Текст книги "Redeemed"

Автор книги: P. C. Cast

Соавторы: Kristin Cast,P. C. Cast
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Redeemed
(Book 12 in the House of Night series)
A novel by Kristin Cast and P C Cast

This book is dedicated to Matthew Shear—publisher, friend, father figure, and champion. Kristin and I often say that St. Martin’s is our family. Well, Matthew was the heart of that family. We miss him.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is with great love, respect, and affection that we acknowledge our agent, Meredith Bernstein. Without Meredith there would be no House of Night. Thank you for giving me the idea of a series set at a “vampyre finishing school.” Thank you for your integrity and business savvy. And thank you for your friendship. We love you!

St. Martin’s Press is a dream publisher. Our family there is spectacular! From the very first book we have had the support and enthusiasm of our team. Thank you to everyone who has worked so hard to make House of Night such a success, especially: Jennifer Weis, Anne Marie Talberg, Jennifer Enderlin, Sally Richardson, Steven Cohen, Jeanne-Marie Hudson, Sylvan Creekmore, Stephanie Davis, Bridget Hartzler, and a very harried production staff. Also, we appreciate so much the beauty and design of our books, covers, posters, etc. Thank you, Team SMP! We heart you!

Thank you to the House of Night fans! We have the most creative, loyal, and enthusiastic fans in the world. We love and appreciate you!

From P.C.: Thank you to my brainstorming partner, Christine, who has pulled my butt out of plotting fire more times than I can count during this series.

Thank you to my father, Dick Cast (Mighty Mouse!), who was invaluable as I was creating the biological foundation of the HoN vampyres.

Thank you to Kristin, my wonderful and talented daughter, who is the best teen-voice editor in the universe!

And thank you to my very patient life partner, Dusty. He knows why.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Afterward …

Also by P. C. and Kristin Cast

About the Authors

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

Zoey

I’ve never felt this dark.

Not even when I’d been shattered and trapped in the Otherworld and my soul had begun to fragment. Then I’d been broken and battered and well on my way to losing myself forever. I’d felt dark inside, but the people who loved me most had been bright, beautiful beacons of hope, and I’d been able to find strength in their light. I’d fought my way out of darkness.

This time I didn’t have any hope. I couldn’t find a light. I deserved to stay lost, to remain shattered. This time I didn’t deserve to be saved.

Detective Marx had taken me to the Tulsa County sheriff’s office instead of sticking me in jail with the rest of the criminals who were newly arrested. On the seemingly endless trip from the House of Night to the big brown stone sheriff’s department building on First Street he’d talked to me, explaining that he’d made a call—pulled some strings—and I was going to be put in a special holding cell until my attorney could make arrangements for my arraignment, so I could get released on bail. He’d looked back and forth from the road to my reflection in the rearview mirror. I’d met his eyes. It didn’t take more than a glance to read his expression.

He knew I had no chance for bail.

“I don’t need a lawyer,” I’d said. “And I don’t want bail.”

“Zoey, you’re not thinking straight. Give it a little time. Believe me, you’re going to need a lawyer. And if you could get out on bail, that would be the best thing for you.”

“But it wouldn’t be the best thing for Tulsa. No one is going to let a monster loose.” My voice had sounded flat and emotionless, but inside I was screaming over and over and over.

“You’re not a monster,” Marx had said.

“Did you see those two men I killed?”

He’d glanced at me in the mirror again and nodded. I could see that his lips had pressed into a line, like he was trying to keep himself from saying something. For some reason his eyes were still kind. I couldn’t meet them.

Looking out the window, I’d said, “Then you know what I am. Whether you call it monster, or killer, or rogue fledgling vampyre—it’s all the same. I deserve to be locked up. I deserve what’s going to happen to me.”

He’d quit talking to me then, and I’d been glad.

A black iron fence surrounded the sheriff’s department’s parking lot, and Marx drove to a rear entrance where he had to wait to be identified before a massive gate opened. Then he stopped and led me, handcuffed, through a back door and a big, busy room that was sectioned off with cubical dividers. When we walked in, cops were talking and phones were ringing. As soon as they saw it was Marx and me, it was like an off switch had been thrown. The talking stopped and the gawking started.

I stared straight ahead at a spot on the wall and concentrated on not letting the screaming that was going on inside me come out.

We had to walk all the way through the room. Then we went through a door that led to one of those rooms that look like the ones you see on Law & Order: SVU where awesome Mariska Hargitay interrogates the bad guys.

It had given me a jolt to realize that what I had done had made me one of the bad guys.

There was a door at the far end of the room that led to a little hallway. Marx turned left. He’d paused to swipe his ID card, and a massively thick steel door opened. On the other side of the door, the hall dead-ended in just a few feet. There was another metal door on our right, which was open. The bottom was solid, but about shoulder high bars started. Thick, black bars. That was where Detective Marx stopped. I glanced inside. The room was a tomb. I suddenly had trouble breathing, and my eyes skittered away from the horrible place to find Marx’s familiar face.

“With the power you have, I imagine you could break out of here.” He’d spoken quietly, as if he thought someone might be listening to us.

“I left the Seer Stone at the House of Night. That’s what gave me the power to kill those two men.”

“So you didn’t kill them by yourself?”

“I got mad and threw my anger at them. The Seer Stone just gave me a boost. Detective Marx, it was my fault. Period, the end.” I’d tried to sound tough and sure of myself, but my voice had gone all soft and shaky.

“Can you break out of here, Zoey?”

“I honestly don’t know, but I promise I’m not going to try.” I’d drawn a deep breath and let it out in a rush, telling him the absolute truth. “Because of what I did, I belong here, and no matter what happens to me, I deserve it.”

“Well, I promise you that no one can bother you here. You’ll be safe,” he’d said kindly. “I made sure of that. So whatever is going to happen to you, it won’t be because a lynch mob got to you.”

“Thank you.” My voice had broken, but I’d gotten the words out.

He took off my handcuffs.

I hadn’t been able to move.

“You have to go in the cell now.”

I’d made my feet move. When I was inside, I turned, and just before he closed the door I’d said, “I don’t want to see anyone, especially not anyone from the House of Night.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You understand what you’re saying, don’t you?” he said.

I’d nodded. “I know what happens to a fledgling who isn’t around vampyres.”

“So basically, you’re sentencing yourself.”

He hadn’t phrased it as a question, but I’d answered him anyway. “What I’m doing is taking responsibility for my actions.”

He’d hesitated, and it seemed like he had something else he wanted to say, but Marx had ended up shrugging, sighing, and saying, “Okay, then. Good luck, Zoey. I’m sorry that it has come to this.”

The door closed as if sealing a coffin.

There was no window, no outside light except for what peeked in from the hallway between the bars on the door. At the end of the cell there was a bed—a thin mattress on a slab of something hard attached to the wall. There was an aluminum toilet sticking out of the middle of a parallel wall, not far from the bed. It didn’t have any lid. The floor was black concrete. The walls were gray. The blanket on the bed was gray. Feeling like I was in a waking nightmare, I walked to the bed.

Six steps. That’s how long the cell was. Six steps.

I went to the side wall and walked across the cell. Five steps. It was five steps across.

I’d been right. If you didn’t count the distance to the ceiling, I was locked in a tomb the size of a coffin.

I sat on the bed, drew my knees up to my chest, and hugged them. My body shook and shook and shook.

I was going to die.

I couldn’t remember if Oklahoma was a death penalty state. Like I’d actually paid attention in history class while Coach Fitz played movie after movie? But that didn’t matter anyway. I had left the House of Night. Alone. With no vampyres. Even Detective Marx understood what that meant. It was only a matter of time before my body began rejecting the Change.

Like I’d hit a rewind button in my head, images of dying fledglings played against the screen of my closed eyes: Elliott, Stevie Rae, Stark, Erin …

I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter.

It happens fast. Really, really fast, I promised myself.

Then another death scene flashed through my memory. Two men—homeless, obnoxious, but alive until I’d lost control of my temper. I remembered how I’d thrown my anger at them … how they’d crashed against the stone wall beside the little grotto at Woodward Park … how they’d lay there, crumpled, broken …

But they’d been moving! I didn’t think I’d killed them! I hadn’t meant to kill them! It really had just been a terrible accident! My mind shouted.

“No!” I spoke sharply to the selfish part of me that wanted to make excuses, wanted to run away from consequences. “People convulse when they’re dying. They are dead because I killed them. It won’t make up for what I did, but I deserve to die.”

I curled up under the scratchy gray blanket and faced the wall. I ignored the dinner tray they slid through a slat in the door. I wasn’t hungry anyway, but whatever that was on that tray definitely didn’t tempt me.

And for some reason, the bad food smell reminded me of the last most awesome food smell I’d experienced—psaghetti at the House of Night, surrounded by my friends.

But I’d been too stressed out by my Aurox/Heath/Stark problem. I hadn’t appreciated the psaghetti, not really. Just like I hadn’t appreciated my friends. Or Stark. Not really.

I hadn’t stopped to consider the fact that I was lucky to have two such amazing guys love me. Instead I’d been pissed and frustrated.

I thought about Aphrodite. I remembered how I’d heard her talking to Shaylin about watching me. I remembered how I’d stormed in and shoved Shaylin with the power of my anger focused through the Seer Stone.

The memory made me cringe in shame.

Aphrodite had been absolutely right. I had needed watching. It wasn’t like she’d been able to reason with me. Hell, when she’d tried, I hadn’t been anything close to reasonable.

I cringed again as I remembered how close I’d come to throwing my anger at Aphrodite.

“Ohmygoddess! If I had, I could have killed my friend.” I spoke into my palms as I covered my face with my hands in shame.

It didn’t matter that the Seer Stone somehow, without me really asking it to, amplified my powers. I’d had plenty of warning. All those times I was annoyed and the stone got hotter and hotter. Why hadn’t I stopped and thought through what was going on? Why hadn’t I asked someone for help? I’d asked Lenobia for boyfriend advice. Boyfriend advice! I should have been asking for an anger intervention!

But I hadn’t asked for any help with anything except what my tunnel vision had been focused on: me.

I’d been a self-absorbed bitch.

I deserved to be where I was. I deserved my consequences.

The lights in the hallway went out. I had no idea what time it was. It seemed like years instead of months since I’d been a human—a normal teenager who had to go to bed too darn early on school nights.

I wished, with everything inside me, that I could call Superman and have him fly backward around the earth until time turned back to yesterday. Then I’d be home, at the House of Night, with my friends. I’d run straight into Stark’s arms and tell him how much I love and appreciate him. I’d tell him I was sorry about the Aurox/Heath mess, and that we’d figure it out—all two point five of us—but that I was going to appreciate the love that surrounded me no matter what. Then I’d yank that damn Seer Stone off, find Aphrodite, and give it to her to keep it safe like she was my Frodo.

But it was too late for wishes. Turning back time is only a fantasy. Superman isn’t real.

I didn’t sleep. It was night, and night had become my day. Right now I should be at school with my friends, living my life, having what was (for me) a normal “day.” Instead I lay there, hugging myself. I should have been smarter. I should have been stronger. I should have been anything except a selfish brat.

Hours later I heard the slot in the door open again, and when I turned over I saw that someone had taken away my untouched tray. Good. Maybe the smell would go away, too.

I had to pee, but I didn’t want to. Didn’t want to use the bare toilet sticking out of the wall in the middle of the room. I stared at the corners of the walls where they met the ceiling. Cameras.

Was it legal for wardens to watch prisoners pee?

Did the regular rules even count with me? I mean, I’d never heard of a fledgling or a vampyre being put on trial in human court, or going to human prison.

I don’t have to worry about that. I’ll drown in my own blood way before I go to trial.

Weirdly enough, that thought was a comfort, and as the light in the hallway came on, I fell into a restless, dreamless sleep.

It seemed like ten seconds later when the slot in the door banged open and another aluminum tray sloshed into my cell. The noise jolted me awake, but I was still groggy, still trying to fall back to sleep—until the scent of eggs and bacon had my mouth watering. How long had it been since I’d eaten anything? Ugh, I felt terrible. Blearily, I got up and walked the six steps to the door, picking up the tray and carrying it carefully back to my rumpled bed.

The eggs were scrambled and super runny. The bacon was beef jerky hard. There was coffee, a carton of milk, and dry toast.

I would have given almost anything for one bowl of Count Chocula and a can of brown pop.

I took a bite of the eggs, and they were so salty they almost made me choke.

But instead of choking, I began to cough. Within that terrible cough I tasted something, something metallic and slick and warm and weirdly wonderful.

It was my own blood.

Fear rocketed through me, making me weak and dizzy and nauseous. It’s happening so soon? I’m not ready! I’m not ready!

Trying to clear my throat, trying to breathe, I spit out the eggs, ignored the pink tinge in the runny yellow, put the tray on the floor, and curled up on the bed, wrapping my arms around myself and waiting for more coughing and more blood—a lot more blood. My hands were shaking as I wiped fresh wetness from my lips.

I was so scared!

Don’t be, I told myself as I tried to stifle a really awful cough. You’ll see Nyx soon. And Jack. And maybe even Dragon and Anastasia.

And Mom!

Mom … I suddenly wanted my mother with a terrible, heartsick longing.

“I wish I wasn’t alone,” I whispered in a gravelly voice into the hard, flat mattress.

I heard the door open, but I didn’t roll over. I didn’t want to see the horrified expression of a stranger. I closed my eyes tight and tried to pretend I was at Grandma’s lavender farm, sleeping in my bedroom there. Tried to pretend the egg and bacon smell was her cooking, and my coughing was just a cold keeping me home from school.

And I was doing it! Oh, thank you, Nyx! Suddenly I swear I could smell the scents that always lingered around Grandma, lavender and sweetgrass. That gave me the courage to speak quickly, before my voice was drowned in blood, to whoever was there. “It’s okay. This is what happens to some fledglings. Just please go away and leave me alone.”

“Oh, Zoeybird, my precious u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya, do you not know by now that I will never let you be alone?”

CHAPTER TWO

Zoey

I thought she was part of my dying hallucination, standing there at the door of my cell, dressed in a purple linen shirt and worn jeans, with one of her many picnic baskets in the crook of her arm, but as soon as I turned to face her, she rushed to me, sitting on the edge of my bed and enveloping me in her arms and in the scent of my childhood.

“Grandma! I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!” I sobbed into her shoulder.

“Shhh, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya, I am here.” She rubbed a soft circle in the middle of my back.

My coughing had temporarily eased, so I said in a rush, “It’s selfish of me, but I’m so glad you are. I don’t want to die all by myself.”

Grandma pulled back from me enough to take my shoulders in her hands and give me a stern shake. “Zoey Redbird, you are not dying.”

Tears spilled down my cheeks. I ignored them and wiped at the corner of my mouth, holding my trembling fingers out to her so that she could see the blood.

She barely glanced at the proof I was trying to show her. Instead she opened her picnic basket and took out a red and white checked napkin and began dabbing at my tears and my nose, just like she had when I was a little girl.

“Grandma, I know you love me more than anyone in the world,” I said, trying (unsuccessfully) not to cry. “But you can’t stop my body from rejecting the Change.”

“You are correct, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya, I cannot. But they can.” She nodded to the doorway behind me.

I turned and saw Thanatos and Lenobia, Stevie Rae, Darius, and Stark—my Stark—all clustered in the doorway. Stevie Rae was bawling so hard I wondered how I hadn’t heard her.

Stark was crying, too, but silently.

“But I said not to follow me! I said I deserved to face my consequences.” I was crying as hard as Stevie Rae now.

“Then live and face them! And I’ll be right here as close to you as I can get through the whole thing!” Stark hurled the words at me.

“I can’t. I’ve already started rejecting the Change.” I sobbed.

“Child, your grandmother spoke the truth. Unless your body’s rejection of the Change was already fated, our presence will stop it,” Thanatos said.

“You’re not dying! I won’t let you!” Stark shouted through his tears, and started to come into my cell.

“Hold on there, boy! I said only one of you at a time can go into her cell.” A guy in a sheriff’s uniform stepped up from behind my group of friends and placed himself between them and my cell. “Detective Marx told me I had to allow you vampyres in the building if you showed up, but I ain’t bending the rules enough to let her have more than one visitor at a time. Her Grandma’s family. The rest of you can wait in the interrogation room.” He gave Grandma a stern look. “You have fifteen minutes.” Then he slammed the door.

“Fifteen minutes.” Grandma made a small sound of disgust. “That isn’t a proper visit. That is a hard-boiled egg. Well, then, I’ll not dillydally. Zoeybird, blow your nose and stand for me. You need a good smudging. Oh, the gentleman who searched this certainly made a mess of my basket.”

She was already rummaging around in her bottomless picnic basket, so I had to take her hands in mine to stop her and get her attention focused on what I was saying.

“Grandma, I love you. You know that, right?”

“Of course, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya. And I love you—with all my heart. That is why I must smudge you. I wish there was a bathtub in here, or even a sink, to help cleanse you even more. But the smudging will have to do. I worked all night and finally chose to smudge from this oyster shell you and I dug when we followed the Mississippi River to the Gulf the summer you turned ten. Do you remember?”

“Yes, of course, but Grandma—”

“Good. I’ve ground and mixed together sage, cedar, and lavender. Combined, they make a powerful smudge for emotional and physical cleansing.” She was pouring dried herbs from a black velvet pouch into the oyster shell. “I’ve also brought an eagle feather and my favorite piece of raw turquoise. I know they might take it from you, but let us try to hide it within your mattress. It should serve to protect you while—”

“Grandma, please stop,” I interrupted her. Meeting her eyes without flinching, I said, “I killed those two men. I don’t deserve to be cleansed or protected. I deserve what was happening to me before you all showed up.”

I hadn’t meant to sound cold, but my words made her flinch, so I softened my voice, but not my resolve. “The vampyres may have made it so that I won’t drown in my own blood, but that doesn’t change the fact that I did a terrible thing—a thing that I have to be punished for.”

She paused in the preparation of my smudging and her sharp eyes met mine. “Tell me, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya, why did you kill those two men?”

I shook my head and brushed my tangled hair from my face. “I didn’t know that I killed them until Detective Marx came to the House of Night. All I knew was that they’d made me mad—they were hanging around Woodward Park looking for people, mostly girls, to scare into giving them money.” I paused and shook my head again. “But that doesn’t make what I did okay. Once they realized what I was, they were going to leave me alone.”

“And move on to find another victim.”

“Probably, but not one to kill. They were panhandlers not serial killers.”

“So tell me what happened. How did you kill them?”

“I threw my anger at them. Just like I’d shoved Shaylin earlier and knocked her on her butt. Only I was even madder in the park. Somehow the Seer Stone amplified my feelings and gave me the power to attack all of them.”

“But you did not kill Shaylin,” Grandma said logically. “I saw the child at the House of Night just before I came here. She looked very much alive to me.”

“No, I didn’t kill her. Not that time. Who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t taken off and found my way to the park—and vented my anger on those two men? Grandma, I was out of control. I was a monster.”

“Zoey, you did a monstrous thing. But that does not make you a monster. You turned yourself in. You gave up the Seer Stone. You allowed yourself to be imprisoned. Those are not the actions of a monster.”

“But Grandma, I killed two men!” I felt tears well in my eyes again.

“And now you will have to face the consequences of your actions. But that does not mean you may give up and cause the people who love you even more pain.”

I bit my lip. “My whole point was to take responsibility by myself so that I didn’t hurt anyone else, especially not the people I love.”

“Zoeybird, I do not know why this terrible thing has happened. I do not believe you are a killer.” She held up her hand to quiet me when I tried to speak. “Yes, I am aware the two men are dead, and that you appear to be responsible for their deaths. And yet even you admit the Seer Stone played a major role in the accident, which means Old Magick is at work.”

“Yes, I have been using it,” I said sternly.

“Or it has been using you,” she countered with.

“Either way, the results are the same.”

“For the two men. Not necessarily for you, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya. Now, stand before me. You need your mind cleared and your spirit cleansed so that you can analyze exactly what has brought you to this cell. You see, I am not here to help you hide from what you have done. I am here so that you may truly face it.”

As always, Grandma was the voice of reason and of unconditional love. I stood and allowed myself the brief, small comfort of watching her cradle the oyster shell in one hand while with the other she placed a tiny round piece of charcoal on top of the herbal mixture and lit it. As it sparked, she said, “Three deep breaths, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya. And with each, release the toxic energy that clouds your mind and darkens your spirit. Envision it, Zoeybird. What color is it?”

“A sick green,” I said, thinking of the disgusting stuff that had come out of my nose last time I’d had a sinus infection.

“Excellent. Breathe out and envision ridding yourself of it along with your breath.”

The charcoal had stopped sparkling and was beginning to gray around the edges. Grandma reached into the black velvet pouch and began sprinkling the herbs over the coal, saying, “I thank you, spirit of white sage, for your strength, your purity, your power.” Sweet smoke began to lift from the oyster shell. “I thank you, spirit of cedar, for your divine nature, for your ability to create a bridge between earth and Otherworld.”

More smoke lifted and I breathed deeply in and out, in and out.

“And, as always, I thank you, spirit of lavender, for your soothing nature, for your ability to allow us to release our anger and to embrace calm.” Then Grandma began walking a clockwise circle around me, shuffling her feet in an ancient, heartbeat rhythm that seemed to electrify the fragrant smoke and pulse it into my body as she wafted it around me with her eagle feather. Not missing a beat in her dance, Grandma’s voice paired with her movements, echoing through her blood to mine. “Out with what is toxic—green and bile-like. In with sweet smoke—silver and pure.”

I concentrated as she moved around me, falling into the ritual as easily as I had throughout my childhood.

“Draw in healing. Draw in cleansing. Draw in calming. Green bile, gone it will be. Replaced by silver and clarity,” Grandma sang to me.

I lifted my hands, guiding the smoke around my head, concentrating on the silver cleansing.

“O-s-da,” Grandma said, then repeated in English, “Good. You are regaining your center.”

I’d been lulled into a sleepy, trance-like state by the smoke and Grandma’s song. I blinked, as if surfacing from a deep dive, and my eyes widened with surprise. Clearly visible through the smoke was a bright silver light that, bubble-like, surrounded Grandma and me.

“That is what you are projecting now, Zoeybird. It has taken the place of the Darkness that was within you.”

I drew another deep breath, feeling an amazing lightness in my chest. Gone was the terrible tightness that had been there when I’d begun coughing. Gone was the awful sense of despair that had been with me for—

For how long? I wondered. Now that it was gone, I realized how smothering it had been.

Grandma had halted in front of me. She placed the still-smoking oyster shell between us at our feet, and then she took my hands in hers.

“I do not know everything. I do not have the answers you seek. I cannot do more than cleanse and heal your mind and spirit. I cannot take you from this place or change the past that has brought you here. I can only love you and remind you of this one, small rule that I have tried to live my life by: I cannot control others. I can only control myself and my reactions to others. And when all else fails, I choose kindness. I show compassion. Then, if I have made poor choices, I have at least not damaged my spirit.”

“I failed in doing that, Grandma.”

“Failed—that is past tense, and you should leave that failure in the past where it belongs. Learn from your mistakes and move on. Do not fail again, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya. That means if you must stand trial and go to prison for this terrible thing that has happened, then you do so speaking with truth and acting with compassion—as would a High Priestess of your Goddess.”

“I shouldn’t push away the people who love me.” I hadn’t phrased it as a question, but Grandma answered me nevertheless.

“Pushing those away who love you and have your best interest at heart would be the action of a child, and not that of a High Priestess.”

“Grandma, do you think Nyx still wants me to be her High Priestess?”

Grandma smiled. “I do, but what I think is not important. What do you believe of your Goddess, Zoey? Is she so fickle that she would love and then discard you so easily?”

“It isn’t Nyx I question. It’s myself,” I admitted.

“Then you must look to yourself. Hold tightly to your center.” She retrieved the raw turquoise stone she’d taken from the picnic basket earlier and folded it into my hand. “You have used the Seer Stone to focus your powers, whether willingly or not. Now I think you must find a focus within you, just as turquoise has its own protective power, you must find your own power—within yourself. This time do not look to anger, Zoeybird. Look to compassion and love.”

“Always love,” I finished for her, taking her stone in my hand and feeling its smoothness.

“Hold as tightly to your true self as you do this stone, and remember that I will always believe you are stronger, wiser, and kinder than you know you are.”

I put my arms around her and hugged her tightly. “I love you, Grandma. I always will.”

“As I will always love you.”

“Time’s up!” The guard’s voice made me reluctantly let go of Grandma. “Hey, what’s going on in here? What’s that you’re burning?”

Grandma turned to him, smiled, and in her sweetest voice said, “Nothing you need worry about, dear. Just a little cleansing and clearing. Do you like chocolate chip cookies? I have a secret ingredient that makes mine irresistible, and I just happen to have a dozen tucked into my basket.” Patting him on the arm she herded him from the doorway, lifting a paper plate full of cookies from her magical basket and winking at me over her shoulder. “Now, dear, why don’t we get you some coffee to go with these while you send that nice young vampyre named Stark in to visit with my granddaughter?”

Stark!

I sat on my bed, nervously straightening my clothes and trying to comb my fingers through my super-crazy hair. And then he was in the doorway, and I forgot about the way I looked. I forgot about everything except how glad I was to see him.

“Can I come in?” he asked hesitantly.

I nodded.

It didn’t take any time at all for him to walk those six steps to me. I couldn’t wait another second, though. As soon as he got within grabbing range, I threw my arms around him and buried my face in his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry! Don’t hate me—please don’t hate me!”