The Gifted

Prologue

Maya Park always suspected she wasn't normal, and now that her parents were arguing about it, she was sure. The certainty settled in as a heavy weight on her shoulders, and she chewed on her bottom lip. A homeschooled girl of only twelve, how was she supposed to know what was natural and what was not? She lived on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, Colorado, with no neighbors to play with or classmates to compare herself to. How was she supposed to know that most kids don't magically heal their papercuts with the gentle press of a fingertip? That they don't literally kiss their bruises away?

Her parents were arguing in Korean—they always argued in Korean because they'd only taught her a very, very basic understanding of it for the sole purpose that she wouldn't be able to understand their complex yelling. The joke was on them. Maya had been using a language learning website for two years, erasing her browser history after every late-night session. Her grammar was terrible, but she understood enough.

"I don't know what to do," Mommy said, rubbing her temples. More fine lines appeared on her face every week, and her entire head was already gray. She was only forty. "This isn't normal!"

"So what, Rim?" Daddy was frustrated—he rarely called his wife by her name. It was usually sweetheart or dear or honey. "Who cares? She's our little girl. I don't care what this is. Ignore it and move on."

"Ignore it?" Mommy let out a long, drawn out laugh, the kind that comes from someone who doesn't know what else to say.

Maya had heard enough, and she stood up quietly from where she'd been sitting on the third step. They loved her, she knew that, but they weren't handling her ability very well. She wished she'd kept it to herself in the first place so they didn't have to worry about it the way they did now, twenty-four-hours a day, seven days a week. Their concerns made no sense; she didn't understand what they meant by danger or what else is out there? or what if someone takes her away?

It was because of all that confusing talk that she'd kept her mouth shut about her other ability. Not only could she heal, but sometimes, she heard voices. She saw things in dreams that felt so unnaturally real. On more than one occasion, she'd found herself standing in their driveway and staring down the road, a strange tugging sensation urging her to go, to just go.

And there was the screaming, too.

It came as Maya was quietly walking up the stairs to her room. She ran the rest of the way with her hands clamped over her ears, but the voice was in her head and could not be physically silenced. It was a man screaming at the top of his lungs like he was in pain, like something inside of him was writhing and trying to get out, cutting him open in the process. It was horrifying—the scream was ear-splitting loud but far away at the same time, and it happened so often that she'd memorized the voice and wanted to know what it sounded like when it wasn't screaming. She had no idea who he was, if he was young or old, if he even lived on the same continent, if he knew that she could hear him.

The only thing Maya was sure about was that she wanted it to stop, needed it to, and maybe if she found him, it would. She would ask nicely: shut up, please.

Maya started packing a backpack. Her movements were robotic, her thoughts completely linear. A few shirts, yes. Underwear, of course. Pants. One skirt (in case it got hot). A toothbrush, a travel tube of toothpaste, and toilet paper just in case. A Mets baseball cap she'd grown fond of. The money she'd guiltily stolen from Mommy's purse when this idea first crossed her mind, nearly a year ago. A fold out map of the entirety of the United States, though the labels were so small that she doubted it would help.

At midnight, one hour after her parents called it a night and went into a fitful, nightmarish sleep, Maya Park stood in her driveway, warm inside the clothes she'd layered on. The world was dark, and she had only a small flashlight to lead her along the road. The tugging sensation was pulling at her now—go west. He's west.

She had no idea how she was going to locate this man, or what would happen when she did. What she did know was that she would find him, and something would happen.

Hopefully something good.