Arianna's Tale: The Beginning (13 page)

The silence stretched on for so long that my
nerves went completely haywire again, but he kept alternating
between pressing the cool can and rubbing his hand across the red
ring on my arm.

“You’re a very observant girl, aren’t you?”
Alex finally questioned and I glanced over at him, “I am the
leader… you are safe with me… As much as you won’t want to hear it…
I’m not going to tell you much more than that.”

“Why…” I faltered, trying to think through
my nerves which were on edge yet again from meeting his aqua gaze,
“What is the leader’s interest in me?”

“You’re different,” he whispered, staring
into my eyes, “I like how different you are from everyone else I’ve
known my whole life….”

“I’m only different
because
you’ve
known them your whole life.”

He chuckled and shook his head, “No… it’s
more than that.” He sighed when he looked down at my arm again, “I
am terribly sorry about that… you should’ve said something….”

“You wanted me to draw Jay’s attention to
it? Because I got the distinct impression that whatever is going on
around here is some big, huge, gigantic secret….”

“If he wasn’t constantly following you
around… you wouldn’t have had to make him aware…” he grumbled,
looking up at me again, “Won’t you tell me why you’re really
here?”

“No, Alex… I won’t… I came here to escape
the past… even if it was just yesterday, or the day before… the
past is staying in the past,” I uttered and he quirked the corner
of his lip up.

“If that were entirely true, you wouldn’t be
worrying about mythological names and what Jack and I did at dinner
last night,” Alex coyly added and I sighed, shaking my head, “You
can be vague… did it involve another person? Did someone hurt you?
I want to keep you safe, Arianna… If it was a person, which is what
I’m leaning towards with how Jason is acting, then your brothers
are worried that this person has followed you here. If I knew what
to look out for, I’d keep the person away from you.”

It sounded tempting, honestly, because he
had admitted he was the leader, of whatever, so I thought in the
back of my mind that he really might be able to do something. But
if I admitted it was a person, if I admitted it was who it was… it
would be easy enough to draw the right conclusion on what had
happened.

“As tempting as that sounds… I have to say
no.” My voice barely came out, I was shocked he had even heard me
with…
Why is it so quiet over here…? We’re close enough to the
crowd and the music and the bonfire; it shouldn’t be so quiet over
here. Is this something else Alex has done?

“I can protect you, Arianna, just let me,”
he whispered gently, brushing the back of his fingers across my
left cheek and I froze.

“Don’t,” Jason hissed, jerking Alex’s hand
away from my face before he spun to face me, “Anna, you’re okay.”
He gently rested his palm flat against my right cheek and stared
down at me until I looked up into his eyes. “You’re okay.”

I gasped when I felt heat on my arm and
darted my eyes over to Alex to find his aqua eyes literally
swirling with silver and absolutely furious. But a breath later and
he looked normal again, his burning hand once more gone from my
arm.

“I’m okay, Jay,” I insisted despite the
slight tremble in my voice, “I’m okay. I’m sorry I worried
you.”

“Jason Gray, will you tell me who you’re
protecting your sister from?” Alex calmly asked and Jason stared
down at me as I saw the thought running around in his head. My gray
eyes widened with worry, upon later thought, probably the only
thing that set his mind.

“I’m sorry, but our father doesn’t want
anyone to know, and Anna
really
doesn’t want anyone to
know…” Jason reasoned aloud, shaking his head, “Personally, I’m
tempted to tell you… for whatever reason… I think you could
probably help… but it’s not my choice to make.”

Alex sighed, “Come meet mine and Jack’s
friends.” He stood up without touching me and I followed mainly out
of curiosity with Jason beside me and discovered that Jack joined
up with us before we reached a group of seven teenagers.

I already knew Elisabeth and Samantha. I was
introduced to the other guys: Caiden who had dirty blonde hair just
past his ears and deep brown eyes, Rayne who had pale blonde hair
that looked almost white falling to his chin and bright hazel eyes,
and Tobias who had dark brown hair down to his shoulders and honey
brown eyes. Also were the other girls: Michaela who had straight
medium brown hair down to her waist and sky blue eyes, and Sage who
had her strawberry blonde hair cut into a bob and chestnut brown
eyes.

They were all really nice, and calming in an
odd way; something I hadn’t expected from friends of Alex. They
asked general questions, and gave answers to the same, like what
Jason and I did with our free time and what sports and clubs we had
been part of at our old school. When they found out Jason was only
twelve, the girls looked shocked and the guys passed looks to each
other.

“You play football or basketball?” Tobias
asked and Jason shrugged.

“Not really. I played with my friends some,
but never on any teams,” Jason answered shyly, “And Anna’s
exaggerating because I’ll be thirteen on the 23
^rd
.”

“Well, it’s past midnight, so you only have
three more days,” Caiden remarked with a grin, “We should throw you
a party. Would you let us?” Jason shrugged again.

“Sure, if you really want to; that would be
cool,” he decided and I couldn’t help but smile.

Before I explain this next part, I really
have to explain some background… I had always gotten feelings about
things, particularly people close to me. It seemed to freak people
out when I started to tell them things before they could let me
know about it. Like the time we were all at school and Jason got
really sick and I was packing up my things in my classroom when the
principal came to pull me out of class. I remembered him looking at
me with the strangest look when I walked up to the door with my
backpack on and when we stepped into the hallway I just looked up
at him.

“
What is Jason sick with? Is he going to
be okay?” I had asked.

The principal had just stared at me for a
long time before leading me to the infirmary to wait with a very
pale and sickly Jason while Dad raced over in his cruiser to pick
us up.

A lot of things like that had happened
before I realized how much it bothered people, so I completely
locked away the ability and forgot about it. That is, I forgot
about it until the incident with Mark happened and I realized I had
seen the warning signs and if I’d just been paying attention with
that sense, I would’ve known his intentions before he’d ever had a
chance to do anything. After that day, I’d started working on
opening myself back up to my feelings, but hadn’t felt anything…
Except, while at the bonfire, a sudden tremor ran down my spine and
I had ten pairs of eyes on me which really freaked me out more than
the tremor.

“Anna?” Jason’s entire demeanor had changed
when he spun to face me and he leaned next to my ear, away from
everyone. “What’s wrong?”

“Bad feeling,” I muttered beneath my breath
and heard him suck in a deep breath.

“One of
those
bad feelings?” he
queried and I only nodded, “Okay… do we need to leave?”

“I… don’t know,” I faltered, hating feeling
like my skin was crawling, but that is essentially what happened
whenever I got bad feelings like that.

“Okay… which is safer… staying here…” he
paused, “Or going back to Dad’s house?” Another tremor and he moved
enough to look into my eyes. “I’m getting Austin… do you feel safe
staying with them?” There was only a twinge of negativity towards
the group around me so I nodded and Jason darted off into the
crowd. I watched after him for a long moment before looking back at
the group, but Caiden, Rayne, Tobias, and Jack were all gone.

“Where… how…? Where did they go and how did
they disappear so quickly?” I wondered wide-eyed.

“Shouldn’t we be asking you what just
happened?” Samantha inquired in a snarky tone with a single lifted
eyebrow as I bit the inside of my cheek. I didn’t have a chance to
say anything else because Jason came rushing back over with Austin
on his heels.

“Arianna, is Dad safe?” Austin instantly
asked and I stared at him wide-eyed and he seemed to catch on
before he asked, “Is it
him
?” I flinched and he looked over
at Alex who was watching us with only mild curiosity on his face
and his arms crossed over his chest.

“Care to explain?” Alex queried, but Austin
only shook his head.

“Family secret. I need to go home… if I’m
not back before this whole thing stops, would it be too much to ask
for someone to get Anna and Jay home?” Austin requested and Alex
lifted his eyebrows.

“If you’re rushing home because of this
him
because your father isn’t safe which you gathered all of
from Arianna’s bad feeling… how is it wise to take Arianna and
Jason there, especially if you don’t get back before this is over?”
Alex reasoned and Austin hesitated. That hesitation was enough for
Alex. “Perhaps you should inform the police? We do have two
officers here tonight.”

“Oh,” I gasped in shock and had all eyes on
me again, but I looked at Austin, “Dad’s fine… I don’t know what
just happened… but… Dad’s fine… Do what Alex said… tell the
officers that are here….”

Austin only nodded and disappeared off into
the crowd with Amy leading him over to the officers and I distantly
wondered how he would explain things to them.

The faintest
whoosh
noise had me
spinning back around to see that Jack, Caiden, Rayne, and Tobias
were back and I scrunched my eyes in confusion at them.

“Where did you go?” I asked, looking each
one in the eye for a long moment, but Rayne refused to more than
flicker his suddenly dark hazel eyes at me. I stared at him longer,
partly because he wouldn’t hold my gaze, and partly because when he
did glance at me, my heart skipped.

No one even bothered to answer me. I guessed
they chose not to bother with the pretense since Jason wasn’t
paying attention, he was watching Austin. So I took that time to
further investigate Rayne, since he seemed to play such havoc on my
nerves and he’d hardly spoken a word the whole night. He was tall,
probably as tall as Austin, if not maybe an inch or so taller. I
realized with a start that I was thinking how comforting his lean,
muscular arms looked. I also realized I was picturing him in a
tighter fit shirt that better showed off muscles I couldn’t really
see, but his jeans fit him perfectly, in my opinion; they weren’t
too tight and weren’t falling off of him either.

I like Rayne.
It was a simple
thought, but my eyes widened briefly.
I don’t even know the guy!
How can I be developing a crush on a guy I don’t know?? No, that’s
not right… How can I
have
a crush on a
guy I don’t even know?!

He finally let his hazel eyes meet mine for
more than a second, but the worry that was plainly visible in them
and aimed at me made me finally look away as my face shaded pink. I
glanced one more time at the other three that had disappeared and
even though they weren’t looking at me anymore, they all still had
the same worry in their eyes. The knot that formed in my stomach
worsened when I realized Alex had it, too.

They know something… somehow… I don’t know
how… but they know something.

“They’ve got a team that’s going to swing by
the house and check on things,” Austin reported as he and Amy
returned to the group. I regarded the fact that they seemed
attached at the hip so quickly with curious fascination.

“How did you get them to do that?” I had to
ask, I was far too curious about it.

“I told them I thought I’d seen… a car…
earlier, on our way here, and it was just really bothering me…” he
answered vaguely, due to our surrounding company, but the knot in
my stomach was definitely telling me that the surrounding company
knew what he was talking about.
Somehow
.

Jack steadily met my gaze for a long moment,
before breaking the strange silence. “I’m hungry; are you guys
hungry?”

A strangled giggle escaped my lips and he
quirked up the corner of his smile into an adorable grin. “Yes,” I
answered and even though the worry didn’t disappear, his eyes
finally smiled again too.

“Let’s eat then,” Caiden added, grabbing
Michaela’s hand and tugging her off towards a table in the
distance. Tobias headed off after them with an arm through each of
Elisabeth’s and Samantha’s arms as they walked on either side of
him. Amy dragged Austin away after he made sure I was okay and Sage
headed off alone leaving me with Jason, Alex, Jack, and Rayne.

“Well, come on,” Jack goaded and I glanced
over at Jason before lightly pushing his arm.

“Go ahead. I want to talk to Alex for a
minute,” I reasoned and Jason smiled before following after Jack,
leaving Rayne hesitating where he had been.

“Go, Rayne,” Alex ordered and Rayne still
hesitated but shot me a half-hearted smile before shoving his hands
in his jeans’ pockets and walking away. “What is it, Arianna?”

“You’ve stopped trying to find out what
happened…” I started softly, staring down at the ground until his
feet broke into my line of sight and I looked up at him, catching
my breath in my throat as I choked back the tears that stung my
eyes. “Just please… tell me
how
you know…? I can tell you
know… I can see it in your eyes and… the other guys too… so
how
did you find out?”

He stared at me for a long moment before
shifting his eyes over my shoulder.

“Detective Gaines, is everything all right?”
Alex queried and sure enough, Detective Gaines stepped up beside
me, looking from me to Alex and back to me.