gifted

by Charmaine Ross

  I launched myself to the nearest door. I closed it slowly, keeping it ajar so I might see if anyone went past. The footsteps halted, and then there was silence. The person must have gone into another room.

  I closed the door, taking in my surroundings. There was another capsule, this one vastly different from the models I was familiar with. Twice the size in height and width. An uncountable amount of tubes were plugged into the side and connected to a complicated display on the wall. Blue lights blinked on and off in silent random patterns. There was a quiet humming coming from the capsule.

  The top was a clear dome and was lit from within. I moved over to it, feeling as though my legs were made of wood. Horror struck me when I saw a face inside. A child. A little girl. Asleep. She looked so innocent. As though she were just resting.

  Dark lashes fanned across her cheeks. Thick and curved. A small button nose. Dusky pink lips. The perfect Cupid’s bow. A face rounded in childhood and never growing any older. Holy Mother of Hell. Victor was still using children. I itched to unhinge the capsule, coax her awake, but if I didn’t wake her properly, I could kill her. I didn’t realize I was crying until drops fell onto the dome with a wet splat.

  I wiped them off, wanting so badly to help the child. So helpless that I couldn’t. How many others were like her? How many more innocents had he used over the years? How many others pumped full of mind-and body-altering drugs? He’d started with me, but there was no telling what he’d done in the years since.

  “I will help you. I will come back. I promise.” I kissed my fingertips and placed them on the window.

  I came to the end of the corridor and glanced around the corner. This hallway was lit, and I assumed that anyone that might be around would be alive and awake. No use putting the lights on for the comatose.

  There was a door halfway down the hallway with a square of clear glass. I heard muffled noises emanating from the room. I snuck to the door. Pressing my back to the wall. Nerves tensed. A bead of perspiration trickled down my spine.

  I pressed my front to the door, stooping just underneath the window panel. Slowly, I eased up until I could see into the room.

  There were ten or so people training on red mats on the floor. Men and women. They seemed to be practicing some sort of martial art, training in pairs. P.A.s floated about their shoulders, eyeing every move. It was vicious and fast. They held nothing back. Some men had blood dripping onto their clothing from various cuts on their bodies. Others had enough bruising on their faces that their eyes were nearly swollen shut, but it didn’t stop them from fighting. They didn’t feel any pain.

  They looked professional. Bulky toned muscle, large shoulders, thighs like trunks. Most had necks as thick as their heads. The ultimate fighting machines. The women were as bulked as the men, their bodies altered beyond anything I could conceive as natural.

  Something struck me as odd. I couldn’t quite place it. There were sounds of exertion, of feet and bodies landing heavily on the mats, a wordless yell. Then I realized there were no sounds of actual striking. Skin hitting skin.

  I watched the closest pair. The man with his back to me struck upward with a strong uppercut to his opponent’s jaw. The head snapped back, like he was struck on the bottom of his jaw. But the man’s arm kept gliding in a perfect arch, upward and over his head. He hadn’t touched his opponent. But his opponent certainly had felt the effects of a fully fledged strike. He wiped a smear of blood from the corner of his mouth.

  I frowned, watching the others fighting, but never touching. Bruises appeared, bodies staggered and fell. They had to have been hit. Somehow.

  Then the unimaginable struck me. What I’d seen clattered into clarity. These people fighting, using thought-energy just like I did. Just like Seth. They were unstoppable killing machines. They could accomplish anything. Machines who wouldn’t be limited by high standards of morality. These people—soldiers—looked as though they liked to fight. As though they’d trained their whole life just for that purpose.

  There was a movement inside, and a large man moved into my view. He yelled a curt command, and the fighters ceased, standing at attention. Seth!

  This was far, far bigger than I’d ever contemplated. A century before, there was only me, and a plethora of heart-wrenching failures. Inside that room, there was an elite force of manufactured soldiers. Together they would be an unstoppable force. The ramifications were mind blowing. It had taken a century, but my father had somehow been successful.

  What my father had started with me had grown into immeasurable evil. Whatever he had created, for God knew what reason, was worse than I had ever imagined. Victor wanted me to use as a weapon. And I’d been unwilling. Been prepared to die not to do as he wanted. Now he had men, women—soldiers—who would do anything he bid because they liked it.

  I crumbled in on myself. What the hell was I going to do? How could I even have a chance at stopping this atrocity?

  What would happen if I couldn’t?

  Julius. I needed Julius. Somehow, somewhere, he had to be alive. He just had to be.

  I staggered to my feet and continued down the corridor, going as quickly as I dared. So many doors, so many capsules. People silently changing, becoming more and more nonhuman with each passing second. The more I saw, the more sickened I became. Victor was growing a killing field.

  I came to the next door, looked through the window. My body went numb. I trembled from head to toe. Julius, slumped in a corner of the room. His head rolled to the side. So still. Blood. So much blood. Drops and smears on the floor. Prints on the wall. The worst of it was all over Julius’s shirt, seeping through a jagged cut. He wasn’t moving. Didn’t look like he was even breathing.

  I was too late.

  Dead.

  Julius was dead!

  Chapter Fifteen

  I burst into the room. A fist smashed into my cheek, and I flew through the air and into the wall. Stunned, I managed to turn to see a soldier stalking toward me. His eyes gleamed with gratification. There was the hint of a smile on his mouth. He was enjoying this!

  I pushed myself straight, using the wall as a prop. His hand clamped around my throat and squeezed. I tried to yank his fingers loose, but they were like steel bars. Pressure beneath my jaw, and my feet left the floor. He came close enough so that we were nose to nose.

  Black edged my vision. No air. Desperation surged through me, making my mind spin. Think, damn it. Clear the mind. Will the energy, use the anger. Heat grew like a solid fist in my gut.

  I brought up my knee at the same time sending the thought-energy out through my leg. It snapped through my body like a whip, blasting outward as I smashed him in the groin with my knee. He released me immediately. I dropped to the floor on hands and knees, gagging, trying to breathe and vomit at the same time.

  The soldier roared in agony, his hands clutching his groin. He opened his eyes, and I was on the end of raging anger. He gritted his teeth, hauling his huge body to his feet, sweat breaking out on his forehead.

  The soldier came toward me, towering over me, hands outstretched. He grinned. Disgust churned my gut. His fingers brushed my shoulder. I came up on one knee, thrusting upward with all my strength. I built my energy into a spike, just like I did the knife when I fought with Seth. Hardened it to become a solid, lethal object that protruded from my knee. I felt the energy-spike resist as it sliced through his clothes, skin, and intestines. I screamed, pushing harder, driving the spike right through his back. Felt the warm blood spilling over my hands, warm and smelling like metal. Felt bile rise into my throat as drops splashed onto my shoulders.

  His grin turned to shock, then confusion. He glanced at his stomach, hands closing around the energy-spike. His legs wobbled, and he crashed onto one knee. I heaved upward, slicing through his sternum and through his heart.

  He gasped, blood gurgling in his throat. His face froze in surprise and he toppled sideways to the floor, bringing me with him. I let the energy dissipate, and my knee became free
.

  My hands were soaked with his blood. Still warm. It stained my clothes. I could feel it soaking my skin. I crawled to a corner and emptied my stomach. I heaved even though I’d emptied everything, feeling each retch iron-fist my stomach. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, trembling all over. Julius!

  A sob broke from my mouth as I lay my palm on his cheek. He was pale and cold. Blue lips. His lashes fanned over the tops of his cheeks. The dark hairs a stark contrast to skin that stretched too tight. My face twisted. Tears broke. I made a sound like I was the one wounded. But the side of his neck flickered with an uneven pulse. He was alive! Miraculously alive. I ripped his shirt open. The wound gaped open. Black blood pooled inside. Deep. Deadly.

  There was nothing I could do to heal a wound like this. It had been given with the aim to kill, but as slowly as death would come. He’d been left here like garbage. And there was nothing I could do but watch him die. I was so damn helpless.

  I doubled over, sobs wracked my body. It was all so futile. So perverse. Grief, so strong I’d never felt it before, surged through my entire system. All because he’d stood up for me. Had fought Seth for me. Had given himself up so that I could run and live another day. I should be the one lying with a fatal wound to my chest. I should be the one dying on the floor. Hadn’t I prayed for it often enough? Hoping against hope that one day this would all end. And now I had to watch someone I was close to. Someone I was in ... love with.

  Oh God, oh God, oh God. I was in love with Julius. Just the sight of him sprawled in his own blood, knowing he was going to die because of me, was ripping my soul irreparably apart.

  I pounded the ground. Punched the floor so hard my knuckles cracked. It was nothing compared to the pain inside. Every cell in my body shrieked in agony. I sunk to the floor, bent over myself in a ball until my forehead touched the cool ground, and I sobbed until there was nothing left to let out.

  He didn’t deserve this. Neither had Heather. My beautiful friend who’d laid her life down for me. Why was I so special that people had to die for me? I just wasn’t worth it. People shouldn’t have to die because my insane father made me into something inhuman.

  My father was the one person solely responsible for this. He was the one who deserved to die. After all the things he’d done to people. The men he’d made insane and had killed. They weren’t innocent, but they didn’t deserve to die for someone like him. Rage fueled me, bringing me out of this spiral of tears.

  I sat up and wiped my eyes. There was no place for crying. Only moving forward. I had a gift. I’d caused damage with it, but what if there was more I could do.

  I hadn’t given a thought to how I could use it to any advantage, other than destruction and self-defense. I’d obliterated the rock. I’d used my thought-energy as a physical blade. But maybe destroying wasn’t the only thing I could do. I calmed my mind, closed my eyes, and willed myself to still. To think.

  With the rock, I’d become part of it on a molecular level. I had been the atoms, seen how they interlocked, and willed them apart. The body was an organism made of cells, all interlocking just like the rock. Maybe instead of ripping atoms apart, I could combine them. Create instead of destruct.

  All along, my father had tried to get me to use my thought-energy to destroy and I’d tried my best to resist it. But what can be undone, can be created also. Maybe, just maybe I could use my thought-energy to heal. Julius’s notes from the LearnX were all about healing the original cell back to its natural state. If only I could do the same thing.

  I stilled my mind, sat cross-legged next to Julius, and put my hands on either side of his wound. I felt his heart beat beneath my hands. Irregular. Exhausted. I slowed my breathing, letting conscious thought go. Became the moment. There was nothing but the blood. The body.

  Consciousness drifted from my mind, down through my shoulders, arms, and hands. As it moved, I saw my skin cells in detail—grow as large as craters as my focus decreased to a pinpoint. I urged my energy through my cells and into his.

  I was swept away in a stream of red. Large cells bumped into me as I hurtled this way and that through his veins. It was dark and light at the same time. Everything was glowing red around me. It was absolutely beautiful.

  Suddenly, I was caught in a whirlpool. The red turned black. I sensed pain. Nowhere to go. No vein to follow. I’d been tossed into his wound and was a part of the black blood that pooled in the gash. This was where I needed to be.

  The cells here were not round and healthy. They had lost their glow and deflated in on themselves. Some were black. Dead. Others were quickly dying all around me. Some were torn and leaked fluid. I felt how sick they were; I felt death. They were screaming, in pain, until they went silent one by one.

  I merged with the cells, felt their pain ripping through me until it was like I was dying with them. With the rock, I had sent out my energy as an explosion. Now I worked differently. I sent the energy out from my core, my heart, my loving energy, so that it gently willed each cell to regenerate. I felt them stir and begin to wake.

  There was intense light everywhere. And a gentle, calming heat. I flowed into every cell, feeling the walls strengthen, the sides knit back together, reforming their structure. Blood flowed into new veins, it no longer leaked through the broken and dead cells. Death was cleared away. The jagged wound knitted together and grew smaller until all around me was the beautiful, healthy, glowing red color of life.

  I was swept away in a fast-flowing river. I was part of it, I was it. I was light. I was a part of his body. I let my mind drift, through his skin into mine. I saw the bones in my fingers, the muscles. I came up my arms until I saw something that shouldn’t be in my body. A foreign object. A white plastic square. A red light flashed in one corner. A tracker. Fuck it to hell.

  I threaded my consciousness in the spaces between the cells of my skin and split them apart. I felt a distant pain, but I ignored it. The light from the tracker cut through the red around me. I surrounded it with energy and pushed it through the muscles. I slid the tracker into the bright light and out of my body. Then I merged my cells together and watched the skin heal from the inside. At long last, it was time to leave this microscopic consciousness.

  I traced my way up my arms, following the bones. As I went, I let my consciousness expand. The cells shrank, and I saw veins, muscles, sinews. Into my shoulders, now following the blue-white lightning streaks of the nerves from the brain, in my head, filling my mind, my body, and cracking open my eyes.

  I was back.

  I toppled over. The exertion had taken its toll. Oblivion pressed at my edges, beckoning me to let myself slip into sweet, strength-giving slumber.

  But I had to check Julius. See if I’d made any difference. I lay half across him, one hand on the ground keeping me steady, my side resting on his body.

  I pulled open his shirt. The wound had vanished. There wasn’t a mark on him. I traced my fingers across his chest. His skin was flushed and rosy with the restored blood flow. I pressed my hand to his chest and felt his heart beating steady and strong. He stirred.

  The tracker slipped down my skin. It was no larger than the nail on my little finger and wafer thin. Unless I was at the molecular level, I would never have known it was there. It was perverse, invasive. I pushed a nail through it, splitting it in half.

  I felt the hint of a smile touch my mouth, and I knew it was not a nice smile. I was stronger than I ever knew. Could push my gift farther than I ever thought. The limit of my mind was the only extent of what I could do. I knew I’d come out of the capsule stronger than when I went in, and now I had an inkling of the power that was inside of me.

  Julius’s eyes flickered open. His face filled with surprise. Wonder. “I’m alive.”

  “Thank God.” I rested my fingertips over his heart. For the first time, I saw my curse as a gift. I could heal. I could save lives instead of leaving a trail of death and destruction. I felt my lips turn up in a smile.

  “You saved
me.”

  It didn’t seem like the right time to remind him that he was, in fact, the one that had saved me. Instead, I nodded slowly. I found his hand and held tight like I was holding on to a lifeline.

  “How?” His voice was weak, and it choked me up knowing just how close to death he’d come.

  “I don’t know if you’ll believe me.”

  “I’ll believe anything now that I’ve met you.” His face turned serious, and there was an edge to his voice that I didn’t like. “Katia ... there’s something I have to tell you.”

  “You don’t look as though you want to tell me.”

  He gripped my hand harder. Tense. “I don’t.”

  I wanted to bask in the joy of having him back with me. I wanted to sleep so badly, but I didn’t want to give this up. Not yet. There was something else I wanted to do before sleep. The good feelings slipped away. I tried to hold them, but they slid through me like grains of sand.

  “Then don’t.” I lowered my lips to his, took joy in the tingle of heat that traveled right into the center of me. I traced my tongue in the seam between his lips. His hand clutched my nape, pressing me harder as he returned the kiss, thrusting his tongue into my mouth. I savored the taste of him, delighted in the quickening of my pulse, the yearning for more. The knowledge that I wanted Julius with every cell of my body. Every fiber of my being.

  “Awww. Now isn’t this nice.”

  An arm around my neck yanked me upright. Choking. Dazed. Prick in my neck. Sharp pain. Then oblivion.

  Chapter Sixteen

  My eyelids were leaden, and I worked hard to pry them open. The bright light stung. I winced. My eyes watered until the room laboriously focused.