Destined

needs more stress in his life? He’s still not even sleeping well because he’s still having nightmares he refuses to tell me about but which I know about because I sleep next to him and I’m not stupid. Plus, the whole tree thing happened fast. No one was hurt. It’s over with. Period, the end.

Well, except for one little part. That part about me making the decision to look through the seer stone at Aurox. Okay, not this second I wasn’t going to. I mean, Aurox wasn’t even here. But I’d decided. The second he’d touched me I’d decided.

The second he’d touched me I wasn’t scared of him anymore.

I was still freaked, though.

I was silently arguing with myself about whether or not I should let Stark know I’d decided to peek at Aurox through the stone, and sorta half listening to Aphrodite and Stevie Rae arguing over tunnel renovation details (Aphrodite wanted lots of workmen and lots of glitz—Stevie Rae didn’t want anyone but our people to even come down to the tunnels. Sigh.) when the bus pulled up to the depot and Darius opened the door.

“I’m gonna call Andolini’s for a major delivery,” Stevie Rae said as she and Rephaim left the bus.

“For once we can agree on something,” Aphrodite said, moving over to sit on Darius’s lap while the rest of us started to shuffle off the bus. “Order me one of their Santino pizzas. It’s totally worth the calories. Plus, it goes perfectly with that bottle of Chianti I took from the cafeteria when I was cutting fifth—”

It happened just like that. Aphrodite was in the middle of talking about something as totally normal as cutting class and her whole body seized up. She got rigid. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she started to cry tears of blood. It was like she went from gorgeous, perfect girl to someone who looked barely human. Barely alive.

Darius didn’t hesitate. He picked up her stiff, bloody-eyed, unseeing body and carried her from the bus. I put aside my ohmygod internal reaction and stood up, turning to the rest of the kids who were either gawking open-mouthed, or covering their eyes looking like they wanted to cry.

“Aphrodite’s having a vision.” My voice seemed to come from someone else. Someone who was calm. Stark took my hand, lending me strength. “She’s gonna be fine,” I continued, clinging to Stark.

“Actually, she’s gonna be super pissed and mean when she comes to ’cause she really hates it when this happens to her in public,” Stevie Rae said. She’d climbed halfway up the bus stairs. I noticed her eyes were kinda extra wide, but her voice also sounded totally calm and cool.

“Yeah, Stevie Rae’s right,” I said. “So there’s no need to make a big deal out of this—now or after she comes to.” I paused and, feeling like a moron, added, “Okay, I don’t mean her visions aren’t a big deal. I just mean she won’t want to hear a bunch of ‘hey, are you okays’ from everyone.”

“I’ll go ahead and order the pizzas. Do ya think Aphrodite’ll be hungry later?” Stevie Rae asked.

I thought about the last time she’d had a vision and how awful she’d felt afterward. I wanted to say what Aphrodite would really want would be a Xanax and a bottle of wine, but thought that would probably set a bad example. So I settled for, “Uh, why don’t you get her one and put it in the fridge. We can nuke it later if she’s hungry. Right now I’ll just go check on her. She’ll want water and quiet for a while.”

“Okie dokie.” Stevie Rae smiled and, acting absolutely normal, told the rest of the bus, “I’m takin’ pizza orders from up here. Cell phone reception is crap in the tunnels. So before y’all scatter for downstairs let me know what you want, and ya better hang around so that I get it right. Speakin’ of, Kramisha, could you write down what everyone wants for me, please? That’d help.” She glanced at Shaunee, who was looking especially lost, and added, “Hey, do you think we could use your card for the order this time? Z and I’ll be sure you get paid back.”

Shaunee frowned. “Swear? Last time I totally got stuck with the bill from Queenies. Those Ultimate Egg Salad Sandwiches are awesome, but not a couple hundred dollars’ worth of awesome.”

“I swear.” Stevie Rae narrowed her eyes, skewering the rest of the bus with the stank eye. “Y’all will pay her back.”

“Yeah, okay, fine,” chorused from the back of the bus.

I could have kissed my BFF. She’d totally distracted everyone from Aphrodite’s horrendous and unattractive vision, and she’d made sure they’d be up here deciding on pizza and payback versus down in the tunnels gawking and talking about Aphrodite.

Meanwhile I pulled Stark from the bus. “We’ll take a large combo,” he said as we passed Stevie Rae.

“Pizza? Really?” I whispered to him, feeling like he’d just said, “Let them eat cake!” or whatever super inconsiderate thing that woman said to the masses when really important stuff was going on back in the day.

“I thought you wanted to act normal,” he whispered back.

I sighed. Well, he was right. So, I told Stevie Rae, “With extra cheese and olives.” Then, under my breath I added, “And thanks.”

“I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re ready to talk,” she said just as quietly, then she very loudly and very normally starting asking, “So, how many pepperonis?”

“Let’s go through the depot so we can grab some water bottles from the kitchen on the way to Aphrodite’s room,” I told Stark when he automatically headed for the basement entrance to the tunnels. He changed direction, but still I explained (probably more to hear my calm-sounding voice than anything), “She’ll be thirsty. We’ll also need to grab some washcloths. I’ll soak them in water and put them over her eyes.”

“Do they always bleed like that?”

“Yeah, ever since she lost her Mark. Last time she had a vision she told me the pain and the blood keep getting worse and worse.” I glanced at Stark. “It looked bad, didn’t it?”

“She’ll be okay. Darius is with her. He won’t let anything happen to her.” He squeezed my hand before letting me climb down ahead of him through the old ticket booth entrance to the tunnels.

“I don’t think even her Warrior can protect her against this kind of stuff.”

He smiled at me. “I figured out a way to protect you in the Otherworld. I think Darius can handle some visions and a little blood.”

I didn’t say anything else as we hurried through the kitchen, grabbing water and washcloths.

I wanted Stark to be right. I really, really wanted Stark to be right, but I had a bad feeling, and I hated it when that happened. It always meant something was going to go horribly, awfully, terribly wrong.

“Hey.” Stark took my arm and gently tugged me to a halt just outside the glitzy gold curtain that was the latest door to Aphrodite’s room. “She needs you to be okay.”

“I know, you’re right. It’s just that the visions really hurt her, and that makes me worry.”

“But they’re also a gift from Nyx, and they’re information we need, right?”

“Right again,” I said.

His grin turned cocky. “I like it when you say I’m right.”

“Don’t get too used to it. You’re a guy. You have a limited number of ‘I’m rights’”—I air quoted—“allotted to you.”

“Hey, I’ll take what I can get,” he said. Then he went back to serious face. “Just remember, you need to be her High Priestess now, and not her friend.”

I nodded, drew a deep breath, and ducked under the gold curtain.

Okay, Aphrodite’s room kept changing and getting more and more like Kim Kardashian meets Conan the Barbarian every time I went in it. This time she’d added a gold chaise lounge. No, I had no clue where she got it or how she’d gotten it down here. On the rough cement tunnel wall behind the chaise she’d hung part of Darius’s throwing knife collection as decoration. She’d also hung gold beaded tassels from each of the knife hilts. Seriously. Her bed was big. Really big. Tonight the duvet was purple velvet with gold flowers stitched into it. She had millions of fluffy pillows. And her terrible Persian cat, Maleficent, had a matching cat bed that sat beside hers. Only at this moment Maleficent wasn’t in her bed. She was curled protectively on Aphrodite’s lap. Aphrodite was propped in the middle of her millions of pillows looking scarily pale. Darius had put a folded wet paper towel over her eyes, and it was already pink. I felt a little better when I saw that she was petting Maleficent, which meant she was conscious. But my better feeling went away as I approached the bed and the horrid cat started to yowl at me.

“Who is it?” Aphrodite’s voice sounded weak and uncharacteristically frightened.

Darius touched her face. “It’s Zoey and Stark, my beauty. You know I wouldn’t allow anyone else within.”