Gifted Connections 3

“Come on, you two. We should beat feet,” Noah said in a mock disgruntled tone.

I pulled away from Troy, a bit chagrined that I had fallen under his spell. He gave me knowing look and one more quick kiss.

“Wait,” Jaxson insisted. “We do need a picture of all of us. Now that we have a gallery wall, we need to add to it.”

“What man knows what a gallery wall is?” Remy joked, despite the fact he moved towards me and Troy.

We all got situated while Remy was elected to take a picture of all of us since his arms was the longest. We squeezed our faces together, me in the middle, and I had to laugh at how we looked on Troy’s screen. The guys all smiled at the camera, even Remy.

“We need to head north,” Troy stated as he pulled out a compass. “We should make our way down the mountain, and once we hit the stream, we head west.”

“At least it doesn’t look like a difficult climb down,” Jaxson stated as he peered over the edge of the mountain.

“We should stick to the trees as much as possible,” Jace said as he started making the descent down. “The less the other guys see us, the better. They’ll have a better vantage point of our whereabouts when they land.”

“But they’ll be an hour behind us,” Jaxson commented.

“With Terrance and Sam, who can use their gifts of earth and wind to their advantage,” Remy remarked as he began to follow Jace down the mountain.

Drake nodded. “We’re all positively certain we can handle them if they were to catch up, but let’s not make it easy on them.” Drake was the next one to go down.

“Guess I didn’t think about that,” Jaxson admitted.

I went next and was glad that it wasn’t a true climb down. I had never gone rock climbing, and I didn’t want my first time to be done in bulky, heavy combat boots. I doubted I would be able to grasp little toe holds and such with them.

I followed the narrow path down, using the mountain wall as a guide. I watched my feet, trying not to look down. I wasn’t afraid of heights, I just needed to focus on the task at hand. I could see myself getting distracted.

Some places were steeper than others, and I had to find places to grasp onto as I navigated my way down. We were mostly silent; not even Noah or Jaxson were filling the quiet with their normal banter, questions, or opinions. I would look back occasionally, and Jaxson, who was directly behind me, would smile and wink at me. Noah was right after him, and Troy brought up the rear.

I finally got to a part that was a flat ledge. I could barely see Jace and Remy waiting below. Drake was sitting on the edge.

“It’s a bit of a drop at this point, so I’m going to hand you down to them,” Drake explained to me.

“Okay,” I replied as I took my pack off.

I looked down at my watch. We had landed about a half an hour ago. I could feel the pack already getting heavy, and the straps were digging into my shoulders. Thanks to my strength training and Remy, I knew I was stronger than I had ever been, but nothing prepared me for this. I could tap into my gift of strength, but it could be a double-edged sword. It could make me more tired and prone to high sexual urges. I needed to tough it out.

I wasn’t going to act like I couldn’t hack it in front of the guys, and I didn’t want to appear weak. Especially not this early in the exercise. We needed to gain a lot of ground between us and the other team. Too much was at stake for me to psyche myself out.

We needed to prove to the Nons that they needed us. We needed to earn their respect. We had played by their rules. Now that the rules had changed, it was time to show them there was a reason we were recruited.

Drake and Jaxson took my hands and lowered me down to Jace and Remy. I felt Remy’s hand on my waist and let go of their hands.

“How are you feeling?” Remy inquired.

“Not too bad,” I responded.

“Good,” Jace interjected. “Let us know when we need to slow down. No use hurting ourselves over an exercise.”

“It’s an important one, though,” I declared. “I’m fine.” At his narrowed look I sighed. “Honestly. I’m good.”

Jace and Remy turned to help the rest of the guys down the nine-foot drop. We all dropped to a kneeling position as we heard the distinct sounds of the helicopter returning. It wasn’t the only one, from the sounds of it. There was a handful of us, but twenty-eight of them.

Troy muttered a curse as he looked down at his watch. “They’re early.”

“Did you really think Paul and Pops were going to take it that easy on us?” Remy asked sardonically before he turned to pick up my pack and his. “Let’s go. We can double time it for a little while. They’ll take time to get their packs and then figure their way down. They’re probably arrogant enough not to have Terrance, Sam, and Gavin ahead and could attempt to stop us before we created too far of a distance.”

He put my pack on his front and carried his own on is back. He then started to jog on the much wider path.