“All right then, come with me. I want you to see our House of Night. If it’s the same as yours then you’ll know you’re right. We’re rebels or whatever, and we’ve captured you—even though I don’t have a clue why we would. If it’s nothing like your House of Night, well, then I hope you know you can trust us,” I said.
“Fine.” He stood. “I’ll go with you.”
“Tie his hands,” Aphrodite said. Damien started to say something, but Stevie Rae interrupted.
“She’s right, Damien. I’ve been where I think Jack is, and the one thing I can tell you for sure is that it’s not safe to trust him.”
“How do you expect me to trust you if you don’t trust me?” Jack asked.
Aphrodite took several steps into Jack’s room. Jack’s reaction was instantaneous. His eyes began to glow and he actually started salivating. He crouched, his body taking on a predatory pose. Stark started to move, but Aphrodite raised the Taser, pointing it at Jack.
“Do not make me zap you. Again. And look at yourself. You’re slobbering and snarling like an animal at me. Tell me why.”
He didn’t say anything and she stomped at him, raising the Taser a little higher.
“It’s your blood! It smells so ssssssweet,” he hissed the last word.
“Point made,” Aphrodite said. “Keep his hands tied and stay away from his fangs.” She turned to Damien. “You know that vision I had—the one where I thought I was seeing your death at his hands?”
Damien nodded.
“I realized tonight that I’d gotten it wrong. He didn’t eat you. He ate the person who was standing in for you tonight. He ate me. And if it hadn’t been for me being forewarned enough to bring this,”—she hefted the Taser again—“tonight he would have either been killed or eaten one of us for real. I know this is hard on you, but you gotta get a handle on your shit, Damien. This isn’t your Jack.”
Damien’s gaze flew to Other Jack, who stared back at him with glowing, rust-colored eyes.
“I hear you,” Damien said. “And I understand. Tie his hands.”
As Stark bound Jack’s hands in front of him, Grandma came to me, speaking low for my ears alone. “U-we-tsi-a-ge-ya, I have an idea. Do you mind if I go to my room and work on it?”
One of the first things I’d done after being put in charge of the Tulsa House of Night was to turn a wing of the student dorms into guest rooms for family members, and one of those rooms I gave to Grandma—permanently. “Sure, Grandma. No problem.”
She kissed me on the cheek and hurried off. And I faced Other Jack, wishing I had a better plan—or any plan—about how to get him to talk.
And then I realized I was overcomplicating everything. When in doubt, go with the absolute truth, and that’s exactly what I did.
14
Zoey
“First, before we go up there I want you to take a look around,” I told Jack. Stark had tied his hands behind his back and was keeping ahold of the end of the length of rope he’d used. I’d paused just before the stairway and turned, pointing at the neat basement and the cozy guest rooms. “Does your House of Night have all of this?”
Jack looked around, then he shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been down here. I didn’t even know there was a basement under the Field House.”
“Well, that’s not unusual. We didn’t know about it, either, until last year,” Damien said.
“I agree, but I’m making a point. Remember this, Jack. This will just be the first of a bunch of differences.”
He nodded slightly and we went up the stairs, turning into the hallway that connected the Equestrian Center and the Field House with the main House of Night building.
“Hang on.” The hallway was deserted, but when I peeked through the window into the school’s beautiful courtyard, I noticed students were still straggling to their dorms. And by straggling, I mean they were messing around making snow angels and having snowball fights—as they moved in the general direction of the dorms. “Stark, give Jack your hoodie.” Stark frowned at me. “Do you want someone to recognize him? We don’t have time to answer questions right now, and we don’t need a bunch of gossip going around the school.”
Stark sighed, but he quickly untied Jack’s hands, pulled his hoodie off, and tossed it to Jack, who put it on.
“Pull the hood up and cover as much of your face as you can,” I told him, which he did without complaining. “Okay, what do you want to see, Jack?”
Jack looked surprised.
“I don’t want you saying that you only saw what we wanted you to see, or any other garbage like that. So, where do you want to go?”
“Where I was just a few hours ago—the auditorium. Neferet spoke to the Red Army. I’m only in the beginning of my Warrior training, but they let me attend her speech before I went to my fencing lesson in the Field House.”
“Does our Field House look the same?” I asked as Damien said, at the same moment, “Warrior training? You?”
Jack gave Damien a look that was hard for me to read. I thought he looked sad, and even a little scared, and very much like he might want to say something to Damien, but his expression flattened to become as emotionless as his voice. “Yeah, I’m in Warrior training like the rest of the red fledglings. And I guess the Field House looks pretty much the same, but the stuff is put up.”
“Stuff?” Stark asked.
“The weapons. They’re usually out and hanging all over the walls of the Field House. But now they’re down in the basement.”
“Let’s go to the auditorium,” I said.
We started walking in silence. I could feel Damien staring at Jack. I knew he couldn’t help it, and my heart ached for him. What would I do if Heath suddenly showed up?
We were about halfway to the auditorium when Jack stopped. He stared out the hallway window to the courtyard where fledglings and human students still played around in the snow while House of Night cats frolicked about them. And by frolic, I mean they twined around their legs and caused fledglings to trip over their own feet. I saw Maleficent yowl at a kid like she’d just had her fat, fluffy tail tromped on and broken into a million pieces—the unsuspecting fledgling shrieked and lunged back, falling on her butt, while Maleficent groomed herself smugly. (I sighed internally—making a note to myself to get back on the intercom and tell the fledglings to get to their dorms, and take the cats with them.)
“If you have humans to use as refrigerators, why do I have to drink stale blood from a glass?” Jack’s voice was hard—almost mean, which sounded super strange coming from him.