8. Gemma

8 GEMMA

“Okay, what the hell happened in there?” Aislin asks the moment we’re in her Jeep. The rain has let up to a drizzle, but the dreary sky whispers a foreshadowing warning. “You went into a crystal ball, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know how since I don’t have the mark,” I remind her as she turns on the engine and cranks up the heat. “I’m thinking that Nicholas guy had something to do with it.”

Her brows knit. “Who?”

“That blond guy who came into the store.”

She stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Gem, no one but us and Amelia were in that store.” She pauses. “Unless you saw a ghost.”

“Are you messing with me?” I ask, searching her eyes.

“No.” Genuine honesty glitters from her eyes. “Are you messing with me ?”

A sharp nip of unease bites at me. “Aislin, I swear I saw someone in there. A blond guy who said his name was Nicholas. He was around our age, kind of looked familiar, but I don’t know why, and he was creepy as hell. He went into the vision with me, but when I came out of it, he wasn’t there anymore.”

Silence stretches between us as we both try to grapple with what happened.

“That’s super creepy and weird,” Aislin finally says as she tugs the hood of her jacket off her head. “I’m not sure who that guy was, but he doesn’t sound like a ghost.”

“I know.” I mull over what he could be, but come to no conclusion. That’s probably not what I should be fixated on, though. “We need to figure out how I’m going into visions without the mark.”

She nods in agreement as she drives forward. “What did you see when you were in there?”

“Something really weird. I was part of it. I was living with people I didn’t recognize, and they were talking about how my soul was broken, like they cast a spell on it so I didn’t feel anything.” I touch my hand to my chest. “What if there’s truth to that?”

“Your soul’s not broken,” she assures me as she drives down the puddled road. “In fact, you have the biggest soul ever.” She falls silent for a bit, and then the corners of her lips quirk. “It’s why Henry likes you so much.”

I give her a look. “Dude, why did you have to remind me?”

“Because we need a change of subject.” She adjusts the temperature. “What are you going to do about him? Because, eventually, you’ll have to tell him you don’t feel the same way he does about you.”

“Maybe he just wants to go out on a date as friends,” I offer. She side-eyes me, and I sigh. “Fine, I know he doesn’t, but I don’t know how to tell him I don’t feel the same way.” I pick at my chipped nail polish. “I’ve never had to break someone’s heart before. What’s your advice on the best way to do that?”

“Hey, I haven’t broken that many hearts.”

“You’ve broken some.”

“All right, I guess that’s fair.” She thrums her fingernails on the steering wheel as she slows down for a bend in the road. “Honestly, I don’t think there’s an easy way to do it. Just tell him the truth nicely to try to lessen the heartache.”

I nod, going over in my head how to do that. It sounds awful, telling someone that.

“Who do you like right now, anyway? Is it still?—”

“Shh,” she hisses.

I laugh. “Dude, he’s not here.”

“I know, but …” She chews on her bottom lip. “He’s Alex’s best friend. Do you know how complicated that would make things?”

“Didn’t you just imply Alex and I have a thing for each other?”

“Yeah, but …” She wavers again. “I don’t know. I like Laylen a lot, but I don’t want to ruin the way things are.”

“What if he’s your soul mate, though?”

“What if Alex is yours?”

I part my lips in shock. “Hey, take that back.”

She giggles as I playfully swat her.

“What? It could be true, you know. We’re barely eighteen. We have our whole lives ahead of us, and our future is still so undecided, you know.”

“Yeah,” I mutter, thinking about what I’ve seen in these visions.

Is my future undecided? Or is it already mapped out? I’m not sure. About anything really.

Just this morning, my biggest concern was whether I wanted to become a keeper. Now I’m wondering if I even am a keeper.

Who the heck am I really?

Aislin and I keep the conversation light for the rest of the drive back to my house. I think she can sense that I’m struggling with everything. I want to talk to my dad about it, but he won’t answer his phone. And neither of my parents will be home for a while, so that leaves me to handle my own problems.

Ugh, growing up sucks sometimes.

“Where should we do this spell?” I ask Aislin once we’re inside my house.

“Maybe the basement?” she suggests as she shucks off her jacket.

I take mine off, too, and hang it on the coatrack near the front door. “Really? You want to go into the basement? There are spiders down there.”

Aislin arches a brow at me. “How can you be afraid of spiders when I once saw you remove a heart from a fire demon?”

“Spiders are tiny and gross.” I shudder. “You can’t even see them coming.”

She rolls her eyes. “They’re just spiders. You can deal with it. The basement’s the best place to do this.”

I grimace. “Whatever.” I begrudgingly help her gather all the items for the spell, including the spell book she has in her backpack.

She takes the spell book from me and fans through the pages as we make our way through the kitchen and toward the stairs that lead to the basement.

Right before we start down, she comes to a stop. “Wait, we need two other people for this spell.”

I pause, glancing at her. “How did you not notice that before?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Sometimes I get confused. Or, well, I don’t pay attention to all the details.”

“You skim-read the spell, didn’t you?”

“Maybe.” She looks guilty. “I was in a hurry.”

“It’s fine. You’re helping me, so you don’t need to be sorry.” I set the candles down on the kitchen table. “Who else would do this with us?”

“Well, Laylen would, for sure.” She chews on her bottom lip. “Since he went into the vision with you, Alex might. He’s not a huge fan of me doing spells, but for this, he may be okay with it.”

“No,” I gripe, bobbing my head back in frustration. “I’ve already seen him enough today.”

“Look, I get this whole hate-thing going on between you two”—her tone is crammed with sarcasm—“but he’s our best option if you want to try to get some answers.”

Deep down, I know she’s right. It doesn’t make it any easier to agree to it, but I do.

“Fine, but if he gets annoying, I will lock him in the basement with the spiders.”

“Sounds good,” she says like she’s tolerating a child.

Sighing, I make my way across the kitchen while she calls Alex and Laylen to see if they can help. At first, I’m unsure where I’m heading, but it’s like my feet have a mind of their own as they carry me into my parents’ bedroom.

I open the lid to the massive trunk where they keep all their important documents. I begin rummaging through the folders, searching for my birth certificate. I know I’ve seen it before … I think. I can’t find it, though.

Eventually, I give up on it being in there, close the trunk, and enter my parents’ closet. They have a lot of boxes in there, so I peer in a few to see if any contain papers. Nope. But I do find something else that has my heart soaring.

It’s a photo of my parents standing in front of a willow tree. And standing beside them is me when I was about twelve years old, along with an older man and woman. What’s confusing about this photo is I don’t remember it being taken, and I have no clue who the older man and woman are.

I’m old enough that I should remember this.

I back out of the closet with the photo still in my hand then sink down onto the foot of my parents’ bed. “What’s going on, Dad?” Because it feels like he knows something. But how can I get him to tell me when he’s acting so secretive?

Maybe I won’t have to. Perhaps Aislin will get some answers once we’ve done the spell.

I put the photo in my pocket before returning to the kitchen where Aislin is sitting at the kitchen table with her spell book opened in front of her.

“Good news,” she tells me as she turns a page. “The guys are heading over. I’m going to thoroughly read through this spell while we wait and make sure I didn’t miss anything else.”

“Good idea. I’ll make us a snack.” I head to the fridge, pull some mozzarella sticks out, and pop them in the oven. Then I busy myself with cleaning up while trying not to think about all the mysteries surrounding me. But it’s haunting my mind, like the alleged blond-haired ghost who visited me in the store?—

Just as I am pulling the mozzarella sticks out of the oven, I screech at the sight of two yellow eyes glowing in the window above the kitchen sink.

“What is it?” Aislin asks, jumping to her feet.

“Yellow eyes.” I point at the window then hurriedly retrieve my dagger from my ankle holster that is back to where it should be.

Aislin rushes up beside me, her hand illuminating with magical light. “Oh my God, what the heck is that?”

The eyes stare at us, glowing through the raindrops pelting the window and making it hard to see anything else.

“I don’t know.” I lift my dagger in front of me, hoping the creature will take a hint not to mess with us. But it continues to stare, eyes piercing, and then frost begins to web across the window, crackling and spreading, even when it reaches the edge of the glass.

My breath fogs out from my mouth as I breathe out, “It’s a death walker.”

“Those are supposed to be extinct,” Aislin whispers with a bundle of uncertainty in her voice. The magic in her hand flickers on and off against the plunging temperature drop.

“Well, I’m pretty sure that’s what it is.” I take a step back as ice glazes the countertops. “Let’s just add it to the other weird stuff going on.”

She matches my move, stepping backward, as well.

The death walker’s eyes remain visible in the window as we back away, one step at a time?—

The window explodes, sending pieces of glass flying. A piece slices across my forehead, and blood trickles down my face. But that’s the least of my problems. The entire kitchen is a winter wonderland, and the death walker is storming through the window.

While I’ve never fought one of these creatures, I know how hard it is to take down. Not to mention we don’t have the right weaponry.

“Run!” Aislin shouts, reeling around and running for the living room.

I do the same, but it captures my arm and wrenches me backward. I slip and fall, hitting the ice-covered floor with enough of an impact that the room starts to spin. Yellow eyes appear above me. I can see it completely now—the black-hooded cloak, the boney-like features beneath it.

I struggle to get to my feet, but I’m so cold that my limbs are numb. My teeth clank together as they chatter, my body convulsing.

I attempt to swing the dagger at it as it leans in toward me, but my arm won’t move.

Where the hell is Aislin?

“Help,” I try to shout, but my voice is a hoarse whisper.

I think I’m going to die.

That’s the last thought I have before my eyelids begin to lower, my body giving in to the frostbite?—

Arms slip under me, and I’m lifted to my feet as Laylen appears in front of me with a sword in hand. He plunges it into the death walker, and while it won’t kill it, it injures it enough that it cries out and glides away, back out the window.

He breathes heavily, his chest rising and crashing as he turns to look at me. “Are you okay?”

I bob my head up and down, confused as to who’s holding me up. They have their strong arms wrapped around my midsection, and their solid chest is pressed against my back. It takes a few seconds for the buzzing to surface through the frigid chill possessing my body, but when it does, I know who’s holding me.

I attempt to move away, but my body is too numb. In fact, I have to put all my weight against Alex in order to remain upright.

He rotates me around to face him, his green eyes assessing my face. His lips are set in a frown. “You’re bleeding,” he says, keeping one arm wrapped around me while he uses his free hand to lightly touch my forehead.

“It’s from when the window shattered,” I manage to get out through the constant chattering. “Why was a death walker in my kitchen? Those things aren’t supposed to exist anymore.”

“It just appeared out of nowhere, too.” Aislin appears in the doorway, wide-eyed, and her skin is tinted blue, probably from the death walker’s chill of death.

“You should sit down,” Laylen tells her with worry written all over his face. “Until the chill wears off.”

She obeys, crossing the kitchen and sinking into a chair at the table.

The ice is starting to melt and leaving puddles in their wake. Plus, the window is broken and letting rain pour in, making a mess. I need to clean it up. Wait … Why am I worrying about this?

“Hey.” Alex captures my attention by placing his hand against my cheek. “Did you hit your head on anything?”

I attempt to remember, but I’ll admit, my mind feels a bit hazy. And buzzy. “I don’t know,” I mutter. “You’re making my brain all buzzy.”

He smashes his lips together with so much force the edges turn white. “I think you might have a concussion.”

“I think you might be right.” I lean into him. “I feel fuzzy, like I’m underwater.”

Worry fills Alex’s pupils. “Okay, let’s go sit you down.” Looping one arm around my back, he guides me out of the kitchen and into the living room. The ice never made it there, so the space is dry, and the air isn’t as damp and chilly.

Once Alex helps me sit on a sofa, he crouches in front of me. His gaze roves over my face. Then, with his teeth sunk into his bottom lip, he gently touches my forehead again. “I’m going to go get some stuff to clean this up. Don’t get up while I’m gone. You’ll have to take it easy for a few days.”

“No, I can’t,” I whine, slumping back on the sofa. “I need to figure out who that creepy blond guy was, why I went into another vision, and why I keep dreaming about you and stars … Whoa …” I press my hand to my head. “I think I’m seeing stars right now.”

“Don’t move,” Alex instructs in a firm tone as he straightens.

I give him a thumbs-up then move to lie down. My vision is spotting, and my head is beginning to pound. “I think I’m going to take a nap.”

“Gemma,” he says in a panic.

But I’m already giving in to the sleepiness begging me to come to it.