The Gifted (Privat)

Later that night, Tempi, Stella and Rose hang out in the dorm they share.
"So, what did you and lake-boy talk about?" Rose asks as she plays with the fire in her hand. Rose can create fire with her bare hands , which is pretty cool.
"Not much, coffee and school. And it was mostly his friend who did the talking, he really has high thoughts about himself" Tempi says and rolls her eyes. She tries on the red dress she is thinking of wearing tonight.
"That's prefect, and add the necklace with the stone your mum gave you" says Stella and hands it to her. She is wearing a short sleeved shirt, pants and her usual gloves.
"You're going bold tonight, S" says Tempi and points at her bare arms, "aren't you afraid someone will bump into you?"
"Well, if they do, they'll regret it" says Stella with a grin. Even though I she jokes it off, Tempi knows that inside, Stella is really hurting because of her Gift. Imagine never being able to touch anyone, not being able to have your own kids and miss out on kissing the love of your life. Stella stretches and lies down on the bed.
"Can you please hurry? I can hear the music from here" she says and Tempi puts the finishing touches on her appearance for tonight. What seems like blue scales starts from her head and moves down to her toes. As the scales progress down, her appearance changes. Her face looks the same, but her hair and makeup are different.
"I say it every time, I wish it took me two seconds to get ready too" says Rose as they're walking down through the school to the lake.

Outside, they've done great job; decorations, a big bonfire and a few barbecues, making tonight's dinner. There are around 25 people already there, and more are coming. The girls get non-alcoholic drinks (the school is very strict with age limits), and they sit down on one of the benches next to the fire.

It's getting late and the sun has started setting, coloring my walls a beautiful orange color. I'm laying on my bed in my dorm room listening to music when I hear a knock on my door. I get up to answer it and I'm not very surprised by who's behind it.
"Jeez, is that what you'll be wearing? Atleast brush your hair!" Of course it's Patrick, who else would visit me? I look down at my clothes and shrug. Patrick laughs and shakes his head before he marches into my room. He starts looking through my closet and picks out another shirt for me. "Here, wear this", he says and neatens my hair a little.
"Yes, mom". We both laugh.
"So, lets go?" I look outside the window where I can see the lake beautifully decorated. There's a good amount of people out there already.
"I suppose so" I say and walk out the door with Patrick, making sure to lock it.

We get down to the lake and we go our separate ways. Patrick's playing beer pong with some guys and I sit near the bonfire talking to a girl from my history class. We talk about music, but she's doing most of the talking. I wish I was running laps around the lake instead of pretending to like this horrible music. My thoughts travel back to this morning when I was running. I really wish there was a way for me to make more time for it. Eventually the girl leaves, when she notices I'm not really paying too much attention.
I spot Tempi at the bonfire with her friend Stella. She did say she hopes to see me and Patrick here, should I go up and talk to her?
Tempi's friend notices me and I give her a friendly smile. She doesn't seem to like me a lot, but on the other hand she doesn't seem to like anyone except her closest friends.

As the music changes from nice pop to techno, the kind of music Tempi hates, she sighs and looks around the area while listening to Stella talking. That's one of the best things about Stella, she talks so much she doesn't notice when you space out, she'll even do it for you. As a random guy from school wearing a t-shirt sits down next to her, she flinches and stands up, her reflexes have become very good since she discovered her Gift. She has never told Tempi or anyone else how she discovered it, but Tempi assumes it probably wasn't a very great experience for her. She usually never talks about her Gift, which makes it hard for her to make new friends, since that's mostly what you're talking about here. Tempi notices that Stella looks at someone briefly before looking back at her. Tempi follows her eyes and sees the lake-boy. She smiles and stands up, leaving Stella in the middle of a sentence (not that she notices). She goes up to Shawn and sits down next to him.
"I see you made it" she says and smiles. She takes a sip from her drink and looks out over the area again, she has a feeling that the drinks in the beer pong and the other games are probably not served by the school, considering that the people around them start to behave different than usual.

A familiar voice interrupts me from my thoughts. It's Tempi sitting next to me. Stella clearly didn't see where she went based on her confused look. I wonder what her gift is. Could it have something to do with those gloves she always wears? Maybe she has some kind of ice powers like the queen from that frozen movie. She wears gloves too.
"Yeah, I did" I tell Tempi, trying to think of something to talk about. What would Patrick say? "So where does your name come from? Temperance, I've never heard it before" I say. I realize how stupid that must have sounded, and that's certainly nothing that Patrick would say. Who cares about names? Well it's too late now, what's said is said.
God, I need to stop being such a nervous wreck around everyone who isn't a close friend.

"It's nothing big actually, but apparently it means balance in tarot cards, and my mum and dad felt that I created balance in their relationship when she got pregnant with me, really cheesy though" Tempi says and laughs. She shakes her head at the thought. She knew that her mum and dad had have some sort of tension between them right before her mum got pregnant, because she had just told him about her Gift. Tempi guesses it was because her dad wasn't sure if he loved her mum for real or because of her Gift. Of course, now he knows it's out of love. She is about to open her mouth and say something to Shawn when a scream echoes through the lake area. She turns around, and in front of Stella lies another student. Stella's eyes are wide open and the guy on the ground screams in pain.
"What the h*ll did you do?" He screams and Stella is shocked to silence. Everyone is watching the guy raising his arm towards Stella as he launches a big ice block. Stella is frozen with fear and shock. Nobody's reacting.
"Don't touch her!" Tempi screams and runs towards Stella and the guy; the blue scales change her yet again. This time it's not a new hairdo, makeup or face that appear. As the scales progress down, a wolf appears. The wolf jumps in between the guy and Stella, and the ice block hits the wolf in the stomach, causing it to hit the ground, hard. Stella runs from the lake and away from the school. Tempi swears she heard her crying. She transform back into herself again, and the guy on the ground is panting, but it seems like the pain is gone.

Suddenly I hear a loud scream and I stand up, looking at the guy and Stella, baffled. I don't know what to do, and I feel stupid because that guy right there is my friend. His name is Steven, another close friend of mine. Stella takes off towards the woods and my first reaction is to run after her, but at the same time I wanna stay and help Steven, so I stay, which I later realize was not the best idea. Now she'll just run farther and be harder to find. I may not know her but I still don't want her to get herself in trouble.
This is not something unusual. Gifts cause trouble a lot in this school, but still no one has ran away because of it. I run towards Tempi and Steven. Steven's laying on the ground, so I help him get back on his feet. He's all hot and sweaty, but I'm not sure if it's because of what happened or if he just generally is.
"Do you need anything?" I ask him. He shakes his head and I help him sit down on the bench. He seems tired. I turn to look at Tempi. Just a second ago she was a wolf and now she's back to her normal self. I knew she was a shapeshifter but I didn't know it was that easy for her to just shift. Does she even really look like that?
Anyway, this is not the right time to be thinking about this, I tell myself.
"What happened? Should run after her? Do you know where she might go?" I ask her before I turn back to Steven. He looks nauseous, and the second after that thought crosses my mind he's throwing up all over himself. A group of people have gathered around us, and Steven's girlfriend comes to take my place.

Tempi watches Shawn help the guy, who apparently is named Steven. She goes up to them and holds a hand on her stomach where the ice block hit her before. At least the blow was not as hard as it had been if it had hit her in her human form, wolves are stronger built than people after all.
“I have no idea where she went, but I better go find her before curfew” she says to answer Shawns questions and looks over at the direction which Stella ran off in. She looks back at Steven.
“You’ll probably feel nauseous for a minute or so, it should get better” she says and Steven looks at her.
“What was that? I don’t know what happened” he says and Tempi sighs.
“It’s her Gift. If you touch her bare skin with yours, you’ll get in pain. She hoped that she was the only one wearing a t-shirt tonight, but apparently she was wrong” Tempi says as Stevens girlfriend goes up to him, she’s not looking very happy. Tempi sighs. For two years, Stella has been able to keep her Gift a secret, and the one time she tries to go bold, it goes wrong. Where can she be? Tempi turns to Shawn.
“I’m going to go after her, I think she might be at the big rock down in the woods, the one where you can see the whole city from” she says. She looks over at the people around them, some are going towards the school, and others are trying to get the party back on its feet.

I step aside to give space for Steven. I hear what Tempi says to Steven about Stella's gift. Her gift seems to be a pretty tough one to handle. I certainly wouldn't want it, and I can just imagine how rough it is for Stella to have to deal with it. She has to live in constant fear of someone touching her. Maybe this is why she acts like she does. I don't really know Stella, but it seems like she pushes people she doesn't know away a lot. Maybe so she won't hurt them.
Someone would probably pay a fortune to get their hands on Stella's gift. It's a gift that's easy to abuse if it gets into the wrong hands.

I agree with Tempi. Someone has to go after Stella, to make sure she doesn't get lost and hurt herself or someone else. I nod towards Tempi.
"I should come with you. The forest is pretty mazy, you could get lost, and if she tries to run away I can catch her easily", I say. As long as I don't touch her, I think to myself. "Or do you want to go alone, so you two can talk about it? She probably really needs a friend right now. But I can come with you if you want to", I continue.
The crowd slowly lessens and Steven is soon pretty much forgotten. Everyone's back to dancing, drinking or talking. Stevens girlfriend leads Steven back to his room to rest.

"It would be great if you could come with me, especially if she runs off, just make sure that to grab her by her legs if you do, she can only hurt you if you touch her bare skin" Tempi says and starts walking towards the woods. No one bothers to wish them good luck or goes to grab a teacher, it's probably one of those events that the students will keep to themselves. Tempi looks over at Shawn.
"So, your gift must be pretty cool, running that fast. Do stuff around you slow down when you run?" she asks. Tempi and her friends rarely speak about their gifts, because of Stella. It's nice to do it, for a change.

I lighten up with a smile. Finally, I haven't been outside the school yard in so long. I follow Tempi towards the dark woods. Us students aren't allowed to go there. We don't know why. There are many stories about monster, drug dealers and other things that might be hiding in the woods. I'm not so sure about the monster, but drug dealers, maybe.
"Yeah, it's pretty nice. I've actually never really thought about that. But I suppose so. It feels like it atleast, now that I think about it. Your gift seems way cooler thought. If you shape shifted to look like something that runs fast, couldn't you do it too?" I ask with genuine curiosity.