Edits, Take 2
Chapter Two: Forgive Me
Please forgive me
If I act a little strange
For I know not what I do
Feels like lightening running through my veins
Every time I look at you.
-David Gray
Michael sat at the computer terminal, his eyes burning as he looked at yet another schematic of the sewer system. Silently, he thanked God this was upstate Pennsylvania and not New York. Just by being in the state over from the coven house, they placed themselves in enough danger. Word reached them of one of their convoys encountering some difficulties while traveling to the international airport in Philadelphia. It turned out that one of the cars crashed...and that a small child was seen running from the scene and into the woods.
When they arrived on the scene, they tracked small shoe prints pressed into the cold mud leading up to a slightly opened entryway into the sewer system. Nearly three days had passed since they began searching and with every passing moment, most of them believed this to be yet another dead end. He dropped his head into his hands, rubbing his fingertips into his scalp with a loud sigh. Sliding his face up and staring into the screen blankly, he kept a constant prayer that tonight would yield something, anything that would lead them to their daughter.
The always familiar ache in his arms came back; the same yearning to hold his child that occurred the moment he guided her into the world. He longed to feel the gentle rise and fall of her chest, to cradle her close, kiss her forehead and cheeks, then whisper how beautiful she is and how much he and Selene love her.
Tears tugged at the corners of his eyes and he shook his head to be rid of them. Now was not the time to be emotional. Despite outward appearances, Michael was affected by their daughter's disappearance more than most people know. He suffered through watching his fiance die as he sat by her, helpless. To have his daughter, he own flesh and blood, snatched away right under his nose was more painful than anything. But he kept quiet, curling up under his own skin, and comforted Selene when she allowed herself to weep.
Focusing his eyes, he pulled up another map and continued to work on a plan for tomorrow night's search.
"Michael?" a very soft voice asked. Turning his head, Victoria, one of the younger lycans, stepped up beside the terminal. Immediately, he noticed the look on her face, almost like that of a child who found the Christmas presents under their parents' bed.
"Yes?" he asked, curious to know the reasons behind her expression.
"The team just called and...," she smiled as Michael's eyes widened. "And Selene found her."
"One, two..." Selene gasped softly as she finally squeezed through. The bars on the grate were close together, but one bent slightly to the side. That must be how she got in, Selene figured when the team returned with no entrance available. Thankfully, wet leather and latex slides easily against metal and sludge.
A voice crackled over the headsets and Samuel looked up to her through the grimy iron bars, stepping back into the water. "The equipment crew will be here shortly."
Selene barely heard him but nodded just the same. Random beams of light streamed up into the short tunnel from the team's guns. From the dilapidated look and smell of mold, Selene knew it had been a while since anyone had actually been in this part of the sewers. Thick, dark mud coated the floor, sticking to her suit as she knelt down.
With hands shaking like mad, she stopped for a second before reaching out to the tiny form on the ground. In four years of imagining this moment, she found herself unsure of what to do. No chains, no screaming, no Dealers to vent out years of rage and pain on; just a small child, laying sideways in a pool of mud that smelt slightly of blood. Tears trickled slowly down Selene's ivory cheeks and she flexed her hands in and out of fists to calm herself.
"I guess she was hungry." Selene smiled as the baby yawned, snuggling into her chest further. Tiny, dark eyes opened, looking up at Michael as he sat down and wrapped his arm around Selene's shoulder. He gently touched the child's cheek, running his index finger up and down the soft skin. At the soothing motion, the baby closed her eyes and fell asleep, the tiny chest rising and falling with each breath.
Steeling herself, Selene gently placed her hands flat on the child's back. A quiet, shaky sob escaped her lips as she felt the gentle rise and fall from breathing. Carefully, Selene turned and lifted the child into her lap, careful to cradle the fragile being's neck and head. Wiping away the dirt and mud from the tiny face, she found herself looking into a perfect blend of her and Michael's features set against a gaunt and drawn body. From her rounded lips and soft cheeks, to Michael's nose and ears, Selene studied each curve and dip in the skin with blurred vision.
The beauty of their reunion was almost brought up short as Selene began to check the girl for injury. Several large cuts on the chest, a slash mark on her arm, an entire fingernail missing and what looked like three broken fingers gave her the appearance of a battle-weary soldier instead of a child. Dirt coated the pale skin of her face, but even beneath that, black and blue marks rested on the visible jaw and cheek bones.
"We're starting, m'lady," her radio announced. The equipment arrived to cut the grate open.
As Selene lifted the child away from the soon to be construction zone, she felt a heated anger rise in her: the child could not have weighed more than thirty pounds. If they were lucky.
Selene sat down a few feet from the soon to be opened grate, cradling what she knew to be her child possessively. She remained sleeping, almost unconscious; she prayed it wasn't a concussion or severe head trauma. Tears fell onto the child's face as those all those thoughts returned to her. How much of her child's life was spent in fear and terror? How much did this small being endure at the hands of their enemies? Wiping away more of sewer scum, she placed a gentle kiss on the child's forehead and, for the first time since the abduction, allowed herself to say her precious daughter's name.
"Nyssa."
By the time the scaffold was erected and the first bolts of the seemingly ancient grate came off in molten streams, Michael's patience was shot. He could smell Selene, even hear her slightly heavier breathing when the blow torch wasn't blazing.
After a brief moment of shock, he nearly knocked Victoria and several other people over as he bolted to the jeep that already waited for him out front. Pushing nearly 110 miles per hour on the highway and artfully dodging several 'hidden' police cars along the way, it took him less than fifteen minutes to get to the entryway when it normally took about forty minutes. Booking past everyone waiting outside to give him the news, he ran straight down into the sewers and trudged the distance to the crew in record time.
For the past twenty minutes, he stood a short distance away as they worked feverishly to get to Selene and...Nyssa, our little girl. Selene is with our little girl.
A hard thud re-sounded over the voices of the crew. Last bolts broke off and they slowly pulled the grate away, lowering it to the ground below. Once it was out of his way, Michael quickly scaled the small scaffold and entered the duct.
Selene looked up at him, her bloodshot blue eyes brilliant in the artificial light streaming in from the flood lights they set up on the scaffold. He rushed over to her, kneeling down beside her. Slowly, he reached out his hand and pressed it against the tiny child's cheek. My god, she's so small.
"Her...her pulse...its weak," Selene said in a choked whisper. "But she's breathing." She watched as Michael pressed his fingers to the veins in her neck, moving around a few times before pausing.
"We have to get her to the truck. She needs blood." He helped Selene to her feet, gently brushing his hand against Nyssa's cheek as they rose. He almost held out his arms to take her, but decided against it. Selene held their daughter close to her, arms locked around the tiny frame. Part of him felt slightly indignant that he couldn't hold his own child.
Too much pain for too long. Leave it be, Michael, he scolded himself. Instead of arguing the point with her, he lead her out to the scaffolding.