I gasped and looked at Gavin once more, understanding dawning once more. “How does that work? Does he touch…anyone and it leaves? Can you project it to certain individuals? And what about Gavin? He can see when someone’s gifted, and earlier he was able to… stop someone from using theirs.”
Noah looked at both of us and finally said. “He can project it to whomever he wants, within reason and distance. Now,” he turned to Gavin and looked at him, his brows furrowed. “When you say you stopped someone, how? And what do you see?”
We looked at each other once more, and I nodded to Gavin to go ahead.
“Someone was trying to prevent another person from talking and moving. It…angered me and I could feel their energy in them, so I pushed them out,” Gavin told him.
“Hmm.” Noah seemed to know Gavin was talking about me, but he must have realized there was a reason we weren’t telling him everything.
I longed to. I wished I could tell him everything, but I knew how skittish he had been before. I didn’t want him to run if I revealed to him the whole truth. I needed to handle him with kid gloves.
“I assume you know I’m gifted?” Noah asked Gavin hypothetically. “Unfortunately, my gift is only used through touch and not projection. It’s hard for me to pin point what gift you may have by using my gift. Honestly, even being a TA, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a case like this.”
“Why do I keep hearing that?” I muttered peevishly. I was an anomaly. Gavin was an anomaly. We were different. But unlike me, Gavin needed help now. The sooner he began working on his gift, the sooner he could protect himself from people like Collin and Zach.
I put him in danger by association. I needed to help get him out.
I looked over at the desk and saw a pair of scissors on Noah’s desk. I calmly removed my jacket as the guys looked at me with puzzlement. Slowly, meticulously I opened them up and took the sharp edge, slicing it across my forearm. Immediately my skin opened and blood came out.
“Blake!” they called out in concern.
Noah went to place his hand on it, but I stopped him. Instinctively I knew what needed to be done, although my understanding of the gifts was limited at best. Something Noah had said about Collin had made the wheels in my head turn.
“No, Noah, not you,” I said insistently. “Gavin, can you try to tap into Noah and then place your hand on my cut?” I hissed because it was starting to sting now that my adrenaline was wearing off.
Gavin looked hesitant but grabbed Noah’s shoulder with the one hand, while he placed his hand on my forearm. Within moments I felt the warmth spread through his hands onto my skin. The stinging went away, and I felt normal once more.
“Holy crap you’re an imitator!” Noah exclaimed. “How did you—” he began before students started coming in for the next class.
“Let’s go, we have to clean up,” I explained, holding up the dried blood on my forearm, with an apologetic smile towards Noah. As an afterthought, I leaned in and whispered, “Thanks for keeping our secret.”
He grudgingly nodded
, his eyes full of questions.
Chapter 6
Just as predicted, the next few weeks were filled with playing catch up. Collin was even more clingy. I couldn’t even go on my runs without him tagging along. Any sense of solitude was taken from me. The only time I had to myself was in class and on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I had to wait for Collin to get out of his classes.
Any attempt at suggesting getting a job was shot down. I had hoped to find employment for Tuesday, Thursdays, and the weekends, but Collin had argued I had no time to devote to a job, since I was so busy with my school work. He promptly opened a bank account for me and gave me a debit card, so I could have money for food when he wasn’t around—not that that happened very often.
The only silver lining was that Gavin had run out and got me another phone that I had to carefully keep hidden; with it, I was able to communicate with him and Noah secretively. Gavin had purposely avoided me when Collin was around, much to Collin’s displeasure. He was still trying very hard to ingratiate himself to Gavin so he could further study him.
Noah seemed to realize the importance of keeping us a secret. He hadn’t pushed us any further about a bigger explanation about our strange arrangements. If Collin and I ran into him at Stacey’s apartment, he was friendly, but not overly so. He even arranged for Gavin to work on his gift, in secret, with our family.
It was the perfect irony. He got to meet Jemmy, Remy, Jaxson, and Drake. He made sure to give me blow by blow details about his training, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous of him. I wished there was a way for me to go with him, but with Collin’s constant hovering I couldn’t trust him.
Gavin and I had come up with an in-depth game plan to get my life back. He even went as far as to show me how to track and record all of Collin’s conversations without him being none the wiser, although I hadn’t had the opportunity to install them on his phone yet. That was my first assignment.
His first assignment was to continue watching and finding an opportunity to help Alex, my little brother, and meet with Rachel. I hadn’t figured out how Rachel was going to help us in the long run, but I knew she was the key to part of our plan.
It was a Thursday when Gavin and I headed to the gym, which was thankfully empty at this time of day. At first, Gavin came to keep me company so we could talk freely outside of class and away from listening ears. It was the only time I was able to stash my phone in the locker without causing Collin to be to suspicious. Gavin had already found out he had planted a mic in my phone recently.
We were so careful keeping our conversations free of my drama. We couldn’t give Collin a reason not to believe I was as oblivious as everyone else. Gavin and I laughed every Tuesday and Thursday when we decided what our next topic of conversations were, future cover stories for Collin’s spying. One morning before class we talked about eggs. Yes, eggs. Cage free eggs versus caged hens’ eggs. We talked about how we remembered the colors of the rainbow, the order of the planets, and other inane things we were forced to remember in school. We found that we both loved watching this reality show and weighed in on our favorite characters. So, in short, our conversations were purposely lame.
I could tell Gavin was dying to ask me something by the time I exited the locker room in my biker shorts and racer back tank top. It was cold outside, but in here it was a sauna. He held up his thumb to his ear and pinky to his mouth. Miming a phone.
“In my locker,” I reassured him.