Authors: Jessica Sorensen
though, wil take a few days to heal.”
I started to get to my feet, but the world started
spinning. I almost col apsed back to the ground, but
Laylen caught me by the arm.
“You’re going to have to take it easy,” he told me,
holding me steady. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
Wel , that explained the wooziness. “I think I might
be sick.”
“That’l wear off in a little while too.”
I lightly touched my neck, the skin burning beneath
my fingers. “How did we get out of that place?” I
asked, because my memory was missing some
pieces of what just occurred. In fact, the only thing I
could remember clearly was the vision I’d just gone in,
and how my eyes in the vision had looked so empty. I
wondered if it meant it would actual y happen to me—
if I would end up at the cabin that way. The thought
was scary.
“Wel , by the time we made it out into the bar area,
you’d fainted,” Laylen said. “Luckily I caught you
before you hit the floor.”
Yeah, I guess that could be considered lucky. But
everything else…hmm…not so much.
“So you what?” I asked. “Just carried me out and
ran? How did we not get caught?”
“We were lucky we didn’t.” He started to walk,
guiding me along with him. “But I think we need to get
back to the house before someone realizes I kil ed
Vladislav.”
Good idea.
We headed across an empty parking lot, making
sure to stay in the shadows.
“So how much trouble are you going to be in for
staking Vladislav?” I asked, gripping onto Laylen’s
arms as I was rushed by a spout of dizziness.
He shrugged, but I felt him speed up. “We need to
get back to the house and out of sight for awhile.
Eventual y, it’l be forgotten, but I probably won’t be
able to show my face in the vampire world again.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked him,
careful y maneuvering over a pot hole.
He shrugged. “I don’t know…it wasn’t like I
completely enjoyed being around other vampires. But
they were the only ones who didn’t judge me for being
a vampire.”
His voice was sad and it made my heart hurt for
him. “So what do you do then?” I asked “Just wait it
out until the vampires do what? Decide they’re over
it?”
We turned down an al eyway, tucking ourselves into
the dark and out of sight.
“I’m going to have to lie low for awhile,” he said,
dodging us around a stack of wooden crates.
Lay low for a while. Wasn’t that what we’d already
been doing, to keep me away from Stephan and the
Death Walkers? But now I guess vampires were
going to have to be added to the “Who We Were
Hiding From Now list.” Jeez, if it kept up, every evil
creature was going to be after us.
“So what about my mom,” I said to Laylen as we
squeezed past a dumpster, the air smel ing like rotten
eggs mixed with old bananas. “Do you think Vladislav
was tel ing the truth and that she’s stil alive?”
“Yeah, I do,” he said sounding absolutely certain.
We reached a tal chain link fence with no way
around it. At least that was what I thought. But then
Laylen reached down and pul ed on the bottom of it
until the metal links snapped and he was able to lift up
the fence high enough for me to scoot underneath it.
Then he ducked under himself and let the fence go
with a clank.
“Vampires have this connection with each other
that al ows us to sense if the other one’s lying,” he told
me as we stepped out onto a sidewalk and back
underneath the lights of the lampposts. “I knew from
the beginning that Vladislav was going to tel us the
truth.”
“You can tel if each other are lying.” Wow. It was
like he had his own little lie detector built into him. Too
bad it didn’t work on beautiful, bright green-eyed,
Keepers. “Although Vladislav never did get around to
saying how we can get my mom out of The
Underworld.”
“I have a hunch….though,” he said as Adessa’s red
brick building came into view, “that there just might be
someone else that we can talk to about getting her out
of there. And maybe now that we know Jocelyn is
alive, he might be more on board with rescuing her.”
I tilted my head to the side, confused as I looked up
at him. “Who?”
“Alex,” he said.
The gravel speckling the parking lot crunched
underneath our shoes, fil ing up the silence. I stared at
Laylen like he had to be joking, but then he met my
eyes, and I realized he was absolutely, one-hundred
percent serious.
“You think Alex knows how to get my mom out of
The Underworld,” I said, making sure that’s what we
were talking about here. Because I had talked to Alex
about my mother before and whether or not she could
stil be alive, and he had said there was a slim chance
that she could be. Never did he ever mention that
there was a way to get people out of The Underworld.
Yeah, he might not have known my mom was alive—
although I wouldn’t put it past him if he did—but if he
knew a way to rescue someone from The Underworld,
he should have said so. But I guess this was
Alex
, so
why was I so surprised.
“ H e
might
know something,” Laylen stressed.
“Since Stephan’s his father and was the one who was
in charge of sentencing people to The Underworld, he
may have told Alex a way to get down there without
being yanked down through the lake."
“So you don’t know for sure if he does.” I frowned,
disappointed. “You’re just guessing.”
He nodded. “But I think for now, he’s probably our
best bet…because I think I just eliminated al of my
other options.”
“If we can get the truth out of him,” I muttered.
Laylen nodded in agreement. Honestly, though, I
wondered if tel ing Alex what we had found out tonight
would do more bad than good. I mean, for one thing
that would require us to explain to him how we
received the information, which in turn would result in
a ful on freak out on Alex’s part. And most of his freak
out would probably be directed at Laylen. I knew
Laylen could deal with it and everything, but it didn’t
mean he should have to. He already helped me out
enough, so why make him pay more.
Besides, I wasn’t sure if Alex could be trusted stil .
His story of what had happened back at the cabin
seemed off. For al I knew what real y could have
happened was that the memory erasing rock couldn’t
erase my memory and so Stephan had put Alex in
charge to keep an eye on me until he found an
alternative way to extract my memory.
As I went back and forth with what I thought we
should do with the “tel ing Alex dilemma,” a set of
headlights flashed across the parking lot, and Laylen
quickly hid us behind a black Mazda. A car pul ed into
the parking lot and parked. Then two people climbed
out of the car; a short, round man and a thin, tal
woman wearing neon pink high heels that clicked
loudly against the ground as the two of them walked
toward a tan brick building that was right next to
Adessa’s house.
“Are they vampires?” I whispered to Laylen.
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so...”
We waited until the people had disappeared
around the corner of the building before stepping out
from behind the Mazda. We made the rest of the walk
hurriedly. The rest of our conversation consisted of
creating a plan for what we should tel everyone
happened to my neck, because I was sure they were
going to ask. Laylen insisted that we should just
blame the bite on him, since Alex was probably going
to accuse him of it anyway. I thought this was a
ridiculous idea, and told him we didn’t need to tel
Alex anything, and that I would just wear a turtle neck
or something. But then I realized that wearing a turtle
neck in the scorching hot desert would look a little bit
suspicious
So that problem just hung in the air.
It was when we reached Adessa’s that we both
realized we had another problem. One that needed to
be dealt with real y fast.
During our little jumping-out-of-the-building thing, it
never had occurred to either one of us that getting
back up might be a little tricky. So we just stood there,
staring up at the window we’d jumped out of, trying to
come up with some kind of solution.
“Maybe there’s a fire escape somewhere?” I
suggested.
He shook his head. “I don’t think there is.”
In the distances, dogs were howling like crazy, and I
saw Laylen tense up as he glanced around
apprehensively. When the dogs stopped howling, he
shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh. Then he
kicked a plastic bottle that was on the ground and it
whipped up in the air and thumped against the side of
the brick building.
“Dammit,” he cursed noisily, and now I was the one
glancing around apprehensively.
“Laylen,” I whispered. “You need to be a little
quieter or someone’s going to hear us.”
He ran his fingers through his blond hair, and I was
sensing that a meltdown was about to take place.
“Who cares. I’m already screwed anyway.”
“Why are you screwed? Because you staked
Vladislav? I thought you said you just had to lay low for
awhile and it would pass over,” I said.
He looked at me gravely. “Gemma, I didn’t just
stake Vladislav. I staked Vladislav, one of the oldest
vampires.”
“So is that worse than staking a young vampire?” I
asked.
He stared at me, not answering, and I suddenly
grasped that he was in more trouble than he first let
on.
“Laylen, you shouldn’t have let me go with you.” I
told him, guilt choking up inside me.
“It was your choice, Gemma,” he said. “You should
be able to choose what you want to do.”
“Wel , I think I picked the wrong one.” I swal owed
hard. “I’m real y sor…” I stopped as a spark of
electricity coiled up my spine. “Ah crap.”
“What’s the matter?” Laylen asked, his eyebrows
dipping down.
Before I could tel him what was up, or try to find a
place for us to hide, Laylen’s gaze darted over my
shoulder, and I knew without even looking that we
were so busted.
“So funny thing,” Alex’s voice came up from right
behind me. “I was up in my room, and I just happened
to look out the window. And boy was I surprised to
find you two standing down here, in the middle of the
night, for God knows what reason.”
I caught Laylen’s eye, and I tried to communicate to
him telepathical y what we should do. Of course, I
didn’t have telepathic abilities and neither did Laylen
so guess how wel that went.
I shook my head, and decided to face the
inevitable. I took a deep breath, and covering the bite
on my neck with my hand, I turned to face Alex. I
wasn’t too worried about what he was going to say to
me. He could chew me out al he wanted—I was used
to it. I just felt guilty because I knew Alex was going to
put most of it on Laylen.
Alex’s eyes were al over me as if he could sense
something was wrong. “What’s the matter with your
neck?”
The lighting was scarce, so I was hoping that it was
dark enough that he couldn’t see the blood dried up
on my skin. “I have a kink in it.”
He gave me a yeah-right look. “You have a kink in
it?”
I shrugged. “It happens.”
He shook his head, irritated. “So why are you two
standing out here?”
I had no idea what to tel him and the way he was
staring at me was making my brain al hazy.
“How about we go inside, and then we’l tel you,”
Laylen said restlessly.
Alex glanced back and forth between Laylen and
me, looking a little lost. “Okay….Let's go inside, then.”
So apparently Alex had woken up Adessa when
he’d seen Laylen and me standing outside in the
dark. He had to wake her up or he wouldn’t have been
able to walk out the front door without getting blasted
by Adessa’s charms.
I stil had my hand on my neck, trying to keep my
bite mark hidden, as we stepped into the living room.
But as the light hit me, I realized that there was blood