Stalked by Death

Chapter 7

I followed Randy, yelling back over my shoulder at Chase, “Go work with Leticia and Alex. Until I know how much control you have over your powers, you’ll start with the basics.”

I didn’t have to turn around to know Chase was fuming mad at that comment. I already knew he was powerful, but I’d demoted him to square one as if he were a beginner. I wasn’t sure how training with Alex would go, but I couldn’t handle working with Chase right now. Not until I got my emotions in check.

That’s how it went for the next two days. Me training with Randy and avoiding Chase at all costs. I knew it couldn’t go on like this forever, but I was willing to stick it out for as long as I could. Luckily, Randy never said anything to me or Alex about Chase’s comment. Maybe he assumed Chase was just full of himself. By Saturday, Chase found a way to corner me.

“Hey, did you forget we have a phone call to make?”

“A what?”

“We were going to call Mason and see if we could convince him to get everyone out here. Now that we have our combined powers backing us up, I think we could persuade him.”

“Right.” In trying to dodge Chase, I’d forgotten all about that plan. “But we haven’t trained together yet. I need you to master all the beginner skills before we can move forward.” As much as I wanted the other Ophi here, I couldn’t train with Chase. I couldn’t be alone with him. It was too dangerous. Too dangerous for my relationship with Alex.

“You’ve had me in the baby group for days. I’ve raised souls and released them. What more do I need to prove to you?”

“You haven’t raised multiple souls yet.”

“Okay, then from now on I’ll train with you and Randy.”

What could I say to that? I’d set myself up.

“But I don’t think we should wait to make this call. So what if we let Mason think we’ve already mastered our combined power? If it gets the others here, then it’s worth a little white lie.”

“All right,” I said.

“Good, let’s do it now.” He tugged my arm, pulling me toward my office. Randy shrugged and headed over to Alex and Leticia to finish training.

“I told Alex I’d meet him before dinner.” I tried to get Chase to at least slow down, but he was already pushing me through the door.

“I think lover boy can find the dining room on his own.”

I sighed and walked into my office, taking a seat at the desk. I had Mason’s number memorized. I’d called it about a thousand times before he’d called me back. I dialed and switched the phone to speaker.

“Hello?” Mason answered.

“Guess you forgot to check your caller ID,” Chase said.

“What? Who is this?”

I heard Mason fumble with the phone. “Jodi?”

“Does my voice really sound that deep?” I asked.

“No, no. Who’s with you?”

“It’s Chase, Uncle Mason.”

“Oh, Chase. It must be a bad connection. I didn’t recognize your voice.”

“No problem. Listen, we’ve got exciting news.”

“Don’t tell me you two hit it off and got engaged or something.”

“No!” I yelled.

Chase laughed. “Not yet.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “But Jodi and I do have a special connection. A power connection.”

“What do you mean?” Mason asked.

“We can combine our powers. Turns out I have more power than the average Ophi, too. Like Jodi. Together we’re unstoppable.”

Mason was quiet on the other line, like he was thinking.

“You need to get everyone out here, Uncle Mason. Jodi and I have so much to show you.”

“Chase, you know I can’t. If you and Jodi are really as strong as you say, I’ll send a small group, but I need to keep enough here to keep Serpentarius up and running. That’s my best offer.”

“Thanks, Mason. We’ll take it.” I tried not to sound disappointed, but I needed Mason. He would make a great teacher, and he could easily replace Troy. Arianna and Tony were great, but they always defaulted to me because I was the Chosen One. I needed an adult who took charge.

“I know it’s not what you were hoping for, Jodi.”

“That’s okay. I appreciate whatever you can do.”

“Take care.” Mason hung up.

“Well, I guess it’s a start.” I stood up.

“You’re not happy,” Chase said. “I can tell.”

“We need everyone. Otherwise we aren’t strong enough to stand up to Hades.” Even with everyone, I wasn’t sure we’d be strong enough.

“Then I’ll get you everyone.”

“What?”

“I’ll see you at dinner.”

Before I could say another word, Chase was dialing the phone again. I gave him one last glance before going to the dining room.

“Hey, where have you been?” Alex slid a bowl of mac and cheese in front of me. I hated to admit it, but I was kind of getting used to the stuff, even if it was made with powered cheese.

“I called Mason. He’s going to send a small group here.”

“That’s great.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, but we need everyone.”

“Give it time.” He nudged me with his elbow and took another heaping forkful.

I picked at my food, mostly moving it around to make it look like I was eating. I’d barely eaten two real bites when Chase came into the room with a huge smile. “All taken care of. They’ll be here on Monday.”

“Who?” Leticia asked.

“Everyone,” he said the word slowly, “from Serpentarius.”

“Everyone?” I asked.

“Yup!”

Leticia squealed and threw her arms around Chase. “Oh, you’re the best! You’ve saved us all!” She turned to me. “Don’t you think so, Jodi?”

I nodded and went back to pushing my food around with my fork. The rest of the meal was filled with happy faces and people patting Chase on the back. I should’ve been happy, but something was off.

“We should celebrate,” Leticia said. “Do something fun for once. No lessons or talk about training for one full night.”

I didn’t feel like celebrating. I felt like getting answers, but I was outvoted. Everyone was shouting out ideas. After what had happened during the last movie night, we skipped that idea. Randy suggested we play charades, but no one else went for it. Arianna said she’d found some board games in one of the hall closets, but that suggestion got groans from all the guys.

“I know.” Tony got up from the table and left the room without another word.

“Are we supposed to follow him?” I asked.

Alex shrugged. “Why not?”

We got up and scanned the halls for Tony.

“Tony?” I called. “Where are you?”

No answer. We peeked in all the rooms and even closets downstairs. Nothing.

“Did he go to his room?” Leticia asked.

“Nope,” Tony called from the stairs. “I went to the library.”

“What for?” Alex asked.

“This.” Tony held up what looked like a severed hand.

“Ugh! Where did you get that?” Leticia turned away, gagging.

He reached the bottom landing and turned the hand over in his palm. “I know it’s a little…”

“Gross,” I said.

Tony shrugged. “It has sentimental value to the school.”

I crossed my arms, thinking he must be joking. “How can a severed hand have sentimental value?”

“This is the hand of the very first corpse raised by someone at this school. It was preserved to remind us that our power is our greatest gift.”

“I don’t want gifts like that.” Leticia pointed to the severed hand.

“I don’t expect you all to understand it now, but one day you will. When you understand how important this school is.” Tony loved this school. It was all he had. He was thirty-eight and had never had a wife. I’d heard a rumor that he’d fallen for an Ophi who was already engaged to someone else. He never got over her. That meant he never had had a child either. Being Ophi and not being able to have a child was ten times worse than it was for a human. Tony hadn’t been able to contribute to the Ophi line, so he’d dedicated himself to teaching Ophi kids.

“Why did you want to get the hand?” I asked. “I thought you had an idea for what we could do this evening.”

“Maybe he wants us to raise a few corpses and chop off some hands of our own,” Randy said.

We all turned and stared at him.

Randy shrugged. “What? Tony’s the one who brought that thing down here.”

Tony laughed. “I brought it because I had an idea for a game. A game that will let us get to know each other a little better.”

“And it involves a severed hand?” I asked.

Tony shrugged. “I needed a spinner.”

The guys burst out laughing. I had to admit it was kind of funny. I mean, a bunch of necromancers playing with a severed hand? But poor Leticia looked horrified.

“I’m not touching that thing,” she said.

“You won’t have to. I’m not actually playing, so I’ll be in charge of spinning.” Tony nodded toward the living room. “Come on. Let’s learn a little more about each other.”

“So, it’s a get to know you kind of game?” I flopped down on the couch.

“Exactly. If we are going to be like family, then we should know a few secrets about each other.” Tony dragged over the coffee table and another couch, so we were sitting in a rectangle. He placed the hand in the middle of the coffee table.

Maybe this game wasn’t such a bad idea. I could get some answers out of Chase.

“Sounds interesting,” Chase said. “I can’t wait to hear everyone’s darkest secrets.” His gaze fell on me.

“Shall we begin?” Tony was already spinning the hand. It stopped with its fingers facing Leticia.

“Ugh, why did that creepy thing have to point to me?”

“All right, Leticia,” Tony said, “tell us something we don’t know about you.”

“Okay.” She paused, thinking of what to share. “Oh, I know. Once when Abby borrowed my shampoo and didn’t return it, I snuck into her bathroom and dripped toilet water into her toothpaste.”

“You mean you put perfume in her toothpaste?” Arianna asked.

“No.” Leticia shook her head. “I used a cup to get water from the toilet, and I dripped it into her tube of toothpaste.”

“Why didn’t you just dunk her toothbrush in the toilet instead?” Randy asked.

Leticia’s face turned red. “I didn’t think of it,” she said in a small voice.

We all started laughing. Poor Leticia. She really was kind of helpless—for someone who could raise the dead.

Tony spun the hand again. This time it landed on Randy.

“Um, I don’t have any secrets like Leticia’s, but I did steal a bag of Troy’s favorite chips once. Man, he went crazy looking for it. He even blamed the servants. Like a bunch of living dead would eat potato chips.”

“Boring.” Chase dragged out the word. “At least Leticia’s story was funny. You’ve got to have a better secret than that.”

Randy fidgeted with his hands in his lap. “I do have one secret, but it’s not something I want to share.”

“Come on. That’s the whole point of this game, isn’t it?” Chase was pushing awfully hard. I hoped that meant he’d be more than willing to share when it was his turn.

“Yeah, Randy, you can tell us.” Leticia put her hand on his arm.

Randy squeezed his fists. “All right, but before I tell you all this, I want to say that I know I was overreacting at the time. I don’t feel this way now.”

We all nodded.

Randy inhaled loudly. “When I first saw my dad after Victoria brought him back, I wanted to…I wanted to kill her. I wanted to make her pay for the way she’d mangled his body.”

I remembered all too well how wrong Victoria had been to try raising the Ophi. It was a power reserved for me, but she wouldn’t listen. She insisted on using my locket, the one Medusa had given me with her blood infused in the bloodstone, to raise those poor people. All she’d succeeded in doing was creating an army of living dead Ophi. I reached my hand up and touched my bare neck. The locket lay broken in my dresser drawer now. I hadn’t been able to part with it. It didn’t hold Medusa’s blood anymore, but it still had special meaning to me.

No one had said a word for several minutes. We all waited to see how Alex would react to this. Finally Randy said, “I’m sorry, man.”

Alex shook his head. “I don’t blame you. Victoria was a monster. She acted without thinking about any consequences. I’m sorry for what she did to your dad, and to Leticia’s parents.” Alex was talking about her in the past tense. He’d already written her off as dead, and even though she was really serving Hades, I guessed she was as good as dead.

Randy leaned forward. “But she was only trying to help. I realize that now.”

“You’re saying you don’t blame Victoria anymore? You’re not upset that your father’s soul was ripped from wherever it was and forced back into a body that was so mangled you barely recognized it?” I was on my feet now and practically yelling.

“Jodi,” Tony said. “Please.” He nodded slightly toward Alex.

“I’m sorry. Alex, I know they were your parents, but Victoria and Troy were awful.”

Tony put a hand up to stop me. “Jodi, it’s still Randy’s turn, so why don’t we—”

“I don’t care about the hand or whose turn it is right now. You wanted us to share and get to know each other better, so I’m sharing.” Tony nodded, and Alex looked up at me with pain in his eyes.

“I watched you eat mac and cheese at every meal, trying to get her attention, but she wouldn’t give you the time of day. And when it came down to choosing sides in the end, your own father put a knife in your chest.”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” Alex asked.

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to tell you you didn’t deserve that. You didn’t deserve any of it.”

“So your big secret is that you feel sorry for Alex?” Chase asked.

“No!” That was the last thing I wanted Alex to think. That I was with him out of pity. “My big secret shouldn’t be a secret at all. My big secret is that I think Alex is the greatest Ophi I’ve ever met, and I wish his own parents could’ve seen him for who he really is.”

I sat back down, worried that my outburst had only hurt Alex. I hadn’t meant to go off like that, but I couldn’t handle listening to Randy forgive Victoria for what she’d done.

Alex stood up. “I’m going to call it a night. See you all in the morning.”

“Alex,” I said.

“In the morning, Jodi.” He walked away, leaving me staring after him.

Chase got up and sighed. “Well, if Alex gets out of sharing, I’m going to bed, too.”

“I think it’s best if we all turn in for the night,” Tony said.

I turned to him. “Sorry. It was a nice idea to get to know each other better.”

He nodded and picked up the severed hand. I followed him up the stairs and said goodnight when I reached my floor. I saw Chase walking down the hall to his room, and I ran after him. It wasn’t too late to get the answers I was looking for.

“How did you do it?” I called after him.

Chase stopped and turned around. “Do what?”

“Mason was dead set against coming. How did you change his mind in a matter of minutes?” I stopped dangerously close to him. Something told me Chase wouldn’t be willing to shout the answer or risk anyone overhearing us. I had to be close enough for him to whisper.

He leaned into me. “Chase Baxter charm, I guess. You know all about that.” He inched closer until our faces were almost touching. I tried to turn away, but I couldn’t. Being this close to Chase was making my blood go crazy. My arms tingled with the desire to touch him. My brain told me to stop him, but I stayed frozen as he leaned in to kiss me.

Alex’s bedroom door swung open. “What’s going on?”