My Date From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy, #2)

That Was Unexpected (Part 1)

I raced down the stairs, noting with interest that people had begun to vandalize Bethany's posters. Some had been tagged, some ripped down with only a corner left, and others were defaced in the classic mustache style.

Yay for teens being normal teens.

Thumping music drifted down the hallway as I sprinted to Doucette's office. How surreal to think the dance was still going on as if nothing had happened. I felt like I'd lived a lifetime since I'd won the crown.

I made it to Principal Doucette's office as everyone was settling in.

I took my seat and glanced around the room. There was Doucette, some harried woman who introduced herself as the psychologist for the school district, and Mr. Locke.

But no Felicia.

I didn't know whether to feel relieved or angry.

Doucette waited five minutes but finally he stood and moved to shut the door.

Just as Felicia breezed through it. "Sorry, I'm late," she said, in the same bored tone she said everything.

I hadn't seen her in months. She looked exactly as she always did, impeccably dressed in tailored pants and a silky blouse, with understated makeup and not a honey-blonde hair out of place. She tossed her designer coat carelessly over the back of a chair.

While I knew she was really in her early forties, no one ever believed it.

She was a beautiful women. On the outside.

On the inside, she was a grade "A" bitch. She barely acknowledged my presence, nevermind showing concern that her only child had been missing for months.

The meeting began.

It was pretty much what you would have expected. The psychologist dove in with a lot of general psych questions, like "did I want to harm myself and others?"

Want? No. Need? Often due to extenuating circumstances of the Greek variety. But I didn't share that.

And loads more random stuff that I'm sure was supposed to test if I hated my mother and wanted to marry my dad.

Yes, if they meant Felicia and ew! Again, no sharing.

Really, my restraint was remarkable.

We moved on to my behavior toward Bethany and Kai.

"Bethany's charges were pretty serious, Sophie," Mr. Locke said.

At least I could set the record straight on that one. "I didn't stalk Kai. He's my boyfriend."

Felicia showed a brief glimmer of interest at that. Probably amazed a breathing male would want me.

"Ask him yourself." I almost said, "He's up in my room," but caught myself before getting expelled for an entirely different reason. "Bethany was the jealous one."

"We'll definitely be checking that out," Doucette said. "But you still haven't accounted for your whereabouts for the past two months."

Everyone leaned forward.

Except, of course, Felicia. She was drumming a pencil against her thigh, staring out the window into the night.

Doucette cleared his throat to get her attention and she actually flashed me a look of annoyance.

So sorry that the explanation for my disappearance cut into your daydreaming, Mom.

I hadn't been sure what I was going to say. I knew they'd ask me the question. Knew that my answer would be what determined whether I'd get to stay or not.

Frankly, I'd been too busy dealing with everything else to think about it.

But watching Felicia fail to give a damn, I knew exactly what to say.

"I went to see my birth father."

That got her attention.

She started to tap the pencil faster.

Interesting. What did she think she knew about whoever had been listed as my birth parents that she'd neglected to share with me?

"Could you elaborate?" the psychologist asked.

"My birth father. I found him. I was having a rough time ... with Bethany." What the hell. Might as well toss that in. "He wanted to meet and I saw it as a chance to get away from it all. I should have been more responsible about it. I'm sorry."

I hung my head, the picture of contrition, as everyone save Felicia began to discuss this development.

I glanced up at her and my heart stopped.

Felicia was twirling the pencil in the same complicated pattern I'd seen only twice before.

Once by Kai at Delphyne's.

And once by my murderer as I laid dying as Persephone in the Underworld.

I couldn't breathe.

I was frozen, staring at Felicia as her eyes stayed locked on the window.

This had to be a coincidence, right? Felicia couldn't be my murderer. That would mean she'd been in the Underworld.

There had never been any mention of Felicia in the Underworld. And Theo would have known. Just as he'd known Demeter had somehow snuck in.

Unless ...