Queen of the Clueless #2 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 14

A few months after I had gotten my scholarship at Ford River, it was decided that I would go live with my mom's sister, Tita Carmen. She had coincidentally just purchased a home near the campus, and the arrangement would save me the trouble of passing through the worst traffic jam in the universe just to go to school every day.

Her house was nice. It was new, and I had my own room, and the gated subdivision had its own clubhouse and a pool, one I had never used until that night. Not really a swimmer.

But Diego was right. It was quiet down here. I stayed at the shallow end, trying to sit upright while under four feet of water, and noticed right away that the low murmur (part voice, part eerie hum) that was constantly in the background was gone.

After month and months of working with Quin to be more acutely aware of thoughts and feelings, a break was nice. As soon as my head went underwater I only heard my own thoughts. Not that comforting given my state of mind right then, but at least I didn't have to deal with the rest of the world too.

I lifted my head to take a breath, and promptly got splashed on the face as Diego swam past me.

"I told you, peaceful," he said, another lap later.

"When I'm not inhaling your water, sure," I retorted.

"I can't believe Quin didn't tell you about this earlier."

"I guess Quin doesn't tell me a lot of things." That was bitter, and meant to be, but I tugged at the strap of my swimsuit just then so I wouldn't have to look at Diego. Not just because I didn't want to start the Quin/Ms. Cabral conversation, but it was actually getting difficult to talk to him while in a pool together and not check him out. His body was very ripped, wet hair slicked back and not wildly curly, so yeah, this was suddenly all attractive to me.

Diego wasn't my type though, as conversations with Sol in my bedroom with tubs of ice cream already established. He just felt like too much of everything.

He inched closer to me now, gliding, very sure of himself. My knees trembled and I wrapped my arms around them to keep them steady. No one else was at the pool tonight. We had it for another hour, and then the clubhouse would close, but Diego said it was enough time. I wondered what the guards thought of us, two college kids hanging out at the pool at night. It would have been nothing, except I caught a glance at myself in the mirror and my three-year-old boring black one-piece suit looked sexy all of a sudden. I had picked up some curves between last summer and now.

So the two of us walking to the pool together, it didn't look innocent to me. Nothing Diego did ever looked innocent.

Diego nudged my bare shoulder with his. "You ready?"

"For what?"

"To talk."

Not what I expected him to say. Not even in the top ten of things Diego would say.

* * *

The problem of Neil, as far as our resident college gods were concerned, was they weren't sure what he was exactly.

He was a thief, sure. He was responsible for all three of the reported thefts on campus and then some, but he wasn't going around picking people's pockets. Neil was asking for things, and people were giving them to him. It might have started with small things, and then later he had upgraded to cash and fancy gadgets. The thing was, even if you had him on camera doing these things, you would just see him asking for something and the person actually willingly giving it. Then forgetting they did, so they would go reporting it as stolen, if it was valuable enough.

"Isn't that just like what we do?" How we treated those devoted to us.

Yes, Diego said, and he was annoyed by it. Neil's "talent" wasn't special. Unlike, say, authority over love, work, dreams and the waking world, those were some of the things that were split up and assigned a god each. No sharing, so the gods fought if they wanted more.

The ability to compel and command human beings was something every god could do. It was the most basic of powers. They didn't fight over this, ever.

"Surely you've encountered special human beings before," I said. "People who can have that same effect on other people."

"You're not just another person now, New Girl," Diego said.

And if it has come to the point that gods had the power to compel each other then all was not right with things. Those were not the rules by which they had been abiding.

He added, "And your boyfriend doesn't want to spend time doing something about this anomaly."

"Who?" I had to ask. For some reason, Robbie was the first person who came to mind.

"Neil," Diego said, missing my confusion entirely. "Quin doesn't want anything done to Neil. I think it's irresponsible to let him walk around. He'll be dangerous, once he realizes the extent of what he can do to people. Or to gods."

"Is Quin spending all his time with the history teacher now? While you and I are talking about saving the universe?"

Diego shrugged. "Do you want to know what I want to do?"

"Please."

"I want to get my hands on this guy and find out how to shut him off. What do you want to do?"

I paused, and dunked my head under water again. It was too big a question for me, and I instinctively wished Quin was within earshot so I could ask him. But first and foremost, my friend was in love with this "anomaly," and I had to keep her safe.

Diego dipped under as well, and we just floated there watching each other. My vision was blurry, but my mind seemed clearer.