Incipient A Dark Paranormal Romance - Bianca Scardoni Page 0,37
to avoid calling it a baby. “I’m aware.”
He nodded his head knowingly. “It’s been made very clear to the Order that this pregnancy cannot be allowed to reach full-term.”
I stopped and whipped around to gawk at him. “And how exactly do you plan on making sure that doesn’t happen? I’ve already spoken to Nikki. She’s sure as hell not going to agree to an abortion.”
He bowed his head. “I’m aware of that. Unfortunately, it is past that point. We can no longer afford to give her the courtesy of consent.”
My head jerked back as I crossed my arms over my chest. “Meaning what?”
“Please.” He extended his arm again, motioning for me to continue walking with him to which I hesitantly obliged. “Do you remember all those months ago when I came to you with a request that nearly turned your entire world upside down?” He met my eyes briefly and then continued. “I asked you to make a sacrifice. To sacrifice one for the greater good of many.”
As if I could ever forget.
“Is that what you’re doing now? Are you going to sacrifice her?” I could barely hide the revulsion from my voice.
“It’s far more complicated than that. This is a threat to all of us—”
“A threat that must be eliminated, right?” I challenged, knowing that old song on a personal level. “At least have the guts to come out and say it. You’re going to have her killed, right? An innocent seventeen-year-old girl, no less.” Okay, so innocent was a stretch. The girl was a total bitch, but she didn’t deserve this, did she? This was insanity.
“I understand how difficult it is for you to hear this. That is precisely why I have not tasked you with this—”
“With all due respect, sir, this is way beyond ‘difficult to hear’. You’re talking about killing a pregnant teenager and her unborn baby. Doesn’t that strike you in the least bit as wrong? Immoral even, or are we way past the point of morality now?”
“For goodness sake, Jemma,” he snapped as though I were being the irritational psychopath here. “What would you have us do instead? This baby is not human. It is the offspring of Lucifer himself! It cannot be allowed to exist.”
I stopped walking again, his words hitting a little too close to home. “You once said the same thing about me.”
“Yes, but that was different. It was before—”
“Before you bothered to know who I was?” I cut in, not bothering to let him finish. “And now you’re doing the same thing to this baby. You’re not giving it a chance to choose its path.”
“There is no path for it to choose. It is a pureblood of Lucifer. Its path has been set long before its conception,” he said and shook his head despondently. “Can’t you see that? Can’t you see that allowing it even one day to live will be catastrophic to the balance of power? The balance between good and evil.”
“No. I suppose I don’t see that all,” I said and then shook my head in disgust.
All I saw was a bunch of scared men rushing to judgement in order to eliminate that which was different from them. That which had the potential to be more powerful than them. Just like they did with me.
“I think you’re making a big mistake here and I refuse to support this,” I said as I backed away from him. There was no way I was going to take part in a scheme to murder an innocent girl and her unborn baby, regardless of who’s spawn it was or who she was so desperately trying to pin it on. “This isn’t what I signed up for.”
This whole thing was so far beyond the line I was willing to cross, I couldn’t even see the line anymore.
“I respect your decision, Jemma, I do. But I think in time you will come to see that you are on the wrong side of this. I just hope when that happens, it won’t be too late. For all of us.”
14. RUNNING UP THAT HILL
After my fruitless meeting with the Senior Magister and a quick bite at a burger joint in town, I headed over to Ben’s house on the other side of town. I only hoped that he had been able to get his hands on something that was strong enough to restrain me, especially since I wasn’t sure how strong Dominic’s compulsion over me would prove to be.