“You’re not!” Zo exclaimed, sounding so big-sister protective that it made Kevin find his smile again.
“I’m not now, but my past isn’t pretty. And their past is even uglier.”
“We’ll help ’em get through it,” said the cute blond. “A few of us have some real ugly skeletons in our closets, too.”
“Your world isn’t the only one with monsters,” said the guy named Rephaim.
There was a long silence that had Kevin popping his knuckles nervously. Zo saved him by saying, “Um, guys, we just realized that in his world, he’s their me.”
And everyone stared at him again.
Kevin sighed.
Finally, the blue vampyre named Damien spoke. “Okay, I’ll say it because it looks like no one else will. If Other Kevin is his world’s Zoey, what is he doing here?”
“I came through the thing. You know, the bloody thing in the park. Like the rest of them did. Like Jack did,” Kevin said.
“It is nice to meet you.” Jack offered Kevin his hand, which he took. “How are you doing?”
“Fine. Good,” Kevin tried not to fidget as everyone gaped at him. He looked more closely at his world’s Jack. “I don’t think I know you.”
Jack moved his shoulders nervously. “Um, I kinda know who you are because you’re an officer, but you wouldn’t have known me. I, uh, avoided your kind as much as I could.”
“Wait, you kept your humanity, too?” Kevin leaned forward eagerly.
“Not really. I wasn’t Marked long ago. I could feel my humanity leaving me, but I’ve never been good at sports or fighting or boy stuff in general, so no one paid me any attention. I just kept to myself as much as possible, which was actually pretty much.”
“You were alone? All the time?” Damien looked heartbroken.
Jack turned to Damien. “Yeah. It was safer alone. I hoped when I made the Change and couldn’t think anymore that I would just forget everything and everyone from my real life. That’s the only way I could stand it.”
“It’s okay now. Everything is okay now. You’re home. You’ll never be lonely again.” Damien smoothed back his hair and kissed him gently, which gave Kevin a little start of surprise. That was the first time he’d witnessed a guy kiss a guy. He decided it was a little weird, but kinda nice, too. They seemed to love each other a lot.
Then Kevin processed what Damien had actually said. “Wait, go back to what you were saying. You asked what I was doing here, but you already knew the answer, didn’t you? So, I must be misunderstanding the question.”
Damien didn’t answer. He looked at Zo instead. “I think you should tell him.”
He watched his sister draw a long breath. He could see that she was picking at her fingers, which meant something was bothering her. So, he braced himself for bad news.
He should’ve braced himself for really bad news.
“This is going to sound stuck up,” Zo began, but Damien interrupted.
“Actually, narcissistic is a better way to put it than stuck up.” He paused and looked at his friends, who were all—even G-ma—frowning at him. “I didn’t mean Zoey is actually narcissistic, just that what she’s going to say will appear to be that.” Damien sighed. “Never mind. Carry on, Z.”
“Anyway,” Zo started again. “What they want me to tell you is that I’m the reason we defeated Neferet. It’s not that I did it on my own, but like Nyx said when I was Marked,” then she quoted almost exactly what Nyx had said to him, too, when he’d made the Change. “My power is in the uniqueness of my combined blood of ancient Wise Women and Elders, as well as insight and understanding of the modern world. She said that I would be her eyes and ears in a world that is struggling to find the balance between good and evil. Then she said,” Zo pointed at the words tattooed around his bicep, “Darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not always bring good.”
“The same thing happened to you.” A terrible sense of foreboding caused the hairs on his forearms to lift.
“Kevin, do you have an affinity for any of the elements?” Zo asked abruptly.
“I dunno.”
“When you’re circling for, say, a Full Moon Ritual, and the elements are called, have you ever felt anything?” Damien said.
“I have no idea.”
“What do you mean, you have no idea?” Zo asked him.
“I’ve never taken part in a ritual. Or a circle.”
Except for Jack, the entire table gaped at him.
“What in the hell are you talking about?” Aphrodite said.
“Red fledglings and red vampyres don’t take part in rituals. We don’t circle. We’re not even allowed in Nyx’s Temple,” Jack explained.
“Oh, my Goddess, is that true?” Zo sounded like she might hyperventilate.
“Well, yeah. I tried to sneak into Nyx’s Temple once, but I got caught.” Kev paused to shake off the memory of that terrible beating. “I never tried that again. That’s why I was sure my dreams of Nyx were just delusions—my brain dying or something.”
“It’s an abomination,” Damien said.
“We need to fix that. Now.” Aphrodite stood. “Let’s take him to the temple. If he has what you have, Z, we’ll know he really is you in his world.”
“And if not?” Kevin asked.
“If not, you’re just a cute red vampyre whose sister is boss of us,” Stevie Rae said.
“I am not the boss of you,” Zo said.
“I’ll remind you that you said that next time you order me around,” Aphrodite said.
“Children, stop bickering. Let us go to Nyx’s Temple,” said G-ma.
“Hang on, we need Shaylin,” Zo said.
“She was with Nicole in the barn last time I saw her,” Shaunee said. “She said she needed some barn therapy after dealing with the super-upset red fledglings. I’ll get her and meet you guys in the temple.”
Everyone started to file out of the dining hall, and Kevin snagged Zo’s sleeve, holding her back for a second. “Hey, what if I do have what you have. What does it mean?”
Zoey’s eyes were sad when they met his. “It means you’re what I am—a leader, a rallying point, the person who brings people together—and when we do that, we defeat Darkness.”
“Ah, hell,” he said.