Kalen and I sit on the small leather sofa in the little library that is situated right next to the common rooms. It's only got a couple of sofas and a table, surrounded by tall bookshelves, groaning under the weight of thousands of books. But not many of the trainees are into reading, so it usually isn't very busy. In front of us, a fire crackles in a fireplace large enough for a person to stand in. Warmth reaches out and wraps us in its comfortable embrace. Kalen and I are alone, as we flip through the pages of my three times great grandfather's journal.

By what I've read so far, it sounds like he got his Gift when he was twenty-two, his mother having died three years prior.

"It started with the headaches," he wrote, "and then suddenly those headaches turned into hallucinations, except the hallucinations came true. Imagine my surprise when, enjoying my morning walk, an image pops into my head, showing me that my sister was going to get married and, two days later, she tells the whole family that she is engaged".

According to this, he could see the future while he was awake. That's interesting, seeing as up until now I always passed out right before I saw anything. I wonder if once I have more control over my Gift I will be able to stay conscious during my visions. For now, I just have to hope that someone is around when I go into 'oracle mode', to make sure that I don't take a nasty spill.

Kalen gets up from the sofa, stretching his muscles as he goes.

"Stay there," he says, disappearing in between the rows of shelves.

As if I would go anywhere. I try not to notice how the loss of his constant presence makes my heart twist uncomfortably, focusing instead on the task at hand.

My eyes gloss over the same paragraph several times in an attempt to decipher my grandad's sloppy handwriting, now faded to a pale gray. I find a chapter where he talks about how he started to expect when his visions would occur, and how he could force them.

"If I want to think of a certain year, it's hard. There are so many changes that might happen between now and then that the future may never be what I see in my head. But if I focus on a certain individual, their paths are more limited. There are only so many possible outcomes, and so I started focusing on people."

That's what I had been trying to do so far, but nothing worked. Daniel has helped me with my inner voice, so that I no longer have to ignore my attacker, because that plan would probably backfire eventually. Now, I could focus on their movements and still have someone, my future self probably, in my head telling me what was going to happen. But when I try to focus on our rogue Elite, nothing happens. It could be because I don't know who he is, but the same thing happens when I try to find Simon Says, and I know him all too well.

"I usually use a picture, or something of value to the person. If I've never actually met the person in question, I think of things they might be doing. Like one of my clients, who asked me to locate her missing husband. I never met the man, but after she told me what he liked to do or where she thought he could be, I found him at a bar two towns over. I hated to tell her that there was another woman with him, and they seemed to be more than just acquaintances."

I smile down at the little journal. I learned a few chapters back that my great great great grandfather was a local fortune teller. Sometimes he told people what he really saw, other times, he told them what they wanted to hear. I particularly liked the story where a man came into his stall, raging on about how the end of the world was near, and great great great grandad just told him that on the supposed day of the end, he saw the man sitting in an underground bunker while the rest of the world went on above him.

The cushion I'm sitting on sinks a bit as Kalen returns to his spot next to me. He's holding a large book titled History of the Old and New World and is flipping through the pages with a purpose.

"What's that for?" I ask, watching as he stops on the year 2069.

"I just wanted to see what was going on during your three times great grandfathers' life. That's when the first president was elected."

That's right! I can't believe I forgot about that. Mr. Roscovic would not be pleased. 2068 was the first year with the world council. It hadn't gone over well at the time, lots of people thought it would never work, but I guess they did something right if they are still around after all these years.

"The president was Edward Khan, but he was only in power for two years before his son took his place. Just like with our current president, no one knew of his Gift, just that it was strong. Strong enough to have one-man rule the entire world," says Kalen, reading from the page in front of him

That must be one hell of a Gift.

He keeps reading, and I go back to flipping through the journal.

"If I don't have an object, or don't know what I'm looking for, I trust my Gift to guide me."

It seems like all I've been doing is let it guide me. First I had to ignore my opponents and trust it would help me every time, and now I'm just supposed to hope it helps me find who I'm looking for, with no control whatsoever? Frustration starts to set in, but it melts away when I read the next couple of sentences.

"Many times if I find something that has to do with the person I intend to visualize, I feel a pull. Something akin to a magnetic field, attracting me to whatever it is my Gift is picking up on."

Now that has happened to me. Quite recently too. But it didn't make sense, the picture was of President Khan. How would that be connected to the killer?

the gears start turning in my head.

"Kalen," I murmur, a crazy idea starting to take shape in my head.

"Yeah?" he looks up from the book, eyebrows drawing together as he registers my worried expression.

"No one knows what the President's Gift is, not even the council?"

His face becomes even more puzzled. He nods slowly, tilting his head to the side questioningly.

"I just told you, no one knows. It's his best-kept secret. I doubt even Diana knows what it is."

A mysterious man, whom the world knew very little about, only ever appearing behind a screen. A Gift so powerful no one knows what it is, not even his own flesh and blood. No one likes him, he is mistrusted, maybe he got tired of it. Maybe he decided to stop letting himself get attacked, and become the attacker for once.

Could that be his Gift? Killing with a single touch? It couldn't be, the president is good. I swallow past the lump in my throat. Isn't he? I'm starting to doubt that, what with the strong opinions against him in this compound. But would he really go as far as killing?

"Did the President ever show any violent tendencies?" I ask, voice nearly a whisper.

Kalen's eye widen. "Why do you ask?"

I put the leather-bound book back on the sofa and face him, folding my leg underneath myself to look him dead in the eye.

"Remember what Christian said, about President Khan and how he wasn't to be trusted? Even Jordan seems afraid of him. He obviously did something wrong, something that made him feared by even the strongest Elite compound in the country. The question is, what did he do?"

Kalen thinks it over. His gray eyes stare intently at the ground. He purses his lips, and I try not to stare at the pink flesh for too long. Or wonder how soft they might feel against my own. Stop it Brianna! Focus!

"I bet whatever it is, it's in this book. It is our history after all."

He flips through the pages until he lands on our current date. The books update themselves every year, the nanotechnology in the pages allowing for modifications to be made whenever something new needs to be added. It's like the pages are digital screens, but with the exact same appearance and texture as paper.

Kalen goes back a few years, turning some pages until he finds something that catches his attention. 

"That's odd" he frowns. "There are a few years missing from the book. I could have sworn these get revised every year to make sure they're updating correctly." He keeps turning pages, trying to find the missing years, but puts down the book when he finds nothing useful.

"Give me a second." He pulls out his TekPad, and I watch out of the corner of my eye as he tries to enter the Compound's database.

Trainees aren't supposed to have access to Landa's confidential information, but I learned a while back that Kalen has a knack for getting into places he isn't supposed to be. That includes hacking into confidential files. He fiddles with the device for a few minutes, cursing when a particularly tricky firewall takes him longer to get through, until he is finally granted access.

File upon file pop up on the devise, and he scans through the titles and headlines, trying to find something that may explain what happened during the missing years in the book. 

"Look at this." He scoots closer to me, showing me what looks like a newspaper article on the screen, pressing his leg against mine in the process. He startles and quickly puts a little bit of space between us, but I just slide back next to him. I smile when he sends me a surprised glance.

"You were saying?" I ask.

He swallows, seemingly noticing how close we are, and I can't help the joy I feel at the fact that for once I'm the one making him blush.

"Um ... Yeah." He points to one of the paragraphs in the article. "Look at what it says here."

I scan the title. The New President Kills His Own Brother.

My eyes widen at the headline. Khan had a brother? I never heard of that. Come to think of it, I never learned about it in any of my classes either. He was never mentioned on the news, there were no pictures of him. At least not that I know of. It's like someone wanted to erase him from existence.

I read as if a woman possessed. I'm desperate for information.

"President Khan sentences his brother Dominic Khan to death. No official reason has been given; no testament taken. The case is only available to the highest members of the council, President Khan and Chairman Ross."

The council member that had been kidnapped last week.

"Many high-ranking officials speculated that the sentence had to do with Dominic's Gift. Khan later discovered that the one to divulge that information was Ross himself, who denied the accusation."

So, he sentenced his brother to death, just because of his Gift? I'm nauseous with the thought of such cruelty. No one can control what Gift they are born with, which is why we are taught to treat everyone as equals, even when social status separates us. I wonder why he let Ross still be a part of the council. If he was so mad, why didn't he fire him? Unless he was just waiting for the perfect time to strike. So far what I was reading was just making the image in my head clearer. But what I read next makes me pause.

"The story was not made public, and MIMS was used for the first time in our history, authorized by the president, to alter the memories of those who remembered his actions. All but a few Elites got to keep their memories intact. The SWIME was shut down after that."

Kalen and I stare at each other in shock.

No. Freaking. Way.