The Origin (11 page)

“Would you believe you? At the very least, I give you points for creativity. Most guys wouldn’t bother coming up with a decent story to excuse their behavior.”

He stood up suddenly, and with both hands gripping the bottom of the ratty couch, lifted it above his head with Olivia, purse, and all.

She fell into the cushions with a sharp cry, her legs flailing in the air as she tried to regain her balance. The expression on her face, when she finally looked at him, was undeniable and he found himself flushing from its intensity.

What the hell just happened?
Olivia thought wildly, unable to do anything but stare at the man before her as he slowly lowered the full-sized couch to the floor. In one split frame of her life, Daniel had gone from an ordinary guy that she liked to a… she fought the urge to think
freak
but that was what he was, essentially. A freak of nature. A genetic freak.

Okay. Don’t panic. Calm down and think,
she told herself
.
There had to be a rational explanation.

He might be strong enough to lift the couch with a one hundred and twenty pound woman on it without even batting an eyelash, but that could be explained away. He was, after all, a muscular guy and had played football in high school and possibly college. Even speed could be rationalized along the same vein, that he had trained to be fast all his life. Weren’t evolutionists always saying that human beings were continually advancing, becoming stronger and faster? Broken Olympic records year after year proved that.

But what about super healing? And breathing underwater? Would that make him some sort of marine-human hybrid or just a really inventive liar?

She stood up abruptly and shook her head as she reached for her jacket and purse. “No, Daniel. You can’t just make crap up to appease me.”

His eyes widened in surprise. “You still don’t believe me?”

“What? That you can lift a couch up in the air? That’s supposed to convince me that you’re some sort of super human? I’m not that gullible.” She hurried to the front door and walked out without another word.

Once downstairs, she pulled out her cell phone and was calling information for a taxi company when Daniel appeared beside her soundlessly, making her drop her phone in surprise.

Daniel’s hand shot out in a blur and caught it before it was even halfway to the ground. “I’m sorry I scared you,” he said, holding his hand out. “I just… I don’t know how else to convince you without scaring the hell out of you.”

“I just want the truth.”

“That
was
the truth.” Suddenly, as if struck by an idea, he said, “Let me take you home. Let me at least do that.”

“No need.” She turned away and began dialing information once more. “I’ll just call a taxi.”

“Tell you what,” he said quickly, closing his hand over her phone. “You get in the taxi and I’ll run alongside. I bet you a hundred bucks that I can beat you to your apartment.”

She regarded him with an eyebrow raised. “Yeah right. Any old grandma on a walker can beat a taxi with traffic the way it is,” she said. “The only thing you’ll prove is that you have the endurance of a turtle.”

“Well then, I’ll just have to carry you home.” And all of a sudden, he bent down and hoisted her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all. Even her dance partner, Michael, who had much practice, could not lift her up that effortlessly.

“What are you doing?” she cried.

“Carrying you home,” he said simply.

Why not let the poor guy try? What was the harm of watching him attempt to carry me all the way to my apartment?
The mischievous thought occurred to her and she wrapped her arms around his neck, making sure her purse was tucked away securely. “Alright. Take me home then.”

The look on his face was that of solemn duty. “Alright. Just relax. I won’t drop you.”

She stifled a smile as he began to jog but it was wiped off her face when she was suddenly thrown against him, and they surged forward, the world around them lost in a blur of light and sounds.

Five minutes and three seconds later, Daniel came to a full stop in front of Olivia’s brownstone apartment. “We’re here,” he whispered into her ear.

Olivia lifted her head from under his chin, and he beamed down at her.
There,
he thought triumphantly.
Let her refute that.

She blinked and looked around in disbelief. “Can you put me down now, please?” she said, releasing her tight hold around his neck.

Her eyes were kept trained to the ground as she slid down to her feet, making it difficult to read her reaction.

“
Liv
? Are you okay? Did I accidentally hurt you?”

She shook her head and fished a set of keys out of her purse. “I’m fine.” Finally, she looked up at him and he saw indifference coloring her face, as if she’d just taken the subway home instead. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

 
Daniel was unable find his voice for a few moments. Of the times he’d envisioned her reaction to his secret – belief, skepticism, hysteria – impassivity was not one he’d counted on.

Finally, because he had no other choice, he said, “Okay. Sure. Take all the time you need.”

After they said their awkward good nights, he briefly touched his lips to her cheek then walked home, scratching his head and wondering what the hell he had just done.

Wasn’t this what he wanted all along? His initial goal had been to drive her away so he could go back to living his solitary, uncomplicated life. So why then, now that he’d achieved that goal, did he feel so damn wretched? Did he actually care what she thought of him? Had he been so careless and actually allowed himself to feel something for her?

The answer, of course, was a resounding yes.

As he walked in the dark with his hands in his pockets, his face partially hidden behind his upturned collar, he berated himself for becoming so easily distracted and allowing someone to sledge-hammer a chink in his protective armor. Because, now, he was exposed and entirely vulnerable to attack.

That night, Olivia flipped on the television in an attempt to take her mind off Daniel and his quirks long enough to fall asleep. He had bombarded her brain with fantastic information, so much so that everything on the news seemed tame in comparison.

“Police are still looking for any clues on a wanted vigilante, the Black Hero as he’s called by some. He is wanted for questioning, so if you know of this man’s whereabouts, please call the police hotline shown at the bottom of the screen,” the female reporter said, and to her left flashed a composite sketch of a head covered in a ski mask, with piercing eyes as the only humanizing attribute. “Detective Lingle of the Major Case Squad urges anyone with information to come forward…”

Olivia snickered just as a mustached face came onscreen. She turned the television off and snuggled under the blanket. “What makes them think the Black Hero’s a guy?” she said to the quiet room, and she fell asleep, dreaming of a female superhero that lifted couches above her head.

When she woke at seven thirty the next morning, she still had no idea what to make of Daniel. The bizarre way he had taken her home had jarred her grasp on physics so that she began to question everything she knew to be fundamentally true. Was it even physiologically possibly to move that fast?

Moreover, if someone like Daniel could exist, then what else was out there in this vast planet? Who else had these powers? What was its source?

She needed answers.

“Uh… hi.” Daniel answered his front door a little while later, wearing only gray pajama pants and a drowsy expression on his face, his brown hair tousled and crushed flat in places. Freak or not, Olivia could not deny the obvious fact that Daniel was one sexy man.

She walked into the apartment and faced him, finding it hard to focus on the issue at hand when she was faced with muscles that went on for days.

Peeling her eyes away from his torso, she forced herself to concentrate. “I need to understand this, Daniel. How did you get this way? Are there others like you? How did you discover this?” she asked, unconsciously gesturing to his bare body.

Daniel rubbed his unshaven jaw and yawned. “Do you want some coffee first?”

She nodded and watched him plod to the kitchen, gaping as the muscles on his back jumped with each movement.

What the hell is wrong with me?
she thought irately.
I’m faced with some genetic anomaly and all I can do is ogle his body? What am I, a man?

But there was no denying the fact that Daniel Johnson was a remarkable specimen. She would be doing the human race a disservice by not closely examining him, especially those little indentations right above his buttocks…

Daniel returned with two steaming mugs of coffee, breaking her trance. “Do you want some milk or sugar?”

“No, this is fine. Thanks.” She took a sip of the bitter drink and eyed him surreptitiously over the steam. His front was just as pleasant to look at as his back, with his expansive chest and defined abdominals, both of which were lightly covered with short, brown hair. Her eyes followed the line of his six-pack downwards, until she caught sight of the prominent ridges of his hipbones that dipped into the waistband of his pants suggestively.

She swallowed the coffee abruptly, burning her throat and making her eyes water.

“Do you want to sit down?” he asked and motioned to the couch. He himself sank into the tattered leather armchair nearby with a soft groan.

After she recovered her wits, she said, “Only if you’ll start talking.” When he nodded, she perched on the edge of the couch, sitting as close to him as possible. “How long have you known?”

“Since high school.”

A puzzle clicked into place at the mention of
Westmoore
High. “Did this have something to do with that football game accident?”

She saw the surprise in his eyes, which had quickly lost their lazy drowse. “That was an accident,” he said, his nostrils flaring. After all these years, she thought
bittersweetly
, he was still the same prickly boy from high school.

“Daniel, please,” she said, willing him to lower his defenses. “Tell me.”

“It happened two days before the game.” He began to talk at a rapid pace, as though the words had always been on the verge of tumbling out. “I woke up one day and just felt
good,
you know? When I went to practice that day, I realized I was faster and stronger than I’d ever been. God, I’d never felt like that before, like I drank some Red Bull and injected steroids at the same time. So I went to the gym by myself to test out a theory. And I was right. I maxed out every single machine there as if it were nothing. I didn’t even break a sweat.”

Her heart thudded in her chest as she fought to suppress the skeptic within.

“So I kept it a secret. I had to. I was afraid they’d kick me off the team for being… too strong, I guess. The other players, other schools, would think it was unfair. Besides, I still didn’t know myself how long this would last. I wanted to take advantage of it just in case it disappeared the next day.”

“Did anything significant happen before that? Thunderstorm? Rip in the space-time continuum? Radioactive spider bite?” She shrugged in apology, hoping he didn’t think she was mocking him, which she wasn’t. Much. “Did you fall into a vat of toxic waste?”

A grin tugged at his lips for a moment. “Believe it or not, I thought the same thing in the beginning. But nope, it was just any old school night. I got home from school, my Mom griped at me for not cleaning my room like I’d promised. We had Wednesday meatloaf and potatoes. Mom and Dad were fighting about money, something about whether we needed a storm shelter. Seinfeld was on TV.” He leaned back and furrowed his eyebrows. “I’ve gone over the details of that night so often that I could probably tell you just how many times I went to the bathroom.”

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “I’ve never told anyone before,
Liv
.” His eyes begged her to comprehend the magnitude of what he’d just done.

Olivia was still in a state of shock and denial at his admission, but the way she saw it, she had two choices: she could freak out and cut Daniel out of her life, an option that didn’t hold much appeal, or she could take him at face value and just believe that he was telling the truth.

Could Daniel have hit the genetic jackpot? Was he actually some sort of superhuman? And keeping it secret all these years was akin to forbidding a gifted dancer from performing in front of an audience. She found it hard to fathom just how lonely his life must have been. “Why are you telling me?”

He blinked in surprise. “I don’t know. Because you asked me to?”

She laughed. “So if I told you to breathe underwater, you would do it?”

His face metamorphosed then, as the corners of his mouth extended outward, making deep dimples appear on either side of his cheeks and crinkling the skin around his eyes. The smile, the first real one she’d seen on him, was transformative, shaving years off his face and making him look very much like the carefree high school jock of his
yesterlife
. And she, reminded of her adolescent object of infatuation, was herself unable to keep the smile from growing on her face.