Hope (The Descendant Trilogy Book 2)

by Theresa M. Jones

  But when I looked up I couldn’t see his face. Everything went black, the color slowly faded from every corner my eyes tried to reach.

  Until it wasn’t anymore.

  I was standing in a dusty room, everything was tan. It reminded me of an igloo, except with sand, as if I had shrunken and been placed in a sand castle. But it wasn’t just sand. There was a leather couch at the back of the room, and a desk to the side of it. In the far back, against the wall was a book shelf and a file cabinet. Those weren’t tan.

  But everything else was. The walls, the ceiling, even the ground was tan.

  Then in front of me I saw her. That beautiful blond woman that had stood next to Damien the last two times I had seen him. She was there the day I killed him. In front of her were to other men. One was naked on the floor while the other was sitting on a chair. The one at the chair was the hairy giant that had been in my dreams of the end of the world, when I had been back on the island during my honeymoon.

  They all faced each other and were talking, though I couldn’t make out what they were saying. It was muffled, the way David’s voice had been. I tried harder to focus.

  Finally I could make out something the giant hairy man said. “So we go kill her.” And immediately I knew what they had been speaking of. They knew I was pregnant. They knew I carried The Descendant in my womb. They were going to kill me.

  They continued talking, and I felt the urge to go closer, to understand their plan so I could stop it, but the edges of my vision grew dark once again.

  When I opened my eyes, I saw two emeralds look cautiously down at me. David was still by far the most handsome man I had ever seen in my life. The tips of his blond hair were lifted in the air and tousled about his head, glowing with green Power.

  “Are you ok?”

  “Yes.” I said, but it sounded scratchy. So I cleared my throat and tried again. “Yes, I am.”

  “What happened? You just fainted.”

  I looked beyond him, the others had gone on without us. A rush of panic swept over me. I wasn’t there to help them. And even worse, we were alone.

  “David, they know. They know that I am pregnant. I don’t know how they know, but they do.”

  He pulled me into his arms, securing me in his strong embrace, trying desperately to keep me safe. I could feel his eyes searching around for a hidden enemy, as his head turned from side to side.

  “We will be okay. You are strong, they cannot hurt you. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He placed his hand on my tummy and added, “Or her.”

  “They went on?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Are you okay to stand?”

  I nodded. He stood, then offered me his hand and helped me to my feet. I didn’t feel bad, but I no longer felt the eerie sense of impending doom. Which was weird considering the vision I just had. I was still scared pretty shitless, but it wasn’t the same weird sensation as before.

  “We need to go, we shouldn’t be alone.”

  I nodded in agreement and we headed off to where the others had gone. At first we were walking, David being so conscious of my condition. But then he started going faster, and I kept pace. His urgency was apparent.

  Finally we were running down the hallways. David somehow knew the way to go. Through door after door, and hallway after hallway, we headed toward the site of confrontation.

  Before we rounded the last corner, we heard fighting. We ran faster still.

  Once I looked around the corner, and through the doors at the end of the room, I saw what I had been waiting for. A true battle between good and evil.

  The first thing that caught my eye was a dead body. Or rather, half a body. A man, dressed in a nice black suit was split in half at the waist. He was surrounded by a puddle of blood. I didn’t even know where his legs were.

  Beyond him there were shadows of black darkness dancing with colorful flashes of Power. Good and evil. Beyond the explosions of Power, were the people fighting. Many Rising members were here, and my Order friends were in fist-to-fist combat with them. Their Power assisted them as best it could.

  I looked for Rick, but couldn’t find him. His dark hair, tinted with gray was nowhere to be seen. David was running. His green fire spread out over his body, shielding him from and Rising attacks.

  I released my tight hold on my Power and let it flow freely. My fire erupted in streaks of purple, covering me from head to toe in shimmering light. I let it flow out from me, giving me a two foot bubble of safety. I couldn’t risk any one getting even minutely close to me.

  And then I saw her. In the center of it all, she floated above them. She was hovering a good three or four feet off the ground. Her body was upright, and her hands were stretched out and up, as if welcoming someone for an embrace.

  Her hair flew around her wildly, her tight red dress showed off her curves. And her very pregnant body. We hadn’t known she was pregnant. I thought back to the vision I had just had and thought of all the differences in her then. She was paler, thinner, and looked less controlled. She looked on edge. It was hard just having a sweet, angel baby inside me, I could only imagine what having a freakin’ devil baby inside of someone would do to them.

  Below her feet was what looked like a rain cloud, but must have been her Power. It almost looked like she was standing on a real cloud, it was all twisting with black, blue and orange, as if it was only looking for an escape.

  She really was truly beautiful, despite her disgusting Power. She would have been a beautiful mother, if she weren’t so tainted.

  Then she saw me. And it was like the world stopped spinning. Her eyes met mine. Mine caught hers. And together we were the most Powerful human beings alive. The clocks stopped ticking as we sized each other up.

  We both were stronger, being pregnant. I wasn’t sure what it was like having a Rising child inside you, but all the stories I heard were that the baby sucked the life from the mother. So perhaps I would finally have the upper hand.

  Somewhere in the distance I heard David yell for Rick. I wanted to look to him, to be there for him. To aide him in whatever he had set his mind on accomplishing, but I couldn’t look away from her. I was the deer caught in the headlights. I was the victim being seduced by the wicked queen.

  My fire spread out from me, along the ground, scorching any Rising member in its path. It was as if I was a fountain of gasoline that was emptying onto the ground, and my Power the fire that burned in its path.

  The screams around me grew louder, and yet I still couldn’t look away from her.

  You have come to me. When she spoke to my mind, I smelled rotten eggs and tasted metallic death.

  I tried to think of something to say back, but my mind wasn’t working right. Words seemed pointless and petty. I tried to figure out a way to kill her, and push aside my qualms of killing her unborn child. There was no way the child could be anything other than a Rising member. She wouldn’t have allowed anyone other than a Powerful rising member to impregnate her.

  I shook my head in answer. I have come to kill you. I spoke to her the same as she had spoken to me, but when I said the words I threw as much Power into them as I could. It was an attempt to test her. To see how much of an impact I could have on her. She only barely flinched.

  She finally closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. She probably enjoyed the smell of blood and sulfur that permeated the air all around us. Though I wasn’t sure if it was the smartest thing to do, I still looked away from her since her eyes had finally released me. David was fighting the African American man, the one that had been naked in my dreams. It scared the crap out of me to see my David up against one of the scariest men alive. He was so much taller than David, and his muscles bulged out like he had been living solely on steroids for the last ten years.

  I looked again for Rick, but couldn’t see him anywhere.

  In my peripheral vision, I saw a movement where she stood, so I looked back at her. And she was gone. But only for a second. In the next moment she appeared right
in front of me.

  She stood on my purple fire. Her black smoke surrounded her feet, protecting her from my Power.

  I looked up in to her soulless eyes, looking for any redeeming grace in them, but I came up empty. She had no goodness left in her at all. Her humanity was gone.

  I tried to grab her head, the way I had with Damien’s, but I couldn’t. She stopped my hands inches from her face.

  You think you are as strong as me? Well, obviously that was what I was counting on. That earlier dread I had felt was starting to come back.

  She placed her hands on my face, and instantly I felt like my face was on fire. Not my fire, but hers. It felt like my skin was melting off my bones, and my eyes were about to explode from the warmth and pressure.

  She cackled in joy. She was confident that she would win. I tried to push my Power out stronger. I could feel it rising in me, pushing out and out. I aimed it towards my head, where her heat and force was mainly directed. I imagined a gallon of water being poured over my head, soaking my face with ice-cold water.

  I felt a shift in the air around me. Like our Power was combating each other on its own. It felt like a bomb had gone off in between us as the air thrust us apart. We were moved away from each other, but only by inches, no longer within ones reach.

  Around me the noise had subsided. In a way this frightened me, that I could no longer hear David, Rick, or the others. But this time I couldn’t look away from her. I had to maintain my focus.

  Her smirk had left, and was replaced by a hideous scowl. It was apparent that she had never met her match in Power, especially not since she had been pregnant.

  I knew time was running out. I didn’t know how long we had been there already. And I was hoping that since the President and Prime Minister were in this room, probably already dead, that the virus had not been released. But I wasn’t sure. Even if we killed her and these Rising members here, I knew there were others out there. If the virus was stilled released, they would have their Great Tribulation and the Fifth Seal would be opened.

  She lowered herself then, in what could only be described as a battle stance. Her legs were slightly spread and her knees only barely bent. She kept her arms at her sides, her hands out toward me, as if she were about to run and tackle me to the ground.

  I mimicked her, attempting to ready myself for what she would throw at me next. Until I realized that again, this is what we always do. We react. We wait for them, and then react accordingly.

  But not this time. I stood taller and pulled all the Power from my inside toward my core. It was as if, now that I searched for it, I found an untapped source residing deep within me. Not in my heart, where our Power normally originated, but lower. From him, my daughter.

  I pulled on it and allowed it to mix with mine. I felt my feet leave the floor as the Power pulled my body up. It felt like I was exploding from the inside, and vaguely remembered the way it felt the first time I felt my Power, back on my birthday almost a year ago now.

  When I looked down at her, she was not in shock, as I was. She looked annoyed. I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes at her nonchalant posture.

  Instead I aimed my body at hers, as if I could fly toward her.

  She fell back to the ground before I even landed on her. She was on her back, and I was straddling her in an awkward position, with her large belly getting in the way. I placed my hands on her head. Though I could tell she was trying to resist me, and stop me from touching her, she couldn’t.

  My hands touched her pale cheeks and I closed my eyes as I envisioned what I wanted to happen. I found her dark hole. It was the only way I could describe their minds, surrounded in their Power.

  I forced my Power into her mind, trying to light up all the darkness. She started writhing beneath me, but I held her down. And I pushed my Power harder into her.

  I pushed and pushed, shoving all the darkness out and replacing it with light.

  When I could no longer hold my head up, I placed my forehead against hers in what would appear to be an intimate gesture. Her body was having spasm after spasm, and she started to scream, a guttural sound of pure agony. I didn’t stop, I kept pushing.

  Then I noticed something that caught me completely off guard. Once the dark was gone from her mind, there was the tiniest pinprick of light there. Light that wasn’t from me.

  I searched for it, pushing the black away as I went in further into her mind.

  Then everything went black as I was sucked into yet another vision.

  I saw Mark, Sharon’s now dead brother, the traitor who had turned us over to Damien only months before. He was lying in bed, professing his love for Lilith. I saw vision after vision of them together, in bed and other places.

  And then I realized what I had seen. I felt it. I felt him. Her baby was his too.

  Her body was still convulsing under me when I stopped. I looked up from her body. Around me the carnage was still happening. People were fighting. People were dying. There was blood everywhere and Power surging through the air. But against the wall, I saw what my eyes sought.

  On top of that desk in the back was a letter opener sticking up in a cup with other pens. I pulled them to me, and stabbed her in the neck with the letter opener and five pens. Blood surged out from around the wounds, drenching her powdery skin with deep crimson.

  Her red dress turned darker at the straps, and down to the V-neck that barely covered her breasts and the floor beneath her turned deep red. I lifted them all up at once, and plunged them in again, deeper than before. I knew she would have to die, but I couldn’t kill her entire body at once, not with my Power. Not when the baby was part Order.

  Her body finally stopped convulsing and lay still, but I knew there would only be a short time I could save the child. I no longer thought of it as a demon, an evil spawn of Satan. It was a child, with Order Power surging through its blood just the same as mine.

  Though I had never seen a cesarean section happen, I knew the basic principle, and since I wasn’t concerned for the mother, it didn’t really matter. With my hand, I pulled the letter opener out from her neck, the warm blood dripped down around my hand, covering it in sticky, deep scarlet.

  I placed it just below her belly button, and sliced a thin line down her stomach. I didn’t dig in too deep, I didn’t want to harm the baby. So once the skin was sliced, I went a little deeper, cutting through the muscle beneath it. As it opened, I set the letter opener down, preparing myself to use my Power to pull out the entire amniotic sac.

  But before I could, her body jerked again, shuddering in front of me. A bright light shone from her stomach, a light so brilliant I had to turn away. It was like Michael, the angel from my dreams had appeared. When my eyes left her body, I had looked to the left, to avoid the bright light, and saw David standing there. It appeared he had been in combat with the tall bald man, but they both had stopped and looked at Lilith’s body. As I looked around, everyone had stopped.

  It wasn’t until that moment anyone had realized she was dead. It was apparent now, as her Power was no longer in her body, and she was lying in a pool of blood.

  Finally the light subsided and I was able to look down at her again. The amniotic sac had burst open, and I could see an infant’s hand outside of the crude wound I had created. My hands moved of their own volition, as I reached into the warm opening, sliding easily into it and pushing the muscles aside, in an attempt to wrap around the tiny body inside.

  Right above the hand, I could see the top of the head, so I reached for it. I knew that normally they would pull the head out first. I used my Power to aide me, to push the rest of the stomach open so that it would be easier for the baby to come out.

  Finally, I pulled the child into my arms, the umbilical cord still attaching it to the mother’s lifeless form. I had nothing to clamp it off, so I just used my Power as a clamp, to stop the flow of blood, and used the letter opener to slice through the thick, pulsing cord.

  I looked around, searching for s
omething to cover the child with, and came across a throw blanket draped over a chair in the back corner. I brought it to me, and covered the silent child in my arms.

  I started to rub its body, hoping I hadn’t done any damage to it while I had been killing its mother.

  Then another wave of bright light shone. It was almost white light, but tinted with yellow streaks, like a shining star. Again it was too bright for my eyes, and I tried to cover them with my free hand, the one not holding the infant.

  As soon as I heard the first cry, the light went away, I looked up, searching for David. He had been covering his eyes too, but then finally looked at me. The Rising man he had been battling was gone. I looked around and noticed there was not one living Rising member left.

  David ran toward me, and knelt at my side. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why did you save it?”

  “It was Mark’s. He has Order blood running through his veins just as much as Rising blood. He may be good. I couldn’t risk hurting him.” I explained.

  David looked at me as his eyebrows scrunched together revealing his confusion. “How do you know?”

  “I saw it, right before I killed her.”

  He nodded, then looked down at the child. “What will you do with it?”

  Instantly I was offended that we continued to call the baby an it. So, as I rocked back and forth trying to sooth it, I lifted the blanket to see beneath it.

  “He will stay with us, of course. At the Compound, and we will raise him as an Order Member.” What else could we do with him? In the hands of a Rising Member, he could do great harm, as he would be the first Rising Member able to cross the threshold to the Compound.

  I heard footsteps leaving, as Nicholas and Boleslav left the room. I was sure they were going to stop the virus. I noticed that most of the guard left alive followed right them.

  David reached below me and helped me stand. I allowed him to help me as I cradled the infant in my arms, pressing him close to my chest. He had stopped crying, but I was sure he was ready to feed.