“You don’t deserve this pain, Abigail,” I told her. Tristan came to stand beside me, and he lay his hands on Abigail. At his touch, her body started to glow. “You’re going to be all right,” I said, watching as her bruises faded, leaving nothing behind.
“I feel strange,” Abigail said, tearing the bandages from the gunshot wound on her arm. She slowly sat up on her bed. “Everything is gone.”
“Now remember, I asked you not to freak out.” I took her hands. “Calm down.”
“I’m not freaking out. I’m fine.” She was shaking. She wasn’t fine.
I took her face in my hands. Her cheeks were soft under the tears. “Smile,” I said to her. “The world looks much more beautiful when you do.” What was I talking about? “I meant…there is…I got nothing.”
And then it happened again. I laughed, and Abigail smiled.
That’s really a wonderful sound. You should laugh more often. Once again, Tristan forced his thoughts into my head.
I really, really hope that whatever this thing is will end soon, because I’m a breath away from ripping your heart out.
Then it’s a good thing angels don’t have to breathe, isn’t it? God was this guy god with this sarcastic crap.
“Gideon,” Abigail sounded stronger. “Will you please stay?”
“I…” I wanted to say yes, but I stopped when I remembered Valoel’s accusation. “I…” Wait, I could stay. It wouldn’t mean that I had feelings for her. “Of course.” I hoped this little act of goodness wouldn’t come back to bite me.
I helped her to lean back on her bed. She scooted over, and I could tell she wanted me to lie beside her. She wanted someone to comfort her. I wasn’t sure I knew how to do that, but I could try.
I covered her with a blanket and then lay beside her without another thought. I pulled her into my arms.
Valoel’s words echoed in my head again. I didn’t have romantic feelings for Abby. I wanted to kill her, right?
A while later, Abigail whispered, “I’m still a little scared of you.”
I smiled. “Good,” and pulled her closer to me.
We didn’t speak after that. We didn’t need to. It took a while, but eventually her breathing slowed, and she finally fell asleep.
Wow, Gideon. Any more nice gestures and I’d think you’re going soft.
You’re starting to annoy me, and you won’t like me very much if I’m annoyed. I didn’t even like myself very much when I was annoyed.
I listened to the sound of Abigail’s soft breathing; she looked so fragile.
Make yourself useful and go find some answers, I thought, not wanting to speak out and wake Abigail.
I’m not leaving her alone with you, he thought, making me feel like an idiot for even asking him. He still didn’t trust me to be alone with her. Not even after tonight.
Tristan, you left her alone with me this evening. And it’s a good thing she was with me.
You’re right. Oh, my God, you’re right.
I really, really don’t like you. I meant every word of it.
That’s a shame, really, because everyone likes me. Punchably smug. Tristan was starting to sound like someone I used to know once upon a time, someone who looked a lot like me.
DARK VEIL
Abigail
“Humanity is the word we use when we kill in the name of society.
Humanity is the word we use to make them believe we can feel.
Humanity is the word we use to cover up our dreadful crimes.
Humanity is the word we use to pretend we are not monsters.
Humanity, humanity, humanity! There, now we are invincible!”
Well done, Abigail. Come, sit with me,” Andrei said.
We were inside a huge, empty hall. The only things in the room aside from us were two stone thrones at the far end.
I walked over to him, my steps echoing. “Congratulations,” he said, and hugged and kissed me on both cheeks.
“Congratulations for what? What did I do?” I asked.
“You succeeded. You killed them all,” he said, and then suddenly Felix was standing in front of me, blood soaking through his suit jacket. I started shaking.
Looking around me now, the hall was no longer empty. It was piled high with dead bodies. The thrones were shattered and the walls and floor were streaked with gore. I glanced down and screamed. My hands were covered in blood.
“I didn’t…”
“Of course you did!” he grabbed me by the shoulders. “You’re a killer, Abigail. You and I are the same.”
“No!” I pulled free from him and backed away. “No, we’re not!” I took another step back, and then I slipped. The floor beneath me was slick with blood. I made an attempt to stand, but Andrei stopped me, pinning me down.
“You are a killer, Abigail. Just like me. You can’t run away from it.” His face was nearly touching mine.
I struggled to free myself, but he caught me in his arms. “Get away from me!”
“Abigail!” Suddenly Andrei’s voice turned into Gideon’s, though his cold face remained the same. “Abigail, wake up.”
“Let go!”
“No!” Andrei’s normal voice returned, sour and cruel. “You’re a killer, just like me.”
“I’m nothing like you!” I shouted, and then I shoved him down onto his back. I grabbed at his throat with my right hand.
“Abby. Abigail, you—” Gideon’s voice again, and he sounded as if he were coughing. Or choking. Oh, no! Choking.
One second I was strangling Andrei, and the next I was on top of Gideon with my hands wrapped around his neck.
I let him go and pushed myself away in shock. “I’m so sorry,” I gasped. I was still shaking. I looked hastily around me, but there was no blood. No piles of corpses. It was only a dream.
“Abigail.” Gideon reached for me. “You’re all right. It was just a nightmare.” He pulled me closer and let me rest my head on his chest.
I started sniveling like a five-year-old. “There was blood. There was blood everywhere. And I killed them.”
“You’re going to be all right,” Gideon whispered again, and then he quieted and allowed me to cry.
The dream’s horror refused to fade. Every few minutes, Gideon would whisper something calming, which helped even when I couldn’t make out his exact words. I curled in closer to him with my head still tight against his chest, and he ran his fingers through my hair as I cried on and on into the night.
My father used to say: no one can force you to become a monster, you create your own demons. I hadn’t understood him then, but now I did.
After a while I stopped shaking, but my tears wouldn’t stop falling. I felt safe in Gideon’s arms, and the irony of that was not lost on me. I had avoided him because he had come after me in a dream, and I’d been afraid he would kill me. Now I was the one doing the killing, and he was here soothing the pain and fear of my nightmares, including the one I couldn’t wake from.
Through my bedroom door came the muffled sound of crime-scene processing by crowds of agents and police officers. It seemed much further away somehow than just downstairs.
The CIA had arrived shortly after the incident and cleaned the house, leaving behind only two of Andrei’s dead henchmen and Felix. The story we were told to follow was that two armed men broke in, and Felix and Ben had tried to fight them off. One of the intruders had shot Felix, and Ben had killed them in self-defense.
Every now and then among the indistinct voices I could make out my father’s. I couldn’t bear to hear him. The very thought of him filled me with anger. Tonight? This mess? Was his fault. I hadn’t truly believed there would be people like Andrei who would try to kill us. I wouldn’t have ever had to believe such a thing if my father and his job didn’t put our little family in danger. I was too angry to sleep.
“Abby,” Gideon whispered my name hours later, and I nodded to let him know I could hear him. I guess I’d managed to sleep after all. “Th
e sun is up, and your parents will be checking on you soon. I’ve surrounded you with, erm, I think humans call it a glamour. Your parents won’t notice that you’re healed. When they look at you, they will still see the wounds.”
“All the times I’ve heard the word glamour? I can’t say this is what I was thinking of,” I said, gesturing at my bandages and my IV. I lifted my head and looked out through the windows. Outside, I saw the gray light of early morning. “Do you have to go?” I asked, sitting up on my bed.
“Yes.” He got up and smoothed his rumpled clothes. “But I’ll come back.”
That made me a little happier.
“Sounds like your parents are coming.” He headed for the balcony.
“Wait.” I rushed to him and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Thanks for staying,” I whispered in his ear.
“I’ll be back,” Gideon whispered in return, and slipped out of my arms.
I turned to the door upon hearing my parents’ voices, and when I turned back to the balcony, Gideon was gone.
“Abigail! What are you doing out of bed? You need to lie down.” Until my mother rushed over and gingerly took my hands I’d almost forgotten my body was still covered in bandages. I felt no pain, and the bandages were now just there for show.
I played along, though, and let my mother help me back into my bed. My father watched me from across the room with haunted eyes. My mother looked from me to him and back again several times. Finally, she smoothed my hair from my face and said, “I’ll come back in a bit and help you pack,” before getting up to leave.
“Pack?” I asked.
She took a moment to collect herself. “The CIA has a safe house in Santa Rosa, and they think it would be best for us to stay there for a couple of days while they stake this place out.”
“Leave? What about Felix?”
“The coroner’s office has already come for him, honey. There will have to be an autopsy, but the police will release his body to his family in a couple more days,” my father answered. “In the meantime, we need to get to a safe place.”
“But school. And everything else.”
“Honey, everything will be fine,” my mother assured me. “We will be safe there. We’ll leave this afternoon, and as soon as the Agency says we can come back, we will.” Her voice sounded much less confident than her words, and I knew there was more that they weren’t telling me.
“There are more of them, aren’t there?”
My parents didn’t answer, but their silence told me everything I needed to know.
“I’ll just get started on the packing, shall I?” My mother walked out and closed the door behind her.
I assumed she was leaving so Dad and I could have a moment, but I couldn’t even bring myself to make eye contact with him. I had a lot of questions for him. I also had a lot of answers for him.
“When I was a young boy,” my father said into the awkward silence, “I hated my father for not being there for me and my mother. He was always traveling for work.” I stared blankly at him. “I swore to myself I’d never go near any job with law enforcement,” he laughed, “and now look at me. I turned out just like him.”
“I think I understand that little boy,” I said, half wishing I hadn’t. “I’m sure all he wanted was his father.”
“Abigail, I am so sorry.” My father gently tried to take my hand. “I never wanted to put you through this.”
I snatched my hand away. “Mom cries herself to sleep at night. She doesn’t think I know. Sometimes she never takes her sunglasses off because behind them her eyes are red.”
“Honey, I never meant—”
I cut him off. “But you did, Dad! You did!” I shouted. “I wanted a father, and Mom, she wanted a husband. When I was a kid, I was so happy I had a father. I pictured all the things we could do together.” I felt myself grimace. I needed this, even though I knew it was harsh. “I pictured us playing hide and seek. You would buy me a puppy. We would take long family vacations and you would go to all the PTA meetings at my school. You would never miss my birthday. Those dreams didn’t seem outlandish, but you never made any of them come true. Instead, you handed me a gun and a burden. Your burden.”
“Honey, I know how you must have felt.”
“You don’t know how it felt! You have no idea what it’s like to be a little girl and having your father trust you with the duty to protect your mother and yourself. You have no idea how hard it was for me growing up trying to be everything you wanted me to be.” I saw the corner of his lip twitch, but I didn’t stop. He needed to hear it all. At least, I needed to get it out. “Sometimes I was so angry, and other times so sad and lonely, but I could never let those feelings out because I had to be strong. And I never complained about the life you gave me because I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. That little girl you gave a gun to? Maybe all she wanted was a Barbie doll and a princess dress. I mean, she didn’t, I didn’t, because I never was all that into Barbie, but the point? The point is you never even asked.
“This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. I was supposed to make mistakes, and you were supposed to be there to fix them. It shouldn’t have been my job to fix your mistakes and live out the consequences of your choices. Now, I’m a killer.” I felt my throat dry up all of a sudden. “I killed those people, Dad, and now I can’t close my eyes for a second without seeing their faces and their blood.”
“Honey, I am so sorry.” My father took my hands once more. “I know sorry won’t fix this, and it won’t give you back your childhood or your innocence. I know I can never take back everything I put you through, but everything I did was because I wanted to protect you both.”
I knew he was telling the truth, and I understood him, but I was still not ready to forgive him.
“If I had it all to do over again, I’d do everything differently.”
“The thing with do-overs is they don’t exist. A wise man once told me second chances are just another chance to screw up.”
His jaw was tight, his lips nothing but a thin line. “Can you forgive me?” he asked. When I didn’t respond, he eventually walked out. What could he say?
I wanted to call him back and tell him that I forgave him, and that if he hadn’t asked me to train I wouldn’t have been able to save Mom and Ben, but I didn’t. Because he’d also once said: Forgiveness should be earned, not asked for.
TURNING POINT
Gideon
So, you spent the night with Abigail?” Valoel asked as soon as I returned to my room. She was standing beside my scope, in my room. Pushing all my buttons.
“Are you spying on me now?”
“I’m your bratty little sister, remember? Spying on you is my job.”
“Well, if you were spying you saw that nothing happened. Nothing, Val. I don’t have feelings for this human. Now get out of my room and leave me alone.”
Val made no move to leave whatsoever. “Let me get this straight. You stayed and comforted her the whole night, but you’re certain you have no feelings for her?”
“Yes. I mean no. I mean, yes, I’m certain I don’t have feelings for her!” I shouted, and the scope caught fire.
“You sure? You don’t hide your feelings well. You just got angry and managed to set something on fire. Subtlety ain’t your thing, brother dear.” Val put out the flames with an excruciatingly smug expression on her face. Oh, to be an only child.
“Fine, I’ll prove it!” And with a snap, I found myself crouching near the dock in Abigail’s back yard.
I could see Tristan hanging about in the background behind Abigail and her parents.
Hello, Gideon. Tristan forced his thoughts into my head when he saw me.
I pretended not to hear him as I tried to come up with a plan to get rid of Abigail. I simply had to prove to Valoel that I didn’t have feelings for this, this… human. I didn’t care if Tristan was there or not. I’d just have to kill her and get Valoel off my back, the sooner, the better.
I still didn�
��t have a feasible plan to kill Abigail. I blamed Tristan, who had moved a little closer to me, close enough that I could hear him humming under his breath. I couldn’t concentrate for more than ten seconds with him distracting me like that.
Will you just shut up? I finally thought-shouted at him. He didn’t seem alarmed. He just gave me a shrug and a little smirk, a carefree expression that told me he was used to my outbursts, and they no longer bothered him.
While I stood around fuming and trying to come up with a creative little murder plot, two cars, each filled with body doubles for the members of the Cells family, headed out through the gates. Decoys, I realized. I wasn’t the only danger Abby was facing.
On the dock, the real Abigail was loading a small overnight bag onto a Wellcraft Martinique, talking to her father without actually making eye contact with him, “I know what I said, Dad, and, well, I just wanted to apologize for blaming you.”
Her father hugged her. “I don’t blame you, not anymore. I’m happy you had me study hand-to-hand combat and trained me with firearms, because if you hadn’t, I don’t know what would have happened.” She sounded sincere.
Her mother joined the hug. “Don’t leave me out,” she said, and they all laughed. It didn’t even sound like nervous laughter.
“Um, I can’t breathe,” Abigail croaked. Her parents laughed again, but they didn’t let go of her. “I’m serious,” she coughed out. This time they let go of her and laughed some more.
I watched them as they and their bodyguards clambered onto the boat from the dock, and Tristan watched me. I thought of making an obscene gesture or two at him, but it seemed a waste of my time. He could read my mind. He knew exactly what I thought of him.
An agent on board the little boat was handing Mr. Cells a set of keys, and the two talked back and forth to one another, but I couldn’t hear them over the noise of the engine. As the engine got louder the men’s gestures got more and more broad and exaggerated, so that eventually they looked like mimes.
I stared after them as they pulled away and headed out into the bay, and noticed that Tristan was dividing his attention between them and a pretty girl who had wandered up to him while walking her dog on the beach. As they chatted, the dog pulled on his leash, pointing his nose out toward the water. And then another nose. And another.
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