The Gifted (Txt x Itzy)

五十五

"Surprised, surprised, the orbs are not in here."

"How are you so sure?"

"It's an empty room. I'm pretty sure they're-"

"The walls have secret drawers," Yuna interrupted, her fingers lightly pushing against random tiles of the white-tiled walls, watching with mild interest as a select few slid open, showing empty boxes, "My dad has these kinds of walls in his room. I'm pretty sure they could be tucked in here somewhere."

"That's great and all," Kai mentioned, "But remember how the orbs were in the vans downstairs? How could they have transported the orbs here so quickly without us realising?"

"So let's say they're not here," Yeji decided, "What do we do now? Continue to walk through this huge building and pray we stumbled across them?"

"Oh, you don't need to do that," A voice purred. They all swiveled their heads, and were met with a black-haired girl leaning against the vault door. As they froze, the girl let out a tinkling laugh, "What? I'm not gonna trap you guys in here. See, I even have a peace offering," She said, pulling her hand from behind her to reveal an orb.

"The physical orb?" Jisu guessed. The girl grinned, "Yep. With this, your powers should work a little bit better. Oh, I mean, for the physical powers."

"Let's go," The girl urged, "I'm Ji Eun, by the way. Gifted like you."

-

They peppered her with whispered questions.

"How did you get that orb?"

"Where do you come from?"

"What's your gift?"

She answered all the queries with "I'll tell you later"s. So they all remained silent.

"So how do you know where we're going?" Taehyun meekly asked. Ji Eun tossed her head, "Namjoon sent me. He was...an old friend. I mean, he still is. I was free, so I thought I could pop by. I owed him a favour, anyway. He freed me from this place.I spent months in here, escaping my cell only to be found and forced back in. But he got me out. And I know this place like the back of my hand." She swished her pale hand in the air.

"Cool," was Taehyun's only comment.

At last they came to a stop at a metal door. "How did we not get caught?" Yuna asked in amazement. Ji Eun turned her head slightly to eye the girl, "The other gifteds they had captured had managed to escape, creating a wondrous distraction. I simply had to follow your trail."

"Trail?" Kai asked.

Ji eun gestured to the creepy crawlies that still clung to their clothes. "Ah," Kai managed out.

Ji eun let loose a nervous sigh, and pushed open the door, which led to a garage. "The orbs are in one of those vans," She whispered, "But the thing is I don't know which. They're careless, you know, every single one of them left this place unguarded just to handle the mass of gifteds, which I mean, they should, but still."

"So we just have to figure out which van has the orbs," Yuna guessed, "Should be no problem."

Ji eun smirked, "I like your thinking, but the thing is they;re as sealed up as my pants. You would need a great deal of effort to open them. I can use my gift, of course, but it would be more efficient is we work on different vans at one shot.

So that was what they did.

Ji Eun stroked the bolts of one, which shuddered like a dog and wiggled out, dropping onto the floor and scuttling away on the dozens of suddenly-created metallic legs. The door swung open, to reveal nothing.

"A decoy," Ji Eun sighed, "Well, let's move on to the next one."

Kai attempted to shift, but he could only manage coin-sized pieces of metal.

Taehyun had somewhat better luck, able to have his fingernail-plant pick the locks or push bolts out.

Yeonjun hacked the doors open with metal bars.

Quite a mess, really. But in the end-

"Got it!" Came Chaeryeong's triumphant yell. Hurrying over quickly, everyone peered into the dark musty van. Crates sat in the van, the metal bars and wooden planks unable to muffle the brilliant glow of the orbs.

"Wow," Jisu marvelled, "This sure took a while."

"But it's worth it," Taehyun said, smoothly leaping into the van, crouching down quickly to examine the crates. Ji Eun followed suit, her hand pressing against the crate as she let her eyes flutter shut. Just like before, the crate seemed to come to life, it's little legs standing shakily and it shook like a dog getting rid of water in its ears. The lock clicked merrily and out rolled the orb. Taehyun scooped it up swiftly, and with a small smile, Ji eun handed Taehyun the other orb, and as they were placed side by side, a brighter, warmed glow filled the van as the orbs clinked together merrily. "Great," Taehyun sighed in relief, placing them gingerly in his backpack, "Now the next."

And so they went on, Ji Eun petting the crates as they came to life, extracting the orbs carefully. Once they had secured every single one, they shined brilliantly, and all of them felt a feeling of ease fall onto them. They let out sighs of contentedness, and Taehyun shakily stepped out of the an. Ji eun seemed dizzy, falling out of the van clumsily.

"Are you okay?" Jisu asked worriedly.

The girl sleepily smiled and nodded, "Yeah, it's just that my power saps up my energy and life force, so I get kinda tired when I over-use it."

"That's not good," Ryujin said worriedly, "Does that mean you over-exerted yourself?"

Another bell-like laugh from Ji Eun, "My power isn't a muscle, darling. I'll be fine. This is for the good of all the gifteds."

AN: I'm so sorry for the shitty writing, I have really been losing inspiration for this book but I promise I will write until the end :/ Also I acknowledge that there seems to be a lot of holes in the plot, I'm really sorry for my deteriotaing quality but I will continue to do my best