The Centerpoint Trilogy (15 page)

Ethan, to Elliot's surprise nodded. "Alright baby, I'll see you there. Be careful. Drive safe."

Ethan took a deep breath and Elliot could see that the women were not the only ones suffering from emotion. Tears started flickering in the corner of his eyes. "I'm going to follow her," he said. "I'll call you guys if there's anything new."

"We'll stay here until we get notice from them," Alicia said, nodding her head. Elliot nodded. She knew these people better than anyone else. "I'm sure it's just another warning. Anna's place of work means so much to her as well. She's been working at the paper for years and really enjoys it. She's a good writer."

He nodded as she spoke about her friend. It was obvious that there was a lot of love between the two women. He quickly wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a hug. The hug was long and comfortable and he felt safe when he was with her. She held on just as tight, a safe smile on her face. All she was going through, if he could make her feel safe for a moment then that was a really nice thing.

"I promise that we're going to save those girls," he told her.

"Well I promise we'll take them down," she said. Both held on so tightly. They needed each other. After that, Elliot and Alicia both just waited. It was a waiting game.

Chapter Ten

              When Anna arrived at work, it was to a scene of total chaos. Police and firefighters had already lead most of her colleagues outside, but evidence of the flood was there. The entrance to the office building was open and she could see the dark stain that was the formerly light brown carpeting. It had covered nearly every square inch of space. She held her breath, trying to stay calm. She bit her lip and felt a dizziness come over her, but she ignored it as best as she possibly could. She looked around for her boss, or anyone who could better explain to her what had happened.

Luckily, it didn't seem that anyone was hurt. The first really familiar face she honed in on was that of Rose, the new girl, the quiet intern. "Rose," she said, as she walked over to the girl. The girl seemed more shaken up then the rest of the regulars. She had tears in her eyes and kept looking around, as if in total disbelief.  Her mouth hung open. "Rose, what happened here?"

The girl looked at her with a sad, scared expression.

"Oh Anna," she said softly. "It was really bad. I was helping close up and all of a sudden there was this big wave of water that just washed through the main office building. It was like a flash flood, but inside. It was so weird. I can’t even begin to understand where it came from. I swear, it was like magic.”

"Are you okay?" Anna asked, trying to stay focused on the mission of finding out where her daughter was, but at the same time wanting to talk to this woman. She was scared. She needed comfort.

"Shaken, but fine," she assured.

"Was anyone hurt?" Anna asked.

Rose shook her head no and Anna sighed with relief.

"Are you okay Anna?" Rose asked delicately, as if she was trying to be cautious with her words. "I know that I may seem rude, but you look like you've seen a ghost and you weren't even here."

"Just a hard week," she said. Anna would not even begin to tell the intern about all that she had been through. Nobody would understand or believe. She dismissed the girl's fears as fast as she could and then left her behind. She had to find out more. This had to be something. Honestly, she knew it was probably a cryptic warning, another flood at one of their places of work, but the girl was desperate. Anna was trying to search for a deeper meaning in all of it.

Ethan was there too and she could feel him searching in the same way that she was. Both she and her husband scoured the area for signs of anything except another elaborate warning but found little. She even managed to get inside for about two minutes before the police told her that everything was fine, everything was safe, but she would just have to leave. "Nothing really," Anna told her husband, seeing the look of upset that crossed his handsome face. He wanted answers just as badly as she did.

"No," he said.

"Nobody was hurt," she said, something that relieved them both, but really didn't matter in comparison to the person who could be hurting at that moment. Nothing mattered to the two young parents, except for the well being and safe return of their daughter.

Anna sighed and then wrapped her arms around her husband. She knew that her husband needed comfort as much as she did, and was trying her best to give it. He gave it to her too, holding onto her. She could, however, feel his grip on her tighten for just a moment, a little too hard. He was looking at something over her shoulder.

"What is it Ethan?" she asked.

Ethan shook his head from side to side. "Nothing Anna," he said, but the hesitant tone in his voice bothered her. Of course, he was scared and exhausted ,the same as she was. She knew that she had very little to worry about. Ethan needed time to process information before he spat it out anyway.

"You sure?" she asked.

Ethan let go of her and then looked into her eyes. His seemed clouded with some kind of very intense confusion. "It's funny," he said honestly. "There's nothing at all suspicious about this place but this building feels like it's buzzing with some kind of energy. I wonder if that's how Elliot could feel the magic back at the apartment. It's absolutely buzzing."

"It is?" Anna asked. She did not feel a thing.

He nodded. "It is."

Her husband looked very deeply disturbed. There was a look in his eyes that was off, somewhere far from them. “Are you okay Ethan?” she asked softly.

He nodded.

It didn’t really surprise her, given her husband’s gifts, when his eyes shut moments later and a look of pain crossed his face. She reached forward and took his hand in hers and he held her hand tightly. “Ethan?” she asked, a look of concerned etched onto her face. “Ethan, talk to me when you can.” She hated to see him go through something like that but knew that his gifts and the fact that whomever had done this was speaking through him could be used to their advantage. “Ethan…”

“I hope you enjoyed my flood,” Ethan whispered and then his eyes opened again.

Anna looked at Ethan. She took a breath and took a step back, but did not flinch, even though her fear was growing with every second. His eyes narrowed and he stared at her with an expression that wasn’t at all his own. This was someone else, using Ethan’s body and she hated it. It made her hold back in fear. This was her Ethan, but it wasn’t him. It wasn’t him at all. She took a deep breath. “Ethan, what is wrong?” she asked, her voice low and trembling. She wasn’t sure if Ethan was going to answer her, or if something else was.

Ethan looked up at her and he actually did answer with his own voice at first. “There’s a voice in my head,” he said, shaking and shutting it out. “It wants to speak out loud, but I’m not letting him, so it’s yelling at me. It’s low and intense and a woman. It’s screaming that if I won’t let it through then it’s going to tell me what it wants now.”

Anna nodded. She was trying to piece things together. She reached over and took his hand. He squeezed her hand.

Ethan closed his eyes and she could see that he was trying to piece things together himself. He took a breath and leaned his head back. “Oh my god,” he said as he leaned his head back. “Oh my god.”

“What is it Ethan?” she asked desperately.

"It's her," he said, as he pointed across the lot. Across the lot stood the intern, Rose. The woman was talking animatedly to another one of the newspaper's many employees. She seemed absolutely engrossed in her conversation, but as Ethan spoke, they saw a smile cross her face. He stood up and stared at her and they felt the pure evil emanating off of her. Anna stood up next to him and she sensed it too. Could it really be?

Acting on pure impulse, Ethan ran over to the woman. Anna followed closely after him. Rose was calm and finished up her conversation with the woman in front of her before darting out into the street. She ran so fast that her presence was nearly a blur to them both. It was like there was a streak of light that followed her as she ran. Anna knew that she wasn’t seeing things. "Stop!" he yelled out, meriting several looks from the people around him.

When they got onto the street, Anna could see that it was flooded. Water bubbled over the streets, struggling to shove it's way into the storm drain. It was like a flash flood had hit, but they'd never seen it coming. Ethan pulled back for a minute and then the blonde was out of their line of sight. Ethan  knew who she was and what she had done, but she was completely out of his sight. Anna knew that they would never find her.

Anna ran out ahead of him. Ethan skidded as he chased after her. Anna ran and Ethan ran, but eventually they stopped because there was no trace of the woman. It was like she had vanished into thin air and was no longer there. It was like she had never been there at all. "Where did she go?" Anna asked and Ethan just shook his head because there was no accurate answer to that. 

A car pulled up right in front of them. Ethan spun around and Anna did too, prepared to face a potential enemy, but instead of the enemy that he had expected it was Alicia and Wayne. Alicia got out of the car and ran over to them, embracing Anna. Anna embraced her back. Wayne looked at Ethan and asked, "What happened?"

"Massive flood," he said. "I got something in my head and it freaked me out. It ended up being this intern at Anna's work."

"We were too worried to let you guys go on your own," Alicia said, walking through the wet street with her hand still on Anna. Alicia and Anna had always had a very special bond. They both knew knew when the other needed them. They were able to take care of each other. Anna had always appreciated that about Alicia.

Wayne was assessing the damage while the rest of them were talking. Anna could see the analytic way that his eyes assessed each twist and turn of the street. He was holding his hands out, probably feeling the magic that was buzzing off of each corner. Ethan wasn't as skilled as he was, probably, but Anna could tell he could also feel the unnatural power around them.

"What was the woman like?" Wayne finally asked him. "What did she look like?"

Anna answered. "She was a petite redhead," she explained. "She looked really young at first glance, but on second glance, she had really tight skin, as if it had been pulled back by one too many instances of plastic surgery. She had intense green eyes that looked like they could bore right into your head, into your soul. There was something so familiar about her face to me, despite the fact that I've never seen it in my entire life."

"She called herself Rose?" Wayne asked.

Anna nodded.

"Of course," he said, shaking his head. "Her name was Lilly. It only makes sense in her arrogant way. She’s not a redhead either. She’s a blonde.”

“Oh…” Anna began as a sinking suspicion caught in her chest.

"She's been powerful for a long time," he explained, "but I truly thought that she died...five years ago."

That was when Ethan made the connection. Anna’s heart stopped in her chest. He saw it too. "She was there that night."

Anna looked at Alicia and then at Wayne then shook her head. "Oh god…”

"She was Kahn North's wife," Ethan said, looking at Wayne, but not asking him. He was stating a simple fact. "She was the one who tortured us that night. She was the one that he didn't murder."

"She survived the fire," Alicia whispered.

"If anyone could, it was her," Wayne said.

Anna’s mind wandered back to the woman. She had been wearing a mask, so that they never looked at her. They'd barely been able to see her eyes. All she knew was that when she raised her hand, pain gripped them, wracking their whole bodies. She had been able to control them with just that, just a simple raise of her hand. That was all that there was. There had been an evil in the eyes and the mind of Kahn North's wife and she had been this dark, powerful creature. She would have gladly killed them with her bare hands if she could.

"I will never forget..."

Anna screamed. The scream pierced through the silence and the thought that they were all lost in. She fell to the ground. Her body just collapsed into itself. "Ah, stop!" she yelled out, screaming at the top of her lungs. Her body shuddered with the pain. She convulsed, body rocking back and forth. Only one thing had hurt in the way that she was hurting. She knew exactly what it was.  "Stop! Please, stop!"  She cried and sobbed and could not seem to stop moving. Everything shook. "Please!"

Ethan dropped to the ground next to Anna and turned her around in his arms. His arms were warm but did not stop the pain. "Anna," he said softly, looking into her eyes. She shook her head and tears started to streak down her face. She opened her mouth to try and speak but all that came out was a wail. "Anna, Anna sweetie!" By this point, the others had begun to clear out and nobody seemed to hear them. "Anna!"

All of a sudden, the pain stopped. "Ethan," Anna whispered, before rolling onto her side, collapsed. Her head lolled against his shoulder and she hung limp there. She was not unconscious, but her steady breathing revealed to those around her how much pain she was in. She panted as if each breath was causing her a severe amount of effort. "Eth...an," she gasped again.

Ethan was left holding his shaking, shuddering wife. Alicia knelt near them and Wayne went to handle matters with the police.