The Underworld (23 page)

behind us. But there was nothing.

“Where’s it coming from,” I whispered.

He shook his head, and scooted us over to the side

of the path, where we stepped off of a ledge and

down onto a glistening surface of blue glass that was

as slippery as ice. He took my hand, and we hurried

over to a massive crystal pil ar that coiled down from

the ceiling and connected to the ground. Right as we

tucked ourselves behind the pil ar, I caught a glimpse

of a tal figure walking down the path.

“Someone’s coming,” I whispered to Laylen.

He gave me a nervous glance and then careful y

peeked around the pil ar. “What the…”

“Who is it?” I whispered.

“There’s no one there,” he told me, shaking his

head.

I furrowed my eyebrows and then peeked around

the pil ar. I, however, was met by a pair of golden eyes

that belonged to a very tricky faerie/Foreseer.

I jerked backward, but Nicholas caught me by the

arm and reeled me into him. He moved away from the

pil ar, backing across the slippery glass at a speed I’d

never be able to pul off.

“I knew you’d show up here,” Nicholas breathed in

my ear, stil backing us away from the pil ar—and from

Laylen. “I knew you would come and try to save
him
.”

I fought to get free, but my feet kept slipping out

from under me.

Nicholas whirled me around, wrapped his arms

around me, and pul ed me forceful y against him. “Try

anything funny, and I’l have you out of here before you

can even blink.”

“Nicholas,” Laylen cal ed out as he chased after us.

“Let her go.”

“Come any closer,” Nicholas warned, holding up the

ruby-fil ed crystal bal that apparently he had in his

hand the entire time. “And I’l have her out of her

before you can reach us.”

Laylen slid to a halt, but a look of rage on his face

stayed.

“Wise choice,” Nicholas said, his damp breath

hitting my cheek.

“What do you want?” Laylen asked, his bright blue

eyes targeted on Nicholas.

Nicholas traced a finger down my cheek, sending a

shiver crawling down my spine. “I have what I want

right here.”

Yuck. I was so tired of ending up like this—trapped

against Nicholas.

Laylen got this look on his face, like he was trying

real y hard to figure out how to free me from Nicholas

before he took me away from the City of Crystal. I was

panicking with the thought that Nicholas would end up

winning. And if he did then…Wel , I didn’t even want to

think about the possibilities of what would happen if

he did.

Nicholas strengthened his hold on me, the ruby-

fil ed bal glowing in his hand. He was breathing

deep, his chest rising and fal ing, as he raised the

crystal bal up in the air. There was a blur of colors that

swooshed toward us and then came a loud crack,

fol owed by a soft thump.

I learned something new.

Vampires are fast. And I mean fast.

One second Laylen had been a ways away from us,

and the next second he was right there.

It was amazing.

Another second and he’d knocked Nicholas out.

Yep, actual y knocked him out…I think.

“Is he…alive?” I asked, staring down at Nicholas’s

body sprawled across the icy blue glass.

“Yeah, he’s good—just unconscious.” Laylen bent

down and looped his arms underneath Nicholas’s

arms. “We’l let him sleep it off, and hopeful y we’l be

long gone by the time he wakes up.”

“And what if we’re not?” I asked scooting out of the

way so Laylen could drag Nicholas behind the pil ar.

“Guess we’l have to make sure we hurry.”

“Hurry?” I looked around at the giant cave we were

standing in. “But we stil don’t know where to go.”

Laylen didn’t say anything, only taking my arm to

help me keep my balance as we walked back across

the icy, blue glass. By the time we’d stepped back up

onto the translucent crystal floor, I was extremely

worried. Nicholas could wake up at any moment, and

he probably would be super pissed when he did. And

we stil needed to find Alex.

As I rattled my brain for a solution on how to do this,

besides searching the entire city for him, something

shocked me in the back. At first I thought I’d imagined

it—that my brain was searching for an answer and

had created the shock on its own. But then it

happened again, and I knew.

“Alex is close,” I sputtered out as I felt another

spark, this time in my fingertips.

“What?” Laylen asked, looking confused.

“He’s close…I can feel him.”

Realization slowly rose in his expression. “The

electricity?”

I nodded, and then we were running, fol owing the

path of electricity like an invisible trail of bread

crumbs, which would hopeful y lead us right to Alex.

We kept running and running, going further into the

cave, letting my electric sensors steer us as the

sparks grew hotter and hotter, until they were going so

wild I thought I was going to combust into flames. And

when we reached a pair of silver doors, with the

Foreseers mark on the top of each one, I knew Alex

had to be behind them.

“You think he’s in there?” Laylen asked as I reached

for the doorknob.

I nodded, slowly turning the handle, and pushed

open the door. And what I saw made my stomach

churn. People wrapped in chains that were binding

them to a crystal bal the size of a footbal stadium.

And al those people…wel , they looked dead.

I stood there, my hand stil gripping the doorknob,

my mouth agape. The people looked like corpses;

their skin as pale as a ghost, their eyes sealed shut,

their bodies strapped to the massive crystal bal that

burned brightly like the sun. They were dead. They

were al dead. Alex was dead. I couldn’t breathe.

“Calm down, Gemma.” Laylen’s voice was soothing

“They’re not dead.”

I dropped my hand from the doorknob, unable to

take my eyes off the crystal bal , the people, the

chains. “Are you—are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. The crystal’s col ecting energy from

them,” he explained. “If they were dead, they wouldn’t

be useful.”

Calm down. You won’t be useful if you’re freaking

out
. “Okay, so where’s Alex.”

Laylen stepped cautiously into the room, and I

fol owed. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be anyone

awake hanging around in there, like a Foreseer guard

or something. The coast was al clear. So why did I

stil feel like I was going to throw up?

“Maybe we should split up,” Laylen suggested. “You

head right and I’l take the left?”

I nodded, and he headed off to the left side of the

crystal bal . I headed to the right, searching the

peoples’ faces as I moved around the burning crystal.

It was difficult to feel the electricity in here because

the crystal seemed to be radiating off an intense

amount of electric energy. But if I real y concentrated, I

could feel the difference between the crystal bal ’s

electricity and Alex’s.

With every chained up person I went by, I grew

more nauseous. Yes, Laylen had warned me that what

I would see would be bad, but I never pictured it like

this…so sickening. What made it even worse was

that it wasn’t just the chains that were securing the

people to the enormous crystal bal . There were also

tubes coming out of their skin that extended up to the

crystal bal , like how an IV attaches to its a bag.

If this was how Foreseers col ected their energy, I

wasn’t sure I wanted to be a Foreseer anymore. If you

asked me, Foreseers weren’t much better than Water

Faeries. Whether they were feeding off humans fear,

or their energy, they were stil feeding off of them.

My sickening feeling nearly exploded out of me

when I spotted Alex chained to the crystal bal , tubes

jabbing out of him.

“Laylen!” I yel ed as I ran up to Alex’s lifeless body.

“Over here.”

For a moment I just stood there, staring at Alex, in a

state of shock. But then I snapped out of it and began

pul ing the tubes out of his skin, one by one. They

were smal tubes and didn’t go in very deep, but each

one left a tiny hole that dripped blood. “Laylen!” I

yel ed louder, looking for a way to get the chains off of

Alex. “How the heck do I get these unlocked?”

Alex’s eyes shot open, and I let out a gasp. He

stared at me, his normal y bright green eyes dul ed

over, and I wondered if he even recognized me. He

looked so…weak. I had never seen Alex look so

weak. It was strange.

“Are you okay?” I asked worriedly.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came

out.

“Laylen!” I yel ed, for a third time. Where was he?

Had something happened to him? I started to freak.

“Coming,” I heard him say. And then he was right

next to me. “Hold onto him,” he instructed, grabbing

the chains.

I don’t know why, but I hesitated. Not because I was

afraid to touch Alex or anything. Wel , okay, maybe a

little, but it was also because he looked so breakable.

“Gemma,” Laylen said with urgency, and I quickly

wrapped my arms around Alex, ignoring the fact that

a) he was shirtless and b) his skin, although cold and

clammy, stil spun a fiery amount of electricity that

made my skin smolder.

I held onto Alex as Laylen snapped the chains like

twigs. Alex fel onto me like a hundred and eighty

pound weight, and I almost buckled to the floor. But

thankful y, Laylen caught him before I did.

“Excel ent catching skil s,” Laylen joked, flopping

Alex’s arm over his shoulder, and balancing al of his

weight on him.

“Hey, I never claimed to have them,” I said.

“Besides I’m not a half-vampire, half-Keeper who is

freakishly strong.”

“Would you two stop messing around and get us

out of here before we get caught.” The frail voice

came from Alex. His eyes were stil closed and he

was leaning on Laylen.

“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” I put one hand on

Laylen and one hand on Alex, then shut my eyes,

crossing my fingers I’d be able to get al three of us

out of here, and back to Adessa’s, safely.

“Don’t do anything from in here,” Alex said, his

voice sounded the slightest bit stronger. “There’s too

much power in here…you’l end up hurting yourself.”

I glanced at the crystal bal blazing vibrantly, and at

the people chained to it. “Maybe we should help

them.”

Alex’s eyelids slowly lifted open. “No, we have to

go. You never should have come here.”

I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of the chained

up people, feeling a ping of guilt building in my gut. I

used their energy every time I touched a crystal bal .

Maybe even when I didn’t. And now I was supposed to

leave and use their energy again.

“Even if you let them go, there’d be no way for you

to get them al out of here,” Alex told me.

I swal owed hard and tore my eyes away from the

people. “Okay, let’s go.”

Fortunately, Laylen was strong enough to hold Alex

up as we headed out of the room and moved back

down the cave, distancing ourselves from the massive

crystal bal . Alex was real y struggling to walk, his feet

practical y dragging across the translucent crystal

floor.

“How far away do we need to go?” I asked Alex as

we headed toward the spot where Laylen and I had

entered the cave.

“Farther than this,” he said, his eyelids fluttering as

he forced them open.

So we went further and, for some stupid reason, it

never dawned on us that we might run into a very

awake Nicholas, until we actual y did. But Nicholas

wasn’t what was sending my pulse racing like a

jackhammer. It was the three Death Walkers standing

next to him, the hood of their black cloaks caped over

their heads; the glow of their yel ow eyes reflecting

across the translucent crystal floor.

“Crap!” I cried, at the same time Laylen screeched

to a halt.

“Okay, time to get us out of here,” Laylen said as

the three Death Walkers and Nicholas hurried toward

us.

I grabbed a hold of Laylen and Alex, closed my

eyes, and pictured Adessa’s living room; the dark

blue wal s, the purple velvet couches, and the black