The Fallen Star (Fallen Star Series) Read online

  I glanced around. Hadn’t anyone noticed my disappearance? It didn’t look like. Everyone seemed content in their little groups, working away on the assignment. Alex was still standing right behind me just like he had before I’d…I have no idea how to finish that sentence.

  Alex stared at me strangely as he cocked an eyebrow. “You okay?”

  Aislin was looking at me weirdly too. But neither of them appeared to be alarmed or completely freaked out, which seemed odd since I’d just disappeared for who knows how long. Or had I? Maybe I’d hallucinated or something. Perhaps I’d dazed off. God, it didn’t feel like it wasn‘t real, though. It had felt very real. Too real. Like I’d seen it before. Lived it before. Maybe I had. The mother had called the little girl Gemma. Maybe the little girl was me. But if that were true, then why had I called the woman, who I was certain wasn’t Sophia, mama. My mother had died when I was one, and the little girl had to be at least four.

  Confusion swarmed my brain. I started to sweat and blood roared at my ears. Tears stung at my eyes, and I had to remind myself to breath.

  “I have to go,” I whispered, making to move around Alex.

  He stepped in front of me and held up his hand. “Go where?”

  “I…To the bus.” I made another attempt to sidestep around him.

  He mimicked my move at lightning speed, blocking me and stopping me dead in my tracks. “You can’t just go wandering off. We’re out in the middle of a forest.” His bright green eyes were filled with concern. It was weird. Why did he care? In fact, hadn’t he been the one to drive me up into the middle of the forest just a few days ago.

  Despite my efforts not to, I started to cry, tears rolling down my ice-cold cheeks.

  Alex’s eyes widened. “Are you…are you crying?”

  “Um...Oh just shut up.” And then I dashed past him, my shoulder slamming into his.

  “Gemma wait,” Alex yelled after me.

  But I kept running, not thinking about the consequences of what I was about to do as I headed straight for the bus.

  Chapter 12

  I found the bus door cracked open—thank goodness—leaving it easy to open. The bus driver was MIA and the lights were off. With tears streaming down my face, I dropped down in the seat Alex and I had rode up in. I hugged my legs against my chest, and cried in the dark in typical Gemma style—all alone.

  What was happening to me? Was I heading towards an emotional breakdown? Was I going to end up locked away in a padded cell somewhere, screaming at the top of my lungs that everything I said was true—that I wasn’t crazy?

  Was I crazy, though? Was any of what was going on actually real? Or was my mind pushing on the boarders of sanity, conjuring up a fictional world?

  Absentmindedly, I touched the pocket of my jeans where the list of dates rested. I pulled off my glove and reached in, the edges of paper grazing my skin as I took it out. Letters forming my name and the dates stared back at me.

  It was real.

  Tears raindropped down from my eyes and splattered against the paper, bleeding the red ink. Everything was so complicated. I desperately wished I could just piece it all together.

  Through my blurry veil of tears, I thought I saw a flash of yellow just outside my window. With my heart thumping wildly, I leaned in for a closer look and saw a tall, dark figure zipping through the pine trees at an inhuman speed, heading directly for the bus. I’d almost forgotten about the monster. How could I have been so stupid? Again. I needed to get off the bus. Right now. Before it was too late.

  I leapt out of my seat, preparing to make a mad dash back to the telescopes where I could be safe. At least for the moment, anyway. But electricity spun through my body, and I hit a dead halt.

  Alex was making his way slowly up the aisle. “What the heck are you doing out here?”

  “Nothing.” The word rushed out. I shot a glance at the window. The tall, dark figure was gone.

  He stopped just short of me, his eyes as round as two golf balls. “You’ve been crying.”

  “So.” I stuffed the list into the pocket of my coat and wiped the tears off of my cheeks. “People cry all the time.”

  “Yeah, but only when something horrible or sad happens to them.” He paused, looking out the window, then back at me. “Did something horrible or sad happen to you?”

  I shook my head, afraid to speak. Afraid my voice would give away my lie.

  He nodded at the window. “What were you looking at out there?”

  “I was looking at…the stars.” It sounded more like a question than an answer.

  He cocked his head to the side, his forehead creasing over with worry lines. “But weren’t you just looking at the stars through a telescope. Right before you ran off in a mad craze.”

  I glared at him. Insulting me was not a good idea right now.

  His expression softened a little. “Gemma there’s obviously something bothering you, so tell me what it is please.”

  I think it was the first time I’d ever heard him use the word please. Still, it didn’t mean I was going to break down and tell him all my secrets. Not with the risk of looking like a total lunatic. “There is nothing bothering me so, if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to get back to the class.”

  I marched forward, but his hands came down on the back of the seats, keeping me from going any farther. I backed up, trying to widen the distance between us, but he matched my steps, narrowing it right back.

  I tried not to freak out about the fact that I was being cornered like a cat. “Look, I don’t think—” My back hit the back door.

  He stopped just inches short of me and reached for my face. I flinched as he wiped away stray tear rolling down my cheek. His fingers tingled against my skin, making me feel lightheaded and dizzy, and I had to grab hold of a nearby seat just to keep from falling over.

  He raised his finger up into the moonlight speckling through the window and inspected the tear. “If nothing’s wrong,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper, “then what is this?”

  I felt tired. Everything was just too...heavy. I couldn’t take it anymore. I sighed, a heavy hearted sigh. “It’s a tear.”

  “Yeah, but why are tears falling from those purple eyes of yours.”

  Normally, the purple eye comment would have pissed me off. But, like I said, I was tired. “Because I’m sad,” I told him, which was the truth. I was sad. “And my eyes are not purple. They’re violet.”

  He cracked a smile, but it swiftly faded. “Sad about what?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged.

  It got quiet. My body sparkled electrically as he kept his eyes on my, watching me with the most intense expression. I forgot to breathe again and had to suck in a big breath of air.

  “I knew you could feel it,” he said softly.

  “Feel what?” I replied breathlessly.

  “The electricity,” he whispered in a voice so soft it sent another good shiver down my spine.

  I had to catch my breath before I spoke. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do.” He inched forward, the tips of his sneakers clipping the tips of mine.

  Was it just me or was it getting hot in here? My thought process was melting like butter. The world shadowed around me. I could hear my heart thrumming in my chest, and I wondered if he could hear it to.

  I felt like I was slipping away.

  But I couldn’t slip away. I needed to remember all the lies he’d told. I needed to not lose myself. But his eyes were locked on mine, and I could feel my self-control disappearing.

  He put his hand on my cheek. Every inch of my body firecrackered with sparks. It was like the freaking Fourth of July in here, all hot and sparkly. The ceiling lights flickered on, then back off again. Alex shut his eyes and leaned in. Um…was he going to do what I think he was going to do? No. There was no way—His lips brushed against mine. I froze, unsure of what to do, but then my instincts took over. I let my eyelids close and fell into the
kiss.

  “Alex! What are you doing?!”

  Both our eyes shot open. Alex stepped back with a deer-in-the-headlights look. I stayed where I was with my back pressed against the cold metal of the door.

  The lights were on and Aislin was standing at the front of the bus, her eyes wide. “What the heck is going on?!”

  Alex stared at me with those beautiful green eyes of his as he traced his finger across his lips. The lips that had just been touching mine.

  Holy crap.

  He broke his gaze away from me and turned to face her. “Why would you think something was going on?”

  Aislin placed her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes on him. “Alex, you should know better than to be doing something like this.”

  What was she talking about? Him kissing me? Okay, I seriously wanted to get off the bus now. “Um, yeah, I think I’m going to go back outside.”

  Alex’s arm came down in front of me. “No, you’re not.”

  “Um, yes, I am.” I tried to push his arm out of the way, but he was too strong. “You can’t make me stay here.”

  “Of course I can,” he said.

  He wasn’t even looking at me, but I was pretty sure he could feel the burning death glare I was giving him by the way he shifted his weight.

  “Alex, I really think—” Aislin began.

  Alex held up his hand. “Aislin, just be quiet.”

  She glared furiously at him, but her mouth stayed shut.

  He turned back to me. “Now what did you see outside?”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “Nothing.”

  “That’s bull.” He was getting mad. I could tell by the way his skin was tingeing pink. However, when he spoke, his voice sounded absolutely calm. “Just tell me please.”

  I thought I felt a chill slither down my spine. But figuring it was from the cold, I shrugged it off and shook my head. “No.”

  He took a deep breath and said softly, “Please. I swear you can trust me.”

  I could feel myself falling again—falling into his eyes. Maybe I could tell him about everything…about the monsters….about me…the chill slithered down my back again, this time feeling very slimy and very snake-like. I shuttered. “What is that?”

  He furrowed his eyebrows. “What’s what?”

  “It feels like there’s something slimy and cold on my back,” I told him, running my fingers along the back of my coat.

  His gaze moved to over my shoulder, and his eyes widened in horror.

  “What?” I followed his gaze and my heart stopped. Frost, webbing its way across the back door. “What the—” I shot my attention to the side widows. Ice was covering them too. My foggy breath laced out in front of me. The air suddenly felt very heavy.

  The air suddenly felt like death.

  “Aislin,” Alex said, worry ringing in his tone.

  I heard a loud shriek, and through the ice blanketed windows, I thought I saw a flicker of yellow. I could hear Alex and Aislin talking…something about getting out of here and transporting—whatever the heck that was—but I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of the frozen window to see what they were doing. I think I was in shock or something; frozen in terror—literally.

  I needed to get off of the bus.

  I tore my gaze away from the icy windows. Aislin was kneeling down on the ground doing something weird with a black candle and what looked like a chunk of amethyst. What was this? Black magic time?

  I definitely needed to leave.

  “I have to get out of here,” I said, trying to push past Alex so I could get the heck off of this freezer-of-a-bus.

  “You aren’t going anywhere,” Alex growled, refusing to let me by.

  “Yes, I am,” I shoved at him with all the force I could conjure up, but he stood as still as a statue. I was on the verge of tears again. “You don’t understand I have to get off. NOW!”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Alex snapped. “If you walk off this bus, you’ll die.”

  “If I stay of this bus, they’ll kill me!”

  That caught his attention. “Who will kill you?”

  Oh crap. I hadn’t meant to say that aloud. But with what was happening around us, did it really even matter.

  “Those things.” I pointed towards the windows where blinking eyes now flashed from the other side.

  “You know what they are?” he asked, stunned.

  “Of course I do.” I tried to shove past him again, but it was useless. “This is not the first time I’ve seen them.”

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Aislin, they know.”

  Aislin, who was dangling the amethyst thingy into the flame of the candle, froze. Great. Here we were, about to be froze to death by monsters, and Aislin was…well, I have no idea what she was doing, but it seemed really out of place, all things considering.

  Alex had his back turned to me. Hoping to catch him off-guard, I tried to slip by him, but he caught me by the hood of my jacket, and yanked me back, pinning me against his chest.

  “I already told you if you go out there, the Death Walkers will kill you,” he said. “So do yourself a favor and stay put.”

  I’d have kicked him in the shin, but something he said stopped me. “Death Walkers? What’s a Death Walker?”

  “Those things out there with the glowing eyes,” he raised his chin at one of the nearby windows, “are called Death Walkers. And they’re called that for a good reason. They can freeze someone to death just by touching them.”

  I already knew that way too well. Way, way too well.

  “I know they can,” I whispered, horror pulsating through me as I thought about the nightmares that had haunted me over and over again—nightmares I should have taken more seriously. But it was too late now. The forest was right outside and I was about to die.

  My ice-cold hands were trembling. I assumed it was from my nerves until I saw that they had turned a ghastly shade of purplish-blue. “Oh my God!” I cried, shaking my purplish-blue hands. “What’s happening to me?”

  Alex enclosed his hand around mine. His skin felt sooo warm. “Try to relax,” he told me. “Aislin will have us out of here in just a second.”

  Try to relax. Was he kidding? How was I supposed to relax when my death was waiting for me just outside the frozen walls of the bus? And how on earth did he expect Aislin to get us out of here? With her magic-candle-voodoo-witch thing she was doing? Yeah, all that was doing was creating a cloud of violet-grey smoke that was starting to fill up the bus?

  I shook my hand fiercely. Please change back. Please change back. Please change back!

  “Just stay calm,” Alex lulled. “I promise everything will be okay in just a minute.”

  Yeah, I wasn’t convinced.

  The bus gave a sudden jerk to the side and fog began to swarm beneath the cracks and crevasses of the doors and windows. The temperature shot down. My bodied burned—it was that cold. Suddenly feeling exhausted, I let my eyelids drift shut.

  “Stayyy awwwake.” Alex voice sounded so far away. I cracked open my eyes and he hugged me against his chest, his voice reverberating in slow motion as he said, “Aislinn hurrrry Uppp.”

  “Perrrr is calxxxx EGO lux lucisss viaaa,” someone whispered. At least I think someone whispered, but I couldn’t be absolutely sure. At this point, I could have been hallucinating.

  The interior lights blinked off, and all I could see were the yellow eyes fireflying all around the outside of the bus. Then a purple glow swallowed up my surroundings, and I let my eyes close as the windows shattered. I felt Alex’s arm come up over my head protectively. A sharp pain ripped up my side, and I let out a scream.

  The next thing I knew, I was flying through the air.

  Chapter 13

  I’m not sure how long I was in the air—or if I even was in the air. It was hard to tell with the thick blanket of blackness all around me. When I finally did see light again, my face was inches away from the floor, about to smack into it, hard.<
br />
  And hard it sure did smack.

  My forehead throbbed. With my limbs aching in protest, and my brain swirling dizzily, I got to my feet. I was no longer on the bus, but in a room with red walls and an ash-black hardwood floor. An L-shaped leather sofa trimmed the far back corner, and there were bookshelves all over the place. Dark curtains blocked all the windows so I wasn’t sure what was outside.

  “Where the heck am I?” I said.

  A hand came down on my shoulder, sending a surge of electricity spiraling down my arm. I spun around, knocking the hand away from my shoulder. Alex stood only inches away from me. And right behind him was Aislin. For a split second, I was overwhelmed with the impulse to run to him. But the feeling quickly dissipated as the memories of what had just taken place hurricaned though my mind. I stumbled away from him, my hands shielded out in front of me.

  A razor-sharp pain radiated up my left rib, and I let out a moan as I hunched over and wrapped my arm around my waist. My ribs were throbbing

  “What’s the matter?” Alex asked, concern lacing his voice.

  I held up one hand, keeping the other on my aching ribs. "Stay away from me.”

  “Gemma, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, sounding very convincing. But I wasn’t buying it. Not after what had happened. “You need to hold still. You’re hurt.”

  Something warm and sticky dripped down along the back of my hand. Blood. I lifted up the edge of my coat. A small piece of glass was lodged in my skin. I gasped.

  “Just relax.” The tone of his voice was tolerant, not relaxing at all. He turned to Aislin. “You better go find Laylen and see if he has a first aid kit or something. Although I’m not even sure why you brought us here in the first place.”

  Aislin blushed. “I wasn’t trying to. It was an accident. You should just be grateful I got us out of there before—” She glanced at me and stopped. “I’ll go find Laylen,” she said and whisked out the door.