch was different now. He leaned down and whispered, “Don’t worry. I’m not using my powers.”
He’d been doing that on purpose?! I thought it was the way our blood naturally reacted to each other, but it had been Chase doing it all along.
Arianna put her hand on my shoulder as I walked by. “I’ll be up to check on you soon, and then we can talk.”
I knew she wanted to explain about Abby and Lexi. I had a lot of questions for her. Like why she never told me, and why she didn’t hate me for sending Abby to the underworld. I wasn’t sure I could handle that today, though. So much had already happened.
“Maybe our talk can wait until tomorrow? I think I could sleep until morning at this point.”
She nodded and gave me a weak smile.
Chase walked me upstairs. He kept his arm around my back and was being a gentleman for once. Not forcing his power on me or trying to bully me into choosing him. Now that Alex was gone, he didn’t feel the need to compete anymore. It was the first time I had thought about Alex since he left. Since he walked out on me and my world came crumbling down. This was more proof of how much I needed him. But what was I going to do about Chase?
We’d combined powers twice today, and both times, it had made me feel better than I’d ever felt in my life. My blood craved Chase, but look what I had done when I gave in to that craving. I’d taken out every Ophi under this roof. I knew I was responsible for their deaths. I’d felt my blood doing things it had never done before. It was like the night Leticia was choking in my room. The night she’d died. Chase had been touching me, combining our powers, and Leticia died because of it. I was convinced Chase and I could do both amazing and devastating things together. We were that powerful, and it scared the hell out of me.
Inside my room, Chase left me sitting on the bed while he drew me a bath. I reached up and took the locket from my neck. Nothing good had happened since I’d put it on, and now I wanted it off. I wished I’d never drunk the blood from the bloodstone. I wished I’d never killed the human in me. That I’d never become the leader of the Ophi. I didn’t want any of this anymore. None of it seemed worth it. Not without Alex.
I put the locket back in my dresser drawer before slumping on my bed and crying. My tears washed most of the blood from my face and I wiped the rest away with my sleeves. Chase came back into the room and sat down next to me.
“Oh, Jodi.” He leaned over me and kissed me. I stopped crying, taken aback by his action. He wasn’t my boyfriend. He wasn’t Alex. We’d only kissed once, and that had had terrible consequences. I pulled away.
“Don’t worry. Nothing bad will happen. I promise. I’ll keep my powers under control, and you will too.” He leaned forward and kissed me again. He didn’t let me go, and finally, I gave in, kissing him back. He brushed the hair from my wet cheeks and looked at me.
“What are we doing?” I asked. This was all so confusing. It wasn’t what I wanted, not really. So, why wasn’t I stopping him?
“What we’re supposed to be doing.” He kissed me again, more passionately this time, and he let a tiny bit of his power find its way to me. The tingling spread through my lips and into my chest, filling me with energy. I felt better, more alive. He was on top of me now, and still I was trying to pull him closer.
“Jodi, are you—”
I pulled away from Chase to see Arianna standing in the doorway. Embarrassed, I scrambled out from under Chase and stood up. He leaned back on the bed as if he’d done nothing wrong.
“I came to see if you were finished with your bath,” Arianna said. “But I see you haven’t even started.”
“That reminds me,” Chase said, “I left the water running.” He ran to the bathroom, hopefully before the tub overflowed.
“Um, I was waiting for it to fill?” It came out more like a question than a statement.
Arianna walked over to me and kept her voice low. “Jodi, do you know what you’re doing? Alex left today, and already you’re with Chase?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not with him. He kissed me. I was caught off guard. That’s all. With everything that’s happened, I was upset and I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
She sighed. “Honey, that boy is pouncing when he should be giving you time. I don’t like it at all. You be careful around him.”
I nodded, but she didn’t look convinced.
“What if Alex had come back and seen what I saw?”
