“I’ll always want to protect you,” Alex said, his voice cracking. “No matter what. That will never change.”
“But I can take care of myself you know,” I said, keeping my voice steady even though it was extremely difficult. “I mean, I took down a couple of Death Walkers all on my own.”
“I know. But it doesn’t mean I still don’t want to protect you,” he repeated, his powerful gaze practically burned at my skin.
I let out a gasp from the intensity bursting between us and then immediately felt embarrassed. I turned my head to the window. Don’t blush. Don’t blush. Turn it off. You use to do it all the time.
We remained silent for the rest of the drive. I think we both sensed things were getting a little too intense between us, and if we didn’t back off, we might end up doing something stupid.
Alex turned down one of the side roads that weaved into the foothills of the mountains, thick with trees and darkness. Not too far up, he made a sudden sharp turn, dipping the Mitsubishi into the trees.
I grabbed onto the roof, bracing myself against the bumps. “What are you doing?” I cried.
He killed the headlights as he slowed the car to a stop. “I didn’t want to pull up, just in case someone is there,” he explained and I gave him an incredulous look.
I glanced at the steep hill we were parked on, and the thick trees surrounding us. “You know this doesn’t have four-wheel drive, right.” It was a Mitsubishi Mirage for crying out loud.
He smiled and his eyes sparkled in the moonlight. “It’ll make it,” he assured me.
We got out of the car and crept up the dirt hill. I could barely see, and I found myself wishing that Aislin’s see-in-the-dark stuff had been a permanent thing. I did, however, notice that there was a lack of stumbling on my part, which had to be because I was a Keeper now.
At the top of the hill, Alex ducked down, and put his arm in front of me, gesturing for me to stay where I was. I stood as still as a statue as he peered over the hill, then let out a breath of relief.
“I knew no one would be here,” he said as he stood up straight.
“The coast is clear?” I asked.
He nodded. “The coast is clear.”
We stepped off the hill and onto the driveway. I could make out the outline of Alex’s two-story house that blended into the night. When we reached the front door, he slipped his wallet out from his pocket. I gave him a funny look, although I wasn’t sure if he could see it through the darkness, and he took out a credit card and held it up.
“I don’t have my key on me,” he explained. With one quick swipe, he had the door unlocked.
“How many times have you done that before?” I asked as he opened the door.
He shrugged. “A few,” he said and stepped inside.
I rolled my eyes and followed him in.
He slipped a flashlight out of his pocket and shined the light around us. “It stinks in here,” he murmured. “Like feet.”
He was right—there was a foul smell to the air.
“Welcome to my home,” Alex muttered, heading for the stairway.
“So where is the book?” I asked in a low voice as I followed him up the stairs.
“In my father’s office.” He nodded up at the top of the stairs.
I was little surprised when he took me to a room with black and purple checkerboard walls, dark blue carpet, and a massive canopy bed decorated with dark vines and black curtains, that was clearly not an office.
“Whose room is this?” I asked, wishing it were mine
He gave me a smile as he spotlighted the flashlight around. “It’s Aislin’s.”
“No, seriously,” I said, unbelieving that the poster of Rise Against hanging on the wall could belong to Aislin. “Whose room is this?”
He laughed. “I’m being serious. This is Aislin’s room.”
I was so confused. “But it’s so….so…awesome.”
He laughed even harder. “What did you expect it to look like?”
“I don’t know….less dark and more….pink and flowery.”
He opened the closet. “You have to understand something about Aislin. She’s not who she appears to be on the outside. She has a darker side to her.” He set the flashlight down and grabbed a box from the top shelf. “Most witches do have a darker side…But my father trained her to be the girl she is on the outside—he controlled her a lot.”
He continued to rummage around in the closet, and I walked around the room, still not believing this could be Aislin’s room. It just didn’t make any sense.
I caught sight of a photo on top of her dresser. I squinted through the darkness at it and realized it was a photo of her and Laylen, sitting out on a porch, smiling for the camera. The sunlight lit up the happiness in their eyes. A happiness which did not exist at the moment.
“What are you looking for?” I walked into the closet beside Alex. “I thought you said the book was in your father’s office.”
He pulled another box off the top closet shelf—a black one decorated with purple stars—and lifted the lid. “I’m looking for this.”
It was a box filled with plastic baggies of herbs, candles, crystals, beads, necklaces, and other stuff I couldn’t identify.
“Aislin’s witch stuff?” I asked, picking up one of the silver-chained necklaces and examining it.
“Yeah, she figured we could pick it up while we were here.”
I nodded and put the necklace back. “It’s a good idea. I mean, we’ve been having to use her magic a lot to help us out.”
We left Aislin’s room and went into the room across the hall.It was Stephan’s office, lined with a ton of shelves that had rows and rows of books.
“Please tell me you know where the Foreseer book is,” I said in a hopeful tone.
He shook his head, crushing my hopefulness into smithereens.“Start looking.”
A half an hour later, we were up to our elbows in books. Alex had balanced the flashlight in the center of the room, so there was just enough of a faint glow that we could look around. Then we started pulling off books one by one, but none of them were what we were looking for.
“Are you sure the book’s in here?” I asked, shutting a book and resting my head against the shelf.
“Yeah, it’s in here.” Alex scratched his head as he flipped through the pages of a book. “My dad showed it to me during one of the, like, two times he paid us a visit—he said I needed to brush up on my Foreseer knowledge.”
“That’s a weird thing to say.”
He shrugged. “He’s always said weird things like that.”
I glanced up at the rows and rows of books that still needed to be searched. “Well, what if it’s not on the shelf,” I said, getting an idea.“I mean the book has got to be important, right—if it has the history of the Foreseers in it. So, why would he keep it out in the open?” I paused. “You know, I once went looking for my birth certificate in Marco and Sophia’s room.”
He looked up from the book he was skimming through, shocked. “Did you find it?”
“Yeah, it was hidden in this secret compartment of this trunk they had.” I pointed to a trunk in the corner of the room. “Kind of like that one….”
Alex and I both looked at one another and then we were on our feet, moving for the trunk. Alex swiped the flashlight up from the floor, flipped the latch of the trunk open, and raised the lid. And of course it was full of books—why wouldn’t it be.We took them out, checking each one, making sure it wasn’t the book we were looking for.
When we reached the bottom, I pushed on the board, and just like the trunk in Marco and Sophia’s room, the bottom popped up, and there was our book. I knew right away that it was our book by the eye on the cover. I had seen the same kind of eye on the columns in the place where my father was—the Room of Forbidden. It was an old book with a flimsy cover, worn out from age.
“So this is it.” I started to get to my feet, ready to get out of here. But Alex stayed sitting, staring into the trunk.
“What is it?” I glanced in the trunk. “What’s wrong?”
He took out a thick leather book with the initials A.A on it.
“Is it yours?” I asked, figuring A.A. stood for Alex Avery.
He swallowed hard as he flipped through the pages. “I think it’s my mother’s…journal.”
It was a moment for him. I got that. So I stayed quiet while he glanced through it.
He stood up, and his hand holding the flashlight was shaking a little. “I’m taking this with me.”
I nodded and helped him pile the books back into the trunk. Then I glanced around at the mess we made. “Should we clean up?” I asked, hoping he would say no.
Alex shook his head, already heading for the door.
And that’s when we heard it. A door slamming closed.
The sound dinged through the house, like a warning bell.
Both our eyes widened.
Someone was here.
Chapter 19
“Do you think it’s him?” I whispered as Alex clicked the flashlight off.
Darkness.
“I’m not sure.” He took my hand, his skin zapping with a static flow. “Be as quiet as possible.”
We tiptoed like elves down the hall toward the stairway, but turned right back around when we heard his voice drifting up the stairs.
Stephan.
Alex led me into a room and softly clicked the door shut. Then he flipped the flashlight back on. It was his room, I could tell that right away, by all the guy stuff scattered everywhere.
“What are we going to do?” I whispered, my heart knocking into my chest.
He put his finger up to his lips as he walked over to a rug on the floor.
“Are you kidding me?” I shook as he flipped over the rug. Just like I guessed, underneath the rug a square was cut into the hardwood floor. “What is it with you guys and trapdoors?”