Pulse of Heroes (36 page)

When the pizza arrived Michelle followed Rion
to the front door, taking some money out of her pocket to help pay
for it. Rion laughed and told her to put her money away.

“Just because I’m younger and a girl doesn’t
mean that I expect everyone to pay for me.” Rion told her that he
appreciated her valor, but money was not a problem for him because
he was fairly wealthy, so she might as well save her dollars for
herself. Michelle jokingly asked if he robbed banks as a hobby, and
Rion became deeply offended by the implication. Michelle apologized
and told him that she came up with that idea because Elliot was
able to evade setting off the alarm in her bedroom, which would
mean that he would be able to do the same in a bank, no? When Rion
heard that Elliot had been in Michelle’s bedroom he just couldn’t
take not knowing anymore and plain asked her if she and Elliot had
been sexually involved. That question set Michelle’s face on fire
and she forgot to breath for a few seconds. Rion was amused at his
power to embarrass her, but at the same time felt bad about it and
tried to backtrack, but it was too late. Michelle finally found her
voice to answer. To Rion’s relief, with her cheeks still burning,
she barely managed to squeeze out a small ‘no’.

“Awww… a virgin?” he asked. Michelle still
considered herself to be way inexperienced for her age and felt
embarrassed by that fact now more than ever. Yet she also felt
empowered that she wasn’t some nameless conquest in what was
probably a long list of women that Elliot had been with. Rion was
once again amused at his friend’s choice of companionship. Michelle
might have looked like a little woman, but she was very much still
a child. She didn’t have any of that womanly sexual sophistication.
What was Elliot thinking, Rion wondered? The girl wouldn’t take it
lightly if a man hurt her, and Elliot’s behavior could really
damage her impressionable little soul. The more Rion thought about
it the angrier he became. Was he actually feeling protective of the
little flower that sat across from him, he wondered, all while
watching Michelle read over her notes and gnaw on a pizza
crust.

There was a knock on the classroom door and
Rion whispered to Michelle that the reason he had ordered two extra
large pies was about to unfold. The door opened and Ando sauntered
in, immediately moving to the table to scrutinize the pizza
toppings. Rion invited him to join in, which he did happily. A
moment later, Kahl and Haneul joined the dinner party, and about
five minutes after that, Xander showed up with a bottle of red wine
and glasses, admonishing them that they should all be deeply
ashamed of themselves for not opening a good bottle of Chianti to
go with such a fine specimen of a pizza. Xander didn’t ask what
Michelle was doing there and neither did he mention Elliot. The
conversation began flowing freely and everyone seemed to be jolly
with food and drink, although Michelle declined the wine and Haneul
fetched her some more water instead. At one point Rion told
everyone that he had needed to convince Michelle that he could
afford to pay for the pizza all by himself and they all had a good
laugh. Michelle got a little angry with Rion for joking at her
expense, but when she looked at him he just winked. Still, Michelle
wasn’t going to let all of them keep making fun of her, and
justified her actions by letting them know that she would have
found it rude if she was on the opposite end and Rion didn’t offer
to pitch in with the bill. “That’s not why we’re laughing,” Ando
said, still chuckling. Everyone looked at Rion as he cleared his
voice and sat up tall in his chair.

“Michelle, you are quite possibly speaking to
the wealthiest person on earth.” Michelle looked at Rion, then back
at the rest of them. They all seemed completely serious.

“Congratulations. Did you discover an oil
field or something?” Michelle asked. Rion began speaking and the
others chimed in, all trying to explain to Michelle how he had
amassed his wealth. Rion had been a rich and powerful king, ruling
over the hills and valleys of what is today Western Georgia. He had
settled there because he realized that there were vast gold
deposits in the hills and underneath the ground. Together with his
top scholars, he figured out the best ways of extracting the
precious metal, and mining became a way of life. When the
surrounding peoples heard about the richness of the area, they
began arriving by land and sea to trade their goods for gold.

“That’s how Elliot and I met Rion in the
first place,” Kahl added. He told Michelle about his time as a high
official in Egypt, and how the expulsion of the Hyksos from the
political ruling class had shaped his own exit from that area.
After he faked his death, he set out to Libya with Elliot, and from
there they sailed all across the Mediterranean and traded goods for
the Greek city-states. Eventually they were sent out on behalf of
some king to meet Rion because of the great wisdom he had about
mining precious metals. “That’s when we built the ‘Argos’,
especially for that trip. We had so many of our kind on that vessel
and we raised hell all the way to Clochis and back,” he said,
reminiscing.

“Argos is the name of our street!” Michelle
just had to interrupt.

“That’s right,” Rion told her. “Elliot named
it after the ship.”

“You mean Elliot was here, on this exact
street, before this?” Michelle asked, confused.

“The famous oil press, that was his,” Xander
added. “Still is.” Michelle tried to piece some of the puzzle
together, and it was almost starting to make sense. All of the guys
had helped Elliot build the underground library many years ago. It
lay empty and hidden until they returned and had the new school
built right on top of it. Elliot owned most of the surrounding
land; at one point he sold some of it to the city of Willow’s Creek
and that’s how Michelle’s small neighborhood came to be. Michelle
realized that she was born and raised on what used to be Elliot’s
land, and that his attachment to the area was older and deeper than
her own. She began feeling as if she was the new kid on the block.
Curious, Michelle asked what the word ‘Vela’ meant, because her
street was named ‘Argos Vela’. Xander explained to her that Vela
was the Latin word for sails.

“Originally Elliot thought to name the street
Argos Navis, after the constellation. But instead he chose the name
Vela, which is the name of the bright pulsar within the same
constellation. When Michelle heard the word ‘pulsar’ she couldn’t
believe it. Was it pure coincidence that she had said the word
‘pulsar’ in that strange dream? She still thought about it a lot.
And in that dream, when she looked up to the sky to see the almost
blinding white light, was she looking up at the Argos Navis
constellation? Was she seeing Vela itself?

All at once everything and nothing was making
sense and it was all getting to be too much. The room began
spinning and Michelle felt like she was either going to throw up or
pass out. A second later all the guys were surrounding her, asking
if she was all right? Michelle just looked at them,
dumbfounded.

“Did I faint?” she asked, noticing that she
was no longer in the classroom, but was now lying on a couch in the
living room. Michelle’s pulse was yo-yo’ing from dangerously fast
to frightening slow, and her body was likewise alternating between
warm and cold at an amazing rate. She tried to sit up and they all
helped her. When she felt steady enough, Michelle walked over to
the outdoor patio, still surrounded by the guys, who all agreed
that the fresh air would be good for her. She sat in the cool
evening air while her heart found it’s normal pace and her color
returned. Michelle apologized to all of them, telling them that she
had no idea what had happened. She did have to admit to herself
that she enjoyed getting all the attention from a bunch of gorgeous
guys, but at the same time she felt embarrassed that they were all
doting on her. They saw her as a little girl. It was obvious, and
she didn’t like it.

Back in the classroom, Michelle began
collecting her books and papers while Kahl carried the rest of the
pizza into the kitchen. Once Rion was alone with her, he asked her
what it was that they said that had upset her so much. Michelle
told him that she couldn’t think of anything specific, but Rion
knew she was lying because when a person lies their facial
expressions are different and they project their voice differently.
It was easy for one of their kind to pick up on such slight
changes. Michelle seemed too frightened and uncomfortable to want
to talk about it; Rion surmised that she just became overwhelmed by
all the information they were throwing at her. She was human after
all, and a human’s brain was too slow to digest such a large amount
of data. She became overloaded, and had to shut down for a few
seconds to reboot. Rion told Michelle that he was going to drive
her home because she shouldn’t be walking after blacking out. What
if she fainted again and no one was there to help her, he asked as
she protested? He studied her face, and Michelle looked away from
him.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” Rion moved in
closer and put his hand on her forehead even though he knew she
wasn’t running a fever. It was a nurturing gesture that had been
instilled even in him. With his hand still on Michelle’s forehead,
Rion turned to look at the door because he heard someone
approaching, only it wasn’t Kahl like he thought. It was Elliot,
and from one moment to the next Elliot’s face changed from shock to
anger and then in a millisecond he had Rion pushed up against the
wall yelling at him to take his hands off Michelle. Just like
before, Michelle never saw Elliot enter the room. It took her brain
a few seconds to understand the scene unfolding in front of her.
But now it was Rion’s turn to hurl Elliot away from him. Elliot
flew across the room, barely missing Michelle before crashing
against the double doors.

“What is wrong with you, man?” Rion roared
while Elliot stood up. But Elliot didn’t answer back, and rushed at
him again throwing Rion back up against the blackboard which split
and splintered from the force of Rion’s shoulder going right
through it. Michelle yelled at both of them to stop it but it was
like she wasn’t even there. Both Elliot’s and Rion’s eyes were
glowing and changing shades rapidly. Rion freed himself from the
blackboard and noticed that he was bleeding from where his shirt
had ripped. Which only made him angrier and although Michelle
pleaded with him not to do it, he charged towards Elliot who tried
to tackle him. Rion grabbed Elliot by the neck and the two fought
fiercely, with Rion trying to subdue Elliot onto the table. Chairs
fell everywhere and wine glasses leftover from dinner crashed to
the floor spilling what ever was left in them. Rion was practically
on top of Elliot with his hands still around his neck. He was
yelling at him that he was completely out of line.

Michelle, frightened that Rion was going to
choke Elliot to death, began screaming at him to let Elliot go.
Every few seconds she kept looking towards the classroom door,
wondering why no one was coming in to help. Elliot strained to bend
his leg underneath Rion and once he managed to do so he kicked him
in the stomach. Rion collapsed backwards wincing in pain, and
Elliot took that opportunity to pounce on top of him and punch him
in the face with such force that Michelle heard the impact of his
fist from where she was standing. She cringed at the thought that
Rion’s cheekbone might have shattered. With tears of fear streaming
down her face, she rushed to where they were rolling on the floor
and started tugging on Elliot’s shirt, yelling at him to stop
because he kept punching Rion again and again. Elliot was
distracted by Michelle’s pleas, and Rion cashed in on that moment
and sucker punched Elliot so hard that his entire body was thrown
backwards, knocking Michelle off her feet. Elliot landed in her lap
and Rion jumped to his feet, taking a defensive stance. Elliot
tried to do the same but Michelle leaned over him engulfing him
with her arms, telling him that that was enough. Elliot looked up
as her tears rolled onto his nose, mouth and chin. He touched his
lip, instinctively thinking that it was split open, but when he
tasted the wetness he realized that it was too salty to be
blood.

“Maybe you should listen to your girlfriend,”
Rion said in anger and antipathy. “You’ve got some nerve pulling
any rank after what you did to her. She doesn’t belong to you!”
Elliot sat up and Michelle noticed that he was bleeding from his
hairline.

“Well maybe you should keep your hands to
yourself because no one gave you permission to…” Elliot moved
Michelle’s arms away firmly and slowly got up.

“Gave him permission for what?” Michelle
asked, her voice shaking with anger. Elliot looked at Michelle and
he was at a loss. “Rion wasn’t doing anything, and even if he was,
that’s up to me, not you. Who are you to tell me or anyone else
what to do? I came here because Rion was helping me, because you
were gone! Gone is an understatement, isn’t it? You just
disappeared without one word to me.” Elliot looked at Michelle
suspiciously, and that look from him was like pouring oil onto an
open flame. He tried to interject but Michelle was on a roll, and
she was angry, angrier than she even thought she was. “At least
Rion is man enough to tell me things the way they are and he stands
by his words, he doesn’t run away.” Elliot looked at Rion with
resentment; what did he do? How did he turn Michelle against him?
And what was Michelle even doing there to begin with? He looked
back at Michelle, who slowly walked over to Rion and examined at
his bleeding shoulder with remorse. Was it all her fault that the
guys were hurt? She reached her hand to his bruised cheek and Rion
bent his face to her fingers and told her that it wasn’t too bad
and that he’d heal in no time. The sight of Rion getting so close
to Michelle’s face sent waves of hot burning rage through every
muscle in Elliot’s body. Michelle felt him taking a step in their
direction. Rion’s pupils focused on Elliot, throwing threatening
darts in his direction.