Exposing ELE (ELE Series #3) by Courtney Nuckels, Rebecca Gober

me?” I ask.
    He chuckles. “Alice in Wonderland. It’s one of my favorites.”
    “Mine too,” I whisper.
    Tony gets comfortable in his chair and opens the old, tattered book. He clears his throat and begins, “Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversation?'”
    I snicker when he says Alice’s lines in a girly voice.
    “What?” he asks me now that I’ve clearly interrupted him with my giggling. He narrows his eyes at me playfully and looks like he’s going to pounce when all of a sudden his face goes lax. He stares into the distance, his eyes filled with hollowed emotion.
    “Tony,” I say trying to figure out how he can go from all emotion to nothing, so quickly. I wave my hand in front of his eyes, but still no response.
    Suddenly he gets up from the rocking chair and walks into the kitchen, his usual gait absent. He opens one of the drawers in the kitchen area and pulls out a large butcher knife, leaving the drawer open. He turns robotically towards me, butcher knife in hand.
    “Uh, Tony… what are you doing?” I ask him one last time before I start to panic. Naturally he doesn’t answer and it dawns on me that Tony isn’t in control here… something else is. I scoot back on the couch and crouch with my legs underneath me. Not knowing what I’m battling against I want to be ready for anything. And I have to do it just right or I could injure the Tony that’s buried deep inside.
    As Tony comes closer, I look him in the eyes. I notice a small red swirl, almost like a tornado, circling his iris.
    “The shot,” I say breathlessly. Like a lion about to pounce its prey, I ready myself to move. When Tony is but five feet from me, he begins raising the knife. I move quickly until I’m behind him and immediately grab his hand. His grip is deathly tight. I squeeze his wrist like he taught me and disarm the knife from his grasp. It falls to the ground and I kick it across the room. Then I immediately focus on healing, hoping with all I am that I can heal him again.
    It only takes a few seconds before Tony, the real Tony, comes back to me. I slide off his back landing softly on the wooden floor. He turns to look at me, his face contorted in utter confusion. “What…” he asks, searching for words. “What was that?”
    I scratch my head noticing the absence of the red in his eyes. “Uh, you were giving me a piggy back ride.” I want to hit myself in the forehead for giving such a stupid answer but it was the only thing that came to my mind.
    He ponders this for a moment and, surprisingly, he just shrugs his shoulders.
    He looks lost in thought so I suggest, “Hey, let’s read more of Alice in Wonderland.”
    He still looks perplexed, but he nods and sits back down in the rocking chair picking up the book from the floor.
    While he’s busy looking for where to start I walk inconspicuously over to where the knife is on the floor and silently kick it under the couch. I quickly slide onto the couch and throw the quilt up over my lap. I'm out of breath and sweating a little from the ‘incident’.
    Tony reads a few chapters and the entire time I find it hard to focus on the story at hand. I can't help staring at Tony and expecting him to just snap again. What the flip was that? I wonder. Out of all of the reactions I could have expected someone turning into a Reaper to do, I wouldn't have thought of that. I mean, if he's blacking out and going into Reaper mode or whatever, why did he grab a knife? Wouldn't he just try to take my powers with his touch? It doesn't take a knife to do that.
    I glance towards the kitchen and can't help but wonder if I should hide the butcher block of knifes sitting on the counter. But, if we’re being honest, he could use anything