Captivated (Talented Saga #3.5) (2 page)

I was on my feet in the blink of
an eye. One advantage of my small stature was that it made me
agile, and much quicker than my larger opponents. For a third time,
I dove into my opponent’s mind. My efforts were wasted; a thin veil
shielded his thoughts, making them appear fuzzy and jumbled. I
considered pushing past the barrier, but the mental energy that
entailed would sap the physical strength that I still possessed.
While my other opponents had been fairly easy to defeat, four
back-to-back matches had left me fatigued.

Self-doubt made me careless, and
in spite of the inner voice telling me not to, I doubled my mental
efforts to take control of his mind, bend him to my will. The
harder I pushed the more resistance I met. Soon, the curtain
separating our minds was a concrete wall, and no matter how hard I
tried, I couldn’t crack his mental armor.

“Guess you’ll have to beat me for
real,”
his mental voice chided, that
superior smile returning to his full lips.

Anger, humiliation, and fear
warred within me. Four minutes, thirty-six seconds remained on the
clock. I needed to gain the upper-hand and I needed to do it now.
None of my other matches had gone the full seven minutes. I hadn’t
anticipated that this one would either and I wondered whether I
would last that long.

Instead of trying to control him,
I let the anger control me. I launched myself at his mid-section,
sending both of us crashing to the mats. I rained blows on his
chest, his face, sides, anywhere he left unguarded.

At first, the guy didn’t fight
back, favoring protecting his pretty-boy face over returning fire.
Unfortunately for me that didn’t last long. Our eyes met briefly,
his expression of incredulity matched my own. I may have
underestimated his Talents – I still had no clue what they even
were – but he’d underestimated my sparring abilities.

While I continued to inflict as
much damage as possible with my fists, he wrapped his hands around
my waist and literally threw me backwards. I flew too high, too far
for him to have only used his physical strength.

My own strength was waning, but my
resolve was steadfast. Still, I wanted to end the match before I
ran out of steam completely. I checked the clock – two and a half
minutes.
Don’t waste it,
I lectured myself.

I scrambled to my feet, and only
partially regained my balance before that invisible rope was back,
yanking me to the ground. I used my telekinesis to send him flying
before he could get too close. I prayed his head would hit the mat
hard enough to render him unconscious. That wasn’t the way I wanted
to win, not really. I wanted him to concede the match, but a win
was a win and I would take it any way, shape, or form it came
in.

I stood, and searched the room to
find where he’d landed. I froze the instant my eyes landed on the
gigantic tiger stalking towards me. The animal’s teeth were
impossibly large and sharp as razors. It pawed at the mat, a bull
about to charge the matador.

Understanding dawned on me and I
began to relax. There was nothing remarkable about my opponent; he
was a morpher, just like the last four. Well, maybe a dual Talent,
I amended, remembering the way he’d flung me across the room like a
ragdoll. I had little time to contemplate this conundrum further,
though, since the tiger was steadily gaining speed.

I stood still as a statue. My
muscles clenched, reflexes at the ready, and waited for the animal
to lunge. The moment he leapt, I leapt, meeting the attack head-on.
We collided in mid-air, his breath hot as it fanned across my face,
his claws sharp as they slid down my arms. When gravity brought us
back to the mats, we rolled together, both of us fighting for
control. The tiger had a hundred pounds on me, but I wasn’t above
playing dirty; I grabbed fistfuls of his hair and yanked. A long,
loud mew tore loose from the tiger’s throat and next I knew my
fingers were tangled in the boy’s silky, black hair.

“You fight like a girl,”
the guy’s voice said in my head.

I ignored his taunt, it was
distracting and I couldn’t afford distraction. We continued to
tumble across the arena, trading blows and insults. The fight
lacked finesse, both of us abandoned our training in desperate
attempts to best the other; there were no perfectly executed kicks
or textbook jabs. I clawed his exposed skin with my fingernails,
trailing angry red scratches down his cheeks. He wedged an elbow
between my ribs and twisted, causing me to curl into myself in
pain. Most guys avoided striking my face, and he was no different,
but good manners didn’t prevent him from wrapping my ponytail
around his hand and slamming my head against the mat.

“Four out of five isn’t
bad,”
he sent after managing to pin both
of my arms to the floor with his knees.
“You might still become a Hunter.”

The weariness that had settled in
my bones vanished with his words. A malicious part of me – the one
I normally reserved for thoughts about Ian Crane – wanted to do
something truly heinous to the guy holding me down. Something along
the lines of filling his head with images of venomous spiders
crawling across his arms, legs, and even his rapidly-swelling face.
Even if I had the mental energy for that, I didn’t want to win that
way. Not with this guy. Simply beating him was no longer good
enough for me; I needed his respect.

Instead of using my Talents, I
forced my muscles to go limp as wet noodles. Just as I’d
anticipated, he loosened his grip, thinking that I was throwing in
the towel. He even started to rise from where he was sitting on my
stomach, providing me with enough space to bring my knee up, and
make contact with his more sensitive parts.

“You’re right,”
I sent,
“I do fight like
a girl.”

He collapsed on top of me,
groaning with frustration and agony. After several deep breaths, he
was back to full strength and came for me without mercy. The guy
was relentless, his pride apparently a strong enough motivator to
keep him focused. More grappling, more blows, more painful jabs to
my ribcage and the side of my head.

The room spun, the boy’s face went
in and out of focus. My arms became too heavy, causing my punches
to miss their mark and land with little impact. Blocking the
thoughts of the crowd was a chore; the effort of the task siphoned
my dwindling strength.

I am going to
lose
, I realized with panic. This
annoying, conceited ass was going to ruin everything I’d worked
for. All of my training and sacrifice would be
worthless.

With one last ditch effort, I
catapulted my opponent off of me. I rolled on to my side, pushed
myself to my knees, but failed to stand. Panting with exhaustion
and wincing in pain, I collapsed back to the mats face
first.

“Time!” the referee shouted.

The single word filled me with
equal parts relief and dread. While I had no intention of actually
conceding the match – that wouldn’t go over well with the Placement
Committee – I was fighting a losing battle. And something told me
that my opponent would have gone all day if the ref allowed him. On
the other hand, the trial was over and I failed to claim
victory.

The adrenaline was quickly
subsiding and my legs were nearly too shaky to support my weight.
My stomach churned uncomfortably and I wondered how badly vomiting
would affect my score. The queasiness deepened when I noticed the
graceful ease with which my opponent stood, wiped his sweaty palm
on his suit, and offered me his hand. I stared at it with distain.
He wanted to shake? Sure, that was the sportsman-like thing to do,
but I wasn’t feeling very sportsman-like. A draw was not the way my
trial was supposed to end. A draw wouldn’t impress the Placement
Committee. My dream of becoming a Hunter could be over.

“Good match,” my opponent said,
dropping his hand back to his side when I didn’t reciprocate the
hand-shaking gesture. “My name is Erik, by the way. Erik
Kelley.”

The dazzling smile he offered me
only added to my irritation. He was so smug, so arrogant. Those
hypnotic turquoise eyes and perfect features had likely tricked
many a girl into trusting him. In fact, I knew they had. Erik
Kelley had quite the reputation.

Spinning on my heel, I marched across the mats
without so much as a word to the guy that may have ended my dream
of becoming a Hunter.

“Come on, Tals, that is no way to
treat your future teammate,”
he
sent.

My future teammate? Absolutely
not, I thought. There was no way I would share a cabin with Erik
Kelley
.

Erik

The belt’s buckle was foreign, the
metal cold, my fingers too numb to function properly. As the hover
craft’s wheels skimmed the landing strip, I forced the pieces
apart. The plane landed, jolting me out of my seat now that I was
no longer fastened in. I stumbled, reaching for the cargo net
hanging over the bench-style seats to steady myself. Henri pursed
his lips, concern in his brown eyes but said nothing.

The pilot’s voice was unnaturally
loud as it echoed off the walls of the small cabin. “You are clear
to deplane.”

I was at the back bay door in
three strides, Henri a step behind. The slow, metallic whine of the
hatch unlocking, followed by the snail’s speed at which it opened,
irritated me to no end. I had to see her with my own eyes, had to
know she was alive. Captain Alvarez’s assurance that she was going
to be fine had been half-hearted at best.

An insatiable urge to beat on the
door and speed its painfully lethargic descent seized me. I pounded
my fist against the metal, only succeeding in bruising my knuckles.
Physical pain was a welcome distraction from the metaphorical vice
squeezing my lungs and heart.

“
Erik, calm down,” Henri said in
an annoyingly even tone. “Her condition won’t change in the next
sixty seconds.”

While his logic was sound, it
didn’t dampen the sense of urgency that had plagued me since
Captain Alvarez’s call. The one where he informed us that Talia was
injured. He declined to share the details, but the gist was clear:
Ian Crane had tried to kill her.

Finally, the damned door opened,
and I jumped onto the cement airstrip. Toxic’s Kansas base was in
the middle of nowhere; barren land stretched for miles in every
direction with groupings of warped trees every so often to break up
the monotony. The only sign of human life was the clump of
buildings several meters to the right.

There,
I
thought,
she must be over there.
I took off at a dead sprint, already regretting
the several seconds I’d taken to get my bearings.

“
Erik! Wait!” Henri called after
me.

His footfalls barely registered
over the roar of blood between my ears. Henri’s legs were longer
than mine, but fear and adrenaline dictated my faster pace. He
would catch up eventually. Or not. Either way, I wasn’t concerned.
Reaching Talia was all that mattered.

“
You don’t even know where you’re
going,” Henri said, still several paces behind me.

“
In case you haven’t noticed there
is only one place where she could be,” I argued, pointing at the
small town straight ahead.

Henri said nothing, just increased his speed to
match mine.

As we neared the heart of the
base, my pulse quickened, blood pumping so fast I thought my heart
might explode. She was so close, and I couldn’t feel her. The aura
Talia normally projected, the one that drew me to her, was
nonexistent. My throat tightened and the oddest sensation prickled
behind my eyeballs. I blinked several times, hoping to dislodge the
specks of dirt that had surely invaded both of my eyes.

“
Erik, you need to get yourself
under control,” Henri panted, finally falling in step beside me.
“You can’t force your way in to see her. The Director isn’t going
to respond well to threats.”

He was right, of course. Director
McDonough was not easily intimated, and threats would be met with
deaf ears. But I had no intention of seeking out the Director,
asking his permission to see Talia. Actually, I intended to avoid
him at all costs.

“
What is your plan for getting in
to see her?” Henri asked.

I shrugged. Ever since the
Captain’s call, I’d been on autopilot, the only thought running
through my head was: get to Talia. Now that we were here, I
realized that might be easier said than done.

“
We need to be diplomatic about
this,” Henri continued. “Otherwise, the Director is going to send
us straight back to Headquarters.”

“
You be diplomatic,” I
growled.

I caught Henri’s concerned gaze
out of the corner of my eye. If Talia had been with us, I would
have been able to read his mind. Even without mimicking her
Talents, though, his thoughts came through loud and clear. My
friend, my teammate, my captain, thought I was losing it. Maybe I
was. The idea of Talia hurt and alone, fighting for her life,
caused a part of me to die. Our last encounter had ended poorly,
that could not be the last memory we made.

I slowed my pace to a fast walk as
we entered the compound. The buildings were arranged in a circular
configuration with a statue of some past director of Toxic in the
center.
Probably a
McDonough
, I thought bitterly.