The Centerpoint Trilogy (13 page)

Still, she was so stubborn. Alicia lifted her hand and closed her eyes. A column of flames rose above her head that stopped just before charring the ceiling. Elliot had been right - it was the same fire that blazed within her golden eyes. She held out her hands and that was how she anchored herself, how she controlled the flames, but even with that he could see that she was struggling. It was a type of control that she had, but it was not an easy control. She needed an easy control, like the control that his beloved once had.

He was, however, impressed by her willpower. He crossed his arms and looked her over. Elliot tried not to be dismissive. "You're good," he said, nodding. "You're very good considering the fact that you've really never been trained into your abilities, but still, you're not strong enough to deal with her."

She took a step forward and her eyes screamed, 'just watch me.'  He almost wanted to step back in fear of her.

It made him feel a little guilty, but Wayne could not help think about how gorgeous the woman was. Her soft brown skin, her wide eyes and the fierceness that he knew was part of her soul...it all amounted into one fabulous woman. He admired her, inside and out, this Alicia. He wanted to get close to her.

Elliot decided that the best course of action was just to hug her. She was a young mother who was completely out of her league and who wanted to protect her daughter. He couldn't fault her that. This world was madness, even for someone who had been involved in it since she was a little girl and had been chosen by a madman. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight. She resisted at first, of course. She pulled back and then stopped, sinking into the hug. Elliot tried to convey with the hug that he'd be there for her. He was going to make sure that her daughter came home.

He hugged her for some time. During this time, Anna rushed off into the other room and Ethan followed, murmuring under his breath that his wife was not feeling well. Elliot supposed he could not blame them. Their children were missing, probably hurt, and that primal terror could break a parent apart. Not that he really knew what it was like to be a parent. He’d probably never know that. Still, he knew how that kind of terror had to become sickness at some moments.

Alicia looked at him for a few moments, like she didn't know what to say to him. Elliot supposed that he really could not blame the sweet girl. The three parents had been friends for their daughters' whole lives and he was an outsider. He was a mysterious outsider and Alicia knew absolutely nothing about him. That, however, was about to change. He wanted her to know the thing that he refused to talk about, not even to those closest to him. He did not know what it was, but there was, in fact, something special about Alicia. She deserved to know.

"I was in the Celestial Centerpoint from childhood," Elliot told her. Those words were just the hardest ones to say, but he figured that if he could trust anyone with this, it was the woman. She affected him inside and they barely met. That had to make her special.  "My parents were members and dragged me in when I was about six years old."

Alicia looked at him in total shock. She clasped her hand over her mouth. "Oh god," she whispered.

"Yes," Elliott said, meeting her eyes. "I was raised to believe in their idiotic doctrine, until I was old enough to have a mind of my own. That cult destroyed my world, my family and my whole life. My parents died when I was fifteen in an 'accident' that was orchestrated by that bastard who called himself Kahn North. Being put into the foster system and later adopted probably saved my life. I didn't get out, however, until I was much older because of the woman who's hurting you guys."

When he told her about his past in that cold, detached tone, it was almost like it happened to someone else. It was almost like there was another man who had lost his family, his life and his sense of self inside of that cult. It was almost like another man had grown up and fallen in love with a woman who was high up in the organization. It was another man who had loved her so much that he was almost willing to die for her. They'd lost everything and yet still she chose the cult. She had chosen North and his maniac ways, becoming drunk on power. He had lost everything he'd ever tried to love because of the Celestial Centerpoint.

When he told it to Alicia, it sounded like a story that happened to someone else. The emotions weren't even involved. Still, she must have sensed them somewhere with that amazing mind of hers, because after what felt like hours worth of silence, she leaned over and hugged him. She hugged him tight and did not let go.

"Thank you for telling me that," she whispered. "I can tell that you really don't trust people and I'm...I'm honored."

He thought about her words and realized that she was right. He rarely trusted anyone. His parents, the ones who adopted him when he was fifteen, were the only people that he really trusted freely in the world. Trusting someone who was nearly a stranger seemed absurd but he was doing it anyway with her. He trusted this woman and he trusted her pretty much completely.

As they looked at the map together, he spoke. "I do trust you, completely," he told her, fingers running over the paper. "That is kind of weird to me because I don't trust. I can assure you, however, Alicia, that I will die to end the Celestial Centerpoint. I will get your daughter back for you."

"I believe you," she said in a faint tone. "I believe..."

Alicia's voice trailed off. She was pointing to a place on the map and her mouth hung ajar, voice trailed off.

"What is it Alicia?" he asked.

She pointed to the corner of the map. There was a small, faint X-mark over a location. It was so faint, as if it had been done in the lightest pencil. "This is the museum that I work at," she explained. "I didn't notice this before, but doesn't that look like an X?"

"It does."

"We need to go there," he said immediately. "Maybe there's something there."

"Or it's a trap," he suggested. "Alicia, why don't you go check on Anna and then get some sleep? Tomorrow we can go out there."

"But, we have to do something..."

"It's closed tonight," the man said firmly. "Just go. Let me think for a moment and I'll get back to you."

She looked at him in objection but he tried, with his eyes, to convey a silent promise. He'd figure this out. She quickly left to check on her best friend and Elliot was left with his mind.

Chapter Eight

              Alicia wasn't even sure how, but eventually she found herself falling asleep. Her eyes closed and she just drifted off into her head.  Honestly, how did a mother sleep when her baby was in danger? Alicia figured right before she passed out that it was exhaustion. She was utterly exhausted and slept only because it was a pure necessity for her body. Every fiber of her being, inside and out, had been pushed to the brink of exhaustion.

Alicia drifted and for awhile she slept in peace. She slept without a single image in her brain, until one pushed itself to the surface. It pushed itself to the surface, breaking through the water and into her head. There was no way that Alicia could escape what she saw in front of her.

The vision that flung itself to the surface was a clear one. She saw the girls. Rhiannon and Genesis were in the museum, somewhere between the Ancient Art exhibit and the Visions of Eternity exhibit.  They were in the hallway, huddled close together. Rhiannon had her arms around the smaller girl, in a vain attempt to comfort her. She was trying her best to comfort little Gen, but tears were streaming down her own soft brown skin. Both girls were screaming and were absolutely terrified. She could see each tear that was streaking down her daughter's face and she knew that she had to go save her.

She bolted upright in bed and looked around her. The room that she was in was dark and for a moment her eyes had to adjust. "The girls need me," she whispered out loud.. That was when her eyes adjusted and she realized that she was looking right into Anna’s  own big green eyes.

"I had a dream, Alicia," Anna said softly, looking at her with a deathly serious expression on her face. Her pale skin was even paler, ashen and she looked as though she was on the verge of throwing up.  "I dreamed the girls were at the museum. They were right near some old looking replicas of cave painting or something like that. They needed us."

Finding out that Anna had dreamed up the same exact image was enough for Alicia. She stood up and smoothed out her clothes, which were rumpled and sweaty against her skin. Anna had not been to the museum since the Ancient Art exhibit was put up, so there was no way that she could have seen the replicas of old cave paintings that were done by local artists. There was no way that Anna could have known that unless there was something prophetic about the dream they shared. Anna followed suit immediately, standing up and looking at her. She then leaned over and touched her husband’s shoulder.

"Ethan," Anna said, shaking Ethan gently. Her husband, who had been dozing lightly, immediately opened his eyes. They flickered open almost immediately and Ethan sprung into a seated position on the bed.

"What is it?" he asked sleepily.

"Alicia and I both had the same dream," she said seriously. Her eyes were saucers and she shook her husband still, even after he was wide awake.  It seemed that Anna was doing it as a nervous tick or something. "We dreamed that the girls were at the museum. We need to go there, now."

Ethan immediately shook off his sleep and got up as well. He took dreams seriously too, Alicia knew that. How could they not after the dreams that had been plaguing them their whole entire lives. "Alright," he said. "We need to go to the museum now." He stretched out his neck and was ready for action. He looked from his wife to Alicia.

"Let's go," Alicia agreed, immediately in the same mind frame as Ethan. Their girls could be at that museum. They needed to get to their daughters as fast as they could. She saw that Detective Wayne was still sleeping in the next room on the sofa. His body heaved lightly with each breath.

She hesitated for just a moment, before shaking her head. "Let's get out of here quietly so that he doesn't hear us." She had a lot of respect for the man, especially finding out about his past and the way that the Celestial Centerpoint had ruined his life, but he would try and dissuade them from this and they were the parents of those little girls. They had more of a right than he did to make this choice.

As they drove to the museum, Alicia had to admit that she felt a little bad about lying to Wayne... er, to Elliot. The man had let her in about a big part of his life and it was obvious that he wanted to get rid of the cult that had nearly destroyed them years ago and had now taken their daughters. It would have probably been wise to let him in, considering that the man was not as clouded by emotions as they were. Still, she just could not let him ruin this. They were the parents of those little girls and they had to be the ones to be responsible for this choice.

They got to the museum in no time at all. As it was the middle of the night, there was nobody at the front door, but Alicia walked them around to the back. With shaking hands, she scanned her key card. There was no doubt that someone was going to find out she'd scanned through in the middle of the night and that she'd likely lose her job, or at least be reprimanded, but at that point she could care less. All that mattered was the two little girls who needed their parents more than anything. They walked into the museum.

The museum was completely dark on the outer perimeter, but the exhibits were lit up with bright display lights. There were eerie shadows cast all about the large main room. Alicia stuck very close to Anna, looking around for any sign that there had been a disturbance. There was none, however. The museum looked as pristine during the night as it did during the day. The only difference was the presence of the eerie shadows that might as well have been ghosts of some manner. Alicia looked all around her, head whipping around as she swore she heard footsteps, but there were none there. She took another couple of steps forward but everything that she thought she heard wasn't there and everything that she thought she saw was another faded shadow.

"Hey!"

There was a loud, booming voice that broke her out of her thoughts. Instinctively, she took a step back and then a flashlight was held right into her face. The light burned her eyes and she blinked, trying to focus away from the rays that made her vision blur.  There was a man in front of her. He was a tall black man of a heavy build. He shone his flashlight into her face several times, even after he’d obviously gotten his point across. "Who the hell are you?" he asked. "What the hell are you guys doing in here? We closed four hours ago!"

Alicia was really afraid, but she tried her best to feign confidence. "I'm sorry, sir," she said, trying her best to sound respectful and contrite. She took her ID out and held it out to him so that he could see her picture and title.  "I work here. I'm in the tour department. I forgot something very important in my locker and couldn't wait until opening tomorrow. I brought my friends because I...well, this is going to sound really stupid, but I was scared."

The lie was a shaky one at best, but it was the best Alicia could do. At least she had the credentials in order to put off a somewhat believable ruse. "You're not headed toward the lockers," the man said, not quite believing of her stupid story. No wonder, really, because it was just idiotic… Fear overtook her for a moment, but then she remembered that being rational was the best defense that any woman had.