The Zeuorian Awakening (22 page)

“Well, you won’t be going anywhere if we don’t get you home and out of town before Stephan heads to my house looking for you there.”

“Then why are you driving so slowly?”

She used her telekinesis to push the gas pedal to the floorboard. The car sped up to a hundred miles per hour as Everett struggled to control the wheel.

Lexi stepped out of Everett’s car into the darkness of his garage and closed the passenger door. It took them awhile to arrive home. The sun already set and the sky had darkened. She hoped to have come home at least an hour earlier, but an over turned truck and road closures slowed them down.

“I didn’t see Stephan anywhere when we pulled into the neighborhood,” Everett said, closing his garage door. “You should be safe to cross the street without using my neighbor’s backyard.”

“So how much should I pack?” Lexi asked, walking along the driveway toward the road with Everett on her side.

“Enough to last four years.” Everett stopped next to the two steps leading up to his side kitchen door. “When you’re done packing, meet me at your aunt’s hospital.”

She nodded and ran across the street to her dimly lit driveway. All the while she checked the road for any sign of Stephan, not that she knew what he looked like. Even though she figured it would take him the same amount of time to reach their house, she couldn’t rule out he found a shortcut and beat them home.

Once she reached the back of her car parked in the driveway, she stepped onto the paved path next to her house. She rushed toward her side kitchen door until she saw movement in the corner of her eye. Her heart skipped a beat as someone said from behind her, “Hello, my love.”

She knew exactly who it was from the thoughts crossing his mind at the moment. She swallowed the lump in her throat and said, “Tyler, what are you doing here?”

He stepped out from the shadows of her driveway with his typical charming smile and warm eyes sparkling in the dim light. “I came over to clear up the lies Everett told you about me. I know you spent the afternoon with him and I want to make sure before you decide to date him instead of me, you have all the facts.”

“I think I have all the facts straight,” she said, backing away from him.

He cupped her face in his hands. “I’m not stalking you. You have to believe me.”

“Yeah right.” She slipped out of his grasp. “Only stalkers sneak up on their prey in the dark while they’re least suspecting it, watch them for long periods of time and follow them everywhere they go, like you.”

“You got it all wrong.” He huffed. “I haven’t been following you around. Okay, so I do on occasion like watching you while you sunbath on the rock wearing your tiny bikini that shows off your scorching hot body,” he wagged his eyebrows, “and during school. I’m into you. That doesn’t make me a stalker.”

“But you can’t deny following me while I ran on the beach or waiting outside my house this weekend.”

Tyler let out an exasperated sigh. “Don’t believe everything Everett says. He’s the one stalking you and trying to keep you for himself. He made up I followed you on the beach.”

“What about waiting outside my house?” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I only waited outside hoping you would respond to my text and join me in my car so we could kiss and,” he slid his hand along her waist and drew her closer to him, “finish what we had started at my house.”

“I don’t know.” She wiggled out of his hold. “I still have a hard time believing you.”

“Seriously, you’re going to take his word over mine.” Tyler shook his head. “You’ve known me since you were fourteen when we hung out together in Colorado compared to only knowing him for less than two weeks.”

They hung out together in Colorado?

Tyler had said they hung out together while his father had worked with her parents that summer. Could it have been in Colorado? If they had hung out together, then that meant Tyler had been the boy she had dated.

A wave of nausea washed over her. If Tyler was the boy then who was Everett and why would he lie about being her boyfriend? Did he lie to her so he could persuade her to leave town and drive right into a trap? That would explain how Stephan found them in the woods.

On one hand, Everett knew things only the boy from Colorado would know, but on the other hand, he had the time and the power of telepathy to learn everything he needed to create a perfect lie.

She thought about everything she knew to be true about the boy from Colorado. She focused on the memory of him, scrutinizing every detail of it. She stopped at his eyes when he leaned in to kiss her. They were gray just like Everett’s.

It was his eyes that had made her like him instantly and remind her of an old friend. Actually, now that she thought about it, he reminded her of the boy.

Aw man, Tyler was good. He had her questioning what she knew to be true and trying to sell her the ultimate fairy-tale lie to get her into bed, but how did he know about the boy from Colorado?

He must’ve overheard her discussing the boy with Irene.

So both Tyler and Everett had been in her house the other night, which would explain how Everett snuck back inside and placed the picture on her bed in the short time it took her to run outside.

He’d actually snuck back in right after she chased him out the front door. The person running around the corner had to be Tyler. He must’ve climbed out the bathroom window, which also explained why her premonition of danger went away when she reached the hall. It also meant . . .

“Oh, God, you are my Stalker,” she said to Tyler.

She took off running toward her front lawn. Tyler chased after her. Before she reached the sidewalk, he grabbed her arm and turned her toward him.

“I told you I’m not stalking you,” he said. “Just give me a chance to explain.”

She struggled in his grip as the wind picked up and stung her exposed skin. The familiar pain washed over her. The same pain she felt right before she was about to lose control.

“
Everett, Tyler’s here,”
she said to him telepathically. Then she shouted at Tyler, “Let go of me.”

Tyler tightened his grip on her arm. She kicked him in the shin. He stumbled backward losing his hold on her. She ran toward Everett’s house, but Tyler grabbed her hand and jerked her back toward him.

“Please, let me go.” She begged him as lightning struck a transformer and the neighborhood went dark. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m not letting you go until you listen to what I have to—” His head dropped and he gaped at his arm. Every hair was standing on end.

Lexi looked up into the sky and saw a bolt of lightning headed toward them. It twisted in the air like a ribbon blowing in the breeze.

“Watch out,” she screamed and used her telekinesis to throw Tyler across the lawn.

A crack of thunder pierced her eardrums as the lightning bolt moved closer and closer to her. She lifted her hand and focused on redirecting the lightning. It hit the lawn several feet away from Tyler and her, sending chunks of grass and dirt into the air.

Tyler stared at her, his mouth hanging wide open.

He saw her redirecting the lightning. Her stomach twisted into a knot. That was bad, extremely bad. What he would do next determined the direction of her life—or end of her life. She held her breath and waited for his reaction.

Tyler looked up at the clouds swirling in a circle and threatening to spit out a tornado. He laughed, not a nervous laugh but a full-on triumphant laugh. “It’s you, you’re the one—”

Everett yanked Tyler away from Lexi before he could finish speaking. “She told you to go home,” he shouted. “Do I have to make you?”

“I’d like to see you try.” Tyler swung at Everett, but Everett dodged his fist and swung back at him, sending Tyler to the ground with a heavy thud.

Tyler pushed himself to his feet and wiped the dirt off his jeans. “You got lucky that time, but you won’t be the next time.”

He swung at Everett, but Everett dodged his fist and kicked Tyler on the chin, using a martial-arts maneuver. Tyler flew back onto the ground. Dirt and dried leaves flew into the air.

“So, are you ready to give up and go home?” Everett said.

“Never.” Tyler stood up with his hands balled into fists. “You have to kill me before I leave you alone with Lexi.”

“I think I know another way to get rid of you.” Then Everett said telepathically to Lexi,
“Can you give me a hand.”
He hinted for her to use one of her abilities.

She knew exactly which one to use.

He cocked his arm back and swung. She lifted her hand and gave Everett’s arm a telekinetic boost. When his hand connected with Tyler’s jaw, it made a loud crack and Tyler’s body went limp. He collapsed to the ground.

The fight was over. Now she had to face the aftermath of revealing herself to Tyler and maybe Stephan.

“I’ll check to see if he’s close by and saw what you did,” Everett said, frantically glancing around the area. “You should listen to everyone’s thoughts in the area and see if anyone saw what had happened.”

Damn, she hadn’t considered her neighbors could’ve seen her redirect the lightning. What if they’d already told someone or posted a video of her on the web.

“Relax.” Everett took her hand and squeezed it. “If anyone posted a video of you on the web, I’ll use my power and make them remove it. Now stay here, I’ll be back in a minute.”

After watching him run down the street, she cleared her thoughts and focused on the voices humming in the back of her mind. “
What happened to the power? . . . How am I going to find out how the game ended? . . . I wonder why we lost power. . . . Damn weather again.”

“I didn’t see Stephan. Did anyone see you?” Everett asked, running toward her and breathing heavy.

“No, they were either busy doing something else or they believe the weather caused the black out. So only Tyler knows what I can do.” That scared and confused her. Would he use his knowledge of her ability to control lightning to persuade her to go out with him? Or would he tell others? “What are we going to do about him?”

“There’s not a lot we can do. Other than dump him at his house and hope Stephan doesn’t hear his thoughts about what you did. But he may find out by morning since Tyler isn’t going to let it go I kicked his butt and kept him from convincing you to be with him.”

She bit her lower lip and fought back the tears. Her worst fear was coming true: exposing herself to a half-breed hunting her all because she’d lost control again.

“Don’t worry about Stephan finding out about you. I’ll figure a way out of this mess and keep you safe, but first we should take Tyler home before he wakes up.”

“Yeah, we should and fast. Irene will be home in thirty minutes. Well, if I’m still alive by then.”

“Oh, you’ll be alive and on time,” Everett said with certainty. “Now drive to his house and I’ll follow you in his Hummer.”

Fifteen minutes later, Lexi drove home. Her mind raced over various scenarios in which she died at the hands of the half-breeds, using scenes from horror movies as a reference, none of which were pleasant.

She turned to Everett sitting in the passenger seat. “So how are you going to make sure Stephan doesn’t figure out I’m the full-breed? I’m not particularly interested in being tied to a stake before my heart is cut out of my chest or something just as horrifying done to me.”

“I won’t let anyone hurt you.” Everett squeezed her hand resting on the stick shift. “But we need to leave before Stephan comes to my house.”

She couldn’t believe it. “We’re still going to MIT?”

“No.” He leaned his head against the headrest. “We can’t go there anymore. Once Stephan reads Tyler’s mind, he’ll know you’re the one I had been watching and come looking for me. The first place he’ll go is MIT.”

If he could connect Everett to her through Tyler’s thoughts, he would also be able to connect Irene to her. “I’m not going to run and let him torture or kill Irene so he can find me. I’ll figure out a way to keep him from attacking me even if I have to befriend the entire cheerleading squad and hang out with them 24/7.”

“It won’t work. He’ll find a way to kill you without alerting the police or The Community, but if we run,” he traced his finger on the top of her hand, “it would give us a chance to spend time together, maybe even a life together.”

Her heart ached at the thought of living a life with Everett. “I want to spend more time with you, too, but I can’t live with myself if they hurt Irene.”

Everett sighed when she pulled her hand from his and parked in the driveway. “I’m not going to let you get yourself killed,” he said.

“I don’t want to get killed either.” She thought for a few seconds and an idea came to her. “What if you made Tyler forget what I did by pushing a thought into his mind? And you can make him forget about obsessing over me, too. Then the Stephan won’t ever find out about me.”

“I thought about that too, but I have to stand in front of him for at least a minute to push a thought into his mind. After what I did to him, he’s not going to stand a second in front of me before trying to kick my butt. Even if I pin him down and force him to stare at me, Stephan could’ve already read his thoughts.”

“You could still try,” she said, pleading with him.

He stared at the scar on her arm as his shoulders sagged forward. “Okay, you win. We can stay. I don’t want you doing anything crazy and getting hurt again. I’ll figure something out to keep him from discovering you’re the one I’m watching.”

“Thanks for understanding.” She squeezed his hand. “I just can’t lose someone else I love over this.”

“I know.” He got out of the car and surveyed the area for anyone watching them. “Come on. It’s safe. I don’t see Stephan anywhere.”

She followed Everett along the dimly lit paved path to the kitchen door. The day seemed to be turning into one of the worst days of her life or what was left of her short life.

“You mean long life.” Everett cleared his throat as he stood in front of the door. “I was thinking. Stephan doesn’t have any immediate reason to listen to Tyler’s thoughts. Maybe we can go with your plan and try to wipe out his memories before school started. Then your aunt would be safe and we could go to MIT.”