Fractured Souls(52)

I gasp, realizing just how wrong this is and that I shouldn’t be doing this, not when I have feelings for Alex and Aislin has feelings for Laylen.
“This is wrong,” I say and start to lean away when I feel the hot energy surging through my bloodstream like liquid fire “I think I…I…” My body goes limp as something deep within me roars. There’s a rough tug and I hold onto Laylen’s hand as he moves his mouth away from me. I hear him say something, but then we’re sucked away into the crystal ball, falling down, down, down into the unknown.

Chapter 17
 
I manage to land somewhat gracefully, catching myself with a very minor stumble and Laylen lands effortlessly beside me, gripping onto my hand. We’re standing in a cave with charcoal ceilings and a translucent crystal floor. A midnight river with bits and pieces of gold in it flows beneath the floor. Maroon crystals hang from the ceiling and rubies wave across the snow-white walls.
“Is this the City of Crystal?” Laylen asks in awe as he glances around.
I shake my head in disbelief as I put the crystal ball into my pocket. “I really didn’t expect to actually get us here… but this has to be it. I mean, I haven’t been in this area before.” I slip my fingers from Laylen’s and stroll up to the wall, feeling the smoothness of the porcelain. “But where else could we be?”
Laylen strides up to the side of me and picks at a chipped section in the wall. “I think you’re right.”
I step back, looking from left to right. Each side is the same, paved with broken multicolored pieces of glass, but the one to my right heads toward a bridge. Beside the path is an edge that leads to a very short drop off.
“The question is, which way?” I say. “And what are we even looking for exactly?”
He studies both directions, his head turning from left to right. “I just want to say first, that it’s not going to be pretty.”#p#分页标题#e#
“What’s not pretty?”
He locks eyes with me. “Where Alex is.”
I swallow the lump forming in my throat. “Why? Where is he?”
He circles around me and then drapes an arm around my shoulder. Guilt immediately soars through me from his touch because I want him to touch me more intimately. “There’s this crystal ball in the center of the city that channels the energy to all the other crystals. That’s where he is.”
“In the crystal ball?”
“No, outside it.”
I pull a perplexed face. “So what’s the point of him being down here, then?”
He tugs on my shoulder and guides me closer to him and I have the strangest compulsion to ask him to let me go, yet conflicted by my desire, I keep my lips sealed. “The crystal ball uses human energy to fuel it,” he explains.
I crane my neck, tipping my chin up, and meet his blue eyes. “What? And no one bothered to mention this to me?”
He offers me an apologetic look. “Alex had his reasons for doing it, I’m sure. He wanted to help you.”
“But not like this,” I say, shaking my head. “Not by fueling a crystal ball. It’s absurd.” My heart aches inside my chest, not just at the multiple ideas of what exactly is required to fuel a crystal ball, but also because the electricity has been missing for days now and I desperately miss it for reasons I both do and don’t understand.
Laylen searches my eyes with a creased forehead and then he removes his arm from around me. “We should get looking for him.” He veers toward the left, away from the bridge. “It’s a big city and I’m sure it’s going to take a lot of time.”
We walk in silence for a while, following the glass path. He looks like something’s really troubling him and, despite the fact that I don’t want to admit it, I think I might know what it is.
I’m just about to open my mouth and tell him that we should probably talk about what we’re feeling because it’s getting really complicated—at least for me—when I detect the sound of approaching footsteps.
Laylen and I freeze simultaneously then we whirl around, looking behind us to where the noise is coming from.
“Is someone coming?” I whisper.
“I think so.” Motioning his hand at me, he scoots us over to the side of the path, where we step off the ledge and down onto a frosty blue, smooth surface that’s as slippery as ice. He takes my hand, and we hurry over to one of the short pillars rising out of the ground and point up at the top. We cower down behind it and hold our breaths as we wait.
The longer we wait, though, the quieter it gets. Finally, Laylen ducks his head low and, placing his fingers on the ground he peeks around the side of the pillar.