The Underworld (9 page)

though, wil take a few days to heal.”

I started to get to my feet, but the world started

spinning. I almost col apsed back to the ground, but

Laylen caught me by the arm.

“You’re going to have to take it easy,” he told me,

holding me steady. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

Wel , that explained the wooziness. “I think I might

be sick.”

“That’l wear off in a little while too.”

I lightly touched my neck, the skin burning beneath

my fingers. “How did we get out of that place?” I

asked, because my memory was missing some

pieces of what just occurred. In fact, the only thing I

could remember clearly was the vision I’d just gone in,

and how my eyes in the vision had looked so empty. I

wondered if it meant it would actual y happen to me—

if I would end up at the cabin that way. The thought

was scary.

“Wel , by the time we made it out into the bar area,

you’d fainted,” Laylen said. “Luckily I caught you

before you hit the floor.”

Yeah, I guess that could be considered lucky. But

everything else…hmm…not so much.

“So you what?” I asked. “Just carried me out and

ran? How did we not get caught?”

“We were lucky we didn’t.” He started to walk,

guiding me along with him. “But I think we need to get

back to the house before someone realizes I kil ed

Vladislav.”

Good idea.

We headed across an empty parking lot, making

sure to stay in the shadows.

“So how much trouble are you going to be in for

staking Vladislav?” I asked, gripping onto Laylen’s

arms as I was rushed by a spout of dizziness.

He shrugged, but I felt him speed up. “We need to

get back to the house and out of sight for awhile.

Eventual y, it’l be forgotten, but I probably won’t be

able to show my face in the vampire world again.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked him,

careful y maneuvering over a pot hole.

He shrugged. “I don’t know…it wasn’t like I

completely enjoyed being around other vampires. But

they were the only ones who didn’t judge me for being

a vampire.”

His voice was sad and it made my heart hurt for

him. “So what do you do then?” I asked “Just wait it

out until the vampires do what? Decide they’re over

it?”

We turned down an al eyway, tucking ourselves into

the dark and out of sight.

“I’m going to have to lie low for awhile,” he said,

dodging us around a stack of wooden crates.

Lay low for a while. Wasn’t that what we’d already

been doing, to keep me away from Stephan and the

Death Walkers? But now I guess vampires were

going to have to be added to the “Who We Were

Hiding From Now list.” Jeez, if it kept up, every evil

creature was going to be after us.

“So what about my mom,” I said to Laylen as we

squeezed past a dumpster, the air smel ing like rotten

eggs mixed with old bananas. “Do you think Vladislav

was tel ing the truth and that she’s stil alive?”

“Yeah, I do,” he said sounding absolutely certain.

We reached a tal chain link fence with no way

around it. At least that was what I thought. But then

Laylen reached down and pul ed on the bottom of it

until the metal links snapped and he was able to lift up

the fence high enough for me to scoot underneath it.

Then he ducked under himself and let the fence go

with a clank.

“Vampires have this connection with each other

that al ows us to sense if the other one’s lying,” he told

me as we stepped out onto a sidewalk and back

underneath the lights of the lampposts. “I knew from

the beginning that Vladislav was going to tel us the

truth.”

“You can tel if each other are lying.” Wow. It was

like he had his own little lie detector built into him. Too

bad it didn’t work on beautiful, bright green-eyed,

Keepers. “Although Vladislav never did get around to

saying how we can get my mom out of The

Underworld.”

“I have a hunch….though,” he said as Adessa’s red

brick building came into view, “that there just might be

someone else that we can talk to about getting her out

of there. And maybe now that we know Jocelyn is

alive, he might be more on board with rescuing her.”

I tilted my head to the side, confused as I looked up

at him. “Who?”

“Alex,” he said.

The gravel speckling the parking lot crunched

underneath our shoes, fil ing up the silence. I stared at

Laylen like he had to be joking, but then he met my

eyes, and I realized he was absolutely, one-hundred

percent serious.

“You think Alex knows how to get my mom out of

The Underworld,” I said, making sure that’s what we

were talking about here. Because I had talked to Alex

about my mother before and whether or not she could

stil be alive, and he had said there was a slim chance

that she could be. Never did he ever mention that

there was a way to get people out of The Underworld.

Yeah, he might not have known my mom was alive—

although I wouldn’t put it past him if he did—but if he

knew a way to rescue someone from The Underworld,

he should have said so. But I guess this was
Alex
, so

why was I so surprised.

“ H e
might
know something,” Laylen stressed.

“Since Stephan’s his father and was the one who was

in charge of sentencing people to The Underworld, he

may have told Alex a way to get down there without

being yanked down through the lake."

“So you don’t know for sure if he does.” I frowned,

disappointed. “You’re just guessing.”

He nodded. “But I think for now, he’s probably our

best bet…because I think I just eliminated al of my

other options.”

“If we can get the truth out of him,” I muttered.

Laylen nodded in agreement. Honestly, though, I

wondered if tel ing Alex what we had found out tonight

would do more bad than good. I mean, for one thing

that would require us to explain to him how we

received the information, which in turn would result in

a ful on freak out on Alex’s part. And most of his freak

out would probably be directed at Laylen. I knew

Laylen could deal with it and everything, but it didn’t

mean he should have to. He already helped me out

enough, so why make him pay more.

Besides, I wasn’t sure if Alex could be trusted stil .

His story of what had happened back at the cabin

seemed off. For al I knew what real y could have

happened was that the memory erasing rock couldn’t

erase my memory and so Stephan had put Alex in

charge to keep an eye on me until he found an

alternative way to extract my memory.

As I went back and forth with what I thought we

should do with the “tel ing Alex dilemma,” a set of

headlights flashed across the parking lot, and Laylen

quickly hid us behind a black Mazda. A car pul ed into

the parking lot and parked. Then two people climbed

out of the car; a short, round man and a thin, tal

woman wearing neon pink high heels that clicked

loudly against the ground as the two of them walked

toward a tan brick building that was right next to

Adessa’s house.

“Are they vampires?” I whispered to Laylen.

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so...”

We waited until the people had disappeared

around the corner of the building before stepping out

from behind the Mazda. We made the rest of the walk

hurriedly. The rest of our conversation consisted of

creating a plan for what we should tel everyone

happened to my neck, because I was sure they were

going to ask. Laylen insisted that we should just

blame the bite on him, since Alex was probably going

to accuse him of it anyway. I thought this was a

ridiculous idea, and told him we didn’t need to tel

Alex anything, and that I would just wear a turtle neck

or something. But then I realized that wearing a turtle

neck in the scorching hot desert would look a little bit

suspicious

So that problem just hung in the air.

It was when we reached Adessa’s that we both

realized we had another problem. One that needed to

be dealt with real y fast.

During our little jumping-out-of-the-building thing, it

never had occurred to either one of us that getting

back up might be a little tricky. So we just stood there,

staring up at the window we’d jumped out of, trying to

come up with some kind of solution.

“Maybe there’s a fire escape somewhere?” I

suggested.

He shook his head. “I don’t think there is.”

In the distances, dogs were howling like crazy, and I

saw Laylen tense up as he glanced around

apprehensively. When the dogs stopped howling, he

shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh. Then he

kicked a plastic bottle that was on the ground and it

whipped up in the air and thumped against the side of

the brick building.

“Dammit,” he cursed noisily, and now I was the one

glancing around apprehensively.

“Laylen,” I whispered. “You need to be a little

quieter or someone’s going to hear us.”

He ran his fingers through his blond hair, and I was

sensing that a meltdown was about to take place.

“Who cares. I’m already screwed anyway.”

“Why are you screwed? Because you staked

Vladislav? I thought you said you just had to lay low for

awhile and it would pass over,” I said.

He looked at me gravely. “Gemma, I didn’t just

stake Vladislav. I staked Vladislav, one of the oldest

vampires.”

“So is that worse than staking a young vampire?” I

asked.

He stared at me, not answering, and I suddenly

grasped that he was in more trouble than he first let

on.

“Laylen, you shouldn’t have let me go with you.” I

told him, guilt choking up inside me.

“It was your choice, Gemma,” he said. “You should

be able to choose what you want to do.”

“Wel , I think I picked the wrong one.” I swal owed

hard. “I’m real y sor…” I stopped as a spark of

electricity coiled up my spine. “Ah crap.”

“What’s the matter?” Laylen asked, his eyebrows

dipping down.

Before I could tel him what was up, or try to find a

place for us to hide, Laylen’s gaze darted over my

shoulder, and I knew without even looking that we

were so busted.

“So funny thing,” Alex’s voice came up from right

behind me. “I was up in my room, and I just happened

to look out the window. And boy was I surprised to

find you two standing down here, in the middle of the

night, for God knows what reason.”

I caught Laylen’s eye, and I tried to communicate to

him telepathical y what we should do. Of course, I

didn’t have telepathic abilities and neither did Laylen

so guess how wel that went.

I shook my head, and decided to face the

inevitable. I took a deep breath, and covering the bite

on my neck with my hand, I turned to face Alex. I

wasn’t too worried about what he was going to say to

me. He could chew me out al he wanted—I was used

to it. I just felt guilty because I knew Alex was going to

put most of it on Laylen.

Alex’s eyes were al over me as if he could sense

something was wrong. “What’s the matter with your

neck?”

The lighting was scarce, so I was hoping that it was

dark enough that he couldn’t see the blood dried up

on my skin. “I have a kink in it.”

He gave me a yeah-right look. “You have a kink in

it?”

I shrugged. “It happens.”

He shook his head, irritated. “So why are you two

standing out here?”

I had no idea what to tel him and the way he was

staring at me was making my brain al hazy.

“How about we go inside, and then we’l tel you,”

Laylen said restlessly.

Alex glanced back and forth between Laylen and

me, looking a little lost. “Okay….Let's go inside, then.”

So apparently Alex had woken up Adessa when

he’d seen Laylen and me standing outside in the

dark. He had to wake her up or he wouldn’t have been

able to walk out the front door without getting blasted

by Adessa’s charms.

I stil had my hand on my neck, trying to keep my

bite mark hidden, as we stepped into the living room.

But as the light hit me, I realized that there was blood