The Zeuorian Awakening (4 page)

The bell rang and Lexi jumped from her seat, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and rushing out of class where she promised to meet Tyler. He offered to stay with her after school while Irene was at work. Normally she would’ve told him, no way, but the thought of being alone with that guy lurking in the background made her reconsider.

Once she stepped into the crowded hall, every student turned toward her. The boys gave her a once over and the girls glared at her. What a nightmare. Her appearance had been the major topic of the day. How she wished to have the power of invisibility at the moment. She lowered her head and stared at the drab title on the ground, continuing down the hall.

The further she went the feeling of danger grew stronger. She noticed a boy with stylishly messy hair and lean body standing several feet from her with a group of football players. Neal, she recalled, Tyler’s best friend. He pointed in her direction and whispered something to the football players she couldn’t hear. Was her premonition warning her about him or someone else?

A hand grabbed her shoulder and she let out a small yelp. Oh, no, this had to be what her premonition warned her about? She faced the boy who had sat in the corner of her physics class. He was a lot taller than she thought, around six-foot and looked even cuter up close.

“Hey, I wonder if we could talk,” he said, running his fingers through his hair and glancing at the football players watching her. “Somewhere in private.”

He wanted her to go somewhere alone with him, hmm. That sounded like something a guy trying to grab her would say. “Now why would I go anywhere private with you? I don’t know you,” Lexi said, backing away from him and making sure to keep her distance just in case he tried to grab her in the hall.

“You know me.” He snorted and mussed her hair. “We had auto shop class last year. I helped Robert work on his Camaro or what used to be a Camaro.” He half-heartedly chuckled. “It’s a piece of junk and should’ve been scrapped years ago, but don’t tell him that.”

She remembered Robert and his beat up car. He had a major crush on Angie and bugged her to give him Angie’s phone number even though he refused to except he wasn’t her type. The torn Harley T-shirts and worn jeans were enough to turn Angie off. But not once had she recalled the strange guy in front of her around Robert or for that matter, “I don’t remember you working on his car.”

“I’m not surprised. You were too busy working on your Chevelle, which I have to say, you did a primo job fixing up.” He kissed his fingers and lifted them in the air, making the sign for perfection. “You should help me work on Robert’s car. Maybe you can get it to drive faster than 45 miles per hour.”

Was it possible he had been in her class the entire time and she hadn’t noticed him?

Lexi gazed into his gray eyes, looking for something that reminded her of him. Oddly he seemed familiar, like an old acquaintance, but she couldn’t quite place him. Someone she was sure to have known, but who? Then a name came to her. “Everett right?”

A smile spread across his face from ear to ear. “Yeah that’s right. So you remember me?”

She shook her head. “Only your name.”

“I’m sure it’ll come back to you. I’ve been told I’m unforgettable.” Everett winked at her before glancing around the hall one more time. “Now that you remember me, can we go somewhere private to talk?”

“I may know your name, but I’m still not sure if I can trust you.” Because she couldn’t rule him out just yet as the guy following her. She gave him a stern look and continued to say, “You could be a psycho for all I know. Who’s nice and charming at first and then once we’re alone,” she snapped her fingers, “you change and I’m running through the halls as you’re chasing after me with a large kitchen knife.”

He laughed. “A tad melodramatic, don’t you think? So it’s safe to say you like watching horror movies?”

“Yeah, I started watching them as a kid.” After the man had tried to kill her. “I find them entertaining and educational. They taught me how to avoid being killed by psychos.”

“I bet.” He rolled his eyes. “But you have nothing to fear about me. I’m completely harmless. I don’t even own a butter knife. So, what do you say?”

Why did she have a hard time believing him? No boy was completely harmless. “I still don’t know if I can trust you.” Just because he had class with her doesn’t mean he wasn’t the boy who tried to carry her away on the beach. “Why are you in all the same classes as me? Are you stalking me?”

“Me, stalking you.” His eyebrows lifted. “I thought you were stalking me.”

Good come back. Too good. She narrowed her eyes and questioned him further. “So where are you planning to go to college?”

“I’m hoping to get into MIT.”

She couldn’t believe it. “You’re trying to get in MIT too! I’m planning on studying mechanical engineering like my father.” Maybe his matching schedule wasn’t a coincidence after all. If he planned to attend MIT, he would need to take the same classes as her.

“That’s cool. I was going to major in the computer science program, but there’s a waiting list. I guess everyone wants to learn computer programming.”

“So you’re a computer geek.”

“I prefer hacker.” He shot her a devious grin. “Now can we go somewhere away from them.” He pointed at the football players down the hall. “I have something to discuss with you and I don’t want them overhearing. We can walk around the corner if you’re still worried I’m going to stab you.”

“Very funny.” Lexi playfully pushed him. “We can talk over by the water fountain. They can’t see us standing over there.”

She motioned to Everett to follow her down the hall. Once they reached the water fountain, she waited until a couple of girls walked by before asking, “What did you want to talk about?”

“Tyler.” Everett leaned close to her and whispered when a boy opened a locker door close to them. “I saw you hanging out with him today. I hope you weren’t doing it because he claimed some guy pulled you ashore and tried to kidnap you on the beach.”

Her mouth dropped open. She couldn’t believe what he had said. “Tyler claimed the guy went to school with us and he would protect me from him.” Actually, she stayed close to him since it reduced the chance of the guy being able to grab her.

“I thought so.” Everett shook his head. “I hate to tell you this, but Tyler played you.”

“If you’re suggesting he used the guy to trick me into hanging out with him, I already knew that. Honestly, I was using him to protect me.”

“You don’t understand.” Everett placed his hand on her shoulder as if to brace her for bad news. “He lied about the other guy saving you. I overheard Neal talking to a football player about what really happened last night when Tyler spotted you washed up on the shore alone. He made up about the guy so he could trick you into going out with him after school and possibly sleeping with him.”

Tyler lied about another boy saving her? She had a hard time believing he would make up such an elaborate lie to get her to go out with him. It had to be for another reason. One thought came to her mind.

He knew she had transformed.

He kept it to himself so he could persuade her to go somewhere alone with him, where he could talk to her about it or kill her. Maybe he wasn’t cool about her being different as Angie believed he would be. Oh, she better stay away from him just in case he was up to no good.

Everett squeezed her shoulder. “I hope I didn’t upset you too much. I just wanted to warn you before you went anywhere alone with Tyler. I couldn’t live with myself if he took advantage of a nice person like you. You deserve better than an arrogant jerk only interested in screwing you.”

Why did she have a feeling his kindness was somewhat self-serving. Even if his motives weren’t completely pure, she was damn glad he told her about Tyler.

“No you didn’t upset me. I appreciate you warning me—” The words got stuck in her throat when she spotted Tyler strolling around the corner in her direction. “I have to go,” she said to Everett before sprinting down the hall and out of the school toward the parking lot.

Lexi brushed a few raindrops from her cheek, walking along the muddy hiking trail when her cell phone buzzed. She removed it from her back pocket and read a text message from Irene. “The earliest I can get off work is 6.”

Lexi sighed. She had no choice, but to hide for another two hours before Irene would be home. She’d go over to Angie’s, but she was helping her father at his nursery.

But who was she kidding sneaking off to the woods? She couldn’t avoid Tyler forever. At some point, he’d confront her. When that time came, she should talk to him and find out what he wanted with her even if he planned to kill her.

What if he only wanted to sleep with her as Everett had suggested? She didn’t want to tip him off about her transforming or lead him on, but she would be willing to risk both to learn the truth. If she took Angie with her, he wouldn’t try to do anything to her.

So it was settled. She would text Tyler that night after Angie got off work and ask him to come over to her house.

She stood along the edge of the cliff. The trail continued to wind around the mountain with overgrown bushes and trees covering part of it. The long tree branches shaded the dirt trail from what little light shined through the cloud cover sky.

It reminded her of a scene out of a horror movie she’d watched not long ago. Except the girl in the movie had gone camping in the woods with her friends and didn’t go running off alone. Talk about a B-movie maneuver. Well, she wasn’t going to wait for some deranged cannibalistic psycho to jump out at her with a machete.

She began to hike down the trail, but stopped when her premonition kicked in to high gear, causing every alarm in her head to go off and sending a chill down her spine.

If her body could speak, it would’ve screamed at her to run away, except she didn’t know which direction to run. She stood still and listened for whoever or whatever her premonition had warned her about.

The leaves on the overgrown bush next to her rustled and a branch snapped. Someone or something had to be behind the bush. She moved closer to the bush and attempted to see what or who could be behind it. Her breath got stuck in her throat when she noticed a sliver of a hand.

It had to be Tyler behind the bush. He must’ve followed her from school.

But the hand had smooth skin, whereas Tyler’s hands were rough and covered with calluses. She couldn’t hear his thoughts either. Tyler’s thoughts were an open book and at times he seemed to speak directly to her.

If the person behind the bush wasn’t Tyler, then Everett had been wrong about Tyler. Tyler had told her the truth about a guy trying to carry her away. She led him right out into the wilderness, where he could do whatever he wanted to her without any witnesses.

The bush shook and the hand disappeared from her view.

Oh, no. He was coming after her.

She ran down the trail, leaping over rocks and dodging overgrown bushes until her feet skidded to a stop a few inches from the edge of the trail. Part of the trail had been washed away from a gush of water flowing down the side of the mountain and dropped off the cliff a few yards below her.

The hole had to be about four feet wide, she guessed. Not too far for her to jump.

After taking a few steps back, she sprinted toward the large gap in the trail and jumped over it. Her feet landed firmly on the other side. Mud splashed on her hiking boots and denim jeans.

A wave of relief washed over her. Yes! She made it. She bent over to catch her breath and calm her racing heart when she heard a loud crack and her body slightly drop an inch or so.

Her eyes darted to the ground. Part of the mud had washed away, exposing a tree root under her feet with a large crack running parallel with the trail. The root hovered over the large hole with nothing to support it and threatened to give way any moment.

Slowly, she proceeded to step onto the trail while attempting to avoid causing the root to break. She placed her right foot on the mud. The root slowly lifted. Luckily the crack hadn’t gotten larger. Then she lifted her left leg and heard a loud crack—louder than the one before.

Her body dropped and slid down the side of the mountain with the muddy water toward the cliff. Trees and bushes slipped through her fingers, burning her skin as she attempted to grab for them and stop herself from sliding off the edge of the mountain.

When she couldn’t grab hold of anything, she dug her fingers into the mud. Her body jerked to a stop. Half her body hung over the cliff with her legs dangling in the air. She tried to pull herself off the edge, but the mud gave way. Her body slipped further down.

She frantically searched for anything to grab and her eyes settled on a rock a few feet away. It was about the size of a cantaloupe and might be able to hold her weight.

What the heck? It was better than nothing.

Taking several deep breaths, she lunged for the rock and grabbed hold of it. Once she secured her hold on the rock, she attempted to lift herself up. Her arm shook as her muscles strained to lift her body weight, until the rock pulled out of the mud.

“Oh, no” she screamed, sliding off the cliff and into the air.

The wind stung her skin as the trees and the meadow in the valley below grew larger by the second. She closed her eyes and tried to avoid thinking about her ultimate fate twenty-five hundred feet below. Instead she filled her mind with visions of floating in a large bubble like the witch in the movie The Wizard of Oz.

Suddenly, her body jerked and the blurry mountain to her side came in to focus as she floated in the air. The only sign she wasn’t hallucinating—a sharp pain radiated from her temple and along the side of her head.

She couldn’t believe it. How could she be floating? Planes, birds and other flying objects use propellers, wings and speed to fly, but she was suspended in the air and used nothing but her own body to make it happen or, she smiled, her mind.

Yes! She made herself float and wouldn’t end up a big red dot on the valley below. Now all she had to do was figure out how to land without killing herself.