Gabriel's Rule (11 page)

He
hadn’t been around dogs much and this one was injured so he wasn’t sure what
the best way to approach it was. He wished Riley were here.

“Hey
baby girl,” he crooned softly. He was rewarded with the thumping of her tail.
He dropped to his knees next to her and studied her. She appeared to be a pit
bull but not a very big one, thirty pounds or so. Most of her body appeared to
be a darker color, gray or black maybe, but her face was white; at least the
spots that weren’t covered in blood. He stroked her gently on the top of her
head and wiped the blood that he got on his hand down the front of his T-shirt.
There was just a little bit of light from an overhead street lamp, but it was
enough to show him that she was covered in dozens of cuts and puncture wounds,
some oozing blood. They seemed to cover the majority of her body. He suspected
the other side of her body looked the same.

“I’m
gonna get you out of here, okay sweetheart.” He put his arms carefully
underneath her and lifted. The dog whined but didn’t try to bite him. He could
feel his forearms and hands slick with blood. He pulled her against his chest
and stood. That’s when he noticed she had a huge chain link collar around her
neck with a short piece of chain hanging from it. He suspected it weighed at
least ten pounds.

“I
know someone who can help you,” he whispered to the dog as he carried her out
of the alley.

***

Riley
was so tired that she didn’t care who was knocking at her door so late on a
Friday night. And if it was Paul she was going to kick his ass. That’s what a
combined four hours of sleep in the last three nights could do to a girl, she
mused. She had literally just drifted off to sleep when the banging had
started. As the fog of exhaustion started to lift and she got closer to the
door, she slowed her step. Why would someone be at her door this late?

“Riley,
it’s me.” She hurried to the door and fumbled with the lock. Her blood ran cold
at the sight of Gabe covered in blood and then her eyes traveled down to the
small, dark body nestled in his arms.

“Can
you help her?” he asked, his voice thick.

She
nodded and pulled the door all the way open. She locked it and then ran to get
her go bag from her bedroom closet. “Put her on the table,” she called over her
shoulder.

When
she returned to the kitchen she stopped at the sight of Gabe covered in blood.
He heard her indrawn breath and then realized what she was looking at. “None of
its mine,” he said gently. “I’m okay.” She relaxed and nodded, her eyes turning
to the dog.

***

Gabe
watched her work quickly and efficiently on the dog. She listened to her heart
and lungs and then ran her fingers along the animal’s body looking for breaks.

“She’s
got good breath sounds, heart sounds good, pulse is strong.” Riley grabbed
stuff out of her bag and began explaining as she went. “I’m going to start an
IV and get some fluids into her. So far she doesn’t seem to be in shock yet so
I think if we can get these wounds cleaned and dressed she should be okay.”

Riley
spent the next thirty minutes cleaning the wounds after she gave the dog
something to sedate her. Several had to be stitched and she covered a few of
the punctures up with bandages. A round of antibiotics followed. The dog had
lain there quietly and barely made a sound when Gabe turned her over so Riley
could treat her other side. As his adrenaline started to wear off, he began to
notice how tired Riley looked. She also looked like she’d lost some weight.

“Gabe?”

“Yeah,”
he said, pulling himself from his daze. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

“Can
you take the cushion off the couch and put it on the floor and cover it with
the blanket. She needs to stay here so I can watch her tonight.”

Gabe
went to do as she asked. When she was done treating the injuries, he moved the
dog and placed her carefully on the cushion. He gently stroked her head and
received another lick.

“Can
I stay with her for a while?” he asked, refusing to look at Riley when he
asked. He didn’t want to see if she had to struggle with the decision. After
the things he’d said and done to her, he knew she didn’t want to be around him.

But
she said “yes” without any hesitation. “Why don’t you go to your place and get
cleaned up and then come back?” She reached into one of the kitchen drawers and
pulled out a key and handed it to him. “I’m going to lock the door behind you
so just let yourself in.”

This
woman was too good for him. He’d messed with her head from day one and betrayed
her trust and then pushed her out of his life. Yet here he was, taking from her
again. Palming the key, he left the apartment. It only took him a few minutes
to shower and put on clean clothes. He let himself back into her apartment and
saw that she’d cleaned up the kitchen and herself and was now sitting on the
floor next to the dog, leaning against the couch. Her hand was gently stroking
the dog, avoiding any injured areas.

“I
gave her something for the pain so she should sleep for a while.”

He
locked her door and then dropped down on the other side of the make-shift bed.

“Thanks,”
he said as he dropped his hand gently on the dog’s head and rubbed her ear. “It
looks like someone used her for fighting.”

“She
was probably a bait dog – she’s at least fifteen pounds underweight – they’d
have kept a winning dog in better shape,” Riley muttered angrily. “I’m glad you
brought her here. A vet would have called animal control and they’d probably euthanize
her if they suspected she was used for fighting.”

They
both fell silent as they imagined what the dog had been through. Gabe glanced
around the room and stopped when he saw a pile of empty boxes sitting in the
corner. A chill settled over him when he realized what they were.

“What
are those for?” he asked, silently hoping he was wrong.

She
dropped her eyes to the dog but stopped stroking her. “I’m leaving Gabe. Next
weekend. I gave my notice to Nell last week.”

“Are
you going back home?” he asked, his voice sounding uneven.

“No,
California. I got in touch with one of the girls I went to school with and she
was telling me that the clinic she works for is hiring another tech. I
interviewed with them over the phone and got the job.”

“What
about staying off the grid?”

“I
love working at Nell’s but it’s not who I am. I worked too hard to get where I
am. I’m not letting Paul or anyone else take that from me.”

“Have
you seen or heard from him at all?”

She
shook her head. “Have you?” So she
had
figured out what he and his friends had been doing. “Come on Gabe, it’s not
like you and your friends really blend in.”

He
laughed. “How long have you known?”

“Since
the first day. I stopped at the drug store after work to pick up a few things.
Some old lady had convinced poor Logan to help carry her three boxes of bladder
pads to the register. I figured he didn’t routinely hang out in the feminine
care aisle at the local drug store.”

Gabe
laughed again.

“You
really do have good friends Gabe. I mean, I haven’t really met Logan but the
fact that he’s willing to follow me around or help fix my apartment up because
you asked him to, that’s pretty special. And Shane…” She paused. “Did he tell
you he came to see me at the diner a while back?”

He
shook his head.

“It
was after
we
…” He loved when she blushed and the fact
that should wouldn’t say the words ‘fucked’ or ‘had sex’ reminded him of how
innocent she really was.

“He
was worried about you. He said you were upset about the way you thought you
treated me.”

“He’s
got a big mouth.” Gabe wasn’t really mad though.

“I
think he was testing me.”

“What
do you mean?”

She
suddenly got up and went to get something from her purse. He tracked her
movements and took the card she handed him before she sat back down.

“He
put that in my purse that night at Mac’s.”

Gabe
looked at the card and saw Shane’s name on the front. “That son of a bitch!” he
grumbled. “He’s hitting on you five minutes after that asshole…”

She
could see he was getting worked up so she softly said, “Turn it over.”

He
fell silent as his eyes stumbled over the scrawled words.

“I
asked him about the card and he told me what he did.”

“But
he didn’t tell you that I did the same thing,” he said.

“No,
but I think he was trying to figure out what my reaction might be. I think he
was trying to put the idea in my head so maybe it wouldn’t be so much of a
surprise when I found out about you. That morning, in your kitchen…he was
letting me know I failed the test. I was angry that he hadn’t told me
everything but afterwards I realized I was wrong to have expected that.”

Gabe
fingered the card for a moment. “He saw something in me that night at the bar –
he could tell by the way I looked at you, the way I acted, that things were
changing. But he knew I’d fight it.”

“Why
do you? Fight it, I mean?” The words were barely a whisper and he could see
vulnerability in her eyes. She still didn’t understand how deep his feelings
ran for her.

He
looked down at the dog that was sleeping peacefully between them. He dropped
his fingers to one of the larger wounds and brushed the skin next to it gently.
“I feel like this on the inside,” he said softly. “Broken, torn up, bleeding.”
He trailed his finger down the dog’s side to another gash and her skin twitched
lightly at his soft touch but she didn’t wake. “I thought I could fix it if I
could just fix things on the outside. I thought that if I could get my mom
back, do good in school, get a good job…all those things would fix it.”

Riley
didn’t interrupt him but he could feel her soothing presence like a balm. “My
mom kept getting worse though and it was getting harder and harder to scrape
together the money for her bail or rehab stints. An upperclassmen at school
recruited us; me, Shane and Logan. I mean, you ask a twenty-one year old kid if
he wants to get paid to have sex…”

He
fell silent for a moment and then finally lifted his eyes to meet hers. “I knew
there was something wrong with me the first time I did it because I hated every
second of it. I remember the woman and there was nothing wrong with her at all;
she was older, pretty, experienced. She was just lonely – her husband had died
the year before and it was their anniversary and she didn’t want to be alone.”

He
felt Riley’s hand take his and he let her. “I made more that night than I had
working a month in the university cafeteria. So I kept doing it thinking I
would get used to it at some point. It only took me a couple of months to save
up enough to send my mom to rehab and when she went, I knew it had all been
worth it. She was going to get better and we were going to be a family again.”

“But
she left rehab,” Riley guessed.

He
nodded his head and dropped his head again. He pulled free of Riley’s hand and
dropped his elbows to his bent knees and clasped his hands tightly behind his
neck. “The cycle just kept repeating itself. I’m not sure when it happened but
at some point something inside of me just shut down. I told my agency I would
only see clients who were only looking for a physical connection. I made a rule
for myself that I wouldn’t connect with any of the women on any kind of
emotional level – I made it about their physical pleasure and nothing else.”

He
sucked in a few deep breaths before continuing. “I literally took control and
that was what my specialty was. If a woman wanted foreplay or the boyfriend
experience or cuddling they were sent to guys like Logan and Shane. I only
accepted the ones who played by my rules.” He could sense Riley tensing up next
to him as she remembered that he’d used those rules on her. He might as well
rip the whole band aid off the seeping wound in his gut.

“It
was all a game, a safe place where they could play out their darker fantasies
and I could walk away with my sanity and a load of cash. But it kept taking
something each time, a little piece of me. I was using them.” He choked on the
word ‘using’ and had to take a second to steady his breathing so he could
finish this. “I never came inside any of the women, never kissed them, never
let them touch me but I made sure they got what they needed. I actually thought
that would somehow make it better.”

“And
then I met you and I knew I couldn’t give you everything you deserved but at
least I could give you what that piece of shit ex of yours couldn’t.” He
finally lifted his eyes to meet hers. “I swear that I never thought you were
like the others and what happened after we were together that night was because
I couldn’t stand to know that I couldn’t be normal with you. And if I can’t be
that with you then I can’t be that with anyone.” He dashed angrily at a stray
tear. “So to answer your question, that’s why I fight it – because you deserve
to be with someone who gives you every part of himself and I can’t. Not won’t,
can’t.”