Unbroken (Shattered Promises, #2.5)

“I now.” I fold my arms, pacing, pacing, pacing. “I’m not even sure what’s causing it... I just feel so…” I trail off. I fucking hate talking about my feelings. After an emotionally numb childhood, I find it easier not to feel anything at all. But with Gemma… well, it’s out of my hands. Although, I’m not one hundred percent sure what exactly I feel for her just yet. It’s really confusing and intense, amongst a thousand other things.

“So what?” Aislin wonders curiously. “Because I’m dying to know.”

I raise my eyebrows questioningly at her. “Why?”

“Because in the twenty-five years that I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you act like this over someone.” She sits back and crosses her leg. “And I find it fascinating.”

I open my mouth to try to explain it to her, but then realize I don’t want to and probably couldn’t even if I tried, my thoughts to jumble to sort through everything going on inside my head. “Why the hell are you so calm?” I change the subject. “Laylen’s missing too.”

She swallows hard, nervous, like she’s just realizing this. “I know.”

“We need to do something.” I stop in front of the window and glance outside at the front yard. It’s dark, stars and moon bright in the sky. I remember all the times when I was a child and Gemma was still in my life, how we’d look at the stars, obsessed with them. It makes sense now that I know we’re both carrying around the energy of a fallen star, but at the time I just thought we were two weird kids that understood each other. “We need a plan to figure out where she is.”

“I could do a locating spell,” Aislin suggests as I turn away from the window. “But I’d have to run to a Wicca Shop because me supplies are really low.”

“Yeah, that might work,” I mutter, trying to get myself to focus on fixing the problem instead of just the problem itself.

“Might work,” Aislin says arrogantly, getting to her feet. “You mean it will work.”

I’m not so confident, considering the many spells I’ve witness go awry over the years. Still, I collect the car keys up from the coffee table. “You drive to the Wicca Shop.” I toss her the keys and she catches them. “I’ll stay here just in case any one of them comes back.”

She throws the car keys back at me, scowling. “Or I could just transport like a normal witch. Jesus, you are really out of it, aren’t you? You need to get your head into the game or we aren’t going to get anywhere.”

“Maybe,” I mutter, tucking the car keys into my pocket. She’s right. I need to focus. “Alright, I think I’ll go search the beach some more while you go get supplies.” I cross the living room, heading for the back door that’s in the kitchen. “Meet you back here in a bit?” I ask and she nods, walking toward hallway that leads to her bedroom.

After I grab a flashlight, I walk out of the house and step off the porch onto the sandy beach. I start relax a little. Fresh air. The sound of the waves crashing against the shore. It’s distracting. If only I could make the goddamn stars go away, then maybe I could completely clear my head.

Hiking down the shoreline lined with beach houses while sweeping the flashlight from side to side, I look for any sign of Gemma or Laylen. There are no fresh footprints nearby. No nothing. And this ridiculous helpless feeling emerges inside me. It’s not the first time I felt it. In fact, I’ve felt it a couples. Once when I was a younger and my father was getting ready to detach Gemma’s soul, something he didn’t tell me until later on in life when I was more brainwashed and would react less. I felt helpless watching her leave, knowing I’d never see her again and was too young to do anything. I also felt the same way the first time I was reunited with her at the college campus. The first time she touched me again and I didn’t think I could have her, yet I wanted her so fucking bad. And the last time was at the cabin in Colorado, while I was waiting for my father to show up and detach her soul again. I didn’t want to let it happen, but I was torn between what I thought was right and wrong. I ended up doing what I thought at the time was the wrong thing and tried to flee with her. But then my father showed up with the Death Walkers and I realized that everything I’d thought was wrong might just be right.