Page 160 of Cruelest Contract
I take a step toward the open door. And then another one. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“YES YOU FUCKING ARE!” he shouts and blocks my way.
For the very first time I’m seeing my twin brother for the dangerous man that he really is.
Gabriel has a temper. A vicious one. His mask has slipped, showing the same thoughtless rage that drove him to gun down a man over a card game, setting in motion the chain of events that led us all right here.
“Do you have any fucking idea what I’ve done for you?” he yells right in my face and seizes my arm.
The greatest danger isn’t outside. It’s right here in front of me. I stare into my brother’s eyes and I don’t know him at all.
“Gabriel,” I say, trying to sound reasonable even though I’m terrified beyond belief. “You’re hurting me. I cannot leave with you. Please let go.”
Instead, his fingers tighten on my arm until I can’t take the pain and cry out. His expression shifts into a hideous smirk of satisfaction. Worst of all, he still has the gun in his other hand.
Slowly, as if he’s enjoying this too much, he releases my arm. I’m sure it’s not broken but it hurts like hell. Yet that pain doesn’t hold a candle to the consuming anguish crushing me from the inside.
My brother takes a step back and rubs his mouth with the back of his hand. The other hand holds the gun.
And his face just….melts.
That’s the best way I can describe the complete shift to evil. His eyes, usually a warm light brown just like mine, now blaze with unrecognizable wrath before he looks at the floor.
He drags his eyes back up. If anything, they’ve only grown more spiteful. “You fucking ungrateful bitch,” he swears.
If he’d stabbed me in the heart, the pain couldn’t possibly be worse.
I want to scream at this horrible man. I want to hit him and force him to give me back my twin brother, the one who must still be in there somewhere.
What was it Julian said about Gabriel and self-loathing? I can’t remember the exact words. But Julian saw him far more clearly than I ever have.
Gabriel hates himself. This is true. It’s been true for a long time. But right now he hates me more.
Whatever psychotic plan he made, he believes I’ve ruined it. Now he’s going to make me pay.
My twin brother looks down and notices the gun in his hand.
“Gabriel,” I whisper in agony, helplessly covering my belly with my arms. “Please don’t.”
In this moment of inconceivable horror, a soothing hand strokes my hair, the kind of tender touch that would come from a mother.
This, of course, is my imagination. Gabriel and I are the only ones in the room. My panic-stricken brain is simply trying to cope with what’s happening by inventing an ally that whispers in my ear that everything will be all right when nothing will ever be all right again.
Louisa chooses this moment to streak out from beneath Cass’s desk with a startling yowl and runs right between Gabe’s legs. He yelps and spins around. The gun flies out of his hand and hits Teresa’s painting, which wobbles and then falls to thefloor. He leaps for his gun but a log cracks in the fire, sending a shower of sparks onto his clothes.
“Fuck!” he shouts and smacks at his arm to put out the fire.
Teresa’s painting has landed sideways. There’s a small tear in the canvas, a few inches away from her right arm.
What a shame,I think to myself, understanding this is an odd thing to be concerned with just now.
The background of the painting is so dim, as if the artist made the deliberate choice to allow Teresa to shine even brighter. This must be why I never noticed before that the setting is this very room. The rip in the painting actually runs right through the small table that’s still here. On my wedding day, I signed my marriage license on that table. The contract was finalized in ink and blood. There’s no contract on the table now. No ink. No blood. All that’s there is a shot glass and a half full bottle of bourbon.
And alcohol, as everyone knows, is an accelerant.
I don’t give myself time to think. Gabriel is still preoccupied with dousing the flames on his arm. Lunging for the bottle, I seize it by the neck and fire it at my brother with all my might. I’m not athletic and I’m not strong but at this one crucial time my aim proves to be impeccable.
The bottle hits him square in the chest, shattering and knocking him backwards. He unleashes a deranged howl as his arms pinwheel and he ultimately loses his balance, falling right into the fireplace.
