Hunted

So here’s where the interesting part came in. I decided that.

“Hey, are you sending any of this over to the guys’ locker room?” I asked as I scrubbed my hair.

“Nope,” Shaunee said happily.

“Nada.” Erin grinned.

I smiled back at them. “It’s good to be a girl.”

“Yeah, even if we do have to get butt-ass naked together and shower in what looks like a line of horse stalls,” Erin said.

I giggled. “Horse stalls. I think that makes you guys nags.”

“Nags! Us?” Erin said.

“Oh no, she did not just call us nags,” Shaunee said.

“Get her!” Erin yelled, and she flung her hands at me, causing water to pelt me from all sides.

Of course it didn’t really hurt, so it made me giggle even more.

“I’m heating her up, Twin!” Shaunee said, flicking her fingers at me, and my skin was suddenly very, very warm. So much so that the steam in my stall doubled.

In between giggles I whispered, “Wind, come to me,” and instantly felt the brush of power surround me. Swirling my fingers in the steamy mist that engulfed me, I said, “Wind, send all this back to the Twins!” Then I pursed my lips and blew gently in their direction. With a mighty whoosh the mist and heat and water whirled around me once, twice, and then blew directly at the Twins, who screeched and laughed and tried to fight back. Of course they couldn’t win. I mean, come on! I can call on all five elements, but it was a hilarious version of a pillow fight–water fight that left all of us drenched and breathless with laughter.

We finally called a truce. Okay, more accurately, I made the Twins yell, “We give! We give!” several times, and then I graciously accepted their surrender. It was wonderful to slip into soft terry-cloth robes and feel all squeaky clean and sleepy. We draped our clothes around the shower stalls and called water and mist once more to steam them, and then I commanded fire and air to blow them dry. Then the three of us drifted back down to the tunnels, ignoring the crack-and-boom show that was playing outside, secure in that fact that we were surrounded by the earth and protected by male vampyres who would no way let anyone sneak up on us.

I’d say Stevie Rae had been dead to the world when I got back to her room, but the phrasing scared me. She’d been dead, or almost dead, too many times for my nerves. I will admit I tiptoed over to her and stood there staring to make sure she was breathing before going to my side of the bed and easing myself in under the covers. Nala put her head up and sneezed at me, clearly unhappy at being disturbed, but she padded sleepily over to me and curled up on my pillow, resting one little white paw on my robes. I smiled at her and, clean and warm and very, very tired, fell instantly to sleep.

Then I’d had that horrible dream, which brought me back to current time. I’d hoped replaying everything that had happened in the past several hours would be like counting sheep and maybe help me drift back into a hopefully dreamless sleep. But it was no use. I was too freaked about Kalona and too worried about what I was supposed to do next.

My cell phone was on the bedside table and I picked it up, checking the time: 2:05 P.M. So, great, I’d gotten a whopping three hours of sleep. No wonder I felt like my eyes had sand in them. Brown pop. I needed some brown pop in the worst way.

I checked Stevie Rae again before I left the room, this time being careful not to wake her up. She was curled up on her side, snoring softly and looking about twelve years old. It was hard to imagine her ever having blood red eyes, snarling dangerously, and chomping on Aphrodite with such intensity that the two of them had Imprinted. I sighed, feeling like the entire world was pressing down on me. How was I supposed to deal with all of this, especially when the good guys sometimes seemed bad, and the bad guys were so…so…Images of Stark and Kalona passed through my mind, making me feel terribly confused and stressed out.

No, I told myself firmly, you shared a kiss with Stark as he was dying. He was a different kid before Neferet messed with him, but now she has messed with him and you have to remember that. You shared a nightmare with Kalona. Period. That’s all there was to it.

The fact that in my nightmare Kalona had insisted I was A-ya was just crazy. It wasn’t true. Sure, I’d felt drawn to him, but so had practically everyone else. Plus, I was me, and A-ya had been, well, dirt until the Ghigua women had breathed life and special gifts into her. I must look like her, weird as that is, I told myself. Or maybe he’d called me A-ya just to mess with my head. That seemed more than possible, especially if Neferet had told him stuff about me.

Nala had settled back down on the pillow beside Stevie Rae and was purring again with her eyes shut. Obviously there were no nightmare monsters lurking about because Nala would have been freaked. Glad at least of that, I gave her head and Stevie Rae’s a little pat—neither opened her eyes—and then ducked through the blanket door and into the hallway.

The tunnels were absolutely silent. I was glad that the oil lanterns were still lit; darkness and I weren’t exactly on good terms right then. I’ll also admit that, even though I kept a wary eye on the shadows between lights for bats and whatnot, it did feel reassuring to be snuggly underground and not anywhere near open, moonlit meadows or trees with ghostly shadows perched in them. I shivered. No. Don’t think about it.

On the way to the kitchen I paused by Kramisha’s doorway and peeked quietly in. I could just make out her head in the middle of her bed under mounds of purple comforter and pink pillows. The Twins were zonked out on sleeping bags with their hateful cat, Beelzebub, curled up on the floor between them.

I closed the blanket flap quietly, not wanting to wake up the Twins before it was their turn to be on watch. Actually, I should grab my brown pop and relieve Damien and Jack and let the Twins sleep. I definitely wouldn’t be doing any more sleeping for a while—like years. Okay, just kidding. Sort of.

No one was in the kitchen. The only sound was the small, homelike hum of the refrigerators. The first one I opened caused me to take a little step back in shock. The entire fridge was filled with sealed baggies full of blood. Seriously. And, of course, my mouth started to water.

I slammed the door shut.

And then reconsidered and opened it again. Resolutely, I grabbed a baggie. I’d had next to no sleep. I was under major stress. A stupid immortal fallen angel bad guy was after me and calling me some dead dirt girl’s name. Let’s face it, I needed a lot more than brown pop to get through the day.

I found the scissors in the top drawer of the butcher block island and, before I could guilt or gross myself out of it, snipped open the bag and upended it.

I know, I know. My slurping down blood like it was from a collapsible juice box sounds completely nasty, but it was delicious. It didn’t taste like blood, or at least not that coppery, salty way blood used to taste to me before I was Marked. It was delicious and electrifying, like drinking rare gourmet honey mixed with wine (if you like wine) mixed with Red Bull (but better tasting). I could feel it spreading through my body, giving me a jolt of energy that chased away the lingering terror of my nightmare.

I crumpled up the empty baggie and tossed it in the big garbage can in the corner of the room. Then I grabbed a bottle of brown pop and a bag of nacho cheese Doritos. I mean, my breath already smelled gross from the blood. Might as well have Doritos for breakfast.

Then I realized: one, I didn’t know where Damien and Jack were, and two, I really needed to call Sister Mary Angela and find out how Grandma was doing.

Yeah, I know it sounds weird that I was calling a nun. It sounds even weirder that I trusted said nun with my grandma’s life. Literally. But all the weirdness stopped the moment I met Sister Mary Angela, prioress of the Benedictine nuns of Tulsa. Besides doing nun stuff (praying and whatnot), Sister Mary Angela and the nuns from the abbey run Tulsa Street Cats, which is how I met her. I’d decided that House of Night fledglings needed to get more active in the community. I mean, the House of Night had been in Tulsa for upward of five years, but it was like we were a little island of our own. Everyone with any sense knows isolation and ignorance equal prejudice—hello, I read Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail” the beginning of my sophomore year. Anyway, what with two vampyre professors being nastily murdered, Shekinah had agreed with my idea of helping a community charity, as long as I was well protected. Which was how Darius had gotten so involved with me and my group. So, I’d chosen Street Cats, well, ’cause what with all the cats at the House of Night, it just made sense.

Sister Mary Angela and I had hit it off from the moment we met. She’s cool and spiritual, and wise and