Blue Violet by Abigail Owen

and not of his kind.
    Ellie’d pretty
much convinced Griffin that the Jenners and Pierces weren’t a danger to them.
But both she and Griffin were still concerned that revealing themselves to the
Jenners and Pierces might put them all in a great deal of danger. Especially
given the wolf sighting not too long ago.
    April had
given way to an unseasonably warm May. The snow was mostly gone, at least for
the moment. Ellie was standing outside in the parking lot, enjoying the lovely
weather and chatting with Adelaide, Lila, and Nate. She waved to Brian and
Juliette as they arrived, and hid a self-satisfied smile.
    “You’re pretty
proud of yourself, aren’t you?” Adelaide teased, following her line of sight.
    Ellie grinned.
“I just hope they remember me at their wedding.”
    Adelaide
chuckled. She also thought that Brian and Juliette made a good couple, but her
reasons for feeling so were slightly different, and she kept them to herself.
    The couple had
been inseparable since that movie night. They’d also become particularly good
friends of Ellie’s, often coming over to her house to study on nights when she
wasn’t at the library with Adelaide, Lila, and Nate. Sometimes they’d join the
little library group, and even Griffin liked them. He’d finally warmed up to
the idea of making friends… Or, at least he’d grudgingly accepted the concept.
    Ellie glanced
up and froze, the blood draining from her face. Across the street, in the
shadows of a grove of trees, stood a giant black wolf, seemingly watching the
school. As Ellie watched, the wolf slowly backed up into the shadows and
disappeared.
    “Ellie?”
Adelaide laid a concerned hand on her sleeve. “Are you okay? You look like
you’re about to pass out.”
    Ellie pulled
herself out of her shocked state with difficulty. She slowly focused on
Adelaide’s worried face, and then shook her head a little, trying to clear it.
“Umm… yeah.”  She pinned what she hoped was a cheerful look on her face, hoping
the color was coming back into her blanched cheeks. A loud trill shook
her senses.
    Saved by
the bell , she thought with wry amusement. The irony of the situation was
not lost on her.
    “Griffin ,”
Ellie called for her brother mentally as she followed her friends into the
school.
    “Yeah?”
    She mentally
showed him what she had just seen. Somehow, she also managed to communicate her
panic. “ It’s him. The black wolf.”
    “I know ,”
was his grim response. “ I’m on it. You go to class. I’ll see if I can find
him. I’ll keep in touch.”
    “Be
careful. Please.”
    “Do you
really have to say that to me?”
    “Probably
not .”
    Ellie didn’t
hear from Griffin again after that, and it made for an incredibly long day. She
must have acted pretty spacey, because her friends kept giving her odd looks.
Once school was finally over, she rushed out to the parking lot, her mind
focused on one thing and one thing only: to get home and see if she could find
Griffin.
    Halfway across
the lot she stopped suddenly, shocked. Alex was leaning up against her car.
Given that six weeks had passed since she’d last seen him and he’d done little
more than nod at her in passing, his timing was suspicious.
    “Hi, Alex,”
Ellie said as she approached him. Despite her state of panicked rush, and her
anger with him, she secretly felt thrilled. It just figured that he’d pick today of all days to finally talk to her. She unlocked the passenger-side door
and threw her backpack in the back seat. Alex still blocked the driver side.
     “Sorry, Alex,
but I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
    He didn’t
move. “Oh? Where’re you off to in such a rush?”
    “Just home.”
    “Griffin
there?” he asked in a too-casual way, and Ellie’s eyebrows popped up.
    “Yeah.”  She
drew out the word, implying by her tone that she thought that a bit of a silly
question.
    They eyed each
other for several moments. With an impatient gesture, she finally snapped, “Do
you