Chapter One
Numb.
I have never wanted to be an unfeeling sack of flesh and bone more than in this moment. Because I feel everything. Pain. Betrayal. Grief. Sorrow. Every fucking thing I hate about feeling. Everything I’ve tried so hard to avoid.
I look down at the photograph crumpled in my rigid grip. It suddenly feels like glowing red hot coal in my hand. It burns me, sears the skin of my palm. In my hand I hold everything that I love. My parents, both adopted and biological. And him.
Dorian.
I know what this is. I know this is my truth. My past. My present. My future. It is what I knew all along and, like a freaking idiot, ignored because my beautiful illusion was so much better than my tragic reality.
For once, I had embraced happiness. Bliss. In spite of finding out what I was, finding out that I was a half Light, half Dark inbreed, I was happy. Even with a damn supernatural assassin out for my blood, I was content. Because of him. He made me whole. A new and improved Gabs. A girl that wanted to be good enough. For him.
Fuck. Him.
On autopilot, I stuff the photo into my purse. Then I am mindlessly dressing myself. Right arm in sleeve. Left arm in sleeve. Sweatshirt over my head. Legs sliding in jeans. Feet stepping into shoes. I’m almost there. I’m almost numb.
“Gabi?” my mom asks as I breeze by the living room robotically. I stop in my tracks and gaze at her, my face stoic and unreadable. “Dear, where are you going? Are you ok?”
I look at my adopted parents, the wholesome couple that took me in and cared for me as their own when I was nothing remotely like their own. I am not even human. But they gave me a human life. Despite the pure evil festering within me, bubbling just at the surface, they chose to believe I could be like them. They wanted to believe I could be good.
Fuck. Good.
I fish the photograph out of my purse and thrust it towards them without another glance or word. What would I even say?
Found this picture of you guys and my birth parents. And by the way, I am screwing that guy in it. Plus he hasn’t aged a day. In twenty-freakin’-years. No big deal.
“Where did you get this?” Chris asks, though it sounds like more of a demand in his low timbre.
“I don’t know,” I hear myself say. “I think it was in Natalia’s book. I just found it.”
“Oh my God, it’s us,” Donna replies in her breathy soprano. “Us and your parents, Natalia and Alexander…”
“And? And him?” I ask jutting out my finger at his maddeningly beautiful face. Dark hair, impossibly blue eyes, and that sexy smirk that makes me forget my own name. Him.
“Him? That’s, uh,” Donna stutters before swallowing. “He was your father’s friend. His partner.”
I meet her pale blue eyes and nod, needing no further explanation. “Dorian.”
Chris and Donna’s brows furrow simultaneously, first in confusion then in terrifying understanding.
“He’s here,” Donna squeaks, barely above a whisper. “Oh God, no. No. No!”
“Dammit!” Chris shouts. “How the hell did this happen? How do you know him?”
Donna crumbles into chest-heaving sobs. “Oh please, no! Please, Gabriella! Don’t tell me…don’t tell me it’s him! Don’t tell me he’s the one!”
She knew. For months she read it in my aura. She knew I was involved with someone and something had changed in me. She knew I had fallen in love. She just never imagined it could have been with the epitome of all that is corrupt and immoral in their world.
With him.
I couldn’t say anything. There was honestly nothing left to say. Admitting I was in love with Dorian would only throw salt in the wound. Theirs and mine.
“I have to go,” I mutter. I start to turn towards the door then hesitate. The photo. I need the photo. “Can I have that back?”
“Where are you going?” Chris asks. Again, it sounds like a demand. An accusation.
“I have to go,” I repeat. “To see…him. I have to know.” I snatch the photo from his grip and stuff it back into my purse.
“You have to know? Know what? What the hell is there to know?” Chris shouts.
My face heats with anger, tiny beads of sweat forming on my forehead. I reflexively swipe my sleeve across it. “Why he’s here. Why he came. Why he… I just need to know.”
“Absolutely not! You will not leave this house, do you hear me? Dorian is off limits!”
Chris steps towards me with the intent of grasping me by the shoulders. Yet for some reason he recoils, stumbling several steps back, shielding his wife with his broad body. I hadn’t even noticed the lights. Every light in the entire house is blinking rapidly, casting ghastly shadows across their horrified faces. It’s happening again.