Blue Violet (3 page)

“Yeah, but you
didn’t even know I’d be here until today,” he grumbled. Taking the hint, he hopped
up to set the table.

Ellie ignored
his comment. “Also, while you’re here, I wanted to know if you’d mind if I
tapped in periodically to help me with my—”

“Snooping?
Spying?”

“I was going
to say
investigation
,” she corrected with a grin. “Thanks!”

“Hey! I didn’t
agree to anything—”

“You will!”
She laughed and returned to the kitchen.

 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.

Ellie and
Griffin were made even more exceptional by their ability to use each other’s
powers. Ellie suspected it had something to do with their being twins.

Griffin eyed
his sister as she made her way around the kitchen cleaning up from dinner. 

“Stop
worrying,” Ellie suddenly spoke up, interrupting his thoughts.

“I can’t help
it if I’m concerned about you. It’s obvious that you’ve put a lot of hope in
these people. What happens if it doesn’t work out? Are you prepared for that?”

“I’m prepared
for anything at this point. Anything is better than nothing.”  She dried her
hands on the dish towel, walked over to where he leaned against the kitchen
island, and gave him a hug.  “It’s time,” she whispered in his ear.  “We knew
we’d have to come out of hiding eventually.”

After a slight
hesitation, Griffin hugged her back.  “Like I said… okay.”

They moved
into the living room and sat down. She quickly filled him in on what had
happened during the few weeks they’d been apart. After Ellie had finally
discovered where the Jenners lived, she and Griffin had had a huge fight about
tracking them closer.  Ellie, thrilled she’d found the people she had dreamed
about and fed up with waiting for her brother, had taken off for Estes Park
without him.

“I’m guessing
it was Claude who called you?” she asked.

“Yeah, that’s
how I found you.”

Claude was
their lawyer who’d handled the purchase of the house for her. Ellie and Griffin
had benefited from the fact that their family had amassed a large fortune,
including investments in land, mines, and other continuously producing sources.
It also helped that a member of their clan had possessed the ability to turn
anything she touched to gold. Humans, in various roles, had managed the money,
communicating long distance with the Aubreys through various media… online
being the method these days.

Periodically
Ellie or Griffin would pretend to die and will their fortune to themselves.
Their great-grandfathers had set up this system long before, although Griffin,
good with technology, had advanced things through the years, as well as adding
to their investments.

 “Well, you
can’t say this is a show piece house at least.” She flashed him an impish grin.

“Huh,” Griffin
looked around. “Definitely not drawing any attention here. That’s for sure.”  They
tried not to flaunt their wealth, fearing it would bring too much attention
both from humans and from Vyusher. Hence the rather unassuming house she’d
purchased here. “So,” he prompted, “let’s get on with you telling me about your
day.”

Ellie took a
deep breath and told him about meeting Adelaide, Lila, and Nate. About
Adelaide’s mystifying actions in the lunch room. About them befriending her.
And finally, about her encounter with Alex and with Adelaide’s power.

“She felt the
shock, I know it.” Ellie dropped her head into her hands.

“Did she seem
to think anything of it?”

“I don’t think
so, but I can show you. I need to show you what I saw when I touched her,
anyway.”

Ellie eyed her
brother, unsure if he would go that far. She felt lucky that he was listening to
her at all, given his reluctance to be involved. But beyond a tightening of his
lips, Griffin didn’t object, and gave a brief nod for her to go ahead.

Ellie closed
her eyes and concentrated on her memories of that afternoon in the school
parking lot. She knew Griffin would be using his mind reading skills to watch
her thoughts along with her.

She started
with the shock she’d given Adelaide when she’d touched her arm briefly. She
knew that people felt something similar to a charge of electricity when she used
her power manipulation on them. Usually she could control it so that they
wouldn’t feel the shock, and therefore wouldn’t know what she was doing. But
when she wasn’t paying attention…like today…
zap
!

Ellie tried
her best to remember Adelaide’s reaction accurately.

Griffin closed
his eyes and whispered, “It looks like she didn’t really notice the shock. She
seemed too preoccupied with something else, but I couldn’t tell what. I think
you dodged a bullet there. You touched her though.  What’d you see?”

“I didn’t
touch her long enough to get any clue as to what I was seeing.  It looked like
glittering, almost electrical, strands of light in different colors…Like this…”
Ellie concentrated on the image so Griffin could see it in her mind. She would’ve
needed to hold the touch longer to be able to understand what the colors meant,
but she’d seen a thick silvery strand between herself and Adelaide. And she’d
seen a bright red line that shimmered and faded and then grew stronger, almost
in waves, which connected Ellie to Alex. She felt fairly sure those glittering
lines, and not the feel of shock, had made Adelaide gasp.