Текст книги "The Underworld"

Автор книги: Jessica Sorensen

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43 The

Underworld

Jessica Sorensen

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2011 by Jessica Sorensen.

First Paperback Edition: July 2011

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the permission in writing from author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

For information:

http://jessicasorensensblog.blogspot.com/

Cover Photo by Shutterstock

Cover Design Jeanie Malone

The Underworld—Book 2 of Fallen Star Series 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, coll aborating with the Death Walkers and quite possibly with Demetrius, a man who wants 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 know 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 opened 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 down 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 where 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, 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. “Dam—” 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 happened 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 over 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 a bright blue.

The dark red shade of his lips with a silver ring looped through the bottom. The mark of immortality tattooing 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 casted 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 on 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 gave 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 beaded 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 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 stars 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 bit sharp and was 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 stars 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 over 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? Stephan, I mean. 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 the palm of his hand.

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?”

“I…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.