The Gifted

by C. C. Lynch

Connor and I gave each other looks, as we were trying to figure out if we dared make a noise while Abrielle tried to heal Aiden. A moment later Al rushed in asking what we needed.

  “There’s a bunch of people in a cafeteria up a couple floors, you’ve got to get them someplace safe.” A few seconds later I added, “please.” I really was trying to be a better person.

  “Where are they, again?” Al asked.

  “Stop!” Abrielle yelled, turning around. “That’s not Al.”

  I thought of little Sarah waiting in that room, scared and hoping for help to arrive. Something snapped. I raised my hands, bringing everything in that office up in the air and launched it all at the imposter.

  Abrielle whispered softly to Aiden, “want me to take you back to Glaston?” He shook his head and leaned forward, proving that she had helped to heal whatever it was that he suffered from.

  Abrielle patted Aiden’s arm gently, reassuringly, before walking towards Connor and me. “Guys, look out for each other. I’ll go take care of those people.” Then in true Abrielle fashion, she was off to save the day.

  Connor turned to me, his face slowly going pale. “I don’t think we all ended up in this room by accident.” He sucked in a breath, “I think they’re turning the tables. Abrielle is the bait for both sides.”

  26

  AIDEN

  I’d never felt a strain on my ability like that before. Abrielle did her best to heal me quickly, but I was still far from my full potential. Fatigue was holding me back and it was not faring well on my patience.

  I pushed my way past Ovolina and Connor, heading towards wherever that cafeteria was that Ovolina was talking about. Ovolina yelled something about sticking together but it just irritated me even more.

  Where was Josnic and Draxe in all this? Thinking about them pissed me off. Their father was responsible for some of this crap and they were nowhere near us. Rage started building inside me like I had never felt before. That was when I heard a sniffle, a chuckle being covered up.

  Someone was manipulating my emotions. I usually had a cool head. I had to, being able to control time. Having so much power could make me slip into the dark side too easily. Someone was trying to push me over the edge. It only took a little bit of anger to make someone like me power-hungry.

  I stopped time and found Seamus hiding in the distance. He and Saundra were the two from Aldershaw Academy that refused to come with Abrielle. That’s when I remembered that Saundra had a talent for siphoning energy. That little witch was hiding across from Seamus. I wanted to end their existence, but it would only give in to the thirst for power that I was already susceptible to.

  That was their plan; they were trying to push me over the edge. If Saundra drained me of my energy and Seamus altered my emotions, they could have either killed me or changed my alliance. Either one would have been suitable for their cause.

  I locked them in a room meant for the prisoners of Replyx. As an added measure, I smashed the unit to unlock the door. It would not stop them from getting out, but it would slow the process down.

  Blood started trickling from my nose. The time halt was too much of a strain on my body.

  The second I let go of time, I heard Saundra griping. Seamus yelled some sort of slang I didn’t understand so I flipped off the door, not that they could see, and ventured to my next target.

  I made it to the floor of the cafeteria that Ovolina was talking about when Jeremiah’s slimy voice came from behind me. “Mr. Briac, in the flesh?” His tongue clicked against his teeth. “This is a rare pleasure, isn’t it?”

  I turned slowly to face the man. He had a group of men behind him, all appearing eager to get their hands on me. Did I have enough strength to stop time and take them all on? I wish I could have found out for myself.

  From behind me came a strange whirring noise, then something flew in the air past me. The glimmer of a shiny silver object caught my eye before an explosion of energy knocked them men off their feet.

  The sound of someone hitting the floor behind me caught my attention and I turned to see Abrielle balled up in the fetal position.

  “Oh, right, the empathy thing.” I patted her arm awkwardly, still recuperating from the mental attack Seamus launched at me earlier.

  She nodded and sucked in a breath. “I always wanted to try that out.”

  I pulled her up to her feet. “Good job, you did great, now let’s get you out of here.”

  “No,” she shook her head then ran to Jeremiah, grabbed him and teleported out, then came right back. She moved the other men somewhere and appeared in front of me when she was done. “He’s in a stall at Glaston. Now we can go.”

  She jogged ahead to the cafeteria, all the while I was thinking how that was far too easy.

  27

  LIZ

  Al had not returned for quite a while, but Luther kept popping in and out. He was more frazzled than usual. When he returned, he was devoid of his typical cigarette or cloud of smoke. Abrielle had teleported who she thought to be Jeremiah, but no one else saw him as that. It was Will, the same guy that had been at Glaston Academy before.

  I was wracking my brain trying to figure out the situation. Aside from having an extra element of surprise, why would they trick Abrielle into thinking she had confronted Jeremiah? She was too smart to think that was truly the leader of Replyx. Did she know it was Will and just brought him back to keep him safe? It seemed like something she would do, but what if she truly had been tricked?

  Vlaine and Draxe were starting to get unsettled with being stuck at Glaston Academy and they wanted to go to Replyx, but I thought it best if they stayed. Of course, I dared not voice my opinion. If I did, then I just might give away the fact that I knew more than I should. They could have found out I played a hand in everything.

  Luther stopped back at Glaston, dropping some kids off on the way. They really were children, they could not have been older than eighteen.

  “Luther,” I called to him before Vlaine and Draxe could get a chance to, “you need to get everyone out of Replyx. Bring back Miranda, Connor, all of them. Everyone except for Abrielle.”

  Luther hesitated, eyeing me suspiciously.

  “Luther,” I pleaded, “get everyone out and tell Abrielle to blow it up.” I grabbed onto his arm and ordered him to take me to Replyx. Someone needed to be the unsuspecting factor, and it was going to be me.

  He hesitantly grabbed the shoulder of my shirt and brought me inside the building. I looked at his hand on my shoulder then his face that was watching me so suspiciously. “Tell her to blow it up,” I nodded.

  I hated how well I knew those halls. It made me sick just seeing the inside of the place. There was so much evil in those rooms. I understood what they wanted, but hated how they went about it. They treated people like they were nothing, like everyone else was less than them.

  The control room was the place to go if you wanted to find people and that was where I was heading. That plan lasted all of about thirty seconds until I heard Jeremiah’s disgusting voice say, “Is that little Elizabeth? What are you doing here?” It wasn’t a question, he did not say it like one. He was taunting me. Making me know that even if I was using my gift, I was not invisible to him.

  I turned slowly to face him, backing up while I did so. My body stiffened and disobeyed my attempt to run. I was too terrified to get away. That man was a master of mentally breaking someone down and if he could not get the job done, Ivan would make sure it happened.

  I stopped using the invisibility, trying to make it seem like I had more courage than I actually did. “Looking for Abrielle.” I tried to make my voice steady.

  He tapped his chin, assessing my honesty. “When did you get here?”

  I could not deal with questions. My knees were about to buckle underneath me already. Just as I begun to lose hope I saw Abrielle appear behind him. Her hands were clawed and from them came a vast amount of electricity. It shot forth from her palms and into Jeremiah, making him to fall t
o his knees. She started to crumble to her knees in pain, then in a flash Jeremiah was gone.

  I looked around, wondering what had just happened.

  Abrielle stood up, the pain had left her once Jeremiah was gone. “How’s Will? Is he okay? Are you okay?”

  I took a deep breath, not wanting to answer her questions because I had some of my own. “Fine. Jeremiah?”

  “Aiden,” she smiled.

  “Listen, we need to get everyone out. Then you blow it up.” My tone was grave, “just set it on fire.”

  It was the first time I had been imperiously stern about something since I told her to stay away from Vlaine. I think because of that she took me seriously.

  “Okay,” she nodded, “get everyone out. I’ll light her up.” She began to jog away, but then she stopped and turned. “You sure you’re okay?”

  I gave her a tight nod and disappeared from her sight.

  Replyx and the tree house were divided and there was no way to get through to the other side without a gift, or without trying a window. The tree house was mostly windowless to inhibit the escape of their prisoners. But in the bowels, hidden in rooms only certain people had access to, there were some.

  The good people would be easy to tell apart from the bad and I would just have to find them starting at the bottom then work my way up.

  28

  ABRIELLE

  Aiden, I thought out loud, get them all out. I did not wait for a reply; I knew he would do as I asked. He did not know how to let people down.

  I started at the top floor. I let the flames consume my hands, flowed to my forearms in a blazing heat that I had never accomplished before. From the farthest end of the building I spread fire from the walls to the floors. I watched for a moment as the flames finally took to the wall. Heat licked my face and I forced my gaze from the blaze and forced myself to move quickly.

  I jogged to the other end of the hall, spreading the fire. Then the next floor down. When I got to the third floor I called out to Luther, asking him to make sure that everyone was safe and as many Replyx workers were rounded up as possible.

  Afterwards I began to throw spheres of fire into the rooms. I could see from afar the handiwork of Claire, the tubes on the floor in the rooms. I used her skill and curled my hands around the fire and tossed it with precision to the glass cylinders. Explosions burst outwards before sucking back into itself and igniting the items in the room quickly.

  By the time I reached the far bottom floor, I could feel the building take to the fire. The building would be destroyed along with all their work. The workers of the treehouse would see their work burn to the ground, they no longer had their bubble of protection. We had smashed their reality.

  I had one more place to go. The very top of the building, a floor I had never been to before. The tree house was only a section of Replyx, but I wanted the entirety of it destroyed. Inside the top floor was barren. There were a couple of boxes here and there, but other than that it was just open. The flames licked my hands, then I set them on the walls and boxes. Quickly, the fire took to the ceiling and a noxious smoke filled the room. I teleported out of the building, just outside to witness my handiwork.

  Jeremiah’s legacy was in flames produced by the hands of yours truly. There was no remorse at that time, only a warm sensation of a requited deed. The flames were calming, they were justification. I watched it burn for a moment before going back to Glaston Academy.

  Luther was helping someone get to their feet when I arrived and Vlaine was roughing someone up that was not going into one of the stalls easily. Everyone was busy with a task and I searched for something to do until the most unsettling feeling took over my body.

  I did a head count. Luther, Aiden, Vlaine, Draxe, Claire, Miranda, Lena, Connor, and Ovolina were there.

  “Hey,” I yelled loudly, halting everyone. “Where is Luka, Al, and Liz?”

  Ovolina looked at me and her face went red. “Luka is gone,” she said contritely.

  Luther took my attention from the news I had just heard. “Al is at the Think Tank sorting everything out and last I saw Liz was at the tree house.”

  Crap.

  I teleported back to Replyx. The building was practically engulfed in flames. Emergency vehicles were on standby, not even assisting with the problem yet. I stared at the flames a moment longer than I should have, trying to figure out what was wrong with them. They were going upwards and into the building, instead of outwards. A small group of people caught my attention out of the corner of my eye and I saw Jay in the crowd. They must have been there as damage control.

  I shook my head to focus on my task. I needed to get Liz out of the building. There was no way to teleport inside safely. I had to run in. She would be stuck in there to perish if no one could help her get out.

  I heard people screaming behind me as I ran into the building. There was nothing that would have stopped me from getting in there to her. Flames had yet to engulf the front entrance or the walkway to Replyx.

  I got to the door and stared through the window. There was smoke and flames on the other side, but I had to get in. I pulled my shirt up and wrapped it around my face to try and stifle any smoke inhalation. Replicating Luka’s gift, I made it through the two doors and to the area of the cafeteria and laboratories.

  I pulled the shirt off my mouth quickly so I could shout for Liz. “Liz!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Liz, where are you?”

  “Back here,” I heard her yell from the far side of the floor.

  All I could think of was how fortunate I was that she was right there on that floor. She must have made her way through the treehouse and gotten stuck when we all left.

  Liz was trapped and encircled in flames. She had three cats in her arms and one was trying to dodge the fire. She looked at me with sorrow in her eyes. “There were still cats in here and I had to get them out.”

  “I’m so glad you found them,” I sighed in relief. Tried to sigh, at least. The smoke was building around us, and breathing was becoming more difficult by the second. “Hopefully the building is clear now,” I shouted, my lungs getting tight.

  I did my best to wrangle all the animals so that I could teleport them out. When the frightened one trying to jump through the flames would not cooperate so I used telekinesis to get him to my arms then brought us all back to Glaston Academy.

  I made sure to bring us to the room beneath the stables so we would not be going from a place filled with smoke to the bitter cold that would only cause breathing to be more difficult. I pulled the shirt off my face and coughed, gasping for breath.

  Liz clutched my arm tightly. “Abrielle, I need to talk to you.” The way she was looking at me made my entire body tense. There was something wrong and my gut was twisting, anticipating what she could possibly need to tell me with that dire look on her face.

  “Jeremiah,” she began, then swallowed hard. “I need to tell you how I got out of Replyx the first time.”

  “Sure,” I nodded, “let’s go talk somewhere away from everyone.” I called out to see if everything was under control, and with Aiden’s energy back it was.

  Liz and I sat in the cafeteria in a tense silence while she put her thoughts together. When she did finally speak, her words flowed so quickly that my brain struggled to keep up. Vlaine had told Osiris about his vision and they considered this with whomever saw the future. They then discovered that in order to accomplish their goals, they would need to set she and I up as roommates. She was granted freedom from the facility in return for her information. Liz had been a student at Glaston, just waiting for the day that I arrived so that she could report information to them. That was why Professor Horicon went to my school and I was scouted to attend Glaston Academy.

  “That must have been awful, feeling trapped like that. Out of the building, but still under their control.” I put my hand on her arm and rubbed it gently as consolation. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

  She rolled her eyes and g
runted, “I knew you would say something like that.” Shaking her head angrily, she balled her hands into fists. “I could have told you, Abrielle. I could have warned you about this whole thing.”

  “Liz, you had no way to know if you could even trust me. They had powerful telepaths and some disgusting number of gifted people. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You were between a rock and a hard place.”

  Her expression was somber. “I think Jeremiah is still alive.”

  “Me too,” I agreed. “He’s around somewhere. Same as Erik, Ivan, Osiris, and whoever else.”

  “Actually, she put her finger up, “Osiris is gone.”

  My jaw dropped. “Does Vlaine and Draxe know?”

  She sucked her lips in a shook her head. “Nope.”

  My stomach dropped and my throat tightened. That was going to be hard news to deliver to the Josnic brothers.

  29

  Miranda

  There was a pain in my stomach that would not go away. After seeing what happened to Luka, I nearly went into shock. The distorted look on his face when Jeremiah’s electricity disrupted his gift and he got stuck in the wall was burned into my brain. No matter how many times I squeezed my eyes shut to rid myself of the image, I could not get it away.

  After that, I followed the important people around, blocking the bad people from seeing the good people and vice versa. I found that I could bend the light around others and myself at the same time. It was the farthest I had ever stretched my gift. There were four instances when I was able to block Replyx guys from seeing Ovolina, Abrielle, Connor, and myself. Once the detainees had been gathered, I remained close to them to ensure their safety.

  Back at Glaston Academy everyone was getting situated. The damage was done, but the storm was not over. Most of the people I had seen at the building were in the stalls of the little makeshift prison here just packed like sardines, but some were still missing. The man in charge got out and a couple others did as well.