Betrayed (House of Night #2)(65)

"I thought I had a dream last night, a nightmare actually. To day I think it was a vision." Aphrodite's lips turned up only slightly. "Well, that sucks for you. I changed the subject. "What's going on with Neferet?" Aphrodite's face went carefully blank. "What do you mean?"

"I think you know exactly what I mean. Something's off about her. I want to know what."

"You're her fledgling. Her favorite. Her new golden girl. Do you think I'm actually going to say shit to you? I may be blond, but I'm definitely not stupid."

"If that's the way you really feel, why did you warn me against taking the medicine she gave me?" Aphrodite looked away. "My first roommate died six months after she got here. I took the medicine. It--it affected me. For a long time."

"What do you mean? How did it affect you?"

"It made me feel funny, detached. And it stopped my visions. Not permanently, just for a couple of weeks. And then it was hard for me to even remember what she looked like." Aphrodite paused. "Venus. Her name was Venus Davis." Her eyes met mine again. "She was the reason I chose Aphrodite as my new name. We were best friends and we thought it was cool." Her eyes were filled with sadness. "I've made myself remember Venus, and I fig ured you'd want to remember Stevie Rae."

"I do. I will. Thanks."

"You should go. It won't be good for either of us if anyone knows you've been here talking to me," Aphrodite said. I realized that she was probably right, and turned for the door. Her voice stopped me. "She makes you think she's good, but she's not. Everything that's light isn't good, and everything that's darkness isn't always bad." Darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not al ways bring good. The words that Nyx had said to me the day I was Marked were mirrored in Aphrodite's warning. "In other words, be careful around Neferet and don't trust her," I said. "Yeah, but I never said that."

"Said what? We're not even having this conversation." I shut the door behind me and hurried to my room where I washed my face and brushed my teeth, pulled on some shoes, and then re turned to the living room. "Ready?" Erik asked. "We'll come, too," Damien said, motioning to include the Twins, Jack, and Drew. I started to tell them no, but I couldn't make the word come out. The truth was that I was glad they were here, glad they obvi ously felt the need to join forces around me and protect me. I'd worried for a really long time that my extra powers and my weird Goddess-chosen Mark would brand me such a freak that I wouldn't fit in, wouldn't have any friends. But the opposite seemed to be happening. "Okay, let's go." We headed for the door. I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to say to Neferet. All I knew was that I couldn't continue to keep my mouth shut, and that I had a terrible feeling my "dream" had really been a vision, and that there was more to the "spirits" I'd been seeing than ghosts. Most of all, I was afraid they'd taken Heath. What that said about what Stevie Rae had be come chilled me to my core, but it didn't change the fact that Heath was missing, and that I think I knew who had taken him (if not what). We hadn't quite made it to the door when it opened and Nef eret glided into the room on a tide of snow-scented air. She was followed by Detective Marx and Detective Martin. They had blue down jackets on that were zipped to their chins. Their hats were covered with snow and their noses were red. Neferet, as usual, looked perfectly poised, perfectly groomed, perfectly in control. "Ah, Zoey, good. This saves me from having to look for you. The two detectives have some rather bad news, and they'd also like to speak with you for a moment." I didn't spare a glance for Neferet, and I could feel her stiffen ing as I responded directly to the detectives. "I already heard on the news that Heath's missing. If there's any way I can help, I will."

"Could we use the library again?" Detective Marx asked. "Of course," Neferet said smoothly. I started to follow Neferet and the detectives from the room, but paused to look back at Erik. "We'll be here," he said. "All of us," Damien said. I nodded. Feeling better, I went to the library. I'd hardly entered the room when Detective Martin started questioning me. "Zoey, can you account for your whereabouts between six thirty and eight thirty this morning?" I nodded. "I was upstairs in my room. Around that time I was talking on the phone to my grandma, and then Heath and I text messaged each other back and forth a few times." I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out my cell phone. "I haven't even deleted the messages. You can see them if you want."

"You don't have to give him your phone, Zoey," Neferet said. I made myself smile at her. "That's okay. I don't mind." Detective Martin took my phone and started going through the text message files, copying onto a little pad the messages. "Did you see Heath this morning?" Detective Marx asked. "No. He asked if he could come see me, but I told him no."

"This says that you were planning on seeing him Friday," Detective Martin said. I could feel Neferet's sharp eyes on me. I drew a deep breath. The only way I could do this would be to stick as close to the truth as I was able. "Yeah, I was going to go out with him after the game Friday."

"Zoey, you know it is strictly against school rules to continue to date humans from your old life." I noticed, as if for the first time, the disgust that filled her voice when she said humans. "I know. I'm sorry." Again, I told the truth, only omitting a bloodsucking, Imprinting detail here and an I-don't-trust-you-anymore detail there. "It's just that Heath and I had so much his tory between us that it was really hard to totally stop talking to him, even though I knew I had to. I thought it would be easier if we met and I told him to his face, once and for all, why we couldn't see each other. I would have told you, but I wanted to handle it on my own."