Dust (18 page)

"No way. We grew our separate ways a long time ago, and that's exactly how I want to keep it."

"I—" He frowned and shook his head. "Maybe he wants what
you
have now," he said slowly, eyes glazing over.

My heart raced. "What do you mean?"

"Your girlfriend."

I shook my head before he even finished responding. "No, he has one. He likes Jewel, Liv's roommate."

He looked away, his body rigid, belying the casual tone of his words. "How long has he been seeing her?"

"I-I don't know. I try not to think about him." That was true, so why was I feeling sick all of a sudden, and why was Granddad acting weird? He looked at the wall, the floor. It felt as if he were purposely avoiding my gaze.

"Maybe this infatuation with your girlfriend's roommate is a ruse to take what you want." His gaze found mine, but he wasn't looking at me. He seemed lost in his thoughts. "I'm not saying that's what has happened, Killian, but Gabriel had issues when he was younger. If he never dealt with them, he might not understand why he's doing what he's doing. Of course, this is a big assumption." He frowned and looked away from me again. Now he seemed to be grappling for words. A cold chill crept down my back at the meaning behind his behavior. "I just like to be cautious. After all, you still have your problems with him, which means you haven't worked out everything either, but I know you've been in a loving environment since your mother's death. How was he raised after that day?" He'd been raised by a bitter woman; that went without saying.

Gabe was unstable. I knew that, but that my granddad suspected it made the situation more real. I could handle whatever Gabe tossed at me. But now he'd brought Liv into the mix, my greatest weakness. His family had been partly to blame for one woman being taken from me. I would not allow their evil to touch another. I had to find her, make sure she was okay, and teach that son of a bitch a lesson for hitting below the belt. I jumped up. "I've gotta go."

When I turned to grab my phone from the bed, I saw the pale look on his face. "Granddad?"

"We never told you everything about that night." He looked up at me, and the weight of his words almost knocked me to the floor. "Your grandma and I felt it was better if you didn't know all the details. Seeing Eddie kill your mother was hard enough. But I never thought you'd see Gabriel again, be thrown into your past like this." He swallowed, focusing on me again. "There are some things you should know."

He seemed so serious, and I looked at my watch. Liv had like thirty minutes on me. I wanted to eat up those minutes with my truck speeding down the highway. "Can this wait?" I wasn't really asking. I grabbed my wallet and shoved it into my back pocket. Whatever he'd kept from me all these years could wait a few more hours.

"No. What I have to tell you will change how you think about your father."

"My father was a monster," I spat.

"More than you could possibly know, Killian. More than you could possibly know."

I
opened my eyes
, but I couldn't see anything. Why was it so dark? Normally Jewel left a nightlight on in the room so we could find our way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I rolled over, my back hitting something hard, cold. Memories assaulted me and I bolted up. My head hit something hard and I fell back onto my side. I rubbed it as I looked around, willing my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I needed to find out where I was because I knew I wasn't in my bed. The hard surface I was on and the images racing through my brain told me so.

Gabe had taken me.

Had taken me and Jewel. I gasped in the silence. Where was she? Was she okay?

"Someone's awake," Gabe said from somewhere, his voice coming from everywhere and nowhere. I sat up slower this time and used my hands to feel around and make sure I didn't hit anything again. I eased my feet over the edge and searched for purchase. "I wouldn't do that. Unless you want to fall. You're pretty high up there."

I yanked my foot back, and whatever I was on shook a little. I grasped it, willing it to stop. I couldn't place his voice earlier because he wasn't at my level. He was below me. "Why am I up here? Where's Jewel?"

He tsked. "I don't think you're in the position to be asking questions, Olivia."

The way he said my name made my skin scrawl. "What's wrong with you?" I whispered.

"Oh, I think you know."

I shook my head furiously, though he couldn't see it. I didn't want to think about what this meant.

"C'mon, Olivia. Don't tell me you don't remember," he sneered. Then lights blinded me. I covered my eyelids and rubbed them before trying to focus on the room. Bile rose in my throat.

"No," I breathed. The outside of the house had been enough. The wine cellar was too much to take.

"Yes." He laughed. "I knew seeing the room would jog your memory."

I looked down from the flimsy wine shelving and gawked at him. "Why did you bring me here?" Better yet, why was this house still standing? My parents told me it had burned. It had been the only reason I hadn't driven by and screamed at it when the mood had struck. As far as I had known it had ended up a pile of ashes in the middle of the suburbs.

"A better question you should ask...why did
Jewel
lure you here?"

I shook my head and squeaked when the platform moved. "What are you talking about?"

He spread his arms and turned in a circle. "Look around. Do you see her anywhere?"

My gaze darted, but my body stayed still. "No. What have you done to her?"

He laughed. "I like Jewel. Why would I hurt her? She hasn't done anything to me. I wouldn't harm her. You, on the other hand, can't say that, can you?"

What the hell? I frowned. My head started pounding as frustration grew. "Jewel?" I yelled. No response. I called out for her again.

"She's not here. My little love bug wouldn't get caught getting her hands dirty. That's what she has me for."

Tears welled in my eyes. "You're not making any sense."

He sighed theatrically. "It's your fault Jewel didn't get to spend her teen years being the governor's—or better yet, president's—daughter. Her father covered up for you when your sister was killed."

"And?" I swiped away a tear before it landed.

"Jesus,
and
it was an election year. His opponent found out about it and used it against him to win."

"How?"

"Why the fuck does that matter?" he roared, and I flinched. Then he took a deep breath. "How he did it doesn't matter. Instead of living the posh life she should have," he said eerily calm, "she gets normal. Instead of the White House, she gets a brick house. Instead of a top sorority at Princeton, she gets the dorms at LSU."

No. I couldn't wrap my head around what he'd said. This didn't sound like Jewel. Not the Jewel I knew. My shoulders fell. Maybe the Jewel I knew had been fake, fabricated for revenge. "She didn't really like me?" I mumbled. We hadn't been friends at all?

He laughed. "Now you're getting it.

Only I wasn't. I wasn't getting it at all. Jewel had seemed so sincere, so honest. Sure, she'd been flighty at times, but she wasn't a devious person. No way could I believe that. She seemed so shocked when I shared the news of my past and was even offended for me. That was the Jewel I knew. That was the Jewel I had to believe in. "No! You're lying."

The smile faded into a sneer. "Am I, darlin'?"

My body convulsed, and I squeezed my eyes shut as that word dug its talons into me. I could smell the alcohol.
Wine
. It was wine I smelled. A sweaty guy holding me down, crooning words into my ear I didn't want to acknowledge. "Stop it," I begged. I took a deep breath. I couldn't afford a panic attack now. If I wanted to freak out, I had a more pressing reason than images from my past. "Stop."

He laughed. "I have you to thank for that little tidbit. Imagine my surprise when you flipped out at the bar that night. I knew right away I'd have to file that information away and use it again." He shrugged. "Saved me from having to drug you."

I rubbed my pounding head and wanted to disagree with him. How could he have gotten me up here without medicating me?

"I called you the d-word. You went cuckoo. I knocked you out and carried you in. I didn't say you'd skipped in here and climbed up on your own."

Now that I believed. "And Jewel?"

"What part of
she's in on this
don't you understand? She didn't like me hitting you, but it wasn't because she had a change of heart." He leaned in and whispered, "She doesn't have the stomach for doing the dirty work herself." He leaned back and shrugged. "So she pounded pavement."

Oh god, my chest ached at the thought of her betrayal. I couldn't fathom the why. It seemed so juvenile. But I had to accept the possibility. "Why are you helping her then?" I couldn't stop the tears from flowing now.

"Killian," he said matter-of-factly.

"B-because of your past?" I asked when he didn't elaborate.

"You don't know shit about our past, you little cunt," he yelled. He grabbed the rails and shook the shelving, rattling me and it. He reached for my hair, but I scooted away from his grasp. "You think you know everything, huh? Do you? Well let me tell you something. Killian deserves to pay for the shit he put my mother through, for destroying her dream. In the last four years he's been banging broads, not giving a fuck. Not until you crashed into his life. Finally, he has someone he actually cares about. Someone he cherishes more than himself. Someone I can rip from him and torture him with just like he did my life. My. Life!"

Tears streamed down my face as he continued to scream at me, his face red, spittle flying from his mouth.

"Oh, you think your tears will save you?" he spat. "Answer me!"

"No." I sobbed.

"At least you're smart," he said in a normal tone. Then his face fell into an agonized expression. "We were going to do everything together. Go to the same high school. Lose our virginity at the same time. Fight over the same girl." He glared at me. "I guess we get to do that last one."

Gabe was beyond sick. He was obsessed to the point of being delusional. Even in my frantic mind, I could see I was getting a glimpse of the real person and not the facade he'd allowed everyone else to see. "You need help," I whimpered.

"No. What I needed was a father. My father. Killian's father. Our father. He promised my mom he would provide for us, and she hoped every day, prayed every night he'd leave that bitch he was married to. But did he? No. He didn't have a chance to." He roared. "You know what? Fuck this." He stomped over to a chair and picked up something. I trembled as I inched back into the corner. I wasn't very high off the ground. He could reach me by stepping on the bottom shelf, but I had to do my best to stay away from him. God, Killian's words rang in my ear. He'd wanted me to stay away from Gabe, and I hadn't. I'd been silly igniting a fight with the one person I could trust more than anyone.

I leaned up to watch him. I wanted to be ready when he struck. But he stood still, looking down at something. I squinted and saw a cell phone in his hand. He was typing on it.

"What are you doing?"

"Sending lover boy a text. The sooner he gets here, the sooner I get this over with."

"What are you going to do?" Did he think Killian would just come here blindly, not expecting anything from him? I might've been ignorant when it came to trusting people, but Killian wasn't, especially not when it came to Gabe.

He seemed to ponder that and smiled. "Kill you, of course. I'd planned on killing that traitor one day, but this is so much sweeter. Now he'll know what it's like to live with pain."

"He already lives with pain," I said quickly. "He watched his dad kill his mom."

He laughed, the sound borderline hysterical. "I know. I heard all about that. Trust me. I know more than you can possibly imagine."

Of that I had no doubt. "Please don't do this." I knew my words would fall on deaf ears, but I had to try to reason with him, find some humanity in his soulless eyes. "You cared about him once."

His eyes turned red. "Don't. Don't talk to me about what I had with Killian. You'll never understand the bond we shared. The bond he tossed away."

"He was just a kid. You both were. You were too young to understand what was happening."

"You still don't get it, do you?"

I wasn't sure what he was talking about, so I shook my head. It was easier to agree with him than argue at this point.

A bang sounded from above, and I looked at the ceiling.

"He's here," Gabe whispered. "That was faster than I thought." He reached under his shirt and pulled out a gun. "Don't make a sound, or I'll have to kill you too soon and ruin all my fun."

"Please," I begged. I didn't want to die, but even more so I didn't want Killian to have to watch. I didn't want my parents to have to lose another child. I didn't want any more pain for the people I loved. "You don't have to do this."

His gaze cut to mine. "You really are fucking blind, aren't you?"

I wiped my tears away, but covertly looked around the room. I had to figure a way out of here and warn Killian before he walked into a trap. Gabe was emotional, which should make him reckless. That could work one of two ways...either he'd make a mistake and I could take advantage, or he'd make a mistake that cost me my life, or worse—cost Killian his.

"You know, the moment I saw you at the fundraiser, I knew there was something different about you. It wasn't until later that I realized the difference was actually a familiarity. We're both damaged, trapped by our pasts, no way of ever breaking free."

The sad look gave me hope. "That's not true. We can be free if we choose to be." It had been a hard lesson for me to learn, but faced with death, I knew it to be true. For so many years I hadn't felt I deserved to live. I wanted to take Sam's place because my actions had led to her death. But now, I knew I deserved to live. I wanted to. I wanted to experience all life had to offer. The happiness and heartache. The joys and the sorrows. Basking in joy was an amazing experience, and feeling pain meant I was alive to endure it. I wanted it all until I died, which I hoped would be many years from now.

"I'll never be free. You'll never be free. The damage is done," he said woodenly. He looked up at me and sighed. "You ruined everything, you know. You and your sister. I just wanted to get some juice boxes for my friends."

Blood rushed in my ears, and I felt weak. "What are you talking about?" I whispered.

He shook his head. "Quit being so naive."

"No," I breathed. But then why was this house, this wine cellar, so familiar? How would he know to bring me back to a place I'd thought burned that night? Then I felt the blood that had been rushing in my veins fall from my face. "Oh my god."

His smile was sad. "I see you're finally catching on."

"No." I shook my head frantically. "No, no, no. No way. No!" Please god, no.

"Yes. Not fair, is it?"

"Please don't." My body screamed for me to run. I didn't want to face what I knew to be true.

"I can't change the past. You can deny it all you want, but the truth is the man who kidnapped you and your sister was Killian's father."

A painful roar echoed in the room, and I knew in that moment Gabe had been right.

There was no escaping the past.