Stephan strolled up to fireplace; the bright orange glow of the flames reflected in his dark eyes. I walked toward him slowly, my legs shaking more and more the closer I got.
I didn’t know what I was doing exactly, but I found myself staring at him—the man who’d taken away my life. His dark, soulless eyes, the scar on his left cheek, rough and jagged as if he’d been cut with a dull knife. When his gaze moved away from the fire and landed on me, I let out a gasp and quickly backed away.
His gaze did not move away from me. It locked on me like a target, making me tremble from head to toe. He can’t see you, I told myself. But then I remembered how, during the first time I had accidently slipped into a vision—the one that had taken me to this very room—Stephan had acted like he could sense I was there. I started to freak. What if he knew I was here?
The door creaked open behind me, and I jumped to the side as Sophia and a man with light hair and brown eyes walked into the room. It was strange seeing Sophia fourteen years younger. She practically looked the same, though, except with fewer wrinkles. Her auburn hair was still done perfectly, and she was sporting the same 1950’s TV sitcom look; wearing a cream colored dress with high-heeled shoes that matched.
“Where’s the girl?” Stephan asked the man whose name I didn’t know.
“She’s coming,” the man replied, bowing his head as if Stephan was some kind of king or something. “Marco is bringing her.”
So this was it. This was what I was supposed to see—my last day as a normal little girl. Well, normal except for the whole carrying-a-stars-power-in-me thing.
This was absurd. I didn’t want to see this.
I turned to leave, but the door opened again and Marco and Little Gemma walked in. My violet eyes were huge and I wondered from the terrified expression on my face, if when this had all taken place, I’d sensed something terrible was about to happen to me.
“Here she is,” Marco said, handing me over to Stephan.
Stephan stared down at me with what only could be described as the most sinister look I’ve ever seen. “Hello, Gemma. Are you ready to go?”
Little Gemma shook her head. “No.”
“Well too bad.” Stephan raised his eyes away from me and looked at Sophia. “Let’s get this taken care of.”
Seeing Marco and Sophia standing there, being a part of all of this had me shaking with anger. Yeah, I already knew they played a part in this, but seeing it…It was sending me into a fit of rage.
Stephan told Little Gemma to go sit down in the chair, and with great reluctance she obeyed. I wondered if I ever thought about running. I wondered if I had any idea of what was about to happen to me.
Sophia stood in front of me as she hesitantly reached for my head. Little Gemma recoiled, pressing herself back into the chair. She knew something bad was about to happen. I could tell—I could feel it in my own bones.
To my surprise, Sophia pulled back her hand. “Are you sure this has to be done?” She asked Stephan. “She’s just a little girl—Jocelyn’s little girl.”
“I understand that. But even before she disappeared, Jocelyn agreed that this must be done,” Stephan’s voice seemed to have a hypnotic effect on Sophia, like he had lulled her into a calming state of mind. “We have to do this to save the world. If Gemma keeps…” his eyes wandered over to Little Gemma who was listening intently. “Yes, we have to do this. Now get it done.”
Looking extremely upset, Sophia turned back to me, and put her hands on my head. “Just relax, Gemma. It will be over in a moment.”
Marco put his hand on Sophia’s shoulder, comforting her. And I—and I mean the real foreseer-traveling-me—stood gaping in horror at this scene. They didn’t know. Marco and Sophia hadn’t known what Stephan was really planning to do. They thought they had been doing the world good. All those horrible, torturous years of living with them, and their cold and distant behavior, had all been because of Stephan’s lies. I never thought I could hate someone so much. But, oh yeah, I did. The rage of prickles on my neck was letting me know that.
“Just a second,” Stephan said suddenly. He moved toward Little Gemma and grabbed hold of a thin chain hanging around her neck—my locket.
“Hey,” Little Gemma protested as Stephan yanked it off of her neck, snapping the chain. “My mom gave that to me.”
Stephan gave her a look that I’m sure had to have sent a shiver down her spine, because it sent one down my own. “You’ll get it back just as soon as Sophia is done.”
Liar.
Putting her hands back on my head, Sophia muttered something under her breath, and her hands started to glow a bright gold. I gasped at the same time Little Gemma gasped, and I actually saw…I actually saw the life slip from her violet eyes, like a light switch had been flipped off.
Sophia pulled her hands away, the golden light fading from her hands. “There, it’s done.” She turned to Stephan. “Now what do we do.”
“Now you and Marco will take her to Afton, just like we talked about,” Stephan said, seeming pleased. Umm…How could they not be suspicious of him? “And you’ll make sure she stays this way. Understood?”
Sophia nodded. “Okay, then.”
As they all gathered to leave, I watched Little Gemma move robotically as Sophia guided her out of the room. I did not follow because I didn’t want to follow. I wanted to go back and forget this ever happened. But deep down I knew only one of these things was possible.
I closed my eyes and willed myself to leave this place. And before I knew it, I was being yanked back.
Chapter 12
My eyes shot open and the first thing I saw was a dark blue ceiling. Then Laylen’s worried faced appeared above me.
What just…happened?” He spoke slowly as if he was too terrified to speak.
I started to sit up, but he put his hand on my shoulder, pinning me down. “Don’t sit up until we figure out why you passed out.”
“I didn’t pass out,” I told him. “I went into a vision.”
Laylen’s eyes widened just like I knew they would. “That’s what happens when you go into vision without a crystal—you just black out.”
I nodded, and then came the voice.
The most annoying voice ever.
“So you went into a vision?” Nicholas asked. “Without a crystal.”
“Ah, crap.” I didn’t even bother to say it in my head. I lifted Laylen’s hand off of my shoulder and sat up, dizzy and getting a total head rush. I blinked a few times while I waited for the room to stop spinning. “Did I hit my head?” I asked Laylen. “When I blacked out?”
Laylen shook his head. “No, I caught you before you did. You scared the crap out me, though. One minute you were talking, and then next you were falling out of the chair.”
“Nice,” I muttered.
“Nice for you,” Laylen teased. “But do you know how difficult it is to catch falling dead weight.”
I shook my head and got to my feet.
“So you can go into visions without a crystal ball?” Nicholas asked with intrigued.
Nicholas knowing about this was probably not a good thing. “No, I used a crystal ball,” I lied.
“No you didn’t—I’d have known if you had,” he said with a smirk. “But nice try.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.”
“So,” Nicholas said, marveling at me as though I was the most fascinating thing he had ever laid eyes on. “You can go into a vision without the help of a crystal…fascinating.”
Even though Alex wasn’t here, I could picture him giving me a twenty minute lecture about my stupid mistake of letting Nicholas know about my uncommon Foreseer ability.
“I guess,” I said, acting like it wasn’t a big deal, when really it was since a Foreseer traveling into visions minus the crystal is a very unheard of—if not completely unheard—thing.
“How long have you known you could do it?” Nicholas asked with way too much interest.
I shrugged. “Not too long.”
Nicholas’s golden-eyed gaze practically burned into me, not in a bad way, but in a good way. Or should I say a bad/good way, because the guy had already shown way too much interest in me, and with the way he was staring at me, I had a feeling that his interest way going to increase. A lot.
“Do you know how rare that is?” Nicholas awed at me.
I gave a shrug “I guess. I mean, Alex said there might be one other guy that could do it.”
Nicholas’s eyes devoured me. “That other guy is Dyvinius’s younger brother, who’s been a Foreseer for a really long time, and comes from a line of many, many powerful Foreseers. He isn’t some girl who just got her Foreseer’s mark only a couple of days ago. Do you know how unlikely it is for anyone to be able to do that…you would have to be…” He trailed off.
“Have to be what?” I asked, dying to hear what came at the end of that. What if Nicholas knew something about my little gift?
“Very powerful,” he finished.
Well, crap. Powerful I was. Or at least I had a lot of power flowing around inside me. But Nicholas was not supposed to know this.
Play it cool, Gemma. “Yeah, well, if I am, then that’s news to me.”
“Really,” he said, and I could tell he wasn’t buying it.
“Yeah, really.” Was all I could think of to say.
“So weren’t you supposed to be bringing back that Ira crystal ball with you?” Laylen interrupted, in an effort to sidetrack Nicholas.
“Yeah,” Nicholas said, his eyes still fixed on me as he patted the pocket of his jeans “I have it.”
“Well, shouldn’t you get to work, then.” Laylen was trying really hard to direct Nicholas’s attention away from me and my power, but Nicholas wasn’t having any part of it. “I mean, I’m sure it’s going to take awhile to train Gemma, or whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing.”