Page 71 of No Saint

And yet, even as I think these things and remember him that way, the two memories merge together, becoming one erotic, blurred image. I should be disgusted with myself that seeing him that way did not repulse me. If I was truthful, I’d felt a warmth within my core that could only be one thing. I was attracted to it.

His dominance and power. His complete disregard for law and righteousness. He was exactly who he was meant to be. And he owned it.

Lincoln whimpering from his bed shakes me from the thoughts and drags me back to the present. I’d come straight to him, finding him with Camille.

Gabriel’s mother and me had developed a sort of weird relationship in the weeks I had been here. She was an unexpected comfort, even when we just sat in a room silently together. We spoke often enough, mostly about Lincoln and she broached on subjects outside of the current situation but never to a point I became uncomfortable. And she had told me about Gabriel and Lucas as children. I suppose her narrative of her boys as children and then teenagers had allowed me to see them in a different light.

They were still human with human emotion and human weaknesses, even if that’s not what everyone saw. And I see that now. I saw it the night I met Lucas, when he had shown kindness and pretended to be something he wasn’t, and I see it in Gabriel. I see how he tries.

But I see the weight too.

I see it crushing him, pressing down onto the strong shoulders of him but even a king could be crushed.

I didn’t know what was happening in this city, with his rule but I could assume that these attacks, the shooting on the house and at the wedding weren’t an everyday occurrence.

I’d grown up knowing the Saint’s as the infamous, self-declared rulers but the city didn’t suffer for that. As with every city, town, state, crime happened, no one person, government or family would stop it but it never seemed quite as bad as it did now.

I’d taken Lincoln from Camille with those thoughts in my head, swirling with the version of Gabriel I’d just seen and I’d disappeared to my room. She didn’t ask questions and once I’d got here, I’d fell onto the bed and held him tight, rocking him as he slowly began to drift into his nap.

I held him for a while before I’d placed him in his bed and taken up residence on the floor opposite.

But now he was awake, I move back to him, lifting him to eye level. I see so muchSaintin him now I’m here. In his dark hair and hazel eyes, in the tanned complexion of his skin.

He looked like Lucas and Gabriel.

This was his family.

“Oh baby boy,” I whisper into his hair, “I’ll do better, okay?” His little fingers squeeze my shoulders, lips smacking together, “I’ll do better. I’ll be better.”

29

“Are you well?”

Amelia sits next to me at the dinner table one week later. Our nightly meals had remained in place but she’d kept herself closed off from me. She didn’t speak unless I spoke to her and when she was finished, she excused herself and went to her room.

I’d been in there every night, long after she’d gone to sleep and watched her. I’d flipped through the pages of her sketchbook and documented every new design and a time or two I let myself feel a strand of her hair between my fingers, the silky length soft on my roughened hands.

“I am,” she nods with a fake smile.

Since that day, since those words, she had been nothing but courteous. There was no vitriol or arguments. No hostility. Just this quiet calm.

It was like she wasn’t even present.

“I was thinking we could head into the city tomorrow,” I say.

I didn’t want to. Not really. There had been two more attacks in the week, small in comparison to the previous ones but there nonetheless and while there were no more bodies to be buried it would only be a matter of time.

“Okay.”

“Amelia,” I drop my fork, pressing my forehead into my hands, “I don’t know how to make it better, okay? I’ve never done this.”

“It’s okay, Gabriel.” She lifts her wine and takes a sip, “There’s nothing to fix.”

“But there is,” I push, “This,us.I want to take but I can’t, and I don’t want to steal something you’re not willing to give.”

“I made myself clear.”

“Amelia, what can I do?”

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