“Do you even know how to do stitches?” I ask. “Or is that something else you’re making up?”
He cocks an eyebrow. “What else am I making up?”
I motion my arm at the room with flourish. “Um, the fact that we’re here says how much you’ve made up.”
He props his foot up on his knee and leans back on the couch. “Actually, I never made anything up. I just didn’t tell you things.”
“Omission of the truth is just as bad as making shit up.”
“Says who?”
“Says me!”
We stare at each other with defiance; each of us refusing to look away and let the other win.
“Besides.” I adjust back on the sofa, moving carefully and cradling my side with my arm. “How do I know you haven’t been lying? I’ve known you for like a few weeks. For all I know your name isn’t even Alex.” I reach over and pinch his leg. His knee jerks and his foot falls to the floor. “And, are you even real? I saw another one of you for hell sakes.” I take a deep breath, staring forward as I shake my head. “I don’t even know what’s true and what isn’t anymore… what’s real and what’s not.”
He slants forward, catches my gaze and it nearly penetrates me. “Back at the cabin, when everything was happening, you said you knew the Death Walkers were going to kill you… how?”
“If I told you, you’d think I was insane,” I say and let my head flop onto the back of the sofa. “I even think it’s insane.”
I feel him move and then he’s above me, one of his elbows propped on each side of my head. He edges his face close and the fervor of his breath dampens my skin.
“I can completely and utterly assure you that nothing you say is going to make me question your sanity,” he says softly. “I promise you, I’ve seen and heard it all.”
I carefully consider what he says and then surrender to my doubts, knowing it can’t get much worse than it is. “I dreamt about them.”
“You dreamt about them?” he questions.
I nod my head and our foreheads clip. “A lot actually. For the last few months or so.”
He shifts his weight and puts a gap between our faces, but not our bodies. “And what happened in these dreams?”
Heat rushes to my cheeks as I blush. “Stuff… I don’t know. It went a little different each time, but it always ended the same.”
He scans my face with a curious expression. “Why do you look embarrassed?”
I shake my head and force my gaze to remain on his eyes and not his lips. “I’m just hot.”
He presses his lips together and then adjusts back in his seat, giving me some room.
I release a breath that was imprisoned inside my lungs, tuck my hair behind my ears, and stare at my hands. “It’s weird, you know, because this all seems real, but my mind’s screaming at me that it’s not possible. That there’s no way I could be sitting here when moments ago I was in your frozen car surrounded by…” I peer up at him as I lower my hands to my lap. “What did you call them? Death Walkers?”
He nods and grabs hold of one of my hands. “Why did you look at your hands just now?”
I push myself to look past the surging current his touch brings. “Because, in my dreams, they always turn blue, like I have frostbite or something.”
He frees my hand and I return it to my lap. “That’s because it is frostbite. Those things you saw, the Death Walkers, control the temperature of the air and since they favor the cold, they drop it rapidly wherever they are.”
My eyes sting with impending tears. “This is all so much.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but a loud thump from inside the house startles us both. We jump closer to each other as if we can’t help it. Before I can work up a wince from the static, he has his pocketknife out and the blade flipped open.
“Whose house are we at?” I whisper, not taking my eyes off the knife. It’s miniature and caked with dry flakes of blood.
He shakes his head, breaks his attention from the door, and sets the knife on a small square table next to the couch. “Laylen’s. He’s a friend of Aislin’s… and mine.” He reaches behind him and pulls back the curtain. “He lives in Vegas.”
Outside the window, dusk is advancing and casts a pinkish glow across the bronze sand that stretches for miles. I kneel up toward the window to get a closer look. “This can’t be real. None of this can.”
He lets the curtain fall closed. “Well it is. Trust me.” He places a hand on top of my chest. At first, I think he is trying to feel me up which seems inappropriate, considering the circumstances. “All of it is. You. Me. Everything.”
I inhale through my nose to maintain steady breathing. “Like monsters that freeze everything, or are you talking about other stuff?”
He moves his hand away and blows out a stressed breath. “I’m talking about a lot of things. Monsters are just the beginning of it and the rest is even more confusing.”
“More confusing? I can’t even fathom how that can be possible.”
“But, it is,” he mutters. “Way, way f**king confusing… and complicated.”
“I get complicated,” I say, thinking about my emotions and wondering if it has anything to do with what is going on. Although, I can’t connect it, it seems plausible. “But, what I don’t get is how we got here.”
He assesses me briefly, then turns sideways and slides his leg up on the sofa so his knee is pressing against mine. “Aislin transported us here.”
“Yeah, I heard you guys say that a lot, but what I don’t get is how. One minute we are all trapped in the car and the next I’m falling on the floor.” I omit the dirty dream I had about him for various reasons; one being, I don’t want my cheeks to turn red again.
He dithers. “She used a form of Wicca magic.”
I snort a laugh, but stop when I notice how solemn he looks. “You’re being serious? Because witches and magic aren’t supposed to be real.”
“They aren’t, huh?” he asks with a c*ck of his eyebrow. “Then, why don’t you explain how we got here?”
I shrug. “Maybe it’s not real. Maybe it’s a delusional world brought on by the trauma of those things—those Death Walker things that are trying to kill me. Or maybe this is just another mirage and this entire house is fake.”
“So, let me get this straight,” he says, frustrated. “You’re saying you believe in something like the Death Walkers, who, by the way, are demons, but you don’t believe in magic or witches.”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” I correct him. “I said that witches weren’t supposed to be real, but it doesn’t mean that I think the idea is unrealistic.”
“You’re extremely confusing, you know that?” he points out. “And calm. How can you be so calm in this kind of situation?”
I’m ridiculously calm and it is very unfitting for the situation. Most people would be running like hell to get away, or balled up in a corner banging their head on the wall; trying to force the madness out of their brains. “I have… issues… with fear… I mean, part of my brain is telling me that this is all just one big crazy delusion I’ve conjured up, but the other part is noting how very real everything feels. I’ve had some trouble in the past determining what’s real, too.”
His eyes scan me from head to toe and my skin electrifies like magic. Like witch magic. “What are you talking about? What kind of trouble? Did something happen that I don’t know about.”
“How would you know about anything?” I inquire with suspicion. “I haven’t told you anything.”
He situates a hand on my cheek and I shiver from the sparkling it causes inside me. “I know more than you think.”
I freeze as the electricity sings through my veins and crashes into my heart. My lungs swell from the pressure and the position of the glass alters. The pain causes me to moan, but the tingling sensation in my lower abdomen causes me to gasp. It’s the strangest noise that has ever passed my lips.
Alex must have thought so, too, because his eyes enlarge. “Are you okay?”
I slant my head back from his hand. “I’m fine. I’m just shocked because you can feel it too.”
“Of course I can feel it.” He sighs back in the chair. “How can I not?” He trails off, his voice softening. “But, I’m not supposed to… I’m breaking so many Goddamn rules.”
“What rules?” I probe. “You know, you speak in riddles sometimes.”
He rakes his fingers roughly through his hair and pieces stick up in every direction. I have the urge to put them back in place, but the pained expression on his face warns me that it’s best not to touch him. I tuck my hands underneath my legs to keep them restrained. “How the hell am I supposed to explain to you how important you are? It’s f**king impossible.” He stares at his scraped up hands, turning them over as he examines them.
“How important I am?” I scan the room, even though it’s obvious he’s talking to me, and aim an incredulous look at him. “I think you’re getting me mixed up with someone else because, trust me, there’s nothing important about me.”
“You have no idea how wrong you are.” He sucks in a slow breath and then raises his chin up to look at me. The intensity in his eyes makes me shrink back. “You’re the most im—”
“I found one.” Aislin races into the room with a proud look on her face. She’s carrying a first-aid kit and her hair has been pulled back into a bun. She’s also taken off her coat and boots.
Alex instantly springs to his feet like he’s guilty of some heinous crime. “It took you long enough. Jesus, what the hell were you doing?” He joins her in the middle of the room, frowning. “You seriously cleaned up? God, Gemma’s bleeding out here and you go wash up.”