Gifted, A Donovan Circus Novel (42 page)

Another enemy leapt in and
swung; as Gabriel dove towards him, the guy lifted his arm and froze Gabriel in
midair, threw a punch that tossed him across the field. Gabriel stood up dazed
and tried to swing but the guy froze him again. He walked to Gabriel, drew a
knife and as I ran to them, the guy swiped at Gabriel’s face. Blood dripped
from his cheekbone as the guy went in for Gabriel’s jugular. Anger bubbled in
my throat. I drew my arm back, felt my blood boil as I hit him in the back with
my fire; it consumed him and he went down with a scream as he burned to death.

Gabriel’s body unfroze and he
gave me a brief nod of thanks before he jumped back into the fight. All around
me, the blood spillage continued; screams of agony and fury flooded my
eardrums. I couldn’t tell whose side was winning.

Renata dodged a swing from her
opponent, took her own punch and missed; the guy, a Doubler, split into two
identical men. Like a mirror image, his twin mimicked his throws at her, darted
and twisted away from her every move. The more she missed, the more frustrated
she became which made her sloppy. The split twins laughed at her; one took a
jab at her back while the other went low for her kneecap.

Renata gave a growl and shouted,
“I am so done with this shit! Donovan crowd, heads up!”

I had an inkling of what that
meant and planted my feet. Squinty-eyed in concentration, she stomped her heel
hard into the ground. The field cracked below her, but the rumble threw
everyone, including her opponent, off balance. I managed to stay on my guard,
but most of Felix’s crew fell to the ground. Our side took advantage, instantly
swung, jumped, or lobbed fire at them as they struggled to get back on their
feet. For a moment, we had the upper hand.

A Runner on Felix’s side zipped
around one of Sheffield’s men. Whatever gift our man had, it didn’t include
speed; the Runner went past him in a blur and the man dropped to the ground,
his throat slit. I brought my hands up with a flame ready as another shape flew
past me. There was a flurry of motion not five feet from me. When the blur
stopped, Delia stood victorious over the now dead Runner, a jagged knife in her
hand.

“He was a slow bastard,” she
said with a proud smile at me, “and poorly skilled with a knife. One down, only
a handful left!” She zipped off in the opposite direction with her new weapon.

Before I could even gape in
shock at her, one of Felix’s cronies, snaggle-toothed and gaunt, got too close
and hit me in the face. I buckled to my knees and he grabbed my arms, swung me
into the ground. The wind whooshed out of my lungs and I struggled to breathe.
He leaned over me, raised his fist to punch me again. I kneed him in the crotch
and he fell over with a howl. I went to stand up and he grabbed me again. I
swung my arms, made contact with his face as he clawed at me. I hit him again
and again, took my rage straight at his nose. Unbelievably, he finally lay
still as I spit blood out of my mouth.

I looked at my hands, the
knuckles raw and bloody. It’d happened so fast; while I didn’t set him on fire,
there was something immensely satisfying about beating him down by hand.
Ignoring the pain in my hands, I looked at the friends I could find; they all
looked battered and beaten.

My world slowed for a moment as
I found others: Brooklyn could barely stand now, her hands clutching at her
head every so often as though she couldn’t keep everyone out; Nikolas looked
exhausted, coated in sweat, ash, his clothes looking drenched. His red Mohawk
stuck in wet pieces to his head. A cut bled across Bianca’s beautiful forehead.
Keegan lay bleeding on the ground; he didn’t move and at the sight of him, my
heart almost broke in two. I couldn’t get to him without risking injury.

“Lucy,” someone said. I knew
that voice and the knot in my stomach lessened an inch. I turned to find
Gabriel covered in dirt and blood, his shaggy blonde hair a mess, bruises on
every surface of skin I could see. Blood spilled from the cut on his face,
making his skin ghostly white against the bright red color.

“He won’t hide behind his
followers forever. We can’t let him run. He’s looking for you and I don’t know
where Bianca took Sheffield,” he said.

“I know. Gabriel, I’m gonna need
a favor,” I said to him.

Despite the battle happening
around us, he managed to give me his cocky smile. “Is that right? It only took
you a battlefield to ask?”

“Remember when you said you
would never mess with my emotions? I need you to do that right now. I’m too
scattered to focus on my own. I need you to make me really angry.”

“Well, I could mention that girl
at my camper the other night…”

I threw him a dirty look.
“Whatever it is that you do, I need your help. Sort of annoyed won’t do; I need
to face the anger head on. It’s the only way I can beat Felix.”

“This is gonna suck for me, just
so you know. You’ll probably require quite a bit of energy.”

“Can you do it or not?” I raised
an eyebrow at him.

“Can I do it…” he scoffed. “Of
course I can, dummy.”

“Then do it.”

He gave me a sexy smile. “I
rather like you in bossy mode.”

I managed to roll my eyes before
a body flew across the field and I snapped out of our conversation. He breathed
deep and took a step back, gave me a questioning look as though to ask if I was
ready.

I nodded, looked around again;
Nikolas watched our exchange, whispered something to Keegan lying on the
ground. I hoped he figured out the plan and that his whisper meant Keegan would
survive.

“Usually, I’d touch you, but I
don’t want you to burn me. You bottle everything up so well I’m worried this
could get a little scary. Close your eyes and concentrate on what you’re
feeling,” Gabriel said. I nodded and he lifted his hand in front of me. His
long fingers could almost cover my entire face. A current shimmered from his
hand to my face and I closed my eyes.

I could feel warmth from his
hand and it intensified. I thought about the last few weeks, the incidents,
people I’d met. Images flashed: Marty, his warm eyes smiling at me then
charbroiled in the lot; Gabriel’s face as that whore left his camper; Keegan
bloody on the ground nearby; my would-be rapist Mac, his hands on my skin;
Felix’s cackle as he prepared to kill Sheffield; and then surprisingly, my
father, who’d hidden so many secrets from me, so much that I now had to take on
his fight for him. He never asked it of me, knew he shouldn’t, but his secrets
led me to this path and now I would pay for his mistakes. He’d left me alone in
the darkness to find my own way and without his help; if he’d only trusted me,
believed enough in my gift to give me the self-confidence I needed, we might
not be here in this battle. I’d never known how angry I was at him until this
moment. I opened my eyes.

Gabriel looked at me in
amazement. With his energy flowing into me, his entire body shook with my rage.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking about, but Felix is in some fuckin’ trouble
now.”

My skin burned hotter than I’d
ever felt it. I looked down; flames coated my hands, which I wouldn’t consider
to be unusual, except this time, the flames were reddish orange with a blue
base. I’d never seen that before, not even with my father, and didn’t know if
it was a good thing I carried that much anger around. My entire body hummed
with vibration and I could feel my hair crackle with electricity. I practically
bounced on the balls of my feet with my emotions in full swing. I felt a little
nauseous from the power, like I’d taken drugs and couldn’t quite control my
movement yet.

“Lucy, I-” Gabriel tried to say.

“Shut it. If you say anything
other than kick some ass, I’ll lose all momentum.”

“I don’t think so, not this
time. It’s physically painful to me, you’re so angry powerful,” he replied.
“But Lucy? Go kick some ass.”

I didn’t dare try to put the
fire away in case I couldn’t revive it. Instead, flames ran from fingertips to
elbows as I circled the field, searched for Felix amongst the scattered bodies
and ashes. I recognized a few from our side including the large man with
beautiful black wings I’d seen my first night here. Perhaps he’d been in our
second line and gotten impatient. Now he lay dead on the ground, feathers
ripped from his appendages. It only infuriated me more. I held on to the
anger…or perhaps now it held on to me. I made sure to pass Nikolas, still
kneeling by Keegan, who lay unconscious on the ground. Nikolas saw my flames
and his eyes widened.

“Jesus Christ, Luce,” he
breathed in a hoarse voice.

“It’s a little overboard, I
suppose.”

“No way. You’re better than all
of us. Burn that son of a bitch into a crisp. I’ll take care of Keegan.”

I nodded and continued my search
for Felix. Finally, I found him. His back to me, he headed towards the parking
lot in escape. Even when he had the upper hand, he was nothing but a coward.

“Hey Dr. Hardy,” I called to
him. He froze and turned around. I saw large black feathers drift from his
pockets; flames crept up my shoulders. “Headed back to your lab for more vials
and syringes?”

“Actually, yes,” he replied.
“Plenty of easy test subjects right now. Don’t worry, I won’t be gone long.”

“You won’t be running tests on
any of us ever again.”

“It’s too late, Lucy. I’ve
already won this battle. Your friends are already siding with me, begging me to
let them live.”

“You can’t have their gifts or
mine for that matter. You’ll have to kill me to survive and my gift’s no good
to you if I’m dead.”

“I’m sure there’s plenty of time
for me to draw your blood. Sure will be easier that way, without you alive to
thrash around and run your smartass mouth,” he sneered.

“Let’s see how well you handle
your stolen gifts, then. Can’t back down now. What will your followers think
about a girl beating you in a fight?” I gave him a knowing smile. “Besides, you
want my gift too badly; you’ve worked far too hard for this moment.”

“You can’t beat me.” Even as he
said it, his eyes went to my hands, now completely encased in blue sparks.

“I can sure as hell try.” I
crouched into a fighting stance like Brooklyn taught me. My body itched with
aggression.

“I’ve been practicing. You, on
the other hand, can lose it with one small distraction or mood swing. I’m in
touch with my anger; I know how to focus that into control. All I need to do is
remember how I got these scars,” he said. He motioned to his arms, his face
wrinkled in fury. His hands caught fire. “I took one of my own Firestarters out
in a trial run yesterday. Poor bastard didn’t know what hit him.”

I crooked a finger at him.
“Let’s dance, you and me. Prove you’re better than the Sullivans.”

I backed up into the field, away
from his escape route. He came towards me like a panther stalks its prey, his
stare never leaving me. I saw the hole behind him fill with my side of gifted;
they wouldn’t let him escape so easily. I saw movement in my peripheral vision;
I didn’t break my gaze with Felix but figured our people now surrounded the two
of us. Neither side dared to help. I knew no one would; this was between Felix
and me. We faced each other like an old fashioned draw, dared the other to
twitch. Felix pulled the trigger first.

In an instant, he slapped his
hands together with a fireball and threw it at me. I deflected it easily,
practically caught it and lobbed it back at him with a little of my own
firepower behind it. It zoomed to him, hit him dead in the chest. For a brief
second, I was arrogant enough to believe that could do it.

He looked down at his chest as
the fireball sizzled out, left a few scorch marks on his dorky blue button-up
shirt.

“Is that all?” he said with a
laugh. In the blink of an eye, he hurled a fireball the size of a small car my
way. I caught it, but the force of it tossed me backwards and I spilled onto
the dirt. I got up as fast as possible, spitting dirt from my mouth and wiping
blood out of my eyes.

I had to give it to him-Felix’s
wiry body allowed him to be faster than I’d realized. I’d absorb or fizzle out
one fireball only to have another one hurled at me. Not only that, but he
cheated. He’d zip one at me and chuck another into the crowd to keep my
concentration split. I’d break the one in my direction, then close my fist to
prevent an outsider from catching fire. I could hardly catch my breath to get
on the offensive. At one point, I met Nikolas’s eyes; he mouthed an apology,
knew he couldn’t help me save the innocent from Felix’s flames. That pissed me
off more—Felix should be after me, not the others. I shouldn’t have to
ask for help against another Firestarter, not if I was as powerful as I was
told.

“Where’s your precious
Sheffield? He’s run away, gone like Lenny!” he yelled. “Your father told you
nothing, wouldn’t save you, couldn’t keep me from destroying you!”

“You won’t win,” I told him.

“I already have, you stupid
little girl,” he said.

He clapped his hands together,
formed a giant orange ball and threw it at me. Instead of engulfing me as I’d
expected, he widened his arms at the last second and I became surrounded inside
a giant fireball. I could hardly see past the flames. He steadied his arms and
I tried to push on the inside of the cage to no avail. He had trapped me inside
my own weapon.

Chapter
40

The heat overcame me, became suffocating.
Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get out. Felix was strong and had me
cornered. I tried to stave off the panic, but it crept up on me. The blue
flames began to melt back to red and orange. I concentrated on my anger at
Felix, but it wasn’t working. I bit back a scream. Felix was going to beat me.
An erratic drumming pulsed through my limbs and it took me a minute to realize
it was my heart, pounding my rib cage the way my fingers tapped on my knees.