Hyacinth (17 page)

“Selene!”

Suddenly, Ellie’s
and Charlotte’s voices were right beside her just as Selene was about to
collapse from her effort. Their presence gave her the much needed strength to
hold on just a little while longer.

“I’m here. Help
me,” she pleaded, still frozen in place.

“It’s pitch
black in here. Where are you?” Charlotte stage-whispered.

“In the middle
of the floor,” Selene replied. “And there’s a girl on the bed, too. Make sure
you grab her when we go.”

Without
hesitation or question, she could hear Charlotte as she started feeling around
for the bed. Ellie dropped to the floor beside Selene and took her hands.
Nothing happened.

“I can’t feel my
powers,” Ellie gasped.

Selene was
shaking with the effort she was expending. Inspiration struck. She backed off
on her attack and instead pushed a small amount of her power into Ellie,
shielding them both.

Power pulsed
between them in electric waves. Pins and needles rushed through her.

“Push against
the blocker with me, Ellie,” Selene instructed, feeling stronger by the second.

Together they
forced back the light surrounding them until it reached the source and dimmed.

“Keep going,”
Selene gritted through her teeth. This was about survival.

Ellie gave her
hands a squeeze.

The blocker was becoming
weaker. She couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. But Selene could see
their growing feebleness by the flickering of the glow inside them, like a
light bulb as it blinks though its last moments before finally burning out.
Suddenly Selene felt the power extinguish, the pressure giving way completely.
By the small grunt she heard, Selene knew that Ellie felt it too.

“Did it work?
Are we free?” Ellie asked, gasping for air.

“Not positive.
Please, just get us out of here!” Selene begged.

If it hadn’t
been so dark in the room, she knew she’d be seeing spots taking over her vision
about now. As exhaustion overtook her, she felt her environment shift and knew
that Ellie had listened to her.

She was finally
free.

“Oh, thank
goodness!” Lucy exclaimed as Ellie and Charlotte reappeared with their two
rescues. Selene slumped over on the couch, and on the floor was a young girl,
who was also out like a light.

Ellie dropped to
her knees beside Selene’s unconscious form. “Hugh!”

Hugh was by her
side instantly and quickly started moving his hands over Selene’s body. Meanwhile,
Adelaide and Charlotte hovered over the other girl, checking her pulse for any
signs of life.

“What happened?
I couldn’t hear you! Are you guys okay?” Griffin asked as he rushed in.

“I’ve never felt
anything like that!” Ellie pushed a trembling hand through her hair. “They had
some kind of… blocker. Someone who could keep you from using your powers.”

“Like Selene?”
Griffin asked, staring at the motionless girl on the couch.

Ellie shook her
head as she accepted a glass of water from Alex. “No… Selene turns things off,
like a switch. This was more like the second we appeared, our abilities, all of
them, were gone. Kind of a blanket power remover. And Selene…” She shuddered. “She
was fighting them. Fighting against that force, I mean. Jeez…she must have been
pushing against that for days. I helped her at the end….”

Ellie paused, and
the color leeched from her face. She held a hand to her mouth like she was
going to heave.

“You all right?”
Alex asked, concerned.

“Here.” Adelaide
handed him a cool washcloth, and he gingerly patted Ellie’s forehead. She gave
him a grateful smile.

“Thanks…I’ll be
ok.” She took another sip of water and continued. “Selene had absolutely no
strength left. Only enough to create a little bubble to shield me, let me tap
back into my gifts, and then together we pushed against the blocker until we
turned off their power. It felt like lifting a ten-ton boulder off us.”

“Wow…crazy,” someone
breathed.

Tears trickled
down Ellie’s cheeks. “We were only there maybe five or ten minutes. I have no
idea how she held on as long as she did without help. Is she going to be okay,
Hugh?”

“I don’t know,”
Hugh replied quietly.

“What do you
mean?” Griffin’s voice resonated with grim fear.

Hugh wiped one
hand over his face and shook his head. “Physically, she’s fine… Not a scratch,
as far as I can tell.”

“Then what’s
wrong with her?” Lucy laid a hand on her husband’s shoulder.

“She’s got to be
exhausted,” Ellie murmured. “I battled for only a few minutes and with her help,
and I’m a wreck. Maybe she just needs some rest.”

“But if she were
merely asleep, I should still be able to hear her thoughts,” Griffin insisted.

“She might be shielding
them from you without trying,” Nate suggested. “You’ve said you have trouble
hearing her anyway, right?”

Griffin just
nodded, his closed expression hiding his thoughts.

“Is there
anything you can do, Dad?” Adelaide pleaded.

Hugh glanced at
Ellie, who just shook her head. “She’ll just have to rest,” she answered.

“Who’s this?” Hugh
asked as he started to examine the young stranger.

“No idea,”
Charlotte said. “She was in the room with Selene, and she insisted we bring her
with us.”

“Is she okay?”
Ellie asked.

Hugh let out a
deep sigh. “I can’t tell with her, either. Just like Selene, she’s physically
fine. But there appears to be something more than exhaustion keeping her out.
Not quite sure what. It’s more as if she’s in a state of hibernation or stasis.
I think someone’s tampered with her somehow.” He looked around the room. “Let’s
get them both up into a bed. You too, Ellie. You look dead on your feet.”

While Nate
picked up the young girl, Griffin scooped Selene’s limp form up into his arms. They
headed upstairs, and Lila hurried ahead to turn down the covers in Selene’s
room. Gently, Griffin laid her down in bed and then retreated as the girls went
about getting her changed into pjs.

After Selene and
her young companion were settled, the entire family gathered in the living room,
except for Griffin, who remained with Selene. Ellie curled into Alex’s arms as
they sat on the couch.

Hugh shook his
head at Ellie. “I thought I said you should be in bed, young lady.”

“I will, just as
soon as we finish talking,” she answered.

“I’ll make sure
of it,” Alex added, running a tender hand over Ellie’s hair.

“What do we do
now?” Dexter asked.

“I think we
should wait for Selene to wake up.” Adelaide plopped down on the loveseat with
Nate. “We need to see what she knows before we do anything else.”

“I think we need
to have someone watching over her at all times,” Lucy said. “What if they try
to kidnap her again?”

Heads nodded
around the room.

“And who knows what
condition she’ll be in when she wakes up?” Adelaide added. “She might need a
friendly face.”

“We can take it
in shifts like last time,” Ramsey said. “I’ll go first.”

Ellie watched
Lila surreptitiously squirm in her seat and shoot him an irritated look.

“What’s up,
Lila?”
she mentally asked her, tapping into Griffin’s telepathy.

Lila’s shoulders
slumped slightly.
“Was I that obvious?”

“No. I just know
that your emotion sensing has been on high alert lately.”

“Ugh! We need to
practice some more on my control of it, or Griffin is going to send me ‘round
the bend.’”

“That bad?”

“Worse. He’s all
over the place when it comes to Selene. And Ramsey’s not making it any easier.”

Ellie released a
mental sigh. She suspected Ramsey’s behavior might be bothering Lila even more
than Griffin’s swinging emotions, if that were possible.

“Okay. We’ll
work on that this week,”
Ellie promised.

Alex leaned
forward and whispered in Ellie’s ear, “You going to explain to me what that was
about?”

She nuzzled into
him and nodded. “Tonight.”

*****

Griffin,
upstairs with Selene, but listening to the discussion going on downstairs,
ignored Lila’s irritation and clamped down on his irrational jealousy. He’d
noticed that Ramsey and Selene had become friendly lately.

And why should I
let that bother me? I’m glad that she has a friend.

“This one’s
practically falling asleep on me,” Alex announced, interrupting Griffin’s
internal monologue. “Time for bed, I think.”

“Ellie,”
Griffin telepathically
called his twin.

“You’re going to
leave, right?”

Griffin held
back a grimace.
“That obvious?”

“Not really. I
just know you well.”
She paused.
“She’s going to think you hate her, you know,”
she warned.

“I’m going to
have to take that chance. I think it’s more likely that she’s not going to want
me anywhere near her. And I won’t be idle, either.”

“I would argue
that first point if I thought it would get me anywhere. But it sounds like you
have a plan?”

“Maybe. When you
found Selene, do you know where you were?”

“I caught just a
few flashes when Charlotte teleported us in, before that blocker kicked in.
Enough, I think, to get you there.”

“So you couldn’t
have been too far away, then, if you were able to use my telepathy.”

“Exactly.”
Griffin watched
as Ellie showed him what she’d caught.

“Got it. Send
Ramsey on up,”
he instructed.

Consciousness
did not return to Selene gradually.

“Wake up, Selene.
Your people need you!” Oren’s voice was like an alarm clock jolting her out of
sleep, and her eyes flew open. Soon she was assailed by memories, and she
gasped. Panicked, she looked around and took in her surroundings.

I’m at Hugh and
Lucy’s… I’m safe now.

She let out a
relieved sigh and relaxed slightly as realization of where she was sank in.
Then she noticed someone was dozing in the chair beside her bed. For a brief moment,
she thought…
hoped
… it was Griffin. But she quickly realized it was
Ramsey.

“You must be sick
of having to watch me sleep,” Selene murmured.

Immediately,
Ramsey’s eyes opened. “Hey, there. Huh, we do seem to spend a lot of time
watching people sleep. Ellie last year, now you twice.” He sat forward and
leaned his elbows on his knees. “Nice to see you again. How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been
run over by a truck.” She groaned and propped herself upright in the bed. “Ugh!
How long was I out?”

“It’s been about
a day or so.”

“You’ve got to
be kidding me!”

He chuckled at
her astonished expression. “You must’ve been pretty darn tired.”

“I guess so.”

“What do you
remember?”

She shook her
head. “Everything… I think.” She sat up straighter in bed. “Did they save the
girl that was in my room?”

Ramsey nodded.
“Yeah. She’s still out cold, but Hugh says there’s nothing physically wrong
with her.” He shrugged. “We have her in a room at Dex and Charlotte’s house.”

Selene relaxed a
little more. Then the memory of what had woken her filtered back into her
consciousness, and her shoulders tensed again.

“Oren called for
me. Was he in here? Something’s wrong. Gather the others. I’ll meet you
downstairs.”

Hearing the
urgency in her voice, Ramsey jumped up and left the room. Selene flipped back
the covers and dressed as fast as her still-weak limbs would allow and then ran
downstairs. As she entered the living room, she was immediately engulfed in a
warm hug from Lucy, followed by everyone else.

Selene was taken
aback. Hugs were not the norm in her life. But the family’s affection was
contagious, and she found herself returning their embraces.

“We were so
worried about you,” Hugh said, his hands on her shoulders. His concern warmed
her heart. Besides Oren, it’d been a very long time since anyone had cared about
her welfare.

“Thank you,” she
whispered. Only her desperate need to speak with Oren immediately kept Selene’s
emotions in check.

She could feel
Griffin’s absence. In vain she glanced around for him, though she knew, even without
asking, that he wasn’t there. But she couldn’t dwell on that now.