It is dark when I wake up. I have no idea where I am; my mind searches blindly for an aura, but I come up with nothing. I don't move a muscle so as not to prematurely signal to my captor that I am awake before I have properly formulated an escape plan, but I try to gather what I do know without moving. The surface I am lying upon is hard and flat, and my shoulder is in some amount of pain from being pressed on. This is not my pillow either; whatever is beneath my head is soft but hard at the same time, and it is rising up and down and has a steady beat coming from within it. A bomb? No. A person. And whoever it is is still asleep. My captor? Or a fellow captive?

I close my eyes because I can't see anything anyway, and I draw my mind back in. Sometimes, if I'm extremely focused, I can feel a person's dream aura. I make the sleeping body beneath me my focal point, and I try to find a color. If there's not one, then the body isn't dreaming, but I do get the smallest tint of one.

White.

Eli.

Everything comes flooding back to the forefronts of my mind then, all at once. The prom, Kei's dress, the star roof, the gray, Mom's necklace, Theresa's shoes, Eli's calming words and long arms around me. I sit straight up and reach in the direction where I remember the lantern to be, but the light is gone from it, the battery all used up. I stand and push the roof hatch — probably blown closed by the wind — up and out, hoping the stars will provide some light. They do, but only enough to make out a sleeping figure, a pair of bare feet, a twist of black hair.

I shake his shoulders. "Eli," I whisper, until I realize we're outside and I can use my outside voice. "Eli, wake up. We fell asleep."

He snorts once and rolls over, pushes himself up with his arms and holds himself there for a moment in push-up position. He turns and smirks when he sees me. "Well, hey there, A.G. Good of you to stay the night," he says in a 1920s Wall Street businessman accent, if that's even possible. "I hate when I give these self-righteous broads the night of their life only to wake up in the morning to find them sneaking out in their underwear."

I am in no mood for jokes. It is God-knows-how-early in the morning and I have been unforgivably irresponsible. I have to get home; I have to get home to my father.

"What time is it?" he asks as he crawls to the door to pull it up, revealing the stairs that will provide my escape from this claustrophobic nightmare.

"I don't know. Late."

"Or early."

"I don't care. I've got to get home."

"Chill, wáqe wa'ú," he says as I start down the ladder.

"No, don't tell me to chill!" I all but yell, accusing him of something that he isn't entirely to blame for. "I can't believe you let us fall asleep!"

He follows after me. "There was a beautiful girl laying with her head on my chest in a treehouse under the stars. That's, like, cinematically romantic. What was I supposed to do? The guys would've never forgiven me!"

I reach the ground and brush myself off, choosing to completely ignore the part where he called me beautiful. "Uh, yeah, you were. I was supposed to be home. You promised my dad."

Eli hops down beside me and follows me to the house. "I think you're also forgetting that you were distressed and I was comforting you. A simple 'Thank you, Elijah,' would suffice."

I wrap my fingers around the back doorknob, but he puts a hand over mine before I can twist and push.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to the car."

"Through the house? Really? When it's God-knows-how-late-at-night and my parents are in there sleeping and you're still here and you're wearing my clothes? Draw your own conclusion to this picture."

I sigh. He's right. No need to conjure up more trouble for ourselves than we're already in.

"Well, then, please tell me how you suggest we get to the car."

He stretches a hand out to his side and gestures to the wooden fence in a Vanna White fashion. "Ladies first."

"You want me to..."

"Scale the fence, Alyssa Renée."

I huff and make towards the wooden fence. This is unfathomable. "What kind of a backyard doesn't have a gate?" I'm just full of accusations tonight. I know full well that his backyard's lack of exit isn't his fault either.

"One cautious to intruders," Eli quips back.

When I think of intruders I think of Gray, and when I think of gates I think of how my life's fence, tall and wired and electrified, doesn't have a gate either, but this boy still somehow managed to scale it and sneak his way in.

The boy gives me a boost and I pull myself up, using my feet to give myself a push over the fence. Eli, who is just as tall as the vertical planks, hops over easily, and I try to recall if that's the same way he came over mine.

🦎

          When I am finally returned home, I slide the key into the lock and twist the door open as quietly as I can. And there he is, my father, curled up in the recliner with a book in hand and glasses still on, sound asleep. I sigh, relieved to see him alive and in the flesh, and I tiptoe over to the chair. I peel his glasses off slowly and pry the book from his fingers, setting them both on the coffee table. I pick up the afghan from where it had been left discarded on the floor at the foot of the chair and drape it lightly across him.

I switch off the lamp and turn towards the hallway which leads to my room, but it is dark that way and my father is in here and I'd felt the gray earlier. So I curl up on the sofa next to his chair with a blanket of my own and I am gone as soon as I close my eyes.

🦎

          I don't mention to Dad what happened at the prom. I spend countless hours awake the next night trying to convince myself that it was just a trick of my imagination, my subconscious kicking into gear and warning me that I'm not supposed to be this close to anyone — emotionally or physically — as I am dancing with Eli, my subconscious inventing a reason for me to pull away from him — at least physically for now — and knowing that the only effective reason would be to feel my mother's killer in the room.

Because that's what my entire life's work has been based upon — staying distanced. Not making attachments. For three reasons: it makes it easier when it's time for me to leave and I don't have to promise to keep in touch with anyone, a promise I will have to break; I don't have to make up lies when my new friends want to get to know me; and the most important reason of all — so important that it perhaps outshadows the other two entirely — the less people I know, the less my name is in peoples' mouths, the more chance of me being able to stay here hidden for a longer amount of time. I really hate moving. (All of the preceding being rules I have bent, in one way or another, in my time here in York thus far.)

But if this is the lie I am telling myself, then why didn't I also feel the gray up in the treehouse? Eli and I had been just as close in the treehouse as we had been at the dance. I justify this inconsistency by telling myself that maybe it's because we weren't in public, and my brain knew that feeling an aura in a private space with the boy who thinks white would be practically implausible.

Now there's just the part of emotionally distancing myself. A feat that will surely prove itself to be entirely in vain, if things continue to escalate in the pattern they've thus far created.

In preparation for the week following prom, I brace myself for an onslaught of unwanted affections. I assume my temporary lapse in judgement in deciding to let Eli hold me and things will lead to him regarding me as his. That he'll touch me more regularly, that he'll try to be alone with me to steal a kiss, that he'll invite me over more than just on Thursday or maybe out on a date. But come Monday morning, he's the same cheery, energetic, curious, confident, aggravating American Indian boy I knew before. And it disappoints me a little, but probably in the same way that him not small-talking with my father had disappointed me — because I'd been wrong in assuming he would.

Or maybe I'd just judged him wrong all along. Maybe he is only interested in my friendship. This possibility disappoints me, too — for reasons I either can't admit or won't — but probably only because I'd never had a boy like me before, and it was kind of a nice feeling. But I don't really live in a world where nice things happen to me.

At lunch, however, all the boys' eyes are trained on me and Eli as we enter the cafeteria, trays in hand. Their auras are a mixture of curiosity and judgment. And I realize maybe I'd been wrong in my assessment of dear old Elijah... that maybe he had exaggerated the goings-on between us to impress his male companions. That would surely explain the motives behind their incredulous expressions.

When we sit, it is Sampson who speaks. "So where'd you two run off to in such a hurry Saturday night?"

Oh. Right. We'd disappeared from the prom and his friends had apparently received no explanation regarding such.

"We got bored," Eli shrugs and stirs the questionable-looking stew atop his tray.

"You didn't show up to Jules's after," Dex explains. We thought you were gonna be there."

I shoot a look to Eli, one that he pretends not to notice. We'd apparently been invited to the anti-prom after party, that of which I had made Eli miss out on, as well. The guilt creeps back in, settling itself in my stomach and festering there.

Eli smirks. "Change of plans. We were... needed elsewhere."

Sam nudges him with his elbow and wags his eyebrows. "Needed elsewhere in the treehouse?" His aura is laughing, and I must've missed the joke.

"Yeah, that's where we were," I say.

Sam's mouth falls open, his eyes widely meeting mine, his aura going lime. He looks to Eli for verification. Eli has his hand over his mouth, chest spasming with held-back laughter.

To my surprise, Jules voices his disbelief. "You left prom... to go up to the treehouse."

Instead of responding, I, too, look to Eli for an answer. There is obviously some underlying meaning or significance to the treehouse other than it being his safe place.

He just takes a bite of his roll, a cheeky grin plastered on his face. "Sure did."

Their reactions go as follows: Reggie chuckles, Dex gapes, Jules furrows, and Sam says, "Duuuuude!" and low-fives Eli.

I give the latter a look as if to say, "Mind explaining?"

And he answers by shielding his lips from view with his roll and mouthing, "Go with it." And I'm really in no position to be denying him of anything further after all that I've cost him thus far.

Later, I press him for an explanation, and he informs me, rather sheepishly, that his most precious and sacred treehouse is where he always said he would bring a girl to make out with her. My face flushes red, but I'm not red-aura'd, for some reason. I'm... coral.

🦎

          Now that prom is over, all the buzz is about graduation. The ceremony, the parties, college acceptance letters, cap and gown fittings, dorm room partners, senior vacations, final GPAs, and the last day of school (two weeks before the undergrads all get out for the summer.) I've finally managed to conjure up all the credits needed to graduate, something that took me a whole extra year since I move around in the middle of the semesters so often.

I still haven't applied to any colleges — I really don't see the point. I imagine I won't be able to until my hunter is captured. When I express to Eli the concern of not wanting to leave my widower father alone, but he will probably have to move again within a year or two and how this would effect my ability to attend college, he frowns (or maybe I'm just imagining that part) and suggests taking online classes.

I then bring up problem number two: I have no idea what to go for. My trusty sidekick has a solution for this as well. He says I can not register as any specific major, or even register as an Undecided major, and only take general courses — English, math, science, history — until I decide on a focus, which he swears he'll help me do. He tells me that the University of Nebraska in Lincoln is only a forty-five minute drive away (this is where Kei goes to school) and offers a few online programs. He asks to help me fill out an application online, and in a(nother) momentary lapse in judgment, I let him.

"That's good looking out," he says.

I don't tell him that good looking out is my number one hobby.

🦎

          It's six whole days before I realize Mom's necklace is missing.

Or not realize, exactly... but, rather, I have it pointed out to me.

"How come you haven't been wearing Mom's necklace?" Dad asks at dinner.

I bring my hand up to my neck reflexively although I know it's not there. I wrack my brain for its whereabouts. Did it fly off while Eli spun me around the gym floor at the prom? Is it stuck in the floorboards of Eli's treehouse? Was it sucked into the void between the couch cushions where I'd slept that night? And then I feel olive, and know I need to answer my father before he worries himself into the grave.

"Oh, I put it up in my room. Didn't wanna lose it at school." Oh, the irony.

When Dad goes to bed, I call Eli. He answers halfway through the second ring.

"The offices of Elijah Rivers Whitney, DDS; Eggnog speaking," he says in a squeaky, high-pitched tone.

"Eggnog?"

"Don't ruin the bit, Alyssa," his normal voice chastises me. "Remember what we talked about."

"Right. Always go with Eli's bits," I repeat. Eli sticks to a firm belief that one's creativity should always be exercised and stretched whenever possible. I switch to an English accent, almost relieved to relax the worrisome situation I've found myself in. "I have a mission for you, Eggnog."

"How'd you know I was a former CIA operative?" Eggnog asks suspiciously.

"I have my resources."

"Was it Johnny Lips from FBI? I'll kill him."

"No. Actually it was... er... Sue Smith. From marketing."

He breaks character. "Sue Smith? Really? That's all you've got?"

I roll my eyes although he can't see. "Do you wanna know the mission or not?" I say in my Aspen voice.

He clears his throat. "What's the problem, Miss Bumblebee?"

Always go with Eli's bits. "Mrs. Chai's diamond necklace has gone missing."

Eli voice. "Mrs. Chai? That's a good one, A.G.!"

Aspen voice. "Thanks. But I need you to look in the treehouse for me." And when I think of the treehouse, I am forced to remember the legacy it's expected to uphold, and my stomach threatens to knot up at the idea of him even having tried. It would have been extremely ill timing. What with the circumstances, and all.

"You mean the necklace you wore to prom?"

"Yeah. That one."

"I don't see it, A.G."

"You're in the treehouse right now?"

Eggnog answers me. "I'm afraid that's classified information, Miss Bumblebee."

"Do you mind looking in the grass outside? That was my mom's necklace. I really need to find it."

I hear a thud and a grunt and I know he has just jumped down from the treehouse. I wait in agonizing silence.

"I can borrow Jules's dad's metal detector and get it out here tomorrow, but as for now I don't see anything," says Eli.

I sigh, and it feels hopeless. "Alright, then. Thanks."

"Not. A. Problem, Bumbles," says Eggnog. "And, hey," says Eli, "Do you think it's a coincidence that chai tea and tai chi are the exact opposite?" He switches to Eggnog voice again: "Because I think we've got a real conspiracy on our hands!"

I smile into the phone, glad that he cannot see it. "Goodbye, Eli," Aspen says.

Click, says the phone.

I go couch diving later, and I come up with almost two dollars in change and a bottle of nail polish I didn't know I'd been missing. But no necklace.

That only leaves option number three. And I know that if the gym floor is where it'd made its new home, then it was either swept up by the janitorial staff or picked up by one lucky prom-goer.

As long as Dad never asks to see it again, I'll be fine.

🦎

         He asks to see it the next morning as soon as I wake up.

"I know I gave it to you, and I want you to have it, but I just need to see it. Set my mind at ease that you're keeping it safe."

I pour myself a bowl of Cheerios. "It's just in my jewelry box, Dad."

"I know; I know. Can you just wear it today? Can I just see it?"

Add two percent milk. "Not to be rude, but that's kinda weird. You gotta learn to let go." I have no idea what I mean by this, but whatever it is, I don't mean it in the slightest. I love that he holds on to Mom's memory. He keeps her alive in this house.

Dark blue for a moment, then he snaps back to normal. He knows I'm watching his aura, and now he's suspicious. Which he has every right to be.

"I want to see it, Aspen," he says in his sternest dad voice. He knows I'd never, in my right mind, tell him to let go of Mom.

I concentrate every fiber of my being into keeping my cool. Still standing at the counter, I take my first bite of cereal. It tastes like guilt with a hint of lies.

"Can I at least eat my breakfast first?" I try, hopeful to buy myself some time to form my second escape plan in two weeks.

"Aspen Brooks Quinn."

My father, not unlike the average twenty-first century parent, only full-names me when he means absolute business.

"Lemons, Dad! Lemons!" I cry before spinning on my heel toward the direction of my room, and I'm done. It's over. I'm screwed.

With the knowledge that I've found myself in a hole so deep there's no way out of, my mind shuts down and all I see is what's in front of me. My bedroom door inching closer and closer. My hand on the knob. My bed, my nightstand, my closet, my dresser. Atop the dresser, there, the square wooden box. I can see my father in the vanity mirror, his expression eager, his aura olive, so much olive, always olive. My hand reaches forward and lifts the lid of the box and I squeeze my eyes shut because this isn't happening this can't be happening I refuse to believe this is happening...

And then I feel my Dad squeeze the tops of my shoulders slightly between his hands. "Sorry I didn't believe you, kiddo. You were acting kinda odd in there."

I open my eyes and my heart nearly leaps from my chest and up and out of my throat in a cough of disbelief as I see a small heart-shaped locket hung from a gold chain lying in the top compartment of my jewelry box.

"You really ought to wear it more often, Pen. It looks really nice on you," he comments as he walks out the door.

I lift the necklace, utterly speechless, and dangle it right in front of my face. And Dad was right; it's definitely Mom's necklace. I have no memory at all of taking it off the night of the prom nor the morning following, but I know that the only explanation is that I must have and, frankly, I'm too relieved to care.

__________

Hello and happy #ThAURAsday! I refrained from adding a cast to this story because I wanted my readers to be able to picture the characters however they pleased; however, eight chapters in, I suppose it's alright for me to announce my personal fancast. My Aspen is Dylan Gelula, and my #LDHSLP* @OhhhSkyler (who is finally reading due to her newly found free time and my incessant bullying) made me an edit featuring Dylan and it is perfection. And my Elijah is Booboo Stewart!

She also asked me where she could see all the previous edits people (Liliana and Lea) have made, and I am aware that Pinterest boards are a popular way of sharing these, since WattPad lacks a proper media storage. But I have no Pinterest, and I think it's dumb that you have to have an account to see pins or whatever. So I made a Tumblr that you don't necessarily have to have an account to view where I will post all the edits to. It is www.aspenbrooksquinn.tumblr.com if you're interested. But if not, that's cool, too. I can't tell you how to live your life.

Glossary:
Wáqe wa'ú - white woman

*long distance heterosexual life partner