Chapter 23 #2
I leaned forward and carefully placed the baby in her arms, adjusting the blanket around him. Her hands trembled as they came up to cradle him, and a sound escaped her throat. Half sob, half laugh. The kind of sound only a mother could make when meeting the child she would never get to raise.
“He’s so beautiful,” she whispered, staring down at his tiny face with wonder.
“He is,” I agreed, my throat tightening with emotion.
We sat there in silence for a moment, just the three of us, as if it had always been meant to be this way. The baby made a soft cooing sound, and Nikki’s tears spilled over, tracking down her ashen cheeks in slow, fragile lines.
“I’m sorry.” The words came out barely audible as she met my eyes briefly. “For everything. I’m so sorry, Jemma.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Sorry didn’t fix the damage she’d done.
It didn’t undo the pain or the betrayals or the nights I’d spent wondering if I was losing my mind.
But looking at her now, dying with her son in her arms for the first and last time, I couldn’t find it in me to be cruel back to her.
“I know,” I said simply.
Her breathing was getting shallower with every second that passed. More labored. Whatever color had been left in her cheeks was draining away like water through a sieve.
“Will you…” She paused, struggling to get the words out. “Will you take care of him? Please? I know he’ll be safe with you.”
The question shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did.
I had saved his life in the end. And I was his blood.
But I still hadn’t seen it coming. I looked down at the baby in her arms again, at his tiny fingers curled against the blanket, at the way his chest rose and fell with each fragile breath.
“I’ll protect him with my life,” I promised, meaning it with everything that I had.
Something that might have been relief washed over her features. “Thank you,” she breathed as her eyes drifted closed for a moment.
The baby stirred in her arms, making another soft sound, and her lips curved into the faintest smile.
“I love you,” she whispered to him. “I love you so much.” Her voice broke on the last word.
A few beats of silence passed before she found her voice again. And then, softly, achingly, she began to hum.
It was so soft and low, I almost didn’t hear it. Just a few broken notes of a lullaby I didn’t recognize, fragile and devastating in its simplicity. A song for a child who would never hear it again.
Tears blurred my vision and spilled hot down my cheeks as I watched her sing her final goodbye to the son she would never know.
To the boy she would never watch grow up.
The melody faltered as her chest rose once more, a shallow rise that took everything she had left to give.
And then it fell for the last time. Her hands slipped away from her son, fingers loosening their hold as the last breath left her body.
I caught the baby before he could slip, pulling him back against my chest as Nikki’s head rolled to the side. Her eyes stayed half-open, fixed on nothing. The desperate, unrelenting intensity that had lived in them for as long as I’d known her finally, mercifully, gone.
I sat there for the longest moment of my life, holding her son while her body cooled beside me. Feeling the weight of the promise I had just made and the life I had just agreed to take responsibility for.
And I would. With every fiber of my being. With every breath I had left in me. I would keep him safe from the prophecies and the darkness and anyone who tried to use him for their own ends. He would never be a weapon. Never be a pawn. He would just be a boy.
I looked down at his tiny face, at the way his gray eyes had drifted closed in sleep, at the perfect curve of his cheek and the small hand that had curled against my chest. He was so small and innocent. So completely unaware of everything that had been done in his name.
He deserved better than the destiny that had been written for him. Better than the life all of us had been cursed to. And as sure as I was sitting there breathing, I silently vowed to move heaven and earth to make sure he got it.
Then I stood and walked out of the room.
The sisters were in the main room, working in shared silence to clean up the aftermath of everything that had gone down tonight. Demon ash swept into piles. Scorch marks scrubbed from the floorboards. They looked up when I appeared in the doorway.
“She’s gone,” I said quietly.
A brief silence fell over the room, as though none of us were quite sure what the right words were for a moment like this. But the sisters didn’t pretend to grieve for long. There was too much work to be done. Too many bodies to deal with. Too many questions left unanswered.
“I need to get back,” I said, adjusting my hold on the baby.
Anita nodded and stepped forward, her hands reaching out. “I’ll take him.”
I arched a brow and let out a short, humorless laugh. “The baby stays with me.”
Her hands froze mid-reach. “Do you really think that’s wise?"
"Yes."
"The Order will come after you harder than they ever have before. How are you going to fight them with a baby? You’re barely an adult yourself. You can’t even control your own power half the time—”
“He’s family,” I cut in, my voice coming out harder than I’d intended.
“My blood. And no one in this world is going to understand him better or protect him fiercer than I will. So if you think you’re taking him from me, you’re welcome to try.
But I promise you, it won’t end well for anyone involved. ”
Anita’s lips twitched. Almost a smile. “Just when I was starting to like you.”
“Well, you should keep doing that because I’m going to need your help,” I said flatly.
“And what makes you think we’d help you again?”
“Because helping me means protecting him,” I said, meeting her eyes with unflinching certainty.
“And after everything you did to get him here safely, after all the spells and planning and risk you took to bring him into this world, you’re not going to let him fall into the wrong hands now.
You need me just as much as I need you.”
Anita studied me for a beat and then glanced over at her sisters. Some silent conversation passed between them before she turned back to me.
“Do you really think you can do this? That you can raise the Son of Perdition while the entire supernatural world is hunting for him?” she asked as though the notion were almost laughable.
“No,” I admitted honestly. “But I won’t be doing it alone. I have my family. And now I have the three of you.”
Annabelle scoffed. “Bold of you to assume we’d agree to that.”
“Bold of you to assume you have a choice,” I countered.
“You brought him into this world. You want him to see his first birthday? His tenth? To grow up and become something other than what everyone expects? Then you’re going to use every ounce of your considerable power to help me protect him.
Because if you don’t, and the Order gets their hands on him, everything you did here tonight, all the blood and death and sacrifice, it’ll be for nothing. ”
The sisters exchanged another look. This one lasted considerably longer.
“She’s not wrong,” said Arianna quietly.
Annabelle’s jaw tightened. “The Order will come after you for this. You know that, right? The moment they find out you have him—”
“They’re already coming after me,” I cut in. “They’ve been coming after me since the moment they found out about me, and probably even before that. That ship has long since sailed. The only thing that matters now is whether you’re going to stand with me when they come or against me.”
A tense and drawn-out silence stretched between us for a beat.
Then Anita’s mouth curved into something that might have been a smile. “Alright, Slayer. You’ve got our allegiance. But if this goes badly, I reserve the right to say I told you so.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
Arianna stepped forward then, her expression considerably softer than her sisters’. “What will you call him?”
I looked down at the baby sleeping peacefully in my arms, at the innocent face that had no idea what kind of storm was waiting for him out there. What name could possibly carry the weight of everything he would face?
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted, brushing my thumb lightly over his tiny fist. “But it won’t be a name that marks him as a weapon or a harbinger of the end of times.
It’ll be something that reminds him he has a choice in who he becomes.
Something that gives him the strength and courage to face whatever battles lie ahead. ”
Arianna nodded slowly. “He’ll need it. The courage, I mean. The world won’t make this easy for him.”
“I know,” I said, my grip tightening protectively around him. “But he won’t face it alone.”
“No,” agreed Anita, the faintest glimmer of respect flickering in her eyes. “He most certainly won’t.”