Part XV - 5: Male Ego

"What the FUCK did you do to my sister, man?!?" Brad shouted across the parking lot the next morning as I got out of my car.

"Shit," I muttered as he walked in my direction with clenched fists and eyes full of anger.

"Double shit," I added when Joey pulled in and slammed on his brakes to keep from hitting Brad.

I don't know what was more disturbing to me. Brad's obvious intention to beat the shit out of me, or Joey's obvious intention to watch and cheer him on.

There was no doubt in my mind Sandi had told Brad everything either late last night or that morning, and while this or Brad's anger wasn't unexpected, I never considered Brad to be the type to physically want to retaliate like that. I could have easily used my abilities to prevent Brad from carrying out his plan, but something told me that this was exactly what Joey hoped I would do so he could use it against me.

I quickly turned to Eric and said, "No matter what happens, don't get involved. Understand? You'll only make things worse for both me and yourself."

There was only enough time to see Eric's head begin to nod before Brad exclaimed, "You fucken traitor!" and tried to rush me.

"She has the right to be her own master, Brad!" I said as I jumped out the way, only to find him coming at me again and this time no way to avoid his body slam.

I managed to stay on my feet when he hit, then as Brad recovered his own balance, I saw his hand forming a fist and knew I was either going have to use my abilities, flee, or stay there and fight Brad, man to man.

Brad took three swipes at me, the third clipping my chin and making me mad enough to throw one of my own. Unfortunately, Brad was incredibly agile, and after he avoided two of my swings, his left fist connected with my right upper lip, then got me three or four times in the stomach before I could get him squarely in the face with a right.

At that point Brad backed off a moment and I was able to recollect my wits and some of my breath while getting into a better defensive posture and watching for his next advance.

This was the first instance I found where the experience I had copied from another's mind failed to provide me the appropriate skills and reactions without ever having practiced them. I was struggling to implement the mixture of defensive martial art techniques I had obtained, but ended up having to go with my own personal instincts and experience when Brad managed to slip two more punches by my slow reactions.

Here I was, a telepath powerful enough to enslave the entire school body in ten minutes time, a voice who believed he could defend his mind against another voice's attack even while asleep, and an empath strong enough to resist the twin's powerful empathic call. Yet I was caught completely unprepared to defend myself properly from a mute who was only shielded from my power by my moral conscience and my pride.

My pride took quite a beating that day. So did my face. By the time we were broken apart by a few teachers called out to the scene, I had a bloody lip, a sore jaw, a couple of very tender and bruised ribs, and was squinting one eye which became nice and black in the next hour which followed. Brad, on the other hand, only sported a bloody nose and few bruises on his arms and shoulders, for despite his lazy or laid back appearance, Brad could be as quick as a fox when he had to be.

Normally a fight such as this resulted in a two or three day suspension for both students, and after both Brad and I refused to explain what the fight had been about, Higgs was ready to add a couple of detentions on top of that.

Higgs left us alone in his office for a few minutes, one of those principal tactics to get two friends talking after having a fist fight like that. It was a risky tactic that had only backfired a couple of time on him before, but if I hadn't kept my mouth shut in his absence, it would have backfired again from the way Brad glared at me the whole time.

Joey apparently had volunteered to explain what he had saw and heard, and even though he didn't tell Higgs exactly what Sandi did as a slave, he filled Higgs in on enough of the other details that Higgs more or less let us both off the hook. He warned Brad that if he didn't cool off, he would consider talking to his parents about the whole deal, then told him to get his butt to class.

Higgs indicated he wasn't finished with me when I got up with Brad to leave, and once the door shut behind Brad, I felt his disapproval add another layer of discomfort on top of my aches and pains.

Higgs wasn't stupid. I mean he knew I took advantage of my abilities to get out of class and have fun once in a while, and even though we never actually spoke about it, he knew that fun usually involved sex. But Higgs and I... Well, you know. I had always confided in him when my morals conflicted with my dad's activities or something else concerning those kind of things.

He thought he knew what kind of a person I was, but this was the first he had ever heard of me enslaving anyone. It made him wonder, "Has he done something to me?"

I felt like crying. I couldn't look up at him. I couldn't even speak. Mr. Higgs was like an anchor in my life. While everyone else had changed over the past couple of years, Mr. Higgs had remained the same. And until now, he never seriously considered I had altered him to believe we had a close relationship, but now that was all he could think about as he sat down in silence at is desk.

"How many other's have you... " he began but didn't finish.

"I don't know... six or seven, I think. But nothing like Sandi. They all could free themselves any... "

"Was one of them Nancy Johnson?" he asked.

"Huh? Nancy Joh... Oh, Mrs. Johnson. No. She and I were just... Competing I guess. I didn't do anything to her mind... or yours."

He didn't respond right away, and while I was sitting there, my body's aches seemed to intensify enough for me to moan as I tried to find a more comfortable position.

That changed Higg's train of thought, and he asked, "Why did you let Brad do that to you?"

"I didn't exactly just let him, now did I," I said heatedly, feeling a bit short tempered from my discomfort.

"You know what I meant," he said evenly. "Why didn't you just... Change his mind about it?"

"Because he's my friend, and I guess... At first I thought I could beat him the old fashioned way, but then when I couldn't, I couldn't wimp out and cheat like that. Nobody would have respected me for doing something like that."

"You mean Joey."

"I guess I mostly was thinking about him, yeah, but not just him. Eric, Suzi, or anyone else who knows... Even Brad I guess," I said before flinching from a nice sharp pain from moving the wrong way.

Higgs let out a deep breath of air, then said, "Perhaps you better call for someone to pick you up. I don't think you're going to feel like sitting in class today like that. You might as well go home and rest."

"Thanks, but if I can get some aspirin from the room upstairs, I think I'd rather stay. I already missed all day yesterday."

I bit my tongue after saying that, but Higgs didn't even flinch. Joey must have told him that I had skipped school to free Sandi so I could do it without Brad being around, and it made me wonder for a moment why Joey had intervened at all. Had Joey done it to get me into more trouble? Or just the reverse?

But then I figured he must have been doing it for Brad's sake as much as mine. Maybe he hoped I would get into more trouble while getting Brad out of it, I didn't know. Brad had told me time and time again that Joey acted like his old self as long as no one mentioned me.

Talk about a rough day. Brad remained pretty hostile towards me all day long, and must have really worked John up since John walked up to me after third hour and asked what my problem was in an irritated voice. I wasn't feeling all that great physically, for the aspirin only could do so much, and blocking the pain with my abilities would have been risking preventing my body to warn me of further injury if I moved a certain way or something. Pain exists for a reason, and in this case I was just going to have to suffer through it.

Anyway, when John walked up to me with an attitude, I told him to fuck off if he really thought I had done it just to hurt Brad. At least Eric was still on my side, for I didn't seem to have many friends left that day.

But even Eric was a little ticked off when I didn't let him drive home. He couldn't understand why I wanted to drive after I told him about every pain I felt in det I guess the truth of the matter was I didn't want people to see me letting a 15 year old drive me home after I had been beaten up by Brad. It was stupid, I know. But I was worried about what was left of my image, and I couldn't take the risk of appearing like a wimp by letting him drive me home.

I really should have let Eric drive too. Not because I was in such physical pain that I wasn't safe behind the wheel, but because of my stupid male pride had been bruised making it ultra sensitive to further hits.

You see, Joey and Eric live in the same part of town. They weren't neighbors or anything like that, just both had to take pretty much the same route to and from school. It was a nice day outside, so we had the windows down and the sunroof popped open, and while sitting at a light, Joey pulled up next to us with his top down.

Joey slowly turned his head towards us as if he wasn't aware of us until he was looking directly at us, then from behind the reflective sunglasses which were like two silver mirrors, he calmly greeted us with a "Hey."

Like two idiots, Eric and I both responded at the same time with another, "hey," then I couldn't help feel my troubles deepen from how cool Joey looked sitting in his Mustang with those damn glasses on.

I was so unsettled by this that I almost didn't hear him say, "Wanna race?"

"Race?" I said.

"Yeah... You know... Light turns green, we floor it, the first person that makes it to the end of the strip wins."

"I don't think..." Eric began.

"Yeah, all right," I said, feeling my heart begin to pound, then reved my baby's engine and enjoyed it's powerful roar.

"Next light, then," he said, neither of us having noticed the light had already turned green until then.

Keeping up with the cool image he was portraying, Joey didn't take off like I expected him to, and so I felt like the fool after I floored it and my car leapt out ahead of him like that.

"Just to be safe, maybe you should clear the roads ahead," Joey yelled across once he had smoothly caught up with us. "We don't want any accidents."

"I was just thinking of that myself," I yelled back, wondering if he knew that was a lie.

I quickly blanketed the area ahead of us, then we both pulled to a cautious stop, the light just turning yellow.

We sat there revving engines a moment, then just as I noticed a couple of cars crossing the road up ahead, Joey said, "Hey! I thought..."

"I did! I did!" I said, scanning ahead to find out what was wrong.

"Tim, I don't think," Eric began.

"This isn't going to be so easy, Joey. I'd have to blanket the whole county to keep people away. As soon as I redirect the people who are heading this way, some more show up. Maybe Eric's right. Maybe we shouldn't."

"You forfeiting?" Joey asked dauntingly.

"I can't drive and blanket that large of an area at the same time, you know that!"

"You losing your touch?" he outright sneered. "I bet I could."

"Ha! You think for one moment I'd..." I said just as an idea occurred to me. "All right, smart ass. Let's make this a little more interesting. We race, but we don't stop at the end of the strip. You link with me, you blanket your side of the road, and I blanket my side. Who ever reaches Sparrow Street first wins, but only if they were blanketing the whole time. You think you can handle that? Or are you too rusty?"

"Come on, guys..." Eric moaned. "This is really stup..."

"Even if I am rusty, I can still out race AND out think you... Ready?" he snarled.

"Do it!" I snarled back.

The link formed, and then we waited for the light to change.

At the same instant, we both floored it, and I grinned victoriously as my Formula leapt ahead of him.

But while I shifted, Joey caught up and actually got slightly ahead, but then moments later he fell back when he shifted gears himself.

The strain of constantly blanketing the area ahead wasn't something I could ignore. It was hard work, and normally I would have quit, but I knew if I was having difficulty, then Joey _really_ was.

I was winning... Every time I shifted Joey regained some ground, but then lost it and a little more during his own shifts. I could feel how hard he was struggling to keep up with me in both vehicle speed and blanketing speed, and because I was certain I would win, I let it go when he slipped up on the blanketing a few times, especially since he caught the people on the next go.