Текст книги "The Fallen Star"

Автор книги: Jessica Sorensen

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

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I wasn’t exactly sure.

When I opened my eyes back up, I was in a different room that had dusty white sheets draped over all of the furniture. A grey and tan stone fireplace layered one of the walls, and the rest of them were made of logs.

Alex instantly let go of my waist. He’d been right. Holding on to me had kept me from falling.

Aislin relit the black candle. “I’ll be right back.”

Alex took me by the arm and guided me away from her. “Hurry, please,” he told her in an anxious voice.

She gave him a small smile and plunged the crystal into the flame. “Per is calx EGO

lux lucis via,” she said. This time she disappeared quickly. Maybe because it was just her?

I dropped my bag on the floor and sat down on a marble step that extended out 527/695

from the fireplace. Alex sat down too.

Neither of us spoke as we waited for Aislin and Laylen to return. We waited. And waited. About ten minutes ticked by, and Alex got to his feet and started pacing back and forth across room. I kept my eyes glued to the spot where Aislin had vanished from and chewed on my fingernails, which was so weird since it hadn't been a previous habit of mine.

An old grandfather clock towering in the corner struck the hour of ten, devastatingly announcing that way too much time had gone by. They should have been here by now.

Alex stopped pacing and stared vacantly at the clock.

I hated to say it—I hated to even think it—but I had to know. “They're not coming back, are they?”

With the most heart wrenching look on his face he said, “No, I don’t think they are.” Chapter 25

I’d been sitting on the foot of the fireplace, watching Alex tug sheets off of the furniture, for about fifteen minutes now. I think it was his way of trying to distract himself from the fact that something terrible may have happened to Laylen and Aislin. He’d tried to call them but couldn’t get a signal on his phone from all the way up here. I wasn’t sure where “all the way up here” was, because he hadn’t established that yet.

I hadn’t said anything to him because I had no idea what to say. I could have tried to be positive and tell him reassuring things like, hey, maybe Aislin had just broken her crystal again. But who would I be trying to kid? We both knew there was a slim to none 529/695

chance that was the case. We just weren’t that lucky. Obviously.

“So…” I began, still in the middle of deciding what to say. “What is this place, anyway?”

He yanked a sheet off of a forest green couch that had tiny moose embroider on it.

“It’s a cabin I used to come to when I was little.” He drew a sheet off of a lamp and dust flew everywhere.

I sneezed. “So what do we do now?”

“We’re going to drive into town so I can get a signal on my phone.” He unzipped his duffel bag. “Then we’ll try and get a hold of someone.”

I bit at my fingernails. Yeah, I was still doing that. “So where exactly are we?” He nodded at a window masked by a curtain.

“In the middle of nowhere, basically.”

“The middle of nowhere.” I stood up, went over to the window, and threw back the 530/695

curtain. Then I grimaced. Steep mountains and pine trees everywhere. And yes, of course, a thick blanket of crisp white snow was covering it all.

“Yuck,” I muttered and let the curtain fall. Why, oh why, couldn’t we have gone somewhere warm? Like say Hawaii.

I

sighed. Man, I sounded like a selfish brat; complaining about being in the snow, when Laylen and Aislin could be in some serious trouble. Okay, suck it up Gemma.“So where is here? What’s the place called?”

“We’re in Colorado.” He looked up from his bag and raised an eyebrow. “What’s with the disappointment?”

“Oh nothing.” I sighed. Apparently, I’d failed miserably at sucking it up. “I just really hate the snow. That’s all.”

“Oh, yes, you and the cold,” he remarked as he drew a tan hooded jacket out of his bag.

I picked up my bag from off of the floor.

“So is there somewhere I can change?” I 531/695

really wanted to get out of this skirt and into my own clothes.

“Yeah, follow me.”

He took me back to a bedroom with light blue wallpaper and grey carpet, and then he left me alone to change.

I set my bag down on a massive log bed and started searching through it for something to wear. Fortunately, I wasn’t a girl who was really into fashion because I was pretty sure whoever packed this mess of a bag was in a hurry. Everything in it was so random; two mismatched gloves, three different socks, and one boot. I decided on a pair of black jeans and a grey and black striped hooded Henley. I kept my DC’s on because…well, what good was one boot.

After I’d finished getting dressed, I realized how heavy my eyelids felt. I’d barely gotten any sleep over the last twenty-four hours, and I think I might have been running 532/695

on an adrenaline high or something and was now starting to crash.

There wasn’t a blanket or sheet on the bed, just a mattress. Even though it was kind of gross, I thought about lying down on it and letting my eyes close for a few minutes.

But then I thought of Ailsin and Laylen and told myself to suck it up.

Now wasn’t the time for sleeping.

I opened the door, only to find Alex standing there on the other side. He scared the crap out of me, and I almost bolted off in a mad sprint.

“Holy crap,” I said, catching my breath.

“You scared the heck out of me.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” he said, his voice cautious, but I didn’t know why.

He’d put on the tan hooded jacket and a black baseball hat. He looked perfect. He always looked perfect. There was no use trying to deny it.

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He scaled me over from head to toe. “We need to get you some kind of disguise in case we run into trouble.”

I fidgeted with the edge of my shirt.

“What kind of trouble?”

“The same kind we’ve been running in-to.” He sighed tiredly. “The Death Walkers are going to be all over the place now that they’ve discovered you.”

I sighed. “Okay, so what do you want me to do?” I pointed at my bag of clothes. “Because there’s not a whole lot in there.”

“Yeah, I think Aislin basically just dumped a drawer of your clothes in it.”

“And then added one boot?” He scrunched his forehead. “Huh?” I shook my head. “Nothing. Never mind….So yeah, I don’t think I have anything very disguise-like.” I paused and pulled my hood over my head. “Does this work?” He gave me a doubtful look.

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Oh, don’t you give me that look too. I wasn’t some secret agent/master of disguise who could create a new identity out of some string and tape, so cut me some slack, would you?

He ran his hand over his face and sighed.

“Well, I guess it’ll have to work. Do you at least have some sunglasses to cover those up?” He pointed at my eyes.

“No, I don’t have any—hey, I thought you said you liked the color of my eyes. You said it was a nice different.”

“I wasn’t saying that to be mean. There just aren’t a whole lot of people walking around with violet eyes. It’ll give you away.” He zipped up his jacket. “And I do like the color of your eyes. They reminded me of these flowers you used to pick and bring back home when you were….” He trailed off, his bright green eyes widening.

“When I what?” I pressed.

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He cleared his throat. “Nothing. It wasn’t important. Let’s go.” He turned his back on me and started down the hall.

“What? Were you going to tell me some story about when I was four years old and not living with Marco and Sophia?” I called out, chasing after him.

His froze. “Who told you that?”

“Laylen.”

He said nothing and went into the living room.

I followed after him. “What? You don’t have anything to say?”

“Gemma, I don’t have time for this right now.” He opened up the door that led out to the garage. “We need to get to town.” He was right, but this was sooo not over.

Chapter 26

We drove to town in a black Jeep Wran-gler, which by the layer of dust on the dash-board, had most likely been sitting out in the garage for quite awhile. The snow on the road was deep, and Alex had to drive incred-ibly slow, otherwise we’d probably end up sliding off the road and crashing down the hill.

I’d come up with this brilliant plan to try and catch some zzz’s during the drive, but the second my eyelids close, Alex decided it was chat time.

“So what else did Laylen tell you?” he asked.

I slowly opened my eyes. “What do you mean?”

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“Well, he told you about how you weren’t really one when you moved in with Marco and Sophia.” He practically bit at the words, which made me feel bad…for Laylen. If and when Laylen returned, Alex was probably going to rip into him for telling me. “I’m just curious what else he told you.”

“Nothing really,” I lied. I wasn’t going to get Laylen into anymore trouble. My lips were sealed.

Alex slipped me a sideways glance. “He told you nothing else at all?” I shook my head, acting as cool as the snow on the roads. “Nope.” He shot me a skeptical look. “Yeah, I’m not buying it.”

I shrugged. “Well, it’s the truth.”

“So then what did you two talk about while Aislin and I were gone?” he asked. “I mean, we were gone for at least an hour. So what did you two do?”

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“I don’t know.” It felt like I was walking into a trap or something, so I had to make sure I chose my words very carefully. “Sat around. Ate. Almost got frozen to death by a bunch of murderous Death Walkers. You know the usual.”

“And you didn’t talk at all?”

“Not really…I mean, we did a little, but it was mostly about him.”

He shook his head, his knuckles whiten-ing as his grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Fine, Gemma. Don’t tell me.” Okay, I won’t.Why would I? Laylen had been very specific about Alex’s lack of understanding, so what good would it do to tell him what I’d learned about my mother—about me. It would do no good. That’s what it would do. Alex would just end up getting mad and taking it out on Laylen and me.

Alex rounded a sharp corner and a town rose into view. Log cabins dotted the snowy hills. Trees canopied the yards. I frowned, 539/695

thinking of Nevada’s golden desert sand and delicious warm air, which also made me think of Aislin and Laylen. Were they alright? Or had something bad happened to them? Had the Death Walkers gotten them?

After all, the Death Walkers had come close to killing me on more than one occasion. I shuddered, remembering how it felt when the cold was sucking the life from my body; the helplessness I’d felt lying paralyzed on the floor; the vision thingy I’d been pulled into right afterwards. The vision. Through all of the chaos, I’d completely forgotten about it. How could I forget about something so important? I mean, this man with the scar—the Keeper—I had to know him somehow, otherwise why would I have dreamt about him. From what I’d picked up on in the vision, he might have had something to do with my mother’s disappearance, and why I’d spent most of my life emotionless. I had to find out who he was. I knew he was a 540/695

Keeper. A traitor Keeper. But that was it. I had to figure it out.

Somehow.

Another huge question I had was why did I keep slipping into the vision things? I hadn’t touched a Crystal Ball or anything when I’d witness the Keeper and Demetrius chatting it up, just like I hadn’t when I’d been pulled away back at the telescope and saw the mother and daughter walking in the field. The daughter who might possibly be me since the mother had called her Gemma.

If this was the case—if the daughter was me—than the vision had to be from the past.

But the question was, why couldn’t I remember it actually happening? If it had already taken place, I should have some memory of it, right?

Ah! I was so confused.

I pitter-pattered through my thoughts, trying to make sense of everything, but ended up feeling more lost than ever. Which 541/695

was saying a lot since I always felt lost. There was only one way I could think of to get some answers to my endless list of questions. But whether he’d tell me the truth or not, who knew? I at least had to try, though.

“Alex,” I said so abruptly it made him jump.

“What?” he asked breathlessly.

I ignored the warning in my gut begging me not to ask. “Is it possible to see a vision without a Foreseer’s crystal ball?” He gave me a funny look. “Why do you ask?”

I shrugged. “I was just wondering.” He thought about it for a second. “I don’t know… I think there might have been one Foreseer who was powerful enough to do it, but I don’t know anything about him.” Oddly enough, he actually sounded like he was telling the truth. “Oh. Okay.” I turned and looked out the window, thinking about the woman and daughter in 542/695

the field; the horrible scene I’d witnessed at the lake; the Keeper and Demetrius’s discussion about the woman that they’d conveniently made disappear, and the girl who they’d said needed to be kept away from humanity. They had to have been talking about my mother and me. They just had to. Either that, or there was another poor unemotional girl roaming around the world somewhere.

God, this was some heavy stuff. I really needed some answers. What I needed was Laylen. He’d help me figure all this out.

Alex stopped the Jeep at a stop sign. “Do you think you saw a vision without a crystal ball?”

“Huh?” How was I supposed to answer?

With the truth? My gut instinct told me not to. “No, I was just curious. That’s all.” He stared at me, his bright green eyes weighing heavily on me, causing the intensity of the electricity to spark up. “Gemma, it feels like you’re keeping something from me.

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Are you? Because if you are, whatever it is, you can tell me.”

I’d have liked to have been able to tell him, but I was afraid he’d just freak out. I had to tell someone, though. It was important. And since he was the only one here… “I don’t know…Well, it’s just that back at Laylen’s house I thought—” Alex’s phone rang, interrupting me. He slid his phone out of the pocket of his jeans, and relief swept across his face as he glanced at the screen. “It’s Stephan,” he said, then answered it.

I could hear Stephan’s voice murmuring on the other end. Alex pulled out onto the main road, and we drove by a sign welcoming us to Mountain View, Population 523.

Wow. A town smaller than Afton. Who’d have thought?

“Yeah, hold on,” Alex said into the phone. He parked the Jeep on the side of the road, in front of a cedar-sided house that had 544/695

a giant sculpture of a moose decorating the yard.

“What are we doing here?” I asked, but he was already climbing out of the car. “Stay here,” he told me and slammed the door shut.

He didn’t head toward the house. He walked around to the back of the Jeep and stood there with the phone pressed to his ear.

Obviously,

they

were

discussing

something that they didn’t want me to hear.

That meant I needed to hear it, right? I mean, it could be something important.

Maybe something about me. Oh no. What if they were making a plan to remove my emotions again?

One good thing about an old Jeep is that the windows aren’t automatic. This allowed me to crack the window without all the noisy buzzing pressing a button would have brought on. I leaned my head toward the 545/695

window and tried to listen, but Alex had left the engine running and I could hardly hear a thing. I eased the window down a sliver more, and put my ear up to the opening, the cold air biting at my skin.

“Well, what do you want me to do until then?” I heard Alex saying. A pause and then, “I know, but she’s growing suspicious.

You don’t know how she is…She asks a lot of questions.” Another pause, this time longer.

“I know, but it’s hard for me to do that with her. She just…I just can’t…I don’t know. I have a hard time lying to her.” Well, that was news to me. Not the lying part—I already knew he was a liar—but the part about him having a hard time lying to me. That was a shocker, and, hey, maybe I could use it to my advantage.

“Alright, fine. I’ll see you in a bit,” Alex said.

I had very little time to react to the “see you in a bit” part. I fumbled to roll the 546/695

window back up and barely got it up in time, my hand dropping from the handle right as Alex opened the door.

All I could do was pray he hadn’t seen me.

“Stephan’s on his way,” he told me, slamming the door closed. “He’ll be here in a bit.”

Oh, yippy, I thought sarcastically. “Oh yeah.”

He pulled the Jeep back onto the road.

“Yeah. Marco and Sophia are with him, and he said that Laylen and Aislin are alright.” I’d have felt relieved except for the sick feeling in my stomach, warning me that it was a bunch of crap. It was Stephan we were talking about, and Laylen had warned me not to trust him.

“So we should probably get some food,” Alex said, turning into a parking lot belonging to a brick building that had a huge sign that read Edmunds Grocery’s. “Then we’ll go 547/695

back to the cabin so we’ll be there when everyone shows up.”

“So where are Aislin and Laylen,” I asked. “I mean, why did they never transport back?”

“Stephan said that he sent them on an errand,” he said, not really answering my question.

“What kind of an errand?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral, not wanting to let on that I was suspicious.

“I don’t know—he didn’t say.” He parked the Jeep and shut the engine off, then turned in his seat so he was facing me. “Gemma, what exactly is it your getting at here?” I shrugged. “I wasn’t getting at anything.

I was just wondering where they were. That’s all.”

He studied my face over warily. “No, that’s not all….Okay, what did Laylen tell you?”

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I unbuckled my seatbelt. “I already told you, we didn’t talking about anything really.” He kept his eyes on me. Despite my urge to hover back, I stayed where I was and kept my face expressionless. I don’t know what he was expecting—me to breakdown and pour my heart and soul out to him. But finally, he gave up on whatever it was he was trying to achieve, took the keys out of the ignition, and opened up the door. “Let’s go.” Okay, so I know this is going to sound totally weird, but I’ve never actually been inside a grocery store before. No, I’m not kidding you. All through my childhood, Sophia and Marco rarely took me anywhere and never to a grocery store. So strolling through a store full of food was a whole new experience for me.

But I wasn’t basking in the it’s-like-I’m-a-real-person experience. No. I was too distracted. The whole vision thing was really 549/695

bugging me. I wanted to piece everything together. Every ounce of my body was telling me I had to.

And fast.

And there was also something else troubling me. The whole Marco, Sophia, and Stephan are-on-their-way thing. It wasn’t just my lack of enthusiasm that was troubling me either. No. It was that there were so many holes in the story Stephan had told Alex. Like for instance, why hadn’t anyone answered their phones during the millions of times Alex had tried to call them? Another thing, why did Alex have to get out of the Jeep to talk to Stephan? I hadn’t heard anything suspicious during my eavesdropping investigation. However, I couldn’t hear what was being said on the other end of the phone either. The only thing I’d really heard—and it only seemed semi-important—was that Alex had a difficult time lying to me.

I know. Who’d have guessed, right?

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Maybe I could use this information to my advantage. If Alex had a hard time lying to me, then perhaps, if I asked him enough questions, he just might let something slip out that he didn’t want me to know.

As we roamed up the snack aisle, I put on my best poker face. Well, here goes nothing. “So…I have a question.” Alex stopped pushing the cart to eye over the selection of granola bars. “Okay…what’s your question?”

Okay, so another thing I might have going for me here was that he seemed distracted. “Where were Marco, Sophia, and Stephan when you couldn’t get a hold of them?”

He selected a box of granola bars and dropped it in the cart. “They were up at a lodge in Jackson. I guess their car got stuck or something and they ended up having to stay longer than they expected to.” 551/695

There was so many things wrong with his answer. “Yeah, but why didn’t they answer their phones?”

He motioned behind me where the chips were. “Grab a bag of Doritos, would you?” I snatched one up and tossed it in the cart.

“Because you know how it is up there,” he said, inching the cart forward again.

I shook my head. “No. How is it up there?”

“Well, the phone service is really crappy.

There are just too many mountains or something, and most of the time you can’t get a signal.” He arched an eyebrow at me.

“Haven’t you ever tried to call anyone up there before?”

I

gave

him

a

you-have-got-to-be-

kidding-me look. “Let me think.” I tapped my finger on my lip. “Since calling people usually requires having someone to call, I’d say no, I don’t know how it is.” 552/695

He stopped pushing the cart abruptly, looking completely taken off-guard. A little sad even. And perhaps…wait a minute…hold on…guilty.

It occurred to me that my snide remarks were probably not the best way to get him to open up and tell me the truth. “Sorry,” I apologized, starting down the aisle again.

He followed, the wheels of the cart squeaking with every turn.

“So what happened after they got back and realized what was going on?” I asked, sidestepping around a cupcake display that was smack dab in the middle of the aisle.

He paused at the soda section. “They headed straight to Vegas. And they made it there just in time to stop Laylen and Aislin from getting killed. I guess when Aislin trans—” He stopped talking as a middle-aged woman with overly-bleached hair walked by us. A Death Walker in disguise perhaps.

Yeah, I don’t think so. “After Aislin went 553/695

back to get Laylen,” he continued on after the woman had disappeared around the corner of the aisle, “more Death Walkers showed up. There was this huge mess, and I guess she ended up breaking her crystal.” He grabbed a twelve pack of Coke and set in down in the cart.

If what he’d just told me had been a story in a book, it would’ve been the part where everything seemed to play out a little too perfectly. “So Marco, Sophia, and Stephan just, what? Showed up and saved the day?”

“Yeah, basically.” He picked up a loaf of bread from off of a shelf. “Stephan’s very good at the whole rescue thing. He has a gift for it.”

I chose to ignore that comment. “So why didn’t Stephan ever call you?” He reached for a box of cereal, then pulled back, glancing over his shoulder at me. “What do you mean?”

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“When they were making the, like, eight hour drive to Vegas. Seems like plenty of time to call and give a heads up that they were on their way, if you ask me.”

“I don’t know…maybe because they were in a hurry.” He started to push the cart again, but quickly slammed on the brakes and spun around. “Gemma, what exactly is it you’re getting at?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know…I was just trying to point out the obvious, I guess. I mean, don’t you think it’s just a little bit strange that they didn’t call right when they’d figure out what was going on?”

He scowled at me. “What did Laylen tell you?”

“I already told you, nothing.”

“Then what the hell’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

My plan was going so well….Not.

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“Just so you know,” he growled, “most of Laylen’s bitterness towards my father comes from fact that he made Laylen give up his position as a Keeper after he was turned into a vampire.”

“Stephan forced him to leave?” I asked, astounded.

“Well, we really couldn’t let him stay a Keeper when Keepers are the ones who are supposed to be protecting people from vampires.” He turned around and started pushing the cart down the aisle again.

It sounded completely cruel and heart-less, if you asked me. How could they kick him out just because he was a vampire, especially when he wasn’t evil? “That sounds really harsh.”

“Yeah, it is,” he said in a flat tone. “But that’s the way things have to be in order to do what’s right.”

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“Do you really believe that?” I asked. “Or are you just repeating someone else’s words.” Like say, hmm…your fathers.

He whirled around again, his eyes burning with fury. “Isn’t that what you’re doing right now—repeating Laylen’s words.”

“Well, Laylen’s words are the only truthful ones I’ve heard in the last fourteen years,” I snapped wildly with anger. So much for keeping calm.

“And how do you know that for sure.” He glared. “You’ve only known him for, like, a day.”

“What’s knowing someone for a certain amount of time got to do with whether or not they tell the truth? I’ve known you for, like, a month, and Marco and Sophia for, like, seventeen years.” I held up my hands in front of me, my voice dripping with bitterness. “Oh no, wait, I mean fourteen years.” We were standing so close to each other now that I could feel the warmth of his 557/695

breath against my cheeks. Electricity was rushing passionately through my veins. Alex opened his mouth, about to snap something back at me, but clamped it back shut as his gaze wandered over my shoulder.

I turned around and then cringed. I wasn’t sure how loud we’d been arguing, but apparently pretty loud because we’d drawn in an audience. At the end of the aisle, watching us with wide eyes and a curious expression was a teenage boy wearing a yellow Edmunds Grocery’s apron. The middle-aged woman that had passed by us earlier also stood there, staring at us, along with a younger girl that had fiery red hair.

“Whoops,” I muttered, turning back to Alex.

He gave me a yeah-no-kidding look, took me by the arm, and guided me down the aisle in the opposite direction as our little audience, pushing the cart along with us.

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And that was about the end of our little conversation, as well as our grocery shop-ping expedition. Alex grabbed a few more things then headed to the checkout stand.

Neither one of us said anything. I could tell he was still mad, but so was I. I was bummed out too, because I hadn’t gotten a single useful thing out of him. In fact, I think I ended up even more confused than I already had been before I’d started my questioning. It’s a good thing I wasn’t planning on going into a career as a detective, because I really sucked at the interrogation thing.

At the checkout stand, I helped Alex empty out the cart onto the conveyer belt.

Then we waited as the cashier—a perky blonde

girl

wearing

too

much

makeup—scanned each item. She kept batting her eyelashes at Alex, then started babbling to him about her job being a total drag, all while throwing in the occasional giggle and hair flip.

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She was totally flirting with him.

It sucked.

As much as I hated to admit it, I was jealous of her flawless flirting ability that I so did not possess. The last and final straw was when Alex flashed an award winning smile at her, leaned over the counter, and started flirting back. I almost lost it. Yeah, I know, I had no claim over him, and I was supposed to be mad. And I was. But when you feel some unexplained, intense, electricity thingy every time you’re around a guy, being territ-orial is kind of a given.

To

avoid

watching

the

painful

scene—and also to avoid doing something really, really stupid—I wandered over to a nearby magazine stand and distracted myself by reading through the headlines. I hated this. I wished my life was normal. Why couldn’t my life be normal? Oh yeah, because I wasn’t.

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I picked up a magazine and flipped to the page with an article titled “The Top 10

Greatest Hits of All Time.” Most of the songs were totally old school, but I appreciated the distraction.

“Interesting read?” A stranger’s voice, soft and melodious like velvet, floated over my shoulder.

I instantly put my guard up as I slowly turned around. Standing a little too close for comfort was a guy probably a few years older than me with sandy blonde hair and eyes as gold as the desert sand. Immediately, I sensed something was off about him but couldn’t place exactly what.

He smiled, flashing a set of perfectly straight, white teeth. “Hi. I didn’t mean to scare you or anything. I just haven’t seen you around here before. Are you new here?”

“Umm…yeah.” I said guardedly. It was so bizarre. People hardly ever approached 561/695

me like this. In fact, no one ever approached me.

Unsure of what to do, and figuring Alex would freak if he saw me talking to someone, I set the magazine down on the rack and started to walk away.

“So are you just visiting someone then?” he asked, halting my getaway.

How should I answer his question?

“Yeah…I’m just visiting.” He paused, seeming like he was choosing his next words carefully. “My name is Nicholas. And you are?”

“Gemma,” I replied automatically, and then realized I probably shouldn’t have told a complete stranger my real name. I mean, who knew who this guy really was? Yeah, he could be just some guy from Mountain View, Colorado. But he could be something else.

“Gemma. That’s a pretty name.” He brushed a strand of his sandy blonde hair out of his eyes, and the sleeve of his navy blue 562/695

shirt slipped up just enough for me to catch a glimpse of a tattoo on his wrist; a black S

wrapped by a small circle.

Just a tattoo?

I wasn’t sure.

My instincts told me to get away from him, so I forced a smile and started to walk away again. “I gotta go.” He stepped in front of me and nodded in the direction of where Alex stood, still chatting it up with Check Out Girl. “Is that your boyfriend over there?”

My pulse sped up. I was starting to get nervous. “No.”

His mouth curled into a smile that sent a shiver down my spine. And not the good kind of shiver either. “Well, if that’s not your boyfriend then maybe you and I could go out sometime.”

Yeah, like he really wanted to go out with me. I’d have laughed if I hadn’t been so freaking terrified. Something wasn’t right 563/695

here. The guy was showing way too much interest in me. And that questionable tattoo on his wrist….I needed to go. Now.

I moved to go around him. “Look, I really have to—”

Alex suddenly appeared by my side, and I felt a rush of relief sweep across my rattled nerves. “Ready to go.”

“Yes,” I said, wanting to get the heck out of here and away from this guy. “Let’s go.” As Alex pulled me toward the exit doors, I thought I heard Nicholas muttered, “Not your boyfriend, huh?”