Marked

'Well, they live in Dallas, and his dad is big into the People of Faith. I think he's some kind of minister or something—'

I held up my hand. 'Stop. You don't have to say another word. I totally get it.' And I did. I was way too acquainted with the narrow-minded, 'our way is the only right way' ideas of the People of Faith. Even thinking about it made me feel exhausted and depressed.

Stevie Rae opened the door to the dorm. The living-room area was empty except for a few girls who were watching That '7os Show reruns. Stevie Rae waved absently at them.

'Hey, do you want a pop or something to take upstairs with us?'

I nodded and followed her through the living room and into a smaller room off to the side that had four refrigerators, a big sink, two microwaves, lots of cabinets, and a pretty white wooden table that sat in the middle of it—just like a regular kitchen, only this one was weirdly refrigerator-friendly. Everything was neat and clean. Stevie Rae opened one of the fridges. I peeked over her shoulder to see that it was filled with all kinds of drinks— everything from pop to lots of juices and that fizzy water that tastes nasty.

'What do you want?'

'Any brown pop is fine.' I said.

'This stuff is for all of us,' she said as she handed me two Diet Cokes and grabbed two Frescas for herself. 'There're fruit and veggies and stuff like that in those two fridges, and lean meat for sandwiches in the other one. They're kept full all the time, but the vamps are pretty obsessed with us eating healthy, so you won't find bags of chips or Twinkies or stuff like that.'

'No chocolate?'

'Yeah, there's some really expensive chocolate in the cabinets. The vamps say chocolate in moderation is good for us.'

Okay, so who the hell wants to eat chocolate in moderation? I kept the thought to myself as we walked back through the living room and headed upstairs to our room.

'So the, uh, vamps'—I kinda stumbled over the word—'are big on healthy eating?'

'Well, yeah, but I think basically just fledglings eating healthy. I mean, you don't see fat vamps, but you also don't see them chewing on celery and carrots and picking at salads. Mostly they eat together in their own dining room, and rumor has it that they eat well.' She glanced at me and lowered her voice. 'I heard that they eat a lot of red meat. A lot of rare red meat.'

'Eeesh,' I said, not liking the bizarre visual image I suddenly got of Neferet gnawing on a bloody steak.

Stevie Rae shivered, and went on: 'Sometimes someone's mentor will sit with a fledgling at dinner, but they usually have just a glass or two of wine and don't eat with us.'

Stevie Rae opened the door and with a sigh I sat on my bed and pulled off my shoes. God, I was tired. Rubbing my feet I wondered about why the adult vamps didn't eat with us, and then I decided I didn't really want to think about that long. I mean, it brought to mind too many questions like what are they really eating? And what will I have to eat when/if I become an adult vamp? Ugh.

And, part of my brain whispered that it also made me remember my reaction to Heath's blood yesterday. Had that been only yesterday? And also my more recent response to the blood of that guy in the hall. No. I definitely didn't want to think about either of them—at all. So I quickly refocused on the healthy-diet issue.

'Okay, they don't particularly care about eating healthy, so what's the big obsession with us eating healthy?' I asked Stevie Rae.

She met my eyes, looking worried and more than a little scared.

'They want us to eat healthy for the same reason they make us exercise every day—so that our bodies are as strong as possible, because if you start getting weak or fat or sick, that's the first sign that your body is rejecting the Change.'

'And then you die,' I said quietly.

'And then you die,' she agreed.

CHAPTER 11

I didn't think I'd sleep. I figured I'd lay there and miss home and think about the bizarre twist my life had taken. Disturbing flashes of the guy in the hall's eyes drifted through my mind, but I was so tired I couldn't focus. Even Aphrodite's psycho hatefulness was something else that seemed sleepily far away. Actually, my last worries before I could remember nothing else were about my forehead. Was it feeling sore again because of the Mark and the cut over my temple—or was it because I was getting a ginormic zit? And would my hair look okay for my first day of vamp school tomorrow? But as I curled up with my comforter and inhaled the familiar smell of down feathers and home, I felt unexpectedly safe and warm…and was totally out.

I didn't have a nightmare, either. Instead I dreamed about cats. Go figure. Hot boys? No. Cool new vampire powers? Of course not. Just cats. There was one in particular—a small orange tabby who had little tiny paws and a pot belly with a pouch that looked kinda marsupial. She kept yelling at me in an old lady's voice and asking what had taken me so long to get here. Then her cat voice changed to an annoying buzzing beeping sound and I…

'Zoey, come on! Turn that stupid alarm clock off!'

'Who—, huh?' Oh, hell. I hate mornings. My hand flailed about trying to find the off switch of my annoying alarm clock.

Have I mentioned that I am totally, completely blind without my contacts? I grabbed my nerdy glasses and peeked at the time. Six thirty P.M., and I was just waking up. Talk about bizarre.

'Do you want to take a shower first, or do you want me to?' Stevie Rae asked sleepily.

'I will, if you don't care.'

'I don't…,' She yawned.

' 'Kay.'

'We should hurry, though, 'cause, I don't know about you, but I have to eat breakfast or I feel like I'm going to starve to death before lunch.'

'Cereal?' I suddenly perked up. I seriously adore cereal, and have an I [heart] CEREAL shirt somewhere to prove it. I especially love Count Chocula—yet another vampyre irony.

'Yeah, there're always lots of those tiny boxes of cereal and bagels and fruit and hard-boiled eggs and stuff.'

'I'll hurry.' Suddenly I was starving. 'Hey, Stevie Rae, does it matter what I wear?'

'Nope,' she yawned again. 'Just pick one of the sweaters or jackets that show our third former symbol and you'll be fine.'

I did hurry, even though I was really nervous about not looking right and I wished I could take hours doing and redoing my hair and makeup. I used Stevie Rae's makeup mirror while she was in the shower, and decided that under-doing was probably a better choice than over-doing. It was weird how my Mark seemed to change the whole focus of my face. I've always had nice eyes—big and round and dark, with lots of lashes. So much that Kayla used to whine about how unfair it was that I had enough lashes for three girls and she only had short little blond ones. (Speaking of …I did miss Kayla, especially this morning as I was getting ready to go to a new school without her. Maybe I'd call her later. Or e-mail her. Or…I remembered the comment Heath had made about the party, and decided maybe not.) Anyway, the Mark somehow made my eyes look even bigger and darker. I lined them with a smoky black shadow that had little sparkly flecks of silver in it. Not heavily like those loser girls who think that plastering on black eyeliner makes them look cool. Yeah, right. They look like scary raccoons. I smudged the line, added mascara, brushed some bronzing power over my face, and put on lip gloss (to hide the fact that I'd been nervously picking at my lips).

Then I stared at myself.

Thankfully my hair was acting right, and even my 'weird widow's peak wasn't sticking all up crazily like it did sometimes. I still looked…umm…different, but the same. The effect my Mark had on my face hadn't faded. It made everything that was ethnic about my features stand out: the darkness of my eyes, my high Cherokee cheekbones, my proud, straight nose, and even the olive color of my skin that was like my grandma's. The sapphire Mark of the Goddess seemed to have flipped a switch and spotlighted those features; it had freed the Cherokee girl within me