Pulse of Heroes

by A. Jacob Sweeny

  “What?” Elliot asked, exhausted and irritated as Ando sprinted across the street to stand with the rest of them. The guys stood looking back and forth at each other and then at Michelle, who began feeling a sense of dread creeping up her throat. Eventually, Ando took charge of the situation and told Michelle that something urgent had come up and that they needed to talk to Elliot, alone.

  “Ando will explain things to you later,” Rion said without looking at her. Something felt very wrong and Michelle tightened her grip around Elliot’s fingers.

  “Just tell me,” Elliot demanded shortly. Rion began speaking to him in a strange harsh sounding language, his voice rising and falling to match his story. It was obvious that he was angry, and every once in a while he looked at Michelle, but she couldn’t read his eyes when they glowed like that. Elliot responded back in the same language, and Michelle was surprised at how much deeper his voice sounded. There was intensity in the way he annunciated each syllable and vowel. Devin pulled out a bundle of white fabric from inside his jacket and tossed it over to Elliot who caught it midair in one hand. Elliot rubbed his fingers across the fabric, and Michelle felt each and every one of his muscles tense up right behind her. He let go of her hand and unrolled the bundle to reveal a spatter of dark stains across it. His eyes began glowing just like the rest of his friends.

  “Elliot, what’s happening? What’s going on?” she whispered over her shoulder to him. Elliot said something else in that strange language and then led her away from his friends. Michelle looked back at them hoping to see them leaving, but when they just stood there and avoided her gaze she became frightened. Elliot stopped in front of the stairs leading up to the clock tower and sat down on the bottom step.

  “Sit down,” he said. Michelle sat on the cold step dreading whatever it was that he had to tell her. Had she done something bad? Were they in some kind of terrible trouble? There was sadness written all over Elliot’s face. He looked in her eyes, then at her hair, then at her quivering lips.

  “What is it?” she practically screamed, unable to take not knowing anymore. Elliot swallowed hard. That he would be forced to say these next words tonight of all nights was something that he had never imagined. What bad fortune he thought, looking at the night sky. Where was the damn moon?

  “Michelle… this is really hard for me to say, because I don’t want it to be true. I… I actually can’t believe it, but I have to. I’m left with no choice.” He swallowed again and took Michelle’s hand. “I have to leave.”

  “For how long?” Michelle asked, trying to maintain her composure.

  “I don’t know,” Elliot said solemnly.

  “What do you mean? Where are you going?” she asked, her pitch rising higher. She tried to calm herself down. After all, she loves him and he loves her. She’ll just go with him. She didn’t care where.

  “Remember my friends in China?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she answered, her voice sounding more hesitant.

  “They’re dead. Murdered, to be precise.”

  Michelle looked at Elliot with sympathy and apologized. He smiled when she asked him if she could do something to help him. He so wished that he could just up and disappear with her, somewhere where they would never be found, but he knew better.

  “Actually, they were murdered with my own sword. Someone cut their heads off and dumped their bodies back at their house like they were nothing. Garbage!” It was Michelle’s turn to swallow hard. She felt the world around her starting to spin. She didn’t understand how and why, and wondered what sword he was talking about. And how did he know that his sword was used to murder his friends? Elliot held up the woven fabric that Devin had tossed over to him.

  “I wrapped my sword in this many years ago. The three of us were the only ones who knew where it was hidden. This was found next to their bodies. This here is their blood,” he said, angrily shaking the fabric for Michelle to see. “This is a message. There’s somebody out there looking for me.” Michelle’s heart filled with worry. Why would anyone want to hurt her Elliot? But then she saw another side to his story.

  “So you still have weapons made out of that awful alloy just floating around? Why?” Michelle asked in anger, almost suggesting that it was his own fault that his friends were dead. Elliot didn’t answer. “So this is all because of what? Your sword? Or the formula? You told me that you wrote it thousands of years ago and haven’t seen it since then. Why would they…” Elliot looked down at his shoes and Michelle understood that to mean that he had not told her the entire truth. “I don’t understand? Why did you keep it at all? Why not destroy it like the rest?” Elliot had thought about doing just that, but feared that one day someone might figure out the formula on their own.

  “If someone began making weaponry, we would have no means to fight back or protect ourselves.” Did Elliot have the tablet at Hekademos? Is that why they had the hidden underground library and all the extra security?

  “Is it at the school?” Michelle asked.

  Elliot gave her a tired smile. “Not anymore. It has been hidden somewhere else for safety’s sake. It’s better that I don’t know where it is for the time being. And you can never mention anything about this tablet to anyone. Can you promise me that?” he asked. Michelle nodded. “Whatever the case, I, we, need time to figure out what is going on and who is behind this. I can promise you that whoever did this to my friends has just begun, and I am the only one who can put a stop to this.”

  Michelle sprang to her feet, telling Elliot that he was insane to think that he could go out looking for someone he didn’t even know. “You’re right. I don’t know who they are or why they’re after me personally. But as long as they’re looking for me, I can’t have you around me. Nobody knows that we are involved with each other, and I need to make sure it stays that way. They had no problem killing my friends, and they will have no problem hunting down each and every person that I care about. I have to distance myself from everyone, even the school.”

  “So what? You’re just going to leave and not tell me where you’re going? Or when you’ll be back?” Tears began flowing from Michelle’s eyes, but she wiped them away. “Fine, I’ll wait…” she took a deep breath. “Can you at least call me once in a while, or send me a letter?” It was obvious that it pained Elliot to say what he had to say next.

  “Michelle, that’s not going to be possible. I’m sorry, it’s for your own good.” At the sound of those words Michelle panicked, and Elliot heard her heart beating so fast that all he wanted to do was hug her and calm her down. But he knew that would only prolong the torture for both of them. He stood up and turned away from her to look down the street to where his friends stood waiting. He didn’t want to see Michelle crying because of him. He didn’t want that to be his last memory of her.

  “When we deal with ones of our own kind, things are different. Stuff can last for days or centuries. I could be dealing with this for the next 30 years, that’s a third of your life. I can’t allow you to waste your life waiting, hoping I’ll be back. A year of your life is like a day to us, don’t you understand? We are not the same.”

  “But…” Michelle tried to protest as Elliot began walking away from her. “Stop!” she yelled after him and Elliot stopped in his tracks. “What about everything we said, you said? About feeling the same things, and I’m just supposed to…” Michelle began sobbing. She loved him, she had just bared her soul to him and there he was, breaking her heart before it even began. Elliot felt like his heart was breaking too. Still, he forced himself to think about Michelle and empathize with what she was going through. He didn’t want to think about how he felt. He knew that if he showed any sign of weakness, Michelle would hang all her hopes on that. And then, his feelings turned from sadness and sympathy to anger at himself, as quickly as if someone had flipped a switch. He should have known that something like this was going to happen the second he let his guard down. He had tried to push Michelle away from him for that very reason, and yet
he was just as guilty as she was about not letting go. It was he who had followed her up to Fort Bragg and messed with her destiny, and he was the reason she was standing there in front of him now, wearing the pretty dress he had bought for her and crying her heart out. Elliot began walking towards his friends. Hysterical, Michelle ran after him.

  “Can’t I just come with you? I don’t care about school or any of that.” Elliot tried to ignore her and continued walking, but she grabbed his hand and jerked him to a stop. “Please?” she begged, heaving. He felt desperate. He wanted to say yes so badly. Michelle put her arms around him but he refused to look at her.

  “Michelle, it’s just too dangerous and I won’t let you ruin your life, as short as it is.” His voice was distant. “I’m very sorry for what I have done. I should never have let us get here. I was being selfish as usual.” Michelle buried her face in his chest trying to quiet her sobs.

  “I won’t be any trouble, I promise. I don’t want to stay here. Don’t you even care about what I want? Or what I feel? I thought… I thought that you…” Michelle suddenly became aware of the presence of the others around her. She looked up from Elliot’s sleeve to see all the guys staring at her in pity. She felt so embarrassed, wishing she could shrink and disappear. Devin put a slight hand around Elliot’s shoulder and quietly told him that they needed to leave. Rion looked like he wanted to say something to Michelle, but changed his mind. Poor little girl he thought, looking at the mess that her dark makeup had made on her face. Ando placed his hand on Michelle’s upper arm and told her that he was going to drive her home. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed, tightening her grip on Elliot. But Ando held her arm steady nonetheless. Students began to emerge from the hotel and Elliot didn’t want to attract any attention.

  “Michelle, I’m sorry… I love you. I really do. That’s why I’m doing this. You deserve to live a normal happy life, and I can’t provide you with that.”

  “But I won’t be happy… I won’t.” Elliot kissed Michelle on her head and proceeded to gently unhook himself from her arms and back away. Michelle gave up. She was exhausted and knew that any fight at that point would be futile. In a last act of desperate frustration she called out after him:

  “Well I guess if I was to give birth to your baby out of wedlock, then you’d stay, right?” Elliot immediately turned around, his face a mixture of shock, pain and anger. Rion jumped to place himself between the two of them, and said something else to Elliot in that harsh dialect.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Michelle. You have no freakin’ idea!” Elliot shot back at her, then began walking faster up the block flanked by his friends on both sides. Michelle stood still, fearing that Elliot would never forgive her for what she had said. She wasn’t crying anymore, and Ando loosened his grip. All Michelle could think of was how it must have all been a dream, a fantasy, to have even met someone like Elliot. And now she was forced to wake up and return to her bland reality of nothingness. She wanted to see Elliot’s face just one last time because she was afraid that she’d forget what he looked like, and willed him to turn back towards her, which he did. He was just as beautiful as the first time she had set her eyes on him.

  On the ride home Michelle quietly leaned against the passenger window and stared out at the darkness. Ando was just as quiet. There was nothing he could say that was going to make things any better. Michelle was mortified that all the guys had seen her acting like such a pathetic fool, and her feelings turned from sadness to bitter anger. Elliot obviously saw her as no more than a temporary pet. How could she ever have thought that he could feel for her what she felt for him? Why would he? After all, he lived for so long, and her life span was but a tiny fraction of his forever. Why would he invest all his feelings in someone that was going to die on him? Michelle remembered how she felt when her parents gave her Crumb. She was immediately enamored with the little ball of orange fur and she instantly adored him as he crawled up under her neck purring. But within a few seconds she also began to feel a heavy sense of foreboding about getting too close to him. She specifically remembered telling herself not to get attached to him the way she had to Mimi. What was the point when he was just going to die on her? Mimi the cat had been her best friend, and had slept under Michelle’s crib since the day her mother brought her home from the hospital. And after that, Mimi slept in her bed every night for the next eleven years. When she eventually died of old age, Michelle went into a tailspin depression. She wept for her for three weeks straight and couldn’t fall asleep without her there. Just like Crumb, Michelle was clearly just one of Elliot’s long line of pets, and she was at the bottom of the list.

  Michelle caught her reflection in the side view mirror and realized that her face was completely covered with black streaks and her eyes looked like they had both been punched. She needed to get cleaned up before she got home. But there were many kids milling about at the local gas station mini mart, and she was too embarrassed to be seen in her condition.

  “Why don’t we stop by the school and you can clean up there?” Ando suggested. “I’ll drive you home after that.” Michelle was glad that Ando was sensitive enough to realize that going out in public would be completely humiliating to her. She certainly didn’t want to go to Hekademos. Not if Elliot wasn’t going to be there. But what choice did she have?

  Michelle’s heart sank when they pulled in through the school gates and she wondered if she would have to face any of the other guys in there, maybe even Xander? Ando told her that Xander had left with Elliot, and that he was to remain behind with Haneul and Kahl to close things up.

  “You’re all leaving?” Michelle asked sadly even though she didn’t have any reason to see any of them ever again. Ando said that they were closing up for the summer, but of course everything depended on the unfolding situation. Michelle wanted to know if things were really as dangerous as Elliot had made them sound. She wanted to figure out if perhaps Elliot had used the circumstances as a way to distance himself from her emotionally after she told him she loved him. But Ando explained that the more she knew, the more dangerous things could become for her. He did confide in her that that someone had managed to track Elliot to Italy and was asking around for him by name. Michelle’s reaction was to worry. She didn’t want Elliot hurt, even if she never laid eyes on him again. She loved him, even if he didn’t love her back, and nothing was going to change that.

  When Ando opened the front door and ushered her into the school, Michelle noticed the empty feeling right away. Still, she couldn’t help but hope for a miracle; to see Elliot smiling and telling her that it was all a big mistake and that he wasn’t going anywhere. The lights were dimmed and Ando told her that she would have to clean up upstairs. When Michelle looked towards the downstairs bathroom, she realized that there were no longer doors there for either the bathroom or the library below. Ando explained that to avoid any possibility of a breach while they were gone, they had decided to pour a thick wall of concrete to cover up the whole area.

  With a heavy heart, Michelle climbed the stairs. When she reached the balcony she could see that the door to Elliot’s room was open. She moved slowly down the long hall, stopping at the doorway to look inside. The place had been gone through. They must have packed for him she thought, entering the room to take a closer look. That was a mistake. The moment she did she sensed Elliot everywhere and immediately began missing him. She gloomily surveyed the room, looking at the items left behind. There were a few pieces of clothing and a couple of paintings on the walls. The bedding was left in place, and Michelle remembered waking up in that same bed after she had nearly drowned and thought about Elliot’s kindness to her. Why on earth did he help her just so he could leave her? Michelle felt a large lump building at the back of her throat. She ran her hand over Elliot’s cold pillow and noticed a small piece of paper on the nightstand. It was a receipt for the necklace he had given her. It stated the estimated value of the individual pearls, plus the price of the gold and t
he labor it took to craft the piece. Michelle almost choked over the exorbitant sum. The necklace was worth more than her mother’s brand new SUV. Michelle instantly lifted her fingers to her neck to make sure she was still wearing it. Was Elliot insane to give her something so expensive? She didn’t feel right keeping it, especially now that he was gone. With fresh tears in her eyes she unclasped the necklace and it slid right off. She ran the tips of her fingers over the smooth surfaces of the pearls, wondering what it all meant. When she looked up, she was startled to see Haneul standing at the doorway looking at her curiously. She stood up and handed him the necklace.

  “I was just returning this,” she said apologetically. Haneul averted his eyes, looking at the pearls instead. “Will you make sure he gets this back?” Haneul briefly looked up to Michelle’s black streaked face and shook his head. He walked past her straight into the bathroom, only to emerge with a handful of tissues for her face. “Thank you,” Michelle said, giving Haneul a small smile as she dabbed the tissue under her eyes. She gave out a little laugh when she saw the ink-like stains soaking the tissue. Haneul smiled back at her in amusement. “I guess I should go wash my face,” she said quietly. Haneul stepped aside for her to pass by and heard her laugh again as she turned on the faucet. Michelle emerged from the bathroom with a mostly clean face, but it was blotchy and her eyes were swollen from crying.

  “Better now?” he asked. Michelle nodded. “We dove for pearls for many years. Elliot kept these ones because they were the most perfect. We sold the others. Back then they didn’t know how to grow them yet.” Haneul lifted the necklace and rubbed it against his cheek. “If Elliot gives you a gift, he won’t take it back. He held on to these for many years, and you would only hurt his feelings.”