Burned (House of Night #7)(8)

I'd foolishly left my phone in the Hummer, so I didn't speak to her until just now. Kalona killed Heath."

"Shit!" Dallas gasped.

Stevie Rae ignored him and stared at Lenobia. Rephaim's dad had killed Heath! The sick fear in her gut was getting worse and worse by the second. "Zoey's not dead. I'd know it if she was dead."

"Zoey's not dead, but she saw Kalona kill Heath. She tried to stop him and couldn't. It shattered her, Stevie Rae." Tears had started to leak down Lenobia's porcelain cheeks.

"Shattered her? What does that mean?"

"It means her body still breathes, but her soul is gone. When a High Priestess's soul is shattered, it is only a matter of time before her body fades from this world, too."

"Fades? I don't know what you're talkin' about. Are you tryin' to tell me she's going to disappear?"

"No," Lenobia said raggedly. "She's going to die."

Stevie Rae's head started to shake back and forth, back and forth. "No. No. No! We just gotta get her here. She'll be fine then."

"Even if her body returns here, Zoey isn't coming back, Stevie Rae. You have to prepare yourself for that."

"I won't!" Stevie Rae yelled. "I can't! Dallas, get me my jeans and stuff. I gotta get outta here. I gotta figure out a way to help Z. She didn't give up on me, and I'm not givin' up on her."

"This isn't about you." Dragon Lankford spoke from the open doorway to the infirmary room. His strong face was drawn and haggard with the newness of the loss of his mate, but his voice was calm and sure. "It's about the fact that Zoey faced a grief she could not bear. And I do understand something about grief. When it shatters a soul, the path to return to the body is broken, and without the infilling of spirit, our bodies die."

"No, please. This can't be right. This can't be happening," Stevie Rae told him.

"You are the first red vampyre High Priestess. You have to find the strength to accept this loss. Your people will need you," Dragon said.

"We don't know where Kalona has fled, nor do we know Neferet's role in all of this," Lenobia said.

"What we do know is that Zoey's death would be an excellent time for them to strike against us,"

Dragon added.

Zoey's death . . . The words echoed through Stevie Rae's mind, leaving behind shock and fear and despair.

"Your powers are vast. The swiftness of your recovery proves that," Lenobia said. "And we will need every power we can harness to meet the darkness I feel certain is going to descend upon us."

"Control your grief," Dragon said. "And take up Zoey's mantle."

"No one can be Zoey!" Stevie Rae cried.

"We're not asking you to be her. We're only asking you to help the rest of us fill the void she leaves,"

Lenobia said.

"I have - I have to think," Stevie Rae said. "Would y'all leave me alone for a while? I want to get dressed and think."

"Of course," Lenobia said. "We will be in the Council Chamber. Meet us there when you are ready."

She and Dragon left the room silently, grief-stricken but resolute.

"Hey, are you okay?" Dallas moved to her, reaching out to take her hand.

She only let him touch her for a moment before she squeezed his hand and withdrew. "I need my clothes."

"I found 'em there in that closet." Dallas jerked his head toward the cabinets on the opposite side of the room.

"Good, thanks," Stevie Rae said quickly. "You gotta leave so I can get dressed."

"You didn't answer my question," he said, watching her closely.

"No. I'm not okay, and I'm not gonna be as long as they keep sayin' Z's gonna die."

"But, Stevie Rae, even I've heard about what happens when a soul leaves a body - the person dies," he said, obviously trying to say the harsh words gently.

"Not this time," Stevie Rae said. "Now go on outta here so I can get dressed.

Dallas sighed. "I'll be waiting outside."

"Fine. I won't take too long."

"Take your time, girl," Dallas said softly. "I don't mind waiting."

But as soon as the door shut, Stevie Rae didn't jump up and throw on her clothes like she'd meant to.

Instead her memory was too busy flipping through her Fledgling Handbook 101 and stopping at a super-sad story about an ancient soul-shattered High Priestess. Stevie Rae couldn't remember what had caused the priestess's soul to shatter - she didn't remember much about the story, actually - except that the High Priestess had died. No matter what anyone had tried to do to save her - the High Priestess had died.

"The High Priestess died," Stevie Rae whispered. And Zoey wasn't even a real, grown High Priestess.

She was technically still a fledgling. How could she be expected to find her way back from something that had killed a grown High Priestess?

The truth was, she couldn't.

It wasn't fair! They'd all been through so much hard stuff, and now Zoey was just gonna die? Stevie Rae didn't want to believe it. She wanted to fight and scream and find a way to fix her BFF, but how could she? Z was in Italy and she was in Tulsa. And, hell! Stevie Rae couldn't figure out how to fix a bunch of pain-in-the-ass red fledglings. Who was she to think she could do anything about something as terrible as Z's soul shattering from her body?