Blue Violet

chapter 2

“Hi.” The soft voice caused Ellie to jump a bit in her seat.

Glancing up, she almost jumped again—this time in shock. She immediately recognized the girl standing next to her as Adelaide Jenner, one of the three students she’d just been thinking about…The reason why she’d decided to risk her life to come here.

“Um, hi.” Ellie took in the girl’s appearance. Adelaide had pretty green eyes and honey blonde hair worn in a short, chin-length cap. Despite the fact that she’d approached Ellie, she seemed shy and soft spoken. She dressed casually like the other students, but on the girl’s superb figure, she looked more like a high fashion model than a high school kid.

“You’re new here, right?” the girl asked softly. At Ellie’s nod she continued, “I’m Adelaide Jenner.”

“Ellie Aubrey,” she responded

Adelaide gave Ellie a strangely intent look.

Uh-oh, Ellie thought, her heart pounding a little harder. She knows.

At that exact moment, another voice echoed in her mind. “Do you need me to say I told you so?”

“Griffin?” she thought back.

“Now who else would be in your head, Sis’?” the voice teased.

“But I thought you weren’t going to get involved?”

“I’m not,” came the emphatic response. “I’ll see you when you get home.”

“Ookkaayyy.”

“Oh, and Elle?”

“Yeah?”

“She doesn’t know anything. Not yet at least. And don’t even think about using my mind reading on them.”

Holding on to her brother’s last comment, Ellie hid her thoughts and raised her eyebrows. “Do I have something in my teeth?” she asked, covering her mouth and feigning embarrassment. She knew she didn’t have anything in her teeth.

She breathed a sigh of relief when Adelaide seemed to shake herself out of her reverie. “No, you’re fine…. Um, would you like somebody to sit with? The first day at a new school can be pretty brutal.”

Ellie had no idea what to think, but decided that if Adelaide wanted to be friendly that was better than the alternatives.

“That would be nice, thanks.” She scooted her lunch things closer to make more room.

“Great! Umm…” Adelaide hesitated, her hand resting on the back of a chair, “Do you mind if my sister and my boyfriend join us?”

Ellie blinked. There were three people she was here for, and on her first day she was already going to have lunch with them. Tricky situation. She’d only planned on observing from afar.

“No problem!” she responded brightly, hoping her thoughts remained well-hidden. She didn’t know yet what they were capable of.

Adelaide turned and waved the other two over. The girl who walked up to the table looked exactly like Adelaide except that her hair hung to the middle of her back, and she seemed more confident and more serious. The boy was unusually tall and lanky with sandy brown hair. His dark eyes flashed an engaging twinkle.

“This is my sister, Lila. That’s short for Lilianna. We’re--”

“Sisters?” Ellie guessed. “Yeah, I kinda figured that one out.” She grinned at Lila. She kept her hands deliberately under the table, rather than offering to shake. “I’m Ellie.”

“Nate,” the tall boy said, as he pulled out a chair across from her.

“So where’re you from?” Lila asked. She sat down and pulled out a sandwich and an apple from her lunch bag.

“Texas,” Ellie said, watching for a reaction. She found it interesting what preconceptions people had about places.

“Oh? Which part?” Adelaide appeared interested.

“Austin, so right in the middle of the state,” Ellie said.

“Austin’s known for the music scene, right?” Nate asked around his bit of pizza.

“Yeah, there’s lots of live music there. I’ll miss that. But it’s beautiful here,” she commented, gesturing to the scenery outside.

“And cold,” Lila said wryly.

“Why’d you move here?” Nate asked.

Ellie cleared her throat. “Um… family stuff.” She gave a casual shrug. She’d gotten good at being vague over the years. Family stuff covered a whole host of possibilities without being too specific.

“What year are you?” Lila asked as she finished her sandwich and picked up her apple.

“I’m a senior. What about you guys?” Ellie leaned back in her chair. Her nerves made eating lunch impossible at this point.

“Lila’s a junior. Delia and I are seniors,” Nate answered.

“Oh! Maybe we have some classes together. What do you have in the afternoon?”

“Cool, we have French together,” Adelaide said when they compared schedules. “Lila too.”

“You’re in third-level French?” Ellie remarked with surprise, until she reminded herself that these three were like her. Special. That would take some getting used to. She didn’t meet many people like her any more. If anything, she avoided them.

“We tested out of first-level French last year,” Lila explained. “We took a trip to France in junior high, so our parents made us learn it first…talk about sucking the fun out of a vacation!” She sighed and Adelaide scrunched her nose. Ellie had to laugh at their identical, disgruntled expressions.

Ellie happily observed that they seemed to be such nice people. And she would love to be friends with them, but that fell in the category of not a good idea. Apart from its complicating her situation, it also could put their lives in danger… the last thing Ellie wanted. As they talked and laughed, Ellie thought about the situation and realized that, given her reasons for being here, there was no way they could ever be friends. She’d have to keep a polite distance. Of course, it would be much easier if Griffin would help.

Ellie stifled a large sigh.

After lunch Adelaide, Lila, and Nate walked to Ellie’s calculus class with her.

“See ya, baby.” Nate gave Adelaide a quick peck on her cheek before he and Ellie headed into the room.

Fortunately the calculus teacher, Mr. Kramer, seated her across the room from Nate. The less interaction the better.

As soon as the bell rang, Ellie made her way to the front office, dropped off her signed class slip, and headed for the parking lot. At least the first day of school was over. Tomorrow she’d be less of a novelty.

Ellie was walking out of the main building when she was ambushed by her new friends.

“Hey, Ellie!” Adelaide called out.

“Hi!” She waved and tried to keep walking, but the others caught up with her easily.

“How was your first day?” Adelaide asked, skipping up beside her.

“Typical first day in a new school,” Ellie grinned.

“So Nate, Lila, and I study together a lot. You probably already guessed that. Since you share some classes with us, I thought you might like to join us some time,” Adelaide continued.

Ellie didn’t want to encourage a friendship, as tempting as that seemed. At the same time, she didn’t want to drive Adelaide away.

“Sure! That sounds great.” She’d just have to make sure her schedule was booked any of the times they asked. They’d stop asking eventually.

“Okay. So how does Wednesday night sound to you?”

Nuts. She hadn’t realized that Adelaide would immediately make plans. And being new to town, her original excuse of busy would stand out as an obvious excuse.

“I think that will be alright, but let me check. Okay?”

“Sure,” Adelaide agreed.

Suddenly, Lila let out a squeal of delight. “Alex!” She shot across the front courtyard.

Beside Ellie, Adelaide limited herself to a milder reaction, just smiling widely. Ellie couldn’t quite see the person Lila had greeted with such enthusiasm until she launched herself into his arms, and Ellie had a direct view of him.

Suddenly Ellie’s world tilted at a slightly crazy angle. One moment she was walking along, trying to think of an excuse to miss out on studying. The next moment she could hardly breathe. Feeling slightly dizzy, Ellie wondered fleetingly if what she was feeling was some kind of effect from the boy’s powers.

The boy’s good looks could be considered almost in-your-face handsome… tall, broad shouldered, and with similar coloring to her own - black hair cropped short, slightly longer on the top, and blue eyes. Even from where she stood, she could see that his eyes were a paler blue than hers, almost silver. Drop dead hot was an understatement. Ellie had seen her fair share of handsome guys over her lifetime, but none had ever piqued her interest. And despite a rather optimistic personality, she did not believe in love at first sight. But something about this guy was getting to her after just one glance.

Adelaide muttered, “What’s Alex doing home?”

Ellie realized that she’d managed to keep casually walking despite the havoc occurring inside her. Alex hadn’t noticed her yet, first talking to Lila and then Nate as he joined them. She willed him to glance up and feared it at the same time.

And then he did. He looked up directly into her eyes… into her soul. It could only have been a few moments. Just seconds. Heartbeats. Adelaide gasped beside her, and the sound was sharp enough that it caused Ellie to break eye contact. She turned to a startled Adelaide, and without even thinking, put her hand on her arm. They both jumped when an electric jolt passed between them.

Ellie jerked her hand back. “You shocked me,” she accused Adelaide jokingly. Deliberately. Adelaide gave a somewhat distracted, half-hearted shrug and started walking again.

Ellie didn’t know how she did it, but she somehow pulled her thoughts away from what she’d just seen when she’d touched Adelaide and followed her. She kept her eyes lowered when they first approached the little reunion going on in the parking lot. She made sure to stop and stand just far enough back so when they were introduced Alex wouldn’t try to shake her hand.

“Ellie, this is Alex,” Lila said, waving a hand in her general direction. “He’s our older brother.

Ellie took a deep, silent breath, and pasted a blandly pleasant expression on her face. This usually had the effect of putting people at ease and causing them to not study her any further.

She looked Alex directly in the eyes and offered him a slightly lopsided smile. “Hi.” Her voice sounded a little too breathy to her sensitive ears.

In return, he gave her a long, lazy grin that caused her heart rate to increase even more. It hadn’t yet settled down from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him. All Ellie could do was stare back and try desperately to get her erratic breathing under control.

“This is Ellie…” Adelaide broke the spell. “She just moved here this week.”

Glancing at the other three, Ellie gratefully realized that nothing had seemed odd to them.

“I see. I hope you like it here, Ellie,” he replied in a deep, velvety voice.

Get a grip, girl, she scolded herself silently. She’d read tons of books with female heroines who swooned at the sight of their true love and had thought them to be incredibly wimpy. And now here she stood, barely able to keep herself upright. Not that she was in love… far from it. But a girl could appreciate a bona fide hottie when she saw one, right?

“So far so good,” Ellie said with a nonchalant shrug.

It suddenly dawned on her that she needed to be keeping her distance from everyone in this family. She turned to Adelaide. “I guess I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” she said. Throwing another glance Alex’s way, she added, “Nice to meet you, Alex.” And with a brief wave to all of them, she turned and headed to her own car, her mind reeling.