Unaltered #2_A Diamond in my Heart

by Lorena Angell

  I heard footsteps coming and reached my hand out and grasped Brand’s arm out of concern. Maetha rounded the corner and joined us behind the shed.

  “Who are you?” Brand asked with a rather rude tone of voice. I could tell he was debating whether or not to use his power.

  “It’s OK Brand, this is Maetha, she’s with me. She helped me understand my power and the dangers associated with it. She can help you too.”

  “I don’t need anyone’s help.” Brand shuffled his feet with uneasiness.

  Maetha asked him, “Are you aware of other powers and abilities out there?”

  “What, like besides Calli’s healing and monsters in the dark? No.”

  “When did you first see the Demons?” Maetha didn’t mince words, she launched right into the questions.

  “I can’t see them; I only know that if I walk into the dark, I get attacked.”

  “But then you repeat time and remove yourself from the situation, right?” Maetha concluded.

  “Were you spying on us? How do you know about my repeating?”

  “I’ve been ‘spying’, yes. I instructed Calli to demonstrate her healing ability to you.”

  Brand let out an exhale. “As long as I don’t stay in any situation longer than two minutes or long enough to die, I can have a ‘do over’. After all this time, two minutes is constantly counting down in my head.”

  “Have the Demons been in the shadows all of your life?” Maetha asked.

  “No, only since I discovered I had this ability to fix the problems in my life; so, a couple of years. It seems much, much longer than that, though. Hey, if you two know so much, then tell me how to get rid of the Demons.”

  I looked at Maetha who only stared at him. She was waiting for me to break the great news. “We don’t know, Brand. Light pushes them back, but you probably already know that. However, I have some experiments I’d like to do with the Demons and you could help me.”

  Maetha placed her hand on my arm and spoke telepathically. “Calli, the gang of boys gathered more friends and are searching for Brand. They are coming.”

  “Can you teleport, Maetha?” I was joking, but also trying to think of a way to deal with the issue at hand.

  Brand didn’t know we were having a private conversation and he responded to my request. “Oh sure, I get it, you just want me around so I can be your Guinea Pig.”

  “Yeah, pretty much. You have a problem with that?”

  “No, why would I have a problem with the flesh being ripped from my bones?”

  Maetha spoke in an authoritative voice instructing us to follow her. “Follow me now.”

  My legs moved immediately carrying my body in the direction Maetha wanted me to go. I glanced over at Brand who was looking at me with a stunned expression as his legs did the same thing.

  “What’s happening?” Brand’s male voice sounded surprisingly feminine.

  “I’m moving us to safety,” Maetha said calmly.

  As soon as we repositioned ourselves behind a bush across the pathway from the maintenance shack, a large group of about twenty scary looking boys, including the ones Brand had rendered incapable only minutes before, rounded the corner and walked past the shack.

  “How did you know they were coming? Can you repeat time too?”

  “No, I can see the future, Brand. I saw them forming their group and begin their hunt for you. If we’d remained behind the shack, they would have found you.”

  “You can’t see the future!”

  “I find it fascinating, Brand, that you are so quick to reject the existence of superpowers when you yourself possess one.”

  “I just keep thinking my ability will go away someday, like it was something I ate, or the result of radiation or gamma rays like the Hulk. Every day when I wake up I test my ability to see if it’s still there, and every night I avoid the shadows. But this, you two, she is a Healer, you see the future, this is more than I can take in and compute.”

  I looked at Maetha who read my mind and answered telepathically. “For now, only display the healing ability. Teach him about the will of nature; help him to understand that repeating time for his own gain could be dangerous. Help him stay out of trouble, Calli. I am needed by the others and I must go.”

  Maetha stepped away from the safety of the bush and vanished before our eyes.

  “Whoa! Where’d she go?” Brand walked into the space Maetha had occupied only moments before. He spun in a circle with his arms flailing wildly. “She was right here!”

  “I’m just as confused as you, Brand. But ever since I met Maetha, she keeps surprising me.”

  “Calli, did she make your legs move too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That was so cool! I want that power then I could make people do what I say.”

  “Brand, I have a lot to teach you about the world of powers, but for now, we’d better get ourselves to a safer location.”

  We walked through the park keeping our eyes peeled for the group of thugs who wanted Brand’s head. At one point we saw them coming the other way and diverted off into an arcade with multiple exits. I tried to look into his future to see if this move would be successful but I couldn’t get anywhere. His power was a virtual roadblock.

  “Do we need to repeat?”

  “I already did, Calli. We ran into them up ahead by the Wack-a-Mole game. There were too many and I didn’t really want to fight, so I repeated back here.”

  “Wow, this is messed up, Brand.”

  “Tell me about it. I figure if I ever find myself with an injury, I have a personal doctor at my disposal.”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t bring you back from the dead, so you better be careful.”

  We exited out the side door and wandered the park. As we wandered over the next couple of hours, I informed him about the cosmic energy rays and how he wasn’t that far off in thinking he’d been exposed to radiation. I gave a brief explanation about the different known abilities, the Healers, Readers, Seers, Hunters and Runners, and how his power is a new development. Maetha was investigating some others like him, but hadn’t figured out what their power was until today.

  I told him about the clans and how people of powers have been around forever. I left out the part about the diamonds, and the events which took place with the destruction of the Death Clan. I didn’t tell him Maetha’s age, or say anything about unaltered humans.

  When I began to tell him about the will of nature, he took my hand and pulled me toward a game booth. “Come on, Calli, I’ll win you a stuffed animal.”

  “No you won’t, you’ll cheat. You’ll repeat until you win, all on the same amount of money.”

  “So, I still have to beat the game. I’ll pull you along so you can see how many times it takes me to win.”

  Well, how could I resist that temptation? “Alright, win me the large puppy.”

  Brand went up to the vendor and gave him the money for three baseballs. He would need to break a plate, and not just any plate, but one with a prize sticker behind it to get the smallest prize. He would have to break three winning plates to win the big puppy. He raised his arm and hurled the ball hitting one plate directly in the center busting it into three pieces. I’d forgotten he was the star quarterback. His plate wasn’t a winner so he threw the next ball and the last, each breaking a plate. One plate had a winning sticker and the vendor reached up to a hanging cord and waggled it wildly. The cord was attached to a cow bell up in the top of the booth and was obviously meant to attract attention.

  “And what does the lady want?” The vendor smiled revealing a few missing teeth. I chose a small purple lizard with huge bulging eyes.

  Brand took my hand and said, “Second row down, third plate from the left is a winner.” The air around us whooshed and everything went blurry for a microsecond. I blinked and it was over. We were back to standing at the game booth with Brand being handed the three balls.

  He immediately aimed at the known winning plate and smashed it to pi
eces. The cow bell clanked its aggravating sound, the toothless vendor asked for my selection and I was handed the lizard. Then Brand threw the two remaining balls and broke two non-winning plates.

  I looked at him curiously. “It would seem to me that you should break other plates first and save the winner for last.”

  “Yeah, yeah, everyone’s a critic. Come on,” he took my hand and repeated back to the same spot as before.

  This time, with the first ball, he was able to locate a winning plate on the bottom row directly in the center. The vendor rang the blasted bell.

  “And what does the lady want?” The decayed condition of his remaining teeth was a good reminder to always brush after meals. I chose the lizard and Brand threw the second ball at the second row down, third plate from the left and smashed it with perfect accuracy. Again with the cow bell, ugh, and the vendor allowed me to trade up to a medium prize. I chose the monkey with the long curly tail. Finally, Brand picked up the last ball and held it out near my mouth and told me to blow on it. I rolled my eyes and puffed on the ball and then watched as he threw it to the center bottom row plate…and missed it.

  I was surprised Brand hadn’t repeated time yet, and even more surprised when he pulled out more money and bought three more balls.

  “My lady wants the big dog, so I’ll have to break another winning plate.”

  The vendor was ecstatic and rang his irritating, attention-getting bell even harder. Brand on the other hand, aimed at a plate he hadn’t hit before; no win. He wound up and threw the second ball at another new plate; no win. The third ball flew from his fingertips but not in the direction of the winning plate on the bottom row. Instead it crashed into another new plate sending pieces flying. A winning plate!

  The vendor clanked his bell ridiculously and then reached for the big puppy with a hook on a long pole. He gave it to Brand so Brand could give it to me. By this time, we’d drawn a lot of attention from the other park attendees.

  “Why didn’t you repeat? Why did you purchase more tries? And why didn’t you go after the plate on the bottom row?”

  “Sometimes I like to spice things up, like the last football game of the season. I stopped repeating my throws so we could lose and be done with it. This little amusement park game was a metaphor to my life; sometimes I stick with one thing until I succeed, and other times I let chance determine if I’ll succeed. You probably noticed that the same things happened each time we repeated, like the crowd was always the same, the same people looked our way when the toothless wonder would ring the bell and the man always stood in the same place to hand me the set of balls. This is how I won the fight you saw earlier; I knew when I was going to be punched and I’d repeat until I could avoid the punch. Every hit and punch hurt, especially the knife to my gut, but repeating takes my body back, not my memories, the same as you just witnessed.” He placed his hand on the small of my back and guided me through the crowd. Then he took my hand and whooshed me back to the moment he handed me the stuffed puppy.

  I looked at him with question in my eyes.

  “They are headed in our direction. Let’s go the other way.” He guided me the other direction away from the crowd. We walked briskly without looking back and once we’d put enough distance between us and the gang, he stopped me by a bench and took the puppy out of my arms and placed it down.

  “Calli, why can’t I ever convince you to go out with me?”

  “Back to this, are we?”

  “You know all those times I tried to get you to say yes, and how I’d get frustrated with you and ask why you were so persistent?”

  “Yeah, you’d get upset so quickly.”

  “That’s what you saw. Truth was I’d repeated several times until the point where I’d snap. My snapping became the version you saw and remembered. Don’t you like me, Calli?”

  “Brand, you’re not my kind of guy. I think we can be good friends, but I don’t see you in any other way.” I tried to let him down easily.

  “Just a friend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can friends hug?” He executed the ‘dimples’, his only true weapon in softening a girl’s heart.

  “Yeah, as long as you don’t try anything.”

  He opened his arms in invitation for my hug. Somewhere in the back of my mind I realized Suz was watching this from a distance and yet it didn’t stop me. I stepped into his embrace and hugged him like I would hug my father. I can’t speak for him, but I don’t believe for a second he was hugging me like he would his mother. Brand was an opportunist and I’d just fallen into his opportunistic arms.

  I pushed him away and scanned the area and found the backside of Suz’s head as she walked away. Strangely, I didn’t feel sad. I guess after finding out she’d set the firecracker in middle school, I’d distanced myself from her. I realized she’d never really been a good friend to me but I was more of a burden to her.

  I thought about her infatuation with Brand and how it must really hurt her to see me hugging him, but instead of empathizing with her, I decided to get to the bottom of why Brand had shunned her.

  “Brand, what happened with Suz? Why did you break off your friendship?”

  “I’ll only tell you this if you swear you won’t tell Suz.”

  “Suz and I aren’t friends anymore. Besides, I’m a vault, Brand.” More than you know.

  “I was making out with Suz one day when my mother busted in on us and revealed I was making out with my half-sister. My father and her mother had an affair and Suz is the result. I knew about my parents' rocky beginnings but I never knew who he cheated with. I was able to repeat back to before my mother came in and save Suz from embarrassment. I’ve had to give her the cold shoulder to suppress her attractions to me. I suppose I could just tell her why and develop a brother/sister relationship but that would devastate her. Honestly, Calli, I believe I did the right thing by getting her out of the house before my mother ruined her life.”

  “Yeah, I agree. I won’t tell her.”

  “Can I have another hug?”

  “Nope.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  I looked at him for a long moment. “I tell you in two and a half minutes.”

  “Damn, you got me figured out.”

  “How many times did you ask me for a hug?”

  “Many.”

  “So, what did you alter to soften me?”

  “Winning the stuffed puppy for you, but doing it by chance, that softened your eyes. Then I knew you’d be more likely to give me a hug.”

  “Let me guess, you thought by answering my question about Suz you’d be able to soften me some more, right?”

  He nodded.

  “So, now you figure I have a guy?”

  “No, you told me you did when I tried to kiss you.”

  I slugged his arm… hard! “You tried to take advantage of me? You’re a pig, Brand.”

  “Well, you may be right, but I have to say, you are the strongest willed girl I’ve ever met and you’re the only one who I can’t seem to win over, so, you have my complete respect.”

  “His name is Chris Harding, and he’s going to kick your ass someday.”

  The rest of the day played out without incident, well, it was repeated so many times that the end result was without incident. After a few repeats, I asked Brand to leave me behind for the rest. It truly was exhausting to have two minutes repeat itself multiple times. We didn’t always go back two whole minutes, sometimes it was only thirty seconds or less, however long it took to reset the situation giving us the advantage over the slew of angry boys hunting for Brand.

  One bad thing about the day was that being with Brand prevented me from riding any rides. The lines were long and the rides were all at least a minute long, some two minutes, so repeating out of a bad situation was next to impossible.

  On the bus ride home, Suz sat with her other friends throwing me dirty looks. I closed my eyes, so I wouldn’t be tempted to read any lips, and fell asleep.

&n
bsp; Chapter 6 - Deadly Shadows

  Brand shook my shoulder waking me from my deep sleep. “Calli, what am I going to do?”

  I noted the panic immediately. I looked out the window of the bus and realized right away what his panic was all about. Apparently our sleepy little town had been hit by a lightning storm and the power was out. We were nearing the high school driving down the eerily darkened Main Street.

  “We’ll figure it out, Brand. Don’t panic.”

  “Don’t panic? Are you kidding me?” His voice raised into a high pitched whisper I was sure everyone could hear. “Calli, repeating will only put me back on this bus. And you say don’t panic? Oh, I’m panicking! There’s much panicking going on here!”

  I knew he was possibly in big trouble. I wish I’d had time to develop some tools or gadgets to ward off the Demons that Brand could use at this very moment. I knew once he was safely in his car, he’d be safe. He’d drive home and pull into his lighted garage… crap, I thought, his garage will be dark as well. He’d have to stay inside his vehicle till the lights came back on.

  The whole situation made me wonder what people of powers did before electricity. Did they carry lit torches with them at all times?

  We pulled into the darkened high school parking lot and the murmurs and whispers of everyone else increased. “Brand, we’ll leave the bus last.” That would give me time to think of a solution.

  One by one, everyone exited the bus and soon we were the only ones left.

  “Everyone off.” The driver sounded tired.

  I walked up to him and said the first thing that came to my mind. “My friend here is deathly afraid of the dark and this power outage is only making it worse. Would you mind holding up just a second longer while I drive my car around here to the door?”

  “Hurry it up, then.”

  I looked back at Brand and jumped off the bus. The Demons were thick around the bus and continuing to gather. I hurried and unlocked my car and climbed in. I drove it quickly around the lot and up onto the sidewalk with the passenger door next to the bus door. I reached over and opened the door toward Brand who stood on the bottom step of the bus. The light spilled out from the interior of my car and I saw the Demons fade.