The Underworld

Chapter 6


It was so cold. As cold as death. Was I dead?

My eyes fluttered opened. I was lying down on a floor, the wood flooring cold against my cheek. I slowly sat up and gazed at my surroundings. Where was I?

A cabin. Not the cabin in Colorado. No, this was a different cabin; a much smaller one with no furniture, no fireplace, no nothing.

I got to my feet and made my way over to the window and tried not to flip out when I noticed it had bars on it. Trapped.

“What in the world?” I muttered to myself.

A bang came from behind me and I whirled around, coming face to face with myself. Not the younger version of myself, but the actual eighteen-year-old Gemma.

So I was in a future vision, at least I think I was. This brought no sense of comfort to me, especially since I had no idea where this place was, and also because…well, because, in the vision, my violet eyes looked drained of all emotion.

I watched myself lie down on the floor and curl up into a tiny ball. Then, I just lay there, silent and unblinking. Numb.

What was going on? Had my emotions been erased? Was this actually where I was going to end up?

A surge of fear pulsated through me, and I took off running for one of the two doors the small room had and threw it open. It was a bathroom. I turned around, ran for the other door, and with a lot of effort, shoved it open.

My heart stopped.

Miles and miles of snow-covered mountains, trees poking out of them like little tepee’s. And the log cabin I stood in was smack dab in the middle of it all, secluded from all civilization, for as far as I could see.

I turned around and looked at myself curled up on the hardwood floor. How had I ended up like this? And what was wrong with me? I had an idea, but before I could look around and try to figure out more, an icy gust of wind swept up, and I was blown back, falling into the darkness.

When I opened my eyes, it took my brain a second to process that I was lying on warm asphalt, with a very dim lamppost shining down on me. And that Laylen was kneeling next to me.

“Are you okay?” he asked worriedly.

I gradually sat up, my neck burning with my every movement. “Ahh,” I winced, reaching for my neck.

Then winced again from the pain my touch brought on.

“Easy,” Laylen said, his voice soothing. “It’s going to hurt for a little bit.”

“What’s going to hurt?” I asked, and then I remembered I’d been bitten by a vampire. I began to panic.

Laylen must have seen the panic in my eyes too, because he said, “You’ll be okay, Gemma. The fogginess will wear off in awhile. The actual bite, though, will take a few days to heal.” I started to get to my feet, but the world started spinning. I almost collapsed back to the ground, but Laylen caught me by the arm.

“You’re going to have to take it easy,” he told me, holding me steady. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.” Well, that explained the wooziness. “I think I might be sick.”

“That’ll wear off in a little while too.” I lightly touched my neck, the skin burning beneath my fingers. “How did we get out of that place?” I asked, because my memory was missing some pieces of what just occurred. In fact, the only thing I could remember clearly was the vision I’d just gone in, and how my eyes in the vision had looked so empty. I wondered if it meant it would actually happen to me—

if I would end up at the cabin that way. The thought was scary.

“Well, by the time we made it out into the bar area, you’d fainted,” Laylen said. “Luckily I caught you before you hit the floor.”

Yeah, I guess that could be considered lucky. But everything else…hmm…not so much.

“So you what?” I asked. “Just carried me out and ran? How did we not get caught?”

“We were lucky we didn’t.” He started to walk, guiding me along with him. “But I think we need to get back to the house before someone realizes I killed Vladislav.”

Good idea.



We headed across an empty parking lot, making sure to stay in the shadows.

“So how much trouble are you going to be in for staking Vladislav?” I asked, gripping onto Laylen’s arms as I was rushed by a spout of dizziness.

He shrugged, but I felt him speed up. “We need to get back to the house and out of sight for awhile.

Eventually, it’ll be forgotten, but I probably won’t be able to show my face in the vampire world again.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked him, carefully maneuvering over a pot hole.

He shrugged. “I don’t know…it wasn’t like I completely enjoyed being around other vampires. But they were the only ones who didn’t judge me for being a vampire.”

His voice was sad and it made my heart hurt for him. “So what do you do then?” I asked “Just wait it out until the vampires do what? Decide they’re over it?”

We turned down an all eyway, tucking ourselves into the dark and out of sight.

“I’m going to have to lie low for awhile,” he said, dodging us around a stack of wooden crates.

Lay low for a while. Wasn’t that what we’d already been doing, to keep me away from Stephan and the Death Walkers? But now I guess vampires were going to have to be added to the “Who We Were Hiding From Now list.” Jeez, if it kept up, every evil creature was going to be after us.

“So what about my mom,” I said to Laylen as we squeezed past a dumpster, the air smelling like rotten eggs mixed with old bananas. “Do you think Vladislav was telling the truth and that she’s still alive?”

“Yeah, I do,” he said sounding absolutely certain.

We reached a tall chain link fence with no way around it. At least that was what I thought. But then Laylen reached down and pulled on the bottom of it until the metal links snapped and he was able to lift up the fence high enough for me to scoot underneath it.

Then he ducked under himself and let the fence go with a clank.

“Vampires have this connection with each other that allows us to sense if the other one’s lying,” he told me as we stepped out onto a sidewalk and back underneath the lights of the lampposts. “I knew from the beginning that Vladislav was going to tell us the truth.”

“You can tell if each other are lying.” Wow. It was like he had his own little lie detector built into him. Too bad it didn’t work on beautiful, bright green-eyed, Keepers. “Although Vladislav never did get around to saying how we can get my mom out of The Underworld.”

“I have a hunch….though,” he said as Adessa’s red brick building came into view, “that there just might be someone else that we can talk to about getting her out of there. And maybe now that we know Jocelyn is alive, he might be more on board with rescuing her.” I tilted my head to the side, confused as I looked up at him. “Who?”

“Alex,” he said.

The gravel speckling the parking lot crunched underneath our shoes, filling up the silence. I stared at Laylen like he had to be joking, but then he met my eyes, and I realized he was absolutely, one-hundred percent serious.

“You think Alex knows how to get my mom out of The Underworld,” I said, making sure that’s what we were talking about here. Because I had talked to Alex about my mother before and whether or not she could still be alive, and he had said there was a slim chance that she could be. Never did he ever mention that there was a way to get people out of The Underworld.

Yeah, he might not have known my mom was alive—

although I wouldn’t put it past him if he did—but if he knew a way to rescue someone from The Underworld, he should have said so. But I guess this was Alex, so why was I so surprised.

“ H e might know something,” Laylen stressed.

“Since Stephan’s his father and was the one who was in charge of sentencing people to The Underworld, he may have told Alex a way to get down there without being yanked down through the lake."

“So you don’t know for sure if he does.” I frowned, disappointed. “You’re just guessing.”

He nodded. “But I think for now, he’s probably our best bet…because I think I just eliminated all of my other options.”

“If we can get the truth out of him,” I muttered.

Laylen nodded in agreement. Honestly, though, I wondered if telling Alex what we had found out tonight would do more bad than good. I mean, for one thing that would require us to explain to him how we received the information, which in turn would result in a full on freak out on Alex’s part. And most of his freak out would probably be directed at Laylen. I knew Laylen could deal with it and everything, but it didn’t mean he should have to. He already helped me out enough, so why make him pay more.

Besides, I wasn’t sure if Alex could be trusted still.

His story of what had happened back at the cabin seemed off. For all I knew what really could have happened was that the memory erasing rock couldn’t erase my memory and so Stephan had put Alex in charge to keep an eye on me until he found an alternative way to extract my memory.

As I went back and forth with what I thought we should do with the “telling Alex dilemma,” a set of headlights flashed across the parking lot, and Laylen quickly hid us behind a black Mazda. A car pulled into the parking lot and parked. Then two people climbed out of the car; a short, round man and a thin, tall woman wearing neon pink high heels that clicked loudly against the ground as the two of them walked toward a tan brick building that was right next to Adessa’s house.

“Are they vampires?” I whispered to Laylen.

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so...” We waited until the people had disappeared around the corner of the building before stepping out from behind the Mazda. We made the rest of the walk hurriedly. The rest of our conversation consisted of creating a plan for what we should tell everyone happened to my neck, because I was sure they were going to ask. Laylen insisted that we should just blame the bite on him, since Alex was probably going to accuse him of it anyway. I thought this was a ridiculous idea, and told him we didn’t need to tell Alex anything, and that I would just wear a turtle neck or something. But then I realized that wearing a turtle neck in the scorching hot desert would look a little bit suspicious

So that problem just hung in the air.

It was when we reached Adessa’s that we both realized we had another problem. One that needed to be dealt with really fast.

During our little jumping-out-of-the-building thing, it never had occurred to either one of us that getting back up might be a little tricky. So we just stood there, staring up at the window we’d jumped out of, trying to come up with some kind of solution.

“Maybe there’s a fire escape somewhere?” I suggested.

He shook his head. “I don’t think there is.” In the distances, dogs were howling like crazy, and I saw Laylen tense up as he glanced around apprehensively. When the dogs stopped howling, he shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh. Then he kicked a plastic bottle that was on the ground and it whipped up in the air and thumped against the side of the brick building.

“Dammit,” he cursed noisily, and now I was the one glancing around apprehensively.

“Laylen,” I whispered. “You need to be a little quieter or someone’s going to hear us.” He ran his fingers through his blond hair, and I was sensing that a meltdown was about to take place.

“Who cares. I’m already screwed anyway.”

“Why are you screwed? Because you staked Vladislav? I thought you said you just had to lay low for awhile and it would pass over,” I said.

He looked at me gravely. “Gemma, I didn’t just stake Vladislav. I staked Vladislav, one of the oldest vampires.”

“So is that worse than staking a young vampire?” I asked.

He stared at me, not answering, and I suddenly grasped that he was in more trouble than he first let on.

“Laylen, you shouldn’t have let me go with you.” I told him, guilt choking up inside me.

“It was your choice, Gemma,” he said. “You should be able to choose what you want to do.”

“Well, I think I picked the wrong one.” I swallowed hard. “I’m really sor…” I stopped as a spark of electricity coiled up my spine. “Ah crap.”

“What’s the matter?” Laylen asked, his eyebrows dipping down.

Before I could tell him what was up, or try to find a place for us to hide, Laylen’s gaze darted over my shoulder, and I knew without even looking that we were so busted.

“So funny thing,” Alex’s voice came up from right behind me. “I was up in my room, and I just happened to look out the window. And boy was I surprised to find you two standing down here, in the middle of the night, for God knows what reason.”

I caught Laylen’s eye, and I tried to communicate to him telepathically what we should do. Of course, I didn’t have telepathic abilities and neither did Laylen so guess how well that went.

I shook my head, and decided to face the inevitable. I took a deep breath, and covering the bite on my neck with my hand, I turned to face Alex. I wasn’t too worried about what he was going to say to me. He could chew me out all he wanted—I was used to it. I just felt guilty because I knew Alex was going to put most of it on Laylen.

Alex’s eyes were all over me as if he could sense something was wrong. “What’s the matter with your neck?”

The lighting was scarce, so I was hoping that it was dark enough that he couldn’t see the blood dried up on my skin. “I have a kink in it.”

He gave me a yeah-right look. “You have a kink in it?”

I shrugged. “It happens.”

He shook his head, irritated. “So why are you two standing out here?”

I had no idea what to tell him and the way he was staring at me was making my brain all hazy.

“How about we go inside, and then we’ll tell you,” Laylen said restlessly.

Alex glanced back and forth between Laylen and me, looking a little lost. “Okay….Let's go inside, then.” So apparently Alex had woken up Adessa when he’d seen Laylen and me standing outside in the dark. He had to wake her up or he wouldn’t have been able to walk out the front door without getting blasted by Adessa’s charms.

I still had my hand on my neck, trying to keep my bite mark hidden, as we stepped into the living room.

But as the light hit me, I realized that there was blood all over Laylen’s black thermal shirt that I still had on, and there was no way to cover it up.

“What the hell is all over your shirt?” Alex asked as soon as he caught sight of me in the light. He came up and took a closer look at the thermal shirt I had on.

“Is that blood?” Before I could answer, he picked up the hem of the shirt. “And why do you have Laylen’s shirt on?”

I yanked the hem of the shirt out of his grasp. “I have his shirt on because it was cold outside.” He gave me a disbelieving look. “It’s like seventy degrees out there, Gemma.”

“Well, I get cold easily,” I said as casually as I could, which strangely enough sounded casual.

He raised an eyebrow at me. “So where’d the blood come from?”

“It came from—” Before I could finish coming up with a lie, he reached over and lifted my hand away from my neck.

He let out a sequence of too-inappropriate-to-repeat-words and then lunged for Laylen. Laylen, taken off-guard, stumbled back as Alex slammed into him, and both of them went crashing into the wall, causing the wall to crack.

Laylen quickly regained his footing, and he shoved Alex hard. But Alex barely budged.

“You bit her,” Alex said, coming at Laylen again.

“Are you freaking crazy?”

“That’s not what happen—” I said, but was cut off as Laylen rammed into Alex, making them both fly backward and onto the apothecary table, which instantly buckled beneath their weight. It didn’t even faze either one of them as they rolled around on the tiled floor, crashing into the shelves and sofas, while they threw punches at each other.

I’d just decided that I might need to go get some help—because let’s face it I am not strong enough to stop a fight between a Keeper and a vampire—when Aislin and Adessa appeared in the doorway. Adessa was wearing a long navy blue robe decorated with bright pink flowers, and Aislin was dressed in a plaid pajama set.

“What in the world is going on?” Aislin screeched, her bright green eyes wide.

Laylen and Alex didn’t even so much as acknowledge she was there, still throwing swings at one another.

“Gemma, what happened?” Ailsin asked, looking horrified.

“Um…we were—”

“Subsisto.” Adessa said, her hand out in front of her.

Laylen and Alex flew away from each other; Alex landing by Aislin’s feet and Laylen smacking onto the floor not too far from me.

“What the heck are you two doing?” Ailsin asked Alex as she tried to help him to his feet.

Alex shook her hand off, breathing heavily as he got to his feet. His bottom lip was spilt and he had a cut above his right eyebrow. “He bit her,” he said, storming toward Laylen again.

Aislin grabbed Alex by the back of his shirt and, with a lot of effort on her part, held him back. “Who bit…What?”

Irritation shined in Alex’s bright green eyes.

“Laylen,” he said, with an attitude. “Bit Gemma.” Aislin’s eyes widen even more as she took in the sight of my blood-stained shirt and the two holes in my neck. “Oh my God.”

“Laylen didn’t bite me,” I told her. “Another vampire did.” I looked down at Laylen, who had a small bruise on his cheek, and waited for him to jump in and help me explain.

But all he did was stand to his feet, dust himself off, and pop his neck. Then he strolled toward the doorway, doing that thing that guys do when they take a quick step towards the other one to “psych” them out.

“Laylen,” Aislin said, shocked. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing’s the matter with me,” he replied, kind of being a jerk.

Aislin looked hurt as she let go of Alex’s shirt.

Laylen left the room, and I figured I’d explain what we’d been up to while he cooled off. Of course, I had absolutely no idea how I was going to go about doing this.

Aislin chased after Laylen, and Adessa took one look at Alex and I and left, as if she could sense something bad was about to go down and wanted to avoid being around it when it did.

Smart woman.

I stared at the doorway for awhile, if for no other reason, then to avoid Alex’s gaze that I could feel burning into me. Sparks of static were dancing all over my skin, and I wished I could tell them to stop because they were very distracting.

“So are you going to explain to me what in the heck you and Laylen were doing outside in the middle of the night?” Alex asked. “And where the bite mark came from?”

“I guess that depends on whether you’re going to freak out when I tell you?” I told him, still not looking at him.

“You expect me not to freak out when you’ve got blood all over your shirt and two holes in your neck,” he said incredulously.

I touched the tips of my fingers to the bite on my neck, and then looked at him. “I’m not going to tell you what happened unless you promise you’ll stay calm.” Then as an added bonus I tacked on, “Besides, you owe me.”

He started to walk toward me. “Oh yeah. How do you figure?”

“Because of what happened back at the cabin,” I said, backing away from him because I knew the closer he got to me, the more unclear my mind would be. And I needed my mind to be clear. “When you let your father try to take my mind away.” He looked pissed and suddenly he was moving toward me at a rapid speed. I backed away until I bumped into the wall. He kept coming at me, slamming to a halt only inches away from me, the tips of his DC sneakers brushing with the tips of mine. He was so close that I could feel the warmth of his breath dusting across my cheeks.

He put his hands on the wall, trapping me between his arms. “I already told you I wasn’t going to let him do it,” he breathed, leaning in. “I knew the necklace would protect you.”

My heart thrummed insanely in my chest, the electricity buzzing passionately from the intensity of his eyes.

What was I supposed to be doing again?

And then I felt the metal of the locket pressing against my neck, and remembered. Vladislav. My mother. The Underworld.

“Okay…I believe you.” Which wasn’t the truth at all, but I was working on something here. “But you have to promise to stay calm while I tell you what happened.” He shook his head. “I’m not going to promise anything.”

“Then I’m not going to tell you anything.” I went to duck under his arm, but he slid it down further so that I would have to limbo really low to get out.

“Fine, I’ll try to stay as calm as I can as long as you’ll stop throwing in my face what happened back at the cabin.” He waited for me to answer, but when I said nothing, he added, “Deal?”

I weighed out my options and came to the conclusion that the best way to get information about The Underworld was to make the deal. Now whether I’d hold true to the deal or not, depended on what happened here. “Fine, it’s a deal.”

We sat down on the purple velvet sofa—the one still remaining upright—and I began searching my mind for an idea of where to begin, and what details I should give him. But before I could figure any of this out, he spoke first.

“So who bit you?” he asked.

Figures he’d start there. “A vampire,” I said, kicking a broken piece of the apothecary table with the tip of my shoe.

“And what’s this vampire’s name?” he asked impatiently.

“Vladislav.”

“Vladislav!” he exclaimed, slamming his hand down onto the arm of the sofa. “You’ve got to be kidding me?”

“So…I take it you know who I’m talking about?”

“Of course I know who he is.” He sank back in the chair, the muscles on his arms flexing tensely as he crossed them. “I also know how big of a problem it’s going to be if he figured out who you are.”

“Does it even matter if he did?” I asked. “I mean, aren’t we pretty sure that the stars power isn’t going to stop the portal from opening anyway. So what does it matter if someone knows I have it in me.”



“We don’t know for sure what the stars power is for,” he said, staring straight ahead at the dark blue wall, looking as though he was pondering something deeply. “So until we do, we need to be careful about anyone finding out about you. Besides the more people who know about you, the easier it’ll be for my father and the Death Walkers to find you.” I raised my eyebrows at him, questioning his words.

“You don’t know what the stars power is for?” He sat there with his arms folded, staring at me so powerfully that my skin felt like it was on fire. “No. I don’t. I already told you I didn’t.”

I wasn’t sure if I believed him, but decided to stick a tack in it for now and move on to my next problem.

“We went to see Vladislav for a really good reason.”

“Oh, I’m sure you did.” Alex let out a laugh. “What, did Laylen tell you that Vladislav would have all the answers to your problems?”

“No, it wasn’t even Laylen’s idea,” I said defensively. “I asked him if he knew whether we could find out if my mom was still alive, and he suggested that Vladislav might know something. And you know what, he did.”

“And where in that brilliant plan did Vladislav biting you come into play?” Alex asked snidely. “Or was that just an added bonus.”

I shook my head. “Why would you even say that?” There was this awkward silence that built between us as I realized where Alex was going with that.

Vampires’ bites stimulate people’s desires. Although, I wasn’t sure that was what it had done to me. All I had seen were a bunch of images. And, yes, okay, some of those images—some of the ones that included Alex—did kind of make my body buzz a little, but there was also the vision that came after the images, and that was anything but stimulating.

“So anyway,” I said, attempting to change the subject away from my desires. “Vladislav told me my mother was still alive in The Underworld.” Alex shook his head. “Gemma, that’s not possible.”

“Even you said that there might be a small chance that she could still be alive,” I pointed out.

He looked confused. “When did I say that?”

“Back at Adessa, after I’d been pulled into my first vision, and we didn’t know it was my mother I’d seen forced into the lake.”

“I don’t remember ever saying anything like that,” he muttered, his eyebrows furrowed as he stared down at the floor. “And if I did, I’m sure I just said it to try and get you to calm down.”

“So why would Vladislav tell us she was alive, if she wasn’t,” I said. “There’s no reason for him to lie.”

“Of course there is.” He looked at me like I was a total nut job. “That’s what vampires do—they lie.”

“How do you know that for sure?” I asked hotly. “I mean, how do you know that all vampires lie. Laylen doesn’t lie.” You do.

“I just do,” he said, but his voice had lost some of its confidence.

“Vladislav didn’t lie, Alex.” I rested back in the chair, keeping my eyes on him. “Laylen said that vampires can pick up on when other vampires are lying, and he said Vladislav wasn’t lying.”

Alex ran his fingers through his messy brown hair, and then he turned and faced me, a serious expression on his face. “Look, Gemma. You’re too trusting with Laylen. You need to be careful.” I gave him an are-you-serious look. “You think I should be careful when it comes to trusting Laylen.” Was he joking?

“Vampires are not good,” Alex said sternly. “They’re evil.”

“Laylen’s not,” I snapped. “And besides, Vladislav knew that my mother was a Keeper before we ever told him. That has to mean he’s heard of her.”

“So what if he has heard of her,” he said. “That doesn’t mean he was telling the truth about her being alive. He might have just been messing with your head.”

“Alex,” without even thinking, I grabbed a hold of his arm, electricity tickling my fingertips. “It could mean that there might be a chance that my mom, who I haven’t seen since I was four, and who just might have some answers to what Stephan is planning to do with the star’s energy, could still be alive. And not just alive, but she could be trapped down in The Underworld, and has been trapped down there for fourteen years now, working as the Queen’s slave.” Something I said made his expression change.

“Why do you think she’s the Queen’s slave?”

“That’s the reason why Vladislav said she was still alive,” I told him, my fingers still wrapped around his arm, his bare skin pressed against my own, causing lots and lots of static to flow through me.

“The Queens slave,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it.”

“Why?” I asked. “Is it…bad?”

He shook his head. “No…well, it’s better than being the Water Faerie’s torture victim…but the Queen usually doesn’t use humans for slaves...”

“But that’s the reason she’s still alive, right?” I asked.

Silence.

“Even if she is alive,” he said, looking at me gravely. “She probably wouldn’t be the same Jocelyn

—being there for that long, it most likely will have changed her.”

I swallowed hard, my voice barely audible as I said,

“Okay...I understand.”

“Do you?” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Because just imagine being stuck in a place like that—a place of death, where fear and torture is common—for over fourteen years.” He lowered his voice. “Even if Vladislav was telling the truth—even if she’s still alive, she’s probably not your mother anymore.”

“She’s probably not my mother anymore,” I repeated in outrage as I let go of his arm. “She’ll always be my mother no matter what.”

He shook his head. “”Gemma, you don’t understand. The torture that goes on…the way the Water Faeries instil the fear in people…her mind is probably gone.”

I touched my locket with my hand, thinking of how my mother had given it to me when I was little, even though I couldn’t remember her doing so. “It doesn’t matter what she’s like now because I don’t have anything to compare her to before.”

There was pity in his bright green eyes. “Gemma, still —”

I cut him off. “Do you know a way to get her out of there or not?”

“I don’t,” he said simply.

I held his gaze. “Is that the truth?”

He paused and I felt my heart skip a beat. He knows something. Oh yes he did. I could feel it. I could see it on his face and how he avoided looking at me.

“Please just tell me the truth,” I practically begged.

He sighed, leaning back against the arm of the chair. “Even if I did…know something…I wouldn’t actually do it. It’s way too dangerous.”

“So what if it’s dangerous,” I said. “Everything’s dangerous—I’m dangerous, and yet you’re still here helping me.” I hope. “She’s my mom, Alex. And besides, she might know something. Your dad didn’t just send her there for no reason.”

“Even if she does know something, and she is actually mentally there enough to tell us what she knows, it doesn’t mean I think it’s a good idea to go there. We can get our answers somewhere else.” I told myself to keep my cool— breathe in, breathe out—but it was hard when it came to Alex. Especially when it came to getting answers from him. It was like a freaking mind game of who could outwit who.

“Where else can we get answers?”

He didn’t answer me, and I started to wonder if he wasn’t going to answer me because he really didn’t have an answer to give me. And honestly, at that moment, I questioned whether he knew anything at all.

Maybe he was just as lost as everyone else, and perhaps deep down inside, he wanted to save my mother, if for no other reason, so then maybe he could figure all of this out. Of course, even if this were true, it didn’t mean he was going to help me out.

I got to my feet, giving up on him. I had other people I could go to.

He jumped to his feet as I tried to scoot by him.

“Where are you going?”

“To find Laylen—see if he and I can figure out a way to save my mom.” I started for the doorway.

He caught me by the arm and pulled me back down on the sofa. “Hang on just a sec, before you go freaking out.”

I wiggled my arm free. “I wasn’t freaking out. I just don’t want to hear what you have to say unless it’s going to help me get my mom out of that awful place.” He massaged the sides of his temples with his fingers and let out a stressed breath. “If we were to do this—if we were to go to The Underworld and try to save your mother, you’d have to promise me that you’d do everything I told you to do.” He looked up at me. “If I tell you something’s too dangerous for you, you’d have to listen.”

I considered this. I know I might sound like a brat here, but the idea of doing everything he told me to do was making my insides burn. I’d done that too much already. And besides, what if he was playing me? “I don’t know….”

He shrugged. “Then no deal.”

No deal. His words echoed in my head, and I felt torn. In the end, though, I think I knew that I would make the deal. I just hoped that his side of the deal was genuine—that Alex would finally come through for me. “Okay, it’s a deal. Now how do we do it?” He sighed, got to his feet, and looked down at me with a very unhappy expression. “The first thing we do is bring Nicholas here.”