Chosen (House of Night #3)(30)

"I-I didn't mean to run over you."

"No problem," I said. I hated it when kids got all nervous and scared around me like they think I might turn them into something vile. Please. It's the House of Night, not Hogwarts. (Yes, I read the Potter books and love the movies. Yes, that's more proof of my geekness.)

"You haven't seen Professor Nolan, have you?"

"Nope. I didn't even know she was back from break," I said.

"Yeah, she got back yesterday. We had an appointment to meet about thirty minutes ago." He grinned and blushed bright pink. "I really want to make the finals of the Shakespeare monologue contest next year, so I asked her to tutor me."

"Oh, that's nice." Poor kid. He'd never final in the kick-ass Shakespeare contest if his voice didn't stop cracking.

"If you see Professor Nolan would you tell her I'm looking for her?"

"Will do," I said. Ian hurried off. I clutched my bag and headed straight for the parking lot and then on to Wal-Mart.

Buying the GoPhone (and some soap, a toothbrush, and a Kenny Chesney CD) was easy. What hadn't been easy was dealing with the phone call from Erik.

"Zoey? Where are you?"

"Still at school," I said. Which wasn't a literal lie. By that time I was pulling off the side of the road just outside the place in the east wall where there was a secret trapdoor the led out the back side of school. I say

"secret" because tons of fledglings and probably all of the vamps knew about it. It was an unspoken school tradition that fledglings would sneak off campus for a ritual and some vaguely bad behavior now and then.

"Still at school?" he sounded annoyed. "But the movie's almost over."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Are you okay? You know you should ignore the crap Aphrodite says."

"Yeah, I know. But she didn't say stuff about you." Or at least not much stuff. "It's just that I'm majorly stressed out right now and I just need to think through some stuff."

"Stuff again." He didn't sound happy.

"I'm really sorry, Erik."

"Okay, yeah. No problem. I'll see you tomorrow or whenever. Bye." And he hung up.

"Crap," I said into the dead phone.

Aphrodite tapping on the passenger's side window made me jump and let out a little squeak. I put away the phone and leaned over to unlock the door for her.

"Bet he's pissed," she said.

"Do you have freakishly good hearing?"

"Nah, just freakishly good guessing ability. Plus I know our boy Erik. You stood him up tonight. He's pissed."

"Okay, first, he's not our boy. He's my boy. Second, I did not stand him up. Third, I'm so not talking about Erik with you, Miss Blow Job."

Instead of hissing and spitting at me like I thought she would, Aphrodite laughed. "Okay. Whatever. And don't knock something before you try it, Miss Goody-Goody."

"Okay, eew," I said. "Changing the subject. I have an idea about how to handle the Stevie Rae thing. I don't think you should hide, either. So show me how to get to your parents' place. I'll drop you off there and then go get Stevie Rae."

"Want me to be gone before you get back with her?"

I'd already thought about this. It was tempting, but the truth was that it was looking more and more like Aphrodite and I were going to have to work together on fixing Stevie Rae. So my undead best friend was just going to have to get used to having Aphrodite around. Plus, I was already having to do too much sneaking. I just couldn't deal with sneaking around the kid I was sneaking around everyone else for. If that makes any sense.

"No. Stevie Rae's gonna have to learn to deal with you." I glanced at Aphrodite as I came to a stop sign and added cheerfully, "Or maybe she'll do us all a favor and eat you."

"It's so nice that you always look on the positive side of things," Aphrodite said sarcastically. "Okay, turn right here. Then when you get to Peoria, take a left and go down a few blocks until you see that big brick sign that points to the turnoff to the Philbrook."

I did as she said. We didn't make small talk, but it didn't feel all awkward and uncomfortable between us. It was weird how easy it actually was to be around Aphrodite. I mean, not that she wasn't still a bitch, but I was kinda liking her. Or maybe this was just another sign that I needed to give some serious consideration to therapy, and I wondered abstractly if Prozac or Lexapro or some other lovely antidepressant worked on fledglings.

At the Philbrook sign I turned left and Aphrodite said, "Okay, we're almost there. It's the fifth house on the right. Don't take the first driveway, take the second one. That one goes around behind the house to the garage apartment."

We came to it and all I could do was shake my head. "This is where you live?"

"Used to live," she said.

"It's an f-ing mansion!" And I meant a cool one. It looked like something I'd imagine rich folks in Italy would live in.

"It was a f**king prison. It still is." I was going to say something semi-profound about her being free now that she'd been Marked and was a legally emancipated minor and that she could actually tell her 'rentals to get lost (kinda like I had), but her next smart-alecky comment made me forget the kinda nice thing I meant to say.