“We know how.” Leticia was looking at me like she wanted to scream in my face. So much for our heart-to-heart. “You told me you would never raise a zombie again, but here’s one now. Did you plan this?”

“Leticia, no!” How could she even think that?

“Leticia, go to your room and calm down. Jodi and I will figure this out.” Alex stepped aside so she could leave.

“Wait.” I reached for Leticia, but she sidestepped me. “I swear I didn’t do this. You have to believe me. Everything I told you tonight was the truth.”

She paused, considering what I said. I silently pleaded with her to believe me. To stay and hear me out. I had to get her to listen. To stop running away from me.

Without warning, the corpse reached out and grabbed Leticia. She shrieked as he locked his arms around her. Alex tried to pull Leticia from the guy’s grasp, but all he succeeded in doing was breaking chunks of flesh from the corpse’s arm.

“Stop!” I yelled. “Let her go! Now!” The guy let go of Leticia, and she ran for her room without looking back.

Alex stared at me, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. This guy thought I was the one who’d raised him. Was that possible? I had to know. The thing about zombies was, they didn’t talk until you told them to. They were pretty much mindless beings unless an Ophi commanded them. They followed directions, and if there were no directions to follow, well, they’d try to eat the thing nearest to them.

I took a deep breath and looked the zombie in the eyes. His pupils were a pale blue color and one eyeball oozed a greenish liquid. I swallowed hard, trying to keep my dinner from resurfacing. “Tell me who raised you after I released your soul.”

He pointed a bruised finger at me. “You.” His voice was scratchy, like—well, like someone who’d been dead for a while.

“This can’t be happening. I didn’t raise you. I didn’t raise anyone.” My body was shaking, and I felt the blood in my veins mixing.

“Jodi, calm down.” Alex put his arm around my shoulder, but he practically jumped back the second he made contact with me. “You’re burning up.”

“I’ll be fine. I just have to relax, but that’s hard to do when I have no idea what’s going on.” I turned to Alex, looking for help. “I didn’t summon anyone.”

Alex wrinkled his forehead. “Maybe you did it when you blacked out earlier. Can you raise souls when you’re only semi-conscious?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.” Nothing was making sense. All I knew was I had to get this zombie back in the ground. I faced him. “I release your soul. Go back to wherever you were before…” I stumbled on the words, “before I raised you.”

The corpse shuddered as his soul left, and the body fell limp to the floor.

Alex reached for the guy’s arms. “I’ll get him out of here.”

“I’ll help. If what he said was true, and I brought him here, then I should be the one to put him back in the ground.”

Alex let go of the body and took my hands. “Jodi, you have to stop taking on all the responsibilities yourself. Look what it’s doing to you. You’re stressed out. You blacked out earlier, and now this. You’re summoning souls without knowing it. That’s dangerous.”

He didn’t need to tell me how dangerous it was. I knew. If I could raise this guy when I wasn’t aware of it, I could raise more souls, and that would send Hades straight to me.

“I’ll talk to Medusa. See if she can help me sort all this out.”

“That’s great, but you still need to let the rest of us help you more.”

“You do help me. Tony is teaching classes. Arianna is cooking and cleaning. You’re keeping me sane.” I gave him a weak smile.

“What about Leticia and Randy? You’re treating them like they can’t handle anything. All you let them do is train and go to classes.”

I didn’t think Leticia could handle much more right now. I wasn’t even sure she could handle training with me anymore. Not after what had happened today—or tonight. And Randy? His father was taken to the underworld with the others, too. He wasn’t exactly emotionally stable either.

Alex wrapped his arms around me. “Stop trying to protect them, Jodi. They’ll never learn to handle all this if you don’t give them the chance to.”

I nodded and looked up at him. “I couldn’t do any of this without you.”

“You don’t have to.” He smiled and gave me a quick kiss.

“But I do have to bury this body, and this time, he’s staying buried.”

It took an hour to dig up the grave. We didn’t bother burying the bodies too deep. With our training every day, it was easier if the corpses didn’t have to dig too far to get out of the ground after we raised them, and reburying them was easier if we didn’t have to dig six feet down. Still, it was hard work. By the time we were finished, I was sweaty and covered in dirt.

“That’s a nice look on you.” Alex playfully bumped me with his shoulder as we headed back to the mansion.

“Yeah, I’m thinking about bottling some of the stuff and selling it as an alternative to perfume. I’m sure the smell of the dead would be a big seller.”

“Sorry our night together had to be spent digging a grave. I was hoping—” He stopped. I knew what he was hoping, but I wasn’t exactly ready to have that conversation. It had only been a couple months. In his mind, that probably equated to years.

“I’m going to take a really hot shower and go to bed. Chase should be here for breakfast, and I want to have enough time to show him around a little before training starts.”

We climbed the stairs and turned left toward my bedroom. I could tell Alex was fighting the urge to make a comment about Chase. I didn’t understand how he could hate a guy he’d never even met. Was he really that jealous? That insecure? He’d always seemed so confident, even when we’d first met and I was completely freaked out by him. He knew I would end up liking him, and he’d been right.

“Goodnight.” He kissed first my lips and then my cheek. “Sleep well.”

“Night.” I watched him walk to his room before I went inside. I didn’t want things with Alex to get complicated. Everything else in my life was complicated. I wanted one thing that was perfect. Alex and I could be perfect. I knew we could.

After a hot shower that steamed up the entire bathroom and part of my room, I crawled into bed. My head sank into the pillow, and I was off in dreamland.

Only the dream felt so real. It was morning, and I was late waking up. I hurried to get ready before Chase arrived. I had to be there to greet him, to look like I had a clue what I was doing at this school. But when I got downstairs, Chase was already there, waiting for me. His olive skin and dark hair looking absolutely stunning next to the golden Medusa statue. He winked at me and reached one hand out. I took it, without saying a word. I was fixed in a sort of trance, unable to look away from his green eyes. He pulled me closer to him and leaned down, pressing his lips against mine. My blood surged through my veins until he finally pulled away.

That was when I gasped. It wasn’t Chase. It was Alex.

I sat up in bed, breathing heavily. Why had I dreamt that? My arms tingled, and I realized my blood was settling, returning to normal.

A heavy hand knocked on my door. Tony had already patched it up for me. He wasn’t exactly a carpenter, but it would do. I turned to the alarm clock on the nightstand. Breakfast was already being served. I was late. Just like in the dream. I threw the covers off. “Just a second!” It had to be Alex at the door, wondering where I was. I threw on clean clothes and ran a brush through my hair, before flinging open the door.

“Oh!” The word escaped without my control. The person knocking on the door wasn’t Alex. It was the same corpse I’d reburied last night. Was I still dreaming? “No. This isn’t happening. It can’t be real.”

“Jodi?” Alex called up the stairs. “Everything okay?”