Stalked by Death (Touch of Death) (14 page)

“Whatever you say, but I promise I won’t hurt you. I only want to help.”

I believed him. He seemed nice enough, and I wasn’t really scared for my safety. If he turned out to be a serial killer on the run, I’d just bleed on him. I waited for him to step away from the car, and I reached for the door. I pulled on the handle, but it was jammed.

“It won’t open.” I tugged harder.

“Here, let me try.” I backed up in the seat as he reached for the door. “It’s locked. I have to reach in and open it from the inside.”

“No!” I leaned farther toward the passenger seat as his arm came into the car. “Stop! Please, stop!”

“Listen, I’m only opening the door. I won’t touch you.” He fumbled with the door handle. “Is there a trick to this? Has it ever gotten stuck like this before?”

How would I know? I’d been in the car numerous times, but that was months ago. Melodie could’ve been having problems with it.

I shook my head. A sizzling sound came from the hood of the car and a puff of smoke burst into the air. “Ah!” I couldn’t help screaming. The car was going to go up in flames, and I was locked inside it.

“Try the passenger door.” His voice was steady, but the terror in his eyes showed his true feelings.

I reached over and opened the door—right into a tree. “There’s not enough room to squeeze out.”

“Then, you’re going to have to come out through the window. I’ll help you.”

“No! I mean, I can do it myself.”

“Do you have any idea how banged up you are? You might get dizzy the second you lean out this window, and you’re running out of time.”

Something crackled under the hood. He was right. I couldn’t stay here any longer.

“Back up again. I’m doing this on my own.”

He started to protest, but I cut him off. “Look, if you don’t back up, this car is going to explode with me inside it. Do you really want that on your conscience?”

He backed up.

I twisted, bringing my legs up onto the seat. I pulled my sleeves down over my hands to protect myself from the jagged glass that was still attached to the bottom of the window. I went out headfirst. It was a dumb idea since it meant I was definitely going to fall on the ground, but the thought of keeping my head inside a car that was about to go up in flames was too much to handle. The crackling got louder. I leaned forward, committing to face-planting, but my jeans got caught on the broken window.

“Ah!” I yelled as the glass tore into my skin.

The guy rushed forward and lifted my torso. I felt the glass come out of my leg and the warm blood pour onto his hands.

“No!” I cried.

His eyes rolled back in his head as my blood poisoned him. Choking, he fell to the ground. I went with him, landing half on top of his lifeless body.

“Jodi!” Alex’s voice shot through the air. He ran to me as I lifted myself off the hiker’s body. “Oh, my God, Jodi!” Alex took one look at the car and scooped me into his arms. “We have to get out of here.” He went as fast as he could, carrying my weight, but we were barely twenty feet away when the car burst into flames. We dropped to the ground, and Alex shielded me from the car parts that flew through the air.

I peeked around his arms and found the hiker on the ground. His clothes were on fire. I turned away, as bile rose up from my stomach. He’d only wanted to help me, and now he was dead. Dead because of me and my blood. I’d poisoned him, and the fire from the car I’d stolen and crashed into a tree was burning his body so I couldn’t even raise him. I couldn’t fight it. I threw up until my stomach and chest ached. Alex held my hair and rubbed my back. When I was finished, I sat up and wiped my mouth on my sleeve. There was a time when I would’ve worried about looking unladylike, but I wasn’t a lady. I was a monster. A poisonous monster who had killed again.

Alex stood up. “Someone’s going to see the smoke and call the cops. We have to get out of here.”

Cops. Maybe I needed to be locked up. I was a killer. I should’ve been put away where I couldn’t hurt anyone. It’s not like I was helping the Ophi anymore either, so what good was I to anybody?

“Let them come. Let them take me away.”

Alex grabbed both of my arms and yanked me to my feet. I winced from all the cuts and bruises I’d gotten in the accident. “Great idea. Let the cops touch you while you’re covered in your own blood. How many more do you want to die?”

He was the other Alex again. The one who could turn off his emotions and act stone cold. The one that reminded me so much of his parents. Still, what he said was true. I’d kill every human who came near me right now. I couldn’t stay. I had to go back to the school.

“Let’s go.” I shook his hands from my arms and walked off in the direction Alex had come from.

“It’s this way.” He pointed to the right. “I’ve been out here for hours searching for you. I wasn’t coming from the school when I found you.”

I walked past him, glaring at the face I thought I knew so well. “Funny thing about the school,” I said. “It’s not far from my home.”

“The school is your home.”

He was avoiding the real issue here.

“You lied to me. You completely took me for a fool. You drove me around for hours, in the dark, when I was too tired to stay awake and see where we really were. You encouraged me to go to sleep.” I stopped walking and turned around to face him. “How far did you drive in the wrong direction just to throw me off?”

“I did what I had to do.”

“No. You did what you were
told
to do.”

He stepped past me, continuing to walk back to the school. “You’re right. I did what I was told to do. For your own good. I had to get you here. To convince you to give up your old life.” He stopped when he realized I wasn’t following him. He stormed back over to me. “How hard would it have been for you to stay away from your mom if you knew she wasn’t far away?” His face was bright red, and his voice was shaking with anger. “It took killing her to get you to come with me. Tell me you wouldn’t have checked on her. Tell me you wouldn’t have made contact with her. Spied on her. Something! Until you did something stupid again and killed her for the second time!”

“You don’t get to be angry!” I shouted back at him. “You don’t get to decide what’s best for me. You lied to me. Even after everything we’ve been through together, you kept this from me. What does that say about us, Alex?”

“It says that I’m willing to do anything to protect you.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I believed he thought that was true and that made it okay in his mind, but it wasn’t okay with me. I couldn’t be okay with this. With him. Not right now.

“Take me back to the school. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I don’t want think about what happened today.”

“Jodi.” His voice softened, but there was still anger in his eyes.

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m done for now.”

He looked at me, but I turned away. I was hurt. Betrayed. Even if he didn’t see it that way, it was how I felt. He led us back to the school, and without a word I went up to my room and locked the door behind me. I heard Leticia in the hallway. She knocked and called my name, but I didn’t answer. I buried my head in my pillow and cried. I didn’t even care that I was bleeding all over the covers. I cried for the hiker who hadn’t deserved to die for trying to help a girl in trouble. Even if the girl was Gorgon. I cried for Melodie who was carless, best-friendless, and stranded at the park. I cried for my mom, who was undoubtedly going out of her mind, not knowing her lost daughter was only one town over. And I cried for Alex and me. Our relationship was deteriorating faster than it had begun.

I skipped dinner to change the sheets on my bed and take a long hot shower. So long, I ran out of hot water. Even the warm water felt good on my aching body. I washed out all my cuts, noticing they weren’t as bad as I’d thought. I wrapped a towel around me and sat on the edge of the tub, letting the steam wash over me. I couldn’t help thinking my life had become a living hell. I had dead bodies stalking me in my sleep. Death was everywhere I turned, mostly because I was causing it. I thought about turning myself over to Hades. I didn’t have any fight left in me. At least in the underworld, I wouldn’t be able to hurt the living anymore.

Finally, the steam evaporated, and I started to shiver in my towel. I got up and went to my room, eager to get dressed and warm up, but the second I stepped into my room, I jumped back in shock. Chase was standing next to my dresser, holding Medusa’s locket, which had been buried in my top drawer since I’d drunk the blood inside the bloodstone.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I stormed over to him, holding my towel up in one hand and reaching for the locket with the other. “And what are you doing going through my stuff?”

He wrapped his fingers around the locket before I could grab it.

“Do you mind? That belongs to me. Medusa made it appear to me when I came to this school.”

“I know. I heard the story. Uncle Mason kept up with everything that went on here. He still does.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You mean,
you’re
keeping him informed.”

“You should be happy I am. If it wasn’t for me, he and the others from Serpentarius wouldn’t be coming in the morning.”

I held my hand out. “My locket.”

“Turn around.” He held the locket up by the chain. “I’ll put it on you.”

“It’s broken. I broke the clasp when I yanked the locket from Victoria’s neck. That’s why it’s been sitting in my dresser drawer. That, and the locket doesn’t hold Medusa’s blood anymore.”

“No, it doesn’t. You do.” He eyed me like I was the last piece of devil’s food cake in a room of starving people. I had no doubt he wanted my blood. He held the locket out to me, showing me the clasp. “I fixed it.”

“Oh. Well, thanks, I guess.”

“Turn around.”

I didn’t want to let him put the locket on me. I didn’t want him touching me at all. Things always got complicated when Chase touched me. But, he obviously wasn’t going to leave until I let him put the locket on me, so I turned around.

He slipped it over my head and fastened the clasp. “There. I know it doesn’t have Medusa’s blood anymore, but it seems to me you should still wear it.”

I faced him, reaching my fingers up to touch the empty bloodstone. “I guess you’re right.”

“In fact, you should consider putting some of your blood in the stone.”

“What? Why? I’m not Medusa.”

“I know, but you are the most powerful Gorgon, like she once was.”

“Yeah, and then I’d have to worry about some power-crazed Ophi, like Victoria, stealing the locket to tap into my powers. No, thank you. I’ll keep my blood in my veins.”

He shrugged. “That’s fine. It was just a thought.”

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten you somehow broke into my room and went through my stuff. Care to explain?”

“I came looking for you. Leticia said she saw you come home but you wouldn’t let her in here. She said you were pretty banged up. I wanted to make sure you weren’t going to bleed to death.”

“How did you get in? I locked the door.”

He smiled. “I found a set of keys in the bedroom across the hall from yours.”

“Why were you in Abby’s old room?” I knew she had keys to my room. Unfortunately, she’d used them after I moved in.

“I was exploring. Call it boredom. Things weren’t exactly exciting without you around.” He looked down at me, and I realized I was still only in a towel.

I opened a dresser drawer and pulled out a pair of yoga pants and a tank top. “I’ll be right back. Then, you can tell me what made you think you had the right to use those keys to get into my locked room.”

Someone knocked on the door.

“I’ll get that.”

“It’s probably Leticia.” I headed back to the bathroom.

“What the hell?” Alex said when Chase opened the door.

I turned as Alex pushed his way into the room. Chase smirked when Alex’s eyes fell on me.

I looked down at my towel and the clothes in my hand. This didn’t look good at all. Especially after the fight we’d had in the woods.

“Alex, it’s not what you think. I came out of the shower and Chase was in my room. I didn’t know he was here.”

Alex narrowed his eyes, his gaze falling on my neck. “You just got out of the shower wearing Medusa’s locket?”

“No, I—I mean, Chase—”

“Yeah, I think I can piece this together myself.” He turned toward the door.

“Alex, wait.”

He paused, and for a split second I thought he was actually going to hear me out. But he pulled his arm back and punched Chase square in the face. Chase stumbled backward. Alex looked at me. There was nothing soft or caring in his expression. He looked like a younger version of Troy. Then he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Chase rubbed his jaw. “I’ve got to hand it to him, I wasn’t expecting that. I mean, I should’ve been, considering I’m in his girlfriend’s bedroom and she’s wearing nothing more than a towel.” He eyed me and raised his eyebrows.

“Get out.” I’d had enough of Chase. I’d had enough of this entire day.

“Until tomorrow then,” he said before he left.

I sighed, long and hard. I dropped my towel and got dressed. I barely had my clothes on when someone knocked on the door.