Gifted Connections 1

“I’ll watch Ella,” Jemmy said reluctantly.

Will shook his head. “I don’t think it’s necessary anymore. She may be able to benefit from this lesson as well because little Ella is a precog. I have a feeling her father was as well, that’s how he was always able to stay a step ahead of us when we went in search of you.”

“A precog? Precognition is the ability to see the future,” I stated slowly. My eyes widened. “But I thought most gifted don’t come into their gifts until they hit puberty?”

I looked around and saw the disbelief on everyone else’s faces.

Will opened his palms up. “It happens. Jace, Jax, and yourself are proof of it. I have no other explanation for her ability to beat me in chess. I taught her the rules of chess and within a half an hour she was beating me. I even purposely changed an obvious move for an alternate one to see if she could predict my next move and she did, every time.”

Drake walked into the pool house and called to Ella to come to him. She came skipping out. She giggled at him as he reached into his pocket. Like she knew what he was up to. He took a coin from his pocket and put it behind his back.

He pulled his hands from behind his back, fists down. “Which hand is the coin in Ella?”

She giggled. “You are such a trickster. It’s in your pocket.”

He held up his hands to show us. They were empty.

“I can’t do it!” I cried out in frustration.

“You can!” Troy said insistently.

I don’t know why I was getting increasingly frustrated. I don’t think it helped that I felt like everyone was watching me. Expecting great things.

Ella was told how important it was to keep our gifts a secret. She took it in her normal, mature stride. I didn’t expect any less. I had imparted to her the imperative nature of family secrets as soon as she could talk.

“I think we need to have her focus more on individual gifts and not her gifts as a whole,” Drake finally said. “Blake, when you compel people what emotion are you feeling? When you felt my pain, what feeling did you have to make it go away? When you were on fire today, what were you feeling?”

His melodic voice seemed to help me focus. I finally sat down and closed my eyes. Might as well get comfortable. I specifically thought about my compulsion gift. I thought of the anger I felt every time I compelled someone. I specifically thought of the day I bought Ella a keyboard. I wanted to teach her how to play, and I had saved up for it for months. She got to play it for less than a day. Heidi had taken it and sold it at a pawn shop for more drug money. When I had taken the receipt to the pawn shop for proof of purchase and let him know it was stolen property he had laughed at me and told me to call the cops— which he knew I wouldn’t do.

Slowly, I opened my eyes and looked at Troy. I know I wasn’t being fair. He was pushing me the hardest because he believed in me.

“Go upstairs and find a dress to wear. Model it for us,” I demanded.

He glared at me, but he was powerless to ignore me. He left, his feet pounding up the stairs.

“Can you do it without the words?” Will said, his eyes laced with humor. “Think of the person and think of the action. No words.”

I closed my eyes once more. I was fourteen years old. On my way home from school, I found a little mastiff puppy that the neighbor boys thought would be funny to throw rocks at. I had gathered the puppy up in my arms and took it home, not caring that the boys had thrown rocks at me the whole time I ran off. I hid him successfully for a week. Heidi threw the puppy outside when she found him and one of her boyfriends ‘accidentally’ ran him over with a car. Unbidden tears sprung from my eyes.

I looked over at the group. I had already put Noah through enough today and I didn’t want to embarrass or compel Drake. That left me with Jax or Jemmy and Jax had shown me today that sex wasn’t ugly. It could be beautiful.

I narrowed my eyes on Jemmy. “No!” she yelled in shock. “I’m your best friend!”

I looked at her and imagined her running on the treadmill. I specified a gentle jog, I didn’t want to kill her.

She got up and walked to the treadmill. “You know what they say about paybacks!” Jemmy cried out in mock anger as she jogged on the treadmill.

“Good! Good!” Will couldn’t hide the amusement in his eyes.

Jax and Drake were openly laughing, and Ella giggled uncontrollably.

“Maybe you should make her do that every day,” Drake suggested. It was the first time I ever saw Drake pick on his sister. She normally did all the picking.

I giggled and focused hard on making her stop jogging.

“I hate you,” she mocked glared at me.

“I made you run for a whole minute, I can make it longer,” I looked at her devilishly.