The Underworld
Fallen Star Series Book 2
Jessica Sorensen
http://jessicasorensensblog.blogspot.com/
Copyright © 2011 by Jessica Sorensen.
SmashWords Edition License Notes
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Chapter 1
I wasn’t sure whether I was dead or alive. Perhaps alive in the sense that I was still breathing, but was I even breathing? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure of anything.
Blackness swallowed me whole, and not the kind of blackness that comes from being in a dark room. No, this darkness was heavy and thick, and it wove into my body, making my skin damp and my limbs heavy.
Where this dark place was, or how long I’d been here, I didn’t know. I might have been here for years, month, days, or even just a few seconds. Time felt nonexistent.
After awhile, I started to convince myself that I must be dead. That the memoria extracto—or whatever the heck that memory removing rock Stephan had used on me was called—had taken my life instead of wiping away my mind. But how could I tell for sure if I’d died, or if I was still thriving? I mean was there really a difference between death and losing every ounce of who you are?
The only problem with my “I was dead” theory was that if I was dead, then why could I feel pain blazing in my leg—the exact leg Stephan had stabbed me in? Was feeling pain possible after you died? But if I wasn’t dead, and instead my memory had been erased, along with my emotions, then why did my heart ache from Alex’s betrayal?
The ache hurt so bad that I thought my heart was going to actually stop beating. How could Alex do this to me? Yes, I knew what the circumstances were, and I knew what I was—a girl who had gotten stuck harboring a world-saving star’s energy inside her. But this wasn’t just about the energy; it was also about Stephan, the leader of the Keepers, collaborating with the Death Walkers and quite possibly with Demetrius, a man who wanted to let a portal open on December 21, 2012. A portal that, if opened, would release hundreds and hundreds of Death Walkers, causing the world to end in a sheet of ice. And yet, despite all of the previously mentioned facts, Alex still let Stephan attempt to wipe my memory away. No questions asked.
Betrayal.
I knew all too well how much the feeling hurt.
But how could I feel the hurt?
How could I still feel?
It didn’t matter how many questions I asked myself, because no answers ever came to me. All I had to pass the time was the blackness that suffocated me. Nothing but me and the darkness.
I was alone.
The pain in my leg shot up a notch, taking a toll on my ability to stand. So as carefully as I could, I lowered myself toward the ground, but a sharp pain fired up in my neck, and I froze. I let out a whimper as my fingers brushed the back of my neck, reminding me of when my Foreseer mark had appeared, and how Alex had kissed me. Then, right after the kiss, he’d betrayed me.
I sighed as I sank down on the ground, wondering if this was how it was always going to be. If I’d always be trapped in the dark, alone, just like when I couldn’t feel. Although I may not have been surrounded by darkness back then, I was as lonely as I was now. The only difference now was that I could feel emotion. Scared, nervousness, pain—these were just a few things pouring through me at the moment.
And then, suddenly, my head began to hum, and my skin felt as if it were sparkling. I gasped as I was yanked backward. Something was dragging me through the blackness, leading me to…I had no idea. I kicked and tried to throw my weight forward, but it was useless. My heart raced as I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for whatever was coming next. The disappearance of my mind? My death?
And then I felt it; a faint electric spark kissing at my fingertip. But wait. No. There was
no way I could be feeling that.
There was no way I’d feel that again.
Was there?
Chapter 2
Buzz….buzz….buzz. My eyes flew open, and I was instantly blinded by a bright light. Light everywhere. Radiating throughout the room.
Room. Huh?
My head was buzzing as I shot upright in the bed. A bed? I was now in a bed, with a blanket draped over me. Pale purple walls surrounded me, and there was a small window next to the bed where I could see colorful lights flashing all over and strange shaped buildings that stretched up toward the sky. Wait. I knew this place. it was….Vegas?
“What the…?” I squinted my eyes toward the outside window, not believing what I was seeing. Vegas? How could I be in Vegas? I’d been in Colorado when I’d…well, I wasn’t sure what had happened to me yet. Maybe I was dreaming or something. Perhaps my mind was creating this room as a sort of comfort from being trapped in the dark.
I did my classic pinch-myself-to-see-if-I’m-awake thing, and yep, it hurt.
So I was awake.
The buzzing in my head dropped down a notch, now only as loud as a faint whisper. Hmmm…so what was I supposed to do? There was a door on the wall right in front of the bed. Should I get up and go see what was out there? If there was one thing I’d learned, it was that there was no such thing as being too careful. For all I knew I’d open the door and a thousand Death Walkers’ would come swarming in, their yellow eyes glowing with the hunger to kill me. Or even worse than Death Walkers, what if Stephan came in?
On my “Things That Terrify Me” list, Stephan now held top rank—one step above the Death Walkers.
Shows you how scary he is.
I decided the best way to approach the situation was to get up and go over to the door. Perhaps when I got close enough, I’d be able to hear something that would give me a clue as to what was out there. And if I did hear anything that sounded threatening or dangerous, like say a deep voice belonging to a man with a very distinctive scar grazing his left cheek, then I’d move on to my next plan. And that was to escape out the window. It was going to be a little tricky, though, since it looked like I was up on the second floor of the building. But I could always try the whole tying-the-sheets-together-and-making-a-rope trick.
Sucking in a deep breath, I tossed the blanket off of me and slid my legs off the edge of the bed. I was no longer dressed in the clothes I’d been wearing back in Colorado. I had on a pair of plaid pajama shorts and a tank top. Both had pink on them so there was no way they belonged to me. Across the top of my leg—right in the spot Stephan had stabbed—a bandaged was wrapped. Someone had fixed me up.
Who, though?
Good question.
My leg throbbed as I stood up, the grey carpet feeling warm against my bare feet. I limped over to the door. So far, I hadn’t heard a single noise. Wherever I was, it was quiet.
Dead quiet.
I stood hesitantly in front of the closed door. Did I dare open it?
My heart knocked in my chest, and with a trembling hand, I reached for the doorknob. But before I could get my hand around it, it started to turn on its own, and at the very same time electricity whipped through me.
I jumped back, but instantly regretted it because my legs gave out on me and I toppled to the floor.
I grabbed hold of my injured leg. “Damn—”
The door swung open.
Ignoring the scorching pain in my leg, I scrambled to my feet and searched frantically for another way out of the room, other than trying to jump out the window.
“Gemma,” Alex said in a guarded tone, as he walked through the doorway. He inched himself toward me, taking each step carefully, as though he thought walking too fast would spook me. But him just being here was spooking me.
He was wearing a black t-shirt and a pair of jeans, and his hair was scattered messily in its intentionally-done-perfect-yet-messy kind of way. He looked like a normal guy—completely harmless. Yet I knew he wasn’t.
“Stay-y away f-from me.” I stammered, my heart pounding insanely in my chest as I backed away from him. “Don’t come any closer.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.” His voice was as soft as a feather. He continued to step toward me, his bright green eyes locked on me, just like when he watched Stephan try to take my emotions away. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”
“You promise!” I cried, anger raging through me like a boiling kettle of water. “Your promises are worth nothing.” I mean, he’d promised me how many times that he wouldn’t let anything happen to me? And yet, in the end, he’d let his father attempt to erase my mind and take my emotions away.
Alex stopped dead in his tracks, his expression filling with annoyance. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”
My back brushed the wall. I was cornered. “It means your promises are worthless. At least the ones you make to me. You promised me you wouldn’t let anything happened to me and look where it got me.”
He raised his eyebrows, a slight mocking expression teasing at his lips as he spread his arms out to the side of him. “It got you here, safe and sound.”
“Safe and sound,” I repeated, glancing around the room where no potential danger was evident. I looked down at my hands, my arms, and except for the bandage around my leg, everything appeared to be fine. I could still feel as well, my emotions resting somewhere between confusion, anger, and longing. But I blame the last feeling on the sparks.
“Gemma,” Alex said, and I looked up at him. “You’re okay, right?”
I eyed him warily. I wasn’t sure what to do here. I didn’t trust him at all, despite the fact that I did seem to be alright. “I don’t know…Am I?”
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “I’m asking you.”
“Why? You’re the one who knows what happened to me.” I crossed my arms. “I mean, what’s going on here? Am I supposed to feel? And where’s Stephan? Outside the door waiting for you to come check on me and see if the memoria extracta—or whatever that stupid memory erasing rock is called—has wiped out my mind?” My anger simmered hotter as the painful memories of what had happened to me resurfaced.
“Memoria extraho,” Alex said.
I gaped at him. “What?”
“The memory erasing rock is called a memoria extraho,” he said.
I glared at him. “That’s not important right now. All I need to know is what the heck is going on.”
He hesitated, running his fingers through his dark brown hair, probably trying to conjure up some lie to tell me. I couldn’t take this. I couldn’t take anymore lies. I needed to get out of here and away from him, even though the electricity was telling me to do otherwise.
I darted to the side, starting to swing around him.
“Gemma,” Alex warned, matching my move with cat-like reflexes. He blocked my escape. “Just listen to me for a second. If you’ll settle down, I’ll explain what’s going on.”
I let out this unnaturally high pitched laugh. “Will you?” I asked. “Because you never have before. Not fully, anyway.”
“Gemma,” he started, but I was already hopping up onto the bed, overlooking the pain igniting in my leg as I dodged around him, and headed for the door.
He stuck his arm out, attempting to catch me in mid-air as I leapt off of the bed, but he missed me by a sliver of an inch, and I was able to escape out of the room.
I wasn’t exactly sure where I was planning on going, or what would be waiting for me down at the bottom of the stairs, but I knew I had to get away. Run. Find Laylen or someone else who would tell me what was going on.
My bare feet hammered against the stairs as I charged down them. There was a door just at the bottom, and the sunlight spilled through a small window at the top of it. If I could just make it outside, then I could run away to…Well, I really hadn’t gotten that far in my escape plan. All I knew was that I was going to run away from this madness. I was sick of the lies and the secrets. I was sick of monsters and people trying to harm me.
I reached the bottom of the stairs, my hand extended out to the doorknob. Just a few steps and I’d be overtaken with the warm Vegas air and sunshine.
“Gemma,” a voice said from beside of me.
I jumped, my heart racing. For a split second I thought I was dead. That the person who’d said my name would be Stephan.
But thankfully it wasn’t.
“What the heck?” Laylen said breathlessly, his hand pressed over his heart. “You scared the heck out of me.”
“You scared the heck out of me,” I told him, equally as breathless.
His bright blue eyes stared at me in astonishment, almost as if he couldn’t quite believe I was standing here.
Trust me, I felt the very same way.
For a moment, I just stood there, taking in the sight of him. His blonde hair, the tips dyed bright blue. The dark red shade of his lips with a silver ring looped through the bottom. The mark of immortality tattooed across the pale skin of his forearm. It was such a relief to see him. I had so much I wanted to tell him and so many questions I wanted to ask.
“Are you alright?” He eyed me over as if he were checking to see if I was broken. “What were you running from?”
“I was—”
“From me,” Alex’s voice drifted up from behind me.
I spun around and scooted closer to Laylen.
Alex, in typical Alex style, strolled lazily down the stairs, as if he had thought I’d never actually run away. “I don’t understand why you have to be so difficult,” he said, his eyes locked on me like a target, the sparks reacting with such eagerness that my legs felt a little weak. “I told you I’d tell you what was going on. There’s no reason to try and run away.”
“There’s no reason to try and run away,” I said exasperatedly. “Are you kidding me?”
He frowned as he reached the bottom of the stairs. As he walked closer to me, I inched myself closer to Laylen. So close in fact that my shoulder bumped into his.
Alex’s eyebrows dipped down as he stopped just short of me. “What do you think I’m going to do to you, Gemma? Hurt you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I never know anything when it comes to you.”
He glowered at me, and I glowered right back, the electricity heating hotter and hotter the longer our eyes stayed on one another.
“Gemma,” Laylen said, and for the second time in just a few short minutes I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Everything’s okay. No one here’s going to hurt you.”
I looked up at him. And I mean it: I really had to look up, because Laylen is like six foot four. “Everything’s okay?” I asked with skepticism. “Really?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go sit down, and Alex and I will explain everything that’s happened.”
I cast a quick glance at Alex, and then looked back at Laylen. “I want you to explain it to me.”
“Gemma, I already said I’d tell you the truth.” Alex sounded irritated.
I opened my mouth to tell him that I really didn’t care what he said he’d do. And that he was a liar. But Laylen spoke before I got the chance.
“Alex, you really can’t blame her for not trusting you.” He paused, deliberating something very charily. “After what you did.”
That, of course, pissed Alex off. “I didn’t do anything. And you have some nerve for saying that I did.”
Laylen got this look on his face that I could tell meant he was about to say something that might start a fight. And Alex looked completely ready to fight back. That’s what these two did sometimes; they got into arguments that became more heated the more they opened their mouths.
But I didn’t have time for this right now. I needed to know what went on back at the cabin, after I’d…blacked out?
“Can’t you just tell me what happened?” I begged Laylen. “Please. I trust you more than I trust him.” In fact, I don’t trust him at all.
Laylen glanced at Alex, who shot him a dirty look, and returned his bright blue eyes to me. “Yeah, okay. I’ll tell you what I know.”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling slightly less anxious. But still anxious enough that my legs were wobbly.
Laylen motioned for me to follow him as he swept through a beaded-curtain doorway, which led us into a living room with dark blue walls that were decorated with shelves holding odd looking knickknacks. Black and white tile checkerboarded the floor, and a set of purple velvet couches centered the room, along with an apothecary table topped with black candles.
Hmm…I was getting a weird sense of déjà vu with this room. Then it dawned on me. “Is this Adessa’s house?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Laylen took a seat on one of the purple velvet sofas. “Which is actually attached to her store.”
I sat down next to him, and Alex, looking annoyed, dropped down in the chair across from us.
“So, where do you want me to begin?” Laylen asked me. And I liked that he asked, instead of trying to evade my questions, like a certain someone with bright green eyes would’ve done.
Having options, though, was kind of confusing me. “So…um…what happened?” I shook my head at the ridiculousness of my own question. “I mean, what happened back in Colorado? And how did we end up in Vegas?”
Laylen stayed quiet for a second, and I started to wonder if he even knew the answers to my questions. Alex had made it clear that because Laylen was a vampire, he was no longer part of the Keepers’ world anymore, making Laylen a little out of the loop on things.
Laylen brushed his blue-tipped bangs away from his forehead. “Well, I guess I’ll answer the easy question first. You’re here at Adessa’s because Aislin transported us here.”
“What?!” I exclaimed, making Laylen flinch. I lowered my voice. “Sorry. But how? I mean, the last thing I can remember is being surrounded by a ton of Death Walkers, and Stephan trying to use some creepy smoking rock to try and take my mind away.”
“The rock’s called the memoria extraho,” Alex interrupted.
“Well, you’d know since you were going to let him use it on me,” I snapped.
A condescending look rose on his face. “If you’d just listen to me explain, then you’d realize you’re wrong.”
“I said I want Laylen to tell me,” I told him firmly.
He shrugged and leaned back in the chair, resting his hands behind his head all casual and everything. “Fine. Whatever you want.”
I stared at him, entirely taken off-guard. Huh? Did he just say whatever you want? To me?
“What?” Alex said, with a blasé attitude. “I was planning on telling you the truth, but if you’re more likely to believe it from Laylen’s mouth, then it’s better that he tells you. That way you won’t have any doubts.”
I shook my head, wondering why he was acting so cooperative, but figured I would worry about it later, so I returned my attention back to Laylen. “So how did you and Aislin end up in Colorado?”
“Well. I guess to make a long story short, after Aislin came back to get me in Nevada, those Death Walkers you and I saw marching through the desert had reached the house. They ambushed us, but after a big struggle, Aislin and I managed to escape in the car. But the Death Walkers’ cold ruined Aislin’s crystal again so we had to come here to Adessa’s to get another one. Then we transported to Colorado.”
“So how did you guys not get attacked by the Death Walkers when you showed up in Colorado?” I asked. “And by Stephan? Because the last thing I can remember was that there were a ton of Death Walkers around, watching Stephan try to erase my mind.”
Laylen glanced over at Alex, and they both exchanged a look I couldn’t quite figure out. My muscles tensed up as the idea that maybe Laylen was keeping secrets from me flashed through my mind. Would he? I mean, I barely knew him. But from the moment I’d met him, my instincts told me I could trust him. Although I sometimes wondered how much I could trust my own instincts.
“When Aislin and I showed up there—” Laylen’s bright blue eyes focused back on me—“Stephan and the Death Walkers were gone.”
“What?” I said, baffled. “Why would they just leave?”
Laylen looked at Alex again, and I grew even more uneasy. Something was up. I could feel it through the sudden heaviness in the air.
“I think maybe you should explain that part to her,” Laylen told Alex. “It’s more your story to tell, anyway.”
“No,” I protested, shaking my head. “I want you to tell me.”
Laylen shifted uncomfortably in the sofa. “Look, Gemma, I understand why you want me to tell you. But I really think Alex should tell you the rest, because I wasn’t even there for most of it.”
This was so weird. I mean, the last time I’d talked to Laylen, back when we were at his house, he’d warned me to be careful when it came to trusting Alex. And now here he was telling me trust him.
It didn’t make any sense.
“I…um…” I trailed off, staring confusedly at Laylen.
“Gemma, relax. It’ll be alright.” Laylen got to his feet, and gave me a pat on the shoulder, which puzzled me even more. No one’s ever given me a pat on the shoulder before. “Everything will be okay. Alex will tell you what happened.”
And with that, he left, the beaded curtains clinking together as he ducked through them.
I watched the curtains sway back and forth, feeling so lost. My mind was racing wildly with ideas of what could be going on; ideas ranging from Laylen being brainwashed to Laylen not being Laylen at all, but a body snatcher that had possessed his body.
“Gemma.” Alex’s voice pulled me out of my own head.
Slowly, I turned and looked at him. My emotions were all over the place, and the electricity was sparking like a firecracker. Part of me was saying run, that something was off and I needed to get away. But the other part of me held me to the sofa, wanting to hear what Alex had to say.
“So are you going to listen to what I have to say,” he asked, his eyebrow arching upward, “or do you want to try and run again?”
“I don’t know….” And yes, I understood how dumb my answer was, but it was the truth, so…
Alex sighed. “Why do you always have to be so difficult?”
“How do you expect me to be?” I asked, staring incredulously at him. “You were going to let your father erase my mind.”
“No, I wasn’t.” He was losing his cool. “And if you’d just quit being stubborn and listen, you’d know what really went on.”
I crossed my arms and flopped back in the chair, debating what I should do. Keep being “stubborn”, as he’d so nicely put it? Or hear him out? “Fine, then tell me what happened.”
Shock flickered across his face, just like it almost always did when I decided to cooperate. “Okay…Well, where do you want me to start?”
I shrugged. Did it really matter? It wasn’t like he was going to tell me the truth or anything. “Wherever you want.”
“Okay.” He seemed to be struggling on where to begin. “Do you remember that necklace I gave you?”
I nodded as I touched my neck, and I quickly realized that the locket was no longer there. “Wait. Where is it?”
“Relax. I have it.”
That didn’t make me relax at all. “Why do you have it?”
“I’m getting to that.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “When I gave you the necklace, I wasn’t just giving it to you because it belonged to you. I gave it to you because it has sugilite in it.”
I gave him a questioning look. “What’s sugilite?”
“It’s the purple stone in the center of the locket. It protects whoever is wearing it from certain kinds of magic.” He paused. “Like the mind erasing kind of magic.”
“But I thought you said my mother gave me the necklace when I was little?”
“She did, specifically because the stone is sugilite.” He leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees. “She gave it to you because you have the star’s energy in you. It was her way of trying to protect you from anyone who tried to use magic on you to get to the star’s power.”
“So why didn’t it work when I was little?” My voice was sharp and full of bitterness. “When Sophia detached my soul from my emotions, why didn’t it protect me? Is that not a form of magic?”
Alex shook his head. “No, it’s a form of magic. But Stephan…well, he knew what it was and took it off of you before Sophia detached your soul.”
“Stephan knows what the necklace is?” This seemed to make the possibility of it actually protecting me and the star not possible.
He nodded. “That’s why I tucked it into your shirt. So he wouldn’t see it and make you take it off.”
I remembered how, right before Alex had climbed out of the Jeep back at the cabin—back when Stephan had shown up with the Death Walkers—he had reached over and tucked the necklace into my shirt. Whatever you do, keep that hidden. Don’t let anyone know you have it, he’d said.
“But why would you do that?” I questioned. “Why give it to me at all if you knew it would stop someone from being able to detach my soul? I thought you said that my soul had to be detached to keep the star’s power thriving enough so that it could save the world.”
He gave a look that made my skin go electric. “Because I wanted to stop anyone from being able to detach your soul.”
I stifled a laugh. “I highly doubt that, especially since you’ve told me a ton of times that my soul has to be detached.”
“Yeah…but I…” He drifted off.
“But you what?” I pressed.
“But.” He took a breath. “When I first gave you the necklace, I was still deciding whether or not I was going to let my father see you wearing it. If he’d seen it, then he’d have made you take it off before he tried to use the memoria extraho on you.”
As unsurprising as this was—I mean, how many times had Alex lied and betrayed me?—it still made my heart hurt a little. “If that’s the case, then why did you give the necklace to me at all?”
He shrugged, his eyes wide with confusion. “I have no idea.”
I shook my head, the electricity nipping at me like invisible gnats that I so wished I could swat away. “Well, that’s nice.”
“Look, Gemma,” he said, his voice very let’s-get-down-to-business. “I know I’ve done some pretty crappy things to you, but can’t we just move past it? The point is, I did hide the necklace from my father. I protected you from getting your mind taken away.”
“Why, though?” I asked suspiciously. “I mean, you were so dead set that Stephan was good and that I was completely wrong about him sending my mom into The Underworld. You were so determined that I needed my emotions to be taken away so the star’s power could save the world. So why the sudden change of heart?”
He was quiet for a moment, which sent up a red flag in my mind that he was about to tell me a lie.
“Stephan showing up with the Death Walkers,” he finally said. “There has to be something else going on—something bad if he is working with them.”
I eyed him warily. “If that’s what you really believe, then why were you acting like you were on Stephan’s side? You just stood there while he hurt me and tried to take everything about me away. You didn’t do anything.”
“I couldn’t do anything. I had to pretend that I was on his side. Besides, I knew as soon as he tried to use the memoria extraho on you, he’d black out.”
“He blacked out?” I said. “Why?”
“Because that’s what the sugilite does,” he explained. “Those who try to use harmful magic on someone who has sugilite on them, automatically get magical harm done on them instead. It’s how sugilite works.”
“What kind of harmful magic gets done on them?” I asked curiously, wondering if there was a possibility that Stephan could perhaps be dead and that my problems would be over.
“That all depends on the kind of magic the person is trying to use. In my father’s case, since he was trying to harm your mind, the sugilite harmed his mind instead, to the point that it made him pass out.”
“So, what happened to him? Did you…kill him?”
He struggled to speak. “Gemma…I-I…I couldn’t…I mean…” He took a deep breath, regaining his composure. “I couldn’t kill my father…when I’m not really sure what’s going on.”
I tried to understand this—understand where he was coming from. Laylen had told me when it came to Alex and his father, Alex was sort of brainwashed. So I think I was more surprised about him letting the sugilite harm him, instead of not being able to kill him.
“So where is he?” I asked. “Stephan? Where did he end up?”
“The Death Walkers took him with them,” he said with this strange look in his eyes, as if he was trying to figure something out.
They just took him and left. It sounded so…unbelievable, especially since the stupid things had been working so hard to get a hold of me.
“They just up and left? And left you and me behind, unharmed?” I asked skeptically.
He nodded. “Yeah, I know, it’s weird.”
Weird was putting it mildly. “So is Stephan going to return to normal, then?” I asked. “Or is his mind harmed for good?”
A glint of panic flashed in his eyes, and I had my answer before he said it. “No, he’ll return to normal eventually.”
“And then come after me again,” I mumbled.
Alex didn’t respond as he got to his feet and made his way over to me. He pulled something out of the pocket of his jeans before sitting down beside me. “Here.” He held out his hand. A silver heart-shaped locket with a small violet stone in the center of it rested in his palm.
My locket.
I didn’t take it right away. Instead I stared at it, wondering if what Alex had just told me held any truth to it or not. Could I trust him?
“You can have it back.” He urged his hand at me.
I still didn’t take the necklace. “I still don’t understand why you took it off of me to begin with.”
He gave me a skeptical look. “You don’t know why?”
“How would I?”
He still looked like he had no idea how I didn’t know the answer to my own question. But how the heck was I supposed to know? I never knew anything.
“Because Aislin had to use magic on us to get us out of there,” he said.
“Oh.” Now I was catching on. “And if I’d been wearing the necklace, then the sugilite would have blocked her magic.”
He nodded. “So I took it off of you while we transported back here.” He reached for my hand, but I pulled back, and he frowned. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just trying to give you your necklace back.”
I quickly snatched up the necklace, the metal warm against my palm. “Thanks.” I wrapped it around my neck and fumbled with the clamp. If what he was saying was true, then I wanted the necklace on at all times.
“Want my help?” A playful grin played at his lips.
I shot him a dirty look. “No. I got it.” The last time he had “helped me,” we ended up kissing. And that was the last thing I wanted right now…I think.
It took me awhile, but I finally got the clamp on the necklace hooked, the chain now secured around my neck. It was then that a sudden thought occurred to me. “Alex.”
“Hmm…?” He had been watching me struggle to put the necklace on and seemed a little distracted.
“What happened to the memoria extraho?”
“Aislin and Adessa destroyed it,” he told me. “After we got back, they used some kind of spell on it that took its magic out of it.”
“So now it’s just a rock?”
He nodded.
Well, I guess that meant there was one less thing I had to worry about. Although, how many mind/memory/emotional erasing things were out there, I had no clue. But with everything I’d seen lately, I was guessing there might be more.
Alex suddenly shifted the subject. “Why don’t we go get you something to eat? You’ve been out for almost two days. You’ve got to be starving.”
“I’ve been out for two days?” I asked with astonishment.
He stood up. “Yeah, it was the longest nap ever.”
I got to my feet. Even though I still had a ton of other questions, I was also very hungry. Besides, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to be the one to answer all of my questions. Although, there was one thing I was dying to know—I had to know right now, even though thinking about it made me sick to my stomach.
“Okay, but I have one more question.” I paused, taking a nervous deep breath. “With my emotions…I mean, am I…is it okay for me to have emotions?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t anything right now.” He looked at me funny, and I had the urge to bolt for the door as the fear raced through me that he might suddenly whip out the memoria extraho and wipe away my mind. “For now,” he said, “we’re not going to do anything. Not until we know what’s going on.”
I was in no way, shape, or form relieved by what he said. “For now?” I asked.
He didn’t say anything else. He just turned away, calling over his shoulder, “Let’s go get you something to eat."
I glared a fiery glare at the back of his head, suddenly wishing I possessed pyrokinetic powers. I refused to go through this again. Get left out of the loop. Be given vague answers. I’d find out what I wanted to know, before it was too late. I’d get to the truth, whatever the cost.
Before going into the kitchen to get something to eat, I decided to go upstairs to change out of the pajamas I was wearing. Alex had told me, when I’d asked him if there was something else I could wear besides pajamas, that there were some clothes Aislin had picked out for me up in the room I’d woken up in.
As I dragged myself up the stairs, I thought about everything I’d just been told. It felt like I hadn’t been told anything really. Like always, I had a huge list of unanswered questions roaming around in my head. And I was worried. Worried about whether or not Alex had told me anything truthful. Worried about why the Death Walkers had just up and left. Worried that Alex would suddenly decide I wasn’t supposed to feel anymore and try to take my emotions away from me.
I reached the top of the staircase and let out a heavy sigh. Lost. Was lost considered an emotion? Because that’s how I felt.
I was half out of it, consumed by my thoughts, as I opened the door to the room. But right as I went to pull the door open, it swung open on its own, and someone grabbed me by the arm and yanked me inside.
I opened my mouth to scream, but another hand came down over my mouth, and all I could do was think, Great. Now what?
Chapter 3
“Gemma,” a voice whispered in my ear.
I frantically tried to wriggle my way free from whoever had a hold of me. My heart pounded inside my chest as thoughts of who it could be blasted through my mind. Stephan? A Death Walker? Some other kind of monster?
Whoever it was had ice-cold skin, so I was leaning toward a Death Walker or another kind of similar monster.
“Jesus Christ, Gemma. Calm down.”
This time my brain registered who the voice belonged to and, feeling kind of stupid, I stopped my pathetic fight to get away. Laylen let go of me, and I let my breathing slow down to a normal pace.
“What are you doing?” I asked, breathing heavily. “You scared the heck out of me.” Again.
“Shhh…” Laylen put his finger up to his deep red lips, glanced around the room, and then shut the door. “Keep your voice down.”
“Why?” My voice came out way too loud so I lowered it. “Sorry. But why do I have to keep my voice down?”
He glanced around the room again, seeming nervous, and then locked the door. “So what do you think about what Alex told you?”
Hmm…so had I been wrong about Laylen trusting Alex? “I don’t know. What do you think about it?”
He tilted his head from side to side, wavering. “I’m not sure. It just seems a little too…”
“Simple,” I finished for him.
He nodded. “Exactly. Aislin and I show up there and Stephan and the Death Walkers are conveniently gone. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.” I paused, considering what it could mean. But in my typical confused style, I felt as lost as ever. “So what do you think really happened?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. But I know the chance of the Death Walkers just leaving when they know you have the star’s energy in you, is slim to none. And I think it’s really suspicious that Stephan just passed out like that.”
“Well, Alex told me that Stephan passed out because of this.” I lifted up my locket, the purple stone reflecting sharply in the light of the room. “That this little stone is sugilite and that because I was wearing it, and Stephan tried to use harmful magic on me, it made him black out.”
Laylen took the locket in his hand, rubbing the purple stone with his thumb. The necklace was still attached to my neck, so I had to crank my head forward, putting my neck in an awkward position.
“That’s interesting,” he murmured, and let the locket go, releasing my neck from its uncomfortable position. “It’s sugilite, but still…” His expression twisted with confusion.
“What? Does sugilite not protect people from certain kinds of magic like Alex said?” I mean, really, the odds were pretty high that Alex had been lying.
“No, it does.” He paused. “But I don’t get it. Alex gives you this necklace that has sugilite, knowing if someone uses magic on you—to let’s say, take your emotions or mind away—that it won’t work. And that it’ll end up doing harm to whoever is using the magic on you. Yet, supposedly, at least according to the Keepers, you’re not supposed to have any emotions. So what would be the point of Alex protecting you from the thing he’s been telling you has to be done?”
I frowned, not at Laylen, but at the mention of my emotions. “So Alex told you everything then?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t mean I believe every part of what he said.”
“Me neither,” I agreed. My leg was killing me, so I went over and sat down on the bed, and Laylen followed, sitting down next to me. “So what else did Alex tell you?”
He gave me a sort of amused look. “Well, he told me that you guys took a little trip to the City of Crystal, where you found out that you’re a Foreseer.”
I swallowed hard. “Did he tell about the vision I had to go into while I was at the City of Crystal?”
“He did,” Laylen answered with hesitance.
I hated to be reminded of that vision, and just talking about it shoved the memory of it into my mind; Stephan forcing my mom to go into lake—the entrance to The Underworld—where she’d been tortured to insanity by Water Faeries.
“You okay?” Laylen asked.
“I’m fine.” My voice sounded choked. There was a gap of silence before I asked, “Do you think there’s a way she can still be alive? My mom, I mean.”
Laylen sat there, looking at me, not in a feeling-sorry-for-me kind of way, but more as if he was seriously contemplating what I’d asked him. Part of me grew eager that he might say yes; that there was a possibility that my mother, who I hadn’t seen since I was four years-old, and could barely remember a thing about—thanks to the detachment of my soul from my emotions, causing my memories to be erased away as well—might still be alive.
“I don’t know, Gemma,” he said softly. “She’s been down there for a really long time.”
My eagerness dropped to the floor and shattered like glass. “Oh. Okay.”
“Now hold on one second before you go getting that sad look on your face. All I said was that she’s been down there for awhile, not that there was no way she could be alive.”
I tried to keep my excitement to a bare minimum. “So, are you saying that there might be a chance she still is?”
He twisted his lip ring from side to side. “Maybe. There’ve been some people that have survived the Water Faerie’s torture for a long time without going too insane. And there have even been a few people that have escaped The Underworld before.”
“There have!” I shouted, and then made an oh-crap face at the loudness of my voice. We both stayed silent for a moment, making sure no one had heard and had decided to head upstairs to check on me. The house was quiet, as still as the hot desert air, the only noise coming from the humming of engines from the cars passing by. “Sorry,” I whispered. “But I’m just really confused. The way Alex made it sound, it seemed like there was hardly any way that anyone could ever escape The Underworld. That once they were sent down there, they were basically trapped there until they died from the torture.”
Laylen’s bright blue eyes twinkled mischievously. “Yeah, but Alex doesn’t hang around with the same kind of crowd as I do, does he? You learn a lot of stuff when you’re not just limited to the Keeper’s circle.”
Now I was letting myself get a little excited over what Laylen was saying. Well, except for the fact that he said “crowd.” What kind of crowd were we talking about here? Vampire crowd? Witch crowd? Black Angel crowd? All were possibilities, and there were probably other possibilities that I didn’t even know about.
“Is there any way we could find someone who will maybe help us find out if she’s alive? And help us find out if there’s a way we could get her out of The Underworld if she is?” I held my breath as I waited for him to answer.
It took him a second, but he nodded. “It won’t be easy, though. And it’ll be dangerous.”
I should have been scared. But after you’ve faced a swarm of murderous Death Walkers, been hit by their Chill of Death, and stared into the eyes of a man who is trying to wipe your mind away, “dangerous” becomes a little easier to deal with. “So you’re saying that maybe we could go and talk to someone about her?”
He mulled over my question for so long that I was sure he was going to say no. “Yeah, I think we might be able to do that.”
“Really?” I was practically bouncing. “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “I think your mom may know more about what’s going on than anyone does. I think that might be part of the reason why Stephan sent her there—so she couldn’t tell anyone what she knew.”
“I think so too,” I agreed. “In fact, in the vision, she told Stephan that one day he’d get caught and that he didn’t have everyone wrapped around his finger.”
“Then I think the sooner we can find out if she’s alive, the better. And maybe we can put all this madness together and get some real answers.” He paused. “But I don’t want you to get too excited, just in case things don’t turn out the way…the way you want them to.”
“I won’t,” I assured him, but I still couldn’t help but get a little excited. Well, okay, I was beyond excited. In fact, I think I’d hit a whole new level of excitement and…yep, there it was. The prickle.
I know. I know. I was totally setting myself up for some serious heartache here. But I couldn’t control myself at the moment. Just seeing my mother—it would be amazing. Especially after being raised by Marco and Sophia, who were two of the most cold-hearted people I knew. Well, besides Stephan.
Wait. Hold on. “Laylen, what happened to Marco and Sophia?”
“I have no idea,” he said with a shrug. “No one does. They just up and disappeared.”
Hmmm…very strange. So did that mean they were playing on the good side or the bad side?
I opened my mouth to ask Laylen this, but a knock at the door caused Laylen and I to jump to our feet.
“Gemma.” Alex’s voice floated through the door. “Are you in there?”
“Uh…yeah,” I called out. “Just a second.” I turned to Laylen and whispered, “Great. What am I supposed to tell him when he asks why you’re in here?”
“You’re not going to tell him,” Laylen whispered, searching for a place to hide. “If he knows I am in here, he’ll know something’s up. And if he knows what we’re planning to do, he'll go out of his way to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
Excellent point. Alex would say it was too dangerous, at least for me anyway. Because that’s what he always said. Besides, the question of whether or not Alex was lying about what had happened back at the cabin was still a big giant question mark. So for now, at least until we knew for sure what was going on, it was probably best to keep our plan a secret from Alex.
Laylen got down on the floor. “Just pretend I’m not here,” he whispered. And with that, he slid underneath the bed.
I waited until he was completely under before unlocking the door and opening it. “Hey, what’s up?” Real cool, Gemma. I sounded way too casual.
He gave me a suspicious look. “You’ve been up here forever. What are you doing?”
“Um…changing?” It sounded like a question, and I wanted to slap myself on the head for sucking so badly at playing it cool.
He looked down at the pajamas I was still wearing, and I realized my answer had been even more idiotic than I’d originally thought. I needed to think of something to tell him. And quick.
“Well…I was going to change, but I couldn’t…um…figure out where the clothes are.” Not my best lie, but hopefully it would do.
He looked unconvinced as he walked into the room and over to a dresser. He pulled open the top drawer and pointed inside it. “The clothes are in here.”
Ignoring the heat the electricity caused by him being in the room, I made my way over to the dresser. “Oh. Okay. Thanks.”
He gave me a strange look and then glanced around the room, as if he were looking for something that shouldn’t be there. Like maybe a six foot four Keeper/Vampire hiding underneath the bed.
Finally, Alex gave up on looking for whatever it was he was looking for and stuffed his hands into the pockets. “Well, come downstairs when you’re done. Adessa made dinner.”
“Alright, I will,” I told him, again sounding way too laid-back.
“Okay…” He raised his eyebrows at me, before heading to the door, shooting one last look over his shoulder, before stepping out of the room.
I let out a breath of relief, shut the door, and spun around as Laylen army crawled from underneath the bed.
He stood up and dusted off his jeans “That was close.”
“I know. It was like he knew you were here or something.”
Laylen laughed, and I felt like I was missing out on a joke.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing…so, yeah, I think we should sneak out tonight and talk to a few people I know. See if anyone has heard anything about your mom. You up for it?”
“I…uh…yeah?” Why did I suddenly feel hesitant? This was my mother we were talking about. But for some reason, it felt wrong—keeping what we were doing from Alex.
I shook my head at the absurdity of my own thoughts. I had to keep my head clear and not think about Alex. “Yeah, I’m definitely up for it.”
He gave me a funny look. “Are you sure you want to go? I’m not going to tell you what to do—you’ve had that done to you way too much—but I feel I should warn you, it may end up being kind of dangerous.”
I considered what he said, but still wanted to go. At this point in my life, I felt I needed to hear things for myself. “I’m still up for it.”
“Then I’ll come here tonight after everyone’s asleep.” He started for the door.
A thought popped inside my head. “Wait a sec.”
He turned around. “What’s up?”
“Why do you think Stephan wants the star’s power?”
“I don’t know. But if Stephan wants it, and he’s working with the Death Walkers…” He trailed off, worry slipping onto his face. “Well, if our plan does work out, and we find out your mother’s alive, maybe she’ll have some of the answers to what the heck is going on.”
***
After I’d changed into the most decent clothes I could find—a pair of shorts and a purple tank top—and pulled my long brown hair into a ponytail, I went downstairs. It took me a little bit to find the kitchen, which was a dimly lit room that had blue and black striped walls, black countertops, and indigo tiled flooring. Everyone was there by the time I entered. Alex and Aislin were sitting at a small oval table in the corner of the room, and Adessa and Laylen were over by the counter. Adessa was stirring something in a steaming pot on top of the stove.
Aislin’s bright green eyes lit up when she saw me. She looked like her normal perfect self. Her golden blonde hair was curled up; a pair of diamond earrings twinkled in each one of her ear lobes. She had on a lacy pink tank top and her smile was as bright as ever. “Oh my God. It’s so good to see you awake, instead of unconscious.”
“I already told you she’d woken up.” Alex rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t know why you’re getting all excited about it.”
“Because she’s awake, Alex.” Aislin gave him a firm look. “Need I remind you that for awhile we thought she wasn’t ever going to wake up?”
If looks could kill, Aislin would have been dead by the invisible daggers shooting from Alex’s bright green eyes. I don’t know why he was getting mad at her, though. I’d already thought I was dead when I’d been trapped back in the black emptiness.
They continued to scowl at each other as I sat down in an empty chair at the table. They eventually stopped having their little stare down when Adessa came over and placed what looked like a pot of chicken noodle soup down on the table, her metal bangle bracelets clinking together as she moved her hands away. Like Aislin, Adessa is a witch, so I wasn’t going to automatically assume what was in that pot was food. My knowledge about witches was limited, so whether or not they brewed pots of potions was beyond me. But in this new world I’d been thrust into only a few days ago, I was never going to assume things again.
Or at least try not to.
Adessa’s golden cat eyes landed on me, and she gave me a welcoming smile. “Hello, Gemma.”
I forced a small smile, just so I wouldn’t seem rude. “Hey.”
She smiled again, tucking a strand of her black wavy hair behind her ear, and then went back over to the stove.
Aislin grabbed the spoon in the pot, and began stirring it until Adessa took a seat at the table. Laylen did as well, carrying a stack of bowls in his hands. As I glanced around at the five of us, I couldn’t help but think how strange this was. And I wasn’t just saying strange because I was sitting at the table with two witches, a vampire, and a Keeper, but because I was sitting at a table, getting ready to eat. Something I’d never done before in my life.
“So, who’s hungry?” Adessa asked, taking a bowl and scooping some—hopefully—chicken noodle soup into it. When no one answered, she set the bowl down in front of Alex, who slid it in front of me.
“Ladies first,” he said with a charming smile.
How gentlemanly of him, which made it all the weirder.
“Thanks,” I muttered. I stared down at the bowl of hot soup, watching the steam rise up as I thought of my mother and how, in just a few short hours, I might find out that she was still alive. After spending most of my life thinking she was dead, the idea seemed strange and unfamiliar.
“So, how are you feeling?” Aislin asked me.
I tore my gaze away from the soup, and my thoughts. “I’m fine.”
Her forehead furrowed over. “Is something wrong?”
I shook my head. “No. Not really. I’m just a little confused still. That’s all.”
“About what?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Everything really.”
She shot Alex a stern look. “Didn’t you explain anything to her?”
“I explained to her that none of us know anything,” he said, aggravated. “Not really, anyway.”
Aislin’s bright green eyes pierced into him as if she were trying to burn a telegraphic message into his mind. Although I didn’t mind Aislin—I mean, for the most part she’d been nice to me—I knew she was almost as good a liar as Alex, which put the count up to two people sitting at this table that I couldn’t trust. And Adessa—well I knew nothing about her, and the whole trusting strangers thing had never gone that well for me. (Think City of Crystal, where an overly friendly half-faerie lives). The only person I felt I could rely on was Laylen.
I glanced over at Laylen, who was sitting there with no food in front of him, because…well, because he’s a vampire and he doesn’t eat food. Everyone else was slurping away, and I hoped they didn’t notice when Laylen locked eyes with me. It was as if he was whispering a secret to me with his eyes. Tonight.
Yes. Tonight, I thought back. Tonight, maybe we’ll get some answers.
Chapter 4
The rest of the conversation at the table consisted of a bunch of slurping. This was okay, though, because in just a short while, Laylen and I were going to be setting out on our endeavor to try and find out about my mom.
After I’d finished eating, I pretended to be tired and told everyone I was heading up to bed to go to sleep. And yeah, I got that saying I was tired sounded a little odd, since I’d just woken up from a two day nap. But I couldn’t sit still, and I was afraid that all my bounciness was going to give away that something was up.
So for the sake of not getting Laylen and me busted before we even got the chance to try, I went up to my room to get some sleep. I never actually intended to fall asleep, but when I laid down on the bed, my eyelids suddenly felt heavy, and before I knew it, I’d dozed off.
It was dark. And I was cold. Water dripped on my head.
Painful screams filled the air. I shivered as I crept through the darkness, the air feeling damp against my skin.
“Gemma,” a voice whispered.
I knew that voice. It was my mom’s.
“Mom,” I called out, turning in every direction, searching for her.
“Gemma.” Her voice sounded so far away, and I started to run, my feet hitting the ground with a thud that echoed all around me. “Come find me.”