Arianna's Tale: The Beginning (29 page)

“I know you can,” I murmured and he laughed
softly before he nodded toward the menu.

“Figure out what you want to eat; anything
at all, okay?” he insisted, and I nodded even though I knew I would
never dream of getting something too expensive. Thankfully as I
looked at the menu, the teriyaki chicken bento box sounded
delicious and wasn’t too very pricey.

When the waitress came back with our drinks,
we ordered our food, and I wasn’t even sort of surprised when Jack
ordered steak and had it cooked rare and a sushi sampler.

“So how long have these dreams of yours been
going on?” Jack queried and I darted my eyes up to him, startled,
but found the silver still in his eyes, “I have permission to tune
out for pretty much the whole night as long as I tune back in
during part of the concert for a few other people.”

“Sometimes I think you’re reading my mind,”
I laughed softly and he grinned.

“I wish I could… sometimes you just have
your thoughts really clearly written across your face,” he replied
seriously, “Most of the time I have absolutely no idea what’s going
on in your head.”

“You’re really going to stay tuned out?” I
pressed and he barely nodded his head, “So… Aeril doesn’t ever tell
you what’s going on in my head?” His eyes widened, and the silver
flickered but stayed. “The dreams started… sometime after I moved
here… long before I found out the truth about you guys… but back
then it was just wolves.”

“Aeril told you…” Jack faltered almost
silently, “Anna… Alex
will
punish him if he finds out….”

“Then Alex won’t find out… will he…?” I
pressed and Jack sighed as he barely shook his head, “Why did you
ask about the dreams?”

“I’m curious what exactly they are…” he
admitted with a faint smile as the sushi sampler arrived at the
table and he insisted we share it. “If you had been having them
longer, I wouldn’t think they were linked to us….”

“I’ve had them before… a really long time
ago… back when I used to keep my sense-feeling thing open…” I
mumbled, picking up a strip of eel with my chopsticks and barely
looking up at Jack to find curiosity on his face.

“So the dreams are linked to your feelings…”
he considered thoughtfully, “Maybe, at least….”

“Maybe,” I quietly admitted, “I still don’t
understand why you care.”

“Call it cliché, but I want to know
everything about you, Anna,” he remarked with a grin, “Every little
teeny tiny thing.”

“That’s a little bit creepy,” I laughed and
his grin shifted to a smile, “I can’t explain the dreams… and I
can’t explain the feelings… what else do you want to know?”

“When were you adopted?” he questioned.

“Austin said I was a year and a half old…
It’s not like I remember it or anything…” I murmured, shrugging my
shoulders, “So if you were hoping for more information, I don’t
have any… My dad said he has my birth parents’ names, but I haven’t
asked, and I wasn’t really planning to ask….”

“I think I’d be curious if I were you,” he
commented but I only shrugged my shoulders, “What do you get
involved with in school besides… well, school?”

“I didn’t…” I stated, “I…” I was twirling my
straw around in my cup, watching it dazedly. “Austin wouldn’t let
me date… he kept everyone away from me… so I didn’t bother trying
to get involved in anything… it would have just caused more
problems….”

“Well, that isn’t a problem anymore… so what
do you
want
to get involved with at school?” he pressed but
I shrugged my shoulders, “Do you do any kind of art or music? Any
sports? Theatre maybe?” I shrugged again and he frowned. “We’ll
just have to find you something then.”

“You aren’t going to be at school,” I
countered in confusion and he smiled and shrugged his
shoulders.

“More of a general we. Everybody has
something to be involved in, you can just join whoever until you
find something you like,” he decided while the waitress placed our
food on the table. When she was gone, we started eating and became
more or less silent.

He laughed and I darted my gaze up to find
him watching me.

“What?” I blurted as he just smiled at
me.

“You are so cute,” he chuckled, “I knew you
were shy… but I didn’t realize just how shy you really are.”

“Shut up,” I mumbled in absolute
embarrassment as my face shaded bright red but his eyes only
sparkled brighter.

“Cute,” he chuckled before we resumed eating
in near silence until we finished our meals. After he paid, he
stood up and held his hand out to me, helping me up from my chair
and holding my hand as he led me back to the elevator.

No sooner had the elevator doors closed than
his fingers slid across my cheeks and he kissed me. They were slow,
gentle kisses at first, but then they became more and only the ding
of the elevator as we reached the ground floor caused him to stop.
He very slowly backed away from me, his eyes searching my face as I
spotted the panic in his.

“Ahem,” an older man cleared his throat and
both of us looked at him standing there with his wife. Jack’s hand
slipped down into mine and he pulled me out of the elevator behind
him.

“Sorry, excuse us sir,” Jack faintly
apologized while I bit back a laugh and we walked into a marble
entryway. He pulled me off to the side, up against a wall and spun
around to face me. “Anna, I’m sorry,” he whispered, but the panic
was almost instantly replaced with confusion when he found me
stifling laughter.

“Austin stole my first kiss,” I started and
his confusion worsened, “Right before I told him about what had
happened with Mark… Stop worrying so much….” Before the words
really finished leaving my mouth he kissed me again, just once, so
sweetly that my heart melted.

“You scared the crap out of me,” he
muttered, his fingers sliding across my cheeks again as he backed
away, “Let’s get to the show before I do something stupid.”

I didn’t argue with him because he was
definitely slipping up. He took hold of my hand and we were off
again, outside this time and around the block to the arena and the
line of people heading in the doors.

When we got inside and found our seats, even
though we kept standing with everyone else, Jack was bouncing
around like a little kid in a candy store. The show started a short
time later, and it was really cool, actually. There were people in
weird costumes on stage playing all kinds of random percussion
instruments with occasional vocalists and regular musicians joining
in. Lights and fog were everywhere, and shifting backgrounds that
took us from some other planet to the jungle and to a field with
the stars in the background, amongst other places. He was screaming
and jumping around and dancing with nearly everyone else, and I was
watching him and laughing until it was over.

When the show was over and we piled out of
the arena with everyone else, Jack was trying to be calm, but
that’s like saying a shaken up bottle of soda is trying not to
explode. He looked at me and smiled and pulled me into a tight
hug.

“That was amazing,” he managed to say before
he let go of me. There was a change, so suddenly I was confused, as
the silver slid out of his eyes and he turned deadly serious. His
hand holding mine started to get really hot, but he pulled it away
and curled it into a fist.

“Jack,” I whispered, but he wouldn’t even
look at me until the silver slid back into his eyes.

“I’m going to kill him,” he growled under
his breath, barely shaking his head, “Call your brother….”

I reached into my purse and pulled out my
phone. No missed calls; but he was right, out there away from all
the excitement, I started to get the feeling something was really
wrong. I dialed home and Austin picked up after the first ring.

“Arianna… you’re okay,” he sighed in relief,
“I know where you said you were… so I was trying not to worry…
but….”

Jason had apparently picked up another
phone, because he suddenly burst in on the conversation. “Where are
you, Arianna?” he demanded, but I felt my stomach sink even lower,
they were both calling me by my full name.

“I’m in the city,” I answered evasively,
“I’m fine. What’s going on over there? What’s wrong?”

“You have to stay there,” Austin insisted
sternly, “It should be safer there… Mark… escaped… he killed three
people and put five more in ICU while he did it….”

“What? When? Is Dad okay?” I panicked while
Jack stood behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.

“Sometime before dawn this morning… the cops
were keeping it quiet because they thought they could find him… Dad
sent Jay and me out on a bunch of errands to keep us out of the
house…” Austin continued hesitantly, “Arianna… Dad’s missing….”

“She should come home!” Jason blurted, but I
was frozen in shock.

“Do not come home, Arianna. We don’t know
where Mark has gone… we don’t know where Dad is… Amy invited Jason
and me to come stay there… But you need to stay away from here.
Stay in the city tonight, okay?” Austin insisted and I barely
nodded my head, knowing fully well he couldn’t see me. I couldn’t
think clearly, and I felt my phone slip out of my hand, but never
heard the crash of plastic on cement.

“I’m sorry, Anna,” Jack whispered in my ear.
“She’ll stay in the city, I’ll keep an eye on her,” Jack recited
into the phone and I flinched.

“Who is this?! Why do you have Anna’s
phone?!” Jason hollered so loudly I could hear him.

“All right,” Austin agreed with a sigh,
“We’ll keep you posted.”

“Goodnight,” Jack finalized and hung up the
call before he slipped my phone back into my purse. “Let’s get to a
hotel and we can talk, all right?” he whispered across my ear and I
barely nodded my head again as he took hold of my hand and gently
pulled me along with him. When I finally looked over at him while
we waited at a crosswalk, he was completely tense.

“Jack…” I started, but he shook his head and
smiled softly at me.

“At the hotel,” he reiterated.

We walked across the street to what turned
out to be a really fancy hotel and Jack nearly forced me to sit
down in a chair in the lobby while he went up to the front counter.
I pulled my phone back out to take it off of silent, but there were
text messages from Jason, and I clicked into them despite knowing I
shouldn’t.

You’re on a date with Jack? How could you go
on a date!? How could you not tell me?!

He was mad, and hurt, and I knew he would be
which is why I had avoided telling him… Jack’s hand locked around
my phone and he took it out of my grasp, shoving it in his back
pocket while I looked up at him in confusion.

“I think you have enough to deal with right
now. You don’t need to add your little brother’s anger to it,” he
quietly remarked, holding a card out to me, “Your copy of the key…
let’s get upstairs.”

We rode up the elevator in silence to the
60
^th
floor and stepped off directly into a large living
room. There was food on the table, and I could see clothes, robes,
and basic bathroom necessities sitting on the humongous bed through
the other door. I turned back to look at Jack and he laughed
distantly.

“There are more people coming… but suffice
it to say, Alex put us up in the Penthouse as an apology… I told
him it wasn’t enough of an apology,” Jack stated, slowly shaking
his head and going to sit on the sofa while I wandered around to
look at everything. “Alex knew about Mark first thing this morning…
Alex knew Mark was the one who hurt Violet… he had a bunch of the
guys out tracking him, but told us that the guys were watching the
house, and told Caiden and Tobias that the guys were at the
hospital… so he kept the whole thing a big secret….” He trailed off
when he realized I had stopped and turned around to face him.

“What do you mean, Mark hurt Violet?” I
barely heard my own voice.

“Mark is a troll, Anna… they’re big, they’re
built like rocks, a little on the dumb side, and extremely
possessive…” Jack calmly explained, “For whatever reason… he’s
taken an interest in you… We thought we’d taken care of him, but
they’re not easy to kill… and now he’s really pissed off….”

I sank to the floor and Jack was immediately
off of the sofa and at my side. “Mark is a troll? So the troll
doll… and you guys knew and didn’t tell me?” I pressed while Jack
turned my head to face him.

“Alex ordered us not to,” he reasoned, “He
thought knowing what Mark was would just freak you out even
more….”

“The little dancing lights… are those
faeries?” I questioned and saw his pupils dilate and constrict with
the silver still around them.

“I can’t…” Jack sighed, his gaze falling to
the floor, “I wish that I could, Anna….”

“Who did he send to look for Mark? Why
haven’t they found him?”

“Malcolm, Rayne, Aeril, Farren, and Evan… he
didn’t even tell us Evan was home…” Jack muttered in annoyance,
“They tracked the troll right out of the state, out of the country,
and came back when they lost him somewhere over near Alaska… All of
them but Malcolm are on their way here… Malcolm is looking for your
dad… he’s our best tracker.” His eyes suddenly darted to the
elevator doors and he smiled faintly, “Actually, that’s them… Looks
like you get to meet Evan finally.”

“Why do you say it like that…?” I muttered
and he looked back at me with concern in his eyes.

“Evan is the fourth in your little group…
but Evan can’t talk,” he stated just before the elevator doors
opened and Rayne, Farren, Aeril, and a young guy with mischievous
yellow-gold eyes beneath shaggy dark auburn hair, stepped into the
room. That was clearly Evan, and his yellow-gold eyes inspected me
curiously while he sat down on the sofa with Farren, but Rayne and
Aeril were almost instantly beside me. Something about the way Evan
was watching me so intently had me staring back at him in confusion
until he smiled faintly and waved.