Miles and miles of snow-covered mountains, trees poking out of them like little tepee’s. And the log cabin I stood in was smack dab in the middle of it all, secluded from all civilization, for as far as I could see.
I turned around and looked at myself curled up on the hardwood floor. How had I ended up like this? And what was wrong with me? I had an idea, but before I could look around and try to figure out more, an icy gust of wind swept up, and I was blown back, falling into the darkness.
When I opened my eyes, it took my brain a second to process that I was lying on warm asphalt, with a very dim lamppost shining down on me. And that Laylen was kneeling next to me.
“Are you okay?” he asked worriedly.
I gradually sat up, my neck burning with my every movement. “Ahh,” I winced, reaching for my neck. Then winced again from the pain my touch brought on.
“Easy,” Laylen said, his voice soothing. “It’s going to hurt for a little bit.”
“What’s going to hurt?” I asked, and then I remembered I’d been bitten by a vampire. I began to panic.
Laylen must have seen the panic in my eyes too, because he said, “You’ll be okay, Gemma. The fogginess will wear off in awhile. The actual bite, though, will take a few days to heal.”
I started to get to my feet, but the world started spinning. I almost collapsed back to the ground, but Laylen caught me by the arm.
“You’re going to have to take it easy,” he told me, holding me steady. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
Well, that explained the wooziness. “I think I might be sick.”
“That’ll wear off in a little while too.”
I lightly touched my neck, the skin burning beneath my fingers. “How did we get out of that place?” I asked, because my memory was missing some pieces of what just occurred. In fact, the only thing I could remember clearly was the vision I’d just gone in, and how my eyes in the vision had looked so empty. I wondered if it meant it would actually happen to me—if I would end up at the cabin that way. The thought was scary.
“Well, by the time we made it out into the bar area, you’d fainted,” Laylen said. “Luckily I caught you before you hit the floor.”
Yeah, I guess that could be considered lucky. But everything else…hmm…not so much.
“So you what?” I asked. “Just carried me out and ran? How did we not get caught?”
“We were lucky we didn’t.” He started to walk, guiding me along with him. “But I think we need to get back to the house before someone realizes I killed Vladislav.”
Good idea.
We headed across an empty parking lot, making sure to stay in the shadows.
“So how much trouble are you going to be in for staking Vladislav?” I asked, gripping onto Laylen’s arms as I was rushed by a spout of dizziness.
He shrugged, but I felt him speed up. “We need to get back to the house and out of sight for awhile. Eventually, it’ll be forgotten, but I probably won’t be able to show my face in the vampire world again.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked him, carefully maneuvering over a pot hole.
He shrugged. “I don’t know…it wasn’t like I completely enjoyed being around other vampires. But they were the only ones who didn’t judge me for being a vampire.”
His voice was sad and it made my heart hurt for him. “So what do you do then?” I asked “Just wait it out until the vampires do what? Decide they’re over it?”
We turned down an alleyway, tucking ourselves into the dark and out of sight.
“I’m going to have to lie low for awhile,” he said, dodging us around a stack of wooden crates.
Lay low for a while. Wasn’t that what we’d already been doing, to keep me away from Stephan and the Death Walkers? But now I guess vampires were going to have to be added to the “Who We Were Hiding From Now list.” Jeez, if it kept up, every evil creature was going to be after us.
“So what about my mom,” I said to Laylen as we squeezed past a dumpster, the air smelling like rotten eggs mixed with old bananas. “Do you think Vladislav was telling the truth and that she’s still alive?”