The Fallen Star

“Whatever you do, don’t touch it,” he warned.

I drew my hand back and cradled it against my chest. “So, if you’re telling me the truth—which I’m still not one-hundred percent certain you are—then why hasn’t anyone mentioned any of this to me before?” He hesitated, looking stressed. “I don’t even know how to begin to explain the rest of this to you.” He let out a frustrated sigh as the needle slipped through my skin. “Okay, so that star I was telling you about held a lot 275/695

of power. That’s why we—the Keepers went and got it in the first place. If it fell into the wrong hands then…”

Silence grasped the air.

"Then what?” I wish he’d just spit it out.

He shook his head. “Nothing.” He paused, seeming torn about something.

“Okay, let me try this again. There are these people who have the ability to see into the future. Kind of like Psychics, but we call them Foreseers. But anyway, one of these Foreseers made this prediction—or a prophecy I guess you could call it—that this fallen star would prevent the end of the world from happening.” He picked up the scissors and trimmed the end of the string off. “You’re in-to astronomy, right? So I’m sure you’ve heard of December 21, 2012?” I stared at him, dumbfounded. End of the world.WTF.

“Gemma?”

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“Um…yeah…Dec. 21, 2012? Aren’t the planets supposed to align or something?” He nodded. “At the exact same moment the winter solstice takes place.” He tossed the scissors back into the box and pulled out a roll of tape and gauze. “When I say ‘end of the world’, what I mean is there’s this portal that’s supposed to only be able to be open up at the very exact moment the planets align.”

“A portal,” I repeated with skepticism. I mean, I’d heard some theories on what some people believed was going happen on December 21, 2012. And a couple of them had discussed the possibility of the world ending. But a portal? Really?

He cocked an eyebrow. “You still seem like you don’t believe me.” He positioned the gauze over the stitches and secured it with two strips of tape. Then he set the roll of tape back into first aid kit and snapped the lid shut. “I’m all done now, so you can sit up if 277/695

you want. Just be careful, though. And don’t move to fast or you might rip them open.” I tugged the edge of my shirt down and slowly sat up. My side felt all strange and tight, and the skin burned.

Alex set the kit down on a nearby table and dropped down on the couch beside me, his knee brushing against mine and making my muscles tense as electricity coiled up my thigh.

“So what is that?” I asked abruptly.

“That electricity thing that I feel whenever I’m around you?”

He shrugged. “I have no idea.” I eyed him over suspiciously. I could never be sure whether he was lying or not.

“You have no idea what it is?” He shook his head. “Nope. I’ve never felt anything like it until you came along.”

“Yeah, me neither,” I muttered. “Until the first time I was by you.” He looked surprised. “Really?” 278/695

“Yes really. Why do you look so surprised? You just said the same thing?”

“Because it’s different with you.” Before I could yammer out a bunch of questions about that, he shifted the direction of the conversation. “But anyway, back to the portal. See, if it opens up, it will let out a ton of Death Walkers. So I’m sure you can image how the end of the world is supposed to happen.”

I stared down at my hand, remembering the bluish-purple color. “By ice.”

“Exactly.”

“So how come I started freezing to death, and my fingers turned all funky and blue, but you seemed completely unbothered.”

“Eventually mine would have turned out the same way,” he explained. “Your reaction to the Death Walkers chill is just a little worse than mine.”

“Why?” I asked. “I mean, is there something weird about me?” 279/695

“I’m getting to that.” He fiddled with a loose string hanging off of one of the throw pillows. “There’s this guy named Demetrius, who is the leader of all the Death Walkers, and he wants this portal to open up. And basically, this fallen star is the only thing that has enough power to keep the portal from opening, so you can imagine how important it is to keep the star away from him.”

“Do you still have it?” I was confused by how weird it sounded. I mean, this was crazy. It had to be some twisted, freaky dream I’d been sucked into or something. Or maybe I’d had a meltdown and created my own personal fantasy world inside my head.

There was no way this could be real, right?

But if that were true, then why did it feel like there was more truth in his story than anything I’d ever been told?

A fu

“Yeah, we still have it.” He kept his eyes on me for an instant longer, before forcing them 280/695

away. “We kept it hidden so Demetrius couldn’t find it and destroy it. For the first few years, we had a Shifter transfer the star’s energy into different objects to keep its location a secret.” He stopped. “Do I need to slow down? You look lost.”

“Kind of lost. Kind of overwhelmed,” I admitted. “But you can go on.”

“Okay, but just so you know the next part is going to be very hard for you to hear.

And you need to make sure to stay as calm as you can.”

I swallowed hard, my stomach churning.

“I’ll try.”

He took a deep breath and surprised me when he reached over and took my hand.

“An accident happened three years after we found the star. Theron, the Shifter I told you about, was attacked by Demetrius while in possession of the object that was holding the star’s energy in it. He ended up panicking and accidently shifted the power into 281/695

something it should have never gone into.” He gave a long pause. “It went into a woman.”

“A woman?” My eyes widened “What happened to her?”

“Well, the energy didn’t end up in her exactly. She was pregnant when it happened, and it ended up going into her unborn child.” I froze. Why did this seem so familiar?

And why did the incident back at the telescope—the one where I’d been sucked away to the field—pop into my mind. “So what happened to the mother and the baby?”

“They both lived and everything, but the stars energy got trapped inside the baby. And it’s still there. For some reason—and no one knows for sure because no one’s ever came across anything like it before—no Shifter could transfer it back out of her.” He pressed his lips together, his hand tightening on mine. “A few years after it all happened, the mother did end up passing away. But her 282/695

death had nothing to do with the star.” He watched me closely. “She was a Keeper and her name was Jocelyn.”

“Jocelyn,” I repeated. “Why does that name sound so familiar? Did I know her?” He nodded. “You did and very well.”

“How?” But before he could answer, I realized why. Because I’d seen the name before. On my Birth Certificate.

Jocelyn was my mother.

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Chapter 14

Neither of us spoke for awhile. The only sound came from a clock ticking back and forth. Alex was still holding my hand, his skin warm and flowing with static. He’d never actually answered my question when I’d ask how I knew the woman. But I think he might have sensed I’d figured it out by my sudden muteness.

“Gemma, are you okay?” he finally asked.

I nodded slowly.

“You do know who she is, right?” I nodded slowly again.

“Then you understand what that means, right?”

I pressed my lips together. Yeah, I understood what it meant. Way, way too 285/695

clearly. He was saying that for the last eighteen years, I’d been harboring a fallen star's energy inside of me. Some piece of a freaking solar systems sun. And as crazy as it sounded, it made sense. I’d never been normal.

I’d been hollow and emotionally numb until an invisible prickle had shown up, and my emotions had come barreling out of me. Add that to the violet color of my eyes, and my ability to either sense or cause electricity to flow just by being around someone….I really was a freak. Literally. I probably wasn’t even considered human.