Slayer(27)

“I’ll remember that the next time someone throws a knife at my head!” I stand, furious, and then freeze. Because it isn’t just Bradford “Good Morning, Here’s a Knife” Smythe in the training room. It’s also Eve Silvera.

And Leo.

I am suddenly aware—with more panicked urgency than the knife had induced—that I rolled out of bed and came straight here. My hair is wild on one side and flat on the other. My face probably still has pillow creases. And I’m wearing a long-sleeved flannel shirt three sizes too big . . . with shorts underneath so short it looks like I’m only wearing the shirt. I was so bleary from my whacked-out dreams that I didn’t even bother changing into appropriate clothes for knife dodging. Which I would have had to borrow from Artemis in the first place. But I thought this was a talking meeting, not one that would threaten my life.

“Hello, Athena,” Leo says.

I had forgotten. He’s the only person around here who calls me by my real name. When I was little I was always Athena, but after the fire and my brief hospital stay, somehow it turned into Nina. I became someone to be taken care of and got pet-named right out of the Greek pantheon. The way Leo said my name used to flutter my stomach, because I thought it meant he saw me or respected me or wanted to marry me once we were both older so we could be the ultimate Watcher couple and save the world together while also maybe riding horses under a rainbow along a beach.

(There was a poem about that too. I’ve never been so prolific about anything in my life as I was during my Leo Poetry phase.)

I tug my shirt down, which makes the neck slip over one of my shoulders. Oh, sweet hellmouths, I’m not even wearing a bra. When I imagined meeting Leo again—which wasn’t often, because I was pretty sure he was dead and it was easier to not imagine him at all—it had always been in some really cool way. Like he was horribly injured and my quick thinking stopped the bleeding and saved his life. Or . . . well, actually, all my scenarios involved him being horribly injured. It was comforting. And it meant he would be the one embarrassed, not me.

None of them involved him standing professionally beside his mother while I was in my pajamas.

Gods, I hate him.

“Nina?” Eve asks.

I hastily do the top two buttons of my shirt and focus on her instead. She’s dressed as formally as she was during the meeting we spied on, but now her blazer is a deep plum. Her lipstick matches it again. I remember I’m not supposed to have been listening to the meeting, so I should be shocked they’re here. “Hi! Wow, you’re back.”

Her lips twist in an amused smile. “I am well aware of the secrets of this castle. Namely that it has no secrets. You don’t have to pretend like you didn’t know.”

I hurry to change the subject, not wanting to reveal the secret passageways. “I’m glad you guys aren’t dead!” Oh gods, let me stop talking. “I mean, we thought you were. Dead. And we were all really sad!” It comes out sounding cringingly insincere, which makes me feel awful—despite my never wanting to see Leo again, it was terrible believing the Silveras were dead. “It’s, uh, nice for someone to be alive for once. Usually it’s the opposite. Hey, does anyone have another knife they want to throw at me?”

Bradford Smythe lets out a phlegmy laugh. Then he gets serious, his bushy eyebrows half covering his eyes, like Spanish moss hanging on a tree. “Nina, my child, you’re a Slayer.”

I don’t have it in me to pretend to be shocked. I shrug. It sums up my feelings pretty adequately.

He continues. “Now that you have been Chosen, you have a responsibility. The life of a Slayer is never easy—that hasn’t changed even now that there are more. It is our duty to train you, to prepare you for what your future holds. Of course, the training will be a challenge. This is most irregular.”

He clasps his hands behind his back and paces, looking thoughtfully at the walls. They’re lined with pads, practice weapons, real weapons. I brace myself as he pauses in front of a wicked-looking mace and chain. “We can’t very well do the Tento di Cruciamentum when you turn eighteen. You were raised by us, so you’ll know all about the muscle relaxers and adrenal suppressants we secretly inject so the incapacitated Slayer has to face a vampire without her abilities.”

“Right.” I hope my eyes aren’t as wide as they feel. “Right, I know all about that, so there’s no reason to do it when I turn eighteen, which is still not for two years. So, yeah, that trial’s out. No point in even scheduling. And since we’re talking about it, I never technically agreed to be a Slayer? Or said I’d train as one. We should stop and think if this is really the best option for everyone.” For me. “I mean, we’ve never even tried to find any of the other Slayers. Maybe we should do that before jumping on the yay-Nina-kills-things-now bandwagon, which is a pretty bad bandwagon as far as bandwagons go.”

Leo looks engaged for the first time this whole conversation. Before, his face had been blank. Now he looks anxious. Eager, even. “Athena has a point. There are so many Slayers now. We can’t ask her to do something she doesn’t want to—”

“We aren’t asking her,” Eve says, interrupting him. “And we’re not commanding you either, Nina. But training or not, you are a Slayer. And that is something wonderful and I’m sure more than a little overwhelming and terrifying. But you can’t change it by ignoring it. To do so would be irresponsible. Dangerous, even.”