Stalked by Death

Chapter 21

I leaned my head back on the seat. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. Alex was right here. My old life was right here. Yet both felt so far away. I couldn’t have what I wanted. I had to do the job I’d promised I’d do, and that meant facing Chase. Figuring out what his end game was and regaining control.

Alex brushed a tear from my cheek. I hadn’t even realized I was crying. “What are you going to say?”

He knew I was worried about seeing Chase again. I sighed and met his eyes. “That I freaked. That I didn’t like him controlling me. That if he really wants to work with me and wants my cooperation, he’s going to have to stop using his power against me.”

“You think that’ll work?”

“I have no idea.”

He shook his head. “I can’t let you go in there alone.”

“You have to. If you come with me, Chase will know we’re up to something. He’ll hurt me for sure.”

“Why don’t you let me go back first? I could beat the crap out of him, and you wouldn’t have to worry about seeing him again.”

If any other guy had said it, I would’ve laughed, but Alex was serious. “We should get this over with. The longer I’m gone, the madder he’s going to be.”

Alex grabbed me and hugged me tight. “I’m sorry I left you. Maybe I could’ve stopped this from happening.”

I knew that wasn’t true. Chase had already gotten to me before Alex left. If Alex had stayed, he would’ve witnessed everything, and he would’ve hated me for it.

I turned my face toward his and kissed him, thinking it might be our last kiss ever. I climbed over the console so I was in his lap, and I kissed him until my lungs screamed for air. I leaned back, making the horn give a short blare. We both jumped and laughed. We needed something to break the tension.

“I need you to understand that you’re going to see a lot of things you aren’t going to like.” I didn’t move from his lap. This was the only way to make sure I had his full attention. That he understood every word I was saying.

“Like him touching you?”

I nodded.

“Could you do me a favor and not play along too well?”

I fidgeted with the ring on my pinky. “That’s just the thing. It’s not an act, Alex. Chase changes me when I’m with him. My blood responds to his touch, and I can’t control it.” I lifted my eyes, forcing myself to be brutally honest. He had to know what he was in for. It was going to kill him to see me with Chase. To see me happy with Chase and craving his touch. “If he uses his blood to fill me with life, I’ll want to be with him. At least, my blood will. Inside I’ll know it’s wrong, but I’ll be powerless to stop it. The only thing that’s going to get me through this is you knowing that I love you, not him.”

“It’s really going to be bad, isn’t it?”

This was killing me. I didn’t know how to make him feel better, so I went for the one thing that never failed. I kissed him. We stayed in the car for an hour, not wanting our time together to end. As much as I didn’t want to, eventually I pulled myself away from him. If I didn’t go now, I never would. I slid back into my seat and sighed.

Alex started the engine without a word. There was nothing to say. Nothing to make this any easier. He drove me back to the trail and most of the way to the school so I didn’t have to walk too far. I looked at him through tear-soaked eyes.

“Wish me luck,” I said.

“I love you.” He pulled my face to his for one last kiss, and then I walked away without looking back. Losing Alex the first time was awful. The thought of losing him again was unbearable. Why was emotional pain so much stronger than physical pain? When I reached the school, I wasn’t crying anymore. I was ready to face Chase. Sort of.

I walked up the back steps. It was dark and I figured everyone was probably getting ready for bed, but I heard voices out in the cemetery. I crept around the school and saw candles. A circle of them outside the mausoleum. The cemetery lights weren’t at full strength yet. They took forever to really light up the place. Replacing them was on my list of things to do, but I’d kept pushing it back, not thinking it was that important.

As I got closer, I realized the candles were held by people, all sitting on the ground. They must have been having a memorial for Lucas and Randy. I figured it was best to approach Chase when everyone else was around. Between the element of surprise and having to keep his feelings in check for the sake of the group, I’d be better off. Of course, I had been hoping to get a good night’s sleep and talk to him at breakfast, but my mom always told me it was better to face your problems sooner rather than later. I was about to find out if that was true.

I started down the hill as the lights gained more strength. Then I saw the corpses. They were lined up against the mausoleum. Every single one of them. I ran the rest of the way.

“What are you doing?” I yelled. “You can’t raise the entire graveyard. I don’t care if this is a memorial. Hades is going to flip!”

Chase smiled at me. Not an “I’m-so-happy-you’re-back” smile. A sinister “I-can’t-wait-to-get-a-hold-of-you” smile. “Jodi, right on time.” He stood up and walked toward me.

“What do you mean? How could you know I was coming back?” How far did our connection go?

“How did I know? Well, when all the bodies in the cemetery suddenly came out of the ground at the same time, I figured that was your way of letting me know you were on your way.”

I looked past him at the corpses. They immediately turned toward me, recognizing the one who’d raised them. I did this? It must have happened when I was kissing Alex. I thought I was happy to see him and sad to have to let him go again. My emotions were definitely conflicted, and they’d caused my blood to announce my return in true Ophi fashion—a massive raising.

“Personally, I like it.” Chase kissed my cheek. “It’s good to see you giving in to your powers.”

He thought I’d done it on purpose, and he was taking this as a good sign. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing, after all, if it got Chase off my back.

“We should send them back before Hades shows up. I thought you would’ve done that already,” I added, hoping it would cover up my previous outburst about the bodies being here.

“You’re right. Why don’t we do it together? I’ve been itching to mix our blood again.” He ran his hand down my arm, sending my blood into a frenzy. I wanted to throw my arms around him and pull him close, absorb all his power, but I had to stay in control. For Alex.

“I’m kind of drained. Can you just give me enough to release these guys all at once?”

“You got it.” He took my hand, and a tingling slowly crept up my arm. I hated that I loved the feeling.

I forced myself to focus on the corpses. “I release—” Chase squeezed my hand, sending a shot of concentrated poison to me. I winced in pain. Apparently all wasn’t forgiven.

“Jodi, I don’t feel like digging all those graves this late at night,” Chase said. “Have the corpses bury themselves before you release them.”

The searing pain subsided, and I struggled to stay on my feet. If I crumbled or appeared weak at all, the rest of the Ophi were going to question my abilities. They had no idea Chase was the one weakening me. Maybe Tony would figure it out after our talk, but I didn’t want him to lash out at Chase and ruin the plan Alex and I had come up with.

I tried to command the souls, but I was too weak now. “Please,” I said to Chase. Damn it! I hated that I needed his help.

He let his power flow to me. I turned back to the corpses. “Return to your graves; once you’re there, you may release your souls to where you were before I raised you.”

I expected the souls to return to the graves they’d dug themselves out of, but instead, they all went in different directions with their shovels. “What are they doing?” Leticia asked.

“Returning to their original graves,” Tony said. He looked at me. “Watch your wording. Now we don’t have them all together anymore.”

I was okay with that. I hated not even knowing the names of the souls I was raising. It felt wrong to treat the souls as nameless beings.

“Jodi and I will train together a little harder tomorrow to make sure no more slip-ups like this happen.” Chase put his arm around me, and I cringed, expecting to feel his poisoned blood enter my body. It didn’t. “Won’t we, Jodi?”

I nodded. “I think I need to go to bed. I’m really tired. It’s been a long day.”

Mason—well, Ethan pretending to be Mason—stood up. “It’s been a long day here, too. You would’ve known that if you hadn’t run away.”

He was angry with me, too. That wasn’t good. I couldn’t let him take the others and leave.

“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

Chase squeezed my shoulder. “Uncle Mason, I’m sure Jodi would be happy to take over the service.”

“Take over the service?” I looked around at the group in confusion.

“We just started,” Carol said. “We wanted to be able to say goodbye to Lucas.”

“And Randy,” Leticia added. “We never got to have a service for him. He deserves one.”

I knew Alex would want to say goodbye to Randy too, but I couldn’t postpone the service for him. I wasn’t supposed to know about Alex coming tomorrow. “Of course,” I said. “I’d be happy to say a few words.”

The service was pretty much a blur. I rambled on about Randy, and thankfully, when it was time to talk about Lucas, McKenzie asked to speak, so I didn’t have to say much. By the end of it, all the corpses were back in their graves, as I’d commanded them earlier. They released all around the same time, and I watched the souls float away. It would’ve been beautiful if I wasn’t at a funeral and Chase wasn’t hovering no more than two feet away. He stayed in arm’s reach. That way, he could easily control me if necessary, I was sure. I hated him. I hated that he could hurt me so much one minute and make me want his touch the next. He was evil, and he was making me evil.

Chase walked me up to my room after everyone said goodnight. He kissed me at my door, but this time he didn’t use his power on me, and I cringed. He wasn’t Alex, and I resented having to put on this charade. “Want me to come in for a little while?” He tapped his finger on my door, and I struggled not to show my disgust.

“No. I’m really tired. I want to go to sleep.”

“You left me, Jodi.” He raised his hand to my face, letting it hover there. I knew his next touch would be filled with the burning poison of his blood.

“I’m sorry. Chase, please. This is why I left. You can’t keep doing this to me. You can’t keep controlling me. It’s not right.”

“I’m only showing you what your blood wants.” His hand came closer to my face.

I closed my eyes and turned my head away. “No, you’re hurting me.”

“You think taking off didn’t hurt me?”

I looked at him, surprised he hadn’t used his power on me. We both knew he could.

“Alex never had to make you love him.”

“Are you saying you want me to love you?”

“You don’t have to love me, but choosing to be with me without me having to use my power on you would be a nice change.”

“I can’t choose you if you don’t give me the chance. You’re forcing me to feel things.” My mind spun with ways to work Chase’s insecurity into my plan. “I bet you didn’t know I really didn’t like Alex when I first met him. He scared me.”

Chase raised an eyebrow. “You expect me to believe that?”

“It’s true. He was so wrapped up in doing his job—getting me to come here because that’s what his parents told him to do. He followed me around and tried to make me listen to him. I only started to have feelings for him after he backed off.”

“So, you’re saying that if I back off, let you decide how you feel on your own, there’s a chance you’ll actually choose to be with me?” He stepped closer to me, but not in a threatening way.

“I’m not promising anything, Chase, but we do have a lot of combined power. I can’t say I’m not drawn to that. Maybe we could work well together and even be together like—”

“Like you and Alex were?”

Why did he have to make it so hard to lie to him? He and I could never be like Alex and I were—and hopefully would be again. But if I said that, I’d be right back where I was before. I nodded, unable to say the words out loud.

Chase laughed, but then his hand came slamming down on the door next to my head, making me flinch. “Come on, Jodi. How stupid do you think I am? You’re still in love with Alex. I can tell. You have no intention of falling for me. Not unless I make you. It looks like that’s exactly what I’m going to have to do.”

I tried to duck under his arm, but he grabbed me. The second his skin touched mine, I felt his power. It wasn’t poison like I’d been expecting. It was the energy I craved from him. He wasn’t trying to hurt me—at least not physically. Before I gave in to the power, I saw Jared and Lexi at the top of the stairs. Chase must have heard them coming, and now he was using his power to make it look like he and I were caught making out in the hallway. His lips were on mine in seconds, and without being able to stop myself, my arms were around his neck.

“Damn, Chase,” Lexi said, “I thought you had better taste.”

“Whatever, Lexi,” Jared said. “Way to go, man!” Jared must have thought Chase and I were making up.

They went to their rooms, and when both doors closed, Chase pulled away. “Why can’t you let us be this way all the time?”

I could’ve given him a slew of answers. He was evil. He was a manipulative prick. I wasn’t his little plaything. But the simplest answer, and the one I definitely couldn’t say, was he wasn’t Alex.

“Goodnight, Chase.” I reached for the knob, but he stopped me, taking my hand in his. His touch made my blood ripple under my skin.

“You sure you’re ready to say goodnight?” He moved in closer, and I almost gave in. Almost. But I saw Leticia’s door closing. She’d been watching us. I twisted the doorknob with my other hand and ducked into my room, locking the door behind me. I leaned against the door and relaxed my breathing. I pictured Alex’s face in my mind. He’d be here tomorrow. I could make it until then. Of course, having Alex here was only going to make all this harder on me. I was going to have to guard myself against Chase. I needed to block him, stop him from taking over my blood. I exhaled slowly, regaining control. My blood wasn’t surging anymore. I’d resisted the urge to give in to Chase. All thanks to Leticia. I hoped she’d seen everything. The way my mood changed so quickly. The way Chase looked like he wanted to kill me one minute, and make out with me the next. I hoped Leticia would figure it out. She wasn’t the most skilled Ophi, but she was smart.

Please, Leticia. I needed more people on my side. Before Chase took over my blood, and there was nothing left of me.