HAUNTED
five

5

Police sirens blared, “we have to go,” she finally spoke in a low mumble. She hadn’t put to thought how he had appeared, disappeared, reappeared or whatever…

“Don’t let go,” he said as the same vacuumed feeling rose in her again.

He pulled away and took a tired seat on a couch, in a fancy room that had appeared out of the blue.

“How…”

“How hurt are you?” he sighed.

“I don’t know,” she collapsed beside him, flinched a bit and took a deep breath, “how do you do that? ... Teleporting!”

“I don’t know.” He took the remote beside him and turned on the TV. The police station had blown up and it was all over the news. He muted the TV, stood up. She stayed there.

He came back a few moments later with a pack of frozen peas. He took a seat on the coffee table in front of her and held the pack to her red-hot cheek. He looked right at her, oddly concerned, drawn, fascinated, caught in a heart clinching gaze, “how hurt are you?” he repeated.

“My wrist,” she had not moved her hand much, because it hurt when she did. She removed her jacket. He took her okay hand gave her the pack to hold up to her face which was hard because her free hand was the opposite side of her burning cheek (the curse of short arms). He bulleted off and reappeared in a blink of an eye with a metal box casing, a first aid kit. The kick to her gut probably left her bruised.

He took her injured hand, “I was born like this,” he answered her earlier question. He took a closer look at her red future bruise, she flinched as she did, “my parents are…” he sighed, “it’s a long story.” He put some pain-relieving ointment on it, it was better in seconds.

“Can your parent’s teleport too,” she asked. As the rushed blood in her wrist began to fade and the pain was near gone.

“No,” he didn’t look at her just at her wrist, “my mom can read and hack into minds and my father is sometimes invisible and can fry people’s brains with pain.”

“Cool family,” she smiled.

“Yeah,” he smiled back. She took a deep inward breath and her left side ached a bit. She remembered the heartless kick, “Where else?”

“I don’t even know you. Why?”

“Because you need my help. And lucky for you, I have swallowed up too many comic books in my existence,” he smiled, “who was that woman back there,” she took the packet down from her face.

“My aunt,” she reached for the hem of her sweater and top, and began pulling it off.

He reached for her hands to stop them before she went too far, “what are you doing?”

“Relax,” she said, “she kicked me really bad in my ribs.” She had her sports bra on which covered up all the concerning bits but did not reduce his discomfort. He swallowed.

“Where are your parents,” he asked, “doesn’t look like you broke any,” he judged from a far.

“Dead,” she answered callously.

“Can you lift your arm,” she tried it hurt a little, “how?”

“Car crash when I was little. I distracted them, they were looking at me then something came up in the road. Next thing I knew we were smashing into a tree and my parents…” she stopped.

He remembered when he was three or four, he accidentally worped and found himself not too far from here, they crashed, before he worped back home again. The first time he remembered, “I’m sorry,” he whispered. She was in that car that night. It was her, the girl crying.

“Yours?” he barely heard her ask.

She turned to her side and he noticed some older bruises, light scars barely visible on her back. “Around,” he answered distant. He stood up abruptly, hurt, it was his fault all this had happened to her. “Put that where it hurts. It will heal quicker,” he said before he walked into another room and shut the door. If he hadn’t both her parents could still be with her… she wouldn’t have been…

“It’s my fault,” he mumbled as a frustrated tear stained his cheek, “she will hate me if she knew,” he thought. She is so calm, beautiful, and clever and for an odd filling moment he thought of her. I ruined her life pacing the life out of his floor. She seems so familiar. Like I knew her before. But she is human I couldn’t have known her. Lex. He sat on his bed and lay back, tired. With a strong feeling, he had known her before. In his lives. It’s my fault.

She turned the volume up on the TV and watched the news. This weird ointment of his worked like a charm. She wondered if he was okay. She stood up and walked to the door he had shut to talk to him. With her hand raised ready to knock she changed her mind and walked back to her seat. The way he left the room was weird. Minute after minute passed may be even more than an hour, slowly sleep came and she welcomed the escape from this world in a sleep as quiet as death. As close to the deadly escape from reality as she could get.

Calm he walked back in ready to tell her. He felt she deserved to know. At least that he didn’t know what he was doing, he was only a child, that he was sorry.

“Lex,” he said as he walked back in. She mumbled something in her sleep. He put a pillow under head and covered her with a blanket. He got her hair out of her face and he remembered…

“We could change the world. Make everything new,” he said to her, “these soldiers will put with world in your hands to change it.”

“For a servant’s son, you are quite genius,” she teased, he chuckled and blushed, “we can prove that I am just as capable as my brothers. We need to be clever about this. If they replace out, that I’m a girl they won’t follow.”

“I know, we will wait for the right moment. In the end tell the story we want to tell… Lex, we could beat him. We could do whatever we want. And you shall be known world over as Alexander the great,” he brushed her check tenderly and kissed her…

Back to reality, he stumbled back, “alexander the great was a girl,” he mumbled, “her?” I guess we are sort of even now, I killed her parents and she made me make one blasphemous virus! He thought. I loved her. He sat on the coffee table again ’did she love me?’ just looked at her. She doesn’t even know… how is it fair if she doesn’t know?

She looked so peaceful, then she frowned in her sleep, and she jolted awake… he vanished. Scared that she had seen him but all she had seen was a mirage. Sleep came to her easier now.