12. Gemma

12 GEMMA

Aislin lives in a beautiful two-story home located on the top of a sloped hill that has a view of the town that is currently glittering in the distance like the stars in the sky.

“The storm faded quickly,” I note as I gaze out her bedroom window. “I feel like the death walker is what started it.”

“It’s possible.” She’s moving around the room behind me, going from her dresser to her bed where her suitcase is, half-packed with her clothes. “I think we should read about these creatures more. I mean, we had like a super quick course about them in history freshman year, but I barely remember anything.”

“Me, too.” I turn away from the window and check my phone.

No new messages.

I tell myself to breathe, that perhaps my parents are on a mission. They are keepers, after all.

I pocket my phone and walk to the bed. “What can I help with?”

“Um … You can pack up my soap and shampoo,” she suggests as she tosses me a smaller bag. “Just put them in here.”

I give her a salute then leave her bedroom, heading for the bathroom a few doors down.

Hum …

Hum …

Hum …

I slow to a halt and peer around, turning in a circle. The hallway is wide with high ceilings and ivory-trimmed walls. The chandelier light glimmers across the crystal vases that dot the shelves, and the paintings on the walls add a hue of color to the gray walls.

Nothing appears to be humming, though, so I step forward again?—

Hum …

Hum …

Hum …

It feels like the air is vibrating, almost like whenever Alex and I are near each other, only with a slightly more buzzing variant. Maybe I should let it go. It could be anything really. But like with the box of stardust, the humming is beckoning me to find it.

I drop the bag and move through the house, winding around corners and closed doors until I arrive at the entrance to the basement. I went down there one time with Aislin when we were younger. We had to go through some old boxes to find her birth certificate. The place was eerie, and I remember this object in the corner that’s covered by a sheet. I wanted to look underneath it but was too afraid I’d get into trouble with Aislin’s dad. Even back then, he was a scary man. He’s worse now. That should be enough to get me to turn around and head back, but I open the door and start down the stairs. It’s like I can’t stop myself from going toward whatever it is, its humming noise like a song lulling me toward it.

The light in the basement is on, but the air is quiet. When I reach the bottom, I turn toward where the object with the sheet was. It’s still there, but the sheet is off of it, and beneath it is a massive orb framed with metal bars. It illuminates iridescent light that casts rainbows all over the dusty room.

“Pretty,” I whisper in a hypnotic trance that I can’t seem to break.

A part of me is well aware that this isn’t a good scenario, that this contraption in front of me doesn’t belong in the basement of a keeper’s house. And yet, I keep moving toward it with my hand outstretched?—

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Stephan’s voice slices through the haze in my brain like a scythe taking out a soul.

I jerk back and whirl around, my hair whipping around me. He’s standing at the bottom of the stairway, wearing a dark gray shirt and black slacks. His hair is slicked back, and he has a fresh wound on his cheek, one that’s barely scabbed over. I hate that he looks like Aislin and Alex. It creeps me out because he creeps me out.

“Sorry.” I rack my brain for a reason as to why I’d be down in the basement. “Aislin asked me to come find a box for her in here, and I saw this, and …” I swallow hard as his gaze continues to burn into me. “I’m sorry.” I move to rush by him, but he sidesteps me, blocking my way.

“You’re a terrible liar, Gemma Lucas.” He crosses his arms. “Just like your mother. So, tell me: why are you really down here?”

“I …” Dang it, I can’t think of a better lie, so … “I heard this humming sound, and while I know I shouldn’t, I followed it, and it was that thing.” I’m not about to tell him how I can feel the electric energy flowing off it.

“Really?” His expression is a mask of indifference, but his eyes dissect me in a way that makes goosebumps sprout across my flesh.

With my lips smooshed together, I nod, resisting the urge to say anything further, not wanting to incriminate myself even more.

My heart hammers against my chest with so much force that I worry my bones might break. But, conclusively, Stephan steps aside.

“Okay.” He gestures at me to go ahead.

I feel this pinprick of an urge to punch him in the face, but I don’t. I may be tough, but Stephan is older and much more experienced. Plus, there are stories about him and the wars he fought throughout the last few decades.

I rush up the stairs, not looking back. I powerwalk down the hallway, heading straight to Aislin’s room. When I rush inside, she’s zipping up her suitcase.

“Ready to go?” she asks, dragging the suitcase off her bed by the handle. It hits the floor with a thud . Then she faces me with a smile that quickly fizzles into a perplexed frown. “Dude”—she stares at my hands—“I thought you were going to pack up my shampoos and soaps?”

“I …” I glance down at my hands. At some point, I must’ve dropped the small bag she gave me. “There was an incident.”

“What sort of incident?” she inquires, her concern evident.

“Can I tell you later?” I give her a pressing look. “Once we’re outside.” Away from your father, this house, and the security cameras around it.

“Sure.” She’s so beyond puzzled, but like a good friend, she lets it drop for now.

Since I have no clue where I dropped the bag, and I’m not about to return to the basement to see if it’s down there, I ask her to grab another. Then we both go pack up her soaps and shampoos before hightailing it out of the house. She doesn’t tell her father she’s leaving, sending him a text instead.

“Hopefully, he won’t make a big deal about it,” she tells me as she hoists the suitcase into the back of her Jeep.

The air is cold, the night sky bleak with clouds that are trying to stifle the shimmer of stars, and whenever I take a breath, the scent of rain wafts through my body so potently it’s like I’m standing in a rainstorm. It makes memories of the rain and the death walker prominent in my mind.

“You think he will?” I ask as I start toward the other side of the Jeep.

She doesn’t answer until we’re both in the car with the doors shut and the engine running.

“It’s not like he gives a crap if I’m here.” She draws her seat belt over her shoulder. “But he also likes to control me.”

I buckle my own seat belt. “What about Alex?”

“He’s that way with him, too.” She drives forward, the tires squealing against the wet pavement of the driveaway. “So, what the heck happened?”

I force an exhale out of me, as if that’ll somehow help with my stress. Then I give her a recap of what occurred from the moment I left her room to when I returned. When I’m done, we’ve reached the main road that weaves through town.

“I’ve seen that in the basement. I told you about it, remember?”

I nod. How can I forget? It was just today. Besides, I wouldn’t have forgotten, anyway. Not when she implied her father hit her after she had seen the machine.

“It looked similar to the simulator at the academy.” I slide my shoes off and prop my feet up on the dash. “It definitely wasn’t exactly the same, and like I said, it was almost like it was calling me to it through the energy it was emitting.”

She flips on her blinkers. “He’s had that thing in there forever, but I’ve never felt any energy coming off it.”

“I wonder if Alex has.”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Well … I haven’t told you this yet, but since Alex found out about it today, I probably should.” I pull an apologetic face as I tell her, “Ever since I can remember, I’ve felt this electric current in my body every time I’m near Alex. He told me today that he feels it, too.”

“ What ?” she screeches as she turns into the parking lot of a diner. “And you never told me this because …?”

I shrug. “Because it was embarrassing, and I thought it was one-sided. But then I found out it wasn’t, so it’s not as bad.”

She pulls into a parking spot. “Why were you embarrassed about it?”

“Because it’s like so … I don’t know, like a crush, swoony crap.” I lower my feet to the floor. “Like if I were writing about a guy I had a crush on, I’d say I felt this electricity between us.”

She snickers. “What kind of book are you writing?”

I narrow my eyes at her. “It’s a metaphor.”

“I know.” She slips the keys out of the ignition. “I’m just giving you shit because you didn’t tell me for years about this. I thought we trusted each other more.” She says the comment offhandedly, but her tone conveys she’s hurt.

She grabs her bag then hops out of the car while I put my shoes back on. Then I climb out and meet her around the rear end of the vehicle where the neon glow of the retro diner casts across the night. She’s sliding the handle of her bag over her shoulder as I approach her.

“I do trust you,” I stress, zipping up my jacket. “More than anyone else. I really was just embarrassed. And I didn’t tell anyone because, in all honesty, I think I was trying to pretend it wasn’t real.”

Her hair blows in the wind as she assesses me. “No more secrets.” She holds up her pinkie.

I hitch mine with hers. “No more secrets.”

She smiles. “Good. Now let’s go get something to eat. All this chaos is making me so hungry.”

“Me, too.” My stomach growls at that precise moment, causing us to giggle.

We loop arms and start toward the entrance door. The restaurant is visible through the windows, revealing that the place is relatively empty. Good. The last thing I need right now is to be suspicious, which I know will happen if I’m in a crowd. Again, I’m getting increasingly paranoid. The thing is, I’m not sure what to be paranoid over. Sure, a lot of shit has been going down, but like Aislin said, it’s chaos.

Then again, her father is definitely someone I need to be suspicious of.

After we order our burgers, we take a seat in a corner red leather booth. A jukebox is playing an old-school tune, and the air smells like grease, but in a yummy way.

“So,” I say as I overlap my hands on the table, “any ideas on how we should proceed with all this chaotic crap going on?”

Aislin is sitting across from me and fiddling with the saltshaker. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I think we need to find another foreseer to talk to, one who perhaps is a reader for a living.”

Readers are shunned from the foreseer world due to the fact that they use their powers for business-like purposes, most of them reading people’s futures in exchange for goods and money.

“Why would we do that if we can just talk to my dad?” I question as I trace the cracks in the worn table.

She dusts some spilled salt off the table and onto the floor. “You said so yourself that your dad’s been kind of cagey when it comes to talking about his foreseer powers. Plus, we can’t get a hold of him.” She crosses her arms on the table, leans in, and lowers her voice. “If we go to a reader, they’ll give us answers.”

“But for a price. And it’s forbidden to go to them.”

“I know, but would you rather break the rules and get to the bottom of why these cracks are opening up in this world, or would you rather obey and stay in the dark?”

“Wow, I never thought I’d hear you suggest we be rulebreakers. That’s always been more of my thing.”

She reclines back in the booth. “Yeah, well, maybe I’ve reached my breaking point. Or maybe I reached it when we got attacked by a death walker—” Her gaze suddenly snaps to the right. “Oh, hey, Henry.” She gives him a nervous smile.

I turn my head and find him standing at the end of our table with a smile on his face that’s directed at me.

“Hey.” His gaze remains glued on me, though I’m pretty certain he’s speaking to Aislin.

“Hey,” I reply, anyway. “What’re you doing here?”

He grins amusedly. “Getting something to eat.”

“Right. What else would you be doing at a diner?” I joke, rolling my eyes at myself. “Sorry, I’m a bit tired.”

“Is everything okay?” he asks worriedly.

I nod. “Everything’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” he questions, his attention zeroing in on my forehead. “What happened to your head?”

“I bumped it on the corner of a cupboard,” I lie, trying not to squirm.

Aislin gives me a really look, probably questioning why I couldn’t come up with a better lie.

I pretend to be calm. Henry did help me. I don’t need to be uneasy around him.

I hope …

“That’s very clumsy of you, and not like you at all,” he tells me, shifting his weight.

“I know. I was distracted.” I tuck my hands underneath the table so he won’t notice how fidgety I am.

“About what?” he wonders. “Did it have to do with that book I gave you?”

“Um … Yeah.” I latch on to the opportunity to lie. “I was actually reading it when I ran into the cupboard.”

He bobs his head up and down, like it makes perfect sense. “Did it help? The book, I mean?”

“No, not really. But thanks for trying to help.” I smile, but it’s totally plastic. “I appreciate it.”

“Anytime. And we can talk about this more when we go to the movies.” His smile brightens. “Although, I guess you don’t really talk during a movie, but maybe afterward, we can get something to eat and talk about it more?”

Ugh, I feel like a cornered shapeshifter cat. I must truly be exhausted because I can’t come up with any sort of excuse.

Just then, Alex and Laylen enter the diner. They’re moving in such a hurried way that it draws everyone’s attention, winding around tables and chairs with intent steps.

I look at Aislin, wondering how they found us when we were supposed to meet at the hideout. She just holds up her phone in answer.

When they reach us, Henry steps to the side, a frown forming on his face as Alex stops beside him.

“What’re you doing here?” he asks Henry with a dirty look on his face.

Alex’s cheeks are flushed, and Laylen is pale. Between that and the worry crammed into their eyes, I prepare myself for bad news.

“I’m getting something to eat and was talking to Gemma while I waited,” Henry responds in a clipped tone that’s entirely out of character for him as he glares daggers at Alex. “But then you rudely interrupted us.”

“Yeah, well, this is more important than your lame attempts at flirting with Gemma,” Alex retorts with annoyance in his voice.

“Alex,” I hiss with my hands splayed on the table. “What the heck is your problem?”

Neither Henry nor Alex remove their gazes from each other, a silent stare down being exchanged.

Laylen sneaks me a concerned glance, but I’m not sure what it’s even for.

“Whatever.” Henry is the one to break the stare down. He glances at me, his expression softening. “I’ll text you about dinner and the movie.” His lips curl into a smile, and then he waves at me and walks away, heading toward the counter.

“That guy is annoying,” Alex mumbles with his lips dipped downward.

“You’re annoying,” I stress. “And really rude.”

His gaze skates to mine. “ I’m rude? You’re the one stringing him along.”

“Hey,” I protest, “I am not. I like him.”

“Sure you do.” He rolls his eyes. “You looked as bored as you did in our history class when Professor Macdallen was talking about the origin of ogres.”

My lips twitch as irritation prickles through me. “I actually like him a lot. In fact, I think I’m going to go hang with him while he waits for his food.” I lift my chin as I start to stand up.

Alex blocks my way, putting his hands on the table and leaning in toward me. His nearness is like stepping into an electric current. “I didn’t just come here to argue with you, violet eyes. Something happened.”

“Did you just call her violet eyes ?” Aislin says with her brows elevated toward her hairline.

I’m briefly stuck on that, too, but what he said captures my undivided attention.

“What happened at the academy?” I have this sudden gut feeling that it was something awful.

Alex sneaks a glance around then whispers in a low voice, “Professor G. is dead.”

“What?” Aislin and I both exclaim loud enough that people throw us uneasy glances.

“Shh …” Alex warns tensely as Laylen looks around, on guard. “No one knows yet.”

“What do you mean no one knows?” I whisper back. “How the hell do you know then?”

“Because we found him dead in his office.” Alex sinks onto the seat beside me and rakes his fingers through his hair. “We took off before anyone saw us.”

“Why would you do that?” I whisper, gaping at him. “That’s the stupidest thing ever.”

Laylen takes a seat beside Aislin and drapes his arm around her shoulders. “Because of what was at the scene of the crime.”

“Scene of the crime?” I glance between Laylen and Alex, noting the dread in their expressions. “You think he was murdered?”

“We know he was,” Alex answers, rotating toward me. “He was daggered in the chest.”

I swallow the lump swelling in my throat. “That still doesn’t explain why you guys just took off from a murder scene.”

“We did it to protect you,” Alex informs me. “Because on his desk, right beside his head, was a note someone wrote that read, ‘ Gemma Lucas is the one that killed me .’”