P.C. Cast: Hunted

“Let’s get it straight right now that I’m not sharin’ my bed with no one,” Kramisha said, weaving her head around and looking bored and pissed off at the same time.

“Kramisha, I told you about a zillion times, don’t make an issue outta somethin’ that isn’t one,” Stevie Rae said.

“I just want to be clear about myself,” Kramisha said.

“Fine. You’re clear.” Stevie Rae paused and looked up at me expectantly. “Okay, that’s my group.”

“And these are the extent of the red fledglings?” Darius asked before I could launch into my introductions.

Stevie Rae chewed the inside of her cheek and didn’t meet Darius’s eyes. “Yeah, these are all of my red fledglings.”

Ah oh, that’s her I’m-not-telling-the-whole-truth look. I knew it, but when she met my eyes, hers so clearly begged me not to say anything that I decided to keep my mouth shut and get the whole story when we weren’t the focus of everybody’s attention.

But me putting off questioning Stevie Rae didn’t put off the feeling that had come back, alarm bells ringing inside my head, loud and clear, at her evasion. There was definitely something going on with the red fledglings, and I didn’t think that something was going to be good.

I cleared my throat. “Well, I’m Zoey Redbird.” I tried to sound polite and normal in a situation that didn’t feel either.

“I’ve told y’all about Zoey. She has an affinity for all five elements, and it’s through her powers that I was able to Change and we were all given our humanity back,” Stevie Rae said. I noticed she was looking directly at Venus.

“Well, it wasn’t just through me that happened. My friends had a lot to do with it, too.” I nodded at Aphrodite, who was still drinking directly from the bottle of wine. “You guys obviously know Aphrodite. She’s a human now, but let’s just say she’s not normal,” I said, completely avoiding the subject of her fresh Imprint with Stevie Rae.

Aphrodite snorted, but didn’t say anything.

“This is Erin and Shaunee, the Twins. Erin has an affinity for water, Shaunee’s affinity is fire.” The Twins nodded and said hi.

“Damien and Jack are a couple,” I said. “Damien’s affinity is air. Jack is our audiovisual guy.”

“Hi,” Damien said.

“Hey there,” Jack said. He lifted the bag he was still carrying. “I made sandwiches. Anyone hungry?”

“Can someone explain why that dog’s in here?” Venus said, totally ignoring Jack’s friendly overture.

“She’s here ’cause she’s mine,” Jack said. “She stays with me.” He reached down and petted Duchess’s soft ears.

“Duchess stays with Jack,” I said firmly, giving Venus a hard look and thinking that I could happily strangle her with Duchess’s leash before I continued with the intros. “And this is Erik Night.”

“I remember you from drama class,” Shannoncompton said, her cheeks turning pink. “You’re really famous.”

“Hi, Shannon.” Erik smiled easily at her. “Nice to see you again.”

“I remember you, too. You were with Aphrodite,” Venus said.

“Not anymore,” Aphrodite said quickly, giving Darius a look .

“Obviously. You’re not a fledgling anymore,” Venus said in a silky voice that sounded way too interested. “When did you Change?”

“Just a few days ago,” he said. “I was on my way to the Europe an acting academy when Shekinah asked that I take Professor Nolan’s place temporarily at the House of Night.”

“Wow, I knew that High Priestess looked familiar. That was actually Shekinah!” Shannoncompton said. “I saw her just before she started toward that winged guy and—” She stopped talking and picked at her lip worriedly.

“And she was killed by Neferet,” I bluntly finished for her.

“Was she? Do you know that for certain?” Darius asked.

“She’s dead and I saw Neferet do it. I think she killed her with her mind,” I said.

“Queen Tsi Sgili,” Damien murmured. “It’s true then.”

“I need all of this explained to me,” Darius said curtly.

“And this is our Son of Erebus warrior, Darius,” I said.

“He’s right,” Stevie Rae said. “We need what happened tonight explained to us.”

“Not just tonight’s happenings,” Darius said. His gaze rested on the group of unusual fledglings. “I need information if I am to protect you. I must know everything that has been going on.”

“Agreed,” I said, glad beyond words that we had an experienced Son of Erebus in our group.

“We could eat and talk,” Jack said. When I looked at him, he gave me a big smile. “It always helps to eat with each other. A meal makes things better.”

“Unless you’re the meal,” I heard Aphrodite mutter.

“Jack’s right,” Stevie Rae said. “Why don’t y’all go grab some of the egg crates we have in the kitchen and some bags of chips and whatnot. Let’s eat while we talk.”

“Would the whatnot be more blood?” Venus said.

“Yes, it would,” Stevie Rae said matter-of-factly, clearly not wanting to make a big deal out of the blood issue.

“Fine. I’ll go get some more,” Venus said.

“Hey, while you’re getting blood, grab me another bottle of wine,” Aphrodite said.

“You know I’m not into charity, so you’ll be paying me back,” Venus said.

“I remember,” Aphrodite said. “And you should remember that I pay my debts.”

“Yeah, that’s how you used to be, but seems you’ve made a change,” she said.

“No shit? You mean you just now noticed I turned human?”

“Not what I was talking about. So just replace the wine,” she added before leaving the room.

“Hey, weren’t y’all roomies?” Stevie Rae asked Aphrodite.

Aphrodite ignored Stevie Rae and I had the urge to shake her and yell, Not talking to her or looking at her is not going to break your Imprint with her.

“Yes, they were,” Erik said into the dead air, reminding me that because he and Aphrodite used to be together, he would know her roommate, maybe too well.

“Yeah, well, things change.” Aphrodite found her voice.

“People change,” I said, pulling my gaze from Erik.

Aphrodite met my eyes. Her lips curled up in a sad, sarcastic smile. “And that is too damn true,” she said.

“So we have p.b. and j., bologna, and processed American cheese slices.” Jack said the “processed American cheese slices” part like he was reluctantly offering us worms and mud. “And my personal gourmet Top Chef concoction: mayonnaise, peanut butter, and lettuce on wheat bread.”

“Okay, Jack. Nasty,” Shaunee said.

“Have you lost your damn mind?” Erin said.

“Gay white boy is weird,” Kramisha said, snagging one of the bologna and cheese sandwiches.

The Twins nodded and made “yep” noises as Kramisha joined them on a nearby egg crate.

Jack looked mortally offended. “I think they’re good, and you guys should try things before you disrespect them.”

“I’ll try one of them,” said Shannoncompton sweetly.

“Thanks.” Jack grinned and handed her a sandwich wrapped in a paper towel.

There was the rustling of a lot of paper as all of us crowded into Stevie Rae’s room, grabbed sandwiches, and passed bags of chips around. I was surprised to see the amount of food and chips and brown pop (yea for brown pop!). It made a weird, surreal mixture with the bottles of red wine and bags of blood that were being shared. I sat on the bed with Aphrodite and Darius and Stevie Rae, who was looking better and better. For a second, with the normal sounds of kids eating and talking, it was easy to imagine that we were just in a kind of ratty building at the House of Night and forget that we were in a tunnel under the city and that all of our lives were in the process of never being the same. For a second, we were nothing but a group of kids, some friends, some not, and we were just hanging out together.