Power (16 page)

Chapter 14
Return

My fiery shield stayed unbroken, but my mind was wavering. I could feel myself starting to black out. My body went lax and my mother supported me even more. Sam continued her dance, a determined look on her face. It was at that moment I heard David.
Don’t give up! I’m close!

I believed him, but how could I not give up? If I could just remain conscious, keep the evil at bay, I figured this could go nowhere. I couldn’t physically attack him and they couldn’t touch us. My power could not beat them, and I would not let theirs beat me.

I tried to block out the visions Damien was sending to me, the visions of torture and death, blood and guts, ruin and chaos. Images of the world he wanted to create.

He showed me that he opened four Seals so far – we hadn’t even known he had released the fourth horse yet. He showed me his plans to cause Russia to shoot their nuclear bombs at the United States and for China to bomb Europe. He showed me the disease that had already slaughtered billions of livestock and obliterated trillions of crops. He showed me what was next, thousands of airborne illnesses causing mass hysteria and death to millions. He had started The End. He was proud of it. He was confident in his plan to massacre millions and eliminate the Order. He was sure the Heaven would lose.

I decided on a final stand, literally. I would not die bowing before him. I would not lose this battle while lying on my face. I would stand to show him he would not win. And then hopefully he would freak and run away, at least, that was the plan anyways. I saw in his mind that he feared me killing him. It was a small fear, his pride overshadowed most of his other thoughts, and we both knew that it would not happen today.

I took a deep breath and stood. It was exactly as difficult as I imagined it would be. My legs began to shake beneath my weight; I reached out to my mom to steady myself. Samantha stopped dancing and came to stand next to me. She grabbed my hand and looked at me. “You can do this, Mama!” My heart swelled, she never called me ‘Mama’ anymore.

I pushed him out of my head and closed off that channel. He felt it and glared at me. Thank God looks couldn’t really kill. The remaining Rising members looked at him as if he called their names, though his lips never moved. He didn’t speak out loud, but they all nodded in obedience then turned and left much faster than I could have imagined. When the weaker ones had walked up to me before, they hadn’t come fast. They moved slowly, like snakes slithering through the air. But when they turned and left now, it was so fast, after only a second had passed I could no longer see them at all.

Damien walked forward. Now that the others were gone, some of my power returned to me. I still was fighting to hold him off, and his power was still clawing at mine, pushing me down. He stopped maybe five feet in front of me. At first I thought he was going to lunge at me and try to beat me bloody. But he hesitated. Maybe he didn’t want to know if my fire would hurt him. I didn’t want to test it either. Samantha started crying quietly and I held her hand tighter.

He said apathetically, “I see you have been training.” I didn’t answer him, I didn’t move at all. I feared that if I didn’t continue to focus, I would lose it all and he would win. So he continued, “I will see you again. And you will not live to walk away from that meeting.” He said it like a promise. Then he turned and left, just the same as the others.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t. What if it was a trick? What if he turned around and attacked full force as soon as I let my guard down? My mom let out a loud sigh, but I couldn’t. Samantha reached up to me, but I knew I wasn’t able to hold her now. I knelt down next to her and hugged her.

It didn’t appear that anyone had seen what just happened. There were no nosy onlookers that I could see. I couldn’t feel or sense any other Rising members anywhere around. But still I couldn’t let go of my power.

Not even a full minute had passed when I heard a car screech around the corner. David parked in front of the house, not even bothering to pull into the driveway and ran up to us, stopping short just in front of me.

“Look at me.” I did as I was told. “Are you ok? Does it hurt?” David asked me.

“Hurt?” I asked, confused.

“You are on fire!” he almost whispered the words.

I looked down. I had almost forgotten. “I don’t want it to stop until I am sure they are gone.” I looked down and whispered, “I’m scared!” Despite how much I wanted to pull the power back in and contain it, I just couldn’t risk it.

“They are gone. I don’t detect a Rising member for,” he paused, “I don’t detect one at all, and I reached out over 300 miles. Central Texas seems pretty safe right now.” He was confident in his assessment.

I trusted him completely and I desperately wanted to rest and stop holding my shield up, so I slowly reeled in my power. I put out the fire from Mom first, then Sam. Then I pulled it close around me, pulling it back in. My toes were extinguished first, then my legs, my head, my torso, and lastly my hands. I took a deep breath, held it, and then exhaled loudly.

David stepped forward and I didn’t wait for him to come closer, I leaned into him. My goal was to hug him tightly, but I ended up falling onto him, needing his support so I didn’t fall onto my face again. He held me up, supporting me when my legs wouldn’t. I looked up into his eyes, and he looked down at me. I noticed there was something burning in his eyes, something deep and strong, but my mind wasn’t working well enough to figure out what it was. I wanted to tell him about it all. Wanted to explain what it felt like. But even more, I wanted to explain the relief I felt when I saw him, the safety and security I was instantly filled with when he came near.

I wanted to tell him how I felt about him, now that I almost died and lost my entire family to a raving, evil lunatic. I wanted to tell him to kiss me and make it all better.

But I couldn’t seem to form any words. My thoughts zoomed through my mind at the speed of light, no longer coherent.

“Everything is ok. Rest now. I’ll keep them safe.” He assured me. And before I could even attempt to say anything back, everything went black around me.

***

I was in a bed, still half asleep when I heard them talking. “No, Rick, you should have seen her! It was amazing. She was freakin’ on fire! Literally!” I thought it was strange David was talking like that. I don’t think I ever had heard him say, ‘freakin’’ before. The way he said it made him sound in awe of me. If I had been fully conscious, I would have smiled. Even now, I’m pretty sure I was smiling subconsciously.

“I have never heard of that happening…” Rick answered honestly. He too sounded amazed. Though it was scary to remember what they were talking about, I felt a sense of pride surrounding me. I had kept my family safe. More specifically, my power had kept us all safe. He didn’t hurt them at all.

David was still talking, “I know, me neither. But I saw it with my own eyes. She had covered Sam and her mother in it as well. According to them, the fire didn’t hurt them at all; in fact, they could barely feel it. But when a Rising member tried to hit her, it lit his hand on fire.” I cringed at the memory. “And she called to me. I was at least 30 miles away, but she called to me. It was like… the opposite of telepathy. I could hear her without even trying.”

“Amazing!” Rick now had the same tone as David, the tone of admiration and respect. “It doesn’t surprise me they believe she is the one, she has so much power!”

David spoke, “But you know she can’t be.” I tried to listen harder. This was important to me. I wanted to know what they were saying, but I started drifting back out, the black creeping in again. I had the strangest feeling of déjà vu, and I chuckled to myself, not out loud, just in my head. Just a couple of months ago I was in a hospital eavesdropping on Rick and David talking about me after my first encounter with Damien. Funny how things repeated themselves. Then I blacked out again.

***

“Good morning!” David greeted me. I had just opened my eyes, and I saw him sitting next to my bed. We were still at my mother’s house, which I was excited about; I would have been upset if we had gone back to the compound before I even had the opportunity to spend any time with her.

As I looked at him, his eyes bore into mine. There was something different about him, something less reserved. The way he looked at me made my stomach flip and my skin flush. I remembered all the thoughts that had gone through my head the last time I looked into those eyes.

Thankfully, I didn’t start blushing; it would have been embarrassing to blush for no reason other than a man looking at me. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I looked back, memorizing his face again. He was so handsome, with his honey brown hair and hazel eyes, strong jaw and full pink lips. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in a while, normally his chin was smooth, but at the moment he had stubble all across it. He was perfect.

I finally managed to squeak out, “Good morning to you too, David.”

He smiled again and I smiled back. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

I thought about that. I felt loads better. Maybe a little stiff, but I must have been asleep for a while. I had firm control of my power, including my internal shield, and nothing threatened to slip. More than anything, I felt a little numb. “I’m ok. I feel weird though, pretty stiff. How long was I asleep?”

“You were out for three days!” He sounded just as surprised as I was. “If I didn’t know better, I would have thought you were in a coma. Of course I knew you weren’t, I knew your body was just fine. But you had to recuperate. You allowed so much power to flow for so long; it had to take its toll.” He paused and then offered, “I can take away the stiffness, if you want.”

“Yes, please.” I reached out my hand. He helped me sit, while enveloping me in his power and alleviating all my discomfort. “So, three days, huh? What have you been doing?” If I had been out for three days, that would mean that he was long past his time to return to the Compound.

“Samantha and your mom have been having a blast. She has shown your mother all the dances she learned, told her all about the Compound. They have just been talking constantly. I’m hanging around to make sure you are both ok. Rick stopped by for a day, but left this morning. You are going to stay until the end of the week.”

Exciting! “Thanks, David!”

“You deserve it; you need to spend some time with your mom,” he said, then looked down, “But, I don’t. I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning.” Wow, it was crazy how much that statement affected me. It’s not like I hadn’t been spending every day for the last couple of months with him or anything. Why should a couple of days apart be so hard to consider? I suppose it could have been the near death experience that had made me realize how very short life can be. If I had given in, for just a second, Damien could have killed my mother, and me, and killed Sam before she even had a chance to live.

“Why aren’t you staying?” I let my sadness seep into my words. I didn’t have any urge to hide my feelings from him anymore.

“There is no need. I have other responsibilities at the Compound. You are well now. You just needed rest. You can protect them just as well as I can, maybe better. And you need time with your family,” he said, matter-of-fact.

He stood to leave, and I asked, “You are leaving now?” I tried to keep the edge of hysteria out of my tone, but I think it might have shown through a little. “I just woke up. What if I’m not really ok? What if they came back?” I shivered as I asked, not because I was cold, but because that thought really did scare the hell out of me.

He came back to me, sat down on my bed very close to me, placed his hand on mine and looked into my eyes as he said, “If I thought you were in any danger, I would not leave you right now. I know you are ok physically, I healed you myself. You will be fine, and so will your family. Damien will not come back, not after what happened. Please don’t worry. Enjoy your time here with your mother and I will see you soon.”

I held his gaze, not wanting to look away, and not allowing him to either. I could feel his hand on mine; the warmth spreading up my arm and through me, igniting the fire deep within. It was not the same warmth my power offered, it was different, deeper.

The way he looked at me now was not so much causing the butterflies and the tingly feeling in my stomach, but a much deeper yearning. It was a need now, no longer a want. It was a desire so primitive I had no hope for escaping it. It was passion.

I couldn’t tell, but I desperately hoped he felt the same. Otherwise it would be completely inappropriate the way we sat there staring at each other. I thought, for the briefest moment, he was going to kiss me. I don’t know if it was just wishful thinking, but I could swear it looked like he was leaning closer to me – the heat increasing as the distance between us decreased.

My eyes flickered from his eyes to his lips and then back again. I couldn’t help it, but in that moment when I released his eyes, he regained some semblance of control and instead of kissing my lips, he kissed my head once again. He rested his forehead against mine to catch his breath and whispered, “Good bye, Allison.” Then he stood and left my room, leaving me empty, alone and wanting more.

***

We spent the rest of the week just hanging out at the house. My mother’s house was in a small town, but in every direction there was a large city, and the bigger the city, the more danger. Thankfully, no bombs had gone off yet and Texas was pretty rich in many natural resources so I knew it was better here than most places. I felt safer knowing that she really was ok, and that it was not nearly as bad as it could be compared to the visions that Damien had sent to me.

We talked for hours and hours, and we all three slept together in my mom’s bed. She had taken the entire week off of work, claiming a terrible sickness, which was more than believable with all the food poisoning. It was an amazing week. (Minus the first day, the three days I was out, and all the bad stuff in the world.) And it was exactly what I had needed.

It was a vacation from training, from disaster and destruction, from the Rising and the Order… from everything. I told mom all about David and my crazy feelings for him that I could hardly even explain, and she told me that it wasn’t wrong or bad to care for David. She knew, better than anyone else, that Alex and I had grown apart. He was focused on work and money instead of us.