Burned

guiltily around her. Thankfully, there was no one nearby. Still, she kept her big mouth clamped shut as her mind continued to race.

Okay, Rephaim was healed and all. So? Had she really thought he’d be broken forever?

No! I don’t want him to be broken! The thought came quick and honest. But it wasn’t just that he was well. It was that Darkness had healed him—had made him look . . .

Stevie Rae’s thoughts trailed off because she didn’t want to go there. She didn’t want to admit, even silently to herself, how Rephaim had looked to her standing there, framed by the moonlight, powerful and whole.

Nervously, she twirled a blond curl. And anyway, they were Imprinted. He was supposed to look a certain way to her.

But Aphrodite hadn’t affected her like Rephaim had started to.

“Well, I’m not gay!” she muttered, and then shut her mouth again because the thought had crept through even though she hadn’t wanted it to.

Stevie Rae had liked the way Rephaim looked. He’d been strong and beautiful and, just for a moment, she’d glimpsed beauty inside the beast, and he hadn’t been a monster. He’d been magnificent, and he’d been hers.

She staggered to a halt. It was because of that dang black bull! It had to be. Before he’d totally materialized, he’d asked Stevie Rae: I can chase away Darkness, but if I do so, you will owe a debt to Light, and that debt is that you will be forever tied to the humanity inside that creature over there—the one you called me to save. She’d answered with no hesitation: Yes! I’ll pay your price. So the dang bull had zapped her with some kind of Light bullshit, and that had done something to her insides.

But was that really the truth? Stevie Rae twirled a curl around and around while she thought back. No—it had changed between her and Rephaim before the black bull showed up. It had happened when Rephaim had faced Darkness for her and taken on the pain of her debt.

Rephaim had said she belonged to him.

Today she’d realized he was right, and that scared her worse than Darkness itself.

Stevie Rae

“Okay, so, we all here?”

Heads nodded and from beside her, Dallas said, “Yep, everyone’s here.”

“Them bad kids killed those folks at the Tribune Lofts, didn’t they?” Kramisha said.

“Yeah,” Stevie Rae said. “I think so.”

“That’s bad,” Kramisha said. “Real bad.”

“You can’t let ’em kill people like that,” Dallas said. “They’re not even street people.”

Stevie Rae blew out a long breath. “Dallas, how many times do I have to tell y’all that it doesn’t matter if someone’s a street person or not—it’s not right to kill anyone.”

“Sorry,” Dallas said. “I know you’re right, but sometimes before gets messed up inside my head, and I kinda forget.”

Before . . . the word seemed to echo around them. Stevie Rae knew exactly what Dallas meant: before her humanity had been saved by Aphrodite’s sacrifice, and they had the ability to choose good over evil. She remembered before, too, but as she got another day farther away from that dark past, it was easier and easier for Stevie Rae to put it out of her mind. As she studied Dallas, she wondered if it was different for him—for the rest of the kids who hadn’t Changed yet, because Dallas did seem to make little slips like he just had kinda often.

“Stevie Rae? You okay?” Dallas asked, obviously uncomfortable with her scrutiny.

“Yeah, fine. Just thinkin’. So, here’s what’s up: I’m goin’ back down to the tunnels under the depot, our tunnels, and I’m givin’ those kids one more chance to decide to act right. If they do, they stay and start back at school with us on Monday. If they don’t, they’re gonna have to find their own way, in their own place, ’cause we’re takin’ the tunnels back, and they’re not welcome anymore.”

Kramisha grinned. “We’re goin’ back to live in the tunnels!”

“Yep,” Stevie Rae said, and she knew from the cheers and relieved shouts of “finally” she heard from the kids that she’d made the right decision. “I haven’t talked to Lenobia about it yet, but I can’t think that there’s gonna be any problem with us busing back and forth from the depot to the House of Night. We need to be underground, and even though I really like this school, it doesn’t feel like home anymore. The tunnels do.”

“I’m with ya, girl,” Dallas said. “But we need to get somethin’ straight right now. You’re not gonna face those kids alone again. I’m comin’ with you.”

“Me, too,” Kramisha said. “I don’t care what kind of big story you gave everbody else, I knew them bad kids was behind you almost gettin’ fried up on the roof.”

“Yeah, we’ve all talked about it,” muscle-y Johnny B said. “We’re not letting our High Priestess face that shit alone again.”

“No matter how earth-will-kick-your-ass powerful she is,” Dallas said.

“I’m not goin’ alone. That’s why I called y’all here. We’re gonna take our tunnels back, and if ass needs to be kicked, we’re gonna do it,” Stevie Rae said. “So, Johnny B, I want you to drive the Hummer.” She tossed him the keys. The big guy grinned at her and snatched them out of the air. “Take Ant, Shannoncompton, Montoya, Elliott, Sophie, Geraty, and Venus with you. I’ll take Dallas and Kramisha in Z’s Bug. Follow me—we’re goin’ to the lower parking lot of the depot.”

“Sounds good, but how’re we gonna be sure we can find those red kids? You know those tunnels are like, well, an anthill down there,” said the little kid nicknamed Ant, and everyone chuckled.

“I been thinkin’ ’bout that, too,” Kramisha spoke up. “And I have an idea, if you don’t mind me sayin’ somethin’.”

“Hey, that’s one of the reasons I called y’all together, ’cause I need everybody’s help with this,” Stevie Rae said.

“Yeah, well, this is my idea: Those kids tried to kill you once already, right?”

Figuring there was no hiding from her fledglings, Stevie Rae nodded. “Right.”

“So I figured if they tried but didn’t get rid of you once, they’d want to give it another shot, right?”

“Probably.”

“What would they do if they thought you was down in the tunnels again?”

“They’d come get me,” Stevie Rae said.

“Then use the earth to let them know you’s there again. You can do that, right?”

Stevie Rae blinked in surprise. “I never thought about it before, but I bet I can.”

“That’s genius, Kramisha!” Dallas said.

“Totally!” Stevie Rae said. “So, hang on and let me try some-thin’.” She hurried from the parking lot to the side of the school that adjoined it. There were a couple of old oaks there, a wrought-iron bench, and a tinkling fountain surrounded by what was now an ice-encapsulated bed of yellow and purple pansies. While her fledglings watched, she faced north and knelt on the ground in front of the biggest of the two trees. She bowed her head and concentrated. “Come to me, earth,” she whispered. Instantly, the ground around her knees warmed, and she smelled the scent of wildflowers and long, waving grass. Stevie Rae pressed her hands against