“You think he’s in there?” Laylen asked as I reached for the doorknob.
I nodded, slowly turning the handle, and pushed open the door. And what I saw made my stomach churn. People wrapped in chains that were binding them to a crystal ball the size of a football stadium.
And all those people…well, they looked dead.
Chapter 20
I stood there, my hand still gripping the doorknob, my mouth agape. The people looked like corpses; their skin as pale as a ghost, their eyes sealed shut, their bodies strapped to the massive crystal ball that burned brightly like the sun. They were dead. They were all dead. Alex was dead. I couldn’t breathe.
“Calm down, Gemma.” Laylen’s voice was soothing
“They’re not dead.”
I dropped my hand from the doorknob, unable to take my eyes off the crystal ball, the people, the chains. “Are you—are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. The crystal’s collecting energy from them,” he explained. “If they were dead, they wouldn’t be useful.”
Calm down. You won’t be useful if you’re freaking out. “Okay, so where’s Alex.”
Laylen stepped cautiously into the room, and I followed. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be anyone awake hanging around in there, like a Foreseer guard or something. The coast was all clear. So why did I still feel like I was going to throw up?
“Maybe we should split up,” Laylen suggested. “You head right and I’ll take the left?”
I nodded, and he headed off to the left side of the crystal ball. I headed to the right, searching the peoples’ faces as I moved around the burning crystal.
It was difficult to feel the electricity in here because the crystal seemed to be radiating off an intense amount of electric energy. But if I really concentrated, I could feel the difference between the crystal ball ’s electricity and Alex’s.
With every chained up person I went by, I grew more nauseous. Yes, Laylen had warned me that what I would see would be bad, but I never pictured it like this…so sickening. What made it even worse was that it wasn’t just the chains that were securing the people to the enormous crystal ball. There were also tubes coming out of their skin that extended up to the crystal ball, like how an IV attaches to its a bag.
If this was how Foreseers collected their energy, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a Foreseer anymore. If you asked me, Foreseers weren’t much better than Water Faeries. Whether they were feeding off humans fear, or their energy, they were still feeding off of them.
My sickening feeling nearly exploded out of me when I spotted Alex chained to the crystal ball, tubes jabbing out of him.
“Laylen!” I yelled as I ran up to Alex’s lifeless body.
“Over here.”
For a moment I just stood there, staring at Alex, in a state of shock. But then I snapped out of it and began pulling the tubes out of his skin, one by one. They were small tubes and didn’t go in very deep, but each one left a tiny hole that dripped blood. “Laylen!” I yelled louder, looking for a way to get the chains off of Alex. “How the heck do I get these unlocked?” Alex’s eyes shot open, and I let out a gasp. He stared at me, his normally bright green eyes dulled over, and I wondered if he even recognized me. He looked so…weak. I had never seen Alex look so weak. It was strange.
“Are you okay?” I asked worriedly.
He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
“Laylen!” I yelled, for a third time. Where was he?
Had something happened to him? I started to freak.
“Coming,” I heard him say. And then he was right next to me. “Hold onto him,” he instructed, grabbing the chains.
I don’t know why, but I hesitated. Not because I was afraid to touch Alex or anything. Well, okay, maybe a little, but it was also because he looked so breakable.
“Gemma,” Laylen said with urgency, and I quickly wrapped my arms around Alex, ignoring the fact that a) he was shirtless and b) his skin, although cold and clammy, still spun a fiery amount of electricity that made my skin smolder.
I held onto Alex as Laylen snapped the chains like twigs. Alex fell onto me like a hundred and eighty pound weight, and I almost buckled to the floor. But thankfully, Laylen caught him before I did.
“excellent catching skills,” Laylen joked, flopping Alex’s arm over his shoulder, and balancing all of his weight on him.
“Hey, I never claimed to have them,” I said.
“Besides I’m not a half-vampire, half-Keeper who is freakishly strong.”
“Would you two stop messing around and get us out of here before we get caught.” The frail voice came from Alex. His eyes were still closed and he was leaning on Laylen.
“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” I put one hand on Laylen and one hand on Alex, then shut my eyes, crossing my fingers I’d be able to get all three of us out of here, and back to Adessa’s, safely.
“Don’t do anything from in here,” Alex said, his voice sounded the slightest bit stronger. “There’s too much power in here…you’ll end up hurting yourself.” I glanced at the crystal ball blazing vibrantly, and at the people chained to it. “Maybe we should help them.”
Alex’s eyelids slowly lifted open. “No, we have to go. You never should have come here.”
I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of the chained up people, feeling a ping of guilt building in my gut. I used their energy every time I touched a crystal ball.
Maybe even when I didn’t. And now I was supposed to leave and use their energy again.
“Even if you let them go, there’d be no way for you to get them all out of here,” Alex told me.
I swallowed hard and tore my eyes away from the people. “Okay, let’s go.”
Fortunately, Laylen was strong enough to hold Alex up as we headed out of the room and moved back down the cave, distancing ourselves from the massive crystal ball. Alex was really struggling to walk, his feet practically dragging across the translucent crystal floor.
“How far away do we need to go?” I asked Alex as we headed toward the spot where Laylen and I had entered the cave.
“Farther than this,” he said, his eyelids fluttering as he forced them open.
So we went further and, for some stupid reason, it never dawned on us that we might run into a very awake Nicholas, until we actually did. But Nicholas wasn’t what was sending my pulse racing like a jackhammer. It was the three Death Walkers standing next to him, the hood of their black cloaks caped over their heads; the glow of their yellow eyes reflecting across the translucent crystal floor.
“Crap!” I cried, at the same time Laylen screeched to a halt.
“Okay, time to get us out of here,” Laylen said as the three Death Walkers and Nicholas hurried toward us.
I grabbed a hold of Laylen and Alex, closed my eyes, and pictured Adessa’s living room; the dark blue walls, the purple velvet couches, and the black and white checkerboard floor.
“Gemma,” Laylen voice was full of fear. “Please hurry.”
I opened my eyes and saw that the Death Walkers were close. The air was slowly descending to a frosty chill, dotting my skin with goose bumps. I squeezed my eyes shut. Concentrate.
But nothing happened.
Focus.
still nothing.
Fog laced the air as the temperature continued to plunge. I was in full panic mode, trying to force us to leave this awful place. But I just couldn’t do it.
“Gemma.” Alex’s soft voice made me open my eyes.
His eyes were locked on mine; some of the brightness had returned to them. “Don’t focus on them. In fact, pretend they’re not even there.” I gave him an are-you-crazy look. Pretend that three ice-death machines weren’t running straight at us.
Alex slid his arm off Laylen and placed a hand on each side of my face, so I couldn’t turn my head.