Her perfect face suddenly looked hateful and cold and definitely not so pretty.
'Okay, here's the deal, Zoey. You have this weird Mark, so everyone's talking about you and wondering what the fuck is up with you.' She rolled her eyes and clutched her pearls dramatically, changing her voice so that she sounded really silly and gushing. 'Oooh! The new girl has a colored-in Mark! Whatever could that mean? Is she special? Does she have fabulous powers? Oh my—oh my!' She dropped her hand from her throat and narrowed her eyes at me. Her voice went as flat and mean as her gaze. 'Here's what's what. I'm it here. Things go my way. You want to get along here, then you'd best remember that. If you don't, you'll be in for a world of shit.'
Okay, she was starting to piss me off. 'Look,' I said, 'I just got here. I'm not looking for trouble, and I have no control over what people are saying about my Mark.'
Her eyes narrowed. Ah, crap. Was I going to have to actually fight this girl? I'd never been in a fight in my life! My stomach knotted up and I got ready to duck or run or whatever would not get me beat up.
Then, just as quickly as she'd gone all scary and hateful, her face relaxed into a smile and she turned back into sweet little blonde again. (Not that I was fooled.)
'Good. Just so we understand each other.'
Huh? I understood she'd forgotten to take her meds, but that was all I understood.
Aphrodite didn't give me time to say anything. With one last, weirdly warm smile, she knocked on the door.
'Come on in!' called a perky voice with an Okie accent. Aphrodite opened the door.
'Hi y'all! Ohmygosh, come on in.' With a huge grin, my new roomie, also a blonde, rushed up like a little countrified tornado. But the instant she saw Aphrodite, her grin slid from her face and she stopped hurrying toward us.
'I brought your new roommate to you.' There was nothing technically wrong with Aphrodite's words, but her tone was hateful and she was putting on a terrible, fake Oklahoma accent. 'Stevie Rae Johnson, this is Zoey Redbird. Zoey Redbird, this is Stevie Rae Johnson. There, now ain't we all nice and cozy like three little corns on a cob?'
I glanced at Stevie Rae. She looked like a terrified little rabbit.
'Thanks for showing me up here, Aphrodite.' I talked quickly, moving toward Aphrodite, who automatically stepped back, which put her out in the hall again. 'See you around.' I closed the door on her as her look of surprise was just beginning to change to anger. Then I turned to Stevie Rae, who was still pale.
'What's with her?' I asked.
'She's…she's…,'
Even though I didn't know her at all, I could tell that Stevie Rae was struggling with how much she should or shouldn't say. So I decided to help her. I mean, we were going to be roommates. 'She's a bitch!' I said.
Stevie Rae's eyes went round, and then she giggled. 'She's not very nice, that's for sure.'
'She needs pharmaceutical help, that's for sure,' I added, making her laugh some more.
'I think we're gonna get along just fine, Zoey Redbird,' she said, still smiling. 'Welcome to your new home!' She stepped aside and made a sweeping arm gesture at the little room, like she was ushering me into a palace.
I looked around and blinked. Several times. The first thing I saw was the life-sized Kenny Chesney poster that hung over one of the two beds and the cowboy (cowgirl?) hat that rested on one of the bedside tables—the one that also had the old—fashioned-looking gas lamp with the base shaped like a cowboy boot. Oh, nu uh. Stevie Rae was a total Okie!
Then she shocked me with a big hello hug, reminding me of a cute puppy with her short, curly hair and her smiling round face. 'Zoey, I'm so glad you're feelin' better! I was so worried when I heard you'd hurt yourself. I'm really glad you're finally here.'
'Thanks,' I said, still staring around what was now my room, too, feeling totally overwhelmed and weirdly on the edge of tears again.
'It's kinda scary, isn't it?' Stevie Rae was watching me with big, serious blue eyes that were filled with sympathetic tears. I nodded, not trusting my voice.
'I know. I cried the whole first night.'
I swallowed back my own tears and asked, 'How long have you been here?'
'Three months. And, man, I was glad when they told me I was getting a roommate!'
'You knew I was coming?'
She nodded vigorously. 'Oh, yeah! Neferet told me day before yesterday that the Tracker had sensed you and was going to Mark you. I thought you'd be here yesterday, but then I heard that you'd had an accident and been brought to the clinic. What happened?'
I shrugged and said, 'I was looking for my grandma and I fell and hit my head.' I wasn't getting the weird feeling that told me to keep my mouth shut, but I wasn't sure how much I should say to Stevie Rae yet, and I was relieved when she nodded as though she understood and didn't ask any more questions about the accident—or mention my weird colored-in Mark.
'Your parents freaked when you got Marked?'
'Totally. Didn't yours?'
'Actually, my mama was okay with it. She said anything that got me out of Henrietta was a good thing.'
'Henrietta, Oklahoma?' I asked, glad to move to a subject that was not all about me.
'Sadly, yes.'
Stevie Rae flopped down on the bed in front of the Kenny Chesney poster and motioned for me to sit on the one across the room from her. I did, and then felt a little jolt of surprise when I realized that I was sitting on my cool hot-pink and green Ralph Lauren comforter from home. I looked at the little oak end table and blinked. There was my annoying, ugly alarm clock, nerdy glasses for when I'm sick of wearing my contacts, and the picture of Grandma and me from last summer. And in the bookshelves behind the computer on my side of the room I saw my Gossip Girls and Bubbles series books (along with some of my other favorites, including Bram Stoker's Dracula— which was more than a little ironic), some CDs, my laptop, and—oh my dear sweet lord—my Monsters Inc. figurines. How incredibly embarrassing. My backpack was sitting on the floor next to my bed.
'Your grandma brought your stuff up here. She's really nice,' Stevie Rae said.
'She's more than nice. She's brave as hell to have faced my mom and her stupid husband to get this stuff for me. I can only imagine the overly dramatic scene my mom caused.' I sighed and then shook my head.
'Yeah, I guess I'm lucky. At least my mama was cool about all of this,' Stevie Rae pointed to the outline of the crescent moon on her forehead. 'Even if my daddy lost every bit of his mind, me being his only 'baby girl' and all.' She shrugged and then giggled. 'My three brothers thought it was awesome and wanted to know if I could help them get vampyre chicks.' She rolled her eyes. 'Stupid boys.'
'Stupid boys,' I echoed and smiled at her. If she thought boys were stupid she and I would get along fine.
'Mostly now I'm okay with all of this. I mean, the classes are weird but I like them—especially the Tae Kwan Do class. I kinda like to kick butt.' She grinned mischievously, like a little blonde elf. 'I like the uniforms, which totally shocked me at first. I mean, would anyone expect to like school uniforms? But we can add stuff to them and make them unique, so they don't look like typical stuck-up, boring school uniforms. And there are some seriously hot guys here—even if boys are stupid.' Her eyes sparkled. 'Mostly I'm just so darn glad to be out of Henrietta that I don't mind all the other stuff, even if Tulsa is kinda scary because it's so big.'
'Tulsa isn't scary,' I said automatically. Unlike too many kids from our suburb of Broken Arrow, I actually knew my way around Tulsa, thanks to what Grandma liked to call 'field-tripping' with her. 'You just have to know where to go. There's a great bead gallery where you can make your own jewelry downtown on Brady Street, and next door to that is Lola's at the Bowery—she has the best desserts in town. Cherry Street is cool, too. We're not far from there now. Actually, we're right by the awesome Philbrook Museum and Utica Square. There's some excellent shopping there and—'
I suddenly realized what I was saying. Did vampyre kids get to mingle with regular kids? I searched my memory. No. I'd never seen kids with crescent moon outlines hanging around the Philbrook or Utica's Gap or Banana Republic or Starbucks. I'd never seen them at the movies. Hell! I'd never even seen a vampyre kid before today. So would they keep us locked up here for four years? Feeling a little short of breath and claustrophobic I asked, 'Do we ever get out of here?'
