Alex chuckles under his breath. “I promise we’re fine.” He doesn’t really answer my question, though, swinging and arm around my shoulder and guiding me with him as he goes into the living room. He smells like barbeque sauce and beer, which makes me wonder if they went to a bar.
Laylen lies down on the sofa, looking beat, and I catch Aislin giving him a look that begs him for the details of where they’ve been, which he ignores, shutting his eyes like he’s going to take a nap.
As I’m about to sit down, Alex tugs me in the other direction toward the stairway. “Hey, come with me for a minute. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“Okay.” Something is up.
“You put that thing on?” he asks, unexpectedly alarmed as he taps the ring on my finger while we gradually make our way upstairs.
I run my finger along the gems. “I wanted to see if it would do something if I did, but it didn’t.”
He seals his lips together, probably shoving down a lecture and remains that way until we’re in my room. He shuts the door behind us and even though it’s dark, he doesn’t turn the light on. Then he stands by the door and I can’t see what he’s doing, but I can tell he’s thinking about something intense by the way the sparks nip and bite at my skin.
It starts to drive me crazy, so I flip the light on. “Okay, fess up. Where did you and Laylen go?” I lie down on my bed on my stomach and rest my chin in my hand, fixing my attention on him.
He shrugs, his relentless gaze locked on me. “I just needed to talk to him about something.”
“So are you two friends again, then? I really hope so because this jealousy, male testosterone thing between you two is getting old.”
He chuckles under his breath then lies down on the bed beside me on his back. “Yeah, I guess it was getting old, wasn’t it.” He drapes his arm over his head, gazing up at the ceiling.
“It feels like you’re keeping something from me,” I state, turning my head and resting my cheek on my hand so I can look at him better.
“No, it’s not bad. It’s good…everything will be alright.”
My heart misses a beat. Those are the words he whispers to me right before we died. “How do you know that for sure?”
“I just do.”
“Alex.” I move a pillow out of my way and scoot closer to him. In response, he puts a hand on my stomach, just under my shirt, and his fingers splay across my stomach. Something warms inside me, in a different yet equally—maybe even better—way than it normally does, but the sensation baffles me. “What did you say during the Blood Promise you made to me last night?”
His expression is unreadable as he grabs my leg and swings it over his midsection. “I’ll tell you tomorrow, okay? But right now I just want to lay here with you and do something else to get my mind off the end of the world.”
I look down at my leg over his and then my eyes glides up his body and meet his tired gaze. “What did you have in mind?”
“I just want to have normalcy for a bit.” His arm wraps around me, his hand pressing on the small of my back, and he pushes me closer to him. “Just for a second.” He pauses then utters, “I won’t let it happen.” he says it more to himself than to me as his fingers trace the length of my spine. “I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
As his hands slide up to my shoulders and our bodies align, I’m not even worried about dying. And when he kisses me, every worry I have diminishes. I once heard this song or maybe it was a saying about letting yourself die in a blissful, loving, perfect moment, so that you could die happy. I think I might feel that way right now.
Chapter 38
I wake up to an empty bed and have a cold feeling residing deep in my bones. I feel wired, like my peaceful dream has rejuvenated me. But as the reality that I can’t feel a single drop of sparks in my body sets in, I start to panic.
I get out of bed to go looking for Alex. The house is quiet and I assume everyone is asleep. As I step into the hallway, I notice right away that something isn’t right. Not only can I feel no presence of Alex, I can hear a heart beating from somewhere nearby. At first I think it’s my own, but as I press my fingers to my pulse, the rhythm doesn’t match.
I notice that there’s a light on downstairs, so I go down there, the heartbeat moving with me. There’s a lamp on in the living room, but the sofa is empty and the kitchen to the side of me is dark.
I start to turn away, but something catches my eye. There’s an envelope with my name on it sitting on the coffee table. My stomach drops as I pick it up, tear it open, and take out the paper inside it. I think part of me has an idea of what it is before I read it and this sickening feeling builds in my gut and the unknown heartbeat starts to give me a headache.
Gemma
I know you may not understand why I have to leave, but I need you to try. I don’t believe that your end comes when you think it does. I believe there’s another way, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to find it—find a way to save you. 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 and you end up feeling the same way, then I know it’ll be the end for both of us. And I can’t let that happen.
I will always save you, no matter what. And I need you to hang on until I do.
Yours forever,
Alex
The letter slips from my fingers and floats to the floor as I hunch over, gasping for air. My stomach aches, like a kick to the gut.
I will always save you.
How can he leave me? I can’t live without him. I realize that now. It hurts so badly that I think I’m going to throw up and I think I might just lie down and die. But then something dawns on me and I stumble up the stairs, still hugging my stomach, and barge into Laylen’s room.
He jumps out of bed, kicking the blankets off as I turn the lights on. “What are you doing?” he asks, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes.
“Please tell me you didn’t know.” I beg, walking toward his bed. “Please tell me that’s not why you guys left the house.”
He’s apologetic expression says it all. “I’m sorry.”
“But you’re supposed to tell me stuff like this,” I say, shaking my head trying not to cry. “That’s what we do—we help each other out.”
He sighs, throwing the blanket off himself. He’s shirtless and usually I ogle his lean body, but not this time. Things have changed—I have changed. I can feel it inside me, through the pain in my stomach, through the nagging prickle in the back of my neck, and the heart beat that won’t stop. “I couldn’t tell you this.” He pats the bed for me to sit and I do so, even though I’m still upset. “He needed to leave… it was too hard for him to keep turning off what he felt for you. And if he stuck around, he worried you’d kill each other and nobody wants that to happen. This is for your own good even if you can’t see that right now.”