Chapter 7
I had never felt this kind of pain before. Never. It was like my body was compressed into a ball, my bones breaking and conforming to fit the position. It hurt so bad…
so bad…
“Gemma.”
Who said that?
“Gemma, can you hear?”
I knew that voice. It was the most wonderful voice in the world.
I forced my eyes open and saw the beautiful boy staring down at me with the brightest green eyes I had ever seen.
“Are you alright?” The boy asked. Stars danced behind him. They were pretty.
I told my head to nod, but it didn’t. There was gravel in my hair and my skin was sticky and warm.
A girl appeared above me. I knew her too. Blood stained her golden brown hair.
“Look,” she pointed at my stomach.
The boy’s eyes widened and with one swift movement, he swooped me up in his arms.
“Get us out of here,” the boy yelled to the girl. “Now!” She looked at him helplessly. “Where do you expect me to take us?”
“To Stasha’s.” There was panic on the boy’s face, and I wanted to tell him it’ll be okay—everything will be okay, but I couldn’t. “You have your crystal, right?” She nodded. “But what about him.” She pointed down at the ground.
There was sadness in the boy’s eyes. “We’ll have to leave him here….If we don’t get her out of here…she might not make it. Besides, you know they pick up their own.”
“Alright.” The girl looked so sad. “Let’s go then.” The boy said something else to me, but I couldn’t hear it, I could only see his lips moving.
My eyelids were heavy, so I shut them.
I was dying. I don’t know how I knew, but I just knew: this was what death feels like. There was no pain, no anguish, no burden of the star. Everything felt complete, except for one thing. A piece of me was missing. Not an actual piece per se, but something I was connected to—
electrically connected to. Alex. I needed Alex.
This empty feeling choked up inside me. I tried to open my eyes, to see where I was, but I couldn’t. Then came the voice. A voice I knew vaguely—my father’s voice.
“You can’t give up,” he whispered. “You need to fix my mistakes.”
They’re your mistakes, so you fix them, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t speak. In fact I wasn’t even sure I had a mouth anymore.
“You can do it, my Gemma,” he said. “I know you can.” But what if I can’t?
“Now open your eyes,” he commanded. “Today is not the day you’re going to die, Gemma Lucas.” Why was he always saying this to me? Did he even know when my death would come?
My eyelids slowly lifted open. Light. Alex and me by the lake. Hugging. Ice everywhere.
Why did it always come back to this?
The bright light carried me away.
The first thing I was aware of was that I was lying in a very soft bed, like I had fall en asleep in a pile of feathers.
The next thing I noticed was how bad my body hurt, like every bone in my body had snapped in two. My stomach was in the most pain, like someone had drilled a hole in it.
I finally willed my eyelids to open. The light stung at my eyes and I blinked several times as I slowly sat up.
“Oh, God,” I hunched over and cradled my arm around my stomach, trying not to cry out in pain. I lifted the bottom of my blood-stained t-shirt and saw a very large section of my stomach was bandaged over. I sifted through my memories, trying to remember. “What happened?”
“We got in a car accident.” Alex’s voice startled me. He was standing in the doorway, tired bags under his eyes, his hair a mess and not in an intentional way. There was something in his expression that I couldn’t quite place; tiredness…pain...or maybe it was vulnerability.
He stepped cautiously into the room, which I now noticed was overwhelmed with plants. Yes, plants. They were everywhere. On shelves, on the dresser; there were even leafy vines dangling from the olive-colored ceiling.
“What is this place?” I asked, staring up at the vines.
He sat down on the foot of the bed, keeping some distance between us. “It’s Stasha’s…the plants are good for her gift.”
I pulled a face. “Oh, yippy.” I shifted my body weight and the muscles of my stomach tightened. I winced. “So, we were in a car accident?”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “You don’t remember?” I shook my head. “Not really. I mean, kind of…I remember the thing in the road.”
“That thing in the road was a Death Walker.” I tensed. “Was—does that mean—”
“No, it was just a stray.” He shrugged. “It happens sometimes….one that’s gotten lost from the pack.” They sounded like wolves.
I nodded and pointed at my stomach. “So what happened here?”
He took an unsteady breath as if the memory upset him.
“A piece of glass cut you.” He brushed his finger across my hairline. “You also hit your head.”
“It felt like I was dying,” I said softly as I touched the tender spot on my head.
Fear filled his eyes. “You were.”
I sat on that for a moment, frozen in shock. “But I didn’t?” I asked it as a question. A very stupid question. Obviously I wasn’t dead. “Is everyone else okay?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, staring straight ahead at the wall.
“Is everyone okay?” I repeated in a panic.
still nothing.
“It’s not Aislin…” My voice quivered and tears stung at my eyes.
“No, it’s not Aislin,” he said hurriedly. “She’s fine.”
“Well, then, what is it? I can tell something’s wrong, so just tell me,” I pleaded.
He ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s Nicholas…he’s dead.”