The Talented Read Online Free Page A

my hand.
    When I first met Gus he was already comatose, but was quite lucent in his thoughts, and that’s how we got to know each other. He knew so much about the use of mind powers and convinced me that I was not crazy, that the voices in my head are real, and that I had a great gift. For a few years his focus was teaching me to reach into the minds of others with the intent to heal them. I had no shortage of mental patients to practice on, but it was difficult, delicate work. It was one of the great disappointments of my young life when I failed to heal Gus. He was too far gone.
    Turning my attention to Kate, with her mental barrier temporarily down, I gently probed her mind for damage. Her psyche was like nothing I had ever felt before, so complex and strong, almost beautiful. It was like a masterfully played symphony, compared to normal minds, which were like so much noise. It was not damaged, just strained. I allowed my power to flow over her psyche, healing it and lending it strength. Then I gently withdrew. I watched her sleep for a minute and almost fell asleep myself, so I got up and took a long, hot shower. In the shower I thought about the woman in the other room. Why was she trying to seduce me? Was it simply that she found me attractive or did she have an ulterior motive?
    After drying off, I threw on a cotton t-shirt and boxers and stepped back into the living room to check on Kate. She was awake and sitting up, pointing a shiny and absurdly small gun at me. Her mental barrier was back up, stronger than before, but I didn’t need to read her mind to recognize the look of hostility and resolve on her face. I immediately willed my thought processes to accelerate exponentially, and as I did my perception of time around me slowed almost to a stop. This was a trick I had learned in the mental hospital to give me peace when the other patients became too noisy and erratic for me to bear. It also helps me with bullets, sometimes.
    The hammer of the small pistol finally fell and I saw a slow eruption flash soundlessly from the barrel, followed by the dull bullet, which glided toward my head. While it does improve my speed and reflexes, the main problem with being in this state is that my muscles, bones and tendons can only move so fast without suffering major tears or breaks. To my perception, I move almost as slow as everything else, and slower than the bullet, so dodging at this range is not very practical. Instead I grabbed the bullet with my mind and held it fast, stopping it about 10 inches from my face, disbursing its kinetic energy. Then I saw the flash of the second bullet, and I stopped it right next to the first. Then I did the third, fourth and fifth until the pain in my head started up again and I knew that I could not keep this up forever. I let the bullets begin to drop to the floor and mentally wrenched the gun from her, careful not to break her finger with the trigger guard. I then eased my perceptions back to the normal flow of time. My fear gave way to anger, which was the only thing keeping me from giving in to exhaustion.
    Kate stood there motionless, looking at the bullets on the carpet and back up at me. Despair began to leak through her barrier, and her eyes grew shiny with angry tears. She scowled at me bitterly and with a rough voice said “Go ahead, get it over with. I’m not afraid to die. What are you waiting for?”
    Not knowing how to respond to that, I paused, my voice a bit shaky from adrenaline when I spat out, “What the hell are you talking about? You just tried to kill me, remember, not the other way around. I don’t even know you. What did I ever do to you?” Then a thought came to me. “Did someone send you? Was it Usher?” I can’t believe this. I finally meet someone who is like me, who maybe even has some answers, and she is a murderer. “So tell me, how does someone like you hear the thoughts and feelings of others, see the world through their eyes, then gun them down