Centaur Legacy (12 page)

“Hello, earth to Beau.” Daniel’s hand
was waving in front of my face. “You ready, bra?”

I was still getting used to Daniel’s
slang: “Bra” was short for brother. I would have preferred “Bro,”
instead of a lady’s undergarment, but that was Daniel. It wasn’t a
Centaur thing; it was what he called every person willing to catch
waves with him. “Sure, where to next?”

He dangled a set of keys in front of
me. “I have to work today, so you’re on your own. Here’s the keys
to Cami’s place.” He motioned to his car, “Get in, I’ll drop you
there.”

Mom and Dad had planned to have the
apartment packed up and moved to our house in Charleston, but after
Zandra kidnapped Cami, they wanted for her to have a home to go
home to if she needed it.

There had always been rumors of what
happened to Cami’s mom, rumors as to why she may have run away and
other rumors that she had been murdered. Dad wanted Cami to have a
place that was all hers if she needed it, away from everything and
everyone. Her apartment had been idle for the last three months. I
didn’t want to stay in a hotel and figured if I was going to learn
how to be a human, her place might be a good start.

We were driving up the Pacific Coast
Highway toward Cami’s apartment. I wasn’t paying attention to the
road until I heard the echo of a blown out tire, the squealing of
tires in all directions, and the metal bending crashes of a little
white car flipping end over end up the highway.

Daniel slammed on the brakes. The
seatbelt held me tight while we came a breath away from slamming
into the car in front of us. When we stopped, I freed myself from
the seatbelt, opened the door, and sprinted to the crumpled up
white car. I wasn’t worried that I’d used my Centaur speed to get
there: so many people were desperately trying to avoid the cars in
front of them that they wouldn’t even notice my blur run past
them.

When the white car stopped its
cartwheels, I felt their magic. These weren’t frail humans; there
were three Centaurs inside. I saw gas leaking out of the car.
Pulling them out was risky: always leave crash victims in the car
until the emergency responders arrive. But smoke was rolling out
from under the hood – where there was smoke, there would be
fire.

I reached through the shattered
passenger window to pull out the female sitting in the passenger
seat. Her knee was wedged against the dashboard. I was pretty sure
her leg was broken from the angle it was laying.

I pushed as hard as I could against the
dashboard. It complained against my strength but moved the half
inch I needed to ease her out of the front seat through the
passenger side window, without doing further damage to her leg. I
had taken four strides away from the car with the woman in my arms
when I heard it.

The explosion engulfed the car and blew
me forward. Her body was sheltered from the blast by me. I felt the
back of my shirt catch fire, but I held onto her. I got five or six
more steps, laid her down on the highway’s shoulder as I felt
someone extinguishing the fire on my back with a blanket. I could
hear sirens in the distance.

I’d been burned badly, but I couldn’t
lay her head on the asphalt. Daniel came rushing up to me, “Are you
nuts? You could have gotten yourself killed.”

I nearly growled, “Give me your shirt,
now!”

He didn’t argue: he pulled it over his
head and handed it to me. It looked like he was going to be ill. I
think he thought I needed it for me; instead, I folded it up with
my free hand and placed it under the woman’s head. She had a
shallow cut over her eye, a deep gash on her leg, and she was
unconscious.

I looked back at the little white car;
it was fully engulfed by flames. If the other two had survived the
crash, there was no way they would live through the fire. I pulled
what was left of my shirt off, wadded it up so the charred sides
were wrapped up inside it, and applied pressure to the deep gash on
her leg in an effort to convince the blood to stop flowing from
her.

I heard what sounded like the echo of
hooves on asphalt and knew the two who didn’t survive the crash
were on their way to the pasture. I couldn’t see them, but I felt
them leave. I held the woman’s hand with my free hand and continued
applying pressure to the gash on her leg. Daniel’s voice was
shaking behind me, “Is she going to make it?”

I didn’t answer him. She was so young.
Her dark blonde hair fell just past her shoulders; she wore a pair
of gold earrings shaped like Centaurs and a bottle cap necklace. I
lifted her eyelids to see if her pupils were dilated: her eyes were
light green with brown halos around the iris. I squeezed her hand,
trying to reassure her, “Stay with us. It’s not your time to go.
Hang on.”

I could hear courage in my voice that I
didn’t feel. I, too, wondered if she could hold on. We didn’t have
to wait long. The first two emergency responders put a brace on her
neck, lifted her onto a stretcher, checked her leg, her pupils, and
were lifting her into the ambulance while a second team had brought
a stretcher for me.

Through clenched teeth I motioned
toward the young Centauride. “I’m fine. Take care of the
girl.”

The EMT did nothing more than glance at
her over his shoulder. She was already inside the ambulance. “Hi,
I’m Carl. What’s your name?”

“I’m Beau, and I’m fine.” I had stayed
hunched over the ground where I had knelt by the wounded
Centauride. I stood up awkwardly to walk away when the paramedic
held my arm.

“You’ve got third degree burns on your
back; we need to get you to the burn unit.” I didn’t feel any pain
but felt like I was a little disconnected from my body.
Begrudgingly, I lay down face first on the gurney in the back of
the ambulance as I saw the first ambulance pulling away.

I hadn’t been paying attention before,
but a fire truck was on site spraying down the car, a tow truck was
ready to haul the car away as soon as they got the all clear, and
traffic was moving again on the far left lane. Another thirty
minutes and the only proof that would remain of the two Centaurs
whose lives ended here would be the scorched pavement from where
the fire burned out of control.

Life was too short. We all could live
for decades or days, and none of it was within our control. I made
the decision, lying face down on the gurney inside the ambulance –
I was done waiting. When I’d come to San Diego, it was to test the
waters, to see if I could give up my Centaur life and make a life
as a human. After watching what had happened on the highway, my
mind was made up. I’d live my life as if every day were my last,
starting today. I’d find a woman who would love me for who I am,
not for my bloodline.

Daniel followed the ambulance to the
hospital. After we’d been at the hospital for half an hour, he
offered to call my family for me. I shook my head, “No, this is a
call I need to make. Where’s my phone?”

He reached into the drawer with my
personal effects and handed it to me. Mom answered. She recognized
my number, “Beau, how’s your trip? Dad and the boys are missing you
at the office.”

“It’s going great, actually.” If she
didn’t know I was sitting in a hospital, I didn’t want to send her
into orbit by telling her.

“You sound different. Is everything
okay?”

“Never better, Mom. So great, in fact,
I’m thinking I’m going to stay a little longer.” I saw Daniel’s
expression change. What would he think of me abandoning my family
back east?

“Oh, okay. When should I tell your
father to expect you back?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll call in a few
weeks.” I couldn’t see my mother’s expression through the phone,
but Daniel cocked his head to the side as if trying to understand
what he’d just heard.

“Honey, you don’t have much time. You
should be. . .”

I didn’t let her finish. She was going
to remind me that I should be courting all the available
Centaurides. “Yeah, I think I’m going to hang it up, Mom. I’m
already twenty-nine. I’m done waiting. I’m going to start
living.”

Her voice cracked, “Your father is
negotiating with another father now. Beau, you need to come
home.”

I knew it. I’d heard a rumor that
Hannah’s dad walked away with a pretty hefty payment when she and
Bruce got married, but I didn’t want to believe it. Hannah was
great, she and Bruce would be happy, but I didn’t want to be chosen
that way. He’d tried the same thing for me before, and I’d stopped
it. I couldn’t stand the thought of a Centauride choosing me for
financial gain for her family; selfishly, I wanted something
more.

I’d heard humans were exactly the
opposite; it was okay for a man to approach a woman, to ask her out
on a date, to call her on the phone and talk. “Tell him not to do
it for me. I’m not carrying the bloodline. I love you,
Mom.”

I disconnected quickly, not wanting to
drag the discussion on. They’d come to accept my decision, or they
wouldn’t. I’d made up my mind, and for the first time – I felt
free. The doctor checked me out shortly after I hung up the phone,
“Must have had a rookie admitting you. Your chart says you have
third degree burns on sixty percent of your back. I see one blister
in the center of your back that is worrisome at a second degree,
but the rest are just mild first degree burns. Looks to me like you
got pretty lucky today, son.”

“You’re right, Doc. This was my lucky
day. So, can I go?”

He seemed pleased to be delivering such
a simple diagnosis, “A nurse will be in to go over discharge
instructions with you. You should be fine in a week.” The doctor
scribbled something on a chart and left Daniel and me in the
room.

Daniel walked over to my bed and looked
at my back. He hadn’t believed the doctor’s words until he saw it
for himself. “Beau, he’s right. Your back’s almost completely
healed.”

“Figured it would be. You
ready?”

“He said you should wait for the
nurse.”

I took a look at myself; I couldn’t
leave the hospital like this. “All right. Hey, can you run down to
the gift shop and get me a t-shirt?”

“What kind?”

“Anything loose. The last of the burn
should be healed in the next hour or so, but I don’t want the nurse
to be suspicious if she comes in and I’m completely healed before
she gets around to discharging me.”

“What are you, genetically
engineered?”

“No, a warrior, same as you.” Daniel
stopped and looked at me like he was going to argue. Three-quarters
Centaur, I was sure he could heal almost as fast as I could, and
when he turned away without arguing with me, I knew I was
right.

(Beau Strayer – San Diego,
CA)

Daniel must have sprinted down and back
up, because he was gone less than ten minutes. A very attractive,
very bleached-blonde, very petite nurse wearing pink scrubs came
through the door the same time Daniel did. “Hi, Mr. Strayer, I’m
here to go over your discharge instructions with you.” Daniel
tossed me the t-shirt, and I slipped it on quickly before she could
get a good look.

As I listened to her
telling me how to treat my back, I realized this was it. I was
free: for the first time in my life, I was
seriously free
. She sat down next to
me on the bed and was going through a rather long checklist of how
to care for the burns on my back. I did my best to pretend to
listen to her, but her voice sounded like music to my ears. I
looked into her eyes: were they blue or gray? Definitely
blue.

I took my hand and pointed at something
on the page, and as I withdrew my hand, I allowed my arm to graze
the top of hers. Her skin felt soft, inviting. She didn’t react the
way I expected. She didn’t lurch away from me; she didn’t even seem
to notice that I had touched her. I did it a second time, this time
pressing my forearm a little heavier against hers as I pulled it
across: still no reaction from her at my touch.

I tried to remember if I’d ever had
casual contact with a woman before. Maybe in high school during
gym, but touching her skin without her reacting to me felt
liberating. I thought of going on a date with a human, all the
movie scenes where the couple held hands or had a kiss good night.
I felt a warm glow inside. I’d made the right decision.

The nurse finished my discharge
instructions with the same bubbly voice she had begun with and
asked, “So, do you have any questions, Mr. Strayer?” She stood up
from where she’d been seated.

I was scared, but decided there was no
time like the present. “Just one. Any chance you’d want to go to
the cafeteria and get some coffee?”

Her brows furrowed and her
voice lost some of its vibrancy. “Mr. Strayer. . . do you have any
questions on your
discharge
instructions
?”

“No. They seem pretty straight
forward.”

“Okay, sign here.” She was all
business, not even acknowledging that I had extended an
invitation.

I handed her the pen back, took a deep
breath to steady myself, “Now that that’s out of the way, how about
some coffee?” She looked annoyed, so I threw in, “Maybe
tea?”