Chosen (House of Night 3)

I found the heart locket when I was going through the drawer getting Stevie Rae's clothes. I was with her the night she died, and by the time I got back to our room the vamp cleanup squad (or whatever they're called) had already been there and bad taken Stevie Rae's stuff. I got pissed. Really pissed. And I'd insisted they put some of her stuff back because I wanted to keep things to remember her by. So Anastasia, the professor who teaches spells and rituals (she's really nice and married to Dragon Lankford, the fencing instructor) took me to a creepy storage room where I shoved some of Stevie Rae's stuff into a bag and then dumped it back in what used to be her dresser. I remember Anastasia was kind to me, but she also clearly disapproved of me having keepsakes of Stevie Rae.

When a fledgling dies, the vamps expect us to forget them and go on. Period. Well, I just don't think that's right. I wasn't going to forget my best friend, even before I found out she was really undead.

Anyway, I had grabbed her jeans when something fell out of the pocket. It was a kinda crunched-up envelope that had zoey printed on the outside of it in Stevie Rae's messy handwriting. My stomach hurt as I opened it. Inside was a birthday card-one of those silly ones with a picture of a cat (who looked a lot like Nala) on the front wearing one of those pointy birthday hats and a frown. Inside it said happy birthday, or whatever, like i care, i'm a cat. Stevie Rae had drawn a big heart and written love you! stevie rae and grumpy nala. Sliding around in the bottom of the envelope was a silver chain. I lifted it up to find a delicate silver heart locket dangling from it. My fingers were shaking as I opened the locket. A many-times-folded picture fell out. I smoothed it carefully and, with a little sob, recognized it as a cutout part of a picture I had taken of the two of us (by holding the camera out, smooshing our faces together, and pressing the flash button). Wiping my eyes, I folded the picture back into the locket and clasped the chain around my neck. It was a short chain, so the heart fit just below the hollow of my throat.

Somehow, finding the necklace made me feel stronger, and also taking the blood from the kitchen was way easier than I'd thought it was going to be. Instead of my normal purse-the little designer one I'd found at a boutique at Utica Square last year (it's made of fake pink fur, totally cool), I took my ginormic bag-the one I used to use as a book bag when I went to South Intermediate High School in Broken Arrow, before I was Marked and my life exploded. Anyway, the bag was big enough to carry a fat kid in (if he was short), so it was simple to cram Stevie Rae's dorky Roper jeans, a T-shirt, her black cowboy boots (ugh), and some under things in it and still have room for five bags of blood. Yes, they were gross. Yes, I wanted to stick a straw in one and suck it down like a juice box. Yes, I'm disgusting.

The cafeteria was closed, as was the kitchen, and completely deserted. But like everything else at the school, not locked. I got into and out of the kitchen easily, holding my blood-filled purse carefully while I tried to look nonchalant and not guilty. (I'm really not good at theft.)

I was worried about seeing Loren (who I was really really trying to forget about, not so hard that I took off his diamond earrings, but still), but the only person I saw was a third-former kid named Ian Bowser. He's dorky and scrawny, but also kinda funny. I had drama class with him and he was hilariously in love with our drama teacher, Professor Nolan. Actually, it was Professor Nolan he was looking for when he literally ran into me on my way out of the cafeteria.

"Oh, Zoey, sorry! Sorry!" Ian gave me a nervous little vampyre salute of respect, hand fisted over his heart.

"I-I didn't mean to run over you."

"No problem," I said. I hated it when kids got all nervous and scared around me like they think I might turn them into something vile. Please. It's the House of Night, not Hogwarts. (Yes, I read the Potter books and love the movies. Yes, that's more proof of my geekness.)

"You haven't seen Professor Nolan, have you?"

"Nope. I didn't even know she was back from break," I said.

"Yeah, she got back yesterday. We had an appointment to meet about thirty minutes ago." He grinned and blushed bright pink. "I really want to make the finals of the Shakespeare monologue contest next year, so I asked her to tutor me."

"Oh, that's nice." Poor kid. He'd never final in the kick-ass Shakespeare contest if his voice didn't stop cracking.

"If you see Professor Nolan would you tell her I'm looking for her?"

"Will do," I said. Ian hurried off. I clutched my bag and headed straight for the parking lot and then on to Wal-Mart.

Buying the GoPhone (and some soap, a toothbrush, and a Kenny Chesney CD) was easy. What hadn't been easy was dealing with the phone call from Erik.

"Zoey? Where are you?"

"Still at school," I said. Which wasn't a literal lie. By that time I was pulling off the side of the road just outside the place in the east wall where there was a secret trapdoor the led out the back side of school. I say

"secret" because tons of fledglings and probably all of the vamps knew about it. It was an unspoken school tradition that fledglings would sneak off campus for a ritual and some vaguely bad behavior now and then.

"Still at school?" he sounded annoyed. "But the movie's almost over."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Are you okay? You know you should ignore the crap Aphrodite says."

"Yeah, I know. But she didn't say stuff about you." Or at least not much stuff. "It's just that I'm majorly stressed out right now and I just need to think through some stuff."

"Stuff again." He didn't sound happy.

"I'm really sorry, Erik."

"Okay, yeah. No problem. I'll see you tomorrow or whenever. Bye." And he hung up.

"Crap," I said into the dead phone.

Aphrodite tapping on the passenger's side window made me jump and let out a little squeak. I put away the phone and leaned over to unlock the door for her.

"Bet he's pissed," she said.

"Do you have freakishly good hearing?"

"Nah, just freakishly good guessing ability. Plus I know our boy Erik. You stood him up tonight. He's pissed."

"Okay, first, he's not our boy. He's my boy. Second, I did not stand him up. Third, I'm so not talking about Erik with you, Miss Blow Job."

Instead of hissing and spitting at me like I thought she would, Aphrodite laughed. "Okay. Whatever. And don't knock something before you try it, Miss Goody-Goody."

"Okay, eew," I said. "Changing the subject. I have an idea about how to handle the Stevie Rae thing. I don't think you should hide, either. So show me how to get to your parents' place. I'll drop you off there and then go get Stevie Rae."

"Want me to be gone before you get back with her?"

I'd already thought about this. It was tempting, but the truth was that it was looking more and more like Aphrodite and I were going to have to work together on fixing Stevie Rae. So my undead best friend was just going to have to get used to having Aphrodite around. Plus, I was already having to do too much sneaking. I just couldn't deal with sneaking around the kid I was sneaking around everyone else for. If that makes any sense.

"No. Stevie Rae's gonna have to learn to deal with you." I glanced at Aphrodite as I came to a stop sign and added cheerfully, "Or maybe she'll do us all a favor and eat you."

"It's so nice that you always look on the positive side of things," Aphrodite said sarcastically. "Okay, turn right here. Then when you get to Peoria, take a left and go down a few blocks until you see that big brick sign that points to the turnoff to the Philbrook."

I did as she said. We didn't make small talk, but it didn't feel all awkward and uncomfortable between us. It was weird how easy it actually was to be around Aphrodite. I mean, not that she wasn't still a bitch, but I was kinda liking her. Or maybe this was just another sign that I needed to give some serious consideration to therapy, and I wondered abstractly if Prozac or Lexapro or some other lovely antidepressant worked on fledglings.

At the Philbrook sign I turned left and Aphrodite said, "Okay, we're almost there. It's the fifth house on the right. Don't take the first driveway, take the second one. That one goes around behind the house to the garage apartment."

We came to it and all I could do was shake my head. "This is where you live?"

"Used to live," she said.

"It's an f-ing mansion!" And I meant a cool one. It looked like something I'd imagine rich folks in Italy would live in.

"It was a fucking prison. It still is." I was going to say something semi-profound about her being free now that she'd been Marked and was a legally emancipated minor and that she could actually tell her 'rentals to get lost (kinda like I had), but her next smart-alecky comment made me forget the kinda nice thing I meant to say.

"And it's really annoying that you're too damn pure to cuss. Saying fuck won't kill you. It won't even mean you're not all virginal."

"I cuss. I say hell and crap and even damn. A lot." And why did I feel the sudden need to defend my non-cussing preference?

"Whatever," she said, clearly laughing at me.

"And there's nothing wrong with being a virgin. It's better than being a skank." Aphrodite was still laughing. "You have a lot to learn, Z." She pointed at a building that looked like a miniature version of the mansion. "Go around behind there. There's a back way into the apartment and your car will be blocked from the street."

I pulled up behind the totally cool garage and we got out of my Bug. Aphrodite used her key to unlock the door, which opened to a stairway. I followed her up to the apartment.

"Jeesh, servants must have lived pretty well back in the day," I mumbled, looking around at the dark, shiny wood floors, the leather furniture, and the gleaming kitchen. There weren't a bunch of cheesy knickknacks

polluting the decor, but there were candles and some vases that looked totally expensive. I could see that the bedroom and bathroom were at the other end of the apartment, and could just peek in to see a big bed with puffy down comforters and pillows. My guess was the bathroom was nicer than my parents' master bathroom.

"Do you think it'll work?" Aphrodite asked.

I went to one of the windows. "Thick curtains-that's good."

"Shutters, too. See, we can close them from in here." Aphrodite demonstrated. I nodded at the flat-screen TV. "Cable?"

"Of course," she said. "There's a bunch of DVDs around here somewhere, too."

"Perfect," I said, moving to the kitchen. "I'll just stick all but one of the blood packs in here, and then go get Stevie Rae."

"Fine. I'll watch Real World reruns," Aphrodite said.

"Fine," I said. But instead of leaving, I cleared my throat uneasily. Aphrodite looked up from messing with the TV. "What?"

"Stevie Rae doesn't look or act like she used to."

"Really? I wouldn't have had a clue about that if you hadn't enlightened me. I mean, most people who die and then come back to life as bloodsucking monsters look and act totally the same."

"I'm serious."

"Zoey, I saw Stevie Rae and some of the other creatures in my visions. They're gross. Period, the end."

"It's worse when you see them in person."

"No big surprise there," she said.

"I don't want you to say anything to Stevie Rae," I said.

"You mean about her being dead and all? Or about her being gross?"

"Either. I don't want her scared off. I also don't particularly want her to jump on you and rip out your throat. I mean, I think I could probably stop her but I'm not one hundred percent sure. And besides the fact that it would be disgusting and hard to explain, I really hate thinking about what all that blood would do to this cool apartment."

"How sweet of you."

"Hey, Aphrodite, how about you try something new. Try being nice," I said.

"How about I just don't say anything."

"That would work, too." I headed for the door. "I'll try to get her here soon."

"Hey," Aphrodite called after me. "Could she really rip out my throat?"

"Absolutely," I said, and closed the door behind me.