Authors: Jessica Sorensen
al over Laylen’s black thermal shirt that I stil had on,
and there was no way to cover it up.
“What the hel is al over your shirt?” Alex asked as
soon as he caught sight of me in the light. He came
up and took a closer look at the thermal shirt I had on.
“Is that blood?” Before I could answer, he picked up
the hem of the shirt. “And why do you have Laylen’s
shirt on?”
I yanked the hem of the shirt out of his grasp. “I have
his shirt on because it was cold outside.”
He gave me a disbelieving look. “It’s like seventy
degrees out there, Gemma.”
“Wel , I get cold easily,” I said as casual y as I could,
which strangely enough sounded casual.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “So where’d the
blood come from?”
“It came from—” Before I could finish coming up
with a lie, he reached over and lifted my hand away
from my neck.
He let out a sequence of too-inappropriate-to-
repeat-words and then lunged for Laylen. Laylen,
taken off-guard, stumbled back as Alex slammed into
him, and both of them went crashing into the wal ,
causing the wal to crack.
Laylen quickly regained his footing, and he shoved
Alex hard. But Alex barely budged.
“You bit her,” Alex said, coming at Laylen again.
“Are you freaking crazy?”
“That’s not what happen—” I said, but was cut off as
Laylen rammed into Alex, making them both fly
backward and onto the apothecary table, which
instantly buckled beneath their weight. It didn’t even
faze either one of them as they rol ed around on the
tiled floor, crashing into the shelves and sofas, while
they threw punches at each other.
I’d just decided that I might need to go get some
help—because let’s face it I am not strong enough to
stop a fight between a Keeper and a vampire—when
Aislin and Adessa appeared in the doorway. Adessa
was wearing a long navy blue robe decorated with
bright pink flowers, and Aislin was dressed in a plaid
pajama set.
“What in the world is going on?” Aislin screeched,
her bright green eyes wide.
Laylen and Alex didn’t even so much as
acknowledge she was there, stil throwing swings at
one another.
“Gemma, what happened?” Ailsin asked, looking
horrified.
“Um…we were—”
“
Subsisto.”
Adessa said, her hand out in front of
her.
Laylen and Alex flew away from each other; Alex
landing by Aislin’s feet and Laylen smacking onto the
floor not too far from me.
“What the heck are you two doing?” Ailsin asked
Alex as she tried to help him to his feet.
Alex shook her hand off, breathing heavily as he got
to his feet. His bottom lip was spilt and he had a cut
above his right eyebrow. “He bit her,” he said,
storming toward Laylen again.
Aislin grabbed Alex by the back of his shirt and,
with a lot of effort on her part, held him back. “Who
bit…What?”
Irritation shined in Alex’s bright green eyes.
“Laylen,” he said, with an attitude. “Bit Gemma.”
Aislin’s eyes widen even more as she took in the
sight of my blood-stained shirt and the two holes in my
neck. “Oh my God.”
“Laylen didn’t bite me,” I told her. “Another vampire
did.” I looked down at Laylen, who had a smal bruise
on his cheek, and waited for him to jump in and help
me explain.
But al he did was stand to his feet, dust himself off,
and pop his neck. Then he strol ed toward the
doorway, doing that thing that guys do when they take
a quick step towards the other one to “psych” them
out.
“Laylen,” Aislin said, shocked. “What’s the matter
with you?”
“Nothing’s the matter with me,” he replied, kind of
being a jerk.
Aislin looked hurt as she let go of Alex’s shirt.
Laylen left the room, and I figured I’d explain what
we’d been up to while he cooled off. Of course, I had
absolutely no idea how I was going to go about doing
this.
Aislin chased after Laylen, and Adessa took one
look at Alex and I and left, as if she could sense
something bad was about to go down and wanted to
avoid being around it when it did.
Smart woman.
I stared at the doorway for awhile, if for no other
reason, then to avoid Alex’s gaze that I could feel
burning into me. Sparks of static were dancing al
over my skin, and I wished I could tel them to stop
because they were very distracting.
“So are you going to explain to me what in the heck
you and Laylen were doing outside in the middle of
the night?” Alex asked. “And where the bite mark
came from?”
“I guess that depends on whether you’re going to
freak out when I tel you?” I told him, stil not looking at
him.
“You expect me not to freak out when you’ve got
blood al over your shirt and two holes in your neck,”
he said incredulously.
I touched the tips of my fingers to the bite on my
neck, and then looked at him. “I’m not going to tel you
what happened unless you promise you’l stay calm.”
Then as an added bonus I tacked on, “Besides, you
owe me.”
He started to walk toward me. “Oh yeah. How do
you figure?”
“Because of what happened back at the cabin,” I
said, backing away from him because I knew the
closer he got to me, the more unclear my mind would
be. And I needed my mind to be clear. “When you let
your father try to take my mind away.”
He looked pissed and suddenly he was moving
toward me at a rapid speed. I backed away until I
bumped into the wal . He kept coming at me,
slamming to a halt only inches away from me, the tips
of his DC sneakers brushing with the tips of mine. He
was so close that I could feel the warmth of his breath
dusting across my cheeks.
He put his hands on the wal , trapping me between
his arms. “I already told you I wasn’t going to let him
do it,” he breathed, leaning in. “I knew the necklace
would protect you.”
My heart thrummed insanely in my chest, the
electricity buzzing passionately from the intensity of
his eyes.
What was I supposed to be doing again?
And then I felt the metal of the locket pressing
against my neck, and remembered. Vladislav. My
mother. The Underworld.
“Okay…I believe you.” Which wasn’t the truth at al ,
but I was working on something here. “But you have to
promise to stay calm while I tel you what happened.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going to promise
anything.”
“Then I’m not going to tel you anything.” I went to
duck under his arm, but he slid it down further so that I
would have to limbo real y low to get out.
“Fine, I’l try to stay as calm as I can as long as you’l
stop throwing in my face what happened back at the
cabin.” He waited for me to answer, but when I said
nothing, he added, “Deal?”
I weighed out my options and came to the
conclusion that the best way to get information about
The Underworld was to make the deal. Now whether
I’d hold true to the deal or not, depended on what
happened here. “Fine, it’s a deal.”
We sat down on the purple velvet sofa—the one stil
remaining upright—and I began searching my mind
for an idea of where to begin, and what details I
should give him. But before I could figure any of this
out, he spoke first.
“So who bit you?” he asked.
Figures he’d start there. “A vampire,” I said, kicking
a broken piece of the apothecary table with the tip of
my shoe.
“And what’s this vampire’s name?” he asked
impatiently.
“Vladislav.”
“Vladislav!” he exclaimed, slamming his hand down
onto the arm of the sofa. “You’ve got to be kidding
me?”
“So…I take it you know who I’m talking about?”
“Of course I know who he is.” He sank back in the
chair, the muscles on his arms flexing tensely as he
crossed them. “I also know how big of a problem it’s
going to be if he figured out who you are.”
“Does it even matter if he did?” I asked. “I mean,
aren’t we pretty sure that the stars power isn’t going to
stop the portal from opening anyway. So what does it
matter if someone knows I have it in me.”
“We don’t know for sure what the stars power is
for,” he said, staring straight ahead at the dark blue
wal , looking as though he was pondering something
deeply. “So until we do, we need to be careful about
anyone finding out about you. Besides the more
people who know about you, the easier it’l be for my
father and the Death Walkers to find you.”
I raised my eyebrows at him, questioning his words.
“You don’t know what the stars power is for?”
He sat there with his arms folded, staring at me so
powerful y that my skin felt like it was on
fire
. “No. I
don’t. I already told you I didn’t.”
I wasn’t sure if I believed him, but decided to stick a
tack in it for now and move on to my next problem.
“We went to see Vladislav for a real y good reason.”
“Oh, I’m sure you did.” Alex let out a laugh. “What,
did Laylen tel you that Vladislav would have al the
answers to your problems?”
“No, it wasn’t even Laylen’s idea,” I said
defensively. “I asked him if he knew whether we could
find out if my mom was stil alive, and he suggested
that Vladislav might know something. And you know
what, he did.”
“And where in
that
bril iant plan did Vladislav biting
you come into play?” Alex asked snidely. “Or was that
just an added bonus.”
I shook my head. “Why would you even say that?”
There was this awkward silence that built between
us as I realized where Alex was going with that.
Vampires’ bites stimulate people’s desires. Although,
I wasn’t sure that was what it had done to me. Al I had
seen were a bunch of images. And, yes, okay, some
of those images—some of the ones that included
Alex—did kind of make my body buzz a little, but there
was also the vision that came after the images, and
that was anything but stimulating.
“So anyway,” I said, attempting to change the
subject away from my desires. “Vladislav told me my
mother was stil alive in The Underworld.”
Alex shook his head. “Gemma, that’s not possible.”
“Even you said that there might be a smal chance
that she could stil be alive,” I pointed out.
He looked confused. “When did I say that?”
“Back at Adessa, after I’d been pul ed into my first
vision, and we didn’t know it was my mother I’d seen
forced into the lake.”
“I don’t remember ever saying anything like that,” he
muttered, his eyebrows furrowed as he stared down
at the floor. “And if I did, I’m sure I just said it to try and
get you to calm down.”
“So why would Vladislav tel us she was alive, if she
wasn’t,” I said. “There’s no reason for him to lie.”
“Of course there is.” He looked at me like I was a
total nut job. “That’s what vampires do—they lie.”
“How do you know that for sure?” I asked hotly. “I
mean, how do you know that al vampires lie. Laylen
doesn’t lie.”
You do
.
“I just do,” he said, but his voice had lost some of its
confidence.
“Vladislav didn’t lie, Alex.” I rested back in the chair,
keeping my eyes on him. “Laylen said that vampires
can pick up on when other vampires are lying, and he
said Vladislav wasn’t lying.”
Alex ran his fingers through his messy brown hair,
and then he turned and faced me, a serious
expression on his face. “Look, Gemma. You’re too
trusting with Laylen. You need to be careful.”
I gave him an are-you-serious look. “
You
think I
should be careful when it comes to trusting Laylen.”
Was he joking?
“Vampires are not good,” Alex said sternly. “They’re
evil.”
“Laylen’s not,” I snapped. “And besides, Vladislav
knew that my mother was a Keeper before we ever
told him. That has to mean he’s heard of her.”
“So what if he has heard of her,” he said. “That
doesn’t mean he was tel ing the truth about her being
alive. He might have just been messing with your
head.”
“Alex,” without even thinking, I grabbed a hold of his
arm, electricity tickling my fingertips. “It could mean
that there might be a chance that my
mom
, who I