Page 22 of Irreverent (The Marked Saga #7)

The week that followed turned out to be one long series of disappointing blows. While I had been holding out hope that Trace had simply fallen into some deep restorative sleep that was healing his mind from the inside out, by the time the following Tuesday rolled around, my hope had all but dwindled down into despair.

I had spent every waking moment with Trace, refusing to leave his side for even a shower out of fear that I might miss something—a sign, a blink, a murmur. A twitch of his finger. But none of that happened. Not a single movement or sound or ray of light had come from him in days, and it only made me sink deeper into my grief.

“Can I come in?”

asked Gabriel as he stood at the entrance of the door, peering into the guestroom at the two of us.

Upon realizing that Trace would not be waking up anytime soon, I had immediately instructed Gabriel to help me move him upstairs the minute he had walked into the door last week after disappearing on me earlier that day. My hope was that by making Trace more comfortable, in an actual bed, he’d have a much better chance of recovering.

And of course, naturally, I refused to be anywhere but right next to him—watching him dutifully during the day and tossing and turning beside him throughout the entirety of each night.

“Yeah. Of course,”

I said and bounced a quick peek at Trace before bringing myself into a seated position on the bed. “What’s up?”

Gabriel sauntered across the room, his gaze roaming over Trace with sympathy. “Has there been any progress since yesterday?”

he asked, but I knew he was just humoring me. Being polite. Asking for the sake of asking.

I’d heard them all discussing how this was a lost cause. How Trace was most likely never going to wake up from this permanent dream state he was in.

“Nothing yet,”

I said, still refusing to give up hope. I didn’t care what any of them said. Trace was going to fight his way back to me. We’d been through worse and survived and I knew, somehow, some way, he would do it again.

A flicker of sadness passed through his green eyes. I imagined he was feeling all kinds of pity for me just then, as though I were simply holding out hope like an idiot in denial, but he could take his pity and shove it. Not even death had been able to keep us apart, and this was going to be no different.

“How are you holding up?”

he asked as he sat on the edge of the bed and studied me.

What a question.

“Considering I have both the men I love lying unconscious in my house? I’d say I’m living the fucking dream,”

I answered dryly.

And there was that dreadful look of pity again.

“No, seriously,”

I went on, blowing off steam in the only way I knew how to these days. “I should lay them out side by side like a shrine to all the things I loved and ruined. Like my own little personal hospice program.”

He frowned. “This isn’t your fault. None of this is your fault.”

“Oh, really?”

I laughed outright, but only because I couldn’t bring myself to cry about it anymore. That well had dried up days ago. “Do you honestly think either one of them would be in this state if they’d never met me?” I asked, knowing full well what the answer to that was.

“You didn’t cause this, Jemma.”

“Maybe not directly, but that’s just a technicality. Let’s be real here. We both know this wouldn’t be happening to either of them if I hadn’t moved here. And that’s a fact, Gabriel,”

I said, pointing my finger at him as though challenging him to try to change my mind.

“I can only imagine how you feel right now but punishing yourself is not going to help either one of them.”

“I’m not punishing myself,”

I grumbled and then turned my eyes toward the blacked-out window, unsure if it was night or day at this point.

He shook his head as his gaze lingered on me. “When was the last time you ate? Or showered? Or changed your clothes? Or left this room at all? If that’s not punishing yourself, then I don’t know what is.”

“That’s not punishing myself,”

I said, rolling my eyes up at the ceiling. “That’s being lazy.”

“Bullshit.”

My eyes snapped back to his.

“I know you better than that. I watched you go through this the last time you tried to survive his death. You’re punishing yourself and I’m not going to let you do it anymore.”

I shot him the kind of look that said, ‘you and which army?’

“I’ve pulled you out of your self-made prison once before and I’ll do it again—by force if I have to. Now, we can either do this the easy way or the hard way, but you are going to wash up and you’re going to eat something.”

He shoved off the bed and straightened. “So, which is it going to be?”

I cocked my brow at him. “You’re joking, right?”

“You don’t even have to leave this room if you don’t want to,”

he said, ignoring my comment entirely. “I can draw you a bath in the guest bathroom.”

“Is this Tessa’s idea? Did she send you up here to annoy the crap out of me? I bet she did. This is so like her—always sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“Tessa’s not home,”

he answered sharply. “Is that a yes?”

“Will you go away if it is?”

I queried.

“No.”

I blinked at him. “Jeez. You could’ve at least pretended.”

He pushed away from the bed and made his way into the guest bathroom, not even bothering to dignify my comment with a response. Within seconds, I heard the squeak of the faucet turning on and then the loud rush of water. I listened in irritation as his boots clanked against the tile as he shuffled back and forth in the bathroom, opening and shutting cabinets and making a huge racket before finally immerging from the bathroom.

There was so much DeJa’Vu going on, it was making my head spin.

“Are you coming, or do I need to carry you in here like a child?”

he asked evenly, his expression and tone as serious as a damn heart attack.

My instinct was to dig my feet in and refuse to budge, but I knew there was no point in fighting him. Gabriel had a serious need to save…well, everyone, and right now, that need was being exclusively channeled into me.

“What will it be?”

he demanded again.

“Good god. When did you get so bossy and annoying?”

I whined as I crawled off the bed and gauchely made my way over to him. It felt as though I hadn’t used my legs in a year.

He shifted over to the side, giving me enough room to enter the bathroom and then stood back as I walked inside and stopped in front of the bathtub brimming with thick, white bubbles.

He ran me a bubble bath.

“Well, now I feel like a horse’s ass,”

I mumbled just as my legs turned to jelly beneath me.

Gabriel was behind me in an instant, steadying me against his chest before I had a chance to do anything acrobatic, like face-planting forward and cracking my head on the edge of the ceramic tub.

“You need to eat,”

he growled lowly, punctuating every word with a silent ‘I told you so.’

“You know, this is all your fault,”

I said, holding the sides of my head as though that might calm the sudden head rush. “If you didn’t make me get out of bed, I wouldn’t have expended as much energy as I did making it over here.”

“This isn’t funny, Jemma.”

“I wasn’t really joking,”

I informed.

He growled again, the sound of it vibrating against my back.

“Alright. Relax, will you? I’m fine.”

I waved him off and then tried to straighten on my own. “See?” I said as my knees knocked into each other and made me jerk back and forth like a headless chicken.

I really wasn’t sure what I thought I was showing him, but my sad little attempt only made him hold onto me tighter. “Okay, so I’m not fine,”

I finally admitted.

“Clearly.”

“So, what’s the plan now, Mr. Bright Ideas?”

He released a sharp breath as he looked around the bathroom before reaching over to the light switch and then lowering the dimmer all the way down to the lowest setting.

“There,”

he said as though he’d solved anything at all.

“There what? How is that going to help me get into the tub?”

“It’s not,”

he answered curtly. “I’m going to help you get into the tub.”

Yes. Help me get into the tub. Meaning he was going to help me take my clothes off. I choked on my spit as soon as that registered. “I’m not getting naked in front of you,”

I said as I spun around to glare at him.

A mixture of irritation and hurt marred his face. “I will not be looking if that’s what you’re concerned about,”

he said emphatically and the nodded over to the dimmer switch. “Hence why I lowered the lights.”

Okay, well that part was true. Plus, Gabriel was probably the least pervy guy I’d ever met. And what was my other option anyway? Attempt to do it myself, get dizzy, fall, and then crack my face wide open? Yeah, no thanks.

Besides, we were all mature adults here, right? Right.

“Alright, but if I catch you peeking, I’m going to rip your balls out and feed them to you,”

I warned, and I wasn’t even kidding. So much for being a mature adult.

“That won’t be necessary,”

he assured, clearly not worried in the least.

I gave him a once over and then decided to stop being a child and just get it over with. Grabbing the hem of my shirt, I kept my eyes pinned on him as he stood there, unflinching, holding me like my own personal safety net, not making a single move but for the gentle tic in his jaw.

As promised, his eyes remained fixed on mine, not even so much as blinking as he held my waist and kept me steady and on my feet. When I’d finally managed to pull my shirt up over my head, I tossed it on the ground beside me and then looked over at him for a beat, watching to see if he’d drop his eyes and break his promise. But of course, he didn’t.

And I should’ve known better. Gabriel was so not the kind of guy to manipulate a situation just to steal a cheap peak at a woman’s breasts, and especially not mine.

I moved to unclasp my bra as we continued staring at each other as though caught in some weird staring contest neither one of us wanted to lose. Unfortunately, the clasp refused to give, and the effort from tugging and ripping at it made me wobble forward. Not wanting to faceplant into his chest, I abruptly straightened my back which made me swing in the opposite direction.

Gabriel promptly stabilized me before I had a chance to fall all the way back.

“The stupid thing is stuck,”

I whined, unable to pull the clasp out from its loop. “I think it’s caught on a thread or something,” I added, contemplating whether I should just rip the damn thing off.

A brief pause. And then, “Turn around.”

Gathering my bearings for a beat, I turned and faced the bathtub, chewing on my lip as he carefully withdrew one of his hands from my waist and then brought it up to my bra clasp. Goosebumps prickled my flesh at the feel of his fingers grazing against my skin, neither one of us saying anything as he fumbled with the clasp for what felt like forever before finally releasing it.

“Thanks,”

I mumbled as I crossed my arms over my breasts and then leaned forward, trying to shimmy the bra off myself while keeping myself covered and on my feet. It seemed like a simple enough task in my mind but executing it on a painfully empty stomach was an entirely different ballgame. The room simply wouldn’t stop bending and turning around me, as though it too were punishing me for all the meals I’d skipped.

My back stiffened as Gabriel’s hand splayed against my abdomen. Before I could ask him what he was doing, he brought his other hand up to my shoulder and carefully brought the strap down before doing the same thing with the other one, all the while making sure not to touch my skin as he did it. My bra slipped off easily and then tumbled to the ground as my arms remained folded across my bare chest.

“Thanks,”

I said again.

Reaching down to the drawstrings that were keeping my jogging pants up, I untied the knot and then pushed my pants down a little, stopping when they were halfway over my hips.

I turned my head slightly to the side. “Still not looking, right?”

Silence.

“Gabriel?”

“Sorry,”

he said and then cleared his throat. “I was shaking my head.”

I smiled and then rolled my eyes at him even though he couldn’t see me. Satisfied that he was still holding fast to his promise, I pushed my jogging pants down the rest of the way until they were low enough for me to kick them off altogether and then walked over to the tub with my underwear still on.

Reaching my arm back for support, Gabriel picked up my hand as his other hand remained on my waist, keeping me safe and steady as I stepped into the hot water and finally lowered myself into the tub.

“If I would’ve known it was going to be this hard getting into the bath, I would’ve fought you harder on it,”

I mused as I pulled my legs up to my chest and shivered. The hot water felt medicinal against my skin and suddenly, I was nothing but grateful to him. “Also…thanks for making me do this.”

He tipped his head in a nod as a small smile tugged the corner of his mouth. “I’ll be back in a little bit with some clean clothes for you,”

he said and then shut the door after himself, giving me privacy to remove my last piece of clothing and then sink back into the warm bubble bath.

I lay there for a few moments, soaking up the heat as I tried to clear my mind of the fog that had infested it since the day Trace had fallen into this never-ending sleep dimension. For months, I had held out hope that everything was going to turn out okay for him—for us, and that I still had enough time to figure out a way to stop the worst from happening. To stop his mind from imploding.

And then Nikki happened, pulling the ground out from under me in a fit of jealous rage, shattering every last ray of hope I had right along with the talisman that was keeping my soulmate’s mind together.

I sank hard, like a doomed ship taking on water in the middle of the vast ocean, and I no longer knew how to get off the boat and save myself, let alone how to save him.

It was all too much.

And I was too alone.

Dominic and Trace had always been my anchors in times of crisis; been my legs when I couldn’t stand on my own, my comfort when I had no place to fall, and my home when I had nowhere to go. They made the unbearable bearable, each at different times and in their own unique way, and now I had lost them both, and seemingly, myself in the process.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Are you decent?”

asked Gabriel, his voice muffled.

I glanced down at myself and made sure I was covered under the blanket of bubbles and then said, “Yeah. Come in.”

He appeared in the doorway with a pile of folded clothes in his hand before crossing the room and placing them on the bathroom counter. From there, he moved to the footstool beside the bathtub and took a seat.

Concern creased his forehead as he turned his heavy gaze to me and exhaled. I knew a difficult conversation was coming my way and I wasn’t sure I had enough strength to endure it. With his lips pursed, he scratched the side of his neck and then fidgeted as though he couldn’t get comfortable.

“Would you just spit it out already,”

I said, feeling as though the anticipation might kill me before we even started talking.

He leaned forward, his elbows resting heavy on his knees. “I spoke with the Council this morning,”

he informed, his moss-green eyes losing some of their usual luster. “The demon situation is getting out of hand, Jemma. There are more and more showing up every day—far more than we know what to do with.”

My stomach sank as I took in the grim news.

“People are in danger. The Council is estimating the entire town will be overrun by the end of the month if we don’t do something.”

He ran a hand down his face and then met my eyes again. “And they need to know if you’ve made your decision yet.”

And by decision, he was referring to whether or not I would agree to allow the Order to anoint me as the Fourth Horseman in order to activate the Power of Four and stop Lucifer’s spawn from being born.

I scoffed at the absurdity of the word. Of the situation. As if what they were asking me could ever be classified as something so trivial as a ‘decision’. It was a death sentence. A spirited jump out of a plane with no parachute.

“I know you’re going through a hard time right now, I do, but we’re running out of time. We cannot afford to keep everything on hold while we wait for Trace to wake up. If he wakes up at all—”

“He’s going to wake up,”

I fired back with the kind of conviction I had no business having. The truth was, we had no idea if he’d ever wake up, and deep down I knew that, but I wasn’t ready to accept that in my heart let alone put it out there into the universe.

He nodded, understanding the line I’d just drawn. “I’m not asking you to give up on him, Jemma, but laying there in bed beside him, day in and day out, isn’t helping anyone, including him.”

“I don’t know what else to do.”

My chest tightened, as though my lungs had been transformed into concrete. “Everything is so messed up right now and I just feel like I’m drowning.”

“I know you do,”

he said, his eyes filled with understanding. With love. “But now is not the time to give up. You’ve come too far, worked too hard and sacrificed too much to get to this point.”

“And what point is that?”

I asked, swallowing down my budding sorrow. “Where exactly has all my work and sacrifice brought me? To yet another heartbreak. Another impossible situation I can’t make sense of.” The further I delved into this life, the more I found myself without hope of escape. It was like walking through an endless dark tunnel without even so much as a match to light my way.

“You’ve been here before, and you found your way out of it. I have no doubt you’ll do it again.”

Well, that made a total of one of us.

“I’m guessing that means you think I should let them anoint me as the Fourth Horseman then, right?”

I mean, this was Gabriel, after all. Duty above all else was a way of life for him.

He shifted uneasily. “That’s…that’s not for me to decide.”

“I know, but do you think I should do it?”

When he continued struggling to answer, I reframed the question. “Would you do it if it was you?”

“I would,”

he answered without hesitation. “But my life is expendable. Yours is not.”

There was so much to unpack in that statement, I wasn’t even sure where to start. “First of all, you’re not expendable, Gabriel. No one’s life is expendable, and especially not yours.”

He forced a smile as though he appreciated the sentiment but didn’t truly believe it in his heart. “I’m a Revenant on borrowed time, Jemma. I know my place in the grand scheme of things. You, on the other hand, are special beyond anything I’ve ever witnessed in my life. You are destined for greatness…if you’d only get out of your own way.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that. I mean, I was always getting in my own damn way. There was no sense in denying that. “So, if you think I’m so special and un-expendable, does that mean you don’t think I should do it?”

I asked, still trying to figure out where he stood on the matter.

He sat quietly for a moment, as though thinking hard on his next words, and I waited with bated breath to hear them. “You must understand something, Jemma. Going against the Council’s wishes is not something that comes naturally to me,”

he began, his voice a quiet thrum of truth and regret. “I was brought up from a very young age to militantly follow orders; to fall in line and trust that the system they have built is for the greater good of all of us. I believed they had all the answers and that everything could be solved through a simple white or black equation. Good vs evil. Heaven or Hell. Duty and obligation above all.”

“And now?”

I asked softly, wholly captivated by his words. By his life’s confession.

His expression turned woeful. “And now I see that things simply aren’t as simple as that.”

I sagged back in the tub as I let that sink in. As small and noncommittal of a statement as that was, I had to give him credit. This was a huge step for Gabriel. Gabriel who never uttered a bad word about the Council or made a move without their approval. He had been raised to never even think about stepping out of line, let alone attempting it.

And yet there he was, taking that tiny step all on his own.

My gaze circled back to him then, latching onto his eyes as though the tree of knowledge were right there in his mossy green iris’. “Do you think I should do it, Gabriel?”

I asked him again, needing to hear him say the words to me—one way or the other.

My heart fluttered as I watched him softly shake his head.

“I think we need to try everything else first.”