Jessica Sorensen - Unbroken

Aislin glances up at me with a questioning look in her eyes. “Because of the promise?”

“Maybe.” I don’t say anything further because I don’t want to explain it to her; that I don’t think what I’m feeling has anything to do with magic. That it’s my emotions making me feel obligated. Hell, obligation may not even be the best word either since I want to protect Gemma no matter what.

“Well, I think it’s good that you’re finally showing signs of being human,” she says with a small smile.

“If you say so,” I mutter, letting my hand fall to my side.

Aislin sighs then tips her head to the side, returning her attention to Gemma, who starts to stir, wiggling her fingers as if to get out. Instead, she lets out a quiet breath and relaxes as she drapes her one untied hand over her forehead, revealing the scar on the palm of her hand. Aislin leans over to study it, then her eyes land on me and light up. “I think I have an idea.”

“Good because I think I’m tapped out of them.” I sit down on the bed, rake my fingers through my hair, and rest my head in my hands. “Which is a first for me, and I’m not a fan.”

“Oh, quit being a baby. You don’t always have to be the one to save the day,” she says, rounding the bed and stopping in front of where I’m sitting. “What I’m thinking of isn’t going to take off the mark, but maybe it will get rid of the power in it temporarily until I can find a more permanent spell.”

“Okay.” I raise my head and glance over my shoulder at Gemma lying on the bed. God, it’s so fucked up, but she looks so sexy now; eyes shut, soft breaths escaping her parted lips. I want her—I’ve always wanted her. “Get it done then.”

Aislin bites on her fingernails. “It’s not something I have to do.” She reluctantly aims a finger at me. “It’s something you have to do. Or at least it’ll work better if you do it, I think.”

My brows furrow as I stand up from the bed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she opens her hand, palm up, and traces a line across her palm, “That you’re going to make a blood promise with her.”

I roll my eyes and shake my head with disappointment because, there for a moment, I’ve thought she had a real plan. “That’s not going to work. Blood Promises aren’t more powerful than the Mark of Malefiscus.”

Now she rolls her eyes. “Maybe under normal circumstances, but with you two, I’m betting it’ll work. The connection between you is way more intense than any normal connection out there. You’ve both got the star in you and you have a lot of power.” She taps her finger against her lip. “I’m guessing with the right promise, we can release her for a bit from the power of the mark.”

“What promise it going to do that?” I gape at her, not buying into her theory that this is going to work.

“One you’re not going to like,” she says, twisting a strand of her hair around her finger as she stares at Gemma. “Then again, maybe you will.”

“Which is?”

“Getting her to promise to listen to someone else.”

My jaw drops. “You want me to seal her to a blood promise where she has listen to me—where she’s be under my control? That’s fucked up.”

“It’s better than the alternative,” she says with a shrug. “And it’s all I’ve got at the moment.”

“I’m not so sure about that. Making her… controlling her like that… it’s wrong… She’s already had too much of it in her life.”

Her brow arches with speculation. “You really do care for her, don’t you?”

Squirming uncomfortably from her accusation, I change the subject. “Even if I did make the promise, how are we supposed to get her to recite whatever I say? There’s no way. Not when she’s under the control of the mark.”

She ponders over this for a while, as if the thought hasn’t even crossed her mind until then. The longer it goes on, the more puzzled she appears. My hope in finding an easy way out of this is dwindling. Nothing’s ever easy, though. I should know that by now.

“I have a better idea,” I tell her, loosely using the word better. Because my idea isn’t better at all, but it’s doable.

“And what’s that?” she asks, confused.

I shrug, like what I’m about to say isn’t a big deal. “An emotional exorcism.”

She’s already shaking her head. “No way in hell. It’s too risky.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I like risks.” I try to force a cocky smile, but I miss the mark. I can act tough all I want, but what I’m proposing that we do to handle the situation is sort of terrifying.

“It’s not even the risk, though,” she says. “The last time someone did it, they died.”

“Well, death’s a risk I’m willing to take to save her.” As soon as I say it, I know it’s the truth, and the truth is more terrifying than I ever could have imagined.

I care enough for Gemma that I’m willing to risk my own life to free hers.

“No. There’s no way we’re going to do that.” Aislin paces the length of the room, shaking her head as she stares at the floor. She’s been doing it since I divulged my plan of almost killing myself while Gemma’s awake in the hopes that it’ll bring her back.

“It can’t hurt to try,” I say, watching her from the bed, more stressed than I have ever been.

She stops in the middle of the room and puts her hands on her hips. “Can’t hurt to try? You could freaking die, Alex. And besides,” she starts pacing again, folding her arms, “she already tried to kill you and it didn’t bring her back.”

“It did something,” I argue, drawing a line up and down Gemma’s leg, missing her so much that it’s driving me crazy. It’s amazing how even when we’re close, I want to be closer. All those years apart and I never stopped thinking about her. Then we ran into each other at her grandparent’s house, and even though I thought it was forbidden, I also knew right then and then that I had to have her in my life again. “She’s been unconscious ever since.”

“Yeah, but—” she begins to protest again, but I interrupt her.

“Aislin, this isn’t up for debate,” I tell her, getting to my feet and cutting her off her pacing in the center of the room. “I’m doing this with or without your help.”

She huffs in aggravation, yet I already know she’ll help me. Aislin’s just that way; when it all comes down to it, she gives in.

“Fine.” She surrenders, throwing her hands in the air exasperatedly. “We’ll try it, but I really hope you know what you’re doing.”

the her heart. “One shot of it right here and your dead.”

Dead. As soon as she says it, reality crashes over me. I’m really going to do this, and if it all comes down to it—if it takes me actually jabbing a needle full of death into my heart to bring her back—I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever it takes, and it’s startling how okay I am with it; sacrificing my life to save hers.

“I might be able to bring you back if you use it,” Aislin says quietly, lowering her hand to her side. “As long as I don’t wait too long, but I can’t promise anything.”

“Let’s just hope I don’t have to use it,” I say. “That she’ll come back to me before it gets that far.”

She looks as doubtful as I feel but nods anyway and then leaves the room. And all I can do is wait with thoughts of death haunting my mind.

I wait with Gemma while Aislin goes to make her potion. My head is in a really fucked-up, weird place right now, swarming with emotions that I barely understand. She means so much to me—I don’t get it. How can I go from not caring about anything to caring about one person so much?

I’m stroking Gemma’s hair, lost in my thoughts, when her eyelids lift open. The sunlight from outside hits them, and for the briefest moment she looks like my Gemma, but as quickly as the look appears, it fades.

“What the hell?” She jerks back from my hand, swinging her free arm at me. “What are you doing?” She starts bucking her body up and down and I seriously about loose it,

Now is not the time to get a fucking hard on, I think to myself as I lean over and grab her arm, attempting to restrain her. She tries to bite me as I wrap the tie around her wrist and tie it securely.

“Alex, what are you doing?” she says, panic in her voice. I pause because she almost looks and sounds like her old self. “Please untie me. This hurts.”

I search her eyes, trying to look for signs that maybe she’s come back to me. Perhaps when she choked me it brought her back. “I don’t care if it hurts,” I say cautiously, my hand still on her arm.

She pouts out her lip which Gemma has unintentionally done on a couple of occasions, and I about lose it. She’s too innocent for her own good. “But it hurts,” she whines.

“It’s supposed to hurt,” I reply, leaning over her quivering body to touch the mark on her arm. The ink looks as defined as it did before, so she has to still be possessed, doesn’t she?

“You want to hurt me?” She frowns. “But you’ve already hurt me so much in the past.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” I touch the triangular mark with my fingertip. “But I do want to hurt who’s controlling you at the moment.”

Her forehead creases with confusion. “Who’s controlling me?”

I can’t read her at all. She looks genuinely baffled, but at the same time the mark is still there. “My father.” I trace the mark. “The one who put this on you.”

She shakes her head, her eyes glossed over in perplexity. “I don’t understand… Alex, I’m so confused…” She angles her chin up and looks at her tied wrist. “Why do you have me tied up?”

Her gaze lands back on me, her lavender eyes looking so full of life, lacking possession. It makes me want to untie her then claim her as my own, which is messed up on so many different levels.