Grabbing her hand in both of mine, I halt her. “We need to talk.”
She stops and tilts her face up to mine. “There’s nothing left to talk about, Gabriel. I just want to be alone right now.” Her voice starts to tremble at the end and I resist the urge to pull her into my arms. But I want her to hurt . . . don’t I?
I repeat more firmly, “We need to talk.”
For almost a full minute, she’s silent, then she sighs wearily. “Alright, just let me pay the taxi driver.” Walking over to where the driver has the passenger window rolled down, she reaches into her bag and leans through the window to hand him some money. Wonder what else she has in there. Turning to face me, she just stares, wiping her cheeks simultaneously with both hands.
Even though I know I can’t trust her or this show of emotion, I still feel awkward about what she witnessed between me and Carmen. But I refuse to feel guilty. Stepping forward, I place my hand on her lower back and guide her in the direction of my car parked down the street. Max will just have to find a ride home. It shouldn’t be a problem.
Neither one of us speaks during the short walk. Once there, I open the driver’s side for her, handing over the keys. Though our encounter was sobering, the alcohol is still rampant in my bloodstream, so it’s best that she take the wheel. Going around to the passenger side, I slide into the leather seat. As she silently drives away, I wonder where we’ll go. We definitely won’t go to my house, where she killed my father. It seems inappropriate. For some reason, I don’t want our encounter solely focused on the past. My hands clench thinking about the fucked up situation we’re in.
“Where are we going?” she asks, turning to look at me with a cold mask in place.
Trying to read her thoughts, I ask, “What do you suggest?”
She returns her attention back to the road. “This is your city.” Memories of her saying similar words last October flash through my mind. How innocent things were back then, at least from my perspective.
I make a decision, knowing exactly where to take her. “The beach house.”
She winces just enough for me to notice. “Okay.”
It’s a stupid idea, the place where we first made love, but I can’t help myself. It reminds me of happier times, a time when I had two parents and the most beautiful girlfriend in the world.
Thirty minutes later, I’m locking the front door of the beach house behind us after we enter. Facing away from me, Annabelle asks, “Is this the part where you kill me? Because I gotta say, I’m not really in the mood to die. I’m more in a killing mood.”
“Not yet,” I answer concisely.
She whirls around and I can see the unshed tears glistening in her eyes again. “What do you want from me, Gabriel?”
I walk towards her, grabbing her by the arms. What do I want? Conflicting needs fight for dominance inside me. Deciding on one, I lean down and whisper, “I want to hurt you.”
Chapter 24
Annabelle
Even though Gabriel’s words do hurt me, I put on a brave face, forcing my lips to form a smartass smirk. “Do you really want to hurt me?”
The arms he now has wrapped around me squeeze as he nods his head. “Yes.”
Despite my efforts, my brave face falls and my voice cracks, “I love you, Gabriel. And you already hurt me tonight.”
He squeezes harder, picks me up off the floor and flings me onto the couch. Having no warning that I was about to be tossed, I don’t land gracefully, but instead with an oomph!
Okay, round one goes to Gabriel.
Before I’ve regained my composure and an erect position, he’s hovering over me. I glance into his eyes to see such a mixture of emotions. Yes, hate. Yes, anger. But something else is still there too. I’m convinced it’s love.
If only I could have gotten it back before it was too late, before he hurt me too badly.
It’s obvious he’s trembling with indecision. He wants to hurt me and he wants to love me. I may not be all that experienced with love, but I know all about hate and anger. And I know Gabriel.
Reaching a hand up slowly to cup his face, he flinches and I flinch in response to his loathing. He really thinks that I’m a monster. “You still love me don’t you, Gabriel?” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, he rears back as if I slapped him. His eyes go wide before narrowing in anger.
Then he slaps me. Hard, dammit! I’m warring with emotions myself. On one hand, I’m royally pissed that he just hit me. On the other, I kind of deserve it. Although his dad deserved to die, Gabriel never deserved to be hurt so badly by me in the process.
I’m cupping my own face now where I know there must be a large red mark, as I stare down at the floor. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”
“I’m not going to be sorry that I hit you,” he says harshly. It sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more than me.
I finally look up into his tormented face. “You know what, Gabriel? Just forget about it.” I motion from him to me with the flick of my hand. “This, whatever it is between us, is over anyways.”
Starting to stand up, he tries to block me with an arm. I grab it and have him on the floor in two seconds. He lands on his back with a thud and his breath whooshes out of his body. Before he can sit up I’m on top of him, straddling his waist and arms, pinning him beneath my thighs.
Putting my hands on either side of his gorgeous face, I lean down so he won’t mistake my next words. I notice that he looks both startled and aroused. Very softly I tell him, “Gabriel, I really do love you. I think a part of you still loves me too. The stubborn teenage girl in me had hope for us. The woman in me knows that it’s over.”
His face contorting into sadness, he starts to speak, “Ann-”
I place a palm over his mouth. “Shh Gabriel, let me finish.” Once he nods, I continue, “Like I was saying, I love you. I had hoped that we’d be able to get past . . . the past. But, I’m not a normal teenage girl. I’m not even a normal woman. One thing that I know we can’t get past, that I can’t get past . . . .”
I hold off for dramatic effect. True, what I’m saying it completely real. My feelings are no game. However, I’m an assassin, an actress of the real world. I want Gabriel to remember this moment for the rest of his life. I want the end of us to make a lasting impression on him. I know it’s going to imprint itself on me. I’ll never forget Gabriel and I’ll never forget my love for him.
He’s trying to say something, but it’s muffled by my hand on his mouth. I remove it and he looks confused, unsure. “What, Anna? What can’t you get past?”
My tears are real too. As one drops onto his cheek, I say with all the sorrow of a young girl pained by a broken heart, “You fucking other girls.”
With that, I lift myself off of him and stride towards the back door of the beach house. I can hear him scrambling to get up behind me. I fling open the front door, leaving it wide open for his pursuit, not wanting to take the time to close it. The night welcomes me and I run into it.
Down the beach, over the sand, I hear the waves and smell the sea. I can feel sand getting into my sandals, but I don’t care. He’s probably not faring any better in dress shoes. “Anna, wait!” I notice that he’s calling me Anna again, panic in his tone. If he’s suddenly experiencing tender feelings for me, it’s too late now. I meant what I said.
Gabriel
“Anna, stop!” I shout after her retreating figure. Damn the girl can run fast, doesn’t help that I drank so much tonight. Stopping long enough to toe my dress shoes off, I resume my pursuit. She may be a trained assassin, but she’s still a girl. Two minutes later, I’ve caught up with her. Tackling her, I twist our bodies so I take the brunt of the fall. Landing with an oomph, my breath is knocked out of me.
She immediately starts struggling, but I have my arms secured around her waist and I’m not letting go. That’s when the screaming begins, “Gabriel, you piece of shit, let go of me! Why don’t you go back to your whore?” Ah, she’s angry again.
br /> Somehow, despite the circumstances and my aching back, I find this amusing. It’s a good thing she can’t see my face clearly in the dark. The light from a nearby beach house and the moon reflecting off the water give just enough light so that we can make out each other’s shapes and shadowed features. Not paying attention, she catches me off guard with a backwards head-butt. “Ow! Dammit, Anna!”
She continues struggling, so I flip her over onto her stomach, with her knees in the sand. She tries to throw her head back into my face again, but I’m not stupid enough to make that mistake again and she hits only air. Anna huffs in annoyance, “Are you going to restrain me to death, Gabriel? Do you plan on drowning me in the ocean?” Her sarcasm is cute. Damn, I feel like shit for hitting her, but I was afraid of what else I might do. I’m so angry with her for hurting me.
“If I let you go, will you behave?” I ask nicely.
She answers with her own false nicety, “Why, of course.”
Slowly, I let her up and she does this weird forward somersault thingy and lands in a crouch facing me, about five feet away. I shake my head in wonder. I’ll never get used to her being able to do these things. And I thought I was a badass while taking martial arts growing up and again for the past six months. Perhaps I should have known that she was that skilled since her body is so toned, but I just brushed it off by thinking that she must work out a lot. Sitting in the sand, I bring my knees up to rest my hands on, brushing the sand off my palms.
She gives me a dirty look that I can barely make out in the dark. But if I hadn’t, her tone would have clued me in, “I don’t like being tackled, Gabriel.”
The comment makes me curious and instinctively protective. “That’s happened before?”
She shrugs nonchalantly, laughing humorlessly. “That and much more. There were a lot of learning experiences in the beginning of my career.”
My emotions have an odd response to that. At the same time that I think it’s no less than what she deserves, I feel angry that anyone would ever try to harm her. God, my life is so messed up. A random thought flits through my mind. “How many people have you killed in the past six months?” Squinting into the darkness, I watch her face.
She gives me a weird look, her face scrunching up as if uncomfortable. “Do you really want to know?”
I swallow hard, nodding. “Yes.”
She brings both her hands up to chest level. Staring me in the eyes, she sticks out the thumb on her right hand. “Brazil,” she hesitates for just a moment before continuing, “China, Mexico, South Africa, Ireland, India, Japan, Canada, Peru.”
Looking from her eyes, down to the nine fingers she’s holding out between us, I shout in astonishment, “Nine!” Then I repeat questioningly, looking back up at her, “Nine?”
She shrugs again, not meeting my eyes. “It’s what I do.”
“That’s sick!”
She has a hurt, but pissed look on her face. “It’s what I fucking do, Gabriel!” Obviously irritated, she stands up, brushes off her legs and clothes, ridding them of a majority of the clinging sand. With one last look at me, she spins around and takes off again. This time she walks away.
For a long moment, I sit there, a warm breeze I didn’t notice before whipping against my face. What the hell am I going to do about her? Finally, I scramble to stand up quickly, following just a couple yards behind her on my sock-covered feet. “So that’s it? You’re just going to walk away?” I close the distance so that she’s only inches in front of me.
Without even looking back at me, she mutters loudly, “You’ve given me no other choice.”
I grab onto her shoulder, desperate to hold onto her any way I can. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
She whips around with a smirk on her face. “I don’t want to play this game anymore.”
My jaw drops. “Game? So this is only a game to you?” She looks amused, but I have to wonder what’s an act and what isn't. Is her supposed ‘love’ an act? Is the amusement that she’s portraying an act? I have to think so. It’s what’s driving my revenge. My father deserves to be avenged.
Her face is now devoid of emotion. It’s so frustrating! “The only game is you pretending that you’re going to kill me, Gabriel.”
“I am going to kill you,” I say with a waning certainty.
She laughs mockingly. “Sure you are.” She starts walking away from me again. I, once again, am following her.
“I’m sorry if it doesn’t come as naturally to me, Annabelle, but even killing someone like you is something that I have to work up to.” Then abruptly, I return to a subject that’s bothering me, “Really, Anna? Nine! Couldn’t you learn to pace yourself?”
She laughs. “Gabriel, you are so naive. The real monsters of the world aren’t pacing themselves. People like me will never be able to catch up to them all, but keeping pace with them is something we can only hope to strive for.”
A wave of anger overcomes me. “My father wasn’t a monster.”
She stops and turns to look at me. The beach is dark and deserted, but the streetlamps along a nearby bike path give off enough light for me to see the indecision on her face. “Gabriel . . . I could prove to you that your father was.”
“Do it then.”
She stares at me thoughtfully and eventually shakes her head. “I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have.”
“Because you don’t really have any proof. You blindly followed the orders of whoever you work for and without proof murdered my father. He was a good man, Annabelle! He loved me and my mom. You not only killed an innocent man, you also ruined my mom’s life!”
She takes a step back, looking off into the dark waves. “I’m sorry about your mother, Gabriel.”
I laugh bitterly. Her sorrow, either real or contrived, doesn’t fix anything. “It’s too late now for being sorry.”
Her gaze returns to me and I can almost convince myself that she’s sorry about us too. “You’re right, Gabriel. It’s too late. I’ve seen that for myself tonight.”
She’s referring again to catching me about to let Carmen go down on me tonight. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing that I haven’t messed around with any other girls since she left me six months ago. Instead of telling her that, I say, “Don’t try to convince me again that you’ve been faithful to me all this time.”
She glances back to the ocean, her voice lowers, “Fine, I won’t then.”
I’m on her in a flash, grabbing her by the biceps and shaking. “Who the hell have you been with? How many have there been since me? Or is it just one? That guy you were with in Paris, the fake Russian? God dammit, Anna, you’re mine!”
She lifts her hands and pushes my own away from her. Her face crumbles, and her words are accompanied by tears, “Don’t worry about him! It’s not like that with him! It’s not like that with anybody else! I’m not the whore that you are, Gabriel!” She starts sobbing uncontrollably and I take her into my arms tenderly for the first time tonight.
I rub her back and make soothing sounds. “Please don’t cry, Anna. It’s not like that for me with anybody else either. Tonight was the first time that it’d even gone that far with a girl since you left.” Well, there was the girl back in February, but she doesn’t need to know about that since it didn’t progress very far either.
She looks up at me and I can see the tears glistening on her beautiful face. “Really?”
“Really.”
Then she abruptly pushes me away with renewed feistiness. “And what if I hadn’t shown up when I did, Gabriel? Would you have let her finish?” She adds quietly under her breath, “Stupid slut.”
I look away uncomfortably, having a feeling that more would have probably happened in my determination to stop pining for the girl in front of me right now. “I don’t know, Anna. I didn’t want to, but I may have forced myself to . . . go through with it.”
“Why?” she asks in a small voice. Damn, the girl can kill without flinching, but
the thought of me getting head from someone else devastates her.
Frustrated, I grab her roughly and yell, “Because I don’t want to love you anymore!”
Despite the sense of satisfaction I feel because she may have been faithful to me for the past six months, despite how beautiful she is and how much I want her physically, I still hate her. What she did . . . I shudder at the memory.
Loving her has caused me more pain than even my father’s death did.
She wipes a hand wearily over her face. “Then don’t! Just forget that I ever existed. You don’t have to ever see me again.”
I shake my head. “Not likely, Annabelle. You don’t think that I could forget everything that’s happened, do you? Why should I be left to suffer while you go on your merry killing spree way?”
“You think I’m not suffering also?” Brown eyes flash angrily at me. “I don’t want to do this anymore, Gabriel! I give up!” Her voice is raised to yelling by the end of her outburst.
“Hold up, not so fast. We made a deal back in Paris. I came back to Florida and finished school. Now you have to do your part. You said that you’d tell me where you were once I was done.” Outwardly, my words are calm, but inwardly I’m a mess of rioting emotions.
“I’m here, Gabriel. I came back to the Miami for you, to see you graduate.” So easily, her anger is gone and she really does look like she’s giving up on me, almost deflated. But what was she hoping for exactly? Happily ever after? Not gonna happen in this story. Not when the princess is also the evil witch.
“How . . . thoughtful of you,” I say sarcastically, pushing back any joy at the thought of her caring. “But, that’s not what I meant and you know it. Where are you going next, Annabelle? I need to keep you near me.” In my confusion, I clarify myself, “For when it’s time to kill you.”
She laughs sadly. “Oh god. Not that again.”
“Yes, that.”
She lets out an aggravated sound. “This is so pointless. You’re not going to kill me. You love me, but hate that you love me. I love you, but you don’t believe me.”