Blue Violet

chapter 24



Everyone silently pondered this bleak news. Regardless of the advantage, none of them had ever had to fight before…especially not for their lives. The room seemed to take a collective breath, everyone changing position. Ramsey moved restlessly to stare out the window. Ellie caught Lila’s surreptitious but concerned glance at the red-haired boy.

“You said ‘first’,” Lucy reminded her, reclaiming her attention. “Is there a second?”

Ellie nodded slowly as she pulled her legs up to sit cross-legged on the couch. Alex adjusted his position to accommodate her. “I have two other ideas, and both of them have to do with my gifts.” She looked each person in the eyes, gauging their possible reactions. “But you’d really have to trust me.”

No one said anything, so she continued. “My first idea is to use my ability to tap into to your powers. But I want to try to use it with all of you at once.”

“What do you mean all of us?” Adelaide asked, tilting her head.

“I’ve never tried this before since my power didn’t develop until… well… you all saw. I’ve only ever had Griffin to practice on.” She gave Griffin a little nudge with her knee.

“But I think that if we’re all touching at once, maybe by holding hands, I can channel all our powers. Try to coordinate us somehow. I can at least protect us using Griffin’s defensive shield. I can move us around using Charlotte’s teleporting, and so forth. Between Lucy’s ability to see intentions and Griffin’s mind reading, I should be able to stay a step ahead of the wolves.”

Alex frowned. “You said you’ve never done it before.”

“Like I said… only Griffin to practice on, and he only let me do so much.” She gave a little apologetic shrug. “We’d have to try it out.”

“What’s your other idea?” Alex was still frowning.

“This is the biggest question mark in my mind.” Ellie grimaced. “I’m fairly sure I can do the first part, and we’ll be able to confirm that soon enough, but this other idea is much harder.”

Ellie paused. She wasn’t quite sure how to go about explaining this. One had to see it to believe it.

Sensing her hesitation, feeling the tension in her body, Alex said dryly, “I’m guessing it’s not something you’re entirely comfortable with.”

Ellie took a deep breath. It’s now or never… “You know that one of my gifts is the ability to morph. I have four different forms.”

“But wouldn’t that be multiple gifts?” Adelaide asked, wrinkling her brow.

“It’s a facet of my two gifts combined. Two of my forms were inherited. Two other forms I… ummmm absorbed is the best description, I guess. I showed you how I got my wolf form on the night my family…” She trailed off.

“What shapes?” Nate prodded, clearly fascinated.

“You’ve seen the falcon, which is my strongest and inherited through my grandmother. The jaguar I pulled from someone in my tribe, although I didn’t know it at the time. I hadn’t yet realized I’d come into that power. You saw that I have the wolf, but I never use it. The pack mind is too powerful…it’s too dangerous.” She paused.

“That’s only three,” Alex said, and felt her body tense.

“My fourth form I’ve only ever tried once, when I was very young. The attempt was a…” Ellie searched for the right word.

“A disaster,” Griffin supplied quietly.

“Is this what your plan is about?” Hugh asked.

With a nod, Ellie continued. “From my great-grandfather, I inherited the ability to change into a…well, a… dragon.”

Total silence greeted this declaration. And then Alex let out a loud exhale.

“Did I say whoa earlier?” Nate asked, his eyes the size of saucers. “That really doesn’t quite cover it….I mean Holy mother of all that’s crazy WHOA!”

“That is so cool!” Lila added, practically clapping her hands in excitement.

Ellie shot her a stilted smile. “Thanks.”

“So why was it so disastrous?” Charlotte asked.

“The problem is that when you morph into a form, part of that form’s inherent traits takes over. You can lose your humanity. It’s the same danger as being a wolf. I’ve learned to control it in the jaguar. But the dragon…” Ellie shuddered. “The one time I tried it, it completely took over. My great-grandfather, who could eventually control himself as a dragon, pretty much had to take me out.”

She looked at Griffin to finish the story.

“It took all of our clan to force her out of the morph,” Griffin added, a grim set to his mouth. “It’s possible for the dragon to take over so completely that she can’t get back. But it’s also dangerous for everyone around her. According to our great-grandfather, everything you’ve read about dragons, though just folklore and mythology, is based on people with the ability to morph into one. And they all decimated villages and killed many people before they were killed themselves. As far as we know, only our great-grandfather ever had the ability to control the dragon.”

Alex’s grip on her hand tightened to an almost painful point. “No,” he said under his breath.

Ellie turned to look at him and said quietly, “But it’s the only thing the Vyusher won’t ever be able to defeat.”

“They defeated your great-grandfather, right?” he demanded harshly.

“Not as a dragon,” Griffin leaned around her to answer. “They killed him before he ever morphed.”

Brother and sister glanced at each other, keeping silent about the fact that it had seemed like their grandfather couldn’t morph that night. Having discussed it many times through the years, neither Ellie nor Griffin were sure of what they were seeing at the time.

Alex was getting angry. Very angry. She could feel it in his grip, sense it in the tense set of his shoulders. It surprised Ellie that her idea was what finally triggered his anger. He had so many other things to get upset with her over. This plan, at least, had noble intentions driving it.

“We can’t allow you to try it, Ellie,” Hugh said.

“It’s… safer… for me to try it now than back then. I’m older, more experienced. I’ve been able to learn to control other aggressive morphic forms. And there’s Griffin…” She felt the attention in the room turn to her brother.

He shifted in his seat. “I can contain her now, with a defensive shield. My other gift. I wasn’t strong enough last time. The power is inherited, but I’m the only one in our clan to have it in the form of a physical force field. So this… backup plan, I guess you could call it… wasn’t available when she tried last time.”

Ellie rushed on, “We’re hoping that if I do get out of control… although I think I can control it… But if I can’t control it, then Griffin can contain me in his shield. He’ll be able to use our connection and our combined gifts to bring me back.”

Hugh was up from his chair and already shaking his head before she’d even finished. “No, I think it best not to attempt it. It sounds too risky. Your trying the dragon could be as much of a danger to us as to the Vyusher. Possibly more so. Just not worth it. But the other idea you had seem viable.”

Ellie slumped back in defeat. Something in her knew the dragon had to be the key to winning this fight. But Hugh made sense, and she recognized that. She nodded, and felt the tension release from Alex, who ran his hands over his face and muttered, “Finally she listens to reason.”

She shot him a glare.

She also saw Griffin give a little sigh of relief. He hadn’t been happy about this idea in the first place. What they hadn’t told the others was that if she couldn’t control it and he couldn’t bring her back… then he would have to kill her. And that would probably kill him too.

Now that everything was explained, Ellie felt exhaustion wash over her in waves. Alex must have felt her fading, because he said to no one in particular, “Ellie really needs to get some rest.”

Closing her eyes, Ellie flashed a thought at Griffin.

In response he said aloud, “The Vyusher are less likely to attack if we’re closer to town. At least that’s what we think. They seem to attack only when they can hide their actions from the world. And that was before the advent of social media. The house Ellie and I have can accommodate all of us… barely. But it’s located in a more populated area, so it’s safer for the time being.”

“Is it safe for us to travel tonight?” Hugh asked.

“Probably not,” Griffin replied. “But Ellie says she can move us all at once if Charlotte will allow her to use her teleportation.”

Alex glared at Griffin. “She’s falling asleep in my arms. She doesn’t even have the energy to speak her thoughts out loud as it is. Is that really such a good idea?”

Griffin allowed a rare grin to break across his face. “I’ve been dealing with her stubborn streak for years now. Good luck convincing her otherwise.”

“Hugh,” Alex appealed to his adopted father. “She seems to listen to you.”

Hugh walked over to Ellie and laid his hands on her, assessing her physical state. “She can handle it,” he finally said. “But when we get there, young lady, you will rest for several days.”

Griffin chuckled. “She agrees,” he translated. “But she says that means she’ll miss school and I’ll have to write her a note.” Seeing confusion around him, he explained, “Any time she’s in high school I take on the role of her older brother and guardian. I look too old for high school these days, but she’s so tiny she can pull it off still.”

“Let’s get going,” Ellie said. She felt anxious to get home and allow herself to fall into the blessed oblivion of sleep for a long while.

With a nod from Hugh, Alex picked Ellie up and stood in the middle of the room. Once she could feel each of them touching her, she searched for Charlotte’s power. As she had with Griffin earlier, she reached out mentally and touched the source of light inside Charlotte and pulled it into herself. Then she concentrated on each of the people touching her, extending the glow to surround each of them. And then she concentrated on the image of her living room.

“Don’t let go!” she thought, and heard Griffin repeat her instructions.

Instantly, they were all standing in her living room.

“Usually there’s a popping sound when I do it,” Charlotte complained.

“She can show you how to control that if you’re interested,” Griffin voiced Ellie’s thoughts. Then he turned to Charlotte with a commiserating smile. “Don’t take it personally. She’s constantly telling me how to control my own powers or do something new with them. You get used to it…” He grinned at his sister. “And eventually you learn to just ignore her completely.”

Ellie stuck her tongue out at her brother. Still held in Alex’s arms, she laid her head on his shoulder, completely wiped out.

“Time for this one to go to sleep I think,” Alex murmured.

Griffin led the way up to her bedroom. Once there, Alex very gently laid her on the bed. Griffin got out some clean PJs. Ellie’s clothes were ripped to shreds anyway.

Shooing the boys out of the room, Lucy helped her get dressed. It had been so long since Ellie had had a mother to take care of her that tears inadvertently filled her eyes.

“Thanks,” she said, her voice cracking a little.

Lucy tucked her in and smoothed back her hair from her forehead. “Thank you for saving my family tonight,” she whispered like a loving mother. “You rest now. You’ve earned it.”

Turning off the light, she left the room and closed the door with a quiet click. Ellie fell asleep before the door was even fully closed.