“Way to make me feel like a child.” I pulled Gabriel’s jacket closer around me. I could see how floating in a grownup’s jacket made my statement ironic, but I was eighteen years old, not six.
“Compared to me you are very much a child,” he pointed out. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m not telling Gabriel either. You’ll both see when we get there,” he assured me before they called us to board our first train to Lincoln, Nebraska.
The passenger train was an extreme upgrade from the cargo crates we rode to Missouri in. We switched trains three times before taking an overnight train to Georgia. I lasted that long without taking a nap, but once we were in our own cabin, with the lull of the train, I couldn’t resist anymore and finally surrendered to the exhaustion. Gabriel was the only one of us who got enough sleep over the past few days, but I doubt any of it was restful.
I tried to get comfortable with my head against the window, thinking how this train was a lot faster than the old steam ones, but there was still the same flow that carried you to sleep…
“Gabriel,” Rosalind said, her breath catching in her chest when she saw him walking over. I could tell she hadn’t seen him in a while, but he had definitely crossed her mind many times.
He paused before masking a look of disappointment, that she might not have noticed, but I did. “Rosalind,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it.
“It’s been a while.” Gabriel turned quickly, and Rosalind followed his gaze to see Embry in the doorway with a little girl, who rushed right over to jump into Gabriel’s arms.
It melted Rosalind’s heart to see the way Gabriel held Molly close, but she tried to hide it from him. Gabriel didn’t even look at us before turning back to the doorway. “Embry,” he said through gritted teeth, nodding his head.
“I understand now,” Rosie said, looking back to Embry.
“I’m glad you found each other.” Gabriel forced a smiled for us, but it disappeared the moment he looked away.
“We’re not together,” Embry told him as if it meant something, but Gabriel didn’t react.
“How long are you here for?” Rosalind asked him, but it was Molly’s big grey eyes looking up at him that held his attention.
“Maybe a week or so. I was in town and wanted to make sure the both of you were okay. Now that you know,” he said.
“If Embry hadn’t come and told me the truth, what would your pretense have been?” Rosie unashamedly called him on his lie, getting a smile in return.
“I might have developed a limp or injured myself on the way,” he smiled in spite of himself, with a softness she found as unexpected as I did.
“I would have seen right through it,” she said with a smile before Molly tugged on his sleeve and he agreed to accompany her to the meadow. Rosie nodded to let him know it was okay. Her heart dropped to watch him walk away, but Molly’s joy at being reunited with her friend was everything to her.
The scene changed but I was still Rosalind. She was walking towards the stables that used to be behind the plantation, long before I was born. Gabriel was there, taking care of some horses, looking like he’d been there a while, long enough to get comfortable.
“Thank you.” Rosalind put her hand out so the horse could sniff it. She didn’t react to the way the horse’s breath tickled, but she avoided looking into Gabriel’s eyes.
“What for?” he continued to brush the horse’s mane.
“Molly. Losing Roger was very difficult on her, and I haven’t seen her smile so much as she does when she is with you.”
“She’s a brilliant little girl. It’s my pleasure,” he assured her. He was polite, but distant.
“Gabriel…” she gave up pretenses, stopped petting the horse and turned to him. “I know you have seen how Embry looks at me, and I want you to know that I do not return his affections. Even before you came back, I couldn’t love him, because I loved my husband until the day I was sure he was not coming back, and then…then I fell for you.” She took a step closer to him, but he put his hands out, as if to stop her, and took a step back.
“Rosalind…”
“Gabriel…” she looked right into his eyes, staring him down like I did sometimes, but I wouldn’t have been able to stay there with the way her heart was pounding in her chest. “You can’t pretend there isn’t something there. You can’t bury it by avoiding me, and…”
“I see her,” he cut her off, looking away so he wouldn’t see the pain in her eyes, but it was clear in her voice as she asked, “What?”
He brought her to a bench and took her hand in his, sending heat and shivers to her spine. “You look exactly like Annabelle. The clothes are different, but other than that, as far as looks are concerned, the two of you are identical. Every time I see you, my heart breaks because I have to actively remind myself that you are not the woman I am in love with. And I want you to be happy and safe and I want to protect you. I want to love you like you want me to, but I can’t, because I am still in love with the girl I met when I was a boy, who stole my heart and never gave it back. You look like her and I am sorry, but I love Annabelle, not what she looked like.” I could tell he didn’t say it to be mean, that he just wanted her to understand that any looks of affection he accidentally sent her way were simply him forgetting he lost Annabelle, but I could feel her heart breaking when he said it.
“Gabriel…” she wanted to argue, to tell him it couldn’t simply be because she looked like Annabelle, that he obviously had genuine feelings for her…
“You can’t talk me out of this. You should accept Embry’s advances, find happiness.” His words cut into her heart like a knife.
“I wasn’t going to,” she said, her anger the only reason she was able to hide how much it hurt. “I understand that I can’t talk you into loving me, but I am not a lovesick child. And you can’t talk me into loving Embry instead of you either.”
“Then what did you want to say?” he asked, looking heartbroken as well.
“Don’t leave because I made the mistake of falling for you. I promise that I will never bring it up again, if you could just stay,” she tried to appear strong, and I gave her so much credit for that, but her pain and vulnerability were screaming at him.
“That would not be a good idea. For either of us,” he was apologetic. Even if he didn’t love her in that way, I don’t think he wasn’t unaffected either.
“But it’s what’s best for Molly. I understand if you have to leave, I have no claim on you, but I’m a mother first, and that girl, who is my world, she loves you. And I would hate to think I was the one who cost her the only person since her father who can make her laugh like that.”
He looked into her eyes, but all I could hear was her broken heart pounding in my ears. He considering it for the longest time, what felt like an eternity. “I’ll stay,” he agreed. “I’ll stay for Molly.”
“Thank you,” she gave him a sad smile before getting up and going about her day as if nothing had happened...
I woke up to find Gabriel watching me, with a kindness he didn’t usually show, especially not during the day. He usually kept his distance, but got more vulnerable at night, when he possibly thought I wouldn’t remember what he said to me. I had been longing for another one of these late-night conversations, ever since the night I wore the lace dress that reminded him of Annabelle, and he told me about his brother.
“When you look at me, do you see me, or do you see Annabelle?” I asked, snuggling into Embry, who was asleep beside me. I knew I looked like her, but what he said to Rosalind made me wonder.
“Do you want the truth, or a bedtime story with a happy ending?” he reverted to his carefree, bored self, but I didn’t feel like he was trying to protect me from an ugly truth, more like he was the one who didn’t want to admit to it.
“The truth.” I closed my eyes a bit like I was falling back to sleep, so he would put his guard down. It was wrong of me to manipulate him like that, and I knew it, but it was also mean of him to
be really nice to me and tell me things when he thought it wasn’t registering.
“I always saw her,” he admitted. “When I woke up in Rosalind’s arms, I thought I died and went to heaven, to Annabelle...but then I saw the differences. Some were big, others were small, but none of them were Belle. I never got used to it. Every time I saw them, ‘Annabelle’ was always my first thought.” I could hear the pain in his words like I had seen on his face in the memory. “My heart believed it until I saw, or rather reminded myself, that it wasn’t her. It was like losing her all over again, every single time,” he shared. I opened my eyes a crack and saw he was talking to himself now, assuming I was asleep. I kept my eyes closed and concentrated on the rhythmic breathing that fooled him all those years ago in the East Wing.
I wanted to apologize for the pain it caused him to look at me. I knew he still loved her, but I didn’t realize he still forgot, even after all these lifetimes without her.
I thought he was done, but his next words shocked me so much I forgot to breathe. Not just breathing slow to pretend like I was sleeping, but breathing altogether. “Until you. I came for your eighteenth birthday and you ran to me, so relieved and happy to see me, wearing this pink dress… and I thought ‘Lucy’. Not Annabelle like every time before...and it broke my heart,” he admitted, pausing a moment during which I felt his gaze on me. “I couldn’t be near you anymore after that, not until all of this,” he sighed before getting up and telling Embry he would go make sure everything was good in the other compartments.
It was only when Gabriel shut the compartment door behind him that I realized I was holding my breath. I kept my eyes closed, but wasn’t fooling anyone.
“You weren’t asleep,” Embry reproached now that we were alone.
“Neither were you,” I tried to turn it on him. “He doesn’t talk when he knows I’m awake,” I relented.
“Be careful with him Luce, he has a dark side,” he warned before we heard Gabriel making his way back. “Get some sleep,” he recommended, kissing the top of my head. I looked at him, remembering how hurt he was watching Rosie choose Gabriel, and did as I was told.
I cuddled into Embry and tried to fall back asleep, but it was hard when the two of them were talking. Eventually, Embry kept watch while Gabriel got some sleep, but my mind was too stuck on what he said to sleep. What did he mean that seeing me broke his heart? I opened my eyes, thinking maybe I could convince Embry to talk it out with me in the hallway, but once my eyes were open, they immediately locked with Gabriel’s, who was on the other seat, facing me, his eyes open and staring at me. I rationalized it by reminding myself it was their job to protect me, but he didn’t stop when he saw me looking. We kept our eyes locked, without acknowledging each other or moving, until sleep finally made my lids drop and I drifted off to sleep.
When Embry shook me awake, the train was still moving, but there were three extra people in the compartment with us. The two men had the same hair colors as Embry and Gabriel, both dressed in black. The girl, however, looked nothing like me. She had a mess of curly brown hair, like mine, but she wore it up in a bun and was almost a foot taller than me. Her dress either came from my closet at the manor, or she happened to buy the exact same style.
“This is Tristan, Benjamin and Delia,” Embry made the introductions. I remembered Delia’s name from the chalkboards at Caleb’s safe house, but no one ever mentioned the other two.
“It’s nice to meet you Lucy.” Tristan, the one with dark hair like Gabriel’s, had a warm and welcoming smile, while Benjamin looked...not quite miserable, but this was one of the last things he wanted to be doing right now.
“We’ve heard a lot about you.” My decoy was older than me, but not by much. There was something about her eyes, even without the darkness, that told me she had lived many, many lives.
“All of it terrible,” Embry smiled, but Delia shook her head at him.
“He brags about you constantly,” she told me. “And you’re an Owens, you have no choice but to be kind and selfless and perfect,” she rolled her eyes, but was smiling at me.
“Is that something we’re known for?” I asked.
“According to these guys,” she nodded to Embry, then to Gabriel.
“You should wear your hair down,” I told her. I didn’t feel so perfect and wasn’t looking forward to letting the Owens reputation down.
“We know their disguises won’t hold if they see them up close,” Embry defended.
“If it’s someone new, they might not know exactly what I look like, but I think they’ll all know about my birthmark,” I pointed out. It was the whole reason they were hunting me.
Embry nodded, but Delia turned around to show me her neck. It was a near-perfect replica of my crescent moon birthmark, complete with the freckles in the middle that looked like stars. “Etta was going by memory when she drew it, but I think it’ll hold up if it isn’t someone who knows one of you,” she got a sad look on her face. I had yet to meet Etta, whose husband Caleb had housed us at the beginning of the summer, but I knew she was incredibly close to Cassandra, the version of me from the eighteen hundreds.
“Which one?” I asked, touching the back of my neck as if I could feel what it looked like.
“Mostly Cass, but I think I’ve met all of them, except for Annabelle,” she looked to Gabriel for confirmation.
He nodded, so Tristan, his decoy, asked, “We’re just going to Florida and chilling, right? There’s nothing you need us to do once we get there?”
“That’s it. You can work on your surf or meet Goofy. We just need enough time for them to lose us,” Embry assured him.
“Oh, we brought these for you.” Tristan took a bunch of brightly colored garments out of his backpack and handed some to each of us.
“You’re enjoying this too much,” Gabriel warned, putting a Hawaiian shirt over his black t-shirt.
“I would enjoy it a lot more if I had a camera to take pictures back to everyone else,” Tristan argued.
“These don’t go together,” I said of the long black coat and baseball cap they brought me. The guys were used to dressing in black, but I was usually in colors.
“We’re not aiming for fashion, just something you wouldn’t usually wear,” Embry said as the train slowed to pull into the station.
“Thank you.” Gabriel took Delia in for a hug, while Embry shook the guys’ hands.
“Come by when this is all over. We miss you,” Delia told him.
I followed Embry and Gabriel out of the compartment and through the busy train, careful to keep my head down.
“They’re Gifted, right?” I verified, knowing they would be hunted if their disguises passed the test, possibly killed if they didn’t.
“Of course,” Embry assured me.
“And they haven’t done what they were supposed to do?”
“We wouldn’t let them do this if they had.” Gabriel guided me to an exit.
I nodded, thinking that I should have been raised by people like that, instead of Sam, Deanna and Clara.
We went to a beat-up Volkswagen in the parking lot, that Embry somehow had the keys for. It was so old that he had to actually put the key into the lock and turn it to unlock the doors, then lean across to unlock Gabriel’s door, and the one behind him for me.
“Can you tell me where we’re going now?” I asked, taking the middle seat.
“Not too far,” Embry said, giving me no actual indication of time or place
“And we’re currently in…” I looked around for a sign since I hadn’t been paying attention at the station.
“Right now, we’re in Atlanta.”
I tried to pretend this was a road trip vacation so I could forget every horrible thing that happened in the past few days.
Chapter Five
It was two fast food stops, one gas station and approximately seven hours before we arrived in a very secluded neighborhood of New Orleans.
There were gates and wide-open spaces, but not a l
ot of houses. Embry drove up to a villa surrounded by fields and stables on one side, with trees and swampland on the other. The house wasn’t nearly as big as the ones I grew up in, but it was at least two to three times the size of a normal house.
“Who lives here?” I asked, looking around at the beautiful expanse of land. It was like a cross between an Italian villa and New Orleans charm.
“I do.” Embry got out of the car and looked around at the property. “At least sometimes,” he amended.
“How long have you had it?” I wondered if it was a new acquisition, or part of his life I knew nothing about.
“1922,” he looked at the house like he could see the first time he saw it, with the memories alive in front of him. They made him smile, but it was a sad smile. Beth, the last copy of Annabelle before me, lived in the early nineteen-hundreds and grew up in New Orleans. I wondered if she might have something to do with it.
“There is absolutely no security here,” Gabriel declared after a few minutes of observation, unimpressed.
“It wasn’t designed for something like this, but we can manage,” Embry assured him. “If anything gets out of hand, we can send Lucy to the panic room.”
“You put a panic room in this house?” Gabriel raised his eyebrows.
“I made a fireproof room to protect things.” There was a finality to the way he said it that dissuaded Gabriel from any further arguments about the location.
“Your plan is to lock me in your bunker with your favorite things?” I asked.
“If things get out of hand.” Embry smiled at me, so I rolled my eyes before smiling back at him. I knew better than to complain about tight spaces or not being able to go outside. Others had given up way more than that to keep me safe. Plus, I grew up exploring a manor with secret passageways that I sometimes got lost in. I also had my own bunker I’ve locked myself in before, not that I wanted to repeat that. But I didn’t want the guys to keep shutting me out whenever things got dangerous.
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