Strength
The Descendant Trilogy
Book 2.5
By Theresa M. Jones
Strength
The Descendant Trilogy
Book 2.5
Text copyright © 2013 by Theresa Jones
All rights reserved.
Authors Note:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the internet or via any other means without permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Dedication:
This is for my children, especially my daughter, who was a major influence in my writing about Samantha. When I started writing Power, my daughter was only four years old. Now she is eight, and I can only imagine what she will be like when she is fifteen, as Sam is in this book. She has always been a huge inspiration for me to better myself and my life!
Table of Contents
Chapter 1- Samantha Stevens
Chapter 2- Dreams?
Chapter 3- Power
Chapter 4- Gabby
Chapter 5- Again? Ugh!
Chapter 6- Excitement
Chapter 7- Dates
Chapter 8- Kisses
Chapter 9- Good Night
Chapter 10- Eavesdropping
Chapter 11- B2
Chapter 12- Even Worse than Before
Chapter 13- Arguments
Chapter 14- Confessions
Chapter 15- Fruition… or Execution?
Chapter 16- Valentine’s Day
Chapter 1
Samantha Stevens
Sometimes it kinda sucked being me. Not that my life was horrible or anything, just sometimes it wasn’t all that ideal.
My name is Samantha Stevens. My last name no longer matches anyone else in my family, except my grandma. Weird, I know. But that’s what happens when you are the child to an unwed mother, who later gets married and changes her name. Now my mom is Allison Donnelly, married to David Donnelly, and together they had my sister, Gabriella Donnelly.
But I’m still just Samantha Stevens. Oh well…
Sometimes it’s cool being me. My mom and step dad are pretty much the most Powerful people in the world, minus my sister, but no one is supposed to talk about that. See, there is this prophesy that has been told to generation after generation of Order Members. It says that when the world is basically about to end-read: apocalypse- some girl will be born that has descended from all nine of the Primitus*. The Primitus were the first humans who were given Power from the angels. And all of us here, all the Order Members in the world, have descended from at least one Primitus.
And so, everyone kinda treats me like royalty, since everyone knows my parents have each descended from several of the Primitus, making them so much more Powerful. Plus I was the first child in centuries to be able to keep my Power when it was released on my sixth birthday. I don’t remember it much anymore, only that it hurt. Using my Power is second nature to me now, and I’m glad for it.
Most of us gather to live here in The Compound, which is basically like a castle just buried in the side of a mountain. So, at times I really did feel like a princess walking in her castle. But that was just a dream, a fantasy I used to entertain when I was younger.
I’m older now, 15 years old. Sometimes I feel like an adult, but sometimes I feel so much younger. A lot of the Order Members still go out and fight Rising Members in hand-to-hand combat. Which sounds cool when you say it, but isn’t cool when you see them come back delusional, bloody and…different.
Since I’m not an adult, I wouldn’t be allowed to leave to actually fight, though that doesn’t mean we don’t train. I train with the Guard at least once a week for combat skills. The rest of my week is spent either in school- learning actual school crap- or teaching and training with the artists. Being with the artists is by far my best and most favorite pastime.
Since we came here to The Compound I have been hanging with the artists. At first, they didn’t know what to do with me, being the only Powerless one to enter The Compound and the only child ever to enter. So, while they trained my mom and she did her thing trying to stop the Rising, I was often left with Sharon, she is my mom’s best friend, basically my aunt, and the leader of the artists.
While we train with the artists, we also help to train the younger kids, now that there are more here. Amber, my best friend, and me are kinda in charge of the kids, which is cool. I like being able to help people. I’ve been told often that I’m a natural born leader, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Counting me and Amber, there are a total of 25 kids here, from fifteen years old to three years old. They used to not allow kids at The Compound because no one could enter who was did not have Power, and they used to bind the children’s Power when they received it at the ripe age of six. Since me, they don’t do it anymore, not most of the time anyways. They give the parents the option, and most of the time the parents are cool with letting their kids come here.
This is especially true lately. See, outside of The Compound there is a war going on. It seems like everyone is fighting with everyone. A few years ago, like ten or something, there was this huge almost World War III going on. The Russians had developed a biological weapon that was airborne and would kill an infected person within three days. And to top it off, the United States had come up with a biological weapon of their own, which was eerily similar. We believe that the Rising had created it and gave it to each country, but I don’t know for sure because they don’t tell me stuff since I’m “too young”.
Thankfully, when the Order (including my mom and step dad) went to Russia to stop them, they succeeded and the biological weapons were not released, thereby allowing a weak treaty to pass. But that has been almost a decade ago now, and once again, they fight.
We know the Rising is behind these wars that continue. The famine and disease that spreads throughout the world is unstoppable, no matter how hard we try to stop it.
The time for sitting by idly has passed. We, the Order, are on full attack. We send out people constantly trying to stop the Rising, but they are Powerful as well. Sometimes we win a battle, sometimes they do. There appears to be no rhyme or reason to it.
My grandma, who I rarely get to see anymore, has moved from her beloved Texas closer to us. We get to see her more often now, but still only once every few months. My mom thinks it’s too dangerous for me to leave, even to go to just a few hundred miles away. Sometimes it sucks being a kid still.
But my grandma has told me time and again of the dangers out there. The lack of food, the looting, the rapes and murder that go unchecked and undisciplined. The police force is basically rallying to protect the country, not the individual towns and petty crimes (if rape and murder could be considered petty… but I guess these days it is.)
So, I stay here, train a little, learn a little, teach a little, and just try to continue on. My sister is supposed to be our savior. Remember that prophesy I mentioned? Well, that’s her. The Descendant. Between my mom and step dad, they have descended from all nine Primitus. What does that mean for her? Well, everyone treats her really different, though- by order of my parents- no one is allowed to tell her who she is.
Lame, right? They think it’s better for her to grow up a normal kid. But how much of this is normal anymore? When
she turned six, two years ago, she got all kinds of Power, even more than me. And even though she is here in The Compound, where she is safe and controlled, it was still really hard for her to control it. Sometimes it still is hard. But she and Derek (Derek is Sharon’s nephew, who she adopted, and is now her son… it’s a long story. But he’s cool I guess.) Are total BFFs. They go everywhere and do everything together. They have this connection, since they are only a few months apart, and have totally weird circumstances, so they get along perfect. (Even though I’m pretty sure he just wiped a booger on her arm.) I couldn’t stop my eyes from rolling.
But for me, what makes life great is Al, my best guy friend, Amber, my best friend of all time, and Andrew, my… very cute, other best friend. Just thinking about him made my cheeks get warmer. Would it be weird to have a crush? I mean, I am 15 now, so I guess it would be ok. But Amber is the only one I’ve told about it.
Andrew is perfect. He came here right after he turned six and got his Power, and his parents freaked at the last second and asked us to come get him. He is almost a full six months younger than me, but I’m okay with it. He is cute, funny and awesome in every way. Plus, he is almost as Powerful as me. I have descended from six of the Primitus, just like my mom (most only descend from one or two), and he has descended from five. So we rock it in every training class.
Not to mention, he has these eyes that turn gold when he uses his power. Normally they are brown, kinda like my moms, but his turn this amber, almost bright gold shade, when he uses his Power. And he has blond hair, a total plus, because we look totally hot together. And his lips are so big, they look totally kissable.
And, when he says my name, I’m pretty sure my knees literally go weak.
Chapter 2
Dreams?
“Hey, Sam, how was your day?” my mom asked.
I shrugged my shoulders at her. The days were always the same. Some kind of training, some kind of learning, or practicing, or something. But always the same.
“Well, okay. Glad it was so fantastic,” she said, the sarcasm readily dripping off her tongue. She could be freakin awesome sometimes, but not always.
“It was the same, Mom. I hung with Amber. Then we trained some of the younger kids on growth dances. Then we ate. Then we hung with Al and Andrew. Then we went to school and learned some dumb math. And now I’m here.” I took a deep breath after that rant. “So yeah, it was fantastic.” I tried to match the tone she had used, but I could never pull it off quite like her.
She sighed, the typical-disappointed-mom-sigh. Whatever. I knew she wanted me to be happy and stuff. And I wasn’t always unhappy, but there was nothing special about this. I wanted more. I wanted to do more. I wanted to contribute in some way.
We sat down at the table, all four of us like a normal, happy family, ate dinner, and then headed off to bed. But before I could even get my clothes off to change my mom walked in my room.
At least she knocked this time.
“What’s up?”
“I wanted to talk to you about Gabby.” Gabby again. Always Gabby. I took a deep breath and nodded at her to continue. “How was she today?”
“She was good. She did pretty amazing with her dances. She made the entire wall get covered in rose bushes out in the garden.” I laughed, because it was true. We had been dancing to try and make a single rose bloom, which wouldn’t have been hard for most of us. But for Gabby, it was too easy. I think she really meant to make only a single rose bush grow, but before we knew it, the entire side of the cliff outside in the garden had been covered in green and red, the blooms made the entire garden smell of roses.
“The entire wall?” My mom gasped, like it was a shock. Really, in the last two years of random Gabby craziness, she shouldn’t be surprised with the crap Gabby did.
“Yup.”
“You need to keep a closer eye on her. Help her to reel it in. You are so special, Sammy. I need you to help me with her.” The same speech as always. Except, she was wrong. I’m not special, Gabby is. And I’m okay with it. I don’t want to be the chosen one expected for greatness. I just also don’t want to be the babysitter.
“I don’t know what you want me to do. I mean, I was with her until after lunch, but we have different classes. I am seven years older than her, you know?”
“I know. But I can’t be there every minute of every day. You have to help her control it.” She looked down. She always got so serious. Sometimes I wished she would take a chill-pill, because it wouldn’t surprise me if she had an anxiety attack before she turned thirty, unless she was already thirty… but whatever.
“Calm down before you go gray too early.” I said, and then offered a smile, the best one I could muster up. And then added, “I’ll do my best,” because I didn’t know what else to say to make her happy.
She nodded, kissed my head and whispered, “I love you, my Sammy girl. And don’t worry, when I go gray, I’ll make it look good.” She winked and then walked out.
I loved my mom, I really did. She was pretty cool most of the time, but I felt bad for her. She was always stressing about everything. She tried to make my life perfect since I was born, and especially since my dad died. (Which was pretty horrible since a Rising member killed him before we came to live here.) She tried to make Gabby’s life great since she knew she would have this terrible destiny to fulfill. She tried to save the world on an everyday basis from the evil spread by The Rising.
But she couldn’t do it all. She just didn’t realize it.
After finally crawling in bed, burying myself beneath the massive blankets that I loved so much, I finally started to drift off to blissful oblivion, no longer thinking or caring about outside The Compound, or even inside it.
This time when I fell asleep it wasn’t like normal. I closed my eyes, so everything was black, but then it felt like the bed beneath me disappeared. It felt like I was falling backwards, spiraling out of control, down into the air without any destination. I had to fight the urge to look down and make sure I wasn’t wearing a blue and white dress, and that there wasn’t a white rabbit around.
All of a sudden everything was gone. Not only the bed under me, but everything. I couldn’t hear anything, everything was quiet. I couldn’t even hear myself breathe or the blink of my eyes or the beat of my heart, which was most likely super erratic right now. We have awesome hearing, but I couldn’t hear anything. It was the most disconcerting thing I had ever felt and all of a sudden I couldn’t imagine my life without my super hearing.
Then I realized I couldn’t smell anything either. Nothing at all. Not my shampoo in my hair, not the rose sitting on my nightstand. Not even the candle that I left lit in the corner of the room. Nothing.
And I couldn’t feel anything either. The bed was gone, but so was everything else. I wasn’t standing, or sitting, or leaning. I was suspended in nothingness.
My sight was gone, everything. I was without even a single one of my senses. And I realized I must have died. And there really isn’t anything after this life…
And then it changed. I was outside and it felt good. The air was heavier, different than up in the mountains, but still crisp and much better than the nothingness. There wasn’t grass beneath me, but instead only sand and gravel. There were a few trees off to the side, but they were dying, no green left on them.
I realized that I was on my butt, sitting down with my legs bent and curled up under my chin. The rocks were hurting my butt, but I didn’t care. I was crying, tears streamed without cease down my cheeks, burning a saltwater path down past my chin.
Finally I looked up trying to figure out what the hell was going on. This was the worst dream ever. Then I heard it. At first it was a twig snapping, and then a few rocks crunching. I looked around but all I could see was darkness, the trees, and the gravel. The stars above were mostly covered by dull, lifeless clouds and the moon was nowhere in sight, the traitor he was, leaving me when I needed his light most.
I listened closer, but I didn�
�t hear anything again. Still I was worried, my alerts were up, flaring wildly out of control like they were trying to tell me, Danger, Danger.
Then he burst out of the trees. He was big, much bigger than me, and despite my hand-to-hand combat training, I didn’t know what to do. He dropped on top of me, pinning me down beneath him as he straddled me.
My breathing was heavy, his was heavier, excited. His eyes were dark, almost completely black, and he smelled worse than Gabby’s diaper did when she was a baby. He smelled like rotten eggs and… death.
I started seriously freaking out then, thrashing around wildly beneath him, because I realized there was only one kind of person that smelled like a death. A Rising Member. I had never smelled sulfur before, but I was positive that’s what it was- death and sulfur.
I started screaming, but he hit me hard, harder than I had ever been hit before. I felt that metallic taste of blood fill my mouth. But then he hit me again, and I cried out of pain, no longer fear. No one ever actually tried to hurt each other in training. I had never really been hit before and I never wanted to feel it again.
“Quiet down, little pet.” He growled in my ear. But I wasn’t even sure if he wanted me to. He was smiling, worse than the Cheshire cat. It was creepy- terrifying.
I continued to struggle. I clawed at his face, even felt the skin peel from it and climb under my nails, but he didn’t even flinch. He was too busy trying to rip my clothes off to notice, and that’s when I realized what he intended to do once my clothes were gone.
I had to get away!
I bucked under him, lifting my hips up by pushing off with my feet. But he was too heavy. Then my shirt was open, exposing my skin to the warm heavy air. I screamed at him, but then he hit me again, and I saw white and black spots blurring my vision.
Fear was overcoming me. I didn’t know what to do. I was too scared to do anything else. I wasn’t strong enough. I was going to be raped, and probably die, right here, on the gravel road beneath the dying tree.
Strength (The Descendant Trilogy) Page 1