She rolled over onto her front and placed her chin on her hands which in turn were resting on a cushion. She swept her hair out of the way in one motion and this time it all stayed where she put it. Her bare feet were up on the arm of the settee closest to him. Her delicate toenails were painted black but with silver glittering highlights that shimmered when she moved her feet.
Fulton's eyes traced a line from her feet up to her shapely calves past her delicate ankles. They followed the shallow dip in the backs of her knees up her thighs and over the smooth swell of her buttocks. Sweeping down onto the naked small of her back that flowed up then in the graceful curve of her back to where her hair spilled onto her bare shoulders
Quietly Fulton moved in his chair so that his head was closer to her feet. He took a breath and slowly blew it out so that it just played over the soles of her feet. She curled her toes up in response. Fulton repeated the action blowing slightly harder and for a more extended period. Gabriella giggled and swung her feet out of the way. This time Fulton reached out with his hand and trailed his finger gently along the inner arch of her left foot starting at her big toe and ending at her heel. Gabriella muffled her squeal into the cushion she held. She wriggled her body against the settee but kept her foot from moving with an effort.
When Fulton stopped trying to tickle her she looked back over her shoulder at him. Her normally pale face had a brush of pink over her cheeks.
"That doesn't work any more," she said. "I've trained myself to resist it."
Fulton smiled like a friendly predator. "Oh have you?"
He grabbed her foot at the ankle and brushed his fingers randomly over the sole of her foot.
Gabriella struggled to control her mirth and had to keep her lips pressed tightly together. Fulton eased up.
"No. No effect on me at all," she managed to squeeze out before he started again in earnest.
She was unable to contain herself this time under Fulton's relentless tickling and a squeal escaped her before Fulton stopped.
Both of them were suddenly wary and serious, waiting to see if her outburst had been heard. When, after thirty seconds, there was no sign that either of those upstairs had taken any notice of her outburst they were able to relax again. Gabriella rolled herself over onto her back and pushed herself up into a half sitting position. When their eyes met both Fulton and Gabriella burst out laughing at the relief on each others faces.
Fulton left his seat to join Gabriella on the settee. She pushed herself fully erect to give him room, but she still sat sideways with her legs crossed in front of her like Fulton remembered having to do in primary school. Absentmindedly he brushed her hair away from her face. He let his hand trace down her face from her dainty ear onto her slender neck. He carried on over her shoulder and down her arm. He let it move from her hand to where it rested on her leg. He traced a line over her plastic trousers and stopped at her knee which he squeezed tenderly and didn't release.
"We can't keep on like this," he said. "It's killing me inside. I know I said that I would give you time, and I'm not trying to pressure you, but you need to decide soon."
"I know how you're feeling and it's no easier for me. All this time since I admitted to myself and to you how I feel about you I've been walking around in a dream. Nothing seems real but I know that it is. I know there will be consequences whatever decision I make. I know I will end up hurting you or Francesca if I choose the other. I love you but Francesca made me. We have over two centuries of history with each other. What I feel for her is just as strong in its own way, maybe its love as well. "You know what you feel; you are the only one that can."
Gabriella was close to tears. "But that's just it; I'm so confused I don't know what I feel any more."
"What I feel for her is just as strong in its own way, maybe its love as well."
"You know what you feel; you are the only one that can."
Gabriella was close to tears. "But that's just it; I'm so confused I don't know what I feel any more."
Fulton had been staring at his hand on her knee throughout her speech. Now he brought his gaze up to her. "You shouldn't be worried about hurting Francesca, and you shouldn't worry about hurting me. The decision you make has to the right one for you. You need to decide which choice is going to hurt you. Forget about the rest of us and any consequences, they can be dealt with later. But right now we are both getting all the worry and heartache without any benefit and no hopes of it ending until we decide how to proceed."
Gabriella's eyes started to fill, her lower lip trembled. "I can't ignore the consequences. I think I know how I would choose without them. But they exist and it is a fallacy to pretend that they don't."
Fulton swallowed, he knew what was coming so he tried to make it easier for them both. "Then you must stay with Francesca and I with Persephone."
Gabriella didn't look at him and didn't speak.
"We dreamed this could work but we know in reality that it never could," he continued. "We'll just have to work at what we have with Francesca and Persephone."
Now Gabriella managed to respond. "How can I do that when I know what we could have had together?"
"Because I won't be around here to remind you. As soon as I can arrange it I'll take Persephone and leave. It's for the best."
Tears streamed down Gabriella's face taking her black makeup with them. Fulton reached out and brought her to him. Holding her close, protectively not intimately, he stroked her hair. He said no more, only soft soothing noises passed his lips until she had cried herself to sleep.
**********
Fulton hadn't noticed Persephone returning, he still hadn't had a chance to tell her that they were going to set up on their own. It wasn't really what he wanted, but he had made his bed and now he had to lie in it. He had taken that misguided girl and turned her into a monster. He had to face up to his responsibility and not turn his back on her in his selfish hopes of finding something better.
His mind finally settled, or as settled as it had been for a good long time, he called to Persephone. He would tell her now.
Instead of Persephone it was Francesca who opened the door to his room.
"I was expecting Persephone," he said without making eye contact. He knew his feelings for Francesca weren't real but if he looked into her eyes she would surely learn what he had hidden from her. She still had that power over him.
"I stopped her from coming." There was an uncommon solemnity in her tone. "You need to come with me."
Fulton didn't rise from the edge of his bed, but finally he raised his gaze to study her face. Did she know? Had Gabriella told her, or had she discovered them on her own? But no, there was no sign of their betrayal in her face. This was something else.
"I never encouraged your attempt to maintain the links between yourself and your family. I would have discouraged your attempt to make contact with them again had I known about it, for surely no good could come from clinging to the past. But I know that you still felt those ties, the bonds with your family had not been severed. But I knew you would want to know about this. Maybe now you will be able to start out afresh."
Fulton just let Francesca talk. Cold tears were streaming down his cheeks as he watched them loading the bodies into the ambulances. But there was no hurry about the paramedics as they worked. They already knew they weren't dealing with people who might be saved, just meat for the coroners table.
They were hidden in one of the neighbouring gardens observing the buzz of activity surrounding Fulton's family's home. As well as the ambulance personnel, who finished loading the final small black-bagged body into the back of one of the vehicles, the police had cordoned off the area and were questioning the neighbours who stood around in small groups crying or complaining at the state a world must be in to allow such an atrocity.
Francesca was as silent as Fulton now, giving him some space to come to terms with what he was seeing. She was right, especially with all the killing he himself had done he shouldn't be so af
fected by this. But he was. Who could do something like this?
He shifted his focus to where a police officer was taking a statement from a middle-aged man. Fulton gathered that he had been out walking his dog and had heard some screams, he guessed they were from Fulton's mother. The witness said he had seen somebody fleeing the premises and was currently engaged in giving a description to a police sketch artist.
Fulton had to get a look at that sketch. He felt this hurt personally and wanted to see the face of the person who could inflict such pain on him.
Stealthily he left Francesca's side and approached the place he had still thought of as home right up until he saw them carrying out his family's corpses. It proved no difficulty to get close to his garden, he made sure to keep out of sight for any neighbours who might still remember and recognise him. His route took him up past the ambulances which housed the bodies. His eyes were filling up again and he placed his palm up onto the side of the closest vehicle. Whether he could be with them or not they didn't deserve this.
An officer shooed him away from the side of the ambulance and Fulton moved on. He came up a short distance behind as the officer was finishing questioning the witness.
"We should just leave," Francesca appeared at his shoulder.
"I have to know who did this," Fulton said flatly.
Francesca gave a furtive glance around. "We shouldn't be here. No good can come of this."
"I have to know."
A memory flashed in Fulton's head. Himself and Francesca feasting on his little twin sisters in his dream. He had to see the face of his families’ killer.
The sketch artist turned the pad around to show the image he had drawn to the witness. Fulton moved around so that he could see, leaving Francesca behind.
He could see the portrait perfectly from where he was now. He had half expected to see an image of himself smiling back from the over-sized paper. In fact that would have been better than the truth of the matter.
The witness had nodded at the image, and the artist had handed it off to an officer, by the time Francesca came around to join him. She must have seen something in his face or rigid posture.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
Fulton vanished from her side again without answering. The truth was worse than finding out that he had slaughtered his family. Because the truth revealed that it was the only woman he thought he was capable of loving who had killed his family. Now he knew how fine the line could be between love and hate.
Chapter Thirty-eight
She couldn't do it. She couldn't face life without Fulton. She needed Francesca but she needed him that much more. Her heart felt an emptiness she had never been able to recognise before she met him. He completed her.
Gabriella stood in the shower and let the hot water caress her skin, wishing he was here with her now so that she could tell him about her change of heart.
She couldn't wait for him to come home. Even though she had finally made the decision to spend the rest of eternity with him, every second they spent apart until then was agony.
Gabriella had been smiling when he entered the room, obviously expecting him to be all torn up with grief over his family's death and needing her to console him. He had to give the duplicitous little bitch credit for keeping the smile plastered there even when she saw the mood he was in, but in the end she had had to let it drop.
Fulton didn't intend to give her the opportunity to try and talk herself out of this. She had deluded him with imaginings of a future he could never have. Of a life of love not hate. But then she had snatched it away from him. Well so be it. Hate was easier anyway. His heart was frozen metal in his chest.
Gabriella got to her feet as though to welcome him. He responded by slamming his fist into her stomach. She started to wretch and doubled over. He punched her in the gut a second time sending her reeling several steps backwards. She supported herself by reaching out instinctively for the back of a chair. Doubled over and spluttering she just managed to raise her head as Fulton closed in on her again. This time he buried his right knee into her stomach. Once. Twice. A third time. She coughed and choked out a cry. Strings of saliva dangled from her mouth.
Her eyes were wide with fear when she managed to look up at him. There were tears there and something else as well. It looked like betrayal, or maybe disappointment. That was it, she was disappointed that he had reacted like this, that he knew it was her.
Fulton grabbed the back of her head with his right hand, pulling her hair. His left hand grabbed the top of her trousers and he launched her headfirst across to the other side of the room. She slid the last two metres on her front tearing her clothes and grazing her pale skin. She struggled to roll over onto her back and Fulton let her do so. Before she could try to push herself up he stamped with the flat of his still booted foot on her chest and stomach. Grabbing twin handfuls of her dark hair he lifted her up and then off the floor swinging her to slam sideways into the wall.
She dropped flat on her front unable to bring her arms up to break her fall. Fulton kicked her in the kidneys and this time when she coughed flecks of blood came up with her spittle. She was still conscious and struggling to get up so Fulton delivered a swift kick to her head that knocked her out.
But that wasn't enough for him. He left her lying there and went and sat himself down on the settee waiting for her to recover a little. He was unaware how much time had passed before she was capable enough to push herself into a seated position with the aid of the wall. But when she had done so he waded in again.
He took hold of the hair on the back of her head again and scraped her face roughly across the wall, stopping every few paces to kick her in her midsection. Pulling her erect he lifted her over his head and then brought her back to the ground in a slam. Fulton stood over her and dropped delivering an elbow with all his weight to the centre of her sternum. Getting back to his feet he grabbed Gabriella around the throat and stood her up against the wall beside the door having to kick a large bag out of the way in the process.
She looked like she might have been trying to say something. With the damage he had done to her she was unable to offer anything more than a pained whimper. That was fine as far as he was concerned; he wasn't interested in anything she had to say.
He delivered blows rapidly to her stomach and kidneys with both his fists and his knees. He brought his right elbow up into her face twice, the second shot shattering the cartilage in her nose and ruining her pretty face. Her eyes glazed over with a faraway look and he knew she was about to drop into unconsciousness for the second time so he drew back again to let her recover.
More time passed and he remained oblivious to how long, but this time he gave her a longer respite and he could even see her nose starting to fix back into its original shape before he started again.
During her recovery times she gazed up at him with bloody eyes and tried to speak but was unable to get any coherent sounds to emerge out of her mouth. When the noises started to become almost intelligible was when Fulton waded back in.
He lifted her body up over his head and threw her down into the back of the settee. She tipped the furniture over and it rolled on top of her. Fulton shoved it aside one handed and picked Gabriella up again into a standing position. Her legs could barely support her anymore and Fulton had to drag her back up by her hair twice more before she could support herself enough to suit his purpose. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her across the room towards the television set on its small stand, he pushed her in the back as he launched her to provide extra momentum.
She slammed into the television set and stand and they collapsed together in a ruined heap. The shattered glass and plastic lacerated Gabriella's already torn clothes and skin. Fulton kicked her where she lay attempting to recover. He reached down and took hold of her by an ankle and proceeded to drag her out of the ruin. Further cutting her body in the process. She was now completely naked on most of her upper body except for a few strips of material and a growin
g covering of blood and bruising. For every laceration that managed to heal two more fresh wounds were opened. Her trousers were starting to come away and blood ran freely over the exposed parts of her legs.
Fulton dragged her, leaving a bloody trail in their wake, into the dining room which had been emptied to turn it into a training room for the pair of them. The memories of the time they had spent together here spurred Fulton on. He swung Gabriella up, holding her just by her ankle, and cast her again into one of the walls.
It was time to end this. He knelt down beside her semiconscious form and took her head in his hands, one on either side of her face. With a simple twist he could pop her skull free from her spine severing the spinal column and killing her instantly.
He held her there, staring into the face he thought he could have loved, and she blinked her eyes open. When their eyes met he knew she saw her death in his.
But now that it came down to it he couldn't do it. Even in this rage he couldn't kill her like this. He couldn't do it with his bare hands having to be so close to her. Where the scent of her, even distorted by fear and pain, could fill his head.
He released his hold with one hand and with the other he slammed her head into the wall so hard it left a depression in the bricks and Gabriella unconscious yet again.
There was a way he could pay her back for her betraying him without having to be close to her when she died. Crossing to the side of the room that didn't have a wall, only windows that served as a doorway onto the garden and had been covered with closed blinds ever since they took the house over, Fulton reached up and opened those blinds. It was still dark outside but that wouldn't last forever. Fulton stretched up and tore the rail holding the blinds in place out of the ceiling. He let the entire assembly fall to the floor. When the sun rose this room would be flooded with light and Gabriella would have nowhere to hide from it.
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