Page 20 of Ravage
I simply nod and pick up my drink again in case I’ll need it.
“Good. I was born with the gift of Truth. I can tell when someone is lying, when they are omitting information, and I can also see who has a gift or not.”
“What do you mean, you can see it?”
“It’s hard to explain, but I guess I’ll go with calling it an aura. Someone with a gift emits an aura around them that I can sense. It doesn’t tell me what they can do, but I can get a general idea of how strong they are when I compare the feeling with others.” He shifts forward and waves a hand toward me. “You, for example, your aura feels heavy. What’s normally a tickle is more like the beat of a drum. But unsteady. No real rhythm, as if you haven’t found the right beat yet.”
Unsteady. As if I needed someone to confirm who I am by comparing me to a musical instrument.
My walls go up, and my posture stiffens now that I’ve officially been outed for having a gift. It’s rare. Selected politicians and organizations are obviously aware of us, but even they are keeping us a secret from everyone else. So they can use us against others like weapons. And we’re too afraid to out ourselves out of fear for what the general population would do to us.
The Salem witch trials are proof we wouldn’t be accepted.
That was the first time people like us had been discovered. And they were hunted. Tortured. Friends and family looked at them with hate as they were burned at the stake.
We’re the generations later from those who survived. Still trying to survive.
It doesn’t matter that Elias admitted that he’s gifted like me. It doesn’t make me feel any safer. Keeping this secret is paramount to survival. The more people who know about me, the more in danger I become. And I’m already on the top capture list from a worldwide organization full of powerful people with unlimited resources.
I shift in my seat so I can spring up and out of here at a second’s notice if I need to. I can use my gift against him if I have to in order to escape, or if I can’t trust he’ll keep my secret, but I’m not ready to use it just yet. He hasn’t actually said anything that insinuates he will rat me out or that he knows who I am. Just another gifted in the world.
Elias watches me as if he can read every thought in my mind. I freeze. “Can you read my mind?”
He chuckles and shakes his head, but it isn’t until he speaks that I relax a little. “No. I’m pretty good at reading body language, but that’s not a component of my gift.” I nod, and he continues, “Someone close to me was hurt because of people hunting us, and there was nothing I could do to save them at the time. I worked to build myself up until I could get them back, but when I did, there was a stain on their soul I could never erase. I’ve sworn since then to help as many gifted as I come across. Either to keep the same thing from happening to them or to help them recover and get back on their own two feet.”
Elias pauses and then inclines his head. “I believe you’re the latter, so I’d like to help you as much as I can. I’d be able to help you better if I could learn more about what you’re going through or trying to accomplish. But I also understand if you don’t fully trust me either.”
Well…I swallow the words I’d normally say in self-defense. Do I believe him? Not completely. I’ll never blindly put my trust in someone else ever again. Not after having it broken and crushed to fine pieces that’ll never fit back together again. The only person I can trust is myself. But I could use the help that he’s offering me.
I started fighting back against GE three years ago, and I hate to admit that I haven’t gotten far. One person with no support, no extra money, only my stubbornness and ability to survive whatever I’ve come across, can’t realistically take down a worldwide organization.
I know that.
I’ve had too many close calls. Too many times where they found me because I had no idea what I was doing. I’ve only made it this far through luck and trying to learn from my mistakes.
But I’m far from where I need to be.
“Trusting people in the past hasn’t worked out so well for me.” Thoughts of my first boyfriend, who’d found me broken and alone on the streets after escaping the island and then took advantage of me, come to mind first. They’re followed by the others who died just because they’d been close to me. Or who had given me up the second I told them about my gift.
He nods, accepting my truth.
“But I’m also not making much of a difference on my own. I can’t keep going the way I have been and succeed.” I take a heavy breath. “I think you actually have these resources that you talk about and you seem genuine. I can’t trust you completely, not yet, but I could use some help.”
When I don’t continue, Elias presses gently, “What difference are you trying to make?”
I bite my lip. My survival instinct screams at me to keep my mouth shut. Not to involve anyone else, for keeping myself safe and them if they wind up as a casualty because of me. But…what more can I do on my own? Three years, and what do I have to show for it? Dead recruiters?
“I’m trying to take down a group that uses people like us.”
His eyebrow raises. “How so?”
Ugh. I’d hoped that would be enough for him. “I was kidnapped when I was eight and taken to an island with other gifted kids. It was mostly school and one-on-one sessions to learn about our gifts at first, but I learned later that they were conditioning us to use our gifts for them. For their agenda. And if anyone refused, they were tied to a bed and experimented on until their bodies gave out. Or just killed. I’ve seen some of the people who were brainwashed by them. They think what they’re doing is for the greater good, but they’re just killing people or doing horrible things because it benefits the people in charge.”
Surprisingly, he doesn’t look shocked by what I’ve said. “You’re trying to take down Gifted Enterprise.” It’s not a question, but I nod slowly anyway.
His index fingers tap as he studies me.
I’m afraid this is where he’ll either draw the line and rescind his offer, or call in a tip to GE that I’m here. I tense, preparing again to fight or run, but he lowers his hands to his desk and nods toward my glass.
