Free Oppression by Jessica Therrien

considered this a second residence.
    “Would you like some tea?” he asked, finally finding what he was searching for.
    Not wanting to be rude, I accepted and let my eyes wander some more as he prepared it.
    “Why aren’t you asking questions?” He set the tea in front of me and sat behind his desk. “I know you have many.”
    “Oh,” I answered. I did have questions, lots of questions. I just wasn’t used to someone being willing to answer them.
    “Let’s start with your ability,” he pushed past my lack of response. His eyebrows raised in curiosity. “You are familiar with the process.”
    I returned his calculating stare with an unnerving look.
    “Well, yes and no. I know my blood can heal, but how does it work exactly?” I realized he might know more than I thought. “Can I heal anybody ?”
    “Yes, essentially, and anybody can heal you. You’re our cure as much as we are yours. However, there are some specifics you don’t seem to be aware of. Only the blood from your right side heals.”
    “My left side doesn’t heal?” I’d always been too scared to experiment with it. Aside from the one time with Anna, William had been the only other person I’d healed.
    “Your left side contains a very unique poison. A small amount may only paralyze a victim, but in larger doses, it is lethal.”
    Poison? The thought made my insides writhe with guilt, and I felt sick. What if Kara’s blade had hit me in the left leg? I would have poisoned William.
    “I had no idea,” I said in disbelief. I thought briefly of the day Anna and I had exchanged blood, and how lucky we had been that she had grabbed my healing hand and not the poisonous one. “I’m assuming the poison has the same effect on . . . humans?” It felt strange to think of Anna as human, as if I was setting myself apart from her. Were we really that different?
    His face became uncomfortable. “We aren’t allowed to use abilities on humans, Elyse, but yes. Your blood would heal them or hurt them all the same.”
    It took me a while to register the first part of what he had said. “Why wouldn’t I be allowed to heal a human?” I asked, worried about the fact that I already had.
    “It’s the law. A very rigid law.”
    I decided to keep that secret to myself, just in case.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t raised in a community. My parents sort of kept all of this from me. They didn’t tell me there were others.”
    “They did what they had to, for the good of our world, for your own good.”
    “What does that mean?” I asked frustrated. “William said something about everyone waiting for the last healer. How did he know me? How do any of you know me?”
    “He’s eager,” Iosif answered with a secret smile, “and he’s right. We have been waiting for you, and it’s very important that you don’t let anyone know who you are. No one else has figured it out yet.”
    I laughed. “Okay, that will be pretty easy since I don’t even know who I am.”
    “Well it’s time you know. I brought you here for that very reason,” he said, settling into a more serious posture, “to tell you the truth about us and about yourself. Over the centuries, our kind has been oppressed. The powers that be have grown accustomed to the amount of control they keep.” He spoke with intense eyes and cautious ears. “Before you were born, my wife had a vision of one who would bring an end to it, whose destiny was so deeply intertwined in the fate of the future, that she must be protected. That night, we sought out the parents who would bring this unborn child into the world and told them that they must live apart from the communities and keep their child in the dark about who she truly was. That child is you, and now the time has come.”
    “I don’t understand. The time has come for what?”
    “For you to fulfill the prophecy, lead the war, save us from the enemy,” he said, his arms gesturing with enthusiasm.
    A burst of laughter came rolling out