Free Unaltered #2_A Diamond in my Heart by Lorena Angell Page A

could
just tell her why and develop a brother/sister relationship but
that would devastate her. Honestly, Calli, I believe I did the
right thing by getting her out of the house before my mother ruined
her life.”
    “Yeah, I agree. I won’t tell
her.”
    “Can I have another hug?”
    “Nope.”
    “Does he have a name?”
    I looked at him for a long moment. “I
tell you in two and a half minutes.”
    “Damn, you got me figured
out.”
    “How many times did you ask me for a
hug?”
    “Many.”
    “So, what did you alter to soften
me?”
    “Winning the stuffed puppy for you,
but doing it by chance, that softened your eyes. Then I knew you’d
be more likely to give me a hug.”
    “Let me guess, you thought by
answering my question about Suz you’d be able to soften me some
more, right?”
    He nodded.
    “So, now you figure I have a
guy?”
    “No, you told me you did when I tried
to kiss you.”
    I slugged his arm… hard! “You tried to
take advantage of me? You’re a pig, Brand.”
    “Well, you may be right, but I have to
say, you are the strongest willed girl I’ve ever met and you’re the
only one who I can’t seem to win over, so, you have my complete
respect.”
    “His name is Chris Harding, and he’s
going to kick your ass someday.”
    The rest of the day played out without
incident, well, it was repeated so many times that the end result
was without incident. After a few repeats, I asked Brand to leave
me behind for the rest. It truly was exhausting to have two minutes
repeat itself multiple times. We didn’t always go back two whole
minutes, sometimes it was only thirty seconds or less, however long
it took to reset the situation giving us the advantage over the
slew of angry boys hunting for Brand.
    One bad thing about the day was that
being with Brand prevented me from riding any rides. The lines were
long and the rides were all at least a minute long, some two
minutes, so repeating out of a bad situation was next to
impossible.
    On the bus ride home, Suz sat with her
other friends throwing me dirty looks. I closed my eyes, so I
wouldn’t be tempted to read any lips, and fell asleep.
     
     
     

Chapter 6 - Deadly
Shadows
     
     
    Brand shook my shoulder waking me from
my deep sleep. “Calli, what am I going to do?”
    I noted the panic immediately. I
looked out the window of the bus and realized right away what his
panic was all about. Apparently our sleepy little town had been hit
by a lightning storm and the power was out. We were nearing the
high school driving down the eerily darkened Main
Street.
    “We’ll figure it out, Brand. Don’t
panic.”
    “Don’t panic? Are you kidding me?” His
voice raised into a high pitched whisper I was sure everyone could
hear. “Calli, repeating will only put me back on this bus. And you
say don’t panic? Oh, I’m panicking! There’s much panicking going on
here!”
    I knew he was possibly in
big trouble. I wish I’d had time to develop some tools or gadgets
to ward off the Demons that Brand could use at this very moment. I
knew once he was safely in his car, he’d be safe. He’d drive home
and pull into his lighted garage… crap, I thought, his garage will be dark as well. He’d have to stay inside his vehicle till the lights came
back on.
    The whole situation made me wonder
what people of powers did before electricity. Did they carry lit
torches with them at all times?
    We pulled into the darkened high
school parking lot and the murmurs and whispers of everyone else
increased. “Brand, we’ll leave the bus last.” That would give me
time to think of a solution.
    One by one, everyone exited the bus
and soon we were the only ones left.
    “Everyone off.” The driver sounded
tired.
    I walked up to him and said the first
thing that came to my mind. “My friend here is deathly afraid of
the dark and this power outage is only making it worse. Would you
mind holding up just a second longer while I drive my car around
here to the