Grabbing the book, I yanked open the door.
Caleb stood there, one hand raised as if he was about to knock and the other holding a pizza box. “Oh!” He stepped back, startled.
“Hey.” I couldn’t meet his eyes.
He lowered his hand. Our almost-fight lingered between us like bad blood. “So you’re reading Greek fables now?”
“Um… ” I glanced down at the damn thing. “Yeah… I guess.”
Caleb sucked his lower lip in, a nervous habit carried over from childhood. “I know what happened. I mean… your face kinda says it al .”
Absently, my fingers went to my cut lip.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I nodded. “I am.”
“Look. I brought food.” He held up the box with a grin.
“And I’m gonna get caught if you don’t let me in or go outside.”
“Al right.” I dropped the book on the floor and fol owed him out.
On the way to the courtyard, I opted for a safe topic. “I saw Lea yesterday morning.”
He nodded. “She came back late the night before. She’s been pretty low-key. Even though she’s a complete bitch, I feel sorry for her.”
“Have you talked to her?”
Caleb nodded. “She’s hanging in there. I’m not sure if it’s real y hit her, you know?”
I understood more than he probably could. We found a shady spot under some large olive trees and sat. I picked at the pizza, arranging my pepperoni slices into a gross-looking smiley face.
“Alex, what real y happened to Kain?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Everyone’s saying he was a daimon, but that can’t be possible, right?”
I looked up from my food. “He was a daimon.”
The sun peeked through the branches, catching the strands of Caleb’s hair and turning them a bright gold color.
“How did the Sentinels not know that?”
“He looked just like he always did. His eyes were fine, his teeth normal.” I leaned back against the tree and crossed my legs at the ankles. “There was no way to tel . I didn’t know until… I saw the pures.” An image I could never erase.
He swal owed, staring down at his pizza. “More funerals,”
he murmured. Then louder, “I can’t believe this. Al this time and there’s never been a daimon half. How is it even possible?”
I told him what Kain had said, figuring there was no reason to keep it a secret. His reaction was typicaclass="underline" heavy and deep. Fal ing in battle meant death for us, and we’d never had to consider anything else.
Caleb frowned. “What if Kain wasn’t the first? What if other daimons figured it out and we just didn’t know?”
We looked at one another. Swal owing, I dropped my pizza back onto the plate. “Then we picked a hel of a time to be graduating in the spring, huh?”
The two of us laughed… nervously. Then I returned to rearranging my pizza, thinking about everything else that had happened. Images of shirtless Aiden flashed before me. The way he’d looked at me and kissed me. The touch of Aiden’s fingertips was slowly replaced by the touch of Seth’s and the blue cord.
“What are you thinking?” Caleb inched closer and continued when I didn’t answer. “What do you know? You have that look on your face! The one you got when we were thirteen and you walked in on Instructor Lethos and Michaels total y making out in the storage room!”
“Ew!” My face scrunched up at the memory. Damn him for remembering the grossest things. “It’s nothing. I’m just thinking… about everything. It’s been a long couple of days.”
“Everything’s changed.”
I glanced over at Caleb, feeling for him. “Yes.”
“They’re going to have to change the way we’re trained, you know?” He continued in possibly the softest voice I’d ever heard him use. “Daimons always had the strength and speed, but now we’l be fighting half-bloods trained just like us. They’l know our techniques, moves—everything.”
“A lot of us are going to die out there. More than ever before.”
“But we have the Apol yon.” He reached over and squeezed my hand. “Now you’ve got to like him. He’s going to save our butts out there.”
The need to tel him everything almost overwhelmed me, but I looked away, training my eyes on the bushy, bitter-smel ing flowers. I couldn’t remember what they were cal ed. Nightsoot or something? What had Grandma Piperi said about them? Like the kisses from those who walk among the gods…
I turned back to Caleb and realized we weren’t alone anymore. Olivia stood beside him, arms wrapped tightly around her waist. He told her what happened, and he didn’t act like a love-struck idiot, which was good. Final y, she sat down and sent me a sympathetic look. I guessed my face was pretty messed up, but I hadn’t real y looked at it.
Caleb said something funny and Olivia laughed. I laughed, too, but Caleb glanced at me, catching the false tone of it. I tried to pul myself into their conversation, but I couldn’t. Each of us spent the rest of the day trying to forget one thing or another. Caleb and Olivia focused on anything besides the cold reality of halfs being turned into daimons.
And me? Wel , I tried to forget everything.
When dusk settled around us, we headed back to our dorms, making plans to meet up for lunch tomorrow. Alone, Caleb stopped me before I headed up the porch steps.
“Alex, I know you’ve been going through a lot. On top of everything else, school is going to be starting in two weeks.
You’ve got a lot of stress on you. And I’m sorry about what happened the night at Zarak’s.”
School was starting in two weeks? Holy crap, I didn’t even realize. “I should be the one apologizing.” I meant it.
“I’m sorry for being such a bitch.”
He laughed and gave me a quick hug. Pul ing back, his smile faded. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.” I watched him start to turn around. “Caleb?”
He stopped, waiting.
“Mom… did kil those people at Lake Lure. She was the one who turned Kain.”
“I… I’m sorry.” He took a step forward, his hands coming up and then fal ing to his sides. “She’s not your mother anymore. It’s not her doing this.”
“I know.” The mother I’d known wouldn’t take pleasure in kil ing bugs. She never would’ve harmed another living, breathing person. “Kain said she’d keep kil ing until she finds me.”
He looked like he didn’t know what to say. “Alex, she’d keep kil ing no matter what. I know this is going to sound terrible, but the Sentinels wil find her. They’l stop her.”
I nodded, toying with the edge of my shirt. “It should be me who stops her. She’s my mother.”
Caleb frowned. “It should be anyone but you since she was your mother. I—” The frown faded from his face as he stared at me. “Alex, you wouldn’t go after her, would you?”
“No!” I forced a laugh. “I’m not crazy.”
He continued to stare at me.
“Look. I wouldn’t even know where to find her,” I told him, but Kain’s words came right back at me. You leave the safety of the Covenant and you’ll find her or she’ll find you.
“Why don’t you sneak back with me? We can download a crap ton of il egal movies and watch them. We can even break into the cafeteria and steal a bunch of food. How about that? Sounds like fun, right?”
It kind of did, but… “No. I’m real y tired, Caleb. The last couple of days have… ”
“Sucked?”
“Yeah, you can say that.” I backed off then. “I’l see you for breakfast? I doubt I’l have practice.”