She looked furious, her blue eyes glaring ferociously at Laylen. “You’re messing up my hair,” she whined.

I hopped over the Death Walker and moved over beside Laylen.

Stasha’s eyes instantly narrowed on me. “Well, well, look who was stupid enough to come back.” She smirked.

“What? Was my trying to kill you not enough of a warning that you should never be around me?”

“You, know, it really doesn’t seem like you’re in much of a position to be such a…”

“Bitch,” Laylen finished for me.

“Exactly.”

Stasha shot me a dirty look, but winced as Laylen pushed her harder against the wall.

“Fine, what do you want?” she asked.

I held up my olive-green scarred arm. “I want you to take your death out of my arm.”

She shook head. “No way.”

Laylen and I looked at each other with devious expressions on our faces.

“What do you think we should do?” he asked me.

I glanced back at the unconscious Death Walker slumped on the floor and pointed at the knife sticking out of its chest. “Well, we could always use that on her.” Stasha let out a loud snort. “This is hilarious. I mean, here you are a vampire who won’t feed. Oooh, scary. And you,” she shot me a malicious look, “You’re the pathetic girl who can’t feel anything.”

“Couldn’t,” I corrected her. “I’m perfectly capable of feelings now. In fact, I’m pretty sure I have enough anger in me right now that I might just have to…” The sight of Laylen’s fangs descending made me trail off.

Stasha’s eyes widened as he moved his fangs toward her neck.

“I am not the same vampire you once knew Stasha,” Laylen hissed through his fangs and I shuddered. “I’m perfectly capable of feeding now.”

Stasha was terrified and I had to say that the look was not a good one for her.

“Fine. I’ll remove my death from your hand.” She gritted through her teeth. “But you two are lucky that that stupid monster’s ice froze over my plants, otherwise this would have gone down differently.”

“And if you try to kill her instead of removing the death, I’ll drain you of all you blood, got it?” Laylen said, his fangs still pointing sharply from his mouth.

“Got it.” Stasha said with attitude.

Laylen slightly loosened his grip so Stasha could slip off her gloves.

“Why do you even have one of those things in your house?” Laylen asked, nodding his head at the Death Walker.

“Why not?" Stasha pulled off her glove and tossed it on the floor. “Give me your arm,” she told me.

Hesitantly, I reached my scarred arm out to her, holding my breath as she wrapped her deathly fingers around my wrist. Within seconds, the olive-green lines were fading away, until my skin was back to its normal paleness. I let out a breath as she moved her hand away, but then gasped as I caught sight of something on her wrist.

A black triangle pointing around a red symbol.

Laylen followed my gaze and his bright blue eyes went wide. “Where did you get that?” he asked.

Stasha glanced down at her marked wrist. “What this?

I’ve always had it.”

Laylen shook his head. “No, you haven’t.”

“Yes, I have,” she said in a low, condescending tone. “I’ve had it since the day I was born.”

“Alex would have never dated you if you had it,” I said, but then I questioned my own words.

Laylen was questioning them too, but before any more words could be exchanged, the Death Walker suddenly leapt to its feet and let out a loud shriek.

“Time to go,” I said quickly and reached for Laylen’s hand.

He knocked Stasha to the floor before taking it. And as the Death Walker charged at us, its yellow eyes glowing, ready to devour, I blinked us away, back to the house.

Chapter 28

“I don’t even know what to think,” Laylen said.

He was sitting on my bed, his fangs put back where they belong, and his bright blue eyes wide as we tried to figure out what to do with the whole Stasha-being-marked-with-evil situation. I mean, it wasn’t like I hadn’t already thought she was evil, but the mark being there...it just shouldn’t be there. And yet it was and it was popping up all over. The thing that was really getting at me, though, was that Stasha said she had had the mark since she was born. So did Alex know about it? If he did, then, I felt like we were back to where we started; back to where I thought he was a liar.

“We should at least give him the benefit of the doubt,” I said, fiddling with a loose string on my purple comforter.

“See how he reacts when we tell him.”

Laylen nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.” He met my eyes with a concerned look on his face. “You’re okay, right?”

I glanced down at where the lines once traced my arm.

“Yeah, I don’t think she did anything to me besides remove her death.”

He shook his head. “No, not with that. I mean, with the Alex thing. I know how far you two have come so you can trust him.”

I pressed my lips together. “Like I said, we should go talk to him—give him the benefit of the doubt, before we start accusing him of anything.”

“Alright then.” Laylen got to his feet and I followed.

“Are you okay?” I asked him as we headed down the stairs. I didn’t have to explain what I meant—was he okay with bringing out his fangs.

“I’m good. In fact, it was kind of nice to bring them out for a good cause.”

“Well, if it does start to bother you,” I started to say.

But he threw his arm around my shoulder. “I know. I know.

I’ll come talk to you first, before bailing.” Alex, Aislin, and Aleesa were in the living room when Laylen and I walked in. Aislin was typing away on the lap top, so determined to figure out why the spell at the cemetery didn’t work. Alex was trying to explain to Aleesa what a television was, and how people were not trapped inside it.

“Hey,” he said when he caught sight of me in the doorway. His eyes flickered in Laylen’s direction and then he said to me, “I thought you were resting so you could try to go in the mapping ball again.”

Aleesa let out a giggle at something on the TV.

“I couldn’t sleep.” I stared at him, my pulse racing as his bright green eyes burned intensely back at me. Please, please, say you didn’t know about the mark. I raised my arm, figuring that was the best place to start.

His eyebrows dipped down. “Where’d they go?” I bit on my bottom lip. “We paid Stasha a little visit.”

“What?” His face reddened with anger, but he kept his tone calm. “You paid her a visit.”

“Yeah…I had this hunch that maybe if her death scars weren’t on my arm, the Purple Flame might work,” I explained.

“Okay…well, I wish you would have said something before you took off,” he said, trying his hardest to stay calm.

“But since you’re without the scars I assume everything went okay.”

I shook my head, leaning against the doorway. “Not exactly.”

Alex glanced back and forth between Laylen and me.

“What do you mean, not exactly?”

I looked at Laylen and then at Aislin, who was suddenly very interested in what we were talking about.

“Can I talk to you alone for a minute?” I asked Alex He gave me a funny look, but set the TV remote down and followed me out of the room and into the kitchen.

“So…what’s wrong?” he asked, leaning back against the teal cupboards and folding his arms.

I sighed. “Well, when Laylen and I—”

He let out a weird sound that sounding kind of like a snort mixed with a cough.

“What was that?” I asked.

He shrugged. “What was what?”

I eyed him suspiciously. “That weird noise you just made…why did you make it?”

He shrugged again, looking a lot like the old “whatever” Alex.

“Hey, don’t do that,” I said. “Don’t shut me out. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

He stared at me for a moment and then he was moving toward me, stopping just short of running into me.