A/N: Just a quick thank you to Kitxo for my first review, much appreciated! I love the feedback, please, keep it coming! Enjoy!
Chapter Five
Reid and Pogue watched Victoria's body regenerate back to earth, they both knew what it was to have the power after Ascension rush through your body, become your very soul.
She appeared before them kneeling head lolling forward on her chest.
"Victoria!" Reid ran over and slid on his knees till he was right in front of her.
She looked up at his voice and he felt his breath catch in his lungs as she looked up at him with jet black eyes. "Reid," she sounded confused, "What's happening to me?"
She stood up. Reid's hands hovered around her unsure what to do. Pogue came to stand beside them. "I- I don't know - this has never happened before." Reid looked at Pogue, "This has never happened before!?" He said it to one of his oldest best friends.
Pogue was looking at Victoria, "No, it has not." Both of their eyes were still black, it was hard not to naturally use their power when around someone who had just ascended, the branded new unbridled power called to their own.
Victoria was looking around them. If Reid was to guess he was betting she was looking at the world through her using eyes, a sharper more detailed world than you could possibly imagine.
Suddenly, all three of them turned as the sound of Caleb's engine came around the corner.
He was driving fast.
"He's talking to Sarah," Reid and Pogue both looked at Victoria as she spoke, walking between them to stand between them and the destroyed Escalade and Pogue's abandoned bike, "He isn't going to see the crash in time."
Reid looked over at Pogue who was looking back at him, he shrugged at his friend. They both looked at the cab of the mustang and Victoria was right. Caleb was laughing at something Sarah was saying. He looked back at the road and all three of them could see the panic in his face. They heard the tires screech as the brakes clenched down on them. Too little too late.
Victoria put her hand out in front of herself. The Mustang groaned against itself but it rose off the road, soaring over their heads, Reid and Pogue watched as the car soared effortlessly over them, it turned mid air coming back to the ground with a thud.
Reid looked back at Victoria coming to stand beside her. Slowly she let her arm drop, she blinked and looked back at Reid her eyes back to their normal blue. "Wow," was all she managed before passing out, Reid caught her as she collapsed backward.
Slowly, he bent down picking her up, one arm tight around her shoulders, the other under her knees.
"What the hell, was that?! I have Sarah in the car!" Caleb yelled starting to get out of the car.
"Move!" Reid yelled running towards the car. "We gotta get her in the car."
Caleb's eyes were on the downed bike and destroyed Escalade. "What happened?"
"Look man, we'll tell you on the way!" Pogue grabbed Caleb's arm and pulled him back so Reid could clamour in the back with Victoria's unconscious body. Pogue climbed in after him.
"Oh my god, is she ok?" Sarah turned in her seat looking at Victoria's body.
"We don't know," Pogue answered as Caleb got into the car, slamming his door. "We need to go back to Tyler's, my dad will still be there. Sarah call Tyler tell him to come home."
Caleb screeched the car into drive. "Someone tell me what happened! Why the hell did you guys use like that?"
"We didn't." Reid said still holding Victoria close.
"What are you talking about?" Caleb snapped, pushing the car into fifth gear.
Reid ignored Sarah hushed conversation with Tyler, "We were following Tyler, talking about prom and then it ..." Reid realized he didn't know what to say, "It just happened."
"What happened?" Caleb growled.
Reid was too focused on Victoria so Pogue answered, "She ascended."
"What?!" Caleb scoffed.
"Look, man, I know how it sounds but that is what it sure as hell looked like." Pogue said shaking his head.
Sarah turned around to look at Pogue now she was off the phone. "I thought only boys could ascend?"
"Yeah, well, it would seem not." Reid snapped snidely.
"Did you see her use?" Caleb asked looking in the rearview mirror at them.
Pogue met his best friends eyes, "Who do you think moved your car?"
Caleb met Pogue's eyes in the mirror, before a gasping Victoria sat up in the back seat coming to. Sarah screamed, Victoria looked around the car before finding Reid with her eyes.
"Are you ok?" He asked watching her, hands on her shoulders.
"I'm... I'm fine." Victoria shook her head, furrowing her brow, she looked up at Reid her eyes were bright and excited looking, "I feel amazing."
Reid knew that feeling all to well.
They all sat in the Simms living room waiting for Tyler to arrive, he had been asked by Dr. Richard Perry who had still been at the Simms to go and pick up Evelyn Danvers, Caleb and Victoria's mother.
"What do you mean she ascended? Maybe you were just concussed from the crash." Michael Garwin snapped at his son who shrugged from his place on the enormous sectional between Victoria and Pogue.
"That is what happened Mr. Garwin, I saw it to and I am fine. Besides that is what caused the crash."
Michael Garwin looked over at Dr. Perry who was sitting on the coffee table in front of Victoria.
"But this isn't possible," Caleb said sitting forward.
"Yeah, and last year we though there were only four families left," Reid growled at his friend over his girlfriend.
"Can we maybe stop talking about me like I am not here?" Asked Victoria sitting up glaring at the two boys on either side of her.
"And you still feel ok?" Richard Perry asked her.
She nodded as James Simms, Tyler's dad stood up looking through the window in his front door. "Tyler's back," He said.
Victoria swallowed, "Well, I was."
She and Caleb both turned to see their mother walk through the front door. Reid took Victoria's hand as her mother's eyes fell on her daughter, Victoria instinctively looked away.
"It happened? What he feared?" Her mother asked the room, not addressing one person specifically.
Victoria looked up as Richard Perry stood up looking across at Evelyn. "So it would seem." All the boys and Sarah were watching this like a tennis match.
"What happened?" barked Caleb surprising everyone as he sprung up from the couch. Victoria looked up at her big brother. She had no idea what was going on right now. Caleb glared across living room at his mother, whose eyes rested on the back of her daughter's head, with an unreadable expression.
"Caleb, sit down." Caleb and Victoria both looked at Dr. Richard Perry.
"No, fuck that!" Reid sprung up on Victoria's other side, "Caleb's right! You need to tell us what you know, NOW!"
Richard looked over at Michael Garwin, who was watching his son with an amused look on his face.
"Enough!" Victoria yelled standing up herself. She looked between Caleb and Reid who both looked at her. Victoria looked at Richard Perry, knowing he would be honest. "What is going on, because I was going to prom and then I was levitating my brothers car. So I think I would like you to tell me what you all seem to know, that we don't."
Michael was watching and came to stand beside Richard, who was watching Victoria sadly, "She deserves to know Richard, no point hiding it any more." Reid watched his father with suspicion all over his face, "Besides, no point in pretending any more." Michael looked around the room, "James?"
"Yes, Michael?" James Simms came around to stand beside his son.
"Do you still have that scotch I gave you for your birthday?"
James rolled his eyes walking over to the bar.
Richard waved his hand at the couch. Victoria put her hands on Caleb and Reid's arms respectively and they all sat down again. Richard put his hands in his pockets and sat down again, across from Victoria and looked directly at her, "Where would you like to begin?"
Victoria swallowed, she looked at Reid, now it came to it she didn't know where to begin. Reid watched her for a second before looking at Richard, "I thought girls couldn't inherit the power?" he asked for Victoria.
"It has only been recorded to have happened three times in our families history." Richards eyes stayed on Victoria as he spoke.
"Ok, so one in a million," Victoria nodded a little frantically, "How come I didn't get any power when I turned thirteen?" She asked looking at Richard confused.
It was James who spoke, making all of them turn around to look at him as he handed a drink to Michael, "Of the three other women documented, none of them got a taste of the power in adolescence. We don't know why this is, but history seems to dictate that because of that lack of experience, their power is even more... volatile and harder to control."
Victoria swallowed, Caleb looked at her taking her hand. Victoria looked from Caleb to James, to Michael, back to Richard, "Who were these other women?" She asks quietly.
Michael's keen eyes fell on Victoria this time, "The first's name is not recorded, only known of from past folk stories, passed down generation to generation. The second was Elizabeth Mary Simms, in the 1500s, from before the five families had left England. The third was Sabine Perry, in the late 1600s, right here in Ipswich."
Victoria swallowed.
Caleb looked up at Richard, "But it's Victoria's seventeenth birthday, so how could she ascend...?"
Richard, James and Michael all looked over at Evelyn. Victoria, Caleb and Reid all turned to look at her as well, as well everyone else. Evelyn finally walked around to face the couch full of teenagers. Her eyes were on her son but slowly they moved to her daughter.
"This isn't your seventeenth birthday. It's your eighteenth." Victoria felt a slight ringing in her ears.
She blinked over at her mother, "What are you... talking about?" She looked at Caleb but he was just staring at their mother with confusion all over his face. Victoria looked back at Evelyn.
Evelyn Danvers straightened up and crossed her arms looking at Victoria, "Your father, while I was pregnant, decided he was tired of being inconvenienced-"
"Evelyn." Richard snapped, trying to reign in his old friends wife from her theatrics.
Her eyes flashed to him, she swallowed bitterly and looked back at her two children, "Your father had an affair." Her eyes drifted from Victoria over to Caleb, "While I was pregnant with you. He came home one day, you were nine months old," Her eyes tenderly took in her son before flashing over to Victoria, "with you."
For the first time in her life Victoria met her mother's eyes unafraid, "What?"
This time Evelyn looked away back at her son, "It would seem that the woman died, bringing her into the world. William wanted to keep her." Evelyn closed her eyes as if the thought of that day haunted her. "So, we did."
Victoria stayed very still watching her mother, who was staring at the ground. Victoria slowly stood up. " 'So you kept me'?"
Her mother's eyes flashed up to her, "Yes, I took you into my home. With my own son!"
Victoria scoffed, she felt Caleb reach for her hand, she didn't take it but she didn't shake him off either, "Really? Right," Victoria shook her head and looked at the three men in the living room, "And you all knew?" James Simms looked at the floor, Richard looked ashamed and apologetic, and Michael met her eye with a challenging look. "Ok,"
Victoria turned on her heel, and glared at Caleb, Pogue and Reid sitting down on the couch and Tyler standing behind them, "Did any of you know?!"
Caleb was still looking up at their mom when she spoke, he slowly looked up at his sister and Victoria knew right away, of course Caleb had no idea. She gave him a slight nod of her head and turned on the other three.
Tyler was instantly shaking his head like mad, "No, no of course not Vicky! No way!"
Victoria looked at Pogue. He was watching her with an extremely intense expression, his green eyes blazing. He just gave the slightest shake of his head, and for some reason, the way he was looking at her, Victoria knew he was telling the truth.
Then she looked at Reid. Instead of stuttering a response he sprang off the couch to stand up beside her. He looked her in the eyes, "You think if I knew I wouldn't have told you the truth?" Victoria smiled at him, slipping her hand into his. She knew before, when they first got together and she was having a really bad time with her so called mother, Reid would have told her had he known.
Victoria turned back to the adults. "None of you had the right to keep this from me, any of this."
Richard opened his mouth to say something but it was Evelyn who spoke first. "We did what we thought best. I carried out your father's wishes, the only way I knew how!" She snapped at Victoria.
"Then you should have told him no!" Victoria yelled back taking a step towards her mother, she felt her familiar explosive rage rush through her body, but now it was different, instead of overwhelming it felt empowering. She could feel static electricity jumping between her fingers. "You should have told him no, if that was the best you could do."
"Victoria..." Caleb said her name softly, and she knew he had slowly stood up from the couch but both Evelyn and her ignored him.
"How dare you speak to me like that." Evelyn growled.
"Now, ladies," Michael said as Richard reached a hand to Victoria shoulder as they tried to defuse the situation but she shook him off.
"I will speak to you any damn way I please. The way you've treated me, I would have gladly been the gossiped about bastard kid of the great William Danvers the Third, rather than think I was….." Victoria shook her head, looking her mother up and down. "You called me a disappointment, a burden, a mistake? Well, I guess I was William's mistake, but at least he loved me enough to keep me. I was never your mistake, and knowing my own mother didn't treat me the way you have all these years is the best birthday present you could ever give me. I rather be an adultering whore's daughter than yours." Evelyn looked like she had been slapped.
"Victoria!" Richard snapped but Victoria advanced another step so she was only inches away from her mother, she blinked and felt a tingling over her whole body, everything became crystal clear. And Evelyn was the only one in the room who could see her adopted daughter's eyes were jet black. "The only solace I take from this is knowing, you may have ruined my childhood, but I ruined your life." Victoria took a deep breath, slowly closed her eyes exhaling and the stood up looking at Evelyn, eyes baby blue once again. "Good bye Evelyn." Victoria turned on her heel and walked towards the door, grabbing Reid's hand and pulling him behind her, "Don't ever try and contact me again."
"Victoria, wait, we need to talk about this more." Richard said following her to the door.
Victoria looked at him, "We've said enough." She shook her head, hesitating, "I trusted you." He stopped when she said that and Reid turned opening the door and guided her out into the night.