wrath of the Sea Queen (176 page)

As for the second
trait,
C
a
eli no longer
possessed that treasure
.  Rika
's carelessness c
ost
the life of her
own
child, and
n
ow
she
wanted a replacement.  She wanted to feel life inside of her again.  C
a
eli did not know how, but she suspected that Max was somehow involved with Rika's first unsuccessful attempt to make that happen. 
But
, Rika messed up.  She
was responsible for having
C
a
eli's child
killed
, and C
a
eli intended to see her held accountable for such an
unforgiveable
act
.
  C
a
eli would reveal
what she learned
to Vin and let him help bring Rika to a reckoning for her deed.
  He deserved that right.

"
No.  You
are wrong
.  Your mind has been so polluted recently that you are simply unaware.  You must listen to me.  Give me a chance to explain.
"

"No!  Leave me alone.  You
ha
ve done enough." 

From where Ben sat in
the
chair next to the dresser,
whomever
C
a
eli
was
talking
to
in her sleep
was causing her a good deal of stress
.  He only caught bits and pieces of what she was saying, a
nd very little of it made sense.  Nonetheless, he was strongly tempted to wake her.  Just when he reached forward to do so, the conversation seemed to end and he refrained.

C
a
eli woke
, sore and thirsty,
thirty minutes after Ben arrived. 
Her dream
about Rika
was temporarily forgotten. 
Ben brought her a glass of water and
,
with some assistance, she drank
all of
it.  That helped take the edge off her pain, but she knew it would soon bring an issue of a different kind.  She thanked Ben and closed her eyes again.  She was not sleeping, but
also
was not in a mood to talk
yet
. 
C
a
eli
struggled to figure out why she
felt
so
unsettled.

Last night, Salma made sure that C
a
eli understood that she lost her baby.  S
alma
said it was important for her to know what happened.  C
a
eli miscarried due to
the damage of
her
recent injuries
combined with
stress
and
the
toxins
that ravaged
her system
and
th
e baby
's
.  She lost her baby boy
; Vin's baby boy
.  She didn't know how she
was aware of
the gender, but
C
a
eli
was certain
that she was going to have a son
. 

She
understood that he died,
but she was not certain that the cause was exactly what Salma determined. 
The loss had been intentionally inflicted by Rika's
lackey
, the man in black
. 
Regardless,
C
a
eli
knew that
she no longer carried the child inside of her. 
Salma
, thinking that C
a
eli hadn't noticed,
took
him away
in a wad of stained towels
.

C
a
eli placed her hands across her abdomen and sighed softly, tears welling in her eyes.  She did not see Ben
briefly
glance
up from his newspaper
and
then
sadly
look
away
again
. 

Somehow,
she
did not feel any different
, physically,
after the miscarriage
,
than she
did
yesterday.  She
thought she could
still fe
e
l
a
faint connection to the
tiny
life inside of her
; a life
she
never
really
got the chance to know
.  She glanced over at the machine with the towel covering the screen. 
C
a
eli
had known
him
,
briefly
, and
saw
him once
before
she lost him
. 
Yet, a
side from her injuries and her enormous guilt,
C
a
eli
could not detect any physical differences concerning her pregnancy between
now
a
nd
before the tra
gic loss
. 

C
a
eli determined that it must be
similar to
the time she thought Vin died.  She still felt as if he was standing beside her.  She still expected
Vin
to be there.  That must be what she was experiencing now.  As much as it hurt her to know the truth, the lingering feeling
inside
made it much harder to accept
the loss
;
e
specially when, against all odds, Vin
had
c
o
me back to her.  Th
at
was not going to happen with her child.  The loss was permanent. 
How could she ever explain this to Vin?  He had been so happy.  C
a
eli
had
felt the depth of his
heartache
as he sat in the shower with her the night before.  His
sadness
only added to her burden.  Although he was being genuinely supportive
and would n
ever
admit it
, Vin
had to
be terribly disappointed.  It was almost too much to bear.

"
I
can't believe I let her take
Vin's son.
"
  C
a
eli did
n
o
t realize she said it out loud
.

S
he could no longer suppress her tears.  She spent the next ten minutes trying futilely to stop the g
eyser
of emotion
that
burst forth
along with those words
.  When she finally managed to bring her tears under control again,
that wave of
her grief was spent
.  C
a
eli
fell asleep
once more
.

A
gain
, she
dreamt
of strange happenings
.  Th
e
dream
quickly turned into
a
nightmare. 
C
a
eli
was
alone
on the beach facing the man in black.  He
had
already t
aken
her child, and now he was trying to hurt her again.  Vin was nearby, but he was hurt.  Salma was being threatened
. 
C
a
eli
could not tell by whom
, but her life was in danger
. 
A choice was being forced upon
C
a
eli
to decide which of her two loved ones would live or die.
  The longer she delayed
,
the more
she
, herself,
was hurt. 
The
pain
was incredible
. 
Fr
antically
, she
tried to move, to help Vin or Salma, to
avoid the damage being done to her, to
do anything at all.
  She tried to stop the pain.

"
No!
"
  C
a
eli cried out.

"
C
a
eli
..
. 
C
a
eli
, w
ake up,
Lass
,
"
Ben's
kind
voice and his
firm
hand on her shoulder gently prodded
her to o
pen her eyes
.