Sacrifice

by Denise Grover Swank

  As he studied her face, he found the faint greenish tone of an old bruise on her cheek and near her lip. How had she gotten that? Raphael? His last remembrance of her, her face was bruised, her nightgown covered in blood. Had it been from the baby she lost?

  She opened her eyes, looking up with a smile. “Good morning.”

  “You should go back to sleep. You need more rest.”

  She pulled him close. “No, I need more you.”

  He kissed her before looking into her eyes. “Tell me about the baby.”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh.”

  “It’s…how… I was always very careful about things like that.”

  Her mouth twisted. “Well, we were out in the middle of nowhere in Colorado and I thought Jake was dead. I pretty much begged you for it and there wasn’t anything to use for protection.”

  He grimaced, surprised how little thought he’d given to taking precautions after years of paranoia. “Kind of like the past two days.”

  “Yeah, but I just had a miscarriage. We’re probably fine.”

  In the grand scheme of things, this seemed minor. “And how did I feel about the baby?” He already knew, given his grief when he realized she’d miscarried.

  She smiled. “You were happy, which made one of us since the baby had a shitload of expectations on its head. I wasn’t sure how I felt at first, but then I knew I wanted it. I wanted to have the baby with you.”

  “And how did you lose it? Aiden?”

  Her smile fell away. “No. I don’t think so. One of Kramer’s men beat me up in the woods after I escaped and he kicked me in the stomach. I started cramping after that, although I refused to consider the possibility of losing it. I was worried you’d be upset with me.”

  Tucking her hair behind her ear, he kissed her lightly. “How could I be mad at you?”

  “You really wanted the baby.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. And when this mess is taken care of, we can make a new one.” He tilted his head with a questioning look. “That is, if you want to have another.”

  Tears filled her eyes as the corners of her lips turned up. “You, me, Jake, and a baby.”

  A family. The thought nearly took his breath away. Was it really a possibility, or a fantasy?

  “I think we should take it easy today, study the book, maybe go buy whatever you need since I left your bag in the car in Missouri. Then after we eat dinner, we’ll head back out into the desert and you can work again.”

  Her eyes flew open in alarm. “Oh, my God. How could I have forgotten?”

  “What?”

  Terror filled her eyes and she shot out of bed. “I let my guard down to use my power last night and I never put it back up. Raphael can find me.”

  Will followed her. “He can find you here? Over a thousand miles away?”

  “I don’t know.” She sounded panicked as she pulled clothes out of the duffel bag. “But we can’t take that chance. How could I have been so stupid?”

  “Hey. It’s okay. We’ll check out and figure out somewhere else to go. Water’s probably not around here anyway. We’d have to go somewhere else to find him.”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for. This is all new to you too. It’s going to be okay.”

  She smiled, but her eyes told him she didn’t believe it.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Will studied his maps and announced they were going to Arizona.

  “But you hate Arizona,” she protested.

  His eyebrows scrunched in confusion. Then he shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We’re going anyway.”

  Will assured her multiple times that she hadn’t done anything wrong, but she knew she’d been careless. She’d been exhausted the night before and hadn’t thought through the consequences. Will was right, it was new to her too. But she had a responsibility to protect him and she’d already failed him after only a couple of days.

  She read the book as he drove, frustrated that she couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Alex said the new rules were in the book but all she saw were the ravings of a lunatic and language she didn’t understand.

  They would never find Water at this rate.

  Will cleared his throat. “We’re trying to look for Water, but maybe we should let him look for you.”

  She lifted her eyebrows, incredulous. “How do you propose that? Don’t you think he would have found me by now if he wanted to find me? Besides, Alex is fairly certain that Water will kill me the moment he sees me.”

  “Why?”

  “Let’s just say Water isn’t a fan of Aiden.”

  “That’s a club with a lot of members.”

  She laughed. “True, but Alex thinks that as soon as Water realizes I’m the daughter of fire, he’ll kill me.”

  “You keep calling him Water. What’s his name? Every one of you has a name that’s been handed down since the beginning of time, so what’s Water’s?”

  “I don’t know and I’m not sure it’s in the book.”

  “How can you tell? It could be in the part that’s untranslated.”

  “Which I can’t read.” She rubbed her hand over her eyes in frustration.

  “You need to take a break from that.”

  Shaking her head, she looked up at him. “No, the answers are in here, I just have to figure out how to read it.”

  “Well, put it down for a little bit and take a nap. I plan to keep you very busy tonight.”

  She raised her eyebrow with a wicked grin.

  “Not what you’re thinking.” He laughed. “My, my Emma Thompson. You have a dirty mind. I was talking about your training.”

  She snorted and closed the book. “So that’s what you’re calling it now. And here I thought you liked when I did that little hip roll.”

  A grin lit up his eyes. “Keep talking about that and I’ll pull over to the side of the road and make you demonstrate it again.”

  Leaning back into the seat, she reached out her hand to Will’s. He grasped it, and her fingertip brushed against his ring. She rolled to her side, watching him as she traced the band on his ring finger. “This is new.”

  His hand tightened around hers then loosened. “My mom gave it to me.”

  “When you were at the hospital?”

  “Yeah.” He kept his eyes on the road.

  “You told me you hadn’t seen her for years. She was a patient…”

  He sighed. “She has cancer. She asked me to come visit her before she died.”

  Emma sat up. “Oh, Will. I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Other things seemed more important.”

  She groaned. “Me.”

  “Emma, don’t say it like that. I went to see her because I wanted to know why she sent me away three years ago.”

  “And did you get your answers?”

  “I got answers, but no, it didn’t make everything better. I loved her and she…”

  “She hurt you, but it’s okay to still love her. She loves you.”

  “How can you say that? She shunned me when I needed her the most.”

  “I can’t pretend to understand why she did what she did, but I can’t think of a single thing that would make me stop loving Jake. All mothers are the same, Will. We love our children.” Emma liked to think her own mother loved her, somewhere deep inside.

  He watched the road, his jaw clenching as he swallowed.

  She turned over his hand and examined the blue stone with swirls. “She gave you this ring? Was it a family heirloom?”

  “She didn’t say. Only that it belonged to someone important to her.”

  Emma raised her eyebrows. “Her secret lover?”

  He shook his head with a laugh. “Or her favorite uncle?”

  “So why the big mystery?”

  “I don’t know, but I can guarantee my mother never had an affair. That was my dad’s job.”

  She stroked the back of his hand. “I’m
glad you saw her. I’m glad you got some answers even if you don’t think it was what you wanted to hear.”

  Pinching his mouth, he turned to her, his eyes red with unshed tears. “Thank you.”

  ***

  Will leaned against the car, watching electricity shoot into Emma’s body and out her hand. No matter how many times he saw it, he wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to it.

  He looked at the ring on his hand and wondered why his mother wouldn’t tell him whom it belonged to. The oval blue stone shimmered in the dark and sent a chill through his body. It made him glad he’d thought to bring a jacket.

  Tonight he wanted Emma to work on controlling the amount of energy she took in and released. She’d made good progress the night before, but she needed to make sure she didn’t release too much and pass out. He was still amazed she hadn’t killed herself after creating the fire in the warehouse. He knew she’d passed out multiple times during the month of his memory loss. The stress had to be hard on her body and he wanted her control to become second nature. In the heat of a battle, she couldn’t be concentrating on the amount of energy exchanged. She needed to focus on saving herself.

  He got up and handed Emma water. She straightened and arched her back as she took the bottle. Her face was pale, beads of sweat dotting her upper lip.

  Maybe he was pushing her too hard. “How are you doing? Really?”

  She took a swig and wiped her face with the back of her arm. “I’m great.”

  He liked that about her too. She loved to complain, but it was mostly an act. She was a hard worker. And in spite of his persistence, he still worried what would happen if she pushed too hard. Could she end up dead?

  But he routinely monitored her, whether she realized it or not, ready to scale it back if necessary. She tired out easily though, especially with bigger things, which made her frustrated.

  “Emma. Maybe you should take a break.”

  “No,” she spat through gritted teeth, her eyes blazing with fury. A golden glow formed around her. “I have too much to learn.”

  “You look like an angel when you do that.”

  “Very funny.”

  “No, seriously. A badass angel, but an angel nonetheless. All that golden light glowing off of you.”

  She groaned. “God, I don’t have to dress up as an angel to fulfill some fantasy of yours, do I?”

  He laughed. “No, darlin’, I sure as hell don’t want you pretending to be an angel in my bed.”

  She shook her head and laughed. “Well, I guess I better earn my reward tonight. Back to work.”

  “Hey, that’s my line,” Will protested.

  She reached up and kissed him lightly on the lips. “I’ll let you say it next time.”

  ***

  Emma sat up in bed in the dark, sweat trickling down her back. Her dream had never been so intense. Fires burned in a valley as she stood on a cliff. Smoke stung her nostrils. Hair tickled her neck as a voice whispered, “You are the destruction of the world.”

  Forcing her breath to slow down, she turned to check on Will, thankful she hadn’t woken him. She’d kept her dreams from him before, worried it would hurt him. But she vowed not to hide anything from him this time. She was sure her dream would happen, but how could she prevent it? She could stop training, but Emma was the only one out of the four who had a fraction of good intentions, even if hers were mostly selfish. She wanted to save her son. That didn’t make her selfless. But was selflessness a requirement to saving the world? Wasn’t wanting to save it, even if it was a consequence of her selfish motivation, enough?

  Will stirred and reached for her. “Did you have your dream again?”

  “Yeah.” She lay down beside him, curling into his side.

  He wiped a tear off her cheek.

  She hadn’t realized she’d been crying. “I wonder if I’m doing the right thing, learning how to use my power like this.” She looked up into his confused eyes. “I think I might destroy the world.”

  He squinted his eyes and shook his head. “Emma, what are you talking about? That makes no sense.”

  “When you and I went to Kansas City before you lost your memory, there was an old homeless man outside of your apartment. He had a sign saying the end of the world was near.”

  “So? There are lots of lunatics like that.”

  “But this man pointed to me and said I was Jezebel, betrayer of the truth.”

  He paused, then shrugged. “Okay. So? Lots of crazy old men say weird things.”

  “Sure, but do the people they accuse have visions?”

  Will’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of vision?”

  “I saw the fire from the night in the woods when my father stole your memory. I heard Aiden telling me that I had to choose. I saw it before it happened, Will.” She fought to keep her tears from falling. “Then I was on a hill, looking down into a burning valley and someone said, ‘You’ve caused this. The death of the world is in your hands.’” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Don’t you see? If my power continues to grow stronger, then I might destroy the world.”

  He took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. “You don’t know that.”

  “But I’ve been dreaming of it. The valley on fire—what if it’s going to happen?”

  “Emma, you’ve been traumatized. Lesser people would crawl into a hole and require massive doses of pharmaceuticals. Of course you’re going to dream about it.”

  “But how can I risk it?”

  Will’s face hardened. “You risk it because we can’t face the alternative, which is you dead, possibly Jake dead, and most likely life as the world knows it over. You really want Alex Warren in charge of the world? Because if he can control minds like you can, just imagine what he’s capable of. Or what about your psychotic loverboy? What do you think that monster would do with unfettered power? So you tell me, Emma. Which is better? You learning to use your power to defend yourself and the world, or just giving up and letting them have total control? Which one is easier for you to live with?”

  Her anger took hold. “That’s not fair, Will.”

  “Not fair? You know what’s not fair? Losing over a month’s worth of memories.”

  Damn him. “But I’ve killed all those people. What if I kill innocent people? How do I live with that?”

  His arm tightened around her waist, pulling her cheek to his chest. “You just do. I’ll help you through it and we’ll make sure as few people as possible get hurt.”

  She tried to swallow the lump of fear in her throat. “I don’t know if I can live with that. I don’t know if I can do it.”

  He pulled her head back and lifted her chin to stare into her eyes. “Emma, look at the four of you. What are your motivations? Aiden, Alex, and Raphael do this out of ambition, greed, and survival. But you? You do it out of love. You do it to save Jake and me and yourself. And you do it to save the world, which is an act of unconditional love, because you know that none of the other three give a fuck about the rest of the people on this planet. That right there has to count for something.”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. “What if you’re wrong? That old woman in the woods told me I was a good person, but what if the homeless man was right? What if I am the destruction of the world?”

  He lifted her chin, looking down into her face. “That’s enough. You are not the destruction of the world.”

  “But my vision—”

  “Wasn’t proof of anything. Fire. Big deal. You’ve made fire before. You just made it tonight.”

  “Not like this.”

  “Then don’t make fire like that. You’re not bound to destiny, Emma.”

  Her eyes widened. “What did you just say?”

  “You have the power to change things. You admit that you aren’t completely sold on the idea that the prophecy is real. You’re not bound to destiny.”

  “That’s what Raphael said.”

  “That you’re not bound to destiny?”

  She nodded,
wiping her tears.

  “Wow. That bastard and I agree on something.” He shook his head. “But somehow, I suspect his idea of being bound to destiny and mine are very different. You’ll know the line that you can’t cross when you come to it.”

  “Maybe.” She settled into his chest, amazed that he was here with her now. What if he or Jake got caught up in this battle and got killed because of her? Could she live with that?

  Raphael’s threat against Will played over and over in her head. Will had caught Raphael off guard in the warehouse and she was sure it wouldn’t happen again. If they ran into Raphael, could she defend Will? Was it fair to keep him with her out of selfish need? Yet he claimed he wanted to be with her and that he loved her. He didn’t want to leave her. Surely that had to count for something. While she admitted he’d be safer away from her, she was selfish enough to want him to stay.

  If that didn’t make her evil, she wasn’t sure what did.

  ***

  “Jacob.”

  Jake woke to a voice he didn’t recognize.

  He slowly sat up. A man he didn’t know sat in his nanny’s rocking chair. Jake’s heart raced.

  “You have nothing to fear from me. I’m your friend.”

  “I’ve never seen you before.”

  He smiled. “I know, but I’ve been watching you.”

  Maybe he worked in the gardens or the vineyards. He wore jeans and a button-down shirt, and even in the nightlight glow, Jake could see he had a deep tan. Jake’s tummy churned. “Aiden will kill you.”

  “Aiden doesn’t know I’m here.”

  “Aiden knows everything.”

  “Not this time.”

  How could he be so sure? Jake reached out to the man’s mind and encountered a wall. Narrowing his eyes, Jake studied him. “Who are you?”

  “You can learn to block Aiden. You can block your thoughts so he can’t read yours. Or you can filter your thoughts so he only sees superficial things. You can have secrets.”