Legacy of the Defender (The Defender Series Book 1) (39 page)

The room was silent.  Eryn tried to ease the tension with a nervous laugh.  A few moments later the orderlies joined in and from under the bed I heard the doctor clear his throat.  He crawled out from under his refuge, stood, and straightened his tie. 

"Well Tathlyn, you handled that quite well.  You have shown you can control yourself.  I will escort you out."  His voice shook as he spoke, but he tried to look strong even though he had been cowering like a child just moments before.

I stood up, letting the collected hair fall to the floor and moved towards the door.  My eye line was above the door jamb.  This would take some adjusting.  Going in and out of rooms ducking was part of that equation.  I could no longer afford any lack of awareness.  Day dreaming or losing focus was dangerous now.  My guard could never be down...ever again.  I exited the office and looked at the room that had been my home for many weeks.  A hand took mine.  It was small and warm to the touch; it seemed to vanish in my grasp.  I did not have to look to know it was Eryn’s, but knew what it meant.  I smiled until the bright lights from the windows hit me, forcing me to shield my eyes with my free hand.  My heart would do anything to secure whatever the bond was that was developing with Eryn. 

It was a good day after all.

I stepped outside into the sunlight.  There was trouble focusing in the brightness making me shield my eyes.  Fresh air mingled with sounds both new and old.  Eryn pulled her car up to take me home.  Thankfully, it was a larger car.  Anything smaller would have been pointless.  With my size, I could not have fit.  To my surprise, she walked around and opened the door for me.  I smiled at her and my eyes happened to drift over her shoulder.  She must have noticed as my eyes found my least favorite detective still sporting his cast he earned while grappling with me.

He motioned with his good hand and pointed his fingers at me first, then his eyes.  It was the proverbial, “I am watching you.”  I laughed slightly and thought of how cheesy and cliché he was.  He could teach a class on how to be a cliché.  As I got in the car, my gaze fell upon him once more with a smile that turned into a cold stare.  He looked at me for another moment before turning away.  I knew I scared him. 

Hell, I scared me.
   

I felt the car lower on the suspension forcing me to adjust the seat.  Eryn looked at me and for the first with a real smile on her face.  Yet it was more than a smile, for there was something there unknown to me until now.  Today, hope presented itself.  I reached over and took her hand.  A sigh escaped my lips.

“Let’s go home,” she said.

“Sounds good to me.”

XXIX

Awakenings

It was not long after leaving the hospital that my first real glimpse of my coming path revealed itself.  Everything was still cryptic and felt like layers of wrapping paper on a gift.  Just as one layer came away, another layer appeared.  I may not have been any closer to figuring out what was happening to me, but the consistent weirdness was pointing in a direction that scared me.

I was staying in a second bedroom with Eryn for several weeks.  The connection we shared was not hard to explain.  Aside from my attraction for her, she had a quality about her that she just cared about people.  That was a rare trait too.  No one else at the hospital really showed an interest in who I was or what I was going through.  To them, the freak was loose on society.

Eryn understood me. 

Even though she could not explain my metamorphosis, she knew an explanation existed somewhere.  She accepted my sudden hair loss and appreciated the insane shape of my body.  My mentality changed as new experiences redefined me; I was no longer an ignorant teenager.  Fitting into social situations was awkward weeks ago.  I tended to stay quiet for fear of looking or sounding any more stupid than I already felt.  This just added to the weirdness that had become my life.  Science failed to categorize me.

In a few short weeks, my thought processes gave me hidden insight.  Clarity increased.  All situations became tactical and strategic to me.  My thoughts often focused on fighting and combat.  When I would go on morning runs near Eryn’s house, I found myself analyzing the terrain as if looking for a tactical advantage in combat.  How to approach these areas and what to do if a situation arose became a morning ritual.

This was my life!

Eryn shared a real interest in my thoughts and we spoke for many hours each night when she got off shift at the hospital.  She asked me about what I remembered the most and what the “shrink” had asked me.  Everything I told her was new and fascinating, but left me confused and exhausted.  My dreams did not make any sense.  Why was there so much violence?  What purpose lay behind all the fighting?  My guess was it had something to do with my childhood; at least this is what the shrink had said.

Each day, the strangeness of my life became harder to understand, but easier to accept.  My focus changed to the small things I could figure out, like trying to acclimate into a society that had moved forward without me.  It felt a little like what my parents used to say about things changing so much that they could not understand.  Yet in the same sentence, they tried to tell me they had been there, that they understood.  That left me even more confused as a child.  Now here I was, adapting to my new body that had freakishly grown.  This was like a bad Twilight Zone episode.

People stared at me as if I was a monster.  Mothers pulled their young ones close and gave me a nervous smile when I looked at them.  Sometimes if I smiled, they would visibly relax a bit but most would scurry away like rats after stealing some cheese, looking back the entire way. 

It felt like I caused terror in the streets with my mere presence.  I did not feel sorry for myself; it was not a pity party.  Instead, the pity was for the people that could not see anything but evil when they looked at me.  There was not a lot I could do.  No disguise would change my size.  Walking the quiet streets from Eryn’s to the park each day, I realized this had become my new normal.  My guard was never down, though.

Then everything changed. 

The air was starting to warm as the morning sun rose.  “Typical Washington weather,” I thought as the first true rays of the sun touched my eyes.  I was six blocks from Eryn’s and striding quickly
.

A gasp came from my right.  Half-expecting serious trouble, I almost turned ready to fight, only to find quite the opposite.  A woman stepped backward off the curb and fell down at the sight of me.  I heard a sickening thud as her head met pavement.  Somehow, she managed to hold onto a child.  It was bad enough she hit her head.  The approaching car changed everything.  I took the entire scene in at once.  My mind registered the driver as she fixed her mascara in the rear view window.  It had a Ford logo, a green paint job, and thumping of loud music blaring from speakers.  The dazed woman lay in the street helpless, directly in the vehicle’s path.  I saw the distance between them shrank rapidly.  The child was silent.  My body was both frozen and in motion.  I made decisions without deciding anything.  I moved without moving. 

My feet sprang into action.  Without even thinking, I was at full speed flying over bench length wise, and landed right near the edge of the curb.  The car approached fast, and showed no signs of course correction to avoid the woman.  Somehow, I cleared the stroller of another woman and was in the street before anyone realized what was going on.  In one motion, I scooped the woman and child up and leapt straight up in the air.  The car passed under me.  Screams and gasps came from onlookers.

Landing on the pavement, I stepped over to the bench and set the woman gently down making sure the baby did not slip from her grasp.  Moving back, I knelt down.  Comments came from all directions.  I felt dizzy.  My stomach turned.  A small crowd gathered. 

More murmurs came from around me.  The sound of a woman’s voice to my left; she was making a phone call on a rather large looking device with an antenna.  My senses snapped back in place, and I looked over and saw a middle-aged woman with a younger woman and a carriage that had twins aboard.  The older woman answered the dispatcher’s questions.

“An accident.  No, not another car.  No, nobody is seriously hurt, but…” she was saying.

I stood very still, not wanting to spook the crowd any more.  I could hear folks saying, “She is breathing” and “Did he hurt the baby?”  To my relief, the woman’s chest rose and fell normally.  Someone said something that caught me by surprise.  A woman off to my right walked right up to me and placed her hand on my shoulder.  I felt kindness radiate from her.

“I saw what you did just now.” 

Like a scolded child, I froze.  Guilt and fear flooded me.  Had I mishandled the woman?  Had I harmed the baby?

“People don’t risk their lives anymore,” she said.  “There aren’t any more heroes.”

I stared at her.

“Why did you do it?” she asked. 

I was looking at the road.  I felt embarrassed and afraid.  She stepped forward and knelt down looking me in the eyes.  I looked at her.  She was nodding, and I heard a faint whisper from her.  “It’s okay.  You saved them.”

“That is not what I hear,” I finally choked out the words.  My voice sounded like a hoarse whisper.  I cleared my throat.  “She fell backwards and hit her head.  I was just trying to help.” 

I raised my head up, noticed another woman taking the child out of the fallen woman’s grasp, and checked the child over.  The baby cried as she removed him from his mother’s hands.  That was odd.  The baby had not even cried out through the whole ordeal.  It only began to make noise when removed from the warmth and security of the mother’s arms.  This puzzled me greatly, and I began to analyze my actions. 

Sirens.

I stood up and backed away while the other woman comforted the child.  It struck me as odd that I had not even considered the baby in all of this.  Failure set it.  The woman calming the baby down turned and said something to the crowd now gathered.  There were hushed conversations taking place all around.  My feet slowly created distance.

“I can’t believe what I am hearing from you people!”  Began the woman, she turned and pointed at the woman on the bench.  “He saved their lives, and all you can do is comments regarding his size or the fact that he jumped over a car.”  More hushed words. 

She continued, “There is something really wrong here when someone who doesn’t feel like he fits in steps up and helps out and all you have to say is what a freak he is.  You should all be ashamed.”

My size became apparent as I rose.

I noticed a vehicle approach, lights flashing, and more sirens in the distance.  The crowd had an uneasy feel to it.  More unease washed over the crowd.  My voice found its volume button and spoke aloud before I could think. 

“I don’t know how I did it.  Would you rather I had let them die?”  The murmurs died down to silence in a matter of seconds.  I looked around.  “Well?”

The ambulance had arrived.  Two paramedics ran to the woman on the bench and began to check her for injuries.  They both opened up emergency kits and started speaking to her, letting her know they were checking her over.  One of them put something under her nose and she jolted awake and started to cry.  Without looking at the crowd again, I melted away while their attention was on the woman.  Perhaps leaving the house was a bad idea.  That thought depressed me.  My head hurt.  I just wanted a quiet room to ponder what had happened.  Part of me was mad that instincts reacted, but another part of me was still reeling from what I had done.  It seemed surreal in so many ways; playing it back over and over would be part of my meditation today.  The elements of what just happened started playing in my mind already.  I shook my head and walked, muttering.

“
Where the hell did all that come from?”
  What was I saying?  My whole life was a giant disbelief.  How could any of this be happening?  Within minutes, I was in front of the house and inside before I think I actually blinked. 

I just wanted darkness.  Rage built inside of me.  I wanted to kill something badly and did not know why.

*     *     *

My life was all about pondering these days.  I always analyzed everything to try to solve the riddle of me.  The events of the day weighed heavily.  I questioned how the situation unfolded.  Did I make the right decision?  Was there another option?  The answer always seemed to be that my presence caused the problem.  I was the component that needed removing.  The world was not ready for the new me.

On the floor in my room was my spot to meditate.  It gave me a good view of the back yard and the bird feeder outside the window.  The living room had a nice view out the back, but I felt safer in my room.  Perhaps it was the cell in the hospital, which afforded me this feeling of comfort.  A presence approached the door, and then a key fumbled in the lock.  Eryn tended to come home when the world was asleep, including me if I managed to sleep.  The door creaked open.  Rising from my spot, I walked into the front room to greet her.  It was rather strange to feel people approach, but made sense when I knew it was she.  The sight of her made me smile, but it soon faded.  Something was not right.  Her hair was a mess and I could smell the sweat as if she had been running a race.

I locked eyes with her.  Facial features betrayed her unhappiness.  The blonde locks of hair were lightly hanging in her right eye.  I moved to her the best I could while avoiding the low ceiling by the door and took her bag from her.  Without a word, my hand brushed the hair out of her eyes.  “Rough shift at the hospital?”  I asked with a slight grin creeping across my face.  She clearly did not appreciate the humor.  The slight glare made me step back.

She looked at me for about five seconds before her posture changed.  She just pointed finger at me and said, “How could you?”  I was a little confused.  I had not done anything that I knew of that cold have possibly have left her mad at me.

“I do not follow, Eryn?  Did I make a mistake?”  I turned and set her bag down on the table and turned back to her.  She was smiling and had a slight grin but was shaking her head now. 

“The next time you see fit to be a hero, call me, or come to work and tell me.”  I was confused for a second then remembered why I sat at home all day; the woman that hit her head ended up at the hospital where Eryn worked.  As I looked at her, a stirring in my soul arose from her beauty alone; something in my soul cried out for her.  I wanted to reach out and hold her close.  That might make the situation worse so my hands stayed away.

I stood there not quite sure what to say.  The events were still a blur.  I knew what had happened.  How the situation ended up where it did was the confusion.  Sure, I was strong and fast but where the burst of speed came from that launched me over a bench and a carriage was still the mystery.  The image played in my mind.  No words came.  She folded her arms and looked at me squarely.  The smile was more of a smirk, but none the less lethal, as the previous one was.  She was not happy.

“I’m waiting?  Well?”  Her weight shifted suddenly and she moved in and gave me a big hug.  My eyes closed and focused on that feeling of the warmth her embrace gave.  Her face pressed against me, revealing she was smiling.  I did not know why she was irritated to start with.  Before I could even form a sentence, she sighed.

“I had a whole host of reporters waiting for me after work.  They followed me to my car.  I was unable to get in for several minutes.  They wanted to know where you were.  Apparently, someone leaked it that you are staying here.  I told them I did not know where you were.  They seemed rather interested in the large man that jumped a car.”  She raised her eyebrows.  I noticed the last part of that was a question. 

I stepped back.  To look her in the eye without my heart racing was impossible.  This time was different.  She was very serious through her faint smile.  How could it be explained what was not understood myself?  She went to her bag behind me.  My hand found my chin and mouth and a dozen ways to try to begin this story came to mind.