Stalked by Death

this morning. This day has been one unending nightmare. He’s pure evil, Alex. I should’ve listened to you.”

He still didn’t look at me. “You smell like his cologne. How do I know this isn’t a trick? That you didn’t lure me out here so he can come out of nowhere and—”

I reached for his hand on the steering wheel. “Because you know me.” I smiled, trying to ease the tension. “And because we’re in a car doing 85 on a windy road. He’d never catch us.”

Alex slowed down, but he didn’t face me. I let go of his hand.

“If you think he’s evil, why are you getting close enough to him to smell like him?”

I had to tell him everything. The way Chase really made me feel. The way I was defenseless against the connection we had. I took his hand again, hoping that, by touching him, he’d know I how I felt about him. Know how difficult this was for me to say and how much I didn’t want to hurt him.

“When Chase touches me, he transfers power to me. It’s not like anything I’ve ever felt. It’s—”

“You can tell me, Jodi. I can handle it. I need to know everything if we are going to fight him.”

“Fight him? What do you mean? He’s one of us.” As I said it, I felt my blood mixing. The whole Alex/Chase situation was screwing me up again. Making me unsure of everything.

“He’s evil, Jodi. You said so yourself.”

“I did?” What was happening to me? “My blood is acting strange. I feel so confused.” I rubbed my forehead.

“I think it has to do with this connection you’re trying to tell me about. I don’t blame you. I want to protect you from it.” Finally, he looked at me. He pulled into an abandoned warehouse and parked. He cut the engine and turned to face me. “We have to get rid of him.”

“Alex, I really do think we need Chase. The power between us is so strong. Maybe strong enough to fight off Hades. If that’s true, we can’t lose him. No matter what.” I looked down at my feet. I wished I could send Chase away. Things would’ve been simpler, but I was the leader of the Ophi. I had to do what was best for the group, not what was best for Alex and me.

Alex sighed. “Tell me everything. Don’t leave anything out. No matter how much you think it’s going to tear me up inside. Got it?” His features were hard, serious.

I nodded. I told him about the way Chase’s touch sent me into an almost euphoric state when he dosed me with the power in the right side of his body. How it made me feel better than alive. I also told him about the kiss. The way Chase had surprised me the day Alex had left.

“I wasn’t planning on kissing him. All I cared about was you leaving. Trying to convince you to stay.” I squeezed his hand, not wanting to let him go.

“I know.” He looked away. “I saw it. I saw him grab you and kiss you. I also saw you kiss him back. It wasn’t one-sided.”

“I’m not going to deny it or try to lie my way out of this, Alex. I did kiss Chase. I gave in to his power. It filled me up so much I was overwhelmed by it. I loved it.” I was embarrassed to admit I loved the power, but Alex needed to know. “I probably sound like a drug addict, don’t I?”

“Kind of.” He looked at me and brushed the hair from my forehead. “Why does he get to you like this? Make you lose control?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why does he make you feel so alive and…” He paused, but I knew what was coming next. “I can’t?”

“I don’t want you to make me feel like that, Alex. I’m scared of Chase. I’m scared of what I become when I’m with him. I lose control, and bad things happen. Everyone died when Chase kissed me. My powers went crazy, and I killed all the Ophi in the school. Medusa helped me bring them back.” I swallowed hard. “All but one.”

Alex narrowed his eyes. “Who?”

“Randy. He’s gone. His body couldn’t hold his soul in place. That zombie took a huge chunk from his shoulder and nicked a small artery. We couldn’t stop the bleeding. When I brought him back, he died all over again.”

Alex pulled me to him and hugged me tightly against his chest. I couldn’t believe it. I thought he’d hate me for everything I’d done. For kissing Chase, for giving in to the power, for killing Randy. But he was comforting me. As much as I didn’t want him to let go, I had to finish explaining what had happened.

“There’s more.” I pulled my head back to look at him. “When I ran away, he caught me and tortured me with his power. He can send the poisoned part of his blood to me in concentrated doses. It feels like I’m burning in a hellfire. Like when Hades stared at me. Chase can control me, Alex. He makes me hate him and crave him at the same time.” I was crying now. Admitting all this to anyone was hard enough, but saying it to Alex was heartbreaking. “I’m so sorry.”

“How does he control you? You have to tell me.”

“I don’t want to. You’ll hate me. I couldn’t handle it if you hated me.” I squeezed him to me, afraid I was losing him again.

“I won’t hate you. I’m going to hate Chase even more. I can tell. But I won’t hate you.”

I sniffled and looked at him. “Like I said, he can control what kind of power he transfers to me. When he sends me the life-restoring power, he can make me do anything he wants me to. My blood responds to him. I wish it didn’t, but I can’t stop it. When he touches me like that, I don’t want him to stop.”

The disgusted look on Alex’s face tore me apart. He was wrong. This was going to make him hate me. I tried changing the subject. “Chase also stopped me from saving Lucas, one of the Ophi from Serpentarius.”

“He died? How?”

So much for the topic change. “Chase kissed me again. Lucas was near us, and the connection reached out to him and killed him. It’s this weird thing that happens sometimes when Chase and I are together.”

“How many times have you kissed him?” Alex’s face was bright red with rage.

I shook my head and sobbed. “I don’t know. I swear I’m not doing it because I want to. He’s making me. When I tried to bring Lucas back, Chase pretended to help me because the others were watching, but instead of transferring life-restoring power to me, he dosed me with poison. He was killing me, too. I had to break the connection and let Lucas go.”

Alex punched the steering wheel. “I’m going to kill him! My God, Jodi, what he’s doing to you, it’s worse than—”

“Stop. Please, don’t say it.” I didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

Alex took a few deep breaths, getting himself under control. “I found out something while I was gone.”

“Where were you? Where did you go?”

“I went to see an old friend. Mason’s brother, Ethan.”

Ethan, the guy from the email. “Mason’s brother? That would make him—”

“Chase’s father. Yeah.”

I’d never stopped to think about it before, but Chase called Mason Uncle Mason. That meant his father was Mason’s brother, and since the only way an Ophi could have a sibling was to be a twin, it meant Mason was a twin.

“Jodi, there’s something you need to know.” He pulled away, just far enough to look me in the eyes. “It wasn’t Ethan. It was Mason.”

I shook my head. “Mason’s at the school.”

“No. Ethan is at the school. He’s pretending to be Mason.”

My head was spinning. Things were falling into place. “No wonder Chase was able to convince Mason to come here after I’d spent months begging him. He wasn’t convincing his uncle. He was convincing his dad.”

Alex nodded. “Mason told me everything. He said Chase and Ethan planned the whole thing. They made sure no one knew that Ethan would be taking Mason’s place. They were going to pretend Chase had convinced him to come with the rest of the Ophi because things were going so well at the school.”

“Wait, when Mason—I mean Ethan—practically demanded that Chase and I show him how our combined power worked—”

“That was part of the plan to get you and Chase together. I’m sure of it. They staged everything.”

“How could I be so stupid? I fell for all of it. They used me. Manipulated me!” I was yelling now.

“You couldn’t have known. I wouldn’t have figured it out either if I hadn’t gone looking for Ethan. I only knew he wasn’t Ethan because Mason has a tattoo on his shoulder. He got it from Thayer. He was working out when I