Chapter 45
Gabriella
I stayed in bed for the next couple of days. Not because I particularly wanted to, but the thought of leaving this space, the area I’d come to see as safety, filled me with such anxiety and panic that I felt I was on the verge of a heart attack.
I made this bed my nest, and so long as I was in the middle of it, safe behind the four concrete walls of the bedroom, nothing could reach me. Nothing could harm me.
I was rarely alone, though.
The old ladies stopped by constantly. They brushed my hair and helped me into the shower, making sure I brushed my teeth. They brought me food and drinks, and just sat with me. Sometimes quiet, sometimes telling me funny little stories.
They kept me grounded when I felt like spiralling. They made sure I slept, and always kept at least one of them in the room with me. I’d woken up one morning to find Steph, Jade, Gemma, Beth and Imogen all curled up on my bed with me.
Rachel was more abrupt. She forced tablets down my throat—whether they were sleeping tablets or antidepressants, she made sure I took them.
I tried to fight her to start with, but she told me that sleep was the best healer. And she also said if I had a broken leg, I would seek treatment and take medication, so why wouldn’t I treat my mind the same? Why wouldn’t I take a pill if my mind was hurting?
I was too tired to argue with her.
But when she wasn’t bulldozing over me, she was kind. She sat with me and talked. She gave me the freedom to tell her everything Nico had done. She swore she would get the men to look for my mother’s body so it could be cremated and brought back to me.
She cried with me, laughed with me, shared her own history, and helped dust off a bit of the humiliation and shame that clouded me.
Vienna was always nearby. He set up station outside my room. I know he slept there every night. I’d heard him fall off the chair once and then proceed to kick it for the next five minutes in frustration. I had opened the door and offered him the chair from my room, which he had accepted silently.
He never pushed me to talk. He never asked for an explanation or details. He simply let me process what was happening to me, and for that I was grateful.
I wanted to open up to him, but every time I thought about letting him back in, a fresh wave of mortification washed over me.
I knew I was hurting him, but I couldn’t let him back near me. Not yet. Not until I had processed everything.
Sometimes, when one of the others had convinced me to sit up for a while, I would catch glimpses of him through the half-open door.
He’d be exactly where I had left him.
Sometimes he was talking quietly with Dante, discussing club business in low voices so they didn’t disturb me. Other times he simply sat there, elbows on his knees, staring at the opposite wall.
He never once looked impatient.
Never once sighed because I wasn’t healing fast enough.
Never once asked when I was going to come back to him.
If one of the old ladies walked out carrying an untouched plate of food, he quietly took it from them and disappeared downstairs.
Half an hour later another appeared, usually something completely different, as though he was convinced the problem wasn’t that I couldn’t eat, but simply that he hadn’t found the right thing yet.
One morning I heard him arguing with Heather because she’d made me tea.
“She doesn’t like Yorkshire Tea,” he muttered.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Everyone likes Yorkshire Tea.”
“Not her. She hasn’t since she was fourteen. She always said it tasted like someone had wrung a sweaty shirt into a mug and added a dash of sugar to it.”
“That’s… oddly specific.”
“That’s Gabriella. She has her own tea in the cupboard with her name on it. Forget it, I’ll make it myself.”
An hour later, another mug appeared beside my bed.
PG Tips.
Perfect colour, perfect amount of milk, and, after I tasted it, perfect strength.
I couldn’t bring myself to drink all of it, but I drank what I could and opened the door, handing the cup back to Vienna myself. He accepted it with a smile, and another brew appeared every couple of hours from that moment on.
It was three days after the attack when Rachel came into my room. She didn’t utter a word, she simply walked over to the curtains and threw them open, blinding me with the harsh light.
“Rachel,” I hissed, shielding my eyes. “What the fuck?”
“Get up,” she said simply, rooting through my drawers and throwing clothes at me.
“I don’t want to.”
“Don’t care,” she replied. “Where do you keep your underwear?”
“I don’t need fresh underwear.”
“Fine,” she said, holding her hands in the air and leaving the drawers open. “That’s absolutely fine by me. Go out in dirty knickers. Better yet, go commando. It makes no difference. Do you want to brush your hair?”
“I do not.”
“That’s also okay. Either way, Gabriella, we are leaving this bedroom.”
“I don’t want to, Rachel!” I snapped.
She stopped her pacing and came to sit on the end of my bed.
“I know you don’t. I know the thought of leaving this room terrifies you.
I know that. But I also know what happened to Kitty when she gave in to the pain.
She spent nearly two years rotting in bed, Gabby.
She was gone long before her body gave up.
She mentally checked out. I don’t want to see the same thing happen to you.
So if I have to be the bad guy and push you, then I will, okay?
If you need to hate me for forcing you, then that’s okay.
I’ll accept it. But I won’t accept you giving up. I can’t.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and I reached out to hold her hand.
She squeezed back and nodded, sniffing quietly.
“I’m not asking you to go far. If all we do today is make it downstairs for an hour, that’s progress.
Maybe tomorrow we can do two hours. But the longer we wait, the harder it will be for you to leave.
Don’t let this room become your prison. You only just escaped the last one.
Don’t live in another of your own making. ”
And that was how I found myself getting dressed and walking downstairs, with Rachel holding my hand the entire way and telling me to breathe.
Walking down the stairs was okay. My legs were shaking, and I felt on the verge of tears. But I made it. I did it.
But being downstairs, seeing the back exit in the kitchen, the busy bar out front had me frantic. I began dragging in my breaths, and still it didn’t feel like enough.
My lungs ached, my head spun, and a knot formed in my throat that felt as though it would choke me.
“I’m here, Gabriella. Look at me.”
I looked at Rachel, expecting to see either frustration or pity on her face.
But there was none of that.
She was looking at me with infinite kindness, both hands grasping mine.
“You’re doing amazing. The bar is busy, yes.
But that is your protection. Those men there would lay down their lives to keep this place safe—and that includes you.
You’re one of us now, Gabriella. Those men out there would die protecting every person on this compound.
That includes you. They are not there to hurt you.
No one is here to hurt you. Besides, you’re Vienna’s old lady.
If anyone even sneezes in your direction, he’ll declare war on the fucking weather. ”
I laughed at the thought. Not a full laugh. But it was enough to have my shoulders loosening some of the tension.
“Come on. Can you walk forward with me?”
I nodded, her words not really registering. All I really noted was that she was gently tugging on my hands and leading me through the corridor into the kitchen.
The wide, open kitchen with the exit looking right at me.
“It’s armed,” Rachel told me, noting where I was looking.
“It’s fitted with a fingerprint code and alarms. There are men outside that door keeping guard.
The hangarounds have been assigned watch duty on the perimeter.
This place is a fortress, Gabby, I absolutely assure you.
Here,” she said, reaching into her pocket and handing me her phone.
I looked down to see that she had loaded a security app.
“Now, I want you to take that phone and sit at the table whilst I make us some lunch. You can flick through that and see every inch of this compound. You can zoom in, zoom out, change the angle, whatever makes you happy.”
I sat at the table, doing as she instructed.
I changed the camera and saw the park, with children happily playing without a care in the world. I switched again and saw Steph’s pet supplies. Another camera angle showed me the edge of the compound, with three men on duty.
“In the interest of being honest,” Rachel began, opening up packets of meat and slicing some bread.
“A lot of the Disciples are out—Dante, Vienna, Chris, Trent, Darwin, and Riley. They are all looking for Nico. Hacksaw is in the security office watching the cameras and doing whatever it is he does in there. But everyone else has a job, and that job is to keep you safe. Do you like mayo?”
“What?” I asked, flicking my eyes at her for a brief moment at the abrupt change in conversation.
“Mayo. On your sandwiches. Do you like it?”
“Oh. Err… sure.”
“White or brown bread?”
“Brown.”
“Tomatoes?”
“Rachel…”
“Do you like tomatoes?”
“Sure.”
“Lettuce?”
“No.”
“Great. More for me then. Watch the cameras, Gabriella.”
I looked back at the cameras, not quite sure what she was up to.
“Juice?”
“Am I a child?” I asked, looking back at her.
“Cameras,” she said, nodding at the phone. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s never too early for wine, but I don’t think that would be appropriate. I’m not even going to attempt to make that potion you call tea. Milk?”
“No, thank you.”
“Water it is then. Cameras,” she reminded me, shoving the fridge shut with her hips.
I looked at the cameras again, seeing that nothing had changed.
“It’s the same,” I replied with a sigh, dropping the phone.
“Exactly,” she said with a smug, satisfied huff.
She placed a plate in front of me and then sat in the opposite seat, munching her own sandwich.
I looked down at the plate, immediately feeling queasy. The red of the tomato instantly threw me into a memory.
“You know I’ve always loved it when you paint my sheets with your blood, Gabriella,” Nico told me, lapping his tongue along my wounds.
“Do you like getting your nails done?” Rachel asked me.
“What?” I asked, my breathing heavier.
“Your nails. Do you like to get them done?”
“I—”
“Bee has been practicing. She has Monster currently wearing a lovely set of bright pink press-ons.”
“I—”
“She once also dressed all the men up as Monster High characters. Vienna looked particularly… deranged.”
“Okay.”
“Eat your sandwich, Gabriella,” she said, taking a big bite.
I copied her action, though my bite was much smaller.
“Good, huh?” she asked, her mouth still full, chewing around her words.
“Yeah,” I said, not meaning it for a single second.
The food churned in my mouth like rotting flesh.
“Swallow me, princess. Let me see your pretty tears. I’m not stopping until your throat is raw.”
“What do you like to do?”
“I’m sorry?” I asked, blinking back to reality.
“What are your hobbies?”
“I… I don’t know.”
I’d never had the time to learn.
“Steph has an opening, and she says you’re more than welcome to work there.”
“Maybe.”
“Imogen has also offered to show you how the books work. Eat.” She nodded back at my sandwich.
“I’m not very good with numbers.”
“Neither is she,” Rachel shrugged. “Tools has also got an apprentice spot in the garage.”
The sandwich froze halfway to my lips.
“Ahh, that’s got your attention, hasn’t it? So you do have a hobby. What’s your vice: bikes or cars?”
“Both.”
“Perfect. Tools has a lot of customers, bikes, cars, vans, caravans. They all pass through here.”
“Would he—”
“Yes, he would, Gabriella. Yes, he would. He wouldn’t have offered otherwise. Tools isn’t the kind of man to do things out of the kindness of his heart. You want the apprenticeship, it’s yours.”
“I’d love it.”
“Okay then,” Rachel replied. “So whenever you’re ready, you march right on out those doors and tell him.”
The panic immediately crept back up.
“I—”
“Well, you can’t exactly work in here, can you? Life is continuing, Gabriella. You need to make the choice to live with it.”
“I…” I sighed. “Will you come with me?”
“Of course I will,” she smiled back.
I took a big bite of my sandwich, and she winked at me, taking another bite of her own.