Resistance (The Variant Series #2)

by Jena Leigh

  “Is your sister going to be much longer?”

  After answering the all-important questions put to him by the twins—and after being studiously ignored by Matthew who sat texting silently at the other end of the sofa—Aiden had the dubious honor of being stared-down by her overprotective father, just home from a double shift at the hospital.

  The poor guy was so rattled, in fact, that he made it halfway around the truck before his manners kicked in and he remembered to open her door. He jogged back to the passenger side, cursing, as four of the five men in Cassie’s family watched on in amusement.

  When Aiden nearly smacked her in the forehead with the door, Cassie’s brothers gave up staring and laughed.

  Cassie found the entire exchange exceedingly funny. Aiden, not so much.

  When he moved down from Portland, Aiden brought Norma Jean with him—his beloved, battle-scarred Chevy pickup.

  The three bullet holes rumored to be in her side had apparently been patched up the week before. Which was fantastic, because Cassie wasn’t sure how she would have explained those to her father, who watched them leave from his position at the dining room windows.

  Now that they were safely at the restaurant, Aiden stared past Cassie and out at the shoreline, watching the rain fall in steady torrents along the beach, completely lost in his thoughts.

  “Everything alright?” asked Cassie.

  He looked away from the water and met her eyes, flashing a smile. “Of course,” he said. “Sorry. Just thinking.”

  “What about?”

  He folded his napkin and set it on the table, then leaned back in his seat. “Is the weather always like this?”

  Cassie looked out the window at the darkened skies and the heavy rains dimpling the ocean waves.

  “Always? No,” she said. “Although it is an El Niño year. Sometimes that makes our storms more severe.”

  “An El Niño year?” Aiden’s expression turned wry. “Harboring a secret desire to become a meteorologist, Cassie?”

  She smiled. “While I’m sure I’d make for a fantastic weather girl on the five o’clock news, no. I have other ambitions. My brother Matthew, however, can’t get enough of Storm Chasers, so the TV in the living room is usually blasting the Weather Channel any time he has control of the remote.”

  “Really?” said Aiden. “Matthew was the silent one with the phone surgically attached to his hand, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “And the twins are Runt and Danny,” he continued. “Danny’s the shorter of the two, and Runt is the taller one that hates brussels sprouts and thinks any man worth his salt owns a dog.”

  “You’re a quick study,” she said.

  “It’s a reflex,” he said. “I tend to be hyperaware of my surroundings and the people in them any time I fear for my life.”

  Cassie snorted in amusement. “Come on, my family’s not that bad.”

  “Have you actually met your brothers?” Aiden laughed. “Runt told me that if I ever hurt you, he—and I quote—‘knew a guy’ who could ‘get the job done’ and ‘the body disposed of’ before anyone even noticed I’d gone missing.”

  Cassie rolled her eyes, smiling. “That sounds like Runt.”

  “You know, I’m surprised,” said Aiden. “Usually it’s the older brothers that meet me at the door issuing death threats. I’m used to the little brothers greeting me with the incriminating photos and embarrassing stories from my date’s childhood.”

  “Oh? Been on a lot of dates, have we?”

  Aiden hid his smile by taking a sip of water from his glass.

  “The twins know better than to try anything,” she added.

  “Oh really?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I know a guy.”

  Leaving the cafe that night, Aiden held true to his earlier promise as he walked her to the door of his truck, keeping Cassie dry by redirecting the driving rains to either side of them as they crossed the restaurant’s puddle-filled parking lot.

  “You know,” she said. “Most people would just use an umbrella.”

  Aiden grinned. “Where’s the charm in that? Wouldn’t be much of a superpower if I couldn’t use it to rescue a pretty girl once in a while. Or a pretty girl’s hair, at the very least.”

  “You’re a regular knight in scruffy armor.”

  “I try.”

  As he helped her into the truck, Aiden’s eyes met hers and he smiled.

  Before he could step back and close the door, Cassie leaned out of the truck’s cab and placed a kiss on Aiden’s lips.

  She’d meant for it to be brief peck, but apparently her lips never got the memo.

  And neither did her hands, obviously, because in the next moment they’d reached up to take hold of Aiden’s shirt in an attempt to draw him closer.

  It wasn’t until after she pulled away some moments later, that Cassie realized they were both completely drenched. The kiss took Aiden so much by surprise, he forgot to redirect the rain.

  Cassie sat perched on the edge of the truck’s bench seat, grinning up at Aiden’s bemused expression.

  “I really owe Kenzie that new phone now, don’t I?”

  “Yes,” said Cassie, leaning in for another kiss. “You really do.”

  — 10 —

  The storm that moved ashore that night was unlike anything the town of Bay View had seen since Hurricane Charlotte skirted inland just north of them, three years earlier.

  Trees were uprooted, homes and property damaged, and many of the buildings along the shoreline came precariously close to flooding.

  Thankfully—miraculously—no one was injured as a result of the freakish weather.

  Alex, meanwhile, was content to spend the entire weekend locked in her bedroom under a self-imposed quarantine, oblivious to the wind and rain ravaging her hometown. She was too distracted by the storm raging inside her own thoughts to pay the weather any mind.

  After explaining to her friends what happened in the woods and where she went when she’d jumped, she’d been met first with blank stares, and then with a unified front of carefully phrased dismissals.

  They didn’t believe her.

  Worse, they’d suddenly felt the need to console her.

  Cassie had hugged Alex tightly, slid a hand over her dark, matted curls in an effort to tame them, then insisted that the stress of everything that was happening must have finally gotten to her. It had been a rough few weeks. What she needed, was rest.

  She hadn’t seen Masterson in the forest, Kenzie assured her. With her telepathic ability, Kenzie would have sensed him the instant he’d appeared. No one could hide from her if they were nearby. That voice she’d heard had been nothing more than the wind whispering through the branches. The shadows, a trick of the light.

  And her unexpected jump into the past?

  Declan shook his head slowly and explained that what she’d experienced simply wasn’t possible. Traveling through time was definitely not a part of a jumper’s ability, no matter how powerful they were. Heck. Time travel wasn’t even a Variant ability in the first place.

  She was unconscious when she jumped. Wasn’t it more likely that she’d just dreamed it?

  By Saturday evening, Aunt Cil gave up trying to con Alex into leaving her room so that they could discuss what happened to her the night before. Out of desperation, she’d resorted to carrying on an entire conversation with her niece through the whitewashed oak door.

  After her pleas were once again met with stubborn refusals, her aunt changed tactics.

  “Declan’s here to see you,” she said. “He’s waiting for you downstairs. Says you’re not answering his calls.”

  Alex cast a sidelong glance at the cell phone lying face-down on her desk.

  She’d turned it off the night before. She only ever received texts from Kenzie and Cass, anyway, and right now she had no desire to speak to either one of them.

  She wasn’t angry, just frustrated.

  Mental exhaustion or no, somethin
g happened to her last night. There was no way she imagined the entire thing.

  Seated cross-legged on the floor in front of her bed, Alex drew her legs up toward her chest and ran her fingers lightly over the dark purple marks adorning her knees.

  When she reappeared in the parking lot the night before, she had twin bruises on her kneecaps and an arm washed clean of dirt. How had that happened if what she saw wasn’t real?

  Leaning her head back against the comforter behind her, Alex closed her eyes. “Can you tell Declan I’m not feeling well and that I’ll see him on Monday?”

  Her aunt sighed audibly from the other side of the door. “This is ridiculous, Lee-Lee. You haven’t eaten anything since yesterday. Surely that jumping ability is out of your system by now. It’s been over 24 hours!”

  If Declan was downstairs like her aunt claimed, Alex couldn’t sense him. Which meant that if her powers hadn’t faded yet, they would soon.

  That didn’t change the fact that if she left her room right now, she’d be subjected to an interrogation by her aunt.

  Safer just to stay in her room for one more night.

  She could deal with the mess that was her life tomorrow.

  For tonight, she was perfectly happy to hide.

  “You’re forgetting that I can handle any wayward currents you summon up. You’d actually be safer with me in the room,” her aunt added. “At the very least, come downstairs with me and eat some dinner.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Alex lied. She was starving, actually. That mini-pack of Twizzlers hidden away in her candy stash had lasted about three hours, even with the rationing. “And for all you know, I might destroy the kitchen before you could even blink, much less find a way to stop me. I’ll be fine, Aunt Cil. Really. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Resigned, her aunt finally gave up.

  There was vegetable soup on the stove if Alex was hungry, and Cil would be in her workshop for the rest of the night, should Alex need anything—or should she develop a wild hair and actually want to talk about things, for once.

  Alex rolled her eyes at the parting jab.

  Talk, Aunt Cil?

  This from the woman who’d fed her lies about their family for the last twelve years.

  Alex stuffed that thought back where she’d found it.

  Her Aunt had only been trying to protect her. To keep her out of this crazy world. If anything, Alex was starting to wish those lies could have lasted just a little while longer.

  Alex grabbed the remote for her iPod dock and hit play, then crossed the room in order to turn off the overhead lights and flip on the twinkle lights that were strung up around the room instead.

  It struck her that she could have done all of that without actually moving, had she still been at full strength with her jumping ability.

  Frowning, Alex took a few extra steps toward her bedside table and turned on a lamp, just to remind herself that the average human had been given arms and legs for a reason, and that they worked just as well as superhuman abilities.

  She started to walk away, then spun on her heel, reached down, and turned the soft light of the lamp up another notch.

  Take that, lamp!

  Powers. Who needs ’em?

  Falling back onto her bed, Alex snagged her current read from where she’d left it lying facedown on her pillow, opened it up to the page she’d stopped on, and set about losing herself in someone else’s world for a while.

  Her grand escape lasted roughly twenty minutes.

  A flash of light, a charge in the air, and then—

  “Sarah McLachlan and soft lighting, Alex? Really?” The intruder shook his head. “It’s like I teleported into one of those chick dramas from the ’90s.” He pointed toward the bay window. “If that Dawson’s Stream kid shows up on a ladder, I’m done.”

  Alex couldn’t decide whether she wanted to smile at that, or chuck the paperback she was holding at his head.

  He was one to talk. Hadn’t he shown up outside her window only days before?

  She shook her head. “What is it with you and barging into my bedroom unannounced, Declan? What if I’d been naked?”

  Declan’s brow furrowed as he took inventory of the faded gray t-shirt and black Soffe shorts she was wearing. “Do you usually walk around your room without your clothes on?” He clicked his tongue. “I should start dropping by to see you more often.”

  The paperback went flying. Declan sidestepped it with ease.

  Alex tried not to find the roguish grin spreading across his features as sexy as it so blatantly was.

  Determined not to return his smile, Alex concentrated instead on slowing her suddenly racing heartbeat—a development that had nothing at all to do with the surprise of his arrival.

  “Honestly, Alex,” he said. “Is this any way to treat the handsome hero that just brought you dinner?”

  In his hands, Declan held a familiar white box. Paper plates and two sodas rested on top.

  “I’m not hungry,” she lied.

  Declan placed the box on her desk, set the plates and drinks aside, and flipped it open.

  The smell of the pizza finally reached her. Her stomach—ever the traitor—growled in response.

  “Right,” he said, looking over the still steaming pie. “One pepperoni and mushroom pizza, just how you like it.”

  “How did you know I liked—”

  “Cassie,” he said, separating a slice of pizza from the whole and setting it onto a plate. “Which reminds me. You should probably call her soon. She’s developed that same sort of separation anxiety dogs get when they’re away from their owner for too long. If you don’t act soon, she’ll probably start gnawing at the furniture.”

  Alex rolled her eyes. “Did it ever occur to you guys that maybe I just wanted some time alone?”

  He handed her the plate with a raised eyebrow. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe your friends might be worried about you? I mean, you did spend most of last night hallucinating about shadowy bad guys and time travel.”

  “They weren’t hallucinations!” she argued, once again on the defensive. “You know what? Never mind. I’m never going to be able to convince you that it actually happened. If Masterson is hiding around here somewhere, then he’ll show himself again soon enough, anyway.”

  “Alex—”

  “And seeing as how I have absolutely no intention of absorbing your ability—or anyone else’s—ever again, there’s nothing more to worry about. So go ahead and think whatever you like, because it really doesn’t matter.”

  “Lex,” Declan repeated. “Samuel Masterson is not in Bay View. If he was, we would know about it.” He sighed. “And as for the not using thing… One of these days, you’re going to find yourself in a position where you’ll wish like hell you’d mastered your abilities instead of just running from them.”

  Alex shook her head.

  Scowling, Declan reached into the pizza box for another slice.

  “You can’t just stuff your head in the sand and think it will all go away,” he said. “News flash, Alex—the monsters don’t disappear when you close your eyes. Instead, they hang around and bide their time until they’ve found the perfect way to use your blindness to their advantage.”

  Unwilling to acknowledge the truth lurking in Declan’s words, Alex stared down at the plate of food sitting in her lap.

  She heard him sigh. “Enjoy the pizza, Lex.”

  By the time she looked up, Declan was gone, leaving Alex alone with her thoughts and the nagging fear that maybe she was making the wrong choice, after all.

  * * *

  In the end both Grayson and Aunt Cil accepted Alex’s newfound resolution not to use her powers, albeit grudgingly.

  It was Alex’s choice to make, after all. They couldn’t force her.

  Training sessions with Nate and the others were suspended indefinitely, though she was still arguing on a daily basis with her aunt about the wisdom of her decision.

  So far, nearly a week ha
d passed without incident. Alex channeled all of her focus into her schoolwork, finishing up final projects and preparing for her upcoming exams.

  By Friday afternoon, shifting shadows and time jumps seemed like a distant memory.

  Things were thankfully—blissfully—normal.

  Making her way to the front of the lunch line, Alex handed her Bay View High ID card to a frail, elderly woman wearing a hairnet. Frowning, the woman rung up the contents of Alex’s lunch tray, swiped the card and handed it wordlessly back to her.

  When Declan stepped forward to pay for his own lunch, the woman’s warm smile immediately returned.

  Alex wondered just how badly you had to screw things up to make even the sweet old lunch ladies hate you.

  She sighed.

  A crash echoed outward from the adjoining kitchen and the woman manning the checkout—after apologizing sweetly to Declan—left her post to investigate.

  Alex stood awkwardly beside the lunch line as the woman disappeared into the adjacent room.

  Declan nodded toward the long hall that led to the commons area, where a second lunch room existed for the underclassmen. “You go ahead,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  On rainy days like this one, the social rabble that usually ate their lunch outside was forced to find a seat at one of the many tables set up in the commons, alongside the freshmen and the sophomores.

  Although, truth be told, even if there had been any room left at the tables in the upperclassmen cafeteria, most of them probably would have retreated to the commons, anyway.

  Tray in hand, Alex carefully wove her way through the tables and the mass of students, far more concerned with tripping over a stray book bag than with accidentally bumping into someone.

  Navigating the crowds wasn’t much of an issue anymore, thanks to Declan and Ozzie.

  “Hey, Lexie.”

  Alex looked up from the tiled floor and into a pair of dark brown eyes. Coming to a halt, she readjusted her hold on the lunch tray.

  “Um,” she managed. “Hi, Connor.”

  He smiled down at her. “How’ve you been? I’ve missed seeing you around. You haven’t been by the Shack in a while.”

  The Shack was a local beachside hangout frequented by Bay View High students. One that Alex and Cassie used to visit on a regular basis, prior to the events of their Spring Break.