The Trinity War (Book 3 of the Trinity series)

Chapter 48

~*~GERRARD'S POV~*~

She screamed again, her body rising up, her spine bending backwards in a way that was completely unnatural. The scream was blood-curdling. Loud and shrill and laced with pain. It was a sound that I had never heard before in my life.

I had seen a lot in my time working for Elijah. I had seen death, torture, blood, pain, agony, lies. There wasn't much that I hadn't seen and everything that I had seen was pretty horrible. But as I sat at the side of the bed in the torn up hospital wing of Trinity University, I came to the conclusion that what I was witnessing now was by far the worst thing that I could have ever imagined.

Caley lay in the bed in front of me, completely unconscious. But even though mentally she was dead, physically, she was very much alive. Every so often, she would scream in pain so loudly that it shook me to my core. I didn't even know if she could feel the pain. They said that what she was experiencing now was a punishment much worse than death.

They brought her here almost five hours ago. After Caley defied Elijah's direct orders and dropped her energy wave, Trey's had overpowered her and knocked her unconscious. We had all thought that she was dead on the spot. Elijah had been livid that Caley had gone against his orders. He went mad and tried to kill everything and everyone in his way. But the others in the Order came together and took him down as one. They didn't kill him, but he was currently locked in a prison cell that sucked his reserves of magic from him, rendering him as useless as a non-Magii. He was going to be given a trial for his actions, as would the rest of us that fought for Elijah. The outcome, which in Elijah's case was surely death, would be decided only after we were given a fair trial by jury. I didn't expect it to go any other way. If the Order had killed Elijah or his people without a fair trial, they would have been just as bad as the dark side. At least this way, they were holding up their ideals.

Caley screamed again, pulling me out of my thoughts. I grasped her hand in mine as she writhed in pain and felt something twist inside of me.

Each and every scream that she let out ripped out another little piece of me inside. My orders from Elijah had been to do whatever Caley needed me to do. She told me not to get involved and the result was in front of me.

The doctors told us that the cause of her pain was the poison that had been activated in Caley's veins. Because she hadn't killed Trey when she had the chance, Caley had defied Elijah's orders. And because of this, she had gone against her oath of loyalty. And because of that, Elijah's blood turned into poison inside of her and this poison was being pumped throughout her body, spreading and slowly killing her from the inside.

The doctors said that she was unconscious, but they were monitoring her brain patterns and with each scream she let out, her brain waves spiked, indicating that she could feel the pain that was causing her to shriek. At the moment, they had no idea what to do with her. The doctors suggested taking her out of her misery and ending her life. But her father refused to allow that. Assisted suicide, he said, was just as bad as killing. And Caley hadn't given consent, so it would have been murder.

I felt someone come up next to me. I looked up to see Isobel. She held two cups of coffee in her hands and gave one to me. I smiled at her gratefully and breathed in the scent of the liquid caffeine.

"I dropped in a shot of whiskey, too," Isobel said.

"Those were just the words I needed to hear," I said gruffly. She smiled at me with pity as I took a sip of the bitter coffee.

"How's she doing?" Isobel asked.

"I think it's getting worse," I replied, rubbing my tired eyes. I hadn't slept in two days and I had a feeling that I was going to go a few more without sleeping, too.