Gifted, A Donovan Circus Novel (37 page)

“I’ve never heard of anything
like that. Is that even possible?”

“Lenny Sullivan killed another
Firestarter, one I’d recruited. I watched it happen. His rage
was…insurmountable. Lenny hit him with a flame so powerful it killed him. I’ve
never seen anything like it and by the look on Sheffield’s face, neither had
he. It takes power for something like that to happen. And Lucy, she is twice
the Firestarter Lenny was, he used to say it all the time.”

“She does pretty well now.” My
heart caught in my throat as my mind forced me to recognize the owner of that
skeptical tone of voice.

“I learned a trick or two from
Lenny. He taught her how to rein it in, to keep herself on an emotional
lockdown. She doesn’t seem to have any idea that if she were to truly tap into
her emotions and use them to her advantage, she could do anything she wanted
with her gift. That’s what happened with that stupid bar fight. She panicked
and couldn’t control it. She holds herself back and I can use that. I could
even take her gift and use it to kill her.”

A chair squeaked as its owner
shifted. I leaned forward and tried to see anything beyond the cracked door. I
held my breath and focused on not losing my balance. I almost fell over in
panic when I saw Felix sitting in the chair near the door, but I only saw his
profile as he faced his companion. He would have to turn to see me; if he even
inched his head my way, I could probably get out of his view. I looked around
as best I could.

Surprisingly well lit, the room
contained several tables set up with a few laptops and odd-looking machines I’d
never seen. Scattered items lay on the tables behind him: vials and tubes,
scribbled-on papers and a few coffee mugs. I wrinkled my nose; he was a messy
scientist. I edged forward a few inches more. On the desk by Felix’s reach were
folders, stacks and stacks of them. I would bet my life they were folders of
gifted, of the research he’d conducted with or without their permission. I
wondered if I could get my hands on them and take them back to Sheffield.

As I craned my neck for a better
view, I lost my balance. To my horror, I smashed right into the door; it flew
open as I tumbled into the room. My knee slammed into the floor and I struggled
to stand up; finally on two feet, my knee aching, I shoved my hair out of my
eyes and faced my enemies.

Chapter
34

Felix sat in his chair, the
shocked and angry expression on his face quickly turning to glee.

“Christmas came early!” he
crowed. He leapt to his feet to face me and straightened the glasses on his
nose. I turned to his partner, who was pale in the face and knew he’d been
caught. I knew my face revealed every bit of hurt I felt.

“I trusted you,” I spat at
Gabriel.

“Lucy, it’s not—,” he
tried.

“Shut up. I will never forgive
you for this.”

Felix reached for something as
he watched our exchange. He saw my glare and waggled a syringe at me.

“Don’t look so worried, Lucy.
It’ll only hurt a little. I’ve been working on the cure and I’d like to see if
it works on you now.”

“I don’t want to be human,” I
growled.

“I’ll take your gift, which will
make you human, but you don’t need to worry much more. Not when I’m going to
kill you.” He lifted the needle and started towards me.

I didn’t know if I could beat
Felix in a firefight and mad as I was, I couldn’t imagine killing Gabriel.
Instead, I turned and bolted out the door. My knee screamed in protest but I
pushed through the pain. I ran for my life down the hallway, back to the red
basement door. I hoped darkness would cover me, but I heard footsteps pound on
the shiny tiled floors behind me. I glanced back to see two shapes chase after
me. I had a brief thought to set the school on fire, but that would be suicidal;
no way could I survive a demolition over my head.

Racing to the storage room, I
managed to get halfway to the exit door before my knee buckled. I slipped,
colliding with a desk that fell over with an echoing bang. A stack of textbooks
tipped over and landed on me. I tried to clear the way, but it was too late.
Shadows jerked as Felix and Gabriel caught up with me.

“I’d like to thank you for
making this fairly easy,” Felix said with a huff. “Grab her, Empath.”

Gabriel sprung at me as I tried
to stand. He wrapped his arms around me, pinned my arms to my sides to where I
couldn’t flail or punch. He held on tight; it hurt so much I couldn’t even
produce a flame. He squeezed me hard.

“Please don’t try,” he whispered
in my ear. I violently shook my head away from him.

Felix came toward me with his
weapon of choice, the syringe meant to take my blood. A terrifying tool, it was
much larger than I’d feared; the size of a rolling pin, I clearly saw double
chambers with blue liquid in one tube. Felix needed both hands to wield it. My
heart caught in my throat as he approached me. I could not let him near me
under any circumstances or he would make me human, and then kill me. If he was
still a Firestarter, I couldn’t exactly hurt him and I’d only kill Gabriel. I would
not do that until I had answers.

The moment he got within reach,
I kicked my legs at him. Gabriel lifted me off the ground and pulled me ever so
slightly back; I took my advantage and aimed my shoe at Felix’s hand. I knocked
the needle out of his long fingers and it skittered across the floor. Felix
went to retrieve it; he took one look at it and grumbled.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, she broke
the needles off,” Felix said. “Hold her down while I run and get another
syringe. I’ll bring another injection as well. Knock her unconscious if she
tries to set you on fire.”

“I might do it to you for fun,”
I growled at Gabriel.

Felix disappeared into the
darkness. Gabriel gripped my arms at my sides. I struggled, kicked my legs
around and tried to hit him in the balls.

“Stop! Stop, Lucy, it’s not
Gabriel! It’s me, Fin!” he hissed at me.

“You’re a liar!” I screamed at
him. I thrashed around some more.

“I’m not. I helped you kick him!
It’s me, look,” he said. I felt him shudder and when I turned my head, Finley’s
brown eyes and freckled nose appeared. Stunned, I instantly ceased my struggle.
He loosened his grip, but didn’t let go of my arms.

“What the hell are you doing
here? Why does Felix think you’re Gabriel?”

“Because I saw Gabriel meet him
here last night after that fight in the tent. Nik and I followed him when he
left the grounds one night. We did the same thing you did—snuck in here
and heard him talking to Dr. Hardy.”

“Boy, he needs better security.
Why did you follow Gabriel?”

“We were worried about you,
about his weird fascination with you. And rightly so, looks like.”

“How did you even get close
enough to touch him for transformation?”

“At dinner earlier. He was
sitting at one of the tables and I clapped him on the shoulder. I’m not too bad
at sneaking in touches when I need to.” He almost looked offended.

“Felix will kill you, kill us
both,” I whispered.

“We had no idea who Gabriel was
meeting, I swear. We saw Felix for a second after that fight, but we never
expected…we thought it was Gabriel hooking up with some girl. We wanted to
break the news to you and hope it would knock some smarts into you.”

“Knock some smarts into me? I do
not have a thing for Gabriel!”

“Yeah, well the look on your
face when you thought it was Gabriel a few minutes ago says otherwise.”

“Fin, I’m pissed because
Gabriel’s a spy. He’s using me, using us all to help Felix. Felix wants to take
our gifts and expose us to the world, to treat us like lab rats! He’ll take
Sheffield’s gift to wipe us out of existence, right after he makes millions and
flips his shit on the rest of the world.”

“I picked up that much, too.
Felix is dangerous. We need to get back to the grounds, tell Sheffield and the
others about his plan and this so-called cure. You have to get out of here.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll shift back into Gabriel
and get the hell outta here. I’ll convince him I need to go back to stop you
from getting to Sheffield. Now burn me.”

“What?” I turned my head to look
at him in surprise.

“It has to be believable or
he’ll know. I’ll shift back and you burn me enough so that Felix will know I
couldn’t hold you…just don’t set me on fire, though, okay?” He managed a
nervous smile.

“I guess I could do that.”

Finley shuddered—his frame
heightened, his short, sandy blonde hair grew longer, brown eyes turned blue,
and Gabriel stood with his arms around me once more. I opened and closed my
mouth and his eyes narrowed.

“It’s not what you think, Fin. I
thought Gabriel was helping me. Besides, do you think there’s a chance in hell
now?”

“Keegan’s crazy about you. Don’t
drag him around.”

I nodded and turned my head back
around. I tensed up and prepared to steam him.

“Lucy?” he whispered.

“Yeah?”

“If I’m not back soon after you,
something probably went wrong. Tell Delia…” he trailed off and I looked at him,
surprised. He clenched his jaw and went silent.

I closed my eyes. His grip
around me tightened and I warmed my entire body like a stove. He grunted but
kept his stance. His arms shook as he kept hold of me for as long as he could
stand it. Finally he gave a yell and dropped me. When I turned back to him, his
arms and neck were blistery red. He’d even leaned his cheek against me so that
his face burned.

We both turned to look in the
dark hallway as Felix’s whistling could be heard. He was coming back for me.

“Fin, I’m sorry-”

“Go! Run!” he said. He gripped
his arms and doubled over in pain.

I threw him one last apologetic
look and half-ran, half-hobbled out of the room. I threw open the basement door
and raced to my car. I thought I heard a scream; I couldn’t tell if it was
Felix or Finley. My hands shook as I fumbled to get the keys in the ignition,
but I managed to throw it in gear; my tires squealed on pavement as I zoomed
off.

I broke every speed limit law on
the way back. I pulled into the Donovan grounds parking lot and braked so hard
gravel and dust flew up everywhere. I sat for a moment to recall details. My
knuckles, white from their grip on the steering wheel, still refused to let go.
I took a shaky breath and tried to face facts.

Felix could be on his way here.
I hoped to the bottom of my heart Finley escaped undetected. I looked at my
dashboard clock: 1:03 a.m. I needed to get to Sheffield, wake him up if
necessary, and tell him what I knew. But his reckless attitude, his insistence
for self-sacrifice, made me pause. Despite my own stunt an hour earlier, I
didn’t want him running to Felix and subsequently, to his death. Felix would
trap him, take Sheffield’s blood and kill him, then come after us. Sure, it made
me a hypocrite, but too many people depended on Sheffield. He couldn’t leave
them.

Then there was Gabriel, a
traitor and a liar. I could hardly admit to myself how much that hurt. It
wasn’t only my feelings for him. I’d trusted him, told him things no one knew
about me. He’d seen me cry, or at least the closest I’d been to crying in
years. He knew my fears and used them to his advantage. I’d never opened up,
showed my emotions to anyone and now I knew why. He’d used me, learned so many
of my secrets, even pried open the wall that hid my heart. Every word I said,
he’d taken it back to Felix to hurt me. Why would he do such a thing? Were his
stories of his gift, of his Rehab even remotely true or had he made that up to
get to me, too? I couldn’t begin to know where his lies threaded into the
truth.

Gabriel had betrayed me. It
hurt, but I needed to put my own feelings aside. The Donovan Circus was about
to have bigger problems. I glanced at the time again: 1:07 a.m. I’d gotten a
jump on Finley and if he’d had to convince Felix of his—or Gabriel’s,
rather—innocence, then that might take a few minutes. How much time
should pass before I could freak out? I didn’t want to leave the lot in case
Fin showed up, but if I stayed too long, I’d become easy bait. I let go of the
steering wheel and waited.

Chapter
35

At half past one, I gave in to
the fear. If Finley had been caught, I couldn’t bear to imagine the
consequences. He had gone to protect me and now he would die for my arrogance,
for my appearance. It had been a mistake to think I could so easily win. I
bolted from my car, pushed through the pain my knee and tried to outrun the
guilt. I wound my way through the tents and slivers of light; the shadows
caught in my hair and tried to trip me but I refused to fall. I finally arrived
at the camper I needed.

“Open your fucking door,” I
growled. My fingertips tingled with heat as I pounded on the door. Ten
infuriating seconds later, it opened.

“Lucy? What are you doing here
so late?” Gabriel asked.

“What am
I
doing? What are
you
doing, asshole?”

“Jesus, what’d I do now?” He
rolled his eyes and I felt my blood boil. He crooked an eyebrow and I glanced
down. My skin glowed a dangerously bright red. I tried with all my might not to
set his camper on fire.

“You
snake
. You used me, used all of us and now we’re going to die
because of you. Just tell me why!”

Every bit of arrogance dropped
from his demeanor. His crossed arms dropped to his sides and instead of looking
remorseful, he seemed worried. “Oh shit. What do you know? And more
importantly, how do you know it?”

“I went there tonight, to
Felix’s hole in the ground. And you were there, only it wasn’t you, it was
Finley, but Felix seemed quite comfortable around the Gabriel he thought was
there. So by my deduction, you’re pretty good friends with that psychopath. Now
he has Finley and he’s going to die. You are going to kill every gifted being
here and I can’t believe I trusted you!” Something inside me snapped and I
yelled at him. “
I trusted you!
”