chapter 22
Gemma
I open my eyes and my knee instinctively shoots up along with my arm, ready to kick the ass of the creeper hovering over me.
“Easy, sweetheart,” Evan says, arching his eyebrows as he leans back with his hands surrendered in front of him. “There’s no need to get violent. I was checking to see if you were okay.”
I prop up onto my elbows, glancing to my sides, noting the pieces of glass everywhere. “Jesus, what happened?” I clutch my head, recollecting how the Sprites beat the crap out of me. “Are they still here… the Sprites?”
He shakes his head and motions at the black streaks on the walls and floor, the remnants of smoke and flames. “When I came in here, they were dragging you into the closet.” He points at the closet door, which is shut and there’s a large chest and dresser pushed against it. “I had to get them to let go of you, so I used a little Pyrokinesis and then locked them in the closet when they scattered and let you go.”
He offers me his hand, I take it and he lifts me to my feet.
“Are you okay?” he asks as I let go of his hand.
I wipe my sweaty palms on the front of my jeans. “Yeah, I’m fine. They didn’t hit me that hard.” I touch the side of my head and wince. “But I went into a vision… and… and let’s just say that it’s giving me more of a headache than the Sprites.”
He eyes me curiously. “So you can go into visions without the Crystal. Huh?” he muses, rubbing his jawline. “I thought that it might have been exaggerated.”
I shrug and sigh as I grab the knife I dropped. “Nope, it’s my gift and my curse.” Refastening the elastic around my hair, I walk towards the doorway, tucking the knife into my back pocket. “I need to go find Laylen and get ready to do this.”
He follows at my heels. “Do what?”
“Go to the Fey Realm.”
He grabs my shoulder, stopping me as I cross the threshold. “Gemma, I thought Alex didn’t want you going alone?”
I crane my neck and look over my shoulder at him. “Well, he’s not here right now, so he doesn’t really have a say... I know I’m right—it’s better for me to go alone. It’s less of a risk that way… less lives get put into danger.” I know I’m being cold, but if what I saw—him with Draven—him with that woman, is real, then I need to hurry up and start fixing things, so I can hurry up and fix him, too.
***
“I saw something bad,” I announce after I finish telling Laylen about the Sprites. “In a vision.”
He’s relaxed in a chair in front of the fireplace with his boots up on the table, the laces undone. However, his relaxed demeanor quickly shifts, when I utter the word vision. “Do I even want to know?”
I elevate my shoulders and then let them fall as I flop back into the chair. “Probably not, but I think I need to tell you…” I pick at my nails. “I saw Alex, only he wasn’t himself. He was weird and acting evil and he seemed like he was friends with Draven.”
Evan arches a brow as he positions his foot on his knee. “Friends with Draven?”
“It sounds crazy, but it’s what I saw,” I say. “And I also saw you, in a cage, and I think he was… I think he was trying to take your soul.”
Laylen gapes incredulously. “Is that what Draven wanted him for? To be his soul collector.”
“Or maybe he’s making him another Lord of the Afterlife,” Evan says.
“What?” Laylen and I exclaim simultaneously.
Evan shrugs, tracing the lines of a vine mark on the back of his hand. “Taking and collecting souls is how the Lord of the Afterlife gets his power and holds his position, so if Alex gets enough then—”
“Then he’ll be a Lord of the Afterlife, too,” I finish for him, then I stop breathing.