My group was waiting for me near the entrance. I saw lights begin to flicker on down the tunnel that stretched, dark and intimidating, in front of us.

"I sent the red fledglings ahead to get the lights on and stuff," Aphrodite said, then she glanced at Stevie Rae. "The 'and stuff' being hustling to get some blankets and dry clothes."

"Good. That's good." I forced myself to think through my exhaustion. The kids had already lit a few oil lanterns, the old-fashioned kind that could be carried around by swinging handles, and put them on hooks at about eye level, so it was easy to see the expression on my friends' faces when they looked up at me. The same thing was on all their faces, even Aphrodite's. They were afraid.

Please Nyx, I sent up one fervent, silent prayer, give me strength and help me to say this right because how we begin here is going to set the tone for how we live here. Please don't let me mess up.

I didn't get a wordy answer, but I did get a rush of warmth and love and confidence that made my heart take a little stutter beat and filled me with a burst of strength.

"Yeah, it's bad," I began. "There's no denying that. We're young. We're alone. We're hurt. Neferet and Kalona are powerful and, as far as we know, they might have all the rest of the fledglings and vampyres on their side. But we have something they'll never have. We have love and truth and each other. We also have Nyx. She's Marked each of us, and in some special way, Chosen each of us, too. There has never been a group like us-- we're completely new." I paused, trying to meet everyone's eyes and smile confidence to them. Into my pause, Darius spoke.

"Priestess, this evil is like nothing I've felt before," he said. "Nothing I've even heard of before. It is an untamed thing seething with hatred. When it burst forth from the earth, I felt as if evil had been reborn."

"But you recognized it, Darius. And lots of the other warriors didn't. I watched their reactions to it. They didn't grab their weapons or get the hell out of there, like you did."

"Perhaps a braver warrior would have stayed," he said.

"Bullshit!" Aphrodite said. "A stupider warrior would have stayed. You're here with us, and now you have a chance to fight it. For all we know those other warriors were either mowed down by those damn bird things, or are under some weird spell like the rest of the fledglings."

"Yeah," said Jack. "We're here because there's something different about us."

"Something special," Damien said.

"Damn special," Shaunee said.

"I'm with you on that one, Twin," Erin said.

"We're so special, when you look in the dictionary under short bus, there's a group picture of us," Stevie Rae said, sounding weak but definitely alive.

"All right. So what do we do next?" Erik said.

They all looked at me. I looked at them.

"Well, uh, we make up a Plan," I said.

"A Plan?" Erik said. "That's it?" "Nope. We make up a Plan, and then we figure out how to take our school back. Together." I stuck my hand out in the middle of them, like I was a softball-playing dork. "Are you guys with me?"

Aphrodite rolled her eyes, but hers was the first hand to cover mine. "Yeah, I'm in," she said.

"And me," said Damien.

"Me, too," said Jack.

"Ditto," said both of the Twins together.

"I'm in, too," said Stevie Rae.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," said Erik, putting his hand on the top of the pile and smiling into my eyes.

"All right, then," I said. "Let's go get 'em!" And as they all yelled dorkishly after me, I felt an awesome tingle spread from my fingertips to cover the palms of my hands, and I knew when I pulled them out of the hand pile I'd find brand-new intricate tattoos decorating each of my palms, like I was an exotic ancient priestess who had been henna- Marked as special by her Goddess. So, even in the midst of craziness and exhaustion and life-changing chaos, I was filled with peace and the sweet knowledge that I was walking the path my Goddess wanted me on.

Not that that path was smooth and pothole free. But still, it was my path, and like me, it was bound to be unique.

THE END