TheFallenStarBookSeries1 (33 page)

“But you’re still trying to, right?” I picked at a loose string hanging off the hem of my denim skirt. “I mean, I’m sure you have a backup plan.”

“No we don’t,” he said quickly.

Way too quickly.

A red flag immediately went up. “What is it you’re not telling me?”

“I’m not keeping anything from you.” His voice smoothed out like honey

I let out a cynical laugh. “I highly doubt that because, first off, it’s you were talking about. And second, you freaked out when I just asked you if you had a backup plan. So what is it? What’s your big backup plan? Are you going to put me up in some super secret chamber and lock me away from everyone and everything until the only emotion I can feel is loneliness?”

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” he said. “I’ll have to pass that one on to Stephan.”

Furious, I reached around the side of the seat and searched for the handle that scooted it forward. I was so out of here.

Alex caught me by the elbow and drew me back. “I don’t think so. You’re not going anywhere.”

Wanna bet.

I tried to shuck off his hand. “Let go of me.”

He tightened his grip. “No.”

“I’m not going to just sit here and listen to you talk about turning me back into a walking zombie.” I reached for seat with my free hand, hoping if I could grab hold of something then maybe I could jerk away from him.

Still grasping onto my arm, he snaked his free hand around my waist and pulled me back.

“You’re hurting my stitches,” I whined, even though his hand was on the opposite side.

He pulled me closer to him. “No, I’m not.”

I put up quite a fight, but in the end, he still managed to pin me against him, my back pressing firmly against his chest. This was both good and bad. Bad because I was really pissed off at him, and the last thing I wanted was to be near him. But it was also good because…Well, because it felt good. Nice and warm and effervescent.

Ugh.

“This is so stupid.” I seethed. “You can’t have control over everything I do.”

“Yeah, I can.” He held me so tight my skin warmed like melting butter, and I thought I might actually melt into him, “Especially when you’re trying to do something stupid. Do you think what happened back at the Black Dungeon was a game? Do you not realize how close you came to getting killed? Because, let me tell you, if I wouldn’t have shown up when I did, then you and I wouldn’t be sitting here having this argument.”

I froze, slowly taking in his words. With every breath he took, I could feel his chest rising and falling against my back. My own breathing lifted and fell, rhythmically matching with his. The electricity seemed to be synchronizing with it, as if it were trying to create a harmonious song or something. It was weird and strangely comforting. Like, if I closed my eyes, I’d drift off into a peaceful, Death-Walker-free dream.

“Gemma,” Alex whispered in my ear, sounding breathless. “I think that—”

I never got to hear what he thought, because the passenger door swung open, and the interior lights clicked on.

It was Aislin. She held a small, gold box in her hands, which I assumed held a crystal inside. She started to climb in, but stopped when she caught sight of us. “What are you two doing?”

I can only imagine what this looked like to her; me practically sitting on Alex’s lap, his arms wrapped around me, obviously trapping me against him. Yeah, I’m pretty sure more than a few question marks were popping up in her head.

A few question marks were popping up in my head.

“Gemma was getting out of hand,” Alex replied coolly. “She needed to be dealt with.”

“I wasn’t getting out of hand,” I said indignantly. I tried to jam my elbow into his side, but it didn’t go very far since I could barely move. “You are such a—”

Alex threw his hand over my mouth. I thought about biting it, but then decided against it. I’m not sure why.

“Alex!” Aislin exclaimed. “You can’t just do whatever you want with her.”

Alex dropped his hand from my mouth. “Aislin, she was trying to jump out of the car and run away.”

Aislin frowned as she slammed the door. The lights shut off, and I could barely make out the outline of her face. “You two really need to figure out a way to get along. This whole fighting-about-everything thing is not helping the stress level in this already way too stressful situation.”

“Well, if she’d behave,” Alex started at the same time I said, “If he’d leave me alone—”

Aislin lifted her eyebrows, giving us a see-what-I-mean look.

“Fine,” Alex surrender. “I’ll stop.”

“I’ll stop too,” I told her. “Just as long as he lets me go.”

I guess to prove a point that he could still have some control over me, Alex waited about twenty more seconds before finally letting me go. And he refused to sit anywhere else but in the middle of the seat so he could be close enough to me in case I made an irrational decision to “jump out of the car while it was moving” as he so bluntly put it. Yeah, even I wasn’t that crazy. But whatever.

By the time the seating arrangement was all settled, Laylen emerged from Adessa’s looking somewhat happy. Hmmm….I wonder what was up with that.

He climbed in the car. “So what happened?” he asked me.

I furrowed my eyebrows. “What? With the crystal ball?”

He nodded. “Did you get sucked into a vision?”

“What!” Aislin shouted. “She got sucked into a vision and no one told me.”

I felt like I was getting strangled to death—that’s the effect just thinking about the vision had on me.

“I’ll explain it on the way back to the house,” Alex said. If I wouldn’t have known better, I would have thought he said it because he’d sensed my lack of comfort with the subject. But I did know better so…

“Okay.” Laylen started up the car, and the engine roared to life.

Aislin was more reluctant to give up on the discussion. She remained turned around in her seat, continuously eyeballing Alex and I until Laylen merged the car back onto the busy main street of Vegas. Then the dancing lights and throngs of people distracted her attention away from us.

After we’d made it back onto the highway, and the last of the lights had fizzled away, I rested my head against the window, and, without even meaning to, I fell asleep.

I was plummeting deeper and deeper into the murky water. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see.
So this is what drowning feels like,
I thought numbly.

I kicked my legs, trying to fight my way back to the surface. I refused to drown. I could not drown.

“Gemma,” a feathery voice floated up from beneath my feet.

Huh?
Was I hallucinating?

I kicked harder and paddle with my arms, giving a very lame attempt at doggy paddling.

“No Gemma, down here,” the voice rippled up through the water.

And then I knew. I don’t know how I knew, just that I did. I knew the voice didn’t mean me any harm. I was supposed to listen to it.

I was supposed to go to it.

I let my legs and arms fall limp, allowing my dead weight to sink me downward to the sandy bottom of the lake.

“Good,” the voice purred. “Now keep coming. I need your help.”

What do you need my help for?
I thought because speaking would do nothing but get me a mouth full of water.

To my shock the voice responded inside my head.
I need you to save me.

How?

Just trust me.

I don’t know why, but I did.
I do trust you.

Good. Now whatever you do, don’t panic.

Why would I panic?

The voice didn’t answer, but I figured out why very quickly as fingers wrapped around my ankles and yanked me down. Despite what the voice said, I panicked and clawed at the water, frantically trying to get away, but it was useless. I tried to scream, but water flooded my lungs. If I didn’t get away, I was a goner for sure. If I didn’t get away, I’d end up a prisoner in The Underworld, at least until I went insane and they killed me.

I needed to get away…

Shaing…shaking….huh….someone…shaking…my shoulder. My eyelids shot open. Disoriented and groggy, I jerked away from whoever was touching me.

“Jeez, Gemma,” Alex said with his hands held up in front of him in a holy-crap-just-calm-down-I-didn’t-mean-you-any-harm kind of way. “Settle down.”

I did a quick scan of my surroundings and realized I was still in the backseat of the GTO, which was now parked in the garage. Laylen and Aislin were nowhere to be seen. It was just Alex and me…Why was it just Alex and me?

“Where are Aislin and Laylen?” I asked, rubbing my sleepy eyes.

“Their already inside,” he gave a nod in the direction of the garage door, “getting things set up.”

Yawning, I stretched out my arms. “So why are
we
sitting out here?”

“Because you fell asleep and I couldn’t get you to wake up.” He paused, looking as though he was considering something. “Were you having a nightmare?”

A nightmare. That was putting it mildly. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you were getting all squirmy and making these moaning noises.”

Oh. My. Word. I was absolutely mortified. “Oh.”

He waited for me to explain further.

I didn’t.

“Alright.” He sounded a bit irritated. “Let’s go inside.”

Oh, whatever. He could be irritated all he wanted. I was under no obligation to tell him about my dreams. Giving him a recap of what I’d just dreamt about meant having to relive it, which is something I so didn’t want to do. Yeah, I knew it was just a nightmare and everything, but the feelings of fear that I’d felt during it still lingered inside me. And how could I not be afraid? I’d dreamt about the Death Walkers and look how well that had turned out for me. The term “it was just a dream” totally didn’t apply in my life. I knew there was an actual real-life possibility that I really could run into a…what had Alex called them? Water Faeries.

Back inside, Alex immediately jumped into get-a-hold-of-Stephan mode, hitting redial on his phone over and over and over again.

Several failed attempts later, he took up banging his phone against the table like he thought beating the crap out of it would somehow make Stephan miraculously answer the phone. Yeah, all that resulted from that was the back of his phone popping off and the battery sling-shooting out across the table. After that, he gave up his redial mission and tucked his phone away in his pocket.

Feeling tired—my little catnap during the car ride home had done nothing for me—I plopped down in one of the chairs at the table. The box Aislin had gotten from Adessa wasn’t too far off on the table in front of me. It looked so much like a jewelry box, with its tiny encrusted jewels and shimmering shade of gold, that I half expected it to be full of pearl necklaces and diamond earrings. But no, inside the box lay a glinting red crystal. I had the urge to reach out and touch it, let my fingers brush along the jagged edges and see what it felt like. But after the whole getting-sucked-away-after-touching-a-Foreseers-Crystal-Ball incident, I decided to resist the urge.