Fallen (27 page)

“Gabriel!” he called out. “What the hell’s going on?”

Ignoring him, I dug out the room key and burst inside, freezing when I saw the empty, unmade bed. Her phone was on the nightstand and I grabbed it, seeing the screen light up as it showed one missed call from me. I ran to the bathroom and shoved the door open, revealing the dark, empty interior. Gritting my teeth, I scowled and pounded my fist against the door.

She’s gone. She’s fucking
gone.

My hands fisted my hair as I fought to breathe. “They have Em.” I choked back a sob as my eyes landed on the rumpled white sheets. My whole world had changed between those sheets. Now, they were nothing more than scraps of cold cotton. 

“
Who
has Em?” Philip stood in the doorway, looking confused. 

“
You
tell
me
.” I crossed the room, his eyes growing wide at the wild, desperate look on my face. “
Who is he?
” I screamed, pinning his throat to the wall with my forearm. 

We’d been over this countless times, and every time I asked him who my boss was, his reply was the same:
I can’t tell you
. Well, tonight he would. I finally had something worth fighting for, and I’d kill
anyone
who stood in my way.

Philip gurgled and clawed at my arm. I released him just enough to speak. 

“You know I can’t tell you.” His neck craned as he struggled to breathe. “And even if I could, trust me, you don’t
want
to know.”

“I swear to God, I’ll rip out your fucking tongue and shove it down your throat if you don’t start talking,” I growled, mashing his throat even more to emphasize my point.

He managed a smile. “You sure you’re strong enough for that?”

“Let’s find out.” I shoved my fingers in his mouth and pried his jaw open, his eyes bulging as I prepared to rip it clean off its hinge. 

Garbled words escaped him and I let him go. He pushed away from me, rubbing his jaw as he glared at me. “Jesus, boy, you damn near broke my jaw.”

I pointed at him, my nostrils flaring as my mouth pressed into a hard line. “I’m gonna do a lot more than that if you don’t tell me who he is.”

He shook his head and sighed, lowering his eyes. “It’s Isaac.” 

“What?” My breath left me as I frowned, trying to comprehend what he’d just said. “
Isaac,
Isaac? As in the leader of the
fucking Healers
?” My voice grew with each word, until I was screaming at him.

Philip glanced up at me, his lips pursed as he nodded once. 

“You sold me out to the enemy.” The only family I had left, and he’d betrayed me.

“I
owed
him, Gabriel, I didn’t have a—”

I held up my hand, stopping him. “I don’t want to hear it.
Nothing
you say can justify what you did. You’re dead to me.”

I turned and started walking, my mind racing as I tried to think of how to get Em back. Michael wouldn’t have taken her to the compound. It was too obvious, and since a
Healer
was pulling the strings, that wouldn’t really go over well if—

Wait. If Isaac was my boss, that meant…

Holy shit. He really
was
Emily’s father.

PART III

Chapter Forty-Eight

THOMAS

Lord Alfred Tennyson once wrote that it was better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Well, Tennyson got it wrong. The poet Thomas Gray was the one who got it right—ignorance
is
bliss.

I wished I’d never loved Emily. Then I wouldn’t know what it was like to lose her. I wouldn’t know this unbearable, inescapable agony of having my heart ripped out and stomped all over.  

I was doing fine before she came along. Two-hundred and ninety-four years without experiencing true heartache is pretty good if you ask me, even if I’d never experienced true happiness either. 

I should hate her for briefly showing me all that I’d missed, and then taking it away like it was all a cruel trick. Hate would be so much easier to bear. I
prayed
bitterness would come and provide some sort of solace from the heartache. I would take shelter in its animosity, wrapping it around myself like an emotional blanket until it blocked out everything else. 

But it never came. 

She broke my heart and tossed it aside like it was nothing, like it was the most natural thing for her to do. She left me in ruins—I didn’t want to do anything, didn’t want to go anywhere, didn’t want to see anyone. Food didn’t taste the same. I couldn’t watch TV or listen to music without being reminded of how miserable and alone I was. I couldn’t sleep for months without waking up crying. She
ruined my life
, and I didn’t even have enough sense to hate her for it.

Because as much as I wished I’d never loved her, nothing changed. It’d been seven months since she left, and we hadn’t had any contact. Not even so much as a phone call. And after all this time, I still loved her. I always would.

And I
hated
myself for it. I hated that I would do anything to get her back. I would crawl to her on my hands and knees until they were bloody and raw, and beg her to take me back until my voice was gone.

I was fucking pathetic.

* * *

A shrill ringing sounded in my ear, waking me. I grunted as my eyes fluttered open, my bedroom coming in and out of focus, and winced.
Jesus
, my head hurt. My hand immediately went to my forehead, but that did nothing to ease the pounding headache. The ringing cut off abruptly, which helped a little. 

I untwisted the sheet from around my leg and rolled over onto my back. My head knocked against something cold and hard lying on the pillow. I turned to see an empty bottle of scotch staring back at me. I drank the stuff like it was water now. Being constantly shitfaced was the only way I could stand to be in my own skin. 

I tossed the bottle onto the floor, the glass thudding softly against the carpet. It rolled and clinked against another empty bottle. 

That god-awful ringing started again, making my head pound harder. What the hell 
was
—

Right… That would be my phone. I flung out my arm and felt around for the nightstand. My hand hit the lamp instead, knocking it to the floor.

Goddamn it.

The ringing stopped as I sat up, the room spinning so bad I had to close my eyes for a few seconds. I rubbed my face, the rough stubble along my jaw feeling like sandpaper against my palms.

The ringing started again.

Who the hell keeps calling me this early? It’s not even—

My head whipped back to check the clock on the nightstand. A half-full bottle sat in front of it, the light brown liquid distorting the red digital numbers beyond recognition. I pushed it aside and saw it was 5:15 PM.

Apparently it wasn’t that early.

The covers fell back as I reached for my phone. The screen showed a number I didn’t recognize. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone, but since this was the
third call in a row
, the persistent bastard obviously wasn’t going to give up until they got an answer. 

My thumb swiped across the screen and I held it up to my ear. “
What?
”

The person on the other end exhaled sharply. “It’s about time you answered your damn phone.”

I froze, both my heart and breathing coming to a halt as I listened to his voice. I’d only heard it twice before, but I’d recognize it anywhere.

Gabriel.

The connection was poor, but I heard a whirring sound and honking horns. He was driving. Fast, I heard, as the connection cleared. “Thomas? You there?”

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think straight. Why was he calling me? What could that son of a bitch
possibly
have to say to me?

I don’t know, maybe…I guess on some level, I always knew this moment would come. It was really only a matter of time, since we both had eternity. But I was not ready for it. Probably never would be.

“What?” I said, my voice hoarse. I cleared my throat. “What do you want?”

“I need your help.”

My jaw clenched. If he were here right now, I’d rip him limb from limb. “You have a lot of nerve calling me for help.”

“Look, I’m not enjoying this either, okay? I
hate
that I had to call you, but I didn’t have a choice. It’s about Em.”

My throat tightened at the sound of her name. Lowering my head, I squeezed my eyes shut and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to breathe through the crushing pain in my chest. It felt like I was suffocating in the open air.

Nope, so not fucking ready for this.

I leaned back against my headboard, grabbed the bottle of scotch on the nightstand, and took a long swig. Then another. “What about her?” I asked. My voice came out worse than before, low and gravelly, like I was trying not to cry. But I didn’t give a shit anymore. 

I
was
trying not to cry.

There was a short pause. His voice was hard as he said, “I just figured you didn’t want her to die. Clearly I’m mistaken, though. Sorry to bother you.”

I sat up so fast the vertigo kicked in again, spinning the room around me. The bottle of scotch fell over and soaked my sheets. “What are you talking about?” The words rushed out of my mouth as my heart started to race, pumping adrenaline through my veins.

“Isaac has her. She’s— She’s his daughter.”

“
What?
” It felt like the world just opened up and swallowed me whole.
Isaac
was her Healer father? The man who despised Feeders above anything else?

“I just found out, and I don’t have time to get into all the details. Now where would Isaac take her?”

“That depends. Where are you?”

“We’re in London.”

My heart sank at his use of “we,” and I had to force myself to breathe.

No matter how much I’d refused to admit it to myself, I’d had a sneaking suspicion she might’ve run off with him. I had no proof one way or the other, and that’s how I preferred it. That uncertainty—that little glimmer of hope in my otherwise broken and fucked-up world—was how I managed to keep breathing the air that kept me alive from one godforsaken day to the next. 

And with that, he’d just confirmed what I’d suspected, but never, ever wanted to know for sure.

My brows pulled together as I cleared my throat, trying to keep my voice from breaking. “He has a house in north London. I’ll text you the address.”

“No, Thomas,
you
have to go. I’m on the other side of town. I can’t get to her as fast as you can.”

But he was already
in
London. How could I get to her before— 

“You want me to
transport
to London?” 

“You have to. It’s the only way.”

Wait—was this how it would be from now on? Any time she got into trouble, I’d be expected to come running? It wasn’t fair to ask the jilted lover to rescue the damsel in distress simply because he still loved her. Especially since she had him replaced. 

Climbing out of bed, I paced around my room, trying to sober up. I rubbed my still aching forehead, and—even though the words pained me—said, “What makes you think I’d lift a finger to help her?” The words felt wrong as they left my mouth. They went against my instincts to keep her safe and protected. But she made her choice, and it wasn’t me. I wasn’t responsible for her anymore.

“Because as much as I hate the thought, I know you love her just as much as I do.”

My whole body tensed as my blood boiled. “You have
no
 idea how I feel about her,” I spit out through clenched teeth. 

“Are you going to help her, or not?”

Goddamn it. Until I could get over her, she was my weakness whether I liked it or not. And I couldn’t turn my back on her when she needed me. But…I wasn’t sure if I
could
help her. Months of excessive alcohol use didn’t exactly leave me in the best shape, but goddamn it, I would try. “I’m on my way.” 

I ended the call and buried my face in my hands, trying to get a hold of myself. I had to calm down or I wasn’t going anywhere. 

Images of the two of them filled my head. Her naked body under
his
,
his
hands on her body,
his
lips on her mouth—

“
Fuck!
” I threw my phone against the wall. It broke upon impact, bits and pieces of plastic and glass flying in every direction. 

I forced the vile images out of my head and squeezed my eyes shut, concentrating on the streets around Isaac’s house. It would be too dangerous to try and transport directly inside. If I even
made
it that far, that is.

My skin started to tingle, and I felt myself go. I reappeared outside about a half second later, stumbling and falling down on all fours. My whole body ached as I gasped for air, clutching the fistfuls of cold grass beneath my hands. The crisp, dusk air made my naked body shiver, which made me hurt even more. 

My headache was ten times worse as before. Liquid trickled out of my nostril, and I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. It was blood. 

I lifted my head up, the ground and sky tilting like a fun house. It had nothing to do with still being intoxicated. I pushed myself off the ground, swaying as I tried to stand. 

Shit. I’d only made it to my backyard.

I closed my eyes again, this time concentrating on an alley a couple blocks from the house’s entrance. I’d been there before, and I pictured it perfectly in my mind, as if standing in it right then. I focused on the smaller details, like the red brick of the two buildings that composed the alley, the wooden fence at the end of it, and rain puddles along the black asphalt. Last time I’d been there, it was raining, and puddles collected in the dipped sections of pavement—

My skin started to tingle again. It quickly intensified, and I felt warm…too warm. Now it burned.

The pain made me scream as I collapsed on cool pavement, tiny nicks and cuts from the asphalt stinging my already blazing skin. A heavy sheen of sweat covered me, soaking my hair and making it stick to my face. My vision was spotty and fading in and out of black. The wind had been knocked out of me, and I couldn’t breathe.