Pulse of Heroes

by A. Jacob Sweeny

  Michelle put her hands over her ears. She didn’t want to hear about those things. She didn’t want to imagine Elliot with a family and children. She felt cheated, that it was somehow unfair to her. She wanted to be his only one. She wanted love to be something new, not old and rehashed, and yet she knew how silly she was being.

  “I don’t want to hear anymore!” Michelle yelled out, her hands still over her ears. When Elliot walked up to her, her eyes were tightly shut too. He gently moved her hands away and she peeked at him.

  “Then just stop asking,” he chuckled gently. “I can’t be something I’m not.” Michelle’s mind just couldn’t let it go.

  “I just wanted to know if you’re the type of man that would get some girl knocked up and then not marry her until after she had the baby and became the subject of everyone’s ridicule and gossiping? Did you even love her, or was it some quickie mistake?” Michelle poked Elliot in the chest with her finger. “Because the way you speak of yourself, I expected you to have more class then that.” Elliot didn’t know which emotion to feel first; anger at Michelle’s accusation, or bewilderment. After a brief internal struggle, he lowered his head.

  “You’re right. I made a mistake. I’m not perfect, but I tried to make it right.”

  “Did you even love her?” Michelle asked, her voice full of scorn. The front doorbell rang and she left Elliot standing in the backyard. It was the estate Executor again. He told Michelle that there was something else he had forgotten to give her, and handed her a brown paper envelope. Michelle had no idea what it was, and when she turned back inside and headed to the couch Elliot was there, staring at her intently. When he saw her holding the envelope in her shaking hand, his demeanor changed and concern filled his heart.

  “What is it?” he asked softly. She had no idea. “Open it,” he encouraged her and sat back down by her side. Michelle slowly opened the envelope and found a pair of keys wrapped in bubble wrap. There was a small sticky note attached to them, stating that she would find all the paperwork and bill of ownership inside the glove compartment, and all she had to do was go to the DMV to register the car in her name and transfer the title. Michelle looked at Elliot with excitement and shock.

  “Does this mean what I think it…”

  “She left you her car,” Elliot said, putting his arm around Michelle. “She must have really cared for you.” Michelle was dizzy with gratitude and exhilaration. She asked Elliot if he had ever seen the car, but he hadn’t. Together, they walked out to the side of the house, and while Elliot helped Michelle take the canvas cover off the Jaguar she yelled up to the sky.

  “Thank you Francesca! Thank you! I love you! I’ll keep an eye on it, Renzo.”

  Elliot downshifted and hugged the curve. He had a huge smile on his face and Michelle laughed at his boyish antics. Elliot had told her that the Jaguar was a collector’s item, a true race car, and he remembered how expensive they were back when they first came out. He had always wondered how the little racers handled, and Michelle took the hint and let him drive it. It was only two in the afternoon and there was plenty of daylight left. After almost making Michelle carsick by taking the turns with such speed, they headed down the freeway at a more relaxed pace. At one point they even held hands, but Michelle eventually pulled away after her mind wandered back to their earlier discussions, which eventually led her to think about the images Haden had showed her. Elliot sensed her mood darkening and wondered which horrible memory she was reliving.

  “There are things that scare me about you,” she said finally, while gazing at the passing vineyards and rolling hills. Elliot sighed. He’d heard those words before and they were never pleasant. He knew that they would be coming eventually; he just hadn’t planned on hearing them so soon. The damage to Michelle’s confidence in him had been done. Hadeno was tormenting him from the grave. “You scare me a lot, actually. I’m ashamed that I can even think like this, like I’m paranoid, but I can’t stop this sense of dread.” She was ashamed, Elliot could sense that, but there was more to it than that.

  “Michelle, I don’t know what you want me to say. You must know by now that I will never willingly hurt you, right? Is it about me being different? You want me to apologize for having been born this way? I’ve apologized too many times, and I can’t do it anymore. I can’t constantly hate myself like that. You’re the one that helped me to stop feeling like this, so please don’t turn it back on me.”

  “I don’t know what I want,” Michelle said, and Elliot exhaled loudly. His profile was rigid, beautiful, yet despite his taut muscles Michelle could tell that his eyes were sad. “Haden showed me things. I don’t know how he did it, but I saw you, and even Kahl and Rion and the others… it was like he played a movie in my head, but it was more real than that. I can’t explain it.” Elliot had no idea what Michelle was talking about and thought that maybe she had dreamt something because of all the drugs that Hadeno had given her.

  “I think maybe you’re confused. We can’t make people see things that they haven’t seen with their own eyes. Maybe he told you things and you imagined them. But I’m sure they were all lies.”

  “Maybe Haden is different than you. I don’t know. Maybe he was more powerful.” Elliot didn’t like to hear Michelle describing Hadeno as more powerful.

  “First of all, he’s dead, in case you forgot. And we’re the same. I don’t know what kind of lies he told you about me. So really, if you want to accuse me of something because of him then just do it,” he said to her firmly. Michelle was frustrated. But the truth was that she only believed the images after seeing the way in which Elliot had slaughtered him. It was the manner in which he swung his sword, it was the exact same way he did in the images.

  “What do you mean ‘the way in which I killed him’? He was about to kill you, and me. Don’t you understand that? I did what I had to do to get you out of there safely. I wanted him dead, without any lingering doubts in my mind.” Michelle shook her head and Elliot became frustrated. “What did you want me to do, sit down and have a cup of tea with him and try to understand where he was coming from? Why he got a bug up his sorry ass about some crazy idea that killing me was going to give him control over the entire world? If someone I love is in danger I’m not going to try and be diplomatic while the enemy has already thrust his sword. The difference between life and death is a matter of seconds. In our case it was a matter of fractions of seconds.”

  “Well you didn’t have to chop his head off! What’s wrong with you!” Michelle yelled at the top of her lungs. Elliot realized that the conversation was going nowhere. He pulled off into an empty parking lot and when Michelle asked what he was doing he told her that he was too angry and didn’t want to crash her new car. Michelle placed her hand to her head in frustration. Elliot was infuriated and discouraged that Michelle still couldn’t deal with the facts in front of her face.

  “This is not some fantasy world where everyone gets along happily in the end,” he told her, wondering if that was the way Michelle’s brain was protecting her from the frightening reality that there were crazy and evil souls out there. Elliot needed to walk off his negative energy and got out of the car. Michelle called his name a couple of times but he just kept walking further. She didn’t know what to do. Was she supposed to follow him, or drive away? Or just sit there till who knows when. He had used the word ‘love’ in regards to her. Would there ever be a way for them to go back to where they were before all the insanity began. Michelle wondered if she was crazy to still love him.

  Elliot returned after ten minutes or so and opened the door for Michelle to get out. He was still angry; calm angry. She noticed that his eyes had changed color twice since they had pulled over, and she was frightened. Elliot read her expression and knew that he needed to compose himself further because he was scaring her all over again. Michelle stood with her back against the car and watched Elliot walk back and forth with his face turned to the sky. He blinked hard a few times and she remembered the first
time she saw him do that, only back then she thought it was wonderful.

  “Michelle, I can understand that you are confused about things. But don’t you think I know what I’m talking about? Hadeno was bent on poisoning you against me. Probably just because he’s still angry that I helped one of his women escape from under his nose. You have hardly lived yet, and for you to come accusing me of God knows what, is just wrong”

  “He told me that he saved your life, and that you had an affair with his wife or something like that, and then you ran off with her. I can’t be with someone who would do something like that. That’s cheating on a friend, Elliot, and what you did with Ruth!” Michelle’s voice grew shaky again. Elliot explained to her that Hadeno’s version of things was just not true. He told her that he was never with Kalina.

  “When she found out that Hadeno had three other women, two of which were already pregnant, she wanted to leave. But she was scared to death. He was jealous and controlling. She told me he pushed her around and… anyway she had no money of her own and she needed help. She knew that Hadeno and I were equal in strength, and thought that if she left with me Hadeno wouldn’t come after her. And she was right. She ended up marrying a good man and living a happy life.” Michelle shifted her feet in discomfort. Could she have ended up being trapped like Kalina? “I told him exactly what had happened, he just chose not to believe me,” Elliot continued, but still Michelle looked at him suspiciously and it upset him. Was she completely mad to believe the word of a man that had almost killed her over his own?

  “A few days ago you were seconds away from death because he was going to run a sword straight through your guts. Did you forget that? And yet you take his words over mine. Did that gash on your side heal that fast?”

  Michelle hadn’t forgotten everything Haden had done, but she also hadn’t forgotten seeing Elliot with all those other women, and she certainly couldn’t get past the image of Elliot, soaked in blood, decapitating man after man as they begged for mercy. How was he any different? How could she know for sure that Elliot didn’t have other women he was courting in different places?

  Michelle finally told Elliot about the images that she had seen, but only the violent ones, not the others. Elliot was utterly stunned.

  “I don’t understand how he was able to show you my past. I’m speechless. I just don’t get it, unless he did something to me while I was recovering from near death?” Michelle told him about Haden’s eyes rolling up into his head and how they had turned all white after he spoke in some different language. Then she told him how frightening it was to see him covered in the blood of all those he had killed, his expression cold, as if he had no care for the lives he was taking. She had hoped that there was some mistake, but now that Elliot had confirmed that the images were real, of course that meant that all the women were real too. Michelle looked down at the ground and Elliot saw her tears wetting the gray asphalt. She was truly scared.

  “Everything he showed you was out of context. I don’t know how he did it, but what you saw were our enemies, Michelle. I was a soldier and a soldier can’t afford to ponder the meaning of his actions while he’s protecting his own life, or other people’s lives. What you saw were the Assyrians, and the others were the Ottoman Turks, the ones that Vlad had impaled. Have you any idea how the Assyrians swept through all of Mesopotamia? They were slaughtering us, murdering us. There was bloodshed throughout the entire country. Our kind is more powerful, and it was my duty to protect our people, and our families.”

  Elliot looked away from Michelle and swallowed hard, his voice almost breaking. “My children, two of them, were dumped into a mass grave at Lachish. Will the bodies of 1500 women and children change your mind that the enemy had to be destroyed?” Michelle felt awful and tried to take Elliot’s hand, but he refused.

  “You have no idea what kind of hate can live within a man’s heart, and that man exists everywhere. I’ve seen leaders slaughter millions of their own citizens after promising that they had the answers to all society’s ills. I’ve seen how ugly coveting can be, like when the Turks took away the wives and daughters of the conquered to be sold as sex slaves. The dying teenagers you saw were the product of those unholy unions. The Turks raised these babies to be nothing but hate machines to be used in their wars, sending them back to kill their own families.”

  Elliot stood tall and pulled his shoulders back. “I have killed too many to count, and I’ll do it all over again if I have to. Were some of them not evil, just soldiers? Yes. But as long as they fight for evil I have no room to judge who is who. One mistake and thousands of innocents will die. I do what’s necessary, and I don’t enjoy it, if that’s what you fear. In war, we shut off parts of our minds in order to succeed.”

  Elliot asked Michelle to put herself in his shoes, to try and imagine being a parent whose babies had just been slaughtered. “Or imagine yourself a mother with children, alone at home because the father is out working, and the soldiers come and you’re unable to protect yourself from their desires and you’re unable to protect your children from their cruelty.” Elliot looked in her eyes. “What kind of a man would you want by your side? One who trembles in fear? One who has lost all connection to his own natural aggression? Or one who will kill the enemy first and ask questions later?” Michelle’s tears were creating a puddle at her feet. “I fight with the sword. Is it gruesome? I guess. But don’t kid yourself that using a machine gun from far away or dropping a bomb from the sky changes anything. It’s just as ugly!” Michelle’s crying had turned to sobs and she wanted Elliot to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he wouldn’t. He stood across from her and stared at her; he wanted her to feel shamed. He coldly asked if her crying was for all the innocent victims of all the wars, or was it just self pity? “I have no patience for condemnations from foolish people who have no idea what they’re talking about. Or maybe you’re crying for Hadeno because I killed him with such cruelty?”

  “No…” Michelle cried as she tried to touch him with her hands again, but Elliot moved out of her reach.

  “Maybe you didn’t want him dead after all? Tell me, and I want nothing but the truth. Did you fall for him that easily? You know I can tell if you’re lying. Would you stab him again and have me finish him off, or do you wish you were back there with him right now standing over my dead body?” Elliot knew that his own jealousy was talking, but he hadn’t let it out until now, and he knew better than to keep things bottled up inside. He knew that Michelle had lain in Hadeno’s arms and he knew that her lips had kissed his. He knew that Hadeno had not been lying when he said that Michelle came to him on her own. Was she harboring any feelings of regret?

  “You do know that if you were to fall pregnant from him, it could very well have killed you? And you do know that he didn’t give a damn about your welfare, right?” Michelle thought about the way Haden had treated her; it was either with lust or with contempt, there was never anything in-between. He had played with her; she knew that now. But Elliot actually cared about her, and she could tell the difference. “One thing you need to know about me is that I don’t beg for any woman’s affection. Not yours or anybody else’s. I did what I had to do, I brought you back home safe and in one piece. Maybe this is it for us, the circle complete? Be honest with yourself before you answer me.” It pained Elliot to say those words.

  Michelle’s heart skipped a long beat. Was it already over? Had Elliot had it with her? Would he disappear from her life forever just as Kahl and Ando had said he could? Michelle thought about Elliot gone for good. She thought about how alone she had felt, and how when she thought that she was going to be raped it was him that she called for. Who would she talk to? Who could ever understand her now? He had seen her at her worst; he saw her stab a man in the back like a crazed lunatic and he was still there. She was no different than him now, they were both killers. They belonged together.

  Michelle looked at Elliot’s questioning eyes, so beautiful and large; to never see them look at he
r again? And his pillowed lips, to never feel their velvet kisses, and that scent of the sea that sometimes followed him… she would surely die without him. Michelle shook her head from side to side and her tears flew that way and back. She loved him and wished for things to go back to the way they were. She wished she had never met Hadeno.

  “Think hard about your decision, because I won’t go back and forth with you. I don’t have the patience.” Elliot took a more mature tone. “I’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. You’re much stronger than you give yourself credit for. I can leave if it will make it easier on you, and you get yourself together and go back to your life. It’ll be much easier without me around. Just say the word.”

  “No!!! I want to be here, with you,” she yelled, looking up to catch his eyes. “I never want to talk about any of this any more, ever! Please?” Michelle weakly motioned for him to come to her. Elliot stepped forward and Michelle twisted his shirt in her hand, unable to decide whether she needed him to hold her or not. “I’m just like you now and I can’t go back. It’s too late.” Michelle cried and lunged forward to embrace him. She couldn’t stand him looking at her as if he was looking down at her, judging her. Elliot held her, but wondered what she meant about being like him.

  “Michelle, is this all because of what you did, because you stabbed him? Are you feeling guilty, condemning yourself? Are you ashamed that you saved your own life or that you saved mine? Michelle, look at me,” he asked her softly and she did but only for a second. Shame. He now understood that Michelle’s anger and disappointment wasn’t really directed at him. Judging him was judging her. The poor girl, he thought, she had no idea how to deal with what she had done. What had he done to her? He was the one who should be ashamed.