Chapter 8

In the morning, she was awakened by the loud screech of a dive bombing sea gull. There were dozens of them surrounding her. They seemed quite surprised when she moved. Lisa laughed as she watched them fly. They were so big, so close, so beautiful. She felt the sudden urge to soar in the air, although she never actually cared to fly, before, since it was easier to simply levitate. She had never felt a need to fly, even though she had always known how.

Standing up, she cast around with her mind, searching for anyone who might see her. But everyone had fled when the stomper, Felix, had appeared on the scene last night. There was no one close by, so she flung her arms back behind her, forming her wings. Taking a running jump, she launched herself into the air, beating her wings furiously for altitude.

She circled around, playfully chasing the gulls for a few minutes, quickly becoming winded from her efforts. When she was younger, and smaller, she’d flown some with her mother. Her mom luxuriated in the power of flight, and could stay aloft for hours at a time. Lisa usually cheated, levitating alongside her mother instead of using her wings.

The difference in the stamina between mother and daughter was presenting itself now. Lisa was exhausted after only five minutes in the air. She circled back toward the beach, only to discover that there was someone walking the beach where she’d awakened. She couldn’t fly back and land without being seen. She would have to swim back to shore.

Soaring down near the surface of the water, Lisa folded her wings behind her, reforming her arms, and plunged into the icy water. The short fall drove the air out of her lungs and she struggled madly toward the light above her, every nerve in her body screaming and complaining about the sudden and drastic temperature change. She burst through to the surface, gasping for air.

Last night, she’d been gang-raped. This morning she’d flown with the gulls and now she was swimming in the icy Pacific. As she churned up the water, trying to swim to shore, she realized she had never felt so alive. She was free. She was immortal. She was experiencing life. She was happy.

She was drowning! She’d never swum before. She was just catching on to paddling around when she noticed someone, or some thing, had its attention on her. And it was approaching fast. Lisa picked up an image of her feet churning in the water. Along with that image was the knowledge of how wonderful her twitching legs were going to feel sliding down its throat.

‘Holy shit!’ Lisa thought, and frantically levitated straight up out of the water.

She looked down to see a huge, tooth-filled maw following her up, up, out of the water! Terrified, she continued levitating upward. The tooth-filled mouth slowed, then fell away, revealing a long, black and white shark plunging back down and smashing into the water sideways.

She could feel its disappointment. It was used to being fed at least once a week. Some struggling, bleeding girl would be dangled above the water just about where she was right now. It would devour her alive. Usually, there were others like her around, watching from the safety of their craft. It remembered feeling the admiration and awe that radiated from the warm-blooded ones as it fed on their offering.

‘So that’s what happened to the girls he didn’t kill outright, ‘ she realized, stunned. ‘They were fed to the sharks!’

She felt less guilty about killing Juan, but now she had to figure out what to do about the shark. It would probably hang around until it found someone like her, too far from shore to reach safety in time, and ate her, or him.

The shark dove down thirty feet to the bottom, then rushed back up, breaching the surface again and arching into the air in a futile effort to reach her. It didn’t understand why she was so high out of the water. Usually, its meal was dangled only a few feet above the water so its admirers could watch as it tore its wriggling, squealing, juicy meal apart.

Lisa wrapped her mind around the beast’s tiny brain. It was a natural predator, but it was also extremely paranoid. It didn’t really trust the warm-blooded ones who had been feeding it their defective offspring. But until now, their offerings had been extremely pleasant, squirmy things to devour, and very filling.

Now Lisa reinforced that paranoia, convincing it that the feedings had been a ruse, a trap to trick the shark into a routine so it could be caught and pulled from the water to die in the thin, lifeless air above. It knew about that. It had noticed that happen to others like itself. It fled, convinced of her lie. She didn’t believe it would come back.

There was a boat approaching. Lisa dropped down into the water and reached out to feel the minds on the boat. They hadn’t seen her levitating and passed on by, not noticing her bobbing in the water. She let them pass, not certain how she would explain her presence this far from shore. She began paddling toward the shore again. With the help of her internal ‘furnace’, her body was getting used to the temperature of the water.

She found that it was pretty easy to float, so when she tired of paddling, she simply floated for a while until the burning left her arms and legs. Then she would paddle for a while. The shoreline seemed to be getting nearer.

The sun was up, now, and buzzing in her head. Almost automatically, she shielded her mind from its annoying roar. She didn’t really know how she did it, and had tried to teach her mom once, but her mom couldn’t generate enough power to neutralize the noise of the sun in her mind.

As she paddled, Lisa wondered if she was perhaps another advancement in the species. Her mom could do lots of things that normal humans couldn’t, but Lisa could do a lot of things her mom couldn’t do, like levitate, and burn things just by looking at them.

The waves were suddenly a lot higher. Lisa looked around, trying to figure out why. The ocean bottom was a lot nearer to the surface now. Maybe that was it. As she floated, wondering about it, she was lifted high into the air. Amazed, she looked around. There was water above her and below her. In addition, she was floating sideways in a vertical wall of water that connected the water above and below her. Then, she was upside down and falling down, out of the water – and back into it, below her!

As she fell, she discovered she was completely surrounded by water, except for a long, airy tunnel, stretching off in opposite directions. Then she was in the water again, tumbling wildly as the tunnel of air tightened around her. In seconds, her tiny tunnel of air was completely gone and she was slammed violently into the sandy bottom by tons of water falling directly on her.

Barely conscious, she felt herself being shoved along the sandy bottom by the violent forces surrounding her. There was no air in her lungs – the force of the water had flattened her that much. In a moment of comparative calm, she shoved away from the bottom toward the light above her.

As she breached the surface, gasping for air, she felt herself being pulled away from the shoreline. She looked around. Another towering wave of water was plummeting down directly at her. There was no way she could escape it. Before she could even think of a location to teleport into, it dropped down on her, slamming her back down against the bottom. This time, she hit a rock. Everything went dark.

Time passed.

Lisa became aware of water rushing around her – sandy water that filled her mouth with grit and got into her eyes, even though they were closed. Someone was dragging her through the sandy water. Then she was being dragged across hard sand. It burned her breasts and belly as she was dragged over it. Her legs, her knees especially, were being scoured raw. Then the hands let go and dropped her.

She felt someone pressing hard against the center of her back, over and over, again. The fierce, insistent pressure was hurting her rib cage. Then she was convulsing, spitting up water. She was surprised to find that her lungs had filled with water. It burned terribly as she spewed it out, choking and gagging violently.

“Well, you’re alive!” a male voice said, sounding relieved and breathing heavily from rescuing her. “I don’t know where your board’s at. It’s probably broken, though. Those waves are pretty fierce today. I’d never go out in surf like that.”

Lisa tried to struggle upright, pushing against the hard sand, but her arms were too weak to support her.

“I should tell you, before you turn over,” her savior said, his voice almost laughing cheerfully, “you lost more than just your board out there. The waves took your suit, too.”

“Huh?” she asked, then realized he meant that she was naked. “Oh.”

She dropped back down onto the sand. She felt his mind gently nudging against hers. She was still shielded against the sun. Not even her mother could penetrate that shield, and her mother was the most powerful telepath in the world. She wasn’t worried about him getting through and reading her.

Lisa’s mind was working better now. She could think again. In the last few hours, she’s been almost killed four times. Now she was lying in the sand, naked, next to some boy who’d pulled her out of the ocean. She realized that she possibly wouldn’t have awakened in time to save herself without his help. And he was afraid she’d be upset if he saw her tits.

“I owe you at least ... one good look...” she gasped, still breathless from her ordeal. She turned over, exposing her breasts and belly to him. That wasn’t really why she did it. She wanted to turn over so she could see who had saved her.

They stared at each other with recognition in their eyes.

“It’s you!” they both said together.

“I’m sorry...” he began.

“Thank you,” Lisa said, interrupting him. “You were the one good thing that happened to me last night. And today, you saved my life.”

“About what happened,” he said, concern written on his face. “Last night. I know what he does to girls. But, Juan owns us. If we don’t do what he says...” Image of a young girl, his sister, flashed across her mind.

“You don’t have to worry about Juan,” Lisa assured him. “Or his big stomping bastard friend, either. Not ever.”

“What did you do?” he asked, worried now about what would happen if someone angered Juan. People got hurt when Juan was upset – innocent people – family members in the community, usually.

She looked at him. “He’s dead. Does it matter what I did?”

Lisa could see her savior was still worried. “He has two brothers. They will avenge him. If they can’t find who did it, they will start killing us until you are turned over to them.”

“Was one of his brothers the ‘stomping man’?” she asked.

He shook his head. “They were friends. I think they were maybe more...”

“That would explain his love for women,” Lisa said thoughtfully. “No matter now, though. They’re both dead.”

“What? How?” he wanted to know.

Lisa held up a finger to his lips. She could feel that he urgently wanted to tell her something. “Okay, I’m waiting,” she said.

She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of the sun as it finally was beginning to warm her cold, nearly drowned body. Also, her new friend seemed to be more nervous talking to her while she watched him trying not to stare at her naked body.

He was silent. Lisa opened her eyes. He was looking out over the ocean. It seemed peaceful on the surface. Even the waves crashing into the sand seemed deceptively peaceful – timeless.

“What’s your name?” she asked. “I’m Lisa. Pestova – Lisa Pestova. Elizabeth, actually.”

He looked at her, then noticed she was watching him – watching his reaction to her nudity. She seemed – pleased – that she made him nervous. “Mac,” he said. “Call me Mac.”

“Not much of a name,” Lisa said. “Did you just make that up or what? I’d like a better name than that for the first guy who ever shoved a dick up my ass.”

“Macario,” he said, unable to keep from grinning at her remark. “Macario Sebastian Martinez. At your service.”

They grinned at each other.

“Macario,” Lisa said, letting the word slid over her tongue. “I think that’s the prettiest name I’ve ever heard.” She smiled as she watched Macario blush.

“Does it mean something special?” she asked. “A name like that has to mean something...” She waited, oddly entranced by this young Latin boy sitting in the sand next to her.

He smiled, still embarrassed. “In English, it means, ‘happy’.”

They sat, silent, for a moment. He seemed to be getting more comfortable in the presence of her nudity.

“An odd contrast,” Lisa observed, “between the man and the name. You seem tortured by something.”

Macario frowned, blinking several times. “Our lives here are not...” He sighed, not understanding how to tell this beautiful gringo girl what the lives of his people were like. Then he remembered – she wasn’t a gringo! Last night, she’d used the phrase, ‘my people.’ Perhaps she could understand, after all.

“Who are your people?” he asked her. Lisa saw in his mind where the question had come from. She smiled, not knowing how to tell him.

“My people are not native to this land, if that’s what you’re asking,” she replied. “More than that, I’d rather not say. Please don’t be offended. Our secrets keep us alive.”

“Then there are not many of you?” he asked.

She shook her head, agreeing with him. He cleared his throat.

“My people will be harmed if I do not give you to Juan’s brothers,” he explained. “It makes me unhappy to sacrifice one so beautiful as you. You should run – far away. Forget about us.”

“I can’t forget,” Lisa explained. “You saved my life. In my world, I am indebted to you. I would help you, if you let me.”

“You will simply die,” Mac explained earnestly. “And my saving you would be wasted. Leave while you can.”

Lisa sighed. “Sorry, I can’t. Let’s go meet Juan’s brothers. Shall we?”

“You’re willing to die for people you don’t even know?” he asked, simply not believing it.

“You’re willing for people you know to die for me,” Lisa explained. “How can I do less for you? Besides, how do you know I will die? You thought I would die last night.”

“Yes!” Mac said, pouncing on something more tangible to discuss. “How did you survive? Either he butchers the girl himself, or he lets his faggot lover stomp her to death. If she’s still alive in the morning, she gets fed to the sharks.”

Lisa grinned. “The shark won’t be back, either.” She laughed at his surprised expression.

“You killed a shark?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. He looked her over quickly. There was not a mark on her perfect body. Even the gash on the side of her head and the wound on her shoulder from where she hit the rock was healed. “I don’t understand,” he said, finally. “Who are you? What are you? I pray daily for an angel to deliver us from the Verdugo Brothers. Are you that angel?”

Lisa had no idea how to answer his soul-rending questions. She sat silently, gazing at him. She didn’t know how her mother calmed the people she helped, but she tried radiating ‘calm’ into Macario’s mind. Surprisingly, he noticed her mental touch.

“I felt you touch my mind last night,” he confessed to her, “and I fled. After I left you with that butcher, I went to confession. I knew it wouldn’t help you, but I needed to unburden my soul. I’ve helped him to kill so many...”

There were tears in his eyes. “I walked the sands this morning, searching for your remains. The gulls always come to this beach. His victims draw them. Part of what I do to protect him is make certain that the remains are covered and out of sight of the turistas. I was glad when I didn’t find you.

“But I saw the gulls flying over the ocean,” he said. “That happens when he feeds the shark. But I swear, as I squinted out to see the gulls – to see if they were diving for food or just flying – I swear I saw an angel flying among them.”

He stared at her intently. She looked away, afraid of his next question – afraid of her answer. She was discovering that she was strongly attracted to this young man, this handsome Latin whose name means ‘happy’ and who was the most tormented, tortured soul she’d ever met.

“Are you that angel?” he asked quietly, hopefully.

She looked up at him, her mouth open, uncertain what would come out.

“I’m not an angel,” she said quietly. Then she added, “but I do know how to fly. Although, I’m not very good at it.”

She sighed, hoping that he wouldn’t flee in terror. She had no idea why she told him that. She felt she couldn’t withhold anything from him. She never felt that way before, not even with her parents. Especially not with her parents!

“Well, angel or not,” he said, confiding in her, “you are special! I felt that last night. Your people must be special people who go where you are needed. And you are desperately needed here.”

“Then, I suppose,” Lisa finished his thought for him, “I suppose we should go meet the Verdugo Brothers.”

She rose to her feet. She felt strangely calm – relaxed, even. She didn’t remember a time when she wasn’t tortured about something – fire, sex, parents, privacy, whatever.

“We should find you something to wear,” Macario suggested. ‘She’s really going to go through with it!’

“How many secrets can you handle in one day?” she asked, cryptically.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “I saw you fly, and your people are not indigenous to this place. What other secrets do you have?”

Lisa held out her hand. In her mind, she was visiting her bedroom, picking out something nice to get murdered in. A pair of jeans and a cut-up T-shirt with a Suicide Girls emblem on it appeared in her arms. She quickly put them on.

“Ready,” she said, grinning up at him.

Mac read the T-shirt. “Very appropriate. Let’s go.” He didn’t smile.

“You know a lot of big words,” she said, liking the way he talked.

They walked along the beach for a while, then up to the road and across a gravel parking lot. Mac noticed that the girl didn’t seem to care that she was walking barefoot on very sharp, hot gravel. His feet were tough, but even he would wince if he were walking barefoot here.

“Do you eat?” he asked. “I mean, are you hungry?”

“Do I eat?” she asked, laughing. “Do I look that much like I come from another planet?”

Macario couldn’t believe that, after she’d just admitted and demonstrated that she was much more than a mere human, she would ask such a question.

“I know you’re from another planet,” he admitted. “I just wanted to know if you’d like to eat before you sacrifice yourself.”

Lisa laughed at the way he said that. “I not going to sacrifice myself.”

“What are you going to do then,” he asked. “Kill them?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Do you think I could ask them not to bother you and your friends any more?”

He laughed at that. “Reasoning with the Verdugo Brothers. That’s a new one. Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” she confessed. “What are my choices? Human or animal?” She was teasing him, now. He laughed again, less forcefully, this time.

“Animal, I suppose,” he said. “Do you eat humans?”

Lisa smacked him on the arm. “Not before last night,” she confided in him.

“So, you’re new to this orgy-type thing, then?” he asked, hopefully.

“Well, yes, I guess so,” she admitted. “I’ve never been fucked before. It was fun. At least it was until ‘Stomper’ showed up...”

“You really are an angel,” he said, grinning at her.

Lisa just glared at him. They walked along the road for a while.

“So I was your first?” he asked, wondering.

“Yeah,” she admitted, “You were the first one back there.

“You should have stuck around,” she continued. “You could have been the first one in the front part, too. That would have been nice. As it is, I don’t know who was the first one in there. But I remember the last one...”

“But I was your first ever?” he asked again.

She stopped and looked at him. “What kind of a question is that? You humans are really weird. Why would you care if you were my first?”

“Us humans?” he asked, laughing. “And you think I talk funny.”

“I didn’t say that,” she said, puzzled.

“No, but you thought it,” he said.

Lisa stopped in her tracks, stunned. “Can you read my mind? Do you know what I’m thinking of? How did you get through my shields?”

“Your ‘shields?’ You sound like somebody from Star Trek,” he said, almost laughing. “I can only tell what you’re thinking when you’re thinking about me. Okay?” He turned to walk further up the road.

“You’re an Empath!” she accused him, taking a couple of long strides to catch up.

“I wasn’t before you came along,” he confided in her. “I can only read you!”