Stalked by Death

Chapter 28

“Jodi,” Alex said, coughing up blood. “Fight him. What you’re feeling for him isn’t real. You know that. I know you do.”

He was right. My brain was telling me to listen to Alex. To fight Chase. But my blood was screaming for Chase, wanting to consume him and his power. Unfortunately, my blood was proving to be stronger than my brain. Chase was playing dirty. He was making me want him, and even though I was fully aware of it, I didn’t care. I did want him.

“Jodi, if you give in to him, you’ll lose me forever. That’s what he wants. It’s him or me. Hell, it’s him or you—because this isn’t you. Don’t let him take over. Find yourself in your blood. Find Medusa.”

I didn’t know where Alex was getting his strength from. The others were seconds from death.

Medusa’s image flooded my brain. “My child, prophecy is never what it seems. You’ve connected with Chase. You’ve chosen him. Now, you can undo it.”

“I can’t. This is what I’m supposed to become.”

“The prophecy said you and Chase were destined to destroy the Ophi line. You’re doing that right now. It’s begun. Now, end it before it’s too late. Before their souls leave their bodies.”

I listened for sounds in the cemetery, but there were none. Everyone was dead, but their souls hadn’t left their bodies yet, which meant I had a chance to save them.

“Medusa, help me, please. I’m weakened by the poison.”

“No, you’re stronger because of it. Use it.”

“You mean on Chase?”

“Yes, you must stop him. He’s trying to hold you off so you can’t bring them back.”

I couldn’t believe this. I’d given in. I’d killed them all. Medusa was right. I had to stop Chase. He was controlling me. I gathered my power and pushed it back into him, dosing him with concentrated poison. He faltered, staggering backward and breaking our connection. I hit him with the poison again, making him go down, too weak to fight me.

I commanded my blood to mix, but there wasn’t enough life-restoring power left in me. I’d given too much to Chase when I thought we were raising the souls in Tartarus, and that had only made room for him to fill me with poison. I bent down to him and grabbed his hands. Then, I did something I had never done before. I took what I wanted. I took his life-restoring power, calling it to me like I’d call a soul. It flowed into me, and my skin rippled with the power. My hair flew up behind me, and I was sure I looked like I had snakes wriggling on my head instead of long, dark hair. I took what I needed and focused on raising the Ophi in the cemetery. Even Ethan. I brought them all back. I let go of Chase, leaving him powerless on the ground. Without a visit to Medusa, he was down for the count.

Alex opened his eyes, and I rushed over to him. He spit up blood that must have still been in his throat from before he died.

“You did it,” he said.

“Not really. I let you all die before Medusa convinced me I was strong enough to overpower Chase.”

“You’ve always been strong enough, Jodi.”

“You should hate me right now. You know that, don’t you?”

He sat up. “Yeah, but what can I say—once a stalker, always a stalker.”

I smiled, remembering how scared I’d been of Alex when we’d first met. When I thought he was stalking me. Of course, he’d been trying to help me, in his own messed up way.

The others got to their feet and stared at me. They looked like they’d all seen ghosts, but I’d brought them back before their souls had had the chance to visit the land of the dead and see any.

“Was I—were we—” McKenzie was still in shock.

“Great,” Leticia said. “How many times do I have to die? I think I’ve had my share of death.”

Jared got to his feet. “Me too. I’ve only been here a few days, and I’ve died twice.”

“What’s his deal?” Lexi pointed at Chase, who was breathing heavily and unable to move.

“He’ll be fine. I had to borrow some power to bring you all back.”

“What exactly happened to us?” Carol asked. “I thought you were raising souls.”

“I was. Chase wasn’t.” I walked over to him and kicked his shoe. “He lied to me. Tricked me into thinking we were taking back the souls Hades stole, but really he had a different plan all along.” I moved to Ethan. “A plan I thought you were in on with him, but he wanted you dead, too.”

“I should’ve known.” Ethan practically spat in frustration. “Ever since his mother was taken by Hades, he’s been different. He was supposed to follow the plan. But instead, he took me down like I was one of you.”

“Wait, what?” He was speaking as if I knew the whole plan. As if I knew Hades had taken Chase’s mother. “Back up. What happened to Chase’s mom? I knew something happened to her and that it changed him, but Hades took her? Alive?”

“No, he killed her. Rather brutally.”

When Hades took an Ophi, the Ophi relived the deaths of every person they’d killed or brought back from the dead. If Chase’s mom had died brutally, she must have raised some pretty awful souls in her life.

“Why did he take her? What did she do to anger him?”

Ethan scoffed. “She was Ophi. That’s enough for Hades.”

“Why did you two,” I motioned to Chase, “team up with Hades?”

“What?” Leticia shrieked. “They’re working for Hades?”

“More like doing his dirty work, I think.” I got in Ethan’s face. “Am I right?”

The ground shook, and we all scrambled to avoid the enormous crack that was creeping up the cemetery, splitting it in two. Alex and I were on separate sides, getting farther apart by the second. I fell backward to avoid being pulled into the abyss. I’d seen this trick before. It was Hades’ grand entrance.

I wanted to tell everyone to run. I couldn’t protect them from Hades. He was too powerful, and I couldn’t even reach everyone right now thanks to the crack in the ground. Not that it would help. This was it. Everything I’d tried to do over the past two and a half months was worthless. I was going to die, and so was everyone else.

A swirl of black smoke rose from the darkness in the chasm. I braced myself to see Hades. Would he come out swinging or would he make me suffer? My money was on making me suffer. I willed my blood to mix. I didn’t think it would really help, but it was the only weapon I had.

The smoke stilled and disappeared, leaving me face to face with Hades. He was still majorly hot. He made Chase look like the dweeby guy who sat right in front of the teacher’s desk and took enough notes to fill a textbook. My blood rippled through me at the sight of him. If he wasn’t completely terrifying and didn’t want me dead, I probably would’ve been kissing his feet.

“Well, this isn’t exactly what I expected to see.” He looked at the others. “So many Ophi still alive, or should I say alive again?” He whipped his head around at me. “We had a deal that you would return every soul you took from me.”

“You never had their souls. I brought them back before they lost their souls to you. I didn’t break our deal.” My voice shook, but I stood my ground.

“Hmm.” He tapped his finger on his chin, mocking me with his questioning look. “I think you may have forgotten someone.” He walked over to the mausoleum, where my dad was still facing away from the group like I’d asked him to.

“Dad,” I mumbled. “No, Hades, wait!”

He turned to me. “Are you ordering me around, Jodi Marshall?”

“No.” I frantically shook my head. “It’s just that—”

“What, you were hoping that, since he’s your father, I’d let this one slide?” He reached a hand out to the corpse my dad was borrowing. “Turn around and face your daughter,” he commanded.

My dad turned, and the terror in his eyes was intense. He couldn’t talk without being invited to. It was one of the drawbacks of being a zombie. One of the many drawbacks.

“I’m sorry.” I locked eyes with my dad, but Hades thought I was talking to him.

“Sorry? What an interesting thing to say. Do you really think an apology is enough to make me forget you broke our agreement?”

What could I say? I wasn’t planning on returning my father’s soul. I’d been planning to take a whole bunch more.

“Funny thing.” Hades walked around my dad so he was directly behind him. “I was in Tartarus today, checking up on a few things, when some of my souls started disappearing. One minute they were there taking their punishments and the next…” He touched my dad’s shoulder with one finger, and the corpse collapsed on the ground. I saw my dad’s soul release. “They were gone. Just like that.”

“No!” My blood boiled. Hades was toying with me. It reminded me of Chase and the way he’d controlled me. I’d had enough of guys pushing me around. I stepped toward Hades.

“Uh-uh, Jodi Marshall.” His voice was laced with mockery. “You wouldn’t want to make me any angrier with you right now.”

“You’re angry?” I threw my arms out. “What about me? You sent Chase here, didn’t you? You struck some kind of sick deal with him. It had to do with his mom, right?”

Hades raised his eyebrows. “When did you figure that out? Before or after you fulfilled the prophecy and killed your friends?” He laughed, a real belly laugh to show how much he was enjoying my misery.

“Why do you hate us so much?”

“Do you know what my role is in the underworld?” He stepped over my father’s body and walked toward me. I resisted the urge to back away. “I see that the afterlife suits the life the soul lived.”

“Then why are you torturing all those souls you took from this cemetery? I raised one of them. I know you’ve been shoving them into the wrong bodies, making them endure the pain of that experience over and over again. What did they do to deserve that?” I was yelling now, and I didn’t care. Hades was going to kill me. He’d taken my dad away again, and I was going to be next. I might as well get out what I had to say.

“Did you think this cemetery was a peaceful resting place? Somewhere family buried their loved ones?” He circled around me like he’d done with my dad. “Think about it. Have you ever seen anyone come put flowers on one of these graves? Anyone crying over a lost loved one?”

I shook my head. “This place is hidden. Humans don’t know we’re here.”

“Exactly. Why would humans bury their loved ones where no one could find them?” He stopped right behind me and leaned forward, his mouth inches from my right ear. “Because they weren’t anyone’s loved ones.”

My eyes widened. Why had I never questioned who the bodies were in the cemetery? I’d raised enough of them to know they were vicious as zombies. I’d come to the conclusion that I’d been raising them from Hell because they were awful. The way that corpse had attacked Randy. The way the souls always lashed out at us. I thought back to Matt. When I raised him, there was no screaming. No anger towards me for raising him. Because he hadn’t been in Hell. Matt was the nicest, sweetest guy ever. If his soul had moved on, it had gone to Heaven. That was where I’d pulled him from. None of the others had been like him.

“Who were they?” I asked Hades. “These people—how did they get here, isolated from the rest of the world?”

Hades smiled. “It’s making sense now, isn’t it?”

Yes, it was.

“This building you call a school was once an experimental prison. The people who stayed here were either criminally insane or downright murderers. Instead of living in cells, they were heavily sedated to keep them under control, and they were buried here, where the rest of humanity would never have to think about them again.”

“My dad was buried here.” I felt tears in my eyes. “What did he do wrong? He deserved better. And none of this explains why you hate

Ophi.”

Hades smirked. “What is an Ophi’s power, Jodi?”

I rolled my eyes. He was treating me like a child. “Raising the dead.”

“When was the last time anyone with a shred of humanity considered that a good thing?” He reached up and touched my face. “You are as evil as the people in these graves. You torture souls.” He smacked my cheek, not hard but enough to show his disapproval. “The only reason why I didn’t come after this school sooner was because you were raising souls that deserved to be punished. Others weren’t doing the same, so I claimed them.”

“The group in Washington?”

“Yes. Still think I’m the bad guy?”

“Yes,” I said, being completely honest. “You killed Chase’s mother. Fine, she did some awful things. I get that. You did your job and punished her, but then you made a deal with Chase. You wanted him to use his powers to help me destroy all the Ophi.”

“Yes, yes, and yes.”

“What made you think your plan would work? You knew I was with Alex. You saw us together.”

Hades laughed and stared at Chase, still on the ground and suffering from the poison I’d given him. “Girls always go for the bad boys.”

Chase was the bad boy. He was everything Alex wasn’t. Sure, Alex had a little bad boy in him. I’d seen that side of him, but he was also really sweet once you got past the wall he put up. Medusa seemed to think Chase might have been different before his mom died. Before he made the deal with Hades.

I avoided Hades’ eyes and focused on Chase. “Why did you do it? Why did you agree to help him? Did he threaten you?”

Hades laughed again. “Always blaming me, aren’t you, Jodi Marshall?” He walked over to Chase, and the contempt he felt for him was written all over his face. “This one, he was evil from the start. He knew his powers were greater than other Ophi. With the exception of you.” He turned to me. “Chase was jealous of your power. It was all his parents ever talked about. Isn’t that right, Ethan?”

Ethan turned away.

“That’s why your son hated you. You pushed him, forced him to use more power than he should have. Tried to make him be more like Jodi. But that backfired, didn’t it?”

“Backfired how?” I asked, since Ethan wasn’t talking.

“It was Chase I came for that day, not Charlotte, but she begged me to give him a second chance. To let him prove he could be of use to me.” Hades bent down, getting in Chase’s face. “Your mother begged for your life, putting hers up in exchange, and you let her do it. You took my deal without hesitation.”

“No.” I couldn’t believe it. Chase had seemed tortured over losing his mother. How could he be the reason Hades took her? “Chase, what really happened?”

He was still too weak to move or talk, so I walked over and gave him a dose of my power to heal him.

“Talk!” I demanded.

Chase staggered to his feet, looking at Hades and ignoring me. “I did everything you told me to. You said you’d give her back to me.”

My stomach lurched. “You did all this to get your mom back?” I whipped my head toward Hades. “You only took her temporarily?”

“That depended on whether Chase succeeded. Which he did not.” He motioned to the others. “They are still alive.”

“They died. It worked. I did what you said.” Chase was desperate, grasping for a loophole.

That’s when I realized Hades never set up a deal he couldn’t win.

“We’ll do it again,” Chase said.

“Like hell we will!” I’d had it. Chase might be trying to save his mom, but I wasn’t going to let him kill everyone else to do it. I shoved him, letting a dose of poison knock him back to the ground. If it were my mom on the line, I wouldn’t have given up, either. I was sure that was something Chase and I had in common. I had to eliminate him as a threat, and poisoning him was the only way I knew how.

“Perhaps I can persuade you otherwise.” Hades raised his arms out to his sides and a figure rose from the crack in the earth.

Matt. I stared, nearly collapsing. He was himself again. Not a corpse. Not a zombie.