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The memory of my father’s lifeless body slumped against my bedroom wall comes into focus. My heart starts to pound faster, and the room spins a little.
Gabriel walks over to the gun on the floor. He picks it up, presses something at the top and lowers the barrel of the gun. With one hand, he tosses the weapon onto the floor.
“Let’s go.” He turns to me and speaks.
“You killed him.”
I’m not stupid. I knew that was the game plan when we walked in here, but he wasn’t like the others. He wasn’t guilty. The only way I’ve gotten passed what he’s been doing all night, was knowing that the people he killed were bad. This is different.
Gabriel grabs his black duffle off the ground and swings it over his shoulder. He then grabs my arm and lifts me to my feet. Once I’m standing, I yank away from him.
He watches me wearily, but he doesn’t say anything. He turns his back to me and makes his way out of the home the same route we took to get in. I follow quietly with my mind racing.
We make it almost three blocks before I refuse to go any further. I stop on the sidewalk. Gabriel is about ten steps in front of me. Yet, when I stop he does too. He turns to look at me.
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
He doesn’t respond.
I shake my head and cross my arms over my chest. “I thought I could reason with you. I even for a minute thought that maybe you and I had formed some kind of fucked up friendship, but you have no feelings.”
He frowns at my words. “I told you what I was. It’s not my fault you formed some delusional version of me in your head.”
I scoff, but he’s right. He’s never tried to make me believe he was anything other than a heartless killer. However, I have a hard time believing that. Call me delusional or stupid, but something deep inside me tells me that isn’t who Gabriel is.
Shaking my head, I reply, “No, that’s not who you are. It’s who they made you believe you are.”
Those green eyes that are so intelligent narrow at me. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know Gambler was telling the truth. And I know you know it too. Yet you still killed him. You didn’t even consider letting him live. You’re just a follower and now I know my fate is the same as his. So do it, Gabriel.”
I step closer to him, cutting away some of the space between us.
“Get it out the way. Gun me down in the street and leave me here like trash. You’re going to do it anyway.”
He stares at me, his face not moving an inch. My heart gallops in my chest. Even though I mean the words I’m saying, it doesn’t make death any less frightening.
“Keep walking,” he says turning his back to me.
My next move can be chalked up to lack of sleep, witnessing the death of Gambler, or hell, you can put it on my drug use. I run up to his back, ball my fist and start pounding away. He doesn’t even stumble at my weak blows.
“You’re a monster,” I shout, feeling defeated. “Just kill me. Just do it.”
He turns around and grabs both my wrists in one of his hands. “Stop,” his words come out with more emotion than anything else he’s said all night.
My chest heaves up and down while he and I have a stare off.
“Gambler had been hidden from the Church for forty-six years,” Gabriel says looking down at me. “They had no idea where he was. Two weeks ago, he shows up out of the blue like a beacon on every damn radar they have.”
I scrunch my nose trying to figure out what all that means.
“He wanted them to find him.” It’s a statement, not a question.
Gabriel nods. “There were no bullets in his gun.”
I close my eyes and place myself back in the house. He surrounded himself with pictures of his wife. He never tried to run or talk Gabriel out of killing him. The sad look in his eyes that reminded me of my father.
“This was a suicide mission. He wanted to die.”
