The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (104 page)

             
“I apologize.”

             
My brows crinkled together in confusion. Had my sister's scathing
nature really gotten Adam, the leader of an entire planet, to apologize sincerely?

             
“I need to know how severe his wound is. I need to know if anything got damaged and what I should do.”

             
“Oh, do you?” He asked with his eyebrows raised and a smirk on his
face again.

             
Quinn started trembling, slightly at first. But then, as though we had pressed a fully charged defibrillator to his chest (which, given his condition, would have been very useful), his body jumped off of the ground, twitching and jerking wildl
y.

             
“Quinn!” Alice was wailing now. I embraced her again as tears streamed down my cheeks. She was trying to hold him down but Brynna broke her grip.

             
“Just let it run its course.” She ordered softly, “He has lost a lot of blood.” When she addressed Adam,
her warmth froze over and a violent scowl of impatience took hold of her features.

             
“What do you want?”

             
“What do you think I want? Mr. Maxwell, I have had all that I can stand of you and will gladly snap you in half if you step towards me aggressively. Pl
ease think again.” His eyes were blazing when he looked at James.

             
“Brynna, do not agree to this. Don’t listen to him!” James ordered her.

             
“He’s going to die any second now, James.” Brynna looked at Alice and then back at Quinn, who had gone motionless. “
He has two minutes, maybe less.”

             
“Just tell him you’ll do what he wants!” Alice screamed at her pleadingly, “
Please,
Brynna! Please!”

             
Brynna looked up at James, a desperation in her eyes that I had never seen before. As quickly as I had noticed it, it was gone. Her resolve had returned.

             
“I will handle this myself, thank you so much.” She shot at Adam, “Carry on.”

             
Ada
m chuckled softly and turned to walk away.

             
“Without blood, he will pass. You will need Elixir, which I supplied to your leader just yesterday.”

             
“Yes…” Brynna realized in a soft whisper. She looked up at Elijah and me.

             
“Where is it?” I asked immediately.

             
“It is downstairs where they were building. It is dark blue, almost black, with purple around the edges. It is a medium-sized leaf. Go! Hurry up!”

             
Elijah and I ran downstairs, almost knocking over those who were waiting in the hallway for news because
we were in such a rush. We stormed into the basement, avoiding the corridor that led to the very last floor of the house. We ran down the hallway lit with torches. When we entered the room where the doctors had been working, we rooted through their large b
ags of medicinal supplies until we found the very leaves Brynna had described.

             
“What does this do?” Elijah asked.

             
“Who cares?” I responded as we took off running again, “If he says it will work and if Brynna believes him, then it will work!”

             
When we ret
urned, Adam was healing Bennie's gunshot wound. His hands were covered in blood; he had dug into the wound in order to extract the bullet. I grimaced.

             
When I handed her the leaf, Brynna put it in her mouth and chewed it up as quickly as she could.
Once or
twice, she scrunched up her face in disgust. Apparently, it wasn’t the most appetizing of plants.

             
“Open his mouth.”

             
“Oh, gross…” Elijah murmured. He turned away with his hands over his eyes.

             
“Shut up, Eli!” Brynna, Alice and I yelled simultaneously. I
grasped Quinn's head and tilted it back so that Alice could pull his mouth open. Brynna spat the spit-saturated leaf into her hand and shoved it into Quinn’s mouth. Her fingers pressed to the artery in his neck that, given her expression, I could gather wa
s barely pulsing anymore.

             
“He’s not swallowing it!” Alice cried, “Damn it!” She pushed her fingers down into his throat, forcing the mashed-up leaf down further, “It’s down! It’s down!”

             
“Alright.” Brynna nodded, “Now, we just have to wait.”

             
As she sat b
ack, she looked over at Adam, scowling once again. When James sat beside her, she took his arm and wrapped it around her shoulder.

             
“He ever looks at you like that again…” James muttered to her and I noticed for the first time that not only had his irises
turned red but so had the whites of his eyes. I looked down, knowing that James had reached the level of anger humans simply could not achieve. If ever there was a time when he was unthinkably dangerous, it was during those moments of unspeakable outrage.

             
“Look at me.” Brynna whispered to him. She grasped his chin and looked up into his eyes. Now, I looked at them again. Her blue eyes were glowing with the calming tranquility of the ocean to extinguish the fire that burned in James’s. His eyes returned to
normal.

             
“Guys, look! Look!” Alice exclaimed. When we did, we saw her pointing to the wound in Quinn’s stomach. We all leaned in to watch as his skin pulled back together. It was as though an invisible needle was sewing the wound closed. Color was returnin
g to his face as his breath began to draw in and let go quietly.

             
“You did it! Brynn, you did it!” Alice screamed in shameless glee. She reached out, pulled Brynna forward and squeezed her so tightly that Brynna frowned in pain.

             
“I have a slight fear of s
uffocation…” Brynna told her. But she was patting Alice's back and smiling slightly.

             
“Thank you! Thank you!” Alice was crying.

             
“Well, there is little need for tears now, my dear.”

             
Typical Brynna, so uncomfortable with outpourings of any emotion that was
n’t blind rage. Alice apologized and wiped her tears away.

             
“You’re right. He’s going to be okay. You saved his life.”

             
“We
all
saved his life. We all helped.” Brynna corrected her.

             
“Call Guinness, ladies and gentlemen. Brynna Oliver has said something hu
mble!” James exclaimed. Brynna reached back and slapped him lightly in the chest, a gesture she seemed to favor when she was looking to offset his sarcasm.

             
“As if you can say anything about being humble…” She told him.

             
“I know.” He kissed her forehead an
d continued to rub her back even after his lips had left her skin.

             
“Alright, children, any more PDA and Elijah is bound to explode.” I warned them quickly.  Elijah was clenching his jaw and his fists as he looked at them.
             

             
“What is that?” James indicated
his stance, “You look like you’re having digestive issues. It’s not a good look for you. It’s not a good look for anyone, actually.”

             
“Stop it.” Brynna told him as she covered her mouth to stifle a laugh.

             
“Yeah, and being a pedophile isn’t just a bad loo
k, it’s also a crime.”

             
“Elijah!” I exclaimed in shock.

             
“Don’t fret, Violet.” James said in his normal tone of breezy arrogance, “He is completely clueless as to what constitutes pedophilia. By old world standards, it was defined generally as a sexual
relationship between an adult and a child under the age of eighteen. Given that your sister is twenty-
two years old, I just don’t fit the bill. I’m sorry to have to call you on your stupidity, but hey, what can you do?”

             
Elijah was steaming at being torn d
own so effortlessly. I tried to remain neutral in the argument, but his hatred of James was over the top and unnecessary. He hurt Brynna once while under the influence of a drug that he had never taken again. Everyone in the house could see how deeply he l
oved her. Everyone could also see that the feeling was mutual; Brynna loved him right back and just as much.

             
“Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?”

             
“Why? Because I’m with your sister or because I made you look like a whining, moronic, tempe
r tantrum-throwing little boy? That certainly isn’t a good look for you, either.”

             
“What kind of a man gets with a girl her age? Oh, see, that was wrong of me. I called you a man. You’re not a man…”

             
“Gentlemen!” Brynna stood up and stepped in between them
, “That is enough!”

             
“What would Mom say?!” Elijah snapped at her. Brynna opened her mouth to retort, but he cut her off. “Right, you don’t care about that. You don’t care anything about Mom. I know he talked you into letting her die. Are you that desperat
e to have him that you would let him talk you into that?”

             
“First of all, I am not desperate to have him. I never groveled for his affections nor compromised any aspect of myself, so you had better think twice before you hurl that accusation at me!” Brynna
hissed at him.

             
I groaned as I watched the blue of her eyes swirl with flecks of red now.

             
“Secondly, if you ever insinuate that it was James who coerced me into abandoning our mother on Earth…”

             
“You’ll what? Are you going to kill me? That would be the
icing on the cake, wouldn’t it?! You’d kill me for him the same way you killed Mom for…”

             
When she hit him, he flew backwards and almost knocked Nikki, Bennie's girlfriend, over.

             
“That’s enough.” James told her as she struggled to break his grip on her ha
nds. “It's alright, baby. It's okay. Come on. Let’s go.”

             
But Elijah had waited weeks to fight that battle. The venue and the time were not appropriate, but he was going to say his piece now, for better or worse. Instead of shouting an obscenity-laced tira
de full of insults and insinuations, he ran forward to tackle James around the middle. Alice and I exclaimed as we jumped onto our feet. Brynna simply watched with her arms crossed over her chest. All the while, she shook her head in disgust.

             
Elijah never
even grasped the upper-hand in the fight. James was faster and stronger; tossing Elijah about was like throwing a paper doll. Never once did he hit him, though Elijah managed to land a few punches.

             
“Are you done?” James finally barked at him as he held E
lijah against the wall. “Tell me you’re done, and I’ll let you go.”

             
“I have had it with this.” Brynna spoke up suddenly. They both looked back at her to find that she was resting her head against her hand and squeezing her eyes shut.

             
“Baby…” James starte
d to say.

             
“Don’t you two understand that this is the last thing we need right now!?” She had lifted her head to glare at them. “I am an adult, Elijah Piers, and I will make my own decisions. He is just angry, James, and there is no reason for you to engag
e him physically! With your strength, you could easily crush him, so learn some self-control!”

             
“He could not easily…” Elijah started to say.

             
“Shut up!” She stomped her foot in frustration, “I do not care if you approve of our relationship or not, Eli. We
are together. For your own sake, you must learn to deal with that. I know that your rejection of the idea is bred from your brotherly affection for me. I know that you feel it is your duty to protect me the way our father never did. I appreciate that. Bel
ieve me, I do. But James is alright, don’t you see that? You know me. If I can trust him, then there is absolutely no reason why you cannot do the
same.”