The Centerpoint Trilogy (7 page)

All that Anna could feel was burning. The burning was outside of her body, but also within it. It swirled throughout her insides, eating at her lungs, her heart, every organ inside of her body. It was hot and everything it touched, it took. That was the thing about fire, she supposed. It did not leave anything free once it touched. She let out a scream, the pain more than she could bear. It burned her so deeply that it froze her senses, her ability to receive information.  She opened her eyes again and could not see. Pain was all she knew. She was pain and pain was her. She writhed and pulled at her bonds, trying to get free of the fire.

She twisted and turned, positively begging for release. Intense chaos and panic was all she knew and she wanted to scream, scream at the top of her lungs, but found that no sound would come out. Or perhaps, sound was coming out and she was now numb to it. She screamed out as loud as she possibly could. “Please! Please!” she yelled out, now finding words in the darkness. “Please!”

She then could hear Ethan on the outside of herself, but she could not see him. “Please let her go,” Ethan begged them, his voice getting higher and higher with each moment. Every word he spoke leapt up higher and higher.  “Please, let her go! She’s dying! Something’s happening to her, don’t you see!” His desperate begging made her mind slow down a little and think of a few questions. Was she dying? Were they killing her? That wasn’t what was happening… no. She was not dying. Dying was fading out. She was getting brighter and brighter as the moments passed. Everything inside of her was changing, growing and she was getting better.

Her mind went delirious with the pain, but quickly grew clearer. She wondered about her mother’s fate, wondered about meeting Ethan. She wished that she’d had more chance to go on dates with him. He was a very pretty boy and changed her mind about dating. Maybe it was worthwhile, some of the time. If she survived this then she was going to take that boy on so many dates. She could hear chanting above her. It was a melody all it’s own, a steady cadence that never stopped, no matter what.

“He is the key and she is the lock. They are the ones who will bring about the coming of the Celestial Centerpoint. The Centerpoint is eternal and that point will not be broken. The power of the mind will take the Celestial Centerpoint to where they need to be. This woman will be the answer and with our sacrifices she will thrive and bring about the end of days, the new era.”

              She kicked and screamed, finally hearing her voice loud and clear. She forced her eyes open as wide as she could, but she was still blind. All she could see was fire. The fire was red, it was raging. The red was like blood in her eyes. There was nothing that she could do to escape the redness. She tried to hear something besides their chanting, tried to open up her mind to the best of her abilities. She needed something besides their maniac’s lament. She needed to hear Ethan.

Anna.

             
She paused when she did hear him. He reached forth and gently held her hand in his. She held his back, squeezing. She was able to use her body. It was not consumed in the fire, not when she was with him. She squeezed his hand as tightly as she could. She was gripping for something, an anchor to reality, even if this version of reality was hardly something that she understood. She understood Ethan and that was enough.

             
Ethan.

              We have to use our powers, now!

             
Yes, he was right. Anna called upon the powers that were deep inside of her. They were stronger than the fire. She called upon the powers and let them fly. She opened her eyes and this time she saw. Things flew all about her. Everything in the room was momentarily in her command. She opened her eyes wide and looked around her. She felt as though her hand had wrapped around something and it was hers. It knocked the man off balance, but not enough. Why was something so powerful not enough for him? She flung something harder, a board that was about a foot thick. It whacked him in the head.

              The flames all around her spread. She wondered, briefly, if the flames that had been burning her up from the inside had escaped her. She felt that powerful. Maybe her body wasn’t enough of a containment field for them. Maybe she had let loose and they had flown. Maybe she had set them free from the jar that held them.

“There’s been a fire!” screamed the blonde, stopping mid-chant. Anna turned and lost her concentration completely.

              The blonde woman screamed as a real fire engulfed her body. She twisted and turned and did everything in her power to bat off the flames. The man broke free of his revelry and stared for a moment. The woman shrieked and screamed and for a moment, Anna too was mesmerized by the flaming woman. Then, she realized that there was something she needed to do.

              Anna focused on that energy and that anger inside of herself. It was too strong, too close to the surface of her being. She let out a wild sounding yell that hardly sounded like herself; hell, it hardly sounded human. She let out that tiny little scream and then the force burst through her like something had broken. The chains gave way and she and Ethan were freed from their imprisonment.

The fire whipped and turned around them. It did not touch them, at first though, as much as she could feel the heat on her skin. It went towards their captives, specifically the blonde woman. As she watched, Anna saw as the flames surrounded her, as though consuming her.

“Help! Help!” screamed the woman. The flames licked at her skin delicately for a moment, before catching in her hair. It caught and the man next to her staggered to his feet, while she attempted to put the fire out. It caught through her hair and then she was on fire. The woman in front of them was writhing in pain while the man struggled to put her out.  He took off his shirt revealing a pale, hairy, undefined chest. He threw his shirt at her. She tried her best to roll around. Anna looked at her one more time before looking to Ethan. They took their opportunity and ran out the door that the man and the women had come through earlier. Thankfully it was still unlocked. They ran as fast as they could down what seemed to be a long hallway.

They ran like their lives depended on it. Ethan reached forward and held Anna’s hand to him and she didn’t allow him to let go. She needed that tight hold on herself as they bolted down the hallway. Her heart pounded hard, so hard that she could hear it in her head. It felt as though her blood was on fire. She took a deep, shuddering breath but she could not get enough oxygen.

              “Was it Alicia?” she asked, realizing that she had no idea where the blast came from.

              Ethan stooped down and scooped a small child into his arms. The toddler was crying, screaming her head off. Her face was red and streaked with tears and she was crying so hard that she was gagging, gasping for air like she was on the verge of throwing up. Ethan soothed her, making hushing sounds and rubbing her back. “No, I don’t think that it was Alicia,” he said dryly. He picked the toddler up close to his chest and then started running again. Anna ran after them.

              “Momma!” screamed the child, the only coherent word amongst her childlike babbling. “Momma!”

              They ran and ran until they found their families.

The baby screamed desperately and flailed her hands about. Ethan could tell that she was absolutely terrified and tried to soothe her by rubbing her back as they ran, but he could do no such thing. The baby was screaming her lungs out, tears in her dark eyes. She had the same eyes that Alicia did.  “Stop! Momma!” she wailed in absolute terror and that was when the flames sprung forth again. They shot from her like lightning bolts and then the wood walls caught fire. The flames spread like wildfire. There was nothing to stop them.

Ethan screamed out to Anna. “Go ahead of us,” he said, slowing down so that the woman could dart ahead. Anna paused and looked at him, not understanding. “Get her mom here!” he added. If the baby saw her mother, she would calm down. The flames began licking up the walls and were certain to engulf the whole building at the rate they were spreading, using the bare, dry walls as fuel.

He followed after her as fast as he could. “Please stop,” he begged the child. The flames seemed to chase them down the hallway, running as fast as they could. It was faster than he was; he hoped they could get to their families and get them out, if they still remained in the building. He sighed with relief when he saw figures huddled together at the end of the hallway and down the stairs. They were all huddled together. They seemed to have gathered in the lobby. “Get out of the building. It’s burning down!”

Alicia came running up to him. Her jaw was slack and tears were streaming down her face. Her eyes were red and protruding slightly from her face in shock.  “Baby!” she screamed, pulling the small child into her arms. He transferred the tiny child into her arms and Alicia held on so tightly that she squealed in pain and then started crying. “Baby, please stop…” . The baby hiccuped, still choking on her own tears but she stopped crying and the flames stopped intensifying. “Did she…” the woman stopped and contemplated the horror. Behind Ethan was a wall of flame.

He nodded, and then pushed her and the baby outside. They ran out of the building as if they were a pack of animals. Anna’s mother and the poor James’ grandmother got out first, followed by Anna. Ethan put his hand on the back of Alicia’s shoulder and pushed her and the baby along the path to get out to freedom. They could worry about all of this later.

They got outside and the fresh air flooded Ethan’s lungs. It was cold and rejuvenated him, infusing life into a body that he hadn’t even known had been approaching death.  He took a sharp inhalation in and relaxed immensely. His body had been deprived of oxygen and heh had hardly been aware. A moisture filled his eyes and he turned around, only to have two very strong arms wrap around him and hold tightly. It was his brother and he was clinging to Ethan for dear life. His brother was only slightly older and they had been distant in recent years, but he never felt stronger about the man in his whole life.  His brother was brave and strong and he had done all he could for the good of others. He needed him. Oh god, his brother was okay.

He wrapped his arms around the man and hugged him. “Are you okay?” he asked.

His brother hugged back just as tightly. They pulled back only enough to look into each other’s eyes and the man nodded. “I’ll be okay if you will, bro.”

“We will be.”

Behind them, the building had been engulfed in flames. Ethan could hear the sirens of firetrucks in the distance and knew that help was on the way, but the people who had tried to destroy them were far beyond helping. His pity was there, but needless to say it was a bit on the limited side. He clung to his brother as he watched it all burn. It was burning down and away from them forever.

              “He has to be dead,” Ethan told Alicia, looking over to the woman. The woman was holding her child in her arms and looking at her with a mix of shock, awe and total horror. Ethan could not blame her, although it hardly had been the child’s fault. She was gifted with whatever was done to her parent when Alicia was only a little girl. That gift, uncontrolled, had been attached to her strong emotions over her mother’s predicament. The child had acted on a complete instinct, but it was starting to become obvious to Ethan and to the child’s mother that the baby had killed. She had not meant to kill, but she had done what she had to in order to protect those that she loved. “He’s dead and he more than deserved it, for all he’s done. He killed people, Alicia…”

The woman nodded, but her face still seemed washed over with horror. She clung as tightly as she physically could to her child and kissed the top of the little girl’s head. The baby, while squirming, no longer made sound and just watched the fire with wide, scared eyes. He did not blame the child. She had been afraid and threatened and her instincts had kicked in. Instincts were usually good, despite the devastation that had been left in the wake of those instincts. “It’ll be okay…” Alicia muttered dryly.

              Ethan nodded at her and clasped his hand on his brother’s shoulder. The man’s face had been hard and tense, but was now slowly relaxing. The tension was bleeding out of it, as exhaustion.  He and his brother stood there, while watching Anna and her mother, along with James’ grandmother. The two women wanted to hug, to talk, to do something. That much was obvious but they were more focused on the old woman between them.

The firetrucks and paramedics came quickly. They were all treated for shock and James’ poor grandmother was loaded onto a stretcher. Her body went limp, although Ethan was unsure if she had fainted or had been sedated. Either way, she was going to be struggling long and hard now. His heart ached just thinking about it. He watched as Anna conversed with her mother.  The ache was something that the women were feeling as well.

“God that poor woman…” Anna whispered. “She watched her grandson die and...all of this…” Tears started to fill Anna’s eyes and he wanted nothing more than to walk over there and wrap his arms around her; he knew, however, that this was her mother’s job.

              Her mother held Anna tightly, doing as all good mothers did. She kept her arms around her daughter and rocked lightly. “It’s gonna be okay baby,” her mother said, stroking her hair and rocking her lightly. “All of the things that have haunted you, all of your life, they’re gone now. That horrible man is gone and there’s nothing left to be afraid of. You kids can finally live a life that is no longer plagued by a madman.”

              “Yes…” Anna said. Her gaze turned to Alicia and the baby and Ethan knew that the smart woman was thinking the same thing that he was. It was never truly over and to think it was, well, that was just stupid.

              Finally, after what seemed like forever, the police stop questioning them and Anna walked over to him. She looked like she had so much to say to him, but instead of speaking just kept opening and closing her mouth sporadically. Instead of speaking, she decided on reaching over and taking his hand in hers and yes, that was honestly the best thing ever.