Chosen - Kiersten White Page 0,44

haven’t been okay since Leo died. And Leo isn’t dead. All the anger I’ve been suppressing, all the grief I’ve been avoiding. The floodgates are open, and I feel it all. Along with joy and also absolute confusion. And rage. So much rage. Because Leo is alive. Leo is alive!

Leo is alive?

“Yeah.” Oz almost smiles, an odd expression that is both reassuring and unnerving. He’s like Doug, I think. Only instead of smelling emotions, I suspect Oz just sort of … gets them. I wrap my arms around myself and focus on breathing. Oz removes his hand and steps to the side. “Can I get my van back now?” he asks Von Alston.

“I don’t understand,” Ian Von Alston says, staring at Oz.

“I get that a lot.” Oz wanders toward the garages. “It might be hard to tell which one is mine. My van blends in pretty well with Aston Martins.”

“How is he still human?” Von Alston asks, frowning.

I can’t look at the porch. I can’t feel what I’m feeling. It’s too much. So I pick the nearest thing that I understand. And that’s Von Alston, the rich weasel. All my rage focuses, contained. “Why do you have Leo? How long have you had him? Where were you holding him?” That’s why he never came back! Von Alston took Leo. All this time, thinking Leo was dead, blaming myself, hurting so damn much every day. My hand twitches. I want it around Von Alston’s throat with an intensity that scares me.

“Nina,” Doug says, walking up. His face flashes with alarm, and he steps between Von Alston and me. “Let’s redirect whatever’s happening here.”

“Demon!” Taylor squeaks. Maricruz and Chao-Ahn both shift to defensive stances.

“He’s my friend,” I snap. I hate that everyone is still talking, still here. I don’t want to talk to any of them. I want answers. I want answers that will solve the way I feel right now, because I can’t handle feeling like this. There’s too much input; I’m fraying at the edges.

“Do we have to fight anyone?” Maricruz asks. Chao-Ahn and Taylor are standing next to her. They’re all flicking their eyes between Doug and the mansion.

Doug shakes his head. “All the household employees and security guys are too happy to care about much of anything right now.”

This gets my attention, at least. “You took out the whole house?”

Doug shifts, obviously uncomfortable. “I told you I wasn’t defenseless. Sean kept me near-starving, but now that I’m healthy, I’m back in fighting form. My spit is hyperconcentrated, and I have this, uh, muscle? It lets me spit at great distances with startling accuracy.”

“Eew.” Maricruz twirls her hair around a finger. “But also rad.”

Doug shrugs. “I don’t like using it. But it comes in handy.”

“Where did you find Leo? What kind of cell did this monster have him in?” I want to know the details, need to know them. They feed the churning black mass in my chest, and it’s easier to be furious than think about Leo lying there unconscious because of me, again. To think of all this time I spent in bleak despair over being the reason he was dead when this human had him. Rage is simpler. Cleaner.

“About that.” Doug eases himself more in between Von Alston and me. “Leo wasn’t in a cell. He was in a sitting room, near a fireplace. Reading.”

“Wait, what?”

“Leo is my guest,” Von Alston says. “I was friends with his mother. She belonged to an organization I traded information and favors with for many years. Young Leo showed up at my gate a few months ago. I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do for him, but I’ve done my best to keep him comfortable out of loyalty to his mother.”

I shake my head. None of this makes sense. Why would Leo come here instead of coming back to us? Why would he stay, knowing we would all assume he was dead? Knowing how much it would hurt?

He let me think I was responsible for his death all these months. Maybe I don’t feel so bad about accidentally shooting him with a tranquilizer. Maybe I want to shoot him with another one. But what Von Alston said needs more explaining, since Leo himself can’t explain it right now.

“What do you mean, there’s nothing you can do for him?”

“He’s dying.”

I push past Doug and throw Von Alston to the ground, my hand around his throat. “Don’t lie to me.” Leo can’t be dying. He was dead, and now he’s not, and