Capturing Ella

Chapter 3 - Ella

'No cheating this time, promise?' Zed asked me about ten minutes later, when I put on a baggy shirt and my pyjama shorts again. He looked very serious for once, and as I tiled my head I noticed he was concerned. I love my brothers, and they love me, but they never get this concerned when I'm outside in near freezing temperature in shorts. The shit part of my gift is that I can make ice – the complete opposite of Yves gift. Whilst he can make fire, and things catch alight I can just make a snowstorm or an ice lolly. I'm like a shitty, dry-humoured sarcastic version of Elsa but minus the charm. But because of this, it means my temperature can wildly fluctuate between the normal 37 degrees centigrade and anything below. Diagnosis of hypothermia starts when the core body temperature drops below 35 degrees – so according to that I get hypothermia at least twice a week. It's not healthy, correct, but I've learnt how to notice the symptoms prior to the hypothermia attacks and how to treat it. I know using my proper gift for a long time or exertion will trigger these hypothermia symptoms so I say I "avoid unsafe usage" what I really do is use my gift, just when there is hot chocolate available and blankets. Lots and lots of blankets.

My gift is very rare in the Savant community, and is the only one of its kind on the Net. The main gift I have is the ability to project outside of my body. Imagine an out of body experience, but being in control the entire time and being able to see and hear whatever you want, wherever you want all under your control. That's me – I can do that. I was very good at tests, where I could leave me notes all over my bed then project back into my bedroom during the test and get the answers. When I left school, my grades were in the top percentile. Not only that, I can also hear telepathy. A massive pain when I live in a house full of Savant's, and especially when their Soulfinder's around. I get quite bad headaches at family reunions too. I'm kind of well known in Savant circles for being "the girl with everyone's gifts", because not only do I have four of my own gifts, I've also managed to find out a way to knick others gifts too. So with my projection gift, the ability to freeze random shit and hearing telepathy – I can combine them all to get into other people's brains and find out how to use their gifts. It sounds cool but believes me – it sucks.

I focused back on Zed, realising he was waiting for me to reply

'I didn't cheat last time.'

'El, you're five foot and that hoop –' He gestured to the basketball hoop on the garden wall, 'is over six foot seven. There is no way you can jump that high. You cheated.' He accused, walking to roughly centre of the pitch. When all the family comes over, there's normally an interesting game of four-a-side basketball.

'I can jump relatively high. Also, throwing the ball helps.' I retorted back, standing opposite him.

'Sure,'

'No, really. Look.' I grabbed the ball out of his hand and threw it straight into the hoop. 'See, I can throw!'

He jogged over to get the ball, running his hands throw his already tousled hair. It wasn't like Zed to be up this early. Honestly, it wasn't like Zed to be out of bed this early in the morning – from the fading looks of the stars overheard, it was turning half three – unless something was on his mind.

'Are you going to tell me what's up, then?' I asked, as we continued the game of basketball.

'Nothing is wrong.' He said, and I frowned at him. He immediately looked me in the eye and I saw his eyebrows raise slightly, the muscle in between twitching as he tried to keep a straight face. I also noticed his back hunch slightly and the way he moved out to the right which had more space. He almost retreated from the conversation.

'You're such a crap liar, your face and body gave that one away. I don't need to be Sky to see when you lie, kid.' I told him.

'What did I do, then?' He asked, holding the ball.