Talented by Sophie Davis Read Free Book Online

none, actually – with Talented kids.  In fact, before coming to live with the McDonough’s, I didn’t know that what I could do was considered a “Talent.”
    Donavon was what Toxic termed a Poly-Morph.  He was able to change himself in to just about any animal.  He told me Mac had been teaching him how to morph into other human forms, but he was not even close to achieving such a feat.
    Some days I would spend the afternoon watching Donavon show off, morphing from one animal to another, while I giggled and clapped for him.  Other days he would work with me on my abilities.  We would hide out in the woods behind his parent’s house and see if I could reach his mind.  We would widen the gap each day, until we could communicate across the entire compound.  Other days, we would wander down to the lake on the other side of the woods to play in the water.
    Every night, alone in my room, I cried myself to sleep.  I had succeeded in almost entirely blocking out the violence that had cost my parents their lives, but that didn’t mean I missed them any less.  I loved having a real friend in Donavon, and Mac and Gretchen were going out of their way to make me feel like part of the family, but they weren’t my family.  They would never be my family.  I forced myself to repeat the name of the man who I’d learned ordered the death of my family, over and over: Ian Crane.  Then, I would promise myself that one day I would return the favor.

 
    Chapter Seven
     
    I was in a foul mood when I met Donavon in a small café for dinner.  He was sitting at a table in the corner, waiting for me, when I walked in.
    Living at Elite Hea dquarters had a lot of advantages; the biggest, in my opinion, was the abundance of food options.  At School, the only place to eat was the cafeteria.  They served three meals a day that consisted of a strictly regimented diet to ensure all of us growing kids got all of the nutrients we needed.  Donavon and I had the unique advantage that Mac and Gretchen lived in a house on school grounds, and we often went up there for dinner.
    But here?   That was a whole different story.  The Hunters weren’t the only division of the Agency housed at Elite Headquarters, so it was more like a small town.  There cafes and snack shops spread throughout the compound that boasted a variety of foods from around the world.  There were also a number of stores that sold just about anything anybody here needed.
    “Hey,” I said , taking the empty seat across from him.
    “Want to tell me about it?” he asked, immediately sensing my dark mood.
    “No,” I replied a little too forcefully.  “I don’t.  Can we just eat?”
    “Course.”  Donavon took a menu out of the holder in the center of the table, and began touching the screen to make selections for both of us.  When he was done, he pushed the enter button at the bottom of the screen and replaced the menu.
    “Want to tell me how your practice session went?” he asked.
    “I’d rather you tell me about your day.  I don’t feel much like talking.”  Just then a woman showed up with two bottles of water.  Donavon thanked her.
    “I will gladly tell you ab out my day,” he said, once she’d left.  He launched in to the events of his day, embellishing a somewhat amusing story to make it hilariously funny.  I smiled in spite of myself, not so much because the story was actually that funny, but because I thought it was so sweet of him to go out of his way to try and make me feel better.  By the time our dinner arrived I was in a much better mood.  Donavon always had that effect on me.  I felt safe when I was with him.
    “ Arden and Harris went into the city, and won’t be back until curfew ,” Donavon said, mentally, after we had made an entire loop of the compound.  Arden and Harris were Donavon’s teammates, and therefore also his cabinmates.  If the food options were the greatest advantage of living at Elite Headquarters, then lack