Talent to Burn (Hidden Talent #1) Read Online Free

I kept my gaze on the screen.
    “Cat, I don’t believe you. You’ve been running and hiding from those guys for the last ten or more years. Why do you need help now?”
    I put down my slice of pizza and turned to look at him, something I’d been studiously avoiding. He watched me as I moved, and I was fairly sure he’d been doing that since we sat down.
    He was a big guy. The room didn’t seem big enough for both of us to sleep in, although, as he’d suggested, there were two beds. Knowing he was watching me shrank the room a little more. I was used to being on my own, and not having to explain myself to anyone.
    Guess I owed him something for bailing me out at a bad time. I sighed. “Fourteen years. I’m tired of running. I want to do the things normal people do: go to school, get a degree, have a real job, a decent home, maybe a family.”
    “You think helping us will get the Institute off your back?” He raised an eyebrow. “I can’t guarantee that. To be honest with you, it might have the opposite effect.”
    “I don’t know. But what I do know—or feel like I’m starting to—is that I can’t run away from them any longer.” This conversation made me twitchy. Just talking about running made my leg muscles tense up.
    Jamie reached out and put his hand on my shoulder once again, perhaps to calm me, I didn’t know. The heat from his hand surprised me. He ran a few degrees hotter than I did. “Time to stand and fight, huh?”
    I nodded, although my stomach roiled at the thought. Dad had trained me to fight all through my adolescence, but I’d never used any of the training outside of a little push-and-slap in a bar now and then. This fight would hopefully be more figurative than literal.
    “All right. Here’s what I think we should do. We don’t know what your brother was doing in Vegas. Let’s go there first and find out exactly what happened. Then we can try to follow his trail.”
    “That’s what you’re good at, right?”
    “Yep.” He grinned widely, giving my shoulder one last squeeze and then letting go. “Now, tell me—how did you and Eric come to be removed from one another?”
    “It sounds like you know part of the story already.” Even to my own ears, I came off sour. I liked my privacy, but this wasn’t the time for it.
    He shrugged. “I know he’s from the Institute and you were once there as well. I know he’s in trouble now. I know he’s your brother.”
    I sighed. “I left the Grey Institute when I was eleven years old, with my father. Let’s say it was an unofficial exit.” I flashed back briefly to the night Dad had climbed in the window after lights out. Although he’d gotten in quietly, we’d set off all the alarms on our way out and I’d started running, and kept running for years. I missed having Dad for company on the road. It stopped being fun when he died.
    “Why didn’t Eric go then too?”
    “He didn’t want to go.” I laughed, although I didn’t find it at all funny. Talking about this made me incredibly uncomfortable.
    Jamie looked surprised. “What kid would choose to stay at that place? What did they do to him?”
    “Eric has always had plenty of Talent. He was a little prince at the Institute. Give up his status and go on the run…why would he? He was thirteen then and completely arrogant already.” I drew a breath and cut off my rant. “Besides, I don’t think his head would have fit through the door.” Thinking about it still made me cranky as hell. I’d consciously closed down the parts of my mind and heart that cared about Eric, and I didn’t like to open them up one bit.
    “About his Talent—what could he do? Just the fires?”
    “When I left, mostly the fires. Not big ones, things like setting a piece of paper on fire or lighting candles. He could also move objects a little, roll a pen across the table, stuff like that. They thought he’d be able to do a lot more as he got older.”
    “And you believe they didn’t come