She couldn’t hear what was being said, but by the vein popping out of Seth’s head, it was really pissing him off.
“No, that’s where you’re wrong. She’s mine, always will be. Since she’s mine, I can do what I want with her. So if I were to do, say…” He held the phone toward her before bringing his foot back and kicking her side. She let out a noise that was a mixture of a moan and a sob the same time he said “this…” Putting the phone back up to his ear, he finished what he was saying. “There’s nothing you could do to stop me.”
Malachi was yelling loud enough now, that she could clearly hear his voice.
“Trust me; I know what you’re capable of. I know what you are, and therefore know how to kill you. I’ll be looking forward to that day, but until them I’ll be fucking her till you’re out of her system. Choke on that freak!” Seth slammed the phone against the concrete, officially destroying it.
A roar of an engine was heard in the distance and the three of them looked in the direction it was coming from.
“No, I’m not leaving her again!” Seth started yelling to himself. “There has to be another way.”
Trinity watched as his shoulders sagged. Looking down at her, Trinity could swear she saw his skin ripple. He shuddered, then narrowed his eyes down to her. “Then I’m going to make it so he no longer wants her.”
Seth started toward her and she tried to pull away with her good arm, but it wasn’t fast enough. He started kicking her again, but this time including her face. Trinity now prayed for unconsciousness. The pain was unbearable and it was everywhere. She vaguely heard muffled crying and shortly realized that it was herself.
He was out of breath when he knelt down next to her. When he grabbed her jaw to turn her face towards him, a sharp pain shot strait through her. She saw as he put the knife up to her cheek, and she jerked her face out of his grasp. He grabbed it again, but only after hitting her hard upside the head.
“Hold still now. This will only hurt a minute.” He growled at her as she kept trying to dislodge his grip.
The roaring of the engine was getting louder, and she could tell the sound made him uneasy.
She couldn’t struggle anymore and squeezed her eyes shut once she felt the blade again. Just when she was expecting pain from the cut, he was no longer holding her. Opening her eyes, she saw that Hugh had made it over to them and had somehow hit Seth off of her. Obviously using up the last of his strength, Hugh was now laying there like a sitting duck.
Seth was going to kill him! She knew he was. All her energy was gone, and she knew there was no way she was going to make it to him in time.
Seth had his eyes on Hugh before his head cocked to the side once more. He looked livid! “Fine! I get it!!”
He stood up and looked down at the two of them. “This is far from over.” Without another word, he took off running around the opposite side of the school.
Trinity looked over at Hugh. He needed help or he was going to die. Gathering up all the strength she could, she pulled herself toward him. When she got to him, she found the wound on his chest and placed her hand over it. She couldn’t exert a lot of pressure, but she thought that even a little might help. Looking down at his face, she started to talk.
“It’s going to be okay. Stay awake! You were so brave, stupid, but brave.” He was breathing way too fast for her liking. “There is no way I can repay you. I want to try though, so you need to stay with me. Got it?”
He looked up at her before giving a thumbs-up. The action made Trinity chuckle before realizing how much it would hurt. After that, his eyes slowly shut, and she started to panic.
“HELP!! SOMEONE HELP ME!” No one was coming, but she continued to yell. She yelled a few times more, but her energy had drained completely away. Keeping her hand where it was, she laid down to stop the spinning.
In the back of her mind, she thought she heard the squeal of tires and running footsteps, but she couldn’t be right. They were alone out here. No one was coming, and they were probably both going to die.
“Oh, fuck me!”
She knew that voice. It took her a few seconds to figure it out, but Gideon’s voice was unmistakable.
She slowly turned her head to look at him. “Hi.”
When he ran over toward them, he rolled her onto her back and in doing so, knocked her hand off Hugh.
“No! He needs help! Help him first.” Trinity didn’t even recognize her own voice it was so distorted.
“Stop that.” He said when she kept swatting his hands away. “Just let me look at you.”
“Please Gideon…he’s just a kid.” She begged him to go over to Hugh.
Groaning loudly, he moved over to Hugh and started examining the wound. Trinity watched as he placed his palms on Hugh’s body and shut his eyes.
“What are you doing? You have to stop the bleeding!”
“Shut it! I’m trying to concentrate.” He snapped back as he shook out his hands and put them back in place.
All of the sudden, Gideon’s hands started to glow a brilliant gold color. She squeezed her eyes shut once again and quickly opened them to clear her vision. She had to be seeing things! Concentrating intently on what he was doing, Trinity jumped in surprise when Gideon snapped.
“Dammit! It’s not working.” He took off his jacket and tried to pack the wound. When he got it in place, he moved back over to her. “He needs Mal. It’s too advanced for me, but let me look at you.”
Trinity just stared at him in awe. He was looking down at her, and all she could picture were the glowing hands. “What are you?”
That was the last thing she remembered, before the pain finally overtook her and everything went black.
Chapter 16
It was dark and Trinity couldn’t move. She had been here before, recently even, and knew exactly where she was.
She turned her head to the side and pulled at her arm to no avail. Every time she pulled, pain radiated through her wrist from the restraints. She tested the other arm as well, but the result was the same.
Squinting through the darkness, she tried to find a speck of light. She knew what was coming and her stomach churned with the thought of it.
Trinity heard the crack before she felt the pain. Something gray slashed across her midsection, causing a bright red mark to appear on her skin. She had tried to prepare herself for this moment, but nothing could have stopped the scream that ripped from her throat.
She screamed again when the whip went over her belly, and then she sobbed. “What do you want?”
The answer to her question was just a laugh, and Trinity felt anger start to overshadow her fear.
“Why can’t you let me be? Who are you?”
The next thing she knew, there was a face inches from hers. The man looked quite remarkable; completely polished and every feature in the perfect place. His eyes were as black as the night, and she trembled with the amount of evil she felt coming from him.
He smiled at her and ran a hand down her face. “Like what you see? If not, how would you like me to look? How about…” The man in front of her transformed into Malachi, but the eyes stayed the same. “...this? Or this…” Her father, as she remembered him, was now standing before her. Letting out a sob at the image, she noticed the black eyes and knew it wasn’t real. “Oh wait! How about this one?” Nicci was in front of her now, but she had already hardened her resolve against his trick.
“What do you want?” No longer sobbing, no longer scared. Trinity just wanted to wake up.
“That’s easy.” The man morphed once more into something only her nightmares could conjure up. Her eyes went wide as she stared at what looked like a man, but obviously wasn’t. The skin had a gray hue and looked distorted because of the bones pushing against it. The creature was bald with sharp teeth, yellow eyes and a long speared…tail?
Before she could comprehend what she was seeing, he reached up and slashed his claws across her face and down her torso. Trinity was screaming before th
e descent had ended, and tried to arch as far away from him as possible.
“I need you to say my name.” He sounded as calm as ever.
She shook her head and whined in frustration. “I don’t know who you are.”
He smiled and took a mock bow. “The name’s Azazel, love.” As he stood up, his face turned to stone. “Now say it!”
“Azazel.” It was nothing more than a whisper that came out.
“Louder!”
“Azazel!” She clinched her eyes shut and screamed out the name.
The pain suddenly stopped; everything stopped and Trinity was once again by herself. Her wrists were free and she dropped down onto the ground to curl into herself. After a spell, she started to feel a familiar weightlessness and knew she was about to wake up.
******
Malachi was about to tear this hospital apart piece by piece if someone didn’t tell him where to find Trinity. She had once been in the Emergency Room, but had been moved. The problem was, no one had a straight answer as to where. The only thing he did know was that she was here somewhere.
Gideon wasn’t answering him, telepathically or by phone, and Malachi could only imagine why. I would be scared of me right now too, Malachi thought.
He was supposed to do a job, and he failed. Stay with Trinity; it was that simple. Protect her, watch over her, be with her! Malachi growled out loud because he knew that it should have been him that was with her.
No! Gideon was supposed to be there tonight, but he wasn’t. He left and Malachi swore he would find out why, if he had to torture it out of him.
Now Malachi found himself marching down the halls and hoping to find her on his own. The nurses told him to wait, but they could suck it for all he cared. He was never a patient man. Terah and Tori offered to stay behind while Gemariah scoured the halls with him.
He was trying to take in all the sounds around him in the hopes that it would drown out the sound of Trinity screaming into the phone. Dammit! He had heard everything, and it killed him to know that he was too far away to do anything about it.
The moment he heard Trinity’s voice, he knew something was wrong, and her first scream had him leaping into the truck to head back. When he heard Masters talking about the warehouse they were at, he knew it had all been a set-up. Shortly after projecting his team with the new information, they had caught up with him on the highway and convinced him to let Gemariah take the wheel. The few minutes wasted were hell on him, as he listened to Masters using Trinity as a punching bag.
From then on, it was unbelievable torture to hear what was going on, but he couldn’t break the connection. When he heard the boy, Hugh, was there, he had a sinking suspicion that this was his destined moment and was only confirmed after the stabbing. Malachi felt like throttling Trinity when she put herself in between the two, but her fierce need to protect was one of the reasons he loved her so much.
Yes, he loved her, every stubborn beautiful inch of her. After this, he didn’t care what she would or would not tell him or that their time together would be cut too short for him. He just wanted to be with her whenever and however long he could.
The last thing he heard on the phone was that Masters was planning to take her from him, and he was still half an hour away, travelling at full speed. Just the thought of her being in his grasp once more made a roar come from him loud enough that he knew God and his mighty angels could hear.
He shook off the memory and brought himself back to the moment at hand. Turning the corner, he saw a large man hunched over in a chair with his head in his hands.
“You son of a bitch!” Malachi yelled, and in a matter of seconds, had Gideon up against a wall with his hand around his throat. “You left her dammit! I should kill you!”
He tightened his grip so much that he knew Gideon’s windpipe was starting to crush. He probably would have succeeded in snapping off his head, if it wasn’t for the force pulling him in the opposite direction. Gemariah was behind him and trying to dislodge his grip.
“Malachi…man…stop. You’re causing a scene.”
“I don’t care.” To emphasize his point, Malachi slammed him against the wall a second time. Turning his head to look at Gemariah, he spoke through clenched teeth. “He left her.”
“I know. Look at him though; he’s not fighting back.” Gemariah was talking calmly, when all Malachi heard was ringing in his ears.
Eventually, Malachi focused in on Gideon. It was true, he wasn’t fighting, he was taking everything Malachi dished out. At a closer look, he saw how miserable Gideon looked and decided to hone in on him. What he felt was pain coming from him; not just the surface physical pain either.
Glancing around, Malachi noticed Tori and Terah warding off nurses that were trying to make their way over. Doctors and other people were watching them as well. This was not being inconspicuous, as he was always taught to be.
Letting go of Gideon, he watched him slide to the floor, coughing the whole way down. “I could kill you.” He growled down at Gideon.
“I know.” Gideon shook his head as it hung low. His voice was hoarse, but was still understandable. “I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am for giving you an ounce of trust. You’re fired.” Malachi turned to go into Trinity’s room.
There were protests in all directions, but he was not going to budge. It was Gideon that quickly stood up to block Malachi’s path. “Wait a minute. Let’s talk about this. I feel horrible…she’s a good person and I shouldn’t of left. No one feels worse than I do right now, but let’s not get out of hand here. I’m a strong asset…you’ve said so yourself.”
“I used to think you were; now I don’t. I can’t work next to someone that, every time I look at them, I want to rip out their throat.” Malachi looked at him expectantly. “Now move out of my way.”
Gideon stood his ground. “Come on… I screwed up. Let me make this right.”
“Leave…now!” In Malachi’s mind, there was no second chance for something like this.
Gideon huffed before turning to leave, but quickly spun back around, showing his frustration. “This is bullshit! Don’t take your guilt out on me. For weeks you pawned her off on all of us.” He gestured to the rest of the team that was watching as things unfolded. “In truth, you should have been the one there, not us. This is your fuck-up!”
Malachi had heard enough. He took a step in Gideon’s direction, but was quickly held back. Terah jumped in front of him to get his attention.
“This isn’t going to help her.” She tried to calm him down while the other two held him back. “Let it go.”
Malachi could feel himself starting to calm. It didn’t take much effort to know that Gemariah was altering his emotions. Shaking the others off, he got into Gemariah’s face and snapped. “Don’t you ever do that to me again without my permission!” He was none too happy about being controlled.
Gemariah stood there and took the berating, which made Malachi lose some of the fire inside. Closing his eyes, he composed himself before turning back to Gideon. “You just proved to me that, in people like you, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, now does it?”
Malachi didn’t even wait for an answer before entering the hospital room. He knew it was a low blow to compare Gideon to his father, but what Gideon said brought forth emotions that he was trying to bury. It should have been him. He was so caught up in the paperwork and actual searching, that he forgot exactly why he was doing it. No one would have gotten close enough to touch her if he was there.
Looking up, he saw Trinity in bed, and the sight almost brought him to his knees. There were machines beeping and IVs dripping into her body that was covered in major cuts and bruises. What concerned Malachi the most, was that she was unconscious. How long had she been out?
They all piled into the small room and surrounded her bed. Malachi and Terah each held a hand, and Gemariah grabbed her chart to start thumbing through it.
“Suspected concussion, visibly broken le
ft wrist (severity pending x-rays), unconscious upon arrival, severe abrasions to the…”
“Excuse me.” That was as far as he got before a nurse walked in. Walking up to Gemariah, she took the chart from his hands. “Only immediate family can be in here.”
Gemariah pointed toward Malachi, “Husband.” Then he checked off the girls and himself, “sister, sister, brother.”
The nurse looked skeptical but nodded anyways. “I’m still going to have to ask at least two of you to step outside. This is too many.”
When no one moved, the nurse huffed and turned to leave.
“Why isn’t she awake?” Malachi hadn’t taken his eyes off her for a moment, but had to know what they had found out so far. He couldn’t fix what they already knew; it would raise too many red flags.
“Umm” The nurse turned around and flipped open the chart to read. “We’re monitoring her, but in cases where head trauma is evident, it’s not uncommon. Tests were run and we’re just waiting on the results.” When no one said anything else, she shut the chart and put it back where it belonged. “If you have any other questions, come find me. The doctor should be in shortly.”
Before she made it out the door, Malachi stopped her again. “There was a boy brought in with her; Hugh Donovan. How is he doing?”
The nurse thought for a minute, but eventually realized who he was talking about. “I can’t go into detail, but I can tell you that he’s in critical condition…not expected to make it through the night.”
All Malachi could do was nod.
After she left, Malachi put his hands over her chest to take a look, but was stopped when Tori grabbed his wrist. “Mal, you can’t fix her. Everyone has seen her and their tests wouldn’t match up with the patient. She can’t just walk out of here after appearing like this.”
He sneered up at her. “Don’t you think I know this? I just want to check for any immediate damage; something that if they take too long, it could hurt her.”
Celestial Beginnings (Nephilim Series) Page 26