Love Conquers All _The Sequel_

Chapter Twenty - Defect

Mary's POV:

Fear turns my blood cold. I am almost paralyzed as I hold Michael, and the water doesn't feel so warm anymore. My neck suddenly aches, and I am frozen. I push myself past my own fright and begin to lift Michael out of the pool and onto the concrete. Tex runs around and helps me.

Once Michael is out of the water, we lay him on his back. His internal blood is seeping from his cracked, pale lips, and his eyes rapidly move beneath his tightly shut eyelids.

I find myself about to scream as I try to think of something to do. My mind is reeling one hundred miles per hour and my eyes are beginning to blur as they fill with tears.

Without really telling myself to, I place my hands over his heart and begin to try to perform CPR. He only coughs more and spits up more sticky blood, and I cry as I lean down to listen to his heart. Its beating erratically, and I'm lucky it's beating at all.

"What did I do?" I say to myself, feeling hopeless as I look around.

And then, I hear crying. Crying other than my own desperate sobbing. And it's not Tex either.

I sit Michael up, deciding that if he's gonna cough up blood, he should be upright so it can get out. I gesture for Tex to take my place and hold him up, and he moves in.

I stand and search for the source of the crying.

I peer behind bushes and around corners. The crying is loud as I pull back the leaves of one particular bush, where I find a weeping girl.

She has jaw length blonde hair, and her face is red as tears roll down her cheeks.

"W..what's wrong?" I stutter, holding out my hand to help her.

To my surprise, she sneers.

She spits at me.

Her glob of saliva lands square in my eye, and I squint as I wipe the sticky stuff off of my face, disgusted.

"What is wrong with you?" I accuse. As if things weren't bad enough with my husband spitting up blood, there's now a vivacious brat cowering in my bushes.

"You killed me!" She screams.

And I know now what is happening. She remembers, I guess. She's a defect, an experiment gone wrong, a traitor. I changed her back, she should be thankful.

"Well, your fine now, so shut up," I retaliate.

She lets out a heaving, squeaky sob.

"It's not fair!" Her voice cracks as she shouts, delusional.

"Get off of my property," I command and point away. She looks at me with pure animosity blazing in her tear glazed eyes.

"I'm getting my revenge," she tells me.

"Look, kid-" I start to say, but she cuts me off.

"I'm not a kid. My name is Kim." She spits at me again, but I dodge her airborne mucus, and smirk.

Without words, she holds up a tiny glass bottle which, to me, looks like a vial of vanilla extract. But as I glance closer, I can see a tiny skull painted across the label with the word "poison" beneath it. I look back up at her and she looks at Michael, seeming almost jovial.

"No..." I say, in disbelief.

"Yes... Murderer," she replies.

Fury boils behind my cheeks. Michael will die.

I grab the collar of her shirt and yank her face close to mine.

"Where is the anecdote?" I ask as calmly as I can muster. For a moment, she looks shocked, but her clever smirk soon returns to her lips.

"There isn't one."

This is the answer I was expecting, but she's lying.

"Give it to me or I will kill your family before your eyes," I threaten.

"No greater satisfaction," she remarks, and I am so taken aback by this that I stutter as I think of how to make my next move.

"Do you have a fear of heights, Kim?"
I ask, stepping away from her.

"What?" She asks, and before she can question me any further, I use my powers to lift her high in the air, higher than the trees, high enough to wear she can touch the clouds. She may remember me killing her, but never did she once suspect that I was a goddess.

She screams in the air, thrashing her legs.

"Fine!" She shrieks, "I'll give it to you!" She finally gives in, and although I'm enjoying instilling such terror within her, I lower her.

She lands safely, wide eyed as she tries to recover from the incident. Shakily, she hands me a little clear vial holding a thick, clear liquid.

In an instant, I blast ice all around her, freezing her to the ground. Without looking back once, I sprint towards Michael, who is still hacking up guts.

Tex moves aside as he sees me running, and I take Michael in my arms and stick the vial into his mouth. The liquid leaks into his throat and he swallows, for once refraining from his throat-tearing cough.

Relief washes over my like a cool tide hitting a sunbather on a steamy summer day, and I hug Michael, ignoring the hot, sticky blood smearing across my torso.

After we recover from our panicked reunion, I glance over to Kim, who is still frozen to the ground, trying to pull herself free.

I smirk as I stand and walk over to her.

"Now is the time for you to beg for your life," I tell her. "Again."