Page 114 of Gabriel

Amara said she loved me.

And I didn’t know which one of those truths was going to undo me first.

Another shockwave pulsed through the walls, and pain exploded in my skull and my shoulder.

Amara

Fire licked the night sky. Smoke choked the air. I coughed through grit and heat. Gabriel was on top of me, shielding me with that irritating, noble instinct of his.

The world was still ringing, but the shaking had stopped.

At first, I didn’t realize it. My ears were filled with a high, shrill whine that made it hard to tell what was silence and what was just the adrenaline crash.

It was like the house had taken a deep breath and was now holding it, waiting for another strike. But it never came.

Dust drifted through the air. Something hissed from deeper in the house—pipes, maybe, or the sound of something still breaking.

But the explosions had stopped.

I pushed myself up on shaking elbows, my body still curled beneath Gabriel’s. His breath was rough in my ear, labored and too shallow.

“Gabriel,” I whispered, reaching for his face. “I think it’s over. We’re okay.”

His arms didn’t move.

“Gabriel?” I pressed harder, pushing gently, trying to shift him. His weight tipped to the side, something warm and stickydripping on my cheek. And that’s when I saw blood. Crimson was spreading fast, soaking through the fabric at his shoulder and dripping onto me. “Oh my God.” My voice cracked.

“Amara?”

He blinked, his eyes bloodshot and his face pale and tight with pain. His eyes moved, but they weren’t focusing on me, almost as if he wasn’t seeing me.

“Gabriel—hey, hey—look at me,” I said, grabbing his face between my hands. “I’m right here. We’re okay. Look at me, come on.”

His eyes shifted toward me, his head leaned closer, but his gaze stayed distant and unfocused.

He blinked, then blinked again.

“I can’t… I can’t see,” he rasped, blinking hard. “I feel your hands, but I can’t see you. Where are you?”

My heart dropped and it took several heartbeats for me to find my voice.

“I’m right here,” I whispered, panic rising in my throat like acid. “You’re okay. It’s going to be okay.”

I tore at the hem of my shirt, ripping it into a makeshift bandage, hands shaking as I pressed it hard against the wound in his shoulder. He flinched, his jaw clenched, but he didn’t cry out.

“You’re bleeding bad, but I can stop it,” I murmured, mostly to keep myself from spiraling. I ripped his clothes, searching for the wound, and found an ugly slash on his shoulder. I pressed down on the wound, ignoring the way his blood soaked through the cloth, while locked on the gush too close to his eye. “Stay awake, Gabriel. Stay with me.”

“Just need to rest,” he murmured, closing his eyes.

“You’re not dying on me, you hear me?”

His next words were slurred as he muttered, “So bossy.”

I glanced toward the hallway, searching for Anya and Jet.

They were gone.

The place where they’d fallen was empty, no sign of them anywhere. There was just a pair of shallow indentations in the dust and a swirl of plaster on the ground where they’d been.