The Fallen Star

I shrugged. “Well, it’s the truth.”

“So then what did you two talk about while Aislin and I were gone?” he asked. “I mean, we were gone for at least an hour. So what did you two do?”

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“I don’t know.” It felt like I was walking into a trap or something, so I had to make sure I chose my words very carefully. “Sat around. Ate. Almost got frozen to death by a bunch of murderous Death Walkers. You know the usual.”

“And you didn’t talk at all?”

“Not really…I mean, we did a little, but it was mostly about him.”

He shook his head, his knuckles whiten-ing as his grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Fine, Gemma. Don’t tell me.” Okay, I won’t.Why would I? Laylen had been very specific about Alex’s lack of understanding, so what good would it do to tell him what I’d learned about my mother—about me. It would do no good. That’s what it would do. Alex would just end up getting mad and taking it out on Laylen and me.

Alex rounded a sharp corner and a town rose into view. Log cabins dotted the snowy hills. Trees canopied the yards. I frowned, 539/695

thinking of Nevada’s golden desert sand and delicious warm air, which also made me think of Aislin and Laylen. Were they alright? Or had something bad happened to them? Had the Death Walkers gotten them?

After all, the Death Walkers had come close to killing me on more than one occasion. I shuddered, remembering how it felt when the cold was sucking the life from my body; the helplessness I’d felt lying paralyzed on the floor; the vision thingy I’d been pulled into right afterwards. The vision. Through all of the chaos, I’d completely forgotten about it. How could I forget about something so important? I mean, this man with the scar—the Keeper—I had to know him somehow, otherwise why would I have dreamt about him. From what I’d picked up on in the vision, he might have had something to do with my mother’s disappearance, and why I’d spent most of my life emotionless. I had to find out who he was. I knew he was a 540/695

Keeper. A traitor Keeper. But that was it. I had to figure it out.

Somehow.

Another huge question I had was why did I keep slipping into the vision things? I hadn’t touched a Crystal Ball or anything when I’d witness the Keeper and Demetrius chatting it up, just like I hadn’t when I’d been pulled away back at the telescope and saw the mother and daughter walking in the field. The daughter who might possibly be me since the mother had called her Gemma.

If this was the case—if the daughter was me—than the vision had to be from the past.

But the question was, why couldn’t I remember it actually happening? If it had already taken place, I should have some memory of it, right?

Ah! I was so confused.

I pitter-pattered through my thoughts, trying to make sense of everything, but ended up feeling more lost than ever. Which 541/695

was saying a lot since I always felt lost. There was only one way I could think of to get some answers to my endless list of questions. But whether he’d tell me the truth or not, who knew? I at least had to try, though.

“Alex,” I said so abruptly it made him jump.

“What?” he asked breathlessly.

I ignored the warning in my gut begging me not to ask. “Is it possible to see a vision without a Foreseer’s crystal ball?” He gave me a fu

I shrugged. “I was just wondering.” He thought about it for a second. “I don’t know… I think there might have been one Foreseer who was powerful enough to do it, but I don’t know anything about him.” Oddly enough, he actually sounded like he was telling the truth. “Oh. Okay.” I turned and looked out the window, thinking about the woman and daughter in 542/695

the field; the horrible scene I’d witnessed at the lake; the Keeper and Demetrius’s discussion about the woman that they’d conveniently made disappear, and the girl who they’d said needed to be kept away from humanity. They had to have been talking about my mother and me. They just had to. Either that, or there was another poor unemotional girl roaming around the world somewhere.

God, this was some heavy stuff. I really needed some answers. What I needed was Laylen. He’d help me figure all this out.

Alex stopped the Jeep at a stop sign. “Do you think you saw a vision without a crystal ball?”

“Huh?” How was I supposed to answer?

With the truth? My gut instinct told me not to. “No, I was just curious. That’s all.” He stared at me, his bright green eyes weighing heavily on me, causing the intensity of the electricity to spark up. “Gemma, it feels like you’re keeping something from me.

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Are you? Because if you are, whatever it is, you can tell me.”

I’d have liked to have been able to tell him, but I was afraid he’d just freak out. I had to tell someone, though. It was important. And since he was the only one here… “I don’t know…Well, it’s just that back at Laylen’s house I thought—” Alex’s phone rang, interrupting me. He slid his phone out of the pocket of his jeans, and relief swept across his face as he glanced at the screen. “It’s Stephan,” he said, then answered it.

I could hear Stephan’s voice murmuring on the other end. Alex pulled out onto the main road, and we drove by a sign welcoming us to Mountain View, Population 523.

Wow. A town smaller than Afton. Who’d have thought?

“Yeah, hold on,” Alex said into the phone. He parked the Jeep on the side of the road, in front of a cedar-sided house that had 544/695

a giant sculpture of a moose decorating the yard.

“What are we doing here?” I asked, but he was already climbing out of the car. “Stay here,” he told me and slammed the door shut.

He didn’t head toward the house. He walked around to the back of the Jeep and stood there with the phone pressed to his ear.

Obviously,

they

were

discussing

something that they didn’t want me to hear.

That meant I needed to hear it, right? I mean, it could be something important.

Maybe something about me. Oh no. What if they were making a plan to remove my emotions again?

One good thing about an old Jeep is that the windows aren’t automatic. This allowed me to crack the window without all the noisy buzzing pressing a button would have brought on. I leaned my head toward the 545/695

window and tried to listen, but Alex had left the engine ru

“Well, what do you want me to do until then?” I heard Alex saying. A pause and then, “I know, but she’s growing suspicious.

You don’t know how she is…She asks a lot of questions.” Another pause, this time longer.

“I know, but it’s hard for me to do that with her. She just…I just can’t…I don’t know. I have a hard time lying to her.” Well, that was news to me. Not the lying part—I already knew he was a liar—but the part about him having a hard time lying to me. That was a shocker, and, hey, maybe I could use it to my advantage.

“Alright, fine. I’ll see you in a bit,” Alex said.

I had very little time to react to the “see you in a bit” part. I fumbled to roll the 546/695

window back up and barely got it up in time, my hand dropping from the handle right as Alex opened the door.

All I could do was pray he hadn’t seen me.

“Stephan’s on his way,” he told me, slamming the door closed. “He’ll be here in a bit.”

Oh, yippy, I thought sarcastically. “Oh yeah.”

He pulled the Jeep back onto the road.

“Yeah. Marco and Sophia are with him, and he said that Laylen and Aislin are alright.” I’d have felt relieved except for the sick feeling in my stomach, warning me that it was a bunch of crap. It was Stephan we were talking about, and Laylen had warned me not to trust him.

“So we should probably get some food,” Alex said, turning into a parking lot belonging to a brick building that had a huge sign that read Edmunds Grocery’s. “Then we’ll go 547/695