Fallen (16 page)

I couldn’t help but shake as my skin pricked, even though I didn’t really feel cold. I chalked it up to shock and asked, “Why are we in here?”

“There’s an escape route,” Gabriel muttered as he shoved the desk up against the door. 

I nodded dumbly, shivering as I ran my hands up and down my arms.

He pushed against the giant bookcase running along the side wall, sliding it over until a door was exposed.

“C’mon,” he said, grabbing my hand as he threw the door open. 

We ran down a narrow concrete hallway, our footsteps echoing in the dark space until it opened into a desolate parking garage. Gabriel halted as two figures came into view.

Healers.

Their mouths were set into grim lines as they took a step toward us. Gabriel shoved me behind him and held out his hand in a “stop” gesture. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “There’s two of us and two of you. We both know damn well those odds aren’t in your favor.” 

That’s right—Feeders were supposed to be stronger than Healers. Wasn’t it something like two Healers for every one Feeder?

We could fight them off…right?

The Healers glanced at each other, as if having some unspoken conversation. My heart, already beating at a mad-dash, sounded like a freaking helicopter about to take off when both sets of eyes landed on me as I peeked out from behind Gabriel.

Shit. They could hear my heartbeat too, pumping out my fear like it was a goddamn radio frequency.

“
Balls
,” Gabriel muttered, cocking his fist as they charged us.

What happened next was a blur. Literally. Something shot off from the side of the garage like a rocket, tackling the Healer on the left. His screams rang out through the empty space as a male huddled over him, ripping his flesh from his bones. 

The other Healer took off before his comrade’s screams died down. 

Gabriel grabbed my hand and led me out to the street, cautiously guiding us back to his car. Relief flooded me when I saw his black Mercedes under the street lamp.

He peeled out of the parking spot before my door was even closed, the tires squealing on the asphalt as we sped toward the highway.

My mind raced as it tried to process everything. “I thought there was a truce.”

His jaw clenched. “So did I.” 

As his words sunk in, I thought over tonight’s implications. “What does this mean?”

“It means Paris is no longer safe. We have to go someplace else.”

“Where?”

He shifted gears, accelerating down the empty highway. “The airport right now, then London. I have a place there no one knows about.”

“We’re not going back to the apartment to pack first?”

He shook his head. “If they found the club, who knows what other places they know about. We can’t risk going back.”

I looked down at my tattered dress, torn and smudged with ash. “What about our clothes? My passport?”

“Look in the glovebox.”

I popped the lid, pulling out a brown envelope much like the last one containing my new IDs. I turned it upside down, spilling the contents into my lap. It was a passport. I flipped through it, finding a new ID tucked inside. 

“Victoria Chase?” I asked, reading the names on the new documents.

“
Always
have a Plan B.”

“But what about our stuff?”

“My place in London is fully stocked, but we’ll need to go shopping for you.”

I tried not to scowl. I didn’t want him spending any more money on clothes for me. 

“Are you okay?”

I shook my head. “No! There were
so
many people we could’ve helped—”

“Did you
see
what was going down in there before we left? We didn’t have time to help anybody, Em, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to risk my life or yours.” He gripped the steering wheel and shot me a look before refocusing on the road. “When given the choice between your life and anyone else’s, I will
always
choose yours. Nothing you say can make me apologize for that.”

Wiping my eyes, I sank into my seat as we drove the rest of the way in silence.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

EMILY

Gabriel’s London apartment was smaller, but just as upscale. Standing in the doorway of the only bedroom, I eyed the king-sized bed and wrapped my arms around myself.

Gabriel cleared his throat behind me. “I’ll take the couch.”

I nodded, pretending like that would actually happen and we
wouldn’t
end up in the same bed, like we’d been for weeks.

He brushed past me, walking to the closet in the far wall. “My clothes are in here. Help yourself to whatever you need.” He unbuttoned his cuffs and loosened his tie. “We’ll go shopping first thing in the morning.”

I sat on the bench near the foot of the bed, kicking off my heels. “Does this mean I get to pick out my own clothes?”

He frowned and tossed his ruined blazer onto the bed. “Did you not like your clothes?”

“No, they were beautiful.” I stood and walked over to him, turning my back as I brushed my hair aside, exposing the zipper of my dress. “I just don’t need such expensive clothes.”

Gabriel’s knuckles skimmed my skin as he unzipped me, and even though I couldn’t see him, I knew his frown was still firmly in place.

I held my dress up by the bust and grabbed an undershirt from the open dresser drawer, then disappeared into the bathroom to change. When I reemerged seconds later, he was gone.

Gabriel glanced over from his spot on the lounge chair as I stepped onto the patio. The glow from the ember of his cigarette lit his face as he inhaled and said, “Can’t sleep?”

I shrugged. “I haven’t tried.” I was scared to. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that girl, trapped under debris as she reached out to me for help—help that I couldn’t give.

Scooting over, he patted the space next to him. I crossed the patio, the stone cold on my bare feet, and squeezed in beside him. He wrapped his arm around me, and I burrowed into his side, into the limited warmth he provided from the cool night air.

I watched him blow out a puff of smoke, the white tendrils disappearing into the ether, and frowned. “Why don’t you ever smell like cigarette smoke?”

He flicked the butt away and shrugged. “We don’t ever smell less than pleasant. I think it’s an evolutionary thing. Makes it easier to attract prey.”

I snorted. “It’s not like you need the help.” Gabriel was gorgeous. His face alone would attract anyone he wanted.

The corner of his mouth lifted into a sly grin. “Also an evolutionary thing. It’d be kinda hard to get anyone alone if it looked like I’d been beaten with an ugly stick.”

“True.” I watched him as he looked out over the city. Helen’s words had gnawed at me the whole flight. The realization of how little I actually knew him gnawed at me even more. “Why didn’t you tell me about your wife?” I asked.

His subtle flinch didn’t go unnoticed. Sighing, he folded his arm behind his head. “I’m gonna kill Helen the next time I see her.” His brows pulled together as he stared at the stars. “If she’s still alive, that is.”

I frowned, biting my lip. I hadn’t considered that. Last time I saw her, she was kicking ass and taking names. I’d just assumed she’d be okay. 

“Hell, I’m sure she’s fine,” he continued. “You don’t get to be as old as she is without being able to take care of yourself in a fight. Speaking of which,” he said, turning to look at me. The crease between his brows deepened. Why did he look so mad? “I’m teaching you how to defend yourself tomorrow. If I hadn’t been there…” His jaw was a solid stretch of muscle as it worked. Lifting his eyes, he looked out over the city and shook his head, like he didn’t even want to think about it. “Let’s just say it would’ve been nice if you hadn’t stood there like a frightened little rabbit.”

I bristled at his words, but he had a point. I’d been scared shitless, and if those Healers had actually fought us, I would’ve been useless against them. 

Now that I had all this strength and power, I should probably learn how to use it.

Tucking my knees up to my chest, I pulled my white cotton shirt over them, covering my cold legs. It was an undershirt of Gabriel’s, and about four sizes too big. “What’s gonna happen now that they’ve broken the treaty?” I asked.

“Nothing good.”

I let that sink in, my mind ruminating over worst case scenarios before thinking back to something he’d said. “Exactly how old
is
Helen?”

He laughed and leaned his head back. “Old.
Realllly
fucking old. I’m sure you’ve heard of her. She’s in all the history books.”

I frowned and tried to think of a famous historical Helen, but all I could think of was Helen Keller, and
this
Helen damn sure wasn’t deaf or blind. 

At my confused stare, Gabriel prompted, “Her face launched a thousand ships…?”

A thousand ships?
 

My eyes bulged as it registered, my mouth dropping open. “No way!”

Gabriel nodded. “Yep.”

“Holy shit…” Tonight, I’d met Helen of motherfucking Troy. And she was a
Feeder
.

Mind = blown.

There were so many questions I wanted to ask her now… Refocusing on Gabriel and his silence, I said, “Is she really the daughter of Zeus?”

I saw him roll his eyes in the dim light. “Whenever humans can’t explain something, they attribute it to some divine being. All those Greek gods are just trumped up caricatures of
us
.”

Dang. That would have been
so
cool. “How long have we existed?” Helen had to be, what, at least 2,500 years old. And
she
had immortal parents, who in turn came from other immortals, and so on and so forth…

My brain was too fried to process that kind of math.

“I don’t know. How long have humans existed?”

The first number that popped into my head was 65 million years, but then I realized I was confusing that with how long ago the dinosaurs lived. They were not at all the same thing. Humans had actually been on the planet for a relatively short amount of time, compared to how old the earth was. We’re talking tens of thousands of years, not millions.

Rubbing my hands over my face, I asked, “Is she the oldest Feeder alive?”

“No. There’s several older, but the oldest one is rumored to live in the mountains of Nepal. She’s close to ten thousand years old, and batshit crazy. Her mind’s inundated with eons of memories, and she’s lost all concept of time. She has no idea if it’s 500 B.C. or 1975.” He looked down, staring off into space as he talked. “Our bodies may be designed to live forever, but our minds aren’t.

“She’s well-respected, though,” he said, snapping out of his daze. “And if it weren’t for her vast wealth of knowledge, I’m sure someone would’ve put her out of her misery by now.”

I couldn’t imagine living for
ten thousand years
. And it terrified me to think that if I lived too long, I might go crazy too. I shivered, like that would shake the thought from my head, and said, “So how long have you known Helen?”

He shrugged. “A few centuries.”

My eyes narrowed on him as I looked at him in a new light. “How old are you?”

He glanced at me. “You sure are full of questions tonight.”

“I’ve just realized how little I truly know you. It’s unsettling.”

A frown marred his face. “You know me better than anyone.”

Resting my head on his shoulder, I looked up at the sky. “Well, I want to know more.”

“Like what?”

“Everything.”

A soft laugh escaped him. “You sure are greedy, you know that?”

I smiled up at him. “Stop stalling and start talking.”

He rolled his eyes and rested his head on the back of the lounge chair. “I’ve been on this earth five-hundred and twenty-three years.”

“Wow.”

“I was born in Toulouse.”

My geography was terrible. “That’s in France, right?”

He nodded. “It’s about three-hundred and sixty miles south of Paris.”

“Did you grow up there?”

“Yeah, until my parents died when I was eight. Then my uncle took me in and moved me to Paris.”

Jesus…

It seemed like he’d had a sad life. He probably didn’t want to drudge up these painful memories… 

I felt awful for asking him to tell me now. It was really none of my business. “I’m so sorry. You don’t have to tell me anything else.”

He shook his head. “It was a long time ago. I can talk about it.”

I wanted to know how they died, but I was
so
not about to ask him that. The silence lingered between us, until I was sure he had to know what I was thinking. 

“They were murdered by Healers,” he said, answering my unasked question. “I saw the whole thing from the closet.”

My hand went to my mouth, stifling my gasp. “Oh my god.”

“Five of ’em stormed the house while we were sleeping. My older sister woke me and hid me in the broom closet under the stairs. Told me not to make a sound, no matter what.” His eyes glazed over as he recalled what must’ve been a horrific memory. 

It sounded exactly like the story Thomas had told me, and for a brief second, the unthinkable crossed my mind, until I remembered their ages didn’t match up. Thomas hadn’t even been born when this went down.

I blinked, looking back up at Gabriel. “Did she…?”

He shook his head. “She didn’t make it.”

I hugged him to me. “I’m so sorry.” 

He shrugged. “What’s done is done. No use crying over the past.” His voice lacked any emotion, and that just broke my heart even more.

“After I matured, I tracked them down and killed them. Each and every one.” He laughed, but it was devoid of any real humor. “I thought it’d make me feel better. It didn’t. It didn’t change a goddamn thing. They were still gone, and I was still alone.”

I clung to him, letting my silent tears soak his suit jacket.

“My uncle raised me until I was old enough to be married off. Then he arranged a mating between Mary and I.” 

Lifting my head, I looked at him. “Did you love her?”