Secrets: The Hero Chronicles (Volume 1) (28 page)

I went upstairs to my room. I could hear a distant storm approaching. The thunder rumbled and the flashes of lightning were faint, but close enough to light up my dark room. The thick clouds made everything grey, eliminating all of the colors around me. I had a weird feeling that the storm was an indicator of things to come.

Cora came to my door and knocked. I didn’t have a chance to answer before she said, “There is food in the fridge when you are hungry.”

“Cora,” I said, but there was no answer. She was already gone. It’s amazing how great and alive I felt this morning, but now I didn’t feel that way. The storm was getting louder. I didn’t feel like eating—I was still too angry—but I had to eat. It was going to be a long night. Plus, I couldn’t ask Cora for the truck for fear of starting another conversation that would end with her forbidding me to go to Elle’s. I would have to walk.

In the fridge was a plate that looked like a Thanksgiving feast with all of the fixings. I grabbed just the turkey off the plate and some bread to make a sandwich. I took my sandwich to my room. I ate my dinner in the seclusion of my room and turned my thoughts back to Elle. Cora and I would be okay, but I wasn’t sure about Elle and I. She wanted to see me, but who knows what that meant? I could only hope that our visit tonight would be the first step toward getting past this.

THE PAST

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I
was counting the minutes until I could leave. I looked at the clock. Only 8:30—two more hours until I would be with Elle. I closed my eyes, concentrating on her. I slowly drifted to sleep. My muscles tightened and I stopped breathing. Was I asleep? I couldn’t breathe; it felt like a 1,000-pound weight was crushing my chest. I struggled to move my arms and legs. I started to panic because I couldn’t get air. I thought I was done with these types of dreams. What was going on?

I tried with all of my might to raise my arm to push the weight off of me. I managed to squirm away, to free myself from the weight. The crushing sensation was now replaced by a peculiar tingling in my arm. The tingling felt like small bee stings with a warm feeling radiating from them.

Cora had hold of my arm, shaking me to wake up. Still disoriented I yelled, “What’s happening? What are you doing to me?”

“You were dreaming and hit the lamp off your nightstand.”

I looked down beside the bed, and my lamp was shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces.

“Lie still and let me check your arm.”

The stinging feeling was a gash from hitting the lamp. The warm sensation was blood running down my arm. She held my arm tight, picking the pieces of the lamp out of the cut.

“Doesn’t look like you need stitches. Now you stay still until I get something to clean this cut.”

I watched Cora glide out of the room. It was 10:00 p.m. I sat up.

“Where do you think you’re going? I have to clean it out,” Cora said, coming back in holding a first aid kit.

“It’s fine. I have to be somewhere.”

“No, you don’t. That cut needs cleaning and it’s a school night.”

“Cora, please understand. I have something very important to do. I have to be somewhere. May I go?”

“Does this have to do with a certain girl that wasn’t speaking to you?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Okay, I will still need to clean this first and then you may go.” She quickly cleaned the cuts and put a bandage on it.

“Okay, Nicholas, you’re all set, but please don’t be too late.”

I was going to have to run fast; it was already 10:15.

“Nicholas, one more thing. We are going to have a talk about those dreams because there’s something I need to tell you about them. Also take the truck tonight. I don’t want you to be late.”

“Thanks, Cora, and yes, we will talk.”

I ran down the stairs and grabbed the keys off the kitchen table. The rain had stopped, but I could still hear and see the distant thunder and lightning. The humid spring air formed a thick fog, making it hard to see. Luckily our truck had fog lamps. Without them, it would have been faster to run than to drive in this fog. The drive took longer than usual, which gave me time to think about what I was going to say to Elle. I parked a couple of houses down from hers.

All of the lights were off in her house, making it invisible in the fog. I walked to the back of the house, ducking under each window just in case her parents were still up. I saw some light cutting through the fog—a light from her room. The window was open. I maneuvered my body through the small opening and landed quietly in her room. The familiar smell of vanilla was in the air and it calmed my nerves.

I turned to see that none of her lights were on, just a nightlight by her bed. That was the light I had seen from the backyard. She was sitting in her round chair in the corner of her room. She was wearing pink pajamas and a pair of fuzzy purple socks. I wanted to tease her about her socks but held back because I was sure this wasn’t the time for that. Even in her pajamas she was still breathtaking. Her hair was pulled back with two sticks that looked like fancy painted chopsticks, holding it up in a bun. She also was wearing her glasses. I had only seen her in glasses one other time.

I walked slowly to her, but she didn’t look up. What was I supposed to do? She sat still, never making any movements or acknowledging my presence. I wanted to say something, but I was not sure what to say or do to make this better. I knew that I had to make her understand everything, but this was not the time to do that. She needed more time to deal with everything. She would speak to me when she was ready, and I was prepared to wait. I sat down next to the chair and leaned my head against it. Time moved fast, even in the silence of her room.

She stood up after two hours and walked to her bed. I stood up quickly. She got into bed and looked at me. Her eyes told me it was time to go.

“Can I come back tomorrow night?” My heart pounded, anticipating her answer. It seemed like an eternity before she nodded yes.

“Goodnight, Elle, and thank you for letting me come over.” I pulled myself up through the open window.

The next night was exactly like the first—mostly just sitting in silence. I was happy being near her, even if we didn’t talk. If this was how it was going to be, I would happily accept it just so I could be around her. Cora didn’t stop me from going to Elle’s house, and she never brought up my dreams either.

I arrived at Elle’s house at 10:30 on Thursday night. Her parents were still up watching TV, so I took more time sneaking around the windows before sliding down through her open window.

“Why did you keep those secrets from me?”

I spun around, surprised to see Elle right in front of me instead of in her chair. All of her lights were on, and she was still dressed in the clothes she had worn to school. She had been crying.

“Nicholas, before you answer me, you’d better tell me the truth from now on because you have only one more chance.” She sat down on the edge of her bed.

“Please, Elle, I know that there are going to be parts that you will want to ask questions about, but you have to let me tell you everything first.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Before I start, my football injury was fake.” I quickly continued before she could respond. “When we were at the restaurant, someone recognized me. It was Tina, out of all the people to see me. Tina McBride was one of the people that I pulled out of our collapsing school during the 10-10 Earthquake. When she saw me, of course she wanted to talk to me, but all I was trying to do was escape so that my secret would stay hidden. You see, for the last five and a half years I have been taught to avoid being the center of attention, taught to blend in. That is why I had to fake my injury, because I was getting too much attention on the field. You may know the part of my past that everyone seems to think they know, but I’m going to tell you what really happened that day during the earthquake. I have never told anybody this, not even my Aunt Cora.

“I was in fifth grade. It was October 10th, the day the earthquake struck the New Madrid Fault Line. Everyone remembers where they were when it happened. A couple of students and I had just been called in from recess to Ms. Rush’s class when the quake hit. There was a loud sound like a train running into a brick wall. I can still hear it now. The walls and windows began to shake, and the ceiling started to fall in. I managed to run through the falling debris and make it outside, but when I realized that Mark, Tina, and Ms. Rush weren’t behind me, I ran back into the collapsing school without thinking.

“I saw Mark first. He was on the floor with a large cut on his leg from concrete that had fallen on him. I managed to get him up and outside. The earthquake had stopped for a moment, so I ran back in to find the others. I couldn’t tell where the classroom was because of the extreme damage that the quake had done. I yelled for Tina and heard her crying under part of a fallen wall, which was braced up by some desks. I got down on all fours, crawled in, and saw Tina trapped and covered in blood. I pulled her out from under the wall using all of my strength. Her screams sounded like she was dying, but I dragged her free.

“When I got back outside, some of the teachers and students were coming over toward us. Then the first of the major aftershocks hit. People were yelling and screaming again, but instead of fear, I just thought of Ms. Rush still trapped inside. I started to run back inside, even though everything was still shaking. I think some of the teachers closest to me yelled for me to stop and even tried to stop me, but I went in anyway. This time the partial walls that were still standing were swaying from the aftershock. I was yelling for Ms. Rush, but heard no answer. I spotted her large wooden desk covered by parts of the ceiling. I made my way around the twisted metal and fallen walls. I saw her leg sticking out from under her desk. She must have ducked under it when the earthquake hit. She was lying there motionless. I reached under the desk and pulled her out. I couldn’t drag her over the debris because she would have gotten hurt worse. I didn’t want to leave her to go get help because, with the aftershocks, I was sure she would probably die. So I reached down and picked her up.

“I’m not sure how I had the strength to do it, but I did. The school began to shake from another aftershock, and I knew it was about to collapse. I moved swiftly through the broken school. Right as we cleared the building, it caved in on itself. There I stood, holding Ms. Rush in my arms in front of what used to be our school.”

I paused for a moment to catch my breath, and then I continued. “That morning, there were strange looking lights in the sky, which everyone had been taking pictures of before the earthquake. I later read that those lights are called earthquake lights. They sometimes form before large seismic events. So someone who had been taking pictures of the lights took a photo of me holding Ms. Rush. Cora and I still don’t know who took it, but that picture changed my life and sent me into hiding.

“No one at the school realized how big the earthquake was at first. I didn’t know yet that while I was getting them out of the school, thousands of other people were dying, including my mom and dad. I spent most of the day waiting at the school for my parents to come and get me, but my Aunt Cora showed up instead.

“Several news people showed up at my house when they heard what I had done and saw the picture of me holding Ms. Rush. They asked me why I ran into the school, and I answered, ‘Because I had to save them. It was my responsibility.’ I had no idea what I was saying. I was only ten years old. The next thing I knew, the picture was everywhere with the caption, ‘Alex Taylor, the 10-10 Hero.’ Then reporters from all over the world wanted to talk about what happened and about my mom and dad. The world became obsessed with making me a hero, even though thousands of people died and there were hundreds of other heroes out there.

“A week later, my Aunt Cora woke me up early and took me to visit my parents’ graves, and then we disappeared. She told me that she wanted me to have a normal life and my mom and dad would have wanted that too. So for the past five and a half years, we have moved every year to a different town and school in order to protect me and keep my identity hidden. That’s why I used my middle name and my mom’s maiden name.

“But things changed when I got here. Everything just clicked for me. All of a sudden, I was good at football and I made actual friends. Then there was you. Cora and I would have normally moved after all of the attention I was getting, but I didn’t want to leave you. I knew that I would eventually have to move away and never see or speak to you again, but I was selfish. I did everything in my power to postpone moving just so I could be with you longer.”

I wasn’t looking at Elle. I was looking at the ground, scared to look up. “Elle, I am so sorry for not telling you the truth. You are the last person I would ever want to hurt. You are the reason why I am still here and why I confronted the reporters. I couldn’t imagine not seeing you.” I looked up and her eyes were filled with tears.

“Nicholas, I am the one who should be sorry. I was the selfish one. The things you have gone through are things I could never have done.”

“So does this mean you forgive me, Elle?”

Crying and laughing at the same time, she threw her arms around me.

FIRST DATE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“C
ora, I have something to tell you,” I said while getting ready to leave for school.