Caged (Talented Saga)

by Sophie Davis

  “I’ve heard that.” She nodded. “A couple of my friends from school became Hunters.”

  I relaxed; she’d bought my lie.

  “Have you ever been to Washington? There are so many cool bars and stuff,” I said.

  “Yeah, on the weekends I meet some friends down there, if I’m not on duty.” She smiled mischievously. “City boys are so much fun to flirt with. They get a kick out of seeing me take shots without using my hands.” Ursula winked; Telekinesis came with some fun perks.

  I laughed. I bet they did. That sounded like something Erik would do if he could.

  “Do you travel much other than that? Like go home to see your parents or anything?” I decided to test the bond that we were forming, and see if she’d tell me the truth about her family.

  Ursula’s lips pursed together in a thin line, and her body went rigid next to me. “No, I rarely see my parents. They aren’t supportive of my decision to join Toxic,” she replied thinly.

  “That sucks. Mine weren’t really either,” I empathized. That wasn’t exactly a lie; my parents hadn’t encouraged the use of my abilities, but only because they just hadn’t wanted me to make people uneasy. My admission seemed to calm her.

  “Weren’t? Are they dead?” she asked bluntly.

  I blanched at her harsh words. Apparently, tact wasn’t in her repertoire.

  “Yeah, they are,” I replied evenly. “That’s when I came to the School, after their deaths.”

  “Really? So you weren’t five when you came here?” she asked, seeming interested. Her mental guards were coming down, and I could tell that she liked the idea of bonding with someone who hadn’t been a conventional student.

  “Nope, I was ten, actually. You?”

  “Thirteen. Best thing that ever happened to me.” She smiled fondly. She really believed that coming to the School was good fortune. Like me, she’d felt normal for the first time in her life once she was surrounded by other Talents.

  “Yeah, me too,” I agreed. At one time, I’d really felt lucky that Mac had been the one to find me. Since my incident in Nevada, I wasn’t so sure. Ursula also was falling lower on my short list of viable suspects.

  After Ursula’s class, I set off for the dorm. My path took me past the targeting range. To my surprise, I saw a small black-haired girl surrounded by an assortment of weapons, practicing – Cadence.

  Standing out of her line of sight, I watched her run through a litany of simulation firing drills. Cadence was actually pretty good. Her mental focus was amazing; I could feel the concentration. Cadence was determined to persuade Captain Alvarez to let her tryout for the Hunters once again. She was convinced that if she demonstrated how great her combat and weapons skills were, she would be able to make up for the fact she wasn’t an Elite. If Cadence hadn’t been such a heinous wench, I might’ve even felt bad for her. There was no way that Cadence Choi would ever become a Hunter.

  “You’re really good,” I called out when she paused to reload a handgun. Startled, she glanced in my direction. Realizing who’d praised her abilities, she rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the bulls-eye. I ignored her uninviting attitude and walked closer to where she stood.

  “I know,” she snapped. Really, would it kill her to be pleasant once in a while?

  “Are you trying out for the Hunters?” I asked, hoping that if I brought up the subject, she might be willing to talk. She lowered the weapon and turned to face me.

  Cadence studied me for several long moments. “Yes, I am,” she answered finally.

  “Would you really want to go through another Pledge year?” I probed. Usually when an Operative transferred Divisions, they only went through a brief training period. But the Hunters’ missions were so intense that transfers were required to complete an entire Pledge year prior to receiving a permanent placement. Suffice it to say, there were few who transferred to the Hunters.

  “The Hunters are the most highly regarded division of the Agency, it would be well worth it,” she answered shortly. I might not like her, but I did admire her intensity.

  “Well, if you ever want a shooting partner, I’m always eager for more practice,” I offered in what I hoped was a friendly voice. Not that I was keen on the idea of spending more than the ninety minutes a day that I already did with Cadence Choi, but maybe if we found common ground, she’d open up.

  “Don’t hold your breath on that,” she muttered.

  “Well, the offer’s on the table,” I said pleasantly before turning to leave. The rapid fire of bullets hitting the target provided a soundtrack for my retreating footsteps.

  During my nightly session with Penny, I finally had a chance to review the tapes of Ursula’s visits with her parents. I found nothing exceptional on the recordings. Mostly, they talked about innocuous topics like the weather and what Ursula had planned for her birthday which had coincided with one of her trips to Affelwood. I briefly entertained the notion that they were talking in codes. If they were, I wasn’t really the right person to be analyzing the tapes.

  “Penny? I doubt that this will lead anywhere, but could you listen to these tapes and see if maybe they are speaking in code? Or maybe I could ask Dr. Wythe if he could observe the interactions and give me his take?” I asked, removing the headphones that I’d been wearing to listen to the audio that accompanied the security footage.

  “Yeah, I could take a look. Unless......” she let her voice trail off, and nodded to where Gemma sat on her other side. I shrugged. Gemma had been given clearance to help me and Penny. I couldn’t see a reason not to assign her the task.

  “Hey, Gemma?” Penny called loudly. The older girl removed her own headset and looked at Penny expectantly. “Want to help us with something?”

  “Um, sure. If you think that would be okay, I’d love to,” she replied, pleased at the opportunity.

  “Yeah, it would be okay,” I confirmed, making an executive decision. Then, I explained what I wanted her to do. Gemma began scrutinizing the same footage that I’d just watched, right away. Once she was engrossed in her assignment, I decided to ask Penny about Ernest’s claim that he “filled in” when the Crypto Bank was short staffed.

  “Hmmm, I wasn’t aware that was a normal practice,” Penny narrowed her eyes in thought. “We should probably say something to the Director,” she advised. I nodded my agreement, hoping that Ernest wasn’t involved with anything treasonous.

  Over the course of the next week, I fell into a routine. Every morning, I woke before the sun and either ran or went to the gym to train with a punching bag. If I ever got the chance to plead my case to the Placement Committee, I wanted to be in tip-top shape.

  I dutifully assisted in all my assigned classes, keeping my mind open for any signs of plotting. Ernest became my regular lunch companion, and I found myself looking forward to the time that we spent together. He was easy to talk to and, despite the fact that I was supposed to be investigating him, I found his company calming and uncomplicated. For one hour every day, I was able to pretend that I really was an assistant Instructor and not a disgraced Operative with questionable health.

  My evenings were spent with Penny and Gemma, tirelessly working through electronic files for other potentially untrustworthy Operatives. The task was tedious and unproductive.

  Most nights, I didn’t go to bed until well past midnight, but could never seem to sleep more than a few hours. With the exception of my morning sessions with Donavon, the majority of my day consisted of delving into the minds of others, which, in turn, kept my own thoughts from obsessing over Donavon or – even worse – Erik. At night, alone in my room with nothing to distract me, they were the only thoughts that crossed my mind.

  As far as Erik was concerned, to call or not to call, that was the question. If I did call, would he talk to me? If he did talk to me, what would he say? What would I say? Would he tell me what I wanted to hear? What exactly did I want to hear? Did I want him to say that he was sorry about what happened between us? I al
ready knew that he was. Did I want him to say he missed me? Would I believe him if he did? Surely, if he did miss me, he would’ve called.

  With Donavon, the question was to hate, or not to hate. Sometimes, I definitely hated him. Like when he accused me of manipulating him into kicking me just so I could transfer my pain back to him – what a convoluted theory. And he thought that I was the unstable one. Other times, I knew that I didn’t hate him at all; I was just still hurt by his betrayal. Unfortunately for him, the former usually outweighed the latter.

  What. A. Mess.

  The more time that I spent with the Instructors, the more convinced I became that Mac was having me bark up the wrong proverbial tree. Sure, they all had some, albeit tenuous, tie to the Coalition. But honestly, with Crane’s influence spreading eastward, infecting the Nation like the plague, there were a lot of Operatives with extended family in his employ. The only difference between my suspects and the other Operatives was that my suspects happened to be in close proximity to a Crypto data bank. As far as I could tell, not one of them had the wherewithal to infiltrate our encrypted records, except one – Ernest.

  Ernest lacked the motivation though; nothing about him suggested that he was involved with the Coalition. If he couldn’t handle the stress of his previous post, then there was no way that he could handle the stress of being a double agent. His story could be a lie, but if it was, then he was a better manipulator than me.

  Annalise Cleary showed no signs of being any more adept at Electrical Manipulation than I’d first observed. In fact when I’d used my own Talents to persuade her to show me how hers worked, she was barely able to make the lamp on her desk flicker. No matter how deep I dug, I couldn’t find any other inconsistencies in her file.

  I asked Penny about Annalise’s lack of Talent, but even her overly analytical brain couldn’t posit a theory. Collectively, the best that we could come up with was a mistake during her Talent ranking exams.

  I asked Mac about it, and he’d just attributed her low-level ability to lack of use, but that explanation bothered me. For a Talent, using her abilities was second nature. It was just like using any other sense, it was done subconsciously. So even if Annalise hadn’t been actively practicing for the past however-many years, I was willing to bet that she used it without thinking on a daily basis. Something about her was definitely off, but I doubted that “something” was duplicitous. In general, she appeared to be on the level. She was a loyal supporter of Toxic, and believed that the Mandatory Testing Act was a solid law.

  Cadence Choi disliked me more and more by the day; unfortunately as Mac pointed out every time I mentioned the fact, disliking me didn’t make her any more suspicious. She took advantage of every opportunity to contradict me in front of the students. Even though she wasn’t always technically right, I usually let her snide remarks roll right off. Her less-than-friendly welcome was partially due to her jealously over my placement with the Hunters for my Pledge year, and partially over my obvious relationship with the Director. Her crush on Donavon didn’t help either.

  I’d dealt with her type since coming to the McDonough School and refused to let her bother me. While she was definitely jealous that I’d been asked to Pledge the Hunters, she also took a great deal of satisfaction in the fact that I’d not been permanently assigned there after graduation. Since the official story was that I’d failed my solo mission – I guess that was technically true – she felt assured that I was no better than she was.

  Mac felt that it was best that no one knew what had actually happened on my assignment, so I swallowed my wounded pride and let her continue believing that I hadn’t had what it takes to be a Hunter. Unfortunately, her honest belief that the official version of events was true also meant she was unlikely the spy. The person who’d leaked my identity to Crane would definitely know why the Hunt had failed.

  As for Thad Wietz, he felt so guilty about leaving his parents for what he thought would be “a better life”, it consumed his every thought. The more that I pushed for details about his past, the less willingly he divulged them. I used our daily conversations to establish a strong connection, and superficially believed that he was telling the truth. However, he was fairly adept at blocking his deeper memories. Despite Mac’s insistence that I be more forceful, I refrained. Thad was definitely at the top of my suspect list, but that wasn’t saying much since he only landed there by default.

  Then there was Ursula. There wasn’t much to say about her. She was confident in all her Talents – and I do mean all of them. She constantly pranced around the Instructor dorm scantily clad, her ample cleavage on display and her curves hugged by the minute pieces of fabric that she favored. Her male admirers included any guy with a heartbeat. Of course, there was one in particular she was gunning for: Donavon.

  When we were in school, I’d had to contend with a lot of school-girl crushes on Donavon. He was a good-looking guy and the Director’s son, which made him a hot commodity. I supposed the same still held true. The number of attractive male Instructors under forty was limited, making Donavon stand out even more.

  Both Ursula and Cadence’s attractions irked me. I knew that I had no right to be upset; he and I could barely be in the same room without me losing my temper. But I hated the way that they both flirted with him. Even more, I hated the way that he indulged their advances. Donavon lapped up every opportunity to engage in flirtatious conversation when I was present. His behavior made me want to kick him.

  Gemma finished her in-depth examination of the visits with Ursula’s parents and determined that there were not using codes. I decided to pursue one last avenue regarding the tapes; I submitted them to Dr. Wythe asking him to give me a report on the interactions. Mac agreed because Dr. Wythe had been my therapist since my return from Nevada, and was well versed in the events that had transpired there.

  The tension between Donavon and I grew exponentially by the day. I half-wondered if others could sense it and were just too scared to mention it, or we were the only ones who understood how precarious our situation really was. I hadn’t even told Penny about the fight, my stitches, and what Donavon had accused me of. I wasn’t sure where my hesitancy to confide in her came from – was I embarrassed by my reaction to his accusations? Or maybe a small part of me worried that they were true, and if I told her, she might make me confront that uncomfortable realization.

  I had been concentrating really hard. And I had been trying to block the pain. And I had been anticipating that he would land a really hard blow. Had I been concentrating so hard that I’d actually been manipulating him to do it? Had I actually been deflecting the pain instead of trying to block it? No, that was absurd. At least, that’s what I told myself every time I considered it. There was no way that I’d do something so ridiculous ...or would I? Admittedly, my temper had been even more out of control than usual lately, and Donavon’s mere presence fueled the flames of my rage-driven fire.

  It was one week to the day after my arrival on campus that the tension finally broke. Afterward, I couldn’t recall what precipitated the altercation. One minute, I was in Donavon’s class, helping students with their offensive moves. Donavon’s mental voice was disagreeing with what my actual voice was telling someone, and something inside of me snapped. I don’t remember what I mentally yelled at him – I probably repressed the words to save myself later anguish – but whatever it was, it must’ve been ugly.

  Donavon immediately dismissed class, but the students seemed to realize that something was amiss between us. Several of them stuck around, pretending that they were lost in their own conversations. At first, it wouldn’t have mattered whether they were listening in; the entire fight was mental, insults flying back and forth ...until it wasn’t.

  “You want a fight, Talia?” Donavon’s mental voice screamed at me. “Then let’s do it. Hit me.” Apparently, I didn’t need to be asked twice. I literally flew at him. Launching myself into the air, my entire body went horizontal to the ground. He hadn’t an
ticipated that I’d take him up on his offer quite so quickly, which gave me a split second of surprise. It was all I needed.

  I hit him square in the chest, knocking him to the ground. His reflexes were fast, and he recovered quickly. Grabbing my wrists as I fell on top of him, he used his superior upper body strength to throw me over his head. I anticipated this and used his momentum, in addition to my own, to flip my feet completely over my head, landing neatly on my toes.

  Donavon was quick though, and before I could even turn around to face him, he was upright. We backed away from each other and began circling. I was positive that we had an audience, but I no longer cared.

  My peripheral vision reddened. In that moment, my only care was hurting Donavon – physically hurting him for all of the emotional pain that he’d caused me, making him suffer the same way that I had. I wanted him to pay.

  Usually, my biggest advantage in a fight was that my opponents underestimated me, but it was an advantage I didn’t have with Donavon, he knew better. Every minute that I’d spent training as an adolescent, he’d been right there beside me. The only benefit that I had over Donavon was my anger, my unqualified, nearly primal urge to attack. Donavon might not have liked the way that I’d been behaving lately – and being a Morph, his blood tended to run hot – but he lacked the epic levels of animosity toward me that I harbored for him.

  I flew at him again. This time, I used my momentum to cartwheel through the air so that my feet were over my head when I landed beside him. My hands made contact with the ground close to his feet. Summoning all of the strength I had, I vaulted myself upwards and was rewarded for my efforts when my foot made contact with the underside of his chin, throwing him off-balance. I finished the rotation and landed on my feet, in time to see him stumble and lose his footing. I was about to press my advantage when he miraculously stabilized himself and reached out, grabbing my arm. Instead of pulling away, I used his arm for leverage and kicked off the ground. My right foot made contact with his shoulder, and my left should’ve followed suit to make contact with his head.