Betrayed

have to worry about me. I'll be safe and sound at home. You take care of what ever you need to do, and if you need me, call. Anytime."
    "Thanks, Grandma. I love you.”
    "I love you, too, u-we-tsi a-ge-hu-tsa.”
    After I hung up I spent a little while just sitting there, willing myself to stop shaking, but only a little while. A plan was already brewing in my head, and I didn't have time to freak out. I needed to get busy.

CHAPTER TEN

    "So why can't we tell Neferet about this mess? All she'd have to do is make a few calls, like she did last month when Aphrodite had a vision about that plane going down at the Denver airport," Damien said, careful to keep his voice low. I'd hurried back to the dorm, huddled my group together, and given them the short version of Aphrodite's vision.
    "She made me promise I wouldn't go to Neferet. The two of them are having some kind of weird fight.”
    "It's about time Neferet started seeing her as the bitch she is," Stevie Rae said.
    "Hateful cow," Shaunee said.
    "Hag from hell," Erin agreed.
    "Yeah, well, what she is doesn't really matter. It's her visions and the people who are in danger of dying that matter," I said.
    "I heard that her visions aren't really believable anymore because Nyx has withdrawn her favor from Aphrodite," Damien said. "Maybe that's why she made you promise not to go to Neferet, because this is all something she made up and she wants you to freak out and do something that will either embarrass you and make you look bad, or get you in trouble.”
    "I'd think that too if I hadn't watched her having the vision. She wasn't faking it, I'm sure of that.”
    "But is she telling you the whole truth?" Stevie Rae asked.
    I thought about that for a second. Aphrodite had already admitted to me that she could withhold parts of her visions from Neferet. What made me think she wasn't doing that with me, too? Then I remembered the whiteness of her face, the way she had gripped my hand, and the fear in her voice as she joined my grandma in her death. I shivered.
    "She was telling me the truth," I said. "You guys will just have to trust that my intuition is right." I looked at my four friends. None of them were happy about this, but I knew that each of them trusted me and that I could count on them. "So, here's the deal, I've already called my grandma. She won't be on that bridge, but a bunch of other people will. We need to figure out a way to save those other people.”
    "Aphrodite said that a bargelike boat hit the bridge causing it to collapse?" Damien asked.
    I nodded.
    "Well, you could pretend to be Neferet and do what she does, call whoever's in charge of the barge and tell them one of your students has had a vision of a tragedy. People listen to Neferet; they're scared not to. It's a well-known fact that her information has saved lots of human lives.”
    "I already thought about that, but it won't work because Aphrodite didn't see the boat clearly. She wasn't even sure it was a barge. So I have no way of knowing how to even begin contacting anyone about stopping it. And I can't pretend to be Neferet. It feels way wrong. I mean, talk about asking to get in trouble. You can't tell me that whoever I call won't call back with some kind of follow-up report to Neferet. Then all hell would break loose.”
    "Ugly scene," Shaunee said.
    "Yeah, Neferet would find out that the hag had another vision, so your promise to keep it quiet would be broken," Erin said.
    "Okay, so stopping the boat is out, and pretending to be Neferet is out. That leaves closing the bridge as our only option," Damien said.
    "That's what I thought, too," I said.
    "Bomb threat!" Stevie Rae said suddenly. We all looked at her. "Huh?" Erin asked.
    "Explain," Shaunee said.
    "We call whoever those freaks who make bomb threats call.”
    "That could actually work," said Damien. "When there's a bomb threat in a building they always evacuate it. So it figures that if there's a bomb threat about a bridge, the bridge will be closed, at least until they find out the bomb threat is fake.”
    "If I call from my cell phone they won't be able to tell who I am, will they?" I asked.
    "Oh, please," Damien said, shaking his head like I was a total moron. "Of course they can trace cell phones. This isn't the nineties.”
    "Then what do I do?”
    "You can still use a cell. It just has to be a disposable one," Damien explained.
    "You mean like a disposable camera?”
    "Where have you been?" Shaunee asked.
    "Who doesn't know