He shook his head. “More power than even you have. We need the power of the main crystal ball that all the other crystal balls run off.”
My mouth slipped to a frown as I remembered the giant crystal ball that sucked its energy away from people. I peeked over at Alex and shuttered at the mental image of him strapped to the crystal with tubes embedded into his skin.
“So, we what? Just take the mapping ball there and use the crystal ball’s power?” I asked.
Nicholas looked down at his hand. “We bring it back,” he said, opening and closing his hand.
“Bring it back?” I glanced at Nicholas’ hand.What was he doing? “And how do we do that?”
“You think I’m actually going to let you go off to the City of Crystal alone with her,” Alex interrupted.
“Well, you could always let me go by myself and hope I’ll come back,” Nicholas remarked, trying to get under Alex’s skin.
“Alex,” I said. “You’ve got to stop. Let me handle this—it’s what I’m supposed to do.”
Alex suddenly looked horrified. “I’m not going to let you go off alone with him.” He got up and pulled me up with him. He took me over to the corner of the living room and lowered his voice, his eyes pressing. “Don’t forget what he did to you, just because you erased it.”
“I understand where you’re coming from—I really do, but you’ve got to stop worry about me all the time. I’m not a girl who needs to be protected by you because she has a star’s energy that will save the world. I’m a girl, with a very unique Foreseer’s gift, who needs to save the world from the star’s energy.”
Alex ran his fingers though his hair as he stared off into empty space. “How am I supposed to just stop doing something, when it’s all I want to do?”
My heart thumped insanely in my chest and, when he looked at me, I just about stopped breathing.
“Yeah, I give you two like a day before you end up killing one another,” Nicholas’ laughter-filled voice intruded our moment.
I scowled at Nicholas. “Thanks for your opinion,” I said sarcastically. “But we’ll be fine.” Although, I wasn’t sure I believed my own words.
“Sure you will,” Nicholas’ grin was mocking.
“We have a problem,” Aislin announced as she entered the room.
“Of course we do,” Alex said with an eye roll. “The world is going to end unless we fix it.”
She shook her head quickly. “No, not that problem…You’re mom just called from a payphone and told me Laylen’s in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” The pitch of my voice was startlingly high.
“He’s…” She trailed off, giving a wary glance at Nicholas. “Maybe we should discuss this in private.”
“Why, he can’t go anywhere,” I pointed out, but she was still hesitant, and I found myself bursting with aggravation. “Just say whatever it is.”
“He’s at…” She lowered her voice. “He was at the Red Dragon.”
“Please don’t tell me that’s another club,” I grimaced.
Silence and my heart sank,
“Oh, it’s a club,” Alex said. “An exclusive club for anyone and anything that has a thirst for the evil side.”
“Like the Black Dungeon?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It’s much worse.”
Oh my God, I couldn’t breathe. “But if there are vampires at this club, they might kill him because he killed Vladislav.”
“Would you two shut up!” Aislin cried, practically spitting in our faces. “I said he was at the Red Dragon, but someone we know picked him up from there.”
“Who?” I asked at the same time Alex said, “Great. Just what we need.”
I gave him a funny look. “Do you know who picked him up?”
Alex squirmed uncomfortably and tucked his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, I think might.”
“I mean, I know she lives close by here and everything,” Aislin said, looking hurt. “But I just never thought Laylen would contact her.”
“Who the heck is this ‘her’?” I wanted to know.
Aislin glanced at Alex, her eyes pushing for him to explain, but he stayed mute, as he stared down at the floor.
“It’s Stasha.” Aislin sighed. “She used to be a Keeper—well I guess she technically still is, but she…decided she didn’t want to be part of the circle anymore.”
“Sounds like a smart girl to me,” I remarked.
“Yeah…” Her gaze flicked in Alex’s direction. “She kind of left because of him.”
“Why would she leave because of him?” I asked, noticing how much more uncomfortable Alex was getting.
Nicholas stood up and suddenly he was right next to me. “Because she and Alex use to be lovers, but since he’s emotionally dead inside, he broke her heart,” he teased, pouting out his bottom lip.
I almost slapped him. I don’t know why, though. He was just telling me the truth. But the truth hurt in a way I had never felt before—the prickle was confirming it. Really, it shouldn’t bother me that Alex once had a girlfriend—hello, he’s twenty years old—but still…it was bugging the crap out of me.
Everyone had their eyes on me, watching me as if they were waiting for me to flip out. I, however, stayed cool, calm, and collected, at least on the outside.
“So what do we do?” I asked, my voice smoothing out like honey. “Do we call Laylen? Our do we need to go get him? And is this Stasha girl keeping an eye on him?”
Aislin suddenly looked a bit on the jittery side. “Your mom didn’t say anything about that. She just said she found him standing outside the Red Dragon talking to Stasha, and when she went to go get him, he took off with her.”
“Is my mom heading back here?” I asked her.
Aislin looked at Alex anxiously, which puzzled him as much as it did me. “Yeah…I think she is.”
“What, you don’t know if she is?” I asked.
Aislin shook her head way too quickly. “No, she is.”
“What are you—”
“I think we should go get Laylen,” she announced over me. “I think he needs someone right now, and Stasha probably isn’t the best person for him to be around.”
“Why? What’s wrong with her?” I asked in an unintentionally rude tone.
“There’s nothing wrong with her.” Alex was watching me in a way that made me feel really vulnerable, as if he could see my jealousy written all over me. “But Aislin’s probably right. Stasha can be a little on the…unsympathetic side and that’s probably the last thing Laylen needs right now.”
“I still can’t believe halfy finally went off the deep end?” Nicholas laughed.
“He didn’t go off the deep end!” I screamed for reasons that were unknown. The prickle went insane, poking and stabbing and eating away at the back of my neck. “And it’s my fault he...wants to drink blood.”
“Why?” Nicholas asked, tapping his fingers together as if I we were discussing something scandalous. “What did you do?”
He was getting on my nerves, so I pinched his arm. He let out a yelp, but then grinned. “You know I swear you get feistier by the second.”
“Well, you bring it out of me,” I said snidely. He opened his mouth to say something, but I talked over him. “So how far is Stasha’s house? Close, I hope.”
“Not too far,” Aislin said, glancing at the clock on her cellphone. “Probably about a thirty-minute drive.”
“I don’t think we should all go,” Alex told Aislin. “There are a lot of us and besides, you know how she is.”
“But I don’t know how she is,” I pointed out.
He ignored me. “So should we hit the road?”
We were not going back to that again. “You didn’t answer my question.”
He let out an aggravated sigh. “You remember when I told you that some Keepers have gifts, like Sophia’s gift of…” he trailed off, looking guilty for bringing up my soul detachment.
“Yeah, I remember.” I tried not to sound bitter.
“Well, Stasha has a gift too.” He rubbed the back of his neck tensely. “She has the gift of…death.”
“Like she kill’s people or something?” I asked with a shiver.
“Not for fun,” Alex clarified. “She just can, you know, kill if she wants to.”
I cringed. “Everyone can kill if they want to, Alex.”
“Yeah, but not like she can,” he said. “She can kill with her touch.”
“So she can kill me if she touches me?” I asked.
“Only if she wants to.”
Well, that sounded lovely. And I had this creepy feeling she might end up wanting to.
“Oh, my God.” Aislin’s green eyes widened as she looked at us fearfully. “You don’t think that Laylen went there to drink the blood of someone Stasha killed.”
Alex didn’t answer and I felt my stomach churn.
“No—No he wouldn’t,” I stuttered, but honestly I wasn’t sure.Urgency spilled through the air. “I think we should all go get him. NOW!”
Alex shook his head. “I don’t think you should go.”
“I don’t really care what you think,” I snapped. “I’m going—Laylen needs me.”
“I’m going to see if I can go get a hold of Stasha and let her know we’re coming,” Aislin talked over us. She opened her phone and stepped into the hallway.
“You shouldn’t go.” Alex’s voice was less demanding and more begging.
“I need to,” I told him. “Laylen needs me, and this is all my fault anyway.”