The Zeuorian Awakening Page 17

Everett shook his head. “It’s against the law. We’re forbidden to tell humans about our kind. We rather let our race die out than risk the wrong people discovering us. Could you imagine what the government would do if they knew about our powers.” He whistled. “They’d bomb us until we were ash.”

  “No wonder why you jumped at the chance to be with me.”

  “That’s not the reason I wanted to be with you.” He brushed his finger along the side of her face, caressing her soft skin. “You were the only girl who didn’t see me as the head elder’s son and you were hot.”

  “What, you’re not into gold digging girls like on one of those stupid reality shows?” she teased.

  “I didn’t have to worry about that. Girls weren’t interested in dating me because of my father.” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a gust. “Honestly, none of the kids I went to school with wanted anything to do with me. They thought I’d narc them out to my father. Although, I’m starting to believe your theory we were destined to be together.”

  “I said that, hmm.” She glanced up at the sky, changing colors from a light grayish-blue to navy and pointed toward the planet Venus peeking through the clouds. “Did I happen to point over there at the same time?”

  “Yes,” he replied, eyes opening wide.

  She pressed her back on the grass as she continued to stare at sky. “Whenever I got lonely growing up, I asked my mother how would I ever find love like theirs if I’m not allowed to talk to anyone? She’d point to the planet Venus and told me, my love is written in the stars and not to worry. Love will find me.” Her eyes shifted from the sky to Everett. “I used to think that was such bull, but I guess after meeting you I changed my mind.”

  “You can say that again.” He hinted there was even more to his story than what he’d mentioned that explained her reason for believing in her mother’s fairy tale. “Your father noticed me watching you in the store and made you leave before I had a chance to get your name or number. I only knew you were going to the lake for the afternoon. I rushed after you, searching everywhere. I must’ve circled the lake three times before I gave up looking for you and went to sit on a small wooden dock. You were there, feet dangling in the water as you waited for me.”

  “Really?” She gave him a questionable look. “You’re not joking with me are you?”

  “Not this time.” He smiled. “You knew we were meant to meet and snuck away from your parents to find me. When you came across the wooden dock, you had a feeling that’s where I’d go and sat down.”

  “What happened next?” she asked, rolling over and resting her chin on her hands.

  “We spent every day together, either at your parent’s cabin or on a small island far away from town.”

  Her eyes brows lifted and she shot him an uncertain look. “We used hang out in the middle of nowhere?” She swallowed hard as thoughts of everything two teenagers in love would do alone on an island. “So what did we do when were together?”

  “Do you want the PG-13 version or the triple X version?” When her mouth dropped open, he mussed her hair and said, “I’m joking with you. We used to go swimming and make out. Nothing more. You wanted to wait to have sex until you turned 18, but as the summer went by that date changed to 17, then to 16 and finally ended at 15.”

  Her parents died on her fifteenth birthday. “So, did I move up the date a few days since I had to leave?”

  “Nope.” He sighed. “You’re parents told you an hour before they planned to leave town. You didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye, let alone do anything else. I only learned about it when you were able to sneak a text to me on your way home.”

  She chewed on her lower lip and diverted her eyes from his. “Were you disappointed we never—”

  “Not in the least bit.” He lifted her chin and gazed into her eyes. “I’m just happy you’re alive and I’m able to be with you, but,” he gave her a wry smile, “that doesn’t mean I don’t want to sleep with you. ‘Cause I do.”

  Everett pulled Lexi down on top of him showing her how much he wanted to be with her. He kissed her passionately while his hand slid along her hip to her waist. She could tell he was trying to restrain himself from pushing her too much, but the more they kissed, the bolder he became.

  She didn’t mind. She enjoyed the feeling he had touched her like that many times before. Everything he did seemed familiar. It was odd how her body knew him, but her mind didn’t. She cleared her thoughts and enjoyed the moment as if she never forgotten him, matching his desires: touching, feeling and kissing him like they’ve been together for years until a lightning bolt struck a tree close to them.

  “Watch out,” Everett said, rolling and pulling her with him a few seconds before the tree limb slammed on the ground, spraying them with wood splinters and wood chunks. “Are you alright?” Everett brushed slithers of wood off her hoodie. “The branch almost got us.”

  “Yeah that was a close call,” she said, sitting up and picking wood out of Everett’s hair.

  “Next time we should make out in a cave.” He removed a wood splinter stuck in her neck and wiped the blood with his finger. “Then the weather can’t hurt either of us. And maybe we can . . . What’s wrong?”

  She lifted her hand and shielded her eyes. “There’s a light shining on my face.” She scanned the meadow to see where it was coming from. Her mouth went dry when something moved behind one of the bushes. “I think someone’s here.”

  Everett sat up. “Where? I don’t see anyone.”

  “Over there.” She pointed toward the trees. Her stomach twisted into a knot when she finally could hear the stranger’s thoughts. “Is that who I think it is? I thought you said your father got a vision of him in California.”

  “He did, but he must’ve changed his mind at the last minute so my father couldn’t see what he was doing.” Everett jumped to his feet same as her. “You should block your mind. He has the power of telepathy like us.”

  She blocked her thoughts, but that didn’t stop her from checking if he knew she was the one. “I can’t get a good reading of his thoughts there all over the place. Does he know I made the weather change?”

  “I don’t think so. He’s using an old tactic to block his thoughts while only reveal what he wants to scare his prey. What I can gather, he knows the full-breed is in the woods causing the weather to change, but doesn’t know who you are. We better run before he sees you and figures out you’re the one.”

  They raced across the meadow. They could hear the half-breed getting closer. They needed to move faster. Lexi spotted the edge of the mountain where it dropped into the valley. She turned to Everett, “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes, explicitly,” he said.

  She took his hand and they jumped off the cliff—a thirty foot drop into the woods. Once their feet touched the ground, they continued to run toward the road.

  Several minutes later they reached Everett’s car parked next to a tree and behind several bushes. It was in a location where the half-breed wouldn’t have been able to spot his car.

  So how had the half-breed been able to find them? “Do you think he followed us and that’s why he was in the woods,” she asked, sitting in the passenger seat.

  Everett opened the driver side door and sat down. “I didn’t get any inclination he knew I was in the woods.” He turned the key in the ignition and sped down the narrow road toward the ocean. “He must’ve seen the weather and pinpointed where you were using the center of the storm as a guide.”

  A cell phone buzzed, making Lexi jump in her seat. “It’s okay.” Everett squeezed her hand. “It’s my father.”

  He pressed the cell phone to his ear and listened. “I know. Stephan’s already here and tracked Lexi to the woods.”

  Her hunter had a name, beside half-breed—Stephan. He sounded like a character straight out of a horror movie like some evil blood sucking vampire. She wondered if he carried a knife with him and kept it concealed under his jacket so he could remove it
at a moment’s notice.

  Everett kissed her hand and tried to ease her mind before continuing to speak to his father. “No he didn’t see her. Luckily we managed to run away before he could, but he saw the weather changing and knows the full-breed made it happen. . . . I don’t think there’s anything else I can do to make him leave town. He has the power of mind control and I can’t push a thought into his mind and make him forget. He also doesn’t give up that easily. It took a lot for me to trick him into leaving the first time. . . . Yeah, I understand. I’ll see you in a day.” He turned off his phone and placed it on his lap.

  Her heart sank into her stomach at the thought of a Stephan being in town hunting her while Everett left.

  “I’m not leaving you,” Everett said with determination. “My father wants me to come home and pretend to report back from a mission before I go to MIT.”

  “I don’t understand. If you’re going to MIT—”

  “We’re going to MIT.” He traced his finger along the top of her hand with a wisp of a smile on his face. “You’ll go before I do. I already planned on taking you there with me. I arranged for you to share an apartment with a couple of girls down the hall from mine so no one would question when we start to date.”

  “Will it be safe for me to drop out of school and leave town now? Wouldn’t Stephan figure out I’m the one?”

  “Not if I can help it.” He shot her a devious grin. “He doesn’t know who you are and I’ll make sure the school records show you graduated last year and no one will remember you attending school this year.”

  Hmm, that could work. “But would Irene be safe? I’m not leaving if there’s a chance Stephan will try to torture her to find me.”

  “Like I said.” He took a quick turn and got onto the highway. “He doesn’t know who you are, so he won’t be able to connect your aunt to you.”

  That settled it. “I’m going to MIT!”

  “Well, you won’t be going anywhere if we don’t get you home and out of town before Stephan heads to my house looking for you there.”

  “Then why are you driving so slowly?”

  She used her telekinesis to push the gas pedal to the floorboard. The car sped up to a hundred miles per hour as Everett struggled to control the wheel.

  25 SURPRISE VISIT

  Lexi stepped out of Everett’s car into the darkness of his garage and closed the passenger door. It took them awhile to arrive home. The sun already set and the sky had darkened. She hoped to have come home at least an hour earlier, but an over turned truck and road closures slowed them down.

  “I didn’t see Stephan anywhere when we pulled into the neighborhood,” Everett said, closing his garage door. “You should be safe to cross the street without using my neighbor’s backyard.”

  “So how much should I pack?” Lexi asked, walking along the driveway toward the road with Everett on her side.

  “Enough to last four years.” Everett stopped next to the two steps leading up to his side kitchen door. “When you’re done packing, meet me at your aunt’s hospital.”

  She nodded and ran across the street to her dimly lit driveway. All the while she checked the road for any sign of Stephan, not that she knew what he looked like. Even though she figured it would take him the same amount of time to reach their house, she couldn’t rule out he found a shortcut and beat them home.

  Once she reached the back of her car parked in the driveway, she stepped onto the paved path next to her house. She rushed toward her side kitchen door until she saw movement in the corner of her eye. Her heart skipped a beat as someone said from behind her, “Hello, my love.”

  She knew exactly who it was from the thoughts crossing his mind at the moment. She swallowed the lump in her throat and said, “Tyler, what are you doing here?”

  He stepped out from the shadows of her driveway with his typical charming smile and warm eyes sparkling in the dim light. “I came over to clear up the lies Everett told you about me. I know you spent the afternoon with him and I want to make sure before you decide to date him instead of me, you have all the facts.”

  “I think I have all the facts straight,” she said, backing away from him.

  He cupped her face in his hands. “I’m not stalking you. You have to believe me.”

  “Yeah right.” She slipped out of his grasp. “Only stalkers sneak up on their prey in the dark while they’re least suspecting it, watch them for long periods of time and follow them everywhere they go, like you.”

  “You got it all wrong.” He huffed. “I haven’t been following you around. Okay, so I do on occasion like watching you while you sunbath on the rock wearing your tiny bikini that shows off your scorching hot body,” he wagged his eyebrows, “and during school. I’m into you. That doesn’t make me a stalker.”

  “But you can’t deny following me while I ran on the beach or waiting outside my house this weekend.”

  Tyler let out an exasperated sigh. “Don’t believe everything Everett says. He’s the one stalking you and trying to keep you for himself. He made up I followed you on the beach.”

  “What about waiting outside my house?” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “I only waited outside hoping you would respond to my text and join me in my car so we could kiss and,” he slid his hand along her waist and drew her closer to him, “finish what we had started at my house.”

  “I don’t know.” She wiggled out of his hold. “I still have a hard time believing you.”

  “Seriously, you’re going to take his word over mine.” Tyler shook his head. “You’ve known me since you were fourteen when we hung out together in Colorado compared to only knowing him for less than two weeks.”

  They hung out together in Colorado?

  Tyler had said they hung out together while his father had worked with her parents that summer. Could it have been in Colorado? If they had hung out together, then that meant Tyler had been the boy she had dated.

  A wave of nausea washed over her. If Tyler was the boy then who was Everett and why would he lie about being her boyfriend? Did he lie to her so he could persuade her to leave town and drive right into a trap? That would explain how Stephan found them in the woods.

  On one hand, Everett knew things only the boy from Colorado would know, but on the other hand, he had the time and the power of telepathy to learn everything he needed to create a perfect lie.

  She thought about everything she knew to be true about the boy from Colorado. She focused on the memory of him, scrutinizing every detail of it. She stopped at his eyes when he leaned in to kiss her. They were gray just like Everett’s.

  It was his eyes that had made her like him instantly and remind her of an old friend. Actually, now that she thought about it, he reminded her of the boy.

  Aw man, Tyler was good. He had her questioning what she knew to be true and trying to sell her the ultimate fairy-tale lie to get her into bed, but how did he know about the boy from Colorado?

  He must’ve overheard her discussing the boy with Irene.

  So both Tyler and Everett had been in her house the other night, which would explain how Everett snuck back inside and placed the picture on her bed in the short time it took her to run outside.

  He’d actually snuck back in right after she chased him out the front door. The person running around the corner had to be Tyler. He must’ve climbed out the bathroom window, which also explained why her premonition of danger went away when she reached the hall. It also meant . . .

  “Oh, God, you are my Stalker,” she said to Tyler.

  She took off running toward her front lawn. Tyler chased after her. Before she reached the sidewalk, he grabbed her arm and turned her toward him.

  “I told you I’m not stalking you,” he said. “Just give me a chance to explain.”

  She struggled in his grip as the wind picked up and stung her exposed skin. The familiar pain washed over her. The same pain she felt right before she was about to lose control.

&nb
sp; “Everett, Tyler’s here,” she said to him telepathically. Then she shouted at Tyler, “Let go of me.”

  Tyler tightened his grip on her arm. She kicked him in the shin. He stumbled backward losing his hold on her. She ran toward Everett’s house, but Tyler grabbed her hand and jerked her back toward him.

  “Please, let me go.” She begged him as lightning struck a transformer and the neighborhood went dark. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I’m not letting you go until you listen to what I have to—” His head dropped and he gaped at his arm. Every hair was standing on end.

  Lexi looked up into the sky and saw a bolt of lightning headed toward them. It twisted in the air like a ribbon blowing in the breeze.

  “Watch out,” she screamed and used her telekinesis to throw Tyler across the lawn.

  A crack of thunder pierced her eardrums as the lightning bolt moved closer and closer to her. She lifted her hand and focused on redirecting the lightning. It hit the lawn several feet away from Tyler and her, sending chunks of grass and dirt into the air.

  Tyler stared at her, his mouth hanging wide open.

  He saw her redirecting the lightning. Her stomach twisted into a knot. That was bad, extremely bad. What he would do next determined the direction of her life—or end of her life. She held her breath and waited for his reaction.

  Tyler looked up at the clouds swirling in a circle and threatening to spit out a tornado. He laughed, not a nervous laugh but a full-on triumphant laugh. “It’s you, you’re the one—”

  Everett yanked Tyler away from Lexi before he could finish speaking. “She told you to go home,” he shouted. “Do I have to make you?”

  “I’d like to see you try.” Tyler swung at Everett, but Everett dodged his fist and swung back at him, sending Tyler to the ground with a heavy thud.

  Tyler pushed himself to his feet and wiped the dirt off his jeans. “You got lucky that time, but you won’t be the next time.”

  He swung at Everett, but Everett dodged his fist and kicked Tyler on the chin, using a martial-arts maneuver. Tyler flew back onto the ground. Dirt and dried leaves flew into the air.