Alex motioned at the L-shaped couch. “Go sit down so I can look at that.”
I shook my head, my hand still grasping at my wounded side. “Not until you tell me where we are? And how in the world we got here? And—”
Alex cut me off. “I really don’t think that’s the most important thing right now, considering you have a piece of glass sticking out of your rib.”
He had a point, I guess, but I deserved some answers. “Fine. I’ll go sit down. But I’m not going to drop this. You are going to tell me what’s going on.”
He studied me with a curious expression. “You know, you’re nothing like what I thought you’d be.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” I said hotly. “You always say things that make no sense at all.”
He sighed. “Just go sit down and I’ll try and explain things the best that I can.”
I was stunned. Had I actually won the argument? “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “But hurry up. You’re bleeding all over the floor.”
After settling on the couch, I let my questions pour out of me. “Okay, so how did we get here? And what were those things back there? Those...Death Walkers? And how do you know about them? And how do you know Sophia, because I could tell by the way you two were talking that…” The way Alex was staring at me made me trail off. He looked totally baffled.
“Are you going to give me a chance to talk?” he asked. “Or do you want to just keep going?”
I bit my bottom lip. “Sorry. Go ahead.”
He pressed his lips together and stared off into empty space. “Take off your coat.”
I blinked. “What?”
He met my eyes. “In order for me to get the glass out, you have to take off your coat.”
“Oh.” For some stupid reason, I suddenly thought about the kissed we’d shared right before all hell had broken loose. It could barely be considered a kiss, really soft and brief like the touch of a butterfly’s wing. Still, I could almost feel the lingering sparkle of electricity where his lips had brushed against mine.
I carefully eased my coat off, wincing as the glass shifted.
Alex took off his gloves and coat and pushed up the sleeves of his long-sleeved black thermal shirt. Then he reached for me.
“What are you doing?” My muscles tensed as I leaned away from him.
He pointed to my side. “Looking at that.”
“Oh.” I said stupidly. I took a deep breath and held as still as I could.
He lifted the edge of my shirt up just enough so he could see the piece of glass sticking out of my blood-covered skin. He examined it, gently tracing a circle around the cut with his finger.
I held my breath, trying to hold in the gasp that desperately wanted to escape my lips. It would end up being the good kind of gasp—the kind of gasp that might get him thinking I was okay with everything. And I wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he moved his hand away. His face looked dead serious. Worried even. It made me anxious.
“Is it bad?” I asked in a high-pitched voice.
His mouth curved into a grin. “No, it’s not that bad at all. The piece of glass is small, and you’re barely bleeding anymore. I should be able to get it out and stitched it up without any problems.” He rested back against the couch and glanced at the door. “Just as soon as Aislin gets here.”
I tugged down the corner of my shirt and frowned. “That wasn’t funny. You had me thinking I was seriously hurt or something.”
He laughed. “Actually, it kind of was.”
I glowered at him. “Do you even know how to do stitches?”
“What, don’t you trust me?”
I chose not to answer that. “How about you answer some of my questions?”
He frowned. “I’d rather not.”
“But you said you would,” I protested. “I mean, is it really that bad that you can’t tell me”
“Yes,” he said.
A shiver crawled up my spine. “Well, I still want to know.”
He locked eyes with me. “Are you sure about that?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. Good or not, I wanted to know.
“Fine.” He waved his hand. “Go head. Ask your questions.”
“Okay…” My mind suddenly seemed blanked. “Um…where are we?”
“Laylen’s. He’s a friend of Aislin’s and mine.” He drew back the curtain that was behind us. “He lives in the Nevada desert.”
If it wouldn’t have been for the sunlight, lighting up the sky, and the golden-brown sand, dusted with cacti, that stretched as far as my eye could see, I wouldn’t have believed him. But there it was, right outside the window. There was no denying it. We were in the desert.
“How—” I stammered. “I mean—how?”
He let go of the curtain. “That’s where all of this becomes confusing.”
“Becomes confusing? It’s already been confusing for quite awhile.”
“Has it?” he muttered.
I wasn’t sure if it was a rhetorical question or not, so I didn’t answer. “So…how exactly did we get to Nevada in just a split second’s time?”
He hesitated. “Aislin transported us here.”
“Transported,” I said very slowly like the word was foreign. But the way he’d used it was foreign. “I remember hearing you guys say that word back on the bus, but what does it mean exactly?”
He hesitated again. “It’s a form of magic.”
I couldn’t help it. A burst of laughter escaped my lips. “Are you being serious? Because, just so you know, magic isn’t real.”
“It isn’t, huh?” He gestured around the room. “Then how do you explain this?”
I shrugged. “A delusion brought on by the trauma of those things—those Death Walkers things trying to kill me.”
He stared at me, astounded. “So, let me get this straight. What you’re trying to say is that you believe in something like the Death Walkers who, by the way, are demons, but you don’t believe in magic.”
“Umm….” Okay, so he had a point, but still, it felt like I was just going insane. It was all just too strange—too straight-out-of-a-sci-fi-novel strange. “I don’t know what I believe in.”
“Well, if you can’t believe in something as simple as magic, then there’s no point in me even trying to explain the rest of it. Because, out of everything, magic is probably the sanest sounding thing of all.”
I thought about what he was saying for a moment, but still…he was trying to convince me that magic was real. “So what you’re trying to say is that Aislin’s a witch?”
He nodded. “But by your sarcastic tone, I’m guessing you’re still not buying it.”
“I’m trying.” I really was. “But it’s kind of hard to accept something that sounds so…crazy.”
He eyed me over, causing my skin to electrify. “So tell me this. How can you accept the feeling that I know you’re feeling right now, but you can’t accept that Aislin’s a witch? Because on a crazy level, they’re both about the same.”
“What feeling?” I asked, knowing full well what he meant.
Before I could stop him, he rested his hand on my cheek. Electricity sung through my blood veins, and under no control of my own, I let out a gasp.
“That feeling,” he whispered, the palm of his hand still cupping my cheek.
Growing up with Marco and Sophia—the two most unaffectionate people ever—I’d never come close to even getting a pat on the back. So him touching me like that felt very strange. Yet somehow, at the same time, it felt very familiar.
He dropped his hand, and we both just sat there, staring at one another.
“Okay,” I finally said, breaking the silence. “I believe you so you can go on.”
He forced a fake smile. “Can I?”
“Yeah, you can.”
He shook his head, looking like he was trying hard not to smile, then he turned to face me. “Look, I’ve broken a lot
of rules here.”
I tilted my head to the side, confused. “What rules?”
“Nothing. Never mind,” he said quickly. He ran his fingers roughly through his hair “God, how the heck am I supposed to explain to you how important you are?”
“How important I am?” I gave him a doubtful look. “Trust me, there’s nothing important about me. At all.”
“You have no idea how wrong you are.” The intensity in his eyes made me shrink back.
I gulped. “I don’t understand what you mean—”
“Here it is,” Aislin announced, as she strutted into the room carrying a first aid kit.
Alex practically leapt off of the couch and met Aislin in the middle of the room. “Took you long enough.”
Grimacing, she shoved the first aid kit at him. “It took me a minute to find Laylen.”
“Sure it did,” Alex said, his tone insinuating something. Something I was almost certain I’d rather not know.
“Whatever Alex.” She flipped her golden blonde hair from her shoulder. “And just so you know, Laylen's going to stay away until…” She glanced at me, then leaned in and dipped her voice quieter.
After that, I could only make out half of what she was saying. Being able to lip read would have came in handy right now. All I was able to catch was something about “staying away” and “blood.” Maybe Aislin couldn’t stand the sight of blood…I don’t know. But really, did I ever know what was going on.
No.
“I guess, but she’s not bleeding that bad,” Alex’s voice rose loud enough for me to hear him. He tucked the first aid kit underneath his arm. “Why don’t you go try and get a hold of Stephan. Let him know what’s happened and see what he wants us to do.”
Stephen. Why did that name keep popping up?
“What about the other problem?” She nodded in my direction.
He shrugged. “I’m going to tell her.”
“Tell her!” Aislin exclaimed. “Are you crazy!?”
Uh…Hello, I was sitting right here. Jeez people.
“We really don’t have a choice,” Alex said. “After what she just saw.”
With the way they were talking about me, I wondered if they’d forgotten I was in the room. Then again, being subtle had never been their thing.
Aislin sighed. “Fine. Do whatever you want. I’ll go call Stephan.” She stomped toward the doorway, but turned around before walking out. “But just for the record, this is all on you.”
“Thanks for clarifying that,” he said in a sarcastic tone.
She shot him a glare before stepping out of the room.
Alex came over to the couch, knelt down on the floor, and opened up the first aid kit.
“Who’s Stephan?” I asked.
“My father,” he said, without looking up.
“Your father.” I don’t know what I’d expected him to say, but that sure as heck wasn’t it.
He grabbed a throw pillow from the foot of the couch and set it down beside me. “Lay down so I can get that piece of glass out of you and get you stitched up. And I’ll try to explain everything while I do.”
I noticed his emphasis on the word try. “So by try, do you mean try to explain the whole truth? Or just the parts of the truth you want me to hear?”
He stared at me quizzically. “You’re kind of a difficult, you know that?”
“Gee, thanks,” I replied, my voice rich with sarcasm.
He shook his head, but I caught a glimpse of a faint smile. “I’ll tell you everything as in everything.”
I lay down on the couch as carefully as I could and rested my head on the pillow.
“Alright.” He rubbed his hands together. “Try to hold as still as possible while I pull out the glass.”
I cringed. I couldn’t help it. I took a deep breath and fixed my eyes on the ceiling, trying to think of something else besides the fact that he was about to yank the glass out. But the deep red color of the ceiling reminded me a lot of blood, and I was very aware of the tug as Alex removed the glass. I threw my arm over my face and shut my eyes, taking slow breaths.
“You doing alright?” he asked.
I nodded, but my ribs were on fire.
“This little thing right here is what was in you,” he said
I opened my eyes. In the palm of his hand was a piece of blood stained glass about the size of a quarter.
“That’s it.” Sticking out of my skin, it had looked so much bigger.
“Yep, that’s it.” He dropped the glass into the first aid kit, and it plinked as it hit the plastic. He took out a cotton ball and poured rubbing alcohol on it. “Gemma, I’m really sorry.”
His “sorry” momentarily perplexed me. Before I could figure out what he meant by it, he’d already pressed the cotton ball onto my cut. It felt like someone had dumped gasoline on my skin and lit a match. I squeezed my eyes shut and bit down on my lip, trying not to scream bloody murder.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, he moved it away. “Sorry about that. I just thought it would be better if I caught you off-guard. That way you wouldn’t anticipate it and try to move away.”
I was in too much pain to respond.
“Now I just have to stitch it up.” He tossed the now blood soaked cotton ball into the first aid kit. “The cuts not very big, so it shouldn’t take me that long.”
“’Kay,” I said through my shallow breathing.
He began winding a spool of clear string around his hand.
“So, are you going to explain to me why you think I’m so important?” I asked, watching him unwind the string like a cat.
“Give me a second.” He snipped the end of the string off with a pair of scissors. “Before I do, though, you have to promise me two things.”
“Depends on what those two things are.”
He gave me a look as he withdrew a shiny needle from the kit.
“Sorry.” I tried again. “So what are the two things I need to promise?”
“First, you have to promise that you’ll try to keep an open mind.”
“Okay.” Keeping an open mind seemed easy enough. “And the second promise?”
“That you’ll let me finish talking before you start freaking out.”
That one wasn’t as easy. My gut churned. “How do you know I’ll freak out?”
He looped the piece of clear string through the needle. “Because you will.”
Jeez. Just how bad was it going to be? I guess, considering everything that had happened, it had to be bad, right? How could it not.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Alright, I’ll try not to freak out until you’re done talking.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You’ll try?”
I suddenly felt very aware that I was about to hear something bad. Very, very bad. ‘Fine. I won’t freak out until you’re finished.” But after that, all bets were off.
He held the needle just above my ribcage. I flinched—I absolutely, one-hundred percent, hate needles. With all their sharpness and being pointy—their sole purpose was to stab you.
“I’m not even sure where to begin with all of this,” he muttered and let a hiccup of silence go by. “Do you remember that story I told you about. The one about the fallen star.”
“Yeah…I remember.”
“Hold still,” he said as he tipped the needle down and vigilantly guided it through my skin.
It stung. Bad. My eyes snapped shut, and I clutched on to the edge of the couch.
“Breathe,” Alex reminded me.
My eyes flew open, and I sucked in a breath of air.
“You good?” he asked after a second or two had ticked by.
“Yeah, I think so.” But my voice trembled.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah…but can you get this over with quickly. Please.”
He nodded, and then weaved the needle into my skin again. “So where was I?”
“You were talking about the fallen sta—" I gasped as he pressed the needle
into my skin for the third time.
“Oh yeah, the fallen star—all of what has happened has to do with that.”
“How?”
“You remember the story, right? Twenty years ago a star fell from the sky.”
I nodded. “But that doesn’t mean I believe it.”
He paused, the needle a mere sliver of air away from piercing into my skin. “You promised me you’d keep an open mind, remember. And you need to believe in the fallen star story otherwise the rest of this is going to sound like a lie.”
“But you are a liar, right?” I asked, knowing I was treading on thin water here. He was the one holding the needle, after all. But still, it needed to be said.
“Liar’s such a strong word. I prefer to think of it as me omitting some of the details.”
I rolled my eyes. Whatever.
This time when he snaked the needle through my skin, he placed his free hand on my stomach. My bare stomach. All of my focus centered on how his fingers were touching my bare skin. The warmth. The buzzing. It even numbed out the pain a little.
“Gemma?” His voice pulled me back to him.
I blinked dazedly. “Huh?”
He stared down at me, his forehead creased. “Did you hear what I said?”
As much as I hated to do it, I shook my head because I hadn’t heard a single word he’d said. “Umm…No.”
“I asked if you remembered when I mentioned the secret group that hid the star.”
I nodded, still somewhat distracted by his warm hand touching my stomach. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Well, the secret group is called Custodis of Vita.”
There was so much electricity. “The awhata?”
“The Custodis of Vita,” he repeated, sounding irritated.
That’s it. It was too hard to focus with his hand touching me like that. I reached down and lifted it off of me.
He gave me a strange look, glanced at his hand, then back at me.
“What is that like Latin or something?” I asked, hoping to distract him away from what I’d just done.
“Yeah…it means Keepers of Life. But for short we call ourselves The Keepers.”
“Keepers of life.” I raised my eyebrows. “It sounds like a cult.”
A soft laugh escaped his lips. “It’s not, though. We actually protect the world from dangerous things”
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