Scattered Ashes

  "Remember, not everything is as hard as you think, Gemma," Annabella says, lowering her hand. "Sometimes the answers are right in front of us."

  I nod as she fades away into the tree, her words echoing in my head. Once she's gone, I follow Helena back through the garden and to the world of lost souls.

  "My sister makes things too easy sometimes," Helena complains as she slips back onto her throne.

  "It's hard to believe she's your sister." I cup the orb in my hands. "You two are nothing alike."

  "That's because she believes in good, which makes her weak."

  "And what do you believe in?"

  She sneers. "Myself."

  I can't help thinking of the story of Malefiscus and his brother Hektor--one selfish, the other good. In the story, good triumphed for the time being. But I wonder how the story would have gone if Hektor had to sacrifice his life to trap Malefiscus in the portal. Would bad have triumphed, instead? Or would he have thrown down his life to save the people he cared about?

  "I have the answer to the question you asked me earlier," I say to the queen, approaching the throne, not steady and sure, but trembling and terrified because that's who I am. I'm not fearless. I feel almost everything now. I'll never be able to be someone who fearlessly lays down their life to save others.

  I'll always just be a girl doing what I have to in order to make things right.

  ALEX

  "A traitor?" Laylen says, appalled. "Okay, I think you've finally lost your damn mind. Seriously, man."

  "That sounds like something a traitor would say." I aim my knife at him.

  He stares me down. "You're fucking insane."

  "Aren't we all?" I question, eyeing the two of them, wondering if they're really Aislin and Laylen.

  "Laylen's not a traitor!" Aislin shouts as she finishes removing the Mark of Malefiscus from Sophia's arm. "And neither am I."

  "Then why was I trapped in that floor?" Sophia wakes up, blinking. "I don't understand how any of this happened."

  "Are you sure about that?" I inch toward her, still armed with my knife. "Or could your confusion be an act to make us turn on each other?" I lean down, getting in her face. "Is this a desperate attempt by my father? Did he put you in the floor to get to us? That way, you'd have time to detach Gemma's soul again?"

  "I never wanted to detach Gemma's soul in the first place," she mutters, sitting up. "I thought what I was doing was right. I thought I was protecting the world."

  "No, you were ending it," I say, pointing the tip of my knife into her throat.

  "I know that now, but before . . . What I was trying to do made sense." Blinking, she desperately clutches onto my arm "It's your father. He must've brainwashed me."

  "Trust me," I say, shaking her hand off my arm, "we've all been there."

  Glass suddenly shatters across the floor.

  I spin around, ready to fight, only to find Aislin standing there with half of a ceramic cow in her hand and glass scattered around her feet.

  "I can't deal with this anymore," she says, her hands trembling. "I can't stand that our father's a horrible man who messes with minds and murders innocent people. I just can't take it." She smashes the rest of the ceramic cow against the floor. "What are we going to do to fix this?" she asks, breathing heavily as she looks from Laylen to me

  "We're going to take care of the problem." I reel around and grab Sophia's arm. "Sorry, but until we know who's in control of their own actions, I can't trust you."

  I push her back through the trapdoor, and she falls into the hole.

  "Alex, please!" she begs as she trips to her feet and tries to climb back up. "You can't do this! I've run out of food; I'll starve!"

  Aislin grabs some snacks and bottled water, tossing them into the trapdoor. "That should hold you until we work this out."

  "Alex, please don't leave me down here. I--"

  I shut the door and slide the tiles back over it. "Seal that up," I order Aislin, feeling the slightest twinge of guilt, but drastic times call for drastic measures.

  Aislin traces her finger along the cracks between the tiles. "Signa eius intus et clauditis hoc usque." The floor shimmers as the cracks fade away. When Aislin stands back up, her eyes are nearly popping out of her head.

  "Oh, my God. No." She turns to me. "Alex, I've done that before."

  I'm about to take her down and tie her up until I can figure out what the hell is going on, but Nicholas suddenly appears in the room, looking very human and very alive.

  He stares at his arms and hands incredulously. "It's time to wake her up."

  I shove past him, charge up the stairs, and barge into her room. Gemma is lying motionless on her bed, her skin is pale, and her arms are resting on her stomach. I can't feel the electricity until I get right next to the bed, and when I touch her cheek, her skin is ice cold. I wait for her to open her eyes, but she remains still.

  "Gemma, can you hear me?" I cup her face between my hands. "Gemma, please wake up."

  She remains completely still.

  "Aislin!" I yell, panicking. "No. No. No. Please, please, please wake up," I beg.

  When she still doesn't move, I do the only thing I can think of that might spark life back inside her.

  I lean down to kiss her, hoping she'll feel it, that it'll bring her back.

  GEMMA

  When the queen frees the souls, they whisk away back to the world, back to their bodies. Once the last of them has gone, she holds out her hand to me, and I drop the ring into her palm.

  She slips the ring onto her finger, and her body begins to transform and take shape. Her skin is mummified like the lost souls, her grey hair veils down her back, her lips are thin, and her eyes are still hollow.

  She lets out a sigh as she examines her body. "That's much better." She stretches her arms above her head, grinning. "You can go now. I have what I need."

  I nod then run as fast as I can down the tunnel, ready to get back home.

  Alana is waiting for me in the archway. "You did it," she says. "I'm so proud of you, Gemma."

  I tuck Nicholas's essence under my arm. "Are you going to be okay? I could go back and try to get her to free you, too."

  She swiftly shakes her head. "No, I don't want you to do that. I need to pay my dues."

  "What's going to happen to you?"

  She doesn't answer my question, just draws me in for a hug. "You're an amazing girl, Gemma Lucas. You really are." She steps back, dabbing her eyes. "Take care of him for me."

  I nod. "I still think--" Before I can say anything else, I'm engulfed in light.

  When I open my eyes, I'm back in the grassy field I first entered the Afterlife in, but this time, there aren't any crows. They sky is clear, the wind still, and for a moment, I feel so at peace.

  "It's about time you showed up," Nicholas says from behind me, stealing away my moment of peace. "I thought the queen decided to kill you or something."

  I turn to face him, holding onto his essence. "Nope, everything went well." I hand him the orb. "Your essence."

  He looks very human as he takes the orb from me, tears staining the corners of his eyes. "Thank you," he says softly.

  Two simple words, but coming from him, it means a lot.

  "You're welcome." I glance around the field before my gaze lands back on him. "Now can you go tell Alex to revive me?"

  He shoves the orb into his chest, nods, and then vanishes into thin air.

  I sit down in the field and pick at the grass, listening to the wind. I feel different, my mind less burdened, and it feels like my eyes are suddenly open and seeing life for the very first time.

  Annabella said humans made easy answers complicated by questioning them, and she was right. The answer of what is going to happen to me has always been right in front of me. There is no loophole, no magic trick. Either I can go to the lake and end everything, or I can run away and let the world die.

  It's that simple, yet I couldn't fully accept it.

  As I s
hut my eyes and let reality sink in, the wind quickens and sucks me away.

  When my eyelids open again, Alex's lips are on mine. My body is on fire, and I want to close my eyes and let him continue kissing me forever. But electricity surges through me, and he shudders, stumbling back from the zap of static.

  His gaze sweeps me over in a mad frenzy. "Tell me you're okay."

  I run my hands over my arms and legs then sit up. Everything looks right, and I can hear our daughter's heart beating. "I think I'm good."

  He releases a loud exhale. "I thought you were dead."

  "I was dead." I rub my eyes then let my hands fall to my lap.

  A beat or two skips by as reality catches up with me. I'm here, alive, breathing, and my heart is beating.

  "I made it back," I declare, my muscles relaxing.

  "Did you . . . ?" He rakes his fingers through his messy, brown hair. "Did you free the lost souls?"

  A soft smile touches my lips. "Go look out the window and see for yourself."

  He strides toward the window and pries the board off, allowing the sunlight to filter through the room.

  "You really are amazing," he says.

  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 for another to arise.

  "I think we should leave Sophia where she is until we make the sacrifice and die. Once I'm gone, Aislin can free her," I say quietly to Alex, staring down at the floor.

  His breathing turns ragged as he growls, "What the hell is wrong with you? It sounds like you're fucking giving up."

  "I'm not giving up." I lift my gaze to his and instantly shrink back from the rage in his eyes. "I'm doing what we have to, Alex, to make it so that damn portal doesn't open."

  "It sounds to me like you're just giving up," he snaps. "And what about our daughter? Are you just going to give up on her, too?"

  "Our daughter will be fine." My voice quivers, but I press on, making sure I say what I need to. "The spell will protect her. As soon as I die, she'll be born healthy and happy. And Aislin promised me she'd take care of her."

  "So, you're just going to leave our daughter to be raised without a mother and father?"

  "No, she'll have a mother." And a father, too, but I can't tell him that just yet. "Please, don't be mad at me, Alex." Tears bubble in my eyes as I wish I could tell him everything. I know, however, if I do, he won't allow it to happen. "I need you right now."

  His expression softens as he catches sight of my tears. "There has to be another way," he whispers, sounding like he is in pain.

  I put my hand on his cheek, wanting nothing more than to take his pain away.

  There's so much more it feels like I need to say, but with the little time I have left, I decide I don't want to spend it arguing with him. So I lean in and press my lips to his, kissing him with everything I have in me. He kisses me back with an equal amount of passion, slipping his fingers through my hair and tipping my head back.

  "I don't ever want to stop kissing you," he says, breathing heavily against my mouth.

  "I know," I whisper back.

  He rests his forehead against mine, trying to catch his breath. "I just wish . . . you knew . . . how I really feel."

  The moment the words leave him, my energy level plummets. My limbs become heavy, my lungs feel tight, and my pulse dulls to a faint lull.

  "I think I might already know," I whisper, my entire body shaking with fear, with excitement, with something I can't describe.

  Then, with a deep breath, I push to my feet, cross the room, and pick up the rainbow candle I got from the black magic store.

  "What is that?" He looks confused and tired, his skin suddenly a lot paler, and bags have formed under his eyes.

  I bite back a smile. "It's a candle."

  He rolls his eyes, but the corners of his mouth quirk up. "Thanks for the obvious answer," he teases then reaches out and tak
es the candle from my hands. "But I'm guessing by the excited look on your face that it does something."

  "A witch gave it to me." I don't bother mentioning what I gave up to get the candle, even if, without my locket, my neck feels bare and exposed, just like my emotions do now. "It's a Power of Entrapment candle." Millions of images flood my mind, some real, some made up of what's going to happen the moment I light the candle. "It's supposed to trap the power of a witch in their body, at least while the wick is burning, but Aislin and I thought that maybe . . . It could trap the star's power in ours for a little while so we could have a break and just be . . . well, us."

  Some of the exhaustion diminishes in his eyes, and desire and desperation take over. He rotates the candle in his hand, staring at it. "How do we know it'll work for sure?"

  I grab a lighter from my desk drawer. "There's only one way to find out."

  I fumble to light it, and then we hold our breaths as the wick burns. There's no magical sparks, no chanting sound effects. There's only silence and the beat of our hearts.

  Then, just like when Alex and I met in my dreams, the electricity of the star sizzles out inside my body.

  "I can't feel the buzzing anymore," I say, staring at him in awe.

  "Me, either," he whispers, unable to take his eyes off me.

  "As soon as the wick's gone, it's going to come back," I say.

  "I know."

  We carry each other's gazes as the flame burns, casting a glow across our faces.

  He abruptly stands up, sets the candle aside on the nightstand, and places his hands on my cheeks. Looking deeply into my eyes, his lips part. "I love you, Gemma Lucas. Always have. Always will."

  My heart slams to a stop inside my chest, but instantly recovers, beating more steady and even than it ever has.

  I open my mouth to say something, but the words are thick in my throat. I struggle to say something--do anything--but I don't have the prickle to guide me, and it leaves me so confused.

  But I'm quickly distracted as Alex kisses me with such passion I swear to God I'm going to pass out.

  "Come here," he says, pulling me onto his lap.

  I put a leg on each side of him and grind my hips against his, groaning as his hardness presses against my legs. God, I want him more than I can even comprehend. His hands wander up and down my back then grip my ass, pressing me closer, but it's not enough. Nothing feels like it'll ever be enough when it comes to him.