Balancer's Soul (53 page)

“Brother, are you ok?” Kara asked. He
looked down at Sarah and then to Mark who all shared the same
expression. He must have look really bad.

“I will be after I get cleaned up.”
Connor then looked at her with a smile. “You remembered your
training, Sis.”

“Well duh. I’m not your typical frail
female.” She shook her head.

“What training?” Sarah asked and all
looked to her.

“Do you honestly think that Brother is
the only strong one in the family?” Kara lifted her dress high
enough to show Sarah her sculpted quadriceps. Mark came up and
playfully poked her leg to see if her muscles were real. “Stop
that.” She said, smacking his hand away playfully.

“Wow Kara I never realized.” She
looked up at Connor. “I see now why your sister has your hearing as
well.”

“Sorry about that.” Kara apologized a
little too easily to be believed.

“I need to clean up.” He said to
everyone and they didn’t argue as his face still bled.

They said goodbye to the whole family
and the four of them left first. Jenny wanted to have him checked
out at the hospital, but as stubborn as she is Connor told her all
was fine. On the ride back Mark reminded everyone of their
graduation camping trip tomorrow. After they got out of the car,
Sarah and Connor quickly ran back to their home in the
woods.

Sitting down on the dining room chair,
Sarah told him to remove his shirt as she ran into the bathroom to
get the first aid kit and some towels. After Connor’s ruined shirt
was unbuttoned and stripped off he noticed two deep puncture wounds
on his torso. One landed above the left nipple and the other just
caught under his right collarbone. The bleeding finally stopped,
but it still stung something fierce.

Sarah came in with a handful of clean
towels and the first aid box he stocked in the house just incase of
an accident. Only because they live so far out in the woods they
might need them. She sat them all on the table and walked around to
the sink and filled the empty fruit bowl full of hot water. She
brought it over and sat down in a chair in front of him. As she
cleaned his chest wounds first she asked “How were you able to
stand while being shocked.”

Remembering back he explained “When I
saw you being held I was so furious that I couldn’t do anything to
help you. My mind raced for a solution that didn’t give away what
we are and I found the answer to my problems. I knew that I needed
to direct the electricity away from my body. I used Terra to pull
the electricity away through my feet. I couldn’t get rid of it all,
but I managed to direct enough away. I was really amazed when I was
able to get hold of Mathew be able to direct it all into him
without any pain to me.”

“I have to admit that Mathew deserved
far more than that slam you delivered.” She smiled as she dipped
the towel again in the water. “I’m finished with this part, lean
over here and let me work on your head.”

Connor leaned down as she used the
warm and wet washcloth to wipe the blood out of his eyes first then
moved to his cheeks. She wiped away the blood in his forehead
lastly. “There is only a deep scrape; at least there isn’t a deep,
fleshy gash like I feared.” She cleaned the wound quickly and
removed all of the dirt and any foreign objects from his head with
peroxide. She added an ointment and one gauze patch to cover the
wound on his forehead and two smaller adhesive bandages over the
puncture wounds on his chest.

When she finished Connor grabbed her
bottom and sat her down side saddle on his lap. She squeaked from
the suddenness of her movement and felt large arms wrap arms around
her and clutched her tight to his breast. Connor laid the side of
his cheek on the top of her head, telling her “When I saw his arms
around your head I thought he was going to break your
neck.”

She wrapped her arms around him as
well. “I was worried that Mathew was going to kill you too.” They
held each other for several minutes in complete silence. She moved
first and raised her head, speaking softly “I love you,
Connor.”

“I love you too, Sarah.” And they
kissed each other in comfort and safety; not passion.

She stood later and made dinner while
he washed his blood out of the towels and threw away the rubbish
from the first aid.

They ate a large meal again before
taking a shower together and fell asleep not long after.

This day didn’t turn out as expected.
It wasn’t happy, but it reminded him of what is truly important of
this life.

Connor awoke early the next morning
feeling remarkably pain free. It was a welcome sensation. Sarah
remained fast asleep as he silently left the bed and put on a pair
of shorts. Connor left the room to check out his new battle wounds.
When he entered the chilly bathroom he carefully shut the door and
turned on the lights before stepping into the mirrors reflection.
He stripped away the bandages off his chest. Thankfully he became a
Balancer and no longer suffered the dread of having any fine bodily
hair getting pulled off along with the bandage. Looking closely in
the mirror he noticed that the wounds created from yesterday were
healed and only two small pink patches of new skin showed where
they were.

He then quickly removed the
bandage that covered his forehead. Connor thought he must have been
seeing things because there wasn’t a single abrasion on his
forehead, only soft pink skin remained.
“Sarah didn’t say that I would be able to heal this
fast.”

Returning to the bedroom he sat down
on the bed and began rubbing her shoulder softly, knowing Sarah
just had to see this. She slowly awoke from the gentle touch. She
then stretched and sat up, bringing the bed covers up with her to
cover her breasts. “Good Morning.” She yawned. “How are you
feeling?”

“Take a look for yourself!” He stood
and walked over to the light switch, turned it on and returned to
the bed again.

Taking a minute to focus her eyes
Sarah saw exactly what he meant. “Connor, your wounds, their all
healed!” Sounding astonished would be an understatement for the way
she spoke.

“Yes, you never told me that Balancers
could heal so fast.”.

“Connor, your mistaken. Balancers
don’t heal, we regenerate. And we can’t. Not this fast. Well we can
add another oddity to our circumstance.” She put her fingers to her
temples and rubbed. She exited the bed without the sheet and walked
over to her dresser to put on her black lace undergarments. She put
on some brown jeans and a black sleeveless shirt.

She sat down on the bed, crossing her
legs as she patted the bed in front of where she sat. Sitting down
comfortably, she explained precisely what she meant. “Connor, we
regenerate our cells, not heal. When a normal human’s cell divides,
the copy is slightly degraded. That’s the only reason why humans
die of old age. If the degradation process didn’t occur they would
be as immortal as we are. Their cells cannot make an exact
duplicate like ours can.

“Ours on the other hand makes an exact
and perfect replacement to the original cell. Not only that, but
our system is flooded with Stem Cells. If we lose a limb, and we
don’t die from blood loss, a Balancer can regenerate any severed
extremity in time. Father is a prime example of this because his
left arm was severed in a battle five hundred years ago and it grew
back in about six months.

“The odd thing I was talking about was
how quickly you regenerated. Normal Balancers regenerate only
slightly faster than a human, but not by much to be noticed. Unlike
you that is.” She smiled, stood up to walk out the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To test out another theory.” She said
sweeping past the door.

A moment later Connor felt through the
bond that she was in pain. He rushed out of bed in a blur and
entered the kitchen to hear the sink running. Sarah’s forearm had
been thrust under the flowing water and turned red and a red
stained carving knife sat on the sink table. “What
happened?”

“I’m experimenting to see if I heal as
quickly as you.” She smiled and turned off the water. He ran around
the table, grabbing her arm to see how much damage she did to
herself. It wasn’t too deep, but just deep enough to draw blood.
The injury was located over the top of her forearm. It was an inch
long and he ran to the bathroom to patch up her arm. As he came
back in she smiled. “I was right!”

“You cut yourself. How could you be
right?”

She held her arm out. “The bleeding
has already stopped.” Connor looked for himself and noticed that it
did. “I’m still going to cover it!” She didn’t object to his worry
for her. It was a foolish test and she well knew it.

After he finished taping her up they
walked into their room and opened the closet. They grabbed their
hiking packs and filled them with four pairs of clean clothes,
several kinds of packaged foods and two canteens filled with fresh
water. Connor slid Tool in his belt and grabbed both of their bags
as they left the house.

Taking a normal human, leisurely
stroll through the woods was a pleasantly calming experience. Most
of the travel time had been spent as they smiled at each other.
Before they crossed onto Jack’s property Sarah blurted out of
nowhere “Did you realize that this is to be our first double
date?”

She made him smile. Connor looked up
at the tree canopy saying “You’re right I never thought about it
that way.”

Breaking through the tree line Connor
spotted Mark’s brown jeep in his mom’s driveway. He must have
gotten here early. Connor sat the packs in the back of the jeep and
then they went inside the house. Kara wore blue jeans along with a
pink shirt, covered with a brown jacket. She already laced up her
hiking boots. Her hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail. “Hey
Brother, you ready?” He nodded. “How about you, Sarah?” and Sarah
nodded as well.

Mark came out of the hallway, that led
down to Kara’s room, carrying a brown pack, filled with things.
“Kara, is this all you need?” He wore blue jeans and a silver shirt
along with black hiking shoes.

“Yes… Wait!” She stormed off to her
room again, skirting around Mark. A minute later she returned with
a long wooden case that was instantly recognized by her brother.
Kara sat it down on the couch.

“Kara, what’s in the box?” Sarah asked
in an interested voice.

“Oh this?” She pointed to the case.
“Well you know Brother’s weapon Tool. This is my weapon.” She bent
over and opened the case. She lifted her weapon out of the box to
show everyone.

A finely crafted silver Longbow
appeared. One she asked Connor to create for her a few years ago.
Kara sat the end of the bow down and the tip of the bow remained
strung with a black string and it stood as tall as her shoulder
when the base touched the floor. She reached in the box again,
bringing out a quiver of arrows along with a leather hip
holster.

“Why would you need to bring something like
that?” Mark asked.

“Because I don’t go camping without
it.” She stated matter-of-factly.

“Alright let’s get going.” Mark said,
slinging her pack on his back.

Kara wrapped the bow across her back,
the string clung snugly across her chest. She quickly stuffed the
quiver into the holster as she ran out the door.

Sarah and Connor shared a smile at
their relationship. Mark had accepted her simple statement without
asking why she wanted to bring her bow.

Mark drove for several hours to a
destination Connor hasn’t seen in years. Sarah sat with him in the
back while Kara and Mark took the front. Mark pulled into a heavily
forested area. “We’re here.” He said and all exited the
vehicle.

The sun hung high in the sky with
scattered clouds and the weather was a perfect seventy five
degrees. Connor had a feeling that this was going to be a good idea
for a perfect weekend getaway. Sparse clouds and low humidity told
that chances of it raining would be negligible at best.

Connor put on his pack, as did Sarah
and Mark. Kara strapped the holster of arrows to her waist and the
bundle hung from her left hip. She strapped the bow over her head
again before they all took to the trails. Connor grabbed his
sister’s bag because he knew she couldn’t strap it on over her
bow.

The four of them walked together for
twenty minutes through the woods. Connor wanted to get camp setup
as soon as possible. “Hey Mark?”

“Yeah, Buddy?”

“I think we should go ahead first, and
set up camp.”

He looked at Sarah and Kara first and
then came back to his friend. “I agree. Let’s go.” He said in
understanding the simple logic and reasoning.

“Brother, what if we lose you.” Kara
asked in her chirpy voice.

“You won’t as long as
Sarah’s with you.” Kara nodded and he looked at Sarah.
“Take your time, Princess. Have a nice girls
chat.”

Both men picked up their pace along
the mountainous trail, but didn’t run.

***