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.”