House Of Night Chosen | Page 2

and Dad.

"That's so typical," I told Nala. My stomach hurt. "And he is
not my dad." I ripped the card in two and threw it into the
wastepaper basket, then stood staring at the torn pieces. "If my
parents aren't ignoring me, they're insulting me. I like being ignored
better."

The knock on my door made me jump.

"Zoey, everyone wants to know where you are." Damien's
voice carried easily through the door.

"Hang on—I'm almost ready," I yelled, shook myself
mentally, and gave my reflection one more look, deciding, with a
definitely defensive edge, to leave my shoulder bare. "My Marks
aren't like anyone else's. Might as well give the masses something
to gawk at while they talk," I muttered.

Then I sighed. I'm usually not so grumpy. But my sucky
birthday, my sucky parents…

No. I couldn't keep lying to myself.

"Wish Stevie Rae was here," I whispered.

And that was it, what had me withdrawing from my friends
(including boyfriends—both of them) during the past month and
impersonating a large, soggy, disgusting, rain cloud. I missed my
best friend and ex-roommate, who everyone had watched die a Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com)

month ago, but who I knew had actually been turned into an undead
creature of the night. No matter how melodramatic and bad B movie
that sounded. The truth was that right now, when Stevie Rae should
have been downstairs puttering around with my lame birthday
details, she was actually lurking about somewhere in the old tunnels
under Tulsa, conspiring with other disgusting undead creatures who
were truly evil, as well as definitely bad-smelling.

"Uh, Z? You okay in there?" Damien's voice called again,
interrupting my mental blahs. I scooped up a complaining Nala,
turned my back on the terrible birthmas card from my 'rentals, and
hurried out the door, almost running over a worried-looking
Damien.

"Sorry… sorry…" I mumbled. He fell in step beside me,
giving me quick little sideways glances.

"I've never known anyone before who was as not excited as
you about their birthday," Damien said.

I dropped the squirming Nala and shrugged, trying for a
nonchalant smile. "I'm just practicing for when I'm old as dirt—like
thirty—and I need to lie about my age."

Damien stopped and turned to face me. "Okayyyy." He
dragged the word out. "We all know that thirty-year-old vamps still
look roughly twenty and definitely hot. Actually one-hundred-andthirty-year-old vamps still look roughly
twenty and definitely hot.
So the whole lying about your age issue is a nonissue. What's really
going on with you?"

While I hesitated, trying to figure out what I should or could
say to Damien, he raised one neatly plucked brow and, in his best
schoolteacher voice, said, "You know how sensitive my people are
to emotions, so you may as well just give up and tell me the truth."

I sighed again. "You gays are freakishly intuitive."

"That's us: homos—the few, the proud, the hypersensitive."

"Isn't homo a derogatory term?"

"Not if it's used by a homo. By the by, you're stalling and it's
so not working for you." He actually put his hand on his hip and
tapped his foot.

I smiled at him, but knew that the expression didn't reach my
eyes. With an intensity that surprised me, I suddenly, desperately
wanted to tell Damien the truth.

"I miss Stevie Rae," I blurted before I could stop my mouth.

He didn't hesitate. "I know." His eyes looked suspiciously
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And that was it. Like a dam had broken open inside me the
words came spilling out. "She should be here! She'd be running
around like a crazy woman putting up birthday decorations and
probably baking a cake all by herself."

"A really awful cake," Damien said with a little sniffle.

"Yeah, but it'd be one of her mama's favorite recipes" I gave
my best exaggerated Okie twang as I mimicked Stevie Rae's
countrified voice, which made me smile through my own tears, and
I thought how weird it was that now that I was letting Damien see
how upset I really felt—and why I felt that way—my smile actually
reached