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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Shaylin
"Here. Now." Aphrodite crooked her finger at Shaylin, motioning for her to follow. She did her twitchy walk, cutting across the grass and heading in the general direction of the fledglings' dorms.
Shaylin sighed, squelched her irritation, and followed the annoying blonde. As she caught up with her, Aphrodite was already talking. "Okay, you need to reconnoiter."
"Okay, you need to grow some manners," Shaylin said.
Aphrodite stopped and narrowed her eyes to blue slits.
"You should know that look is unattractive and it causes crow's feet," Shaylin spoke quickly before Aphrodite could say something mean and smart-assy.
"You've been talking to Damien, haven't you?"
"Maybe," Shaylin answered vaguely, not wanting to get Damien in any trouble. But, yeah, the truth was she had been talking to him. Actually, she'd really started to like Damien, as well as Stevie Rae and Zoey. Aphrodite, though, she was a different story. "Aphrodite, really, it looks like you and I might have to work together, or whatever you'd call this Prophetess stuff. So, it'd make both of our lives easier if you could, at least, be polite to me."
"No, it would make your life easier. Mine, it wouldn't change at all."
Shaylin shook her head. "Really? Why don't you run that attitude past Nyx? We have major Darkness to fight. Zoey's mom was just killed and now her grandma's in serious danger. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Zoey a friend of yours?"
Aphrodite's eyes narrowed again, but she only said one word: "Yes."
"Then how about you do everything you can to help her."
"I am doing that, bitch," Aphrodite snapped.
"How can you be so sure? Did you ever consider the small fact that maybe, if you were less hateful, you'd have access to more of your Prophetess gifts?"
Aphrodite's eyes un-narrowed. Slowly. She even looked a little surprised. "No. I've never considered that."
Shaylin threw her hands up in frustration. "Jeesh, were you raised by wolves?"
"Sort of," Aphrodite said. "But they had money."
"Incredible," Shaylin murmured. Then she started over. "Okay, here's what I know. When I read your aura and was bitchy about the little flickering light I saw within you, it messed with my head. The next time I looked at you, it was like your colors were all running together."
"Which, obviously, means you saw me being pissed."
"No, because everyone's colors looked all runny and indistinct until I apologized to you. Wait, scratch that. The complete truth is my True Sight was messed up until I apologized to you and meant it."
"Huh. That's almost interesting."
"I'm not getting through to you at all, am I?"
"As much as anyone can," Aphrodite said. "So, back to reconnoitering."
"Fine. Yes. What do you want me to do?"
"Find Erin. And Dallas. If I'm correct, which, just FYI for future reference, I almost always am, you're going to find them together."
"And that would be bad, right?"
"Are you brain damaged?"
"I'm not even going to answer that," Shaylin said.
"Good. We don't have time for connect-the-dots. It's going to be dawn in a couple of hours. The bus will be heading back to the depot and Kalona will be heading into Neferet's nasty lair."
"Yeah, Kalona waiting until dawn so she'd be weakened by the sun without it being totally obvious that he was waiting until she was weakened by the sun doesn't look like it's going to work," Shaylin said, looking skyward.
"What in the hell are you talking about, fucktard?"
Shaylin pointed up. "Rain clouds. Lots of them. I really wish they'd clear out. They blanket the sun and its weakening effect. Now who's the fucktard?"
"Do not call me a fucktard," Aphrodite said.
"Well, then don't call me one," Shaylin said.
"I'll think about it. Back to my original point-before we go back to the depot and Kalona takes off, I want you to check out Dallas and Erin's colors. Any additional info you can give us about Erin, especially about whether she's a traitorous, skanky ho-yeah, I'm paraphrasing Shaunee-would be a good thing. I have a feeling about them, and it's not a warm, fuzzy one."
"All right, yeah, sounds good, but I have no idea where they might be. Do you? Is that one of the gifts you have?" Shaylin asked.
"Goddess, you are brain damaged. No, I don't have a GPS inside my head. I do have a brain inside it, though. It tells me that if Erin and Dallas are doing the nasty, it makes sense to start looking for them in Erin's dorm room-the dorm room she doesn't share with Shaunee anymore."
"Oh. Yeah. That does make sense." Shaylin hesitated. "But I don't know which dorm room is hers."
"Third floor, number thirty-six. When they shared a brain, they used to say it stood for their chest size. I said it was their combined IQ."
"Of course you did," Shaylin said.
"See, you do understand me!" Aphrodite said with fake enthusiasm. "I'll meet you back at the bus. Soon." Aphrodite started to walk away, paused and added, "Please."
Shaylin's eyes widened.
Aphrodite rolled her eyes and opened her mouth, obviously preparing to say something hateful. Then she stopped, stared above her for one long moment, before glancing at Shaylin and saying, "Looks like you're getting your wish. The rainclouds are clearing." Then Aphrodite tossed her hair and twitched off.
Shaylin shook her head. "Total nutjob," she muttered to herself as she made her way to the girls' dorm. "Nyx, I don't know you very well, and I don't want you to think I'm rude or blasphemous or anything like that, but Aphrodite as your Prophetess? Why?"
"No one knows, and I think that includes Aphrodite herself."
Shaylin jumped in surprise as Erik Night stepped from the shadows of a nearby oak tree.
"Erik! What are you doing out here?" Shaylin's hand went to her throat. She imagined Erik could see how hard her pulse pounded there, and not just because he'd startled her. Her first view of him was always the same-his absolute, total, tall/dark/handsomeness was obvious and distracting. But then she got a glimpse of his colors and they weren't nearly as attractive. Shaylin had decided he was like one of those gorgeously painted pieces of pottery that you'd like to use to toss a salad in or whatever, but if you flipped the piece over you'd see the WARNING: DO NOT USE TO SERVE FOOD label.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I'm out here procrastinating." His smile was a zillion-watt lightbulb. Shaylin could see why almost one hundred percent of the fledgling girls were in love with him. The problem was, she could also see more than his gorgeousness.
"I didn't mean to interrupt you. I'll let you get back to your procrastination. See ya."
"Hey." He touched her arm, just for a moment as she walked past him, coaxing her to pause. "I thought we were friends."
Shaylin studied him. When Erik had Marked her his colors were mostly made up of an indecisive, pea green that overshadowed the bright flashes of something that might have been golden, like the rays of the sun, but were too fleeting for her to be sure. Other than that he'd just been kinda foggy and wishy-washy. She hadn't paid much attention to his colors the past few days, so when she focused, Shaylin was surprised to see that, even though his green was still there, it had lightened and now it didn't bring to mind mushy peas. Instead it reminded her of turquoise, like pretty sea foam green turquoise. And all around the green-blue the foggy mishmash of gray had lifted, revealing a solid tan, like the sand of a beautiful, untouched beach. Feeling a little like she'd fallen into deep water, Shaylin tried not to look nervous and blurted, "Yeah, we are friends, but that's all."
"I didn't ask for anything else, did I?"
Shaylin met his eyes. They were bright and blue, and spent way too much time wandering south to her boobs. Of course, saying something like "you totally want to be friends with benefits" sounded way too much like something Aphrodite would say. So instead she chose a nicer answer. "No, you haven't asked for anything else."
He smiled again. "So, we can be friends?"
It was hard not to smile back at him, and truthfully, she couldn't think of a reason not to. Shaylin grinned and nodded. "Yep, friends."
"Awesome! How about I walk you to wherever you're going? I can procrastinate just as well with you as I can by myself."
"What are you procrastinating about?" Shaylin avoided the question of where she was going and just kinda meandered in the general direction of the dorms. Slowly.
"Lesson plans," he said with a sigh. "I really hate writing them. You know, I never meant to be a professor."
"Yeah, everyone knows that. You were meant to be a movie star," Shaylin said. She spoke in an offhand manner. She hadn't meant to be patronizing or sarcastic, but the hurt in his blue eyes said she'd probably sounded both.
"Yeah," he repeated in a clipped voice, turning his gaze away from her and stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "Everyone knows that."
"Hey, but this Tracker thing is just a little speed bump in the road to Hollywood, right? What are you, twenty-one?"
"Nineteen. I just completed the Change a few months ago. Why? Do I look old?"
Shaylin laughed. "Twenty-one isn't old."
"It is if you have to add four years onto it, and I've just started a four-year Tracker job."
"Does being a Tracker mean you have to stay at the House of Night in Tulsa?"
"Trying to get rid of me?" He only sounded about half kidding.
"No, of course not," she assured him. "What I meant is, can't you transfer to the West Coast and still be a Tracker? There must be a House of Night nearer to Hollywood than this." As they talked, Shaylin realized that Erik didn't sound like a pissed-off, spoiled brat. He just sounded tired and frustrated and maybe even kinda depressed.
"I already looked into it. The answer I got was weird and a little creepy." He paused and sent her a sideways glance. "Well, probably creepier for the kids who are being Tracked than for me."
"Been there-done that. It wasn't so creepy. Actually, you were kinda funny," she said.
Erik frowned. "I was supposed to be powerful and confident and maybe a little scary."
"So, you want to be creepy?"
That made him laugh. "No, not really. And the actual Marking isn't the creepy part anyway, or at least it's not supposed to be. The part that's definitely not normal is that there's something in my blood that keeps me anchored to this place. Yeah, I can travel, but only if it's because my blood's calling me to Mark a kid who belongs at this House of Night."
"So, you're kinda like a GPS."
"I suppose." Erik didn't sound thrilled about it. "Hey, but enough about me. Where are you going?"
Shaylin swallowed around the dryness in her throat and said the first lie that came to her mind. "I'm going to the dorm. Aphrodite asked me to pick up some of her stuff from her room."
"She asked, as in please would you? Or she commanded, as in 'Get my stuff or I'll rubber band your hands together and shove you in a boiling pot like my mom's chef would cook a lobster!'"
Shaylin giggled. "Your acting skills either went way up or way down in my opinion, because you sound entirely too much like Aphrodite."
He shuddered. "I'll try not to do that again."
"But in answer to your question-it was more like the second example than the first."
"Big surprise. So, I'll walk you to the dorm. Okay?"
Shaylin met his eyes. What could it hurt? "Okay," she said.
Erik
"I think I agree with you about the lesson plan stuff. It must be super boring to have to figure out what you're going to teach-write it down-turn it in-then teach it. Talk about overkill," Shaylin said.
"Tell me about it," Erik said dryly. "We're going into Shakespeare. I love the plays, but it was a lot cooler when I just got to act and didn't have to be a damn robot for the school's High Council. Yeah, lesson plans are boring. Writing them sucks."
He had to keep reminding himself to stop looking at Shaylin's boobs. Okay, but in his defense, she was wearing a white T-shirt that was sheer enough that it was obvious she had on a hot pink bra under it. And that bra had little black bows in the middle part and on the straps.
"So, which play will you teach in the Shakespeare class?" she was asking him.
Look at her face and concentrate! "Shakespeare class?"
She gave him a look that said she thought he was an idiot-and he had to agree with her because when he forced himself not to glance at her pink-bra-ed boobs he got all distracted by her thick mane of dark hair that curled and waved and looked like it would be soft as silk if he just-
"Oh, yeah, Shakespeare class. Definitely a comedy. There's way too much tragedy in the world today."
"Which one?"
She looked honestly interested, so he heard himself admitting, "I'm torn. My favorite is The Taming of the Shrew, but when you think about it and really look at Kate's last speech, it doesn't go with the matriarchal belief system of the House of Night, and the last thing I need is to piss off Thanatos. So, I'm thinking about doing As You Like It. Rosalind is one of the Bard's strongest heroines. That shouldn't cause me any hassles with the administration."
"Isn't that kinda like caving, though?"
"Probably, but teaching isn't as easy as you'd think. There's a bunch of crap that goes on behind the scenes, and that's not counting the battle with Darkness that seems to be, like, never ending and the annoying fact that professors keep getting killed, and more and more fledglings are getting Marked, so we're short staffed."
There was a long, uncomfortable silence, then Shaylin said, "Yeah, it must be real inconvenient for you that professors have been disemboweled and decapitated and gored. Not to mention all the new red fledglings you have to teach because we haven't died for real. Yet."
Erik frowned. He hadn't meant it like that. Not really.
"I think that came out wrong," he said.
"And I think I need to remember that peas do not turn into pretty turquoise sea foam and an untouched beach."
"What's that supposed to mean?" She was really hot, but Shaylin totally messed with his head and confused him.
"It means I needed a reality check. Thanks for giving me one." Shaylin picked up the pace, and Erik was still trying to figure out the peas and turquoise comment when they were suddenly stepping from the winter grass of the school grounds to the sidewalk that ran into the front of the girls' dorm.
"Um, you're welcome?" he offered as they came to the wide cement stairs that led to the porch of the dorm.
Shaylin was still a little ahead of him, so she reached the first step before him. Standing on it, she was almost at eye level with him, which was weird because she was so little.
"No, you don't need to 'you're welcome' me," she said, sighing. "I really wasn't thanking you. I was just reminding myself of something."
"Of what?" he asked, honestly interested.
She sighed again. "Of the fact that what the eye can see is not what's actually the most important thing about a person. The most important thing is what's hidden inside."
"Only with you, it's not really hidden at all, right?"
"Right." She spoke softly.
"I really didn't mean what I said before. I was just venting. You know, girls do it all the time," Erik said.
"Erik, you're not making it any better by being a misogynist."
"Misogynist ... that's bad, right? Nothing cool, like a gynecologist?"
"Erik, maybe you should try not to speak." Shaylin sounded annoyed, but he could see that she was struggling not to laugh. And then a little giggle did escape from her pretty pink lips. "Gynecologist? Did you really just say that?"
"I did, and I'm proud of it." Erik put on his best good ol' boy Okie accent. "I do 'preciate me a career that's all 'bout them thar girl parts."
"Okay, that's enough for me," she said, still giggling. "I gotta go before-"
Shaylin moved back and completely missed the next step. She was absolutely going to fall right on her cute, round ass, but Erik was faster than gravity and, almost like a superhero, he caught her around her waist, keeping her from hurting herself.
And then there they were. She was standing on a step above him and he had his arms around her waist. When she was falling her arms had flailed out, and as he caught her they'd automatically wrapped around his shoulders. So she was pressed against him so hard he could feel the black bows on that pink bra.
"Careful," he spoke softly, gently, like she was a frightened bird. "I wouldn't want anything to happen to you."
"Th-thanks. I almost fell."
Shaylin gazed at him and he got lost in her big, brown eyes. She smelled as incredible as she had the night he'd Marked her-sweet, like peaches and strawberries mixed together. He'd never wanted anything as bad as he wanted to kiss her. Just once. For just a second. He bent. It seemed she was tilting her lips to his. He bent some more, pulling her closer.
And that's when she whacked him in the chest.
"You're trying to kiss me now? Really?" Shaylin shook her head and shoved, pushing him off his step.
Erik staggered back. He was trying to figure out exactly what had gone wrong when he heard the mocking laughter. Feeling like shit, he looked up to see Erin and Dallas standing at the top of the dorm stairs just outside the wide doorway.
"Damn, talk about mixed messages," Dallas said. "First she's all over you, then she's shoving you away. That just ain't right."
"Yeah, when a girl says yes she should mean yes, and not 'hey, I think I'll tease you and then reject you.'" Erin air quoted.
"You two don't know what you're talking about." Shaylin had one hand on her hip and her chin raised, but her face was flushed. Erik thought she looked cute, but not tough at all.
Dallas slid his hand around Erin's waist, and she leaned against him as they walked down the stairs to Erik, laughing at Shaylin the whole way.
"Hey, man." Dallas chuckled. "Don't worry. My mermaid and I will let everyone know what a dick tease she is." Erik tried to interrupt him, but Dallas just kept on talking. "No, you don't need to thank me. Just consider it a favor from one vamp to another."
Erik glanced up at Shaylin. Her face had gone from pink to white. He did consider it-just for a second, though. It'd be easier to laugh and walk off with Dallas and Erin. It might even make him feel as cool as it used to feel when he was the hottest fledgling at the school-when he could have any girl he wanted. Then he realized what he was thinking and felt sick to his stomach.
"No." Erik met Dallas's gaze. "Shaylin was right-you don't know what you're talking about. What you saw was me trying something stupid. Shaylin didn't ask for it."
"Ah, come on. You're Erik Night." Dallas's voice was still all friendly, but his gaze had gone hard.
"Yeah, I am. And I'm telling you that you're wrong. Shaylin isn't a tease. I was being a dick. If you two have to talk about her, that's what you should be saying."
"You expect people to believe a little freak like her turned you down?" Erin didn't even try to cover the spitefulness in her voice.
And I used to dream about being the center of a Twin sandwich. Goddess, I am a dick.
"What I expect is for you two to either tell the truth or shut up," Erik said.
"Well, this wasn't fun at all." Shaylin walked down the stairs quickly. As she passed Erik, she paused. "I've changed my mind about getting stuff from the dorm. Aphrodite can run her own errands." Shaylin looked from him to Erin. "I guess this means you won't be catching the bus back to the depot again tonight."
"I've ridden the short bus for the last time, but you go ahead. It fits you better than me, anyway."
"You tell 'em, mermaid," Dallas said, rubbing his hand over Erin's ass. "Water needs to be free to go wherever it wants."
"Yeah, and it's time for us to go. I'm bored," Erin said.
"I got somethin' for that!" Dallas bit her neck. Erin's squeal turned into a throaty laugh.
"And I won't be saying yes-no, yes-no. I'll just be saying yes-yes!" Erin sneered at Shaylin, grabbed Dallas's hand, and they walked away, laughing sarcastically.
Erik stared after them. "When did the two of them happen?"
"Right after Erin and Shaunee un-happened," Shaylin said. "And it's as bad as Shaunee thought it might be."
Erik's eyes widened. "You didn't come here to get Aphrodite's stuff, did you?"
"Nope."
Understanding hit him. "Ah, shit! Erin's changed sides, hasn't she? And that means Dallas and his group will know everything Zoey's group knows."
"Looks like it. I gotta go tell Z and Stevie Rae that Erin and Dallas really are together." Shaylin hesitated, then she added, "Thanks for standing up for me. I know it wasn't an easy thing for you to do."
"You really do think I'm a jerk, don't you?"
Shaylin didn't respond right away. Instead she studied him as if she understood how important her answer would be to him. Finally she said, "I think you have the potential to become more turquoise green than pea green."
"And that's a good thing?"
She smiled. "Even better than being a misogynistic gynecologist."
He laughed. "Okay, good. Hey, can I walk you to the bus?"
"No, not this time. But ask me again some time. For the record, when I say no I mean no, and when I say yes I mean yes."
"I pretty much already knew that about you," he said.
"Good, then next time you can wait until I say yes to kiss me. See ya later, Erik."
As Shaylin walked away Erik's smile got bigger and bigger. It wasn't his one hundred watt smile-that one was acting happy. This smile was better-it was feeling happy. And for the first time in a long time, Erik Night realized feeling was way better than acting....