Chosen - Kiersten White Page 0,72
I didn’t kill Von Alston, but … I could have. And I think Leo is the only person who can help me work through why.
Having the other Slayers here has made me realize that I still feel separate from them. Different. And I don’t know if it’s my Watcher background, or if somehow the power inside me is wrong. Besides which, Chao-Ahn already seems weirdly suspicious of me. I don’t want to talk to her about all my murdery impulses.
I twist the doorknob until it snaps, then push the door open. The first pantry leads to the next door and the next pantry. This one is filled with cereal, pasta, bread, canned goods, and Imogen.
“Hey, Nina,” she says, holding up a finger. “Okay, sounds good! I think this exchange of goods will benefit everyone. Can’t wait for the chickens.” She hangs up and lowers her cell phone. “Trading some of the excess weapons for a coop.”
“Really? Big market for used swords and the like?”
“LARPers. Anyway, you broke in.”
I don’t know where Imogen falls on the Nina-seeing-Leo sides—with Rhys or my mother. I study the shelves as though I were looking for a snack of … pickled beets. I pick up the jar. It’s dusty, the contents floating in a vaguely menacing manner. “I was hungry?”
“I agreed to guard duty to keep Leo in. Never agreed to keep you out.” She gestures to a set of keys on a shelf next to her chair. “Feel free to not break the next doorknob. Hard to explain to Rhys and Ruth.”
“Thank you.” I take the keys, my fingers betraying me with a slight tremble as I unlock the door.
“I’ve got your back.” Imogen smiles.
I push the door open and slip inside, closing it softly behind myself and resting my forehead against it, trying to calm my breathing. Maybe Leo is asleep. Maybe I can’t talk to him right now. Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow. Maybe—
“Athena?”
I’d rather face a horde of vampires right now. Even broody ones. But I turn around. Leo’s propped up on a cot, and the sight of him is like a blow to the stomach. He looks worse than I remember. His eyes are sunken, the skin around them the color of old bruises. His jawline is sharper than ever, cheekbones sticking out over hollow cheeks. He’s wrapped in a blanket, but even his position screams frailty and illness. Leo was always so assured, so confident. Even the way he moved. He’s so much lessened that my nerves are swallowed up by concern.
I want to lie next to him and stroke his hair until he’s strong again. The impulse is almost overwhelming. But we’re not there yet. Maybe we never were. Maybe we never will be again.
“Hey.” I cross the tiny room in two steps and sit on the chair next to his cot instead of crawling on and holding him. “You look awful.”
“You look lovely.”
I laugh. It comes out sharp and braying because of my nerves. “Sure. So. Last time I saw you in person, you were unconscious on the floor and about to be crushed by the remora demon. Mind filling me in?”
He closes his eyes and smiles. His eyelids look too thin. I remember how soft his lips were; they still look the same.
“When I woke up and saw the remora filling the room, my first thought was how proud of you I was.”
“Really?”
He cracks one dark eye open. “Well. No. My first thought was Oh god, I’m going to die. But my second thought was how proud I was of how clever and strong you are. You stopped her with nothing but yourself. No powers. No mystical Slayer abilities. Just you. And then my third thought was a refrain of Oh god, oh god, I’m going to die.”
I try not to laugh, and instead put on my sternest face. “But you didn’t.”
“No. There was a door along the back wall. I made it in time.”
“Why didn’t you come out and find us?”
He sighs, sinking deeper into his pillow. “I never should have come to the castle in the first place. I put you all in danger. I knew what my mother was, who she was. But … she was still my mum, you know?”
Instead of my own mother, I think of Artemis in that truck. I could have stopped them. I didn’t. I was so distracted by the fact it was Artemis doing the bad thing that I didn’t do everything I could to stop it.