LS: The Beginning (36 page)

Surely David was mentally deranged. Who’d made him judge over who Lisa or I dated? I could imagine his pain after Lisa almost burnt his tongue, but why the hatred and jealousy? I
began to suspect that Julie had a hand in Lisa’s pool attack; maybe she was the
one who’d sent him to kill Lisa, but that didn’t explain the green eye
s
and telekinesis Lisa had explained to me?

“I'd be very
grateful if you’d leave Lisa and I alone before you get hurt. You meant a lot
to her at a particular time, so I want to respect that fact and let you walk
away, hoping you don’t show your face around here again.”

Lisa listened to the
discussion, patiently waiting for the outcome.

“I’m sorry; I can’t do that. So you two think you're going to live happy ever after? Sorry to burst your romantic bubble, kid. The truth is you don't know what you're capable of doing." He looked at Lisa. "Including you,” he said with a mysterious grin.

"What in God's name are you talking about?" I asked.

"You'll find out soon enough. In the meantime, I'm going to have to do what I came for," he said.

Even though I felt fighting never did any good and it only made matters worse, he had pushed me against a wall.
I glanced at Lisa, who looked scared. “Then you leave me choice but to …” I stretched my arm forward, and an icy dagger popped out and attacked him. The second the dagger got to him, his eyes turned green and the dagger stopped, floating in the air. He smiled, and then the dagger
reversed. It began to move toward me. I waved my hand before the knife could get to me and it melted, dripping on the grass. Everything happened so fast. Lisa was in shock, still gazing at the fight.

“Oh, I see. You want to play rough. Well, two can play this game,” he
angrily countered.

Instantly, various objects around the field levitated and rushed toward
Lisa and I. The sight was really scary; stones, iron bars and wooden chairs, all approaching at the same time. I had no idea David was that strong.
Certainly, h
e had the power of telekinesis, which as I understood is the ability to move objects with
o
ne’s mind.

I ran toward Lisa and waved my hand over our heads. An ice shield was formed around us, protecting us
from the various approaching objects. They bounced on the shield, and then fell on the grass. Then Lisa
touched the shield and it
melted. Her hands were blazing fire.

I continued throwing daggers, but this time sending five
simultaneously, hoping at least one would get to him. Again, he baffled me
as he returned the daggers to the sender.
My eyes bulged out in astonishment. How could he do
such? He must have gotten his powers before Lisa and I received ours
–
or maybe the four months of his absence was because he went for training or
something? Melting all the daggers this time around wasn’t so easy; I could
feel a tinge of nausea around my nasal cavity, and then before I knew it, blood began dripping
from my nose.

Lisa saw the blood on my face and began throwing balls of fire at
him, but as expected, he kept stopping them in midair. The balls of fire were more difficult for David to control, so he let them drop on the ground. Lisa blinked the moment the grass went up in flames, and the fire went out. I joined
her
and began throwing daggers. Slowly, David started to lose his stamina and
found it difficult to stop everything that attacked him.

Lisa's karate lessons became useful as she jumped up in the air to dodge
a metal object that was intended to hit her from behind. She landed back on her feet and resumed throwing the fireballs from thin air. Soon, David's resistance was drastically minimized as Lisa stopped throwing fireballs at him. She stretched her hands backwards and released a stream of fire which gravity had no effect on. Then she pointed toward David. As the fire approached him, the bonnet of a car appeared in front of him and protected him
from Lisa’s fire.

I’d stopped fighting and stood still, watching Lisa do
her work. I was afraid I would spoil the good thing she had going. As for David, he couldn’t handle it again and so he threw
a huge stone toward her, once again from behind.

“Watch out,” I shouted.

Lisa turned back to see the stone racing toward her, but I blinked my eyes and it froze
before it could get to her. As she returned to her former position, we were the only two people in the park. David had gone.

“Wow! That was a close one,” I said, moving toward Lisa, whose
face had turned ashen. Her last action must have drained much power from
her: she could hardly speak.
“Don’t worry; everything will be fine.”

I carried her in my arms and ran to where we’d left her
car. She looked so tired and worn out. There was no way I could let her drive.

In a few minutes' time, we were at the front door of her house. I quickly
sneaked Lisa into her room without anyone seeing us, knowing her parents would
be so worried if they saw their daughter in such state.

Sadly, I couldn’t bear the pain of the scorching ruby necklace so I asked her to
take it herself.
As usual she regained her strength looking as beaming as ever,
though her expression remained the same: perplexed.

I dashed to my room to change my outfit. Although my nose had stopped bleeding, the signs were still there on my white tie.
Getting back, I met Lisa lying on her bed with the necklace still
placed around her neck. She was still wearing her lovely red dress.

“Please sit,” she instructed, tapping her bed. “What really happened today?” she asked.

I joined her on the bed, placing her head on
my lap.
“We weren’t prepared for him. He won’t be lucky next time,” I
assured her.

“That’s not what I meant. I mean why did you bleed and why did
I go unconscious?” she asked, facing the ceiling like she was in a therapy
section. Lisa had observed our loss of health after the excessive use of our
abilities. If only I’d informed her much earlier about it, it wouldn’t
have been such a shocker to her. I couldn’t keep secrets from the one I loved, so I
decided to open up.

“Lee, I really don’t know why that occurred, but it’s not the first time I’ve bled due to my powers,” I confessed in a low voice.

She turned to look at me, her face red and crossed. “When was
this? And why would you keep something that important from me?”

We had promised to tell each other everything, but then I’d broken the
promise. It was because I wanted to protect her from the truth, or so I believed.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to seem weak and I thought it was only going to
affect me. It will never happen again,” I said, stroking her soft hair with my
hands.

“I really hope so. We shouldn’t keep secrets from each other, Stephen.”

I leaned forward and pecked her on the forehead. “You’re right; we shouldn’t
. So
once again, I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted, so where were we?”

“You were confused about our abilities making us weak. Wait: someone’s coming,” I said, slowly removing Lisa’s head from my lap
and placing it on a pillow.

Ben was polite to knock at the door, even though he was the owner of
the house.

“Come in,” Lisa called.

He entered the room. “Am I interrupting something?” his husky voice asked.

“No you aren’t, Dad. We were just chatting about the
awards,” Lisa said as she sat upright.

“Oh really?” He pretended to buy her explanation. “How did it go?”

Lisa looked at me. “Where are the awards?” she asked.

“It seems like we left them,” I said.

“You were the last to leave,” she mumbled.

“Yeah, but you know why I left.”

“Let me butt in before you two tear each other apart. Your friends Sharon and Catherine came over and dropped them off. They’re in the living room downstairs,” Ben said.

“So nice of them,” Lisa said.

“Well, Stephen, Ellen and I want to have a word with you in private,” he
said, emphasizing his last word.

Lisa looked at me. My guess was that she was wondering if her parents
had
found out about the monstrous David. I needed to assure her everything
would be all right, even though I had doubts. It would be the first time I talked to her parents alone. It was a big deal.

“
Everything’s okay. He probably just wants to thank me for
something.
” I couldn’t speak aloud nor whisper, so I decided to use the last
gun in my arsenal: telepathy.

I followed Ben to a room I hadn’t known existed. Lisa and I had
roamed the entire house, but we’d never come across this particular
room. It was a bit smaller than Lisa’s room and less decorated. It looked
more like an office.

“Take a seat,” he instructed, moving forward to meet Ellen, who was seated on the
office
chair.   I totally complied, knowing already the outcome of the
discussion. I didn’t have any other choice, reading their mind’s was the only way I could sit down calmly.

“Hello, Stephen,” Ellen said.

“Hi, Ellen,” I responded.

Ben looked at his gorgeous wife, who still looked young and radiant.
“My wife and I would like to give you our sincere gratitude for keeping
your word on Lisa’s stability and letting no harm come to her. It means a lot to us and we would like to pay you in any way
necessary.”

He reached into his drawer and brought out a check book. I felt so
embarrassed and also a little insulted. He wanted to pay me for my
services, which in a way was thoughtful of him.

“No sir, please, I don’t need any money. Your hospitality is more than
enough,” I assured.

In a way, I was right. I didn’t need his money, because one
could say my account was
green.

“That’s very humble of you. We are really thankful our daughter met
you. If you need anything, just let us know. Also, stop calling me sir: that sounds too formal. I noticed Lisa was wearing the necklace I
gave her. Why?” He carefully returned his check book to the drawer.