The Power

by Cynthia Roberts

  “I doubt a hanging would do the job, Hun.” Troy leaned down to say, and he threw her a wink.

  “You stopped him?” Josh asked, urging her to go on.

  “Yes. I grabbed him by the arm. I begged him to listen to me, and he did. I told him how I had come to be an immortal. I told him everything, and afterward, he still stood with me. He still wanted to be with me. We made plans to leave the ship together when it docked, but our plans would never come to pass.” Lillian ducked her head in sudden devastation.

  “Ewan.” Reginald guessed angrily with despair in his voice.

  “Yes. Ewan discovered us on deck together that night. He was jealous, and full of rage. I thought that he would kill Jax by our normal means, and I sought to protect him, but Ewan was faster, stronger, and Jax was no coward. He didn’t understand then how much stronger, faster we are. They went for each other at the same time. I barely had time to scream the word no, before Ewan had Jax by the throat, his feet dangling overboard. I screamed for Ewan to let Jax go. He did exactly that. He dropped Jax into the sea.” Lillian turned back to the fire in the memory of her panic and then utter despair. “I tried to dive in after him, to save him, but Ewan’s men grabbed me, and carted me away screaming and thrashing as if small and of little significance. I fought them, but my strength could not begin to match their own.

  “That day, I dreamed of Jax. It was torment. I dreamt of him out in the dark ocean, exhausted, lightly kicking his feet to stay afloat, and then finally, I saw him going under, and knew he had drowned.”

  The room had gone deathly quiet and still. Lillian looked up from her trance-like state and stared at each of them. She had never shared any of her stories with them before. This was a first. She smiled gently. “You asked me what this had to do with Jack Stone?” she asked of Josh now, who had tears swimming in his light blue eyes. Josh nodded his head, and swiped at the tears in his eyes, trying to hide that her story had affected him so. Lillian smiled.

  “I believe that Jack Stone is my Jackson. He is Sloan.” She said, her smile intensifying.

  “How can that be possible?” Troy asked, smiling at the possibility, but she could tell that he was doubtful.

  “I’m not sure. As an immortal, I fear my demise because I know it will be the end of me. As mortals, when you die, I hear that sometimes you go on. I’ve heard tale of this happening before, as ridiculous as it may sound, but he looks like Jackson. He even smells like Jackson, and his mannerisms, the way he can make me smile and even laugh, the things he can make me feel after so long of this numbing coldness inside of me…” Lillian was saying when a huge grin lit Reginald’s face.

  “I’ve noticed the change in you, My Lady.” he said grinning from ear to ear. “I’ve caught your smile a time or two. When you refused to hunt, to feed, you showed such emotion, like I haven’t seen in you in fifty years!” he professed, and Lillian smiled.

  “It’s late.” she said, and she patted Reginald’s wrinkled hand. “I’ve taken too much of your time for my fanciful thoughts and memories.”

  “Any time, My Lady. Any time.” Reginald stood, and bowed regally before her.

  “Anytime, Lillian.” Troy repeated warmly.

  “Yes. Anytime.” Josh agreed, and Lillian smiled softly.

  “Perhaps next time we talk, we can discuss your lives?” she arched a brow.

  “You don’t want to shock us all at once, Lillian.” Troy teased.

  “I’ve been so cold.” she began, but Troy took her hand, and kissed her knuckles.

  “Perhaps all you needed was this Jack Stone to wake your heart up again?” he put to her.

  “Ah, my heart.” she whispered. “I fear even Jack Stone can not bring back the dead, Troy, but it was a nice sentiment.” she nodded to each of them, and then she said her goodnights and retired for the evening.

  Chapter seventeen

  Miss. Rogers was in no better frame of mind in the morning when Jack had come to check on her at Saint Mary’s. In fact, with the drugs leaving her system, she was worse. Her body was going through withdrawal symptoms, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Covered in sweat and shaking profusely, her wide brown eyes fastened on Jack as soon as he entered her room.

  “Good morning, Miss. Rogers.” Jack greeted in a friendly tone even though he wasn’t sure the woman would understand him, or even have it register in her mind that he was there.

  “What do you want?” she demanded, her voice trembling as if she was sitting on a block of ice. Still strapped to the bed, her body suddenly heaved upward as if of its own accord, and her muscles tightened, stretching and straining against her pasty skin. She gritted her teeth to keep back a yell. Jack didn’t know what to do. Should he call a nurse, a doctor? Bordello was meeting with Miss. Rogers’ doctor as Jack stood there trying to get information out of a woman that was most probably a lost cause. Uncomfortable, Jack came to the bed, and placed a hand to the woman’s thin stomach, pressing her gently back onto the bed. She was heaving for a breath now, and her eyes were filled with unspoken pain.

  “They want to get the Heroine out of my system, and then send me back to the streets.” She laughed sarcastically. “I’m an addict. That’s like locking an alcoholic in the store room of a liquor store.” she smiled wryly.

  “There is help out there.” Jack reminded.

  “Help that I can’t afford.” She hissed angrily. “What am I to do? I have a kid. I want to get a job, to take care of her like a normal, good mother would, but I can’t beat this alone. I’ve tried too many times to count. I always fail!”

  “But this time the devil warned you to quit or else.” Jack reminded, feeling like an idiot for uttering those ridiculous words out loud.

  “A hallucination.” Miss. Rogers decided with a shake of her head.

  “Yes, well, your hallucination killed two men two nights ago.” Jack informed the distraught woman.

  “Two men who deserved what they got.” Miss. Rogers said beneath her breath.

  “Because they raped you?” Jack cocked a blonde brow, curious to what she would say. She had been through a great ordeal, but as messed up as she had been on Heroine, he was surprised she remembered any of it.

  “Isn’t that bad enough of a crime to deserve such a fate? They planned to kill me.” Miss. Rogers said through clenched teeth. “Who knows what they would have done to my daughter if she had been there.”

  “She was there.” Jack said, meeting her gaze. The woman gasped. “She was down on the street, in the freezing cold. It was very late. She was too afraid to fall asleep, but exhausted all the same. She sat out there as drug dealers, gang members, and probably much worse, all, luckily, passed her by on the front stoop were she crouched.” Jack told the woman, wanting her to see the full picture, to know exactly what she had done, the danger she had put her small daughter within. “Even now, she is frightened and alone in a shelter across town. I bet she is wondering where her mommy is, and why you left her.”

  “You’re cruel.” Miss. Rogers looked up with tears swimming in her eyes. The emotional pain was evident in her sallow face.

  “I am generous. I could have told you how the child screamed for you, her would-be mother, when they took her away.” Jack wanted it to sink in, what she was doing to her daughter. “I imagine she feels quite abandoned.”

  The woman began to hiccup and cry. Tears ran down her face, and she was shivering, but the shivering was more than likely from the withdrawals, Jack reminded himself. “I didn’t mean to allow it to get this far.” she confessed. “I love my daughter.”

  “Yeah.” Jack bit out sarcastically. “I bet.”

  “You don’t know me!” Miss. Rogers hissed angrily. “You don’t know what I’ve been through.”

  “No, but I know what your daughter has been through, and to say the least it hasn’t been easy for her.” Jack walked away giving the woman his back. “You haven’t asked who I am or why I’m here.” he mentioned.

  “Are you with the Social Services?�
� Miss Rogers’ guessed as she swiped at her eyes.

  “No ma’am. My name is Detective Stone. I’m working the murders that have occurred in our city over the last few months. The two men that were killed in your apartment a few nights ago were the last two victims in my case.” he explained.

  “Last two? This has happened before?” Miss. Rogers looked up in concern. It was difficult for her to lift her head with her wrists and ankles tied to the bed, difficult for her to see Jack where he stood across the room. Jack came back to the bed.

  “Many others.” he informed her. “And I’m positive there are even some out there we haven’t located as of yet. This is serious, Miss. Rogers. I know you have no pity for the men who died in your apartment, but I need to know all that you heard and saw that night. I need to know everything.” Jack insisted firmly. He stared at the woman. It was obvious she was going through another withdrawal pain. He waited until her teeth unclenched and her brown eyes focused on him again.

  “All I know comes from the hopped up mind of an addict. Most of what I saw and heard that night probably was not even real.” she said in shame, and she looked away to take care of the tears in her eyes.

  “I’d still like to hear it.” Jack encouraged, and he took up a seat next to the bed. Miss. Rogers turned her head to the side, staring with her wet eyes into his.

  “It will sound insane.” she promised. “And I can only recall bits and pieces.”

  “That’s all right. Tell me what you do remember.” Jack took out a pocket recorder, and turned it on. “For my own records.” he explained, and she nodded slightly.

  “Where do I start?” Miss Rogers asked almost shyly.

  “Start with the men.” Jack suggested. “Who were they?”

  “I only know their first names.” she admitted. “David and Jerry.” she said the names as if she were repeating the names of the monsters in her nightmare, and Jack couldn’t help but to think that that was exactly what she was doing.

  “How did David and Jerry end up back at your apartment?”

  “Um, we went there together, I think. I was high. We had gotten high together, shooting up in a dark alley somewhere. I don’t recall where.” she was shivering, and shaking almost violently now. Her words didn’t create a pretty picture in Jack’s mind. Where had her daughter been during this time, he wondered?

  “Had you met these two men before?” Jack asked, feeling a tightness gather in his chest. The woman had been raped. She had placed her daughter in danger as well, and Jack knew that she had done it all for a high. She had probably never met old David and Jerry before that night.

  “I don’t think so. They knew my name.” Miss. Rogers said thoughtfully. “I remember that they called me by name. I was broke. I needed a fix. I was desperate.” The tremors had seized her. She gritted her teeth as another strong pain took control of her body. Jack waited patiently.

  “Somehow, we ended up back at my place. I don’t recall how, but Kylie was there sleeping on the sofa. I didn’t want her to see me that way. I remember that. I remember sending her out.”

  In the middle of the night, Jack thought furiously, but it was better that the child had been sent out that night than had stayed to witness her mother being raped, then killed, and possibly suffering the same fate herself, Jack hated to admit. The hell the child had been through that night, the terror she must have felt sitting out on that freezing stoop so late at night was a lesser evil than what could have occurred if the mother had not sent her out. Gritting his teeth to keep the furious lecture in his mind behind his teeth, Jack motioned for Miss. Rogers to go on.

  “David and Jerry had more drugs. They shot me up again when we got back to my place, even though I hadn’t come down off the first hit fully. My heart was racing. I couldn’t catch my breath. I thought I was going to die, and then the next thing I know we’re in my bedroom and David is sweating over me. All I can do is cry. It’s like I can’t move. I can feel a sharp blade at my throat, but it’s like I’m pinned down, like my limbs won’t work, like their paralyzed.” she looked into Jack’s amber gaze, but it was clear to Jack that she was lost in her own dark memories. “I drift in and out of consciousness, I think, because I only remember bits and pieces of the rapes. It’s as if one moment David is over me, and the next it’s Jerry.” She swiped at her eyes as best she could with her tied-down hand.

  “How long after the rape did the woman come in?” Jack asked bluntly.

  “The woman? Then it was a woman?” Miss Rogers asked curiously. Jack nodded.

  “All I remember is the glass raining down on me.” Miss Rogers said deep in thought. “I could see it, uh her, moving in the shadows like a demon. The white eyes.”

  “White eyes?” Jack leaned forward to inquire.

  “Full, white pupils and everything, white and glowing with an inner-light it seemed.”

  “Did you see her face?” Jack asked urgently, feeling he was getting closer.

  “Yes, but it was a face like no other.” Miss. Rogers said, and she sucked in her breath.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It wasn’t human. She wasn’t. The face was distorted, the nose peeled back, the upper lip torn and fangs protruding down past the bottom lip. She was very pale, veins showing through her nearly translucent skin. She looked…”

  “What?” Jack persisted.

  “Evil.” Miss. Rogers breathed out in a fog. “She looked evil. That’s why when she told me she was the devil, I believed her.” she confessed on a stony whisper. Jack breathed out slowly.

  “I couldn’t see her fully. The light had burst before she entered the room. Then the next thing I know, Jerry is being ripped off of me. I see in shadows, and I hear David talking to it, to her. He asks who she is, and she tells him that she is what he deserves. Then seconds later, I hear his body hit the floor. Shortly after, I hear her do away with Jerry as well.”

  “Then you didn’t actually see her kill these two men?” Jack asked skeptically.

  “No, but I could hear the struggle. I could see in shadows. I was terrified. I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating or not.” Miss Rogers explained almost eerily.

  “What happened next?” Jack pressed the woman to go on.

  She shrugged as best she could manage. “She played in the shadows as if playing with me, as if trying to frighten me, as she came closer and closer to the bed and to me. Then suddenly she was there, leaning into my face.”

  “And you got a good look at her?” Jack leaned closer with earnest interest, but Miss. Rogers shook her head negatively.

  “Yes, but like I said, it was a face like no other, a demon’s face.” She breathed out.

  “And she said something to you?” Jack asked.

  “Yes. Her words came to my mind.” Miss. Rogers said in deep memory.

  “Your mind?” Jack countered, not understanding.

  “Yes.” Miss. Rogers’ dark eyes widened. “I could hear her speaking in my mind, not out loud like you and I are talking now.” she said, and she waited while Jack digested her unbelievable words.

  “And what did she say to your mind?” He didn’t believe it for a moment. It had to of been the heroine.

  “The words, ‘What am I?’. They echoed in my mind. That was when she leaned in, and snarled to me that she was the devil. Then she slipped back into the shadows. She told me to get clean. To take care of my daughter. She said if I didn’t do this then she would be back for my soul.” Miss. Rogers finished her impossible tale. “And then the police were pounding on the door, and the devil was gone.”

  Jack could only stare at the woman. The story was insane, but there had to be some form of truth to it, he thought. Something had occurred in that apartment two nights ago. Two lives had been taken, and this woman had witnessed it. Perhaps it was still too soon, Jack thought as he shut off the tape recorder. He would have to question her again later when her mind was clearer.

  Bordello met Jack in the hall. “Nothing.” he said, meeting Jac
k’s curious, amber gaze. “Doc says they’re getting the Heroine out of her system, and then sending her off to the Betty Ford Clinic.”

  “The Betty Ford Clinic?” Jack’s brow rose. “She can afford that?”

  “No, but someone else could. Some do-gooder who saw the story on the news is taking on the debt.” Bordello related.

  “We don’t have the name of this do-gooder, do we?” Jack wondered out loud.

  “Anonymous.” Bordello said with a shrug of his shoulder.

  “We should get someone on that.” Jack said, but just then a familiar face made its way into the Rogers woman’s room. Josh Meisner, Lillian Saint Rose’s bodyguard. What the hell? Jack crept back to the room, and stood just outside the door that had been left cracked open. Bordello followed on quiet feet, and they both listened in at the door.

  “Everything is set, Miss. Rogers.” Josh said in a low, sympathetic tone. “You leave for the clinic in the morning.”

  “I don’t know if I can leave my daughter.” Miss Rogers said in a trembling, doubtful tone.

  “I assure you, ma’am, this is the best thing for your daughter.” Josh said firmly.

  “But she’ll be afraid and all alone in a strange place.” The mother went on, sounding almost frightened for the child.

  “Pardon my saying so, ma’am, but let’s face facts. At this point, the state isn’t offering your daughter back to you. Completing the twenty-eight days at Betty Ford will show the state that you are putting an effort forth, that you want to be a good mother.” Josh was saying, when the woman cut him off.

  “But I can’t just leave her there! She’s my baby!” Miss. Rogers was growing near hysterical.

  “There is another option.” Josh put to her.

  “Another option?” she repeated, calming down just a tad.

  “Yes. I know that you don’t know me well, but I am recently married. My wife is pregnant with our first child. I know how difficult it must be to think of your daughter in that awful place. Well…” Josh stumbled over his would-be option. “Well, the girl could come stay with my wife and I. We have a decent, safe home. You can call her there, write to her, and we could bring her to see you on visitors’ day at the clinic.” He offered.