The Centerpoint Trilogy (25 page)

              The Alturi laughed and Grace knew that to them, she was just a joke. She honestly was just a joke. She was a foolish little girl with dreams, but she was still one that deserved all the things other little girls had. She deserved to be happy, deserved a family, deserved all of that. She was a stupid little girl, but stupid little girls deserved life too.

              A voice rang out. “Stop!” it screamed.

              The powers stopped flowing. The man fell to the ground, but in spite of the fact that her powers brought unimaginable, paralyzing pain, the moment the pain stopped, he got up.

              Grace felt herself being tackled to the ground. She hit it so hard that tears sprung to her eyes. Still, she stayed so far removed from what was happening. Her body belonged to the Alturi inside of her, and not to her. She hit the ground, pain flooding her, but she could not even cry. Not even that was a function that belonged to her. Elliot pinned her to the ground, his body on top of hers. Grace thought about how much he loved his daughter and her stomach twisted in pain.

              He loved Rhiannon in a way that he would never love her.

              The man looked into her eyes for a long time and Grace found that, with great effort, she could manage to look back. He was still trembling from the pain of what she’d done, but was somehow more resolved, more powerful than ever. His eyes were a soft color of brown that was warm and comforting. He stared at her with an intensity however, as if he could see her beneath the Alturi and their hold on her. They tried to raise her arm, make her hurt him again, but failed. His hold was tight.

              “It’s going to be okay,” he assured her, hand on her wrists, firm and holding tight. He coughed, still twitching and in pain. His voice was slow and punctuated by deep breaths. “I kn-know that you’re a good person. I can see that in you. I can assure you that I never wanted this...this to happen. I didn’t- didn’t know that you were alive. I...I didn’t know. Your mo-mother - told me she lost the baby. I am so sorry.”

             
No! Liar!

             
The Alturi tapped into her power again. The power rushed through her with more force than she had ever felt before. Grace closed her eyes, managed that much, and tried to make it stop, but still, the ability to cause pain flooded through her body, out her fingertips. It hit Elliot like a blast of energy and he crumpled to the ground. He hit the ground and when she opened her eyes again, she could see him writhing, see her own hands conducting where the power went and to what intensity.

              “Please! Grace!” he begged, twisting and turning under her work. “Please fight them!”

              The pain inside her grew, like a wildfire. It was as though she were a wall and the power of the Alturi was blasting right through her guard of solid stone. She tried to be stronger, firmer, made out of something absolutely impenetrable. She tried her best to transfigure herself into something that could withstand the blast, but it was so strong. It went right through her. It kept her hollow.

              Then Grace collapsed. She felt arms around her as she dropped into nothingness.

              -

              Genesis fought as hard as she could, as the Alturi wrapped their tendrils around her mind. The Alturi got into those cracks and crevices, and once it was properly wound up inside of her, she was no longer able to fight. It drove her body to her feet. She could feel her father’s arms around her, but they were not doing anything. Somehow, with her desperation to save Rhiannon, she had let this thing into her mind. There was no way that it was going to let her escape.

The Alturi used Genesis. They used her voice, her body. She could hear them as they spoke through her, used her voice, but she could not do anything to stop it. “We will rule over your idiotic species,” the Alturi laughed, shaking her head and smiling with her face. Gensesis tried to stop it, tried to make it better, but found that she could not. “The Celestial Centerpoint was just our jumping point. They were nothing but a cult of feeble minded individuals who sought out power. They were the perfect target for us to use our abilities on, manipulate with our strengths. We gave them the power to create beautiful, powerful individuals and cultivated that power through time. Now, we are ready and we have three beautiful children to use to end this world and rebuild it in our own image.”

It yanked her free of her father’s grasp and used her body to walk past both her mother and father. It gave them a gentle smirk. “Your daughter is very smart,” it said, making her voice sound more sinister than she ever believed it capable of being. “She has such a grasp on the powers and potentials of her mind. She is stupid and naive, unfortunately, but works as hard as she can.

Genesis knew that she had to push it out. She had to get rid of it, force it to leave the only place that would ever be really and truly hers. “Get out!” she shrieked and it echoed inside of her head.

Get out! Get out! Get ou-out!

She could see the tendrils wrapping themselves through and around her brain. She pushed them out; she pushed them out with all the strength in her. That was when she collapsed. She saw her parents and Aunt Alicia rushing to her side, and then there was only blackness. Blackness followed by visions of light.

The vision spread through her in a whizzing, blurring motion like cars on a highway.

When she woke up, the three adults were looking down on her. Their looks were ones of deadly, dangerous concern. “What happened?” she asked, her voice incredibly raw. She felt as though she was going to start crying at any moment. That was when she recalled the visions of bright light that had gone through her head. The bright light had swam past an old warehouse near the dock.

“I know where Rhiannon is,” she said in a whisper. “Uncle Elliot too… and Grace.” Who was Grace? She did not know, exactly, but she knew that it was important.

Genesis tiredly looked up into her mother’s eyes. Those deep green orbs narrowed with concern. “Gen, do you think that you could lead us to Elliot and Rhi?” she asked softly, her hand on Gen’s shoulder. It was a comfort to have her mother there with her. She took a shallow, yet full breath.

“Yes,” she said, feeling herself waver in and out of consciousness. She was really trying, but her head seemed unusually heavy. “I can find her.” She heard herself giving them directions, as odd as her voice sounded. God, she was just so tired. Whatever had happened to her head when those things were inside of them had hurt. Everything was blurry and her vision was not all it could be.

The drive was a very short one. Genesis knew that they had not been driving long, but it felt like it took longer because of the slow heaviness in her head. When they stopped, they were at the side of a dock near the ocean. “The warehouse is just around the corner,” she said. She could feel a strong rush of energy coming from her left side and her head lolled that way. It was that way.

“Stay here Genesis,” her father ordered. He, her mother and her aunt got out of the car.

“No!” she yelled.

Genesis scrambled out of the car as quickly as she could. “Wait,” she said, as he realized that they had gone the wrong way. The impulses had done that on purpose .They wanted them out of the way when Gen went the right way. The actual warehouse was the other one, a green warehouse that was labeled B, not the tan colored one labeled A that she had seen in her head. She knew the right one, but they couldn't be there. She had to be there. This was her fight, not theirs.

Chapter Thirteen

                            Grace screamed as the Alturi got their fingers back inside of her brain. She raised her hands and a power rode through her that was stronger than anything she’d ever felt before. She knocked Elliot out completely. Grace felt her body turn. Rhiannon had come to her. “I want my father,” the girl said. She vaguely felt the Alturi’s feelings - they were impressed that she somehow managed to escape, probably using her fire power. She looked at the beautiful girl in front of her. She couldn’t help marvel herself, offhandledly, about how beautiful Rhiannon was. Even her name was beautiful. How could her father want anything to do with her when he had such a perfect adoptive child?

              The girl lunged at her, taking advantage of the stillness that Grace wasn’t quite sure was hers or the Alturi’s. “Stay away from my father!” she shrieked, getting her fingers around Grace’s throat. Grace choked and coughed, hacking.

              The Alturi were stronger. They used her to fling the girl backwards. Rhiannon hit the wall hard and Grace couldn’t help the bitter part in the back of her mind, the part that said quietly that it served her right. God, she was an awful person wasn’t she? Could she be saved? She collapsed into herself, just as another girl entered the room. Why bother fight the Alturi? Still, she looked to this girl.

              “Rhiannon!” this girl shouted. She was beautiful too. She was short, but feminine. She was curvaceous and had red hair that was tied up at the top of her head in a loose, messy ponytail. “Rhiannon, I’m here!” she shrieked. The girl’s eyes watered and she looked at Rhiannon, where the darker skinned girl was clumped on the floor. She looked at Rhiannon like the two were sisters - maybe they were, although not physically.

              Grace felt the Alturi as they did something unexpected - they left her body. They physically made the jump from her and into Rhiannon. Rhiannon hadn’t let them though. She must have, however, opened her mind when she saw the red haired girl arrive. “You came, child!” they shouted through Rhiannon’s voice. Grace fell to the floor and hit it hard, concrete pressing up against her face.

              “No!” Genesis screamed. “Get out out her!”

              First, the Alturi had Rhiannon’s body. It seemed that they wanted to possess all of the girls at once, but they struggled. When they got into Rhiannon’s body, they left Grace’s limp shell behind on the ground. They struggled so much. Rhiannon’s slightly slumped posture changed. She stood up straighter with the Alturi inside of her and looked up at her foes regally. She raised a hand and fire flooded from it in a straight, burning hot line. Grace felt it singe against the side of her face.

              Grace felt that she did not have any strength left to fight, either, but despite this, she pressed her face to the ground as the fire hit the wall and some of the building structure caught, flames licking at it lightly. “Stop!” she screamed out. “Please! This building’s gonna go down fast!” The warehouse was not very strong or sturdy.

              The fire shot out of both of Rhiannon’s hands anyway, searing the walls behind them. The third girl, the beautiful redhead, ran towards Rhiannon and screamed. “Rhiannon!” she shrieked, trying to coax her friend out of the shell that her own brain had become. Rhiannon responded by turning, shooting a bolt and catching her best friend’s clothes on fire. Grace watched from the floor, paralyzed as the redhead stripped off her shirt frantically, beating at her clothes, leaving her in just a black lace bra, her smoldering shirt on the floor in front of her. She looked frantic as she made sure her hair wasn’t just as burnt.  Genesis lunged for her friend.

              Then the Alturi jumped again. Grace felt them slide back into her mind and shrieked. “No!” she shrieked out. The last thing she saw before the Alturi got hold of her was the image of both girls collapsing forward, hitting the ground with a force that rocked the creaky wooden flooring. They had used her powers and hit the two others with it. Grace struggled to stop it, but the power from within her had unleashed again and both of the girls in front of her writhed in intense, unimaginable pain.

              It seemed like she would torture the other two young women forever, when they tried to take Genesis and somehow left her. Splitting pain shot through Grace’s head as they screamed. They screamed into her brain, words that were completely unintelligible. They were not as strong as they thought they were, she realized. They could not hold all three of the girls at once. There were no words in their screaming, or maybe the words were in a language that would forever be unfamiliar to her. She shrieked and closed her eyes, dropping to her knees. That was when things began to fly through the air.

              Boxes and crates moved with great force. She knew that things were hitting her. Pain shot through her face as her nose was broken by a crate that flew through the sky, blood seeped out of it and down the front of her shirt. Still, she was numbed by shock and fear, so she could hardly perceive what was going on.

              She felt someone grab her hand and lolled her head to one side to see Rhiannon. Grace was on the floor, vision blurry. Rhiannon was on the floor too, as well, blood coming from the gash on the top of her head. Her blood made Grace aware of the fountain that was gushing from her nose. “We need to do this together,” she whispered. “Project that thought into Genesis’ head with me. Tell her that we need to do this together. She will listen. I promise. If all three of us work together we can cast them out.”
Grace nodded slowly. She could do that. She took Rhiannon’s hand in hers and with her brain, yelled out the word.

             
Together.

              Together.

              They had to do this together.