by May, W. J.
“No, that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Rae said firmly, forming a plan of her own. “But before we turn him loose, he’d going to deliver a little message for me. Right to his dear old bastard boss…”
* * *
“Wake up, Gabriel.”
Some conjured smelling salts were waved under his face, but still he didn’t budge.
“Come on, you bastard. Open your lousy freaking—oh, there you go. Good morning.”
Gabriel blinked up at them in a daze, squinting in the bright sun. There were still dark smears of blood covering almost every inch of his face, and his eyes looked like they were in constant danger of closing.
“What…” he cleared his throat as his eyes focused, and tried again. “Why am—”
“You’re still alive because, unlike you, we don’t believe in killing people in cold blood,” Molly said coolly, folding her arms across her chest.
“And because I obviously miscalculated with the paperweight,” Devon mumbled.
“Because I need you to do something for me,” Rae interjected.
Gabriel turned his eyes painfully to hers, and again she found she had to look away.
I’ll never tell him, she decided on the spot. I’ll never tell anyone.
Devon hadn’t liked the idea of her plan, but she had seen over seventeen years’ worth of Cromfield’s intentions through Gabriel’s eyes.
He didn’t want to force her. He wanted her to choose.
And therein lay her only tactical advantage.
The message was simple, and was to be hand-delivered. She would not join him. She would never join him. She detested his very thought. In no alternate dimension, in no eternal amount of time, would she ever come round. That was her decision. Her final say.
This had been summarized very neatly in a letter which she now handed to Gabriel.
“I want you to give this to your old boss.”
He looked down at it for a moment before taking it in a trembling hand. He seemed surprised that his arms were no longer bound, which he’d realized after he’d already reached.
“My…old boss?” he repeated, straining the operative word.
“Well,” Molly said with a nasty smile, “we figure he’s not exactly going to want you back after he learns you failed so miserably at your mission.”
“No, probably not.” Gabriel’s gaze flicked to Rae before falling to the floor. “I could have run, but I didn’t… I don’t know why.”
“You need to take this to him,” Rae repeated, trying to keep her voice from wavering, “and then you’re free to do as you please. Like Angel.”
“You’re free to get the hell out of here and never come back is what she means,” Devon corrected.
“Unless Cromfield has something for me in return,” Rae continued, “which I’m guessing—given the heated content of this letter—he actually might.”
Gabriel stared at each of their faces in turn before looking back down at the letter. Rae didn’t know if he realized it yet—she didn’t think the others did either. The letter was her gift to him. A letter like that demanded a reply, and in doing so it would save Gabriel’s life. Instead of being killed on the spot for failing to complete his task—he would get to come back.
If only for a little while…
“If you don’t do it, Julian will track you down and I’ll let Devon finish what he started.” She said the words but didn’t mean them. He was just another victim of Cromfield’s games. Like her father?
“No,” Gabriel said softly, pushing gingerly to his feet, “I’ll do it.” He wavered for a moment, reaching back to the chair for balance, until he recovered himself. Although the faces around him gave him no reprieve, he looked at each one again for a second more before landing on Rae’s.
He didn’t know what to say. She didn’t either. Perhaps there was nothing to say.
Did he know? Could he know what she’d done? What she’d seen? She didn’t think so. Then again, there was something about those sparkling eyes that made her pause. That had always made her pause.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said. Short and flat. Almost cocky. As was his style.
Rae shrugged. “Don’t be sorry. I won.”
For a second, a hint of a smile lifted the corner of his lips. Then he grabbed up his coat and swept out of the apartment. Before they had a chance to change their minds.
Before she had a chance to say goodbye.
* * *
A soft knock on the door made her look up from the bed. She’d been sitting there the entire day, ever since Gabriel had left that morning, and graciously, everyone had given her some space. It was nighttime now, and she suspected that space had finally run out.
“Come in,” she called.
The door opened and Devon walked inside. He was dressed to go out, holding her coat under one arm as he extended the other towards her.
“Will you come somewhere with me?” he asked quietly.
For a minute, she just stared. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to it. Not in her entire, eternal life. The sight of him standing there in the lamplight.
Devon was…beautiful. There was no other word for it. But it wasn’t just the look of his face that stopped her cold. It was the look on his face.
He loved her. Completely and utterly. With every bit of his heart.
It was enough to leave a girl speechless.
“Um…of course,” she said, getting up. “And where might we be going?”
He smiled, holding up her coat as she slipped her arms inside. “It’s a secret…”
They walked for about ten minutes, bundled and intertwined as they strolled around the edge of the little park that Rae’s balcony looked across. Then, when they were several blocks down, Devon suddenly stopped. Rae came to a halt beside him, looking up at his face in surprise before following his line of sight to a little house that stood framed by some willows.
“What do you think?” he asked quietly.
Rae frowned slightly as she gazed up at the charming little cottage. “What is it?”
He gave her a quirky smile. “It’s my house. Well, mine and Julian’s.”
There was a moment’s pause.”
“You bought a house?!” Rae exclaimed in alarm, looking back at it in a whole new way. “You freakin’ over-achiever! I thought you guys were just renting an apartment like Molly and me.”
He chuckled and stared up at it. “We were going to, but then I thought…” His voice trailed off, and for a second, he looked almost nervous. “You’ve always like this area, and…”
She squeezed his hand and caught his eye. “What is it? Tell me?”
“Rae,” he took a deep breath, “I want to put down roots. I don’t just want to rent an apartment. I want to build a life here…with you.”
His eyes shone with sudden worry and she realized she’d stopped breathing. Of course, her super-human boyfriend could hear that.
“Sorry,” she stammered, “I just, um…”
He took her hands. “I know our lives might not be what you’d call normal. Okay, I know they don’t even come close. And maybe they never will, but…I love you, Rae Kerrigan. I have from the moment I laid eyes on you. From the moment I tackled you to the ground.”
They both laughed lightly, remembering their awkward introduction.
“I have no idea where our lives are taking us,” he said softly. “Right now, that seems more uncertain than it’s ever been. But there is one thing I am certain about…and that’s you. You will always have me. I will always love you. No matter how ‘un-normal’ our lives are, no matter what else gets thrown our way. That much will never change.”
He might have been about to say more, but Rae would never know. Because at that moment, she couldn’t stop herself from jumping into his arms and kissing him with all her might.
He was right. No matter what happened, or how muddied the waters got. He was hers and she was his. That was simply the way it was, the way it would
always be.
When she pulled back a minute later, he was smiling.
“Ahhh… Is that what you said to Julian when you and he bought the house?” she teased gently.
The smile faded. “One moment I love you, and the next I want to kill you,” he laughed and pulled her into a tight hug with his good arm.
Chapter 13
For the next few days Rae stressed, along with her three suitemates. Would Gabriel bring the letter to Cromfield? She wanted to hope, but the need to be realistic weighed heavy on her. What would Cromfield do when he read the note? Would he hurt Gabriel, or worse? Two long days of stress and worry.
Four teenagers hiding out in a decadent London penthouse without the opportunity to properly enjoy it.
Empty take-out boxes littered the floor. Empty coffee mugs filled the sink. They couldn’t leave the apartment to pick up food. They were in the heart of London and there were too many people making too many minute-by-minute decisions for Julian to know whether or not they might be spotted. So they stayed inside and ordered take-out with delivery, using the luxury apartment as a safe-house. Hiding, pacing, and obsessively checking their phones.
In spite of the fact that they would most likely have to leave it behind forever, Molly actually started unpacking some of the boxes. The others didn’t have the heart to tell her no, and before long they all found themselves starting to help. It was a good distraction—something to keep their heads and hands busy as they waited for the sky to fall.
By the morning of the third day, they had actually made great progress. There were paintings on the walls, carpets on the floor, utensils in the cabinets. The boys had driven themselves crazy trying to put together an apartment’s worth of furniture. “Some assembly required…” Julian had cursed. A load of empty cardboard boxes lay stacked in a pile by the door, as, before long, most everything inside them had found itself a home.
It was a rather hilarious juxtaposition, Rae realized, as she stood back and admired the finished product. Her stuff versus Molly’s. Although it had miraculously come together to look like what Molly called, ‘the ultimate bachelorette pad,’ it was easy to see what belonged to who.
Despite her vivacious personality, Molly was restrained elegance and class all the way. It didn’t really matter whether or not she actually liked something—if it was expensive, she would buy it and mount it proudly on the walls: The unfortunate reason they had literally ended up with a pair of glass sitting chairs—a purchase Devon had ‘accidently’ broken to rescue Rae from having to say no.
As for Rae’s things, they were a bit more on the whimsical side. Molly had politely tolerated her Tibetan prayer scarves, and Moroccan incense holders. Her mouth had thinned into a hard line, but she had forced it up into a smile when Rae hung a Gustav Klimt in the hallway. But when Rae had placed a turquoise papasan chair in the living room, Molly had zapped it without a word.
Somehow, while trying to distract themselves from Gabriel’s non-return, they had found a delicate sort of equilibrium; a balance that came off as rather charming, Rae thought as she wandered distractedly over to answer the knock on the door.
“Jules, did you already order din—” She froze in place.
“What’s up, gorgeous?”
Her mouth fell open in horror as her eyes swept over the man standing in front of her. At least what was left of him. “Gabriel…” she finally managed, “What the…?”
When they had released him, just three days before, he was admittedly a little worse for wear. Actually, he looked like he’d taken Carrie to the prom. Devon hadn’t gone easy on him, and it would certainly have been a while until his face looked its normal gorgeous again.
But this…?
This was a whole other level.
Rae couldn’t see a single part of him that wasn’t hurt. Not an inch of his skin didn’t appear bruised or battered. Every movement was an obvious effort. Even his eyes seemed to have lost their usual shine, but that was probably just because of the purple bruises around both of them.
He could still smile, though. And the second he saw her, a part of him lit up. “Oh, you know. Tripped down the stairs, mauled by a bear. Delivered the wrong kind of letter to my boss…” His grin faltered for a fraction of a second before returning in full force, re-opening a torn lip. “What about you? What’ve you been up to? Trying to stop the world from evil, plotting, psychotic bastards?”
Rae felt like she did the first time she’d ever been zapped by Molly. There was a sharp burning around her eyes, and a prickling sting that echoed through and through. “Are you really going to stand there and make small-talk right now?” she asked in disbelief. How was he even standing?!
He glanced surreptitiously around him with that same inexplicable grin. “Are you really going to leave someone who looks like the zombie apocalypse incarnate standing on your doorstep? Honestly, Kerrigan. What will the neighbors say?”
She grabbed his wrist and pulled him inside, just as the other three returned from where they had been hanging up drapes in the far bedroom.
“No, I didn’t call it in,” Julian answered Rae’s question from moments before. “But if you’re in the mood for…”
The three of them stopped dead in their tracks, their mouths falling open just like Rae’s as they stared in open astonishment at Gabriel.
“What the…?” Molly’s face paled in horror. “How did…”
It was amazing how casual Gabriel could look, even standing amongst the same people who had recently taken a vote to kill him. It was amazing how, still bloodied, he could manage to grin again. “Just had a nasty little run-in with karma, that’s all. But I couldn’t very well leave London without saying a proper goodbye.” He rifled around for a moment in his jacket before pulling out a blood-smudged envelope. “And without giving you this.”
“You were gone for three days,” Rae blurted, completely ignoring the letter in his hands.
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Look, if you wanted expedited shipping, you should have—”
“He kept you for three whole days? Doing this to you?” Because we sent him there—because I sent him there. She stared at him in utter horror. She had done this. To another human being.
Molly clapped her hands over her mouth as tears of horror sprang to her eyes. On her other side, Julian marched straight to the kitchen, looking a little sick. When he returned, he brought with him several clean towels and a bottle of rubbing alcohol.
Only Devon didn’t move. He had been shocked like the rest, to see Gabriel bleeding a crimson pool into the new carpet. But after that he hadn’t moved an inch. He just stared.
“What do you say, Dev?” Gabriel was still trying to grin, although it was getting almost painful just to watch. “How about while she reads it, you and I go for round two? No ropes this time.”
Devon’s eyes closed for a brief moment before he extended his hand. “Come on,” he said quietly.
Gabriel’s gaze flicked between his hand and his face before taking a step back. “Look, I was kidding. I delivered your damn letter—”
“Let’s get you stitched back together and cleaned up.”
* * *
Fixing Gabriel up was quick but brutal. It was something the boys took over while Molly and Rae hovered outside the bathroom door, trying not to cry. At one point, Devon called for Rae to give him a syringe of drugs to dull the pain. She instantly complied, peering past him as she handed it through the door.
Gabriel was sitting on the counter, half-slumped against the mirror with his eyes closed. It appeared that he had kept himself going just long enough to get to the house full of his enemies, and now he was spent. His shirt had been cut carefully off and was lying in tattered pieces on the floor, while Julian stood in front of him, pulling what looked like a piece of glass from his side.
“Hey,” Devon murmured, soft enough that only the two of them could hear, “he’s going to be alright. Nothing we’re seeing is bad enough to kill him.”
Unable to speak, Rae just shook her head, a fresh wave of tears pouring down her face.
“Rae,” he caught her gently by the shoulder, unintentionally staining her shirt with a smear of blood, “he’s safe now. He’s with us.”
He’s with us.
The words echoed back to her a million times as the sun travelled slowly across the sky before settling down behind the trees.
A part of her rejected the notion flat-out. He was not with them. He couldn’t be. For so very many reasons. But another part embraced the thought as soon as the words were said. Because no matter how strange or unbelievable…they were quite simply the truth.
Too many people had already died in this useless war. A secret war with no clear enemy, just a host of invisible dangers and heartbreaking casualties. Rae had lost people on both sides, and gained people too. She had risen and fallen with the tide.
And then there was Gabriel…
Despite all his bravado, Gabriel was a casualty too. He had been since he was just a kid of five years old. He, Angel, Jennifer, even her terrifying half-brother Kraigan. They were all victims too. Victims of manipulation, victims of circumstance, victims of tragedy and force. There was no one on either side who hadn’t been touched by the darkness of a single man.
A man everyone had once said was her father. Except she knew the truth, even when nobody would believe her—Simon Kerrigan was a victim too.
Gabriel was with them now because they all had to stand together. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t stand a chance.
Rae snapped out of her dark introspection as the door to the bathroom opened and closed behind her. Devon and Julian stepped out, carrying Gabriel in between the two of them and setting him gently down on the couch. He was fast asleep.
Molly walked forward the next second and covered him in a blanket that Rae recognized as being from her friend’s own bed. After propping an extra pillow beneath his head, she took a seat on the floor in front of him and pulled out a book, positioning herself like a casual sentry as the boys did the same thing unconsciously on either side. None of them seemed to think about it, this protective behavior, and watching them, Rae couldn’t help but smile as she moved behind the couch to stand behind Gabriel.