Branded (The Branded Series) (20 page)

“That wasn't
fair at all!” I protested. “We didn't know what you were doing. We didn't have
time to prepare.”

“And do you
think you’ll have time to prepare in a real emergency? Do you think those
people in the World Trade Center saw those attacks coming and had time to
prepare?” she shouted, matching my anger.

I was taken
aback by her tone and the realization that perhaps she had a point. I hadn’t
had time to prepare for what happened at the ski lodge. Maybe if I’d been
better trained, I would’ve been able to focus and save more people. I helped
Noah to our seats. There was a long silence.

“I want to try
again,” Noah said. He bravely looked Sam in the eyes and stood up slowly. “Do
it again.”

“Good. Then
think fast.” Sam hurled the ball in our direction and this time Noah let out a
loud growl as he caught the ball firmly, stumbling back only a few feet this
time, but he braced himself and was able to hold the ball with his shaking
arms.

“That's two
hundred and fifty pounds, Noah. Good job,” she said, applauding. “
You
ready
to give it a try now?” she asked me.

I nodded,
still a little skeptical.

“What’s your
name, kid?”

“Jake Rovert,”
I answered.

She stopped in
mid-step and brought her eyes back to mine. “Jacob Rovert?”

My eyebrows
crinkled. “Yeah.”

She smiled
quickly, and then turned away. “Come to the front here. I have something I want
you to hold.”

I walked to
the front of the room and took a heavy metal platter from her.

“Now I'm going
to stack some weights on here. You just keep believing and you'll be fine.”

Sam placed the
first weight on the tray and I felt my arms get really heavy. Then another, and
another. The tray began to shake as my muscles strained to hold it steady. I
closed my eyes and tried to picture Anna, imagining that she was watching. If
she were here, I'm sure she would be laughing at this insanity. Sam put another
weight on and my arms collapsed. The platter and all the weights fell to the
floor. I looked up, somewhat proudly, as I surveyed the weights sprawled across
the concrete floor.

“How much was
it?” I asked.

“A hundred
pounds.” She rolled her eyes and motioned for me to sit down. “That was pathetic.”

“That's it?
Are you joking?” I asked.

“I don't often
joke, Jake. You didn't believe you could do it.”

“Yes I did.”

Sam stopped
and turned to face me. “Really? Well, then I guess you're not cut out for this
after all.”

Biting my lip,
I decided to sit back down and see how the rest of the class did.

Nick took his
turn and didn't disappoint Sam with his effortless abilities. Even the
twelve-year-old skinny kid lifted four hundred pounds. Noah quickly caught on
and was able to throw the cement ball over twenty feet by the end of the class.
But everything I tried, I failed miserably at. What was wrong with me? Why
couldn’t I do this stupid task?

“Well, class,
that's the end of your session,” Sam announced. “I will see you guys once more
later this afternoon where we will touch on moving things with your mind.”

“What do you
mean, with our minds?” one of the younger guys from our cabin asked.

Sam smiled,
obviously pleased he asked. “I'll show you,” she said as she set a single chair
on the floor in front of her. She closed her eyes and placed her palms together
in front of her like she was meditating. Then she suddenly broke her hands apart
and pushed her palms toward the chair, without touching it, and the chair flew
across the room.

Applause
erupted from her audience.

“I'll show you
the technique later this afternoon, and you can take it home to practise. And
maybe, just maybe, one of you might be able to do it someday too.”

Noah
snickered, “I'll bet money that it won't be Jake.”

“Not funny,” I
scowled.

“Don't be hard
on yourself, Jake,” Nick said. “You're capable, but you're just not in the
right frame of mind right now.”

“How do I get
there?” I pleaded.

“I don't know
how to tell you. It'll come.”

“Before or
after I fail miserably?” I squinted from the sun as we stepped outside of the
building. “Where do we go next?”

Noah checked
his schedule. “It's gift training. I go to the mess hall for Languages. Healing
is in the medical building down by the main entrance.”

“Great,” I
mumbled sarcastically. “See you later, then.”

“Meet you back
at the mess hall for lunch?”

“Sounds good,”
I said as I turned and left for the medical clinic. At least I knew I could
heal, so that shouldn’t be as embarrassing.

I walked into
the medical
clinic and quickly remembered that there were only two of us with the Healing
gift. The man from the campfire—the only other healer—stood at a long white
counter at the back of the room.

“Jacob
Rovert?” the man asked as he stood to shake my hand.

“Yes. Nice to
meet you. And you are?”

“Matthias. I'm
the other healer, as well as your teacher,” he said, motioning for me to have a
seat.

“Matthias.
That's a great name.”

He smiled and
sat down next to me. “So let's get started. We only have an hour and a half.”

“So where do
we begin?” I asked, pulling up my sleeves, ready to dive right in.

“Why don't you
tell me what you've done so far with your gift?” Matthias had a soft-spoken voice
and seemed very wise and respectable. I already liked him a lot.

“I healed my
girlfriend's broken arm,” I said proudly.

“Did you now?”
He seemed impressed by that.

“Yeah, and I
may have helped heal . . .” my mind travelled back to the horrific scene at the
ski lodge—the woman dying on the floor with her son beside her. Rachel had said
I helped heal the kid’s mind, but how did I know that was true? And maybe that
woman wasn’t really dying anyway, because I certainly wasn’t able to help
Lexie. “No, I don’t think I did anything else,” I said, feeling slightly
ashamed.

“So this is
going to sound pretty bizarre,” Matthias began, “but I am going to set us up a
little situation, if you will.” He walked across the room and pulled out a
drawer from the white cabinets along the wall. He held up a scalpel and showed
it to me.

“Probably the
same thing Ms. Peters did to me a few weeks ago when she wanted to test my
gift.” I held out my hand in anticipation.

“Not exactly.
I'm confident you’re able to heal yourself. The next step is to be able to heal
others,” he said as he closed his eyes and sliced a long incision down his leg.
He hardly even flinched.

“But can't you
just heal yourself?” I asked, puzzled as I watched the blood drain from his
leg.

“I can, but
I'm restraining myself so that you can do it. Go ahead now.” He scrunched his
face and held his breath as he waited.

I laid my
hands on his leg and imagined the same thing I imagined when it was Anna's
broken arm. I starting recalling how I healed her arm and the thoughts that I
was thinking at the time. I remembered how much pain she was in and how I felt
when I realized that I had healed her.

When I lifted
my hands and opened my eyes to meet Matthias', I felt proud of myself, but
something in Matthias' expression caught me off guard. I quickly followed his
eyes down to his leg and saw that the gash was still there. The blood was still
oozing out and I had done absolutely nothing!

I fell back a
few steps and looked at my bloodstained hands. “I . . . I . . . I don't know
what I did wrong,” I stammered.

Matthias
placed his own hands over his leg and healed it within seconds. He sat back in
his chair and looked deeply into my eyes. “You remind me a lot of myself,” is
all he said for several minutes as he continued to study my face.

“But it worked
before! I did the exact same thing, but I was even more confident this time. I
don't understand.” Frustration overtook me.

“How did you
do in strength class, Jacob?”

“Horribly,
why?”

“What are you
thinking about when you are doing these things?”

“Nothing,
really. I'm just thinking about how I healed my girlfr . . . my friend's arm.”
I sat back down in my chair and leaned forward to rest my spinning head in my
hands.

Matthias was
quiet for another minute before he began. “I found out about my gift around
twelve years ago. It was my fortieth birthday and my wife threw a big party for
me, inviting everyone in our hometown. Most people, I didn't even know.” He
chuckled as he recalled his memories. “Anyway, during the party, my youngest daughter
Karly, who was four years old at the time, fell into the swimming pool. By the
time someone noticed and we pulled her out, she was blue . . . and so lifeless.
There was a doctor amongst the guests and after doing CPR on her for several
minutes, he pronounced her dead.

“But I
couldn't believe it. I watched my wife screaming for her little girl, and our
other two daughters crying in the arms of their mother. I ran to Karly and
picked her up in my arms and just prayed. I prayed to God, begging him to bring
her back to me. I pleaded to have one more chance to push her on the swings, to
teach her how to ride her new bike, to kiss her good night and sing her to
sleep. And as I held her in my arms with my head buried in her chest, I heard
the guests start gasping and saying something about a miracle. I looked up and
Karly's eyes were open and she was looking back at me and said, 'Daddy, I went
swimming with the angels!'” Matthias stopped to wipe the tear that was escaping
down his cheek. “So that's how I knew. One of our guests actually came up to me
afterward and talked to me about it. He was gifted as well, and he recognized
my gift.”

“Wow, that's
pretty amazing. Karly was very lucky to have you so close. Your family must be
the safest family in North America.” I smiled, imagining how safe Anna would be
with my constant protection.

Matthias
swallowed hard, took a deep breath and continued, “That's what I thought too.
You see, a few years after this incident, we were going on a family vacation
down to Florida. I was driving our motorhome and we were going along the
highway singing ‘One Hundred Bottles of Coke on the Wall.’” Matthias chuckled
to himself, but then looked down as his smile faded. “We had made it to
seventeen bottles of Coke when the man in the car in front of me suddenly
slammed on his brakes. I tried to swerve out of his way, but couldn’t get
control of the vehicle. We crashed through the guardrail and rolled down a deep
embankment.” He paused and I could almost see the images unfolding through his
eyes as they darted around in another dimension. “I walked away unscathed, but
my wife and three beautiful daughters . . . they weren't so lucky. I tried my
best to save them. I was so frantic and desperate to heal them. But I couldn't.
It was too late.” More tears came.

“I'm so sorry,
Matthias. That must have been so hard for you.” I tried, but I couldn't hold
back my own tears. Imagining losing my whole family—everyone I loved—in one minute.
What a horrible thing to have to go through alone.

Matthias straightened
up in his chair and took a deep breath. “I believe it was the Defiers that took
my family, Jacob. It was an attack on our family to weaken me. They knew I was
going to be a great healer one day, so they took everything I loved. Everything
I lived for.”

This was what
Ms. Peters warned me about.

“Normally an
attack like this would bring someone down and maybe even kill them, but I've
found the inner strength to devote all my time and energy on growing stronger,
smarter, and faster and on being a better healer. I found the strength for
them. For my family. They are my reason, but not my purpose. It's not just your
loved ones that you're here to protect—it’s everyone.”

I hung my head
as I let the lesson sink in.

“Let her be
your reason, but not your everything. If you make her your everything, Jacob,
she’ll be taken in an instant. You don't want to lose her too.”

“No, that
I
definitely don't want.” I reacted quickly and assuredly.

Keeping Anna
at the centre of my thoughts was actually inhibiting my growth. I had to put
her aside and focus on doing this for the reason I was given the gift—to help
everyone. Anna was going to be the reason that I had to be great. If I couldn't
be with her, I'd do it for
her. I needed to be able to protect her. To
be there when she needed me.

“Tell me this,
Jacob. If you could only save one or the other—this special friend of yours or a
child you had never met, who would you choose?”

I knew what my
answer was supposed to be, but my chest ached when I thought about it. I couldn’t
make myself say it. So I didn’t. I couldn't answer.