Messiah

by J. E. Taylor

  The phone on the desk rang, making all of them jump. Matthew answered it before the second ring. “I’m sorry, sir, I had an issue to attend to.”

  “I’m an issue now,” André whispered, allowing a crooked smile to grace his features. He glanced at Katrina and his smile disappeared. “I’m sorry about your father.”

  Katrina’s chin began to shake and she nodded as fresh tears spilled from her eyes.

  André reached for her, putting his hand on her cheek. “Ah, baby,” he whispered, forgetting that there were others in the room. He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the cheek.

  “He’ll never know his grandchild.”

  “Kat, I’m not sure he would have anyway,” André replied.

  Cal and his partner were packing up the medical supplies and he looked in the direction of Katrina and André. “You’re expecting?”

  She nodded in response.

  He glanced at André, and then at the covered deceased commander and back. He raised his eyebrows. Is that why?

  André heard Cal’s thought and shrugged. Please let it go. André half nodded and glanced in the direction of Sandy.

  “Corporal, you’re dismissed,” Cal stated and watched as his partner shuffled the supplies out of the office, closing the door behind her. He glanced in the direction of the colonel and then at André. “You can read minds?”

  André sent a glance in his father’s direction and then back to the captain. He figured if his father and Cal schemed to get the commander to agree to letting him stay with Matthew, he could level with him without worry. “Yes.”

  “He can teach people to do the things he can,” Katrina said, wiping her face.

  Cal rubbed his chin with his uninjured hand, considering the possibilities. His left hand still dripped from the bite wounds the commander inflicted, blood staining the carpet where he stood, his mind whirling.

  Matthew slowly hung up the phone and glanced at André and Katrina. He moved his eyes to Cal. “I know what you’re thinking,” he stated. “I thought the same thing but it’s a big responsibility.”

  Cal shifted his gaze back at André. “What else can you do?” he asked, looking down at his hand.

  “I can’t fix your hand,” André replied to the question in Cal’s mind. “The power to heal is a myth; the power to control your body functions so a wound doesn’t kill you isn’t.” He stood up with the help of Katrina, glancing at his father. “You’re the Commander now?” he asked.

  Matthew nodded glancing at the covered body of his friend on the floor. The president had promoted him over the phone. “Yes.” He finally verbalized the reply.

  “So, are you going to let me enlist?” André asked.

  Matthew gaped at his son. “You have to finish high school,” he replied. There was no leeway in his answer.

  André took a deep breath. “I can help you create a special force of soldiers, Dad.”

  “To do what?” Matthew snapped.

  “To protect and preserve the laws of the United States.”

  “André, this is not a discussion I am having with you. You have to finish high school first before I will even entertain such a thought.” He glanced at Katrina. “Besides, you’ll have a child in six months. Your priorities may change when you’re a father.”

  Cal still stood in the center of the room. “Once you teach someone, can they teach someone else?”

  “No,” André answered. “I mean, once the barrier in a person’s mind is broken, yes, they can help teach someone to use their own powers, but I’m the only one who can break the barrier.”

  Intrigued, Cal asked, “Why?”

  André allowed a crooked smile. “Because I’m not from around here.”

  Cal looked at Matthew. “I’d like to volunteer.”

  Matthew shook his head. “Not now, Captain.” Maybe in a few years.

  Cal nodded and saluted his commanding officer. “Yes, sir.” He glanced at André once again as he picked up his radio. “I need someone to come collect the body of Commander Lawrence,” he transmitted.

  “Already on the way,” a voice squawked from the other end. A knock on the door sounded in unison.

  “You two need to get home,” Matthew said to André and Katrina.

  “Yes, sir,” André said and led Katrina out of the room as members of the coroner’s office converged.

  Chapter 11

  May 2240

  Matthew was in his office when the call came in.

  “Dad?” André’s voice came over the intercom.

  “Yes?” Matthew said. He was reading a brief and wasn’t giving the call his full attention.

  “Kat’s in labor,” André said, his voice strained, and near panic.

  Matthew’s attention snapped to the phone as both the words and the emotion from his son reached the recesses of Matthew’s mind. “What?”

  “Kat’s in labor. What do I do?”

  “Where are you?”

  “We were at school when her water broke. I brought her home.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “I don’t know,” André said. “She’s in labor,” he repeated.

  “Get her to the hospital, you idiot,” Matthew said, shooting out of his chair. “I’ll meet you there.”

  THE SIMPLICITY OF WHAT his father just said made him laugh aloud. He panicked to the point of stupidity. “Okay. I’ll see you there,” André replied and hung up the phone.

  André collected Katrina and brought her to the hospital.

  “It’s going to be okay,” André said, pulling up to the emergency room. He put his arm around her waist and led her into the hospital, escorting her to the reception desk. “My wife’s in labor,” he announced.

  The nurse looked up and her brow furrowed.

  “My wife is in labor,” he replied. “Her water broke at school,” he added, looking in Katrina’s direction.

  Katrina groaned as the next contraction ripped through her.

  The nurse responded immediately, coming around and leading Katrina to a room nearby and getting her settled on the bed with a soft pillow and a blanket, explaining the process. “Once the doctor takes a look, we’ll transport you up to the maternity ward,” she said and left the two of them alone.

  Katrina squeezed André’s hand so hard, he thought it would break, but he didn’t say a word, just smiled at her and wiped the hair out of her face, keeping his frantic thoughts to himself.

  “Something’s wrong,” she gasped.

  André put his hand on her stomach and his smile faded. She was right; something was very wrong. The emotions he picked up from their child were not the simple contentment he had felt over the last four months; no, this was alarm wrapped around agonizing pain. Pulling his hand away, he lifted the blanket. The bedding under Katrina was soaked with blood and the flow just kept coming.

  “Jesus,” he gasped and his gaze shot up, meeting her wide, scared eyes. “You need to slow your body functions down, Kat,” he ordered. “I’ll be right back. Just concentrate on what I taught you. Okay?”

  “Don’t leave me!”

  “I have to get the doctor. Slow your heart down, Kat. Right now,” he commanded and bolted out of the room.

  André’s eyes darted both ways down the hall, zeroing in on a doctor leaning on the nurse’s station, flirting with the nurse who had brought them to the room. “My wife is bleeding,” he announced as he flew to the doctor and grabbed his arm. “You have to do something.”

  “Hold up, son,” the doctor said, trying to pull out of André’s grasp.

  André shot a warning look at him. “She is hemorrhaging. There’s blood all over the bed. You need to get the baby out and fix her. Now.” He shoved the doctor through the door into the room.

  The doctor’s irritation ended abruptly at the sight that met him. “Nurse!” he yelled and went into action.

  The nurse stepped into the room and stopped in her tracks, the amount of blood daunting even to a professional, but s
he recovered, turning to André. “Sir, you need to leave while they work on your wife,” she said.

  André shook his head and moved closer to Katrina, putting his hand on the top of her head. “She’s my wife. I’m not leaving her,” he insisted, threading his fingers into her hair. Come on, baby; you can do it. Just hang on.

  “She needs surgery and you can’t go in with us,” the doctor snapped.

  “Yes I can. All you have to do is get me scrubs.”

  The doctor shot a glance at André as they began to roll Katrina out of the room.

  “I’m not leaving her,” André insisted. “I promised her I wouldn’t.”

  “She won’t know any different,” the nurse said as they rolled by.

  André glared at her and pushed. “Get me a pair of scrubs, now,” he growled low.

  She blinked, nodded and wandered away, coming back a few minutes later with what he asked for.

  André changed into the thin, sterile fabric, putting the mask over his face and the cap over his hair. He walked into the operating room and sat down near Katrina’s head. “I’m here.” He closed his eyes, putting his forehead against hers for a moment. “Just don’t die, okay?” He kissed her temple and pulled away, allowing the anesthesiologist to put the oxygen mask over her mouth and nose. The IV was already in her arm, pumping medicine, anesthesia, and precious blood into her system.

  Surgeons converged, paying little attention to André, who stayed close to Katrina’s head with his gloved hand lying gently on her shoulder. Within minutes, they pulled his child from Katrina’s abdomen and handed him off to the nursing staff before returning their attention to finding the hemorrhage site and stopping the bleeding.

  André turned his attention away from the flurry of thoughts in the surgeon’s head to the nurses and the child they were cleaning and swaddling. A boy. His son. He bit his lip and squeezed his eyes closed, dousing the tears from starting. Joy and trepidation lined his stomach and he shot the thought to Katrina. A son. We have a son, babe.

  The baby let out a healthy cry from the other side of the room and André smiled. “The baby’s just fine,” he whispered in Katrina’s ear.

  “Damn it, her blood pressure’s dropping,” the surgeon swore. With seconds to decide, he did the only thing he could to save her life; he took out her uterus.

  André understood what happened even without the doctor’s frantic thoughts. Any chance of another child died with the doctor’s actions and for a few precarious moments, Katrina almost followed, but the doctor was able to find the source of the hemorrhage and cauterize it, closing down the uncontrollable fountain of blood.

  Hanging his head, he let the tears slip out, but contained the sob that threatened. Relief, joy, and sorrow all culminated into a perfect storm of emotion; he swallowed the cyclone, diffusing it for the sake of his son. He glanced in the direction of the wailing child and wiped his face with the hem of his scrubs, standing and heading in the direction of the noise.

  The nursing staff frantically rinsed and re-rinsed the baby’s eyes, trying to stop what they thought was bleeding.

  “He isn’t hurt,” André said. “He just takes after me.” His son’s wails ceased at the sound of his voice and the tiny blue-eyed gaze landed on André.

  “Hi.” André smiled, pulling his mask down so his son could see his face.

  The crowd of nurses stared at André. “You shouldn’t be in here,” one of them said.

  André glanced up, his eyes shining with a film of bloody tears, and shrugged. “I wasn’t leaving my wife.” He reached down, picking up his son for the first time. “Hey, little man. Your mama is going to be just fine.” André glanced over his shoulder at Katrina.

  The doctor finished cauterizing the wounds with the lasers and stepped away, peeling off his gloves. “You’ve been here the whole time?”

  When André nodded, the doctor exchanged a glance with the ER nurse who was supposed to escort him to the waiting room. He turned back to André. “Do you understand what happened?”

  André nodded. “You saved her life,” André said with his son safely propped against his shoulder. He gently rocked, trying not to let sadness overtake the joy. His son could feel it as well and let out a sorrowful squeal. His gaze shifted from his wife to the baby in his arms. “We have this little guy,” he added with a small smile, but a tear betrayed him, cutting a hot path down his cheek despite the cold operating room. He kissed the top of the baby’s head.

  “What’s his name?” one of the nurses asked, pulling a chart off the wall and a pen from a hidden inside pocket.

  “Samuel Matthew Robbins,” André replied. He and Katrina tossed around names for the past six months and decided on naming the child after their parents, whether it was a girl or boy. The only thing that had still been undecided was the order of the names but André alone made that decision with his son in his arms. “When will Kat wake up?” He pointed his chin at his wife.

  “In about an hour,” she replied. “We’ll bring her into the maternity ward once she wakes. They have a room all set. Follow me.”

  André stepped into the maternity room, still in full scrubs with Sam in his arms.

  MATTHEW TURNED. “YOUR mother’s on her way,” he said.

  “We have a son.” André cradled Sam in his arms so his father could see. “Samuel Matthew,” he added.

  Matthew looked up at André, touched by the gesture. “How’s Katrina?” His gaze returned to the baby.

  André took a deep breath. “She can’t have any more.”

  Matthew’s head shot up, his eyes meeting André’s.

  “She almost died,” André said and handed his son to his father. The levity of the situation hit him like a meteor storm.

  “Is she ok?”

  André nodded and sat down in the chair, burying his face in his hands. “I almost killed her.” Tears dripped from his palms while sobs ripped from his chest.

  “Son, you can’t blame yourself for this,” Matthew said.

  “She almost died giving birth to my son,” André said, looking up at his father. “If I hadn’t gotten her pregnant...”

  The baby let out an unhappy wail.

  Matthew put the baby against his shoulder and patted his back, cooing in his ear. He turned his attention back to André. “Even with all the advancements we have in medicine, women still die in childbirth, André. It happens. Be thankful she’s alive,” he said and rocked his grandson.

  André sniffled and wiped his hands on the front of the scrubs, smearing the bloody tears across the fabric. His father was right; he should be thankful instead of homing in on the scariest part of the day. He had a son. They had a son.

  Wandering into the bathroom, he peeled off his shirt, tossing it in a bin on the floor before splashing his face with cold water and washing the tracks away. He gave a strained smile to his reflection and stepped back into the room, shirtless. “I don’t know where my clothes ended up,” he said and put his hands out for his son.

  Matthew relinquished his grandson into André’s capable hands. “I’ll go see if I can find them for you.”

  “Hey, little man.” André smiled down at his son. “Are you getting hungry?”

  Sam cooed and kicked his legs, flailing his tiny arms and prompting a grin from André.

  “All right, let’s see if we can get someone to give us a hand.” He headed out of the room to the nurse’s station.

  The young nurse looked up when André cleared his throat. Her eyes went a fraction wider like a switch flipped, putting André in a spotlight. He shifted. Her lingering gaze and her dirty thoughts made him squirm.

  “Um, how can I help you?” she said and a predatory smile surfaced.

  “My son is hungry,” he explained, blushing at the forwardness of her inspection, and the kinkiness of her thoughts.

  She nodded and disappeared for a second. When she returned, she handed him a bottle. “Here. Do you know how to feed a baby?” She gave him the once-over again.<
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  André shrugged. “I’ll figure it out.” He hurried away, knowing the nurse was watching him, his ass in particular, and he sighed a breath of relief when he cleared the door into the room. Taking the corner seat, he propped the bottle in the baby’s mouth.

  Sam suckled immediately.

  André looked down at his son and back at the door, still privy to the nurse’s fantasy and he could feel the heat in his cheeks. When he looked down at Sam again, he had finished the bottle and was now sucking air. He pulled the bottle out, setting it on the table and put Sam on his shoulder. Rubbing the baby’s back, he smiled when Sam let out a gargantuan burp.

  Matthew walked in just as André finished swaddling Sam in the crib.

  “I found your clothes,” he said and handed the garments to André.

  “Thank you,” André said and grabbed them from his father’s grasp. He disappeared into the bathroom and came out fully dressed a couple of minutes later.

  Matthew gently rocked his sleeping grandson and looked up at André. “What’s wrong?”

  André started to laugh a little. “I really have no idea.” He glanced out in to the hallway and caught sight of the nurse at the desk. He looked back at his father. “I think the nurse came on to me,” he said and the disbelief was rampant in his tone.

  Matthew tilted his head, glancing into the hallway and back at André. “You’re kidding?”

  André shook his head. “I went to get a bottle for Sam and it was like I turned on a light switch. She was looking at me like I was her next meal.”

  MATTHEW KEPT HIS MOUTH shut. He saw the iridescent glow in his son’s eyes when he came in the room, the one Katrina referred to as his booty call gaze. Instead of voicing his skepticism, or giving André a warning about stepping over the line, he chose to focus on his sleeping grandchild, but that was short-lived.

  Linda walked in the room and smiled, taking notice of André, perking up in his presence like she’d never done before. “Hi there,” she said, ignoring Matthew and approaching André. Yummy. Her eyes drifted over her adoptive son as if she were seeing him for the first time.