11. CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 11
T wo days later, still reeling from the encounter with Lexi, Gideon now had the grim task of pulling the sheet over a dead woman’s face, her beautiful brown eyes now permanently closed to the world. He lifted his gaze to the sunlight shining behind pale curtains in the half-timbered room. Soft sobbing and the occasional piercing wail filled the home around him, but the space between him and the deceased cut the others off like a tiny little pocket universe of quiet.
He paused before covering her, offering a silent apology. Tears had drawn a salty map of pain on her now cold and ashen cheeks. The sweat coating his own body from hours of delicate work trying to save her life had gone equally cold. Gideon shivered and pulled the linen over her head.
A warm hand on his shoulder turned his attention back to the living. “My friend, I thank you for all you’ve done for Cassandra and I.” Roberto Blackwing nodded toward the woman lying motionless on the bed before pulling Gideon up into an embrace.
Releasing the solid hug, Gideon surveyed his friend’s familiar face. A mixture of Southern European and Native American, Roberto’s tanned skin and jet-black hair were offset by the slightest gray at the temples and a few creases around his eyes, signs of aging that had not existed earlier today. He’d looked more Gideon’s age before they’d attempted to transition Cassandra to their universe. Attempted, and failed, fatally.
Gideon shook his head, forcing his words out in a hoarse whisper. “You’re thanking me? Roberto, we have utterly failed you. I have utterly failed you.”
Roberto and Cassandra met over a year ago when, as a prominent sculptor from World Two, she’d begun regular crossings to their dimension. As their relationship grew and the four-hour visits became untenable, they’d begun researching a way for her to permanently stay in their universe. A physician himself, Roberto investigated the difficult process that had been used a few times at other portals over the last couple of years. Those other attempts had succeeded. Cassandra’s had not.
“Failed me?” Roberto placed his palms on Gideon’s shoulders. His eyes were rimmed in red, but his posture straight and strong. “Never. You and everyone else here today spent the last five hours fighting for her life. Fighting for my love. You gave everything you could, and no one is to blame but fickle fate herself.”
Gideon shook his head. “Not fate. We make choices, we have options. We could have … we shouldn’t have…” There was always a right choice and a wrong choice. Success or failure based on one’s decisions and actions. And it was clearer to him every moment that the portal had been the wrong choice, and the responsibility lay squarely on his shoulders. If he’d never opened it to crossing, Cassandra wouldn’t be lying under a goddamn shroud.
Roberto led him to a bench where they sat, and Gideon hated that somehow the tables had turned, and he was now the one being comforted. “Yes, we do indeed make choices, Gideon, but they are based on the cards fate has dealt us. We don’t have that total control you are always seeking, my friend. It is an illusion.”
Roberto picked up a miniature framed drawing of Cassandra from a table next to the bench. His trembling hands belied his calm voice. “Cassandra would tell you there was no other choice for us here, and even now, though my heart is battered and torn, I would agree with her. If you’re fated to be with someone, no matter the risk, you must try. No regrets. Risk it all for love. It’s the most important thing.”
Roberto dropped his head, tears releasing as he clenched the frame, his body shaking. Gideon squeezed his friend’s shoulder, noting the depth of his love for Cassandra and the pain he now suffered. He refused to agree with Roberto’s view. There was always a choice. Choosing correctly kept the pain away. That’s what it meant to be in control.
He spared one last glance at the shape of the woman lying under the sheets and took his leave.
He’d never do that to a woman he loved.
He’d never do that to himself.