Alex unexpectedly slipped his arm around my waist, shocking me, and my muscles tensed up.

“So you don’t fall on your face like the last time when we transported,” he explained to me with a small amount of amusement in his voice.

It was a good idea, I guess.

I closed my eyes and grasped on to the handle of my bag. I heard a loud bang and then…I was falling. Or flying?

I wasn’t exactly sure.

When I opened my eyes back up, I was in a different room that had dusty white sheets draped over all of the furniture. A grey and tan stone fireplace layered one of the walls, and the rest of them were made of logs.

Alex instantly let go of my waist. He’d been right. Holding on to me had kept me from falling.

Aislin relit the black candle. “I’ll be right back.”

Alex took me by the arm and guided me away from her. “Hurry, please,” he told her in an anxious voice.

She gave him a small smile and plunged the crystal into the flame. “Per is calx EGO lux lucis via,” she said. This time she disappeared quickly. Maybe because it was just her?

I dropped my bag on the floor and sat down on a marble step that extended out from the fireplace. Alex sat down too. Neither of us spoke as we waited for Aislin and Laylen to return. We waited. And waited.  About ten minutes ticked by, and Alex got to his feet and started pacing back and forth across room. I kept my eyes glued to the spot where Aislin had vanished from and chewed on my fingernails, which was so weird since it hadn't been a previous habit of mine.

An old grandfather clock towering in the corner struck the hour of ten, devastatingly announcing that way too much time had gone by. They should have been here by now.

Alex stopped pacing and stared vacantly at the clock.

I hated to say it—I hated to even think it—but I had to know. “They're not coming back, are they?”

With the most heart wrenching look on his face he said, “No, I don’t think they are.”

Chapter 25

I’d been sitting on the foot of the fireplace, watching Alex tug sheets off of the furniture, for about fifteen minutes now. I think it was his way of trying to distract himself from the fact that something terrible may have happened to Laylen and Aislin. He’d tried to call them but couldn’t get a signal on his phone from all the way up here. I wasn’t sure where “all the way up here” was, because he hadn’t established that yet.

I hadn’t said anything to him because I had no idea what to say. I could have tried to be positive and tell him reassuring things like, hey, maybe Aislin had just broken her crystal again. But who would I be trying to kid? We both knew there was a slim to none chance that was the case. We just weren’t that lucky. Obviously.

“So…” I began, still in the middle of deciding what to say. “What is this place, anyway?”

He yanked a sheet off of a forest green couch that had tiny moose embroider on it. “It’s a cabin I used to come to when I was little.” He drew a sheet off of a lamp and dust flew everywhere.

I sneezed. “So what do we do now?”

“We’re going to drive into town so I can get a signal on my phone.” He unzipped his duffel bag. “Then we’ll try and get a hold of someone.”

I bit at my fingernails. Yeah, I was still doing that. “So where exactly are we?”

He nodded at a window masked by a curtain. “In the middle of nowhere, basically.”

“The middle of nowhere.” I stood up, went over to the window, and threw back the curtain. Then I grimaced. Steep mountains and pine trees everywhere. And yes, of course, a thick blanket of crisp white snow was covering it all.

“Yuck,” I muttered and let the curtain fall. Why, oh why, couldn’t we have gone somewhere warm? Like say Hawaii.  I sighed. Man, I sounded like a selfish brat; complaining about being in the snow, when Laylen and Aislin could be in some serious trouble. Okay, suck it up Gemma. “So where is here? What’s the place called?”

“We’re in Colorado.” He looked up from his bag and raised an eyebrow. “What’s with the disappointment?”

“Oh nothing.” I sighed. Apparently, I’d failed miserably at sucking it up. “I just really hate the snow. That’s all.”

“Oh, yes, you and the cold,” he remarked as he drew a tan hooded jacket out of his bag.

I picked up my bag from off of the floor. “So is there somewhere I can change?” I really wanted to get out of this skirt and into my own clothes.

“Yeah, follow me.”

He took me back to a bedroom with light blue wallpaper and grey carpet, and then he left me alone to change.

I set my bag down on a massive log bed and started searching through it for something to wear. Fortunately, I wasn’t a girl who was really into fashion because I was pretty sure whoever packed this mess of a bag was in a hurry. Everything in it was so random; two mismatched gloves, three different socks, and one boot. I decided on a pair of black jeans and a grey and black striped hooded Henley. I kept my DC’s on because…well, what good was one boot.

After I’d finished getting dressed, I realized how heavy my eyelids felt. I’d barely gotten any sleep over the last twenty-four hours, and I think I might have been running on an adrenaline high or something and was now starting to crash.

There wasn’t a blanket or sheet on the bed, just a mattress. Even though it was kind of gross, I thought about lying down on it and letting my eyes close for a few minutes. But then I thought of Ailsin and Laylen and told myself to suck it up.

Now wasn’t the time for sleeping.

I opened the door, only to find Alex standing there on the other side. He scared the crap out of me, and I almost bolted off in a mad sprint.

“Holy crap,” I said, catching my breath. “You scared the heck out of me.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” he said, his voice cautious, but I didn’t know why.

He’d put on the tan hooded jacket and a black baseball hat. He looked perfect. He always looked perfect. There was no use trying to deny it.

He scaled me over from head to toe. “We need to get you some kind of disguise in case we run into trouble.”

I fidgeted with the edge of my shirt. “What kind of trouble?”

“The same kind we’ve been running into.” He sighed tiredly. “The Death Walkers are going to be all over the place now that they’ve discovered you.”

I sighed.  “Okay, so what do you want me to do?” I pointed at my bag of clothes. “Because there’s not a whole lot in there.”

“Yeah, I think Aislin basically just dumped a drawer of your clothes in it.”

“And then added one boot?”

He scrunched his forehead. “Huh?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Never mind….So yeah, I don’t think I have anything very disguise-like.” I paused and pulled my hood over my head. “Does this work?”

He gave me a doubtful look.

Oh, don’t you give me that look too. I wasn’t some secret agent/master of disguise who could create a new identity out of some string and tape, so cut me some slack, would you?

He ran his hand over his face and sighed. “Well, I guess it’ll have to work. Do you at least have some sunglasses to cover those up?” He pointed at my eyes.

“No, I don’t have any—hey, I thought you said you liked the color of my eyes. You said it was a nice different.”

“I wasn’t saying that to be mean. There just aren’t a whole lot of people walking around with violet eyes. It’ll give you away.” He zipped up his jacket. “And I do like the color of your eyes. They reminded me of these flowers you used to pick and bring back home when you were….” He trailed off, his bright green eyes widening.

“When I what?” I pressed.

He cleared his throat. “Nothing. It wasn’t important. Let’s go.” He turned his back on me and started down the hall.

“What? Were you going to tell me some story about when I was four years old and not living with Marco and Sophia?” I called out, chasing after him.

His froze. “Who told you that?”

“Laylen.”

He said nothing and went into the living room.

I followed after him. “What? You don’t have anything to say?”

“Gemma, I don’t have time for this right now.” He opened up the door that led out to the garage. “We need to get to town.”

He was right, but this was sooo not over.

Chapter 26

We drove to town in a black Jeep Wrangler, which by the layer of dust on the dashboard, had most likely been sitting out in the garage for quite awhile. The snow on the road was deep, and Alex had to drive incredibly slow, otherwise we’d probably end up sliding off the road and crashing down the hill.

I’d come up with this brilliant plan to try and catch some zzz’s during the drive, but the second my eyelids close, Alex decided it was chat time.

“So what else did Laylen tell you?” he asked.

I slowly opened my eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Well, he told you about how you weren’t really one when you moved in with Marco and Sophia.” He practically bit at the words, which made me feel bad…for Laylen. If and when Laylen returned, Alex was probably going to rip into him for telling me. “I’m just curious what else he told you.”

“Nothing really,” I lied. I wasn’t going to get Laylen into anymore trouble. My lips were sealed.

Alex slipped me a sideways glance. “He told you nothing else at all?”

I shook my head, acting as cool as the snow on the roads. “Nope.”

He shot me a skeptical look. “Yeah, I’m not buying it.”

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?”

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