The Zeuorian Awakening (6 page)

“I’m better off staying inside.” Lexi huffed. “Besides, Irene will kill me if she found out I left.”

“Fine.” Angie grabbed the remote and turned on a fashion show. “But we’re not watching horror movies and I’m going to help you coordinate your outfits and maybe later I’ll paint your toenails.”

Lexi glared at her. “I’m not falling for it.”

“We’ll see about that.” Angie grinned and opened her closet door. “Oh, look at what we have here. The outfit I bought for your birthday.” She picked up a camisole and a pair of designer jeans from the floor. “This would be perfect for you to wear to school tomorrow. It’ll drive all the boys insane.” She glanced at Lexi with a devious smile. “I know Tyler would like it on you and speaking of him, I saw him watching you the entire time we were in English class and during lunch today. Now that you know he isn’t a psycho out to get you, you could—“

Lexi lifted her hand, motioning Angie to be quiet. Her premonition had perked up and warned her danger had to be near. She slowly walked over to the window and glanced outside. An outline of a figure by a car next door made the hair on her arms stand on end.

“Okay. You win.” Lexi rushed over to the closet to change her close. “I think I would be safer at Sam’s.”

Angie threw her the camisole and designer jeans. “Well, hurry up and change then. And you’re not wearing your baseball cap tonight,” she said, grabbing the cap from her desk.

Lexi hated when Angie dressed her. She cared less about designer clothes. Her mother’s old pair of jeans and a T-shirt was more to her liking, but she had no time to fight over her attire.

She threw on the jeans and camisole, grumbling to herself. Then she walked out of the room as Angie followed her.

Several cars buzzed by Angie’s VW on Highway 101. Lexi had never seen so many cars on the road before. It made spotting someone following them to Sam’s almost impossible, but that hadn’t stop Lexi from trying. She kept her eyes focused on the side mirror, scrutinizing each car as it passed the VW.

Fifteen minutes later Angie pulled up to Sam’s. Several cars were crammed into the tiny parking lot. The only parking available was around the block on the main street. Angie parked in front of a bakery still open for business.

Lexi had a bad feeling her Watcher could be inside. “You know what. Take me to the hospital. I don’t think it’s going to be safe here either.”

“You’ll be fine once we’re inside.” Angie opened the passenger side door and pulled Lexi out of the car. “Come on before your Watcher decides to grab you out here.”

She guided Lexi past the main street stores, around the corner and through a crowd of teenagers standing in front of the entrance to Sam’s Games and Billiards. When they went inside, Angie motioned around the large warehouse with exposed piping running along the ceiling.

“See, I told you it would be safer at Sam’s than just the two of us at your house,” Angie said, adjusting her button-up cardigan.

“I don’t know about that. It doesn’t seem safe to me.” Lexi eyed the different places where someone could grab her and no one would notice. She ticked them off in her head and stopped counting after she reached twenty. “I think I was better off going to the hospital.”

“Oh, there’s Robert.” Angie pointed toward a lanky boy with bleached blond hair standing next to a pool table close to the air-hockey and foosball tables. “Come on.” She grabbed Lexi’s hand and pulled her through the crowd.

Lexi bumped into several students and stopped when a short, stocky boy wearing a leather coat and jeans stood in front of her. He spoke with a Brooklyn accent. “How ya’ doing, Lexi? You’re looking good tonight,” he said as his eyes settled on her thin camisole.

“Joel.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Is Everett going to be here?” She sure hoped he was coming so she wouldn’t get stuck playing with Joel and fighting off his wandering hands.

“No, it’s just Joel and me tonight,” Robert said, sliding his arm over Angie’s shoulder. “You’re on my team.” He winked at Angie. “Lexi, you’ll play with Joel.”

“I think you meant she’s on my team,” Everett said in his deep baritone voice from behind her. “She already promised to play a game with me if I could make it here tonight. Isn’t that so, Lexi?

Lexi spun around to face Everett. Her pulse quickened and a grin spread across her lips. “Yes, I did,” she said without removing her eyes from Everett. “I can’t believe you’re here. Robert thought you weren’t going to show.”

The corner of his mouth twitched as he fought the smile about to form. “So you’re happy to see me.”

“No.” She snorted, pretending his presence meant nothing to her when it did. He had been such a great guy the past two days at school, keeping all the boys from touching her. Normally she wouldn’t trust someone so quickly, but with him it was different. He could make her feel safe in a room filled with thirty cobras or rather sex craved teenage boys.

He mussed her hair. “Go grab a pool stick while I start the game.”

Lexi did as he said and picked out a pool stick with black tape wrapped around the handle. It was perfect, not too long or too thick. Then she walked over to the pool table where Everett waited for her.

“I hope you’re a good player.” Everett rubbed chalk on the tip of his pool stick. “I bet Joel twenty dollars we can kick Robert and his butt.”

“Um.” She diverted her eyes from his. “You bet twenty dollars on us. I hope it wasn’t all you had. It’s been a while since I played.”

“Awhile, hmm.” Everett glanced around the room and appeared to be debating what to do. When a small smile formed on his lips, he turned her toward the pool table. “I’m going to give you a few pointers, so we have at least a fighting chance.”

Before she could say a word, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and grabbed her hands holding the pool stick. Normally she would’ve shoved a boy away for being so bold with her, but oddly she felt at ease in his arms, like he held her hundreds of times before. Even when he positioned her hands on the pool stick and accidently caressed her fingers, she felt at home with him.

“First, you should align your pool stick with the cue ball and aim for the number 7 ball,” he said, his cool breath tickling the back of her neck. “Now hit the ball.”

She thrust the stick forward with his hand on hers. The cue ball went rolling across the table and knocked in the 7 ball in the corner pocket.

“I did it,” she said, gazing into his face, an inch from hers. He smiled and she couldn’t resist smiling back at him. They stood, staring at each other for what seemed several minutes or at least until Robert took his shot.

He shouted, “Everett stop hitting on Lexi and play your turn.”

Everett sighed and slowly released his hold on her. “Watch how I hit the ball. I’ll show you how a pro plays.” He positioned his pool stick over the corner pocket. Then he drew back and thrust the stick forward. The balls rolled around the table and fell into a couple of pockets.

“Lucky shot,” Joel said, aiming his stick at the cue ball. After the cue ball hit a group of balls and scattered them around the table, he turned to Lexi. “It’s your turn.”

Lexi bent over the table to determine the best shot, using geometry and physics to figure the right angle and speed. She aligned the pool stick next to the cue ball as Everett had showed her to do and hesitated when a sharp pain radiated across her forehead to the back of her head, stronger than any pain she had felt before.

“Hurry up,” Robert said.

“Back off.” Everett moved toward Robert. “I’m not going to let you rush my partner since you can’t handle we’re already beating you.” He winked at Lexi. “Go ahead and take your turn. Take all the time you need.”

Lexi pushed through the pain as she thrust her pool stick forward and hit the cue ball. The ball flew across the table, but with an added telekinetic push she hadn’t expected.

It slammed into the number 6 ball that sent the other balls into various pockets all except the cue ball. It lodged itself in the far wall of the room.

The muscles in her chest constricted and she struggled to breath. Did anyone else notice what she had done? She glanced around the crowd. Everyone stared at the ball and no one said a word. The only sounds in the room were the ringing of the game bells and the music from the overhead speakers.

She laughed a little too hard, but she didn’t care. “My father used to tell me about kids doing this when he was a teenager,” she said to Everett, trying to write it off as nothing strange as she walked toward the wall. “They’d pack the ball with sand.” She yanked it from the wood paneling and let her hand drop as if she held something heavy. “Just as I expected. It wouldn’t take a lot to send this ball crashing through a wall.” She laughed again even harder and casually strolled back to their table. “You guys are a bunch of suckers.”

Voices erupted and filled the bar. A wave of relief swept over her. At least no one noticed what she had done, but if she slipped up one more time, not even the mentally slowest person would miss someone had caused the accidents.

She leaned in close to Angie and whispered, “I think something is changing about me again and my telekinesis is growing stronger. I need to go now before I do something else and make everyone aware I made it happen.”

Angie lowered her voice, “I better pretend to replace the ball first, so no one suspects something is up.”

Lexi watched Angie disappear into the crowd when she noticed a boy staring at her. “What are you looking at?” she shouted at him.

His eyebrows lifted and he turned around.

“
You need to calm down and stop acting guilty,”
she heard a boy’s voice booming in her mind. It had to be her Watcher. He was the only one who knew she could hear his thoughts, but where was he?

She glanced around the room and noticed Dillon standing alone near the skeet ball machine. He winked at her. A few feet away from him, next to the snack bar were Tyler and Neal. They were both staring at her.

Robert, Joel and Everett, periodically glanced toward her while they talked and laughed about something she couldn’t hear from where she stood. The rest of the boys in the building seemed to be staring at her too, but no one stood out amongst them.

So talking to him telepathically would be the only way she could figure out who he could be. Without knowing who he was, she had to speak to everyone in the room using her telepathy.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and said telepathically to everyone in the room.
“What do you want from me?”

Several heads jerked around, searching for the source of the voice, but her Watcher didn’t reply. She would have to risk speaking to the room again.
“What—”

“
Nothing,”
her Watcher replied.
“I only want to help you hide from the others searching for you.”

Irene thought the others could be people from a government agency, but if government agents were after her, why would a teenage boy be involved. They had to be from another secret group.
“So who are the others?”

“
Don’t worry about them. You need to focus on keeping your powers under control and staying calm in front of everyone, instead of freaking out. It only takes one person to post something on the web for them to be able to track you down. They use police reports, news, blogs and forums to search for you.”

She relaxed her stance and focused on his voice before speaking directly to him telepathically.
“I wasn’t freaking out.”

“
Yeah, sure you weren’t.”

She could almost imagine his eyes rolling at her.
“So, are you helping me for your father?”

He hesitated.
“I can’t tell you anything about myself, but let’s just say I’m helping as part of a promise to someone close to you.”

Someone close to her? She let his words sink in for a minute before it hit her.
“Did you know my parents?”

“
I did and I’m sorry they died. It must’ve been hard for you to lose them when you were so close to them.”

“
Yes it was.”
She loosened her grip on the pool stick and took a deep breath.
“And it’s still hard for me to deal with them being gone since I-I can’t remember what had happened the day they died. Actually, I can’t remember anything that had happened during that summer.”

“
You don’t remember anything?”

“
I only can remember the birthday cake sitting on the coffee table. The police car lights flashing and crying in the back seat of the Chevelle.”

“
I’m sorry.

“
Don’t be. I’m fine.”
The words popped into her mind. She’d said them enough times over the past two years that it seemed almost believable, but she wasn’t fine, far from it. Still, she wasn’t going to let him know that.

“
I heard you mention a couple of times about a man who attacked you. When did that happen?”

She thought for a minute and shook her head.
“I’m not sure. I know my parents were still alive and I was around fourteen at the time. Why do you want to know about him? Do you think he’s one of the people searching for me?”

He didn’t answer. However, she wasn’t going to let him off that easily.
“I want to meet you.”

“
It’s not safe for us to meet.”

She gripped her pool stick with white knuckles. There was only one reason they wouldn’t be able to meet—the other people looking for her had to be close.
“How close are they?”

He didn’t reply.

“Earth to Lexi,” Everett waved his hand in front of her face. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re blocking me from playing my turn.” He motioned toward the pool stick in his hand.

“Sorry, but I was— Never mind. I need to talk to Angie about, um, something.” Lexi darted to the table where Angie sat and said in a low voice, “I spoke to my Watcher. He’s trying to help keep the other people from finding me and I think they’re close by.”

“Seriously?” Angie’s eyes opened wide. “We should go before you make something else happen.” Angie slid her purse on to her shoulder. “Go to my car. I’ll tell the guys you’re not feeling good.”