The Centerpoint Trilogy (21 page)

“Thank you!” Rhi called back, as she and Genesis hurried along.

They traveled up the stairs as quickly as possible. It was only three short flights but she found that she was breathing heavily. Was she winded, or was it nerves?

The top floor was dimly lit, which was strange to Rhi, because it had seemed so bright from the outside. A feeling of deep emptiness overwhelmed Rhi, the moment they stepped inside of the top floor room. There were shelves lining the walls, shelves that were filled with old magazine back issues and relevant newspaper clippings. There were file cabinets on the other side, that evidently kept record of the town happenings. As she and Gen entered, she realized that nobody was there. “Dad?” she asked, as she stayed very close to her best friend. Obviously feeling the lack of ease, Gen pressed herself to Rhi’s side. Rhi, thankful for the comfort, put an arm around her best friend’s waist. She needed Gen as much as Gen seemed to need her.

“Dad!” she called again.

Together, walking as one unit, Gen and Rhi headed deep into the room.

There was a brief flicker, one-two, in the lights, and then they shut off completely, plunging the room into blackness. Rhi knew that it was silly, but her first instinct was to cling to Gen’s arm for dear life and let out a scream. She screamed shrilly, as loudly as she possibly could, before shutting her eyes. No, the light would come back on. It had to. When she opened her eyes, however, the lights were still off and absolutely everything was black. Being the more sensible of the two of them, Gen took her arm and tugged her back towards the staircase, which was still emanating some sort of light from the lower level floors.

“Ow!” Gen yelled.

The next thing Rhiannon knew, she was clinging to Gen’s arm and stumbling forward over something. Both girls hit the floor. Rhi tried to brace her face, but did not end up letting go of her best friend in time.

This was when the lights flipped back on. They came back to life easily in that moment, flickering back on as if they had never been off. Rhi looked down to see that her knee was scuffed and bleeding slightly through her jeans. She looked at her best friend to see Gen standing there, staring around like she had no idea what she was supposed to be doing. “Here,” she said, holding out a hand to Gen. She helped her back to her feet.

They moved to leave when they heard a call of pain.

“Dad!” Rhi heard Gen yell.

Rhi looked at her uncle. Ethan was standing in front of them with a slack jawed expression. His eyes were wide and he kept looking around him. He had a large, purple bruise with yellow spots near the edges on his right cheek. He really seemed to be half with them. “Girls,” he choked out, walking over and putting a hand on Rhi and Gen both. Their parents always spoke about how they saw both girls as their daughters and that was reflected very clearly in the way that her uncle reacted to the crisis. “Girls, what happened? Elliot and I were researching and then I don’t remember anything. It’s almost like when they took you as girls, but I didn’t pass out, not fully...I’m confused…” He was rambling a little bit, something Rhi knew by now that her uncle did under pressure.

“We don’t know, Uncle Ethan,” Rhi murmured softly.

“I swear that I was knocked out by this bright light,” Ethan said, with a small shake of his head.

“Where is my dad?” Rhi asked, looking around. It became evident as the lights returned that there was absolutely no trace of her father. In her chest, her heart began to pound terribly. Where was her father? Her head whipped around again, but no, there was absolutely nothing. Where the hell was her daddy? Her heart beat pathetically.

“I don’t know…” Ethan whispered, his eyes following the same path that hers were. They were both looking around, desperately.

They then began to frantically search for her father, looking between bookshelves and down hallways, but Rhi knew instinctively that he was not there. It was obvious as anything as they looked over shelves and countertops. Her uncle did not seem to remember anything either, looking at them with his wide eyed and spacy expression. He did not understand a thing.

Their fruitless search for her father was cut short moments later when the same flustered, tired looking librarian from earlier came up the stairs. She took a sharp breath with each individual step that she took. “I am very sorry girls,” she said. “We are closing up early today due to whatever caused that strange electrical failure. I have to ask you to check out any materials that you have and leave.”

“No problem,” Ethan said, holding up a hand in a good-natured gesture. He nodded sweetly, offering the woman a smile.

              “We haven’t found my dad yet,” Gen said, objecting and looking at her uncle pointedly. They could not leave.

              “He’s not here sweetheart,” he told her, conveying to her with his eyes what she knew to be fact. Something had happened to her father, but he was not there and there was no use involving normal people in their mess. She nodded in spite of the pain that it caused. It ripped into her chest. It hurt very much to just give up and walk away.

              “I’m sorry about the inconvenience,” the woman said, as she led them back downstairs.

              Once downstairs, they checked out a few items in Ethan’s bookbag, trying not to act suspicious, before quickly leaving the building. Rhiannon was panicking inside, but on the outside she was trying to act calm and composed.

              “It’s no problem at all,” she heard Ethan tell the woman with a smile, as he quickly took them out of the room. Rhi turned to him, feeling her stomach twisting inside from the anxiety and fear. She looked quickly from the man she considered to be a second father to her best friend and back again.

              “Where’s my dad?” she asked them, her voice shrill. “Where could he possibly be. He was with you and now he’s gone…”

              Gen had been near her father, but quickly she left Ethan’s side and pulled Rhiannon into a tight hug. The girl with the soft brown-red hair and big green eyes smiled sadly at her. “It’s going to be okay sweetie,” she promised. “It’s okay, I’m here.”

              She took deep, calming breaths, just trying to regroup as best as she could manage. It would be fine.

Chapter Seven

              Grace watched as the man woke up, but she watched as only an observer. The Alturi had taken over her body and here she was inside of it, just watching the man stir awake as one would watch something through their bedroom window. He was a handsome man with gentle, almond shaped eyes and a strong jawline. He looked achingly familiar and she just watched him for the longest time. She knew that the Alturi were in her head, but she was not in theirs. She did not know that their motivation for taking this man was. Who was he?

              His eyes fluttered open and he looked at her. He opened his mouth several times, making small, dry, heaving sounds before he finally managed to speak. “Who are you?” he asked, in a dry, weary tone of voice. Each word sounded as though it was being laboured out of hm. He tried to sit up, but failed at first, falling back down. It was also a laborious effort to get up into a fully seated position. He used his arm to prop himself up.

              The Alturi spoke, using her voice. It was sickeningly strange, hearing her own voice in her ears and in her head, but having no control over the words that voice spoke. “Who we are is unimportant,” her voice said, “yet who this girl is, well, that probably should be the most important thing to you, Elliot.”

              “What?” the man asked, groggily rising to his feet. Grace was able to follow the Alturi’s gaze downward and saw that his feet were unsteady. He was not well enough to be rising up like that, yet still he was, out of sheer willpower.

              “You are a traitor,  Elliot,” her voice said, condemning him. Her voice just sounded so regal when it came from these ancient creatures and not from Grace herself. “You are a traitor, and yet you are the father of the child that stands before her. Her name is Grace and she is your daughter.”

              Grace froze at the creature’s assertion. Yes, she could not move physically anyway, but her mind stopped moving as well then. She paused and shook inside of herself. She looked at the man that they had called Elliot. Even in her strange memories, Grace never recalled being told about her father. Could the creatures be telling the truth? Her heart began to beat in her chest, beat and pound a rapid drum beat. Could this man really be her father?

              Her heart’s rapid drum beat soon became an erratic thudding with no beat or reason. It pounded in the way that a hammer pounded against nails and anger began to grow. If he was her father, then she could not help hate him. Her mother had never told her about her father, but she had implied once or twice in those strange memories that he was a traitor. “He’s not with us,” was about the extent of what she could remember her mother saying. Also, how could he not be a traitor? He had abandoned his family. If he was her father than she had to hate him.

              “Who are you?” the man called Elliot asked her desperately. His eyes widened and she realized that he looked at her with fear. He was afraid of her. This man was her father and he was afraid of her. That was not okay.

              “You don’t recognize your own child?” they asked, still using her voice like they owned it. They laughed, a laugh that was nothing like Grace’s own laughter. It was dark, deep and full of life. It was full of so much life. “Oh wait, you never knew her, because you betrayed her and her beloved mother both, didn’t you?”

              “You’re crazy,” the man responded immediately. He backed into the wall and touched it, to hold himself up. The fear in his eyes confused Grace greatly. Why was this man so afraid? Was he afraid of confronting his own child and his failure in life, in being good to her when she needed him? What was this man so afraid of? “You’re insane. You’re absolutely out of your mind insane, that’s what this is.”

              “Did you ever believe in the Alturi?” the creatures asked him. Still they laughed, using Grace’s voice.

              The man’s eyes flashed with anger and...despair, maybe. “I never believed any of the garbage that the Celestial Centerpoint tried to feed me,” he declared, still unsteadily hanging onto the wall. He approached her. She flinched inwardly, but could do nothing, because her body was not hers. He could not hurt her, she told herself. He would not hit her and the Alturi were too powerful to let anything happen to her. She knew this, but somehow she was still afraid of him.

              She would not be afraid of him. Even if this man truly was her father, he was nothing but a dirty, worthless nonbeliever. She knew in her heart that there was nothing worse than someone who deflected away from the Celestial Centerpoint. Somehow, she had been born knowing that they were the great Celestial Centerpoint and that anything that stood in their way was wrong. What they said was law and what they said was right.

              The creatures that had hold of her body taunted him. “Your own child hates you,” they said. “She curses you inside of her mind right now, for being such a horrid nonbeliever. You should have never deflected away from them, Elliot.”

              “I don’t have a child,” the man yelled, reaching and taking her by the shoulder. The creature in her pulled away with a strength that Grace did not possess.

              “You make her cry inside Elliot.”

              She didn’t even realize that she was crying until the Alturi made that assertion. She was crying on the inside of her soul, devastated by all of this. It hurt so much.

              “I don’t know who this kid is,” the man yelled, but he did not approach again. He kept his distance from her, from the things that had control of her.

              Her body approached the man again. If Grace had control of her own body, she would never allow herself that closeness. The thing inside of her had other plans in mind, however. “Look into her eyes,” it demanded of him.

              Despite the fact that he seemed to want to resist, the man took a step forward and looked into her eyes. He did not speak, but she saw the name that formed on his lips. She looked into his own eyes and shivered as they resembled her own, not in color, or shape, but in intensity. “Lilly,” lingered on his lips. He could see her mother in her eyes. “No.” He whispered the word over and over again and she watched as the tears began to form, welling up in his eyes. He shook his head and said it over and over again. “No, no...no.”

              To her surprise, the man stopped rambling. He then walked up to her and put his hand on her shoulder. He knew how powerful the creatures within her were, yet still he touched her. She did not understand him. His eyes were still wet with tears, but the sincere love in them was overwhelming and oh, so strong. “Oh my god…” he whispered, still staring into her eyes. “I am so sorry. I never knew. She lied. She said that she lost the bab … I am … I am so sorry, child. Grace? I am so, so sorry.” He was rambling, a little closer to incoherent after that.

              Grace looked at him with confusion, although she was pretty sure that the Alturi kept her eyes cold and hard. Her mother may have never told the man that he was her father. She believed that this could be possible, as much as she idealized the memory of her mother. Maybe he loved her. Maybe her father could truly love her. Maybe there was someone out there who loved her in spite of the fact that she was too powerful, too dangerous to be worthy of love.