My Ex From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy)

by Darling, Tellulah

  Last night, I had sipped from a drinking fountain. That was when it must have happened. Just someone’s idea of a Halloween prank. I almost fainted with relief.

  I practically skipped out of the office back to my bedroom. I paused at the door that separated the boys’ corridor from the girls’ corridor in the dorms. The one that was supposed to stay locked but most of the time was not, allowing free access during the day between our bedrooms. Now that I was ensured of a long happy life, I wanted to know what Theo’s deal was. No time like the present.

  After a furtive glance to make sure no teachers were around, I raced down the hallway and threw his door open, revealing his minimalist decor. I knew we’d have privacy because his roommate had been sent home to recover from mono, which he definitely hadn’t gotten from kissing.

  “What’s up with the punching, sunshine?” I asked.

  He didn’t even look up from fixing the arm on his glasses. “You should be thanking me. You’d have seen six kinds of trouble if you’d been late for bed check. Maybe expulsion.”

  I sunk onto the brown blanket on his bed. “Then you come out and call me. You don’t punch the guy I’m kissing. A little much, don’t you think?” I picked up a wind-up fifties style robot from a low shelf, turned the key, and released it on the soft folds of the blanket.

  “I did call you. Three times. You were too busy sucking face with Kai to notice.”

  Whoa. “You know him?!”

  Theo shrugged. “We’ve met.”

  “Where? Why didn’t you mention this?”

  He finally looked up. “It was ages ago. I didn’t know you were going out to meet him. Believe me, if I had, I would have locked you in with Bethany.” He took the robot away from me.

  “You met this guy, what? On summer vacation?”

  “Yeah. We held hands and made out on the beach. Don’t be a total muppet. Our families are acquainted.”

  “Your problem with him is …”

  “He’s a player.”

  “I had one kiss with him, Theo. It’s not like I was going to be used and abused.”

  “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

  Theo’s angle seemed plausible, if a little big brotherish for him. “Thanks for looking out for me, but I can handle myself.”

  “Not with that dinklord,” he said gravely.

  I rolled my eyes. “Now who’s the drama queen?” I strode to the door, then paused. “What was that language you spoke?”

  He glanced up. “Huh?”

  “To Kai. Last night. You said something in some language and it seemed to keep him from coming over the fence.”

  Theo stared at me like I was nuts. “I swore at him. In English. You okay?” He put down his glasses. “Something happen last night?”

  “No. Well, maybe. I think someone might have laced the water fountain down by the gym. Because I had all these crazy hallucinations.”

  Theo looked very concerned. “What kind?”

  I couldn’t figure out why he looked so intense about this. “Just random, weird trippiness.”

  He relaxed slightly, gave me a thorough looking over, and turned back to his tiny screwdriver. I guessed that meant I was dismissed.

  The entire morning so far had been incredibly strange and draining. Not to mention, I’d missed breakfast. I went back to my room and flopped on my bed. Hannah was peering at some slides under her microscope.

  “Everything kosher?” she asked.

  “Yup. Cassie?”

  “Didn’t want to talk about it but seemed calmer.”

  I frowned. “Did you hear anything about Mrs. Rivers leaving for a family emergency?”

  “No.”

  “She did. We’ve got a new guidance counselor. Guess she’ll be taking my class tomorrow. Also, I talked to Theo.”

  Silence. Hannah tended to space out when she was working on her microscope. “Hannah.” Still nothing. I crept over, licked my finger, and stuffed it into her ear.

  “Brat!” she brushed me off. “What?”

  “Five minutes and you can go back to curing cancer. I talked to Theo. He claims the reason he hit Kai while he was kissing me—“

  “He hit him? You didn’t bother telling me this last night?”

  “Keep your panties on.” We both snorted at the word “panties” which we agreed to be the most offensive word ever. “I’m telling you now. It’s because he’s a player. Apparently Theo knows his family.”

  “Makes sense,” Hannah said. “Bethany would pick that type.”

  “Yeah.” I thought a moment. “Zeus had a wife, right? What was her name again?”

  “Nice non-sequitur. It was Hera. This is relevant how?”

  “Someone laced the water fountain last night.”

  “Again?”

  “Apparently. I had the full ancient Greece technicolor tour of hallucinations, complete with seeing Zeus and Mount Olympus and some woman who I guess must have been Hera.”

  Hannah finally looked up from her microscope at me. “Was this before or after the kiss?”

  “During.”

  “Seriously?! What if it wasn’t the water fountain but his lips that were laced?” she asked.

  “Doubt it.”

  “Stranger things have happened, Neo. And it was Halloween.”

  “It was, Morpheus. But since I wasn’t abducted, thrown into a shipping container, and sent on my way to the Baltics to be sold into sex slavery, highly unlikely.”

  Hannah gave me a look of ultimate disbelief. “Right. That rack of yours would command such a good price.”

  “Try my highly prized virginity.”

  “I dunno. You’ve done a lot of biking.”

  I shuddered. “Go back to your slides.”

  She did. While I easily dismissed her ludicrous theory, part of me still marveled at how nuts the entire night had been. If I had been the one on drugs, why did Kai say “finally” before he kissed me that last time? Unless he was on drugs, too, and we were sharing some kind of bonding moment? Plausible, much? This entire thing bothered me.

  I decided to go outside, get some fresh air, and think. There was no conscious plan to end up back at the sight of my tryst. My feet just sort of went there. I leaned on the back fence and looked out.

  The area looked normal aside from some freshly overturned earth. Like a small animal digging something up. Not like Kai burying something.

  My stomach contracted in a knot of dread. I was drama queening again. Letting my imagination run riot. It was a beautiful fall day, birds were singing, and I hadn’t fallen victim to a tragic demise the night before.

  All was well here. I knew I should go back inside but chose door number two, where I ignored the prickling on the back of my neck to jump over the fence. I scurried toward the site of my alleged near miss.

  Leaning forward, I scrabbled at the dirt with my hands like a fiend. I’m not sure what I thought I might find. My cold, decomposing body, proving that everything I’d experienced in the last ten hours was just my soul crossing over?

  There was nothing there. I sat back on my heels feeling slightly foolish.

  Just as a blast of fire struck the ground where my head had been a second before. Without thinking, I threw myself sideways, narrowly missing being blasted again.

  My heart was pounding in my chest, my throat was dry and my brain had shut down except for screaming “Get out!” at me. I was in full-on flight or fight mode. Without the fight. I ran as fast as I could into the woods. The very dense, dark woods.

  I was too terrified to even look around at what was attacking me. Desperately hoping it wasn’t Kai come to finish what should have happened last night.

  Adding a new level of horror was the fact I could smell fire from whatev
er my tormentor was throwing at me. I was in a forest full of lovely crisp fall leaves and dry pine needles with a madman aiming fireballs at me. The phrase “I was toast” had never seemed so real. Or sinister.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large boulder and dove behind it, shimmying on my belly farther back to a stand of cypress tress I could hide behind.

  Carefully, I poked my head out to see what lunatic was on my trail and got the fright of my life. Jason in a hockey mask wielding a chainsaw would have been a more welcome sight.

  Picture if you will the figure from Munch’s “The Scream” covered entirely in flames and floating about four feet in the air.

  He must have heard something because he whirled around sharply and elongated his arm to impossible lengths to send out a tentacle of fire. It was to my credit that I didn’t pee my pants in that moment.

  A man-shaped creature landed hard on the ground beside the wraith. Like he’d just dropped out of the heavens. Which made no sense but seemed perfectly rational after the appearance of the incredible combustible dude.

  I say “creature” because while he seemed to be a bald wall of muscle similar to any guy found at a biker bar, he was seven feet tall with a tattoo of a gold thunderbolt snaking over his head and freaky, glowing gold eyes. I could see their light from fifty feet away. Throw in a pair of stretchy leotards and a mask and this ‘roided out aggressor would have made a fortune on the WWF circuit. Snap his opponents like twigs.

  Infernorator, the fire floater, looked incredibly displeased to see Gold Crusher, the muscle giant. He managed to convey a flaming frown, which spoke more of death than displeasure. It was matched by Gold Crusher’s annoyance. Think bristling with testosterone and magnified by a billion.

  Infernorator whipped his fiery tentacle toward Gold Crusher in a blur of speed. But Goldie was prepared. His eyes glowed even fiercer as gold lightning arced from them to keep the fire at bay. Supernatural stalemate.

  I’d never had a religious upbringing so I felt free to invoke every deity I could think of to show me this was just latent hallucinogens twisting the reality of two men in a simple gang war. Fighting for rights to the woodsy turf.

  The creatures extinguished their lights. Apparently they had come to some wordless agreement because both began to scan the forest with eerily identical movements. I pulled myself sharply back behind the tree.

  My foot caught on a twig. Its snap seemed to bounce off every tree in a kind of megaphone echo. Hoping against hope that luck was on my side and I hadn’t actually been heard, I peeked around the cypress.

  Only to find them both staring directly at me.

  Flight kicked in again.

  “Sophie! Sophie!” I heard Theo bellowing.

  I risked a glance over my shoulder. The unexpectedness of his voice had swung the attention of the death twins his way.

  I stopped cold. “No, Theo! Run away!”

  He didn’t. Before you ask, yes, everything did gear down into slow motion in that car crash kind of way. Except a car crash would have been like a Merry-Go-Round ride in comparison.

  My eyes widened in horror as Theo came careening into view. The two creatures turned on him.

  A look of dread came over Theo’s face at the same second that both beings shot off their deadly bursts.

  I jumped out from behind the tree. I was pure adrenaline.

  Also, rage. I’d been picked on once too often. This attack was off-the-charts unprovoked and unfair. Without any conscious thought, I raised my hands. I felt my anger travel through my body to my palms.

  They tingled with it. Burned with it.

  Then fury took form as a ribbon of moss green light shot from each of my palms like vines to snake themselves around the creatures, causing their hits on Theo to go wild.

  Gold Crusher was lifted like he was nothing. As if my light ribbons had substance. Infernorator’s fire was held in check by his bindings.

  The ribbons spun faster and faster, engulfing them like a spider entombing its prey for the kill. Dirt, small branches, and rocks were caught up in the fury of its whirlwind. Gold Crusher’s and Infernorator’s faces were going into psycho old person land.

  Then, from one blink to the next, their faces practically skeletal with age, the light constricted, then blinked out of existence. I dropped my hands in horror. The debris dropped to the ground as harmless dirt, with no sign of the beings.

  The color drained from my face.

  My life as I knew it had ended.

  4

  Between a Rockman and a hard place

  δ’

  The phrase “that wasn’t supposed to happen yet” did nothing to reassure me. Neither did the fact that my best friend didn’t seem upset or surprised by what had just happened. If anything, he looked annoyed.

  “Yet?!” I screeched. “You mean it was supposed to happen at some point?”

  “Not for another couple of years.” Said as if that was going to make everything better.

  I took a step toward him, not even aware that my hands were outstretched. “You knew about this?”

  Theo lunged at me, grabbing my wrists and lowering my arms. “You may think you want to kill me,” he began.

  “Not ‘think,’” I growled, “know.”

  “Killing me is not going to get you answers. The Rockman-Bloom alliance must hold.” He searched my face intently.

  I gave a tight nod and he released my wrists. “Are you even really my friend?”

  He gave a derisive laugh. “Sophie, I’ve walked through Hell for you. I’m your best friend. Give a boy a chance to explain.”

  I crossed my arms. “Fine. Go ahead.”

  He shook his head. “Not here. We have to get you back inside school grounds.” Theo took a quick glance around and motioned for me to follow, running back through the woods to the fence.

  “Why?” I questioned, trotting after him.

  We could hear fire truck sirens approaching. They must have seen the smoke from the attacks. Small brush fires dotted the woods and my eyes were tearing up.

  “The school is protected ground. The only place you’re truly safe.”

  “You know this how?” I panted.

  “Who do you think protected it?” he retorted, not even slowing.

  “Fairies?” I muttered sarcastically, painfully dragging myself back over the fence.

  “No such thing.”

  “Typical. Sparkly winged beings, sorry. Fire throwing ghost, no problem,” I said in a slightly higher tone of voice than normal.

  “Not a ghost. Though I can see how the flying might have confused …” He peered at me as I emitted a strangled laugh. “You’re acting hysterical. You’re in shock, right?”

  You think? That was such an enormous “d’uh” after what I’d just experienced that I couldn’t even dignify it. I stood there, my mouth gaping open and closed like a fish as Theo nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said, assessing me. “Definitely shock.”

  I punched him. Hard. It may not have done anything for the shock but it felt good. I spun on my heel and continued through the back field to the school.

  “If you’re gonna hear me out, you’ll have to keep an open mind,” he said, jogging after me.

  “How could I possibly have to get more open after,” I waved my hand back toward the woods, “those things?”

  “That’s only one small part of it.” He held the door open for me and we slipped inside through one of the many sets of heavy glass doors that led into the school.

  “Fine. But I want Hannah.”

  He looked at me, confused. “You sure?”

  I shrugged. “Anything you have to tell me, you can say in front of her.”

  You may be wondering why, given all I was about to
hear, I would want Hannah to discover exactly how freaky I was. The answer was simple, boys and girls. Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt. It didn’t matter that I’d just seen fire fiends and seven-foot-tall lightning men. Or even that I’d shot green pyrotechnics from my hands. I still figured there had to be a rational, logical explanation for all this.

  I wanted my best girlfriend there for moral support and to laugh this off when we saw it was all a big misunderstanding.

  “You’re a goddess,” Theo said in a low voice, pulling me aside. He knew me well enough to figure out what I was thinking. “This isn’t a joke.”

  I shook my head so hard, it hurt. “How does that make any sense? No. You can’t expect me to believe that everything I know about my entire life is wrong.”

  “Explain what happened out there, then.” Theo gazed at me with a seriousness I’d never seen from him before. “I need you to believe this.”

  It was Theo’s tone of voice more than anything else, even more than what I’d just seen and done, that forced me to consider wrapping my head around the reality of his words. And yet … “I can’t.”

  I glimpsed Bethany down the corridor as we went hunting for Hannah. She threw me her best glower, which promised retaliation galore.

  Huh. If this was real, having the wicked awesome powers of a Supreme Being could rock. I practically salivated at the thought of what I could do to Bethany. I aged her up in my head to horror movie proportions.

  Hannah didn’t see why we were headed on a secret mission to the gym but she kept quiet until we got there and Theo had closed the doors.

  Hannah made herself comfortable on the floor. “What’s with the hush hush?”

  “I was in the forest,” I explained. “And then these things showed up to kill me. Except I’m fine. Which is seriously weird since I should be lacking on the living front. But what’s really freaking me out?”

  “This drug trip you’re still on?” she asked.

  “I managed to blow the boogeymen into a zillion fragments. One second, I’m scared. Pissed off. The next, I’m the supernova of doom. I’ve never even been good at sports.”