Alex furrowed his eyebrows at me. “I never said you were. I was just asking why Laylen’s okay.”

“Oh.” I gave Laylen a what-should-we-do look. He shook his head and shrugged, like he had no idea what to tell Alex either. I tucked my arms behind me to hide the bite marks on my wrist. “Um…would you believe me if I said he just healed on his own?” Laylen let out a tired sigh, distracting me so I didn’t react quickly enough when Alex seized a hold of my arm and pulled it out from behind me. The two little bite marks marked my skin like a Scarlet G for guilty.

Only I was not guilty of anything.

“What the hell,” he said, struggling to stay composed. He looked at Laylen heatedly. “You bit her?”

“I made him bite me,” I said, pulling my arm away from him.

“I was going to get help.” He was furious.

“He was dying,” I said simply, but firmly. “And it was the only thing I could think of to do.”

“I—How would you even know that would work?” he asked, working to keep himself contained.

I shrugged. “I had a hunch. Besides, you should have said it would work in the first place, instead of saying we had to go track down another vampire, which just wasted time. And it would have been more of a risk for Laylen if you brought back a vampire who knew about him killing Vladislav.” My voice was ringing angrily, and I was breathing heavy. I was mad.

A different kind of mad then I’d ever been. I was mad for someone else. I was mad at Alex for risking Laylen’s life like that. And I was mad at Nicholas for almost taking Laylen’s life. The prickle was going insane. I saw red, and suddenly I gave Alex a shove. It didn’t really do anything to him; it just caused him to take an unsteady step back. But it shocked the heck out of everyone, including myself.

“Gemma,” Laylen said, his eyes wide with shock.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. Everything’s okay.” I blinked a few times, blinking my way out of my raging state. “Sorry, but he needs to stop lying.” I waited for Alex to freak out on me in normal Alex style. But all he said was, “Let’s get out of here.” Then he turned away from us and headed down the all ey.

Laylen and I traded curious glances, and then we followed after him.

Chapter 25

We didn’t go to Adessa’s. Alex pointed out that it probably wasn’t safe for us to go there, since Nicholas was roaming around with a group of Death Walkers, and he knew where our little I hideout was.

Laylen and I agreed with him, and that we should probably warn Adessa and Aislin to get out of the house and somewhere safe. But since none of us had our cell phones, we had to go find a phone.

Here’s the problem. Phone booths are practically in extinction. So after roaming around the hectic streets of Vegas, searching for a phone booth, we finally gave up and entered a store to ask if we could use their phone. But people are kind of rude when it comes to letting “noncostumers” use their phones, so getting someone to let us was becoming a total project. And we were all tired. And hungry.

A great combination, let me tell you.

I was really hating Vegas at the moment.

People kept staring at us funnily too, probably because I had dried blood all over my hands and mud stuck to my clothes. Plus, Laylen had a huge blood stain on his shirt. Afraid someone was going to think we’d killed someone, we all took a second to go into a gas station bathroom and clean up a little. I washed up the best I could. I even rinsed out my hair in the sink, but there was nothing I could do about the fact that I didn’t have any shoes on.

After I finished cleaning up, I met Laylen and Alex back outside. Laylen had scrubbed down his shirt, but I could still faintly make out a small stain. Alex had run water through his hair and somehow had miraculously styled it into place.

Apparently while they’d been waiting for me to clean up, they’d come up with a plan. Well, Laylen came up with a plan, anyway. Laylen suggested to Alex to go work his “Alex charm” on the cashier girl inside the gas station, and see if he could persuade her to let us use her phone. I felt bad for the poor girl, and for a brief second I wanted to smack Alex on the back of the head for doing such a mean thing, especially because I once was in that poor girls position. But my sore bare feet and hunger pains kept me from stopping him.

So Laylen and I waited outside the gas station, which was located in a less busy, but sketchier area of Vegas, while Alex went in to work his “Alex charm” on the poor girl. And within seconds, he had the phone pressed up to his ear.

“So you’re okay, right?” Laylen asked, as we stood in front of the glass entrance doors, keeping our eyes out for any Death Walkers, vampires, man with a scar, ect.

“What, with Alex flirting with that girl,” I replied, ringing some of the left over water out of my dark brown hair. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” The expression on Laylen’s face let me know right away that that was not what he had been talking about at all, and I felt like such an idiot. “Oh, you mean with the bite,” I said, feeling stupid. “Yeah, of course I’m fine.”

“You don’t feel…” He hesitated, leaning back against the door. “Weird or anything?” I shook my head, cupping my hand over the bite marks on my wrists. “No. No weirdness.” Actually, that was a lie. During the bite-session, there was this fleeting instant where I pictured Laylen and I kissing, which was completely weird. I knew it was only the bite that had struck up the picture in my mind, but there was still a lingering feel-good sensation that the image had brought up inside me. But I knew it would wear off soon enough.

“So no weirdness, then?” He stilled seemed disbelieving.

“Besides this conversation?” I joked.

He laughed, and it felt good that I had been the one to make him laugh. Also, maybe I could take this as a sign that my people skills were improving.

I know, who would have thought, right?

“So how are you feeling?” I asked. “No weirdness with you?”

He shook his head as he absentmindedly touched his mouth on the spot where his fangs had slipped out. “I feel okay, I guess. Except my teeth feel a little strange.”

“Strange how?” I wondered.

“I don’t know…I can feel them now, up there, and it’s…I don’t know.” He touched the tip of his finger to his tooth. “I’ve never had them out before.” I gaped him. “What? You’ve never brought out your fangs before…ever?”

“Nope,” he said. “I told you I never brought them out.”

“Yeah, but when you said ‘never’ I thought you talking about hardly ever, like maybe once and awhile.”

“Nope. Never as in never.”

“So you’ve never bitten anyone before… Ever.” He shook his head. “No, you’re the first.” Wow. I stood there, taking in the heaviness of the situation. What if, because he brought them out, he changed? What if he started to become blood hungry? It would be my fault because I made him bite me. But he would’ve died if he hadn’t. Especially since Alex had been moving at the pace of a turtle, which I was hoping wasn’t done intentionally. But Alex is Alex and you can never put anything past him.

I chose to keep all of this to myself, though. There was no use letting Laylen in on my thoughts of whether or not he was going to go insane and start biting people. I was just going to have to make sure to keep an eye on him.

“Okay,” Alex announced as he stepped outside, a bell dinging as the door swung shut. “Aislin and Adessa are leaving the house now—well, Aislin is, and Adessa’s going to go stay with some friends of hers until we let her know it’s safe for her to return home.”

“And where are we going?” I asked, glancing anxiously at a large Chevy truck turning into the gas station parking lot.

“We are driving,” he answered.

“Driving?” I repeated. Driving seemed like such an amateur thing to do. “Why can’t we just have Aislin transport us? Or maybe I could get us somewhere since I can now use my Foreseer power to travel to places.”