Tempest

37 : Blindsided

As she left Noah's room and headed for Liam's, she took care to not let her eyes miss a single thing. She could never allow herself to make the same mistakes that other people had made. She had made a mistake that had cost her and she could never again repeat it.

She drifted through the large building, noting the patrolling guards with their rifles in her hands, the white sterility of the structure and furniture, the clinical coldness of everything around her. It had changed over the last century, become what it was today. The changes had happened after Noah lost his wife.

She walked through the closed door and watched intently as Liam paced up and down. Victoria was with him and the worried look in the other woman's eyes made her smile. It was not a pleasant smile. If Victoria had been able to see it, she would have been deathly afraid.

"Noah is powerful, Vicky. I won't be able to stop him alone but the others are either too afraid to go up against him or don't really realize what he wants to do."

"I am with you, Liam. We just need to plan this right. We have to find a way otherwise he will destroy the balance of nature." As Victoria walked up to her husband, her red hair and green eyes seemed muted by the dim light in the room. She was not a particularly tall woman but she walked with certainty and conviction that made people pay attention to her.

As she watched the couple from across the room, the anger in her heart grew. Where there had once been nothing but love for at least one of two people who now embraced each other, a deep bitterness now covered it like toxic mold would a mushroom in a radiation filled glasshouse.

"I don't know what else to try," Liam muttered as he nuzzled his nose into his wife's neck. "I have slowed down his progress as much as I could over the years but he has always found a way around everything. Now that the serum is ready, he won't stop. The other things he has done will be child's play compared to what he has planned. I can't-"

As he broke off, his wife hugged him tighter and held onto him like a scared child playing grown up.

Watching them from in front of the door, she smiled, gleeful. She loved the aura of fear that was radiating off of the couple. It strengthened her.

Victoria took a deep breath and pulled away from Liam. She tugged at his hand so they could go and sit on the bed.

"Ever since Natasha died, Noah has never been the same. It has been decades and he still acts so differently, so strangely," Liam mumbled. "He seemed to have died with her and then when he came out of his grief..." Liam shook his head.

The figure in the corner of the room took note of the look of pain and loss on Victoria's face and she frowned. For a moment, a sliver of emotion sparked within her chest before she killed it, snuffed it out like a lone candle in a pitch black hall.

"Natasha didn't deserve how she died but she had it coming," Victoria said before she took a deep, shuddering breath. "She shouldn't have had that affair with the werewolf. Noah never knew. He still thinks it was a rogue. A random attack."

"Do you think it would make a difference if we told him?" Victoria asked.

Liam thought about it for a moment. Then, he shook his head. "I have wondered about it for so long. If he knew now, however, it would enrage him. It would only make things worse."

Victoria nodded. She agreed with him?

This infuriated her no end. With a loud cry she summoned up her powers and forged a fireball, throwing it at the couple on the bed. She snarled as it smashed against a force field and fizzled out. The couple were not harmed at all. They should have been incinerated. Burnt to a crisp.