to be that insecure.
“Alex? What the heck? You run with her?” Nate’s voice broke into his thoughts. He’d forgotten for a second that his family didn’t know about his daily jogs with Ellie.
Alex sighed and then proceeded to bring them up to speed.
“You know you can’t keep seeing her, Alex,” Lila said.
He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I know,” he agreed quietly. He’d known all along that pursuing that relationship would be a colossal mistake.
Adelaide was still looking at where Griffin and Ellie had been talking. She had a slightly perplexed expression on her face.
“What did you see?” Alex prompted.
She turned a reproachful look on her brother. “You know I’m not going to tell you. But it’s nothing dangerous, just… interesting.”
Alex shrugged and gave up. Adelaide was his sweet, quiet sister, but she could be darn stubborn when she wanted to be.
*****
Adelaide contemplated what she’d just experienced. She had the ability to see relationships between people… past, present, and future. She saw them as various colored bands of energy connecting individuals. Different colors and thicknesses meant different things.
And she was very confused by what she’d seen between Ellie and Griffin. She wondered why Ellie appeared to be lying to them.
Chapter 14
Now that Adelaide thought about it, Ellie didn’t really talk about her family, and any references she’d made to them were pretty ambiguous. She realized Ellie was elusive when it came to saying anything about herself. This fact didn’t really worry Adelaide, because of the developing strand of relationship she saw between Ellie and various people in Adelaide’s own family. But what did confuse her was Griffin. He and Ellie appeared to have the same relationship as she and Lila did. Relatives, definitely. Siblings, also definite. Twins, most likely. But if that was the case, Adelaide had a ton of questions. Like why wouldn’t Ellie have told them about him? Why was she being so secretive about something that should be so innocuous? And why wasn’t he in school?
Adelaide decided she’d talk with Lila about it later and see if she’d picked up on anything odd. Lila’s gift was the ability to see if people were being truthful or not, and they would often compare their combined observances. She and Lila had no secrets from each other. Based on the future relationships she could see between Ellie and Griffin and herself, as well as with the other members of her family, Adelaide knew she’d find out in time. For now, she’d give Ellie the benefit of the doubt that she had a good reason for not saying anything. And while she waited on Ellie, maybe she and Lila would be able to figure it out and help move things along.
*****
Ellie only breathed a sigh of relief when she and Griffin made it all the way back to the library without incident. They hopped in her car and drove it home, just in case they were being watched. It would be pretty awkward if one of the Jenners or Pierces saw her car still parked there later.
Once they were safely at the house, Ellie and Griffin rushed inside and opened the window in her bedroom. It provided the most privacy and would allow them to enter and exit relatively undetected – hopefully. Griffin tapped into Ellie’s power and together brother and sister each morphed into the peregrine falcon form, one inky black and one golden. Then they took flight.
The falcons made a striking pair as they wheeled in unison and headed to where Griffin had spotted the wolves. They scouted from the air, flying in ever-widening circles, and still had no visual sighting of the pack.
“Let’s try their tracks,” Griffin’s voice sounded in Ellie’s mind.
Together they swooped into a great dive, flaring their wings at the last second and shimmering back into human form as they landed. They immediately found the tracks. Ellie quickly morphed into the form of a great, midnight black jaguar.
As a jaguar, she used her hunting instincts to try to find the wolves. But the ominous clouds that had been circling above now rolled in over the mountains. A light snow began to fall, making tracking extremely difficult. Finally, the scent and the lead abruptly ended. As if they’d disappeared midstride.
She morphed back into a human. Having followed her thoughts, Griffin did the same.
“Well, either someone in their group is a teleporter who is strong enough to transport others with them, or they can all morph like you do and they took flight,” Griffin said.
Ellie