He doesn"t utter a word as he deliberately traces his finger to the next section. I suck in a breath as he pulls on that one too and his breath hits the back of my neck. I try to remain calm as he fastens the next one by pulling it so securely that the leather clutches my ribs.
I put my hands just below my b.r.e.a.s.t.s and work to get air into my lungs. "It"s tight enough I think."
His chest brushes against my back as he laughs and gives the ribbon another tug. "Not tight enough. We don"t want them falling out."
I bite down on my lip. Hard. And a little blood pools out. "I"m sure they"ll stay put. I can barely breathe."
His knuckles graze between my shoulder blades as he ties the ribbon into a knot. He"s breathing erratically and his chest collides with my back with each inhale. "I know, but I want to make sure." There"s an elongated pause and then I feel his lips touch the back of my neck.
I stay still as he rolls his tongue along my skin and gives it a little suck, sending shivers all over my body. I want to crumble to the ground and let him catch me, but he pulls away and the feeling evaporates as he heads down the hall with a swagger in his walk. All I have left is a warm sensation on my back and I"m not sure if it"s from the kiss or the p.r.i.c.kle trying to whisper a new emotion to me.
Either way, I stuff it down and follow them out the front door, knowing I have to get my feelings under control, so I can think clearly and keep myself alive.
Because that is the whole point of life. Isn"t it?
Chapter 12.
Laylen drives a 1960s Pontiac GTO; black with white racing stripes down the middle. Another s.e.xy car to add to my list. And a s.e.xy driver. With his long fingers curled around the steering wheel, Laylen speeds off down the dirt road toward the city.
I"m in the backseat, watching the stars streak by as the car zooms down the road. Alex is next to me and is being really quiet. His knee keeps jiggling up and down as if he"s centering his nervous energy into that one leg. It"s making the air stifling and I can still feel where he kissed my neck, like a lingering chill.
"You know if you keep bouncing your leg like that, you"re going to get a cramp," I say, when his nervous energy starts to spread to me.
He ceases jiggling his knee and looks at me. "Is it bothering you?"
"Kind of," I admit and fan my hand in front of my face. "You"re making it very hot in here."
"Maybe it"s just my hotness that"s making you hot and bothered," he jokes with a smirk.
Annoyance overcomes me and I slap his knee, kind of roughly. "That"s not what it is."
He rubs his knee with a half-smile on his face. "You"re vicious."
"And you"re arrogant."
"That"s been a given from day one." He pauses and then glances up front at Aislin who has her eyes shut and her head resting against the window. He scoots over in the seat and leans in toward me. He smells like cologne mixed with soap and I breathe in his intoxicating scent. "You need to be careful while we"re in the city. Stay by me at all times."
"Yes, boss. Any other orders you need me to follow?" I"m joking, but the look on his face is dead serious.
"There"s a ton of orders I"d love for you to follow," he says and reclines back with his jaw set tight. "But I"d break a lot of rules if I ever gave them to you; and unlike some people, I don"t break the rules." He glances up at Laylen and then directs his focus to the road ahead. In the darkness of the cab, his eyes look like coals and his face is a shadow; he looks haunted.
There"s a brief confirmation from the p.r.i.c.kle that lets me know I feel bad. Only hours ago, in the cabin, I"d been rubbing up against him, feeling the most amazing feelings ever and then I went and did whatever it was that I did with Laylen. I"m working up a mild apology when the city rises into view and my thought process. .h.i.ts a screeching halt.
Lights blink against the blackness of the night in vibrant colors and giant billboards light up the sides of the road. In the distance, where the hills fade out, buildings stretch toward the sky. I sit quietly, craning my neck from left to right to take it all in. Everything"s so flashy and shocking. The shock only grows when we reach the heart of the city, where the sidewalks become packed with mobs of people and the air buzzes with excitement. There are people dressed in costumes; drinking, laughing and I even see one man strip off his clothes.
I pinch my arm to make sure I"m not dreaming and wince from the sting I undeniably feel. "Holy s.h.i.t."
Alex tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear and whispers, "What? Did you think you were dreaming?"
I rub my arm. "Maybe. It wouldn"t be the first time I wasn"t sure if I was awake or not."
He gives me a strange look. "What do you mean?"
I shrug and fix my gaze on a man dressed as a gladiator, handing out flyers to pedestrians. "I mean exactly what I said-sometimes I can"t tell what"s happening in real life and what"s just a dream."
"How long has this been going on?"
"For most of my life. Or, well, since I started feeling, which, to me, was kind of the beginning of my life."
He looks at me and, I mean, really looks at me as if I"m really a person and not a star or a strange girl. "What kinds of dreams? Were they the one"s with the Death Walkers?"
I nod. "Yeah, the Death Walkers were in some of them. And you." And sometimes Laylen.
The lights from the street mirror in his eyes. "And what was I doing in these dreams?"
"Umm..." Thankfully it"s dark because I"m pretty sure my cheeks are bright red. "Stuff."
It doesn"t take him very long to catch on. "Oh." His forehead scrunches and he covers his mouth, then puts his hand on his lap; uncertain of what to do with himself.
After that, it gets quiet. I would feel stupid, but I have bigger problems to worry about than Alex thinking I"m a pervert. I focus on the scenery; a gla.s.s pyramid, a giant pirate ship and a small replica of the Eiffel Tower. At the end of the taller buildings, Laylen veers to the right and the lights fade with the crowd. The buildings shrink into smaller, worn out houses and the gutters lining the streets are littered with garbage and cigarette b.u.t.ts. When we pa.s.s a corner where a group of people are shuffling around, beating the s.h.i.t out of each other, Aislin locks her door.
"You do realize it"s almost one o"clock?" Aislin informs Laylen as she checks her watch.
Laylen flips the signal light on. "Yeah, so? You do realize that this is Vegas, right? Most places stay open all night."
"Yeah, but the later it is, the more the weirdoes are going to be out and about." She adjusts the strap of her dress, which has slipped off her shoulder.
"Weirdoes make the world interesting." He flashes a smile at her as he parks the car up against the curb.
She shakes her head and tries not to smile. "That"s a great way to look at things."
Surrounding the car are abandoned buildings. The windows are boarded up and there are no lights on inside any of them. The only proof of human existence is a guy wearing a black hooded jacket, cargo pants and army boots, who scurries down a dark alley when he sees us.
Laylen silences the engine and the radio, and then shuts the lights off. It gets quiet and very dark.
"Are you okay?" Alex asks and his low voice sends vibrations along my skin. "You look freaked out."
"I"m fine," I lie, clicking my seatbelt loose. "I"ve been chased by a pack of Death Walkers for crying out loud. It can"t get much worse than that."
"Yeah, it can, Gemma. Things can get a lot worse," he states definitively.
I"m not sure if he"s trying to scare me, but he is making me uneasy. "Like how?"
"Don"t worry," he says in a husky voice. "I promise I won"t let anything happen to you."
"You say that all the time," I state quietly. "And I"m starting to wonder just how bad things are; how much protection you think I need."
He keeps his lips close to my earlobe. "It"s not about things being bad. It"s about me making a promise."
I tilt my head a little and my cheek touches his lips, but he doesn"t move. "I reiterate, sometimes it feels like you"re speaking in code."
Aislin clears her throat. "Um, guys? I think we should go in and get this over with."
Her voice breaks the connection and we both move away from each other; Alex returns to the other side of the car.
Aislin surveys the buildings. "So what"s the game plan? Just go into the place and get the stuff? Where is the Wicca shop anyway, because these places all look abandoned?" When Laylen stares silently out the window, Aislin rotates in the seat to face him. "Laylen, did you hear me?"
He lowers his hand from his lip ring and mutters, "The Wicca shop isn"t inside any of these buildings."
"What do you mean; it"s in none of them?" Alex asks. "What the f.u.c.k"s going on?"
Laylen vacillates. "I needed to stop here first before we go and pick up the crystal."
There"s a split second where I can feel the heat of h.e.l.l breaking loose and then Alex scoots forward in his seat. Even though his movements are slow, they"re full of warning. "I thought we all agreed no extra stops." His voice is so controlled it sends a chill down my spine.
Laylen slides the keys out of the ignition and keeps his voice unvarying. "Before you start getting your panties up in a bunch, hear me out. Trust me; you"ll want what"s here."
"Trust you?" Alex lets out a cynical laugh. "Are you kidding me? I already trusted you and look where it got us."
Laylen thrums his fingers on top of the steering wheel. "The Sword of Immortality is here..." He points at the closest building. "At the Black Dungeon."
Alex b.a.l.l.s his hands into fists and a vein in his neck bulges. "And why is it at the Black Dungeon?"
"I lost it during a poker game a few months ago," Laylen answers evenly. "I thought I had an unbeatable hand. Turns out, I didn"t."
"So, let me get this straight." Alex is livid. "You stole it from the Keepers just so you could lose it in a poker game."
"I stole it for a good reason," Laylen replies. "I didn"t want to leave it in the Keepers" hands after I became immortal. You guys made it very clear about your feelings for me when I changed."
"We wouldn"t kill you." Aislin presses her hand to her chest, flabbergasted. "Laylen, how could you ever think that?"
"Because it"s the truth," he says simply, not meeting her eyes, instead he"s staring at the street sign.
Silence takes over. Dogs howl in the distance. Tension pollutes the air. It"s at that moment that I realize just how out of the loop I am. They have history, they understand the secrets of the world; the one"s no one believes in because believing in them is too terrifying for the average person.
"I"m sorry, but what exactly is the Sword of Immortality?" I finally dare to speak.
"Exactly what it sounds like-a sword that can kill an immortal," Alex says, tapping his fingers restlessly against the console. "And it would have been really useful back at the cabin. Then maybe we"d have been able to kill a few Death Walkers, instead of running like a bunch of p.u.s.s.ies."
My fingers curl around the edge of the seat and my nails dig into the leather. "So, right now, at this very moment, if the Death Walkers show up, we can"t kill them?"
"All we can do is run." He pauses and I can hear the fury lacing each huff of his breath. "So what"s the big plan, Laylen? Because now that I know it"s up there, there"s no way we"re walking away until we have it."
"I haven"t really gotten that far." Laylen points at a two-story brick building with a crooked rain gutter and a rickety sign on the roof. "All I know is that it"s up on the second floor, in a secured display case." He glances at Aislin. "A display case secured by black magic."
"Black magic"s not my specialty," Aislin utters softly. "You know that."
Laylen holds her gaze. "Do I?"
She nods and averts her eyes to the window. "You know my father would never allow it."
He reaches over and delicately touches her arm and I see a glimpse of their history; the ones in the pictures. "I"m sure, if you think really hard, you can figure out a spell that would get us in."
She"s quiet for a while and when she speaks, her voice is barely audible. "I could do an effrego alica. It"ll remove the Black magic around the case long enough for us to break it, but, if there are alarms..." She looks at Laylen with sadness in her eyes as she draws her arm away from his hand. "That I can"t help."
Laylen pulls his hand away and rests it on top of the shifter. He looks even sadder, if that"s possible. "If there are alarms, then we"ll run."
Alex shakes his head. "That"s the stupidest plan I"ve ever heard. Besides, how are you going to even get up there? From what I can remember, there are guards all over the bottom floor and the stairway, which is the only way up to the second floor, without flying."
"I"ll pretend that I"m going upstairs to feed off Aislin," Laylen says flatly. "It"s the only reason they let people up there."
"And what if one of the guards or someone like Draven goes up there?" Alex asks in a clipped tone. "Then what?"
"Who"s Draven?" I wonder. "And what the h.e.l.l is in this Black Dungeon?"
"Lots and lots of evil," Alex mutters as his gaze traces the lines of the nearby buildings.
"Draven is the owner of the club," Laylen explains, staring off in deep thought. "And someone will have to stand at the bottom of the stairway... You and Gemma can do that and send a text if something is about to walk up. I"ll go up with Aislin and stand guard at the entrance of the room. I"m more than capable of protecting her."
"And then what? You hide? Run?" He frowns. "There"s only one way out of there."
"Look, I"m not the one who is in desperate need to get the sword back," Laylen points out. "We can either leave, Aislin and I can go in blind and try to get the sword, or we can all go in and watch each other"s backs and have a better chance at getting in and out undetected."
"We need that sword." Alex flops back in the seat, b.u.mping my shoulder. "And what about Gemma? She"s going to stand out like a sore thumb down in that crowd."
I run my hands along the front of the dress. "I thought you guys said this would help me blend in?"
Alex shakes his head. "You"re innocence is written all over you; they"ll eat you up."
"Literally?" My voice cracks.
His gaze slides to me and he a.n.a.lyzes me through hooded eyes. "It depends on what literal we"re talking about, but to clarify, I mean they"re going to want to get their hands and teeth all over you."
I don"t know what to say to that, so I keep quiet.
"She could pretend she"s one of them," Aislin suggests. "And you know how they view Black Angels that aren"t locked up-they"re like G.o.ddesses to the Immortal."
"She can"t pull it off," Alex states bluntly. "She"s too reserved and weak."
I slug him in the upper arm. Not to prove a point, but because he"s p.i.s.sed me off. "I"m not weak. I"ve put up with a lot of s.h.i.t over my lifetime."
He winces a little and then his fingers cover his arm. He scans up my legs, my dress, my neck and lips, finally stopping at my eyes. "You really think you can go in there and pretend like you"re a powerful, domineering, Angel from h.e.l.l."