He didn’t look at me with sympathy like I’d expected him to do, but more with determination. “Well, then I think it’s about time you knew for sure if you have.”
Oh, Laylen. Sometimes he made my heart ache—in a good way. “I wish it was that easy, but…I mean, how—how do we do it—make me happy.”
“You can’t force happiness, it just comes.” He leaned back in his chair, his face twisted in deep thought. “I think you and I both could use a little bit of fun…a little bit of relaxation.”
I stared at him like he was insane. “How are we supposed to relax, when we’ve got so many non-relaxing things to deal with?”
“We take a break,” he said as if it were that uncomplicated.
“You say it as if it’s that simple, but it’s not. I mean, we can’t go anywhere, since we have Stephan, the Death Walkers, Demetrius, and a lot of vampires after us,” I told him, counting out the list on my fingers. “Besides, do you know how to have fun, because I don’t?”
He got a look on his face that could only be described as a look someone got when they were about to do something they weren’t supposed to. “I think I have an idea.”
“This is what you think will make me have fun and be happy,” I asked Laylen, staring up at the enormous rollercoaster, the tracks twisting and turning and flipping in loops, like a giant death trap. And the busy sidewalk we were standing on made me even more uneasy. All it would take was for one wrong person to walk by us and we’d be screwed. But Laylen had sworn that we would be fine, because almost everything that was after at us, more than likely wouldn’t come out during the daytime; and that the bundles and bundles of people roaming around would keep us inconspicuous.
However, I wasn’t as optimistic. Being around people had never really been my thing. And when I had a crazy man with a scar, and his yellow-eyed, Chill of Death assailants after me, being around a huge group of people was definitely not my thing.
“This is what you think will make me feel happy?” I asked again just to make sure I understood him right. “A rollercoaster?”
Laylen nodded, looking absolutely sure.
So we headed up.
I couldn’t believe I was doing this. Riding a rollercoaster—never in a million years would I have ever thought I would be doing such a thing; and doing such a thing when we were being hunted.
But Laylen was persistent, guiding me along as we weaved up the aisle, until we reached the ticket area, where he purchased two tickets, and then the cashier sent us on our way to the loading area.
It was there that I realized that my jittery nerves weren’t just because I was worried we might run into someone. I was also jittery about the idea of getting on a rollercoaster. So by the time I slid onto the leather seat in the far back cart, I was trembling.
“You’ll be fine,” Laylen assured me, pulling down the bars that would—hopefully—hold him in the cart when it whipped upside down.
I pulled down my bars and secured them tightly against my shoulders. I heard someone from the front let out a scream as the cart started to creak forward. I held as still as a statue, my hands gripping the bars tightly. The wheels clanked as the cart rose up the tracks; the brightness of the sun glared in my eyes. There was a pause, where the cart just hovered at the top, and for a split second I thought we were stuck, but then it lurched forward and dropped. Then we were flying, wind blowing through my hair as the car went up and down, flipping loops and taking sharp turns. In the beginning I was terrified, but by the end I was laughing. And I mean really laughing. I wanted to hold onto this moment with every ounce of strength I had in me and never let it go.
By the time we stepped off of the cart and back onto the ground, I had tears rolling down my cheeks.
“Was I right or what?” Laylen asked, grinning from ear to ear.
I nodded, wiping my tears from my cheeks. It was the first time I’d ever had to wipe tears of happiness away. Who would have thought riding a rollercoaster would have brought them out.
“So you’re happy?” Laylen asked, looking at me with hopeful eyes.
“Yeah…I think I am.” I felt the back of my neck where the prickle was poking and then I felt myself starting to fall. “I think I…I …” I was slipping away and before I crashed onto the floor, I grabbed a hold of Laylen’s arm. But instead of catching me, I ended up yanking him down with me.
Yanking us down, down, down as the City of Crystal flashed through my mind.
Chapter 19
My face smacked hard against the floor. And I mean hard.
I pushed myself up to my feet, rubbing my sure-to-have-a-goose-bump forehead. My jaw just about hit the floor when I noticed that my feet were planted firmly on top of a translucent crystal floor, a midnight river flowing beneath it, bits and pieces of gold twinkling in the water like stars. Dark red crystals hung from the glittery charcoal ceiling above, and to the side of me, rubies waved across the snow-white crystal walls.
The City of Crystal.
I can’t believe I’d pulled it off. I felt like such a bad ass.
I glanced to the side of me, praying that Laylen would be standing there, but he wasn’t.
“Laylen,” I called out quietly, my eyes searching the cave. The sound of a light breeze was the only thing that answered me back. “Laylen?” I started to walk toward a bridge that was paved with broken pieces of porcelain. “Are you here?
A soft bang came from behind me, and I spun around, afraid of what I would find, but my racing heart instantly settled when I saw Laylen.
I let out a breath of relief. “For a second, I thought I didn’t bring you with me.”
“For a second, I thought I died.” He glanced around at the cave made of glass and crystal. “This place is…interesting.”
“Yeah, it is” I agreed. “Wait…You haven’t been here before?”
He shook his head, his fingers tracing the rubies curving along the crystal wall. “Not too many people have.”
People? Neither of us were really considered people, were we? In fact, everyone I knew had a mark of some sort. “So, which way do you think will take us to Alex?” I asked him.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Laylen dropped his hand from the wall and turned to me. “You’ve been here before, though, so your guess is probably better.”
“Well, you know what Alex is doing down here,” I pointed out. “So if you’d tell me…”
He considered this, and then said, “He’s doing something with this big crystal ball that channels energy to all the Foreseer’s crystal balls…But Gemma, I’m warning you that if we do find him, it’s not going to be pretty.”
“How so?” I asked. “I mean, what’s he doing with this big crystal that’s so bad?”
Laylen swept his bangs away from his face, looking uncomfortable “Well…that big crystal collects its energy from…people. And the way the energy is collected…it’s pretty bad from what I’ve been told.”
I nodded, trying to ignore the sickening feeling building in my stomach. “Okay, I remember Nicholas mentioning a big crystal ball. I think he said it was in the heart of the City of Crystal, whatever that means.”
Laylen glanced from left to right. “So which way?”
Wow. It felt so weird to be the one in charge, but I guess I’d give the position my best try.
“Well…” I looked to my right, at the bridge paved of porcelain, which I knew led to the Palace. Then I looked to my left, where all I could see was the crystal floor stretching down the cave. Having to pick between the two choices, I decided that it would be best to head away from the Palace because I figured we’d more likely get caught by someone if we went that way. “I say we go left.”
“Left it is,” Laylen said and we started off to our left.
“So, do you think Nicholas was up to something, or do you think he was just hanging around?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“He could have been just hanging around,” Laylen said. “He seems to have a deep fascination with you.”
“I don’t know why, though.” I shook my head. “No one’s ever wanted to hang around me before.”
Laylen gave me a strange look. “Why do you think that?”
I shrugged. “Because I never had any friends in school, well until Alex came along, but that was just him trying to figure out why I started to feel again. He wasn’t hanging around me because he wanted to.”
“Gemma.” Laylen’s voice was deep—pressing. “The only reason you never had any friends was because of how you were. But that’s not how you really are, and you need to realize that. And trust me, Alex enjoys being around you more than he lets on.”
“If that’s true,” I said, dragging my fingers along the wall as we walked, “then it’s because of the electricity.”
“Trust me, it’s more than that.” He pondered something for a good-long while before continuing. “Alex puts on this huge front when it comes to how he feels about things, but if you’ve known him for as long as I have, then you’d know it’s mostly an act.”
I was just about to open my mouth and tell him that I still didn’t believe that Alex liked being around me, but the sound of approaching footsteps made me stop.
Laylen and I froze, and we both shot a quick glance behind us. But there was nothing.
“Where’s it coming from,” I whispered.
He shook his head, and scooted us over to the side of the path, where we stepped off of a ledge and down onto a glistening surface of blue glass that was as slippery as ice. He took my hand, and we hurried over to a massive crystal pillar that coiled down from the ceiling and connected to the ground. Right as we tucked ourselves behind the pillar, I caught a glimpse of a tall figure walking down the path.
“Someone’s coming,” I whispered to Laylen.