Chosen (House of Night #3)(63)

"So she's waiting at Aphrodite's garage apartment right now?" he said. I nodded. "Yeah, she needs blood every day. The hold she has on her humanity isn't very good. If she doesn't get blood, I'm afraid she'll become like the rest of them." I shivered and his arm tightened around me.

"They're that bad?" he said.

"You can't imagine. They're not human and they're not vampyre. It's like they've turned into all the stereotypes that are most horrible about vamps and humans. They're soulless, Loren." I searched his eyes. "And too far gone to fix, but Stevie Rae's affinity for the earth has made it possible for her to keep some of her soul, even if she's not whole. I really think I can do something for Stevie Rae."

"You do?"

The thought flitted through my mind that it was kinda weird that he sounded shocked about me healing Stevie Rae but that he'd had no problem accepting the fact that undead dead kids existed.

"Well, yeah. I might be way wrong, but I believe I just need to use the powers of the elements. You know," I paused and shifted my weight, wondering if I was getting heavy, "I have that whole special connection with the five elements. I'm guessing that I just need to use it."

"It might work. But you should keep in mind that you're invoking powerful magic, and there's always a cost associated with that." He spoke slowly, like he was considering what he said carefully before he said it (unlike how I usually blurted stuff and then was sorry or embarrassed later). "Zoey, how did this terrible thing happen to Stevie Rae and the other fledglings? Who or what is responsible for it?" I started to say Neferet when Don't speak her name slammed into my gut. Okay, the words themselves didn't hit me, but I knew what was all of a sudden making me feel like I was gonna puke. And then I realized with a small start of surprise that I hadn't actually admitted everything to Loren. In my telling of the night when I'd rescued Heath from the undead-dead kids and first found Stevie Rae, I'd left out any mention of Neferet. I hadn't thought about it. I hadn't done it on purpose, but there was a whole piece of the story puzzle that I'd failed to put together for him.

Nyx. It had to be the Goddess working through my subconscious. She didn't want Loren to know anything about Neferet. Was she trying to protect him? Probably...

"Zoey, what's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing. I'm just thinking. No," I kinda stuttered, "I-I don't know how it happened, but I wish I did. I wish I could figure it out," I added hastily.

"Stevie Rae doesn't know?"

Warning bells rang in my stomach again. "She's not really communicating very well right now. Why? Have you ever heard of anything like this happening before?"

"No, nothing like this." He ran a soothing hand down my back. "I just thought if you knew how it happened, that might help you to fix it."

I looked into his eyes, wishing the sick feeling in my stomach would go away. "You can't tell anyone about this, Loren. Not anyone, not even Neferet." I tried to be all High Priestessy and firm, but my voice shook and broke.

"You don't need to worry, love! Of course I won't tell anyone." Loren held me close and stroked my back.

"But who else knows besides you and me?"

"No one." The lie was so automatic it shocked me.

"What about Aphrodite? You said you're using her garage apartment to hide Stevie Rae, right?"

"Aphrodite doesn't know. I heard her talking to some kids about her parents being gone for the rest of the winter. She was saying that they should use the garage apartment to party, but, well, everyone's pretty pissed at Aphrodite, so no one took her up on it. That's how I knew the apartment was empty, so I snuck Stevie Rae up there." I hadn't consciously meant not to tell him about Aphrodite, but it seemed my mouth had already made that decision for me. I mentally crossed my fingers, hoping that he couldn't tell I was lying.

"Okay, that's probably for the best. Zoey, you said Stevie Rae's not herself, and can't communicate very well. How do you talk to her?"

"Well, she can talk, but she's confused and ... and ..." I floundered around trying to figure out how to explain it without giving more away than I should, "and sometimes more animal-like than human," I said inanely. "I just saw her earlier tonight before Neferet's ritual"

I could feel him nod. "That's where you were coming from."

"Yeah." I decided not to mention Heath. Just thinking about him made me feel guilty. Our Imprint was gone, but instead of being relieved I was weirdly hollow.

"But how do you know she's still at Aphrodite's apartment and okay right now?" Distracted, I said, "Huh? Oh, I gave her a cell phone. I can call or text her. I just checked in with her a little while ago." I motioned to my cell phone, which had fallen out of the pocket of my dress and was lying beside it on the floor next to our pallet. Then I shook Heath from my mind and focused on my more immediate problem. "I might need to ask for your help."

"Ask me anything," he said, gently brushing my hair back out of my face.

"I'm going to need to either get Stevie Rae in here to the school, or get the gang and me out there to her."

"The gang?"

"You know, Damien and the Twins and Aphrodite, so we can cast a circle. I have a feeling I'll need the added strength they bring to their elements to help Stevie Rae."