Mira

By Ellen Fritz

Lexi Collins, an ordinary college student, has no idea that her genetic legacy is about to plunge her into a world she never knew existed. A world with two warring alien races who have hidden among us for thousands of years. One race plots to conquer the earth, the other strives to live among us in peace.

Coping with her altered life, protecting innocent victims, and falling in love while trying to finish college and keep the ordinary humans around her unaware of what is really going on, Lexi finds herself balancing situations she could never have imagined. Lexi enters a life that is wondrous, delightful, dangerous and terrifying, as she becomes the catalyst for events that could change the balance of power between the alien races.

Appropriate and enjoyable for all ages, Mira plunges the reader into Lexi’s complicated, extraordinary world and introduces likeable characters facing complex situations. It is a world that is at times fun, at times perilous, but never dull when the fate of two alien races and the humans around them is hanging in the balance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tell-Tale Publishing
• Release date: Aug 13, 2015

Ellen Fritz

Ellen Fritz is a retired teacher and high school counselor. Over the years of teaching reading and English to students in grades seven through twelve before be-coming a counselor, she had the great opportunity to discuss numerous favorite books with students and also took their recom-mendations for her own reading.She finally found herself with the time to give life to the stories that have always been patiently waiting in her head for an audience. Ellen wrote Mira to appeal to those middle grade/teen readers that she found so inspiring through her career as an educator."I didn’t start writing seriously until I retired and found myself with the time to spend a whole day in front of the computer. The ideas had been in my head for many years, but were undeveloped and unexplored. One day, several months after my teaching/counseling career ended, I sat down and started.Some days, the ideas, dialog, and characters flow from my brain and I can barely type fast enough. Other days, I have to walk away, occupy my mind with something else, and hash through what might happen, what might be said. But both days are valuable.While waiting for a publisher to accept my first book, I discovered that rejections were okay. While I want young people to read and enjoy my books, I realized that the writing was more for me. It’s a joy to develop the characters and situations, and I can’t foresee a time when I’ll be ready for it to end."

Book preview

Prologue

November

Crossing the street, Emily took a quick look behind her.

He was crossing the street too.

Coincidence?  Why had she stayed so long at the library?

Before turning the corner, she glanced back again.  A man, a big man, two houses behind her.  Dressed in dark clothes it was impossible to make out his features, but she felt like he was staring right at her.  Walking faster, she mentally begged him not to turn the corner.

He turned the corner.

His footsteps sounded louder, closer.  She started running, chancing one last look behind her to see him gaining on her. That’s when she collided with another man who hadn’t been in front of her a second ago.  He grasped her arms and leaned toward her, his face inches from hers.  His angry glare was fueled by more than annoyance.  In that brief moment, she knew they intended to kill her.

She screamed.  Just once. Then terror froze her vocal chords. Run. Run. Run, she screamed inwardly. Turning, she jerked from the man’s grasp and lurched forward. Before taking more than two steps, her body weakened, and her legs went rubbery, shaking and refusing to move. Then, just as quickly, they refused to support her weight and she felt herself fall to the cold, wet sidewalk.

"Hey, wake up.  Are you okay?" a quiet, masculine voice said while someone gently shook her.  Gazing up to see two men kneeling on either side of her, she screamed.

You’re okay, no one’s going to hurt you.  The calming voice kept talking and somehow quieted her fear while strong hands took her arms and helped her to her feet.

Emily gasped, and took a step backward.  These were definitely not the guys from before.

What happened? she whispered, rubbing her hand over her damp, bruised derriere, before rubbing the growing knot on the back of her head.

We heard you scream, said the taller guy, the one clad in leather.  We ran around the corner and saw you fall.  You must have fainted.

What about the two guys?

We didn’t see anyone else, the other guy said.

You must have scared them away, Emily said.  They were so creepy…but I never faint.  I don’t think I fainted.  I mean, I know I was unconscious, but that’s probably because I fell and hit my head.  Anyway, thank you.

You hit your head? How about if we walk you to the infirmary?

No, no, it’s fine.  No big deal.  Yea ... I guess I panicked.  I’m never out alone this late, and ..., Emily shook her head.  They probably weren’t even after me.  I’m really sorry.

No problem, smiled the leather jacket guy.

Emily didn’t know why she was trusting these guys, but she really didn’t want to walk the rest of the way home alone.  And they looked much safer than the first two guys.

As they walked she told them about how tough her first semester had been, and how she’d put off work, and how she’d had to stay at the library to finish her paper.  She felt like she was blubbering, but talking helped her calm down a little.

The small house where she lived with her parents and little brother finally appeared.  Emily turned to thank them.

Studying them in the porch light her parents always left on for her, she realized that one guy had to be an athlete. The firm bulk of muscle could be seen even padded with his winter jacket.  The taller guy was leaner and dressed in a black leather jacket and black jeans.  She couldn’t help but notice his eyes. They sparkled in the light’s glow and looked almost violet.  Both guys were good looking, with classic chiseled features and firm jaws. Two incredibly hot guys had come to her rescue.  Embarrassing, but all she could think was that she hoped she’d see them again.

Thanks, again, she said as she continued to stare at them.

No problem.  Just be more careful, okay? said the one with the incredible eyes.

Oh, I will be, she sighed shaking her head.  Goodnight. Regretfully, she turned and reached for the doorknob.

The two men watched Emily go into the house before turning to walk away.

That was way too close, said the muscular one.

Yeah.  When I saw them stun her ..., he shook his head.  It felt good to take them out.

Two less hunters to prey on Humans.

Still too damn close.

I should have stunned them first.

No.  She would’ve seen it.  I’ll send in a report before I go to bed.

They’d been just in time. Emily didn’t know it, but she’d been within seconds of disappearing forever.  The predators had already abducted too many young women.

The more powerful surge of the men’s mental weapons had disintegrated the bodies of those creatures, and left them with no need to hide anything from the police. Or Emily.  Killing without question wasn’t their choice.  But the Others had given them no option but to kill on sight.

You’ve got an early class tomorrow, don’t you? the one in leather asked the younger man.

Yeah, he sighed.  Then wrestling practice in the afternoon, and I work the late shift.

"Any progress on that girl at work?’

I haven’t sensed any change yet, but she’s got to be close.  I’m just keeping things friendly until I sense something.

Good.  I’ll talk to you tomorrow sometime.  And, good job tonight."

Thanks ... see ya.

The two men walked in opposite directions.

Chapter 1

December

"Come on, Lexi, I moaned to myself, get it together and get going."

I had the dreaded split shift today with a psychology final in between.  Seven to ten in the morning and eight to midnight that night.  Those were hard days, and heading to work at 7:00 am sure wasn’t my favorite thing.

Besides, my morning had started out rotten.  I woke up feeling wrung out and, after a shower and half a pot of coffee, didn’t feel any better.  I just felt so tired.  Not my usual twenty-year-old energetic self.

This Monday should be the beginning of a good week.  Finishing the first semester of my sophomore year, I would be heading home at the end of the week for my birthday and Christmas break.  It would be great to see my parents and our old farmhouse again.

I loved Pinehurst College from my first visit, with its quaint, sprawling campus and college town atmosphere, but was so ready to get home for a couple days.

Leaving my apartment for the short walk to Sean’s Coffee Shop, I thought about how thankful I was that the owners, Sean and Betsy Cunningham, took the earliest shift.  They showed up about 4:00 am to bake pastries and get everything else ready to open at 6:00.  Thank God I didn’t have to work as early as they did.

Or as many hours.  They’d kept the coffee shop going for over ten years with hard work.  It provided many college students with a decent part-time income.  But I couldn’t see how I’d enjoy working today.

I’d slowly started feeling better through the morning shift and my philosophy final had gone well.  But by 11:00 pm, my butt was dragging.  It had been a long, long day.

Starting clean-up, I noticed a guy out of the corner of my eye that seemed to be watching me.  I sneaked a peak at him from behind the espresso machine where he couldn’t see me looking.

He was on one of the comfy over-stuffed chairs, slumped down slightly, with his long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles.  He was thin without being skinny and looked strong, masculine. When my observation got to his face, I think my mouth dropped open a little.

I was reminded of Michelangelo’s David only more rugged, less romantically feminine.  His hair was brown, kinda long, and waved all over his head and just over his ears, which was what brought to mind the Da Vinci statue.  This was the kind of guy that you never see in real life.  He was from some romance novel cover.

A couple women at the corner table were watching him, but for some reason he just kept the end of the counter as if he was watching for me to reappear.  It made me uncomfortable. I knew I was one of those coeds that people call pretty – nice facial features, thick blond shoulder length hair and a well-developed body. But I had never had a guy prettier than me, and a complete stranger at that, act as if they were crushing on me.

After snatching a few more glances at him while getting the muffins left from the morning out of the case, I began to think that I had seen this guy before.  I could almost picture him as a face in a crowd on campus and just another person in line at the drug store.  But how could I see this guy and not really notice him?  How could I not know I’d seen him before?  Had he even been in the coffee shop before?  Why did I have such a funny, almost creepy, feeling about him?  I suddenly had an uncanny feeling he’d been most of the places I’d been for the last couple of weeks.

Knowing I was going to have to walk the three blocks to my apartment alone when we closed, I started to get a little paranoid.

I went back to the kitchen to talk to Adam.  Adam McLane, the stereotypical nice guy college freshman.  On scholarship and the wrestling team, he wasn’t extremely tall, but was compact muscle from head to toe.  He lived in the dorms and going past my place would only take him a block out of his way.

Hey, Adam, do you think you could do me a favor when we close? I asked in a fake, whiny voice you use when you know the victim will be inconvenienced.

Depends, Lexi.  How much will it cost me? he asked with a wink.

I didn’t want to tell him the whole story of the god-like guy I thought was stalking me.  How embarrassing could that be?

Not a penny, I continued, trying to keep it light.  I’m just feeling vulnerable about walking home alone.  I’ve never closed before, and midnight just seems so late.  Do you think you could walk me home?

Sure, said the nice guy who was open to doing someone a favor.  Uh, where do you live? said the guy who suddenly realized he might be in for a long walk.

Only three blocks from here.  You could cut past the library to the dorms and only be about a block out of your way.  Okay?

That’s a deal. he smiled.

Whew, I couldn’t believe how relieved I felt.  Had I really been that worried about that guy?  Why was he so creepy?  He was gorgeous!  Yea, but he also looked dangerous.  Maybe it was the leather coat and the serious expression on his face.  I just didn’t know.  But knowing I would be walking home with Adam made me feel better.

Adam got me home safely and filled the time with surprisingly interesting conversation.  He wasn’t just a wrestler and coffee shop busboy.  He was majoring in physics and wanted to do a masters and PhD in astrophysics. His main passion was the search for life in outer space!  Who knew muscle-bound college boy had a muscle-bound brain?  No wonder he was on full scholarship. It might not be for sports after all.  His SAT scores must have been maxed.

Chapter 2

Tuesday was humming along.  I’d felt like my old self all day, from the time when I got up and headed for that 7:00 a.m. coffee shop shift. Of course, I was still very relieved that my double shift day was over for the week.  I got off work at 1:00, took finals at 2:00 and 4:30, and both seemed to have gone well. So I headed home to have the evening to myself.  I felt carefree and indulgent and tried to think of something yummy for dinner. Pizza? Again? No. Lasagna or Spaghetti? Naw, would have to walk across campus. Although for two bucks they did deliver. Their garlic sticks rocked, too.

It was him!

He was standing on the corner not twenty steps from me.  Where did he come from?  Was I that distracted thinking about pasta?  His head was down and his fingers were flying over his blackberry.  He couldn’t have seen me yet, but there was nowhere for me to go unless I turned completely around to go in the direction that I had just come from.

There was the side of a building about three feet across some grass on my left and a busy street on my right.  I couldn’t cross the street.  It was one of those boulevards with two lanes in each direction and a grassy median through the center. Campus cops had already nailed me once this semester.

I was just about ready to do an about-face and head back into campus when his head flew up and he looked intently right at me.  His mouth broke into a gorgeous smile and his eyes lit up in the dim, late-afternoon sun of early winter.  It was an expression that said he was thrilled to see me, but he didn’t even know me.  He walked quickly in my direction.

Excuse me.  Can you help me find the university president’s office?  I seem to have gotten turned around somewhere, he asked before I could even react.

His voice was deep, smooth, but with a slight inflection that might have been regional if it fit any of the normal accents with which I was familiar.  I think I just stood there staring at him for several seconds—stunned by the way my stomach kept fluttering, and by how incredibly violet his eyes really were.  I’d gone from dreaming of pasta to being face-to-face and actually talking to this gorgeous guy so fast, my mind couldn’t process his question fast enough.

President’s office?  I practically gasped.  But I was thinking, What’s a president’s office?  What’s a president?  Oh yeah … colleges have presidents … this is a college.  I know where that is.  You’re almost there.  Okay, I was getting it together now.  If you cut through the next two buildings and turn left when you come to the sidewalk, you’ll be facing it.

Aaah, thank you!  he said, with a tone of great relief.  I can’t be late for this meeting!  Thanks, again, I owe you.

And he was gone.

Running right past me and cutting through the buildings I’d indicated, he was gone so fast it was almost like the whole thing had never happened.

I gave myself a mental shake.  Except for his amazing good looks and eyes that could melt your heart, he’d been perfectly normal.  Last night he’d been intense, almost sinister.  Today he was just another of the hundreds of people that get lost on this sprawling campus every day.  The way he’d asked me for directions, he’d seemed almost helpless.  I couldn’t imagine him ever being helpless.

When I got back to the apartment, the paranoid part of me insisted that I again check all the locks before settling down to eat dinner and spend the evening studying for the finals I’d be taking on Wednesday.

I’d already taken the ones that I knew would be easier for me – English Lit and Psychology.  My real hell of a day would be Wednesday.  Three finals.

Surprisingly, though, studying went really well.  I buzzed through my notes and class readings finding that I was suddenly understanding stuff that had been way beyond me.  Sometimes things just start to click, I guess, when you keep at it.  At least that was the only reason I could come up with that would explain my newfound confidence in my chances of passing tomorrow’s finals.

Finals were over, at last.  I was back where I felt most comfortable. Home. My parents had always been really supportive and positive, infusing their baby with solid if not always evident self-confidence.  The three of us were close and spent most of our free time together.  Our updated old farmhouse was isolated – about a half mile from the nearest neighbor, and country life meant there were always many jobs to do.  Summers were filled with the continual mowing of an acre of lawn, trimming bushes and trees, and tending large vegetable and flower gardens.  Winter brought snow plowing and all the inside maintenance that an old house required.

I was no stranger to working hard, so that aspect of college courses and holding down a job seemed pretty normal. Grabbing the back doorknob, I stepped into the warm kitchen and inhaled the glorious scent of cinnamon, nutmeg and sizzling, caramelized brown sugar. Mmmm, mom’s apple pie. Heaven.  No wonder I got homesick.

I thought I heard you, mom said, sailing into the kitchen from the den and rushing forward to smother me in a big hug.

She smelled of lilacs in December. Her favorite ode de toilet was dabbed, as usual, behind each ear. I smiled and hugged her back.

She stepped back and took a closer look at me.  You just look great, Lexi!  Have you been exercising, or something? she said with a huge grin on her face?  You’re always beautiful, but you just look, I don’t know, healthier somehow.

Dad tossed the newspaper on the kitchen table and chimed in with, Yea, Lex, you’re almost glowing. What they feeding you on that campus these days?

Mom’s big grin faded a little with that.  I’m sure she was considering the possibility that I was pregnant.  Moms hear their daughters are glowing and their minds shoot right to the dreaded unwanted pregnancy scenario.  I couldn’t really tell her not to worry since my sex life had been non-existent since I broke-up at the end of the summer with the idiot I’d been dating too long.  So I just smiled and said, Thanks!  I’m feeling good, too.

I had no explanation, so it seemed silly to tell them that I had started feeling changes the last month or so.  Subtle though they were, I had felt a sense of wellbeing I’d never experienced before.  I had more energy, and even my brain seemed to be operating faster.  But, interspersed with these were days of feeling like garbage.  This past Monday had been the worst.  Those days made me feel wrung out.  I also didn’t tell them about the sudden flash of brilliance I’d just had with my classes.

The finals I had taken the day before were still bothering me, but I hadn’t taken time to really think about them.  I’d walked into those exams hoping for C’s and left feeling like I’d answered every question correctly.  I knew answers to questions that I don’t remember ever hearing about before.

I understood Calculus!  I understood Physics!  I understood Economics!  I still felt like I might be deluding myself.  Maybe I just thought I understood and really didn’t have a clue.  My grades would be posted right after I returned to school, so time would tell.

Same old slop, dad. But all the walking I do around campus might have something to do with me being healthier.

They seemed to buy into my theory and dropped the subject for the rest of my visit. Dad was always most concerned with practicalities like my safety, so my big gift for Christmas was a new smart phone with all the current bells and whistles, complete internet access with GPS, the whole nine yards.  He didn’t want me lost or isolated without access to resources.  I’m not much of a techie, so I wasn’t as excited as most college students would be, but it really was a great gift.  Especially since he would still be paying the bills.

Adam headed toward the library, anxious to find out if Eric had made any progress.  The enclosed study rooms were the best place on any campus to have a conversation that shouldn‘t be overheard.  Practically soundproof for foreign language tapes and music study, they almost guaranteed privacy without suspicion.  Just a couple of guys going over philosophy notes or some such thing.  And being open twenty-four hours made it ideal for them. Erik was waiting in their usual area.

Any new information? Adam asked as he took the seat across the small table from Erik and his open laptop.

No.  They can’t find any trace of anything in her life or recent ancestry.  They’ll keep looking further back.  It takes awhile to go through the records, but there’s an ancestor somewhere, Erik said as he searched