I swallowed hard. “So if the vision I saw really ends up happening, then the woman’s going to end up being tortured down there.”
“Maybe. But she also might already be down there.” He sighed. “Sometimes when someone inexperienced tries to see into the future they just end up seeing something that has already happened.”
“So she could be down there right now!” The loudness of my voice made us both glance around nervously. I’m not sure what we were looking for, though. There was nothing around but vacant buildings.
Alex gave me a look that stressed for me to keep my voice down. “She could be down there right now, but if she’s been down there for awhile, then she may have already died. Depending on how strong she is, she could be able to survive the torture for up to a few years without it driving her mad. But if she’s already lost her mind, the Queen would have had her killed.”
“Why would the Queen have her killed? And who’s this Queen anyway?”
“The Queen of the Dead. She’s in charge of everything that goes on in The Underworld. After a prisoner goes insane, they no longer produce the right kind of fear for her people to feed off of so she gets rid of them.”
I gaped. “By killing them.”
Alex sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “You have to understand that most of the things—or people we send down there have committed horrible crimes. The kind of crimes that haunt peoples’ nightmares.”
“Yeah, well, considering the Death Walker’s haunt my nightmares…” I trailed off. I really shouldn’t have mentioned that.
He cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve dreamt about them?”
I nodded. “A lot actually.”
“Why the heck didn’t you tell me this before?”
I shrugged. “You keep secrets,” and probably still are, “so why can’t I.”
He shook his head, clearly irritated. “Did you dream about them before you ever saw them in real-life?”
“Yeah, I started having the dreams a couple of months ago, and the first time I saw something that I thought might be a Death Walker was only a couple of weeks ago in the school parking lot. But I wasn’t one hundred percent sure if I’d actually seen one. I thought I might have imagined seeing it or something.”
“It was back when I had to chase you down in the parking lot so I could give you your book, wasn’t it? When you were freaking out and wouldn’t tell me why.”
I nodded. It seemed like such a long time ago.
He stretched his arm across the top of the seat. “So you started dreaming about them around the same time you started to experience emotions?”
A touchy subject for me, especially since I knew he wanted my emotions gone. I needed to make sure and be vague with my answer, because I didn’t want to let anything slip out that might help him solve why I’d spontaneously started to feel. As ridiculously selfish as I knew it was, I wanted to keep feeling.
For the most part, anyway.
“I don’t know.” I turned to the window. “Maybe.”
Electricity tickled up and down my spine. Being alone with Alex in the poorly ventilated car was driving me absolutely insane. Not necessarily in a bad way, though. In fact, I think my body was building up a tolerance to electric sensation, because it was no longer making me feel like I had a fever. Warm and sparkly, it felt kind of good.
“So,” I began, turning my head back to him. “If it was a future vision I saw, would we be able to change what happened?”
He shook his head. “Prophecies are very hard to change, and I don’t have a clue as to how we’d even be able to find out if it was a past or future vision. That is, unless we want to go to the City of Crystal and chat it up with the Foreseers.”
“City of Crystal?”
“It’s where most of the Foreseer’s live, but you can’t get there without this special kind of crystal ball, which happens to be very hard to come by.”
I felt like I just might cry. If I’d seen a future vision, how was I supposed to just sit around and let the woman get taken away to The Underworld for real? The place sounded awful and…well, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew the woman somehow. “I don’t get it. You say that prophecies are hard to change, but isn’t that exactly what you guys are trying to do with me?”
“That’s different, though. We knew yours was a future prophecy right from the start, and a lot of energy and time has gone into trying to change it.” He sighed. “Besides, you are emotional so we haven’t done a very good job of changing it.”
“But you’re still trying to, right?” I picked at a loose string hanging off the hem of my denim skirt. “I mean, I’m sure you have a backup plan.”
“No we don’t,” he said quickly.
Way too quickly.
A red flag immediately went up. “What is it you’re not telling me?”
“I’m not keeping anything from you.” His voice smoothed out like honey
I let out a cynical laugh. “I highly doubt that because, first off, it’s you were talking about. And second, you freaked out when I just asked you if you had a backup plan. So what is it? What’s your big backup plan? Are you going to put me up in some super secret chamber and lock me away from everyone and everything until the only emotion I can feel is loneliness?”
“Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” he said. “I’ll have to pass that one on to Stephan.”
Furious, I reached around the side of the seat and searched for the handle that scooted it forward. I was so out of here.