His free hand tangles in my hair as he sucks and bites and my earlobe. “Yes… it does…” He groans himself as he continues to move his fingers inside me and I find myself putting my hand on him, rubbing him through the fabric of his jeans, moaning louder when I feel how hard he is. It’s so wrong in many different ways, but as he pushes me to the edge, causing heat and blissfulness to suffocating my body and takes me away, I can’t think about anything else but how amazing it feels.

But moments later, I come crashing down as I hear the bedroom door open.

Alex stills beside me, and then he quickly slips his fingers out of me and puts a finger over my mouth. “Shhh….” The lust flowing off him instantly shifts to fear. I’ve never felt so much fear around him before and I have to wonder just how terrified he is of his father, which makes me wonder just how bad his father was to him, maybe violently.

I hold my breath and remain still. There’s a soft thud followed by another, then footsteps heading across the floor. The lights turn on and then the floorboards creak. I can hear someone fumbling around, muttering under their breath. Finally the footsteps start up again. Moments later, the lights turn off and the door closes.

Neither of us budges, too afraid he’s still in the room and he’s trying to trick us to come out. More time goes by. An eternity. It has to be approaching morning before Alex finally speaks again.

“Stay here,” he whispers in my ear. “I’ll be right back.”

The he climbs out of the hole while I lay inside waiting anxiously. I can hear him walking around above me, then moments later he looks back down in the hole. “It’s okay. You can come up.”

I get out, still carrying the Foreseer book as Alex looks around the room, then he scratches his head. “My mirror’s missing.” He walks up to a dresser, puzzled. “I got it from a witch who told me it would show me my future if I looked in it, but it was a bunch of shit because every time I looked in it all I saw was light.”

I nearly drop the book. “You saw light?”

He nods, eyeing me suspiciously. “What’s wrong?”

I shake my head. “It’s nothing.” It’s a lie. Because it’s sounds so much like the dream I keep having of us being taken away by light.

He keeps staring at me for a while, knowing I’m lying, but then gives up. “We should probably go in case he comes back,” he says and then we hurry out of the house.

I start reading through the pages of the Foreseers’ book during the drive home. The first few chapters are insignificant, but then I stumble onto something interesting.

The Room of Forbidden: A desolate place where no soul lives except the seer that committed the crime. In the Room of Forbidden, the seer will spend an eternity alone. No one can enter the Room of Forbidden, for the room exists only in the seer’s mind.

The power of a Foreseer’s mind: The Foreseer’s mind is one of the most powerful tools. In fact, some of the more powerful Foreseers are able to push their minds to see what they need to see in times of great need.

Push the mind to see what it needs to see in times of great need? I wonder how that works because it seems like a useful thing. I flip the page, hoping for detailed instructions, but the there’s only a drawing of a person with an eye on their forehead so I skim through more pages, searching for the words “purple” or “flame,” but by the time Alex is parking the car in the driveway, I still haven’t found anything about it.

When Alex turns off the engine, he rotates in the seat to face me. “Can we keep what happened back at the house a secret? I don’t want to worry Aislin more than she already is. She’s been really stressed out lately.”

Nodding, I shut the book. “Of course.”

“And the stuff that happened in the trapdoor.” He scratches his head, looking uncomfortable. “We should probably just forget that ever happened.”

The prickle stabs at the back of my neck “You want me to forget about all the times we fucked too,” I say and we both wince. “Sorry,” I tell him quickly. “I don’t know what’s coming over me.”

He swiftly shakes his head. “Don’t apologize. I feel the same way too.” He turns away and grips the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white. “I feel so frustrated all the time… I’m usually so good at doing what I need to do… but with you… I can’t seem to keep my hands off you.” He takes his hands off the steering wheel and reaches for the door handle. “And I need to, to protect you.”

He gets out and goes into the house. I follow moments later, pretending as if nothing happened, as if it didn’t feel like my heart was breaking because there may be a chance that we never will be able to be together.

In the kitchen, Aislin is at the table with a bunch of herbs and leaves scattered in front of her, along with some candles and her spell book.

“Did you get the book?” she asks Alex as I’m locking the door.

“I’ve got it.” I hold it up and show it to her.

Alex removes his jacket and sets it on the back of the chair, then puts the box of herbs and other magic stuff he picked up for Aislin on the table. “How’s everything been here?”

“Everything’s been fine.” She turns a page in her spell book. “Jocelyn’s asleep, and Laylen’s showing Aleesa what a TV is, and I’m trying to figure out a spell that will remove the mark.”

I yawn, feeling exhaustion overwhelming me, not to mention the idea of being in the same room as Alex is making me feel sick. “I’m going to bed,” I say then I drag myself to my bedroom, strip down into my bra and underwear, never fully making it into my pajamas as I flop down on the bed and pass out with the Foreseer book in my hand.

Light. Everywhere. I’m blinded by it, suffocating.

“It’ll be all right,” Alex whispers, bushing my hair out of my face. “I want to protect you forever, no matter what happens. No matter what it costs. I would die for you Gemma.”

I want to tell him that I can’t allow that. That if he dies, I die right along with him, not because of the star, but because of a broken heart, but my lips are sealed by an emotion surfacing, one I know I have to shove down.

The light flickers and the lake materialize before us. The water is glistening with ice, and death is in the air. They sky is grey, the clouds thick, the trees frosted with snow.

“It’ll be alright,” Alex says again and I clutch onto him tightly as the light drowns me. “I’m here Gemma. I’ll always be here for you, no matter what.”

Images flash through my mind. Death Walkers… Stephan… fire…

Then nothing but ash falling from the sky and not even Alex and I survive.

“Wake up. Come on, open your eyes.” A hand touches my arm and there’s no jolt, no spark, no warmth.

My eyes shoot open and with one swift movement I shove the person leaning over my bed down to the floor. Then I leap to my feet with my fist raised, ready to fight.

“What the hell,” Aislin hisses from the floor as she gets her feet back underneath her. “Calm down Gemma, it’s just me.”

I lower my fist and turn on my lamp. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” Suddenly realizing I’m wearing nothing but my underwear, I pick up the blanket and wrap it around me.

Aislin is wearing a plaid pajama set, her hair pulled up into a messy bun, and she has a jacket on. “Were you having a nightmare? You were making weird noises when I came in.”

“Maybe… I honestly can’t remember,” I lie, sitting down on the bed with the blanket wrapped around me, thinking of the light vision and what it could mean. That Alex and I weren’t going to survive?

“Gemma, you know you can talk to me about stuff,” she says standing beside my bed. “I’m sure it’s hard taking on all of this on your own.”