Gifted Ones

Chapter 7 Amber

My ears pick up a quiet beeping sound. It's very steady, ringing once about every second. The logical side of my brain tells me to open my eyes and find out where I am, but I can't even bring myself to turn my head. I feel so tired and weak, like something is pulling me down through the ground and into the depths of the earth. I'm lying on something soft and warm. A bed, perhaps? I'm so comfortable. Sleep calls like a siren from the bottom of the ocean. So tired. . .

I drift in and out of consciousness, sometimes almost able to hear what's going on around me, sometimes drifting in black nothingness. I can't tell what's real and what's not. I think I hear my brothers screaming, then I hear rain pattering on the roof. Other times I think that I'm burning, fire licking my flesh and turning it to ash. Through it all is the constant beeping over and over and over again. It drives me insane, penetrating every half formed thought that comes into my drifting brain. It's enough to make one want to hunt down the source and destroy it.

I wake up for good when the darkness recedes. I feel like I'm being pulled up out of a deep pool of water. Suddenly I'm aware of my body. My limbs work again. My eyes open and I can see. But with it comes the pain. It's a raw, tingling sensation all over my body, particularly on the left side. I wince and groan throatily, my voice harsh from disuse. I look down to see that I'm laying in a hospital bed with the covers pulled up to my chest. I blink and look around myself. I'm in a hospital room. The walls and ceiling are blue, pale blue. The beeping, I see, comes from a heart monitor.

But what is wrong with me? I almost don't want to find out. Quickly I throw the sheets off, worried about what I might find. What I do see shocks me. Snow white bandages wrap around my whole torso and stretch down my left shoulder to my knee. Gauze is heavily padded underneath, mostly on my left side. I can see a tint of red behind the white. Blood. My blood. I close my eyes against the gruesome sight, remembering the events of. . . Whenever I passed out. Haven's house, the cars, the men, the fire. There was an explosion when I opened the front door. Those men had a bomb inside her house! Why? Where is Haven? And what happened?

I try to get up, but as soon as I move a hot flash of agony shoots through every part of my body. Red flashes at the corners of my vision, causing me to become lightheaded, like I'm about to pass out. I let out a small scream and stop moving automatically. I can't think, I can't see. Black patches obscure my vision and I feel my brain shutting down from the pain. I'm going to faint.

But I don't. Somehow I pull through as the pain recedes into whatever black hole it crawled out of. I lay there, breathing hard, wishing for it to leave completely. What am I going to do?

The door across the room flys open to reveal a nurse. She quickly scans the machines around me, checking my vitals, I assume. I watch her step over to a metal stand from which hangs a bag of clear liquid. Apparently I didn't notice it before. She presses a button on the side, avoiding my gaze.

"Where am I?" I ask her. "What happened?"

She doesn't answer, fiddling with a knob on my right. Is she deaf or something? Who would hire a deaf nurse?

"Hello? What happened to me?"

Still the woman doesn't answer. But in a minute I don't care. I can feel the pain stopping gradually, ever so gradually. I let out a satisfied breath. Morphine. There was morphine in the bag. Nothing feels better than the termination of pain. This woman is my savior from heaven.

"Where are my parents?" I ask. If I were in an accident they would be here, right? If it fit into their busy schedules. God forbid that a meeting would interrupt their only daughter's hospitalization. A wave of bitterness washes over me. "Where are they?"

And still the nurse is silent. After a second she walks out the door, shutting it behind her. How odd. Is she mute?

I look around the room, careful not to move anything but my head. I don't want the pain to come back again. There is no tv, nothing to do. I am completely in the dark about why I'm alone and the nurse won't speak to me. After a second I start to get bored. I feel tired, very tired. My eyelids droop lower. I want to find out what's going on, but this room alone will yield me no answers. Sleep calls to me. I realize that my eyes are closed, but I can't bring myself to open them again. My mind drifts and in a few moments I am asleep again.

I don't particularly remember my dream, just a lot of flames and smoke that fades into a blur. But after a while I hear someone shouting in my ear. "Amber! Amber wake up!" For a second I think that it's my dad calling. The voice is undeniably male. But then my head clears a little and I can hear that the voice is deeper than my father's. My eyes snap open, searching automatically for the source of the voice.

"Hello miss Fredrickson. We've been waiting for you to wake up. I must say, my men and I were very surprised to find that you set off the trap, not one of the Crosses. And in such a short amount of time, too." I turn my head to the left, in the direction the voice is coming from. It belongs to a tall, well built man in an immaculate suit. His graying brown hair is gelled back from his face. He's quite good looking for a man somewhere in his mid forties, I'm guessing. His lips are parted in a wide smile, showing off a set of perfect teeth, and his eyes are a sparkling gray color.

"Who are you?" I ask, using my good arm to wipe the sleep from my eyes.

"I am Gabriel Anderson. Politician, radical, Mage extraordinaire. I know who you are, Amber. You are the best friend of Brandon's daughter, Haven Cross. Human, as well. Just like Gail."

I swallow, hard. He's the man who sent those people to their house. "What do you want with them?"

His smile widens. "They have something I want, something very important. It means the difference between freedom and slavery. It a single piece of information. Information I need."

"So why am I here? Where are my parents?"

"They don't know where you are. For all they know, you disappeared the same day Haven did."

My mouth falls open. "You're KIDNAPPING ME?! I don't understand."

His eyes darken but his smile stays firmly in place. "One of my. . . Exploits has been unsuccessful. My source of ransom has been exhausted. I am VERY disappointed in my men. Let's just say. . . Your life is now worth something, Amber, more than you realize. Possibly more than your race. It all depends on how things play out. Some situations have a way of remedying themselves."

"But-"

"Amber, all you need to know is this: you are dealing with powers you can't even imagine. We can defy gravity, we can change our physical forms, and we can bend energy to our will. There is nothing you can do to understand our powers, let alone escape from them. I am giving you the opportunity to transcend your rather unfortunate birthright to do some good in the world, even if it is just being a simple pawn in my righteous game. I am giving you the chance to save a wronged race and bring justice to our persecutors. Of course, I don't particularly care whether you want to help us or not. Like I said, you are just a pawn. Goodnight, Amber Fredrickson. May you rest peacefully knowing that justice will be served." And with that he sweeps out of the room, closing the door and leaving me In a shocked silence.

So this is my first author's note and I would just like to say thank you soooooo much for reading up to here. I am very grateful to all of my followers who like my book. This is actually the third draft of Gifted Ones. The first one I never finished, but I actually got through the second one. It just had so many plot holes I knew that I had to write it again. With some major changes. Like MAJOR changes. Anyway, it's definitely going to pick up from here, in more ways than one. Hope you enjoy!

-iambibliophilic