It seemed like hours ticked by before I heard the front door open and Alex and Laylen walked inside. They looked strange, like they had been crying or something.

“Are you two okay?” I asked, staring at their reddened eyes.

Laylen dropped down on the sofa between Aislin and me and put an arm around each of us. “Yeah, we’re fine. Are you two okay?”

I nodded, giving Laylen a peculiar look. “You’re not having problems again, are you?” I whispered, leaning into him. “With your blood thirst, I mean.”

He shook his head and squeezed my shoulder. “No, I’m fine, I promise. Alex and I…we just needed to talk about something.”

He wasn’t telling me something—I could tell, but before I could ask, Alex interrupted.

“Hey, come with me for a moment.” He held out his hand to me. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

I looked at Laylen, but he avoided my eyes. So I took Alex’s hand and he helped me to my feet.

“You put that thing on?” he asked, noticing the ring on my finger.

I sighed. “I wanted to see if it would do something if I did…it didn’t.”

He let out a frustrated breath, but didn’t say anything. I mean, what would he say? That I needed to be careful and not risk my life like that?

He led me up to my room and shut the door behind us. It was dark, but he didn’t flip the light on, nor did he say anything. He just stood there, leaning against the door, and it was driving me crazy because I could feel his gaze on me, sparkling across my skin.

Finally, I clicked the lamp on.

“So, where did you and Laylen go?” I sat down on my bed.

He shrugged, his eyes locked on me. “I just needed to talk to him about something.”

“So are you two friends again, then?”

He stepped away from the door and sat down next me. “I guess so.” He shrugged. “Well, at least I don’t think we’ll be beating each other up anytime soon.” He let out a loud breath and dragged his fingers through his dark brown messy and in-an-intentional-way hair. “There was just something really important I needed to talk to him about.”

“It’s not bad, is it?” I asked, picking up a weird vibe from him.

He shook his head, but something in his eyes made my stomach clench. “No, it’s not bad.” He swept a strand of my hair out of my face and I tensed, remembering how he did the same thing in the vision, right before we died. “It’s good…everything will be alright.”

My heart skipped a beat, and not in a good way. It skipped a beat in fear, because those were the words he whispered to me in the vision.

“They will?” I asked in a shaky voice. “How do you know?”

He traced the fresh cut on the palm of his hand—the one leftover from our most recent Blood Promise. “I just do.”

“Alex,” I choked. “What did you say during the Blood Promise?”

He gave me a soft smile. “I’ll tell you tomorrow okay? But right now I just want to lay here with you and think about something else besides the end-of-the-world.”

How was I supposed to respond to that? “Okay.” Yeah, I guess that worked.

We lay down on my bed, face-to-face, not quite touching, but it was enough for the sparks to flow between us and connect us with an invisible bond.

How could something that felt so good be so wrong?

“I’ll leave before it gets too bad,” he said, sensing my worry.

I nodded. “Okay.”

And then we just lay there, watching one another, letting the silence fade away our worries, until my eyelids grew heavy and I drifted away into a peaceful dream of kisses, warmth, and beautiful green eyes.

Chapter 37

I awoke to an empty room. Alex apparently had kept his word and left when things got bad. I hadn’t even felt any weakness, but I guess my sleeping blocked it out. I felt good, actually, for the first time in a while.

I felt charged, like my peaceful dream had reenergized my body.

My stomach let out a growl. Apparently it wanted to be reenergized too.

I got to my feet and padded to my bedroom door. The house was quiet, so I assumed everyone was asleep. As I stepped out into the hall, I noticed something wasn’t right. I couldn’t quite place my finger on what it was, only that something was off…or missing maybe.

I shook off the feeling and tiptoed downstairs, giving a quick glance into the living room where Alex usually slept. But the couch was empty.

I scratched my head and started to turn away. Maybe he was sleeping in one of the guest rooms, but something caught my eye that made me pause.

An envelope with my name printed on it lay on the table. Something about it made my stomach drop. I flipped on the light and stared at it for a while, too afraid to open it. Finally, with shaking hands I picked it up, tore it open, and took out the folded piece of paper inside it.

I took an unsteady breath and unfolded the paper.

Gemma

I know you may not understand why I need to leave, but I need you to try. I don’t believe that your end comes when you think. I believe there is another way, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to find it. But I can’t do it while I’m around you. I can’t keep hiding what I feel, but if I let it all out, I know it will be the end for both of us. And I can’t let that happen.

I will always save you, Gemma, I just need you to hang on until I do.

Alex

The letter slipped from my fingers and floated to the floor like a feather as I stood there, stunned.

I will always save you.

He had said this to me once before, in a dream. But how could he leave without saying anything to anyone. And then it dawned on me, and I took off up the stairs. Without bothering to knock, I barged into the room where Laylen slept and turned on the lights.

He jumped out of bed, startled by my appearance and blinked at me with tired eyes.

“What the heck are you doing?” he asked, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes.

“Please tell me you didn’t know,” I said, trying to stay as calm as possible.

His face fell. He knew.

“But you’re supposed to tell me everything,” I said in an alarming high-pitch voice. “We tell each other everything.”

He sighed and ran his fingers through his blond hair, which was sticking up in all kinds of directions. “I couldn’t tell you this.”

I walked into the room and sank down on the foot of the bed. “Why not?”

“Because I agreed with him.” He sat down next to me. “He needed to leave…it was too hard for him to keep turning off what he felt for you.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me against his bare chest. “If he stuck around, you two would end up killing one another.”

“But he thinks he can find a way to save me,” I whispered. “At least that’s what he said in the note.”

Laylen pulled me tighter against him. “And maybe he will.”

I twisted the ring on my finger—my supposed loophole. My heart was breaking. I got where Alex was coming from. I got that our feelings for one another were getting harder and harder to control. But it didn’t make the empty void inside my heart feel any better about him leaving.

He left.

I can’t believe he left.

I turned over my hand and stared at the fresh cut. “Do you know what he promised me?” I asked, glancing up at Laylen.

Laylen nodded. “He promised you everything would be alright…and maybe it will.”

“Maybe,” I said, but the hole in my heart told me otherwise.

We sat there in the quiet, and I could feel the hole in my heart growing bigger with each passing moment.

“He told me to keep an eye on you,” Laylen finally said. “While he was gone.”

“I don’t need to be watched,” I said. “I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, you can, but you’re also precious cargo,” he tried to joke. “And precious cargo needs to be taken care of.”

“I am not precious cargo.” I frowned more at myself than at him and I could feel this icky bitter feeling building up inside me. “I’m destructive…without me, there would be no star, and therefore, there would be no problems.”

He pulled away from me so he could look me in the eye. “That’s why he told me to keep an eye on you…he didn’t want you to sink into this sad pit of despair because he was gone…You need to keep going—we need to find a way to save you.”

“Why does everyone want to save me?” I asked. “And what about Alex—he needs to be saved just as much as I do.”

“Everyone wants to save you because you’re worth saving, Gemma,” Laylen said. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

I shook my head as tears dripped down my cheeks. I wanted to say something, but there were no words, so instead I leaned my head on his shoulder and cried until I was too tired to keep my eyes open. Then I went back to my bedroom and drifted to sleep, dreaming of fires, stars, and the missing pieces of my heart.

Chapter 38

I woke up to a loud bang that rocked the house. I jumped from my bed, my eyes wildly scanning my surroundings. My room was stilled fill with the lingering nighttime darkness, and there was a glow from the outside that I assumed was the rising sun.

“What the hell was that?” I mumbled to myself, my heart knocking in my chest. I hurried out into the hall and immediately I realized something was wrong.

The door to my mom’s bedroom was open.

It was never open.

My body shook as I made my way to the open door and glanced inside the semi-dark room. Then my world crashed to the floor. She was gone. My mom was gone. Nothing remained but the chains, which looked like they had been melted away at the cuffs.

“No…” I shook my head. “No, how did she…”

And then I smelt it. The scent of flowers and freshly fallen rain.

I slowly turned around and was met by a pair of golden eyes.

“You’re dead,” I stuttered, pinching myself to make sure I was awake.

It stung.

Nicholas raised his eyebrows. “Am I?” He examined his arms over. “Wow! I look really good even for a dead guy.”

“N-no.” I shook my head, backing into the empty room where my mother should be, but wasn’t. “This can’t be happening.”

Nicholas walked toward me, his hands behind his back. “I think you always kind of knew I wasn’t dead…I mean, you have seen me.”

“But that was a nightmare,” I said in an unsteady voice.

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Was it?”

“How…I don’t…” Get it together. “How are you even here? You shouldn’t be here?”

“Shouldn’t I?” For a moment, he looked as confused as I felt, but the look quickly erased. “I mean, I guess technically I shouldn’t be here, being dead and all, yet here I am.”

“So, you are dead?” I braced a hand on the bed to keep from collapsing to the floor. “How can I still see you then?”

He shrugged, grinning. “Just another amazing thing about you, I guess.”