“You can’t go wandering off,” he says sternly. “Not until we figure out what’s going on… why the Death Walkers are on to you.”

“Let me go.” I’m enraged. Furious. Pissed off beyond comprehension. I dig my fingers into his shoulders, hard.

He doesn’t seem to give a shit as he picks me up and flips us to the side so he is lying on top of me. He gathers my arms together in one of his hands and pins them up above my head. I’m trapped beneath him and the scorching heat is unbearable.

“You’re thinking too irrationally right now,” he says. “You need to calm down, take a few deep breaths and think before you do anything.”

I bend my back up and press my chest against his. “I’m thinking as rationally as anyone would in this situation. And there’s all this… stuff in my body and head and I don’t know what to do with it.”

He lowers himself and I feel the hardness of his body bear down on me. “Calm down. You’re going to tear open your stitches… Just calm down.”

I lie there, panting, and so does he. With each rise and fall of our lungs, our chests collide. I become calmer, which doesn’t seem possible. Yet, it is; my erratic breathing is slowing down, my heart steadying.

He loosens up too, and isn’t so tense anymore. “Now, if I let you go, will you promise to stay here and talk? No running off?”

I take a deep breath and nod, but deep down I know I have no control over what I do at the moment. My emotions do.

He lets go of me and pushes himself up. Then he grabs my hand and aides me as I sit up next to him. It grows quiet as he turns his head and looks over his shoulder at his back. “You know, you’re fucking ruthless. You clawed through my shirt and cut the skin.” He turns so I can see his back. Sure enough, I’ve managed to tear his shirt and his exposed skin is split open and bleeding.

“Sorry,” I apologize, but there is very little sincerity in my tone.

He turns around and there’s fire in his eyes. “Don’t be.” He clears his throat and then I clear mine.

“So, why did I start to feel, then?” I pull my legs up on the couch and tuck them under me. “That’s what I really want to know. What happened?”

“No one can really figure that out. I guess Marco and Sophia noticed some changes in you over the last few months or so.”

“They barely talk to me. How did they notice changes?”

“I guess you started asking questions about your parents and stuff. You even seemed sad at times.”

So that’s why Sophia has been upset. That’s why she won’t tell me anything, but it didn’t make it better. It made it worse. I feel a flicker of hatred in that moment; it's small, but there, and eager to flame bright. “And how do you play a part in this? I mean, you were at Marco and Sophia’s house that morning, and then, suddenly you were at my school. I’m guessing you weren’t there just to learn.”

He lets out a breath. “Aislin and I enrolled in school to try and figure out what was going on with you. We were supposed to keep our distance and just observe, but that didn’t work out very well.”

“Are those the rules you broke?”

He shrugs. “That’s just one among a very long list.”

“So you’re not supposed to be near me?”

He shakes his head and his gaze sweeps all over me, like he’s memorizing me before he bails. “No, not really.”

I think about us on the bed and just how close we’ve gotten. I pluck at a stray string on the throw pillow. “You broke that rule more than once.”

“I know,” he mutters and then lets out a sigh. “Look, I know you probably have a ton more questions, but I really need to get ahold of Stephan and figure out what’s going on. The Death Walkers—I don’t know how they discovered you—and we need to find that out before they track us down again.”

I want to believe that when he says ‘us,’ he actually means us, but, for some reason, I feel like I’m the exclusion. Deep down, I know I’m alone in this, just like I’ve been my entire life. In the end, I’m the only person I can count on for anything.

Chapter 10

The house is enormous; an overly large living room, a large dining area and a very long hallway that has a lot of shut doors. I wonder what is behind those doors; if they are normal rooms or torture chambers or something.

“There’s something else I need to tell you,” he says as he comes to a stop in front of one of the shut doors. He turns to me and there’s uneasiness in his demeanor.

I sigh. “Let me guess, unless you kill me right now, the world will explode.” What can I say? I’m tired.

He confines a smile. “Well, I’m glad your sense of humor hasn’t left you,” he says and I pull an intolerant face. “Relax; it’s not about you this time. It’s about Laylen, the guy who lives here.” He points up and down the hallway. Then, he crosses his arms. “He’s not human.”

“If he’s not human, then what is he?”

He scratches the back of his neck as he mutters, “A vampire.”

I stare blankly at him. He has to be joking. There is no way vampires can really exist. Can they?

He steps toward me cautiously with his hands at his sides. “I know what you’re thinking… I can see it written across your face. That there’s no way vampires are real, but they’re about as real as Death Walkers and you’ve seen those with your own eyes.”

My eyes drift to the end of the hall. Light spills through the glass just above the door and creates misshapen reflections across the floor and walls. I could run away and pretend that this madness never existed. That the last few hours are a dream, which they easily could be, but I’ve seen too much; know too much. There is no way I can go back into the dark again and live my life just as it was. I’ve changed. Everything has changed.

“You’re not thinking about running again, are you?” Alex asks.

“No, I was just thinking about stuff.” I glance back at him. “Does he bite?”

Alex’s jaw clamps down. It takes him a moment to answer. “No, since he was a Keeper before he changed, things work a little differently… He’s more in control of his blood lust.”

“Blood lust?” I’ve read about vampires, seen them portrayed on television shows. Some of them are depicted as sexy and their blood lust even sexier. I wonder if this Laylen guy’s blood lust—should it ever emerge—will be sexy and feel good? I’m probably wondering too many things about the subject. I cover my mouth and cough to clear my throat. “And what about vampires that aren’t Keepers to begin with? What are they like?”

“Let’s just hope you don’t ever have to find out,” Alex says, then turns the doorknob and shoves the door open.

The room is bigger than the one we just left, but there’s a lack of windows. The dark red walls are bordered by bookshelves and there is a long, mahogany table in the middle of the room with eight antique spindle-back chairs around it.

Aislin is in one of the end chairs, texting on her cell phone. When she sees us, she jumps to her feet and meets us in the center of the room. “Oh, good. I was just about to come get you. Did you get everything taken care of?”

Alex looks at me and then back at Aislin; I can sense something is up. “Yeah, I guess. Well, as much as I could.”

Aislin sighs, patting her phone against the palm of her hand. “I can’t get ahold of Stephan. It goes straight to his voicemail.”

“That’s odd,” Alex mumbles, staring at the spot on the floor in front of his feet with his eyebrows dipped. “Did you try Marco and Sophia?”

“Yeah, they didn’t answer, either.” Aislin checks her cell phone screen. “Something’s not right.”

“Why do you need to get ahold of Marco and Sophia?” I intervene.

“Because they might know where Stephan is,” Alex replies uncomfortably. “They’re pretty close—Sophia, Marco and my father.”

“And yet I’ve never met you before,” I say. “Which seems a little bizarre.”

“Isolation,” Alex counters placidly. “They wanted as little familiarity as possible around you.”

I just stare at him. There are no words. No coherent sentences that can explain how he can talk so casually about something so significant, at least to me.

“What?” he wonders. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because you’re so…” I rack my brain for the right word. “Nonchalant about stuff. It’s weird.”

“And you’re emotional about a lot of things, which is weird since a few months ago you couldn’t even smile,” he retorts, inching toward me. “You want to share any insight to that?”

I stand tall, posture straight, and my feet firmly planted to the floor. “Care to share why you’re so calm? Why you can talk about my painful past as if it’s a piece of dirt on your shoe.”

“I don’t share anything with just anyone,” he says, again calm, and my hand itches to slap him.

“And vice versa.” I clench my hands into fists and hide them behind my back, attempting to keep my own cool.

“But yours is important to share.” He takes another step, diminishing more space between us.

I match his move and get right in his face. A floodgate opens, releasing a waterfall of emotions that severely want to wipe away the last hour or so. “In order for me to want to tell you anything, I have to trust you and, right now, I don’t. It’s that simple.”

His eyes blacken and his voice lowers as he leans in. “You trusted me pretty damn well back at the cabin.”

My hand starts to rise, to either hit him or shove him—I’m not exactly sure. I never find out, though because Aislin steps up and mediates.

“Maybe we should try calling them again?” she suggests. “It doesn’t hurt to try.”

Without taking his eyes off me, Alex nods. “Yeah, go ahead and try.” He pauses and Aislin begins pressing buttons on her phone. “Do you know if Marco and Sophia were going somewhere? Like on a vacation or something.”

I’m so stunned, I can’t blink. “You do realize that I barely talked to them when I lived with them. After I moved out, we’ve talked on the phone maybe, like, three times.”

“You were over there that day I ran into you.” His hand digs around in the pocket of his jeans for his phone. “Did they say anything then?”

“Yeah, they said to get my shit out of my room,” I state with bitterness seeping thickly from my throat as I gather loose strands of my hair and put them back into place. “And to never ask questions about my parents again. I’m guessing that neither of those things screamed that they were planning a vacation anytime soon.”

“Gemma, this isn’t a joke.” Alex huffs an aggravated breath and puts the receiver up to his ear. “It’s important. Your life, the world’s life, depends on it.”