The Centerpoint Trilogy (16 page)

Chapter Eleven

              Anna took a breath as she slowly recovered from the pain that was nearly blinding her. Her eyes were white all around the outsides. She inhaled and then exhaled, looking up at Ethan. Focusing on her husband's eyes, she slowly brought herself back to sanity. She escaped the pain by looking into his eyes. His eyes had always saved her.

"Oh my god..." she whispered. She had not remembered how much pain that she'd felt in the past when she’d been tormented like that. She'd never realized how the woman had the ability to grab her by the throat and light every nerve on fire with pain. It ended and she was still shaking. "Oh my god, Ethan...it hurts so much."

"It's okay, Anna, I'm here," Ethan said, stroking her hair lightly. She leaned into the touch. Her husband always knew how to comfort her and made her feel strong. His touch was magic; it was gentle, beautiful magic.

"We have to go to the construction site," she whispered. "There's no way we can beat her unless we face her head on."

To her surprise, her husband did not object to her assertion. Instead, he continued to stroke her hair and nodded. She felt him nod against her. "I think you're right," he said, and she could sense that he was looking around at Alicia and Detective Wayne as well. She did not have the strength to look up and see if they agreed or not. She really did not care.  "There's nothing we can do. This is a direct assault, but it's a direct assault by a woman who's insane. We can do this."

She looked up at Wayne, expecting skepticism from the detective. So far, he had been the one who was cold and logical. He was the one who was not emotionally attached to all of this. Well, she knew that there was an emotional attachment, but it was not the same attachment that the three parents felt. It was something different and totally unexplainable. She expected him to say that she was crazy and that her mind was clouded by feelings of pain and fear for her daughter. To her surprise, he did not. He nodded at her words.  His nod was slow.

"I think you're right," he said. "I knew this woman when she was very disturbed and she's even worse. She needs to be put down." His words also had a very clear unstated message. Wayne was going to be the one to put that woman down.

Anna felt like her legs were shaking as Ethan took her to his car. He put an arm around her and led her inside. She sat down. Ethan drove. Alicia and Wayne sat in the back. The car took off and she could feel the pressure of her husband's speeding. Normally, she would have chided him for speeding, but she needed to get where she was going. They needed to get there. She needed them to get there and perhaps escape the whirl that they were lost in.

Nobody said a word as they drove. Everyone was lost in the need to get there, to those girls who needed them. That was all that mattered. There was nothing that could be said.

Anna vaguely recalled having passed the construction sight that was marked on the map, once. It was a large ditch surrounded by construction tools. It was once planned to become a large building, a strip mall of some kind, but the plan had never been put into action. It had been left as a covered ditch for several years while the city ironed out various ideas and fancies for it. She had never really thought twice about it. It was just an eyesore that was familiar to her.

Now, the place they arrived at looked entirely different. The construction equipment was gone and only the ditch remained. It looked like it was about seven or eight feet deep and was filled with water. The water was crystal clear, giving it the appearance of a great lake, not some man made monstrosity. There was an island in the center that was made out of some kind of construction of boxes and crates. On the island stood a blonde woman. She had her hands raised in a pose reminiscent of a Jesus statue. The sight of her made Anna's blood run cold. The dye, or whatever it was, was gone, and now she was blonde again.

"Hello love," she called. It didn't seem like she should be able to speak so loudly, from so far away, but for some reason her voice was booming. It made Anna hold her breath and take a step back. Nobody should be that powerful and she supposed part of her revulsion was an instinctive disgust at all of that power.

"My name is Lilly," the woman said with an arrogance that made Anna want to swim across the lake and kill her bare handed. Instead of making a rash move, however, she stood there and stared like an idiot. She stared long and hard, her heart pounding away in her chest. "I think that a reintroduction is in order. You're a lot prettier than you were five years ago, Anna. It seems that you’ve blossomed.  How's your mom? Doing all right? I sure enjoyed her screams."  She laughed, a jovial sound that brought chills down and through her.

Anna clenched her fist as the woman goaded her, using what she had done five years earlier. In that horrible place, Anna had watched as her mother writhed in pain under the same torture method that she had just experienced. She had hurt the woman, badly. Anna tried to steady her breathing and not let it get to her.

That was, of course, the same night that the building they were in had burnt to the ground. Kahn North had sacrificed his second wife to do something horrible to Anna and Ethan. The first wife, this Lilly woman, should have died in the fire too, but no other body was ever found. Eventually, cops believed that there had never been another woman in the apartment building and Anna and Ethan had slowly let it fall away from their memories.

“Let me guess,” Lilly drawled. “You thought that I had to be dead. You wondered how my body was found. You killed my husband, yes, but I managed to make it out of the fire using the blessings given to me by the Celestial Centerpoint. The Celestial Centerpoint, we have friends in high places, so fixing my damaged face was no major issue. I recuperated and got back to work.”

“I want my daughter back,” Anna demanded. “Give her to me.”  The woman rolled her eyes and let her hands down at last.

“I have to admit that I hurt a lot, following our last encounter,” she said, tilting her head to the side. “I hurt a lot physically, I hurt a lot mentally and I hurt inside of my soul. It’s too late for apologies now, though, so save your breath.” She smiled, a peaceful, warm smile that seemed the kind reserved for a friend. She flicked her wrist.

              A circle of light appeared in the center of the lake. She moved it with her finger, like a spotlight, searching for something. Then there were screams as two forms were pushed into the left side of the lake by an unknown force. The two small forms hit the water with a splash and she knew exactly who they were.

              The two little girls struggled, coughing and sputtering. She watched as they tried to stay afloat. She was frozen in space as she watched her own little girl, her Genesis, as she flailed her hands madly. She went under the water for a moment and Anna was screaming. She screamed so loudly that the sound ripped from her soul, not her throat. She was sure that Anna was drowned, but then little Rhiannon screamed so loudly that she heard her through her own wails. She screamed out Gen’s name and dove under after her. The two girls surfaced together, struggling.

              “I wonder how long they can last,” Lilly asked. “I must sacrifice them to the great Alturi, unfortunately. Kahn had plans for them to be the faces of tomorrow, when we met the Alturi, but they’ve been warped by your teachings. They must be sacrificed today.”

              Anna ran around the perimeter of the lake. She could dive in when she got closer.

The pain hit her like a wrecking ball this time. She had never felt anything so strong. She crumbled into herself, falling downward, but the whole time that she fell her eyes were locked on the girls. "I think I’ll leave leave you like this," Lilly said with a laugh. "I could leave you like this, crumbled on the ground, in so much pain and watching while your daughter drowns slowly. I love this. What about the rest of you? How much can you take?”

Chapter Twelve

The pain was more than Alicia could bear. It was like every single nerve ending in her body was vibrating with an untold fire. She stopped where she was and collapsed into herself. She shuddered and tried to breathe. She tried to stand up, despite the fact that the pain had paralyzed her into complete submission, but found that though her will was strong, her legs were not. They buckled underneath her. She closed her eyes but she was still on her knees.

That was when she heard Rhiannon scream. Her daughter’s scream pushed her past the paralysis. Alicia rose to her feet and felt the power come from within her. She raised her shaking hand. She saw the sweat pooling on her skin, beads that trickled down her vibrating limbs. She raised her hands and the flames shot out of her. They came from within.

In the past, her abilities had occurred and the fire shot forward. In this case, the fire shot out from all sides, all around her.  They spread across the ground beneath her, somehow avoiding Ethan and Elliot, who were both passed out at her sides from their own personal pain. They spread over the ground and into the water, heating up the water with columns of fire that went straight for the blonde bitch, who was still standing in the middle of her island, head tilted back in some kind of desperate exultation.

The flames hit her. Lilly, or Rose, or whatever the hell her name was screamed. The fire licked at her legs, crawling up the work slacks she was wearing. She hoped the woman was traumatized by the fire that nearly killed her years earlier, because she deserved the worst for what she did to their children. The pain stopped and Alicia laughed, sending more fire streaming towards the woman.

To her surprise, however, the woman raised a hand. “I should never have underestimated the Mama Bear Effect,” she said with a small smirk. She shook her head and laughed. She flung the fire back at Alicia. It raged as it sped back towards her. Alicia did not have time to duck. She flung herself to the side, but it was much too late. Flames engulfed her.

Pain wracked her body as the flames crawled around her. She crawled on the ground in a self-preserving attempt to put the flames out. She could not, however, so she jumped into the lake. She threw herself in and hit the water so hard that she took her own breath away. She hit the water and started swimming, swimming with every ounce of strength that her body had left. She reached ahead of her in long, desperate strokes, trying to pull back the water as best as she could manage. She heard a second splash and saw Wayne beside her, flailing as he caught his breath. He swam steadily, with a more skilled stroke than hers. He was headed for the girls, who had grabbed on to a notch or something in the wall of the lake.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the woman screamed.

Wayne swam towards the girls, pushing his body towards them. He arrived. Alicia held herself above water and saw him. He got Genesis by the arm and wrapped his left arm around her. He used his right to support Rhiannon as much as he could. He treaded water, inhaling several large gulps of it and then rasping loudly at her as he caught the nooks in the rock himself.

“You underestimate me, Lilly,” he said as he looked up at her. It seemed to Alciia, in her dazed state, that there was a warm aura around him. “I’ve always hated and feared magic because of the magic you used, but at the same time I’ve been practicing, studying. I warded myself. I learned. Now I am going to save these girls.” He pushed them onto the rocks. “Gotta climb babies,” he said. “Just go.”

“I’m impressed that you risked losing your soul to magic,” Lilly teased, her voice mocking as the girls struggled to climb out of the lake. She waved her hand again and a current rose up to the level that the girls had struggled to, attempting to sweep them away. Genesis screamed and lost her grasp. Alicia bobbed as she swam and tried her best to get close. She kept hearing bits and pieces of the conversation above her. The water swirled and she was sure she was going to drown as it all occurred above her.

“Girls go!” Wayne struggled, grabbing Genesis and boosting her up. Rhiannon had made it to the top and was looking at them, screaming. “I had a psycho bitch for an ex-girlfriend. I now know that it was her, not the magic.” Wayne coughed and sputtered as he tried to get them back up.

“Bitch?” the woman screamed. “That’s what you’re going to call the woman you loved?”

It was like a force swam through the water. The waves grew, becoming higher and stronger. Alicia hit the wall so hard that something in her face broke. The force ripped Genesis away from Wayne and back into the water. Elliot flew through the air, splashing back into the water at least six feet away from Genesis. He then started swimming towards the middle. His body moved like a sleek, black blur. Alicia clung to the wall, sobbing. Her face bled.

Elliot emerged on the makeshift island, holding onto the crate and pulling himself up. That was when she saw Ethan. He was behind Lilly. He had snuck up behind her while she was trying to hurt the girls. He had a gun in his hands. He must have taken it from Elliot’s person.

“Ethan!” screamed Wayne. “I need my gun.”

This made Lilly whip her head around. She looked at Ethan and then back to the man who’d obviously once said he loved her. Alicia’s vision blurred and she was sure she’d lose her footing.

“He can’t throw it to you, Elliot,” she laughed. “Don’t be an idiot.”
That was true, Alicia realized. Elliot was next to her and at least fifteen feet away.

“I didn’t plan to.”

Ethan shot in the air. The sound cracked through Alicia’s thoughts.