by Amira Rain
I figured I'd take advantage of this by taking my grandma for a little walk in the wooded area behind the care home if she was feeling up to it. Maybe we'd try to spot some birds. Maybe I'd stay for dinner after that. I didn't really care what we did as long as I could see her sweet face, and maybe see her smile a time or two.
It had been too long, a couple of weeks, since I'd seen her. I really felt a bit ashamed. After keeping up with my frequent visits so well after moving to Chicago, I'd just kind of fallen into a funk since Desmond and I hadn't been speaking, and I didn’t feel like I'd be the best company for my grandma. I had, however, at least called Eloise every two or three days, and twice I'd even spoken to my grandma on the phone.
The first time, she'd been a bit confused, but she had managed to tell me a joke, something about a rabbit and a turtle walking into a bar. The punchline hadn't exactly made sense, but I'd laughed along with my grandma, laughing out of pure delight to hear her laughing.
The second time we'd spoken the phone, it hadn't gone so well. Eloise said she'd become upset earlier that day because she'd forgotten how to change the TV channels, and when my grandma got on the phone, she'd somehow thought I was the "TV repair shop," and she'd asked me to "come fix the damned TV." I'd never heard her swear in my entire life.
But then, after I said a few things that I hoped would calm her down, she was quiet for a few seconds, and then she'd said that she loved me, saying my name. I told her that I loved her too, in return, trying to keep my voice from cracking.
By the time I arrived at the care home, I'd enjoyed a pleasant drive, though it had been a bit difficult to keep my mind from wandering to Desmond. But I succeeded for maybe a minute or two at a time.
However, when I saw my grandma's face, all other thoughts in my mind disappeared.
Standing in the kitchen, stirring something in a mixing bowl with a caregiver and another resident by her side, she looked up, then gasped when Eloise and I entered the kitchen.
"Madison! I'm so glad you're here."
Beaming, she abandoned the mixing bowl, wiped her hands on a pink-and-white checked apron she was wearing, and then made a beeline for me and pulled me into a hug.
"Oh, Madison, it's so wonderful to see you. I've missed you."
Swallowing a huge lump in my throat, I hugged her back, reveling in her sweet, powdery scent, the feel of her thin little arms, and her recognition of me and her happiness to see me.
"I've missed you, too, Grandma."
After a few moments of patting my back, she pulled away, smiling.
"You came at the perfect time. We're making a pound cake for dessert tonight, and we're going to top it with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Would you like to help us make the cake?"
Heart soaring, I said I'd love to. It had been years since I'd baked a cake with her. So many that I couldn't even remember when the last time had been.
The afternoon was nothing short of perfection. After we finished making the cake and put it in the oven, we sliced the strawberries while my grandma told a few jokes. Unlike the one she'd told me on the phone recently, the punchlines of all these jokes were right on the money. I laughed along with Eloise and the other caregiver, and my grandma's fellow resident, a woman named Sally, repeatedly told my grandma she was good enough of a comedian to be on Johnny Carson.
After our kitchen work, my grandma and I took a long stroll around the vast, wooded backyard, looking for different birds and spotting a few flitting from branch to branch in the sun. Eventually, we sat down on a small, wrought-iron bench for a little rest, and my grandma asked me if I was still teaching the kids at "the tumbling school," which is what she'd always called the gymnastics center.
Amazed by how sharp she was this visit, I told her that no, the tumbling school had closed.
"I have another job now, though. I work in Chicago, doing different tasks for the government."
I thought it might be a bit much to explain that those "tasks," specifically, included electrocuting sorcerers, and trying to incapacitate dragons so that other dragons could decapitate them.
"Someday, though, I'd like to start my own tumbling school in Chicago."
It was true. Brianna, who'd been a fitness instructor before becoming a Gifted, and I had even talked about starting up a gymnastics center-slash-fitness club together, with classes for both adults and kids.
"But I don't think I'll open my own tumbling school for another year or two."
"Oh? And why's that?"
I took one of her wrinkled little hands in my own and gave it the gentlest of squeezes.
"I'm going to have a baby, Grandma."
With her eyes wide and her mouth in a perfect circle, her face had become a perfect, sweet mask of surprise.
I smiled, giving her hand another very gentle squeeze.
"That was pretty much my reaction, too."
She soon hugged me, sniffling, but saying that her tears were happy ones.
"I'm so proud of you. I'm so happy. You're going to become a mother...and I'm going to become a great-grandmother."
My misty eyes cranked right up, and this time, I didn't even try to stop them. The tears I was now crying were happy tears, too.
My grandma asked me lots of questions about the baby, like when it was expected to be born, if I had any names picked out, and things like that, but maybe slightly surprisingly, she didn't ask anything about my baby's father. Whether that was because it just wasn't crossing her mind, or whether it was, but she realized I wasn't married and just didn't want to embarrass me, I had no idea.
I knew that back in her day, an unmarried woman becoming pregnant had been a highly embarrassing situation for a woman to find herself in, to say the least. At any rate, I considered it a mercy that for whatever reason, my baby's father wasn't crossing her mind. I had no clue how exactly I would explain what was going on with Desmond and me. I felt like I didn't have a very good handle on it myself.
Dinner together with all the other residents and caregivers was simply wonderful. Lifting a glass of milk, my grandma toasted to "her wonderful, beautiful granddaughter" and "her great-grandchild yet to be born," and everyone clinked their glasses with hers. Only briefly, after she'd been working on her baked chicken, mashed potatoes, and steamed broccoli for a while, did she slip into a state of confusion, looking up suddenly, asking where she was.
Eloise told her, but she just shook her head, frowning, asking again where she was. But then just as suddenly as she'd slipped out of it, she slipped back into reality, asking if one of the caregivers could please pass her the salt. A short while later, she asked me if I'd given thought to how I might like to decorate a nursery.
Not long after our delicious dessert of strawberries-and-cream-topped pound cake, she and a few other residents began getting obviously sleepy, yawning and sitting pretty quietly with their eyes closing.
I helped Eloise and the other caregivers clean up and load the dishwasher before assisting them in getting all the residents out to the living room for "TV time," which was a time period of about an hour or two when the caregivers got everyone ready for bed one by one. Whoever seemed to be the sleepiest usually missed TV time entirely.
Once Grandma was sitting comfortably on the couch, I gave her a big hug, telling her I'd come to visit again soon. She hugged me back, saying she'd be looking forward to it. I practically bounced out the front door.
Never having liked driving in the dark much, I was glad to see that it was still light enough out that I could make it back to Chicago in plenty of time before night fell. When I started my car, the sky was just barely dusky lavender with the approach of early evening. I put on some music, buckled my seat belt, and was just putting my car into drive when I heard my phone going off above the music.
I thought about just driving away anyway and checking who'd called later, but for some reason, after a moment of thought, I put the car back in park, thinking that I should probably answer, just in case Eloise had forgotten to
tell me something, or maybe my grandma had wanted to give me another hug.
Some months earlier, on another day that she had no problem recognizing me, Eloise had called me with this very request as I'd been about to leave.
After turning the music down, I pulled my phone out of my bag, surprised to see that it was Desmond. Puzzled, I answered, and he began speaking before I'd even finished saying the first syllable of hello.
"Wherever you are right now, get in your car immediately and start heading back to Chicago. The Angels are coming to Quincy, and they're going to try to kill you."
*
Mouth going dry, I gripped my phone just about hard enough to break it.
"What do you mean, Desmond? What's happening?"
"We were able to get a spy into one of the Angel dragon camps two days ago. Today he reported that he learned that after their recent defeat, Darius Archer decided to try a different tack. He'd heard about me expecting a child with a new Gifted, so he found out who you were, hacked into a government database, and learned everything about you.
“Knowing that he probably couldn't get to you in Chicago, and having read in your file that your grandmother is still back in Quincy, he positioned lookouts to try to spot your car whenever you next visited, and they've already done that today.
“Now Darius and the rest of them are on their way to Quincy, so you've got to be fast, Madison. Darius is going to try to kill you to provoke me into a fight on neutral turf, where he thinks he can win. So, wherever you are-"
"I'm still at my grandma's in my car. I haven't even left the driveway yet."
"Then throw it in drive and go the very second we hang up. Start heading back to Chicago. I'll have scouts out looking for you, and they'll fly right above your car until you're safely back home.
“I am flying to Quincy myself with some of my men. We're now only minutes away, if we speed. We were already nearby trying to locate the new Angel encampment when I just happened to call to check in with my spy, and learned about Darius' plan. We're hoping to arrive in Quincy before he does, and I want you to be long gone."
Hand on the gearshift, I was just opening my mouth to tell Desmond that I was on my way and hanging up now when I heard a sound that made my blood turn to ice water. It was a chuckle, low and menacing. It had come from my backseat. I suddenly couldn't move a muscle, couldn't breathe. My heart was hammering in my ears. Above it, I heard another chuckle, then felt a hand on my shoulder.
"Darius Archer is actually already here, Miss Bennett. He is me. Did you hear that, Desmond? I'm already here. You've been talking so loud I've been able to hear every damn word through the phone, even from the backseat.
“So, fly as fast as you can, but you'll be too late. Your baby mama is about to die, and then you and I will fight for Chicago on neutral turf. I figure the sky above an old folk's home is as good a place as any."
I'd been completely frozen with fear, petrified. But now, a reminder that my grandma was not even thirty feet away from the maniac behind me spurred me into action.
Dropping my phone, I whipped around in my seat, shooting a beam of electricity from my palm even as I did so. Seeming to take him by surprise, just as I'd obviously wanted it to, it hit Darius square between the eyes, making him howl. Immediately taking advantage of his temporary incapacitation, I all but flew out of the car and started running, knowing that he'd probably soon be flying, too, but in dragon form.
My plan, or as much of a plan as I'd been able to think of in the span of two seconds, was to try to lead him into the massive backyard and woodland behind the care home, and then into the deeper woods.
He probably wouldn't be able to get through them in dragon form, or if he did, the thick trees would certainly slow him down, because he'd have to crash through them as he went along.
However, I thought it much more likely that he'd take to the skies. He knew Desmond was coming and that Desmond would surely fight him, so really, Darius didn't even need to kill me anymore. It made more sense that he'd just ascend to keep a lookout for Desmond.
Unless, of course, he liked killing just for fun. Though honestly, I didn't care what he liked doing or didn't. I wanted to live, of course, but the main thought running through my mind was to just get him as far from the care home as possible. I didn't think he'd try to hurt my grandma, the other residents, Eloise, and the other caregivers, for the same reason that it didn't make sense to kill me anymore.
I couldn't be sure that he wouldn't try to hurt them. So, for that reason, I tore off toward the backyard, hearing some huge commotion behind me, something like the twisting and crunching of metal.
I didn't even need to turn and look; somehow I knew what had just happened. Darius had shifted into dragon form while still in my car, destroying it like an overheated tin can exploding. He'd probably even intended for the noise to make me turn around and slow down, but it had actually only made me pump my legs harder, determined to lead him away from the care home.
From what I'd seen of him during the probably tenth of a second before my zap had connected with his forehead and I'd jumped out of the car, he wasn't a large man; I'd gotten the impression that he was actually on the smaller side. Not terrible-looking, dark-haired, maybe a little on the pale side.
But it was his eyes that stood out to me most during the blip of time that I'd looked into them. A pale bluish-green, something like sea-foam, they should have been attractive, beautiful, even. But instead, they were ugly, because they radiated pure hate and malice.
I'd actually never seen any more evil-looking eyes before. Darius hadn't even been glaring or scowling. It was almost as if there was something sick inside of him that lit his eyes from within, or maybe darkened them would have been a better way of putting it.
I made it to the backyard before I felt the heat of him breathing fire. Whirling around, I gave him a zap but missed, probably because like he was in his human form, he was on the smaller side when in his dragon form, too, making him a less-than-ideal target, because his smaller size seemed to give him increased speed and agility.
Trying again, I fired off another zap while jogging backward toward the woods, still determined to lead him away from the house. But again, he swerved away, flying just a few feet off the ground. I fired again, this time hitting my mark. Not wasting a single second, I turned and began sprinting toward the deep woods, hearing Darius groaning in pain.
It was such a stupid, newbie Gifted move that did me in. While still running, I turned to see if that last zap had brought Darius down. If I hadn't done that, I probably would have made it all the way to the woods, no problem. I surely wouldn't have run headlong into a baby hibiscus bush that I hadn't seen, tripping over it and falling to my hip, rolling to minimize the impact.
"Oh! Oh, ow. Dammit."
I was in extreme pain, the kind that made me suck in my breath through my teeth with tears in my eyes, but at the same time, I knew my injury wasn't serious. I was going to have a dark purple bruise somewhere on my hip, but I was pretty sure that would be the extent of it. It felt like I'd landed on a rock or a stick or something, though as badly as it hurt, it may as well have been a knife.
I had about two seconds to get over the pain, though. I had much bigger problems. It appeared that my last zap had indeed felled Darius, but now he was pulling himself back up, already flapping his dark wings. Maybe thirty feet away, he could be right on me within just a few hard flaps.
Not even taking the time to stand, I fired off another zap, but he dodged it with just a slight swerve. Immediately after, he launched himself into the air with a mighty flap of his dark wings. I fired off yet another zap, but Darius was speeding toward me now, and I missed again. With my heartbeat sounding like a jackhammer in my ears, I knew I had about one more second, and I couldn't miss, but Darius was coming at me so fast I could barely aim my palm to zap.
THE FINAL CHAPTER
In that next blink of time, a few things happened pretty much simultaneously. The fi
rst thing was that I did a wild hail Mary zap, squeezing my eyes shut reflexively because it appeared that Darius was going to fly right into me, probably killing me, or at the very least, knocking me out.
The second thing that happened was that almost instantaneously with my zap, I heard a roar of pain. Somehow, I'd hit him. Just a split-second later, though, this roar of pain was cut off by some thunderous thud. It was only when I opened my eyes that I realized what had made it. From what it looked like, Desmond had tackled Darius in mid-air, colliding with him, and probably not a second before Darius would have fallen on me, probably crushing me to death.
Now the two of them, both dark gray in color, were rolling around in the air, maybe just twenty feet above the yard. In the fading light of early evening, the only way I could tell them apart was that Desmond was so much larger. He was also louder, his roars actually making me cover my ears.