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"I was walking by in the hall out there and I heard your cat yowling and hissing, and then you started yelling. I thought you were in trouble." Stark glanced over at my heavily draped window. "Thought maybe a Raven Mocker had gotten in here. Cats really hate them, you know. Anyway, that's why I came busting in."
"You just happened to be walking by my room at--" I glanced at my clock. "At noon?"
He shrugged, and his lips tilted up in that cocky smile of his that I liked so much. "Well, I guess it was more planned than coincidence."
"You can let go of me now," I said.
Reluctantly, his hold on my wrists relaxed, but he didn't actually let go of me. I had to pull my hands from his.
"That must have been one awful nightmare," he said.
"Yeah, it was.&r&!h)dquo; I scooted back so that I leaned against the headboard of my bed. Nala had settled down and was curled against my side.
"So, what was it about?"
I ignored his question and said, "What are you doing here?"
"I told you. I heard noise from in here and--"
"No, I mean why were you outside my door to begin with? And, it's noon. All the red fledglings I know don't do well in the sunlight and are seriously sound asleep right now."
"Yeah, I could sleep, but what ever. And there's no sunlight out there. Everything's all gray and icy."
"Jeesh, the ice storm's still going on?"
"Yeah, another front is moving through today. It would suck to be a human trying to deal with this mess without all the generators and stuff this school has."
What he said made me wonder whether the nuns had a generator at their abbey. I really needed to talk to Sister Mary Angela. Talk to her? Hell, I needed to go there. I missed my grandma, and I was seriously sick of feeling like I was in danger all the time. Unbelievably tired, I sighed. How long had I slept? I counted in my head about five hours. Ugh. And a bunch of that time had been spent in a weird dream place with Kalona, which couldn't be all that restful. "Hey, you look tired," Stark said.
"You haven't answered my question. Why did you come here? I mean really."
He stared at me and blew out a long breath. Then he said, "I needed to see you."
"Why?"
His brown eyes met mine. He looked so much like the pre-dead undead Stark that it was disconcerting. At that moment his eyes were normal, and there was no scary darkness pulsing from the shadows around him. Only the red outline of his tattoo reminded me that he was different from the kid who had told me secrets and asked for my help in the field house just a few nights ago.
"They'll make you hate me," he blurted.
"Who's they? And no one is going to make me feel anything." As soon as I said it, a picture of me in Kalona's arms flashed through my mind, but I purposely shoved the all-too-graphic image away.
"They--Everyone," he said. "They'll tell you I'm a monster, and you'll believe them."
I kept looking at him, silently and steadily. He was the first to look away.
"I gotta think that maybe you doing stuff like biting Becca and hanging around Kalona with your I-can't-miss-anything-I-aim-at bow strapped to your back and ready to shoot might have a little something to do with making them think you're not such a nice guy anymore," I said.
"Do you always say exactly what you're thinking?"
"Well, no, but I try to be honest. Look, I'm really tired, and I just had an awful dream. The stuff that's happening around here is not good. I&rsquoT CF tyou;m confused about a bunch of things. And you came to me. I didn't call you up and say, `Hey, Stark, why don't you sneak into my room?' So I'm really not in the mood to play games."
"I didn't sneak," he said.
"I don't think that part is what's really important," I said.
"I came here because you make me feel," he blurted all in one big breath.
"I make you feel what?"
"Just feel." He rubbed a hand across his brow like he might have a headache. "Since I died and then came back, it's like part of me stayed dead. I haven't been able to feel anything. Or at least not anything good." He was talking in short, clipped sentences, as if what he was saying was hard for him to get out. "Okay, yeah, I have urges. Especially when I haven't had any blood recently. But that's not really feeling. It's just a reaction. You know--eat, sleep, live, die. It's automatic." He grimaced and looked away from me. "It's automatic for me to take what I want. Like from that girl."
"Becca." My voice was cold. "Her name is Becca."
"Okay, so her name is Becca."
His expression had hardened. He didn't look scary and red-eyed, but he did look like a complete jerk, and I was just tired enough for that to really piss me off.
"You attacked her. You forced yourself on her. Look, it's pretty simple. If you don't want people to say bad things about you, then you need to stop doing bad things," I said.
His eyes flashed and I saw a red light in their depths. "She would have liked it. If you and the warrior had come along five minutes later, you would have seen her all over me."
"Are you kidding me? You actually think mind control is foreplay?"
"Was she upset when you saw her inside? Or was she talking about how hot I am and how much she wanted me?" Stark hurled the questions at me.
"And you think that makes what you did okay? You messed with her mind to get her to want to be with you. By any definition that's a violation, and it's wrong."
"You kissed me right after that, and I didn't have to mess with your mind!"
"Yeah, well, I've been having some seriously questionable taste in guys lately. But I can promise you that right now I have absolutely no desire to hurl myself into your arms."
He stood abruptly, shoving away from my bed. "I don't know what the hell I'm doing here. I am what I am, and nothing can change that." Totally pissed, he started striding toward the door.
"You can change that."
I said the words softly, but they seemed to shimmer in the air between us and wrap around Stark, pulling him to a stop. He just stood there for a while, fists clenched at his side, head slightly bowed as if he was fighting with himself. With his back still to me he said, &ldqolation,ely. But I I uo;See, that's what I mean. When you say things like that to me, you make me feel again."
"Maybe that's because I'm the only person who's telling you the truth right now." As I spoke, I got one of my gut-deep feelings that let me know I was saying the words Nyx would have me speak. I drew a long breath and tried to center myself, and even though I was tired and hurt and confused about many things, I followed the thread that had been unraveled before me and tried to sew together the shredded cloth of Stark's humanity. "I don't think you're a monster, but I also don't think you're just a nice guy. I see what you are, and I believe in what you could choose to be. Stark, don't you understand? Kalona and Neferet are keeping you like this because they're using you. If you don't want to turn into a creature of their creation, then you're going to have to choose a different way and fight against them, and against the darkness they surround themselves with." I sighed, searching for the right words. "Don't you see, evil will win if good people do nothing." I must have struck a nerve with Stark, because he slowly turned around to face me.
"But I'm not good people."
"You were a good guy before all of this. I know you were. I didn't forget, just like I promised you. And you can be a good guy again."
"When I hear you say it, I almost believe it."
"Believing it is the first step. Acting on it is the second." I paused, and he didn't say anything, so I filled the dead air with some of the babble that was drifting through my mind. "Have you stopped to think about why we keep coming together?"
His smile was completely Bad Boy. "Yeah, I thought it was because you're so damn hot."
I tried, unsuccessfully, not to grin back at him. "Well, yeah, I mean besides that."
He shrugged. "You being hot is enough for me."
"Thanks, I guess. But that's not exactly what I meant. I was thinking it has something to do with Nyx and your being important to her."
Stark's smiled faded instantly. "The Goddess couldn't want anything to do with me. Not anymore."
"I think you'd be surprised. Remember Aphrodite?" He nodded. "Yeah, kinda. She's that really stuck-up chick who actually thinks she's a love goddess."
"That's Aphrodite. She and Nyx are like this." I crossed my fingers.
"Are you sure?"
"Totally," I said, and couldn't stop the humongous yawn that overtook me. "Sorry. I didn't get much sleep lately. Between the stress going on around here, me getting hurt, and some seriously bad dreams, sleep has not been very friendly to me."
"Can I ask you something about your dreams?"
I shrugged and nodded sleepily.
"Has Kalona been in them?"
I blinked id instantl ~Z#n surprise at him. "Why would you ask that?"
"He does that. Gets in people's dreams."
"He's been in your dreams?"
"Nah, not me, but I've overhead the fledglings talking, and he's definitely been in their dreams, only they liked it a lot more than you do."
I thought about how sexy Kalona could be and how easy it would be for me to give in to his hypnotic appearance. "Yeah, I'll just bet they do."
"I want to tell you something, but I don't want you to think I'm making it up just so I can hit on you," he said.
"What is it?" He was looking massively uncomfortable, as if what he was about to say made him really nervous.
"It's harder for him to get into your dreams if you're not sleeping alone."
I stared hard at him. He was right. It sounded like something a guy would make up to get into a girl's bed (and pan ties).
"I wasn't sleeping alone the first time it happened," I said.
"You were with a guy?"
I felt my cheeks start to get warm. "No. I was with my roommate."
"It has to be a guy. It's like he doesn't want to compete or something."
"Stark, that sounds like utter bullpoopie."
He smiled. "Is `bullpoopie' really a word?"
"It's my word," I said. "And how the hell would you know this little tidbit about Kalona?"
"He talks a lot around me. It's almost like he doesn't notice I'm there sometimes. I heard him and Rephaim talking about the dreams. Kalona said he was thinking about putting Raven Mocker guards up between the girls' and guys' dorms to keep them apart, but he decided he wouldn't because he really wasn't having an issue with controlling the fledglings--with or without being in their dreams."
"Gross," I said. "What about the professors? Are they all under his control, too?" "Apparently. At least none of them have stood up against him or Neferet."
I expected Stark to start to get defensive with my questioning, but he didn't seem to mind and was talking to me like it was no big deal to let me know this stuff. So I decided to see how much I could find out. "What about the Sons of Erebus? I saw one when we first came on campus but haven't even seen him since."
"There aren't many of them left," Stark said.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean a bunch of them are dead. When Shekinah fell, Ate freaked and led an attack against Kalona, even though I don't think Kalona was the one who killed her."
"He didn't. Neferet killed Shekinah." Jui Stark
"Huh. Well, that figures. Neferet is a vindictive bitch."
"I thought you were one of her minions."
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Does she know that?" I asked.
"No," he said. "I remember something you said right before I died. You tried to warn me to be careful around Neferet."
"Yeah, I remember that, too."
"Well, you were right."
"Stark, she's changing, isn't she? I mean she's not just a vamp High Priestess anymore," I said.
"She's not normal, that's for sure. Her powers are bizarre. I swear she can spy on people better than Kalona can." He looked away from me, and when he met my eyes again, his were shadowed by a soul-deep sadness. "I wish you had been there instead of Neferet."
"Been there?" I asked, even though the tightening in my gut told me I knew exactly what he meant.
"You'd been watching my body, hadn't you? With that camera thing."
"Yeah," I said softly. "Jack installed it. I didn't want to leave you alone and that was the best way I could think of to keep an eye on you. Then my grandma was in an accident and things got crazy...I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, too. It would have turned out differently if it had been you instead of her I opened my eyes to see."
I wanted to ask him questions about what exactly happened with the whole dying and un-dying thing, as well as question him further about Neferet, but his face was closed off and his eyes were filled with pain.
"Look," he said, abruptly changing the subject, "you want to get some sleep. I'm tired, too. What if we sleep together? Just sleep together. I promise I won't try anything."
"I don't think so," I said. "You'd rather have Kalona show up in your dreams again?"
"No, but I, well, I, uh, don't think you sleeping with me is a good idea."
His expression got hard and cold again, but I could see the pain that was still in his eyes. "Because you don't think I'll keep my promise."
"No, because I don't want anyone to know you've been here," I said honestly.
"I'll leave before anyone knows," he said quietly.
And suddenly I knew my response to him could be what tipped him over in the struggle for his humanity. The last two lines of Kramisha's poem echoed through my mind: "Humanity saves her / Will she save me?" I knew what I had to do.
"Okay, fine. But you really have to get out of here early before anyone sees you."nyone to k p>">
