Page 23 of Irreverent (The Marked Saga #7)

It turned out that what Gabriel had meant by trying everything else first was actually code for re-starting my combat training and working me until every muscle in my body was screaming for mercy. Right here in the Blackburn Estate. Worried that I would have been too distracted in the basement with Dominic only yards away from me, Gabriel had opted to instead transform the formal dining room into a sparring war zone where dreams and sedentary bodies came to die. And with all of its furniture and fixings cleared from the room, we were free to spill our blood without worry.

After a grueling two-hour non-stop combat session with Gabriel, he tossed me a bottle of water and then left the room without saying anything. It was only when he returned a few minutes later with a yard of rope in hand that I realized my training was far from over.

“What are you doing with that?”

I asked, eyeing the rope suspiciously, as though it were a live snake that might strike out at me at any second.

“Turn around,”

he ordered without answering my question.

Trusting him, I placed the water bottle on the floor and then turned away from him.

He reached out and grabbed both my arms, tugging them back until my wrists were touching.

“Seriously?”

I said, craning my head to the side. “How is this going to help me take out Nikki and her new Hell-backed magic?” I asked as he tightened the rope around my wrists, looping and tugging with every twist until both my hands were immovable.

“This was my idea,”

answered Jaqueline, appearing at the doorway like an uninvited ghost.

“I should’ve figured.”

I snorted. “And the point of this would be…?”

“To draw out any abilities you may have buried inside you,”

she said as she walked into the room and slowly circled around me. “If you constantly have the use of your hands and weapons to fall back on, you’ll never have the need to dig any deeper to find out what’s hidden there.”

Alright, whatever, so that sort of made sense. I’d give her that. I suppose I did always default to using my fists and weapons as my main form of defense and offense. Mostly because I didn’t know anything else. Plus, the former always worked in my favor, so, why the hell not?

“That’s fine by me,”

I said, glaring at her with contempt. “Now would you kindly get out of my face so that Gabriel and I can get on with this?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t do that. I need to be here for this part of your training. For your benefit, and his,”

she added, looking over at Gabriel strangely.

“What are you talking about?”

I asked, having no idea what she even meant by that.

“I’m curious,”

she said, ignoring my question altogether. “Has there ever been any unexplained instances where something more than yourself appeared to be at play?” she asked, as she walked behind me while Gabriel moved to the wall across from me, leaning his back against it as he watched and listened. “Something more than your known Slayer abilities?”

“If you’re referring to weird things happening to me, then yes, there’s been a few,”

I said, trying to track her movements. Birth mother or not, I didn’t know her well enough at that point or have a close enough relationship with her to trust her prowling around me the way she was.

“Such as what?”

My mind thought back to that first night at All Saints when everything in the room froze. At the time, I had thought it was my tired, stressed-out mind playing tricks on me. But then it happened again with Engel, and I knew there was something more to it. What that something was, though, I still had no idea.

“Such as the time when I made everything around me freeze,”

I stated carefully, watching her with continued suspicion. “Like I’d pressed pause on everyone in the room except me.”

“Time Manipulation,”

answered Tessa from the entranceway, leaning her shoulder into the door jamb. I hadn’t noticed her come in, but there she was making her presence more than known.

Great. Another happy family reunion.

“Time manipulation? What is that exactly?”

I asked no one in particular.

“It’s a Reaper ability,”

replied my mother as she stood in front of me, studying me. “An extremely rare ability that even the purest of pure-bloods don’t usually possess.”

I recoiled with surprise. “Why would I have a Reaper ability?”

As far as I knew, there wasn’t a lick of Reaper blood in my lineage. This made zero sense to me, though it wouldn’t be the first time I found myself confused as fuck.

“This is what I have been trying to tell you since I got here.”

She looked back at me with a kind of motherly scorn, or what I imagined that would look like, as if she had any right to the sentiment. “You’re not just a Descendant, Jemma. You’re not even truly Anakim. At least not like the rest of us.”

It felt as though she’d just sucker-punched me in the gut and knocked the air right out of my lungs. “What are you talking about? Of course, I’m Anakim. I’m a Slayer.”

“In part, yes, because you are my daughter and share my bloodline. But your father—you’re birth father—was…amongst more sinister things, a Fallen Angel. And a powerful one at that.”

My panicked eyes shot to Tessa and then Gabriel before boomeranging back to Jaqueline. “So, what the hell does that make me if not Anakim?”

“That makes you Nephilim,”

she answered simply, nodding into it, like I should have already put two and two together. Well, guess what, Jackie. I hadn’t.

“Nephi—”

The word died in my throat as though its life had been snuffed out from under it. Wasn’t that the race of hybrid people that had been hunted to extinction by both the Angels and the Order alike?

“Nephilim, as I’m sure you know, are not the same people as Anakim. They’re the direct offspring of the Fallen; the Firsts of what would eventually become our kind. But they’re DNA—you’re DNA is made up mostly of Angel. It’s the purest, most powerful version of it that can be found on earth, short of encountering an actual Angel.”

Her eyes turned weary, scrutinizing. “And as a result, your bloodlines have not been diluted and propagated into carefully constructed factions like the rest of us. Your powers and abilities…well, they have the potential to be omnipotent.”

Omnipotent?!! Holy fuck cakes. “Wait a minute. Are you saying I can like, possess abilities from all factions?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

She took a step toward me, tilting her head to the side. “Can you use your Time Manipulation ability at will?”

I snorted. “No. Not even close.”

She nodded, mentally noting my response. “Has there been any other strange occurrences?”

I thought back to the time Nikki and I had hashed it out at Temple right after Lucifer took Trace as his vessel. “I was able to push past one of Nikki’s incantations during a fight with her last year.”

At the time, I chalked it off to my Slayer strength, but something didn’t quite feel natural about it, like there had been something more at play.

“Power Blocking. A Caster ability,”

she said and then bounced a pointed glance at Tessa. “Was that the only time?”

I nodded. “There was also this incident with floating furniture that happened while me and Trace were…um, hanging out,”

I said, my cheeks warming as everyone’s eyes fell hard on me. “Though I’m not sure if it was me or him that caused that to happen.”

“That’s not a Reaper ability so I’m guessing that was you as well,”

answered my mother, seemingly having the answers to every one of my burning questions.

“Right.”

I tugged at the rope around my wrist, trying to loosen it so that it wasn’t chaffing against my skin. “So, if it’s not a Reaper ability, what kind is it?”

“Telekinesis,”

she answered plainly. “Another rare Caster ability.”

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. Two rare Caster abilities? “Does that mean I can use other kinds of magic too?”

“It’s quite possible.”

She looked over at Gabriel and nodded. “But there’s really only one way to find out.”

Gabriel made his way over to where we stood in the middle of the room, a dark look settling in over his eyes as he sized me up. The two vampires were now circling me, and while I knew this was just a training session, I couldn’t help but feel the thumping of my heart picking up in speed as it slammed against my chest.

“And that’s my cue to leave,”

said Tessa as she pushed off the wall and gave me a once over. “Good luck, little sister.”

“Where are you going?”

I asked, but she had already left the room and disappeared from sight before I could get the whole question out. My troubled gaze returned to Gabriel and Jacqueline. “Don’t you think you guys are being a tad theatrical right now?”

I’d barely gotten the sentence out before my mother kicked the back of my legs out from under me, causing me to slam down hard against the ground. My shoulder protested as it took the brunt of the fall.

“What the fuck was that for?”

I snapped, glaring up at her as I tried to right myself—a feat that was particularly challenging with both hands tied behind my back.

Gabriel grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me up onto my feet, giving me a full two seconds to recover before my mother kicked her foot out again, into my gut this time, sending me flying back onto my ass several feet away.

“Seriously? You’re really starting to piss me off,”

I growled as I shifted onto my knees and then stood.

“That’s the point,”

she said and swung her leg up to kick me again, though this time I was ready and dove out of the way. A smug smirk curled my lips as her gaze shifted over my shoulder to Gabriel.

A stabbing pain hit me between my shoulder blades, and I crumbled forward onto my knees, gasping as I tried to catch the breath that had been knocked right out of me. My head twisted around, searching with vengeance in my eyes for the culprit of my pain, but all I found was Gabriel standing there with the most pitiful, regret-filled look on his face.

He did not just hit me. There was no way Gabriel would do that to me and definitely not with my hands tied behind my back. Except that he was the only one standing there, and his expression said it all.

“You’re going to pay for that,”

I gritted out, my voice a deadly warning.

Instead of apologizing or at the very least heeding my warning, he kicked me with the heel of his boot right in the middle of my shoulder blades again. I slammed forward against the wood floor, the air once again rushing out of my lungs with an auditory swoosh as I face-planted onto my front.

Motherfu—

Next came Jaqueline with a sharp, knife-like kick to my side that I was sure had hit a kidney. I rolled away from her and the pain, groaning as I tried to make sense of what the hell was going on.

“Have you two lost your fucking minds?”

I bellowed, trying to scoot away from the both of them while still sprawled out on the floor, but they unrelentingly matched every inch I moved.

Another kick from Gabriel to the back, making my body arch backwards and opening my face up for a close-fisted punch to the jaw from Jaqueline.

“Stop it!”

I yelled, having had just about enough of this bullshit training session. “I don’t know what kind of sick game this is, but I’m not playing. Untie my fucking—”

Another booted kick to my side.

I couldn’t catch my breath long enough to yell out. And the hits kept coming. Kick after kick, punch after punch. Every hit felt as though I were being stabbed with a red-hot poker. There was no reprieve from the onslaught. No mercy from either one of them. They had lost their damn minds and I was going to pay dearly for it.

“If you want this to stop, you’re going to have to make us,”

said Jaqueline in between torturous kicks to my abdomen.

But how was I supposed to do that when they wouldn’t let up for even a second? How was I supposed to defend myself with my hands tied behind my back? I was just about to tell the bitch as much when another kick to my side dropped me back down on all fours.

“Get up and do something about it!”

she roared and then slammed her fist into my face. It might as well have been a sledgehammer with the way the pain exploded out from my cheek.

I rolled onto my stomach, unable to take another hit to my face or stomach. It was all I could do to protect myself. Maybe if I just lay there and pretended to be dead, the two of them would finally give up and leave me to lick my wounds.

“Turn her around,”

ordered my mother, the sound of her empty voice sending a chill right up my spine.

Gabriel’s boots clanked against the floor as he walked up to me and then grabbed my upper arms, twisting me around before slamming me back down onto my back. I groaned from the pain and then tried to meet his eyes, to plead with him to stop. But I could barely make out his features from the blurry mess my vision had become. I wasn’t sure if it was due to blood or tears, and frankly, I was too scared to even find out.

“Use your abilities,”

urged Gabriel, his voice strained and filled with agony and urgency, as though it were killing him to inflict this kind of torture on me.

I tried to tell him that I couldn’t—that it hurt too much, and I didn’t know how to make it stop, but nothing was coming through my lips except for the sobs and quiet grunts every time Jaqueline landed another hit.

How much longer was this going to go on? How much more would I have to endure before they realized I couldn’t do it? I couldn’t just call on my buried abilities at will—abilities that I wasn’t even fully convinced I had.

Oh, dear god. What if I couldn’t do it? What if they never stopped?

Fear captured my insides, squeezing everything into a vice as my breathing escalating to acute hyperventilation. Was I dying or having a panic attack? All I knew was that I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t freaking breathe!

“Dammit, Jemma. Do something!”

Gabriel’s voice vaulted through my mind like a rogue ping pong ball.

But there was no use. I couldn’t do what they were asking me to do. I had no knowledge about the abilities I had, let alone how to call them out on demand. I couldn’t do it…

“Please …please stop…I can’t…”

“This isn’t working,”

seethed Gabriel, his voice clipped and panicked. Through my swollen right eye, I thought I saw him step back from me and nearly rejoiced at the thought of him giving up.

“If you don’t have the stomach to do this, leave the room,”

ordered Jaqueline, her voice a stark contrast to his. Cold and uncaring. Merciless.

Gabriel buried his hands into his hair and took another step back. “I…I need a break,”

he said through clenched teeth and then left the room in a rush.

No! Come back! I tried to call out after him, but my voice refused to summon itself.

Jaqueline leaned down over me and grabbed my chin between her fingers. “Are you having fun yet, Daughter?”

Rage bubbled up to the surface as I took in her condescending, compassionless expression. Gathering a mouthful of blood and saliva in my mouth, I glared up at her and then spit it into her face.

Her eyes dilated as she wiped the blood away with the back of her arm and then blasted another blow against my already busted and swollen lip. No doubt, my punishment. “You have the power to stop this,”

she said and then threw another punch while keeping my jaw locked between her unforgiving, cold fingers.

“I…can’t…fucking…do…it…”

“Yes, you can,”

she fired back and then rained another blow down against the side of my face. “Push me away, Jemma. Make this all stop.”

I tried to turn inward; tried shutting off the pain and the ringing inside my head and dig deep for any semblance of strength or magic or miracle that might end the brutal beating she was mercilessly pouring down on me, but every time I tried, another blow came crashing down into me, drawing me back outward. Back to the here and now.

Back to the unbearable pain.

“I can do this all night if I have to,”

she warned lowly as she cracked another fist against my face. “Stop me, dammit.”

Another futile attempt to look inward as she continued to disfigure my face.

“Make me stop, Jemma!”

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to remember what I had felt that day with Engel. Desperation. Fear. Fear of him. Fear for my life. Fear of what he saw in me. Of what I was. And the darkness. All that darkness.

“Come on, Jemma! Stop me! Push me away!”

Her voice sounded distant, hollow, as though I was drifting further and further away from her. Or perhaps I was simply falling deeper and deeper within myself. Within that dark part of myself I rarely ventured. To the place where all my fear and shame and self-doubt lived. To the place that held up the mirror to my face and showed me who I really was. A place that had threatened to pull me in and never let me out again.

That deep, dark chasm of all the things I was too afraid to face.

Of the thing that I really was.

A burst of fiery heat ignited in my mind as though a bomb had just gone off. I slammed the door shut on the darkness and snapped open my eyes. Rage bubbled just below the surface, heating my veins and then my skin as my eyes zeroed in on Jaqueline just as she pulled her arm back to throw another punch at me.

And then everything froze.

Her arm. My beating heart. The ticking clock on the wall. The very air I had been breathing.

My skin crackled with electricity as I held onto the moment, the anger and the powerlessness, and then I slid out from under her. With my hands still tied behind my back, I struggled for a moment before regaining my balance for long enough to make it back onto my feet. And then I pulled my leg back all the way up before crashing my heel into the center of her chest, sending her flailing clear across the room.

Everything whirled back to life as she smashed into the wall and then buckled to her side.

Her eyes were wide with shock and amazement while my own bore into her with unbridled rage, my body trembling violently from the enormous amount of energy I’d used. Neither one of us said anything as Gabriel rushed back into the room and then halted, his gaze bouncing back and forth between us as he tried to make sense of the scene before him.

“What happened? What was that noise?”

Jaqueline pushed herself into a seated position but kept her back against the wall and her eyes fixed on me. “You did it, didn’t you?”

“Did what?”

asked Gabriel, his gaze snapping to assess me. “What happened?”

“She manipulated time.”

Gabriel’s eyes widened as he continued to appraise me. It was almost as though he hadn’t believed it was actually going to work. And yet, the son of a bitch participated anyway.

I glowered at the two of them, barely managing to keep upright on my shaky, bruised legs. I was going to deal with the two of them later—when I was rested and healed and actually capable of making them pay for what they just did to me. And boy were they going to pay for it. With blood aplenty.

In the meantime, though…

“Untie my fucking hands. Now.”