Gabriel (27 page)

I didn't answer. Instead, I began tidying up.

“How could he not?” Brooke beamed, making up for my bullet dodging.

“He's really something. Very handsome, like. And he's so gentle and sweet, and—”

“Yes, well, he's an Angel.
Has to go back to Heaven sometime
,” I interjected, bearing false witness.

Iona's shoulders slumped, and she said, “Yes, I know. I wish I had more time with him. He asked me to sing for him yesterday.”

I stopped what I was doing. “He what? Why?”

“I told him I only used to sing, properly like, for my daddy. I don't feel very comfortable singing for anyone else. And he said I should try. That it might help.”

“Oh.” Okay, maybe Gabriel was just being kind to her. I tried to push down the sickening feeling that was stewing in my stomach, and I wasn't quite sure if it was because I felt so unwell or because of what Iona had said. I had a feeling it was a little of both.

“You're going to be late.” Brooke broke the conversation and ushered Iona through the bedroom door.

Iona hobbled out. She coped about as well as I did in high heels, but she made it to the landing and to the top of the stairs. I didn't have to look to know that Gabriel was waiting for her at the bottom. She teetered down each step, hoisting the length of her skirt up as she did, and I waited until she'd made it to the hallway before I dared to look down.

If Gabriel had faltered at the sight of her, I had missed it, because he was now searching the landing for me. Fergal, looking incredibly dapper, raised his eyebrows at Brooke, who was leaning on the banister.

“There's a car outside. I'll join you in a moment.” Gabriel opened the front door, and Fergal stepped through, and the second he was gone, Brooke zoomed back into her bedroom.

Iona hesitated at the front door and asked, “May I use the toilet before we leave?” Gabriel gestured down the hallway.

Once Iona was out of sight, Gabriel appeared on the landing and took my hands in his own. Despite how I felt, I couldn't help but glow a little as my eyes swept over his smart attire. He was wearing a three-piece navy suit, complete with a matching double-breasted waistcoat, but his crisp white shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, teasing me with a show of his smooth chest. His usual shaggy blond curls were gelled back, giving him a definite gentlemanly appearance. But no matter what he wore, or how he wore it, Gabriel sucked you in with those huge sapphires of his, making him the most exquisite being in any room.

You don't look well, Lailah. I'm worried about you.
He spoke his thoughts to me.

I wasn't expecting him to say that.

I know, because of the clouds, you weren't able to meet the sunrise, and you're exhausted from practicing yesterday, but …
He glanced at the floor before finally meeting my eyes again.
Tell me, Lailah, is the sunrise truly enough or do you need blood?

I wavered. My body ached terribly. I contemplated my answer, wondering for a moment if he might understand. Perhaps, the way I thought he felt about it was all in my head? But there was no way of knowing for sure, and I wasn't prepared to take the risk. “I—”

“Gabriel?” Iona's voice chirped, stopping me dead in my tracks.

Gabriel released my hands and peered over his shoulder to where Iona stood at the foot of the stairs. “I'm coming. I'll meet you in the car.”

Iona's heels clipped the marble floor unevenly as she tottered to the front door. When Gabriel's gaze returned to me, his worried frown had briefly transitioned into a gentle smile, one that had been caused by Iona. And it niggled at me.

Lailah—

Just … go
, I said, turning myself away from him.

Gabriel took a deep breath as he reached for my arm and pulled me back to face him.

I love you. I will do what needs to be done, and I'll be straight back. Stay indoors with Ruadhan and keep your mind open in case you need me. I can be back here in a blink of an eye, remember?

I noticed Gabriel tapping his trouser pocket, and I wondered what he was taking with him. As I moved my stray bangs from my eyes, he leaned down and planted a sumptuous kiss on my lips. I returned only a blank stare in reply.

I don't want to leave when you're upset.

“Then don't,” I said aloud.

I have to. I'm securing our future.

I didn't reply and reluctantly he left. When I was sure that they were gone, I shuffled into Brooke's bedroom and shut the door behind me.

“When are you planning on leaving?” I asked quietly.

“Whatever do you mean?” she replied with a devious curve of her lips as she scooped up the many dresses from off the chair.

“As if you're going to let Fergal go to a party without you.”

“I didn't say I was with Fergal,” Brooke protested.

I shot her a knowing look and said, “You didn't have to. And if you're going there, masquerading as me in god knows what company, I'm coming with you.”

“I'm pretty sure I'll be safe on the arm of a demon slayer.… You're so holier than thou sometimes. If you want to spy on Gabriel and Iona, just say it. Jeez!”

Brooke sifted through the dresses. Finally, with a wicked grin, she launched one at me. “Okay, come. It's your funeral. Put that on.” She arched her eyebrow. “Dare to bare?”

Regarding the see-through fabric, I hesitated, but only for a moment and then nodded. “Fine. You can dress me. And Brooke—do we have time for you to cut my hair?”

*   *   *

M
Y COMPLEXION APPEARED EVEN
more ashen than last night, so I encouraged Brooke to paint me in as many layers of white foundation as necessary.

She cut my hair in the pixie style she had initially envisioned, slicking back my new choppy look. She dressed me in a vintage, floor-sweeping gown that clung to every nook and cranny. The back was made of a thick nude material that covered my scars; the ones along my waist, however, were visible. Phelan believed that our scars branded us, and he was right. But just the same as a secret tattoo, my wounds marked the symbol that only I knew the meaning behind—the words that I would not utter aloud, and the feelings I didn't want to admit that I had, for Jonah.

I spun a tiny thong around my fingers, deliberating, and Brooke waited to see what I would do. I placed it down.

“What's happened to you, Lailah?” she asked, and it was hard to miss the pride in her voice.

“I'm not Iona,” I said quietly.

“Er, yeah, I know that,” she replied, handing me a pair of pointy, blood-red stilettos.

“It's time I stopped trying to be.” Everything about the way Iona looked reminded me of how I once did, all those years ago, when Gabriel met me. And I sensed her traditional, softly spoken ways were much the same.

The person I was back then still existed inside me somewhere, and I would hold on to that part of who I was by not allowing myself to feed on the blood of mortals. But I had changed; I had grown into new skin. This skin.

It was time to show it.

Brooke handed me a stunning dress coat, and I carefully slid my arms into the long silk sleeves, fastening the delicate buttons with my frail fingers.

Brooke eyed me. “Lailah, are you
okay
?”

“Yes.”

“Only … and don't get me wrong, you look hot as hell, kudos to my efforts … but it took a whole bottle of foundation to make you look like you're not, well, decomposing.” Her words were awkward as she pulled a piece of fluff from her conservative floor-length gown. She looked alluringly demure, which meant she had dressed for Fergal this evening.

I ignored her. Brooke's iPhone buzzed, and she picked it up from off the bed. “Right, that's Fergal with an address. So, you do your whole traveling-by-thought thing, and I'll meet you at the bottom of the road. We can catch a cab; I'm not pelting to London in these heels.”

I shook my head.

Brooke chewed her bottom lip, and with a fractured voice, she asked, “You can't, can you?”

At this point I highly doubted I would be able to get to the end of the road without freezing midthought. “No,” I answered.

Brooke strode to my side and squeezed my arm, like we were actually friends or something. “When I said
your funeral
, I was speaking figuratively, you know that, right?” She hesitated as my vacant, muddied eyes contradicted the nod of my head. For the second time, here in this very room, she surprised me. Leaning in, she wrapped her arms around my back and whispered, “So why do I get the feeling that you're dressing for your deathbed?”

When I didn't reply immediately, she choked a little, her breath catching in the back of her throat.

I patted her back reassuringly and, overcome by her gesture, I said, “I had a choice, and I chose to live, Brooke. And I'm trying my best to, I promise I am, but—”

“But what?” Jonah's voice smacked me like a baseball bat from behind, and I wobbled in the stiletto pumps.

Brooke pulled away. Her cheeks flushed scarlet.

“Call a cab; we're leaving,” I told Brooke, digging my heels into the carpet.

“Erm, I don't think Ruadhan's gonna just let you go to the party,” she added quietly. “You know,
stranger danger
?”

“We're leaving through the front door,” I said. “I'll meet you downstairs.”

Brooke hovered nervously before finally making her way to the door.

“Neither of you are going anywhere,” Jonah ordered, and Brooke grunted as he held her back.

“Brooke,” I said, “you don't belong to anyone. You can leave if you want to. And so can I. Call that cab.”

She retreated to my side, looking caught in a tangled web between Jonah and me. Fingering her iPhone, she scooped her clutch from the bed and her false eyelashes fluttered as she blinked. “Well then, I'll wait for you in the hall.” And she was gone.

I turned slowly and purposefully, my eyes sweeping the floor to Jonah's dirty boots and then up his lean, muscular body. Finally, I rested my determined gaze on his.

He seemed to sway, perhaps surprised by my new pixie crop; perhaps by my no-nonsense stare. I didn't realize that it was because of my hands.

He marched over, snatched my fingers, and pushed back the soft scarlet silk of the coat sleeve, uncoiling the expensive ribbon to reveal the worthless package it was wrapping. I could coat my face in as much paint as I liked, but there wasn't much I could do about my sallow, bony hands.

“You're dying,” he said like a doctor with a terrible bedside manner.

“I know.”

His expression was unreadable, but the way his body shook—with his hands on mine, his vibrations traveling through me—told me plenty. I wondered if his connection to me through my blood caused him to feel my torturous decline, and if the minute my life truly ended, wherever he was, he would somehow know.

“He will save me, Jonah. I just have to let him,” I said, clinging to the words of the butterfly girl.

“How about you start trying to save yourself for once? You need to drink blood!” he shouted.

“I can't do that to Gabriel. There's another way; there must be.” Shaking the sleeve back down, I peered up at Jonah's moody expression. “I won't apologize for what I did, but I am sorry for what that means for you now. You said when we left here that you would forget me, the way I had you. I hope tomorrow will bring about the end of your suffering—you will never see me again.” I wished that, when we left here, he would find some happiness.

The edges of his fierce lips turned down and his eyes narrowed, yet he said nothing. Concluding that the conversation was now over, I straightened myself and limped away.

“But you haven't forgotten, have you?” His words billowed up into the air, surrounding me like stifling smoke.

I gripped the wooden door frame, suffocated by his words.

“You do remember me,” he said.

A cool bout of air skimmed the nape of my naked neck as he met me at the door. He molded his body around me from behind, exerting pressure on my hip bones with his fingers and nudging his chin into the crevice above my collarbone. “You didn't recognize my aftershave.… What did I smell like to you before?”

I wavered, unable to stop the single unruly tear falling from my eye as I remembered him all over again. I whispered, “Like woods in summer.”

He stroked his thumb across my cheek, mopping up the thought of him, and said, “I stopped wearing that aftershave after you died.”

There was no lie I could give, no excuse that made any sense, and so I didn't try.

“When did I come back to you?” he asked softly, in a deceiving tone that suggested no punishment in exchange for my confession.

“It doesn't matter,” I swallowed. “Because as quickly as you came back, you left me again.” I may have remembered him, but the second I fooled him into drinking my blood, I had become a stranger and he had turned his back on me.

He spun me around suddenly, clutching me by the small of my back. He hoisted me off the floor, closing the gap between us. Now at eye level with me, he rubbed the tip of his nose against my cheek, and with a frustrated, impatient force, met his lips with mine.

I refused him, pressing my palms into his hard chest and replanting my feet on the floor. “It was my blood before, only ever my blood. That's what you said. That's all it is now.”

His hazel eyes darted around my face, settling on my lip, which was twitching. Bringing his hands to the back of his neck, he looked trapped. “I, it's—”

I cut him off. “That's all it is now, Jonah.” I tried to steady my warbling voice. “There is no other reason you would feel compelled to kiss someone that … that tastes like death.”

I marched out of the room, but he came after me. “If you don't drink, and soon, you are going to
die
.”