Unaltered #2_A Diamond in my Heart (16 page)

The holidays came and went and the
arrival of the New Year was celebrated with my parents and their
friends. My first semester grades were all 'A's and my parents
couldn’t be prouder. I had to admit I was quite pleased with myself
as well. However, I was looking forward to Maetha and Beth
surprising me again like they did at Thanksgiving, but not this
time.

A big bombshell was dropped the day
before my return. My mother came into my room and sat on my bed and
asked, “Did you know Suz’s parents were getting a
divorce?”

“No,” I answered and sat next to my
mom.

“Apparently Suz purchased one of those
over-the-counter paternity tests and tricked her father into giving
a swab when she arrived for Christmas break. She sent it off
priority mail and got her results within a few days showing he
wasn’t her biological father. He left that night and Suz’s mother
drove her back to her dorm and packed up her stuff. Apparently, Suz
had been dating her half brother.”

“Who?”

“Brand Safferson. Did you and Brand
break up?”

“No. I mean, we’re just friends. I
overheard the fight back at Thanksgiving time.” I went on to tell
my mom most of the details of what had happened, of course, leaving
out the Repeater parts and the, ‘oh, and I have a diamond in my
heart, Mom,’ particulars. It made me wonder when I’d be able to
tell my parents about my secret.

I hugged my parents before I left to
return to college and told them I’d see them on Spring Break in
late March.

When I arrived back at my dorm, a
small package was waiting for me. My new Demon devices were
completed and they looked great; I just needed to find Brand so we
could test them. I went to his room but he wasn’t back yet from his
vacation. I wondered if his vacation was as bumpy as Suz’s due to
the fact that some secrets were revealed.

I left a note on Brand’s door to come
see me when he returned.

Later a knock came to my door, but it
wasn’t Brand, it was Beth. I gave her a hug and invited her
in.

“How is everything going,
Beth?”

“Not well. The amulet has divided the
clan even further and I fear animosity and jealousy will tear us
apart. I hear it isn’t any different in the other
clans.”

“That’s terrible.”

“I wouldn’t have thought it would turn
out like this when the amulets were first handed out. I doubt the
witch, Maetha, knew it either. Some people say that she knew all
too well what would happen and that was why she gave them
out.”

“How is everything
else
going?” I tried to
sound innocent.

“Chris is doing much better. He’s
cheered up a little and every now and then I see him
smile.”

We were interrupted by Brand knocking
on my door. He looked absolutely horrible. I guess life at his home
had been rocky as well. “Oh, sorry,” he said, “you’re busy. I’ll
come back later.”

“Hi Brand,” Beth jumped to her feet
with a mile wide grin.

“Come on in, Brand,” I
said.

He shrugged his shoulders and entered
the room.

I knew what would cheer him
up, but I didn’t know if I should show the Demon devices to Beth. I
looked into Beth’s future and saw the same vision as before that
she would lead a task force to eradicate evil clan members. I
looked to see if I should give her a Demon device and what I saw
flabbergasted me; someday she’d be leading the task force and would
be searching for
me
! Well, I definitely wouldn’t be giving her a weapon she
could potentially use against me in the future. Instead we carried
out pleasant conversation with the down-in-the-dumps-Brand and
before the evening came Brand was feeling better. Beth left before
darkness settled in and then I was able to show Brand the new and
improved devices.

We went outside and found a good
location that would allow him to return to a safe place should the
device be faulty in any way.

“I like how small they are,
Calli.”

“They’re a little different than what
I imagined them to be. Don’t you think they look like a
top?”

“A what?”

“You know, a top, a spinner, you flick
it between your fingers and it spins for a while.”

“Oh, yeah, I suppose.” Brand turned on
his device and attached it to his jacket. “It doesn’t make any
noise, Calli.”

“Hmmm, I hope it works for your
sake.”

“I’m used to being ripped to shreds.”
He attempted to sound as if he was joking but I could tell there
was a double meaning. “Alright, here I go.” He looked around to
make sure no one was watching and stepped beyond the line of light.
His body rose off the ground and his head flew backward as his
throat ripped open causing blood to spurt all over.

The world began to spin wildly as
Brand repeated the scene and I found myself back to the point where
he was about to walk into the dark.

He spoke wryly, “Well,
that’s the perfect way to end my
perfect
day.”

“I’m sorry Brand, I don’t know
what-”

“It doesn’t matter; you’ll get it
right the next time. By the way, my other device is missing. Did
you take it?”

“No.”

Brand turned around and walked back
inside the building leaving me standing out in the cold wondering
exactly what went wrong with the new device, what happened at
Brand’s house over the holiday break, and who would have taken his
other device?

*****

The new semester kicked off with
basically the same class lineup and that was nice; that meant I
wouldn’t have to adjust my schedule too much. The failed devices
had been on my mind since the day Brand tried one out. I’ve
concluded it was a manufacturer’s defect and I’ll search for a
different manufacturer with a higher reputation.

Suz’s friends have taken over the job
of shooting daggers at me whenever I see them and I guess that’s
alright. Sticks and stones, right? The news spread rapidly that Suz
had been pulled from college by her mother, but it was fueled
mainly by the juicy information that she and Brand were half
brother and sister. Of course, the misinformation about Suz being
pregnant had found its way into the rumor mill as well.

As I’d suspected, Brand’s lie about
being a hypnotist had spread like wildfire following the
Thanksgiving fight by the river, adding it together with
impregnating his half sister and it made for top-notch talk show
fodder. For the first little while I tried to calm the rumors but
soon found I couldn’t very well explain anything without revealing
information that shouldn’t be revealed.

Brand wasn’t even trying to clear his
name.

I suspected he’d sunken into
depression and I debated every day whether or not to heal his brain
chemicals. One good sign was that because I couldn’t read his
thoughts I knew he hadn’t given up entirely; he was still
repeating. He was not, however, dating or seducing girls. The whole
‘Suz’ thing had really affected him along with discovering more
about his own mind and his need for approval from his
father.

The latter part of January was spent
in matchmaker mode helping unfortunate souls find each other, for
better or worse, as Valentine’s Day was just around the corner and
being a single girl was something that weighed heavily on many
minds. I’ve never understood that aspect of the female mind; even
before the diamond was in my heart. Then again, I’ve never
understood many aspects of the female mind. This caused me to
wonder if it was possible that being unaltered somehow kept me from
all the drama that most girls seem to go through. Perhaps a regular
slightly altered female suffers more because of the cosmic energies
that assaulted her DNA while in the womb. My mother didn’t seem to
be burdened with pettiness and paranoia, but I’ve always attributed
that to her age and maturity. It was a fascinating possibility but
one that I’d have to wait until I met other female unaltereds to
explore it further.

After Valentine’s Day, I found a
different manufacturer for my devices and emailed the specifics of
the device to the designer. I used the credit card my parents gave
me to pay for the prototypes figuring once they saw the charge I’d
be hearing from them; maybe by then I would have figured out a good
excuse for dropping $1,200 to a design shop in Texas.

Three days before Spring Break began,
Brand caught up with me as I walked to class. “What are your plans
for the break, Calli?”

“I’m going back home to help my mother
sort through boxes in the basement.”

“Oh, well, have fun with that.” He
quickened his pace and positioned himself in front of me and turned
around and walked backward while he asked, “I was wondering if we
could make another device. I’ve been going nuts these last few
weeks without my other one.”

“You never found it?” I stopped
walking and stared at him.

“No,” he said as he also halted his
awkward backward walk. The hair on the back of my neck stood on
end. I knew at that moment someone had stolen the clunky device;
but who? It would have to be someone who could appreciate the value
of it, someone who feared the Demons.

“You’ve been without a Demon device
this whole time, Brand?”

“Well, yeah.” He looked down to the
ground.

“All we need is another Mp3 and some
speakers because I have the sound file on my laptop.”

“I have everything already. Can we do
this tonight?”

I nodded my head and he took off in
the other direction right after flashing his dimples at me. I
continued on to my math class and sat in my usual spot in the back
corner where I could view everyone in the classroom. I’d been
positioning myself in the back corners of every classroom so I
could locate other unaltereds. So far, no one surfaced and today
wasn’t any different.

That evening after I’d eaten dinner, I
returned to my dorm and waited for Brand. I checked my email and
found that Beth had sent me a message:

Calli, I can’t say I’m surprised this has
happened but the Seers' leader and amulet wearer, Curtis Shultz,
has disappeared with no sign of foul play. Personally, I think he
had enough of the conflict and quarreling and separated himself
from his clan. However, Clara doesn’t believe that; she suspects
kidnapping. I don’t know who would do it though. I’ve recommended
that the Runners' amulet have constant security. I hope all is well
with you and I’ll talk to you later. -Beth

Brand knocked on my door and pulled my
attention away from my computer screen. I looked up and smiled.
“Come in, Brand.”

“Hey, Calli,” he said as he dumped the
contents of the paper bag he was holding onto the bed. “I’m heading
home for Spring Break as well but I won’t be staying at my mother’s
house. I met a girl online and I’m going to crash at her place for
the week.” His eyes twinkled with excitement.

“Oh, I see. So, you want a new Demon
device so you can party all night long.” I connected his USB cord
to my laptop and transferred the sound file. “You know, you could
keep your own backup file of my heartbeat, that way if anything
happens to this one you can make your own.”

“Wow, you read my mind!”

“What?”
Did I really read his mind?
No, he
wasn’t aware I could even do that.

“It’s a figure of speech,
Calli. That’s what I was thinking and you verbalized it at the same
time. Chill out, Calli,” he scoffed, “as
if
you can read minds. You’re only a
Healer.”

I changed the subject immediately.
“Why did you wait so long before asking me to make you another
device?”

“I wanted to try to make it myself,
but no other heartbeat works like yours; I know… I’ve
tried.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I even got Professor Guthry to
let me record another student’s heartbeat on the classroom
ultrasound machine but it didn’t work on the Demons when I tested
it.”

Very
interesting.

“Well, I have a different company
working on another version of devices. They should be done fairly
soon.”

“I’m so excited to test them out and
die again.” Brand chuckled.

After Brand left my room with his new
device, I began packing for my trip home. I still had a day and a
half of school but I didn’t want to wait till the last minute to
gather my stuff. I thought about the email from Beth about Curtis
Schultz. I tried to look for the future concerning him, but only
saw a strange blackness. It reminded me of the ‘fog’ that
surrounded the delivery of the Sanguine Diamond because of Maetha’s
spell… um, or magic, or something. How did Maetha create the ‘fog’
in all Readers’ minds? Well, that was just one more question to ask
Maetha sometime in the future.

I was still curious about Brand’s
missing Demon device and who would possible take it. I had a couple
of possible suspects in mind; Freedom, naturally, and/or his army
of unaltered guys… none of whom needed a Demon device to
survive.