“The same dream. You’re telling me you and I had the same dream.” Kevin couldn’t stop staring at his sister.
“What I’m telling you is that it wasn’t a dream at all. It happened to me. Almost exactly like you described, only I actually went to Grandma’s farm the day I was Marked because Mom and the step-loser refused to take me to the House of Night. Instead they thought they’d pray over me.” Kevin and Z rolled their eyes together. “Wait, what happened when I was Marked in your world?”
“You picked me up from school. We freaked about your Mark, and then I went to the House of Night with you.”
“I didn’t go home?”
“Nope. We didn’t figure there was any reason to, and we were right because when I was Marked I had already come home first. I was, um, pretty upset. You’d died, Zo.”
G-ma squeezed his hand. “That must have been very difficult for you.”
“It was awful. For you, too, G-ma.”
“Did Mom take you to the House of Night?” Zo asked.
“Are you kidding? She and the step-loser wanted to start the prayer chain. I snuck out and called the red line.”
“What’s the red line?” Stevie Rae asked.
“It’s the emergency line for the House of Night if you get Marked red. You just hit 7-3-3 from any phone and someone will come pick you up. That’s what I did, and they took me to the depot with the rest of the red fledglings. And that’s about it.” He sat back and waited for whatever would happen next.
“You won’t hear me say this very often, but Stevie Rae’s right—you are your world’s Zoey,” Aphrodite said.
“I agree,” said G-ma Redbird.
“Yes,” said the tall Native kid called Rephaim who was with Stevie Rae.
“Yep,” Stark said.
Then everyone just stared at Kevin.
“Hey, what’d we miss?”
Two guys hurried up to the table. The taller of the two had a cool blue tattoo that looked like the wings of an Egyptian god. The other was a red fledgling Kevin didn’t recognize. They were holding hands. The blue vampyre was saying, “Those red fledglings are finally relaxing a little, so we were able to get away. Lenobia, Travis, and Professor P are sitting with them in the cafeteria. I really feel bad for them. They’re super messed up.”
On their heels was a gorgeous black girl whose blue tattoo was two phoenixes rising from flames. “Yeah, but that’s nothing compared to this kid’s red vamp friends. Erik’s with them. They won’t even leave their room. Um, could I have a cookie?” she said as everyone slid around to make room for the three of them and Zo made more introductions.
“Kevin, this is Damien—his affinity is for air. And Other Jack. He’s from your world. In this world he and Damien were together, and then our Jack was killed.”
“But now I have him back.” The Damien vampyre looked at Jack with so much love that it seemed an intrusion to watch.
“And I have him back,” Jack said, putting his head on Damien’s shoulder.
“Yeah, and this is Shaunee. Her affinity is for—”
“Fire, I bet,” Kevin said.
“Smart and handsome. I already like him,” said Shaunee.
“Guys, this is my brother, Other Kevin.”
“Hi,” Kev said. “So, it’s still bad with Marc and Dave?”
“Real bad,” said the fire vampyre. “Got any words of wisdom that might help us help them?”
Kevin looked down. He was so damn torn. On one hand he was amazingly, incredibly happy that his sister was alive. On the other was the past, and the men downstairs who might never be able to get over it.
“I wish I did,” he said slowly. “Time. And support. Talk to them, like Zo’s been talking to me.” He glanced up, smiling sadly at his sister. “Like I’m normal. Like I’m not a monster.”
“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.