“Uh, yeah, something like that.” For once, Griffin sounded clueless.
“More than anything, we want you boys to come with us so we can be a family again, but the way you talk about her, I have a feeling that Lexus is family to you now.” Mom nodded at Lexus with a smile that made me wonder how much she already knew.
Griffin’s face pinched like he was sucking lemons. “She’s more than that, Mom.”
Mom raised her eyebrows and glanced at Lexus, and I tightened my hand around her waist.
“We’re together, Mom,” I said.
Griffin got up and took Lexus’ hand. “The three of us.”
I couldn’t believe my brother had the guts to say that to our parents. Maybe being with Lexus was making some of the pussy rub off of him.
Our parents looked from us to each other and back again what seemed like a half a dozen times before anyone said anything.
“You mean… romantically.”
I almost burst out laughing at how awkward my father looked and sounded when he said that. That word just didn’t sound right coming out of his mouth.
“We know it’s… unusual, but it works for us, and if you want us to be part of your lives again, you’ll have to accept that Lexus is a part of ours.” Griffin’s teeth were clenched so hard, I thought his face might crack.
My dad got all stern and fatherly-looking all of a sudden and turned laser beam eyes our way. “Are you two taking advantage of her? Just because you help a girl doesn’t mean she owes you… anything.”
“It’s not like that, Mr. Easton.” Lexus’ soft, sweet voice broke through the tension. “I love them. Both of them.”
“I could tell, hon. A woman knows what it looks like when another woman is in love.” My mother nodded with a goofy grin on her face.
6
Like the Declaration of Independence says, some truths are self-evident, and that was one of them — I loved Phoenix and Griffin. Equally. I could no more decide between them than I could choose between oxygen and food. I couldn’t imagine my life without either one of them.
So why did I all of a sudden have these unsure feelings now that their parents had agreed to let me come with them? It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be with Phoenix and Griffin. I just wasn’t sure I was ready to leave everything else behind.
They were talking about complete isolation from the rest of the Special community. But was I okay with that? My powers had intimidated me for a long time, but now that I was starting to get control of them, did I really want to pretend I didn’t have them?
And what about my parents? My father was out of prison now, and although he too wanted nothing to do with the Specials, if I went with the Eastons, they wouldn’t want me to have contact with any other Specials, including him. And my mother, well, that was a whole other issue. My feelings for her were too complicated to sort out.
A week ago, I didn’t even know Renee Morgan existed, but now she was in danger. How could I just run off into obscurity when my own mother needed rescuing? But how could I possibly help her? I didn’t even know how to start, and I certainly couldn’t do it alone.
The twins had promised to help me find her, but now, that was the furthest thing from their minds. I knew we didn’t have anything to go on, nowhere to start, but I still felt like I had to try.
Would the council go look for her? I knew nothing about this mysterious sovereignty. Did they really have our best interests at heart, or were they just a front for some other agenda? Could I trust them? I didn’t know the answers to any of these questions, and the one person I would’ve turned to for information had now become the enemy.
The Eastons wanted to sneak out of here first thing in the morning, before the council arrived. They intended to take new names and disappear somewhere far away from here where they could lay low for a while.
The twins assumed I was going with them, they thought I was in my room packing my things, but instead, I wandered the empty rows of the library, trying to sort out my feelings, but only making myself more agitated. It was late, and most everyone else was in bed. The library was dark and solemn, only pale rays of moonlight piercing the blackness.
That was why I jumped when I turned the corner and ran smack dab into Jaxson. I yelped and threw myself back against a bookshelf, my heart threatening to explode from my chest.
“What are you doing down here!” I cried out, holding my hand over my aching heart and trying to calm my hyperventilating.
Jaxson ran a hand through his raven hair, and his lips curved up in a smile like he was completely relaxed despite our surprise collision. “Hey Lexus. I came down here to do a little research. What are you doing down here?”
“I just needed a quiet place to think,” I whispered.
He raised an eyebrow like he immediately knew there was way more going on. “Think about what?”
Did I dare confide in him? I really needed someone to talk to besides the twins, someone who could help me sort through my feelings and figure out what to do. But did I trust Jaxson not to spill if I told him what the Eastons were planning? Maybe I could leave out that little detail.
“Lexus? Are you okay? You look kind of freaked out.” Jaxson ran a hand lightly down my hair, and his gentle touch undid me. I sucked in a whimper and felt my eyes get watery.
“Hey! Hey, it’s okay, Lexus.” Jaxson reached out and embraced me, pressing my head to his chest, blotting my tears on his shirt. “What’s going on? Are you worried about your mom?”
I nodded into his chest as he rubbed my back, his hands leaving a trail of warmth on my chilled skin. He smelled different than Phoenix and Griffin, his cologne was more musky — sensual, but still sharp and fresh. Powerful. Exactly like Jaxson. I sucked in deep lungfuls of it, letting it soothe my nerves.
Eventually, I pulled away and wiped my face, not making eye contact.
“I have all these mixed emotions about her. I didn’t even know she existed, and when I found out, I resented her for abandoning me. My life would’ve been so different if she had stayed or taken me with her. But then, when I found out that Anders had kidnapped her, I felt so bad. She’s a victim, too. I’m worried about her, and I feel like I should help her, but I have no idea how.”
“And the Bobbsey twins?” Jaxson raised a knowing eyebrow and leaned back on one of the library tables, looking mysterious in the pale moonlight coming through the large windows.
“What about them?”
“Well, it always seems to come back to them for you, so what’s going on? Seems like you would be having this conversation with them if there wasn’t some kind of problem.” He crossed his arms over his chest smugly.
I immediately wanted to contradict him, but I couldn’t. He was right. I sighed and sat down on top of the table next to him and started smoothing the ruffles on my hem.
“They want me to go with them and their parents, start a new life somewhere far away from here.”
“And you don’t want to go?”
“I want to be with them, I just don’t know if I’m ready to leave everything else behind. How can I leave when my mother is out there, still held captive by Anders? I’m not sure I could live with myself if I didn’t at least try to save her.” I shook my head like a Magic 8 Ball, trying to get the right answer to appear.
“What would you do?” I looked up at him, hoping to see a solution in his eyes, confidence on his face, but all I saw was sympathy.
“I can’t tell you that, Lexus. I can’t even imagine being in your shoes. But you have to do what feels right. If the twins can’t understand that, then they don’t deserve you. If they really care about you, they’ll support you.”
“But I have no idea how to find her or help her. How do I even start?”
“Well, we need to start by learning more about Anders. Who is he, really? And what was he doing with those prisoners? Did he do all this alone, or was someone helping him? If we’re going to anticipate his next move, we have to understand his motivation.”
Jaxson’s voice and face became more animated as he spoke.
“We?” I smirked at him.
He twisted his face in a wry smile. “Well, somebody has to help you if Bevis and Butthead aren’t going to.” His face hardened a little. “Unless you don’t want me involved.”
I put a hand on his shoulder, and he flinched and looked at me. “Thank you, Jaxson,” I whispered, and he gave me a small smile.
“So, what are you researching?” All of a sudden I wondered how he was coping with all of this. His parents had been kidnapped, too.
“I was looking for the school charter. I’m curious what will happen now that Anders is gone. Who will be in charge now? I can’t believe I never thought about that before. I just always took it for granted that Anders was the end of the line, but is that really true? I don’t think he owns this school, so someone else must be over him. I just don’t know who.”
I hadn’t thought about that either. What would become of the school now? I knew there was no way the council would let the police get involved in the investigation of Anders’ crimes, but probably a lot of parents would pull their students once they found out about it. The school might not recover from that.
That raised another question I didn’t know the answer to — who funded the school? When Anders invited me and the twins to enroll, there was no talk of tuition, so someone in the Special community must be sponsoring some or all of the students.
“Jaxson, do your parents have to pay tuition for you to come to this school?”
Jaxson chuckled at me. “Of course. Why?”
“Well, I just wondered, who’s paying mine?”
Jaxson frowned and crossed his arms over his chest.
“There’s no way my… stepmother would’ve agreed to send me here if it cost her anything, and my father didn’t even know I was here. The twins were in foster care. I doubt their foster parents are footing the bill.”
“So Anders must’ve had some kind of fund for at-need students. Does the tuition the other students pay cover that, or was someone sponsoring kids like you?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure it matters, but it would be interesting to know.”
Jaxson’s expression grew serious. “Well, it might affect your enrollment if Anders was misappropriating funds.”
My face went slack at that suggestion. The decision might not be up to me, after all.
7
I climbed the stairs and headed down the hall towards the twins’ room, about to have the hardest conversation of my life. My pulse pounded in my ears, muffling any other sounds, and my body shivered more than the chilly hallway could explain.
I gave a tiny knock, almost hoping they wouldn’t answer and I could put this off another day, but the door swung open immediately, and Phoenix stood there looking as gorgeous and undeniable as ever, dark hair swooping over crystal grey eyes set in a face striking enough to feature in a fashion magazine. Griffin stood behind him, identically mesmerizing. I wanted to stop time for a moment so I could savor this image of them, this last memory. How on earth was I going to tell them I wasn’t coming with them?
“Hey Lex, what’s going on? You okay?” Phoenix pulled me into the room and hugged me, and I instantly tried to memorize the smell and feel of him. Who knew how long it would be before he held me again?
“I can’t go with you,” I blurted out immediately, ripping off the bandaid. By the looks on their faces, it hurt them even more than me.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Phoenix propped his hands on his hips and stared down at me, his eyes blazing with intensity. I trembled under his gaze and dropped my head, staring at my feet.
Griffin gave him a stern look and led me over to his bed, sitting beside me. He unhinged the knuckles that were clenched around the hem of my shirt and intertwined his fingers with mine. “Talk to me, Lexus.” His voice was soft but firm.
I let out a shaky sigh and bit my lip, lifting my head to keep the tears from dripping down my cheeks. “I can’t leave when my mother’s still out there, controlled by Anders. I have to stay and find out more information so I can go look for her.”
Griffin dropped his head and stared at our hands, his voice raspy with guilt. “I’m sorry, Lexus. We’ve been dragging you along, making assumptions about what you want ever since our parents told us their plans. It’s only right for you to want to help your mother. I would want to do the same thing. We promised you that we would help you find her, and we’ve completely dropped the ball, we were so caught up in our own issues. Can you ever forgive us, Lexus?” He raised his head and stared at me with haunted eyes that were duplicated in Phoenix’s face.
“Of course, Griffin. I know you want to be with your parents. They’re the most important thing to you right now. That’s the way it should be — family first, right?”
“But you’re just as important as family to me, Lexus. Maybe even more so. We’ll stay here and help you find your mom, right Phoenix?”
Phoenix looked pained, and for once he didn’t have much to say, but he nodded his head in agreement.
Griffin’s words were like a healing balm, soothing the ragged edges of my heart, but it wasn’t right to let his own wound fester while he tried to heal mine. The twins and I had different needs right now, and neither one was more important than the other. I couldn’t let them sacrifice their own happiness for me.
“No, Griffin. That’s not what I want. Your parents need you, and you need them. I want you to go with them.”
“But Lexus, I don’t understand. What about your mom?”
“I’m going to stay and look for her. And you’re going to go with your parents.”
Griffin’s face froze when he realized what I was saying. “Lexus, you don’t mean…”
I nodded and wiped an errant tear from my cheek.
“No, Lexus, no! I can’t just leave you here to deal with it by yourself. I can’t abandon you.” His face twisted with grief.
“I’ll be fine, Griffin. I’m so much stronger, now; you’ve made me that way. I can take care of myself. And you have to do right by your brother and parents. Your parents need you right now more than I do. And maybe you don’t feel it, but you need them, too. And even if you don’t, Phoenix does, and you two need each other.”
My words were like shotgun pellets taking down his defenses. Each truth was small, but the cumulative effect was overwhelming. His spirit collapsed a little more with each hit.
“It’s not forever, Griffin. Just for a little while.”
As soon as those words were out, I realized they might not be true. Who knew what the future held for us now? We would just have to take it one day at a time and hope that someday our paths would join again.
Griffin reached out and grabbed me, holding so tight I couldn’t breathe, his own body trembling. “Lexus, this doesn’t feel right. How can this be right if it feels so wrong?”
I laid a hand on his cheek. “Nothing is right, Griffin. But this is what we need to do to fix all the wrongs that have already been done.”
“Maybe I can still help you, even if I’m not here. I have all the files from Anders’ computer on a flash drive. I can dig deeper into them and see if there’s anything useful.”
“And we can try to get some more info from our parents. Maybe they know something about him that we don’t,” Phoenix added.
I nodded. “That would be great. And I’m hoping the council will start a search for them. Wouldn’t they want to find someone who’s breaking the rules like that? With that kind of manpower, we’re sure to find them in no time.”
Griffin didn’t look too sure about that, but he just nodded.
Should I tell that that Jaxson offered to help, too? They’d pretty much forgiven him for kidnapping me to help him look for his own parents, and they’d formed an uneasy alliance with him since we started investigating Anders. But they didn’t know that Jaxson and I had kissed once, and they had no idea about the feelings for him that invaded my mind sometimes.<
br />
I decided to keep all that to myself for now. I didn’t want anything else to complicate their decision to leave.
“So, I guess you’ll be leaving soon. Are you all packed?” I said, glancing around their room when the silence got uncomfortable.
The dichotomy between Phoenix and Griffin’s sides was laughable. Griffin’s looked the same as it did on the day we moved in — the bed was made, the closet was empty, and his suitcase sat by the door, ready to go. Phoenix’s side looked like a tornado had swept through, discarding belongings on every surface. Griffin laughed, and the tension lightened just enough that I could take a breath.
“Phoenix might need a little help with that.”
“I can help you, Phoenix… if you want me to.”
“That’d be great, Lex.” He choked a little on the words.
“I think I’ll go talk to our parents for a bit, see if they need anything.” Griffin glanced between me and Phoenix, and I realized he was giving us some privacy to say goodbye.
“I’ll be back soon, okay?”
I nodded and let his hand trail through my fingers as he pulled away.
When he was gone, I started picking up Phoenix’s clothing off the ground and folding it. Phoenix did the same for a minute, keeping his back to me, and I realized I’d never seen him so quiet. I was pretty sure he was trying to keep himself from breaking down. Phoenix was strong, and he portrayed a tough guy image, but I knew that inside his emotions ravaged his mind.
After a few minutes of tortured silence, Phoenix dropped the shirt he was holding and turned around. When he looked at me, tears burst from his eyes. He rushed over to me and embraced me, his strong arms wrapping around my shoulders, crushing me to his chest. He ran a hand up and down my back as he sobbed into my hair.
“I can’t do it, Lexus. I can’t leave you here to fend for yourself. You’re my family. You’re more important to me than anything else. I can’t abandon you.”
I hugged him back but pulled away just enough to look into his eyes. “Phoenix, you’re just scared, but it’s going to be okay. I’ll be fine here, and you’ll be fine with your parents. I think you still believe that they left you because you weren’t good enough, and you’re worried that they won’t accept who you are now. But your parents didn’t abandon you, Phoenix. They were taken from you, and it wasn’t because of anything you did wrong. They love you, and they want to make up for all the years they lost with you. You’re not abandoning me any more than they abandoned you. We just need to take different paths for a little while.”
Flying Free Page 3