Pulse of Heroes (44 page)

“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 the 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.