Authors: Jessica Sorensen
was about the size of a softbal . But I didn’t want to be
touching it with my skin when I used my Foreseer
ability to try and get back to Laylen and Alex.
Worried I might stil be too close to the praesidium,
I decided to leave the house. I looked around until I
found the front door, threw it open, and ran outside. I
almost ate it when my feet hit a slick surface—crystal
and it was as slippery as trying to walk across an icy
parking lot. I slowly made my way across it, slipping
and sliding with every step I took. Final y, I couldn’t
take it anymore and crossed my fingers that this
would be far enough away.
I casted a glance back at the house, which now that
I looked at it, was not a normal house, but a dome
house that had been carved out of snow-white crystal.
The roof was dotted with bright red gemstones, and
the tree that towered beside it had leaves that glowed
like nightlights.
Just as I was closing my eyes to take off, the front
door to the dome house swung open, and Nicholas
stepped out.
“Gemma.” His voice echoed over the ice. “Don’t
even think about leaving.” He started to run toward
me, moving slowly— feebly, like the stone had
drained him of most of his energy.
I shut my eyes, and quickly conjured up a mental
picture of the massive SUV, hoping Laylen and Alex
would stil be at the gas station.
“Gemma.” Nicholas’s angry voice sounded closer.
I squeezed my eyes shut, picturing the leather
backseat of the SUV and how I had been lying down
on it. I heard Nicholas cal out my name again, but I
was already gone.
I landed on my back. My eyes were open and I
was staring up at the vinyl ceiling of the black SUV. I
shot upright, breathing heavily as I immediately
skimmed my surroundings. To my amazement, the
SUV was stil parked at the gas station, only now
instead of being parked to the side of a gas pump it
was in a parking space in front of the gas station. The
sun was stil shining brightly, so I must have not been
gone for too long.
But where were Laylen and Alex?
Right as I thought it, I spotted them standing not too
far off in front of the car. They looked like they were
arguing, stern expressions set on their faces, their
arms flying as the spoke heatedly.
I threw open the car door. “Hey,” I yel ed and they
both jumped.
As soon as they saw it was me, they ran over and
hopped into the car.
“Where the heck have you been?” Alex asked, not
in a rude way, but in an extremely freaked out one.
“We have to go,” Not knowing how long it would
take for Nicholas’s Foreseer power to return to him, I
knew we needed to get on the road fast.
Alex and Laylen looked at each other and then a
few moments later the tires were spinning as we
peeled out of the parking lot, leaving the gas station
behind in a cloud of dust.
I think it took Alex about a minute before he
started firing off questions at me. Where were you?
What happened? Why are your wrists bleeding? Are
you okay? The last one threw me for a bit of a turn, but
I answered each one, and made sure to include al the
details about the Fey and the Blood Promise. I even
took it upon myself to be the one to tel him that his
father was definitely a descendent of Malefiscus. I
also told him about Nicholas’s new mark.
I thought when I told Alex al of this, he would freak
out. Wel , I mean freak out in the sense that he would
deny, deny, deny, and refuse to believe such a thing
about his father. Yeah, he did change a little bit over
the course of the last few days, but some of the things
I told him were big.
So I was shocked when he shrugged and said, “Of
course my father is a descendent of Malefiscus. I
already knew that.”
Laylen’s head whipped in Alex’s direction. “What! I
mean, yeah we al guessed he was, but….you knew.”
Alex slumped back in the chair. “When I was little,
my father would tel me stories of Malefiscus.”
“Everyone’s parents did,” Laylen pointed out as he
merged the SUV into the left lane so he could pass a
very slow moving minivan.
“Yeah, but my father would tel me different stories.”
His jaw tightened. “Darker stories.”
“How dark of stories?” I asked, leaning forward on
the console.
“Stories of how one day a descendent of
Malefiscus,” he ran his fingers through his hair, letting
out a stressed breath, “would bare Malefiscus’s
mark.”
“Those were the kind of stories your father told you
when you were little.” I stared at him, horrified. Jeez,
maybe Marco and Sophia weren’t that bad.
He shrugged. “I was a little kid, so I thought it was
normal. I honestly didn’t even remember his story until
you mentioned your vision and how he…” He
swal owed hard. “How his parents cut off his mark. I
knew then that my father had to be the descendent he
always told me about.”
I shook my head at him. “And you didn’t bother
mentioning any of this to us because…”
“Because I don’t bother mentioning a lot of things to
you.” Alex stared out the window, with his arms folded.
As I sat there thinking about Alex, and the way that
he was, the thought that he might have been marked
by Stephan, just like Nicholas had, crept back up into
my mind.
“So did you know your father could mark people
with the Mark of Malefiscus?” I asked, looking at Alex.
He shook his head. “That I didn’t.”
I rested my arms on the console and leaned
forward even more, trying to get a better look at his
face, so I could watch his expression when I asked the
next question.
“He didn’t…I mean he didn’t mark…you, did he?” I
felt horrible for asking it, but we needed to know.
He just stared at me, unblinking, not saying a word.
“Sorry, but I had to ask,” I muttered.
He kept staring at me with this serious look in his
eyes. “Do you think I have the mark?”
“I don’t…a…I don’t know.” I sounded like a babbling
idiot. “I don’t know what to think anymore, not with
everything that’s happened.” I tried to make eye
contact with Laylen so I could signal to him to help me
out with this, but he was focused on the road.
“So what do you want me to do?” Alex cocked an
eyebrow at me. “Strip off al my clothes and prove to
you that I don’t have the Mark of Malefiscus
anywhere?”
“No,” I said, and then I turned my head away and bit
down on my bottom lip, hoping he couldn’t feel my
increasing body temperature.
“Okay, then, I guess you’l just have to believe me.”
There was a hint of laughter in his voice.
Believe him. Was that possible? A week ago I’d
have said there was absolutely no way I could believe
him. But, I don’t know, things change. The idea of
believing him didn’t seem as absurd as it once did.
“Wel , what are we going to do now?” Laylen asked
suddenly.
“We’re going to keep driving east.” Alex dropped
open the glove box. “We’l make a plan when we meet
up with Aislin.”
“A plan to go to The Underworld and save my
mother, right?” I said.
“If we can get the Ira back, then yes.” He started
digging though the glove box and I slipped the Ira bal
out of my pocket and placed it on top of the console in
a
Ta-da!
way. He glanced over his shoulder and his
eyes widened. “Where the heck did you get that?”
“I swiped it from Nicholas’s house before I left,” I
said proudly.
“Nice job.” Laylen flashed me a smile through the
rearview mirror.
“Impressive,” Alex added, looking very much
impressed. He picked up the Ira, lifted up the lid to the
middle console, and dropped the Ira down inside.
Then he returned his attention back to rummaging
around in the glove box.
“What are you looking for?” I asked, flopping back
against the seat.
“For this.” He pul ed out a first aid kit. “Your wrists
need to be cleaned up. What happened to you by the
way?”
I glanced down at my semi-mutilated wrist.
“Nicholas chained me up to the wal and every time I
jerked at the chain the metal cuffs cut into my skin.”
Alex’s jaw tightened. He hopped over the console
and into the backseat, opened up the first aid kit, and
took out a rol of gauze and a bottle of peroxide.
He held out his hand. “Here, let me see one of your
wrists.”
I gave him my left one first because it looked like
it’d taken the worse of it. I sat there, letting him
dabbed my skin with a cotton bal soaked with
peroxide, and tried hard not to wince. But then the
sparks tickled at my skin, and it numbed some of the
pain away.
Even dressed in his worn out clothes, Alex was stil
as gorgeous as ever. I thought about Stephan being
his father. Maybe that had contributed to why Alex
was such a jerk most of the time and why he was the
way he was. I thought about the younger Alex I saw
and how he was so much different—so much more
caring. Could it be possible that that Alex stil existed?
After Alex finished cleaning my left wrist with
peroxide, he asked for my other wrist. He dotted the
cotton bal on my cuts, but when he was done, he
didn’t wrap my wrists with gauze like I thought he
would. In fact, what he did next shocked the heck out
of me. He raised my wrist to his mouth, so there was
only a sliver of air between his lips and my skin. Then
he blew softly on my wound, causing my heart to flutter
and the electricity to shimmer. I closed my eyes and
focused on my breathing. He switched to the other
wrist, doing the same thing, and I tried not to gasp.
When he released my wrist, I opened my eyes, and
found him watching me with the most intense
expression on his face.
There was something different that happened
between us then. I don’t know how to describe it. The
prickle was there, on the back of my neck, but I
couldn’t quite place my finger on what feeling was
trying to emerge. I didn’t move away when he leaned
toward me, even though I knew he was going to kiss
me. In fact, I was more than wil ing to let him kiss me. I
wanted him to. But then the car came to a brake-
slamming stop that sent me flying forward, but Alex
caught hold of me before I made it too far.
“Sorry,” Laylen apologized. “I thought I saw a deer
in the road.”
I glanced around outside, but al I could see was the
sage brush covering the flat land. There was nowhere
for a deer to hide.
“Do you need me to drive so you can get some
rest?” Alex asked.
Laylen shook his head. “No, I’m good.”
He sped up the car again, and Alex bandaged
each of my wrists with gauze. I didn’t pay attention to
him much, though. I was too distracted by Laylen and
how strange he has been acting. Ever since he bit
me, he has been acting a little off. He hadn’t done
anything major, like run the streets biting people, but I
was stil worried that something was wrong. But I
didn’t want to bring it up to Alex because I figured he
would be unsympathetic. But I’l make sure to keep an
eye on him.
Just in case.
We drove for days. Yes, days. We drove al the
way to the other side of the country, to the beautiful,
but very humid, state of Maryland. The air was so
heavy and moisturized there, it was like being in a
sauna.
Not too far off from the little beach house we were
hiding out in was the ocean. From the room I was
staying in, I could sit out on the deck and watch the
ocean’s waves crash against the sandy shore. It was
a fascinating thing to watch for someone who had
never seen the ocean.
The house belonged to a friend of Adessa’s, which
was a good thing because that meant Stephan didn’t
know where it was, nor Nicholas. When we arrived,
we informed Aislin and she transported here. She had
also put up some location charms, which were
supposed to help make tracking us down more
difficult. But at this point, I was prepared for the fact
that at any given moment someone could turn up. It