Ending ELE (ELE Series) (25 page)

“
You should let me redo it.” Claire giggles as she says it. “You aren’t supposed to make it look like face makeup. You just smudge the colors together here and there to blend in with your environment.”

Now Connor is huffing with his hands over his chest.
“Fine.”

Claire blows him a kiss and takes his hand to lead him back to the bathroom. Tony rounds the corner before they make their escape and he falls to the floor laughing.

“Not cool man, not cool!” Connor stomps away towards the bathroom.

This sends us all back into our laughing fit. Claire
’s face is red with the effort of trying to control herself when she moves to follow Connor.

“
This looks like a disciplined group of soldiers,” Jon calls out from behind us.

We all straighten up and turn to face him
at attention like we’ve been trained. Hey, you can’t blame us—we’re still minors.

“
At ease,” he says, smiling. “Are you ready?”

“
Yes sir,” Tony and I say at the same time.

“
Good. You should probably head out now. The sun is beginning to set, so you should have decent enough cover. We’ll be following close behind you. You won’t see us though. Try to pretend like we don’t exist,” Jon reminds us.

“
Will do, sir,” Tony says.

I check the weapon on my hip and the other one at my ankle. Tony does the same. We grab our
duffels and make our way out of the safety of the camp.

***

The moon is full tonight, making it easy to travel without a flashlight. I want desperately to be able to hightail it to Tony’s cabin, but I have to force myself to maintain a normal speed. Our powers came back to us before we even left the camp.

In accordance with our plan, they turned off the disabling device and Jon is carrying it with him as we speak. This meant that they had to leave most everyone with light blue eyes, including Candy, back at the base to protect the others. It was a
necessary decision because that device could be the difference between us being able to stop Blake or not. Jon will enable the device at the first opportune time when Blake is in range. It’s pretty clever. However, this will put us all on even playing field in a fight. I prefer to keep my powers, but I understand that this is the better option for the majority.

Tony stops and grabs my hand to stop me.
“Did you feel that?”

I try to open up my senses even though my heart is pounding fast.
“What is...?”
My thoughts are cut off as I’m barraged by an overwhelming sensation of slimy evil.
“Is it Blake?”
It can’t be. I know we are safe in Tony’s cabin on Valentine’s Day.

“
I don’t think so.”
Tony throws me to the ground in the next second. He crashes onto me just as a bullet swishes past us and into the trunk of a tree.

“
Stay down,” Tony demands as he uses his body as a shield over mine. We both go invisible. I try to move my head to look around for our assailant, but I can’t move but a few inches with Tony on top of me.

Two more bullets sink into a tree to the right of us.
“He can’t see us,”
I tell Tony. Thank goodness.

“
I’ll sneak up on him. You take cover,”
Tony says as he starts to move off me.

“
But...”
I say, but Tony cuts me off.

“
Take cover,”
he says again sternly.

Even though I don
’t want to obey, I do. Tony army crawls towards the direction that the shots came from.

I
army crawl in the opposite direction, towards a fallen tree. It’s amazing how easy an army crawl is when I have the power of strength. Back in training, when our powers were turned off, this effort alone would have me panting. I quickly make my way around the tree. When I’m safely behind it, I sneak a peek in the direction that Tony went. I try to focus my vision better to see him through the dense foliage.

I finally spot the assailant
not too far from where I am. He’s dressed in all black, looking through the scope of his rifle. He opens his eyes and I see the light blue. He can see us! He trains his rifle on Tony.

“
No!” I yell as I hop out from behind the tree and start running in his direction. The rifle swings towards me and, as if in slow motion, I see his finger pull back on the trigger a second before Tony clobbers him in the head from behind.

I am knocked back by the force of the bullet
, which hits me in the chest a millisecond later.

“
Willow!” Tony cries out. The sound of his voice seems so far away as my head hits the ground and my world goes dark.

The sound of a log losing its hearty fight against the raging fire startles me awake. My heart is racing. I refuse to open my eyes, worried that I
’ll see the stark fluorescent lights and grey concrete walls of a place I vaguely remember. A terror strong enough to taste fills my senses. I remember the dream that woke me. I was back in the room that Zack held me in. Blake was towering over me with a snarl on his face. I try to tell myself that I’m not there.
I’m not there
. It’s been months since I’ve had that dream.

The panic dissipates when I force myself to open my eyes and I see the wooden rafters of Tony
’s cabin. I blink my eyes a few times, trying to force the exhausted haziness from my vision. I look over at the piece of wood that has fallen through the grate in the fireplace. It morphs into brilliant, orange-red glowing embers. My heart rate steadies out as I watch the embers slowly progress to nothing more than grey ash.

I try to move, but my chest aches. Then I remember the bullet that slammed into my bulletproof vest.
Tony!
He took down the man that shot me, but were there any others?

I notice t
he steady rise and fall of Tony’s breathing behind me and I sigh in relief.
He’s here and I have nothing to fear...
For now.

“
Don’t think about it, not today,”
Tony says to me in our special form of mind speak, which only the two of us share.

I could fret on the fact that we are waiting for the big fish to bite into the bait but
, instead, I decide to take his advice and relish in this moment. To allow myself to feel safe and secure with his warm arm draped across my middle. To memorize the way my head fits perfectly under his chin. Suddenly, I feel as though we aren’t close enough. The stubble on his cheek tickles my forehead as I look up at him. His eyes are still closed and he looks endearingly innocent in his partial slumber. I stretch up and give him a small kiss on his sleeping lips. He smiles and his eyes flutter open. I can’t get enough of those eyes, with the colors that mimic mine so perfectly.

They are still a deep navy blue
from, I assume, when he used his healing power on me last night. I search those beautiful eyes. The prism of other colors are still visible when the light hits them just right and the ever-present red fleck sits towards the inside portion of his irises.

“
Morning,” he says aloud in a scratchy voice.

I can
’t help but feel a longing to hold him closer, to somehow become a single entity. It’s been over a month since I’ve woken up next to Tony. Back at the base camp, we sleep in separate rooms—as it should be when one is not on the run for their lives. I’m not going to think of that...

“
Morning,” I say before I brush my lips against his once again. This time his lips crush into mine as he melts into our kiss.

“
Happy Valentine’s Day,” Tony tells me.

My heart starts thudding in my chest. I
’ve been dwelling on this day for a while now—it always seemed so far away. But, here we are.

Tony gives me a half
-grin, taking in my expression and thinking that I forgot.
“You don’t even remember the big day of love?”
He chuckles more so to himself, as if I amuse him in a completely adorable, loving kind of way.

I shove his chest lightly in a playful gesture.
“With all that’s been going on, I’m surprised you remembered.”

“
Actually, Sabby reminded me. He said I better get you something good.” He winks at me.

“
I bet he did.” I smile at him. My heart is still beating quickly. I throw my shield up and Tony gives me a startled look. I ignore it and try not to think of the vision.
They don’t always play out exactly the same in reality
, I remind myself. Things change and are molded by circumstances. I need to stop thinking about what’s about to happen. I sit up and look at him. “Happy Valentine’s Day to you, Tony. I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything.” This is the first time I noticed the disarray of the house. I guess that last encounter with Blake’s men here didn’t go unscathed.

He kisses me on the tip of my nose.
“You are all I could ever want, Willow Mosby.” He grins excitedly, then hops up and goes to place another log into the fire. The fire crackles and comes back to life. Sitting back down next to me, he pulls me back into his arms, kissing the top of my head. He gently caresses my back with his hand, sending goose bumps down to my toes.

I feel his body shift as he brings my face up to his.
“Will you come upstairs for a second? There’s something I want to give to you.”

I nod my head and give him a
shaky smile. My legs shake as I stand up off the couch. Oh my gosh... Oh
my
gosh...

He takes my hand in his and leads me to his parent
’s room. I take a deep breath as he opens the door and gestures for me to take a seat on the red chaise lounge near the bay window. My palms go sweaty and my head feels light and airy as I watch him rummage through the closet. He removes a panel in the wall to reveal a safe. He turns to grin at me in excitement before he looks back at the safe and turns the dial several times. He must not notice the nervous expression on my face. I force myself to take a few deep breaths to compose myself.
Enjoy this
, I tell myself. A moment like this only comes once in a lifetime.

A second
later, I hear a click as the safe is opened. While I can’t see the contents, I can hear him shift papers and items around inside it before he carefully takes out a long, black box.

“
Close your eyes,” he says to me with a goofy grin.

I bite my lip but oblige.
My legs bounce in anticipation as I hear him moving things around inside the black box. Then it snaps shut and I can hear him placing it back in the safe, securing it. The panel on the wall snaps back and I listen to him walk over to where I’m sitting, just like in my vision. With my eyes still shut, he takes my hand in his.

“
Can I open them now?” I ask impatiently. I need to see his eyes. I need to know that Tony is going to do this because he thought of it all on his own and not because he saw my vision. He doesn’t answer me immediately and I get more fidgety. I can feel his palm sweating in my hand.

“
Okay, you can open them now,” he tells me. His voice is soft, almost a whisper.

I let out a shaky breath and
squeeze my eyes one last time before I open them. Tony is kneeling in front of me with my hand still in his. His other hand holds a small box and he places it in my lap.

My mouth goes dry and
I suddenly forget how to speak. I have already played this vision over and over again in my mind. Now that it’s happening in real time, I can scarcely keep from passing out.

“
Open it,” he urges me.

I take a deep breath and
decide to change the vision slightly. I take a leap of faith, hoping the box doesn’t contain a pair of earrings. I pull Tony up off his knees so that he’s sitting beside me. He looks at me with confusion as I hold the closed box in between my hand and his. “I have a confession to make,” I say as I lean my forehead against his. My breathing is heavy and so is his.

“
Oh yeah? What is it?” He pulls away slightly and his eyes drift down to my lips.

I accentuate the next word I say.
“Yes,” I tell him.

His gaze dart
s away from my lips and back up to my eyes. It takes him a second to register. I let go of my shield and in the next second, his eyes turn black. He smiles wide as he feels the excitement and love flowing out of me. “You knew this was going to happen? You had a vision?”

I nod sheepishly.

He pulls me into his arms and crushes his lips against mine. Our hearts meld together in a ferocious beat of excitement. He pulls back, his breathing heavy. “I still want to do this the proper way.”

The giddiness grows inside me as I nod excitedly at him.

“
Go ahead, open it,” he tells me.