For the rest of the afternoon, I followed Mac around with my communicator answering questions on each and every student present. I noted the kids that he wanted to pay extra attention to—those whose Talents appeared stronger than reported in their files. For my own personal interest, I also made notes on those with weaker-than-reported Talents.

  In accordance with the Mandatory Testing Act, every child was tested at the age of five for the presence of paranormal abilities. Each child testing positive was given an initial Talent ranking: High, Medium, or Low. During Placement Exams each student would receive a more precise Talent ranking: Elite, Extremely High, High, Medium, Medium-Low, Low, or Extremely-Low.

  Admittedly, the initial rankings were extremely broad. I was perplexed by the number of students whose powers were weak when their initial ranking had been High. The ones who were initially ranked Low or Medium but now exhibited higher levels of abilities seemed more normal to me. After eleven years of training and honing their Talents, it made sense that they would be stronger than the Agency initially thought.

  Mac already knew some of the student bios by heart, the ones with particularly strong Talents. He also seemed to know many of them personally, making small talk while we made our rounds. When it came time to observe Kenly, I held my breath. She wasn’t the worst combatant, but she appeared slow and uncoordinated compared to the others.

  “You sure have your work cut out for you, Natalia,” Mac commented after she’d completed several of the obstacles. I smiled thinly in return; I didn’t want to press my luck and say something that might make Mac change his mind about allowing me to work with her.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Captain Alvarez’s voice boomed throughout the Arena. “I hope that the past few days have been as helpful for all you students as they have been for us. I look forward to seeing all of you during Placement Exams at the end of the year.” With that, Captain Alvarez dismissed the kids from the day’s demonstration.

  “I’ll see you later, Mac,” I called over my shoulder as I hurried to catch up with the departing crowd.

  I’d only made it a couple of feet when long fingers closed around my wrist. Startled, I swiveled around to face Erik.

  “Hey,” he began uneasily.

  “Hey,” I responded, glancing around nervously. I wasn’t sure what to say to Erik after everything that had happened with Donavon the previous night.

  “I’m leaving tonight . . . I was hoping that we could talk before I go?” Erik’s thoughts were unguarded, and his longing to spend time with me made my chest ache and butterflies swarm in my stomach.

  “I can’t, Erik,” I said, yanking my wrist free from his grasp. “I’m sorry.” I wanted to spend time with him too, and I wanted to touch him so badly that my hands twitched at the thought of feeling his skin underneath my fingertips. But Erik had called me his “friend”; and also, after my reaction to Donavon’s admission about Kandice, I knew that I wasn’t over him.

  I didn’t know what I wanted, but I did know that Erik was leaving to go back to Headquarters. He was going back to his real life, and he couldn’t be there for me in the way that I needed right now—the way that Donavon could, the way that he had been last night. Erik was patently immature and sarcastic; and even if he took back his claim that we were just friends, I doubted that he’d want me if he witnessed one of my seizures. Not that I blamed him—I wouldn’t either.

  I shoved my longing aside, willed my pulse to slow, and bit my lip to keep the tears back. Slowly, I turned and walked away from Erik, who let me leave without so much as a word of protest, though his eyes bored through my back and pierced my heart.

  Once I was safely outside the Arena, away from Erik, I searched the throng of congregated students for Kenly. Thankfully, her height made her easy to spot in the crowd; she was standing with a group of girls huddled off to one side.

  “Kenly,” I called as I approached.

  She turned her head to locate the person calling her name. When her eyes landed on me, she smiled.

  “Hey, Ms. Lyons,” she called back, raising one thin arm in a friendly wave.

  “It’s Talia, and could I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Um, sure.” She glanced around at the gaggle of girls and nodded, indicating that they should leave.

  “So, you want to try out for the Hunters?” I began once her friends were a safe distance away.

  “Yeah. I know that it’s a long shot, but I really want to be a Hunter, like my father,” she answered, bobbing her head so vigorously that her brown locks bounced up and down on her shoulders.

  “Placement Exams are coming up pretty soon and you would need a lot of work to be ready,” I prompted, attempting to gauge her level of commitment. I knew from watching her that she had heart; but if she were going to be a real contender, she needed focus and determination as well.

  “I know. I’ve been practicing after school.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “How would you like some help? I’ve asked the Director for permission to help you train.” Kenly’s brown eyes lit up like a Festivis Day firework.

  “Really? You would do that for me?” She seemed shocked that I was taking such an interest in her future.

  “Well, yeah. If you want,” I added.

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “Why, what?”

  “Why would you want to help me? I’m not that good, and the chances that I’ll actually make the Hunters are low.”

  Why did I want to help Kenly? She was right; her placing high enough for the committee to select her for the Hunters was against the odds. And it wasn’t like I didn’t have enough to worry about without the added pressure of someone else’s career on my shoulders.

  “Because you remind me of someone,” I finally answered.

  “Who?”

  “Me.”

  Kenly beamed. “I would love for you to help me.”

  We made plans to start our sessions after school the next day. Now I just needed to figure out exactly how I was going to accomplish this monumental task, how I was going to teach Kenly everything that I’d learned over the course of six years in just three months.

  ***

  That evening, I arrived at Donavon’s room with dinner in hand. He opened the door just as I raised my hand to knock. He was wearing only black pants and a black belt, his chest bare and his shaggy hair still a little damp. I swallowed the lump in my throat.

  “Hi,” I stammered.

  “I didn’t know that we were picnicking for dinner,” he gestured to the bag that I held.

  “I thought that it would be more fun if it was just us.” He gave me a skeptical look. “Besides I hate the cafeteria,” I said quickly. Truthfully, I was avoiding Erik.

  Donavon opened the door wider, and I brushed past him into the room. He caught my arm, and I turned to meet his clear blue eyes. He leaned down just as I rose to stand on my tiptoes, and our lips met in the middle. Dropping the paper bag holding our dinner, I wrapped both of my arms around his neck. I willed the door shut and heard it slam in response.

  The air seemed to rush out of the room with the closing of the door. Penny’s voice filled my head, and I inwardly sighed. What was I doing? I pushed lightly on Donavon’s shirtless chest.

  “Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all.

  “I just don’t know what’s really going on between us,” I started to ramble.

  “You don’t need to say anything, Tal.” He gave me a genuine smile. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.” I picked up the paper bag and withdrew two sandwiches, each with thick slabs of turkey, smothered in a creamy cranberry mayo on cornbread. I spread out napkins on the floor while Donavon watched hungrily.

  “Please put on a shirt,” I mumbled.

  “Am I distracting you?” he teased.

  “No, it’s unhygienic to eat without clothes on,” I shot back. Even to my own ears, my voice sounded unconvincing. The look he gave me told me that he didn’t believe me either, but he turned and began rummaging through his closet in search of a shirt.

  “There are drinks in that mini cooler under the night table behind you,” he said, his back to me. I turned around, opened the cooler, and fished out two bottles of water.

  “Any chance you have salt? I forgot to pick some up,” I said, sheepishly.

  “Um, yeah. In my desk drawer there are probably some packets,” he called over his shoulder.

  I slid open his desk drawer and began searching for salt. I found several packets mingled with the loose papers and pencils clogging the interior. I fumbled to retrieve all of the loose packets, and my fingers brushed over a glossy surface—a picture. I pulled the photograph free from the mess; it was of a child, maybe a year old with shaggy blonde hair and oversized sunglasses, sitting on a lawn.

  “Aww, you’re so cute in this picture!” I exclaimed. Smiling, I turned to show Donavon the photograph in my hand. My grin faded when I took in Donavon’s tense expression. A trickle of fear leaked from his mind before he sent up his mental barricades.

  “Um, yeah, thanks,” he replied tightly.

  I started to say something else, but Donavon’s eyes had gone dark and icy in a Mac-worthy glare. His expression unnerved me. Weird, I thought, quickly snapping my mouth shut. He turned back to his closet, making a show of noisily searching through the handful of shirts that hung there.

  Not wanting to upset him further, I quickly replaced the picture in the desk drawer where I’d found it. When I tried to push the drawer back into place, something prevented it from closing completely. I wiggled it, attempting to free the hindrance, but the drawer still wouldn’t shut. I pulled it back out on the runners and felt around in the back to locate the impediment. My fingers closed around a tightly folded wad of paper, and I yanked it free.

  When I withdrew my arm and opened my palm, my blood froze in my veins. My next breath hitched in my throat, and my stomach twisted with terror.

  My mind flashed to Henri placing a tightly folded piece of paper in my hand and folding my fingers around the edges...the same piece of paper that I now held. I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out when I saw the dark stains obscuring my own neatly printed name. The blood, my blood, flaked off of the page and into my palm. A thousand thoughts raced through my head. Why did Donavon have Erik’s letter? Why was he keeping it stuffed in the back of his desk? How did he get it in the first place?

  “Did you find salt?” Donavon asked, pulling a white t-shirt over his head.

  My mind swam with warring thoughts. Should I confront him? I quickly decided not to; I needed more time to process the situation. I shoved the wad into the back pocket of my jeans.

  “Salt? Yeah, I did,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. Hastily, I slammed the drawer shut with my mind. Donavon turned around to face me once again, and his eyes had returned to the warm blue of a clear sky, all traces of his earlier annoyance gone.

  Managing a weak smile, I held one of the sandwiches out to Donavon. He accepted it and quickly began eating. I slowly chewed the first few bites of turkey and bread, not really tasting the contents, but managing to swallow them all the same. Thankfully, Donavon seemed so distracted that he didn’t notice my own mental wandering.

  Trying to dispel the awkwardness in the room, I began making small talk about the various students from the demonstration, and watched as the tension visibly dissipated from Donavon. Once he seemed relaxed, I took a chance and reached out to his mind, but his thoughts were all on what we were talking about. Well, not ALL of them, but the ones that weren’t made me blush, so I quickly retreated into my own head.

  After we ate, I cleaned up our little picnic and hugged Donavon goodbye. When he bent to kiss me, I turned my head and his lips brushed my cheek instead. He barely hid his disappointment over my rebuff. Right then, I didn’t care about Donavon’s feelings. The only thing that mattered was the letter currently burning a hole in the pocket of my jeans—a desperate reminder that I had to see Erik before he left.

  The words on those pages verged on treason. The accusations that he’d made would guarantee him a horrible fate, particularly if they were true. And somehow, I’d let them fall into the hands of the Director’s son. If Erik got in trouble, it would be my fault; any further bloodshed would be on my hands.