The Hidden Gemstone

Chapter: 41

Jesse had been pacing the living room ever since River woke up. And that was twenty hours ago.

When she came out in the morning and saw her so stressed, her first instinct was to turn to Xander. He filled her in on the previous night’s events after she left to go to bed. Apparently, he had told her everything he knew about what Alex was doing and where she was. He had also told her everything that happened with his father and Alex, including the fact that his mother’s death was no accident, but Jesse didn’t take long to recover from her shock and focus solely on Alex’s safety. River understood Jesse’s concern, but her anxiety was contagious; River hadn’t been able to get any of her work done since morning.

Now she and Xander sat on the couch in the living room as Jesse paced back and forth. Grandma hadn’t come out of her room all day, and River couldn’t help but feel grateful for that; her opinion on the situation was the last thing they needed right now.

“You both haven’t heard from Alex for two days, and you’ve just been going about your day without batting an eye?” Jesse demanded, mostly looking at Xander.

“She has it under control!” Xander answered for what seemed to be the hundredth time. Jesse stopped and walked up to him, looking down at him with a storm in her eyes.

“Really? Xander, she got shot twice fighting normal people. I don’t know if you know, but that is more than enough to kill a person. Now you’re telling me that she’s off fighting some immortal lunatic who almost blasted you into the air, and she has it under control?”

Jesse glared down at him, waiting for an answer. Xander swallowed before slowly starting, “Well, when you put it like that, I—”

“There is no better way to put it,” Jesse interrupted sharply and Xander winced.

“Look, Jesse, Alex isn’t completely human,” River said, realizing her choice of words a little too late. “And don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean it like that,” she quickly amended. “She heals at least twice as fast as normal people. I mean, when she brought Xander back from the airport, she was seriously hurt, but the next day, she was fine. I mean, sure, that wasn’t as bad as getting shot, which is a lot worse and, frankly, I don’t think she can heal from gunshot wounds at all unless someone removes the bullets, but—”

“River,” Xander interrupted, looking at her with a message in his eyes. “Not helping.”

River looked at him and then at Jesse before realizing she had only gotten her more anxious. She shrunk back and bit her tongue to keep her mouth shut. Ever since Alex brought her here, River started to figure herself out more than she had ever had the chance to do before. She’d determined more things about her personality in the past few days than she had in the last thirteen years. One of those things was that River’s way of coping with anxiety was ranting.

She discovered that today when she took her first math test since she rejoined school and ranted all the formulas in her head to Xander who was traumatized for the next couple of hours.

Jesse opened her mouth to say something, but the sound of the doorbell interrupted her. River furrowed her eyebrows and looked at her wrist watch which read 02:07. It wasn’t Alex since she had the key and Emma was at college, so River wasn’t sure who it could be.

Mutually confused, Xander got up from the couch and made his way to the front door. After a moment, River stood up and followed, her curiosity getting the best of her.

She still cursed that damn curiosity that got her to make that decision.

As soon as Xander opened the door, River’s gaze met a pair of dark brown eyes that looked just like Hannah and her brother, Max’s. But River never saw those eyes the same as her siblings’ kind ones.