Blue Violet

chapter 4



Ellie thought about her day as she browned some ground beef for the spaghetti sauce. She had a lot to think about. Like her immediate acquaintance with the three people she’d come here to watch. That alone is an issue, she thought. If she wasn’t careful, she could place them in extreme danger.

And then there was Alex…Ellie bit her lower lip as she remembered the way his eyes locked with hers, sending shockwaves of awareness through her in a way that electrified…and terrified…and amazed her. A delicious combination of feeling she’d never experienced before.

And then there was Griffin. She was thrilled that her brother had finally showed up. She had known he’d come to his senses eventually...he’d never abandon her. They’d been each other’s only companions, hiding from the world together for so long, she didn’t know how to function without him. Especially now that I need to tap into his power.

Her own powers were quite handy in their own right, but could only get her so far when she couldn’t use them overtly. Griffin’s ability to read minds was a little more subtle. Oh boy, it would’ve been especially useful to have had access to his power this afternoon with Adelaide, Lila, and Nate.

As children, Ellie and Griffin had always assumed abilities like theirs were perfectly normal. Everyone in their tribe had them. As they got a little older, they’d begun to understand how unusual that was, and that most individuals—let alone an entire clan—didn’t have any special abilities. It took even more time for them to realize that their people were unique. Their people called themselves the Darane Svatura, and they existed as the largest assemblage of people with extraordinary abilities in existence. Or at least that’s what they’d all thought.

From what Ellie and Griffin could tell, people with these gifts were extremely rare and tended to roam alone, or sometimes in pairs as the brother and sister did now… ever since their entire people had been slaughtered. Their murderers continued to roam free, still a threat, and the reason they had been hiding for so long.

Ellie still missed her family, especially her mother. It hurt to breathe whenever she thought about her. Her mother had been a lovely, gentle, kind soul who’d made her husband and her children the center of her world. Ellie suspected it was the same for Griffin with their father.

They were on their own now. Ellie was used to it being just her and Griffin.

A small frown marred her smooth brow as she remembered the nickname Ellie’s mom had given her as a young girl – Artemis. In mythology, Artemis was the huntress. Ellie felt she was anything but a hunter. She’d never tried to find her kind before, let alone track them. She had no idea how to go about it.

“Ugh. High school again.” Griffin’s voice cut into her thoughts. “Are you absolutely sure about what you’re doing? It’s not too late to quit.”

The Svatura people, along with their powers, also inherited a gene that extended their lifetime. They were not immortal. Eventually they did die. But they lived much longer than regular humans. So while Ellie could currently pass as a student, she had actually been born in the late 1800’s and had been through high school several times. Her great-grandfathers had long had a rule that their tribe attempt to blend into society as much as possible. Once Ellie and Griffin had found themselves on their own, the rule still made sense for them.

By pretending to be in school, Ellie and Griffin could then stay in one place for longer, and interact in society more easily… without attracting undue attention. Possibly more given how young they looked. It also had an added benefit of protection. By appearing to be normal humans, they hoped that it would disguise them from others like them, and from their pursuers.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the worry written on her cautious sibling’s face. “You know I can’t do that, Griff. My dream--”

“Doesn’t mean anything. It was just a dream.”

Ellie tapped the spatula on the side of the pan and laid it on the counter. Turning to face her twin, she crossed her arms over her chest. “It was not just a dream, and you know it. I know that premonition is not one of our gifts. But that vision, or whatever you want to call it, somehow led me to the Jenners.”

“But why did you suddenly dream about them?” Griffin countered with his typical argument. “For all you know you are walking straight into a trap. Those people could be hunting us.”

“They’re Svatura, like us,” Ellie insisted. “How can you walk away from that? We’ve been alone for so long. Don’t you think it’s worth the risk just to know they exist?”

“The risk to us might be worth it… maybe. But you’re putting them at risk too.” He stood up, placing both hands flat on the countertop to emphasize the seriousness of his point.

Ellie looked down and then slowly turned back to finish cooking the sauce. “I know,” she acknowledged softly. “But I can’t help thinking that dream led me to them so that we could protect them…save them.”

“And if we did have to protect them? What if you morph into that monster inside you? What then? I’d have to protect your new family from you.”

“That won’t happen,” Ellie insisted. “I can keep from shifting into that form, you know that. Besides, I’d never hurt them.”

Ellie poured the sauce into a large bowl, picked up the cooked noodles, and headed to the dining room. Griffin remained silent while they served themselves.

“So now you’ve found them. Now we know they do exist. Time to go home,” he started back in on her.

“And where exactly is home?” She took a big bite of spaghetti.

“That’s not fair,” he muttered.

“It’s the truth, though. You know as well as I do that after our entire clan was decimated, we stayed in hiding for too long.”

“Because of the Vyusher!” Griffin slammed his fork down and yelled. “They will hunt us down and kill us if we’re not careful, and you know that! And deliberately seeking out our kind is not being careful. These people you dreamed about might be Vyusher for all we know.”

Ellie stopped eating, folded her hands in her lap, and silently regarded her twin for a moment. “Griffin, we were raised to be in a community. We were part of the Darane Svatura.” Pride practically pulsed off her in waves… evident in her posture, the tilt of her chin. “We were a part of the largest gathering of our people in existence, an extraordinary assembly of abilities in one single tribe. Hundreds strong—”

“And every single one is dead… except for us.” Bitterness laced Griffin’s words.

“—and much as I love you, I need a family again. I need to be able to share who and what I am with others like me. No matter the risk.”

Griffin remained silent for so long Ellie started to worry. In all of their arguments about this, she’d never told him that she needed family. That she needed more than just him.

Finally Griffin nodded. “Okay.” He forked some food into his mouth, slurping up a loose noodle.

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. I get it. I understand.” Griffin ran a hand through his golden hair, a sure sign of his agitation. “So, these people you’re following, have you thought about how they’ll react to us?”

“Yeah, you are a bit hard to take,” Ellie teased. Then more seriously, “Yes, I’ve thought about it. We are a bit… overwhelming, I guess. But we don’t know how many Svatura there are in their group. Maybe some of them have multiple gifts, too. I’m hoping there’s enough that our possessing more than one power isn’t terrifying at least.”

“More than one power is a bit of an understatement."

Ellie wrinkled her nose as she got up to head back into the kitchen, knowing that he was right. She and Griffin were extraordinary, even compared to other Svatura. Abilities were genetic, passed from parent to child, but with a subtle variation. Of course, having any powers was so rare, most only had one. But Ellie and Griffin, fourth generation Svatura, and coming from a longstanding and large clan, had more. Ellie remembered her mother once telling her that when she’d been pregnant, she’d worried about one child with four distinct powers. She’d felt like it would be too much for anyone to handle. Instead she had given birth to twins, and the babies had somehow split their parents’ abilities between them.

But even more than that, Ellie and Griffin were unusual in a way that no other Svatura had ever encountered.