Gifted

Chapter 1

Freya

"Help!" A voice cried out, on this cold winter night,"No, stop!"

I should help her. Right? Or get your ass kicked.

Call the police, Freya.

I called 911, pulled out my taser, and headed down the dark foreboding alleyway. Kneeling behind a trash bin I saw a woman being pushed against a brick wall at knife point. The woman looked like she just got off work at a diner.

"Keep quiet! Or I'll gut you. Hand over the purse!" the robber said.

"Please, don't! I have children", the woman stammered.

Where is the police?

Never mind. I can handle this.

I checked the ally and the street.

No witnesses.

I concentrated on my breathing; focusing on bending the air around me, turning me invisible.

I only have two minutes, so I better make them count. I stepped from behind the trash bin and quietly walked up behind the robber.

"Give me the ring!" the asshole said.

"Please, don't take it, anything, but that," the woman pleaded.

"Hand it over--" I stocked the man in the neck, he immediately went down. The surprised and confused woman pushed herself off of the wall; running straight into me. Knocking me to the ground and making me lose control of my illusion. I reappeared right in front of her on my butt.

"Where did you come from?!" the women said scared. I could hear the police sirens getting closer.

"Uummm, catch!" I tossed the taser to her and disappeared again. She caught it, and with wide eyes looked left and right. I ran toward the back of the alley.

"Thank you!" The women shouted out to me.

You're welcome.

I ran until my illusion faded away which wasn't far.

I picked the wrong night to wear wedge heels and my short black dress. Tonight, was a rare occasion; I had a date. A bad one, but still a date. So when he called it a night I gladly paid my half of the bill and bolted for the door. At least something good came from me going. I got to save that women. Hopefully, my mom doesn't hear about this on the news. She and my grandparents have always told me not to use my abilities.

The ice cold wind beat against my skin. Tonight, I chose to look cute instead of warm. Breaking the number one rule, I decided to warm myself up using my fire element. Cupping my hands over my mouth I breathed out a hot fire ball to warm up my hands. I inhaled the heat back into my mouth letting it radiate throughout my body.

Much better.

I walked home to my apartment in East Walnut Park, Missouri. This was my first apartment at twenty-three and I picked a really bad neighborhood to live in. I knew Saint Louis was dangerous, but I figured everyone was over exaggerating.

They were not.

My first night there I'm pretty sure someone shot a gun.

O well...

I didn't plan on staying here for long, the rent was cheap and I could walk everywhere so that saved me a lot of gas money. I made it to the old red brick building, then made my way up to the seventh floor to my apartment. My place was nothing special with its one bedroom, one bath, small kitchen and living room. The walls were paper-thin, but most of my neighbors had night jobs so I could always sleep at night.

I threw my phone on the kitchen counter and looked around at the bare apartment. I only had a TV, couch, coffee table, kitchen table and a bedroom set here. I didn't keep anything of value here. I kept all of my computers and laptops either on me or at my grandparents house. The three locks on the door weren't for decorations. If anyone ever broke in I could always teleport back home. I rarely did it, because it completely drains me. Plus, it really freaks out my mom when I just fall from the sky.

My mom is my hero, she's a registered nurse at Barnes Hospital and she has a daughter that can control all of the elements and teleport. That was not what she was expecting from a one night stand. She went from a all night party girl to button up mom overnight my grandparents told me. She never talked about my Dad, I don't know if I would even call him my Dad seeing as he didn't do anything to help raise me.

When my abilities first started to show up in preschool. My mom and grandparents were convinced the government was going to come after me and do weird experiments to see what made me--me. But, no strange man in a black van ever rolled up to our house. No shadowy figure in a ball cap hat ever followed me. At first, my mom was under the impression we could just ignore this. Then, I could have a normal life. But, she quickly found out that a sneeze could either be a sneeze or a fireball, a whip of wind, a manhole in the ground or an accidental water balloon. I had convinced myself I was some kind of superhero. My mother saw it a different way, she immediately pulled me out of school and we moved from the city to Wentzville suburbia on to 10 acres of land. With all that space no one would ever see me and I never saw anyone; but my grandparents. After, my mom broke the news to them about their only granddaughter having abilities. They sold their house in Tennessee and built a house on the property my mother bought. They wanted to help raise me when they could have been enjoying their retirement. I love them even more for that.

My grandmother was a teacher, so I was home-schooled until college. Which I almost partied out of, I liked being around people so much. I kind of lost my mind when I was away from home. But, once I found a close group of friends, I calmed down and went back to my introverted ways.

After twenty three years, it's safe to say no one knows about me. And if for some reason I slipped up like I did tonight; who's going to believe an invisible girl saved your life? The world would call you crazy and have you committed so quickly you'd have whiplash.

I went to my small bathroom ready to take a shower. I turned the water on letting it run until the water got hot. I stripped out of my dress and heels and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked just like my mom did at my age. Except she swears she was a size three and I'm a proud eight. I definitely got my looks from my mother. My grandma always said I had an innocent face, with passionate eyes. She only said that because I had the same dark grey eyes that she has. The only real difference between me and my mom is my straight long black hair compared to her short brown curly hair and I'm only 5'2 to my moms 5'7. Looking into the mirror for a fleeting moment I started to think which parts of my face were my fathers.

Shaking that thought off, I reached into the shower to see if the water was hot.

Ice cool.

Damn it, Gerald! You said you would fix the water pump.

I guess I'm going home to take a shower. I could mostly work from home if I wanted to, but I liked interacting with other people so I normally went into the office to do all of my work. We had a big team meeting, bright and early tomorrow.

I was lucky to find a job right after graduation, and with one of the biggest computer programming companies in America, Celeste Programming. Which was amazing, because I had a pile of student debt I had to pay off.

Going to Wash U, was a dream come true.

Unfortunately, the bill afterwards was the nightmare.

Crack

I know the walls were thin, but that sounded like somebody was in my apartment.

Crack, crack

That definitely sounded like footsteps. I know I locked my front door. I patted myself down remembering I left my cell phone on the kitchen counter.

My bat!

Since, I couldn't afford a fancy security system I went for the old-school approach of a bat. I threw on my robe letting the shower continue to running to drown out my footsteps. I kept the baseball bat in my bedroom which was at the end of the narrow hallway. I grabbed it and bravely walked back to the living room area.

I can be brave.

Crack

Maybe, not so brave.

I peeked around the wall to see two men dressed in all black in my apartment.

O God.

Pumping myself up, I reminded myself I can control the elements. They picked the wrong house to break into! I just had to make it around this wall to the kitchen.

"Are you sure he's here?" One of the men said, there was a lightness to his voice. I could see he had blonde wavy hair.

"You felt it just as much as I did", the other man said with dark brown hair.

"But, here? This place looks almost deserted and we could have scared him off. Lets go back to---"

Crack

I stepped on the wrong place. Their heads turned towards me.

"O, hello", the blond one said with a youthful smile.

"I will beat you to death", I said stepping out of the shadows of the hallway,"Get out!"

"It's okay, we're not going to hurt you", the blond said stepping forward to me," You know we're not going to hurt you. In fact, you're so relaxed, you want to go to bed". He had the bluest eyes I've ever seen. I could get lost in them.

Maybe, I should go to bed?

How can anyone argue with those eyes.

Endless pools---.

What the fuck?

I don't need to be looking at his eyes or going to bed, they're robbing me!

I swung the bat hitting the blonde right on top of his head. He went down shocked. The dark-haired man chuckled,"Let me show you how its done, Leo. Okay sweetheart, do you have a boyfriend? Brother? Roommate? Or husband that lives here. Tell us, then go to bed", his eyes glowed embers like specs of gold. I felt drawn to him. I needed to tell him.

"I don't have--" I started to say, but shook my head. Shaking off the need to tell him anything. I swung the bat at him and ran for my phone. The bat made contact with the side of his head, but he tackled me to the floor. Pinning me down flat on my back he asked the same question.

"Get off!" I kicked and screamed, but this man didn't budge; it was like I wasn't even here.

The blonde man finally got up and came into view,"Yeah you're really showing me. It's almost like she listen to you", he had a sarcastic tone.

I kept struggling, but I wasn't getting anywhere," Stop moving! Just answer the damn question!"

"Get off! Get. OFF," I called up a huge whip of wind from my stomach and pushed it out of me like a hurricane on to the man. He went flying back off of me.

"What the---"

I pushed another whip of air at him pinning him on the floor. I kept my arm out stretched afraid I would lose focus and drop him.

Hopefully, today my abilities would listen to me.

The other man stood shocked.

"Get out of my apartment!", I yelled.

"You're Gifted?" The blond said amazed. He walked towards me.

No. no. no. no!

"You have to come with us. The Brotherhood is going to lose their mind!" the blonde said.

"Stay back or you're next!" I said trying to be intimidating. The blond man stopped and held up his hands. I took advantage of the space between us and grabbed my phone.

"Wait! Damon's an ass, but he would never--" I whipped Leo's face with wind and teleported to the safest place on Earth-- my mother's house.