Chapter Two, Part Two

Lexie and Damon raised their guns in salute, but looked nervously at the large bush they were going to hide behind. It didn't seem very safe. Lexie, when Kiho wasn't looking, whispered to Damon. "What if he has a knife, or a gun?" Damon didn't say anything, just looked paler, and gulped. "What if he's drunk?" she continued, getting more frightened. Then Damon laughed joylessly.
"A drunk person isn't scary, just pitiful." His face grew more hardened. Lexie remembered about his dad. Damon's dad was often drunk. In fact, Lexie could hardly remember a time when he hadn't been drunk.
"Oh." Lexie was still scared. She remembered when Damon was younger, and he'd had bruises on his arm from his dad's punches. She remembered how he'd once said, bitterly "It's a good thing I'm so fast, or I'd be dead." He'd tried to pass it off as a joke, but there was something bleak in his eyes that told otherwise. Because of his eyes, Damon was an awful liar.
"Will you two be quiet?" Kiho hissed. "If he's here, he'll hear you!" They clammed up. A few more steps, and they were to the bush. Lexie peered out through the branches. The hobo was there, sleeping. His hair was greasy and unkempt. His clothes were mismatched, grubby, and ragged. Lexie looked at Kiho.
"We can't do this." Kiho rolled her eyes.
"What now?" She thought there was some other reason that Lexie was scared.
"Because. Look at him! He's poor."
"So? He's trespassing. He's not allowed here. Besides, this'll be fun. Like the time we ambushed the McCann twins."
"No, it's not like the McCann twins. They were fine, and they were being mean. He can't defend himself." She pushed past Lexie, who fell down, and squirted the hobo. He wiggled his nose, but nothing else happened. Lexie stood up, bristling with anger.
"I SAID YOU CAN'T DO THIS!" she shouted, and pulled the gun out of Kiho's hand. Damon looked stunned. Lexie never yelled. Kiho just glared. She pursed her mouth, and her muscles grew taut. Just then, Damon shouted.
"Hey, guys, look!" He was pointing at the hobo, who was awake, and standing up. Kiho's eyes widened.
"He's huge!" she shouted. Lexie was quiet. She wasn't surprised, somehow.
"He's, he's, glowing." Damon sounded worried. He probably was thinking of some nuclear reaction. Lexie wasn't. She knew it was only magic. Only magic? Since when do you use the word "only" to describe magic? she wondered. He was hovering several feet above the ground.
"Are you okay, sir?" Damon asked, confirming that he thought the man was a mutant.
"I'm fine, thank you," the man replied. "Are you?" Damon gaped. The man laughed.
"Well, I was until just now, sir." Damon's humor was showing. He was less shocked.
The man reminded Lexie of something just beyond the grasp of her memory. She was trying to concentrate, and it must have shown on her face.
"Alexandria, you have been kind. I will bless you." He was solemn.
"What about Kiho?" If she were being blessed, would Kiho be cursed? Lexie wasn't exactly happy with her at the moment, but she didn't want her best friend to be cursed. He looked at Kiho sorrowfully.
"She has enough difficulty in her life, and it is beyond me to do anything for her." He nodded at Lexie, saluted smilingly to Damon, and disappeared. They all looked at one another, and Kiho sniffed. She put her back to them, and said, "If you think some hobo is more important than I am, I'll just leave." She walked away briskly, as if she didn't care one way or another.
Lexie felt awful. She'd never in their entire friendship gotten in a fight with Kiho. But she couldn't let her just squirt old hobos! Kiho would come around.
"C'mon, Damon, let's go get some ice cream. I'm hot." Damon followed her.
"So," he said, over Blizzards, "What do you think he was?"
"I don't know," Lexie lied. She knew perfectly well that he was a god, though she wasn't sure how she knew.
"Radioactivity, that's what he was." Damon sounded so sure of himself, she was jealous. If that's all it was, it just meant he was crazy. A poor lunatic hit hard by technology. But if he was a god... "I drives chaps like him mad, I've heard," he continued. "Too bad about that. It's too bad about Kiho, too. She's really angry with you. Can't say I blame her, actually. You were pretty hard on her."
"Pretty hard on her? What are you talking about?" Lexie's face grew hot. Was Damon on Kiho's side?
"I mean, she must have thought that you were blaming her. It was your idea, and mine too." It had been a joint project, but Lexie just couldn't connect the actual hobo with her idea of a hobo. Her idea was something like a lazy man, scrounging off other people, and doing nothing to help himself. The actual hobo looked like a regular man who was down on his luck, with no family or friends to help him.
"Yeah, you're right. I guess she probably feels like I turned traitor on her. I only felt bad for him, that's all."
"So did I, but I didn't want Kiho getting angry with me. She has quite a temper. I don't know if she'll come back around." He took a small bite of ice cream.