Page 77 of Absolution

“Yes,” Bryar said.

I sighed, feeling sluggish, and not up for another battle. Stupid sun. I rubbed the bracelet on my wrist, forgetting I hadn’t taken it off and suddenly a burst of warm energy slid through me. Well that was nice. Maybe I could get Sei to make me a whole shit-ton of these bead things.

I left the room in search of Seiran and Gabe. Because that tugging at me was the ghost of a broken tie, Gabe’s severed bond. I felt it like a phantom limb, tugging and flailing, painful, raw, and not at all normal. No one said that broken bonds could be mended, or even used to trace an old tie, yet that’s exactly how it felt. I could feel Gabe pacing, his agitation and irritation, raging like a caged beast, both from the severed bond, and from his link to Seiran. Another tangled web. I sighed. Someone needed to help me work out this siphon bullshit.

Seiran stood at the giant sliding door that led to the arboretum. In the actual arboretum, which wasn’t more than a plot of dirt and a few tiny trees surrounded by glass and pretty architecture, paced Gabe. His skin was pink from the sun overhead, but he didn’t seem to notice it at all. Waves of anger and irritation rolled off of him. He grumbled things that I couldn’t make out. Seiran seemed frozen at the door. Unsure of what to do.

“The wards are working,” I said. They pulsed on the edge of my senses. “How come he got into the arboretum?”

“I didn’t extend the wards that far,” Seiran said. “Just to the edges of the actual house. The arboretum is an add-on.”

We would have to fix that soon then. I watched Gabe pace. He kept looking up, glaring at us, trying to approach the door but not getting close enough to touch it. His eyes were completely red. Not glowing with the monster, but dark, blood-filled orbs that reminded me of pictures of demons. Was he already a revenant? His arm hadn’t healed at all. He kept the battered remains of it hugged tightly to his chest, the flesh appearing to be rotted and blackened, the earth eating away at it slowly.

“It’s hurting him to not be close to me,” Seiran replied. “I can feel it.” He closed his eyes and shuddered. “He’s so broken. Memories, thoughts, everything about him is a jumble of chaos. He’s not healing at all.”

Which worried me as much as the red eyes. “How long until he becomes a revenant, Ronnie? Could any of us bring him back from that?” I waved my hand at the giant dirt pile Gabe paced. “Have the earth take him back before it’s too late.”

“Maybe if I explain…” Seiran whispered. He put his hand to the glass and tears rolled down his cheeks. He reached for the door handle, and I grabbed his hand.

“No,” I said firmly.

“He won’t hurt me,” Seiran said.

“He isn’t Gabe right now.”

“He is,” Seiran insisted. “I feel him.” Seiran put his hands to his face and sobbed into them. “He’s so lost and alone.”

“And how will you dying in his arms help that?”

“Seiran, come to me,”Gabe said. His words barely audible, but I felt them like a punch to the gut. It wasn’t a request, but a demand. Seiran trembled, hands fisted, pressed to the glass. I could feel the war inside him. The pull to obey and how he fought the compulsion. Vampire compulsion. That was one power that Gabe had always told me to use sparingly. Equivalent to mind rape, were the words that stuck in my head. That he would do this to Seiran made me want to rip him to shreds.

Seiran shut his eyes and his pain was so sharp in that moment I could almost feel it cut the both of us. “He promised to never do that. It’s not supposed to really work now that I’m his Focus.”

“You’re not running to his arms,” I pointed out, though I knew that was sheer willpower. I wasn’t bound to Gabe anymore and had to fight the need to go to him. He hadn’t even called me. Fuck.

Gabe stopped pacing a moment again, stared directly at us, then the demand came again,“Come to me, Seiran.”

Seiran wiped at his eyes. “Let me just talk to him.”

“What’s to talk about, Ronnie? He knows what he needs to do.”

“I don’t know if he does,” Seiran said. “He is so confused. Drowning in hunger, rage, and confusion. Maybe if I explain it again?”

“No,” I said. “He doesn’t get to keep hurting you. This is the whole abusive relationship nightmare everyone hears about, but tries to ignore.”

“He wasn’t always like this. He’s not…”

“But he is now,” I pointed out. “You can’t keep living in the past, Seiran. Matthew is gone. Roman is gone. Your mother doesn’t have any power over you anymore. Gabe needs to go to ground. You have a future to survive for. Children. A world of change to create in the Dominion. Don’t let one man steal all of that from you. No matter how much you might love him. Love will not save either of you. You both have to make the choice to change. Him to go to ground and maybe heal this, and you to grow a pair of balls and fight back.”

“Fuck you!” Seiran said.

“Truth hurts, Ronnie? How long will you play the victim? Yeah, the world fucking hates us. Sure, everyone is out to get us. But you know what? So what? We are stronger than that. You’re Father fucking Earth! I’m some sort of weird super-rare siphon, apparently more powerful than the Tri-Mega. So tell me why it’s okay to let people treat us like shit? Neither of us asked for this. Tell me that if Gabe were himself, and looking in on your relationship right now, like thethingpacing out there was someone else, that he wouldn’t say you needed to end that?”

“Sam.”

“Fuck you!” I screamed at Gabe through the glass as his strength rolled over me, trying to coax me out that door. His energy hit a metaphysical wall, Max’s strength, and vanished like it had never been.

I took Seiran’s face in my hands. “Don’t let love break you. If he’s in there, the way to get him back is to put him in the ground. If it worked for me, it can work for anyone. You said yourself I was an asshole when I went to ground and mellowed out when I rose.”