Chapter 14
“Saint?” Gabriel whispers.
No, I’m not brave enough to lay my demons bare for this man who grew up with a golden spoon in his mouth.
“Get out.” The words scrape my throat raw. “Just go.”
“I’m not leaving.” Gabriel returns to the door and closes it behind him with a soft click that echoes in the silence. The sliver of hall light vanishes, plunging us into deeper darkness, with only the glow of the city filtering through my blinds.
I turn away from him, toward the window, my fingers crushing the picture in a desperate grip.
The tremor in my hands spreads up my arms, into my shoulders, and my teeth chatter despite the warmth of the room. “You don’t understand. You need to leave. Now.”
“No.”
As footsteps approach, my spine stiffens. He stops, giving me space without leaving me alone.
“Saint.” My name comes out as more of a plea, and the sound cuts through the static in my head. Not enough to calm me, but enough to anchor me to the present for now.
I can’t face him, though, can’t let him see the raw terror that reveals the scared boy beneath the violent man.
“You’re not breathing right.” Gabriel takes another step closer. “Try to slow down.”
A harsh laugh escapes me. “Fuck off with that shit.”
The shadows in the room shift as he moves, circling to my side rather than approaching from behind. Smart. He’s giving me a chance to track his movement, to keep him in my peripheral vision.
“Let me turn on a light.”
“No.” The word bursts from me in panic. I can’t let him see me like this, can’t bear the brightness exposing everything I’m trying to hide.
A car passes outside, its headlights sweeping across the wall and catching on the tight lines at Gabriel’s brow, the locked jaw, and the mouth set with stubborn resolve.
The light flashes over the photo in my hand, too, gleaming off the glossy paper.
I shove it back into the envelope, hiding the proof of who I used to be.
My fingers tremble so hard I almost drop it, and I clutch the envelope over my thundering heart as if I could absorb it into my body and make it disappear.
Gabriel takes another step closer, his expensive cologne curling around me, along with the subtle pheromones his body releases in response to my distress.
“Whatever that is,” he says, gesturing toward the envelope, “whatever’s happening right now, you don’t have to deal with it alone.”
My throat closes, my chest constricting so tight I have to force each breath through narrowed airways. The room tilts. The floor shifts beneath my feet.
“You should go,” I try again. “This isn’t your problem.”
“I’m not leaving,” he says, his jaw jutting out. “Not unless you throw me out. And even then, I’ll just wait outside your door.”
His stubbornness would infuriate me if I had any emotion left beyond this crushing terror. I don’t move to eject him. I don’t think my trembling legs would support me. If I weren’t already sitting on the couch, I would be on the floor.
Another car passes outside, illuminating Gabriel’s hand reaching toward me again. He doesn’t touch me, though, as his palm hovers inches from my arm, close enough for the heat radiating from his skin to scorch me.
“Saint,” he says, my name a lifeline thrown into churning waters. “Talk to me.”
The envelope crumples further in my grip as my fingers curl into a fist. Inside, the photo of sixteen-year-old me stares back with dead eyes, while the message on the back claws at me, threatening to return me to that hell.
I’ve missed you, Sammy boy.
“I can’t,” I whisper, the admission torn from somewhere deep inside me. “I can’t talk about this.”
“Okay.” Gabriel’s acceptance wraps around me, steadying in a world falling apart. “You don’t have to talk. But I’m staying.”
A muscle in my jaw twitches, my teeth grinding together so hard my skull aches. The pressure builds inside my chest, a silent scream with nowhere to go.
“I don’t want you here,” I say, but the words hold no conviction. The truth betrays me with every shallow breath, every tremor. I don’t want to be alone with this ghost from my past.
My body takes over, standing, steering me down the hall and into the bathroom while my legs barely register the movement. I hit the switch, and the fluorescent fixture explodes to life with a brittle buzz, the light biting straight into my skull.
Blood clings to the creases of my knuckles, rusty brown stains beneath my fingernails giving evidence of the man I killed outside Foundation. Evidence of my past is catching up faster than I can outrun it.
I place the crumpled envelope on the counter and turn the shower knob with a jerky twist. The pipes groan in protest, water sputtering from the showerhead. Steam rises in thin tendrils as I adjust the temperature hotter, then hotter still.
The blood on my hands suddenly becomes unbearable on my skin. I thrust them under the faucet, cranking the hot water until it burns. My movements turn frantic, nails scraping my palms, fingers rubbing raw as I try to erase all evidence of violence.
Footsteps approach the bathroom door, and the hinges creak as Gabriel pushes it open, filling the doorway with his broad shoulders. The already small space shrinks to suffocating proportions with his presence, and my muscles lock, caught between flight and fight with nowhere to go.
“Did you kill someone tonight?”
I don’t bother denying it as the evidence washes down my drain in pink spirals. “He came at me with a taser in the alley.”
“Did you clean it up?” he asks without judgment. “Or should I send someone to wipe the scene?”
“Body’s already gone.”
“Good.” Gabriel steps inside, closing us both in this tight space. The air thickens with steam as I keep my attention fixed on my hands, scrubbing until my skin turns angry red beneath the rusty stains.
My gaze flicks to the medicine cabinet where a fresh pack of razors waits, tucked behind bottles of aspirin and band-aids. The blade calls to me with the promise of clarity, of pain I can control instead of letting the panic control me.
Gabriel tracks the movement, and without comment, he shifts his position, placing his body between me and the cabinet.
I turn off the faucet with an angry twist, water dripping from my clean but reddened hands, each drop hitting the porcelain sink with a soft plink.
The steam from the shower curls through the small room, condensing on the mirror until my reflection blurs into an unrecognizable smear of color and shape.
“Move,” I order. “I need a shower.”
Gabriel doesn’t budge. “You’re in shock.”
“I’m fine.”
“Your hands are shaking. Your pupils are dilated.” He counts off my symptoms like he’s reading a medical chart. “And you’re still breathing too fast.”
The shower continues to run, water pounding the tile and filling the room with a white noise that can’t drown out the thoughts racing through my mind.
“I need to shower.”
Gabriel studies me for a long moment. “Go ahead. I’ll wait right here.”
The thought of stripping in front of him sends a fresh wave of panic through my system.
Not because of modesty. He’s already seen every inch of my body.
But because of the vulnerability it demands.
Because of the scars on my thighs that tell stories I’ve never shared.
Because I can’t scrub away the memories rising to the surface.
“Get out.” I grip the vanity to stop my hands from shaking.
“No.” A simple refusal, delivered without heat.
The adrenaline that’s kept me upright for hours begins to ebb, leaving my limbs heavy and my mind foggy. The edges of the room soften, sounds muffling as exhaustion crashes over me in waves.
“I’ll turn around,” Gabriel offers, gentler than before. “But I’m not leaving this room.”
He reaches past me to grab the shaving razor from the cup on the sink before he turns toward the door, his back to me and the shower. His shoulders rise and fall with steady breaths, a contrast to my own uneven breathing.
Movements stiff and uncoordinated, I strip and drop my clothes to the floor. When I step under the spray, the hot water burns my skin, but I welcome the pain, needing it to stay present.
Blood I missed earlier swirls from my hairline. The water runs clear within minutes, all evidence of death circling the drain at my feet. If only memories could be washed away with such ease.
When I turn off the shower, the silence rushes back.
Gabriel remains where I left him, facing the door, respecting what little privacy he’s allowed me while refusing to grant the solitude that might destroy me.
I grab the towel hanging on the hook, the motion pulling at muscles stiff with tension.
As I wrap it around my hips, Gabriel speaks to the door. “The man who attacked you. Was it related to the envelope?”
My fingers clench around the damp fabric. “Maybe. Probably.”
“What was he after?”
“Me.” The word falls from my lips before I can catch it. “He tried to tase me in the back alley.”
Gabriel’s head dips, as if he expected this. Which he did. We all did, which is why it came as no surprise. “And the envelope?”
Water trickles down my spine, raising goose bumps in its wake. “Please, don’t ask me about it.”
He turns slowly, giving me time to object. His eyes find mine in the steamy bathroom, searching for something I can’t name. Whatever he finds softens his expression, concern replacing the determined set of his jaw.
“Let me help you with this, Saint.” He keeps his distance, still standing between me and the cabinet with my blades, still guarding me from myself. “Whatever it is, whatever hurt you, I can help.”
The adrenaline crash hits me, knees buckling without warning. Gabriel moves forward, catching my arm before I can fall, his grip firm but careful, steadying without constraining.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, his lips brushing my temple.
I push away from Gabriel, snatch the envelope off the counter, and stalk into the living room.
Distance is my only defense now. Distance from the envelope, from Gabriel, and from the memories clawing their way up my throat. The darkness welcomes me back, city lights filtering through the blinds in narrow strips that cut across the floor like prison bars.
“You should go home, rich boy,” I say with forced authority. “Your family’s still looking for you.”
The envelope remains clutched in my hand, damp from the steam, the photograph inside a ticking bomb I can’t disarm. I toss it onto the coffee table, next to the book of Norman Rockwell paintings, one item containing lives I can never have, and the other the horrors I was subjected to.
“The bounty on my head isn’t your problem,” I continue, words spilling out faster than I can control them. “The guy in the alley isn’t your problem. None of this is your responsibility.”
Gabriel follows me, his footsteps quiet on the carpet. “Stop telling me what is and isn’t my concern.”
“Don’t think we’re friends just because I fucked you.” My voice hardens, defensive walls rebuilding brick by brick. “We’re nothing to each other.”
“That’s not true,” he says in gentle rebuke, no longer willing to let me put walls between us. “Stop pushing me away.”
I snatch up the sweatpants and faded T-shirt left abandoned on the arm of the couch from laundry day and pull them on with quick, efficient movements. The familiar ritual of dressing gives me seconds to compose myself, to push down the waves of panic still surging beneath my skin.
“Whatever’s in the envelope,” Gabriel says, “is tearing you apart.”
“It’s fine. I handled it.” I straighten, clothed now, armor back in place. “The guy’s dead. End of story.”
Gabriel steps forward, not toward me but toward the envelope on the coffee table, and I lunge forward to snatch it away before he can touch it. The sudden movement sends blood rushing from my head, and the room wobbles.
“Don’t.” The word bursts from my lips, raw with desperation. “Just don’t.”
Gabriel freezes, hands lifting in surrender. “I won’t touch it without your permission. But please talk to me.”
All of my careful control, the box where I stuffed all those memories, begins to fracture beneath the weight of secrets, of years spent running, and they come crashing down all at once. My knees hit the couch, body folding in on itself as the words claw their way out of me.
“Someone hurt me.” The confession scratches at my insides. “Someone who—when I was in juvie—”
The sentence fractures, words scattering like broken glass. I stare at the floor, unable to bear his pity, disgust, or worst of all, his understanding.
“He worked there.” I lick my dry lips. “A guard. He’d pick out kids with no visitors, no family. Ones who wouldn’t be believed if they told stories.”
The silence stretches between us, and my uneven breathing fills the room. I force myself to continue, each word ripped from somewhere deep and festering.
“He’d always wait until lights out.” I tap the envelope. “And then he’d—he’d—”
When the words stick, Gabriel doesn’t push or rush to fill the silence with empty reassurances. He waits, patient in the darkness, waiting for truths too ugly to be rushed.
“No one ever responded to the screams. And if you pretended to like it—” Bile rises, and I choke it down. “He wouldn’t hurt you as much. If you chose— And now—”
I thrust the envelope forward, not toward Gabriel but into the empty space between us.
“Now he’s found me again. Because I didn’t kill him when I had the chance.”
Gabriel steps closer, careful not to crowd me. “You didn’t deserve any of it. Not as a kid. Not now. Not ever.”
His certainty cuts deeper than any blade could. My chest constricts, lungs forgetting how to draw breath, vision narrowing to pinpoints.
No one has ever said those words to me before, not Rowan when he helped clean me up after, not the counselors who knew pieces of what happened.
My fingers curl into fists, nails cutting into my palms, and I welcome the pain as a distraction from the storm raging inside me. With every heartbeat, the need to strike surges. I don’t care if it’s brick, bone, or skin. Any solid resistance that will break under my hands will do.
“I should have killed him.” I rock forward on the balls of my feet, poised for violence. “But he transferred before I got the chance. And I let myself believe he was gone for good.”
Gabriel’s hand settles on my forearm, palm warm on my skin, touch light enough that I could break away with the slightest movement.
“I’ll find him.”
Gabriel’s thumb presses once into my pulse, grounding and claiming in the same breath.
“And when I do, he won’t ever touch you, or anyone else, again.”