The Centerpoint Trilogy (26 page)

              The powers began to merge together. Grace could feel them as they rolled up into a delicate, yet fully formed ball of energy. They combined together and moved faster than anything that could be perceived, sensed, felt. She leaned back and shook her head as she let herself merge with the other two girls. In that moment, she was not just one girl. She was part of something powerful, something amazing and she was just as much as the two others she had been joined with.

              That did not mean, of course, that the Alturi did not fight back. In her mind, there was a white light, something that came from the Alturi and it was crushing them. She could feel the sense of utter hopelessness that was flowing all around them. She took in a deep breath and tried not to let the Alturi crush her or the two girls that she was now a part of, merged together with.

              She had always been under the control of someone else. As a young child, she had been caught and held by the memory of her mother - a memory that she knew she logically was not supposed to have. She was completely overwhelmed by those memories and the powers that came with them. She wasn’t just a girl, ever. She had always been a girl with the power to hurt, to kill and that overwhelmed her.

              She was more now and she was in control. With these two girls, she was part of something great, yet despite being part of something great, she was not controlled by it. She was part of this greatness, yet she was her own person and stronger than she had ever been. She could learn to be a good person and have value outside of all of the forces around her. These girls would allow her to be something great, while at the same time be a part of something great.

              She was powerful. She let that loose upon the Alturi.

              The powers merged together. They flew up and combined in a flurry of light, something that blinded Grace from the inside and out. It was like the light that the Alturi had taken her over with, but more powerful. Things flew through the air, all on fire and the Alturi hurt. The Alturi hurt the moment that the three girls struck them with their powers, bound together. Their tortured screams were painful, but deserved.

              These ancient creatures, so insistent upon destruction died screeching, screaming their lungs out. Something exploded.

              Rubble, chaos and horror filled the room.

              Grace felt extreme pain and then nothing.

Epilogue

              The ride to the hospital via ambulance was a long one. Grace knew this, but for some reason, she could not remember a single detail about it. One minute the building had exploded and the next, well, the girl was now sitting in a hospital room with two girls who were something akin to her sisters. They were both young, beautiful girls. She was really looking at them for the first time now, free of the influence of the Alturi on her brain. Genesis was lying in a bed, with Rhiannon sitting at it’s end. It would have looked like a teenager’s slumber party, if not for the setting.

              Their parents, or well, Rhiannon and Genesis’ parents, had been bustling in and out of the room all day. This was the first time that the three of them had true privacy. Elliot, her father, was in his own hospital room with several broken bones, a concussion and burns that didn’t seem to affect any of the three. Still, despite not having the burns, the three girls were all hurt.

              Genesis had broken her wrist in the explosion and had a sling holding it close to her chest. She was covered in bruises and bumps. Rhiannon’s face was a mismatched mask of red and purple bruises and she’d broken some bones in her cheek. Grace herself had broken her nose and two ribs and had every color bruise under the sun. They had come out battered, but alive and kicking.

              “So here we are,” Rhiannon laughed, leaning into Genesis with a smile and looking to Grace.

              “Here we are,” she agreed. She was not entirely sure what was going to happen next, to her or to any of them. They were in a strange, precarious place, where they were hanging over the edge of what was going to happen to them next. “The question is: where are we going?”

              The darker skinned girl smirked at that, a light, playful smile that lit up her eyes. “Well, you’re getting back into my dad’s custody,” she said, “and that makes us official sisters. So, wherever you go, I will be going too.”

              “And that makes me your sister too,” Genesis said, smirking slightly and cradling her arm close to her chest. She winced. “Sorry, honey, but Rhi and I have been sisters since I was born and that’s just something you have to deal with. Me and Rhi come as a packaged deal, even if I am the more obnoxious one.”

              “I can deal with that,” she murmured. She looked up cautiously at the two other girls. As much as she wanted a future where she could call both of these girls sister, the future scared her. “Are you sure that you two don’t hate me for everything that I did? I mean, I did let them in. I didn’t mean to cause any harm. I just wanted to have a future with my mom and I…”

              “Don’t.”

              Rhiannon looked at her, smiled, and then eased herself off of the bed. She walked across the room, to the bed that Grace was sitting on, and sat beside her with a slight wince. She reached around and pulled Grace close, hugging her tightly. “We’re family now,” she said softly. “We’re family and that means that we forgive, forget and understand each other’s struggles. We’re going to do this together. Whatever comes our way, we’re going to take it down as three badass chicks with superpowers.”

              Grace hugged her back and chuckled lightly. That was true. They
were
three badass females with superpowers. That was a nice way to put it, and made her feel extremely comfortable. She gently hugged Rhi, careful not to jostle her bandaged ribs. “We’re powerful,” she said as she pulled away. She could not help the slight fear in her eyes, and did not bother trying to hide it.

              “It’s going to be okay,” Rhiannon said, stroking her hair in just the way that Grace had always imagined an older sister would. “Yeah, we’re super powerful and there’s no way that this is the end of our story, but we’re...we’re together now. We’re the ones who are going to change the world and we’re together.”

              After a short while, Genesis excused herself. She gingerly got up, wincing a bit in pain. “I need to go see my mom,” she said, after gingerly rising, then headed down the hall. Grace had a feeling that their parents and the hospital staff both would not like her getting up and down, but she also had a feeling that her newfound family member was not going to take that lying down. Plus, she had a strange feeling that Gen was actually stepping out of the room so that she and Rhiannon could talk. She appreciated that, she appreciated it a lot.

              "I'm happy that we're going to be sisters," Rhiannon murmured, after a moment of silence that followed Genesis' leaving. "My dad was always so sad about the child that he never was able to have and ... here you are."

              "Do you think I can really be his daughter?"

              "I think you are," she laughed. "Biologically too."

              "You know what I mean," Grace murmured. She had the strangest feeling about this whole thing. She did not feel that she was actually worthy of her father, as terrible as that sounded. She had lived with these strange memories of her mother and nobody could really tell her what her mother and the Celestial Centerpoint had done to her before. Would she ever be truly worthy of her father and his adoptive daughter, who he had years to learn to love?

              "We're family," Rhiannon said firmly. "Family doesn't judge you for the things you've done, the choices you've made, or what you are biologically. Real family loves, no matter what. I can tell you for a fact, as someone who's lived as Elliot Wayne's daughter since I was eight, that he is the epitome of a family man. He's going to take care of us."

              Grace smiled at that. She knew that Rhiannon was right. Ease filled her and she sighed softly. "I need to learn to control myself."

              "Another thing we'll do together," Rhi assured.

              They had been through so much. The powers had done them good and bad, but now they could do good. They could have a good future and help peop