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Hunted (House of Night): Chapter 19
At the end of the last chapter, Kalona kissed Zoey and assured her that neither Darius nor the elements can protect her from him. I don’t have any jokes about this. It’s honestly about time House of Night started actually feeling serious, given that it introduced a new primary antagonist whose characterization begins and ends at “rape god”. Kinda feels like maybe half a book of Erik-Heath love triangle was just a little frivolous.
Zoey’s troubles aren’t over yet, though, because Stark is there too, witnessing this scene with Kalona kissing Zoey and slicing Darius’s face open. We haven’t really spent any time with Stark since his resurrection as an undead, red vampyre fledgling, and pretty much all we saw then we him saying Zoey’s name over and over again, so it remains to be seen how much of the old, flirty Stark is still around.
I looked up to see Stark. He still grasped his bow in one hands. […]
“The blood… can’t bear it… have to…” […] as if against his will, he took a staggering step into the room.
On the floor beside me Darius got to his knees. He grabbed the knife from the floor where Kalona had dropped it and faced Stark. “You should know that I only share my blood with those I have invited to taste of me,” Darius’s voice was steady and strong. […] “And I have offered you no such invitation, boy. Back away before what happened here gets any worse.”
K, guess that’s a no. And I guess Darius is still alive too. All good things to know.
Zoey narrates that she’s “had just about enough”. And also that “Seriously, you could stick a fork in me and call me so done with all this stress”, because a great way to convey to the reader that something is serious is to have a character say “seriously” and then make a cliched joke. Zoey threatens to “zap the crap outta [Stark] with fire”, which makes perfect sense as fire is well known for its zapping effects.
Stark first stares at her with anger, then blinks as if “trying to clear his vision”.
“Zoey, I-” he began, sounding almost normal. Darius shifted his defensive stance [and] Stark snarled at him [then] ran out of the room.
Whew, that was tense! Naturally, this is a great time for a Project Runway joke! (Checks notes) Wait, what the fuck? Seriously?
“I am glad you are on my side, Preistess,” [Darius] said.
“Yeah, that’s me. I’m fierce.” I tried to pretend I wasn’t close to passing out by sounding like Christian from Project Runway.
Come ON, Casts! You know “I’m fierce” would have made a perfect amount of sense on its own, right? It’s not so incredibly distinctive it could only have made sense if we got the pop culture reference.
I was pretty sure Darius didn’t know Project Runway
The characters in the story are even pointing out this reference was unnecessary. This is weird.
Darius gets Zoey to help him patch up the injury on his face, which now has a bloody slash from his temple to his jaw. Zoey explains that it’s weird that she’s grossed out by the blood by also finds it delicious, because we’re on book five of this vampire book series and for some fucking reason they’re still explaining to us that vampires like blood.
“I’m going to be just fine. This is little more than a scratch. […] I believe it will annoy Aphrodite,” he said.
“Huh?”
He started to smile
Guys, I think I’m actually starting to like Darius and Aphrodite as a couple. It feels a little weird to say that Darius is one of my favorite characters since admittedly he doesn’t really have much of a personality aside from being the calm one, but good god we need someone in this book to act like an adult fucking ever. He and Aphrodite are starting to make a weird amount of sense together as the only people not particularly interested in Zoey’s bullshit. That’s a pretty slim dating pool.
Zoey tells Darius that she overheard Kalona and Neferet planning on “swaying the council”, which Darius finds incredibly worrying. She also asks him if Kalona seemed younger to him, but Darius says he didn’t, then suggests that Kalona might have the ability to “alter his appearance to please you”. She tells him that Kalona keeps referring to her as A-ya, the magical maiden created to trap him in the earth in the old myths, which they agree is troubling but at least explains why Kalona is so intent on “protecting” Zoey, although that may not last very long.
The two of them agree that the best thing for them to do is get their other friends, leave the House of Night, and… oh for fuck’s sake… go back to the tunnels.
Zoey puts on a hospital gown and rants that “oh, please, they are so not real gowns”. She also tries to find her purse, which has never been mentioned before, and complains about how she might have to replace her “cool Ulta lip gloss”. I’m not making any of this up – this is all really in the book. Zoey is complaining about hosital gowns and lip gloss while they’re trying to escape from the school with their lives.
For some reason something like half of this chapter is just Zoey and Darius talking about going to different parts of the school and walking to them and sneaking around when they see raven mockers. I’m not summarizing this.
Granted, we do get a very important detail that although the hallways should be busy, they only see a couple of students hurrying from one place to another. Good thing we got a hint that all these students are in danger too while Zoey’s trying to just look out for her friends. Seriously, though, I get that Zoey’s options are pretty limited at this point, but we never see other fucking kids at this school. Think in contrast to how many minor characters we were aware of in, say, Harry Potter. It felt like a real community! More importantly, it felt like a real community that was constantly in danger. Instead House of Night just occasionally hints that there are other ordinary people in some kind of trouble, but doesn’t seem to care if we give a shit about them or not.
In Darius’s room, Zoey is surprised that Darius has a mini-fridge filled with bottles of blood. Because, again, we’re on book 5 of a vampire story and still spending time getting used to the crazy crazy idea that vampires drink blood.
They finally make their way to the dorm. I know you kinda have to take my word for it when I say “finally” since I said I’m not bothering to summarize half a chapter of “we said we’d go there and then we went there and then we said we’d go there and then we went there” but holy shit I seriously just started jamming on my Kindle’s next page button for the last four paragraphs of this summary. But before they go in, they hear Stark probably assaulting a girl. So glad our hero is just gonna leave the school. Sounds like there’s no work to be done here.
I don’t know why the Casts thought the tunnels were the best setting for this entire book. Maybe they had just read The Host.
I agree about Aphrodite and a Darius! It’s nice to see Aphrodite have a genuine relationship with someone who accepts her, after multiple books of the other characters barely tolerating her (despite her being more likeable than them).
Also, I’m really stuck on that “ulta lip gloss” detail. Why didn’t it just say lip gloss? Including the brand would usually imply it was special somehow, but ulta is literally the store brand. It’s cheap and not very good?? So it’s like they’re just specifying the store the lip gloss came from for no apparent reason??
These books constantly name drop stores to try to sound like real hip teens or some shit. There was like half a chapter of Zoey shopping at American Eagle back in book 2 or so.
Hahahaha I thought of The Host too !
Zooey bounces between acting like a “cool mom” with her cool Ulta lip gloss and a failed nightclub comedian. Hospital gowns are awkward? What a stunning observation! No one in the history of ever has complained about hospital gowns! “Hospital gowns, hospital gowns…they are so not real gowns, amiright? Amiright, folks?”
Why do they even have hospital gowns? It’s the equivalent of the school nurse’s office.