Million Dollar Gift

by Ian Somers

  ‘We’re not just doing this for the girls, Ross. All the young guys are going to want to be like you! Ross Bentley runners, Ross Bentley skateboards…’

  ‘Maybe I could design my own boards … I’d be really good at that.’

  ‘You see, now you’re getting into this. You could have your own clothing line, your own brand of hair gel. “Get the Bentley look!” Can you imagine it? We can get you interviewed on the major networks in the US. You know how much money the networks will pay you to do shows like that?’

  ‘A lot?’

  ‘A hell of a lot! We can even produce our own shows, like David Copperfield used to do, and auction them off to the highest bidder. The possibilities are endless.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. She seemed to know what she was talking about and I didn’t feel suspicious of her, in the same way I was of Shaw. ‘Can you organise this press conference for me?’

  ‘I already have, in the restaurant downstairs; they’re setting up the stage as we speak. It starts at nine.’

  ‘That’s like three hours from now!’ I bawled. ‘I’ll need to write a speech or something.’

  ‘No. You just be yourself and they’ll love you. I promise. Maybe move something around, just to whet the public’s appetite?’

  ‘I don’t really feel right about using my gift in that way.’

  ‘This won’t work out if you don’t show them the talents you’ve got, Ross.’

  ‘I guess you’re right.’

  ‘Of course I’m right,’ Helen said, clapping me on the back. ‘It’s my job to be right about these things. Trust me, Ross, this will go off without a hitch.’

  Marianne staggered along the hall to her apartment door. She leaned her weary body against it and fumbled in her pockets for the key. She rarely used a key, as she could manipulate any locking mechanism with her psychokinesis, but she was too tired to use her gifts.

  She unlocked the door and took a cautious step inside. It was dark and she’d never used the light switch before. Normally she just thought of light and the lamps came on. She had to preserve her strength though so she ran her hand along the wall until she found the plastic switch.

  ‘How do people live like this?’ she wondered as she kicked the door closed. ‘Must be awful having to do everything manually.’

  The apartment was enormous but appeared even bigger than it actually was because there was little or no furniture. Marianne had earned millions from her work with Golding but her life was spartan. Material possessions meant little to her; she valued knowledge more than anything else and there were piles of books and magazines everywhere. Her pursuit of knowledge, particularly knowledge of the true gifts, was more important than anything else.

  She kicked off her boots and threw down her jacket, which was dashed with blood. Her shoulder was going numb from the injury Shaw had inflicted. The bullet had only grazed her but the force of it had damaged her shoulder muscles. It wasn’t only the injury that had drained her; she’d extended herself to the limit during the battle of the Laberinto. It had been a monumental achievement though, she’d faced and defeated not only a small army, but also Barega, who was one of the most dangerous of all the gifted in the world. Her gifts had been growing in strength since childhood and had now reached their peak.

  Even the most powerful need a rest though and Marianne headed straight for the bathroom to fill the tub with hot water.

  She removed her clothes and walked to the mirror where she gazed at her reflection. The wound on her shoulder wasn’t serious, but there was a lot of bruising, some dried blood and she couldn’t move her right arm without wincing. She couldn’t allow the injury to get in the way of her plans, though. She’d just have to take a bath, clean and bandage the wound and take the pain.

  She stepped into the tub and soaked her lower body for a while. She’d spent twenty hours sitting on a plane before the battle with Golding’s guards. She would have loved to spend the entire evening in the bath, but time was not on her side.

  Her dreadlocks began to unravel then bloated out. Marianne had so much control over her gift of psychokinesis that she could control her hair and create, and keep in place, any sort of hairstyle. The bloated dreads formed one massive globe of white frizz then fell into a perfectly straight, silky white mane that splashed into the steaming water around her chest.

  Her thoughts were filled with what was to come. Within hours she would confront Ross Bentley. Within days she would kill him. Marianne had no problem with killing people, even those who were gifted like her. Bentley was a little bit different though, he reminded her of someone who was once very special to her. In fact, he reminded her of the only person who had ever been special.

  A painful memory was being uncovered and Marianne’s anger spiked. The tall mirror on the other side of the room suddenly cracked and fell from the wall.

  ‘Seven years bad luck,’ Marianne snorted. She’d accidentally destroyed hundreds of mirrors throughout her life. Enough to give her bad luck for a millennium.

  ‘Too much bad luck for one person,’ she sighed. ‘Far too much. I’ll have to pass it onto someone else. Poor little Bentley won’t know what hit him.’

  She spent almost an hour soaking in the tub before drying herself off and heading to the bedroom. Her usual extravagant clothes were all in the wardrobe, but she went to a humble wicker basket instead that stood in the corner. This was where she kept her modest dresses and sweaters. She was instinctively a flamboyant dresser but often when she was working she changed her appearance, so she wouldn’t draw attention to herself. Shaw used to call it the baby-sitter look.

  The clothes inside the basket looked like they belonged to an older person; all shapeless, colourless and cotton. She rummaged around then took a long grey skirt, a green cardigan, a pair of brown tights and a white shirt. She continued sifting through the basket in search of a beret but stumbled upon something else. She took a photo in a tarnished frame from the jumble of clothes.

  She gazed at her teenage self, arms wrapped around a handsome young man with scruffy brown hair and innocent eyes. They were smiling. Not just for the camera though, these were two very happy youngsters who were deeply in love. The young man’s resemblance to Ross Bentley was uncanny. She threw down the photo and it landed on its front. There was some writing scribbled on its back: Peter, 2001.

  ‘One day,’ she hissed. ‘One day, my love, I will avenge you. Romand cannot hide from me forever.’

  Flames of rage burned behind her eyes. If she could not make Peter’s killer suffer then someone would have to take his place and suffer her anger. Others had been taking his place for years. Ross Bentley would just be the latest in a long line of Marianne’s victims.

  ‘Ross, it’s time,’ Helen Greene said as she poked her head into the penthouse suite.

  I felt my heart sink; I really hated being the centre of attention and my stomach was doing somersaults. She took my hand and led me towards the door where her PR team was waiting. I’d only been famous for a couple of days but most of Helen’s staff, although very experienced, seemed star-struck by me. I didn’t like the way they stared at me, like some sort of side-show freak. My fame was fast losing its charm.

  ‘Remember what I told you, Ross,’ Helen said as we took to the stair. ‘Just let me do most of the talking, even when a reporter directs a question at you.’ She stopped for a moment and sucked in a deep breath. ‘Damn stairs! Why did they have to shut down the elevator?’

  ‘For security reasons,’ Victor said.

  ‘Shut up, Victor, I wasn’t talking to you.’

  I was getting very nervous as we entered the lobby and the security shielded me on all sides. They led me through a service corridor that ran round the back of the restaurant then I was then taken to a metal door and told to wait.

  Greene placed her hand on my shoulder and smiled. ‘Stop fretting. You’ll be great. Just be yourself.’

  Could I really be myself though? This wasn’t me. The real me was a lon
er who hated shallow people, like the ones who were now surrounding me because they thought I could make them rich.

  There was someone speaking on a PA in the restaurant, the voice was muffled by the walls and it was hard to hear what he was saying until he raised his voice, ‘It’s my pleasure to introduce you all to the incredible, the magical, the one and only, Ross Bentley!’

  Before I knew what was happening I was bundled through the door, along a canvas tunnel and onto a stage. There were about a thousand people in the room and I was almost blinded by the flashing bulbs of the cameras. Reporters were falling over each other, all trying to be the first one to ask me a question. Security was pulling people who were a little too excited out of the crowd and the noise was deafening.

  ‘Please! Please, everyone!’ the MC cried. ‘Settle down or we’ll have to cancel this. Come on, this won’t work if it’s not orderly.’

  It took more than ten minutes to get the room under control, but the cameras never ceased flashing. I was sitting at a long table with Greene on one side and Victor on the other. More guards lined up behind me and there was another wall of them in front of the stage.

  ‘You in the front, with the blue shirt,’ Greene said into a microphone, pointing at one of the nearest reporters. ‘You may put your question to Ross.’

  ‘Peter Banks from international news. Hi, Ross. I guess I should ask what’s on everyone’s mind: how long have you had this power?’

  ‘Keep it brief,’ Greene whispered in my ear. ‘Come across as an innocent; don’t say you killed the neighbour’s cat or anything like that.’

  I nodded and tried to focus on the reporter but it was impossible with all the flashing cameras. I put my hand to my forehead to shield my eyes and began.

  ‘I probably had it my whole life, but I only found out about it seven years ago.’

  ‘It just happened out of the blue?’ the reporter asked.

  ‘Not exactly…’ I thought back to the day when Mam died and the terrifying rage that had built up inside me, my bedroom tearing itself apart. ‘My mother passed away suddenly. It was a heart attack …’ I’d never talked to anyone about what had happened and surprised myself by how open I was to such a large crowd. Tears filled my eyes as I recalled the moment I was told of her passing. ‘I was very close to her, it just killed me inside, you know. I lost control of myself and some things in my room moved by themselves.’

  Helen Greene leaned over, ‘Brilliant, you already have them eating out of your hand. Don’t say anymore about this story, save it for the Piers Morgan interview.’ She turned to the crowd and spoke into her microphone. ‘Let’s move this along,’ she pointed at a blonde woman three rows back. ‘Your question?’

  ‘Alison Lennon, The Independent Press. Ross, how powerful are you? We saw some extraordinary stuff in your test videos, but can you move cars, trucks, buildings …?’

  Helen leaned over and whispered in my ear again, ‘I don’t know if you can move buildings or not, but don’t tell them you can.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s possible to move buildings,’ I said to the room. ‘I can move some larger objects but there’s not much call for me to move cars or trucks around.’

  ‘What are you going to do with the money from the competition?’ another reporter asked.

  ‘I haven’t really given it a lot of thought. I’ll probably go on a holiday or something, or buy my dad a new car.’

  ‘Is your father your only family?’ another asked.

  ‘Yeah, it’s just the two of us.’

  ‘And how is your relationship with him?’

  Helen Greene pressed the palm of her hand over my microphone then addressed the reporter. ‘I’d rather we didn’t talk about his personal life at this time.’ She pointed at a young man to the side of the stage. ‘Next question.’

  ‘Vincent Bates, NCC News. Ross, could you display some of your powers for us?’

  ‘Yes, he can,’ Helen proudly announced before I could say a word. ‘Just give us a few moments to rearrange the stage so you can all get a good look at his abilities.’

  Marianne appeared at the front entrance of the hotel after spending twenty minutes working her way through the crowd. There was a wall of security guards blocking her way and they weren’t entertaining anyone who wanted to get inside. Marianne wasn’t like everyone else though.

  ‘Could you let me in please?’ she asked the nearest guard, making her voice polite and squeaky.

  ‘Sorry, love. There’s about ten thousand other girls who’ve asked that question and you’re gonna get the same answer they got: press only!’

  ‘But I have to get in there.’

  ‘Not a chance!’

  A more senior member of the security team came approached when he noticed her. ‘What’s your name, darlin’?’

  ‘Marianne.’

  He turned to his colleague and spoke quietly to him. ‘I just got a phone call from Golding himself, saying that a girl with white hair, calling herself Marianne, is to be allowed inside. Nobody is to get in her way, or lay a finger on her no matter what she does.’

  ‘That’s a bit strange.’

  ‘A bit? Get on the radio and make sure all security staff are aware of Golding’s instructions.’ He turned to Marianne. ‘You can go inside, darlin’.’

  ‘Don’t call me that, I told you my name was Marianne.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  She was tempted to tie a knot in his intestines, which was one of her torture techniques, but she didn’t want to create a scene.

  ‘Thanks,’ she sneered before brushing past him into the lobby. Once inside the hotel she went straight to the restaurant where the crowd had gathered. She stood at the back of the room and watched as staff removed the long table from the stage.

  Her nemesis was standing at the centre of the platform with Greene and the security people on both sides of him. There were hundreds of press people between her and the stage, but that wouldn’t pose any serious problem for her.

  I was tapped on the shoulder by one of Helen Greene’s PR people who handed me a leather football. I held it in my hands then turned to the crowd and smiled. It had gone very quiet and all eyes were on me. A thousand people were watching me, but one person stood out from the crowd; a girl with white hair who was standing at the back was staring at me and her expression was far from pleasant. There was something really sinister about her eyes, but I tried to ignore her gaze as much as I could. I had to give the crowd of reporters what they were looking for.

  I threw the ball into the air and it landed on my foot. I volleyed it a few times then sent it above my head again. The ball almost came to a stop in mid-flight then very slowly fell onto my shoulder where it came to a dead stop before rolling down my body. The crowd was stunned, some clapped, others cheered, the cameras flashed incessantly. It hadn’t taken much to please them. I was only just getting started though; I planned to put on a really explosive show.

  I took the ball in my hands, smiled to the crowd then threw it into the air. I’d intended to make the ball levitate over the crowd, but my gift failed and the ball bounced off a reporter’s head. I lot of them laughed; others started to frown and whisper to each other.

  ‘Sorry,’ I shouted. ‘Let me try that again …’

  One of Greene’s staff handed me another football and I tested its weight before I threw it over my head. I tried to make the ball stop in mid-flight, but again my gift failed and the ball came crashing down on the table behind me. I was starting to panic and the crowd was jeering me.

  ‘Ross!’ Greene hissed at me. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  I couldn’t give her an answer. I couldn’t explain why my gift was failing. Then I remembered that another psychokinetic could counter my gift, like Romand had done a few nights before. But I knew it wasn’t Romand who was doing this, it was someone else. I looked out over the crowd who were starting to disperse. The girl with the white hair was gazing at me and smirking. I knew she was responsible; s
he must be the person Romand had warned me about.

  Helen Greene shoved another football into my hands. ‘Try it again. You’re losing them! Hurry!’

  Again I tried but I couldn’t control the ball. It fell onto the stage and bounced away and onto the restaurant floor. The remaining reporters left their seats and flooded out of the room.

  ‘Your million dollar gift just became a hundred dollar gift. Good luck, kid,’ Greene said before she exited the stage and followed the crowd out of the restaurant.

  I caught one last look at the white haired girl before she left. She ran her finger across her throat then pointed at me. I knew it meant I was in for big trouble.

  I no longer had a choice. I had to escape the hotel. My life was in danger; if she could counter my gift, it probably meant she was more powerful than me and I wouldn’t be able to defend myself against her. I needed to disappear and fast.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN -

  The Getaway

  ‘Will you people give me some space,’ I shouted at the security and public relations people.

  I slammed the door and left them in the hallway outside my penthouse room then went straight to the bathroom to soak my face in cold water. I felt stunned and needed to snap out of it. I was still somewhat bewildered by how the day had developed and I needed to clear my mind. I’d just been made a laughing stock in front of the world’s media; millions, if not billions, of people were probably laughing their asses off me. All thanks to that demented-looking blonde.

  I lifted my face from the sink and went to the main room and switched on the lamp by the bed. I almost died with fright when the room was lit – Romand was sitting in a chair by the window.

  ‘Are you nuts?’ I hissed at him. ‘What are you doing in here? I could have gotten undressed in there … you know … I could’ve come back out here in the nip!’

  ‘I can assure you I am not a pervert. I did not risk my life so I could see you without clothes.’