Dominion (15 page)

Seeing Abigail walk away and knowing how I made her feel made me angry—so angry that before I knew what I was doing, I punched the locker beside me. Not only that locker, but also all the other lockers in the hall exploded. The hallway filled with flying pages of books, broken locker doors, pens and pencils, pictures, and other items.

Abigail turned around and gaped at me. Her face filled with shock as her eyes traveled over the mess and then back to me. How was I going to explain that?

“
How—how did you—” Abigail stuttered.

I didn’t blame her. I wasn’t even sure what I was supposed to say or why I had allowed myself to be so careless. Abigail stood still, frozen in place by her shock. Papers floated to the floor.

“
Abigail, I didn’t…”

Abigail backed away and fearfully whispered, “It’s you. You’re the Gideon from my nightmare.”

And then she ran.

I didn’t understand why she was scared. I was about to follow her when the school principal walked into the hallway.

“
What happened here?” he asked.

I didn’t have time for him. I started thinking of how to get rid of him, but Valoel already had my hand.

“
Just play along,” she ordered. “You just ruined his school. You don’t have to kill him, too.” Where the hell did
she
come from?

I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to hear her talk. My mind was filled with thoughts of Abigail.

“
I don’t know, I…”

The principal walked over to me. “Are you all right?” he asked me.

I nodded, and then he told me to follow him to the nurse. He left the moment he dropped me off at the nurse’s office, and since Valoel was breathing down my neck and telling me to act normal, I had to stay and have the school nurse check me out.

I sat in the nurse’s office, angry at myself for what I said about Abigail. I shouldn’t have let what’s-his-face get to me. And now, I had hurt Abigail.

“
You almost exposed us! What’s going on?” Valoel asked the moment I stepped out of the nurse’s office.

I didn’t have time for her. “I need to see Abigail.” I snapped my fingers and found myself inside Abigail’s bedroom.

Abigail stood in front of a mirror inside her walk-in closet. She held a gun in her hand, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. She wore a skintight leather jumpsuit, with a belt buckle and gun holsters. Her reflection looked sad and distant.

Where the hell was she going? I looked around for Tristan, but for some reason, he wasn’t there.

“
You look dangerous.” The moment I said this, Abigail whipped around, startled.

The second her eyes met mine, she pointed her gun at me.

“
Gideon, what are you doing here?” Her voice was shaky, and the hand holding the gun trembled.

“
Abigail.” I stepped toward her, and she took a step back.

“
What do you want?” I hated hearing the fear in her voice. “Did you come to ask for a ride so you can kill me?”

What the hell was she talking about?

“
I don’t know what you mean, but no, I didn’t come here to kill you. So, you can put that thing away now.” I pointed to the gun.

She raised her arm, pointing the gun straight at my forehead.

Great, now she was going to end up killing
me
, although a gun actually wouldn’t kill me.

“
You’re not here to kill me?” She sounded like she wanted to believe my words. Almost.

“
I don’t know why you’re scared of me,” I said, my voice not sounding like mine because it was a sad representation of my normal bravado. “I know you’re mad at me and—”

Abigail angrily cut me off. “What gave that away?” I could hear her heart racing, but her voice sounded stronger, angrier. “You called me stupid.”

“
And I’m trying to tell you I didn’t mean it!”

“
Didn’t
mean
it?” she asked in disbelief. The gun still pointed at me. “You made me feel something, and then you called me stupid. I thought we—”

“
Just stop!” I shouted. I couldn’t bear listening to her say that whatever we felt wasn’t real. “This isn’t my scene. I hate this—feeling so…so human. I don’t
do
feeling guilty or thinking about a girl. And I certainly don’t do longing for someone to talk to me, so stop making me feel this way because you’re making me angry! And I hate getting angry at you because I—I want to be…to be with you, and…be—be happy…with you!” I had no idea why I said this. Abigail lowered her gun for a second, and then she lifted it up again.

“
If you wanted to be with me, then why did you call me stupid?” I was never going to live that down. “I wanted to be—” she started, but I couldn’t let her say anything more. I didn’t even give her a second to blink before I appeared right in front of her.

“
Don’t finish that sentence,” I whispered. I knew what she was going to say—that she wanted to be with me, too, but now she didn’t.

“
How did—you were…”

No human could do what I just did, but I didn’t care if she learned of our existence. I just wanted to make her not hate me.

Abigail’s gun pointed straight at my chest. If she wanted, she could send a bullet right through me—not that it could hurt me.

“
Abigail, put that thing away before you hurt yourself,” I said calmly. I wasn’t scared for my life, but I was for hers. I came to Earth to kill her, and now I wanted to protect her?

“
But you…” Abigail’s shock lingered. “How did you do that?” she asked.

“
I’m not going to hurt you,” I promised.

Abigail didn’t look like she believed me, and I wasn’t sure I believed me either.

HEREAFTER

*Abigail*

“
Better to light a candle

than to curse the darkness.”

Chinese Proverb

š›

G
ideon wasn’t human. I knew he couldn’t be—not after what he did to the lockers in the school hallway and his ability to move inhumanly fast.

I couldn’t risk lowering the gun. In the back of my head, I wished Logan would notice that I was late for training and come for me, and then he would find Gideon.

I wanted to run away from him, but I couldn’t, not when he was the Gideon from my nightmare. That Gideon caught me, no matter how fast I ran.

This time, however, I was prepared and determined to fight him. I had a gun; he didn’t. I was shaken, but I was sure I could still pull the trigger if I needed to.

“
Abigail, I’m not here to hurt you.”

So he kept saying. I might have believed his words before, not after what I had seen him do.

“
I didn’t mean to call you stupid. Tristan was being annoying, and I said the first thing that came into my head to get him off my back. I didn’t mean what I said.”

A part of me wanted to believe him.

“
You still said it, Gideon.” His excuse made me angry and filled me with courage. “And then you—you did something to the lockers. And in my dream, you …” I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. I couldn’t say,
“You killed me.”

“
I’m not going to hurt you,” he said again.

I jumped because Gideon’s voice was right beside my ear. I turned to see him standing behind me.

“
Stop doing that!” I shouted.

Now I was one hundred percent sure he wasn’t human.

Maybe I
was
stupid. Gideon had made me suspicious from the beginning, and yet it somehow didn’t bother me enough to stay away from him, to not hold his hand. Wouldn’t a
normal
person have tried to find out more about him?

All I knew about him was that he moved here from Hollywood, he took my breath away every time our eyes connected or he touched my hand, and he was unrealistically beautiful. He was also funny, rude, a little weird, and sometimes charming. Did he have a family, a really cute little brother? Did he have a father who had married women fantasizing about him? Or maybe he had a dog? Where did he live?

“
It’s the only way I can get closer to you without you backing away from me,” Gideon said. He carefully took my hand, and I didn’t immediately pull away. “You hate me, don’t you?”

Breathe, Abby!

“
Infinity times two,” I whispered and pulled away from him.

“
Good,” he said and smiled, but the smile disappeared a second later.  He walked closer to me again and cupped my face in his hands. I still had my gun on alert.

My heart leaped. Electricity flowed through my veins.

His face was so close to mine. My eyes locked on his, and I held my breath. No, no, no!

Looking into his green eyes, I felt his breath against my lips as my heart pounded violently. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to resist the burning desires. Suddenly I felt myself lowering my gun, letting it hang by my side.

I wanted to pull myself away, but I couldn’t because the truth was that although I was scared and upset with him, I wanted him to kiss me.

Knowing I wasn’t strong enough to pull away, I whispered, “Please do not kiss me.”

I hoped that Gideon was strong enough to resist whatever was happening between us.

After another agonizing second, he pulled away. “I didn’t come here to hurt you, Abigail,” Gideon said.

At the sound of his sad voice, I instantly felt silly for thinking he was going to hurt me. I dreamt that he hurt me, but that didn’t mean he would hurt me in real life, did it? “I believe you.” The moment I said this, his whole body relaxed as if he had been holding his breath. He tucked the loose strands of my hair behind my ears.

My body was still shaking. “Do me a favor,” I whispered, looking up into his green eyes.

“
Anything.”

“
Leave.
Please
.”

Gideon looked stricken when I said this.

I wanted him gone, far away from me, but Gideon stood still in front me. “I…” he paused, and my heart continued its rapid beat. Just being that close to him made me tremble. “I meant no harm, Abigail.” He sounded sad, and that light in his eyes was replaced by something else—something dark. He pressed his hand gently to my cheek. I lowered my eyes, trying to find the courage to pull away. He tipped my head up so that I had to look straight at him.

I tried with every inch of my body to drag myself away from his gaze, but I couldn’t.

“
Goodbye,” he said, and then he was gone. I looked around, but there was no sign of him anywhere.

I rushed over and closed all the windows in my bedroom when I was convinced that he was really gone. I had no idea why I bothered, when he could just appear and disappear into thin air.

I sunk onto the floor after that, dropping my head into my hands and crying.

Gideon wasn’t human—that much I was sure of. So, what the hell was he?

I had wanted to remember my nightmare, to put a face on Gideon, but when I finally had a match, I wished I hadn’t.

Maybe I misinterpreted the dream. Maybe he wasn’t going to try and kill me. Maybe he simply came to break my heart. But that didn’t explain what or who he really was.

I heard Gideon’s voice in my head saying,
That stupid girl
.

Of course I was stupid. No one had forced me to feel the way I did around him. That day in the cafeteria, no one told me to give my heart away. That day in the library, no one told me to lose myself. That night on my bed, no one asked me to long for him.

And, crying on the floor, no one made me wish I’d asked him to stay.

THE STRUGGLE

“
It would be easier to break,

but I’m going to keep my head high

just to make you believe I’m stronger,

so I can hurt in silence.”

Melody Manful

š›

N
o matter what I did, sleep wouldn’t come. Instead, I stared at the red letters of the clock as they flashed the numbers of each passing minute.

The next day, I stayed in bed until Sunday evening when my mother forced me to get out of bed to get some air.

When Monday came, I lied and told my mother that I hadn’t been feeling well, so she allowed me to stay home. I was no longer crippled by my fear, but I was still unsettled and sad.

When I woke up Tuesday morning, I felt better than I had in days. I decided if Gideon was going to kill me, he’d have done it by now. I still told my mother I wasn’t yet well enough for school, and this time, she decided to stay home with me.

It didn’t take her long to figure out that I was upset rather than sick, because I turned down every medicine she tried to give me. She asked what was wrong, but since I didn’t want to drag her into my crazy world, I said it was nothing and that I had just needed some time alone. Her way of trying to cheer me up was for us to eat a lot of ice cream and to model the new dresses in her clothing line. At first I didn’t want to do anything, but once she convinced me to try on a few dresses, I found I actually enjoyed it because it kept my mind busy.