Color-Gifted (Color-Gifted, #1)

Chapter Fourteen

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

            “That’s terrible.”

            “I know.”

            “She must be . . .”

            “Yeah.”

            Sandra sweeps back her long dark hair with one hand, frowning. “There has to be something we can do to help.”

            I sigh, focusing on the movement of our feet as we head towards the dining hall for lunch. Myra texted me saying she’d already gotten there, and so I met up with Sandra, whose classes are nearest to mine. On the way, I told her everything I learned about Neveah earlier today.

            “I don’t know, Sandra.” I shrug half-heartedly. “I don’t know.”

            “Maybe we can’t go out looking for Mr. Wallace, but we can at least be there for her.”

            I give her a wan smile. “You’d be the one to do that.”

            Sandra gives me a small mock-disapproving nudge with her shoulder, as we near the dining hall.

            Her touch reminds me. “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I say. “What’s the difference exactly between what Blues and Yellows sense? I don’t really get it yet.”

            Sandra looks slightly disconcerted from the rapid change in subject, but she answers anyway. “Well, Yellows sense the emotional state of a person more, whereas Blues sense character more—intentions, motives, and the rest. Blues have a more general sense of the person and the reasons why they do what they do, and we Yellows sense emotions.”

            “Okay,” I say, as Sandra opens the dining hall doors, “so you’re telling me that Blues can sense more of why someone does something, or their motives, or genuineness, and Yellows sense how they feel.”

            Sandra brightens as we grab our trays. “Not bad.”

            “So when you met Neveah, could you sense she was in a bad state emotionally?” I grab a ready-made pasta salad; I can’t be bothered to get anything else at the moment.

            “Well, it takes time for all of our powers to develop and grow, so you’ve got to keep in mind that our abilities get stronger as we work on them—but yes, I could feel that something was wrong. Really wrong.”

            I mull this over as we head over to our usual booth by the windows. Sandra slides in next to Keene and I park my tray opposite hers, next to Evan. Myra waves at me from the corner she’s in and I smile at her cheeks, bulging with a chunk of the sandwich in her hands.

 “Aren’t you gonna sit down?” Evan asks with a teasing half-smile, eyebrows raised.

            I promptly ignore the butterflies that migrate to my stomach at the sound of his voice; instead, I wave at my tray. “Do you see any green tea here?”