The Zeuorian Awakening (21 page)

“Keep going,” Everett shouted above the thunder.

She lifted her hand and the sky turned pitch black. Thunder rumbled above her and shook the ground. She felt the static electricity in the air grow thicker as three lightning bolts approached her. One by one lightning struck at her repeatedly like a rattlesnake pissed by an intruder in its territory. Each time the lightning came close to her, she redirected it to hit a tree as her body grew more tired and she eventually collapsed to the ground.

Something soft brushed Lexi’s face and tickled her skin. She swatted at it and heard someone chuckle. She opened her eyes and saw Everett smiling at her. He was lying on the grass next to her.

“Finally, you’re awake,” he said. “You’ve been out for almost a half-hour.”

“What happened?” she asked, rubbing her eyes and yawning.

“You passed out. It happens when you use powerful abilities like controlling lightning. It’ll go away once you build up your endurance.” He unzipped her hoodie and slid his arm under the wet fabric. “Now it’s time to check your progress.”

He kissed her. She closed her eyes and ran her fingers through his hair. The birds sang in the distance and the sun beat down on the wet grass. The training seemed to be paying off, but she still had a long way to go. She pulled away when a loud explosion shook the ground. “We need to stop.”

“Okay.” He rolled onto his back and did his best to mask his disappointment.

“Everett, I’m—“

He placed his finger on her lips. “I’m fine. Stop worrying about me. I don’t want you doing anything reckless just to make me happy.”

“I’m not just thinking about making you happy. It’s also bothering me. I like to be able to kiss you without worrying if I’ll set you on fire or do something worse.”

“I know you do and you will in time.”

Before Lexi could continue their conversation, her cell phone buzzed and she pulled it out of her back pocket. She had a text message from Tyler. “Guess who,” she said before reading the message aloud. “Where are you? You weren’t in classes all day. Are you with Everett?”

“He doesn’t know when to give up, does he?” Everett took her cell phone and pounded out a message with a wicked grin on his face. “That should take care of him.”

Now she had to read what he texted to Tyler. She skimmed over the text and her mouth gapped open. “I can’t believe you called him a Stalker, but he’s going to know I didn’t write the text. I wouldn’t call him a jerk.”

“Exactly what I was going for,” Everett said, winking at her.

Her cell phone buzzed again and Lexi read over the message written in all caps with several exclamation points, pound signs and asterisks. “It’s safe to say he figured out you wrote the message and he’s going to rip your head off when you come back to school.”

“He can try,” Everett pressed his back to the grass and placed his hands behind his neck. “But he won’t get far before I have him hauled away.”

She rested on her side next to Everett. “I bet you didn’t expect it would be so dangerous going to high school in Brookings.”

“I’m not surprised.” Everett smiled, rolling on his side to face her. “I knew the first time you strolled into my father’s store wearing those cutoff denim shorts and bikini top that you were going to be trouble. I didn’t care then if every guy in The Community wanted to take me out to be with you and I don’t care now if my life‘s in danger since you’re the full-breed. All that matters, I’m with you.”

He leaned in to kiss her and she pressed her hand on his shoulder to stop him. “I don’t understand. How could every guy in The Community have wanted me?” She scoffed. “I thought you said my parents kept me away from everyone while I was there?”

“Nothing ever gets past you does it.” Everett chuckled. “When I first met you, I assumed I would have to fight off every guy in town to be with you since there’s a shortage of female half-breeds, especially pretty ones.”

“That’s right,” she said. “’Cause the queen went after the women first since they’re more powerful than the men. So how many women are there in The Community?”

“My father did a survey once. For every woman there’re three men. The difference continues to grow each generation since it’s more common to have males than female babies.”

“So none of your kind date humans?”

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!”