Read Online The Underworld by Jessica Sorensen - Free Book Online Page A

he asked worriedly.
    I gradual y sat up, my neck burning with my every
    movement. “Ahh,” I winced, reaching for my neck.
    Then winced again from the pain my touch brought on.
    “Easy,” Laylen said, his voice soothing. “It’s going
    to hurt for a little bit.”
    “What’s going to hurt?” I asked, and then I
    remembered I’d been bitten by a vampire. I began to
    panic.
    Laylen must have seen the panic in my eyes too,
    because he said, “You’l be okay, Gemma. The
    fogginess wil wear off in awhile. The actual bite,
    though, wil take a few days to heal.”
    I started to get to my feet, but the world started
    spinning. I almost col apsed back to the ground, but
    Laylen caught me by the arm.
    “You’re going to have to take it easy,” he told me,
    holding me steady. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
    Wel , that explained the wooziness. “I think I might
    be sick.”
    “That’l wear off in a little while too.”
    I lightly touched my neck, the skin burning beneath
    my fingers. “How did we get out of that place?” I
    asked, because my memory was missing some
    pieces of what just occurred. In fact, the only thing I
    could remember clearly was the vision I’d just gone in,
    and how my eyes in the vision had looked so empty. I
    wondered if it meant it would actual y happen to me—
    if I would end up at the cabin that way. The thought
    was scary.
    “Wel , by the time we made it out into the bar area,
    you’d fainted,” Laylen said. “Luckily I caught you
    before you hit the floor.”
    Yeah, I guess that could be considered lucky. But
    everything else…hmm…not so much.
    “So you what?” I asked. “Just carried me out and
    ran? How did we not get caught?”
    “We were lucky we didn’t.” He started to walk,
    guiding me along with him. “But I think we need to get
    back to the house before someone realizes I kil ed
    Vladislav.”
    Good idea.
    We headed across an empty parking lot, making
    sure to stay in the shadows.
    “So how much trouble are you going to be in for
    staking Vladislav?” I asked, gripping onto Laylen’s
    arms as I was rushed by a spout of dizziness.
    He shrugged, but I felt him speed up. “We need to
    get back to the house and out of sight for awhile.
    Eventual y, it’l be forgotten, but I probably won’t be
    able to show my face in the vampire world again.”
    “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked him,
    careful y maneuvering over a pot hole.
    He shrugged. “I don’t know…it wasn’t like I
    completely enjoyed being around other vampires. But
    they were the only ones who didn’t judge me for being
    a vampire.”
    His voice was sad and it made my heart hurt for
    him. “So what do you do then?” I asked “Just wait it
    out until the vampires do what? Decide they’re over
    it?”
    We turned down an al eyway, tucking ourselves into
    the dark and out of sight.
    “I’m going to have to lie low for awhile,” he said,
    dodging us around a stack of wooden crates.
    Lay low for a while. Wasn’t that what we’d already
    been doing, to keep me away from Stephan and the
    Death Walkers? But now I guess vampires were
    going to have to be added to the “Who We Were
    Hiding From Now list.” Jeez, if it kept up, every evil
    creature was going to be after us.
    “So what about my mom,” I said to Laylen as we
    squeezed past a dumpster, the air smel ing like rotten
    eggs mixed with old bananas. “Do you think Vladislav
    was tel ing the truth and that she’s stil alive?”
    “Yeah, I do,” he said sounding absolutely certain.
    We reached a tal chain link fence with no way
    around it. At least that was what I thought. But then
    Laylen reached down and pul ed on the bottom of it
    until the metal links snapped and he was able to lift up
    the fence high enough for me to scoot underneath it.
    Then he ducked under himself and let the fence go
    with a clank.
    “Vampires have this connection with each other
    that al ows us to sense if the other one’s lying,” he