The Vision (18 page)

I used my Foreseer power to takes us to the outskirts of the castle, right in the center of the forest, in front of the bush blooming with violet flowers that hid the entrance to our old childhood hideout.

I didn’t ask why Alex wanted to go, but I could feel that being here was important to him. So I followed him up the side of the hill, he helped me over the bush, and I climbed down the ladder, into the dark hideout.

Alex climbed down after me and I stood in the darkness until a candle was lit. The light radiated around the tiny room made of dirt, and we both sat down on the floor with our backs pressed up against the wall, side by side, letting the silence wrap around us. I thought maybe this was what he wanted, to remember the memories the place held, memories which I could still not remember, except for one.

A promise made, between Alex and me, a promise to be together forever.

Forum.

“You know, I never stopped thinking about you,” he said, looking ahead at the wall. “After you left.” I didn’t say anything. I wanted to. I wanted to tell him that I never stopped thinking about him either, but that wouldn’t be true. I hadn’t thought about him, because I couldn’t remember him—I couldn’t remember much of anything.

“And then when I first saw you again.” He met my eyes.

“That day at school…I had so much trouble shutting my emotions off that day.” This strange look passed over his face as if he were remembering that day. “All that time spent learning how to shut them off, and one look at these,” he brushed the tip of his finger at the corner of my eye, “and everything I learned was momentarily gone.” That I could remember; how the first day I saw him at school, I was magnetized toward him. I felt things that day I had never felt before, and I wondered if somehow, in the back of my mind, I knew who he was; I remembered the Blood Promise, I remembered he was my forever.

“I want to do something,” Alex said, turning to face me. “I want to make another Blood Promise.”

“A Blood Promise.” I raised my eyebrows curiously at him. “What kind of a Blood Promise.”

“One that will help us through this.” He took a deep breath and slipped a knife out of the pocket of his jeans. “One that will make the impossible possible.”

I didn’t understand, but he had this look on his face, begging me to promise, begging me to understand, begging me to trust him.

So I nodded. “Alight, let’s make a promise.” I held out my hand, the one marked with the scar of an older Blood Promise made a very long time ago.

He took a deep breath as he flipped the blade open.

Then he cut his hand, and holding my gaze, carefully cut mine.

He pushed our hands together. “
EGO spondeo you'll
exsisto totus vox,”
The words poured out of him with a deeper meaning than I could grasp. His bright green eyes were on me, only me and nothing else.
“EGO spondeo
EGO mos reperio a via vobis futurus totus vox.”
I waited for him to tell me what he needed me to say, but he dropped his hand and put his knife back into his pocket.

“That was a one-sided promise,” I said, clutching my hand shut to stop the bleeding.

“It was a one-sided promise that needed to be made.” He stood to his feet and helped me to mine.

“But that doesn’t seem fair,” I said with a frown. “I didn’t promise you anything back.”

“Trust me,” he said. “I got everything I needed.” I could see in his eyes that he did; that whatever he needed from that promise, he got. There seemed to be less heaviness in his eyes because of it.

“We should go back,” he said, still holding onto my hand.

“If we’re gone for too long, everyone will worry that we’re
gone
gone.”

“If that’s what you want.” I shut my eyes. “Then, let’s go back.”

When we returned back to the house, I went up to talk to my mom, figuring it was time to explain to her what was going on. She was awake when I entered the room and she had this look on her face, like she knew I was about to tell her something terrible.

I sat down on the floor in front of her, my heart knocking in my chest as I stared at her for what probably felt like an eternity.

“I saw what happened,” I finally told her. “Dad didn’t want to be like Stephan. Stephan marked him with the Mark of Malefiscus.”

Her expression fell into horror. “W-what?”

“He’s not evil,” I said, hugging my knees against my chest. “He had to do it—he had to change the vision.” Her blue eyes were huge as she sat there, taking in what I said. “He didn’t want the mark?”

I shook my head. “No, he just wanted to be with you.” She swallowed hard and it looked like this invisible burden had been lifted from her shoulders, like she had been suffering in silence for years at the thought that my dad wanted to be evil.

“I changed it back,” I told her. “The vision he changed to end the world, I changed it back.”

She looked surprised and the chains jingled as she shifted her legs in front of her. “You fixed it.” I plucked at the loose strands of carpet. “I fixed it.”

“So, the world doesn’t end then?” she asked.

I nodded, not looking at her. “The world doesn’t end.” A pause.

“Gemma, what’s wrong? I can tell something’s bothering you.”

Suddenly, I lost it. I started bawling, hysterical sobs and I moved toward my mom and, ignoring the fact that she was chained to the wall because she was marked with the Mark of Malefiscus, I hugged her.

She put her hands around me and gave me what I needed. A loving mother.

And that’s how we stayed until the sun set behind the mountains, until the room grew so dark I had to pull away from her so I could get up and turn on the light and finally explain to her why I was crying.

“So that’s what he erased?” She struggled to keep control of her voice. “He erased your death.”

“And created the world’s death in its place,” I said, nodding. “I think, either way, I probably would have ended up dying, but this way it is just Alex and me that do. And we take Stephan and all the Death Walkers down with us.” I forced a smile. “Which is a good thing, right?” She gave me this look, this stern, ‘you-listen-here-missy’

kind of look. “You listen to me Gemma Lucas, you are not going to give up that easily.”

“I-I’m not giving up,” I stammered, thrown off by her words. “It’s what happens. I can’t do anything about it.” She shook her head. “There are always loopholes, Gemma.”

“You always say that,” I said, frustrated. “But I don’t know what it means? How are there loopholes? It was a vision—

the only loopholes are to do what dad did and try to change it to something else, and all that will get me is a one-way ticket to being trapped in my own mind forever.”

“There are always loopholes, Gemma,” she repeated, taking me by the shoulders and looking me straight in the eye. “Think about it. Your father took you into the Room of Forbidden, where no one’s supposed to enter. You got me out of The Underworld, which isn’t supposed to be possible. Your soul is reconnected, which was never supposed to happen. All those things were caused by loopholes.” She paused. “Just because you saw your death, doesn’t mean you have to die…I’m not saying that what you saw won’t happen, but that you need to find your loophole through your death…make it so you survive after the stars power fades away.”

I took in her words, unsure whether or not to believe them. Yes, all those things could be caused by loopholes, but a loophole in a vision was different. Visions were seeing things that were going to happen.

“I don’t know mom…” I gave her a doubtful look.

“Do not give up.” Her tone was firm—demanding. “I want you to go into your room and read through that Foreseer’s book—find your loophole. Promise me, Gemma. Promise me you won’t give up.”

“Okay, okay, I promise,” I said because I didn’t have another choice, not with the desperate look on her face; the look that I assume almost every mother would give to their daughter if they were put in our situation.

And so, like almost every daughter, I got to my feet, obeying my mother, to try to find my loophole.

Reading the Foreseer’s book was hurting my brain, and I was only about three quarters of the way through it.

Finally, I let out a sigh and set the book aside. I needed a quicker way to read through all this information and I found myself wondering if Aislin knew a spell that could give me a speed reading ability or something.

But then another idea occurred to me; an idea which I had to sit on for a while before I talked myself into doing it.

I
needed
a loophole.

I shut my eyes and let my brain focus on seeing a loophole. I wasn’t sure if what I was doing was right, but I had to try. I had to try and find a way for Alex and me to have our forever.

I just had to.

But as I tried to push my brain beyond the boundaries of seeing something that probably wasn’t supposed to be seen, I felt an explosion from inside my skull, like my brain had burst.

My eyes shot open.

I saw spots

Then I tumbled off the bed and blacked out.

“You can’t cheat your way there,” a voice said.

My eyelids fluttered open, and the first thing I saw were shoes. A pair of black shoes that shined in the light that flowed around them.

“If you want to find out the answer,” the voice said. “You have to search for it on your own.”

I rolled over on my back and looked up at my father, towering above me. “Am I in your head again?” I asked.

He smiled a gentle smile and helped me to my feet. “So you discovered where I am, then?”

I nodded, glancing around, noticing we weren’t in the same place as we were before. We were on a beach. The ocean’s waves crashed toward us and the bright light was the sun shining from the clear blue sky.

“Where are we?” I asked, getting to my feet.

“We are wherever I need us to be,” he said, heading down the shore.

I followed him. “But I thought you were in the Room of Forbidden….I thought you were stuck in your own head.” His violet eyes shined brightly in the sun as he looked at me. “I am, but I do get bored sometimes and changing the scenery helps pass the time.”

“Okay…but I don’t get something….how come the Foreseers put you in here? Why didn’t you just tell them what happened…that Stephan made you change the vision because he marked you with that.” I pointed at his wrist, which was covered by the sleeve of his robe.

He looked at me solemnly. “It’s the downfal of being a Foreseer, Gemma. There are no second chances or room for mistakes.”

“But you didn’t willingly make the mistake,” I argued as the ocean soaked at my feet. “Stephan made you do it.” Silence passed between us as the ocean crashed back and forth and birds cawed in the background.

“You need to stop worrying about me,” he said. “You have other problems to deal with at the moment.” I stopped and stared out at the ocean. “Like saving the world….because I already did that.”

“I know you did, but that is not what I’m talking about.” I shielded my eyes from the sun. “Then what are you talking about?”

“What you’re in store for.” He gazed out at the ocean.

“What waits for you in the near future.”

“I know what it is,” I told him. “I know that I die.”

“You’re still not getting it,” he said, sounding frustrated.

“You need to push that aside, otherwise you will never be able to save the world.”

I dropped my hand and turned my head toward him. “But, I already did that.”

“Not quite.” He reached into the pocket of his silver rob and pulled out a ring trimmed with violet gems. Then, he took my hand and set the ring in it.

“What is it?” I asked, gazing down at the ring, shimmering in the sunlight.

“That I cannot tell you.”

I frowned. “Why do you always say that? How can you give me things like this,” I held up the ring, “and the mapping ball, but you can’t tell me how to use them? And how do you even have these things, if we’re inside your head?”

He gave me an understanding smile. “This is my loophole Gemma. I’m able to give you these things, because we are in my head and not in the real world. What I do in here does not matter out there. But I cannot tell you how to use them, because that would be interfering with what you need to do out in the real world. You have to figure out the answers for yourself and pave the world with your memories.”

I stared at the ring in the palm of my hand. “I still don’t get it.”

“You will, when the time is right.” He shut my hand around the ring. “This is your loophole, Gemma.”

“My loophole to what? Saving my life or saving the world?

I asked, but the ocean blurred away and the sun began to dim—he was already sending me back.

“And no more trying to cheat, no matter what happens,” he called out, his voice sounding far away. “If you’re not careful, you’ll end up in here.”

I frowned, but said no more as I was yanked away, back to my room.

But when I opened my eyes, the boring tan walls of my room did not surround me.

All I could see was light.

Nothing but light.

“Oh, my God, I’m dead,” were the first words that left my mouth.

“You’re not dead,” someone replied in a soft, purring voice.

I glanced around…I knew that voice. “But you are.”

“Am I?” the tricky half-faerie teased. “Are you sure about that?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure about anything anymore.” I heard the soft thump of his footsteps moving through the light, heading toward me. “Of course, you’re not. You never have been.” He paused. “In fact, you’re the most confused girl I have ever known…always looking for the answers in the wrong places.”

“What do you mean?” I asked and suddenly he was right there, his golden eyes only inches away from me, the smell of flowers and rain smothering me to the point that I gagged.

“How can you be here, if I’m not dead?” I asked.

“I will answer that shortly,” he said. “But right now you have to go back.” And with that he shoved me backward, his hands searing hot against my shoulders.

I let out a scream as darkness suffocated me.

My eyes flew open and I shot upright, gasping for air. It took me a minute to realize I was on my bedroom floor, safe and sound from potentially dead faeries.

What kind of detour was that? One minute I was talking to my father, and the next thing I know I’m being shoved down by Nicholas.

I got to my feet, the ring that my father gave me clutched tightly in my hand. What was I supposed to do next? The only thing I could do, really. And that was to go inform everyone that the mystery was not yet solved.

“Why does he keep giving you things without an explanation of what they are?” Alex asked as he sat on the couch, twirling the ring in his fingers.

I shrugged. “I don’t know…he said it was because I had to figure things out on my own…and pave the world with my memories, whatever that means.”

Alex gave me a knowing look and then exchanged a strange look with Laylen.

“So you think there might be a way that we don’t have to die?” Alex asked with a hopeful expression.

I shrugged, not wanting to crush his hope, but not wanting to lie either. “I don’t know…everyone keeps talking about loopholes…so maybe.”

Alex exchanged another look with Laylen. What was this?

I mean, it wasn’t like the two of them really liked each other or anything, yet they seemed to be exchanging secrets with their eyes.

“Why do you keep giving each other weird looks like that?” I asked suspiciously.

“Yeah, what are you two up to?” Aislin asked form beside me, and I was glad she was noticing their weird behavior too.

Alex set the ring on the coffee table. “We’re not up to anything.” He got to his feet. “Laylen and I do, however, have somewhere to be.”

“Like where?” I asked at the same time Aislin said.

“What?”

Laylen glanced at his watch. “Is it time already?” Alex nodded and they headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” I called out, rising to my feet.

“Don’t worry,” Alex said, pausing in the doorway. “We’ll be back.”

Before I could say anything else, they walked out the front door and shut it behind them. I turned around and gaped at Aislin.

“Do you know what that was about?” I asked, pointing over my shoulder at the front door.

She shook her head, looking genuinely perplexed. “It was weird, though…definitely weird.”

I sat back down on the couch and picked up the ring my father gave me. “How is a ring my loophole?” Aislin took the ring from me and examined it. “I’m not sure…but I think we could start by finding out what kind of ring it is.”

“Any ideas on how to do that?”

She shrugged and we both sat there, staring at the violet gemmed ring, wondering what to do next.

“So have you figured out what went wrong with your spell?” I asked, taking the ring from her.
What are you for?

She shook her head. “It’s strange…from everything I read, it should work, and I can feel the power and everything, but when I try to use it, I get nothing.” Without even thinking, I slipped the ring onto my finger.

“Gemma, what are you doing,” Aislin sputtered. “You can’t just put something like that on…what if it does something to you.”

We both waited in silence, for something to happen; sparks to fly, me to explode, but nothing happened.

I frowned disappointedly and Aislin let out a sigh.

“Did you ask your mom what it was?” Aislin pointed at the ring on my finger. “The ring, I mean.” I shook my head, leaned back in the sofa, and put my feet up on the coffee table. “Not yet.”

We grew silent again. I could hear the wind howling outside, and I wondered if a storm was coming.

Aislin opened the laptop. “I think maybe we could—” A loud bang cut her off. We both looked at each other and then we were on our feet, moving for the kitchen, where the bang came from.

Bang. Bang. Bang

We paused at the doorway of the kitchen, too afraid to enter as the banging continued to rattle at the air.

“What is that?” Aislin whispered.

I shook my head. “I don’t know…do you have like a weapon or something, just in ca…” I trailed off as smoke whirled across the floor, brushed across my ankles and drifted into the living room.

“Where is that coming from?” Aislin asked as more smoke swept across the floor.

“I don’t know.” For some reason, though, I thought of the vision I saw, the one where the streets of Afton were filled with fire.

Aislin slipped a knife out of the pocket of her shorts and held it up in front of her. “On the count of three?” I nodded. “On the count of three…one…two…three.” We both jumped into the kitchen, ready to kick some butt.

But no butt kicking was necessary because the smoke was coming from a fire burning in the garbage can outside in the driveway. The back door had been left open and was swinging away against the wind, letting the smoke blow into the house.

Aislin lowered her knife. “Oh, thank God. For a second, I thought the house was burning down or something” But I was not relieved. “Yeah, but who started the fire?” She shrugged. “I don’t know…maybe some kids who were bored?”

“Maybe.” But her answer didn’t feel right.

We crept over to the door, watching the fire blaze against the night.

Something was wrong.

I could feel it.

The sight of the fire was setting off something inside me and I couldn’t stop thinking about the vision I had right after I was bit by the vampire; the chaos in the streets, the fires, Stephan.
You need to prepare yourself
, my father had said.

“Do you have a fire extinguisher?” Aislin asked.

I pointed to the cupboard below the kitchen sink, but my eyes stayed on the fire. “It’s under there.” Moments later, Aislin was putting out the fire with a satisfied look rising on her face when she finished. “There, fire problem all taken care of.”

I forced a smile as she went back into the house and put the extinguisher back in the cupboard.

“Something’s not right,” I muttered.

Something definitely wasn’t right.