The Death Clock: chapter 10

 

10

We ate lunch and headed back to class followed by a group of girls, and a few guys trying to find out who their girlfriends were chasing. I pulled Isaac back into the room, my face warm with envy. I stopped quite a few girls from trying to touch him, only to be grabbed myself. The teachers had me continue to teach him until he knew absolutely everything I could remember. Isaac learned the facts well enough, was excelling at math, and did well with science and his only problem was literature. He had problems with understanding all the elements and sentence structure.

To be honest, he was better than I was. I was just telling him how it was explained to me. I may have a tendency to talk like I’m younger than I am, or to act without thinking, but I had a photographic memory. Everything I told him was almost word for word, of how I was taught.

"How far did you get today, Isaac?" Mrs. Brocwell asked.

"He learned everything," I answered for him, "But I couldn’t teach him anymore on literature. Other than that, we’re on the same level."

"Amazing. I didn’t think you’d be able to cover that much. Hmm. How about you take 10th grade regents for all subjects. If you do well enough, we’ll see what to do then." She handed Isaac a massive packet. It must have had fifteen to twenty pages of questions. I left Isaac alone for a while.

When the bell rang to signal the end of the school day, we stayed behind. We waited with the teachers for night classes, which wouldn’t start for another hour or two. I watched the clock. The end of Isaac’s school day was at five. He had a nine-hour school day.

Isaac groaned softly. "I’m done, at last." It had taken him two and a half hours to finish that. A one-subject regents took three hours. He finished five in the time it took to finish one. That had to be impossible. Mr. Gull and Ms. Vaa thought so too.

"There’s no way you finished that. You must have skipped pages of work. You’d need to guess on them all at least," Ms. Vaa said. Her voice was soft and sounded like it hurt her to talk loudly.

"Check for yourselves. I answered all the questions. Showed all my work on the math, wrote all the essays for English and history. I didn’t leave a single question blank." He said irritably.

"Of course you did." Mr. Gull said his voice coarse from talking all day.

"I did!" Isaac hit his fist against the table, angry for them not believing him. He yelled as pain shot up his arm that had the cast. I went over and put a hand on his shoulder, partly to comfort him and partly to calm him down. He covered my hand with his and took three long, slow breaths. "Thank you, Cat. I’m sorry for yelling, Mr. Gull. Ms. Vaa."

"It’s okay. We shouldn’t have doubted you. You actually did answer all the questions. But whether your answers are right or wrong is all that matters. Ms. Vaa will grade this later."

"I’ll grade it now, professor," Vaa said as she took the thick booklet from him.

I looked at the clock. We had fifteen minutes until my classes started. My classes ended at nine. We had quite a while to wait.

We walked to the hospital taking our time. I could feel myself being sapped of strength. I would I have to fight the urge to rest. I didn’t want Isaac to know about that yet. As long as he didn’t know the truth, he would be happy. We walked in the cool light of the streets lamps.

As we neared the hospital, Isaac gained more speed in his stride. I felt the pain in my legs as I hurried after him. He would just think I was tired. That’s all he had to think. If he knew the truth, he’d worry too much.

We took an elevator to the third floor of the large white building. We went to the blood testing room as the nurse on the first floor told us to. We went down a long blue hallway that had red lights along the walls; they reminded me of veins. We went into a room on the left labeled with Dr. Bram’s name.

There had been a group of janitors watching us at the end of the hall. There could have been ten in the group. As we walked in, two of them shifted and I could see Keizer standing in the back of the group. When I looked again, he had vanished into the crowd. A chill went down my spine and I shivered.

We walked into the big, chemical-smelling room. Dr. Bram had his face in a microscope, looking at blood samples. Dr. Bram was a good-looking man for his age. His hair was so pale as it was, you couldn’t tell if it was blonde or white. He had pale skin from being indoors and in dark rooms all day. It only resulted in having his dark eyes show darker. He had permanent stubble, not quite a beard, not quite smooth. His shoulders were wide and he looked good in his white coat. He was perhaps in his late forties to early fifties. He spoke without looking up.

"You kids are quite peculiar. To think I would see this again after so many years. Isaac, be thankful that the problem isn’t with your blood. Well it wasn’t when we began the blood transfusion. It is now. Before you begin to worry let me explain. What do you kids know about DNA weapons?"

"Nothing," I said before Isaac could answer. I wanted to know what he knew.

"Lair. Know about someone before you lie. I can tell you know quite a bit. I’ve read it in your DNA that you’ve used your powers before. You see, details about DNA weapons are literally etched into your DNA strands. Right on the side of every strand. It’s easy to read if you know what to look for. Here, Cat, look into this microscope if you don’t believe me. And yes, I can read your mind. I’m not an a*s, and that isn’t proper language for a young lady to even think of saying, but thank you, I do think I look good in this coat, too." I was stunned. He knew what I thought at the same time I thought it. Trying to not to think anything, in case he actually can read minds, I went over to the microscope.

I put my eyes to the lens and a strand of DNA jumped into view. There were scratches on it. I focused the fine adjustment until I could see the scratches clearly. It was two words etched into the DNA parts: Hearts’ Song.

"That’s the name of mine. My DNA weapon. If you were to turn the strand, you would find the words: Curse Song and Melody Song. Curse is the actual ‘weapon,’ the other two are merely supports. Heart can allow me to read minds, but only to what everyone is thinking at the moment. Melody gives me a much higher sense of hearing. I can hear every beat of your heart. That’s how I knew you lied. Your pulse quickens when you do. Curse is the easiest to read because of reasons I don’t quite understand. It gives a terrible disease to the person who hears it. Gives them a half-life, a cursed life. They become Lepers."

Leprosy truly was a terrible way to go. Watching as your body decays, day after day. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. "Neither do I, Cat," Bram said. He looked at Isaac and me, "I found similar marks on Cat’s DNA, also following the standard three names. Death Clock, Potential Clock, and Ancient Clock.

"Isaac’s is the strange one. It has an unusual amount of abilities. The only time I saw something close to Isaac’s case, was with my own son, Keizer. My son only had two abilities, perhaps because I’m the only person on either side of his family to have any power at all. Not even my parents had the abilities. Isaac’s problem is that he has at least four abilities."

Me and Isaac both heard interesting facts. We asked our questions at the same time and it ended up sounding like mush. Dr. Bram asked me to talk first. "Did you say your son’s name was Keizer? Is he tall, in his early thirties?" I asked my voice getting quieter with every word.

"Yes, actually. How did you know? Hmm. It’s been years since I spoke to my son. For some reason he never changed his name from my old one. He said he couldn’t change it until he did something. Keizer Doom. Humph. He sounds like a cartoon villain." My face paled. I could feel myself getting a cold sweat; my mouth felt like ash and dry sand. "Oh, no. What did he do?"

I couldn’t speak. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t move my lips. Frozen with fear, that’s what they called this. This being the realization that I wasn’t crazy and the person trying to kill me was actually much closer than I had believed. Isaac spoke for me.

"He swore to kill Cat. It’s her past and I’m not going to reveal secrets she barely trusts me with. You’ll just have to trust us."

"Oh, I believe alright. My son is unstable. He left us on a tragic note, my wife and I. When we told him not to leave, he snapped. He attacked his mother and she had to be hospitalized. He got me, too. Left me with a large scar across my chest. I still don’t know how he did it with his bare hands. The doctors thought I was mauled by a bear, or worse," He looked around the room and thought for a moment. He continued, "I’ll take you two home. If he wants you dead, it’ll happen soon. Let’s go."

Me and Isaac were lying on my bed. I had my head on Isaac’s arm and we were talking quietly. We had given up on writing for the night. I had on my nightgown and Isaac had on a pair of sweat pants and a white shirt.

"Thank you," I said to Isaac.

"What for?"

"For everything. For not telling my secrets, for staying in my room, for staying with me in general. I’m so scared Isaac. I know I saw Keizer today. I saw him more than once. Even his father said he would get me when he wants. I’m so scared. I don’t want to die, Isaac."

"Don’t worry, Cat. I’ll protect you. I didn’t get to ask the doctor about it, but he said I have powers too. Whatever they are, they’ll protect you," Isaac said as he kissed my forehead. He held me with his good arm and I sidled closer to him, feeling his chest move as he pulled the heavy blanket over us. "I promised you that I would do whatever you said. In order to do that, I have to protect you. Even if I didn’t promise, I would protect you."

"Thank you, Isaac. I wouldn’t have been able to stand being alone. Before I met you, I almost hoped that Keizer would find me. At least then, I wouldn’t have been alone."

Isaac turned to me suddenly and said, "Don’t ever say that again," Isaac, said angrily. In a much calmer and quieter voice, he said, "If that happened, I wouldn’t have met you. If I never met you, I would have joined that gang and would eventually have died. I would have died without ever meeting a single nice or beautiful person. If we never met, my life would be meaningless, worthless. If we never met, I would have died without find someone worth dying for. I would have died without falling in love." Isaac looked away as he finished talking.

I never realized how much he actually cared for me. I knew he cared but I didn’t know he thought I was worth dying for. I wasn’t. I was just a sad, needy girl.
I needed Isaac; I needed him so badly that I was willing to do anything just to keep him near me. I was selfish. I only cared about how much I loved him; I just assumed he liked me. I didn’t think he would love me as much as I loved him.

I put my hand on his chin and turned his head to me. Reluctantly, he turned to me. "I love you," I said as I kissed his lips. He kissed me back and held me closer. I wrapped my arms around him and he cradled my head next to his. My hair fell across his chest, covering him in a layer of pale pink. I hugged him tightly as I lay on his chest, feeling his uneven breathing.

"Cat, you’re hurting me. Here," Isaac said as he used his right arm to move me off of his bruised side. I was on top of his left side, afraid I would hurt his arm if I moved to the left and I would hurt his other side if I moved to the right.

"Where do you want me to go? I’ll probably hurt you if I stay here, won’t I?"

"I’ll just have to suffer. The bed’s not big enough to lie side by side, but my arm is in the cast and my right side is bruised from lifting all that stuff. This is the only spot you can lay without being on the floor. You don’t have a problem with it, do you? I can sleep on the floor if you do."

"No, I’m fine here. But you need to sleep."

"Okay, Cat, I’ll go to sleep right after you. You need your sleep more than I do. You’re still too thin; I don’t want you to get sick."

"Ok Isaac, I’ll go to sleep. Just don’t do anything weird while I’m asleep," I joked.

"Hey! Now why would I do that?" Isaac said, playing along.

"You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m more likely to do something like that. You know, because I’m such a weirdo. I just can’t help myself," I giggled, as I kissed him and nestled my head into his neck. Isaac stroked my hair and whispered that he loved me until my eyelids felt heavy.

I was tired but I didn’t want to sleep. I knew that if I slept, I would see Keizer. If I slept, it might get me. I felt trapped. If Keizer found me, I died, if it got me, I might never wake up. Damn this. I finally found someone worth living for, now it begins.

"I hate this," I said, too quietly for Isaac to hear. I hoped he truly thought I was worth dying for, because if he got this along with abilities, he very well could die