I stood there, watching tears spill down her cheeks, staining her skin and leaving wetness on her shirt. I had seen her near death, unconscious and bleeding, but this I couldn’t handle. She had never let on she needed comfort before so I was at a loss. Confusion flooded my mind, but there was only one thing I knew to do. I made my way to the bed and sat beside her, pulling her into a hug. Sobs racked her body, her cries echoing through the room. There weren’t any words I could utter to take her pain way. This was all I could do besides hope the tears would wash some of the pain away.
I wasn’t sure how long it was before Beth pulled away, using her sleeve to wipe her face and her nose, and looked at me. Her hair had become a disheveled mess of auburn as her heart poured onto my sleeve. Her hair was sticking to her neck and face in thick strands. Her eyes were puffy and red and she sniffed before she spoke.
“You really have no idea what it was like. Especially in the beginning.” She used her fingers to wipe a few stray tears that streamed down her cheeks. “We tried to stop as much as we could, but without you we couldn’t keep up. We had lost before we really began to fight.” Sniffing one more time she stood, walking to her dresser and looking in the mirror. “And now the world is a ghost town.”
“You know how far her reach has gone?” I questioned. She and Chase had already kept enough information away from me.
She nodded. “Yeah. We’ve known for a little while, but when you came back we decided it would be best if we didn’t say anything. We thought it may cause you to lose faith in what you could do to save humanity. Well, I did.”
I understood her reasoning, but it didn’t keep the anger from bubbling inside me. I wasn’t in the best of places when we got back to the surface, but I was so much better now and this information was too vital to miss. Lilith’s reach was farther than I had thought. I wasn’t sure whether to feel happy or sad that I had plenty to fix.
“How far?”
She looked at my reflection.
“Outside of the city. We don’t know if it’s worldwide or not. I hope not. If it’s only the U.S. it’ll be easier. No need to travel overseas. We wouldn’t really have a way to travel. That’s as far as we’ve gotten as far as an actual plan.”
“So you guys thought about formulating a plan to see how far this reaches, but never followed through?” That seemed fishy to me. I didn’t know Beth like I used to and it was starting to show. I didn’t know which way was up as far as this was concerned.
“Yes, but there’s a good reason for that.”
I stood, waiting for her to say one thing to cause me to fly off the handle. “And that reason is?” The spiraling feeling in my gut was almost too much and I felt like I was losing my grip; on Beth, on myself, and on the world. The frustration of it all was like a pit in my chest and in my stomach. My eyes met hers I neared her and the expression made me stop in my tracks. There was a look of resolve and determination in her eyes. It would’ve been infectious if I wasn’t so irate already.
She turned towards me like she wasn’t sure if she should or not. “Because we know exactly where she is. There’s no point in going to see how far her reach goes when we can tear it all down at the source.”
“And you’re waiting until now to tell me this?” I was red hot and the urge to punch and knock her down was strong causing the beast to growl. It made me wonder if the sound was coming from me as I felt it vibrate through my body. Beth wasn’t the enemy. She never had been. My hands were clenched into fists, my nails digging into my palms to the point of stinging pain.
“It didn’t feel like the right time before now. Even now wasn’t the right time, but you needed to know,” she whispered. Her eyes were lowered to the ground and she wouldn’t look me in the eye. She was ashamed and I could see the flush of embarrassment on her cheeks as she stood in front of me. I noticed she had thrown on a sweater. It was almost down past her knees, hiding the shorts she wore. Were they a couple? Or a friend borrowing from a friend? That wasn’t the issue now. The issue was they knew where Lilith was, knew her reach, but didn’t feel the need to tell me. This was information we needed to save what was left of the world. If we could.
“Not the right time? Really? When would’ve been the right time, Beth? Tomorrow? A week from now? A month from now?” My voice rose to a shriek. I spat, “When?” If she thought I was fuming before she was in for a rude awakening. The warmth of the beast began to flow through my veins. I could feel it in my eyes, burning with intensity. Beth wasn’t the enemy. If you caused me to feel anger or fear it was good enough for your blood to be spilled. I had to get a handle on this.
“Robin?” There was a note of concern and fear in her voice.
I turned away from her and took a deep breath, letting the frustration and tension out, imagining it as a fiery glow without releasing any flames. Closing my eyes I took another breath, letting it out between pursed lips as my mother had always taught me. I repeated the action until the pressure and heat melted away. I could sense her moving closer. She placed a hand on my shoulder in comfort and said my name, the question still lingering in the single word.
“I’m okay,” I said, dropping my head in shame at letting the situation get to me. I felt backed into a corner and it was my instinct to fight out of it, which usually meant the beast made an appearance. We couldn’t have that. Burning the house down wasn’t in the plan and wouldn’t help defeat Lilith. Plus, I would never be able to forgive myself. Granted, my child and I would be perfectly okay, but no one else would be. I unclenched my fists and let my shoulders fall. There was no room for anger here. At least not from me.
I turned towards her and my eyes met hers. She had done nothing but hide things from me since day one and I wasn’t having any of it anymore. She could tell me anything I wanted to know, or I could find it all out myself. Either way, I would kill Lilith and purge the city of her kind. Possibly the world.
Why did she insist on keeping things from me? That was the main question I had after I found out exactly where Lilith was. I still wasn’t sure how to take her down, but I would do whatever it took to do just that.
I opened my mouth, “Is there any reason you’re hiding things from me I should know about? We can’t work together if you continue to hide things. I need it all laid out.” I cleared my throat as I moved to lean against her dresser, my gaze not leaving her face. “Granted, this wasn’t the world I expected to come back to, but I really didn’t expect to come back to secrets.” I saw the secrets she had buried behind her eyes. Would they be excuses or would she spill the beans? I was hoping for the latter.
“Robin, you have to know I never meant to keep anything from you. When I first saw you I wasn’t sure what to think. I wasn’t sure if you were real or something my brain cooked up because of how devastated I was when you died.” She took a deep breath. “I need you to know you can trust me. No more secrets.” Her eyes met mine and I saw a willingness to open up. I crossed my arms and leaned against the dresser. I was willing to listen to whatever she had to say. I wanted to know.
She watched me carefully.
“I want to know everything. You can start when you’re ready.” Once I heard the words leave my mouth I wished I could take them back, or at least the tone. I was extremely irritated but there was no reason for me to take it out on her? Or was my power what caused her to wonder? Once I thought about what I had been able to do with the help of the Hell fire I had absorbed in, well, Hell, I couldn’t blame her at all. Honestly, I’m surprised she let me inside the barrier. I could only imagine what I had looked like the first time and it sent a shiver up my spine.
Once she was seated on the edge of the bed, arms crossed and gaze focusing on the mirror behind me, she licked her lips and began to speak. She had been through a lot while I was away. I was surprised she didn’t run screaming when she saw I had come back.
“After you died it was pandemonium. I had never seen so many people running round screaming, looting, and murdering each other. The
threat of Lilith and her horde was enough to tear the city apart. Chase and I had teamed together in the beginning to try to keep the peace as best as we could, but there wasn’t much we could do. I wasn’t very good with magic yet and anything I tried backfired, but it’s not like I’m great with it now. You have no idea how long it took me to get the protection barrier right.” She let out a giggle, obviously remembering something hilarious. “One time I singed Chase’s eyebrows. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen,” she laughed.
While it was funny I wasn’t amused. I wanted the important information. I would need to remain patient.
“What happened next?” I urged. While I didn’t want to be too pushy I didn’t have the time for the small stuff. An eclipse was coming. I was here to stop the world’s complete downfall no matter what it took. I was hoping to avoid it at all costs, but if I needed to push so be it. I wasn’t here to make or keep friends. I had one singular purpose. That was what legend had said. And the woman in my dreams who alerted me to this twist of fate was adamant. Beth shook the last tendrils of laughter away and looked me in the eyes.
“Right,” she shook her head again, “I’m sorry. I know it’s not important. Not many good times these days.” She sighed and pulled her legs up onto the bed so her knees were tucked under her chin.
“Not that it’s not important,” I said as I walked to the bed and sat beside her. “It’s not what’s going to help us right now. Once we get all the major details out of the way of course we can talk about the good times. We need this first.” I had avoided looking at her, but decided to take the chance and glanced her way which caused me to cringe. She was huddled around her legs, arms folded across her shins holding them like she would fall apart. I felt bad for what I had said, but everything was moving so fast now.
“Yeah,” she breathed, “yeah. Well, after you died.” She paused. “Things went from the usual to a million times worse. Vampires were coming out of the woodwork. And Lilith. Lilith. She tore down the infrastructure so quickly. It was like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie. It was like it had turned into Battle Los Angeles. The military was called, but of course they didn’t know what they were dealing with. Army, National Guard, Marines; all came in and all went down.” She snapped her finger to show how fast they had fallen. “Then she created the crawlers.”
“And we know all we possibly can about them, right?” The question needed to be asked. She had hidden information from me about them before so I had to be sure this was all there was to know. I felt a sigh of relief deflate my lungs and I used one hand to rub my face in frustration. I was freaking out on the inside and the more I heard the more terror seized me, forming a solid pit in my gut. If only things were as simple as they had been before I died. If only.
Chapter 17:
Buried
Because of the fact that I had incinerated the crawlers we had come into contact with, we had no clue they didn’t fall to ash till their first feeding like their full blooded vampire counterparts. They remained whole. Once I walked out of the room Gordon and Chase were hauling the stalky remains to the back door, ready to bury him. He had been a human once and deserved a proper burial. Following them outside, I grabbed a few waters. There would be no telling how long we would be digging a grave in the yard. What mattered was the respect I felt the man deserved.
My attention turned to Chase as he and Gordon laid the man on the ground, placing his severed head inches from the neck. His mouth was still open but his eyes had closed after rolling back into his head. I suppressed a shudder as the men moved to the shed behind the house, taking two shovels out of the darkness as they worked under the light of the moon.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I questioned as I crossed my arms. I knew what they would say, but I figured I’d ask anyways. Gordon’s eyes scanned my face and I saw his face warm.
With a grin on his face he stated, “Honey, all you can do right now to help is sit your pretty little ass right there on the steps and give me something nice to look at. You don’t need to be doing any physical labor.” He winked at me, his eyes twinkling in the light with glee. There was no way I could hold my own smile back, winking in return.
“That I can do.” I planted myself on the steps just as instructed and watched them work, both men glistening in the moonlight as sweat beaded on their skin.
Their heavy breathing was the only sound. After what felt like an eternity the hole was six feet in width and six feet deep, long enough and deep enough to house a body so it wouldn’t be dug up and strewn all over the yard by wild animals after the barrier fell. Strangely enough, there wasn’t a single mosquito inside of the barrier. It had only taken five minutes of sitting outside without the protection of bug spray to figure it out. Not even a moth hovered around the light on the back stoop as they moved the man’s body to the hole, Chase stumbling slightly and trudging towards the grave with a grunt of effort. Gordon seemed to be able to handle his load with more ease, taking his time to give Chase the opportunity to align the body with the side of the grave. There would be no delicate way to do this so they swung his body back slightly and dropped him into the grave with a loud thud against the dirt. I cringed, gritting my teeth even though I knew he wouldn’t feel any pain or discomfort. It was hard to watch. I had to turn away before tears spilled from my eyes and down my cheeks. I wasn’t sure if the sorrow I felt was because of his death at my own hands or the hormones of my current pregnancy.
Placing my hand over my mouth I squeezed my eyes shut as I tried to hold back the sobs that tried too hard to rack my body with their ferocity. I was able to hold them back until after a few seconds. I felt a warm and callused hand on my arm and turned to find myself staring directly into Gordon’s pitch black orbs. Chase was behind him i, shoveling loose dirt into the grave as Gordon tried to comfort me.
“Are you alright?” His eyes were watering as he watched me, emotions shifting from concern to sadness and finally despair.
I could only shake my head as a response for fear my voice would crack and I would shatter into a million pieces as we sat there. The look on his face intensified the feeling running rampant through my body, making it easier for the first few tears to begin to cascade down my cheeks. Gordon moved to sit beside me, taking me into his arms, one hand rubbing my back as the other held me. All of the events of the past six months had been bearable until that moment. I wanted so badly to cling to the past like a security blanket, but I knew that wasn’t possible. At least not until Lilith was gone.
Chase let us be and continued to fill the grave. He walked silently around us and I could hear Gordon whisper to him, but couldn’t make out the words through my cries as the anguish poured out of me and into the air, filling it with grief. I may not have known him as anything other than a fledgling crawler, but I swore to myself I would avenge him and I would do whatever it took to make sure he didn’t die in vain.
Chapter 18:
Down the Rabbit Hole
I was still covered in the blood of the crawler Gordon and I had put to death. I hadn’t had a chance to relay Beth’s information to Gordon or to reflect on it before I had a complete break down while watching the stranger being laid to rest. Plus, I was concerned about Sam. I realized it wasn’t about her current state, but the state of her mind after we had returned to the world.
When I came into the room Gordon was shirtless and on all fours on the floor with a rag, a steel brush, and a bucket of hot soapy water. I stooped down in front of him and reach into the red tinged water for the second brush at the bottom.
My stomach began to turn as I pushed the already red water through the blood of the crawler that was congealing on the floor. Pushing through the nausea I let my thoughts drift as I moved the brush between the floor and the bucket, not seeming to make a dent in the amount of crimson still on the floor. I stood, taking the bucket to the sink, pouring the filthy water down the drain and rinsing the bucket. Once it was rinsed and filled it up with the hot soapy wa
ter. I brought it back to sit next to Gordon and began to scrub again. The hard bristles made a scraping sound on the floor as we did so. I didn’t care about scratches. I cared this was cleaned up before I hurled and made a larger mess.
I didn’t realize he had been speaking until I felt a warm hand on my shoulder, but I didn’t stop. I watched the clean water swirl with the blood as I moved the brush back and forth, harder and harder with each stroke. It was hypnotizing and Gordon began to shake my shoulder, finally snapping me out of the reverie and back to the present. With a deep, hissing breath I turned my face to look at him. His dark eyes bore into mine and I saw determination there; distress, determination, and frustration all wrapped into one beautiful muscle bound package. I had barely noticed before, but he still wore the scruff he had earned while in Hell, only leaving a five o’clock shadow. Apparently he had been trimming it though. I found it oddly sexy on him and grew accustomed to the look.
“You don’t have to do this,” he breathed. His breath was still minty as it came to greet me. I was confused and wasn’t exactly sure what I didn’t have to do, but I had a feeling he was about to tell me. “You’re looking a little green.”
“No, I’m okay. Really.” I could tell he didn’t believe me as soon as the words spilled from my mouth like vomit. I let out an exasperated sigh and moved to sit on the floor, barely missing an untouched puddle of blood to my left. “You’re right. I’ve felt the need to throw up the whole time I’ve been in here, but I want to help.” Resting my arms on my knees I watched him stare at me. He didn’t move and looked like as statue as we sat there.
“I know you do, but you don’t have to do everything. I’m here, Chase is here, and Beth is here. We are all here to help you. Not the other way around,” his shoulder flexed as he said the words, holding himself up was beginning to put a strain on his arms. He moved around the puddle of bloody water to sit next to me. “You don’t have to do everything yourself. I know you feel like you have to, but you don’t. Don’t put any undue pressure on yourself, especially now.” He moved his hand to my belly. It wasn’t big enough to really notice.
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