Chapter 32
“No. There’s no way,” Alex said, shaking his head. “It’s gotta be a mistake.”
We’d gone into the living room because the temperature had dipped so low that our butts were almost to the point of freezing off. Literally. He’d said about a thousand times that there was no way his dad could have forced my mom to get into the lake.
But I wasn’t buying it. I knew what I’d seen, and I knew it wasn’t a mistake—I’d seen the vision more than once. Not to mention the man kept showing up in my nightmares.
His face was practically engraved into my memory.
“It’s not a mistake,” I told him. “I know what I saw. I know it was him.”
He glared at me. “You don’t know that for sure.”
“Yeah, I do,” I assured him with confidence. “I’ve seen the vision twice.”
“But you were only able to see his face in one of them,” Alex pointed out. “So there’s a possibility that you might be mistaking him for someone else. I know my father would never do anything like that. Ever.”
Tell that to Laylen. “How can you be so sure?”
He stared at me, dumbfounded. “Because he’s my father.”
I chewed on my lip, mulling over my options here. Should I tell him about my dreams? If I did, I ran the risk of giving away too much information, and I still wasn’t sure if I trusted Alex. Even after we’d kissed. “You were there, you know? In the vision. There was a little boy with the same bright green eyes as you.” I wasn’t sure if I was right or not, it was just a guess. It made sense, though, when I thought about it. His bright green eyes and how he’d called Stephan his father.
“No. There’s no way,” he said firmly. “I’d be able to remember it happening if I was.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Perhaps your mind has been tampered with too.”
“No. There’s no way,” he repeated, but the firmness from his voice had slightly faded. He ran his fingers restlessly through his hair. “Look Gemma, maybe you saw it wrong. Maybe it was someone else who forced your mom to go into the lake. I mean Dyvinius said that you didn’t see the vision correctly the first time. Who’s to say you didn’t see correctly the second time either.”
I bit back my irritation the best I could. “I saw it correctly both times. The only problem with the first one was that I couldn’t see the peoples’ faces.” He still looked unconvinced, and it made me so angry that I kept going. “Besides, the vision isn’t the only time I’ve seen him.”
He blinked, looking lost. “What do you mean?”
“Well…” There was no backing out now. I’d already opened Pandora’s Box. “Before I learned anything about who I was, I was having these nightmares where I was being chased through the forest by the Death Walkers.”
“Yeah, I remember you mentioning that.” He sat down on the couch and rested his arms on his knees. “But what does that have to do with my father?”
“Because at the end of every dream, the Death Walkers capture me and a man appears and orders them to finish me off.” I sighed and sank down into the couch beside him. “The man in my nightmares had the same scar as your father.” His eyes widened as I continued, “And back at Laylen’s, when I was lying on the floor freezing to death, something happened to me—something similar to what happened to me back at the fieldtrip. I went into this vision, and there was a man and Demetrius chatting it up about how they’d gotten rid of some poor woman that was a Keeper.”
He gaped at me. “Hold on. So what you’re telling me is that you went into a vision without a crystal ball not once, but twice. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I did. At least, I did with the first one.”
“Yeah, but I just assumed that was some resurfacing memory or something. But if you’re seeing something that has Demetrius in it…” He let out a loud breath. “There’s no way that could be a memory. You’ve never seen him before.” Silence choked the air as he considered all of this. “How is it even possible for you to do that?” he muttered to himself. “How can you see a vision without a crystal ball? It’s just not possible.”
“When I asked you about it before, you said you weren’t sure if it was possible or not for someone to see a vision without a crystal ball,” I reminded him. “You even said that you may have heard of someone who could.”
He stared down at the floor, seriously contemplating what I’d said.
“Alex,” I said a little too loudly and he jumped. “That’s not important right now. What’s important is that this other man chatting it up with Demetrius had a scar on his cheek.”
He swallowed hard, looking…well, really, really vulnerable. I had to admit, I didn’t like how it looked on him. It made me feel anxious and had me questioning whether he was going to fall apart. He couldn’t fall apart. Not if his father was secretly working with Demetrius. And was the one who’d gotten rid of my mother. And was heading here right now.
“Look, I know this has to be hard to hear,” I said.
“Has to be hard to hear?” He laughed an unsettlingly kind of laugh. “What you’re telling me is that not only did my father send Jocelyn to The Underworld, but that he’s working with Demetrius.”
“I understand that it’s hard to hear, but do you think it wasn’t hard for me to watch my mother get sent to The Underworld?”
“Yeah, but you don’t even know her,” he mumbled.
“Hey.” I sprang from the couch and threw my hands on my hips. “That’s not fair. The only reason I don’t know her is because of you.”
“You can’t be right about my father,” he muttered, ignoring me. “There’s just no way.”
“If that were true, then how would I know all of this? What? Do you think I just made it all up or something?”
He shrugged. “How do I know? Maybe you did?”
I was fuming. “I’m not the one who’s a liar.”
He glared at me angrily.
I glared back just as angry.
I’m not sure how long our argument would’ve gone on—probably awhile—but I never got to find out because the air suddenly froze over with a deathly chill, and we both stopped talking.
Great. Not again.