Stalked by Death

Chapter 4

Randy and Leticia stared at me, looking for an explanation. I tried to come up with something—something clever to make them think I’d done it on purpose to try to teach them to always be ready, but it didn’t make sense. Ophi didn’t raise souls without knowing it. At least no Ophi other than me.

“I—”

“Hey, nice work, Randy. You did it!” Alex said, running over to join us.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were showing Chase to his room.”

“Yeah, yeah. I did. I told him to go up the steps to the right. Fourth door on the right. He’ll find it.” Alex shrugged. “Besides, I got back just in time to see Randy’s raising. That’s awesome, man.” He smacked Randy on the back.

Randy shook his head. “I didn’t do it. I was standing here, watching the girls go gaga over pretty boy, and these two started coming out of the ground.”

Alex immediately turned to me. “Did you do this?”

At least he’d missed the part about me going gaga over Chase. “I don’t know.” I lowered my head, not wanting to meet anyone’s eyes or look at the zombies crawling out of the earth.

“Jodi, this is serious.” How Alex could go from caring to stone cold serious so quickly had always been a mystery to me. “If you don’t get control of your powers, you’re going to get us all killed.”

Leticia gasped. “Do you think Hades is going to come after us?”

“That, or Jodi’s zombies are going to eat us in our sleep,” Randy said.

I rolled my eyes. “Thank you, Randy. That’s really helpful.”

Alex grabbed my arm. “He’s not wrong.”

I looked at Alex, feeling completely alone. He was supposed to be on my side, defend me, but he was attacking me like everyone else. I pushed past him and walked over to the corpses.

“Don’t bother getting up. I release your souls. Go back to where you came from.” I didn’t even wait for their souls to leave. I turned and headed for the mansion. I needed to have a talk with Medusa. She would understand. She would listen to me.

I climbed the steps and pushed through the door in a hurry. My head collided with something hard, and I fell back, landing on the floor. “Ouch!”

“You can say that again.” Chase was on the floor in front of me. “Anyone ever tell you that you have a hard head?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” I rubbed the front of my head, which felt like it was the size of a basketball.

“Here.” Chase got to his feet and extended his hand to me. I stared at his hand and then his eyes, noticing the way they sparkled with confidence. Now, it was too much like my dream.

“I’m good.” I used the doorway to help me up.

Chase lowered his hand, shoving it in his pocket. Just great. He was the new guy who didn’t know anyone, and I was making him feel unwelcome by not even taking his hand.

“Did you find your room okay? I’m sorry Alex didn’t give you a real tour. He was eager to get back to the training, I guess.”

Chase smirked. “Yeah, I’m sure that was it.”

“He’s a good guy. He just—”

“Doesn’t want to let you out of his sight.”

I was hoping Alex’s behavior wasn’t as obvious to everyone else as it was to me. Apparently I was wrong.

“Anyway, I found my room and my bag’s unpacked. I was coming back out to join you guys when I ran into you. Or should I say you ran into me?”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I needed a break.”

“And in a hurry. Something wrong?”

I felt like someone was always asking me that. “Nothing to worry about. Tell me about you. How long have you been training?”

“Mason’s been teaching me basic stuff. You know—raising, releasing, being careful around humans. Nothing major. You know how the Serpentarius Ophi feel about using their powers to raise souls.” He leaned against the Medusa statue.

“Uh, could you not do that?” I tugged him away from Medusa.

“Oh, sorry. Is it valuable?”

“More than you know, but we’ll get to that later. Did you spend a lot of time around humans?”

Chase nodded. “Yeah, I was usually in charge of helping the bands set up every Friday when they let humans into the club. Never had a problem being around humans.” He lowered his eyes. “Until three weeks ago.”

I stepped closer to him. “What happened?”

“The bass player wasn’t happy with the sound quality on his amp, so he took out a knife and tried to adjust the wire. I should’ve gotten out of there as soon as the knife came out of his pocket—that’s what I was taught to do, but I was sure I could handle it. I mean, I wasn’t the one using the knife.”

“Did he slip and get you with the blade?” My eyes flew to the scar above his eye.

“No, he didn’t slip. He started going off about this show he played and how the crowd wasn’t that into it because the sound wasn’t right. I made a comment about how maybe the sound quality wasn’t the problem. He didn’t like that very much.”

My eyes widened. “He attacked you?”

“Nah, he wasn’t tough enough to actually pick a fight with me. He yelled at me. Told me I was tone-deaf, and he was flailing his arms. The knife nicked me.” He raised his hand to his scar. “It really wasn’t bad, but instead of getting out of there, I yelled back at the guy and took a swing. Only I’d touched the wound first.”

“So, your punch was deadly.”

“You got it.” He frowned. “I didn’t mean to do it. I got careless.”

“I’m starting to think Ophi don’t belong around humans. I know my experiences with humans were awful after I came into my powers.”

“Should I pull up a chair? Are we going to compare horror stories?” He said it with a smile, and I realized he was trying to break the tension. All this talk about killing wasn’t exactly uplifting.

“You’re right. That’s enough reminiscing.” I pointed to the statue. “You want to meet Medusa?”

“I think the statue and I have already met. Remember? You told me to stop leaning on her.”

“I did. Because she’s not just a statue.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You guys don’t join hands around it and chant, do you?”

I laughed. “You know I kind of thought the same thing when I first got here. But no. We’re not a cult. We don’t worship the statue.” I tugged his arm. “Come stand here, facing her.”

He listened, but he kept looking at me like I was crazy.

“Okay, take Medusa’s right hand in yours.”

“You want me to hold hands with a statue? Really? I mean, if I’m going to hold someone’s hand, I’d rather hold yours.”

I felt my face flush. “Just do it.”

“Okay.” He took my hand in his.

“That’s not what I meant,” I said.

He squeezed my hand. “I don’t see you letting go.”

“Am I interrupting anything?” Alex asked, walking through the door behind us. His eyes immediately flew to our hands.

My entire body felt like it was on fire. I took my hand away and walked toward Alex. “I was about to introduce Chase to Medusa, but he misunderstood me when I told him to take her hand.”

“Misunderstood you? Yeah, I’m sure that’s all it was.” Alex took my hand in his, and we walked back to the statue.

“Go ahead,” Alex said. “Take Medusa’s hand.” He said Medusa’s name slowly, like Chase might get confused. “In fact, why don’t you take both her hands?”

“No!” I reached for Chase, our fingers touching.

“What?” Chase asked.

“The last person who held both Medusa’s hands at once ended up dead on the floor.” I realized I was still touching Chase. I lowered my hand and turned away.

“They died?”

“For a little while, but I was able to bring her back.”

“Wow, you brought back an Ophi? You really are something, aren’t you?”

Alex reached for my hand, clearly not liking the way Chase was looking at me.

“Only one hand at a time, okay?” I said.

“What’s this about, anyway?” Chase asked.

“You’ll see. It’s something every Ophi who comes here does. Believe me, you’ll like it.”

He smiled at me and took Medusa’s right hand in his. His eyes closed, and I knew he was feeling Medusa’s power breathing life into every inch of him. While he enjoyed the connection, I turned back to Alex.

“What were you trying to do, kill him?” I kept my voice a whisper, hoping Chase would be too involved in the connection with Medusa to hear me.

“I wouldn’t have really let him do it,” Alex said. “But the guy needs to be put in his place.”

“Yeah, well, killing him isn’t the way to do it.” I stepped closer to him. “When you do stuff like that, you make me think you’re—I don’t want you to end up like Victoria and Troy.” I’d never held it against Alex that his parents were evil Ophi who had tried to kill me. Alex wasn’t like them, but he was their son, and it made me wonder if he had that same evil buried somewhere inside him. If he did, I was determined not to let it come out. I owed him that for helping me face his parents and for saving my life.

Alex was silent, and I had no clue what was going on in his head. “You think I’m going to turn into them? Do you really have such little faith in me?”

“No. I’m worried about you. That’s all.” I wished he would look at me, but he was staring past me at Chase. I leaned forward, resting my hands against his chest. “Alex, I care about you. A lot. I don’t want to lose you.”

The coldness evaporated from his face, and he lowered his eyes to meet mine. “You won’t lose me.” He gave one last look at Chase before taking my face in his hands and kissing me.

Chase cleared his throat, making me jump. “Sorry, was I supposed to stay connected to the statue until you two were through making out?”

I spun around, but Alex didn’t let me step away from him. He put his hands down heavily on my shoulders, grounding me in my spot. If I wasn’t so embarrassed, I would’ve been annoyed by Alex’s little attempt to claim his territory.

“You can try holding her left hand now.” I pointed to the statue, trying to get Chase’s attention off me.

Chase’s eyes lingered on me for a few more seconds before he reached for Medusa’s left hand. His face twisted in a worried expression.

“It’s okay,” I said. “The blood in the left side of her body is only poisonous to humans. What you’re feeling is the power of that blood flowing through your veins. It can’t hurt you, though.”

“It feels like—”

“Snakes, I know, but trust me, you’ll get used to it.” I watched Chase give in to the sensation and become oblivious to us.

“Shall we pick up where we left off?” Alex asked.

I shrugged his hands from my shoulders and glared at him. “Don’t treat me like I’m this prize you’ve won. I saw you look at Chase before you kissed me. You knew he was watching us.”

“So? Do you have a problem with him knowing you’re my girlfriend?”

“No. I have a problem with you groping me every time Chase is near. You’re not a dog, and I’m not a tree. So, stop trying to piss around me.”

Chase started laughing, and I turned to see he was no longer connected to Medusa.

“It’s nice to see a girl who isn’t afraid to stand up for herself.”

I stared at Chase, not liking the way he was looking at me any more than I liked the way Alex was acting. I spun on my heel and headed toward the kitchen to help Arianna with lunch, and more importantly to put some distance between both guys and me.

“Jodi,” Alex called after me.

“See you at lunch.” I waved my hand, not looking at either of them, and kept walking. I turned the corner, almost smacking into Arianna.

“Jodi, what’s gotten into you?” She shook her head at me. “I’ve only known you for a couple months, but I’ve never heard you talk like that. Especially to Alex.”

She was right. I didn’t talk like that. I had no idea where it was coming from, all this anger. Before Chase came, things with Alex had been great. I’d never minded when he kissed me out of the blue. I thought it was romantic. But now…

“It feels like the only reason Alex is acting like this is because he doesn’t like the way Chase looks at me.”

“The only reason?” Arianna tsked. “Honey, that boy is in love with you. If you can’t see that, well, you need to get those pretty green eyes of yours checked.”

In love with me? No. No way. We’d been together less than three months. Alex couldn’t be in love with me.

“And Chase definitely has a crush on you. I saw the way he was looking at you. Holding your hand.”

My eyes widened. “Arianna, were you spying on me?”

“Sweetheart, please. I was dusting in the living room. It’s not like you and Chase were behind closed doors. I have eyes and ears, and they work just fine.”

“Well, since you know what’s going on, maybe you can help me. I really care about Alex. I do. But Chase is different. I’m annoyed by his cockiness, but drawn to him at the same time. It’s so much like the way I felt when I first met Alex.” I hung my head. “What should I do?”

“Okay, here’s one way to find out where your heart really is.” She brought me over to a couch in the living room, and we sat down. “Close your eyes.”

I took a deep breath and did what she said.

“Now clear your mind completely.” She paused. “Is it clear?”

Clearing my mind wasn’t easy these days. I had too much going on in there. “Not really.”

“Different question then. Whose face do you see?”

Whose face? I didn’t see a face. Wait! Yes, I did. But it wasn’t Alex or Chase. It was Matt. My ex-boyfriend, Matt. My human boyfriend I’d killed and brought back as a zombie, Matt. What did that mean? And did I really want Arianna to know I was this boy-crazed?

“Jodi? Do you see a face?”

“No,” I lied, opening my eyes.

“All right. Let’s try something else.”

I didn’t want to try anything else. I wanted to forget I was a complete headcase right now.

“Hades is coming.”

“What? Where?” I whipped my head around.

“Relax.” Arianna grabbed my arm, gently rubbing it. “It’s another method of figuring out what’s really in your heart. Pretend Hades is coming. He’s determined to take one of the boys. Either Alex or Chase. You can’t bargain with him. You can’t get out of making a decision. Who do you save?”

“Alex,” I said, without hesitation. “I’ve known him longer. I don’t really know anything about Chase.”

Arianna cocked her head to the side. “Is that the only reason you’re choosing Alex?”

“No. I really like Alex.”

“So, you don’t like Chase?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t gotten to know him yet.”

“But you want to get to know him?”

“Yes.”

“Even if it hurts Alex?”

“I don’t know.” All this was doing was confusing me more. I felt like I should be lying on a couch in the middle of a therapy session while a shrink analyzed all my thoughts.

“So, if you could get to know Chase without hurting Alex, you would?”

“Yes.”

“And what if getting to know Chase means losing Alex?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Alex asked.

I spun around on the couch to see the twisted expression on his face. “No, that’s not what I meant.” I reached out to him, but he was already taking off upstairs.