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  Laurent had said that we were on an island. My stomach clenched with nervousness. Had I lost track of time, or had he returned early?

  The few answers I had about where I was only produced more questions. The first and probably the silliest was, why were there horses? More importantly, where had Darke gone to get that food? And was that his plane that I heard overhead earlier?

  Laurent had disappeared down the hall that led to my freedom—at least, I thought it did.

  My last option was to find a phone and call Jace and hope he could trace the call and find me. If he couldn’t trace the call, I could tell him that I was on an island. Even though there were thousands if not millions of islands, maybe he would be able to use his position within the Council to find me.

  I turned away from the fire and faced the dark mass in the corner of the room. I was exhausted from the day and ready for a break from all the thoughts of mistakes and missed chances. I couldn’t read the emotion in Darke’s black stare—not anger, not hate—but it looked something like pity.

  I blinked, and the look was gone, replaced with scowl. Whatever.

  He had no right to be mad at me. I wasn’t going to take this laying down, even if he and Ana had. I couldn’t end up like Hélène, regretting the choices she’d made and the lives that were lost by them. She’d lost everything, and in the end, she’d believed that she’d lost Kale.

  Though I hated Darke for working with Laurent, I couldn’t help wondering what he would sacrifice, if he rebelled. Pain and death were probably the last of his worries. If serving Laurent was the hell he said it was, death would probably be an escape. There had to be more, something else keeping him here, like that Leif or maybe Ana. He seemed to shield Ana and maybe Leif, since Ana had said she could sense Darke’s worry for him.

  “Why are you thinking and not sleeping?” Darke asked gruffly. For some reason he and Ana could always tell when I was deep in thought. That bothered me.

  I propped myself up on my elbows. I couldn’t really see him in the dark, but the fire’s glow captured his face, showing half of it and cloaking the rest in darkness. Darke was eerily beautiful, and though it made my stomach clench to compliment him, even in his thoughts. From the slight slant to his burnt honey colored eyes, his smooth flawless henna colored skin and odd contrast with is ruby stained lips, his long bone straight inky black hair that fell well past his shoulders to his large lips that fought for dominance on his face.

  Darke put up a hand before I could speak. “Whatever you are thinking, I couldn’t care less about it; I simply want you to go to sleep.”

  His emotionless tone upset me, for some reason. Maybe it was anger, or even jealousy from his willingness to protect Ana from me, while leaving me to the mercy of Laurent. Not that I had a right to be upset. He wasn’t my guardian. Jace was, and he had never promised to protect me; Kale had.

  The bitter ache of disappointment in my guardians nestled deep in my chest, and I lay down with a humph and closed my eyes tightly. There was no way that I was going to sleep anytime soon, not with all I needed to say to Darke, but where to start? My emotions warred with me, from anger and hate to confusion and shame.

  “Where are you from?” My eyes were still closed, but I heard Darke’s annoyed sigh at my question. Buttering him up with my interest in him probably wouldn’t work, but still.

  “Why?” His voice wasn’t as hard as it was before, but still held a trace of annoyance and even some curiosity.

  I turned to face him, resting my head on my hands, yet keeping my eyes closed. Why did I want to know about him? It wasn’t just to butter him up. I wanted to know how he got here with Laurent.

  I opened my eyes so that he could see the truth in them. Confusion had been my middle name for the past few weeks, but tonight was different. I looked him straight in the eyes—well, the one eye I could see. “Honestly, I need a reason to not hate you.”

  That was the truth. I needed to know that he wasn’t here by choice. He had all but said it earlier. When he spoke of Ana, I could have sworn that he was also speaking from personal experience.

  Darke leaned closer to the bed and softly whispered, “I think it’s best if you hate me.”

  I sat up at the lack of meanness or sarcasm. He was probably right, though. Not only should I have hated him, I should’ve probably feared him a lot more than I did.

  I hated what he’d said to me, I hated that he knew my parents’ last moments, and I hated the way he’d told me, but I couldn’t hate the man himself. After a moment, I said, “I thought so, too.”

  Darke shook his head, agreeing with me, but that wasn’t all I wanted to say. “After what you told me about my parents I wanted to hate you—heck, I wanted to push a stake through your heart,” I sheepishly confessed.

  He chuckled—Darke actually chuckled.

  “I’m serious, Darke. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to hurt you as much as your words had hurt me.” I tried to strengthen my voice as it cracked. Darke’s words had hurt me, but they awoke something inside of me too. They brought up questions that Kale and the Council would have to answer, and if I ever made it out of here, I would demand them.

  “I understand,” was all he said in response.

  I lay back down and pictured my parents’ smiling faces. Unable to hold back the tears, I asked Darke, “Is it true, what you said? Am I the reason they’re dead?”

  I didn’t really need Darke to answer the question. I knew he hadn’t lied. So many times I wished to have them back, even if just for a second, to tell them the things that we always forget to say until it’s too late. It was all I ever wanted, other than wanting to know the truth about how they’d died and to help bring the person responsible to justice.

  Now that I had the truth, I wasn’t sure that I would ever heal. The wound that their absence had left in me was always there, seeping and oozing, but I didn’t mind that. Over time, I figured it would close and become a private scar. Knowing that it was my fault they were dead was too much. I didn’t think I would ever heal—I didn’t think I deserved to heal.

  “No, Ella. They aren’t dead because of you.” His voice was no more than a whisper. “They are dead because someone believed that your parents’ lives mattered less than their own agenda, and that is not a blame that can be placed on your head. Only Aleixandre can be held accountable for that.”

  Darke’s his words didn’t matter. My heavy heart sunk further with each beat. I opened my eyes. Darke had leaned closer, revealing his full face and allowing me to truly see him for the first time in days. The unyielding and emotionless monster was gone, replaced with a man whose eyes begged for redemption.

  “You haven’t lost everything, Ella,” he whispered, his voice as soft as liquid silk. I closed my eyes and focused on his every word. “At least, not yet. There is still hope. Now sleep.”

  The room grew darker, and my lids heavier. I tried to fight the sleep that I had thought would never come, but I drifted off into the darkness of an unnatural sleep, still focused on Darke’s words of hope.

  Chapter 14

  Alex

  Jace and Kale stood in the kitchen, facing each other. Their faces were grim as Mia and I sat at the bar waiting for them to get on with it, whatever it was going to be.

  Their silent conversation was nerve wracking. Though the promise of proof weighed heavily on Mia’s mind, I was ready to see how they were going to prove their immortality and I was ready and willing to join the Council. I wondered about the process of initiation and what I would tell my parents.

  Fear crept up my spine as I thought of having life—eternal life—after Ella was gone. I pushed the fear aside and turned my eyes back to Kale and Jace. I would cross that bridge when I got to it. I mean, how hard would it be to give eternal life to Ella as well? Would she want it? I’d confessed my grief over pushing Ella away when she needed me most to Mia; she blamed that guilt for my need to join the Council. Though my guilt was one reason and maybe even the most
important one, it wasn’t the only reason.

  Jace pulled the knife out of the kitchen drawer. Mia all but fainted and held her hands up. “Oh, no.”

  Jace paused half way through the wielding of the knife from the drawer and looked at Mia in confusion.

  Mia’s face was pale, and her lips set in a grim line. “Don’t you two even think about pulling some cutting stunt. One, it’s too easy to fake; and two, it’s nasty.” She shook her head. Her blond ponytail slapped each side of her face. Kale grunted or growled—it was hard to tell with him, lately. His face was paler than usual, and his eyes seemed to flicker from black to blue. I wasn’t sure if it were from the stress he’d been under or the fact that he was immortal. I glanced at Jace, who’d never seemed to have a problem with his eyes—or his temper, for that matter.

  “You are not the one who will be cut, so what is the problem?” He sounded exasperated.

  Wait, who was going to be getting cut, Kale or Jace?

  Mia rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to see anyone bleed. Seriously, there has got to be a better way than that.” She pointed to the knife and shivered.

  I had to admit, I was with her on the not seeing any blood part, but I wanted—needed—to see what immortality was all about. Mia still shook her head with her arms settled across her chest in defiance.

  Kale cut in, “Either you want the truth, or you don’t, Mia. You are the one who was demanding it earlier. Now take it.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. He wasn’t looking so hot, and I needed to get home soon. I didn’t have the time to try to calm him down again, assuming I could even do so. I’d gotten out of being home in time for dinner by saying that I was taking Mia out while her parents weren’t in town. My mother wasn’t comfortable with Mia being home alone, and she wanted Mia to stay with us, but she was worried that since someone had broken in, they could do it again and try to take Mia.

  I needed to get home and defuse the situation of Mom’s paranoia before she imposed a curfew on me. “Just do it, for Pete’s sake.”

  Jace and Kale looked at each other.

  Suddenly, the knife was nothing but a silver gleam until it landed square in Kale’s chest.

  Mia screamed, Kale winced, and Jace looked quite pleased with himself. I backed up into the bar with Mia burrowed in my chest, and damned if I didn’t want to grab her and run. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed them to act.

  Kale’s face was tight with pain, and though he said he was immortal, he never said that he couldn’t feel pain. I expected him to hit the floor in a heap of pain, begging us to call an ambulance, and that’s exactly what Mia screamed for me to do.

  Fear and shock froze me. Jace’s face held a bit more satisfaction than I was comfortable seeing after that assault, and Mia finally stopped screaming, only to faint and slide down my chest to the floor. Thankful that she was so close and not clear across the room where she could have really hurt herself, I kneeled down not once taking my eyes off of Kale and his bleeding chest wound. My stomach lurched, and the food that I had eaten earlier seemed to want to make a comeback. I stomped it back down and shook Mia, gently calling her name.

  “Jeez, you’d think that I stabbed her,” Jace said nonchalantly. He moved to help her up, but the dude had just stabbed Kale square in the chest and had all but smirked about it. He wasn’t touching Mia just yet.

  “I got her,” I said quickly as Mia started to come to.

  Jace rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath.

  “What the…” she said breathlessly as she came around.

  Kale pulled the knife from his chest with a nasty slurping sound and placed the bloody thing on the counter. He lifted up his shirt and pulled it off. Blood made its way down his chest, but not any farther than that. It stopped bleeding pretty fast, and his blood was darker than it should have been.

  “Watch,” he demanded. “Because this is the last time I will do this.” He pointed a hard stare at Mia, who I thought was going to faint again. She and I both moved in closer and watched as Kale’s blood slowly stopped seeping from the hole in his chest.

  His wound… melted, looking like flesh-colored wax. Mia gasped. Nothing stayed behind but a pearly pink puckered scar.

  “What—” I muttered.

  “The—” Mia shrieked.

  “You asked for it. You got it,” Jace said with a smile. He flicked a glance at Kale and grinned before he turned to us. The look on Kale’s face was priceless.

  Their expressions told me that even though Ella was missing and they seemed to be on the same side for the moment, they were enemies.

  “Now if you don’t mind,” Jace said casually, as if he’d just shown us how to use a map or something. “I have somewhere important to be.” Jace strode to the table and packed his crap and headed for the door. “See you lovely bunch later.” He threw his pack over his shoulder and then disappeared out the front door.

  Mia and I still stood there, clasping each other. She was still shaking, and I was still staring at Kale’s chest even as he turned away from us, placing his hands on the counter squeezing so tight that his knuckles were as white as the cream marble counter. It looked as though he was still in pain, but the wound was gone, healed in less than a few seconds. I wasn’t quite sure of what to say.

  Mia still leaned into me, allowing me to take the brunt of her weight. “Kale, I—”

  “Get out,” Kale growled, and Mia snapped her mouth shut and obeyed without question. She ran to the living room, grabbed her coat, shoved it on, mumbling something about getting out of there as she headed out the front door.

  I turned to Kale. His bloodstained chest heaved, and he tightly gripped the edge of the counter. Kale was struggling with something, and it wasn’t the mended wound. Following my better judgment, I left the kitchen, put on my coat, and met Mia outside in the snow, where she stood shivering against the car.

  “Okay, so I believe them. I still don’t want you to join them,” she said as I worked the keyless entry and motioned for her to get inside.

  I turned the car on and turned up the heat. Cold air blasted through the vents. We’d been there all day and got all the answers that we could handle.

  Mia squeezed her eyes closed and massaged her temples lightly, then released a shaky breath. “Truly, Alex, what we saw in there was some seriously—”

  “Funked-up stuff?” I interrupted, hoping to get a smile from her, but I was straight-up denied one. Mia looked serious, and I couldn’t blame her. I was a bit freaked out myself—freaked out and astonished. I still wanted that, whatever it was. The power that came with immortality would easily help me against Laurent. I wasn’t giving up.

  Though seeing Kale bleed made me nervous, the yearning for the power his immortality gave him pushed away any fear and replaced it with pure need. As an immortal, I’d have the same power, and there wouldn’t be much difference between Kale and me, making Ella’s choice between Kale and me that much easier. She’d chosen Kale over me because he’d believed her when I hadn’t. If I became immortal, then the years I’d known Ella and all we’d been through together would level the playing field. I’d have a chance.

  ***

  The next two mornings, my mother cooked her stress-relieving breakfast feast. She had made Mia stay over, which meant I had to sleep on the coach, because Mia got Leah’s room and no one was allowed into my old room. My dad said that no one was to enter that room until Sheriff Making decided whether or not to call in the FBI for help. If they accepted, then the room would still be fresh for the FBI’s evidence team. I wasn’t sure of the process for calling in the FBI, but my father had made it clear that they may or may not decide to take on this case. Even though I knew the truth about Ella’s disappearance, it still angered me to think that the FBI could refuse to help an innocent girl and her family.

  “Mia, I hope Leah’s bed was comfortable for you,” my mother said as she dished out another huge serving of eggs in front of Mia.

  Mia look
ed at her plate and frowned. My mother had been trying to make up for her parents being out of town by babying and force-feeding her healthy helpings of eggs and turkey bacon. Mia gave me a wide-eyed look for help, eliciting some giggles from Leah.

  It was the first time I’d seen Leah smile since my father had refused to put up a real Christmas tree like we traditionally did. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but we always made a tradition of buying a fresh tree from the Robertson’s farm, and then we’d pop popcorn for the garland and sit around the tree decorating it. Most years, Ella and her parents were with us, celebrating and reminiscing. This year, no one but Leah felt up to it, but dad decided that he would head to Wal-Mart in Elmwood City and buy a six-foot plastic pre-lit tree and throw it up somewhere in the study. I myself didn’t care what we did, but Leah was heartbroken about the change, and I hated that her Christmas was ruined.

  “It was fine, Mrs. Carlson,” Mia replied with a smile, and she pushed the eggs around her plate.

  My mom looked over in my direction. “I think you and Mia should get ahold of her parents and let them know what’s happened here and that Mia will be staying with us until they return.” She placed the pan back onto the stove.

  I could tell that she wanted to say more, but she glanced at Leah and frowned. She had kept Leah home from school for the past few days and was preparing to send her back for the few days leading up to winter break.

  “Leah, you finished?” she asked.

  Leah nodded, then jumped down and handed her the plate.

  “Head upstairs and get ready for a shower so we can get ready to go to your aunt’s house, hun, and don’t get your hair wet. We washed it last night.” Leah headed upstairs, and my mom looked back at Mia and me. Her eyes were no longer red from tears, but dark and tired from worry and lack of sleep. She placed the plate in the sink and turned back to us.

  “Tomorrow your father and Sheriff Making have arranged for a security company to come in and set up a home security system for us.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I remember when we could leave our doors unlocked when we left for work and come home unworried about what could be waiting inside, and now—” She stopped and caught her breath.