"I think you broke her."

"Oh shut up Kalen!"

"Wait, are we talking about Thomas Acero's daughter? This is her? Why am I always the last one to know about this stuff!"

I hear none of this as I stare blankly at the wall.

Dad could see the future.

I had been trying to come up with a theory to explain all the crazy things that have been going on, why I was seeing all these flashes, and I had gotten to something similar to this, but I never thought it would actually be true. It's too crazy to be true.

"So you think that I've inherited my father's Gift?" I ask, finally breaking out of my stupor.

I'm pretty sure I'm having a conniption fit. But Mara nods, a hopeful twinkle in her eyes.

"That's what it looks like doesn't it?" she says.

But that doesn't make sense. Even if I inherited dad's Gift, why didn't it present itself sooner? Why now?

Kalen must see my confused expression and grunts as he sits up on the bed, twisting his body to face me completely.

"We don't know anything else," he says, "that's up to Christian to tell you, so once he's done with whatever it is his meeting is about, we will take you to him. But for now, you have to wait a little while longer."

Can I wait for a few minutes after I've had to wait for these answers my entire life? I wring my hands together nervously. I've never been a patient person, but I think I can manage.

"Alright."

He lays back down and shuts his eyes, Jayson looking thoughtful beside him.

"I bet the meeting is about the rise in criminal activity lately, we haven't had someone like Simon Says on the streets for a while now," says the blond, leaning back to rest against the wall.

Mara hums in agreement as she plays with a strand of her short hair, probably thinking about what Jayson said now that the important stuff is out of the way. Sitting this close to her, I can study her features a bit more.

She's definitely pretty, with very striking features that stand out in a crowd. She has tan skin and dark brown eyes, with high cheekbones and a tall nose. Her hair is shorter than mine, and so dark it almost looks black. She's shorter than me too, not as short as Cassie, but she looks tiny compared to Kalen or Jayson.

"So, you've been here since you got your Gift?" I ask, trying to break the silence, and she looks up at me gratefully, happy to have a new topic of conversation. She nods, so I take that as an invitation to continue.

"What is your Gift exactly?".

"Oh," her eyes widen a bit, and she licks her lips nervously. "Well it's a bit complicated, but to put it simply, I can manipulate sound. Or well, sound waves I guess."

So, I was right! She had modified her voice when we first met, to make it louder than it was, acting like a megaphone. That is pretty cool. But in such dangerous situations I really can't see how that's a useful Gift. She must sense what I'm thinking, because she gives me a knowing look.

"You wouldn't be the first to ask me how my Gift helps when we are out on a mission," she starts "and I guess it's hard to understand unless you've seen what I can do firsthand."

She gets up and I do the same, curious to see what she's about to show me.

She picks up one of the glasses that are on the little table near the single bed, and places one hand over the rim and the other one underneath it.

In less than a second the most ear-splitting sound I've ever heard rips through my eardrums, and I cover my ears, willing the shrieking to go away. But it's over as soon as it started, because it just takes a couple seconds for the glass to explode into a thousand tiny shards.

"Seriously!" whines Kalen, "that's going to take forever to clean up!"

I can't take my eyes off the glittering pieces that have fallen on the carpet.

"Wow," I breathe.

I move my attention from the glass that now liters the floor to Mara, who looks pleased at my reaction.

"I can make sounds capable of shattering a human eardrum, or," she waves her hand in my direction, eyebrows drawn together in concentration. It takes me a minute to figure out what she's done, and it's not until I realize that I can't hear anything other than my beating heart, even though I can see Mara's mouth moving, that she has created some sort of soundproof bubble around me.

"This last trick is pretty useful when you want to have a conversation without having to worry about being overheard," she says, once she has stopped manipulating the sound waves around me. "Or I could just take away someone's voice," she continues. "Then they wouldn't be able to talk at all. If I can stop the vibrations of their vocal cords, no sound will come out of their mouth."

"That is so cool," I say, still baffled by the power that she possess. "How long did it take you to learn how to do that?" I ask, but she just shrugs.

"I guess I've always been able to control the vibrations, but I've learned what I can do with them over these past ten years. It takes practice, a lot of practice."

She smiles, then motions to Kalen and Jayson.

"These two have much cooler Gifts though."

Jayson shakes his head from the other side of the room.

"I think your Gift is just as amazing as ours," he says, eyes looking straight at her, but there is something that tells me that there is a hidden meaning to his words. The way Mara seems to turn a bit pink only proves that there is something going on between these two.

"I mean it's nice, I wouldn't change it for the world, but," she points at Jayson, "it's nothing compared to gravity manipulation."

I stare at Jayson in shock. I didn't even know something like that existed.

He seems to like the attention, and before I can even blink the bed he's sitting on suddenly starts to float. I think back to my class with Mr.Roskovic, about the first Gift, could this be what that disabled man had done in order to make himself levitate? If so, Jayson's Gifts was probably one of the most important ones out there.

"So that's what you did to Simon Says," I mumble, getting closer to the levitating piece of furniture. Sure enough, I feel a sort of vortex coming from under the bed. But this time, instead of it pulling everything near it towards it, it seems to expand, pushing everything outward.

Jayson nods at my comment, obviously happy that I figured it out on my own.

"That's right, I just changed the gravitational pull surrounding him to attract him to the earth, making it impossible for him to move."

I turn to Kalen, interested to find out what his Gift is, and my jaw nearly breaks with how fast it hits the floor. He's still laying on the bed, nothing new there. What has changed is that his hand is now on fire, and he seems to be perfectly fine with it. He isn't screaming in pain, or trying to put it out, instead he just waves his hand and the flames disappear, leaving a trail of smoke in their wake.

"Pyrokinesis," he says without looking at me.

The way he says it gives me the impression that he isn't all that thrilled with his Gift, whereas I'm left staring at him in shock. He's an elemental. Practically all of the elementals have disappeared over the years due to the complexity of their DNA sequence, one that only a few people can possess. Elements are a part of nature that were never meant to be controlled, which is why it's so rare to find elementals now a days. They were much more common before, when mutations had just started appearing, but as the generations progressed their Gifts became much more mundane. Instead of being able to create fire, people would be able to control their body temperature.

I am standing in a room with people whose Gifts were so rare that only a couple appear every decade, heck, probably every century. I'm feeling well out of place with them.

"You all have such incredible Gifts, I bet you get to go on missions all the time."

The three of them share a look, and I'm pretty sure I catch Mara shaking her head before her phone starts to ring. She sighs. Saved by the bell I guess, but what was that all about?

She looks at the caller ID before picking up, a wide smile on her face.

"Hi dad."

I feel something tug at my heart. I wish I could call my dad whenever I felt like it, or even have him call me.

"It is? Great. We'll head down right away."

She hangs up and heads to the door, waving me over.

"Alrighty, my dad says the meeting just finished. Christian wants to speak to you now."

My heartbeat starts to speed up in anticipation.

Finally, I think. Let's get this show on the road.