Blue Violet (12 page)

Ellie froze
and swore softly under her breath as she slowly stood up. She didn’t think that
he could see her at the very edge of the trees, but she couldn’t be certain.
She would’ve tried Griffin’s power on him, but she had to be closer to her
brother in order to have access to his powers.

Gingerly, she inched
back into the woods until she was sure Alex could no longer possibly be able to
see her. As soon as she felt safely hidden, she turned into the falcon and flew
home as quickly as possible. Griffin was already waiting for her.

“He saw you,”
he confirmed her worst fear the second she flew in the window. “But he’s not
entirely sure of what he saw. Apparently, you were already on his mind.”

Ellie sat down
and buried her head in her hands. “Is he going to say anything to me?”

Griffin
listened for a moment and then shook his head. “He’s still debating it. He
won’t come tonight.”

Ellie groaned
and tapped one fingernail on her teeth. “Well, at least tomorrow is Saturday, so
he can’t catch me at school. I guess I’ll skip my run in the morning. Unless…”

Griffin shook
his head, following her thoughts, “We shouldn’t tell them. Not quite yet. With
that wolf sighting today at school, there’s still too much danger involved in
bringing us all together.”

“But that wolf
wasn’t watching me. He was watching Adelaide,” Ellie insisted.

Griffin placed
his hands on her shoulders, calming her agitation. “Trust me please, Ellie. If
the Vyusher are after the Jenners and Pierces, maybe we can help. We would have
the element of surprise on our side. If they’re after us, then we protect your
friends by staying away from them. If your friends are with the Vyusher, then
we protect ourselves by keeping our distance. The timing of telling them is as important
as the telling.”

Ellie’s
shoulders slumped. Her brother was right. She would protect her friends without
hesitation or thought. And she couldn’t argue with Griffin’s logic.

“Go to bed,”
Griffin ordered. “I’ll keep tabs on them until morning.”  He glanced outside.
“Besides, it’s starting to snow.” Winter and summer apparently battled for
dominance during the spring season in the mountains. They’d just had a warm
streak, and now the snow had returned.

Ellie nodded
her agreement and went up to bed. She’d had such an emotional day that she fell
asleep the second her head hit the pillow.

The next
morning she woke up to the urgent ringing of the doorbell. Groggily she pulled
herself out of bed, threw on a robe and some warm slippers, and made her way downstairs.
She noticed with bleary eyes the fresh blanket of snow covering everything
outside. She also realized that Griffin wasn’t home.

The doorbell
went off again. She went to answer it, shielding her eyes from the sun that
bounced off the bright powder.

 “Alex?” Ellie
stepped back and tried to hide her astonishment at seeing him standing on her
front porch. Her heart thundered and she pulled her robe tighter.

Alex looked
like he hadn’t slept all night. His clothes were wrinkled, and his hair looked
as though he’d been running his fingers through it repeatedly. He’d obviously
not shaved. He looked so sexy in this mussed up state, she almost couldn’t
breathe. But it was more than that. More than just good looks and a confident
swagger. She felt this insane connection that made her gravitate toward him...made
her want to curl up in his lap and be the one to run fingers through that silky
hair. At the same time, she staunchly told herself that those feelings were
completely outlandish. Despite some time spent together, they really didn’t
know each other all that well.
And besides, he dropped me like a hot potato,
she thought with rising ire, ignoring the fact that he’d thought he was
protecting her.

She guessed
he’d decided to confront her about the previous night. “
Griffin, you better
be out of range not to have warned me that he was coming,”
she mentally
castigated her brother.  

“Can I help
you with something?” she asked as Alex stood there glowering.

“May I come
in?” he asked gruffly.

“Oh!... uh… sure.” 
She couldn’t really say no without being rude or arousing his suspicions. Best
to play along and act innocent.

She stood back
so he could enter, and they made their way to the living room. He sat on the
black leather couch while Ellie took a seat in the chair opposite him.

“You didn’t go
running this morning,” he accused. He leaned forward propping his elbows on his
knees and linking his hands together.

“How would you
know?” she snapped back. “You haven’t been running with me in weeks.”

Alex’s jaw clenched.
“Is your family here?” he asked, glancing around.

“Not right
now.”

 Although she
and Griffin had the scenario of him as her guardian and older brother down pat
with years of practice, they still found it much easier if people assumed they
had parents somewhere.

Alex cocked
his head. “Do you even have a family?” he demanded.

“Excuse me?”
Ellie’s voice squeaked. She cleared her throat, annoyed with herself. “Of
course
I have a family.”

“But not
here,” he insisted, indicating the house with a wave of his hand.

“They’re not
home right now, no,” she replied, deliberately misunderstanding him.

“They don’t
live here at all, even if they do exist.”

“What on Earth
is this about, Alex?”

Ellie hopped
up and walked across the room to some bookshelves that held several pictures.
One of them was her with her parents.  A doctored copy of course – Griffin had
become a bit of a computer whiz. She presented the framed photograph to Alex
with a flourish.

“My parents,”
she said. “If they were here, I would introduce them.” 

Alex stared at
the photograph for a long time. “You’re hiding something,” he finally responded,
running his fingers through his hair.

Ellie’s heart
turned over. Temptation overwhelmed her. All she wanted was to walk into his
arms and tell him everything. But her conversation with Griffin last night was
still fresh in her mind. She was terrified she’d put him right in the path of
the Vyusher, the last thing she wanted to do, despite his cutting her out of
his life over the last weeks. Plus she’d promised Griffin.

A separate
part of her mind remained grudgingly impressed with Alex’s powers of
observation. Very few people looked closely enough at anyone to catch little
nuances as he had with her. Usually they were too self-centered. But he’d
called her out on her vagueness from day one. It had the effect of
strengthening the connection she was resisting so desperately.

“What is it
that you think I’m hiding, exactly?” Ellie asked, hands on her hips.

“You can’t be
who you say you are.”

“I don’t say
I’m anyone. I’m just me!” she exclaimed. “Who else would I be?”

He flashed her
a dark look. “I
saw
you.”

“Saw me doing
what?” Ellie’s confusion was feigned, but her exasperation was authentic.

“Standing in
the woods outside my house.”

Ellie gave him
a dumfounded look. “And when exactly was I supposed to be standing outside your
house?”

“Late last
night,” he snapped angrily.

“Yeah,” she
scoffed, “that makes total sense. You really are full of yourself. You know
that? You think that some little high school girl likes you so much that she’s
just going to stand around your house in the cold, hoping for a glimpse?”

“I think
you’re a damn good liar is what I think.”  Alex clenched his fists. He looked
like he wanted to shake her.

Ellie fumed.
Forget that he was right. He didn’t know that for sure. And here he was calling
her a liar to her face.

Her eye
narrowed and her voice grew cold. “And what
exactly
am I supposed to be
lying about?”

Alex’s mouth
set in a grim line. “I can’t tell you that.”

Ellie arched
an eyebrow. “So let me get this straight…After becoming, well,
friends
I
guess, you suddenly start ignoring me…. We barely say two words to each other
in six weeks, and then out of nowhere you kiss me. But based on…” She flung her
arms out all akimbo. “…I don’t know
what
exactly… you come over here to
tell me that I’m not who I say I am. That I’m apparently stalking you. And then
you call me a liar. But you can’t tell me what you think I’m lying about. Could
you be more insulting or more vague?”

“I guess
that’s usually your role, isn’t it? Is anything you’ve ever said to me true?”

 “Ah!” Frustration
engulfed Ellie until she couldn’t speak. She just stood there, her hands on her
hips, shaking her head and blinking.

She couldn’t
do this, she suddenly realized. She didn’t want to lie to him. She didn’t want
to fight with him. But she couldn’t tell him anything. And he was in the same
predicament.

 And, just
like that, her anger with him turned in on herself and the situation. She
started shaking. A violent tremble that signaled a loss of control… and the
horrifying possibility of what she might become if she didn’t immediately rein
it in. Anger and fear for Alex’s safety warred within her as she struggled to
keep her human form.

Without
another word she turned and headed for the back door, grabbing her keys off the
kitchen counter. She had to get away from him and force herself to calm down
before something terrible happened.

Alex, having
followed her, grabbed her arm, whipping her around. “Where do you think you’re
going?” he demanded.

“Away from
you.”  She jerked out of his grip and opened the door, gasping as the cold
slapped her in the face. Snow blew everywhere. But she was too upset to care
and pushed out into blinding storm, heading for her car, ignoring her bare feet
and robe.

“Not in this
weather you’re not.” He grabbed her wrist and started dragging her back toward
the house. “You know you suck at driving in the snow.”

“Let… go… of…
me…” Ellie gritted through her teeth as she tried to twist her wrist out of his
hand. When he ignored her order and refused to let her go, she leaned over and
bit his hand. Hard.

“Ow!” he
howled, and immediately let go. Ellie took off, running for the car again, only
this time she made it. She locked the doors as she got in.

Revving the
engine, she put the car in drive and hit the gas, then immediately slammed on
her brakes as Alex appeared directly in front of her.

She glared at
him and charged the engine again in warning.

“Get out of
the car, Ellie!” he yelled above the sound of the storm.

She shook her
head
no
and pressed on the gas again. Alex jumped out of the way just in
time. She hadn’t been too concerned that she’d hit him; she would’ve stopped if
he hadn’t moved. While her fury at him consumed her at the moment, that didn’t
negate the connection she felt with him.

Ellie gasped
as realization tore through her.
Oh my God
, she thought,
he is my
te’sorthene. How could I be so stupid?
!?

Ellie had
often tried to imagine what it could be like, finding her
te’sorthene
.
And now she knew. Tears blurred her eyes. Panicked by the gravity of her
self-revelation, the need to escape increased. She headed down the long drive
way to the road, skidding and slipping as she went. A small part of her felt
shocked at her awful behavior. She was acting like a total idiot. But at the
same time she had never been so angry, and terrified, and worried, and so many
other emotions all at once in all her life. And the shaking was getting worse.
She had to leave
now.

Between her
anger, her tears, and the blizzard raging outside, she didn’t see the tree in
her way until it was too late and she plowed the car right into it, slamming
her head on the steering wheel in a violent collision. Through a blur of pain
and dizziness, Ellie felt the car rebound off the tree and start skidding
backwards…and toward a cliff. Her last irrational thought was,
Griffin’s
going to kill me,
before she sank into blessed oblivion.

 “You little
idiot,” Ellie heard Alex mutter, although his voice came from far away. She was
snuggled up against something warm and solid, and yet she was floating.

“What were you
thinking?” he continued, his voice more tender now and closer to her ear.

It suddenly
occurred to Ellie that he was carrying her. Since being held in his arms so
closely aligned with where she truly wished to be, Ellie decided not to open
her eyes just yet. Some part of her recognized that he wasn’t touching her skin.

As her
consciousness returned in slow waves, Ellie reveled in the feeling of being
exactly where she was supposed to be. Being held by him just felt too wonderful
to pass up. She didn’t want the moment to ever end.

Carefully, she
reached up and wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders. Burying her face in
the crook of his neck, she breathed him in. Alex smelled of clean soap, a
subtle tangy aftershave, and something essentially him. She sighed as his arms
tightened around her, pulling her in closer.

They made it
back to the house too soon. Once inside, he laid her gently on the couch in the
living room. Reluctantly, Ellie unwrapped her arms from around his neck, her eyes
still closed. Alex gently smoothed the hair back from her face. Knowing she
couldn’t avoid reality any longer, she opened her eyes with a resigned sigh,
looking directly into Alex’s silver-blue gaze.

“You’ve got a
pretty big bump on your head,” he observed.

With his
words, pain finally broke through the fog in Ellie’s head. She winced as she
reached up and felt the egg-sized lump on her forehead. “Ow,” she groaned.