Branded (The Branded Series) (6 page)

“That’s right,
ma’am,” I said nervously as I shifted in my seat.

“I wonder,”
she said to herself as she opened the drawer to her desk and pulled out a
pocket knife. She handed the knife to me and asked me to cut myself. I’m not
kidding. Those were her exact words: “Cut yourself, please. I want to see it
for myself.”

I don’t know
why I didn’t hesitate. I knew what I had to do. I poked the knife through my
skin and sliced a three-inch-long incision into the palm of my hand. I probably
would’ve flinched if it weren’t for Rachel and Noah watching with such
anticipation and admiration.

“Here,” Ms.
Peters said as she handed me a towel, “wrap this around your hand. Now I want
you to close your eyes for a moment and think about your hand healing.”

I did as I was
told. I squeezed my eyelids closed and thought about my hand in its perfect
form. No incision. No blood. Of course I knew this was ridiculous because the
towel was already soaked in blood.

“Okay Jake,
now let me see.” Ms. Peters gently unwrapped the towel from my hand. I turned
it over to show her the damage. Or what should have been the damage. There was
no open wound, just a bloodstained palm. I looked closer, and stretched my
fingers apart expecting to see something. There was just the faint line of what
looked like an old scar.

“Now
that
is cool!” Noah exclaimed.

Rachel clapped
her hands together in excitement and squealed, “Told you.”

Noah bent down
and started rolling up his pant leg, “Hey, try my leg. I gouged it last night at
lacrosse.”

“It won't work
on you, Noah,” Ms. Peters began. “Jake’s gift is still in its infancy stage.
He’ll need to work on it in order to be able to heal others. That will take
time, practise and patience, of course.”

“Work on it?”
I asked, finally able to speak. “What do you mean?”

“Are you
tired, Jake?” Ms. Peters asked.

My eyebrows
creased as I pondered her question, and oddly yes, I felt exhausted.

“You’ll need
to develop your gift so that it doesn’t drain you when you use it.” She sat
down in her chair. “You’ll need strength as a Gifted One. To help mankind.”

Noah nodded in
agreement. I felt I should too, but I was too confused.

“But why?” I
asked, hoping for something to clear the fog in my head.

“Gifted Ones
work as an elite force with the international police. Interpol comes to us when
they reach a dead end,” Ms. Peters explained. “We build clusters of Gifted Ones
to work in teams.” She paused and her eyes lit up with excitement. “But this
group here is destined to be the biggest force yet.”

Rachel chimed
in, “Jake, this is probably a little too much information at one time, but you
really do have an extremely special gift.”

I shook my
head trying to make sense of it all. “Wait, what do you have to do with this?
Who are you guys?”

Rachel and Ms.
Peters exchanged a knowing glance as Ms. Peters began to explain, “Rachel is my
daughter.” There was a pause as she gave us time to process this new bit of information.
“I’m sure you can appreciate why we like to keep this a secret. It wouldn’t do
Rachel any good making friends or maintaining our undercover identities.”

“Wait!” Noah
turned and pointed at Rachel. “You're the principal's
daughter
?”

She smiled
innocently and shrugged her shoulders. “Sorry I couldn't tell you guys. I had
to be sure about you first.”

Ms. Peters
continued, “Rachel and I are also gifted. There are more of our kind around the
world, and we often seek out others with such talents, to train and assist them
in helping with our cause.”

“You are
gifted too? Rachel, you can heal? Understand languages? I don’t get it.” I
could feel my face getting hot. I wanted it all to make sense.

“Yes, we are
both gifted, but not with the same gifts that you have. Rachel has the gift of
Prophecy; she can see the future. I have the gift of Wisdom, which is the
ability to retain any and all information I’ve ever read or heard, and also to
lead or sway a crowd with my voice.”

That explained
why I didn’t feel the need to question her, and how I somehow knew that what
she was saying was right.

She continued,
“There are many different gifts that one can be blessed with. Rachel can speak
a few languages, but only because she has learned them through study.” Ms.
Peters stood and crossed the room to the window, and then continued, “Rachel had
a vision about Jake and someone close to him, and their potential for making an
amazing difference in the world. She wasn’t sure until today that it was Noah.
This is part of the reason we came here—to seek you out.”

I wasn’t sure
how I felt about knowing that we had been “spotted and hunted.” Kind of
flattering; mostly creepy.

Noah decided
it was his turn to speak. “So, wait. You said something about us helping your
cause. What does that mean? What is your cause exactly?”

Rachel hopped
off the edge of Ms. Peters' desk. “Our cause is to keep the peace. Get rid of
the bad guys; help the good guys. That sort of jazz.”

“And how are
we supposed to help you do that?” Noah stared back at Rachel with curiosity.

“With your
gifts, of course. The gift of healing is very rare, and extremely important.
Imagine the power it will give us to have Jake on our side. To heal us whenever
we are injured. To heal the innocent. The victims.”

Ms. Peters
joined in. “Of course Rachel is right about Jake. However, Noah’s gift of
translation is also invaluable. We often deal with other nationalities so it
will be advantageous to have him on our team as a spy, so to speak.” She moved
back to her big leather chair and sat down carefully. “Of course, there will be
a lot of training involved. Your talents are still raw.”

I looked down
at my hand, where the scar was even more faded than before. I was pretty impressed
with my gift just the way it was. But the idea of being able to heal other people
was intriguing.

“Wait a
second,” I said, turning to Rachel. “So
this
is why you were so
interested in me?”

Rachel
laughed. “Did you really think I had a thing for you, Jake?” She scoffed as if
that wasn’t possible.

I couldn’t
decide whether I was more angry or hurt. I decided I was angry, given the fact
that she had caused Anna so much frustration because of it. “I’m sure there
were other ways to find out more about me. You didn’t have to go on acting like
you wanted me,” I said.

Rachel tilted
her head. “If you’d like me to keep pretending for the sake of your little
Anna, I can do that.”

“Leave her out
of this,” I snapped.

“Fighting like
siblings already.” Ms. Peters shook her head in disapproval. “Let’s get back to
business.”

I returned my
attention to Ms. Peters since she was the one who made me feel calm and
rational. “So what’s in it for us?” I asked.

She smiled
slightly and leaned in to lower her voice, “I thought you might ask.” She
reached into her desk and pulled out a folder containing a stack of paper.
“We’ll have to get your signatures on some documents, and we will take care of
the rest. As for your studies, I will ensure your grades improve to put you
near the top of the class. We need your full attention on training. You can’t
be preoccupied with extra help or tutoring.”

Fantastic!
That was a big enough perk in itself. I controlled my excitement in an effort
to hold my bargaining position.

Ms. Peters
continued, “Also, I will have to pull you from some of your classes to do
training during the day. We’ll call it tutoring, since that’s essentially what
it is.”

An
uncontrollable grin was creeping across my face at this point. Our homework
would be done for us, projects would be a thing of the past, we would be able
to skip classes during the day . . . it was all too good to be true. I was in!

“But most
importantly,” Ms. Peters began, “you cannot, under any circumstance, reveal
your gift or your new purpose to anyone.” Her controlled stare, combined with
the gift of mind control, made it very clear that she was more than serious.

We nodded.
“Understood.”

Ms. Peters
kept us out of class for the rest of the day, citing in-house suspension. She
gave us background information on the secret society to which we now belonged.
By the end of the day, we were brought up to speed on the “need-to-know”
information and finished signing all of the convoluted contracts, which bound
us to secrecy and had us consenting to assume responsibility and liability for
any future harm that might come of us. More importantly, the contracts also
gave us assurance that our school work and alibis would be taken care of.

As we were
leaving the office, Ms. Peters caught my arm. “Jake, I will speak to your
parents this afternoon and tell them that I have you on an extensive tutorial
program here at the school which will help improve your grades, and I will make
sure they don’t hear about your incident with Mr. Meade yesterday. As a result,
they should be more lenient with you, which will give you time away to train,
and to be with your friends.” She nodded toward Rachel and Noah who were
waiting for me in the hallway.

“Thank you,
Ms. Peters. I really appreciate that.” My thoughts immediately went to Anna and
the weekend trip to Wentworth.

“And go have
fun on that Wentworth trip. Rachel will be there. You two can chat some more,
if you have further questions.”

“Again, thank
you.” I shook her hand and caught up with Noah and Rachel. I was excited about
Wentworth and the good possibility that I would now be allowed to go. For some
reason, I needed to spend the weekend with Anna. I needed to finally hear what
she had been trying to tell me earlier.

The school was
empty by the
time we left Ms. Peters’ office. I hadn’t realized how late it was getting, and
now I felt sick that I hadn’t been able to see Anna before I left. I wondered
if she had been looking for me, or if she had even noticed I wasn’t there. I
was sure of one thing today: I needed to have Anna for myself.

Noah came over
after school and had dinner, and then we went to my room and talked for a while
about our newfound abilities. Both of us were in a state of shock about the
whole thing. Noah couldn’t stop talking about how this was going to be his “in”
with Rachel.

“My problem is
being sworn to secrecy,” I said after listening to Noah go on about Rachel for
far too long.

“I know.” Noah
caught the football that he had been tossing up in the air and stared at me.
“It’s like we have these cool super powers and it would be great to show them
off a bit.” Noah laughed.

“I’d hardly
call
yours
a super power,” I teased. “But that’s not what I meant,
anyway. I’m okay with not having everyone running to me for every bruise and
broken bone.”

“Then what’s
your problem?” He looked at me as if he really didn’t get it, but then it
clicked. His eyebrows raised and the corners of his mouth turned up. “Anna.”

“Anna,” I
repeated.

“So are you
ready to admit you like her yet?”

“It’s so weird
to admit, but yeah. Yeah, I like her.” I hopped off my bed and grabbed the
football from Noah’s lap. “I can’t stop thinking about her.” I sat back down on
my bed and tossed the ball to Noah.

He caught it
and tossed it back. “Someone’s got it bad.”

“This is your
fault,” I said, throwing the ball harder at him. “You’re
the one who got
this into my head in the first place.”

“Dude, it’s
always been there. I just helped you find it.”

I sat up again
and looked out my window. The moon was high in the sky, and casting a perfect luminescent
glow over the backyard. “It’s late,” I noticed.

Noah checked
his watch. “Crap! I gotta go pack.”

“Yeah, I
should too,” I replied. “Ms. Peters called Dad and fed him some garbage about
me having a lot of potential and that she had me on a tight study schedule in
school.” I shook my head—as if
I
had potential.

“Pretty cool
gig, huh?”

“Can’t
complain yet.”

“So I’ll pick
you up at eight?” Noah said as he grabbed his book bag and headed for the door.

“That’s a
little early, isn’t it?”

“Lexie said
that’s what time they’re leaving. It’s only one night. We gotta make the most
of it,” Noah encouraged. It worked.

“Fine.”

“Rachel said
she’ll come with us,” Noah said casually.

“What about
Anna?”

“I’ll call her
to see if she’d rather ride with us or Eric.” Even though he was joking, it
made me sick to think that she might actually choose Eric.

It was just
after ten
thirty when I finished packing for the weekend. Grabbing my duffle bag, I ran
down the stairs and dropped it by the front door. Mom and Dad were in the living
room having a glass of wine and playing an intense game of chess.