“I don’t know, Gemma,” he utters quietly, giving my knee a squeeze. “She’s been down there for a really long time…. But maybe. I mean, there’s been some people that I’ve heard of who’ve survived the Water Faerie’s torture for a really long time without going too insane… God, there’s even been a few people who’ve escaped.”
“Are you being serious?” I ask. “Alex made it sound like there wasn’t a way to escape.”
“Don’t get mad at him for that.” Laylen slips his arm around my back and draws me closer to him. He puts his lips right beside my ear and whispers in a deep voice, “He doesn’t hang out with the same crowd as I do, does he?”
I turn my head to the side and our lips nearly touch. “And what kind of crowd is that? A Vampire crowd? Witch crowd? Black Angel crowd? There are so many crowds in this crazy ass world I’ve been thrown into.”
He grins mischievously. “The everything kind of crowd.”
We’re so close that I can’t help thinking about how amazing it’d feel if he just took me over, owned my emotions; got my thoughts of dying, the end of the world and, ultimately, Alex out of my head for a while. “Is there any way we can find out if she’s still alive and where she is?"
“It depends on how brave you are,” he says with a wink.
I force a small smile, but thoughts of my mom drowning in a lake of Fey haunt my mind. If she’s alive, I need to save her, like she asked me to in the dream, if that’s what it was. “Are you trying to get me all riled up for some reason?”
He shakes his head and a grin slips through. “I’m just trying to tell you the truth, so you know what you’re walking into.”
“I’m not scared,” I assure him, which doesn’t seem like a lie. “I want answers—real answers—and I’ll do whatever I have to in order to get them.”
He mulls over what I said, nibbling on his bottom lip, making sucking noises as he draws the lip ring in between his teeth. “Then I say we do it.”
“Do what exactly?” I’m practically bouncing with excitement. “I need to know what I’m getting into.”
He inclines back a little and his gaze fleetingly glides to the bed. It scares me for some reason, the idea that he might be thinking something that requires me being on the bed. Again I try to sift through my emotions to figure out how I feel about him, but I can’t quite understand it and the prickle seems to be stuck in the REM cycle.
“You remember that club we got the Sword of Immortality from?” he checks.
I nod. “Yeah, and I really remember how the bartender spiked my drink with a rufi.”
“Well, where we’re going is similar, but worse.” Worry laces his tone.
I consider what he said, recollecting the Black Dungeon and how I pretty much attacked Alex after drinking that drink. Alex was there to help me, but he won’t be this time. I’m not sure I want him to be, either. “You think it’s worth it to go check it out? That there might be answers there?”
He nods with confidence. “I think your mom may know more about what’s going on than anyone does. I think that might be why Stephan sent her there. That and to keep her away from you.”
“I think so, too,” I agree. “In the vision I saw—the one where Stephan forced her into the lake—she said she knew things about Stephan that eventually everyone else would figure out.”
Plus, I really just want to see my mom. I miss her, even though I really don’t know her, and the idea of seeing her again is enough to make me risk anything. The only family I ever had was Marco and Sophia, my supposed grandparents and two of the most cold-hearted people I know.
“Laylen, what happened to Marco and Sophia?” I ask.
Laylen shrugs. “I’m not sure, but I feel like we need to find out. They were part of removing your soul and they might know something as well… but no one can seem to find them at the moment.”
“So they just vanished?”
“Pretty much,” he says. “At least that’s what Alex told me. He tried to get a hold of them when we got here.”
I frown. “Why would he do that?”
He shakes his head with disdain. “Despite everything, Alex seems to think that Keepers are still trustworthy and the only kind he can seek help from.”
“When are we going to—”
“Gemma.” Alex’s voice floats through the door. “Are you in there?”
“Uh…yeah,” I call out, shifting away from Laylen, as though I’m doing something wrong. “I’m in here with—”#p#分页标题#e#