Unaltered #2_A Diamond in my Heart (8 page)

“I just keep repeating segments of
time until I get it figured out how to avoid getting hit. The gang
fight took around two hours to perfect. I took many hits and they
broke my nose repeatedly but once I finally made it through the
fight and successfully landed my groin kicks, I didn’t need to
repeat any further, and that’s the version you saw. I spouted all
that stuff about you but only because you gave me every one of
those answers moments before. You didn’t remember giving me the
answers because I repeated the time back to where you hadn’t said
it yet; but the memory was now in my head. There were plenty of
questions you wouldn’t answer like if you’re a virgin or who your
dream guy is.”

I blushed.

“I stabbed myself knowing that if you
were full of shit I could simply repeat and everything would be
just fine. In fact, if you’d been fooling me, I’d have repeated
back without you and you’d never know exactly what it is I
do.”

“Well, why don’t you repeat back to
the moment right before the gang tried to beat you up? You could
avoid all that mess and wasted time.”

“It doesn’t work like that. I can only
repeat the last two minutes, no further.”

I heard footsteps coming and reached
my hand out and grasped Brand’s arm out of concern. Maetha rounded
the corner and joined us behind the shed.

“Who are you?” Brand asked with a
rather rude tone of voice. I could tell he was debating whether or
not to use his power.

“It’s OK Brand, this is Maetha, she’s
with me. She helped me understand my power and the dangers
associated with it. She can help you too.”

“I don’t need anyone’s help.” Brand
shuffled his feet with uneasiness.

Maetha asked him, “Are you aware of
other powers and abilities out there?”

“What, like besides Calli’s healing
and monsters in the dark? No.”

“When did you first see the Demons?”
Maetha didn’t mince words, she launched right into the
questions.

“I can’t see them; I only know that if
I walk into the dark, I get attacked.”

“But then you repeat time and remove
yourself from the situation, right?” Maetha concluded.

“Were you spying on us? How do you
know about my repeating?”

“I’ve been ‘spying’, yes. I instructed
Calli to demonstrate her healing ability to you.”

Brand let out an exhale. “As long as I
don’t stay in any situation longer than two minutes or long enough
to die, I can have a ‘do over’. After all this time, two minutes is
constantly counting down in my head.”

“Have the Demons been in the shadows
all of your life?” Maetha asked.

“No, only since I discovered I had
this ability to fix the problems in my life; so, a couple of years.
It seems much, much longer than that, though. Hey, if you two know
so much, then tell me how to get rid of the Demons.”

I looked at Maetha who only stared at
him. She was waiting for me to break the great news. “We don’t
know, Brand. Light pushes them back, but you probably already know
that. However, I have some experiments I’d like to do with the
Demons and you could help me.”

Maetha placed her hand on
my arm and spoke telepathically.
“Calli,
the gang of boys gathered more friends and are searching for Brand.
They are coming.”

“Can you teleport,
Maetha?”
I was joking, but also trying to
think of a way to deal with the issue at hand.

Brand didn’t know we were having a
private conversation and he responded to my request. “Oh sure, I
get it, you just want me around so I can be your Guinea
Pig.”

“Yeah, pretty much. You have a problem
with that?”

“No, why would I have a problem with
the flesh being ripped from my bones?”

Maetha spoke in an authoritative voice
instructing us to follow her. “Follow me now.”

My legs moved immediately carrying my
body in the direction Maetha wanted me to go. I glanced over at
Brand who was looking at me with a stunned expression as his legs
did the same thing.

“What’s happening?” Brand’s male voice
sounded surprisingly feminine.

“I’m moving us to safety,” Maetha said
calmly.

As soon as we repositioned ourselves
behind a bush across the pathway from the maintenance shack, a
large group of about twenty scary looking boys, including the ones
Brand had rendered incapable only minutes before, rounded the
corner and walked past the shack.

“How did you know they were coming?
Can you repeat time too?”

“No, I can see the future, Brand. I
saw them forming their group and begin their hunt for you. If we’d
remained behind the shack, they would have found you.”

“You can’t see the future!”

“I find it fascinating, Brand, that
you are so quick to reject the existence of superpowers when you
yourself possess one.”

“I just keep thinking my ability will
go away someday, like it was something I ate, or the result of
radiation or gamma rays like the Hulk. Every day when I wake up I
test my ability to see if it’s still there, and every night I avoid
the shadows. But this, you two, she is a Healer, you see the
future, this is more than I can take in and compute.”

I looked at Maetha who read
my mind and answered telepathically.
“For
now, only display the healing ability. Teach him about the will of
nature; help him to understand that repeating time for his own gain
could be dangerous. Help him stay out of trouble, Calli. I am
needed by the others and I must go.”

Maetha stepped away from the safety of
the bush and vanished before our eyes.

“Whoa! Where’d she go?” Brand walked
into the space Maetha had occupied only moments before. He spun in
a circle with his arms flailing wildly. “She was right
here!”

“I’m just as confused as you, Brand.
But ever since I met Maetha, she keeps surprising me.”

“Calli, did she make your legs move
too?”

“Yeah.”

“That was so cool! I want
that power then I could
make
people do what I say.”

“Brand, I have a lot to teach you
about the world of powers, but for now, we’d better get ourselves
to a safer location.”

We walked through the park keeping our
eyes peeled for the group of thugs who wanted Brand’s head. At one
point we saw them coming the other way and diverted off into an
arcade with multiple exits. I tried to look into his future to see
if this move would be successful but I couldn’t get anywhere. His
power was a virtual roadblock.

“Do we need to repeat?”

“I already did, Calli. We ran into
them up ahead by the Wack-a-Mole game. There were too many and I
didn’t really want to fight, so I repeated back here.”

“Wow, this is messed up,
Brand.”

“Tell me about it. I figure if I ever
find myself with an injury, I have a personal doctor at my
disposal.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t bring you back
from the dead, so you better be careful.”

We exited out the side door and
wandered the park. As we wandered over the next couple of hours, I
informed him about the cosmic energy rays and how he wasn’t that
far off in thinking he’d been exposed to radiation. I gave a brief
explanation about the different known abilities, the Healers,
Readers, Seers, Hunters and Runners, and how his power is a new
development. Maetha was investigating some others like him, but
hadn’t figured out what their power was until today.

I told him about the clans and how
people of powers have been around forever. I left out the part
about the diamonds, and the events which took place with the
destruction of the Death Clan. I didn’t tell him Maetha’s age, or
say anything about unaltered humans.

When I began to tell him about the
will of nature, he took my hand and pulled me toward a game booth.
“Come on, Calli, I’ll win you a stuffed animal.”

“No you won’t, you’ll cheat. You’ll
repeat until you win, all on the same amount of money.”

“So, I still have to beat the game.
I’ll pull you along so you can see how many times it takes me to
win.”

Well, how could I resist that
temptation? “Alright, win me the large puppy.”

Brand went up to the vendor and gave
him the money for three baseballs. He would need to break a plate,
and not just any plate, but one with a prize sticker behind it to
get the smallest prize. He would have to break three winning plates
to win the big puppy. He raised his arm and hurled the ball hitting
one plate directly in the center busting it into three pieces. I’d
forgotten he was the star quarterback. His plate wasn’t a winner so
he threw the next ball and the last, each breaking a plate. One
plate had a winning sticker and the vendor reached up to a hanging
cord and waggled it wildly. The cord was attached to a cow bell up
in the top of the booth and was obviously meant to attract
attention.

“And what does the lady want?” The
vendor smiled revealing a few missing teeth. I chose a small purple
lizard with huge bulging eyes.

Brand took my hand and said, “Second
row down, third plate from the left is a winner.” The air around us
whooshed and everything went blurry for a microsecond. I blinked
and it was over. We were back to standing at the game booth with
Brand being handed the three balls.

He immediately aimed at the known
winning plate and smashed it to pieces. The cow bell clanked its
aggravating sound, the toothless vendor asked for my selection and
I was handed the lizard. Then Brand threw the two remaining balls
and broke two non-winning plates.

I looked at him curiously. “It would
seem to me that you should break other plates first and save the
winner for last.”

“Yeah, yeah, everyone’s a critic. Come
on,” he took my hand and repeated back to the same spot as
before.

This time, with the first ball, he was
able to locate a winning plate on the bottom row directly in the
center. The vendor rang the blasted bell.

“And what does the lady want?” The
decayed condition of his remaining teeth was a good reminder to
always brush after meals. I chose the lizard and Brand threw the
second ball at the second row down, third plate from the left and
smashed it with perfect accuracy. Again with the cow bell, ugh, and
the vendor allowed me to trade up to a medium prize. I chose the
monkey with the long curly tail. Finally, Brand picked up the last
ball and held it out near my mouth and told me to blow on it. I
rolled my eyes and puffed on the ball and then watched as he threw
it to the center bottom row plate…and missed it.

I was surprised Brand hadn’t repeated
time yet, and even more surprised when he pulled out more money and
bought three more balls.

“My lady wants the big dog, so I’ll
have to break another winning plate.”

The vendor was ecstatic and rang his
irritating, attention-getting bell even harder. Brand on the other
hand, aimed at a plate he hadn’t hit before; no win. He wound up
and threw the second ball at another new plate; no win. The third
ball flew from his fingertips but not in the direction of the
winning plate on the bottom row. Instead it crashed into another
new plate sending pieces flying. A winning plate!

The vendor clanked his bell
ridiculously and then reached for the big puppy with a hook on a
long pole. He gave it to Brand so Brand could give it to me. By
this time, we’d drawn a lot of attention from the other park
attendees.

“Why didn’t you repeat? Why did you
purchase more tries? And why didn’t you go after the plate on the
bottom row?”

“Sometimes I like to spice things up,
like the last football game of the season. I stopped repeating my
throws so we could lose and be done with it. This little amusement
park game was a metaphor to my life; sometimes I stick with one
thing until I succeed, and other times I let chance determine if
I’ll succeed. You probably noticed that the same things happened
each time we repeated, like the crowd was always the same, the same
people looked our way when the toothless wonder would ring the bell
and the man always stood in the same place to hand me the set of
balls. This is how I won the fight you saw earlier; I knew when I
was going to be punched and I’d repeat until I could avoid the
punch. Every hit and punch hurt, especially the knife to my gut,
but repeating takes my body back, not my memories, the same as you
just witnessed.” He placed his hand on the small of my back and
guided me through the crowd. Then he took my hand and whooshed me
back to the moment he handed me the stuffed puppy.

I looked at him with question in my
eyes.

“They are headed in our direction.
Let’s go the other way.” He guided me the other direction away from
the crowd. We walked briskly without looking back and once we’d put
enough distance between us and the gang, he stopped me by a bench
and took the puppy out of my arms and placed it down.

“Calli, why can’t I ever convince you
to go out with me?”

“Back to this, are we?”