by Jessica Roe
WALKER HAD A fury in her eyes Gable had only seen once or twice in her life. It was a cold, hard, unrelenting fury, and there would be no stopping her. Not that Gable wanted to.
She'd heard Nicky call Walker by the name before he'd left, and it was strange to Gable that she was only just learning it, especially as it would probably be the last name she'd ever think of. Funny, but she'd expected something more feminine to go with her shiny blonde hair and her pretty face. Not that it mattered all that much, death was death, no matter what kind of pretty packaging it was wrapped inside.
There wasn't anything feminine about the way Walker curled up her fist and punched Gable in the face. She felt her nose crack upon impact. It was broken, definitely broken, but then she was certain it wasn't the only thing that had broken that night.
“Fight back!” Walker yelled, screamed, as the blood gushed over Gable's mouth. “Why aren't you fighting back?”
Gable wouldn't, because she deserved every shot, every punch, every kick, every broken bone that she got. She deserved her pain, deserved to be punished, because she was badbadbad. Bad at being bad, bad at being good, bad at existing.
“God, you're just...worthless!” Walker said in a disgusted voice, landing a kick to her stomach. Gable didn't argue, because Walker was right. Almost in slow motion, she dropped to her knees, the sound of them thudding against the floor echoing in her ears, and she didn't get back up again. “You're nothing!” Walker back handed her and her lip burst open with a gush of pain and heat. Still, she didn't fight back. “You deserve to rot in hell until the end of time for what you did! She was just a child, you sick murderer!”
Something inside of Gable snapped. Whatever haze that had settled over her like sheer black veil lifted and she woke the hell up.
No. No! Nonononono! She wasn't a murderer. The things she'd done were bad, and maybe she deserved to be punished, but she didn't deserve to die in a dark, dank room on a dusty floor being called a murderer when she wasn't a fucking murderer!
Screw anyone who thought she was. Screw the whole damned world.
With a sudden burst of energy that may as well have come from the very depths of her tarnished soul, she ignored every blinding ache and pain in her body and rose, hitting Walker with everything she had left in her. “I'm not a murderer!” she cried out hoarsely, so loudly that her throat felt raw.
Walker had stumbled to the floor and Gable used the opportunity to grab up one of the abandoned chairs and smash it against the wooden slats at the window.
She needed to leave!
She smashed the chair once, twice, three times, until the flimsy wooden thing fell to pieces in her hands. But she had done enough damage to the slats that she was able to rip a couple of them away with her bare hands, and she was so full of adrenaline and fear that she didn't even notice the way the sharp splinters sliced into her skin. Her body was already so broken that little things like that didn't even matter.
When she climbed through the gap onto the side walk, she blinked in surprise. She'd almost forgotten that a real world existed beyond the empty store. The sky was dark, but the street lights seemed to blare in their intensity. Cars whizzed by on the busy road, and diners sat outside restaurants, laughing like they had no cares in the world. A person or two passing by her looked at the blood on her face in curiosity and disgust, but most people didn't even notice she was there. Ignorance was a scary, beautiful thing.
“You're going to pay for the things you've done,” came Walker's voice from behind her as she followed her through the window. She sounded so genuinely menacing that Gable freaked the hell out. She turned to escape across the road, but Nicky was running towards her from that way, dodging between traffic and watching her with a fierce look on his face.
“Gable!” he yelled.
Oh God, he was after her too.
Panic blinded her and her head span. Without even looking where she was going, she ran.
THE CAR SEEMED to appear from nowhere.
One moment Nicky was calling Gable's name and she was running away from him like she was terrified he was going to go all Texas Chainsaw Massacre on her, and the next there was a sickening thudding sound and she was flying through the air. Horrified screams cut through the night as her broken body fell to the ground.
His heart stilled.
In the million years it seemed to take for it to beat again, Nicky ran to Gable, angrily pushing through the crowd of people that had quickly gathered around her. Already, traffic had blocked up, and people who had no idea what the hold up was were leaning on their horns. Onlookers in the crowd were whimpering and crying at what they had witnessed, and Nicky just wanted them all to shut the hell up!
He dropped down to his knees next to her so heavily that he was sure he heard one of them crack. The horns and the crying all vanished as he looked at her, and all he could hear was his own ragged breathing.
Gable was...limp, and there was so much blood seeping out of a horrifyingly thick gash on her forehead that he wanted to be sick. So much blood, so much, and he knew that Walker was only responsible for a small portion of it. Her body was so still and, oh God, were legs supposed to bend like that?
The car had been going fast—way too fast.
He leant down and cupped her cheek gently, mindful of her injuries. “Gable,” he whispered hoarsely into her ear. He pressed his forehead against her cheek, not caring that he was coating himself in her blood. “Open your fucking eyes, Gable. Don't you dare be dead, don't you dare.” Her eyelids didn't even flicker. “I swear to God, you're the most stubborn bitch I've ever met, you are not dying! Look at me. Oh God, Gable, wake the hell up!” But she didn't, because she'd been hit by a speeding car and people didn't just get up and walk away from that, not even when they were as bad ass as her. “Come on, Gabrielle, please...” His voice broke on that last word.
The stupid piece of crap who'd been driving the car ran over and collapsed next to Nicky. He was young and scruffy haired and pimply. “She just came out of nowhere,” he babbled. “I didn't see her coming. I was just...oh no, she can't be dead! I only got my licence last week!”
Nicky shook his head at him and shouted for someone to call an ambulance, though he knew at least three people probably already had. He slipped his arms underneath her to pick her up but a nearby woman with frizzy red hair yanked his shoulder away to stop him. “Don't touch her!” she shrieked. “She might have spinal injuries and you'll just make them worse. Wait for ambulance to get here.”
He might have ignored her, but ambulance sirens were already sounding in the distance and he knew they'd arrive within seconds.
He sensed rather than saw Walker come up behind him. She grabbed his arm and tried to drag him up. “We need to leave,” she hissed. “Now!”
He pulled his arm back so harshly that she stumbled. “I'm not leaving her!”
“You knew this was going to end badly.” In that moment, he truly hated her. He hated her because she was right, he hadn't expected Gable to walk away, not before he'd known the truth. “Gable was—”
“Gable was nothing! She didn't do it. Heidi and Becky are alive.” His voice was calm and even, at odds to how he felt inside.
It took a moment to sink in, and then Walker turned a shade of white he'd never seen on her before. She stepped backwards as the implications of their mistakes hit home.
And then Nicky stopped paying attention to Walker because the ambulance arrived and nothing else in the world was important.
GABLE SAT UPON the edge of a roof. She thought it might be her apartment building, but she couldn't be completely sure. She didn't really care all that much, but the view was incredible.
Her legs dangled over the edge, and she swung them gently.
She knew she wasn't really sat up on the roof, obviously. Partly because it should have been windy so high up, yet the air was perfectly still. But also because just seconds before, she'd been hit by a car.
But there she was anyway, swing
ing away.
It had been a dreary day, and the clouds still hung low in the sky, obstructing the moon and the stars.
Sat right next to Gable, also pushing her legs back and forth, was a woman, maybe about Gable's age. She was dressed in ripped jeans and purple converse and a white vest so baggy her pink bra peeped out. Her hair was blonde, but Gable could see dark roots peeping out. She kind of looked...trashy. Not that Gable was judging, because it felt peaceful to be sat with the woman...peaceful and right.
“So...am I dead?” Gable asked in a conversational manner, after they had spent an eternity watching the tiny, ant like cars below.
“Not yet,” her companion answered. She had a small, amused smile on her face, like she was used to the question. “But you will be just as soon as you let go of your body.” She was English, but not the posh kind. As if she could tell what Gable was thinking, she shrugged her shoulders and smirked. “I like the South.” Except she pronounced it 'Sawf'. Gable liked it. She decided that if she was ever reincarnated as an English person, she wanted to be from the 'Sawf' too. Although, the woman hadn't said that she was from the South, just that she liked it.
“And what if I don't want to let go?”
“I thought you might say somethin' like that. What you need to understand is, letting go is brave. And we all need to be brave sometimes.” She pushed herself up and Gable did the same. Together, they peered over the edge of the building. “I dare you.”
Gable looked at her in surprise. “To what?”
“Jump.”
For some reason, that wasn't as shocking as it should have been. “Are you serious?”
“Come on, Gabrielle,” she goaded. “You've never backed down from a dare before.” The woman buffed her fingernails on her vest and glanced down at them nonchalantly. “Or maybe you're just afraid.”
Gable bristled. “I'm not afraid of anything.”
“Then jump.”
And it was that simple. So Gable did.
She seemed to fall a long way, a lot longer than she should have, but she wasn't afraid. Lights flashed by her, and the ground rushed towards her but came no closer at the same time. It was all so wonderfully impossible.
She almost wasn't surprised when she landed in a hospital room. There was just one bed in the room, and her heart felt hollow as she looked down at the frail, dying body of the sleeping girl. She looked so small, so insignificant. Her head and body were wrapped up in bandages, and what visible skin showed was covered in colourful bruises and dried blood.
The sight of her own body laying in that bed made her wince.
The blonde woman stepped up next to her. “You see? There's nothin' in that body to cling on to. It's totally bloody unfixable, even for the best docs. She's just a broken shell with nothin' left inside.” She was talking as if Gable and...the body weren't one and the same.
“Who are you?” Strange that it was only just occurring to her to ask.
“My name is Messor. But mostly I go by another name.”
It took Gable only a few moments to remember her Latin lessons with Pablo. “You're a Reaper?” She'd expected someone...bonier. And covered in black cloaks. And less...trashy.
Messor raised her eyebrows, impressed with her knowledge.
“Are you here to drag me to the other side?” Gable wanted to know. She was feeling oddly calm over the whole situation. Perhaps it was something to do with being outside of her body.
“There'll be no dragging,” Messor replied confidently. “You'll come with me voluntarily once you understand there's nothin' here to stay for. So no, no dragging. Maybe just a spot of guiding once you let yourself die.”
“Isn't that Nicky's job?”
“A Shadow Guide guides only those who have died and lost their way. They're usually the ones who refused to come with me when I first appeared to them. He draws them in with his light and then he sends them to me. It's a fine partnership.” She smirked. “Although your mate, Nicholas, seems a bit scared to actually meet me.
“Lost souls live in the shadows, and...” She gestured around her. “See? Colour. I guide the souls to...well, I guess you'll have to find that one out for yourself.”
“So...I'm not lost?”
“Nope. You're not actually dead yet, so you can't be lost. But I heard your soul calling me, so I came. Deep down, you knew it was time.”
Gable hesitated to ask, but... “What's on the other side?”
Messor smiled a secret smile, and Gable knew she couldn't be the first to ask. She pretended to zip up her mouth and throw away the key. Hmph. The Reaper thought she was so damned funny.
“Awesome,” Gable said, heaving a sigh. “You're all cryptic. How totally original and joyful to find.”
By the look on her face, Messor had a smart reply waiting, but the hospital room door opened and they were both distracted as Pablo entered.
Pablo's appearance took Gable's breath away, which considering she didn't even need to breathe was quite an accomplishment. For the first time in ever, she was seeing Pablo unruffled and messy. His shirt was creased, his hair dishevelled, and his face...
He looked...devastated. Truly and genuinely devastated. Tears that she didn't even know he could create pooled in his eyes as he looked down at the sleeping body in the bed. Perching himself on the edge next to her, he picked up her limp hand and brought it to his mouth.
His anguished cry broke Gable's heart into pieces. She wished more than anything that she could speak to him, that she could tell him she was still there.
But she wasn't, not really. Not in any way that counted.
“Your doctor just told 'im there's nothin' more they can do for you,” Messor told Gable quietly. She had forgotten she was even there. “He's been told to come in and say goodbye.” She sighed. “Pablo has said goodbye to a great many people in his unnaturally long life. This one will hit him the hardest, I think.”
Gable hadn't realized, not until that very moment, how much Pablo truly cared for her. Loved her. The grief on his face wasn't for show, or for anyone else. It was his and hers alone and it was real.
Messor glanced over at her and shook her head at the look on Gable's face. “Don't think about stickin' around for Pablo,” she warned. “He's not worth it. Especially not with how he betrayed you.”
She was about to ask Messor what she meant by that when Nicky slammed his way into the hospital room, his handsome face wet with his own tears.
Pablo jumped from the bed and with a furious roar, he forced Nicky against the wall in a choke hold. “This is all your fault!” he hissed, his face almost pressing against Nicky's. “You did this to her!”
Nicky shoved him off with a surprising amount of strength. “Me? Are you kidding? If you hadn't hired her to be your evil errand girl—”
“Then she'd be dead, you fool!”
Nicky shut straight up, his face blank with confusion.
“She was killing herself,” Pablo said, although it was unclear if he was talking to Nicky or himself. He'd turned his back form Nicky, who was watching him wearily, and was wringing his hands. “trying to find that damned Werewolf. I saved her from herself. I made her stronger. Better!”
Gable turned from the scene to look at Messor. “Did you ever guide Sacha to the other side? You can tell me that, right? Please?”
“Oh, Gable.” Messor sounded sad. “You know Sacha isn't dead.”
She shook her head in defeat. “Then where is he?” Her voice cracked. Honestly, she didn't really expect an answer.
“Come on, you already know that. Don't you? Deep down inside?” The Reaper looked pointedly at Pablo, and Gable's heart ached.
“Not Pablo,” she pleaded in a whisper. “Please not Pablo.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Why would he do that? Why would he take Sacha from me?”
“Pablo has been spiriting Outcasts away for years, for testing. He wants to figure out how they work, what makes them different, how he can use their DNA for his
own use.”
“For his own use?”
“He wants to create an ultimate being, and consequently, an army of unstoppable Outcasts. And, oh, he is so close. When he gets the Box of Creation in his hands, he'll finally succeed.”
“What's a Box of Creation?”
Gable's eyes widened as Messor explained it to her. That's what she had fought Nicky for that day on the roof.
“He'll use the box to take the energy of all the imprisoned Outcasts,” Messor continued. “and he'll be able to put it back into anyone he wants. He could put it in himself. He'll be...unstoppable.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I speak to the dead, and they have a lot to say.”
And then it hit home with a gut wrenching lurch that all those Outcasts Gable had been helping to escort to Pablo for business meetings weren't there to work with him at all. No wonder she'd never seen them again. He had been capturing them, and she had been helping him do it.
She wondered who else knew about it. Zebb and Uang, for sure. They had no qualms about a little murder here and there, and she doubted they'd hesitate to kidnap if there was something in it for them...like becoming an unstoppable Outcast.
And...maybe Chase? Oh God, she hoped not Chase. Because if he knew then he wasn't the good, kind man that she relied on, he was something more. Something sinister.
He was Pablo's assistant, how could he not know?
But then again, how could she not know? How could she have been so stupid? Terelle had told her.
Even without a real body she felt sick as she watched Pablo. It was one thing to be an evil son a bitch, but what he was doing was...monstrous.
Sensing her thoughts, or maybe just seeing them on her face, Messor sent her a sympathetic smile. “You didn't know,” she consoled her.
“Yeah, but that doesn't make me blameless.” She drew her brows together. “Why did Pablo take me on? Why did he save me that day on the bench?”
