GABRIEL (Killer Book 2) (17 page)

“Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.”
― Mineko Iwasaki

“No.” I whisper as my father’s truth hits me like a ton of bricks.

“Yeah, you were on that site, in the chatroom, “Where the Lonely Ones Roam”.

No
.
I wasn’t. I’d thought it was odd when Gabriel said that.

And the fashion school… my father knew how I loved making clothes. To me, it has always been an art form.

Now... Now I know that it wasn’t destiny. It was all a set up. And my mother? She never
left
, he
killed
her.

Gabriel is my brother? It can’t be true. It can’t.

A sly smile spreads across my father’s face as he massages Amelia’s shoulders. She looks like she’s checked out completely.

“I… I need to see my husband.” She says shakily, and my father laughs.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible, he jumped off of a building hours ago. Why do you think that is, Amelia? Why do you think that he’d end such a successful life?”

Her eyebrows pinch together as her bottom lip trembles, “He wouldn’t do that. He loved me – he loved us.”

He laughs. “Do you know what he loved more? Money. And I gave him a lot of it.” Pausing, he leans closer to her ear, “How do you think he started his business? Or how about that quaint little house that he bought you, how do you suppose that he could afford that? It was all for show. He got a life of success and a family as a result of what he did for me.”

Her chest vibrates as she cries. My heart hurts for every soul that has ever come across my father. He is pure evil.

His eyes snap up to Gabriel. “And you, my dear son, I must ask – what was it like fucking your sister? I feel that this is a conversation that we can have seeing as we’ve both had her.”
Gabriel squeezes his eyes shut as he shakes his head, “Why? Why are you doing this to us?”

My father smiles fondly, “Because I wanted to see you all, my estranged wife, my handsome son, and my beautiful daughter. What a happy little family we are.”

“Where is my daughter?” Amelia grits out.

He places a hand over her hair before patting her head. “Yes, little Jessy. She looked so much like you, Amelia.”

“Looked?” Gabriel rasps.

My father walks away from Amelia and begins flipping the meat once more. My eyes land on the black tarp in the middle of the table. It’s raised slightly in the middle and my stomach coils when I see a red stream leak from the outline.

“Dani.” My father says without looking back at me. “Be a dear and uncover the centerpiece. I’m dying for everyone to see it.”
My eyes lock onto Gabriel’s momentarily before he looks down at his lap.

I exhale shakily as I approach the table. Pinching the edge of the tarp I close my eyes as I slowly pull it towards me.

“Oh my God!” Amelia exclaims, and my eyes snap open. I stumble backwards when I see Jessy’s lifeless body. She’s so pale… and cold. Her dark eyelashes lie against her creamy cheeks. Her hands are folded over her stomach and below them, there’s a large wound exposing her entrails.

My hand flies over my mouth as I grab at my upset stomach. It threatens to give way at any given time.

“Dinner looks done.” My father says as he turns to face us, a wide grin on his face.

“What have you done?” Gabriel growls, narrowing his eyes at my father… our father.

He simply laughs in response, “What have I done? I’ve prepared dinner. I’m quite the chef, I’m sure Amelia would agree.”

“You’re a fucking monster!” Amelia exclaims as she fights against her restraints. “You’ll pay for this – for everything that you’ve done!”

He approaches her and fists her hair, tilting her head back, he grabs a piece of the steaming meat and presses it to her lips. “Eat. It.”

She purses her lips as she shakes her head emphatically.

“Get your fucking hands off of her!” Gabriel hollers.

My father looks over his shoulder into Gabriel’s eyes. “No.”

Then his focus is on Amelia once more as he presses his thumb and index finger into her cheeks, unclamping her jaw.

“You couldn’t have my child, could you? You just couldn’t give me what I wanted. If you had, this would not be happening to you.”
With that, he shoves the meat into her mouth before shoving her jaw closed once more. Then, he squeezes her nose shut.

Her eyes grow wide, but she never lets down.

“Eat. Eat her.” He growls, and she manages to shake her head slightly. Her face is growing purple as her mouth and nose are held shut.

I quietly make my way around the table and grab a sconce from the wall. Holding it over my head, I say a little prayer before I slam it into the back of his skull. He crumples to the floor before I run over to Gabriel and fumble with the ropes.

They are tied so tightly, I can barely fit a finger underneath. My eyes search for something to cut it with.

I grab the glass pitcher and slam it against the floor, the glass shatters, the pieces flying in every which direction. Sawing through the ropes, I’m able to free him, but not before my father begins climbing to his feet.

I look towards Amelia and frown when I see that she’s out. She must have fainted.

“Come on!” Gabriel hollers as he grabs my hand. We run through the dark halls until we reach a door at the very end. Gabriel opens it, and I scream when decomposing bodies crumple to our feet.

Gabriel pulls me in another direction, this time up the stairs. We reach a bedroom and he locks it before shoving a chair under the knob. I run to the closet and locate a shirt before shoving it over my head.

“What do we do?” I implore as I look around the dusty, spider filled room.

He runs his fingers through his hair as he paces back and forth. “I don’t fucking know. He has my god damn gun. My fucking mother is still down there. Fuck! I can’t just leave her!”
“I know.” I whisper, placing a hand on his bicep. He yanks his arm away and narrows his eyes at me.

“Did you know?”

I frown as I take a step back. “Know what?”

“That I’m your fucking brother?”

I gasp as I ball my fists at my sides. “You can’t be serious. Of course I didn’t know.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” He says as he takes a step towards me. “I don’t want to believe it. I… I thought that I found something with you.”

Tears rise to my eyes in response to his statement. I felt the same way. I thought that I had finally found the only person who could understand my complicated self. Now, that monster has taken that from us as well, just as he took everything else. He allows you to believe that you are finally free before he rips everything that you ever knew from your fingertips again.

I’m so mad. I’m so fucking angry that I allowed myself to have that little, sweet taste of what life could have to offer, only to have it disappear right before my eyes.

I jump when I hear a bang on the door. My eyes snap to Gabriel’s before he runs to the window and pushes it open.

He looks towards me and reaches for my hand. “Come on. There’s a ledge and it leads to a trellis. There isn’t a way down, but it will get us up to the roof. We can figure it out from there.”

Another bang against the door sends me running to him. He helps me out onto the ledge and I swallow hard when I look down at the gravel two stories down.

I inch my way across the ledge with Gabriel beside me, grasping the trellis, I climb towards the roof.

Once on the roof, he grabs my hand and we run to the other side. I see a little glimmer of hope when I look over the edge and see that another trellis leads right to an overgrown garden.

“You two are fast.”

We both whip around and face him – our father. His face illuminates with each bolt of lightning as the thunder rumbles above us. The wind is picking up, causing the trees to sway as the leaves are ripped from their branches.

I look towards Gabriel as his jaw tenses.

“Is this what you want? To ruin lives?” He hollers.

My father shakes his head as a somber look overcomes his face. “I only wanted a family.”

Gabriel releases my hand and marches towards him. He shoves him hard, causing my father to stumble backwards. “A family? You wanted your sick fucking legacy to live on?” He shoves him again, “Is that right,
pops
? You were looking for The Brady Bunch with a side of psycho?” He keeps shoving until my father is at the very edge, then a sense of calm sweeps over him.

“Tell me why you’ve stood in the shadows every second of my life. Tell me why you wanted me to be like you. Why you set me up and made me think that I killed those women.” A sob escapes him as he continues, “Because I’d really like to know why you’ve turned everything that I’ve ever touched to shit.”

“Because,” My father rasps, “There is something dark in you. You’re not any different than me, son.”

“Oh,” Gabriel grits out, “But I’m
nothing
like you.”

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

-Robert Frost

“You’re going to kill me? After everything that I’ve done for you? After the love that I’ve showed you?”

I can’t help but laugh. “Are you serious? You made me think that I was a fucking lunatic.”

“It was for your own good.” He sneers. “Do you want to be like every other zombie that walks the earth? Just another member of the cookie cutter society, being a slave to civilization – that’s what you want?”

I sigh as I look into the same face that I see each and every time that I look into the mirror. I recall how many times I’ve wanted to ask him why he killed, how it felt for him when the blood stained his hands.

Now, I no longer have the same questions. I no longer have this nagging need to understand how my mind ticks, because what I turned into was being implanted there all along. It wasn’t me. It was the shadow man.

It was my father.

“Tell me this.” I rasp, “What went through your mind when you cut my mother open and took me from her womb?”

He smiles deviously. “Nothing at all.”

With that, I shove him with everything that I have in me. I watch as he falls to his fate, and I feel just that.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.