“We?” I studied his expression; so serious and, at least as much as I could tell, so not the expression belonging to someone who was lying. However, Alex was an excellent liar. “So you’re saying that you belong to this Keepers group?”
He nodded. “And Aislin. And…” His voice got quieter. “Marco and Sophia.”
I lay there, motionless, letting his words sink in. “So what you’re trying to tell me is that Marco and Sophia, the people who’ve raised me since I was one, belong to some secret group who protect the world from evil?” It sounded way too fictiony. All saving the world from evil and demons and vampires. Yeah, I know, he hadn’t actually mentioned vampires but…God, what if there were actual vampires? “No. There’s no way. You’re lying. You have to be lying.”
He had to be.
“That’s the second time you’ve said that in the last five minutes, which is really frustrating since this is one of the few times I’ve ever told the truth.” He seemed so angry it was hard not to believe him. Besides, something else had just occurred to me. Something that might backup part of what he was saying. That time I’d caught Sophia and Alex having that strange conversation in the foyer. If what he was saying was true, it would explain how they knew each other. My stomach felt all twisty. What if what he was saying was true? “Is that why you and Sophia were talking the other day? Did it have something to do with all of this?”
He gave a slow nod. “That night we were discussing….something.”
I felt a sharp tug as the needle snagged my skin. I let out a whimper and my hand instinctively flew down toward the pain. Luckily, Alex caught my fingers before they touched the stitches.
“Whatever you do, don’t touch it,” he warned.
I drew my hand back and cradled it against my chest. “So, if you’re telling me the truth—which I’m still not one-hundred percent certain you are—then why hasn’t anyone mentioned any of this to me before?”
He hesitated, looking stressed. “I don’t even know how to begin to explain the rest of this to you.” He let out a frustrated sigh as the needle slipped through my skin. “Okay, so that star I was telling you about held a lot of power. That’s why we—the Keepers went and got it in the first place. If it fell into the wrong hands then…”
Silence grasped the air.
"Then what?” I wish he’d just spit it out.
He shook his head. “Nothing.” He paused, seeming torn about something. “Okay, let me try this again. There are these people who have the ability to see into the future. Kind of like Psychics, but we call them Foreseers. But anyway, one of these Foreseers made this prediction—or a prophecy I guess you could call it—that this fallen star would prevent the end of the world from happening.” He picked up the scissors and trimmed the end of the string off. “You’re into astronomy, right? So I’m sure you’ve heard of December 21, 2012?”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. End of the world. WTF.
“Gemma?”
“Um…yeah…Dec. 21, 2012? Aren’t the planets supposed to align or something?”
He nodded. “At the exact same moment the winter solstice takes place.” He tossed the scissors back into the box and pulled out a roll of tape and gauze. “When I say ‘end of the world’, what I mean is there’s this portal that’s supposed to only be able to be open up at the very exact moment the planets align.”
“A portal,” I repeated with skepticism. I mean, I’d heard some theories on what some people believed was going happen on December 21, 2012. And a couple of them had discussed the possibility of the world ending. But a portal? Really?
He cocked an eyebrow. “You still seem like you don’t believe me.” He positioned the gauze over the stitches and secured it with two strips of tape. Then he set the roll of tape back into first aid kit and snapped the lid shut. “I’m all done now, so you can sit up if you want. Just be careful, though. And don’t move to fast or you might rip them open.”
I tugged the edge of my shirt down and slowly sat up. My side felt all strange and tight, and the skin burned.
Alex set the kit down on a nearby table and dropped down on the couch beside me, his knee brushing against mine and making my muscles tense as electricity coiled up my thigh.
“So what is that?” I asked abruptly. “That electricity thing that I feel whenever I’m around you?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea.”
I eyed him over suspiciously. I could never be sure whether he was lying or not. “You have no idea what it is?”
He shook his head. “Nope. I’ve never felt anything like it until you came along.”
“Yeah, me neither,” I muttered. “Until the first time I was by you.”
He looked surprised. “Really?”
“Yes really. Why do you look so surprised? You just said the same thing?”
“Because it’s different with you.” Before I could yammer out a bunch of questions about that, he shifted the direction of the conversation. “But anyway, back to the portal. See, if it opens up, it will let out a ton of Death Walkers. So I’m sure you can image how the end of the world is supposed to happen.”
I stared down at my hand, remembering the bluish-purple color. “By ice.”
“Exactly.”
“So how come I started freezing to death, and my fingers turned all funky and blue, but you seemed completely unbothered.”
“Eventually mine would have turned out the same way,” he explained. “Your reaction to the Death Walkers chill is just a little worse than mine.”
“Why?” I asked. “I mean, is there something weird about me?”
“I’m getting to that.” He fiddled with a loose string hanging off of one of the throw pillows. “There’s this guy named Demetrius, who is the leader of all the Death Walkers, and he wants this portal to open up. And basically, this fallen star is the only thing that has enough power to keep the portal from opening, so you can imagine how important it is to keep the star away from him.”
“Do you still have it?” I was confused by how weird it sounded. I mean, this was crazy. It had to be some twisted, freaky dream I’d been sucked into or something. Or maybe I’d had a meltdown and created my own personal fantasy world inside my head. There was no way this could be real, right? But if that were true, then why did it feel like there was more truth in his story than anything I’d ever been told?
A funny look flickered across his face. “Yeah, we still have it.” He kept his eyes on me for an instant longer, before forcing them away. “We kept it hidden so Demetrius couldn’t find it and destroy it. For the first few years, we had a Shifter transfer the star’s energy into different objects to keep its location a secret.” He stopped. “Do I need to slow down? You look lost.”
“Kind of lost. Kind of overwhelmed,” I admitted. “But you can go on.”
“Okay, but just so you know the next part is going to be very hard for you to hear. And you need to make sure to stay as calm as you can.”
I swallowed hard, my stomach churning. “I’ll try.”
He took a deep breath and surprised me when he reached over and took my hand. “An accident happened three years after we found the star. Theron, the Shifter I told you about, was attacked by Demetrius while in possession of the object that was holding the star’s energy in it. He ended up panicking and accidently shifted the power into something it should have never gone into.” He gave a long pause. “It went into a woman.”
“A woman?” My eyes widened “What happened to her?”
“Well, the energy didn’t end up in her exactly. She was pregnant when it happened, and it ended up going into her unborn child.”
I froze. Why did this seem so familiar? And why did the incident back at the telescope—the one where I’d been sucked away to the field—pop into my mind. “So what happened to the mother and the baby?”
“They both lived and everything, but the stars energy got trapped inside the baby. And it’s still there. For some reason—and no one knows for sur
e because no one’s ever came across anything like it before—no Shifter could transfer it back out of her.” He pressed his lips together, his hand tightening on mine. “A few years after it all happened, the mother did end up passing away. But her death had nothing to do with the star.” He watched me closely. “She was a Keeper and her name was Jocelyn.”
“Jocelyn,” I repeated. “Why does that name sound so familiar? Did I know her?”
He nodded. “You did and very well.”
“How?” But before he could answer, I realized why. Because I’d seen the name before. On my Birth Certificate.
Jocelyn was my mother.
Chapter 14
Neither of us spoke for awhile. The only sound came from a clock ticking back and forth. Alex was still holding my hand, his skin warm and flowing with static. He’d never actually answered my question when I’d ask how I knew the woman. But I think he might have sensed I’d figured it out by my sudden muteness.
“Gemma, are you okay?” he finally asked.
I nodded slowly.
“You do know who she is, right?”
I nodded slowly again.
“Then you understand what that means, right?”
I pressed my lips together. Yeah, I understood what it meant. Way, way too clearly. He was saying that for the last eighteen years, I’d been harboring a fallen star's energy inside of me. Some piece of a freaking solar systems sun. And as crazy as it sounded, it made sense. I’d never been normal. I’d been hollow and emotionally numb until an invisible prickle had shown up, and my emotions had come barreling out of me. Add that to the violet color of my eyes, and my ability to either sense or cause electricity to flow just by being around someone….I really was a freak. Literally. I probably wasn’t even considered human.
“So what am I?” My voice sounded so numb.
“What are you?” His eyebrows dipped down. “Huh? What are you talking about?”
“Well, I can’t be human?” I choked on the words. “So what am I?”
“You’re human,” he assured me. “Just a human with a lot of power buzzing inside her.”
I could feel that power buzzing right now, and it was making me feel like I might throw up. I tried to ease my hand away from his, but he clutched onto it.
“Look,” he began in a very guarded, yet very determined tone. “I know this all sounds crazy. And I understand that you’re probably freaking out right now, but there’s more I have to tell you.”
“There’s more!” I cried. A few hours ago, I’d wanted nothing more than to hear the truth. But now, after what I’d heard, part of me wished there was a rewind button so I could go back in time and chose not to hear it.
He gave a slow nod. “And I think I should probably warn you that it’s just as bad—if not worse than what I’ve already told you.”
My hands shook, and I felt like I was suffocating. How could anything be worse than getting told I was carrying around the power of a star that could possibly save the world from a deathly, apocalyptic portal? I ripped my hand away from his and let my head fall into my hands. “This is a lot to take in. I’m not sure if I can take anymore.”
“Well, if you want me to stop then—”
My head snapped up. “No.” I sat up straight. I was going to have to tough it out. “I need to hear the rest otherwise it will drive me crazy.”
He sighed. I think he might have been hoping I’d tell him to stop, but good or bad, I needed to hear it. I’d already learned too much to go back now. Everything had changed. Nothing was simple anymore. But really, had anything ever been simple for me?
He looked reluctant, but continued. “Well, we lucked out because Demetrius never discovered the location of where the stars power ended up. A few months after you were born, though, a Foreseer told Stephan another prophecy about the star. The prophecy said that if your emotions weren’t controlled then the power of the star would weaken and eventually die altogether, which would make it useless to stop the portal from opening.” He placed his hand back on top of mine, which I thought was kind of weird. He sure did seem determined to touch me. “So to keep that from happening, and to keep Demetrius from ever finding out, Stephan made a decision that you’d go and live with Marco and Sophia in the real world.”
“How old was when I went to live with them?” I asked.
“You were one when you went to live with Marco and Sophia,” he replied in a flat tone that puzzled me. His palm felt sweaty on my hand, and I had to admit it was kind of gross. “And they were under strict orders to make sure you stayed unemotional.”
I didn’t say anything for awhile. I’d hit some kind of eerie calm or something. Or maybe I should say an “unemotional” calm. I knew right then and there that any doubts I’d had about Alex telling the truth were gone. How could I deny it when he knew about my unemotional issue? Now the problem I was facing was that I was made to be that way.
Intentionally.
“Gemma,” he said.
“How?” I asked in a lifeless tone. The same lifeless tone I’d used for most of the last eighteen years of my life. Until I’d felt the prickle.
He cocked his head to the side in confusion. “How what?”
“How did they do it?” I tried to wiggle my hand free from his, but he wouldn’t let go. “Make me unemotional.”
He fixed his gaze on the floor and shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess by shutting you off from any kind of emotional contact. If someone doesn’t ever know happiness, sadness, or love, then how can they ever feel it?”
The inability to make eye-contact was the first sign someone was lying, right?
“You’re lying,” I accused.
“No, I’m not,” he said, his eyes still locked on the floor.
“Yes, you are,” I insisted. “You can’t even look at me.”
He shook his head and looked at me with a tolerant expression. “There. Are you happy now?”
My dulled calmness abruptly faded, and a wave of panic and anger thundered through me. I tugged and pulled and yanked my hand, desperately wanting to get the heck out of here. I wasn’t sure where I’d go, but how could I stay here after what he’d just told me? All I wanted to do was get away and hide; curl myself in a tiny little ball and cry until my eyes ran dry. So I did the only thing I could think of to get him to let me go. See, what I’d learned about Alex over the last few weeks was that he liked to be the one in control of the situation. So what I needed to do was make him think he was losing the control. There was only one thing I could think that might do that.
Lie.
“But I have been able to feel,” I told him.
“Yeah,” he said, unsurprised. “Marco and Sophia have been noticing a change in you over the last few months. That’s one of the reasons why Ailsin and I enrolled in school. We were trying to figure out what had happened to cause the change. And we were also keeping an eye on you.”
That’s why they’d shown up at my school. I shook my head. I was going to have to let go of that one for now, otherwise I’d get sidetrack from my plan to escape. “That’s not what I meant. I’ve been able to feel for more than a few months. Awhile ago, I found a paper in one of Sophia’s trunks that had this list of dates on it.” I caught a hint of understanding pass over his face, and I knew he knew what paper I was referring to. “After doing a lot of searching around, I finally figured out what it meant.” Now I was going out on a limb here because I wasn’t sure if the list of dates had anything to do with any of this. It was just a hunch I had, but I was going with it. “After that, the whole being-able-to-feel thing became simple for me.”
I searched for a sign that he might be buying my lie. At first, he looked completely lost. Then his expression shifted to anger. A couple moments later, worry washed over his face. I felt his grip loosen on my hand, and I seized the opportunity. I yanked my hand as hard as I could. It worked. His hand fell off of mine, and I was on my feet in a heartbeat, bolting for the door, ignoring the pain tearing up my side.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Alex called out.
Ignoring him, I threw open the door.
“The Death Walkers will find you,” he said. I could hear him moving toward me, his footsteps scuffing lazily against the hardwood floor like he was so sure I wasn’t going to run away. “Now that they know the stars in you, they’ll always be searching for you.”
All I had to do was go. Leave. Find the front door and run my little heart out. But my fear made me hesitate. What if he was telling the truth? What if they did find me and I was all alone? What would happen to me? Was it worth the risk?
I turned to face him, my hand still clasped on the doorknob. “How can you be so sure they know I have the stars energy in me?”
“Oh trust me, they know.” He came to a stop in front of me. “After what happened on the bus, there’s no way they don’t.”
I was trapped. Either I could run and risk the chance of getting killed by a bunch of hypothermic-inducing monsters, or I could stay here with Alex, a liar who had caused me to suffer through most of my life as a walking emotionless corpse.
I stayed still, even when he set his hand on top of mine.
“Running away would be a very stupid thing to do,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t ever try to do it again.” I frowned as he removed my hand from the doorknob. “You were lying, weren’t you? About being able to feel earlier than we’d thought?” he asked.
I stared at him impassively.
“I know you were,” he said. “If it were true then Marco and Sophia would have known.”
“Would they?” I twisted my hand out of his grip. “Because she didn’t seem to notice when I stole the list of dates from her trunk.”
We stared at one another in silence. I wasn’t sure what to believe. And I had a feeling he felt the same way, which was exactly what I wanted. I wanted him to feel as lost and confused as I was.
“Well, since this is going nowhere, I might as well go and call Stephan,” he suddenly announced.
I folded my arms across my chest. “Fine. Do whatever you want.”
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