Stalked by Death (Touch of Death) (19 page)

She nodded and gave me a weak smile.

Chase walked me upstairs. He kept his arm around my back and was being a gentleman for once. Not forcing his power on me or trying to bully me into choosing him. Now that Alex was gone, he didn’t feel the need to compete anymore. It was the first time I had thought about Alex since he left. Since he walked out on me and my world came crumbling down. This was more proof of how much I needed him. But what was I going to do about Chase?

We’d combined powers twice today, and both times, it had made me feel better than I’d ever felt in my life. My blood craved Chase, but look what I had done when I gave in to that craving. I’d taken out every Ophi under this roof. I knew I was responsible for their deaths. I’d felt my blood doing things it had never done before. It was like the night Leticia was choking in my room. The night she’d died. Chase had been touching me, combining our powers, and Leticia died because of it. I was convinced Chase and I could do both amazing and devastating things together. We were that powerful, and it scared the hell out of me.

Inside my room, Chase left me sitting on the bed while he drew me a bath. I reached up and took the locket from my neck. Nothing good had happened since I’d put it on, and now I wanted it off. I wished I’d never drunk the blood from the bloodstone. I wished I’d never killed the human in me. That I’d never become the leader of the Ophi. I didn’t want any of this anymore. None of it seemed worth it. Not without Alex.

I put the locket back in my dresser drawer before slumping on my bed and crying. My tears washed most of the blood from my face and I wiped the rest away with my sleeves. Chase came back into the room and sat down next to me.

“Oh, Jodi.” He leaned over me and kissed me. I stopped crying, taken aback by his action. He wasn’t my boyfriend. He wasn’t Alex. We’d only kissed once, and that had had terrible consequences. I pulled away.

“Don’t worry. Nothing bad will happen. I promise. I’ll keep my powers under control, and you will too.” He leaned forward and kissed me again. He didn’t let me go, and finally, I gave in, kissing him back. He brushed the hair from my wet cheeks and looked at me.

“What are we doing?” I asked. This was all so confusing. It wasn’t what I wanted, not really. So, why wasn’t I stopping him?

“What we’re supposed to be doing.” He kissed me again, more passionately this time, and he let a tiny bit of his power find its way to me. The tingling spread through my lips and into my chest, filling me with energy. I felt better, more alive. He was on top of me now, and still I was trying to pull him closer.

“Jodi, are you—”

I pulled away from Chase to see Arianna standing in the doorway. Embarrassed, I scrambled out from under Chase and stood up. He leaned back on the bed as if he’d done nothing wrong.

“I came to see if you were finished with your bath,” Arianna said. “But I see you haven’t even started.”

“That reminds me,” Chase said, “I left the water running.” He ran to the bathroom, hopefully before the tub overflowed.

“Um, I was waiting for it to fill?” It came out more like a question than a statement.

Arianna walked over to me and kept her voice low. “Jodi, do you know what you’re doing? Alex left today, and already you’re with Chase?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not with him. He kissed me. I was caught off guard. That’s all. With everything that’s happened, I was upset and I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

She sighed. “Honey, that boy is pouncing when he should be giving you time. I don’t like it at all. You be careful around him.”

I nodded, but she didn’t look convinced.

“What if Alex had come back and seen what I saw?”

“Alex doesn’t want to be with me.” The words stung my chest.

“No, what Alex doesn’t want is Chase’s hands all over you.” She shook her head like she was trying to get the image out of her mind. “I’m not telling you what to do, but if I were you, I’d be focusing on trying to get Alex back here. Not trying to replace him.”

Replace Alex? I couldn’t. I was about to tell her that, but Chase came back into the room. “It’s all set.”

“Good,” Arianna said. “Then you can come downstairs and help me with dinner while Jodi takes her bath.”

Chase looked annoyed, but he followed Arianna. He brushed his hand along my arm on his way out, and the tingling sensation of his touch rippled through me. God, how did he do that? It made my common sense go out the window.

I got into the bathtub and lowered myself so that only my head was above the water. The warmth felt incredible, but it was powerless against the events of the day. Seeing Alex walk out of my life, Tony fall to his death, Randy’s soul float away, lost forever—it was all stuck in my mind. But as huge as those things were, they took a back seat to Chase. He was becoming more and more of a mystery to me. Why could one touch from him make me lose control? Why was he so different from all the other Ophi? Then, the biggest question of all popped into my head. Something I should’ve asked myself right away, but I’d been too caught up in the moment to notice.

Why hadn’t Chase died with all the others?

That was all I thought about for the rest of the night, long after the water in the tub turned cold. Long after Arianna brought me dinner on a tray because I never came downstairs. Long after Chase knocked on my door and I pretended to be asleep. When I woke up in the morning, the only explanation I could come up with was that Chase had survived because our powers had been connected. I had kept him alive.

Then, another thought struck me. How far had my powers reached? Had Alex been far enough away that he wasn’t affected? I had to ask Medusa. She would know. She had a way of sensing all of us, of knowing what was going on.

I threw the covers off and ran downstairs. All I was wearing was the long-sleeved shirt Alex had given me my first night here. It was like a dress on me. Well, more like a mini, but I didn’t care. I needed answers now. I reached the statue and grabbed Medusa’s hands.

“Medusa?” I called with my mind. “I need you.”

Her face appeared to me. “Yes, my child?”

“Alex—where was he when I killed everyone? Was he affected by my power?”

“I reached out to every Ophi who was affected. He was not among them. He was safe.”

I breathed a long sigh of relief. I hadn’t harmed Alex. He was okay. He was still gone, but at least he was alive.

“Thank you, Medusa.”

“Jodi?” Chase pulled my hand from Medusa’s.

I looked at him. “Why did you do that?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay. You looked upset.”

“I’m fine. I needed to talk to Medusa.”

“You should be careful how much time you spend connected to her. All that power could wear you out.” He brushed his finger against my cheeks, making my face tingle from his touch.

“Please, don’t do that.”

“Sorry. I have to remember to hold back my power when I’m around you. Your blood screams to mine, and what can I say? I tend to give in to it.”

I looked down at my bare legs. “I should go get dressed.”

“Why? I like the look.”

“It’s Alex’s shirt.” I wasn’t sure why I wanted Chase to know that.

His face went cold. “On second thought, take it off.”

“I don’t get it. Why do you hate him? I mean, he should hate you. You came here and openly tried to take me away from him.”

“I didn’t have to try very hard.” He smiled and wrapped one arm around my waist.

“Stop it.” I smacked his arm away and started for my room.

“I can make you forget about him, Jodi.”

I stopped at the top of the stairs, but I didn’t turn toward him. “No, you can’t, and I don’t want to anyway.” I turned and ran to my room, locking the door behind me. I didn’t want him following me. If he caught up to me, he could use his power on me. Make me give in to him. I leaned against the door and sank to the floor. I was losing control of everything. I’d been reduced to hiding in my room. Some leader I was.

It took me a minute to realize the shower was running in my bathroom. I got up and walked in there. Steam hit me in the face. Someone was using up all my hot water. A pair of leather knee-high boots rested on the bench outside the shower. I only knew one person who dressed in knee-high boots. Lexi.

My blood was boiling, but not in a Gorgon sort of way. I was mad. I marched over to the shower, reached my arm in, and turned the water to freezing cold. Lexi screamed and jumped back, bumping against the back of the shower by the sound of it.

“What the hell!” She shut off the water and peeked her head out.

“My thoughts exactly. How did you get into my bathroom?”

She reached for her towel and disappeared behind the curtain again. A moment later she came out wrapped like a burrito. “I have my ways.”

“Found spare keys in Abby’s room?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Think you know everything, don’t you?”

“I know you’re just as big a bitch as Abby was.”

“What do you mean
was
?”

I shrugged. “Being trapped in the underworld as Hades’ slave is as good as dead.” I had no idea where this burst of self-confidence was coming from. It wasn’t like me to act this way.

“You wish,” Lexi said.

“I don’t believe in wishing. I wished you to the underworld the second I found out you were Abby’s sister, but that didn’t do me any good.”

“No, it didn’t, but don’t worry. You’ll be wishing again soon.” She grabbed her clothes and boots off the bench. “You’ll be wishing you were dead.”

I matched her glare. “Don’t count on it.”

“Abby will be kicking your sorry soul around the underworld soon enough. Just like that pathetic kid you killed earlier. What was his name, Ricky?”

“Randy. And believe me, she wouldn’t dare.”

Lexi laughed. “Honey, you obviously don’t know my sister.” She walked out, leaving me imagining all the awful things Abby was probably doing to Randy’s soul right now.

Breakfast was quiet. Even though there were so many new faces at the table, I could only focus on the ones who weren’t there—Randy and Alex. I’d trade all the Ophi from Serpentarius to have them both back. I couldn’t even remember why I’d pushed so hard to get these guys here.

Arianna came up behind me with a tray of eggs. “I’ve arranged for a small ceremony tonight. We’ll meet at the mausoleum at eight.”

I felt my orange juice coming back up, but I fought it. The acidic taste burned the back of my throat. “Thanks,” I choked out.

“Hi,” said a brunette sitting next to me. “I’m McKenzie. We didn’t really get a chance to meet yesterday.”

“Hi.” I put on the best fake smile I could manage. “Thanks for coming, McKenzie.”

She smiled back. “That’s Lucas across from us. He’s the same age as me. We both just came into our powers.”

I nodded, pretending to follow along.

“Have you met Mason’s wife, Carol? She’s a sweetheart. She sort of takes care of me since my mom and dad aren’t around anymore.”

“Oh,” I said, suddenly being brought back to the conversation. “Do you mind me asking what happened?”

She pushed her eggs around on her plate. “They died. They were part of the group in Washington. Hades came after them.”

My fork missed my eggs and screeched across the plate. Oh, God! Another person whose parents I’d sent to the underworld? I couldn’t take much more of this.

“I know what happened,” she said. “And just so you know, I don’t blame you.”

“Thanks.” It was a stupid thing to say, but nothing else seemed right either.

“Where are your parents?” McKenzie asked.

“My mom’s human, so I’m not allowed to see her anymore, and my dad is in the underworld like your parents. Hades took him from me a few days ago.” It felt like a lifetime ago.

“Oh, sorry.” She took a sip of juice and continued telling me who everyone was. “You know Lexi. She needs no introduction.”

She could say that again.

“That guy with the goatee, he’s Thayer. Jared, the dirty blond sitting next to him, is his son. They’re both nice. You know Carson already,” she said, moving right along. “Then there’s Asher. He’s one of my favorites. After Carol, of course. Asher is really strong, and he’s not afraid of anything.”

“What about Mason? What’s he like?” I’d only talked to him a couple times on the phone. He seemed nice enough, but not overly helpful.

McKenzie shrugged. “He’s cool. He’s been weird lately, though. Not his usual self. I guess that’s because he’s away from home. You wouldn’t believe how much he loves Serpentarius. I never thought he’d leave it to come here. Not even with all of us begging him.”

“Well, I’m glad he changed his mind. We all need to stick together if we’re going to stand up to Hades.”

McKenzie dropped her fork and stared at me. “We’re going to fight Hades?”

“Well, not ‘fight him’ fight him, but we are stronger in numbers. He won’t come attack a group this big. It’s too risky.”

McKenzie nodded. “Oh, okay.” She looked scared, and I couldn’t help thinking I had a younger version of Leticia on my hands.

“Hey,” McKenzie said, “where’s Chase?”

I looked around the table. How hadn’t I noticed he was missing? “I don’t know. I saw him earlier.”