Blood Challenge by Eileen Wilks

personal life around the job,” Lily said agreeably. It occurred to her that she and Sjorensen were alone. She’d probably better bring up what she’d learned when they shook hands. Might not get another chance. “I need to ask you something. Have you had training for your Gift?”
    “What? What are you talking about?”
    “You’ve got a minor patterning Gift. Have you had training?’
    Sjorensen turned icicle. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing. I’m not Gifted.”
    “I’m afraid you’re wrong about that. Patterning is a rare Gift, so you might not have heard of it.”
    “I haven’t.”
    “And it doesn’t always manifest in an obvious way. Do you sometimes have runs of extremely good luck? Or extremely bad? Bizarre coincidences?”
    “I don’t—” Her breath hitched, quick and telling. “I don’t believe you came to Nashville to discuss my luck, or lack of it.”
    “No, but you don’t know anything about the case, so we might as well get this covered. Patterning can be a dangerous Gift if you don’t learn how to use it—and how to avoid tapping into it. Otherwise, a bad mood can turn into anything from a flat tire to a five-car pileup.” The young woman’s face was a mix of confusion and suspicion. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. I usually don’t, but patterning’s potentially a—”
    “I was tested,” Sjorensen blurted out. “Before I left Quantico, I was tested. I know you’re a sensitive, but you’re wrong about me.”
    Lily’s eyebrows rose. Testing for Gifts was not standard practice at Quantico. It probably should be, but there weren’t enough qualified testers. “You know why you were picked to be tested?”
    She shrugged. “They never told me. They don’t test everyone, so I thought maybe … but they didn’t find anything. No magic at all.”
    “That was before the Turning.”
    “Well—yeah. It was just before I graduated, so that would be about six months before the Turning hit.”
    “You do know that some people had a Gift wake up then, right? The theory is that they had a nascent or potential Gift, but until then lacked the magic to kick-start it. The power storms changed that.”
    “I thought … I thought that was urban legend. They—this show I watched—they debunked it. And I haven’t been starting fires or anything else weird.” She frowned. “Everyone gets flat tires sometimes.”
    “I don’t know what show you watched, but ‘they’ were wrong. As for doing anything weird …” Lily tipped her head, considering the way Sjorensen had been singled out for testing. “Did you ever consider joining the Unit?”
    Big blue eyes blinked several times. “I did. I do,” she corrected herself firmly. “I know there are a few in the Unit who aren’t Gifted, so it’s possible. Though now you say I am Gifted, so I …” Confusion overtook her.
    “Uh-huh. And you just happened to be assigned to babysit someone who could tell you that yes, you do have a Gift. Someone who works in the Unit. You don’t call that weird?”
    Sjorensen’s jaw dropped. Alarm widened her eyes. “But I got the assignment because Matt came down with a stomach bug. He was supposed to pick you up, not me, but he … are you saying I made him get sick?”
    “In a roundabout way, yes, that’s likely.” Lily was brisk. Sjorensen had to understand the possible consequences of her Gift. “As I understand it, there had to be a chance he’d get sick anyway. You’re not very powerful, so there was probably a good chance of it. Your Gift bumped it up from ‘a good chance’ to actually happening. That’s why you have to be trained. I’ll call Ruben.”
    “What? What? You mean Ruben Brooks? You’re going to call him about me?”
    “He’ll want to know.” The glow on the young woman’s face made Lily realize she’d raised hopes. “This isn’t a recruitment or anything. I can’t recommend you—I don’t know you. But you need that Gift