Page 13 of The Beast

“Where are you taking me?”

I don’t expect him to answer, so I’m unsurprised when he stays silent, watching me with eyes so cold, I’m terrified that the Gabe I loved doesn’t exist anymore. That whatever horrors he’s faced over these past years have broken him completely.

I tremble slightly, not sure if my heart can handle knowing that.

After a moment, I draw new breath, then try again. “Gabriel,” please talk to me.” I hate how desperate I sound. Hate that I’m already begging. But I can’t help it. I’ve spent what feels like a lifetime dreaming about seeing him again, and now he’s here—alive, real, close enough to touch—and he’s looking at me like I’m nothing. Like I’m less than nothing.

Like I’m someone he hates.

“At least tell me what’s happening.” I try to keep my voice level, try to exorcise all hints of begging or pleading.

“I thought you were dead,” I continue when he stays stubbornly silent. “I thought you died in the fire.” Tears well, and my voice cracks. “I mourned you. I’m still mourning you. And now you’re here, and you won’t even look at me like...like…

“Like what?” Not words. A growl, low and harsh and dangerous.

“Like you even remember loving me.” I blurt the words out, ahead of the rush of tears that follow. And maybe it’s an illusion from those tears, but I think I see something flicker in his expression. There and gone, too fast to identify. Pain, maybe. Or anger. Or just contempt. I don’t know. All I can tell is it’s bad.

“We’ll talk,” he says. “But not here.” His voice is still harsh, but at least we’re moving toward answers, and I nod eagerly, clinging to his words like a dog with a bone. “Then where? And when? Can we go now? Please, Gabe. Can we just go now?”

I start to say more, but swallow my words because there’s no way to express the chasm that looms between the reunion I imagined and this cold, hostile silence.

In my dreams, he was always so happy to see me. Always reaching for me the way I reached for him.

This Gabriel doesn’t even answer me. Just turns to stare out the window at the passing lights of this illuminated city. The neon glow paints his profile in shifting colors—red, green, gold—and I study the new lines of his face like I’m trying to memorize a stranger.

The scar on his cheek. The beard and mustache. The hard set of his mouth. The tension in his shoulders, like he’s holding himself back from something. Violence, maybe?

Or perhaps he’s holding out on telling me the truth.

All I know is that he doesn’t say another word for the rest of the drive.