Bright light. Bright light everywhere.
I belonged here—I could feel. I belonged in the bright white light.
Peaceful, calm—this was my end.
The light sparkled across my skin, enveloping me in a blanket of warmth.
I’d been here before, in a vision. Nicholas had said it was my end. And as I stood here in the bright light, I knew he was right. This is where I would end up…
Forever.
My eyes shot open, and for a moment I couldn’t figure out where I was. Somewhere dark. And warm.
Then it dawned on me. I was in a car, headed to who knows where. I was also lying down on the seat, the leather pressing warmly against my cheek.
The whole light dream I had was making me freak out a little, especially because Nicholas had told me that the light vision I’d went into meant my future was dead. And now I was dreaming about it. That couldn’t be good.
From the front seats, Alex and Laylen were chatting about cars, like they were two normal guys, which I guess was a good thing—at least they weren’t fighting. But it was still strange to hear a normal conversation that didn’t center on Death Walkers, Foreseers, or the end of the world.
“No. There’s no way your GTO could beat my Camaro,” Alex was saying, sounding a little worked up. “Are you freaking kidding me with this?”
“No I’m not freaking kidding you with this,” Laylen replied calmly. “I bet you hands down that my car could take your car any day.”
“Bull,” Alex said. “You know I would win, you just won’t admit it.”
I decided that I’d rather be sleeping than listening to this. But right as I was shutting my eyes, Laylen said something that made me open them right back up.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll admit that you might be right, if you’ll admit that you like Gemma.”
“If I told you that then I’d be lying,” Alex said, sounding as if he meant it. “Well, at least not in the sense that you’re implying.”
Ouch, that stung.
They were silent. The only sound came from the rumble of the tires and the low hum of the song purring from the stereos speakers—“Epiphany” by Staind.
“Okay Alex,” Laylen said, in an ‘I’m-going-to-lay-it-out-for-you’ kind of way. “ Ithink you like her. In fact I think you always have and always will. Now whether or not you’ll admit it is your problem. All I care about is that you lay off her. You can be a real jerk to her—to everyone really, but it’s worse for her because she’s new to feeling things.”
This conversation, for some reason, was making me feel very uncomfortable. But I didn’t know how to block it out. Cover my ears? Yeah, then they’d know I was awake and listening.
“You need to shut up,” Alex said, his anger blaring in his voice. “I don’t feel that way about her. Never have, never will.”
“Yeah, because you don’t care about anything,” Laylen told him. “You never have. Well, I take that back. You use to be normal until Gemma was sent away, then you basically just shut off. Maybe you should just think about why that is? Why would you change right when she left?”
“Because everyone will hurt you if you let them in,” Alex muttered as if he was quoting someone.
“What?” Laylen asked. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Just drop it.” Alex turned up the volume of the music, and the conversation was dropped.
I laid there for awhile with my eyes open, pondering everything. My feelings. My mom. What Alex had said.
“Everyone will hurt you if you let them in.” I wondered if he really believed it.
I felt very strange, my emotions running all over the place, almost like the prickle was malfunctioning or something.
And maybe it was.
Maybe I was broken.
Chapter 26
When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that the SUV was stopped. I sat up in the seat, wondering if we made it to wherever we were heading, or if something had happened. After blinking away my sleepy disorientation, I realized we were just at a gas station, getting gas.
Laylen was outside, pumping gas into the SUV, and Alex was nowhere in sight.
I stifled a yawn and then stretched, wondering what time it was. The sun was beating hotly from up in the sky, and the streets that bordered the gas station were bouncing with traffic. There was an old white and green Victorian house across the road that had a sign that said Isabel a’s Herb Shop. I wondered if it was the same kind of herb store as Adessa’s Someone knocked on the window, causing me to jump. Laylen smiled at me through the glass and motioned to me to open the door.
“Well, good morning sleeping beauty,” he said, after I open the door and climbed out into the sunlight.
“Sleep well?”
“Surprisingly, yes.” I stretched out my legs and arms. “How long was I out?”
“For about eight hours.”
“Eight hours?” How the heck had I slept for eight hours with everything that was going on.
“Yeah, you were really out, too.” He flashed me a grin. “Snoring and all.”
“I don’t snore,” I protested. At least I think I don’t.
He gave me another teasing smile, before sliding the debit card into the machine.
“Wow, you seem like you’re in a good mood,” I remarked with a curious tone.
He shrugged, glancing over at a tall woman with long black hair walking across the parking lot. “As good a mood as any, I guess.”
He was acting a little…off. “Are you feeling okay?” He shrugged again, rubbing his lips together, and then looked at me. “I’m fine.”
I stared at him, picking up on something. I couldn’t explain it, but after the whole first-time-biting thing, I had to worry a little. But before I could press him further, Alex strolled up, carrying a plastic bag.
“If you need to go inside for anything, then you’d better do it,” Alex told me, tossing a bag of food and drinks onto to the front seat of the SUV.
Seeing him made what he said last night replay in my head, along with the hurt feelings I felt. “Okay.” I headed inside.
“Make it quick,” Alex called after me. “We don’t want to be stopped for too long.”
I nodded, shocked he was even letting me go in by myself.
*** The gas station was fairly packed, which made my senses go on high alert, especially because I stood out like a sore thumb. My clothes were filthy, I had no shoes on, and my hair was a tangled mess—
well, at least more of a tangled mess than it usually is
—so people couldn’t help but gawk at me as I walked by them. I made my way down the candy aisle, past the drink cooler, and stepped into the restroom. I splashed my face with cold water and washed my hands. Wherever we were, the air felt humid and hot, making my skin feel gross.
I glanced up in the mirror and let out a groan at my reflection. My violet eyes. The one thing that was always going to make me stand out—deem me different. I was painfully realizing that no matter how much I wanted a normal life, it just might be impossible, and maybe I needed to start accepting that I was a star carrying, vision seeing, violet-eyed Gemma.
And that my life might not be long lived.
After my light vision, and my light dream, I had to wonder. They both might have been showing me a part of my future. The thought was scary, but I had to hold onto the fact that not everything I saw or dreamt had played out exactly as I had seen it. Things changed.
For the moment, I really needed to focus on figuring out how to get a hold of the Ira so I could go into The Underworld and save my mom. The problem was I couldn’t just walk into a store and purchase an Ira. The only person that I knew of who had one was Nicholas, and now that he might be working with Stephan, getting one from him seemed more impossible than it did before.