Awakening: The Elder Chronicles, Volume 1 Page 2

  "Is there something wrong? You were in La-la-land," Brittney taunted.

  "No. Nothing's wrong. I'm fine," she lied. "What did I miss?"

  "Well, I asked you a bunch of questions," Brittney retorted with a huff, "and you zoned right out."

  Elena responded with a sheepish grin. "Sorry. I sometimes drift off. What did you ask?"

  "Nope. Sorry, but I do not repeat myself." Elena could hear a very distinct emphasis on the words do not. Brittney stuffed a forkful of her salad into her mouth and turned her head away.

  Elena made a mental note to mark room-switch day on her calendar.

  "What little Miss Cranky here asked," Skye intervened, "is whether or not you have a boyfriend either here or off campus." Skye shot Brittney a smirky little glance.

  Sapphire-blue eyes flashed through her mind. "I—Uh, no," Elena replied. "I don't have anyone back at home—or on campus." The Book of Enoch. "Unfortunately, I don't get much time to go out. I have a major in microbiology and minor in anthropology, and spend most of my time in labs or at the library."

  "Oh my God!" Skye exclaimed. "Are you crazy? Why do you want to torture yourself?" Skye and Brittany's interest were piqued, both girls turned to her.

  "Well," Elena replied, "I was hoping to get into a good grad school. I want to be a genetic researcher."

  "What a dork!" This time, Brittney had decided to put in her two cents. Both she and Skye laughed at Elena's expense.

  "Yeah," she responded, unfazed. "I guess I am a bit of a dork."

  Most of the time Elena didn't regret she didn't have time in her busy life for a boyfriend. But from time to time, there were pangs of longing. She'd often wondered what it would be like to curl up into a pair of strong arms. Or to stay up all night talking about anything. She had dated a guy once in high school for a few weeks, but it ended badly. As a result, Elena traded any wondering about romance for a preoccupation with her studies. However, in response to her roommate, she continued, "I find the whole field of genetics fascinating. It's almost like studying history through the lens of evolution. Did you realize geneticists have been able to track the migrations of various racial groups into the Americas through studying the human genome? Besides, I want to make sure I have a good job when I get out of college."

  The blank expressions on their faces made it clear the girls didn't understand what she'd said. Turning to each other, some kind of strange code must have passed between them because all at once they both broke out in hysterical laughter. They laughed so hard Brittney snorted and nearly choked on a bite of her salad.

  "What's so funny?" Elena's face grew warm with aggravation.

  Skye regained composure first, while Brittney continued snorting away. "Honey, what are you talking about a good job?" The grimace on Skye's face made it clear the girl believed she had three heads. "Didn't your mama ever teach you the point of college for girls is to find wealthy husbands?"

  Her head began to ache. How could two "educated" girls be so locked into such outdated stereotypes? Her blood boiled. With a false smile, she pulled her cell phone from her pants pocket.

  "Excuse me," she said, collecting her tray. "I have to get over to the bookstore to check on one of my books. I think they close early today." Her voice was flat, measured, and controlled—as it had to be to hide the Everest-sized mountain of outrage welling inside her. Rising to leave, her eyes wandered to the seat where those stunning blue orbs had been. Something inside her wished to see them again.

  Chapter Two

  Several weeks into the semester, room switch day had come and gone. Elena's personal list of do's and don'ts helped her deal with her two roommates, and things with them had normalized. Classes were in full swing, and her reading list of extra books and articles nearly touched the ceiling of her dorm room. There were plenty of excuses to either avoid or minimize contact with what she referred to as the less-pretty Barbie-sisters she lived with. Brittney lived within an hour of the campus and tended to go home on the weekends. Skye, however, stuck around. Nevertheless, after about the first week of classes, both girls stopped paying much, if any, attention to Elena.

  This morning found Elena bored in her Western Civilization II class. As the squat tweed-clad professor rambled on, his chalk screeched across a dry spot on the blackboard, causing half of the class to wince at the sound. The man paid no notice and kept rambling.

  To Elena's right a student slept with his head on his desk. She had seen him once or twice on campus—kind of cute, with dark hair and brown eyes, but the puddle of drool on his desktop left something to be desired. To her left, were rows of other glossy-eyed students.

  No luck. Her casual searching of the faces of all the male students on campus was with the faint hope she could identify the owner of those alluring eyes from nearly a month ago. After all, there were not so many students on this campus she couldn't find him. Based on the odds alone, she should have run across him at some time over the past weeks.

  Class ended about ten minutes late and the unfortunate delay left her hard pressed to rush through the spitting rain to her next class, and the sad reality of another boring lecture. As the lecture ended, a loud growling noise startled her. Her stomach back flipped—she needed some lunch. The computer lab would have to wait until her thrashing hunger demons were appeased.

  The walk from the science building took her across the South Lawns. The morning's hard rain had left the paths and steps damp and slippery—a condition worsened by the blanket of wet leaves autumn's chill had deposited on them. After managing to survive the treacherous conditions of the paths, fate's cruel sense of humor let the wet concrete steps leading to the dining hall entrance put a hiccup into her lunch plans. Wet leaves on the top step caused her right foot to slide forward as her body lurched backward.

  Her momentum carried her straight down the short flight. A shock of pain shot up her back as her rear-end smacked the concrete. Numbness traveled from her right elbow to the tips of her fingers. Air rushed from her deflating lungs as her back struck the ground. Her head thumped against the solid path, causing bright explosions of white light in front of her eyes.

  With any luck, none of the other students were paying enough attention to see her fall. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and tried to take a mental inventory of her body to figure out if she'd broken anything.

  After what seemed like several seconds, her eyes opened to be welcomed by the gray pall of clouds overhead. Something resisted her attempt to sit up, though, pushing her body back to the ground. Craning her neck up, it became clear what held her down. She gasped. "Beautiful." A whisper, but the word had escaped her lips.

  In front of her were those haunting eyes, the ones invading her dreams. Bit by bit the rest of his features came into view. He couldn't have been more than twenty or so years old. Yet, gazing into his sapphire eyes, he possessed a wisdom and serenity beyond his years. The effect of his warm expression was instantaneous: calm and captivating. It dispelled any sense of embarrassment over her clumsy descent to the bottom of the steps. Dark wavy hair cascaded down and framed the finer chiseled features of his face—like the faces from DaVinci or Botticelli paintings. He had an aquiline nose, high, strong cheekbones, and a very slight cleft in his chin. Something about him felt out of place, but still comforting and safe. He had a familiar old soul.

  "Are you okay?" To her surprise he had a gentle, but commanding voice.

  The sound of it left her dumfounded and speechless. Unintelligible words escaped her lips as she stared, mesmerized by his eyes.

  "Are you okay?" he repeated. Words wouldn't form.

  After a short pause, he addressed her again. "Can you talk?" Beneath the mask of concern on his face, his warmth never wavered.

  "I—uh. Yeah. I think I fell," she stammered. What am I saying? Of course I fell. Why the hell else would I be lying flat on my back like this?

  Embarrassed, she tried to sit up again. "I'm fine—I think." He reached down and assisted her to an uprig
ht position.

  She made a failed attempt to give him a coy smile.

  His smile never wavered. "It would appear you slipped on some wet leaves." His hand gestured to a wet leaf-littered spot on the concrete above and behind her. Then with a slight wink he returned to his inquiry, "Do you think anything is broken?"

  Elena turned enough to see the step. As she did, she noticed no other students had come over to help. "I—uh—no," she replied. "There's nothing broken. Thank you."

  He pulled her to her feet and with a feather-light touch placed a hand at the small of her back to steady her. Electricity passed from his hand to her skin. Or was it a stinging pain?

  "Ouch!" she yelped. Despite his gentle touch, her lower back hurt.

  "You should go to the health center and get yourself checked out," he told her with honest concern. "To make sure nothing is seriously hurt. You took a pretty good spill."

  "Yeah..." she replied, unable to focus on anything but his eyes.

  "I could take you there," he offered. When she failed to respond, he added, "If you don't mind."

  His question finally sank in, but so did the intensity of the pain radiating from her lower back. Her lips felt numb. As she turned to address him, dizziness washed over her. Her mouth froze open. She needed to see the nurse as this was obviously a hallucination. Such a beautiful man would never offer to take her to the campus health center. Before she could say another word, however, her world disappeared in a cloud of blackness.

  j

  Her eyes opened to the intense pain of the overhead light. What happened? Where was she? As her vision cleared and her eyes acclimated to the light, it became apparent she no longer lay on the concrete outside, but instead stared upward at a checkerboard of stained cardboard ceiling tiles.

  She turned her head to explore her new surroundings. "Hold on a second, honey," an unfamiliar, but pleasant woman's voice said. "I need to check you out before you move around."

  Elena saw another bright light, this time silhouetting a finger. "Can you follow my finger with your eyes?" the woman asked. Elena obeyed.

  "Can you tell me your name?" The woman asked.

  "Yeah, it's Elena."

  "Your full name, dear?"

  "Elena Michaels, I am a student on campus. What happened? Where am I?"

  "You're in the Health Center. You collapsed and one of your friends called the campus police. They brought you here." Elena's sight began to gain more clarity. The nurse seemed pretty young—probably in her early thirties, a bit frumpy with auburn hair and bright green eyes. She appeared haggard from exhaustion.

  "One of my friends?" Elena's head swam. What was the last thing she remembered? And why did her head hurt so much? "Wait...I slipped outside the dining hall, and some guy helped me up." Elena bolted upright. "Is he here? Where did he go?"

  "I think it's safe to say you're all right," the nurse responded scratching some notes onto a clipboard. Switching off the penlight, the nurse handed Elena a cup with two pills inside. "Take these. It's ibuprofen—for the headache. If you begin to feel nausea, or the headache persists, please either come back or go to the hospital. You don't have any indications of a concussion, but let's be safe. They can be tricky sometimes."

  Elena downed the pills and nodded. "What about the guy? The one who brought me here? Is he still here?"

  The nurse frowned. "The officers who brought you here were alone. There was nobody with them. They said one of your classmates called them. I don't know anything about any young man. Sorry, dear." The nurse left the exam room.

  "Damn," Elena said.

  Chapter Three

  Several weeks later October was coming to a close, and midterm exams had arrived. Her mystery man had not been seen since her fall, and it made no sense he had appeared out of the blue to help her and then disappeared again into thin air. Poof! On such a small campus, it seemed a mathematical improbability she had not seen him since she fell.

  Tonight found Elena sitting alone in one of the campus library's upstairs reading rooms. This particular one, her absolute favorite, had wainscot walls painted in a cool apple green accented with warm tan, and a coffered ceiling in alternating patterns of white and off-white. In a strange, girlish fantasy way, sitting in here made her feel like an heiress to some great family fortune.

  Her parents had not been exactly poor. They had done well for themselves: put away a little money for her college education, helped her buy her car, those kind of things. But they were not wealthy by any extent of the imagination.

  Her father had been a research scientist for a genetic research company, her mother an accomplished homemaker. But all of it changed before her freshman year.

  The phone call came while Elena was still in school—a conference call from the owner of the research firm, its CEO, and the Vice President for Human Resources. They had bad news. One of the research assistants had found Elena's father on the cot in his office. He'd been found dead.

  The autopsy concluded he had died of an aneurism likely brought on by the excessive strain of working long hours, a high caffeine intake, untreated high blood pressure, and poor diet. Aside from the meager savings her parents had managed to put aside and a small life insurance policy, his death left them with no other means of income. As a result her mother, who had never once held a job outside the home, needed to get a career. And fast.

  Lucky for Elena, she had managed to win a full scholarship to school. The money her parents had saved for college supported them until her mother could get a job. Her father's company had given them a 500-dollar "gift" for the family's loss, but it served to defray the funeral costs. Fortunately, the company hired Elena's mother as an administrative assistant for one of the executives and told Elena she should call them for a job when she graduated. It was a good thing she wanted to get into the same field as her father.

  Sitting in the reading room, Elena hung her head over her microbiology text, reviewing for her upcoming exam.

  "Hi." The somewhat familiar disembodied voice startled her. The text in which she'd been engrossed slipped from her hands and clapped shut.

  She peered up, scowling, but her heart stopped as recognition sank in. Her mysterious stranger. She stared right into his sapphire eyes. Her mouth fell open. Words escaped her.

  "I'm sorry. Am I disturbing you?"

  He began to turn his head with one thumb pointed over his shoulder when she finally blurted out, "No!" She paused. "I mean—no, you're not disturbing me." She couldn't hide the sheepish grin on her face. "Please, sit down."

  Oh God! He was here, talking to her. What to do? Okay, calm down. Play it cool.

  "I was wondering how you were doing. You had such a terrible fall the other day." In such close quarters, she could hear a bit of an accent, except she couldn't place it. Perhaps Eastern European? Slavic?

  She studied his face for a few moments. "Well, what I would like to know is: what happened to you?" Her voice betrayed a note of anger. "I fall down on the steps, you come and help me up, and next I wake up alone in the health center to learn I was unconscious for several hours." When her question stood unanswered, she repeated her initial question, "What happened to you?"

  "Sorry. But I waited as long as I could. Didn't you get the note I left you? The nurse said she would give it to you once you woke up." He sighed in exasperation and mumbled something under his breath. "I had to get going and couldn't stay. I mean, I felt really bad leaving. I even put my phone number on the note so you could call me and let me know you were okay." He paused. "When you never called, I figured I must have done something to upset you. And then I happened to come by and see you sitting here. So I figured I would take the opportunity to see how you were doing." Something in the tone of his voice suggested he told the truth.

  She paused, nodding. "Okay. Well, it explains a lot."

  He continued, "Now, I would like to start this off the right way. Let me introduce myself." He paused, stood beside his chair, and bowed low. "Hello. My name
is Alexavier Edmund. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. And you are…"

  "Elena."

  "And do you have a last name, Elena?"

  "Elena Michaels," she said.

  "It is nice to meet you, Elena. May I?" He gestured toward the seat he sat in and raised his eyebrows.

  She nodded.

  He sat back down. "So how are you feeling after such a nasty fall?"

  "Much better, thanks." Despite her best efforts, she couldn't help but let her anger dissipate in his presence.

  "I'm sorry I didn't visit you at the health center. But as I said, I couldn't wait. I had an exam. And I almost missed it, as a matter of fact."

  "It's okay," she replied, doubting herself. After a few seconds, she made her decision. For some reason she couldn't stay angry with him.

  They each sat on opposite sides of the table assessing the other, unsure what to say. Given the secluded nature of the reading room, and the hour of night, they were alone.

  "Alexavier. What an interesting name. Do you prefer Alex, Alec, or do you go by Alexavier?"

  "My personal favorite is Alec," he replied. "But I often leave it up to the other person to decide rather than impose my own preference."

  "Okay, Alec it is."

  Alec gave her a broad, warm smile. "Your name is actually quite interesting."

  Elena cocked her head and shot him an inquiring expression. "What do you mean?"

  "The meaning of the name Elena ranges from torch to bright, but most commonly means light, while Michaels could be interpreted to mean one who is close to God. So, depending on the interpretation, your name could mean you are the light of God."

  She smiled. "Interesting. How come you know so much about names?"

  "I'm pursuing a double degree in history and philosophy. I took several courses on genealogy and it hooked me. I've read more than the average share of books on the topic."