Destined

off when she finally saw Shaylin’s Mark.

“Yeah,” I said, unable to keep my mouth shut any longer. “She’s red. Which means she is in the right place.”

“And I’m her High Priestess. Not you,” Stevie Rae finished for me.

“Oh! You’re … oh, I don’t feel well!” Shaylin was staring at Neferet when she suddenly collapsed. Erik caught her before she conked her head on the ground, managing to look scared and hero-like at the same time. (Seriously, he’s an excellent actor.)

“She’s been through a lot,” Aphrodite said, stepping up to stand toe to toe with Neferet. “She needs to go home. To the depot. With us. Now.”

I held my breath as Neferet’s eyes narrowed and her gaze flicked around at each kid in our group. All vampyres are intuitive, but Neferet is more than that. She can read minds. Well, most fledglings’ minds—or at least the surface of their thoughts. I sent a quick, silent prayer up to the Goddess: Please let each of them think about everything and anything except the fact that this new kid may have True Sight—whatever that is.

Suddenly Neferet’s suspicious expression changed. She laughed. She actually laughed. I had no idea how it was possible, but her laugh sounded horrible and mean and sarcastic. How could laughter be so awful?

“She was blind. That’s why she’s been Marked red. She’s broken. She just didn’t have to die to get that way. Well, at least not yet she hasn’t died.”

Kramisha was standing beside me, so I saw her little jerk of fear. So did Neferet. The pretend High Priestess smiled at our Poet Laureate. “What is it? Did you actually believe that red outline guaranteed you the Change?” She cocked her head to the side, reminding me of a reptile. “Yes, I can sense your shock and fear. You hadn’t thought of that. Your body can still reject the Change.”

“You don’t know that for sure.” Stevie Rae stepped closer to Kramisha.

“Don’t I?” Again, Neferet’s laugh was mean and awful. She jerked her chin at Shaylin, who was still passed out in Erik’s arms. “That one feels odd to me.” She shifted her gaze to Aphrodite. I saw Aphrodite put her fists on her waist, as if bracing herself for a physical blow. “A little like you feel, and you’re not even a fledgling anymore.”

“No, I’m not. But I am happy with what I am. How about you, Neferet?”

Instead of an answer, Neferet said, “Take the new fledgling with you. You’re right about one thing, Aphrodite. Her home is with you and the rest of the misfits, not here. What in the name of all the gods will Nyx come up with next?”

And then, laughing, she turned her back dismissively on us and slithered away.

When she was out of hearing range I let out a long breath. “Good job, all of you, in not thinking about the True Sight thing.”

“She scares me,” Kramisha said in a voice that sounded very, very young.

Stevie Rae put her arm around Kramisha. “It’s okay to be scared of her. That’ll just make us fight harder against her.”

“Or run faster,” Erik said grimly.

“Some of us aren’t running away,” Stevie Rae said.

“Are you sure?” Shaylin said.

“Hey, are you back with us?” Erik asked.

“Actually, I never went anywhere. Um. You can put me down now. Please.”

“Oh, right. Yeah.” Erik gently put her down. He kept a hand on her arm, as if to be sure she wasn’t going to wobble and fall, but she stood there looking pretty darn steady.

“So, you faked a faint. Why?” Aphrodite asked the question before I could.

“Well, it wasn’t hard.” Shaylin looked at Kramisha. “I agree with you. She scares me.” Then she continued. “I acted like I passed out because it was either that or run screaming away from her.” She shared a look with Erik. “Yeah, I agree with you, too.” Then she shrugged a shoulder. “But she said she’s a High Priestess. I don’t know much about vampyres, but everyone knows High Priestesses are in charge. Running screaming away from one my first day as a fledgling didn’t seem like a good option.”

“So you figured you’d play opossum,” Stevie Rae said.

“Play what?”

“That’s a bumpkin way of saying that you pretended to be out of it so Neferet would leave you alone,” Aphrodite said.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I did,” Shaylin said.

“Not a bad plan,” Stark said. “Meeting Neferet and being Marked all in one day sucks for you.”

“What did you see?” My question seemed to take everyone except Shaylin by surprise. She met my gaze and held it steadily as she answered me. “Right before I went blind I was at Nam Hi, that big Vietnamese grocery store on Twenty-first and Garnett, with my mom. They had whole fish for sale in a giant bin of ice. They scared me so bad I remember all I could do was stand there and stare at their milky, dead eyes and their horrible slit open bellies.”

“Neferet’s dead fish belly color?” Stevie Rae asked.

“No. Neferet’s color is the same color as dead fish eyes. That’s her only color.”

“That can’t be good,” Kramisha said.

“What can’t be good?” Darius asked as he joined our group, taking Aphrodite’s hand. She leaned into him and said, “Darius, stud Warrior, meet Shaylin, newly Marked red fledgling who didn’t die to be red and who has True Sight. She just ‘saw’”—Aphrodite air quoted—“Neferet and apparently her true color is like dead fish eyes.”

Darius didn’t miss a beat. He just gave the new kid a little bow and said, “Merry meet, Shaylin,” which either showed the Warrior had impressive control or was just more proof that our lives had become totally bat-poop crazy.

“We need to learn more about True Sight,” Damien said. “It’s sixth former and beyond level information. Do you know anything about it?” he asked Darius.

“Not a lot. I focused mostly on knives, not vampyre sociology,” Darius said.

“Well, I have the stupid advanced handbook,” Aphrodite said. When we gave her a group gawk she frowned. “What? I was a sixth former before this happened.” She pointed at her unMarked forehead. “Sadly, I had to rejoin my old schedule today.” When we all kept staring without speaking she rolled her eyes. “Oh, for shit’s sake, I have homework, that’s all. The book’s in my extremely attractive Anahata Joy Katkin bag in the retard bus.”

“Aphrodite, stop sayin’ retard!” Stevie Rae shouted at her. “I swear you need to check out www.r-word.com. Maybe you’d learn that some people get their feelin’s hurt by the r-word.”

Aphrodite blinked several times and then scrunched her forehead. “A Web site? Seriously.”

“Yes, Aphrodite. Like I have tried to tell you a bazillion times, using the r-word is demeaning and just plain mean.”

Aphrodite sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a rant: “What about having a site for the c-word—as in cunt, which demeans half of the world? Or, wait, no. Let’s keep it the r-word site only make the r-word rape, which does more than just hurt upper middle class mommies’ feelings. Or—”

“Seriously.” I stepped between them. “We get it. Can we go back to Shaylin and the True Sight issue?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Aphrodite said, flipping back her hair.

“Aphrodite’s mean, Z, but she makes a good point,” Erin said.

I glared at Shaunee who only nodded enthusiastically, but didn’t chime in. My head felt like it was going to explode. “Ah, hell,” I said, throwing up my hands in frustration. “I can’t remember what we were saying before the retard part.”

“Information about True Sight is on the bus,” Rephaim said, surprising all of us. He smiled shyly. “I didn’t really understand much of the rest of the conversation. I also got that Aphrodite is mean, but I already knew that.”

Beside me Stark turned a bark of laughter into a cough.

I sighed.

“Okay, let’s get on the bus and get back to the depot. Aphrodite and Damien, meet me in the kitchen with the advanced handbook.” I paused and glanced at Stevie Rae, who was still holding Rephaim’s hand. “You wanna