by SM Olivier
My head snapped up, and I looked over at Gavin. I had noticed Jemmy’s absence, but I didn’t know she was restricted from coming in. He looked just as mystified as I was. I inwardly growled. I wanted my gift back! I needed to talk to Gavin without all these ears around.
“I’ll talk to her,” Pops said, not at all perturbed and strode towards the door. He left the room, closing the door behind him.
“Dad asked her if she wanted to help us in the war room last night,” Jace explained to me quietly. “He told her that Gavin and Sierra would be in here as well. She refused. She said she was needed in the clinic more, to help it get ready, and it would be selfish of her not to be there to help. She then added that she wanted to finish something that she started, so unless she was sent out to fight, she would be in the clinic.”
I gave him an exasperated look. “So, in other words, she was hoping Lincoln was going to help in the clinic again today, and she came to the conclusion he was in here and wants to be in here now, too.”
“Why?” Lincoln asked bluntly. “I thought she was connected with Gavin.”
“She is.” Gavin sighed, no longer pretending that he didn’t hear our quiet conversation. “But she’s struggling right now,” he said with a frown.
“What happens if we don’t stay with our connections?” Lincoln asked as he gave me an enigmatic look. “Do we still lose our gift?”
We hadn’t even connected yet, and he was already looking for an out. Good riddance. I didn’t need his energy to screw with me more than it already has. His presence was unsettling, and I liked the dynamics I had with my true connections.
“No,” Jace shook his head. “But you’ll never reach your full potential.”
“What does that even mean?” Lincoln asked.
“Well…” Jace thought for a moment. “The best example I can think of is this: I was capable of feeling people and pushing feelings on them before Blake came back into my life, but now that we’ve stayed connected, I was able to project feelings on a whole stadium full of people. If we were to disconnect, I might struggle to even feel people, let alone project.” He cleared his throat, seeming to struggle with his next words. “My father has two connections. He wasn’t too affected by the loss of his connections. However, he has recently reconnected to one of his connections, and she has been growing stronger once more. His other connection, however, is definitely feeling the effects of not keeping the connection.”
“It’s not fair,” I heard Jemmy protest as Will opened the door once more. “I’m not needed there anymore, and I want to go in there.”
“Jemmy,” Will said patiently. “You made your decision, and I made mine.”
He softly closed the door before she could continue objecting.
I sighed in frustration and went back to my work. All these distractions were keeping us from our mission at hand. We couldn’t be locked down here for much longer. Even if we were capable of surviving down here, we would go stir crazy after a while.
I was zooming in on the next person, clicked and then zoomed it in. My breath caught as I recognized the tall, beautiful woman with dark hair and stunning blue eyes—Jace’s eyes. There was no mistaking Alison Bell; Jace and Jaxson’s birth mother, Will’s other connection, Megan’s sister, and Horatio’s lover. Her gift of seduction was one we needed to worry about. Even in her diminished state, she was still a force to be reckoned with.
“It’s Alison,” I stated just as I retrieved the picture off the printer and handed it to Jace. I saw his own intake of breath before his jaw clenched.
“I’ll take it,” he said, barely disguising his fury as he stood up.
I wanted to embrace him and let him know I was there for him, but I also knew that, even though he was an empath, he hated to share his feelings. Where his birth mother was concerned, he was locked down as tight as Fort Knox. I doubt he would ever forgive her betrayal.
“Who’s Alison?” Lincoln asked as he printed his own picture.
I looked at him for a moment. It wasn’t my secret to tell. “I’ve come to the realization that normal and gifted do not go hand in hand,” I explained cryptically. “We all seem to be damaged, and we all have stories. I’m not at liberty to share their stories unless they’ve asked me to. Let’s just say he once knew her very well.”
Chapter 17
I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to be out there with Terrance, Marcel, Ford, Dawn, Gavin, Sierra, Jemmy, and Sam.
Instead, I nervously paced in front of the television screens. We could clearly see our friends illuminated in the stairwell, thanks to our cameras. They were part of our first strike team, poised on the steps, heading out to the helipad.
Our second-strike team consisted of; Will, G (the man I met in the kitchens during Thanksgiving that was gifted), Yaris, Spencer, Mr. Moore, Randy, Adams, and a few other Nons. They were currently poised next to our main entrance.
We spent hours researching our enemy. There were over one hundred of them outside. We came up with our counter-attack. Then we disseminated the information to our strike team on base so they could start studying them, as well as sharing that information with the Knights and the South Carolina team who had just come in that morning.
Will, Paul, and Kirk had been in contact with the new-comers all day. They had met up at a little hotel on the outskirts of town and set up shop immediately. We sent over facts about our enemies. They sent us the information on their teams. Then the plan was set.
It was seven o’clock—1900, military time—and the sun had set two hours ago. The attackers had their tents erected, and the fires were lit. There was a fresh powder of snow on the ground, and I could see many of the enemy pacing just as I was. They really chose the wrong time of the year to attack us. Conditions up in the mountains weren’t favorable for a campout.
I assumed they thought the attack would be quick and easy. They had underestimated our stronghold and definitely hadn’t thought this plan through. Any research done on our facility would have come up blank. Our facility didn’t exist, according to any public records. Everyone was hired with a non-disclosure clause. All our deliveries were done by other government contractors. Secrecy had been of utmost importance when it was built, and we still had to maintain that level of privacy.
We had watched them all day, and as the day wore on, their tempers flared. They were frustrated that they hadn’t been able to infiltrate us yet. Their earth mover continued to rock our mountain, but they weren’t strong enough to do anything but cause faint tremors. Tremors we couldn’t feel down here.
I looked up at the clock. The red digits were bright, and time never seemed to move as slowly as it did now. At precisely 1905, the South Carolina team and the Knights would be attacking the group from behind, while we attacked them from above and below.
“Blake,” Remy stood and pulled me down into his lap. “You’re going to wear a hole in the floor.”
“Why can’t we go to the roof at least?” I asked for the hundredth time.
“We’re more effective down here,” Remy reminded me.
I sat in tense silence, watching the clock once more.
“SC team in place,” we heard over our coms.
The South Carolina team didn’t have the coms that we did, and even if they did, they wouldn’t have brought them with them. They had already been en route when we were attacked, traveling in their own vehicles, not expecting to walk into this.
When Will called Beau for more back up, he asked him to send other coms with the Knights. The Knights had made sure to properly outfit them before the mission, so now we were able to communicate with all the people on our side.
“Copy that SC,” Paul responded to them pressing down his own mic.
“Knights in place,” a voice that sounded vaguely familiar spoke over the coms.
“Copy that Knights,” Paul responded once more. “Stand ready in one mic.”
I’d learned they transmitted minutes into mics over the radio. For ins
tance, five mics translated into five minutes. They were a lot of things I didn’t understand when I was first introduced to this culture, but I was learning as I went.
“Copy,” I heard Terrance, the South Carolina team lead. Will and the familiar voice responded once more.
“Who is the team lead on the Knights?” I turned and looked at the guys.
“That’s Ben,” Jaxson laughed.
“No way!” I exclaimed. “Think he’s mad at me for never texting him?” I joked.
Troy chuckled. “I think he understands. Rick, Taylor, and Mike are out there, too.”
I had spent months with Ben, Rick, Taylor, and Mike in their band. We had been going places until Horatio forced Kade to turn back time. We had sung together once more at our Halloween party, but then we ended up here.
“That’s pretty cool,” I stated with a smile as I felt Remy place a hand on my shaking knees. I hadn’t even realized that the nervous energy within had manifested in my knees. I gave him an apologetic smile as he gave me a reassuring squeeze.
“On my go,” Paul stated. “Three, two, one, go.”
I leaned forward and watched as the doors were flung open. I watched as Terrance led his team to the top of the helipad. He immediately rained rocks down on the people below him. Marcel hurled hail from his hands. Sam caused the wind to sweep people off their feet. Gavin was working in a purely defensive position, watching from the mountaintop and mimicking other people’s gifts to use against them. Sierra was standing back, equally spreading her gift to those around her.
“Unbelievable,” Lincoln breathed as he watched the screen. He had seen a brief video of us on the obstacle course, but he had never seen the gifted fight. He only used his gifts to learn a role, to study people that he was supposed to be imitating. He never knew that battles were fought between us. He was unaware that, just as in reality, good and evil were everywhere, even in our community.
I also knew the sheer number of gifted we saw was a bit overwhelming. He’d been exposed to his mother and Anna. He never got to see the gifted in this spectrum. It was one thing to know you were talented and think you were one of the few. The gifted made up less than one percent of the earth’s population, but it was still mind-blowing to realize that was still quite a bit of people.
“Better than Hollywood, huh?” Jaxson joked as he leaned back in his chair.
Lincoln gave him a rueful smile. “Beyond.”
I heard Noah exclaim to my right. He had come in here to wait with us. His eyes were glued onto another screen I hadn’t been watching.
“A few of our guys are down,” he said grimly. “I should be out there to at least pull them to safety.”
“We can’t risk you right now,” Jace said quietly as he looked over at me.
“Soon as the worse of it’s over, I’m going,” I told him resolutely.
Jace sighed. “We all will.”
I began to watch the screens once more. I grudgingly admired Miranda—or Randy, as she was calling herself now—as she as she darted from person to person, cloaking those who needed to be protected.
I heard a keening cry from behind me and jumped. I had forgotten that Harry was in here with us. Greg was struggling with him again. I walked over and held my hands open to him. When Randy wasn’t around, I happily interacted with my youngest brother. We had found out earlier that he seemed to calm in my arms. I didn’t know how or why, since my gifts were so weak, but it worked.
Greg gave me a grateful smile and handed him over to me. I placed Harry against my chest and patted his back. He immediately soothed and sighed as he laid his head on my shoulder. His eyes seemed to focus as he looked up at me. He really was a cute little bugger. I waited until his breathing calmed before I looked back up at the screens.
I began to pace behind the chairs in front of the screens, conscious of the fact that I didn’t want to block the view for everyone sitting. The few people we had given access to, to observe, were sitting in the back of the room, but I wasn’t in their way. The watching helped with my nerves, and it allowed me to calm Harry down.
I wouldn’t say that I was okay with having my biological mother, technically my stepfather, maternal grandmother, and half-brother around continually, but I was becoming used to it. It bothered me that they were a daily reminder of my horrible past, but I also saw how it was giving my siblings a chance to tackle their own issues and possibly heal from them.
When I was in California, Pops informed me that Alex and Kade would visit Harry from time to time. Both of them seemed indifferent towards Miranda, but they cared about Harry and had admired Greg. Alex was also helping Harry sleep peacefully from time to time.
As predicted, Ella became enchanted with Hazel. Ella and Nadia often hung out with Hazel before bed. Hazel told them stories that the girls found interesting. With Hazel’s ability to know the history of an object, she had some of the most exciting stories. I even found myself enthralled with some of the tales she told about objects she had run across.
Micah didn’t want anything to do with any of them; Hazel, Miranda, Greg or Harry. He wasn’t rude to them, though. When they talked to him, he would respond, but he never sought them out. He didn’t seem in any hurry to garner any relationships with them, at all.
“We have runners,” Jaxson pointed out some of the enemy forces that were seeking refuge in the trees.
“Runners on the east side,” Paul spoke into his mic.
“Copy that,” Terrance responded.
I watched as Terrance yelled to his right. Then I watched Ford take flight. He had an arsenal of restraints in his backpack. We didn’t want to kill our attackers. We knew it was inevitable, but Will had encouraged submission before extermination.
“I’ll be damned,” Kirk said as he leaned forward in his seat. “That’s my brother, and he can fly.”
“He didn’t tell you?” Jaxson asked in surprise.
“He wanted it to be a surprise,” Remy stated with a smirk and a shrug.
“How the hell did he learn he could fly?” Kirk sputtered. “Why wouldn’t he tell our dad and I about his gift?”
“I guess he wanted to show you,” Noah said amused.
The battle was still raging about forty-five minutes later, and I watched as some of our people dragged or carried the injured towards the facility entrance. I had enough of sitting in helplessness.
“We have to go,” Noah stated emphatically.
“We can’t. The skirmish is still going,” Jace sighed as he rubbed his face. “We’re still at risk of getting hurt without…” He looked hesitantly over at Kirk who was hovering over one of the screens before lowering his voice. “…being at our full potential.”
“Micah and I can do it,” Kade spoke up from the back of the room. I had forgotten that Kade, Micah, and Patrick were in here. They had begged to stay and watch. We told them they could if they remained quiet. “I’ve kind of realized my gift is more than just turning back time. I can manipulate all time. Even our current time,” he explained slowly.
We all looked at him in confusion. He smirked as he looked around the room and focused in on Rachel. She was currently swinging her legs back and forth in nervousness and biting her nails. Kade held up his hands, and just like that, she was frozen in mid-swing and her mouth had stilled in an upward angle.
Jaxson released a surprised laugh before he ran over to Rachel and moved his hands in front of her face. Her eyes never moved. A glint of mischief entered his eyes. He grabbed a pencil and inserted it in her slightly opened mouth.
“I was wondering if that was in your list of capabilities,” Greg said with a grin around his lips. “Time is written all over you, but each person may not be proficient of flexing ‘all of time’. With the way the gifts have manifested in all of Miranda’s children, I wouldn’t be surprised if you can all encompass the full aspects of your gifts, not just a part of it like most of us. There’s a small, and I mean a small, possibility that you can even jump forward.”
<
br /> Kade seemed awed by that fact.
“Time out,” Troy said in confusion. “You aren’t a normal reader either. You can read gifts and determine gifts. That’s more than most of the readers we know can.”
“True,” Greg said with a shrug, “−but I can’t read people from a distance like Herman can. I have to visibly see them, whether they’re in front of me or in digital form. I will also like to add, though, that with some of our gifts we need to be careful.” He gave Kade a pointed look. “We don’t want to mess with things too heavily, especially when we are talking about time, because the consequences could be devastating.”
Kade nodded as if he had already considered that. “When I jumped back I realized that. Especially,” he swallowed thickly. “When I lost my family. Each time I jumped, it seemed to end in a more devastating consequence.”
“So, you need to keep that in mind,” Jace said gently. “It shouldn’t be something taken lightly.”
Kade nodded gravely.
“How long will she stay that way?” Lincoln seemed impressed as he leaned back in his chair.
Kade went to open his mouth to answer as Rachel unfroze and let out a startled cry, spitting out the pencil from her mouth. I could see bits of wood from the pencil clinging to her lips. She had nervously chewed on the pencil thinking it was her nails.
“What the what?” Rachel asked in confusion.
“I’m averaging five minutes right now,” Kade said with confidence. “I can freeze up to three people. If Micah, Remy, and I were to teleport out to the wounded, we could bring them into the clinic with little chances of getting hit. Micah and Remy can carry the people, and I will freeze any threats.”
“That’s a great idea,” Remy said with a broad smile. I knew it was eating him up just as much as it was me, sitting here idly.
“What are we supposed to do?” Jaxson said with a frown. He apparently wanted in on the actual action.
“Help the hospital staff,” Noah suggested.