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

me. “There’s supposed to be a place somewhere down here that will take us up through the lake. A water route maybe? Do you know where it is?”

“We can’t go anywhere.” She shakes her head and shuffles back until the backs of her legs bump into the bed. “The Fey will make us suffer if we try.”

“Jocelyn, no one’s going to hurt you anymore,” Alex says. “We’re taking you home.”

She laughs and then spins in a circle with her arms out to the side. “You think you can escape here? We’re trapped. Forever.”

Great. She’s crazy.

“What about my Foreseer power?” I ask, reaching out to touch her, but fear of rejection forces me to pull back. “Can it get us out of here?”

“We don’t have a crystal,” Alex points out. “We need to find water.”

My mom stops spinning in circles and chews on a strand of her hair as she assesses me, tapping her foot on the floor. “She might not need one if she’s entirely like her father, but if that’s also the case, she’s doomed.”

“Doomed for what?” I ask in horror. “What else could I possibly be doomed for?"

She lets go of the strand of her hair and strides forward, placing her hands on my shoulders. “Evil.” Her smile radiates her insanity.

“I-I’m not evil,” I stutter, though a voice inside my head laughs at me. I don’t know what to say or do. She isn’t the person I’ve seen in the visions. She’s cruel, insane and derisive. “And I’m going to show you right now by getting us out of here, which is a good thing.”

She only laughs, moving away, but she doesn’t argue when I take her hand. “Well, you can try,” she says. “I’m not going to stop you.”

“Okay,” I say determinedly, yet I falter when I realize I only have a vague idea of how to do it. “Now how do I do it? Channel the energy without the crystal and get us to present time.”

“Emotion,” she says simply. “Your father used to do it all the time by getting really angry.” Her gaze skims to Alex. “Or when I would tell him that I love him.”

I shift uneasily. “Is that it? Just feel a lot of emotion?”

She shrugs. “That and you need to have the ability to look a split second into the future then drop yourself into the vision a second behind what you saw, so by the time you make us drop, we’ll have aligned with present time.”

“Huh?” Alex and I say at the same time.

She ruthlessly grins as she swings our arms back and forth between us. “It’ll take a lot of skill. Seeing things quicker than the human eye and placing all of us in the right spot. One false move and we’ll be stuck in either the future or the past. Maybe forever.”

“Sounds pretty simple to me,” I say sarcastically.

She shrugs again, as though she doesn’t care about anything, and it makes me want to bawl my eyes out. “I told you it was hard.” She rubs her hand across her face. “Honestly, we’d be better off here anyways, rotting in our own heads.”

“No fucking way. I’d rather die.” I summon a deep breath. “I’m going to try it.”

“This is a bad idea,” Alex says as I lace my fingers through his and tug him closer. “Using your power like this… it’s too risky and unknown.”

A scream rings through the air and we all flinch, glancing at the door in panic.

“It’s more risky staying down here.” I cup the side of his neck and guide him closer as my mom holds my hand from behind me. “Now kiss me.”

His brows furrow as I lean in and crash my lips against his. I channel every emotion he instills in me as I taste him and let his tongue feel mine. I feel a gentle tug, but it’s not enough. I need something more powerful—something I’ve never felt before.

I pull away and Alex opens his eyes when the high-pitched shrieks of the Fey grow louder as they get closer to the cell.

“I need something more,” I say, my eyes glued to the doorway, my pulse hammering with fear. I bet the Water Fey can sense it. I bet they’re devouring it as they search for us. “I need to feel something new; that’s when it’s most intense.”

Alex rakes his free hand through his hair, leaving his arm on the back of his neck, his elbow bent upward. “What haven’t you felt yet?”

“I don’t know,” I say, ignoring my mother’s laughs of hysteria. “I felt so many already.”

He swallows hard, his hand falling to the side. The screams of the Water Fey quake around the room and the vines are starting to revive, turning back to a healthy shade of green. They’re close and so is the Queen. If I don’t get us out of here, then we’re doomed just like my mom said.

“How about this.” Alex puts a hand on the side of my face and gazes deep into my eyes. His chest rises and falls with his ragged breath and his pulse throbs though his fingertips. “Gemma, I love you.”

I’m not sure if he means it, if they’re just desperate words or not. The idea of love scares the hell out of me, though.

It’s not the reaction I was expecting, but it does the trick. As a new brand of fear emerges in me, one based on something that’s potentially good, but also terrifying, the prickle stabs the back of my neck. The electricity devours my soul, fractures it open, and leaves it vulnerable and exposed. Alex leans forward to kiss me, feeding the sensation even more. The longer we kiss, the more energy develops between us; until I feel like I’m going to erupt like a volcano full of liquid hot magma. Then I let my mind see what it needs to.

I picture myself sitting on the bed in the room at the beach house, the ocean right outside. I