Pulse of Heroes (70 page)

Michelle sat in the window seat, one row
behind her parents. She didn’t say much as she fastened her seat
belt, looking out the window as they began taxiing to the runway.
She smiled to herself and watched the other planes taking off. She
knew that somewhere up in one of them, she had a very very rich
uncle, and she wished him a safe flight home.

Willow’s Creek looked exactly the way it
always did, and to Michelle’s jet-lagged eyes the scene was
comforting. But when she remembered that she wouldn’t be seeing
Francesca anymore, the place turned into a ghost town. It was very
still outside as most people had just begun to wake up when the
Andrews pulled into their driveway. The familiar smell of home
cheered Michelle up some, and she couldn’t wait to be in her
bedroom and to see her little cat. As soon as her father opened the
front door Michelle shoved her way through and called for Crumb,
who was already making his way downstairs. She noticed that he had
lost weight, even though she knew that a neighbor had been feeding
him, and she didn’t like it. She lifted the meowing cat up to her
face and kissed him a million times.

It wasn’t difficult for Michelle to see that
her room had been gone through. Her first reaction was to scream
for her parents, but on second thought she decided against
involving them. Maybe it was Elliot when he had been trying to
figure out where she had gone to, but would he leave such a mess?
Michelle placed the items back where they belonged while Crumb
watched her curiously.

“Did you see what happened?” she asked him,
but he just looked at her with large kitty eyes. “At least nothing
is broken,” she said, putting away the pens and pencils that were
tossed out of her top drawer. When she was finished, Michelle sat
on the bed and looked around. Should she lie down? She was tired
but strangely energetic. Her cell phone beeped as soon as she
turned it on. She was sure she had stale messages but she dialed
her voicemail anyway. The first one was from Sam telling her to
have a safe flight and not to eat too much paprika, the second was
a hang up, the third was Sam again letting her know that some guys
had stopped by her house looking for Elliot, and the last one was
from Francesca thanking her for the beautiful flowers she had sent
her for her birthday. Michelle was startled to hear Francesca’s
voice; she didn’t expect it. Francesca sounded so alive on the
phone, Michelle thought; it was hard to believe that those were the
last words she’d ever hear from her. Michelle lay down on her bed
and pictured Francesca’s empty house. She wished things were
different; she wished she had remained in Willow’s Creek. Her heart
panged with hurt and sadness because she loved Francesca, but how
much she’d miss her, she had no idea.

Michelle almost fell asleep after shedding a
few quiet tears, but then she thought about the message Sam had
left her. What guys would be looking for Elliot at her house? It
couldn’t have been anyone from
Hekademos
; they all knew
where he was. The clock said 6: 47 am. She didn’t want to wake Sam
up yet. It was probably ‘those guys’ that broke into her bedroom.
Michelle got up from her bed, feeling uneasy. What if they were
still around? They knew where she lived; they could come back after
her and her family. Michelle washed her face in cold water and put
on some clean clothes. Her parents were both asleep, good she
thought. She tiptoed downstairs and walked out into the back yard.
She dialed the numbers on her cell phone and listened to
Hekademos
’ official summer break voicemail message. She
could only hope that someone would be checking the messages
regularly.

“Hi… this is Michelle. I just got home from
Europe and I don’t know if you guys need to know this but someone
broke into my room… and they didn’t set off the alarm. They didn’t
take anything, just left a mess. Should I be scared? I mean, maybe
it’s not related. Will one of you please call me back?” Michelle
hung up wondering what she should do. She surveyed her home to see
if there was any other evidence of the break in, but she saw
nothing. The phone sprang to life in her hand, and a startled
Michelle dropped it. Damn that broken screen, she thought, reaching
down to pick it up and press the green button.

“Hello?” she asked quietly. It was Kahl. “I’m
sorry I didn’t know who else to call because… no, I’m all right. I
guess better than the last few days. Ok, I’ll come over.
Thanks.”

The note said that she was going on a walk to
stretch her legs. That was good enough reason, especially after the
long flight. She tucked it under her parents bedroom door and was
outside the house just a few seconds later. It was going to be a
hot day she thought to herself as she walked up Argos Vela,
appreciating the beauty of the tree lined street as if she had
never seen it before. Up ahead she saw a tall figure walking
towards her, and before she could identify him, Kahl stood before
her smiling.

“Hello, Michelle. Welcome back.”

“I wish I could do that,” Michelle said,
thanking him for his charming greeting. She wondered how much Kahl
knew about everything that had happened in Europe, and
unfortunately for her he said he knew the whole story. Michelle
lowered her head in shame. That meant that he knew about her and
Haden too.

At
Hekademos
, Michelle opted to sit
outside in the sun rather than inside the school; it reminded her
too much of the last time she was there and how much she had cried.
The place symbolized Elliot, and the two were fused together in her
mind forever. Kahl’s charcoal colored eyes shined in the morning
light; he was beautiful. His expression changed from pleasant to
serious. “The men that came around looking for Elliot are no longer
here. I can assure you of that personally. You are safe now.”
Michelle looked at Kahl’s sober face and saw no hint of regret in
his eyes. He was just like the rest of them she thought, a warrior.
Morphing into another person as if by simply flipping a switch. Or
maybe they were all just magnificent actors around humans and this
was who they really were.

“Did they go back to Europe?” she dared to
ask. Kahl shook his head. Michelle swallowed. Her first inkling was
right; he had killed them himself. Michelle was not shocked, and
that disturbed her even more. Was she getting used to this death
thing so quickly? The guys had no problem serving their own justice
as they saw fit. They didn’t live under the jurisdiction of anybody
else’s laws, and that concerned her.

“They would have had no problem killing you
to get to Elliot. Elliot is my good friend and you are a friend to
him. I did what had to be done to keep you both safe.” Kahl said
unapologetically, as if he had read her mind.

“Thank you,” Michelle said, thinking about
the loyalty that they displayed towards one another. They were a
family, just as Elliot had said.

“I know that you were dragged into a big mess
and I’m very sorry. But I think Elliot owes you the bigger apology.
It’s much better for them,” he pointed outside the school walls,
“that they don’t know about this, what we are. It’s happier for
everyone that way. Maybe it would have been better for you
too.”

Was Kahl talking about the relationship
between her and Elliot, if that’s even what it was? She didn’t know
what they were at this point, and even if there was a ‘them’ at
all? Her next words were very hard to say, but she always felt like
Kahl knew Elliot better than the rest.

“I don’t know how I feel about this whole
thing either.” Michelle thought for a while, then continued, “I
think I love him, or I used to, but I’m not sure who ‘him’ is
anymore. I don’t even know who you are, and I’m talking to you like
you’re a friend and… it’s too damn confusing! It’s like there are
different people living inside of him, and I keep meeting them and
I’m not sure I like them very much. I just wish that I never saw
them. I wish he was just the him that he was when I met him.”

“All those people are him, Michelle.” Kahl
smiled at her sympathetically. “It’s just hard for the human brain
to grasp the many facets as part of one person. We have lived the
lives of thousands of men. We are all of them. There is no real and
fake, it’s all in there together.” Michelle looked down at the
table and let Kahl put his arm around her shoulder.

“I know he came to rescue me, but he had that
responsibility. If I had never met him, or if he had never moved
here, none of this would have happened.” Michelle looked to Kahl
for support.

“Love gets all of us in trouble, not just
people like yourself. You got into a bad situation, I admit that,
but you’re here now and that’s what he said he was going to go do.
He was going to bring you back home even if he died doing it. Trust
me, Elliot had a choice. I believe he loves you, but he is torn
over what that means for you.”

“Isn’t it a little too late for that?”
Michelle asked in anger while pushing her tears back. Kahl told her
that there had been many messes in his life. He thought for a
while, then whistled in marvel. Michelle looked at him, confused,
and he gave her a large reassuring smile.

“This is almost as bad as the time I was
engaged to two sisters in Egypt,” he laughed. Michelle remembered
that Elliot had told her about Kahl faking his own death, and asked
him if that was what he meant.

“Yes,” he said, holding his hand on his cheek
and shaking his head. “He didn’t tell you why?” Michelle shook her
head, but her eyes were large in anticipation of his story.

“I was young and foolish, and I was in love
with one girl and she was with me. We met in secret and nobody knew
because that wasn’t what was proper back then. Problem was that her
father came to me and offered his other daughter to me in marriage.
He had no idea that I was already in love with her sister and had
already promised to marry her. It was a great honor for a man as
powerful as him to make such an offer. I played an important part
in the politics of the area, and if I declined it would have been a
royal snub, so to speak.

I started spending time with this woman also,
and she was just as beautiful and kind as her sister. I think I
fell in love with her too because they were so similar. Somehow, I
found myself engaged to both of them. I could have had more than
one wife if I wanted, but I knew that this would destroy the
original sister I had been in love with. We had our own plans and
dreams, and in all honesty the thought of marrying another hadn’t
even occurred to me.

Michelle’s eyes dried and she looked at Kahl
in surprise. “You player, you!” she teased him. Kahl told her that
he knew that he would break both sisters’ hearts if he chose one
over the other, and he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. They
were very close, and it would tear them apart.

“It wasn’t worth it. They were such lovely
girls. So I pretended to be sick and dying. While they cared for me
they revealed to one another that they were both in love with me.
But they ended up finding comfort in one another, because they were
both going through the same loss. End of story.” Kahl brought
Michelle back from the far away place. ”This is your home here. It
used to be Elliot’s, but he left it many years ago and we just
returned recently. Elliot will leave again if that’s what you want.
It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you, actually its the exact
opposite that’s true. But the choice here is yours.”

“You girls hungry? Pizza is here!” Michelle’s
mother called from downstairs. They heard her but ignored her.

“What about the guys? Are they fine? Did you
meet any hot-blooded Hungarian prince?” Samantha asked with
enthusiasm.

“Don’t be silly,” Michelle said, thinking to
herself that the only prince she had met was a Prince of Darkness.
Maybe if Haden hadn’t turned out to be a madman he could have made
an interesting story. But she would have to omit the stabbing part,
and his head flying off his neck too. Michelle couldn’t believe
that she was already making light of such things, before she had
even made peace with the fact that they actually took place.
Perhaps it was a coping mechanism, she thought to herself, while
Samantha went on about the university that James had chosen to go
to.

“I missed you Sam,” Michelle said out of
nowhere, overtaken by her emotions of gratefulness to just be home.
Sam was a real friend and a real person, who lived in the real
world.

“Of course silly,” Samantha answered, a
little surprised. “I missed you too.” They hugged. Michelle’s mom
called up to them again and this time the girls rushed downstairs
to get a slice while it was still warm. Michelle bit into the pizza
and savored the smell of something so familiar. Did Vilna exist out
there somewhere, she thought while chewing. Was Transylvania a real
place, now that it was so far away? Michelle’s mother pulled her
camera out of her carry-on bag and asked Samantha if she wanted to
see some of the photographs of the trip. Michelle looked at the
strange camera.

“Mom, what happened to the old one?” she
asked in surprise. Michelle’s mother wondered how it was possible
that Michelle hadn’t noticed that they had been using a new one
throughout the entire trip.

“Oh, I guess I never bothered to mention it.
We were forced to buy a new camera at the hotel gift shop. When we
got to Budapest I looked for our old one all over and just couldn’t
find it,” her mom said while flipping through the photos and
showing Samantha some choice shots. Michelle tried to remember if
there were any important photos on the old memory card.

“Mom, I know you took a picture of me and dad
in Philly because I remember you showing it to me on the flight to
Zurich. Do you think you left it there? On the plane?” she
asked.