Descent

Chapter 26

If you would have told Nayeli Lamb that she would subjugate herself to the mesmerizing lyrics of The Platters after her ordeal with The Project at Eden's Gate, she would have laughed callously in your face. How many of her own Whitetail allies had she unwittingly killed under its influence. Even now it was a sore reminder of the one she had lost. Another tally of people she had lost over the years. Her soulmate. The father of her children. Her Jacob.

~Only you.~

Twisting a sweet childhood gesture into a tool of psychosis had been one of Jacob's greatest sins. It was also the one thing that allowed passage into The Citadel where the blood of her blood had been taken prisoner. While the Gift of Eden gave her the strength of ten individuals, it was Jacob's gift that gave her the edge she needed. She did not remember anything past getting through the first security checkpoint. Flashes of gunfire and screaming emitting from the Highwaymen who fell victim to her bare hands. To them, she was nothing more than a faceless figure hidden behind a mask and shadows. To her, it was like floating effortlessly through a crimson dream that she had been through too many times before. She felt her head sway side to side and she hummed to the melody of what had become her and Jacob's song.

~Only you.~

The others would not be too far behind. They simply had to follow the trail of bodies left behind. The crimson became illuminated as she found her way to her destination. The space was vast and open. At its center was the one who gave Nayeli the strength to go on. The one who got her through her horrific ordeal in Dutch's bunker. The one who had saved Prosperity. The one that she promised to never let go ever again.

Even as the swarms of their enemy threatened to engulf the two of them, Nayeli reached out her hand to the woman kneeling on the ground, battered, exhausted. Holding onto whatever light she had left. Nayeli tore her white mask away, her hands now fumbling to aside the woman's flaming locks. The dazed woman looked to Nayeli with eyes that rivaled both the earth's forests and its oceans.

"Mom, what are you-...." She sputtered, seemingly unable to realize what she was seeing, "You-you came for me?"

As the realization hit her, the woman's face contorted rapidly through a succession of emotions. Shock, disbelief before ultimately crumbling into a fury of tears, the woman grasped Nayeli and pulled her towards her, in an embrace.

"I left you...and Malik...I'm sorry mom. Mom, I'm so sorry-"

Nayeli held her daughter as protectively as she had the day she almost lost her so long ago in the bunker. When Joseph had threatened to take the last reminder she had of Jacob. She cooed and soothed her with whispers of reassurance.

"There's nothing to be sorry for. It's okay."

Nayeli stroked her daughter's matted hair out of her face, lovingly cupping her face within her grasp.

"I got you." Nayeli assured her, "My baby girl, I got you."

-----

Mai's eyes stung with the mixture of sweat and tears pooling around them as she clung onto her mother. But the Highwaymen would not simply stop for this touching mother-daughter moment. Raven would not stop. As quickly as her mother had appeared before her, the two jumped to their feet, ready to defend against the oncoming forces. Both Lamb and Seed glanced at one another, nodding in unison. With these odds, this was going to be one helluva fight.

As the first Enforcer neared, a thunderous boom shook both of their senses. Wincing momentarily, they looked and saw that the Enforcer lay dead on the ground. Another shot rang out, targeting another Highwayman flanking the duo. The rest of them scattered in confusion, allowing two figures to spring hastily towards them from the arena seats. Mai squinted in confusion as a man jumped down from the wall separating the ground of the arena from the seating area, holding his hands up to catch a heavily pregnant woman following suit.