Tempted

Warrior.”
    “Ohmygood
ness
!” She sat down on her bed. “Are you sure?”
    “Yes . . . No . . . I don’t know! It seemed real, but I don’t know for sure. I don’t know how I can ever know for sure.” Then my breath caught. “Oh, no.”
    “What?”
    “In the memory I had of A-ya, she said something about Kalona not being meant to walk this world.” I gulped and clasped my hands together to stop them from shaking. “And she called him her Warrior.”
    “Uh-oh. You mean like she knew he’d been Nyx’s Warrior before he fell?”
    “Oh, Goddess, I don’t know.” But I did. In my heart I knew A-ya had been trying to comfort Kalona with familiarity. He’d been a warrior once; he would want to be a warrior again.
    “Maybe you should talk to Lenobia about—” Stevie Rae began.
    “No! Stevie Rae, promise me you won’t tell anyone. They already know I’ve had a memory of A-ya being with Kalona. Add that to Aphrodite’s visions, it would just freak them out and make everyonethink I’m going to suddenly lose my mind and be with him again—and that’s just not going to happen.” I said it like I meant it, and I did. I didn’t care that it made my stomach feel sick. I couldn’t be with Kalona. Like I’d told him, it was impossible.
    But I didn’t have to worry about Stevie Rae telling on me. She was nodding her head and looking at me with eyes filled with understanding. “You want to figure him out for yourself, don’t you?”
    “Yeah. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”
    “No,” she said firmly. “Sometimes things just aren’t anyone else’s business. And some things that seem totally impossible end up being different than we’d ever expected.”
    “You really think so?”
    “I hope so,” she said earnestly. It seemed Stevie Rae wanted to say something more, but was interrupted by the knock on the door and Aphrodite’s “Would you guys hurry the hell up? Everyone’s already eating and we have a jet to catch.”
    “We’re ready,” Stevie Rae yelled, and then tossed my book bag to me. “I think you should follow what your gut is tellin’ you, just like Nyx has always said. Sure, you’ve messed up in the past. So have I. But both of us have chosen to be squarely on the side of our Goddess, and that’s what counts in the end.”
    I nodded, suddenly finding it hard to speak.
    Stevie Rae hugged me. “You’ll do the right thing. I know you will,” she said.
    My laugh sounded more like a sob, and I said, “Yeah, but after how many mess-ups?”
    She smiled at me. “Life’s about messing up. And I’m startin’ to think it wouldn’t be as exciting if we were perfect.”
    “I could do with a little boring right now,” I said.
    We were laughing when we walked out in the hall and joined an annoyed Aphrodite. I noticed her “book bag” was a Betsey Johnson carry-on, and that it was so full it was bulging at its fashionable seams.
    “I think that’s cheating,” I said, pointing at her bag.
    “It’s not cheating. It’s improvising.”
    “Cute bag,” Stevie Rae said. “I heart me some Betsey Johnson.”
    “You are way too country for Betsey,” Aphrodite said.
    “Am not,” Stevie Rae said.
    “Am too,” Aphrodite said, and countered with “Bumpkin exhibit A—those horrid jeans. Ropers? Seriously? I have two words for you: Up. Date.”
    “Oh, no. You did not just talk about my Ropers . . .”
    I let the two of them bicker as I followed them to the cafeteria. Actually, I hardly heard them. My mind was miles away on a rooft op in the middle of a dream.

    The cafeteria was busy, but, bizarrely, too quiet as Aphrodite, Stevie Rae, and I joined the Twins, Jack, and Damien, who were already wolfing down bacon and eggs. As I expected, I was drawing a lot of
kill you dead
looks, especially from the booths filled with girls.
    “Ignore them. They’re haters,” Aphrodite said.
    “It’s so weird that Kalona’s still messin’ with their heads,” Stevie Rae said as we filled our plates and kept throwing glances over our shoulders at the mostly silent and sullen room.
    “It’s their choice, too.” My mouth blurted before I could stop it.
    “What do ya mean?” Stevie Rae asked.
    I gulped some eggs and said, “I mean the kids,”—I paused and waved my fork at the rest of the room for emphasis—“the ones who are giving us the stank eye and being so insanely horrid, are choosing to be that way. Yeah, Kalona started it, but they’re choosing their own