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 alley.
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.