Shattered Promises Part 9

"Huh... Why?"

Desire burns in his eyes. "You have to take your coat off if you want me to get the gla.s.s out of your side.

My thoughts coast back to when I had the o.r.g.a.s.m while we were on the bed. It was the most incredible feeling I've experienced yet and I wonder how much better it would be if we were closer, touching, bare skin to bare...

"Gemma." Alex's voice jerks me out of my thoughts.

I blink at him and then carefully slip my arms out of my sleeves, easing my coat off. "G.o.d, it hurts."

Alex chucks his coat off, rolls up the sleeves of his black thermal shirt, and stretches his arm toward me, his fingers moving for my side.

"What are you doing?" My muscles tense as his hand nears me.

His hand freezes as I lean away from him and then he shakes his head. "Would you relax? I have to actually get close to you in order to look at that." He points a finger at my wounded side.

"Oh, sorry, I'm just nervous, considering..." Where do I start with that?

He understands, nodding. "I get it, but I promise I won't hurt you."

I nod, put my hands on my lap, and kink my elbow out of the way so he can get a full view of my rib and the gla.s.s wedged in the skin like a splinter. He gradually lifts the bottom of my shirt and there's a notable shake to his fingers as he inspects the area.

I suppress the gasp wanting to flee my lips as his fingers search each b.u.mp of my ribs and every spot of my skin. After what seems like an eternity, he pulls his hand back.

His eyes are amplified and his breathing speeds up. "s.h.i.t, I don't know what to do."

"Why? How bad is it?" I crane my neck and peel my shirt away from my skin to get a look at the injury myself. It doesn't look that bad; narrow and not that long. There's some blood dripping out, but not a significant amount.

Alex stares at me with a serious expression, then his mouth curves into a grin and laughter escapes his lips. "No, it's not that bad at all. The piece of gla.s.s is small, and you're barely bleeding. I should be able to get it out and st.i.tch it up without any problems." He glances at the door. "Just as soon as Aislin gets in here with the first-aid kit."

I tug down my shirt and swat his arm with my hand. "That wasn't funny. You had me worried I was seriously hurt."

He glances at where I touched him and then back at my face. "Actually, it was funny."

"Do you even know how to do st.i.tches?" I ask. "Or is that something else you're making up?"

He c.o.c.ks an eyebrow. "What else am I making up?"

I motion my arm at the room with flourish. "Um, the fact that we're here says how much you've made up."

He props his foot up on his knee and leans back on the couch. "Actually, I never made anything up. I just didn't tell you things."

"Omission of the truth is just as bad as making s.h.i.t up."

"Says who?"

"Says me!"

We stare at each other with defiance; each of us refusing to look away and let the other win.

"Besides." I adjust back on the sofa, moving carefully and cradling my side with my arm. "How do I know you haven't been lying? I've known you for like a few weeks. For all I know your name isn't even Alex." I reach over and pinch his leg. His knee jerks and his foot falls to the floor. "And, are you even real? I saw another one of you for h.e.l.l sakes." I take a deep breath, staring forward as I shake my head. "I don't even know what's true and what isn't anymore... what's real and what's not."

He slants forward, catches my gaze and it nearly penetrates me. "Back at the cabin, when everything was happening, you said you knew the Death Walkers were going to kill you... how?"

"If I told you, you'd think I was insane," I say and let my head flop onto the back of the sofa. "I even think it's insane."

I feel him move and then he's above me, one of his elbows propped on each side of my head. He edges his face close and the fervor of his breath dampens my skin.

"I can completely and utterly a.s.sure you that nothing you say is going to make me question your sanity," he says softly. "I promise you, I've seen and heard it all."

I carefully consider what he says and then surrender to my doubts, knowing it can't get much worse than it is. "I dreamt about them."

"You dreamt about them?" he questions.

I nod my head and our foreheads clip. "A lot actually. For the last few months or so."

He shifts his weight and puts a gap between our faces, but not our bodies. "And what happened in these dreams?"

Heat rushes to my cheeks as I blush. "Stuff... I don't know. It went a little different each time, but it always ended the same."

He scans my face with a curious expression. "Why do you look embarra.s.sed?"

I shake my head and force my gaze to remain on his eyes and not his lips. "I'm just hot."

He presses his lips together and then adjusts back in his seat, giving me some room.

I release a breath that was imprisoned inside my lungs, tuck my hair behind my ears, and stare at my hands. "It's weird, you know, because this all seems real, but my mind's screaming at me that it's not possible. That there's no way I could be sitting here when moments ago I was in your frozen car surrounded by..." I peer up at him as I lower my hands to my lap. "What did you call them? Death Walkers?"

He nods and grabs hold of one of my hands. "Why did you look at your hands just now?"

I push myself to look past the surging current his touch brings. "Because, in my dreams, they always turn blue, like I have frostbite or something."

He frees my hand and I return it to my lap. "That's because it is frostbite. Those things you saw, the Death Walkers, control the temperature of the air and since they favor the cold, they drop it rapidly wherever they are."

My eyes sting with impending tears. "This is all so much."

He opens his mouth to say something, but a loud thump from inside the house startles us both. We jump closer to each other as if we can't help it. Before I can work up a wince from the static, he has his pocketknife out and the blade flipped open.

"Whose house are we at?" I whisper, not taking my eyes off the knife. It's miniature and caked with dry flakes of blood.

He shakes his head, breaks his attention from the door, and sets the knife on a small square table next to the couch. "Laylen's. He's a friend of Aislin's... and mine." He reaches behind him and pulls back the curtain. "He lives in Vegas."

Outside the window, dusk is advancing and casts a pinkish glow across the bronze sand that stretches for miles. I kneel up toward the window to get a closer look. "This can't be real. None of this can."

He lets the curtain fall closed. "Well it is. Trust me." He places a hand on top of my chest. At first, I think he is trying to feel me up which seems inappropriate, considering the circ.u.mstances. "All of it is. You. Me. Everything."

I inhale through my nose to maintain steady breathing. "Like monsters that freeze everything, or are you talking about other stuff?"

He moves his hand away and blows out a stressed breath. "I'm talking about a lot of things. Monsters are just the beginning of it and the rest is even more confusing."

"More confusing? I can't even fathom how that can be possible."

"But, it is," he mutters. "Way, way f.u.c.king confusing... and complicated."

"I get complicated," I say, thinking about my emotions and wondering if it has anything to do with what is going on. Although, I can't connect it, it seems plausible. "But, what I don't get is how we got here."

He a.s.sesses me briefly, then turns sideways and slides his leg up on the sofa so his knee is pressing against mine. "Aislin transported us here."

"Yeah, I heard you guys say that a lot, but what I don't get is how. One minute we are all trapped in the car and the next I'm falling on the floor." I omit the dirty dream I had about him for various reasons; one being, I don't want my cheeks to turn red again.

He dithers. "She used a form of Wicca magic."

I snort a laugh, but stop when I notice how solemn he looks. "You're being serious? Because witches and magic aren't supposed to be real."

"They aren't, huh?" he asks with a c.o.c.k of his eyebrow. "Then, why don't you explain how we got here?"

I shrug. "Maybe it's not real. Maybe it's a delusional world brought on by the trauma of those things-those Death Walker things that are trying to kill me. Or maybe this is just another mirage and this entire house is fake."

"So, let me get this straight," he says, frustrated. "You're saying you believe in something like the Death Walkers, who, by the way, are demons, but you don't believe in magic or witches."

"No, that's not what I'm saying," I correct him. "I said that witches weren't supposed to be real, but it doesn't mean that I think the idea is unrealistic."

"You're extremely confusing, you know that?" he points out. "And calm. How can you be so calm in this kind of situation?"

I'm ridiculously calm and it is very unfitting for the situation. Most people would be running like h.e.l.l to get away, or balled up in a corner banging their head on the wall; trying to force the madness out of their brains. "I have... issues... with fear... I mean, part of my brain is telling me that this is all just one big crazy delusion I've conjured up, but the other part is noting how very real everything feels. I've had some trouble in the past determining what's real, too."

His eyes scan me from head to toe and my skin electrifies like magic. Like witch magic. "What are you talking about? What kind of trouble? Did something happen that I don't know about."

"How would you know about anything?" I inquire with suspicion. "I haven't told you anything."

He situates a hand on my cheek and I shiver from the sparkling it causes inside me. "I know more than you think."

I freeze as the electricity sings through my veins and crashes into my heart. My lungs swell from the pressure and the position of the gla.s.s alters. The pain causes me to moan, but the tingling sensation in my lower abdomen causes me to gasp. It's the strangest noise that has ever pa.s.sed my lips.

Alex must have thought so, too, because his eyes enlarge. "Are you okay?"

I slant my head back from his hand. "I'm fine. I'm just shocked because you can feel it too."

"Of course I can feel it." He sighs back in the chair. "How can I not?" He trails off, his voice softening. "But, I'm not supposed to... I'm breaking so many G.o.dd.a.m.n rules."

"What rules?" I probe. "You know, you speak in riddles sometimes."

He rakes his fingers roughly through his hair and pieces stick up in every direction. I have the urge to put them back in place, but the pained expression on his face warns me that it's best not to touch him. I tuck my hands underneath my legs to keep them restrained. "How the h.e.l.l am I supposed to explain to you how important you are? It's f.u.c.king impossible." He stares at his sc.r.a.ped up hands, turning them over as he examines them.

"How important I am?" I scan the room, even though it's obvious he's talking to me, and aim an incredulous look at him. "I think you're getting me mixed up with someone else because, trust me, there's nothing important about me."

"You have no idea how wrong you are." He sucks in a slow breath and then raises his chin up to look at me. The intensity in his eyes makes me shrink back. "You're the most im-"

"I found one." Aislin races into the room with a proud look on her face. She's carrying a first-aid kit and her hair has been pulled back into a bun. She's also taken off her coat and boots.

Alex instantly springs to his feet like he's guilty of some heinous crime. "It took you long enough. Jesus, what the h.e.l.l were you doing?" He joins her in the middle of the room, frowning. "You seriously cleaned up? G.o.d, Gemma's bleeding out here and you go wash up."

"I'm fine," I say, but they either don't hear me or don't care what I have to say.

"I had gla.s.s in my hair." She shoves the first-aid kit at him. "And it took me a second to find Laylen."

"Sure it did." There's insinuation in his tone. "Just like it always does."

"Whatever, Alex. It's not like that between us anymore and you know it." She flips her hair from her shoulder and then puts her hands on her hips. "And, just so you know, Laylen's going to stay away until..." She glances at me, then leans closer to Alex as she lowers her voice.

I can't hear what they are saying. I hunch over, leaning forward to listen, but all I gather is something about "staying away" and "blood." I give up and rest back against the couch with my arm draped over my stomach. I'm tired so I shut my eyes and let the numbness of approaching sleep consume me. It seems like I should be terrified out of my mind and I guess I am, in a sense. If Death Walkers or some other strange creature came running in, I would run, but I also feel empty. Not like how I had before I could feel. It feels like I've emptied all my worries. I'm no longer in this madness alone. Alex is here. And Aislin. And I guess this Laylen guy--whoever he is-is here, too. I'm not just roaming around the world solo, seeing bizarre things and otherworldly creatures. They can see them too. So, whether they are real or not, it's a relief to know that I'm not the only one who's crazy.

"All right, but Stephan's going to be p.i.s.sed," I hear Aislin say and then footsteps head toward the door.

"Are you sleeping?" Alex's voice drifts over me and I crack open my eyelids. He stands above me with the first-aid kit tucked under his arm. There are worry lines around his eyes and across his forehead.

"Who's Stephan?"

He sets the first-aid kit on the table, flips the latches open and lifts up the lid. "My father."

"Your father." That isn't what I expected. I sit up and scoot to the edge of the sofa. "Really?"

"Really." He nods, then s.n.a.t.c.hes a throw pillow from the recliner nearby and places it on the sofa beside me. "Lay down so I can get that piece of gla.s.s out of you and I'll try to explain what I know while I do."

"Like why the Death Walkers haunt my dreams? And why you think I'm so important? And also, why I saw another one of you more than once?"

He freezes. "You saw the mirage more than once?"

I nod. "But I thought I blacked out or something and it was just a dream. Now, though, I'm second guessing that thought. I'm second guessing all my original thoughts."

"That's probably a wise idea." He rummages around in the kit and takes out square pieces of gauze and some Band-Aids. "It might help you believe what I'm going to tell you." His hand stills as his eyes wander up to me. "Are you scared yet?"

I a.n.a.lyze my emotions; confusion, inquisitiveness and eagerness are flowing inside me, causing chaos. Fear is absent, though. "I think I'm good. Although, I'm confused."

He scratches his head like it's the weirdest response he's ever heard. "Alright then, lie down and I'll do my best to eliminate some of the confusion."

I lie down on the sofa and situate my head on the pillow with my arms resting at my sides. "Is a mirage like a doppelganger?"

He gapes at me with a needle in his hand. "How do you know what a doppelganger is?"

I shrug. "I read a lot."

His hand falls to the side and he almost stabs himself with the needle. "Again, you surprise me." He pauses with a look of contemplation. "Gemma, were you always like this? Growing up, I mean? Or were you... different?"

I'm not ready to answer that question yet, but the simple fact that he's asked it leads me to believe he knows things about me and my past. "You go first."

Sighing with frustration, he bends over so he's hovering over me. "Okay, try to hold as still as possible while I do this."

I fix my eyes on the ceiling, trying to think of something else besides the gla.s.s lodged in my side and the fact that he's about to tug it out. All that I can think of, though, is that the red ceiling reminds me of blood and I'm very aware of every jerking movement. I flop my arm over my face, seal my eyes shut, and inhale through the pain. It's easier than I expected, but, for some reason, I have a hunch that what lies ahead is going to be more painful.