Hunted (House of Night) Chapter 16: They Actually Leave the Tunnels

When we last left off, everyone was speculating on whether Stark can still be saved by Zoey when they head back to the House of Night.

Hunted (House of Night) Chapter 16:

Stevie Rae shows up and says they’ve figured out a way to get Zoey back to school and that she needs to drink from Heath again to keep her strength up. She’s reluctant since Heath is still mad at her, but the guys dictate how the situation goes without listening to what Zoey wants:

‘So cut me.’ He held out his arm to Erik.

‘My pleasure,’ Erik said.

‘No. I’m not okay with this,’ I continued to protest. In one blindingly quick movement Erik slashed Heath’s forearm, and the scent of his blood hit me.

Granted, Zoey says a bit earlier that she does want/need to drink, but the way the guys go about this is pretty icky to me. They don’t acknowledge what Zoey is saying at all and cut Heath knowing that as soon as she smells his blood it’s going to be incredibly hard for her to resist.

Zoey does resist, though, and tells Heath she isn’t going to take anything from him that he’s not willing to give:

‘There’s nothing I’m not willing to give you, Zo. When are you going to understand that? I’m just wishing you would leave me with a little pride.’

His words broke my heart. ‘I love you, Heath. You know that.’

His expression softened into a slight smile. ‘It’s good to hear you say it.’ Then he looked from me to Erik. ‘Did you hear that, vamp? She loves me. And remember that no matter how big and bad you think you are, you’ll never be able to do this for her.’ Heath lifted his arm so that the bloody slash Erik had made in it was pressed against my lips.

‘Yeah, I see what you can do for her. I might have to put up with it, but I don’t have to have it shoved in my face.’ Angrily knocking the blanket aside, Erik left the room.

At this point, I’m positive I’m not the only one who thinks that Erik and Heath are way more obsessed with each other than they are with Zoey. This must have been the birth of thousands of fanfics which were like, “Actually Erik was jealous of BOTH of them here. AND HE CRIED ANGSTY TEARS IN THE TUNNELS!”

After drinking from Heath, it quickly becomes clear that since Heath was drunk, now Zoey is too. This is supposed to be played for comedy during a very tense time since we’re supposed to remember that Zoey is still on the verge of death. However, she’s fine enough to call Aphrodite ‘Afro’ and Damien ‘Damien-Shamien’, which makes it hard to feel any real concern for Zoey at this point.

Before the gang transports Zoey to the House of Night, she writes a secret message to Stevie Rae:

It was hard as hell to concentrate through the ridiculous buzz Heath had passed on to me, but the pain the movement of my hands caused helped to sober me up. I scrawled down Sister Mary Angela’s cell-phone number and then quickly wrote, Plan B: be ready to move everyone to the abbey but don’t tell. No one knowing = Neferet not knowing where you are.

The bar in this series is pretty low, but this is a solid plan. I just don’t understand what Zoey being drunk is adding to the scene. As soon as she’s in the car heading back to school, she says she’s sober again, so this is it. This is the whole extent of Zoey getting drunk off Heath’s boozy blood! She drunkenly leaves Stevie Rae a sensible note. I don’t even think the two things are related and that Zoey being drunk contributes to better planning skills, but that is the only takeaway I’m getting here.

Before she leaves, Zoey says goodbye to Heath:

‘Stay safe, okay?’

‘Does it matter?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, it does. But next time I really wish you wouldn’t drink.’ I burped again and then grimaced when the movement hurt my chest.

‘I’ll try to remember that,’ he said, tipping the wine bottle back to his lips.

Aphrodite and Heath’s drinking could actually be played as pretty dark. Horrible, scary things are allegedly happening outside the tunnels (oh my god we are about to finally leave the tunnels!!!), and two important people in Zoey’s life are using drinking to cope with this. This definitely should not turn into a PSA, but it seems like an aspect of the story that could actually be pretty interesting, but as usual the tone is off. There’s too much goofiness and humor mixed in to give these things any weight.

I don’t know if Heath was an alcoholic and trying to stop drinking completely, but he was really proud of himself for stopping/cutting back a few chapters ago. Given Zoey has slipped in retrospective comments before, this would have been a great place to be like, “I didn’t notice it because I was still drunk at the time, but Heath was still drinking when I left and I wish I’d been able to say something at the time.”

So they all get in the car, Zoey is in a lot of pain, and they head back to the House of Night and tell us how ominous everything feels. They determine that Nyx is making sure they feel uneasy so they’re not seduced by Kalona, which raises the question: why can’t Nyx just make everyone feel that way?

Once they’re back at school, one of the Sons of Erebus approaches our heroes with a bunch of Raven Mockers. Darius seems especially wary of this particular Son of Erebus, so maybe things will finally get interesting in this story, but I’m not holding my breath.