The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (135 page)

             
When I turned back to Maura, my mind went blank. Her eyes had opened. Not only was she awake, but she was present.

             
“Brynna?” S
he asked weakly with tears rolling down her cheeks. Painfully, she turned her head to look at me. I walked forward slowly, not knowing what to say. I would not unleash the rage I felt towards her for what happened. In her final moments, she did not deserve
to feel guilt or sadness. I sincerely doubted that anyone deserved to feel such things during the final remainder of their time in our known realm.

             
“Will you sit with me?” She asked timidly before reaching her hand out to me with great effort.

             
I nodded
and sat down beside her. After a moment, she lowered her hand, realizing that I was not going to take it. She knew the pain of the previous years would not allow such a show of support and love. What was worse is that she accepted and understood that.

             
“I
owe you more apologies than I can count.” She whispered. I had to lean forward to hear her. In her voice, I heard her strength fading slowly.

             
“That's not important. Did you hear Elijah and Violet?” I asked her and she shook her head. “Well, they begged yo
u not to die. So stop talking like you are.”

             
“I was waiting for you.” She told me with a tiny smile on her swollen lips. “I wanted you to be with me when I woke up. I need to tell you how sorry I am for everything.”
             
“It's over. It's in the past.” I said
in an unconvincing, robotic tone. What else could be said?

             
“No. Stop it. I do not deserve for you to forgive me so easily.”

             
“Maura, I don't want to talk about this!” I shot at her when I felt tears well in my eyes suddenly.

             
“I was a coward. I was afraid
of what Michael was going to do to me. I deserve a lifetime in hell for allowing him to do what he did to you. It's all my fault. Everything you feel now is my fault.” She was crying again and straining to continue. “I know that. I deserve everything that
has happened to me. I do, Brynna.”

             
“Stop it!” I whispered firmly as the tears brimmed and prepared to fall.

             
“I love you and I am so sorry. I don't expect you to forgive me. You don't owe me that. What I want more than for my guilt to go away is for you
to be alright, Brynna. I just want you to live a happy
life. I want you to fall in love. I want you to have children of your own someday because you will be the best mother. Just look at how you are with Penny...”

             
“I will not be engaging in such foolish t
riviality again. I fell in love once and it ended terribly. I loved a man who was nothing more than a liar.”

             
“He was nothing.”
             
“He was
everything
, Maura!” I exclaimed in indignation before jumping up and starting to pace. “He is the only man I have ever
trusted. He is the only man that I have ever loved! And the only reason we met is because Adam sent him after me!”
             
“I know how badly it hurts you.”
             
“It doesn't hurt me!” I snapped at her. “It pisses me off!”

             
“Stop.” She whispered. “Sit down.”

             
I stopped
walking when I felt my heart racing and my head spinning. I sat down beside her again, knowing I would collapse if I continued to stand.

             
“I know it doesn't seem like it, but you will love again, Brynna. I know that I warned you against them. I know that
my own love life is not an example. But you will love someone again, and they will be good and strong and they will love you, too. They will never inflict this pain on you. All of those ideals you told me about from your books, all of those things that you
said you don’t believe in… They’re real, Brynna. They’re real, and you deserve them. You will have every last one of them, my darling.”

             
I shook my head slightly, though I wanted so desperately to believe her. When I looked at her, my tears had multiplied
. She saw them and reached out to wipe them away.

             
“Do you promise?” I whispered in the voice of a child.

             
She nodded and smiled weakly.

             
“I promise.”

             
She gave a weak moan of pain again. I reached out and grabbed hold of her hands. I brought them to my ch
est and held them tightly. A feeling took my breath away when it emerged suddenly. I realized that I needed her. I realized that everything, every terrible moment in our joint past, didn't matter anymore. It was of the old world and the old world was gone.
I had promised that Pangea would be a new start for everyone and yet, I held old world grudges. I allowed myself to succumb to old world pain.

I had to let it go.

             
“Maura, I just realized something.”
             
“Yeah?” She managed to mutter as she opened her eyes.

             
“I need you. I cannot do this without you.”

             
“
Shh
...” She wiped my eyes again. “You can do anything, Brynna Claire.
Anything,
do you understand me?”

             
“But I need you to stay with me!” My voice cracked and a stray tear streamed down my cheek.

             
“I said,” S
he cringed in pain for a moment, stifling a soft moan. “I said, 'Do you understand?'”

             
I nodded and moved closer to her.

             
“Stay with me. Stay with me, Maura.” I whispered after pressing my forehead to hers. Her hands grasped my face. As the tears finally f
ell, I whispered words I had not said to her in many, many years:

             
“I love you.”

             
“I know you do. I love you, too. I have hurt you terribly… and yet I love you the most.”

             
A sob escaped me and I felt her tears running down her face onto my hands.

             
“I love
you so much, my beautiful Brynna.”

             
So clichéd, and yet the only words that could ever matter. Her lips kissed my cheek twice. I laid my head against her chest, crying harder when I felt her arms wrapping around me.

             
“It's alright, honey.” She whispered t
o me as I sobbed and held onto her for all the life left in us
both. “
Shh...
Everything is going to be alright, my sweet girl. I promise you. I promise, darling.
”

At the end of her life, she had resumed the task she had taken at the beginning of mine; she
calmed my cries with ease and gentleness while I was bundled up snugly in her arms. We were, most definitely, consumed by one of life's full circles.

             
“I wanted it to be you… here with me.”

             
I nodded and held onto her even more tightly.

             
“I'm here.” I whi
spered back through my tears.

             
I still don't know how long we laid there before I heard her breathing and heartbeat slow and stop. But I will tell you that there is one thing I know for sure, and you might not believe it: When I sat up, the weight of the p
ain had lifted. I nearly toppled over from the new lightness of my being. I looked down at her, at how she looked to be merely asleep, and though my tears still fell, I knew that in her last moments, she had taken the pain from me. She would carry it for m
e far away, to wherever she was going, where it could never harm me again. That was her final gift to me. That was her final act of repentance and apology.

             
“Come on.” Elijah was saying softly to me. I hadn't realized that he had come to check on me. Now,
I was the one being steered from the room. I was the one being escorted, mercifully, from the terrible sadness of Maura's death. I had never imagined that I would feel a thing. I had never guessed I would grieve her passing. But then, even when I hated her
, I had
always
loved her. Love and hate are so very close, after all.

             
My immediate action upon reentering the hall was to embrace Violet. Upon seeing my tear-streaked face, she knew the worst had happened. Her sobs were painful, twisting and wringing my i
nsides dry. But they were cleansing, at least on her end. They were the audible expulsion of her own grief. For her, crying relieved the pain.

             
When the building shook, I assumed my internal explosive energy had manifested in an imaginary outer display. Bu
t upon seeing the alarmed looks on the teary faces of Alice, Quinn and Elijah, I realized that something really was happening. The darkness had come. It was beating down our door, ready to destroy us as we stood in its path.

             
“Take them and find James! Run
!” The words tumbled from my mouth towards Elijah as the imminent danger of the situation registered clearly in my mind. I did not know exactly what was occurring above our heads nor did I want to send my friends and family to James for assistance, but I k
new swift action was necessary. In fact, it was the only crucial link between us and our lives continuing past the present.

             
Adam ran into the corridor just as I ducked back into the room with Maura. I couldn't leave her. I could hear him shouting to my fr
iends and siblings, ordering them to get out of the building. But I could not leave Maura's body, not when she, like everyone else both good and evil, deserved to be buried properly. After all she had suffered, I had to put her to rest.

             
“We have to go!” A
dam was shouting at me now. “They're here!”

             
“Who?” My tone betrayed my apathy. I cared nothing for the war anymore. The day, the place, had taken a toll on me. I could not afford a scrap of emotion as I was already being contorted and tormented by the pai
n of Maura's death and the stinging betrayal left by the truth I had learned about James.

             
“They stole the sun harness!”

             
“Adam, what the hell is a sun harness?” I asked, my voice never rising above a mere murmur.

             
“It doesn't matter what it is! We need to
go now!”

             
“I will not leave her.”

             
“What are you talking about, Brynna?” He demanded dangerously as he walked closer to me. “She is gone. There is nothing more that you can do for her.”

             
“I can bury her. I don't know if that's a custom...”

             
“Be quiet. Get
up. Let's go.” He ordered and a hazardous nuclear explosion of fury blasted
mightily inside of me. I stood up, whipped around, stormed towards him, and shoved him hard in his firm chest.

             
“If it wasn't for you, she would still be here!” I shouted before p
ushing him again. Surprisingly, I was able to make him stumble back a step. “You and your pitifully stupid war! And
you
sent James! I fell in love with him and it was all a
lie!
Why did you do this?!” I opened my hand, brought it up to his face and slapped
him hard. I was a fan of slapping. I was finding that it was the only remedy for certain infuriating things. It truly did help.

             
“Brynna, I will explain everything to you!” He grabbed both of my wrists in a painful hold. I grimaced but fought wildly to fr
ee them from his grasp only to find that he was as strong as he looked; he never lost or even weakened his grip.

             
The ceiling shed dust on the next impact. I could smell smoke. A fire had taken hold of the building and soon, we would be consumed by it. Ada
m was right; we had to leave. But one glance at Maura's peacefully absent body strengthened my resolve to stay.

             
“I'll carry her out. In a few minutes, I'll have gathered the strength to carry her.”

             
“We don't have a few minutes!” His voice thundered
deafeningly. I had angered him and I knew it. Under normal circumstances, my bullheaded nature entertained him but as the fire ate through the walls around us, closing in for the kill, he found my tendency to dig my heels in frustrating and also, potential
ly deadly. I would have been substantially irritated by such stubbornness, as well.