Red Dawn - Book 6

Chapter 13

When I opened my eyes the next morning I moved my hands to my stomach to rub my baby bump. Only, my fingertips grazed my flat abdomen. I quickly sat up right in the bed and kicked off my blankets so I could rise to my feet.

The second my feet met the carpet I tore back the outfit I had slept in and saw no baby belly. I began to panic, but that was short lived as I remembered that last night I had given birth. I had a daughter. We had a daughter that I had named Sophia Camille Cromwell.

I crossed to the balcony and pulled back the curtains. It was still pretty stormy outside but I could tell it was day time.

I wasn't sure of the exact time but I knew I had to feed my daughter. Walking back across the room I entered into the nursery and approached her crib. As I peered inside I froze.

Last night, Sophia looked no older than a three month old baby. Now she looked to be between one and two years old. Her body was more elongated, her length being at least two and a half feet. Her hair, beautiful brownish bronze curls, rested just past her shoulders, framing her prominent face. She was beautiful, like her father. Her eyes I remembered were a silver, blue shade. They seemed to be slightly big for her face. A feature I couldn't deny, came from me. Her nose was a dainty and her lips, set in a precious pink pout.

"Sophia." I whispered, wanting to hear myself say her name without waking her precious self up.

Just seconds after I said her name, her eyes popped open and they searched around until they rested on me. I watched her eyes hold my face for several seconds before she slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position to better look at me. Then she held up her arms.

Now that I was able to see the pajamas she had worn last night I noticed several rips and tears where the clothing had been too weak to stand up against her quickened growth. This meant one thing in my mind, at the moment, she was sturdy. Her skin was as hard as my own.

I lifted Sophia into my arms and went to her closet to try and find something she would be able to fit in. The closet was stocked with all sorts of sizes, from newborn to 5t. I knew everything below 18 months would be too small for her so I tried a few outfits on her for 18-24 month old children.

When I had finished dressing her she was looking too adorable in a peach dress, white tights and black dress shoes.

"Come, lets go and eat." I said to her.

Only when I entered the kitchen did I realize the last time I fed her she had been breastfed. Was I to continue feeding her this way?

I moved into the dining room and too a seat at the table where I unbuttoned the top of my dress and began to feed her. She latched on quickly and began drinking. She drank for almost twenty minutes before she stopped suckling. Then I burped her.

Even though I was hungry, I had more important things on my mind. I needed to go find Nic, who was more than likely in the control room, seeing about the electricity. So I went there and sure enough he was messing around with severeal dials and switches, turning and flipping them.

"What is the news?" I asked as I stood, holding Sophia in my arms.

He didn't even bother turning around as his focus was on the switchboard before him. "The eletrical board is fried. I even tried recharging the battery for the engine with the charger but its drained too. But I was thinking about the back up generators. They aren't eletrical but ran on gas. If I could get those going we would have a chance." Nic explained.

"Okay, and where are the generators?" I asked. My grip on our daughter tightened slightly as if she was going to slip from my arms if I didn't.

"Below. The only problem is the water that was collected over night. The pumps haven't drained that yet."

"But you can hold your breath. What is stopping you from going?"

"We need to choose. We can either recharge the battery or drain the water. Even if we get the engine running again we will be running blind since everything electrical is down. Not to mention when we start moving we will take on more water, faster."

"Meaning we will sink." I finished his sentence.

"But, if we choose to drain the water we will have to let the waves push us. If we get pushed back to the storm I am certain we will have run out of gas to keep the pumps going and we will be flooded in no time."

"Is there a third option?"

Nic nodded his head. "We forget the pumps, charge the battery and keep on east. Last time I managed to get a reading on our coordinates, it was just before the lightening struck and I dropped the anchor. We were about two hundred miles from shore. If we can make it one hundred miles we can take the jet skis the rest of the way. They get a hundred miles on a full tank." He paused as Sophia made a nose. Very slowly he turned around to look at us and smiled when he saw Sophia in my arms. "She looks like me." he grinned.

"She does." I agreed.

"Sophia, love." He called to her and she turned away from me to glance over her shoulder.

"Oh, she looks even more like myself than I thought." He held out his arms towards he and she went to him without hesitation. "That's my girl." He cooed as she wrapped her arms around him.

"She grows fast." I blurted out. I wasn't too worried about this but it still set my nerves off.

"I expected that." He replied. "She has two hybrid parents, you, on the other hand had a vampire and a human parents. The human diluted your growth so it wasn't as fast. Ours..." He didn't bother finishing the rest of his sentence. He didn't have to. Because we were both hybrids, our genes complimented one another.

"So, the plan. Get the engine going, try and make that one hundred miles and then take the jet ski the rest of the way." He said in a casual manner.

I nodded my head. It still worried me. What if we didn't make it one hundred miles. What if we took on too much water before then?

"What if the jet ski batteries are fried too?"

He shook his head. "The compartment that holds them has a rubber floor. Everything in that room is grounded. But.... its also under several inches of water."

I looked at him with an expression of defeat.

"We will deal with that when the time comes. Right now, what I need you to do is take Sophia, get her bundled up." He paused, long enough to kiss Sophia, and then handed her back to me. "Then get yourself dressed and pack essentials in your satchel. Make sure we have money, our credit cards, documents, passports and anything else that you can fit that may be important."

"I can't believe this is happening." I muttered as he moved forward to kiss me. "When I get us moving, we will have about two hours, maybe a little less to make that one hundred miles."

I nodded my head and then he sent me off.

When I got to Sophia's nursery, I riflied through the closet and grabbed a cute little peacoat and put it on her. After she had on mittens and a hat I set her in her crib so I could begin gathering everything of importance to put in my bag.

After ten minutes I had managed to get everything I thought we needed and take a quick shower and get properly dressed. Outside, the weather was very harsh. We needed to make sure we were bundled well.

Once I grabbed Sophia again, I headed to the closet that I had given birth in. I search the shelves until I found a few things of emergency food packs, several flares, a flare gun, a water filtering kit and life jackets. There were three here, but they were all adult sizes.

After I put everything, but the life jackets into my bag I went back to the control room to see how things were progressing. When I entered, Nic was staring out the window, his hands on the steering wheel.

"The engine started," he stated, simply. "I made sure to check the jet skis and the batteries on them both are fine."

"How is the water level?"

"16 inches." He said simply.

I nodded my head and then moved to take a seat, staring out over the horizon. "I can't wait to get home."

"Me either."

We had sailed for what seemed to be a half an hour before I realized I hadn't eaten since yesterday. I didn't know how long we would be on the ocean after we left the boat but I wanted to make sure I ate something, even if it was just a sandwich.

"I'm going to go and eat, then maybe see if Sophia would take a nap." I kissed Nic and then went into the kitchen where I made myself a cheese sandwich. I quickly ate that and then made my way to the bed room. "Nap time, love." I said as I laid her in her crib.

She closed her eyes right away and fell into a slumber. As I watched her sleep I began to feel tired. I don't think I slept any more than five hours total so a quick nap was much needed. Turning into the bedroom I laid down, setting my bag beside me. Then I closed my eyes.

Somewhere off in the distance, a baby was crying. I recognized that cry.

When I opened my eyes everything was dark. I reached out beside myself to feel for Nic but he wasn't there. Yawning I let my hand flop over, to hang off the edge of the bed, only to come in contact with something wet. For a moment I was confused. Then I remembered.

"No!" I gasped as I pulled my bag on and jumped to my feet.

The water came up to just below my waist.

"Sophia!" I screamed as I waded as quickly as I could through the water, to get to her crib.

My eyes widened as I saw her standing up in her crib. Because it wasn't as tall as our bed was, the water went up to her stomach. Her face was fearful. She was scared.

"Sophia." I repeated again as she reached out for me. "Mommy is here. Mommy is here." I repeated as I pulled her from the crib.

Then as quickly as I could I made my way to the bedroom door. The second I turned the door knob the door burst open. A flood of water poured into the room, knocking me backwards off my feet.

I held on to Sophia as tightly as I could without hurting her, but even then she started to slip from my arms.

The second we surfaced I was pulled back under again by the tow of the water. I managed to catch the edge of the bed and pull us back above the water line. And then I saw it, the water had broken through the balcony doors and that is where we were being pulled to.

"Nic!" I screamed. "NIC!"

"Renesmee!" I heard him shout back over the roaring waters. "It's time to go! Come on!" His voice was somewhere in the hall.

"I can't, I'm stuck!" I shouted back.

The forced of the water was pushing every piece of furniture towards the balcony doors. Then it happened. The closet broke open, sending clothes and shoes at us at a dangerous speed. One of the pairs of stilletos hit me in the face, causing a large gash that caused me to released my grip on Sophia.

And I watched in slow motion as the water pulled her away from me. I tried to grab her small hand but she was too far away from me.

"SOPHIA!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. My eyes were wide as I watched her going towards the balcony doors where the water was pushing everything over the edge, into the waters below. "NO!" Then I let go, allowing the waters to push me too.

I started swimming as fast as I could.

"SOPHIA!" I screamed again.

Just a milisecond before we went over the balcony edge, I closed my hand around her wrist and pulled her against myself.

Then we fell.

A/N: The picture at the right is Sophia, looking like a 1-2 year old, from her quickened growth.

Sophia grows slightly faster than Renesmee did because she has two hybrid parents, instead of one vampire one human.