Gifted, A Donovan Circus Novel (40 page)

“Let’s call in the troops then.
Surely we have more talent in this room alone than he does in his crowd. We’ll
get everyone involved,” Brooklyn said.

“I don’t think that’s a good
idea, either, sorry,” I replied. “He’ll expect that and chances are he’ll have
a lot of firepower and whatever concoction he’s made to take our gifts. Too
many people could get hurt or have their gifts taken; I would rather have a few
strong ones out there who know the risks. We need quality over
quantity—fighters, people with active gifts. Bianca is a great
Transporter, for example, but it doesn’t really help in a fight.”

“Well, passive gift or not, I’m
not missing the action,” Brooklyn said. I expected as much from her and gave
her a curt nod.

“He doesn’t have that many
people. He’s experimented on most of his followers and they’re what’s left,”
Gabriel spoke up. “A handful, maybe ten to twelve, but they are very powerful
and have no reservation about using it to their full extent.”

“So what do we do? Warn
everyone, tell them to run if they don’t want to be a part of it?” Keegan
asked.

I didn’t have an answer. I
looked at Sheffield and the rest followed my gaze. He cleared his throat.

“I think it would be unwise to
cause panic. I don’t want to disband everyone; there aren’t many places we can
go. I think we recruit a small but powerful group, those who are of course
warned of consequences yet willing to face Felix,” he said.

“And if he comes to us first?”
Delia asked.

“We beat him fast,” Sheffield
replied grimly.

“He wants Sheffield to come
after him,” I said. “He expects Sheffield to try and take his gifts.”

“Hold up,” Nikolas interrupted.
“Gifts, as in he’s got more than one? So he could be anything.”

“Yes, that is an unfortunate
disadvantage,” I admitted. “I’m not entirely sure how we work around that part,
but he fully expects Sheffield to fail. He believes if Sheffield only takes one
gift, he can make it work so that Sheffield gets a passive gift. Then Felix can
kill him with a more aggressive one. Personally, I’m more worried Sheffield
gets all of whatever gifts Felix has and it hurts him.”

“So we can’t let you get near
him,” Brooklyn said to Sheffield. “He’ll be ready for you, know a way around
it. If he gets you down for an instant, he’ll stab you with whatever he gave
Finley, take your gift to use it on the rest of us.”

“Is the answer not obvious to
anyone but me?” Gabriel asked. Everyone looked at him and he nodded in my
direction. “It’s Lucy. She’s the key to Felix’s demise.”

“Oh, I don’t think-,” I started
but Sheffield spoke over me.

“I agree with Gabriel.”

I gave them all a look of disbelief.
“Surely you don’t think I can take him? I barely escaped tonight. You saw me at
the bar. When I panic, and I probably will, I can’t even make a flame in my
hand. I’m a mess!”

“You’re the only one strong
enough to kill him with firepower,” Keegan said. “The rest of us, it would go
back and forth for hours. Or he’s learned enough to where he’d kill us first.”

“You just have to focus,”
Brooklyn added.

I looked wordlessly at
Sheffield, hoped I conveyed my thoughts in my half-panicked stare. They made it
sound so easy—that if I simply willed myself to kill Felix, I could. No
matter how much emotion or focus I gave, I had no guarantee I could keep it up
long enough to make that happen.

Nikolas, who’d watched this
exchange silently, finally spoke up. “Lucy, I don’t doubt your abilities, but I
understand your hesitation. Maybe we need a better plan if she doesn’t feel
that confident.”

I looked at him, gave him a
relieved look for his voice of reason. Then he blew it.

“Why don’t we send Gabriel back
to Felix for more information?”

Silence coated the room again. I
snuck a peek at Keegan, who didn’t look terribly upset at the new suggestion. I
gave an incredulous look at Nikolas, who crossed his thick arms across his
chest.

“Well? If there’s a chance Felix
still thinks Gabriel is on his side, we should use that advantage,” he
continued.

“And if Felix thinks the whole
situation has been compromised, he might make Gabriel human too, or kill him,”
I argued.

“But think about it. Felix
thinks that he told Finley these things and that Fin was the one to let you go.
He could still believe Gabriel is on his side, maybe even that he could use
Gabriel to shift Lucy’s emotions. Does Felix know what you are?” Keegan asked
Gabriel.

Gabriel gave him a very pointed
look. “How do
you
know what I am?”

“Lucy told me when we were
together one night,” Keegan replied, as though it were obvious. My cheeks
flushed at the insinuation his statement gave everyone. I had half a mind to
elbow him in the ribs but instead I tried to look everywhere but at Gabriel.

Gabriel barked out a laugh. He
opened his mouth to no doubt throw a nasty comment out but Brooklyn interrupted
him.

“You’re an Empath?”

“Jesus Christ,” Gabriel
muttered. “Yes, everyone, I’m an Empath. Big deal.”

“You’re a really powerful
Empath,” Brooklyn mused. “And really good at secrets apparently.”

“Could you please stop driving
the point home? It’s not that hard to work around a Telepath who doesn’t want
to listen in on people. You’re not doing me any favors right now,” he replied.

She scowled. “Well, your
thoughts are flooding in right now. You can do more than just hone in on
emotions, can’t you?”

“Hey, while everyone’s arguing,
could someone maybe go get the Healer? My face really hurts,” Finley mumbled
from the floor. His eyes closed, head bleeding on the cheap tile, I’d almost
forgotten he was lying there, hurt. Delia nodded and zipped out of the camper
before I could volunteer to get the hell out of there.

“I like my plan a lot better
than throwing Lucy out there alone,” Nikolas said. He glared at Gabriel.
“Besides, it gives Gabriel a chance to show me why I should trust him.”

“Sheffield vouched for me. Isn’t
that usually enough for you lemmings?” Gabriel replied with a cool stare.

“Why don’t you sway Felix’s
emotions? Why haven’t you before?” Brooklyn asked.

“Felix knows my gift and how it
works. If he goes from pissed off maniac one second to happy, spaced out hippie
the next, he’d know what I did and stab me with whatever he gave Finley. Then
he’d probably kill me or would have if I had done so before,” Gabriel replied.
“It’s one thing to enhance a mood, but another to completely change it. He’d
know the difference; he knows us and how our gifts work.”

“Besides, I’m almost positive
he’s created a drug for himself to act as a barrier to such techniques,”
Sheffield butted in. “Thoughts, emotions, any future plans he makes…he once
told me he wanted to find a way to prevent gifted from affecting him that way.”

“Instead of a cure for us, it’s
a way for humans to get around us,” I said slowly. “He could sell that to
people, make millions.”

“It’s a dangerous notion,”
Sheffield said. “There are pros and cons to that idea, but I see a lot of
government officials using that for their people if a hate war ever grew
against us.”

“Back to the issue at hand,”
Brooklyn interrupted. “What do we do? How will we know when to be prepared if
Felix comes to us?”

“I’ll go,” Gabriel said. “I’ll
go there tonight and find out. Earn my keep and all.” I couldn’t ignore the
look he threw at Nikolas as he said it.

No one spoke but I knew they
seemed to agree he should go. I bit my tongue, didn’t want to beg anyone to do
anything. I worried for him, but knew I couldn’t stop him, not when Nikolas
practically baited Gabriel into it.

The door swung open and Delia
walked in with the Healer I’d met earlier. She knelt by Finley, calmly
whispered things to him while her hands emanated a soft golden glow. Finley’s
wounds slowly disappeared and within minutes, he looked as though nothing had
happened. He stood up, shook his limbs around and appeared pleased with his
good health once again. He clapped a hand on Delia and squeezed his eyes shut
for a minute. When he opened them, he looked down, saw his own hands and
clothes and looked pained. Finley was still only human. We all sighed in
disappointment; I’d thought for sure the Healer had gotten his gift back, too.

Sheffield thanked the Healer and
she disappeared without a single odd glance or question about our little
meeting. I had but a brief moment to think she was a smart woman, to envy her,
before we dove back into our strategy.

“We have more power here, even
if people aren’t involved. Felix might come to us to prove a point, but we’ll
have plenty of backup if he does,” Brooklyn suggested.

“I think she has a good point,”
Sheffield agreed. “I don’t want to put everyone in danger, but we might be
hanging ourselves out to dry if we go to him not knowing what or how many gifts
protect him. We can be prepared in almost any instance here.”

“Where can we go then? We might
accidentally set something on fire or destroy the grounds. Once it’s over, we
still need to make a living,” Nikolas said.

“We’ll go to the practice
field,” I said. “It’s far enough away that nothing will catch fire if we’re
careful, we know that much. It’s still close enough that if we need help, we
can get it.”

Everyone nodded their approval.

“Sheffield, can you get our
fighters together? You know the best ones, the ones who will agree to it and be
ready to defend us,” I asked.

“You already know I’m in,”
Brooklyn said.

“Me too,” Nikolas said. Keegan
and Delia both nodded in agreement.

I looked at Gabriel. He’d been
watching me, had a slight smile on his face. Perhaps he was amused at my sudden
leadership or was merely thinking of a way to irritate me later. I only wanted
to know if he’d fight, not for me, but with me. Before I’d even finished the
thought, he nodded at me.

“I’m in, too,” he told
Sheffield, never taking his eyes off mine.

“I think Felix messed with the
wrong crowd,” Sheffield said with a slight smile. “He might be crazy, but
that’s nothing against you all. I’ll select a few others to be better
prepared.”

“He won’t win,” Brooklyn said.

“No matter how many gifts he
has,” Nikolas added.

“Sheffield, I say we stand our
ground together. We’ll form a pack and face the parking lot since that’s where
he’ll probably slither in. Let him see you standing there next to me, maybe
he’ll get distracted and immediately go for us since we’re who he really wants
right now. I’ll throw a fireball at him the first chance I get and hopefully I
can take him down,” I said.

Sheffield nodded. “Okay, that
sounds like the best plan we have at this late hour. I’ll let you know if we
need to make any changes.”

“C’mon, man, let’s get you to
bed,” Nikolas told Finley. “You’ve had a rough night.”

“Let’s not tell Angel what
happened,” Finley replied in a depressed voice as they walked out the door.
“He’d screw with me all night about being human. I’m gonna need some time to
adjust.”

They walked out together. Keegan
looked at me and I shook my head, motioned for him to go ahead. He obediently
went outside and I heard his voice float out to the other two guys to wait up.
Delia looked at me, cocked her head to the side so I’d know we could leave
together. I took her cue and went over to her.

“Sheffield, let me know what I
can do…what I need to do,” I told him.

He nodded silently and reached
into his desk for his whiskey bottle. I looked at Gabriel, opened and closed my
mouth while trying to find the right words. Instead, I opted for a weak smile
and he only looked back at me. I gave him a pleading glance, hoped he read that
I didn’t want him to go to Felix. Delia touched my elbow and Gabriel made no
motion to leave.

Delia and I walked out of his
office back to our camper; she glanced at me every five seconds but I clenched
my teeth to prevent the flood of emotions from escaping. As we walked, one of
her glances caught my eye; after she saw my face, she gripped my hand for an
instant, one brief moment that almost made me talk. I squeezed back instead. We
didn’t exchange a single word, even after we got into our beds and lay there in
silence until sleep overtook us.

Chapter
38

The very next morning, someone
pounded on our door. It jarred me awake and I almost fell out of my bed as
Delia zipped to the door.

“Is Lucy here?” I heard Gabriel
ask. I got up and almost ran to the door while Delia slipped into the bathroom
to shower.

“For each night you refuse him,
he’s going to kill one of us,” he said in a flat voice.

“Did you tell anyone else this?”
I glanced around to make sure no one heard us, but it was still too early for
people to wander the camp.

“I may have come straight to you
rather than Sheffield. I wanted to make sure it was your decision.”

“Then it’s tonight. I won’t let
him kill anyone else.”

“Felix actually said you would
say that.” The lines around his eyes softened. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do. I won’t be the
reason someone got killed. I won’t let anyone think I’m a coward.” My fingers
began to tap against the doorway I leaned against.

“Who gives a shit what other
people think?” he argued. “Lucy, it’s not your responsibility to fight him. You
can walk away—”

“If you honestly thought I’d
consider leaving everyone to the mercy of Felix just because he wants me, then
you don’t know me at all.”

“Oh, I know you.” He breathed a
heavy sigh. “I’ll relay the message but I’m almost positive his plan was to be
here tonight after the show anyways. We’re lucky he’s not involving humans, I
guess, but it’s because he wants full attention to take you and Sheffield down.
Humans would only get in his way right now.”