Shattered Promises 02 - Fractured Souls by Jessica Sorensen (motivational books for students TXT) 📕

I wonder. “Because the last thing I can remember…” I trail off, aiming him a dirty look. “Well, I think you can remember what happened.”

“Don’t blame me until you hear the whole story,” he says. “And we got here because Aislin transported us here. It’s a simple as that.”

“Oh, yes, super simple,” I respond in a derisive tone. He’s already getting under my skin, not just because he’s pissing me off, but because of the damn electricity. He’s sitting close to me, too close to me on a bed. It’s driving me mad because my mind is begging me to let him do things to me; touch me, kiss me, fill the void within me. “Where are Laylen and Aislin?”

“It is that super simple,” he retorts. “Aislin and Laylen are downstairs and if you want the whole story then keep quiet and listen.” He watches me with challenge in his eyes and I know he’s doing it on purpose, attempting to get under my skin.

Needing to get the last word in—needing to prove that I still have some say in this—I say, “Fine, continue.”

The corners of his lips quirk, as though he’s enjoying the bantering. “After Aislin came back to get Laylen in Nevada, there was a huge ambush of Death Walkers. I guess their cold ruined Aislin’s transporting crystal so they had to bail out and come here to get another one. Then they transported to Colorado and ended up saving all of us.”

I fold my arms across my chest. “But how? I mean, if I remember correctly, which I’m pretty sure I do since I was the target of everything that was going on, then there was an ambush of Death Walkers there along with your father who was trying to kill me with that smoking rock.”

“It’s called a memoria extracto,” he says flatly.

“Thanks,” I mumble. “Now if I ever have to take a test on strange crazy things that shouldn’t exist, I know I’ll pass.”

He covers his mouth with his balled fist, either pissed off or trying to hide a smile. “Well, I’m glad to see that you still have your twisted sense of humor.”

“Barely,” I retort, holding his gaze while he holds mine. “But I can already feel it fading, just like everything else inside me.” All I can feel at them moment is rage. It’s like a fire, ready to burn me to pieces. I wish I could turn it off, but I can’t seem to figure out how. Shit. What if something’s wrong with me? What if whatever did happen broke my emotions instead of getting rid of them.

He lowers his hand onto his lap and sighs. “When Aislin and Laylen showed up at the cabin,” he continues. “Stephan and the Death Walkers were gone. They just upped and left while I was—”

“What?” I interrupt. “That doesn’t make any sense, since Stephan was pretty much dead set on breaking my soul and mind apart.” I pause, eyeing him over, closely watching his reaction. “Something you were pretty dead set on helping him do.”

He swiftly shakes his head. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Yeah, you were. At first I thought you were going to save me, which felt…” I trail off, trying to figure out exactly how it felt, but I can’t quite piece what I’m feeling together. “And then I guess you changed your mind and decided to side with the devil.”

“I didn’t decide to side with my father,” he insists. “I did what I had to do because it was the only way to keep you safe.”

I tap my foot anxiously on the floor. Do I want to sit here and listen to more of his story? Or try to run? I feel like I’m in a maze where almost every end is a dead end or a trap and it’s hard to figure out which path will get me to wherever I need to go. My emotions are also confusing, combined with the electricity, I feel like I’m being pushed toward Alex and then pulled back. Pushed and pulled. Pretty soon I’m going to tear in half.

“I know what I saw.” I place a hand on my bandaged wrist. “You stood by while your father tried to erase my mind and I bled all over the floor; I could have died.”

“I would have never let you die.” He reaches for me, however I hover back, shaking my head, not ready to be touched by him yet. He sighs and withdraws his hands to his lap, clenching his fist so tightly his knuckles turn white. “Do you remember that necklace I gave you?”

I grab the hollow of my neck and then panic at the bare space. “Wait. Where is it?”

He sets a hand on my knee before I have time to react and a burst of passion swells through me. “Relax. I have it.”

That doesn’t make me relax at all. I keep remembering how Laylen and I talked about Alex being brainwashed. What if he’s right? What if he has to be here because the memoria extracto didn’t work and Alex is helping his father hold me hostage until they can figure something else out?

“Why do you have it?” I ask warily.

He takes a deep breath and gradually frees it, his fingertips massaging my kneecap. “When I gave you the necklace, I wasn’t just giving it to you because it belonged to you. I gave it to you because it has sugilite in it,” he says. I’m about to ask him what sugilite is when he adds, “That’s the purple stone in the center of the locket. It protects whoever’s wearing it from certain kinds of magic.” He pauses. “Like the mind erasing kind of magic.”

“I thought you said my mother gave me the necklace when I was little?” I ask. “Did she give it to me to protect me from something, too?”

He sweeps my hair back off my shoulder and I tense, unsure why he is so persistent about touching me. “She gave it to