Chapter 26
We drove to town in a black Jeep Wrangler, which by the layer of dust on the dashboard, had most likely been sitting out in the garage for quite awhile. The snow on the road was deep, and Alex had to drive incredibly 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?”
“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?”
“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 whitening 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, 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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?”
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 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?
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.”
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.”
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 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?”
“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.
“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 heartless, 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.”
“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 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.
And that was about the end of our little conversation, as well as our grocery shopping 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.
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 territorial 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.
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 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 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 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?”
For most of the drive back to the cabin, Alex and I stayed quiet. I was beginning to think this was how things would always be between us. Either we were biting each other’s heads off, or ignoring one another. I wasn’t sure which one I preferred. Neither really. I wished things could just be normal.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, Alex spoke.
“Can you please explain to me why you thought it was okay to talk to a complete stranger like that?” he asked, his voice sharp with anger.
“Excuse me,” I said incredulously. “It wasn’t my fault. I was just standing there, minding my own business, when he came up and started talking to me.”
“It was your fault.” He paused as he turned the Jeep around a sharp, slippery corner. “You should have just walked away.”
I forced my anger down the best I could. “I tried to leave, but he wouldn’t stop talking.”
“I don’t care if he wouldn’t stop talking. You should have walked off. Do you not understand how dangerous that could’ve ended up being if that guy wasn’t just some guy? ”
“Yeah, I understand that,” I grinded through my teeth. “But like I said, I tried to walk off, but he—”
He cut me off. “There are no buts. You should have left.”
He was being so irrational and difficult that, I swear, I could have slapped him. I clenched my hands into fist, telling myself to stay calm.
“And I thought I told you to put on some sunglasses.” He was practically yelling at me now.
“What the heck is your problem?” I snapped angrily.
“What the heck is your problem?” He bit back.
I glared at him. It was one thing for him to lecture me over something that was my fault. It was another thing for him to sit here and chew me out over a situation I’d had no control over. “Well, if you wouldn’t have been so busy flirting it up with that stupid cashier girl, then maybe you would have notice a little bit earlier what was going on.” Yeah, I regretted that one right after I said it. I sounded like a jealous girlfriend. But there was nothing I could do about it now, was there?
He gave me a funny look. “I wasn’t flirting with her. I was being polite. When a person talks to you, it’s rude not to talk back.”
“Whatever. It doesn’t matter to me whether you were flirting with her or not.” I folded my arms and turned my head toward the window. “I was just pointing out that if you’d been paying more attention, then you would have noticed a lot sooner that the guy had cornered me.”
“So it doesn’t matter to you at all whether I was flirting with that girl or not?”
“Nope.” I said, which was a huge lie since his flirting with her was what had caused me to wander off in the first place. But he didn’t need to know that. “You can flirt with whomever you want.”
“Yeah…I’m buying it. You don’t sound very convincing. In fact, you can’t even look at me when you say it.”
I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat. Then pulled myself together and look over at him. “I don’t care whether you were flirting with her or not.”
He locked eyes with me. “You don’t?”
“I don’t,” I said, unable to break my gaze away from his.
He raised his eyebrows. “Whatever you say.”
“I don’t.” My voice sounded strangely high. “I really don’t.”
He suppressed a smile as he pulled the Jeep into the driveway. His cocky attitude was really starting to get under my skin. He was so sure of himself; so convinced I had some big crush on him. Which I didn’t. I swear.
Oh, whatever.
As soon as he parked the Jeep inside the garage, I jumped out, preparing to storm inside but ended up slipping on a patch of ice. I had to grab onto the door handle to catch myself from falling on my butt. Regaining my balance, I slowly made my way into the house, not bothering to help Alex carrying in the groceries. I was too irked to care.
The moment I stepped into the living room, I knew something was off. The air felt heavy, putting my senses on high alert. I glanced around the room. Everything looked fine. The sliding back door was closed. The lights were off. I shook my head. Strange. This whole Death-Walker-trying-to-kill-me thing was making me paranoid.
I flipped the light on and started for the room where my bag of clothes was. I figured I’d go back there and take a nap. Some sleep might help me relax.
As I passed the kitchen, the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up.
“Hello Gemma,” said a soft and melodious voice.
I didn’t have to turn around to know who that voice belonged to. Nicholas—the creepy guy from the grocery store.
Before I could even attempt to run away, an arm caught me by the waist and jerked me backward. I opened my mouth to scream, but a hand came down over it, silencing me.
“Shhh.” Nicholas purred in my ear. “You don’t need to be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Yeah, he couldn’t have sounded less convincing if he’d tried.