Maggie didn’t understand why that would be fortunate for him. What else could they have possibly needed her for? Hadn’t they taken enough?
“I know Kinzer has filled your head with so many lies… so many misleading facts about the nature of my work. I promise you, I am doing what is right for all creation.”
“And what is that?”
“Creating the order the Almighty desires. It isn’t my will that any of this be done. It is His will. Just as it was His will that you be the mother of His child.”
“Why me?”
“Who knows? I don’t mean to be unkind, but you’re not an anomaly. I knew He would need someone like you. Someone without family or connections of meaning. Someone who we could make disappear in the night without anyone questioning their whereabouts. But honestly, if He had asked me to find any number of drug addict whores, I could have found plenty. But you were special. You were chosen.”
She sure didn’t feel special.
The door behind Veylo opened, and the higherling guard walked in holding what looked like a wad of sheets.
But she knew what it was, and despite the monster it must have been, she couldn’t help but care about her precious little one.
“It’s alright, Trento,” Veylo said. “You can take it to her. She won’t hurt it, now will you, Maggie?”
She remembered her times with Kinzer, talking about how they had to destroy the Christ, about how it was their duty to destroy it. There she was, with the opportunity, and she feared she wouldn’t be able to find the strength in her heart to take him.
Trento handed her the baby, and she cradled it in her arms, gazing at it for the first time.
Bright sapphire eyes sparkled with the daylight that poured through the window blinds. The baby grinned.
Gas.
That’s why everyone says they smile, but she couldn’t help but think he was smiling at her.
She thought of so many things she wanted to say, of how she could greet the little one, but a part of her mind continued to remind her of what he really was.
His toothless grin made her question her and Kinzer’s assumptions. How could something so innocent and tiny be detrimental to anyone, let alone the entire world?
“Hey there,” she said, returning a smile.
“His name’s Jeroda.”
Her face tensed. Tears welled in her eyes. She hadn’t even been able to name him. This adorable creature she’d birthed, and she hadn’t even been allowed to give him a name. It was yet another piece that had been stripped from her, another piece that reminded her that, though she had carried the child, she wasn’t even considered in its rearing.
She didn’t want to think like that. She wanted to do as Kinzer had done and think about the baby as a monster, a weapon, but she couldn’t.
Jeroda’s smile broadened, and he made a giggling sound.
The spark in his eyes seemed to intensify, and a familiar feeling surged through Maggie. And though it was an exquisite sensation, it triggered fear and horror in Maggie.
“How—?”
Veylo smirked.
“What is it?” he asked.
The feeling in her grew stronger, more intense.
Her face flashed with heat as her nerves grew hypersensitive.
“This isn’t right,” she muttered.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Veylo said. “What do you feel?”
