Текст книги "Stalked by Death"

Автор книги: Kelly Hashway

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Chapter 3

I went for the door and opened it, not wanting to see how much this corpse was willing to destroy to get into my bedroom. His body probably would’ve crumbled to pieces before he got in, and I had no clue how to get dead guy out of the carpet. I swung the door open and faced the guy Leticia had raised in the cemetery. Normally, a corpse honed in on the person who had summoned them. It was a revenge thing, a desire to rip apart the one who pulled them out of wherever they were. But this guy was staring right at me.

Leticia whimpered on my bed. “What do we do?”

“We have to release him.”

“I thought you already did that. Did you leave him in the cemetery or something?”

“No. I released him, but when I went back to bury his body, he was gone.”

“Yeah, well, you found him. Now get rid of him.”

I knew I could easily send him back to Hell—I was quickly becoming convinced that’s where he’d come from—but I glanced back at Leticia. “You want to give it a try?”

“What? No! Get rid of him.” She squeezed my pillow in front of her, like that was going to stop a zombie from ripping her heart out.

“Come on, Leticia. You summoned him. You need to release him.”

“But I didn’t summon him. You said you released his soul. Someone else must have summoned him.”

I looked at the guy. He glared at me, waiting for a command.

“What’s he doing? Why is he just standing there?” Leticia’s voice cracked.

“I think he’s waiting for orders.” This had never happened before, but he was waiting for me to tell him what to do. How was I controlling him without knowing it?

“Then you raised him?” Leticia got up from the bed and walked over to me. “What’s going on, Jodi?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t raise him. At least, I don’t remember raising him.”

“You don’t remember?” Leticia looked back and forth between the corpse and me. “That’s impossible.”

“Jodi!” Alex rushed into the doorway, stopping short of the zombie. He looked at me with wide eyes. “Whoa, is that—”

“In the living dead flesh. The question is, how did he get here?”

“We know how.” Leticia was looking at me like she wanted to scream in my face. So much for our heart-to-heart. “You told me you would never raise a zombie again, but here’s one now. Did you plan this?”

“Leticia, no!” How could she even think that?

“Leticia, go to your room and calm down. Jodi and I will figure this out.” Alex stepped aside so she could leave.

“Wait.” I reached for Leticia, but she sidestepped me. “I swear I didn’t do this. You have to believe me. Everything I told you tonight was the truth.”

She paused, considering what I said. I silently pleaded with her to believe me. To stay and hear me out. I had to get her to listen. To stop running away from me.

Without warning, the corpse reached out and grabbed Leticia. She shrieked as he locked his arms around her. Alex tried to pull Leticia from the guy’s grasp, but all he succeeded in doing was breaking chunks of flesh from the corpse’s arm.

“Stop!” I yelled. “Let her go! Now!” The guy let go of Leticia, and she ran for her room without looking back.

Alex stared at me, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. This guy thought I was the one who’d raised him. Was that possible? I had to know. The thing about zombies was, they didn’t talk until you told them to. They were pretty much mindless beings unless an Ophi commanded them. They followed directions, and if there were no directions to follow, well, they’d try to eat the thing nearest to them.

I took a deep breath and looked the zombie in the eyes. His pupils were a pale blue color and one eyeball oozed a greenish liquid. I swallowed hard, trying to keep my dinner from resurfacing. “Tell me who raised you after I released your soul.”

He pointed a bruised finger at me. “You.” His voice was scratchy, like—well, like someone who’d been dead for a while.

“This can’t be happening. I didn’t raise you. I didn’t raise anyone.” My body was shaking, and I felt the blood in my veins mixing.

“Jodi, calm down.” Alex put his arm around my shoulder, but he practically jumped back the second he made contact with me. “You’re burning up.”

“I’ll be fine. I just have to relax, but that’s hard to do when I have no idea what’s going on.” I turned to Alex, looking for help. “I didn’t summon anyone.”

Alex wrinkled his forehead. “Maybe you did it when you blacked out earlier. Can you raise souls when you’re only semi-conscious?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.” Nothing was making sense. All I knew was I had to get this zombie back in the ground. I faced him. “I release your soul. Go back to wherever you were before…” I stumbled on the words, “before I raised you.”

The corpse shuddered as his soul left, and the body fell limp to the floor.

Alex reached for the guy’s arms. “I’ll get him out of here.”

“I’ll help. If what he said was true, and I brought him here, then I should be the one to put him back in the ground.”

Alex let go of the body and took my hands. “Jodi, you have to stop taking on all the responsibilities yourself. Look what it’s doing to you. You’re stressed out. You blacked out earlier, and now this. You’re summoning souls without knowing it. That’s dangerous.”

He didn’t need to tell me how dangerous it was. I knew. If I could raise this guy when I wasn’t aware of it, I could raise more souls, and that would send Hades straight to me.

“I’ll talk to Medusa. See if she can help me sort all this out.”

“That’s great, but you still need to let the rest of us help you more.”

“You do help me. Tony is teaching classes. Arianna is cooking and cleaning. You’re keeping me sane.” I gave him a weak smile.

“What about Leticia and Randy? You’re treating them like they can’t handle anything. All you let them do is train and go to classes.”

I didn’t think Leticia could handle much more right now. I wasn’t even sure she could handle training with me anymore. Not after what had happened today—or tonight. And Randy? His father was taken to the underworld with the others, too. He wasn’t exactly emotionally stable either.

Alex wrapped his arms around me. “Stop trying to protect them, Jodi. They’ll never learn to handle all this if you don’t give them the chance to.”

I nodded and looked up at him. “I couldn’t do any of this without you.”

“You don’t have to.” He smiled and gave me a quick kiss.

“But I do have to bury this body, and this time, he’s staying buried.”

It took an hour to dig up the grave. We didn’t bother burying the bodies too deep. With our training every day, it was easier if the corpses didn’t have to dig too far to get out of the ground after we raised them, and reburying them was easier if we didn’t have to dig six feet down. Still, it was hard work. By the time we were finished, I was sweaty and covered in dirt.

“That’s a nice look on you.” Alex playfully bumped me with his shoulder as we headed back to the mansion.

“Yeah, I’m thinking about bottling some of the stuff and selling it as an alternative to perfume. I’m sure the smell of the dead would be a big seller.”

“Sorry our night together had to be spent digging a grave. I was hoping—” He stopped. I knew what he was hoping, but I wasn’t exactly ready to have that conversation. It had only been a couple months. In his mind, that probably equated to years.

“I’m going to take a really hot shower and go to bed. Chase should be here for breakfast, and I want to have enough time to show him around a little before training starts.”

We climbed the stairs and turned left toward my bedroom. I could tell Alex was fighting the urge to make a comment about Chase. I didn’t understand how he could hate a guy he’d never even met. Was he really that jealous? That insecure? He’d always seemed so confident, even when we’d first met and I was completely freaked out by him. He knew I would end up liking him, and he’d been right.

“Goodnight.” He kissed first my lips and then my cheek. “Sleep well.”

“Night.” I watched him walk to his room before I went inside. I didn’t want things with Alex to get complicated. Everything else in my life was complicated. I wanted one thing that was perfect. Alex and I could be perfect. I knew we could.

After a hot shower that steamed up the entire bathroom and part of my room, I crawled into bed. My head sank into the pillow, and I was off in dreamland.

Only the dream felt so real. It was morning, and I was late waking up. I hurried to get ready before Chase arrived. I had to be there to greet him, to look like I had a clue what I was doing at this school. But when I got downstairs, Chase was already there, waiting for me. His olive skin and dark hair looking absolutely stunning next to the golden Medusa statue. He winked at me and reached one hand out. I took it, without saying a word. I was fixed in a sort of trance, unable to look away from his green eyes. He pulled me closer to him and leaned down, pressing his lips against mine. My blood surged through my veins until he finally pulled away.

That was when I gasped. It wasn’t Chase. It was Alex.

I sat up in bed, breathing heavily. Why had I dreamt that? My arms tingled, and I realized my blood was settling, returning to normal.

A heavy hand knocked on my door. Tony had already patched it up for me. He wasn’t exactly a carpenter, but it would do. I turned to the alarm clock on the nightstand. Breakfast was already being served. I was late. Just like in the dream. I threw the covers off. “Just a second!” It had to be Alex at the door, wondering where I was. I threw on clean clothes and ran a brush through my hair, before flinging open the door.

“Oh!” The word escaped without my control. The person knocking on the door wasn’t Alex. It was the same corpse I’d reburied last night. Was I still dreaming? “No. This isn’t happening. It can’t be real.”

“Jodi?” Alex called up the stairs. “Everything okay?”

Nothing was okay. I’d done it again. I’d raised a soul without meaning to, this time while I was asleep. Part of me wanted to hide this from Alex. He’d freak if he knew I was messing up like this, but how could I hide a zombie?

“Jodi?”

I heard Alex’s footsteps on the stairs, and I panicked. “Come in,” I told the corpse. “Hide in the bathroom, and don’t come out until I call you.” He did as I said. The second he disappeared in the bathroom, I rushed into the hallway and shut my door behind me.

“Hey, I know I’m late. I overslept. I guess I didn’t set my alarm last night. Is Chase here?”

“Whoa, slow down.” Alex blocked my path. “You look… Did something happen?”

“No.” I shook my head to avoid his eyes. “I overslept, and I wanted to be there when Chase got here. It doesn’t look good that I wasn’t there to greet him. I’m in charge. I should’ve been there.”

“Jodi, you need to take a deep breath. Chase isn’t even here yet.”

“He’s not?” I sighed. “Okay, good.”

“If you call being late your very first day ‘good.’”

“It’s good for me. He won’t know I screwed up. The last thing I need is him telling the other Ophi at Serpentarius what a flake I am.”

Alex put his arm around me, and we headed to breakfast. “Who cares what he thinks of you?”

“I care. I’m supposed to be the leader of the Ophi. No one is going to follow me if they think I can’t handle the job.”

Arianna greeted us as we walked into the dining room. “Good morning. Eggs and bacon all around today.”

“Thank you, Arianna. It smells great, as usual.”

I said good morning to everyone, even though Leticia wouldn’t look at me, and took my seat. Alex dug into his mac and cheese while I fended off questions about why Chase was late.

“I don’t know what’s holding him up, but I’m sure he’ll be here in time for training.”

He wasn’t. I was in the middle of helping Randy raise two souls at once when a flashy red sports car pulled up the driveway.

“Wow,” Leticia said. “Now, that is a hot car.”

The driver’s side door opened, and Chase stepped out.

“And that is one seriously hot Ophi.” She grabbed my arm as if she was steadying herself. Who knew all it would take was one hot guy to make Leticia forget she was mad at me?

Randy and Alex exchanged eyerolls as Leticia continued to drool. I had to pry her fingers off my arm to go greet Chase. And surprise, surprise, when I reached Chase, Alex was by my side. I gave him a quick “Be nice” look.

“Hi, Chase. I’m Jodi.” Alex cleared his throat. “And this is Alex.”

“Her boyfriend,” Alex added without missing a beat.

I turned to glare at him quickly before directing my attention back to Chase. He was even better looking than his picture. His eyes were a really deep green, almost like emeralds. And he had a scar above his left eyebrow. A small one that seemed to give his face more character—as if he needed it. His smile was slightly crooked in a way that made me keep staring at his mouth. I worried he’d get the wrong idea, like I wanted to kiss him or something. I definitely didn’t want to come off looking like a love-stuck girl. Leticia was doing a good enough job of that for the both of us.

“Did you have trouble finding the place?” I managed to get out.

Chase looked me up and down, and I swore I heard Alex give a low growl. I felt really self-conscious, so I started blabbing like an idiot.

“We thought you were coming earlier. I had a plate set for you at breakfast, but no worries. We can still get you set up in your room and have you back down here for the end of the lesson.”

Chase continued to stare at me, but now his eyes were locked on mine. I couldn’t turn away, couldn’t blink. It was exactly like my dream. I silently pleaded that he wouldn’t reach for my hand, because I knew in that instant I would take it, even with Alex standing there.

“Is there a problem?” Alex asked. “You’re staring pretty intently at my girlfriend.”

“You’re even more beautiful than I thought you’d be.” Chase ignored Alex.

My cheeks burned, and I knew I was turning red. “Um, thanks. That’s nice of you to say.”

Alex put his arm around my waist and pulled me toward him. “Jodi, why don’t I show Chase to his room so you can keep working with Randy?” Before I could answer, he leaned down and kissed me. Not a quick “I’ll-be-right-back” kind of kiss. A passionate “get-a-room” kind of kiss. I pulled back, completely embarrassed, and widened my eyes at him. “Don’t worry. We’ll be quick.” Alex squeezed my hand before nodding at Chase.

Chase smirked and grabbed a bag from his trunk. He kept his eyes on me as he followed Alex into the mansion. It was a wonder he didn’t trip up the steps. I tried to turn away, pretend I didn’t care if Chase was still watching me, but I couldn’t. It was like a car wreck. If a car wreck looked like a gorgeous guy.

Leticia was at my side again. “Since you already have Alex, can I get dibs on Chase?”

I gave a nervous laugh, but I could feel my blood bubbling in my veins. Leticia might want dibs on Chase, and I was happy with Alex, but it was obvious Chase was already eyeing me. And no matter how much I thought things between Alex and me were great, I couldn’t deny what Chase’s presence had done to me.

“Um, Jodi.” Randy sounded worried. “I didn’t do that.” I turned to see him pointing at the two graves in front of him. Pale, discolored fingers were clawing their way through the dirt.

Leticia looked at me and backed away. “Did you do that?”

That’s when I realized my blood was still boiling.

Maybe Alex had a reason to be worried after all.

Chapter 4

Randy and Leticia stared at me, looking for an explanation. I tried to come up with something—something clever to make them think I’d done it on purpose to try to teach them to always be ready, but it didn’t make sense. Ophi didn’t raise souls without knowing it. At least no Ophi other than me.

“I—”

“Hey, nice work, Randy. You did it!” Alex said, running over to join us.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were showing Chase to his room.”

“Yeah, yeah. I did. I told him to go up the steps to the right. Fourth door on the right. He’ll find it.” Alex shrugged. “Besides, I got back just in time to see Randy’s raising. That’s awesome, man.” He smacked Randy on the back.

Randy shook his head. “I didn’t do it. I was standing here, watching the girls go gaga over pretty boy, and these two started coming out of the ground.”

Alex immediately turned to me. “Did you do this?”

At least he’d missed the part about me going gaga over Chase. “I don’t know.” I lowered my head, not wanting to meet anyone’s eyes or look at the zombies crawling out of the earth.

“Jodi, this is serious.” How Alex could go from caring to stone cold serious so quickly had always been a mystery to me. “If you don’t get control of your powers, you’re going to get us all killed.”

Leticia gasped. “Do you think Hades is going to come after us?”

“That, or Jodi’s zombies are going to eat us in our sleep,” Randy said.

I rolled my eyes. “Thank you, Randy. That’s really helpful.”

Alex grabbed my arm. “He’s not wrong.”

I looked at Alex, feeling completely alone. He was supposed to be on my side, defend me, but he was attacking me like everyone else. I pushed past him and walked over to the corpses.

“Don’t bother getting up. I release your souls. Go back to where you came from.” I didn’t even wait for their souls to leave. I turned and headed for the mansion. I needed to have a talk with Medusa. She would understand. She would listen to me.

I climbed the steps and pushed through the door in a hurry. My head collided with something hard, and I fell back, landing on the floor. “Ouch!”

“You can say that again.” Chase was on the floor in front of me. “Anyone ever tell you that you have a hard head?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” I rubbed the front of my head, which felt like it was the size of a basketball.

“Here.” Chase got to his feet and extended his hand to me. I stared at his hand and then his eyes, noticing the way they sparkled with confidence. Now, it was too much like my dream.

“I’m good.” I used the doorway to help me up.

Chase lowered his hand, shoving it in his pocket. Just great. He was the new guy who didn’t know anyone, and I was making him feel unwelcome by not even taking his hand.

“Did you find your room okay? I’m sorry Alex didn’t give you a real tour. He was eager to get back to the training, I guess.”

Chase smirked. “Yeah, I’m sure that was it.”

“He’s a good guy. He just—”

“Doesn’t want to let you out of his sight.”

I was hoping Alex’s behavior wasn’t as obvious to everyone else as it was to me. Apparently I was wrong.

“Anyway, I found my room and my bag’s unpacked. I was coming back out to join you guys when I ran into you. Or should I say you ran into me?”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I needed a break.”

“And in a hurry. Something wrong?”

I felt like someone was always asking me that. “Nothing to worry about. Tell me about you. How long have you been training?”

“Mason’s been teaching me basic stuff. You know—raising, releasing, being careful around humans. Nothing major. You know how the Serpentarius Ophi feel about using their powers to raise souls.” He leaned against the Medusa statue.

“Uh, could you not do that?” I tugged him away from Medusa.

“Oh, sorry. Is it valuable?”

“More than you know, but we’ll get to that later. Did you spend a lot of time around humans?”

Chase nodded. “Yeah, I was usually in charge of helping the bands set up every Friday when they let humans into the club. Never had a problem being around humans.” He lowered his eyes. “Until three weeks ago.”

I stepped closer to him. “What happened?”

“The bass player wasn’t happy with the sound quality on his amp, so he took out a knife and tried to adjust the wire. I should’ve gotten out of there as soon as the knife came out of his pocket—that’s what I was taught to do, but I was sure I could handle it. I mean, I wasn’t the one using the knife.”

“Did he slip and get you with the blade?” My eyes flew to the scar above his eye.

“No, he didn’t slip. He started going off about this show he played and how the crowd wasn’t that into it because the sound wasn’t right. I made a comment about how maybe the sound quality wasn’t the problem. He didn’t like that very much.”

My eyes widened. “He attacked you?”

“Nah, he wasn’t tough enough to actually pick a fight with me. He yelled at me. Told me I was tone-deaf, and he was flailing his arms. The knife nicked me.” He raised his hand to his scar. “It really wasn’t bad, but instead of getting out of there, I yelled back at the guy and took a swing. Only I’d touched the wound first.”

“So, your punch was deadly.”

“You got it.” He frowned. “I didn’t mean to do it. I got careless.”

“I’m starting to think Ophi don’t belong around humans. I know my experiences with humans were awful after I came into my powers.”

“Should I pull up a chair? Are we going to compare horror stories?” He said it with a smile, and I realized he was trying to break the tension. All this talk about killing wasn’t exactly uplifting.

“You’re right. That’s enough reminiscing.” I pointed to the statue. “You want to meet Medusa?”

“I think the statue and I have already met. Remember? You told me to stop leaning on her.”

“I did. Because she’s not just a statue.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You guys don’t join hands around it and chant, do you?”

I laughed. “You know I kind of thought the same thing when I first got here. But no. We’re not a cult. We don’t worship the statue.” I tugged his arm. “Come stand here, facing her.”

He listened, but he kept looking at me like I was crazy.

“Okay, take Medusa’s right hand in yours.”

“You want me to hold hands with a statue? Really? I mean, if I’m going to hold someone’s hand, I’d rather hold yours.”

I felt my face flush. “Just do it.”

“Okay.” He took my hand in his.

“That’s not what I meant,” I said.

He squeezed my hand. “I don’t see you letting go.”

“Am I interrupting anything?” Alex asked, walking through the door behind us. His eyes immediately flew to our hands.

My entire body felt like it was on fire. I took my hand away and walked toward Alex. “I was about to introduce Chase to Medusa, but he misunderstood me when I told him to take her hand.”

“Misunderstood you? Yeah, I’m sure that’s all it was.” Alex took my hand in his, and we walked back to the statue.

“Go ahead,” Alex said. “Take Medusa’s hand.” He said Medusa’s name slowly, like Chase might get confused. “In fact, why don’t you take both her hands?”

“No!” I reached for Chase, our fingers touching.

“What?” Chase asked.

“The last person who held both Medusa’s hands at once ended up dead on the floor.” I realized I was still touching Chase. I lowered my hand and turned away.

“They died?”

“For a little while, but I was able to bring her back.”

“Wow, you brought back an Ophi? You really are something, aren’t you?”

Alex reached for my hand, clearly not liking the way Chase was looking at me.

“Only one hand at a time, okay?” I said.

“What’s this about, anyway?” Chase asked.

“You’ll see. It’s something every Ophi who comes here does. Believe me, you’ll like it.”

He smiled at me and took Medusa’s right hand in his. His eyes closed, and I knew he was feeling Medusa’s power breathing life into every inch of him. While he enjoyed the connection, I turned back to Alex.

“What were you trying to do, kill him?” I kept my voice a whisper, hoping Chase would be too involved in the connection with Medusa to hear me.

“I wouldn’t have really let him do it,” Alex said. “But the guy needs to be put in his place.”

“Yeah, well, killing him isn’t the way to do it.” I stepped closer to him. “When you do stuff like that, you make me think you’re—I don’t want you to end up like Victoria and Troy.” I’d never held it against Alex that his parents were evil Ophi who had tried to kill me. Alex wasn’t like them, but he was their son, and it made me wonder if he had that same evil buried somewhere inside him. If he did, I was determined not to let it come out. I owed him that for helping me face his parents and for saving my life.

Alex was silent, and I had no clue what was going on in his head. “You think I’m going to turn into them? Do you really have such little faith in me?”

“No. I’m worried about you. That’s all.” I wished he would look at me, but he was staring past me at Chase. I leaned forward, resting my hands against his chest. “Alex, I care about you. A lot. I don’t want to lose you.”

The coldness evaporated from his face, and he lowered his eyes to meet mine. “You won’t lose me.” He gave one last look at Chase before taking my face in his hands and kissing me.

Chase cleared his throat, making me jump. “Sorry, was I supposed to stay connected to the statue until you two were through making out?”

I spun around, but Alex didn’t let me step away from him. He put his hands down heavily on my shoulders, grounding me in my spot. If I wasn’t so embarrassed, I would’ve been annoyed by Alex’s little attempt to claim his territory.

“You can try holding her left hand now.” I pointed to the statue, trying to get Chase’s attention off me.

Chase’s eyes lingered on me for a few more seconds before he reached for Medusa’s left hand. His face twisted in a worried expression.

“It’s okay,” I said. “The blood in the left side of her body is only poisonous to humans. What you’re feeling is the power of that blood flowing through your veins. It can’t hurt you, though.”

“It feels like—”

“Snakes, I know, but trust me, you’ll get used to it.” I watched Chase give in to the sensation and become oblivious to us.

“Shall we pick up where we left off?” Alex asked.

I shrugged his hands from my shoulders and glared at him. “Don’t treat me like I’m this prize you’ve won. I saw you look at Chase before you kissed me. You knew he was watching us.”

“So? Do you have a problem with him knowing you’re my girlfriend?”

“No. I have a problem with you groping me every time Chase is near. You’re not a dog, and I’m not a tree. So, stop trying to piss around me.”

Chase started laughing, and I turned to see he was no longer connected to Medusa.

“It’s nice to see a girl who isn’t afraid to stand up for herself.”

I stared at Chase, not liking the way he was looking at me any more than I liked the way Alex was acting. I spun on my heel and headed toward the kitchen to help Arianna with lunch, and more importantly to put some distance between both guys and me.

“Jodi,” Alex called after me.

“See you at lunch.” I waved my hand, not looking at either of them, and kept walking. I turned the corner, almost smacking into Arianna.

“Jodi, what’s gotten into you?” She shook her head at me. “I’ve only known you for a couple months, but I’ve never heard you talk like that. Especially to Alex.”

She was right. I didn’t talk like that. I had no idea where it was coming from, all this anger. Before Chase came, things with Alex had been great. I’d never minded when he kissed me out of the blue. I thought it was romantic. But now…

“It feels like the only reason Alex is acting like this is because he doesn’t like the way Chase looks at me.”

“The only reason?” Arianna tsked. “Honey, that boy is in love with you. If you can’t see that, well, you need to get those pretty green eyes of yours checked.”

In love with me? No. No way. We’d been together less than three months. Alex couldn’t be in love with me.

“And Chase definitely has a crush on you. I saw the way he was looking at you. Holding your hand.”

My eyes widened. “Arianna, were you spying on me?”

“Sweetheart, please. I was dusting in the living room. It’s not like you and Chase were behind closed doors. I have eyes and ears, and they work just fine.”

“Well, since you know what’s going on, maybe you can help me. I really care about Alex. I do. But Chase is different. I’m annoyed by his cockiness, but drawn to him at the same time. It’s so much like the way I felt when I first met Alex.” I hung my head. “What should I do?”

“Okay, here’s one way to find out where your heart really is.” She brought me over to a couch in the living room, and we sat down. “Close your eyes.”

I took a deep breath and did what she said.

“Now clear your mind completely.” She paused. “Is it clear?”

Clearing my mind wasn’t easy these days. I had too much going on in there. “Not really.”

“Different question then. Whose face do you see?”

Whose face? I didn’t see a face. Wait! Yes, I did. But it wasn’t Alex or Chase. It was Matt. My ex-boyfriend, Matt. My human boyfriend I’d killed and brought back as a zombie, Matt. What did that mean? And did I really want Arianna to know I was this boy-crazed?

“Jodi? Do you see a face?”

“No,” I lied, opening my eyes.

“All right. Let’s try something else.”

I didn’t want to try anything else. I wanted to forget I was a complete headcase right now.

“Hades is coming.”

“What? Where?” I whipped my head around.

“Relax.” Arianna grabbed my arm, gently rubbing it. “It’s another method of figuring out what’s really in your heart. Pretend Hades is coming. He’s determined to take one of the boys. Either Alex or Chase. You can’t bargain with him. You can’t get out of making a decision. Who do you save?”

“Alex,” I said, without hesitation. “I’ve known him longer. I don’t really know anything about Chase.”

Arianna cocked her head to the side. “Is that the only reason you’re choosing Alex?”

“No. I really like Alex.”

“So, you don’t like Chase?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t gotten to know him yet.”

“But you want to get to know him?”

“Yes.”

“Even if it hurts Alex?”

“I don’t know.” All this was doing was confusing me more. I felt like I should be lying on a couch in the middle of a therapy session while a shrink analyzed all my thoughts.

“So, if you could get to know Chase without hurting Alex, you would?”

“Yes.”

“And what if getting to know Chase means losing Alex?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Alex asked.

I spun around on the couch to see the twisted expression on his face. “No, that’s not what I meant.” I reached out to him, but he was already taking off upstairs.