“Take it easy.” Alex put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “Are you sure it’s over?”

I nodded. “Whatever it was, it stopped.”

Someone pounded on the door. My immediate thought was that it was Chase, looking for a fight, but Leticia shrieked, “Jodi! Are you in there?”

She sounded scared. I got up, but Alex held me back. “I don’t think you should be moving around yet. Not until we figure out what happened to you.”

“I’m okay. Really. Leticia sounds totally freaked.” I rushed to the door and turned the knob. Leticia’s face was white. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“The cemetery. You have to come see.” She grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hall. I nearly fell down the stairs because she wouldn’t ease off the pace or let go.

“Leticia!” I complained.

Alex ran after us, staying close to me. Obviously, he wasn’t convinced I was okay. We hurried past the Medusa statue and out the front door. I didn’t have to go much farther before I saw the problem. All the bodies in the cemetery had crawled from their graves. At once. And I knew I was the one who had raised them.

Alex looked at me, obviously thinking the same thing. My powers were out of control. The only thing I could think of was that it must have happened when I was kissing Alex. My blood had boiled, and I’d heard screams in my head because I was summoning all these souls.

“How did this happen?” Leticia struggled to catch her breath.

“I—”

“We’ll figure that out later,” Alex said. “Right now we need to put these souls back, and fast. Before Hades thinks we’ve summoned an army.”

He was right. Hades would view a raising of this size as a personal attack. It didn’t matter how quickly I released the souls. Something this big was going to get Hades’ attention. I was sure it already had. Still, I didn’t want to have all these zombies hanging around if Hades decided to show up in person.

“Jodi.” Leticia tugged on my sleeve.

The zombies had seen me and were coming straight for me. I wasn’t sure if I could command them all at once. It would require too much power, and even though I felt okay after raising all of them, I’d still used a bunch of my energy to do it.

“I can’t do this by myself.” I whipped my head around. “Leticia, go get Arianna and Tony. I need them to help me control the bodies while I work on releasing them.”

She nodded.

“And hurry. These guys are angry, and I can’t hold them all off.”

Leticia took off. I glanced at Alex, but his eyes were already shut. He was calling on his own powers to help me. Unfortunately, Alex wasn’t nearly as good at controlling souls other people had summoned. He wouldn’t completely master the ability until he was an adult Ophi.

I willed my blood to mix and started commanding the souls closest to us. Some listened, and some didn’t. It was too much. Alex grunted as a zombie slammed into him to get to me. Distracted, I got hit from the side. I fell to the ground with the zombie on top of me. I commanded the soul to release, and it slumped forward on me, but another zombie was already there to take his place.

I could hear Alex struggling. Something silver flickered to my right. Alex’s knife. Bodies fell to the ground next to me. All it took was one drop of Alex’s blood. The zombie on me opened his mouth, ready to take a chunk out of me. I lashed my forearm across his teeth, slicing my skin open. The second my blood touched him, he fell over. Someone pulled me to my feet. I turned to see Chase. He took my hand in his, squeezing it tight.

The zombies were still all over Alex, but Chase had managed to fend off the ones near me. Together we combined our powers. My body trembled as Chase’s power flowed through me. I wasn’t sure how long I could take this, so I sent out commands in waves, releasing soul after soul, hoping I’d get to them all before I collapsed under the power. I stayed focused on the zombies, but it got harder and harder to release them. The power was too much, and I couldn’t control it anymore. My body shook, and my eyes rolled back. Warm blood ran down my face. It was like last time in my room, only this was worse. I could barely stand.

“Stop!” Alex yelled. “You’re hurting her!”

Chase let go of me, and I fell into Alex’s arms. My vision was blurred, but I could see there were only a few zombies left. I heard Arianna and Tony. They were here now, taking care of the rest. I could relax.

Alex sat down on the grass with me in his lap. “Jodi, can you hear me?”

I tried to nod, but couldn’t tell if my head was actually moving. My veins throbbed, still feeling the effects of the power. My eyes weren’t bleeding anymore, and the crisp air was drying the blood on my cheeks. Alex stroked my hair, and I tried to concentrate on his touch, letting it soothe me.

“Why doesn’t it affect you when you two combine powers?” By the tone in Alex’s voice, I knew he was talking to Chase.

“Because we’re not truly combining our powers. I’m giving Jodi my power. Transferring it to her so she gets an extra boost.”

“Why didn’t you say that before?” Tony asked. He lifted each of my eyelids. I didn’t know what he was looking for. Signs of life, maybe. I still couldn’t form words or even move.

“I didn’t want you guys to think I wasn’t powerful.” Chase’s voice was small. “It was nice having everyone suddenly interested in me. I didn’t mean to hurt her, though. She’s so strong. I thought she could handle it.”

“It took a lot of power to release all these souls,” Tony said. “More power than any one Ophi should have.”

“I can work on holding back. Not transferring so much at once.” Chase sounded desperate. “I only let her take that much because there were so many zombies. I thought I had to. I had no idea it would do this to her.”

My vision was getting better…clearer, and I could finally swallow.

“What do you mean, you had no idea?” Alex’s voice was full of venom. “It happened when you did it last time, too. You knew exactly what would happen.”

Tony held his hand up to silence Alex and Chase. “We’ll talk about it later. Right now, I want to get Jodi inside. I think she needs another visit with Medusa.”

Alex carried me inside. I had just enough energy to hold onto the statue’s hands. Medusa’s image came rushing to me as soon as I made the connection.

“Dear child, what happened?”

“Medusa, I need your help. I can’t control my powers. I accidentally raised the entire cemetery. I didn’t really know I was doing it, either. I felt my blood mixing, and I heard screams, but I wasn’t trying to summon anyone.” The words rushed out of me in a panic.

Medusa nodded. “What were you doing when it happened?”

My cheeks must have been the color of a fire truck. “Kissing Alex.”

“Is that all?”

“What? Medusa, yes! We were only kissing. I swear.”

“No, child. What I mean is, did anything else happen? Maybe right before you kissed Alex.”

Chase. Chase had almost kissed me. He’d made me feel the blood in my veins, too.

“So, that’s it.” I hadn’t said a word, only thought it, but Medusa could access my thoughts, too. “You have feelings for Chase.”

“No, I like Alex. I love Alex. Not Chase.”

“Your blood is telling you otherwise. Your emotions are extremely conflicted. You have feelings for both these boys. You know your power is tied to your emotions. You need to figure out how you feel about Chase or this won’t stop happening, and we both know what that will lead to.”

“Hades coming for me.” I was kind of surprised he wasn’t already here.

“You are one of mine, Jodi. I don’t want to lose you to Hades.”

“I don’t want to be conflicted. I don’t want to like Chase.”

“The heart doesn’t always listen to reason.”

“What do I do?”

“Explore those feelings. See if they are really there. It may be the only way to get past this. And, Jodi, do it quickly. You don’t have much time.” Medusa vanished without another word, leaving me to wonder if she knew more than she was saying.