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“I’m Luke,” the guy said. He looked like he might have been a fighter at one time with his crooked nose and he had scars on his knuckles. He was cute in an unassuming way but obviously damaged. I knew immediately he had a past like mine. He had to fight for survival.
“Hi, I’m Blake,” I lifted my lips in a semblance of a smile. I didn’t know how I felt about being thrown in a class of young teens. I almost felt like one of those kids that struggled with learning back at home. I was an overachiever and I was used to being at the top of the class, this was a new experience for me.
“We know,” Rachel said smugly. “This school is worse than the small town I came from. Everyone knows everyone, and everyone wants to be in everyone else’s business. So, which Bell boy are you dating?”
“Really, Rachel, can you have a little more tact and how is it any of your business?” Luke said with a long-suffering sigh.
I gave a sort laugh. Rachel was bold in her approach. “They’re all my friends,” I stated evasively.
The class started and our teacher, a severe looking man with biceps the size of my thighs took a spot up in the front of the classroom. His eyes scanned the room and finally landed on me. “Class, today we have a new student. Would you like to stand, introduce yourself, and tell us a little about yourself, including what gift you possess.”
No, I thought, but instead I stood up and wiped my damp palms on my skirt. “Hi, everyone, my name is Blake Thomas. I just moved here. I love playing music and I can tell people to do stuff.”
“She’s also a boyfriend stealer,” a pretty girl of about twelve said up front, making some of the class snicker with laughter. She had short, glossy black hair and eyes that tilted in the corners, suggesting an Asian heritage. Her eyes were a pretty unique shade of blue and combined with some mannerisms and a few distinct facial features like a slightly upturned nose, I knew instantly she had to be Tamara’s little sister.
“Mei Linn,” the teacher admonished her with a hint of warning.
She just gave him a pretty little smile and blinked up at him innocently.
No one seemed impressed about my gift, including the teacher. As the class progressed, I realized why. The levels everyone kept talking about, weren’t based on the actual gift, but the source, control, and power of the gift itself. I guess I could have been more specific and said I had the gift of compulsion because there was another boy in the class that had the gift of suggestion, and his was slightly different. He could suggest people do something, but he couldn’t make people do things like I could. I made Troy model a dress, but since Troy wouldn’t typically wear a dress, the boy couldn’t suggest for him to. But he could, for instance, say: “I really like pizza, we should get pizza,” and the other person would like the idea and they would want to get pizza.
There was a little girl that was considered a pyro too, but she could only produce a flame like a lighter if a fire source was nearby. She was considered a four. She couldn’t project her flame or produce fire balls.
After introducing myself to the class, we were led down to the arena. It was extremely high tech and almost looked futuristic. There were a few healers in there. I would later find out that the gifted medical students took rotations being on standby in this class. I learned quickly that Noah, as a healer, was superior to the ones they had in the classroom today. They seemed to be able to heal superficial wounds and abrasions but unable to do the more difficult healing tasks. For instance, there was a boy that was able to sharpen and launch his nails like sharp little talons, reproduce them, and launch them again. The boy that had been paired with him could harden his skin like armor but he was too slow during one of their matches, so the nail thrower pierced his skin. Armor boy had reeled in pain, tripped over his own feet, and his head connected with the bleachers on the way down.
The healers were able to heal him, but the scar remained, and they couldn’t help him with his headache with their gifts. They just gave the boy some ibuprofen (after they determined he didn’t have a concussion) and told him to sit out for the rest of the class. Noah didn’t leave scars (although, he couldn’t make them go away) when he healed people and he was able to heal headaches. I knew that first hand.
Today’s lesson was an attack and defense class. I bombed it. Bad. I was paired up with this eleven-year-old girl and she could manipulate the earth in a way. We had been taken down to the arena and there was a section made for her. She stood on the box of flowers, grass, and vines and she kept making the vines crawl towards me. It wasn’t like she had the power to have them truly attack me, yet. It was a possibility that she would one day.
I couldn’t compel her to stop or launch a counter offense. I couldn’t go to that place that my gifts were drawn from. I generally compelled myself with anger. I couldn’t be angry enough or think angry enough thoughts to do anything to a little girl.
At one point in the class, the instructor made us ‘useless’ gifted take a seat and watch the more entertaining ones. Mei Linn had an entertaining gift as she could blink in and out. One minute she was there and the next she wasn’t. She couldn’t disappear for long or leave the position she had been in, but she was still able to keep the water manipulator from getting her wet.
I learned the difference between manipulators and producers at least. The manipulators needed their water source, earth source, or whatever oth
er element nearby in order to use it. If the water manipulator, was for instance, in a desert he would be hard-pressed to use his gift in that environment. The producers were able to imagine the source of their power and it was there. It seemed the manipulators (who were considered a low to middle level) outnumbered us producers (who were considered mid to prominent level). I knew I was a producer. I had produced fire without fire being present. I was able to use my compulsion by imagining a time I was angry, without being angry.
The second part of class was much more bearable for me. We learned about the elite students and former students that were asked to assist the school in helping recruit more students. We watched videos as gifted students were essentially saved from themselves or from someone intending harm to them. This elite team of students wore fire retardant, armor-plated uniforms made from all black. I almost found myself laughing, thinking I was watching an episode of X-Men. How did all these events occur in normal society without the gifted community being exposed?
As I watched the videos, I saw my guys in several of them. Tamara and Jemmy were even in a few of them. I guess they treated these videos like training videos. It was a way for students to analyze and understand their powers if they had similar ones.
I could hear so many of the students whispering to each other that one day they would work for one of the teams. Others scoffed at some of the lower level students and told them they would never be one.
I could hear Mei Linn up front, “That’s my sister, Tamara, and her boyfriend Jaxson. I don’t know why a level zero would ever think she had a chance with him.”
I couldn’t even find anything in me to be mad or upset at her. It was clear that she was young and impressionable, and her sister had started to poison that well. I was going to make it my mission to ‘fix’ her before she was ruined. Nobody liked a mean girl.
Chapter 22
I didn’t expect Drake to be waiting for me when I got out of class. Since he was in college no uniform was required, but he dressed up so much more than all the other guys I had seen today on the college side of campus. He was dressed in a pair of khakis and a green plaid button up. I noticed all the guys seemed to dress nicely when they weren’t around the house.
He was right outside the performing arts building and had no less than five girls surrounding him. I could see by the way he continually looked at his feet then wildly around and rubbed the back of his neck that he was uncomfortable. The way the girls kept casually touching him and emitting fake laughter, made it clear they were trying to flirt with him.
I made a towards him and pushed my way to the middle, linking my arm through his. “Hey, waiting on me?”
I didn’t know if he was, but I suspected it. It seemed to do the trick as some of the girls backed up.
He gave me a crooked little grin, relief clearly evident in his eyes. “I was. I was wondering if you wanted to start working today? If you’re too tired it’s no big deal.”
