"Seriously. You have a mess to deal with when this mess is over." She gobbled another forkful of spaghetti.

"Well, let's try and get this particular mess over with then so I can go back to my ridiculous personal drama. Tell Darius to be ready for some bad stuff to go down to night. Like he said, Kalona isn't going to be happy when we get out of here."

"No, he said Kalona isn't going to be happy when you get out of here. He really has a thing for you."

"I know, and I wish he'd just get over it," I said.

"Hey, have you thought any more about that first poem Kramisha gave you before we left the tunnels? It sounded like it was a formula for getting rid of Kalona."

"Well, if it's a formula, I haven't figured it out." I didn't want to admit to Aphrodite that I hadn't thought at all about Kramisha's poem--or at least not the one about Kalona. I'd been completely distracted by the second poem, and by the possibility of Stark's humanity being returned to him. And th x S0Pat realization made my stomach clench. What if Stark was perting me on purpose? What if he was putting on an act when the two of us were alone so that I would be too involved with him to figure out the other poem or anything else--like a way to get out of the House of Night?

"Okay, clearly, your issues are weighing on you. And I think we can sum up your problems in one word," Aphrodite said.

I met her eyes and we said the one word together. "Boys."

She snorted, and I gave a kinda hysterical little giggle. "Let's just hope someday all of this goes away and your biggest problem is boy drama." She hesitated and then added, "I hope you're not still thinking about Stark."

I shrugged and took a massive bite of spaghetti.

"Look, I did some asking around, and the boy is wrong. Period, the end. Just forget about him."

I swallowed, chewed some more, and swallowed again. Aphrodite was still studying me.

"The poem might not have even been about him," she said.

"I know," I said.

"Do you? And, look, you need to focus on getting us the hell out of here, and getting rid of Kalona--or at least chasing him away from here. Figure that out now. Worry about Stark and Erik and Heath and even Stevie Rae later."

"Yes, I know," I said. "I'll think about them all later."

"Yeah, right. I still remember how you were the night Stark died. He got to you. But you have to remember the Stark that's strutting around here, acting like he's all that, and basically using girls and throwing them aside after he f**ks with their minds even more than their bodies, is not the guy who died in your arms." "What if he is that guy, but he just needs to Change like Stevie Rae did?"

"Well, I can promise you I'm not giving up another piece of my humanity to save his ass. Shit, Zoey, Erik's a better bet than Stark! Are you hearing me?"

"I'm hearing you." I drew a deep breath. "Okay, I'm going to forget all guys right now and focus on getting us gone, and then getting Kalona gone, too."

"Good. You can deal with boy issues later."

"Okay," I said.

"And you can deal with BFF issues later."

"Okay," I said.

"Okay," she said.

We went back to eating. I'd meant what I'd said. I was going to deal with all my personal issues. Later. Really. Or at least that's what I told myself...

Chapter Twenty-seven

I was thinking that drama class wouldn't be a big deal. One of the pod professors would probably subst a j)Yitute for Erik, who had taken over temporarily for Professor Nolan after she'd been killed. I sat in the desk behind Becca, feeling weirdly d?j? vu-ish, and half expecting to see Erik's pissed-off face calling me up in front of the class to try to seduce or humiliate me.

"Oh! My! God! He was not with me! Even though I sooooo wish he had been!"

Becca's annoying exclamation marks snagged my attention from being disgruntled at Erik. She was talking in little gaspy starts and stops to the girl across the row from her who I recognized as a fifth-former named Cassie. I kinda knew her because she'd placed twenty- fifth in the National Shakespeare Monologue Contest Erik had won, and all the drama kids tended to hang out with each other. Today, though, she wasn't acting like a Shakespearean heroine. She was acting like a pain-in-the-butt giggly girl.

"Well, he wasn't with me, either. But I can tell you, since he bit me I've been dying to do a little biting and sucking of my own on him," Cassie said, and then dissolved into giggles. Again.