Chosen

by Kiersten White

  Honora twists her lips. “You sure? I was on my way out before the whole remora fiasco anyway. Not wild about the people he’s working with now. Dodgy religious zealots.”

  Bingo. Artemis can’t help the surge of excitement she feels. Because where there are zealots, there’s power to be worshipped. And where there’s power, there’s potential. She doesn’t know what yet. Maybe they’ll kill whatever it is and be done with it. But if Sean can figure out a way to take what makes demons strong and synthesize it, how much more power is there to squeeze from a potential god?

  Artemis leans closer. “We work for him to work against him. Just like old times for you, right?”

  Honora flinches. She doesn’t talk about her time spent undercover in a demon-worshipping cult. They wrote each other constant letters back then, but Honora never, ever gave details on what she was doing. Artemis feels bad for bringing it up. She shouldn’t push this. But she needs it. She needs something.

  She reaches out and strokes Honora’s hair, resting her hand on the back of Honora’s neck. “This is our job, Nor. You and me. We’re the only real Watchers left. And if something is happening, who else is going to look into it? Should we call Buffy?”

  Honora snorts. “She’s as likely to shag a hellgod as kill one. Right, then. Can’t enroll until the next semester anyway. As long as we’re doing this together. You got my back, Moon?”

  Honora plays it tough, but the tentative look in her eyes hits Artemis where it counts. She and Honora belong together. Nina never understood their bond, because Nina had someone looking out for her, someone protecting her. Artemis doesn’t bother to fight the wave of bitterness that after everything she did to be the strongest, the smartest, the best, Nina was chosen. That Artemis was left missing the sister she thought she had. The one who needed her.

  Honora knows what it is to never be enough, to fight and fight with no one in her corner. They’re each other’s corners now. Artemis takes Honora’s hand in her own, locking eyes. “Always.”

  4

  BY THE TIME I GET back to the castle, it’s dark.

  Rhys and Cillian will be cocooned in Rhys’s room—Cillian watching something on his battered laptop, happy to be anywhere but his empty cottage; Rhys researching, adding to his demon encyclopedia.

  Jade will be wherever Doug is. I think they’re dating, but it’s hard to tell, and I don’t ask for details. Jade and I were never really close, and that hasn’t changed. Plus, I try very hard to avoid Doug and his inconvenient ability to smell when I’m lying about my feelings.

  I imagine the rest of the castle settling in. Imogen has moved out of the nursery suite and into a room by mine. I sometimes smell her cigarettes, but she’s as quiet as a ghost. Jessi will have the Littles all lovingly tucked in against the night. Pelly will be curled up to sleep in the corner of the training room. The tiny purple demons will be in the damp, humid water heater closet they claimed. Tsip will be wherever she exists when she’s not here, sleeping in her void beyond reality as a defense mechanism. Ancient Ruth Zabuto will be in her room under a thousand pounds of blankets next to five space heaters.

  My mother, whom I should go talk to, but won’t, will be in her rooms. She won’t seek me out and force me to talk, even if she should. We’ll both pretend like the mess at the warehouse wasn’t weird. We still don’t know how to be a mother and daughter, not really. And we’re not Watcher and Slayer, either. What we are is fragile and tentative. For a moment I’m tempted. I imagine going to her room, but then what? There’s no comfy chair or couch for me to curl up on. I can’t wrap my brain around trying to sit on her bed and chat. There are so many years of walls between us; if only I could use my Slayer strength to vault right over them. But emotional walls don’t care one way or another how strong I am.

  There are two people I could actually talk to about all this, and both of them are gone. They both left me. One by dying and the other by walking away.

  Unwilling to go back to my empty room, I head for the kitchen. I’m not nearly as tired as I should be after running for several hours, but I am exactly as hungry as I should be. I peel off my coat, wishing I had worn one I like less to run thirty miles in, then slip out of my sneakers. At least I had the foresight to wear those instead of cute boots. In just my rainbow-striped socks, I pad silently through the castle to the dining hall and kitchen.

  The lights are on. Imogen is slow dancing with herself, humming along to a song playing on the portable stereo she scrounged the money for. Her apron is dusted with flour, the fine white powder clinging to her blond pigtails, too. She stops twirling and smiles at me.

  “Do you want a warm cookie?” she asks.

  “Plural, remember? There is no singular for cookies.”

  Imogen laughs, sweeping an arm to invite me into her domain. I sit on a counter, my legs swinging. The kitchen is the newest thing in the castle, and it doesn’t fit at all. It was installed back when the castle was converted to be a sort of summer training camp for Watcher kids. I never would have come here then. Imogen wouldn’t have either.

  But the rest of our people were blown up by followers of the First Evil, so we get to take advantage of the stainless steel counters, massive fridge and freezer, four ovens, and twelve-burner stove range. It’s not a good trade-off overall, but I’m glad Imogen seems happy in here.

  She provides the warm cookies, as promised. They’re soft and pillowy, and taste like—

  “Banana chocolate chip?” I ask, baffled.

  “Do you like them?”

  “They’re brilliant.”

  She beams. “Came up with the recipe myself.” She passes me a plate and a glass of milk. They’re like a hug in food form, and some of my anger and tension and fear melts away like the chocolate on my tongue.

  Until Imogen opens her mouth and says, “So, when are you going to admit you’re lying?” Her tone is as light and fluffy as the cookies.

  I freeze midbite. “What do you mean?”

  “I know everyone else bought—or pretended to buy—your story that your Slayer powers came back as part of a mystical ‘chosen one’ thing. That when Eve Silvera died, the powers were released back into the ether, where they floated around until they found you.” She takes a handful of flour and tosses it in the air. “Poof! Slayer again! Except it doesn’t work like that. The Slayer power is a well, and you’re either connected to it or you’re not. Eve drained you. Maybe you would have refilled eventually, but it would have taken years. So what actually happened to juice you up so fast?”

  I’m surprised to find it’s a relief to be called out after all this time. Imogen isn’t my first choice to talk to about important things, but maybe that makes it easier. My relationships with everyone else are deeper and more intense. With Imogen, the stakes are lower. I shrug. “I can’t believe everyone bought it either. They shouldn’t have. Even Rhys! He didn’t go to any of the books, do any research to verify my claims. It’s like we’re not even Watchers anymore.”

  Imogen smiles, wiping her hands clean on a dish towel. “Oh, some of us are still watching.” Her sly smile widens, and I almost ask her what she means before she gestures to a timer. “Watching so the cookies don’t burn.”

  “Truly the most important duty.” I pick at my cookie, thinking. “I think they were all just so relieved that I was back to full Slayage, they didn’t want to question it.”

  “It does give them a purpose. Don’t get me wrong, Sanctuary is lovely. Really smashing job. But getting their Slayer back makes them feel like they’re doing what they’re supposed to. And probably makes them feel safer, what with Sean still out there and who knows what other threats.”

  “I don’t make everyone feel safer.” I frown, looking at the cookie in my hand and remembering an extra cookie, years ago, delivered to me during lunch by my impossible crush. My free hand drifts to my lips, haunted by the feel of Leo’s on them. It turned out my crush was not so impossible after all. And yet more impossible than I could have ever drea
med. I hate that I can’t even linger on the memory of the kiss, since it happened midbetrayal.

  “What do you mean?” Imogen asks. “Who doesn’t feel safe with you?”

  “That werewolf family my mom went to meet with. I scared them.”

  “You’re very frightening. It’s the rainbow-striped socks, I think.” Her teasing tone disappears when she sees the pained look on my face. She scoots onto the counter next to me. “Tell me what happened.”

  It’s easier to talk side by side, when I don’t have to look at her. “I lost it.” I pause. “No, that’s not true. I didn’t lose it. I knew exactly what I was doing. My mom was pinned down by two mercenaries. Guns and everything. And I took them out. Everything I did felt right at the time. But the way the family looked at me—the way my mother looked at me—it was like I was the monster.” I flinch. “I mean, technically I did use one of them as a shield against being shot.”

  “You were following your instincts, right?”

  “Mostly. I held back, actually.”

  “Don’t.” Imogen sounds confident, matter-of-fact. “You’re a Slayer. Your instincts keep you alive. Your instincts kept your mother and that ungrateful family alive. So next time your instincts tell you to go harder, go harder. Don’t question yourself.”

  “It felt … dark, though.”

  “Did it? Or were you just afraid of it because of how others were judging you?”

  I frown. If my mother hadn’t been there, what would I have done? “I’m not sure. It bothers me, though. Instead of looking for ways to heal, lately I’ve been much better at seeing ways to hurt.”

  “People change. You grow up. You evolve. It’s okay.”

  For years I longed for change. Lobbied for it, even. Constantly asked the Watchers Council to do things differently. To shift the way we engaged with the world, to look for better solutions. Less violent ways of navigating potential threats. A new structure within our ranks that stopped valuing those who could kill over everyone else.

  And I got what I asked for. All it took was nearly every Watcher being wiped out, becoming a Slayer, and losing my sister as she went to find out who she was without the structure of the Watchers to hold her up.

  I hate change. No wonder the Watchers never changed anything. “Change sucks.”

  Imogen nudges me with her shoulder. “It doesn’t have to. Also, you still haven’t told me how you got your power back. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

  I hadn’t meant to derail the conversation. Or maybe I had. I don’t want to say it, but it’s time. “Leo.” It’s the first I’ve said his name aloud in ages. I want it to surround me like a hug. Instead, it just falls from my mouth.

  “What about him?”

  “He gave the power back to me.”

  Imogen hops off the counter. “Whoa, whoa, hold up. Leo’s dead.”

  “Yeah.” I nod, miserable. After the dream where he restored everything in a seething burst of energy, I waited for him. But he never showed up. “Maybe a cambion thing. He was half demon, after all. Might have been able to stick around in some form long enough to transfer the power. Walking on dreams to get here or something.”

  “Have you researched it?”

  I take another cookie and shove it in my mouth. “Slayer now, remember? I don’t have to research.”

  “You really are claiming your destiny. I’m so proud.” She puts her hands over her heart, laughing, then turns as a timer announces another batch of cookies is done.

  The truth is, I didn’t research cambions because it hurt too much. If Leo were still alive, he would have come back. He saved us, gave us enough time to defeat his mother. Everything we’re building here is because of him. I just wish he could see it. It’s his legacy as much as anything else. Sometimes I let myself imagine that he survived. That we all yelled at him for lying to us about his mother, that we actually got to work through the anger to the good stuff on the other side.

  But it hurts, just like the idea of researching him or probing the mess of unresolved emotions he left along with my renewed powers. I talk to Imogen’s back. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?” It’s too sad and too special and Rhys would pull it apart to find out how it worked, and my mother would clumsily try to comfort me, and I can’t deal with either option.

  Imogen mimes zipping her lips. “I am a perfect graveyard of secrets. They come to me and are buried snug and tight, six feet under.” She resumes waltzing around the kitchen while I finish off the cookies. She doesn’t talk again until I get up to stumble to bed.

  “Next time,” she says, passing me a plate to take, “don’t hold back. You should never hold back. Promise me.”

  I wave the cookies. Imogen is a bit of a mystery as always, but it’s nice to have her on my side. Almost like having my sister back. “Promise.”

  5

  I LINE UP THE BODIES.

  One: Eve Silvera. Her lipstick is still perfect, her pantsuit unwrinkled. She should be broken beyond repair, but she looks like she’s sleeping. It’s nice.

  Two: Next to her, Leo. I try not to look at him, but I can’t help it. His dark hair brushes his shoulders, his strong jaw not softened in death or sleep. His eyelids look so delicate, like they could flutter open anytime. But they won’t.

  Three: Cosmina. I arrange the dead Slayer’s blue hair around her head like a halo. Pretty.

  Four: Myself. No. Not myself. Artemis. Does she look more like me now, or do I look more like her? I cradle her a little longer, then sigh. It has to be done. I line her up next to the others. If she’s here, then she’s dead, and if she’s dead, then it’s my fault.

  I want to cry, but here, in my childhood bedroom, surrounded by the static purple-black flames that once tried to claim me, I’m not allowed to. I have to take care of the bodies. I look up toward the door. So many more bodies waiting for me, arranged in neat triangles. I can see a few I recognize—Bradford Smythe. Cillian. Rhys. My mother. Everyone from the castle. But more behind them, waiting for me to bring them in and lay them nicely in a row.

  So many bodies. How did I get so many bodies?

  “Hello.”

  I turn to see a pretty Chinese girl, late teens or early twenties, her long black hair in a single braid. “You’re not dead,” I say.

  “No.” Her eyes keep flicking to my bodies. She holds out a hand. “Ice cream.”

  “What?”

  “You need ice cream.”

  Puzzled, I take her hand. She tugs me, hard, and we leave my room. With a sudden rush of awareness, the truth slams into me:

  I’m dreaming. This is a Slayer dream. And I’ve had it before. So many times. At least the bedroom-and-bodies part. Not this new development.

  “Ice cream.” She points emphatically to a table with a huge bowl of ice cream and a spoon. I sit obediently, looking at our surroundings. The room is enormous, entirely white. Along the walls, childlike illustrations chase one another. One is a girl with a stake, stabbing a cartoon vampire. Another is the same girl, a monster behind her, vivid spurts of red crayon pulsing from her neck.

  Oh gods, ice cream girl needs my help.

  I smile encouragingly at her. But she’s just standing there, staring intently at me. She hasn’t sat down, doesn’t have ice cream of her own. “Are you going to have any?”

  She wrinkles her nose in disgust. “No.”

  There’s a buzzing, a low pulse of noise I can feel in my bones. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it’s been with us the entire time. I look behind me. The room extends forever, the illustrations continuing their macabre stories. But in the distance, a roiling nothingness creeps closer.

  “Are you a Slayer?” I ask.

  Her nose wrinkles in the same disgust she gave the ice cream, but she nods.

  “Are you in trouble?” The last time I had a dream about a Slayer like this, it was Cosmina. She needed help, and I failed her. I won’t fail again.

  “Eat your ice cream.” She folds her arms and glares.

  “I c
an help you.”

  She raises an eyebrow, her full lips pursed.

  “The storm.” I point back at it. “Something’s coming. I can help. I’m a Slayer too.”

  “It is not my storm.” She picks up the spoon, fills it with ice cream, and stuffs it in my mouth.

  I sputter around the tasteless cold mess. “Stop!”

  “Ice cream helps!” She swats away my hands and force-feeds me another bite. “It makes you sick, but it helps! Giles told me! I have to help!”

  I push away, the chair tipping backward and dumping me onto the floor. A new woman appears above me. Dreadlocks frame a face covered with elaborate white face paint. I recognize her! The First Slayer! Buffy told me about her. I—

  She raises a blade overhead and slams it into my stomach.

  6

  I WAKE UP WITH A gasp, my hands over my stomach. When I pull them away, I’m surprised they’re not slick with dark blood. It felt so real.

  I lie back. Having a Slayer dream—one where I was at least a little in control—makes me realize I haven’t been having the same Slayer dreams I used to. Not since Leo gave me back my power. Though the bedroom, my old familiar nightmare, had been there too. And it was filled with …

  The edges of the dream drift away like smoke, and I let them. All I remember is the cold burst of the ice cream and the colder pierce of the blade. Why did the First Slayer kill me? And why did the pretty Slayer lure me into that room for it to all happen?

  Sleep permanently over for the night, I sit up and rub my eyes. I half turn to check if Artemis is awake before realizing, yet again, she’s not in the other bed.

  When I was fourteen, I got a deeply ill-advised haircut, chopping my long locks into a chin-length horror. But for months after, whenever I got into a car or lay down in bed, I reached up to pull my long hair out of the way. Every time, it surprised me to find only empty air.