by S M Olivier
I gaped at her, then nodded. “You can’t tell anyone. Not a soul. We’re still trying to figure things out.”
I didn’t trust many people, I had learned that the hard way long ago, but I sensed I could trust Rachel. Something within her resonated with me.
She smiled genuinely, “Thank you for not lying to me,” she smiled sadly. “There are not many people that are like you out there. My gift,” she swallowed, “is a lie detector. I can tell when people lie. It happens…a lot. Our instructor doesn’t know that, and I don’t want him to.”
Chapter 23
My first week of school was going rather quickly and I was beyond excited that it was already Friday afternoon. I was looking forward to seeing Ella for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time. Between work and band practice, I was busy at night.
Noah was still stopping by every day after school to heal my sore muscles from phys ed, but I could tell the soreness wasn’t as prevalent anymore. I found out cardio (which normally involved a minimum of a three mile run) was three days a week and strength training (lifting weights) were the other two days. Unfortunately, Noah devised an evil plan to continue my training on the weekends. So, it looked like I had a scheduled run with one of the guys tomorrow morning.
Ben wanted to add another practice tomorrow morning as well, since we had an actual gig tomorrow night and it would be my first night taking the stage with them. I was only singing five songs with them, but they wanted to make sure the transitions and our vocals combined were on point. Jax had been at my practice yesterday and offered Will’s house as our practice spot for the weekend.
Since my first nightmare the other day, I’ve had them every night and every morning I woke to the smell of Jax on my other pillow. He let me know he could get in trouble for sneaking in the girl’s dorms, but he took the risk anyways, making sure to be gone by the time the dorm generally started stirring around six in the morning. From the way he easily navigated the dorms and the way others reacted, I assumed it wasn’t his first time sneaking in the girl’s dorms and it often happened with the guys and girls in general.
Rachel didn’t care and just started leaving the door unlocked for him. She good naturedly grumbled every morning and wanted to know why Jax didn’t bring friends with him. Rachel had somewhat come out of her shell since the first day I met her. We were becoming fast friends. Jemmy even clicked with her, which was shocking since Jemmy didn’t like most girls. The three of us hung out as much as possible, although I didn’t know why I put myself through the torture. They both liked teasing people and pushing people’s buttons, and I was normally at the tail end of it.
Jemmy had already told her that she was coming home with us for the weekend. Not bothering to ask if she had any plans. Even if she had, I don’t think Jemmy would have taken no for an answer. From Rachel’s reaction, she had no plans and hadn’t had any since the school year started. She still wouldn’t share her past with us, but I figured it wasn’t a good one.
It was the last class of the day and my elation for the coming weekend came plummeting down. The instructor had already warned us that we would have some experienced gifted in our classroom from time to time, but I hadn’t expected Tamara to be in there and to add gravy on top of the potatoes Stacey was one of our healers.
I gave a brief smile to Ben and nodded to a few of the other gifted I recognized. My association with the “Bell” clan and my notoriety from the weekend before had traveled far. I found I had acquaintances all over the school. A lot of people waved or attempted to talk to me all week long. It was extremely hard for me to adjust to at first, especially since I had been a loner and didn’t care to have friends before. Now, whether I liked it or not, people wanted to get to know me.
I sat down, waiting for the instructor to give us instructions for the day. All week we seemed to have had to ‘spar’ one another, but I continually was considered useless. I could make talon boy stop his attack, but I had stopped there. He was thirteen, I wasn’t going to embarrass him in a room full of his peers. The instructor seemed to have dubbed me a two, but I didn’t mind.
After a week there, I could tell Will’s assumptions were correct. There seemed to be a storm brewing. There were clear indications that some people wanted free reign of their gifts and not be restricted by the rules to exercise them fully all the time. They didn’t understand why they had to be ‘respectful’ or hide their gifts while around our nongifted students.
“Okay class,” the instructor clapped his hands. “Today we are in for a real treat. Some of our most advanced students have agreed to help you with your gifts. Some students need the extra push to reach their full potential.”
“Great,” I muttered to Luke and Rachel.
Luke snickered, “Maybe if you hadn’t stolen her boyfriend,” he joked, seeing where my line of vision was focused on.
It was bad enough we shared a breakfast and lunch table together.
I scoffed. “I couldn’t take anything that wasn’t hers to begin with,” I said cryptically.
Rachel raised an eyebrow at me. I neither confirmed nor denied who my connected was with her. I think she was getting more and more confused when she saw me with the guys. Apart from Troy and Jace, she had seen me with all the others. Jemmy made sure to keep her guessing as well, knowing that right now was not the time to reveal all my secrets.
Luke was entirely in the dark, although we tried to include him when we did things outside of school. He perceived my friendliness towards the guys as being flirty. I wasn’t going to dissuade him from those beliefs.
“Today we will pair off in teams of four. I’ll call your teams into the arena and your goal is to get the flag at the opposite side of the arena and bring it back here. Our advanced students will try to stop you from accomplishing your goal. Automatic ‘A’ for the students that accomplish this. For those who don’t…well, let’s just say you better score really well in your next gifted history test.” He seemed entirely too gung ho about this lesson.
I had a feeling he took secret pleasure in pushing us beyond our limits. I can see the look of fear on a lot of the student’s faces. I felt anger begin to burn in the bottom of my stomach. Some of them would fail. No doubt about it. How did this challenge help people like Rachel who was a human lie detector? Or even the boy in class that’s gift was the ability to communicate with animals. He wasn’t permitted to have animals in school, so what good was this lesson for him?
It was no surprise that I was paired with Rachel and Joe, the eleven-year-old that could converse with animals. At least talon boy, Victor, was with me. We watched as team after team failed and I could feel my team getting more and more disheartened.
Ben and Tamara were hands down the most talented. Tamara could manipulate the air flow in the room and send a cyclone-like wind tunnel towards the people she wanted to attack and have them sucked up into it, then tossed against the floor or wall, depending on the level of cruelty she was feeling.
Ben could camouflage with his environment in a blink of an eye. He would come up behind his opponents and have them zip tied in submission. He was challenging us newbies, but he wasn’t harsh to us. He was testing us, without humiliating us.
I finally turned to my teammates. “Who wants to be bait?” I asked softly. Careful not to let the others around us hear me.
Joe raised his hand immediately, faith shining in his eyes. I nodded and smiled at him. “I need you to walk the right perimeter, it seems like the place Ben can blend in the best. I need you to keep him occupied as long as possible. Victor, do you think you can distract vine girl?”
I didn’t catch vine girl’s name, but her gift had been advanced enough that she was able to make the earth attack her opponents, wrapping the vines around them until they were incapacitated. I could see the little girl who had a similar ability in my class, admiring her and gasping at anything she found fascinating.
He scoffed at me. “Her vines stand no chance against my nails.”
> “What do you want me to do?” Rachel asked skeptically.
“I’m going after Tamara,” I stated. “You’re fast, you can get the flag.”
“She’ll annihilate you,” Victor snorted. He came from a gifted family that had instilled a sense of arrogance in him, much like Tamara and Mei Linn had. Some of these families treated people of questionable lineage with high disdain.
As much as I wanted to put a thirteen-year-old in their place, I knew his poison was being fed to him by his family. I gave him a painstaking smile and shook my head. “It doesn’t hurt to try.”
Soon it was our turn and Victor immediately set off to the left of the course, while Joe set off to the right. Rachel and I made our way straight down the middle. Rachel set off at a fast run and I saw Tamara step away from the fake rock formation and immediately catch her in a cyclone. I rushed her, pushing her to the ground, temporarily releasing her hold on Rachel.
Tamara turned with anger in her eyes, and then she gave me a slow, malicious smile. “At last, I can do what I’ve been longing to do.”
Before I could react, she had me in one of her cyclones and dashing across the room. My body slammed off the wall with a hard thud. The wind was knocked out of my lungs and it felt like I had sprained my wrist; the same one that I had sprained when Heidi nearly broke it because I threw away her drugs.
I could see Stacey smugly smiling at me from the holding booth. I tried to will air back into my lungs as I saw Tamara advancing towards me. She held her hands up, ready to set me in her cyclone once more. I felt my limp body being lifted and I willed myself to ignore her and go to that place of panic and anger.
LET ME GO! I thought furiously in my head.
I felt her concentration slipping as my body wavered slightly off the floor.
Time to take your pants off, I thought maliciously. Wanna act like an ass, let everyone see that ass.
When she dropped me this time, I was thankful I wasn’t that far off the ground.
Her eyes widened in shock. “That’s indecent. We have kids up there,” she said shrilly as she started to remove her pants.
I smiled at her. “Launching me across the room was indecent. Now, go get the flag and give it to me,” I said coolly.
I didn’t know if Rachel had gotten to the flag or not yet, but I wanted to make sure we were the first team to get it.
Tamara walked away from me in her cute little lacy underwear, cursing at me the whole time. I giggled and went to see how my other teammates were doing.
I found Victor on the floor begging for mercy and literally crying. He wasn’t so tough when the tables were turned. Vine girl seemed intent to keep him in the prison of vines as he cried.
“Victor,” she said softly. “You really need to learn how to respect everyone, whether they come from a gifted family or not.”
Victor said a very filthy curse word. “Just wait until I’m stronger than you, I’ll show you!”
“Release him,” I projected my thoughts to her.
She looked at me in surprise. She hadn’t seen me sneaking up on her. “Stay,” I told her.
Then I turned to Victor. “Apologize, tell her everything you’re afraid of. Tell her how unique she is.”
He looked at me horrified. “I hate the dark. I used to wet the bed until I was seven. Every morning I’m afraid my sheet will be wet,” he began.
I turned and left them talking. I made my way to the right side of the room and saw that Ben had just tied up Joe.
“Let him go,” I commanded.
Ben froze and looked at me in surprise. “Blake! Everyone told me you weren’t that strong!”
I giggled. “How do you propose I fight against a bunch of eleven, twelve, and thirteen-year old’s?” I questioned. “Doesn’t seem fair. Release him,” I stated. “Just be lucky I like you, Tamara’s prancing around in her underwear.”
He barked out a laugh. “What are you going to make me do?” he looked at me suspiciously.
I narrowed my eyes at him with a wicked smile. “I think everyone would enjoy listening to you sing. “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,” sounds good. How about that?”
He laughed. “I’m going to—” Then whatever he was about to say was interrupted as he started belting out the lyrics to “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,” by Cyndi Lauper.
I giggled as I walked away, Joe trailing behind me. “You just don’t suggest things to people, do you?” he asked in awe.
I smiled and shook my head. “No, I can compel them. Would you like to place our flag into our base?”
He looked up at me eagerly. “Are you serious? I can?”
I nodded just as I saw Tamara walking towards me with our flag. Rachel was snickering as she followed close behind her.
“You can go get your pants on now,” I told Tamara as I handed to flag off to Joe, who eagerly took it.
Rachel nodded in understanding at me, a small smile around her lips.
“Now, stay,” I told Tamara as we turned to jog back to our ‘base.’
Joe was beyond ecstatic as he placed the flag in our holder. Rachel, Joe and I gave each other high fives and we made our way up to the stairs to our classroom so we could get our critique. I held my injured wrist to my stomach. Now that the adrenaline was leaving me, I felt the pain in my wrist.
I didn’t know what I expected when we entered the room, but it wasn’t complete silence. The instructor was looking at me with narrowed eyes and I saw he wasn’t the only adult in the room. A man dressed orderly was standing right behind him. He was a tall, good-looking man, and he had fair skin with light blond hair and a unique shade of blue eyes. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know he was the father of Mei Linn and Tamara. Even though both of his girls were mixed, they both had his eyes and slightly upturned nose.
“Daddy, she made Tamara take off her pants and walk around in her underwear,” Mei Linn glared at me.
The man was looking at me contemplatively. “I saw,” he said in clipped tones. “Mind telling me what that was all about?” he crossed his arms over his chest. “I would also like to know why you left Victor Ryan down there as well.”
I crossed my arms too. His daughters were bullies. I knew I should show him more respect, but he should have probably pulled me into the hallway for this discussion, instead of having it in front of the whole class of impressionable youth. “Your daughter had no qualms lifting and throwing unsuspecting younger teens around,” I pointed to a few of the children still nursing headaches, sprains, and bruises. The healers weren’t allowed to intervene until the exercise was over or the situation was considered dire. “Your daughters and children like Victor are under the impression that unless you know your lineage and your family is gifted, that they are beneath them. That they can bully them, talk down to them, and belittle them whenever they get a chance.” I looked around at some of the younger teens that I knew weren’t from gifted families or didn’t know if they were from gifted families. “I never met my mother, she may be dead, I don’t know. I don’t even know who my father is. I have a very unique gift. Even if you don’t, don’t let anyone put limitations on what you’re capable of.”
I saw a few grateful smiles from them. The other’s looked scared that I had even talked to them.
“And humiliating Tamara, because she may have said some unnecessary thing to you-” he started.
“She stole her boyfriend!” Mei Linn exclaimed.
He gave her a warning look, she huffed but closed her mouth. “How is humiliating her justification for what you did?”
I tried not to roll my eyes. “Mister, with all due respect, your daughter is a cheerleader. What she wears on the field is more revealing than what she is wearing now, and I see what she wears in the pool. Maybe it was inappropriate, and I apologize, but I couldn’t think past my anger and pain. I don’t know if you saw the part where she picked me up and hurled me twenty feet across the room into a brick wall.”
He looked at me with anger in his eyes. �
��Maybe she would benefit from learning how to control her anger before she’s put back in the arena with some unsuspecting child.”
The instructor nodded at him, but the moment his back was turned the instructor winked at me. I imagine not many people spoke back to a board member of the school.
I was more than ready to leave the campus by the time I got back to my room. Jemmy was already there laid out on my bed.
“Can you text Noah and ask him if he’s going to be home when we get there?” I asked
Jemmy as I picked up my hamper of dirty clothes that needed to be washed.
“Sure, phys ed still kicking your butt?” she laughed as she stuck her lollipop back in her mouth and flipped through a magazine.
“No, that healer messed up her wrist worse than it was,” Rachel scoffed. “I told you, you shouldn’t have let her touch you. She’s so inept. It’s not the first time she’s hurt someone more than healing them.”
Jemmy looked up from her magazine. “What happened?” she asked surprised.
“I hurt my wrist in performing arts, and the instructor insisted that I get it mended. Stacey made it worse,” I said holding out my hand where my bone looked twice the size now.
“Eww,” Jemmy grimaced. “I’ll call him now.”
I finished gathering everything I needed as Jemmy made the call. I was beyond irritated. I had used a lot of my gift today, so I was tired, hungry, and a little…well, I wanted to be really, really close to one of my guys.
“Let’s go, you guys ready? Noah is already at the house and so…is Stacey,” Jemmy frowned at me.
I shrugged. “Whatever, he’s only keeping her around because she’s an easy lay,” I said snidely. By the shocked looks on both of their faces, I knew they never expected me to be so catty or negative.
When we got to the house, I was pleasantly surprised to see Jace’s vehicle and Remy’s vehicle. I guess they had made it home for the weekend. I didn’t see Troy’s, so I assumed he was still on the road for his company. I slammed my way into the house knowing the girls were avoiding me like the plague because I felt on edge.
