Pawn (Nightmares Trilogy #1) (43 page)

I would not sit by and wait for
underworld assassins to find and kill me. I would not spend
whatever was left of my life in fear or hiding like Betsy
Klinefelter. I would not let Kannon die for saving my life, nor
would I let the underworld have him. In the short time we’d known
each other, he’d become too important to me. Enough people had been
hurt on my account. No matter what happened to me, I would not let
Kannon share my fate.

I would meet this fight head-on. I
would reclaim the right to make my own destiny. I might not be able
to change the way the world worked and return free will to
everyone, but I could and would get back mine.

Sacrifice, Nightmares Trilogy #2…Winter
2013

Keep reading for an excerpt from
Talented, the first book in the Talented Saga

Chapter One

An earsplitting wail
punctured the silent night, shattering the illusions of my dream
world and bringing me back to reality. My eyes popped open,
becoming instantly alert as the sound reverberated through the dark
cabin again. I bolted upright in my bed. Terror seized me. I knew
that noise. In school, I had done monthly drills in response
to
that
noise.
Emphasis on drills. I’d
never heard the
sirens for real. I’d hoped I never would either. Even now, as the
warning bells blared through the speakers in the clearing outside
of my cabin, I prayed it was just a test.

I could only see the parts of my room
illuminated by the ribbons of artificial lights streaming through
the slits of the wooden blinds covering the windows. In the short
time I’d been awake, my swollen eyes had adjusted to the darkness.
Hastily, I threw the blanket back as my trained eyes darted around
the cabin. The other two beds were empty. Crap. Henri and Erik, my
cabin mates, must have heard the invasion sirens and run out
immediately. How had I slept through that? Why didn’t they wake me
up? Assholes.

I didn’t waste time putting
on real clothes, or even shoes. I
flung
the cabin door open with my mind before I was fully out of my bed.
Running into the night; pajamas, bare feet and all, I sprinted
straight into the center of
Hunters
Village. I stopped abruptly; for all of the training drills I’d
taken part in at school, there had yet to be a single drill since
my arrival at Elite Headquarters two weeks ago. I had no idea where
I was supposed to go, or what I was supposed to do.
Breathe, Talia,
I
reminded myself.
Just breathe.

The night air was
unseasonably warm for late September, but a chill ran through my
body, all the way to my bones, as panic gripped and twisted my
insides. The sirens sounded again. We were under attack. Someone
was attacking Elite Headquarters.
Calm
down. You need to breathe,
I ordered
myself. I forcibly inhaled the warm air through my nose and then
blew it out, unsteadily, through clenched teeth.

Slowly, I turned and
pivoted in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle.
Chaos was the only way to describe the scene
surrounding me. Pledges streamed from the cabins around
Hunters Village. Panicked screams pierced the
silence between siren blasts. I dug my nails sharply into my palms
to prevent my own fear-driven yelps from escaping.
Clear your mind. Focus. Concentrate your
energy,
I coached myself. Trying to obey
my own commands, I closed my eyes and forced my mind to go
blank.

My hypersensitive ears
immediately registered a faint whizzing sound from above. I tilted
my head back as I opened my eyes. The night sky looked as if it
were falling, one star at a time. It took several seconds for my
mind to process what my eyes were seeing; stars weren’t falling out
of the night sky, but bombs were. Swallowing over the lump in my
throat, I forced the unpleasantness clawing its way to my mouth
back down.
The people who panic in a
crisis are the people who die
, I reminded
myself.

The bombs exploded, expelling bright
neon liquid when they made contact with the ground. One landed
several feet in front of where I stood. Fear got the better of me
and I screamed as the bomb burst and several drops of the glowing
liquid hit my bare skin. I wiped at my calves, frantically smearing
the fluid with my palms. I rubbed my hands on my thin t-shirt and
it instantly began to glow. I waited for pain that never came. I
stared, wide-eyed, as bomb after bomb detonated on the ground,
leaving neon puddles in their wake. Pledges ran with hands over
their heads in an attempt to protect their faces.

I needed to do something, anything,
besides standing here waiting for another bomb to hit me. I
concentrated all of my considerable mental energy on the falling
explosives and focused on slowing their descent. After several
seconds, the bombs froze in mid-air. I let out a breath I wasn’t
aware I had been holding as I strained with the effort of holding
them in place.

Opening my mind, I felt a
flood of mixed emotions. The panic radiating from the other
Pledges’ brains mirrored my own. Strangely, I also felt
enjoyment,
l
aughter even
,
mingled with the fear and anxiety. Confusion engulfed my
other emotions.

What was going on?
Donavon
, I thought. I
needed to find Donavon; he would know what was going on. I pulled
some of my mental focus away from holding the bombs and sought out
Donavon’s mind. It took me only seconds to find him, but once I
did, I was even more perplexed.

Donavon was laughing. I
could feel his glee as he watched the scene I was currently
starring into from a different vantage point. I honed in on his
exact location; he was close. Concentrating harder, I slipped
deeper in
to his head. Finally, I saw
Hunters Village through his eyes. I knew exactly where he was
standing -
on a small hill that overlooked
the Village.

“
Donavon?
” I mentally called out to
him.

“
Welcome to the Hunters, Tal
,” he
laughed.

“
WHAT?!?
” my mental voice screamed at
him. Was he joking?? This was an initiation ritual?? Irritation
quickly replaced my fear and confusion.

I narrowed my eyes in his general
direction; I had a feeling he could see me from his perch, even
though I couldn’t see him. I was so annoyed at being dragged out of
bed in the middle of the night that I let my mental hold on the
“bombs” slip, causing one that had been hovering not far over my
head to hit me square in the face. I opened my mouth to scream and
the neon liquid nearly choked me. Accidentally swallowing a huge
gulp, I began to gag. I fell to my knees, retching, and willed
myself to throw up the unknown substance.

Donavon’s laughter filled
my head again,
“It’s just colored water,
Tal.”

He clearly found the
situation hysterical, and himself clever. Anger washed over me. The
last two weeks had been the most physically demanding of my life
and now I was being roused from bed in the middle of the night to
have faux bombs launched at me???
So
not funny.

I concentrated on what I now knew to
be water balloons – I picked that detail out of Donavon’s mind –
and refocused my energy to freeze them in mid-fall again. I honed
in on Donavon’s mind and forced the balloons back through the air
to their origin, to Donavon and his group of cohorts. Not waiting
for his reaction, I turned on my heel and walked back into my
cabin, slamming the door, and crawled back into bed, not caring
that I still looked radioactive.

I had the covers pulled over my head
when I heard the door open, accompanied by loud
laughter.

“Talia,” Erik called, “come out and
play.”

“Leave me alone, you ass,”
I snapped. Three distinct sets of laughter chorused in response. I
felt the covers being yanked back. I clung to the soft fabric of my
white comforter, but I was no match for the three boys. I kicked
and punched as Donavon leaned over me. His dark blonde hair was
soaked with the neon liquid, making me feel a little
better.

“Don’t be a spoil sport, Tal,” he
laughed. “This is your formal welcome into Hunters
Pledging.”

He wanted to see a spoil sport? I
would show him a spoil sport. I kicked him in the stomach, hard,
and he grunted. I flashed him a wicked smile. Erik pinned my legs
down, giving Donavon the opportunity to scoop me up off my bed. I
continued to squirm as he carried me across the cabin and back out
into the night. He had over a foot and close to a hundred pounds on
me, so my efforts were in vain.

“Come on, Talia, it’s almost over,”
Erik whispered as he walked next to us. I craned my neck to face
him and gave him a nasty look. He just laughed; I was hardly a
threat at the moment.

Donavon carried me over to where a
group of other Pledges had already begun to congregate. He placed
me on my bare feet in the wet grass but kept his hands firmly on my
upper arms. Mentally I sent him a string of angry expletives. I
didn’t have to see his face to know he was smiling; he was enjoying
my discomfort way too much.

“For those of you who don’t know me,
my name is Henri Reich,” an extremely tall, lean boy said, quieting
all of the side conversations taking place among those gathered.
“This is a little something we at the Hunters like to do as a
welcome to the new Pledges. I know you guys have all been working
really hard these past two weeks. Making it this far means you’ve
passed the initial phase of training and are well on your way to
graduating and becoming full-fledged Hunters.
Congratulations.”

When Henri stopped talking,
Donavon released my arms. He stepped back so quickly I stumbled,
nearly falling over. Donavon was not the only one who had
retreated, all of the older Hunters had moved away from us, leaving
me and the other Pledges standing in the center of a new circle.
More balloons rained down on the small group of us before I could
register what was happening. These balloons were filled with a
thick, gooey liquid in varying colors
:
paint. I used my hands to shield
my head, but it didn’t actually help.

When the color assault finally ended,
I removed my hands and looked around at the older Hunters. Some
were doubled over, they were laughing so hard. Even the most
serious of the group were shaking with silent laughter. I scowled,
hoping this was the only welcoming gesture they’d planned for
us.

Donavon materialized behind me,
wrapping his arms around my waist. “Are you mad at me?” he
whispered into my ear. I reached my paint-covered hands up to his
face and smeared squiggles down his cheeks. Then I ran my fingers
through his damp, blonde hair, leaving most of the paint
behind.

“Not at all,” I smiled
sweetly.

“Enough, enough. I can’t
take all the cuteness,” Erik joked, coming over to us. “Congrats.
Tal, you made it through your first round of training, and now you
are officially a member of the most awesome Hunting team ever
-
mine,” he said, smiling broadly. Erik
had smears of turquoise paint, the same color as his eyes, across
each of his high cheekbones; the color complemented his tan skin
nicely. He leaned down to hug me and I noticed flecks of purple and
red paint decorating his thick black hair. I gave him a
half-hearted hug in return.

“Talia, I’m glad to have you as part
of our team,” Henri said as he wrapped one of his long arms around
my shoulders.

“Thank you,” I said sincerely. “I’m
really glad to be here.” I was. This was what I’d been working
towards since I’d started attending the McDonough School for the
Talented seven years ago.

At the end of their junior
year, students selected the top three divisions of the Agency in
which they wanted to work after graduation. Then a Placement
Committee – consisting of each
division
head, the Director of the
Agency and McDonough’s headmistress – reviewed each student’s test
scores, their Talent and their Talent ranking, and assigned them to
a division. Students spent their senior, or
pledge,
year as the Agency termed
it, working and training with their designated department. Not
every student scored high enough to be rewarded with one of his top
three choices
,
those students were randomly doled out to the less desirable
divisions. The Hunters had been my top choice - my only choice. I
knew I wanted
,
needed
,
to
be a Hunter from my very first day.

For most, it’s an easy
decision; they go with other Talents of their kind.
Others, like me, want to do something different;
their particular ability does not have a niche.
It’s not unheard of for Talents besides Morphers, Light
Manipulators, or Telekinetics to become Hunters, but I am one of
the few who actually did.
Most
non-morphing Hunters aren’t assigned to a team, but serve as
“floaters” instead.
Floaters are Hunters
that join individual Hunting teams on a short-term basis, usually
for just one Hunting mission, to lend their individual specialty
when it’s needed.