Pulse of Heroes (11 page)

“Hurry up,” James said from down below.
Unfortunately, the deafening sound had startled Michelle so badly
that she jerked away from Tim rather than towards him. Tim
stretched over as far as he could; it wasn’t easy using his arm
strength to hold up a person that was pulling away from him. But it
was too late. Michelle was back on the ground. Tim looked shocked
and pained.

“Come on Michelle,” he pleaded. “Quick, let’s
do this before they come around.” But Michelle was exhausted and in
even more pain.

“You guys go on, get out of here. I’ll hide
over there,” she pointed to a bush on her right. “I’ll get myself
out later.”

“No, I’m not going to leave you here alone,”
Tim said, still begging for her to reach out to him.

“Go!” Michelle yelled at him. “And get Sam
and James out of here. It’s not worth all of us getting in trouble.
This was my plan. Please, I’m begging.” Michelle pleaded with her
eyes and Tim could see that she was not going to change her mind.
Frustrated and sad, he straightened himself up and started lowering
himself down the other side.

“We’ll be back, I promise,” he said before
his face disappeared behind the wall.

Michelle was already crawling towards the
large bush when she called out to them. “Run!”

Samantha, Tim and James looked at each other
in shame and confusion when they heard Michelle yelling at them.
“What do we do?” Samantha asked, still crying, “We can’t just leave
her.” Then they heard other voices from beyond the wall and
instinctively took off running into the woods. Once out of breath,
each of them found a large tree to hide behind.

Michelle was well-hidden between some bushes
when she saw two figures, well actually just their legs,
approaching the area. The alarm had been turned off and suddenly it
was amazingly quiet. She was afraid they would hear her breathing.
Her leg was still hurting, especially after falling to the ground a
second time, but she held her own, biting her lower lip to avoid
making any sound.

As the men got closer she recognized one as
Xander, but not the one he was talking to.

Xander was speaking in a low voice. “It seems
the alarm was tripped here at this segment.” He moved towards the
wall and looked at a section of fine wire sticking out of a small
groove. The other person sounded younger as he moved closer to
examine the tiny wire. From that angle Michelle could see their
faces clearly. It was the Asian guy she saw at the mall. He was
also very handsome. He had a sharp angled face that was pale but
not sickly. His eyes were fierce, like a warrior she thought, and
his shiny jet-black hair was cut short with a few strands hanging
down across his right eye.

“What do you think, Haneul? Is it a
malfunction? Did it just fall out?” Xander asked.

“No. I can see them running. Three of them,”
Haneul said while looking straight into the wall as if he could
actually see through it. “Too fuzzy to see the faces,” he
continued.

Michelle couldn’t believe the conversation
that was taking place mere inches away from her. There was no way
she had heard what she thought she heard. Xander told Haneul that
he was going to send Elliot over and walked away. A few seconds
later the guy with the blue eyes appeared. So that’s his name,
Michelle thought to herself. Elliot… nice. She tried to follow him
with her eyes as he walked but Elliot was already standing up on
top of the wall. He didn’t jump or climb; it looked like he just
took two steps and walked right up. Before Michelle had the time to
digest what she saw, Haneul was standing next to Elliot, both of
them looking towards the woods. They were talking to one another,
but Michelle couldn’t hear them from where she was. And in another
instant, they were back on the ground. Haneul looked distraught,
while Elliot stood there thinking. “Should we call the authorities
and let them deal with the intruders?” asked Haneul. No, Michelle
was praying silently, don’t call the cops. Elliot said that he
didn’t recognize the two boys, but that the girl’s face looked
familiar. Michelle was scared for her friends, but also very
confused at the situation unfolding in front of her. How the heck
could he have seen what they looked like? Didn’t they run away like
she told them to?

“Yes, I’m sure of it. It’s the same girl,”
Elliot declared with satisfaction.

“Which one?” Haneul inquired.

“She was the one driving the car on
Halloween,” Elliot answered.

“Yes, I remember now. Xander told me about
it. Can you imagine if she had actually crashed into you? The whole
town would be involved and we haven’t even moved in yet. Even
though it would have been her fault, what a great first impression
we would have made,” Haneul exclaimed. Elliot was silent again. He
was thinking.

Michelle didn’t understand. If Elliot was
talking about Halloween night while Samantha was driving, how did
he recognize her face? They had only spoken to Xander. But then she
remembered that he had gone back to the car to talk to somebody
else. Maybe it was Elliot she saw up at the road, but there was no
way that that he could have seen Samantha’s face from all the way
up there; it was way too dark. Then Michelle had a scarier thought;
if he had recognized Samantha, then surely he would recognize her
as well.

Elliot finally spoke, “We shouldn’t call the
cops, that will only prolong all of this. They are just kids.
Curious I guess, maybe on a dare. Who knows what they do for fun
these days. We don’t want an investigation. The police would have
to come here and take down all the details, and then the kids’
parents would undoubtedly get involved. The less they see of us the
better.”

“You’re right,” added Haneul. “They got their
scare. They won’t be coming back. There’s nothing here that they
saw that should pique their interest, just a school. I’m going back
to help the others.”

Haneul left while Elliot lingered around the
area for a while. He went back to the wall and replaced the alarm
wire into its proper groove. He then turned and walked directly to
the bush where Michelle was hiding. He stood there while Michelle’s
heart was racing to the point where it was getting hard for her to
breathe at all. She tried to will him away with her mind. She even
prayed to whatever gods were out there to forgive her foolishness
and promised not to ever do anything so stupid ever again. Then
Elliot spoke…

“So, how do you plan on extricating yourself
from this situation, Michelle?”

Michelle was completely stunned. It was bad
enough seeing people on top of walls who didn’t belong there, and
others looking through them. It was bad enough that she had been
separated from her friends and almost gotten them in trouble, and
now the boy that she had been unable to erase from her mind was
standing above her and calling her by name. She was so busted, and
beyond puzzled. Michelle slowly crawled from under the bush, her
face burning red. She was mortified. Elliot looked down at her in
disapproval and his eyes looked as if a shadow passed behind them.
He closed them, like a long blink, and when he opened them again
they were back to their ordinary brilliant blue. He looked over his
shoulder to see if anybody else was coming in their direction, and
seeing that the path was clear, he quickly pulled Michelle up to
her feet. She instantly bent her left leg wincing in pain. His face
softened, and he crouched down and carefully rolled up her pants
leg. Michelle just stood there frozen because despite her pain, the
most beautiful guy on earth was actually touching her. Elliot found
the injury and placed his hand on the area where the pain was most
severe. Michelle immediately began feeling a warm sensation like a
dull electrical current running up her leg. It transferred to her
spine and all the way up to the back of her neck. The pain was no
longer sharp, more like a dull ache.

“What did you do?” she said, jumping back in
fear.

“It’s not broken. It will get better if you
rest it,” was all he said, avoiding her eyes.

“Yeah? But what did you do to me? Why does it
feel better?” she asked, more determined.

Elliot stood up in annoyance. “You are on
private property, but you already knew that. I can call the cops
and have you reported. But I’m willing to let you go back to your
friends.” Michelle began to say something that sounded almost like
an apology, but Elliot continued, “You are not to come here and
disturb us again. That will only make matters worse for both of us.
We moved here to have peace and quiet, and this is what we have to
deal with?”

Michelle couldn’t help but interrupt him,
“What is this place? What sort of a school is this? And how did you
know my name?”

Elliot’s anger was growing. “You come here
breaking the law and start asking me questions? You should just say
‘thank you’ and leave.” He was staring right at her. Michelle saw
his eyes spark; there were flickers of aqua and gold emanating from
his corneas just like the blue glass from the ornament. When Elliot
noticed Michelle’s fearful expression, he blinked again and his
eyes cleared. He lowered his voice.

“The longer you stay on these premises, the
greater the chance that the rest of the students will come out
here. If they find you here, the outcome of this situation will be
out of my hands.”

“But…” Michelle tried to interrupt again.
Elliot continued on. He told her that her only option was to listen
to him and leave. He would help her climb back up over the wall and
into the woods. She was to say nothing of meeting him, nor tell
anyone else what she saw because no one was going to believe her
anyway. “Are you guys on steroids or something?” Michelle said,
quizzing. Elliot let out a small laugh and Michelle couldn’t help
but think that he had the most amazing intoxicating smile. She
smiled too.

“Listen,” he said as he got close to her
face, “I am trying to help you. Just trust me when I say that no
good can come out of you snooping around here.” Although Michelle
heard the words he said, she was not listening. She couldn’t. She
was entranced by waves of something she couldn’t describe emanating
from his body to hers. And that peculiar scent that she had picked
up on at the mall was in the air again. Elliot made a sudden move
backwards and Michelle felt like she woke up from some heavenly
dream. “Come now,” he said while walking to the wall and stretching
his hand for her to grab, which she did while still smiling. When
their fingers touched she felt even more mesmerized than
before.

Elliot crouched in front of the wall and told
her to use his shoulders as a platform to put her feet on, and then
he was going to push her upwards. As she put her first foot on his
shoulder she asked, “Aren’t you going to just help me walk straight
up the wall like you did with your friend?” telling him that she
had already seen him and Haneul just somehow step up there. Elliot
replied that he had no idea what she was talking about. He
eventually pushed Michelle high enough to where she could straddle
on top of the wall. He then jumped and pulled himself up to sit by
her side. Michelle didn’t want to leave. She wanted to sit there on
the wall with him forever. He reached for her arms, and with
amazing strength he turned her body around and began lowering her
down slowly, holding on to her until she was safely on the ground.
“Goodbye, Michelle,” he said. But all Michelle could do was look up
at him in amazement; she didn’t move. He looked at her more
seriously. “Go!” he commanded, pointing in the direction of the
woods, but Michelle could see that it was hard for him to take that
tone of voice with her. She smiled at him and slowly began walking
backwards. While doing so she felt the oddest sensation; it was as
if she was walking against a force that was pushing her towards
him. It was like pulling a metal object away from a magnet, only
she was the metal and Elliot a powerful magnet. He pointed to the
woods again and Michelle reluctantly turned around, realizing that
he was not going to say anything else to her.

When she was about twenty feet away she
turned back to see Elliot standing on top of the wall. He was
facing away from her and was obviously about to jump back onto the
school grounds. What should she say? She didn’t want to walk away
from the wall, or from Elliot. She knew that it would not be the
last time that she would see him. She was going to make sure of
it.

“This is not the end of this, you know!” she
shouted back at him right before he disappeared from her view. Did
he hear her, Michelle wondered? She started walking a little faster
towards her home and with each step she took, the strange euphoric
feeling that she had felt whilst next to Elliot subsided. Up ahead,
she heard Tim and Samantha call her name.

Michelle changed. That was what everybody
noticed. She ate less, she spent hours in her room, and she hardly
talked to her parents. She rarely called her friends back. Tim
called her regularly on the cell, and also on the house phone, but
she didn’t want to talk and if she took any of the calls she was
uninterested and short. Her parents attributed her mood
transformation to boy problems, while Samantha was worried that
Michelle might have hit her head when she fell over the school
wall.

By mid-January school was back in full swing.
Michelle went through her days repeating her regular routine, but
her mind was somewhere else. On many occasions, nobody knew where
she was during recess, and when she did hang out she merely went
through the motions of participating. Laughing when a joke was
told, or shaking her head when something negative was discussed.
Even at home, Michelle would often wake up from a daze during the
daytime and then wonder what she had just been doing. Most of the
time, she thought about Elliot. But she also thought about other
things. She questioned everything that she had known until then.
She questioned what they had taught her at school and what she had
learned at home and on her own. She just couldn’t trust anything
anymore, especially not her own judgment. She spent hours trying to
reconcile the things she had seen at the school with her own eyes
against everything she knew about the laws of science and nature.
She seriously contemplated telling her parents that she might be
going insane, and that maybe a therapist intervention would be a
step in the right direction towards normalcy.