Untamed

know how you can take time to obsess about one country music dork."
    "You take that back, Z. He is so not a dork."
    "Fine. I take it back. You're the dork."
    "Fine," she said. "But when I figure out how to get Internet access down in the tunnels so I can get tickets online, do not ask me to get one for you."
    I shook me head at her. "Computers? Down in the tunnels?"
    "Nuns? At Street Cats?" she countered with.
    I took a deep breath. "Okay, point made. Stuff is very weird right now. Let's start over. How have you been? I've missed you."
    Stevie Rae's frown was instantly replaced by her dimpled grin. "I've been just fine. How 'bout you? Oh, and I've missed the heck outta you, too."
    "I've been confused and stressed," I said. "Hand me some of those purple feather toys. I think we're all done with the gray-and-pink mice."
    "Well, there're lots of purple feathers, so we're set for a while." She started handing me the long freaky-looking toys. (I definitely wasn't going to get one of those for Nala—she'd probably blow up like a big puffer fish at it.) "So, what kind of confusion and stress? The normal stuff or new-and-improved stress stuff?"
    "New and improved, of course." I met Stevie Rae's eyes and, keeping my voice really low, said, "Last night a fledgling named Stark died in my arms." I paused while Stevie Rae flinched, as if what I'd just said had hurt her physically. But I had to continue. "Do you have any idea if he'll come back?"
    Stevie Rae didn't say anything for a while, and I let her get her thoughts together while she handed me cat toys. Finally she looked up and met my eyes again. "I wish I could tell you that he was going to come back—that he was going to be okay. But I just don't know."
    "How long does it take to know?"
    She shook her head, looking really frustrated now. "I don't know! I can't remember. Back then, days didn't mean anything to me."
    "What do you remember?" I asked gently.
    "I remember waking up and I was hungry—so hungry, Zoey. It was terrible. I had to have blood. She was there, and she gave it to me." Stevie Rae grimaced with the memory. "From her. I fed from her first thing when I woke up."
    "Neferet?" I whispered the name.
    Stevie Rae nodded.
    "Where were you?"
    "In that terrible morgue room. You know, it's off from the side of the school by the south wall and the pine trees there. It has the cremation thing in it."
    I shuddered. I did know about the cremation thing. All the kids knew about it. That's supposedly where Stevie Rae's body had gone.
    "Then what happened? I mean, after you fed?"
    "She took me to the tunnels and the rest of the kids. She used to visit us a lot. Sometimes she'd even bring street people for us to eat." Stevie Rae looked away, but not before I saw the pain and guilt that filled her eyes. She was such a sweet soul—such a good girl—remembering how it was when she had been losing her humanity must be awful for her. "It's hard for me to think about it, Zoey. And it's even harder for me to talk about it."
    "I know, I'm sorry, but this is important. I have to know what will happen if Stark comes back."
    Stevie Rae looked me square in the eyes, and suddenly her voice was that of a stranger. "I don't know what will happen. Sometimes I don't even know what will happen to me."
    "But you're different now. You're Changed."
    Her expression shifted, and I saw anger in Stevie Rae's eyes. "Yeah, I've Changed, but it's not as simple as what happens to regular vamps. I still have to choose my humanity, and sometimes that choice isn't as black-and-white as you'd think it would be." Her gaze sharpened. "You said the dead kid's name was Stark? I don't remember anyone with that name."
    "He was new. He'd just transferred from the House of Night in Chicago."
    "What was he like before he died?"
    "Stark was a good guy," I said automatically, and then I paused, realizing that I hadn't really known what kind of a guy he was, and for the first time I wondered if maybe the attraction I'd felt for him had tainted how I saw him. He had admitted to killing his mentor—how could I have overlooked that so easily?
    "Zoey? What is it?"
    "I was starting to like him. Really like him, but I didn't know him very well," I finally said, suddenly reluctant to tell Stevie Rae everything about Stark.
    Her expression softened, and she looked like my BFF again. "If you care about him, you're going to have to get to the morgue and get him out of there. Keep him somewhere for a few days, and see if he