I climb off the bed and walk up behind him, my smile growing at the sight outside. The streets are clear of fey, vampire, and witches, and the neighboring yards have families in them. Laughter fills the air as people have picnics, water their lawn, and bask out in the sun.
“You’re amazing,” Alex says again, turning toward me with a look of awe on his face.
“Thanks, I guess. But it wasn’t just me who did this,” I say. “It was all of us, really.”
“It was a little more you than all of us.”
“Alex,” I start to argue, not wanting to take all the credit for fixing this, especially when I was the reason behind the apocalypse.
“Gemma, just enjoy the moment, okay?”
I nod then sit back down on the bed, feeling a dizzy. “How long was I out?”
“A few hours.”
“It felt like longer.”
“Yeah, it really did.”
As silence stretches between us, I get the feeling he might be keeping something from me.
“I have to tell you something.” He fidgets with a leather band on his wrists. “And I’m a little worried about how you’re going to react.”
“Okay.” I scoot to the edge of the bed. “I’ll try to stay calm if that helps.”
He offers me a sad smile, like he doesn’t believe I’ll be able to do such a thing. “While you were gone, we found . . . Sophia.”
A gasp slips from my lips. “What? Where?”
“Underneath a trapdoor in the kitchen.”
“How did she . . . ?” I massage my temples with my fingertips. “I don’t even know how to process this.”
“Maybe you don’t have to process it just yet.” He takes a seat on the bed beside me and smooths his hand up and down my back, his fingers carrying the slightest quiver. “You’re safe. I promise. She’s behind the trapdoor right now, and she can’t get out.”
“But how did she even get in there to begin with?” I shake my head, shock setting in. “Is that where’s she’s been the entire time?”
He sighs and then explains to me what happened at the house while I was in the Afterlife.
“So you think Aislin and Laylen are the ones who put her there?” I ask, astounded and doubtful.
“That’s what I think, but I’m not positive.” He absentmindedly coils a strand of my hair around his finger. “When Aislin and Laylen showed up at the Hartfield cabin that day, they seemed so confused about where they’d been all that time. What I’m thinking is that my dad brainwashed them temporarily somehow. And maybe, when the memoria extracto backfired on him, they were freed from his power, because that’s when they showed up as if nothing had really happened.”
“But they’re okay now, right? I mean, we’d know if Stephan still had control over their minds?”
Sighing, he unravels his finger from my hair. “Honestly, I don’t know. I mean, think of your mom and how suddenly her possession manifested. It completely blindsided us.”
“How do we find out, then? There has to be something we can do that will help us trust them again.”
“Usually, for this particular kind of situation, I’d ask Aislin to do a spell, but that requires trusting her.” His chest puffs as he inhales. “I think we might just have to keep an eye on them, and if they show any signs of going crazy, we bail out and run.”
“And what about Sophia?” My emotions over my grandmother being locked away are conflicted. On one hand, I feel sorry for her, but on the other, part of me feels like she might deserve what’s happened. “Are you just going to keep her locked behind the trapdoor?”
He combs his fingers though my hair, gently pulling at the roots, and looks me dead in the eye. “That’s for you to decide. Whatever you want to do with her, you tell me, and I’ll handle it.”
I believe him. Anything I requested at that moment, he’d do for me in a heartbeat, and it makes my pulse beat wildly.
“I don’t want her to suffer.” If I did, I feel like I’d be just as bad as her. “Where’s Marco?”
His fingers spread across my cheek. “My father killed him. I think he spared Sophia’s life because she’s the only one who can . . . detach your soul.”
I nod, letting everything sink in. My grandfather’s dead, my grandmother is trapped under the floor, and Aislin and Laylen could still be brainwashed. It’s like we fixed one problem just