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He can’t do this.
He can’t.
Gabe is the last person I have left. He can’t take him away too.
I struggle as the soldier enters my bedroom and drops me on my bed.
I scramble up, walk to the door, but he steps in front of it and folds his arms across his chest.
“Get out of my way!”
He just stands there like the stupid brick wall he is. I try to shove at him, try to move him, but it’s impossible.
The balcony. I’ll go through Stefan’s room. But before I’m even outside, the bedroom door opens and Stefan steps in. He orders the soldier out.
“Gabriela,” he starts, tone calm.
I fly at him, a scream like a roar coming from my throat.
He catches me but I beat my fists against him, pound his chest until he takes hold of my wrists and forces them behind my back.
“I told you to wait here for a reason.”
“So you could sneak Waverly in without my knowing? So you could make this change without my knowledge? How could you? After everything? How could you?”
He walks me backward, sits me on the edge of the bed. He keeps hold of my wrists as he leans down over me. “You don’t understand, Gabriela—”
“Let me go. Don’t touch me.” I yell, struggling against him, ending up on my back for all the effort.
Stefan’s on top of me, his weight almost too heavy. “There’s a reason I waited.”
“You waited.” I squirm, my hands hurting with our combined weight on them. “How long have you known? Before my kidnapping? How long?”
He takes a deep breath in.
“You’re hurting me. Let me go. Get off me.”
“Calm down and I will.”
“You want me to calm down?” I twist beneath him, pulling at my hands. It’s useless until he decides to let me go, I know it. His grip is like an iron manacle. “You want me to calm down when my father’s lawyer—that horrible man—tells me that I’ll never see my brother again? Will never talk to him again? While you knew all along? While you agreed?”
“Christ,” he says, letting go of my wrists and pushing off me to stand.
I stand too and without a moment’s hesitation, I draw my arm back and I slap him so hard, his head jerks with the blow and the sound reverberates off the walls.
My hand stings as the room falls dead silent and when he turns his face back to mine, I see rage in his eyes. Pure and absolute rage.
“You are never to do that again,” he says, speaking slowly, enunciating every word.
But that rage he’s feeling? I can match it.
Hell, I can top it.
“No?” I ask, raising my arm again and swinging.
I don’t make my target though. Stefan’s no fool. He catches my wrist and throws me backward so hard that I bounce twice on the mattress.
He has one knee on the bed and closes his hand around my throat. “You don’t fucking listen. That’s your problem. You never fucking listen.”
I claw at his forearm as he squeezes, digging out rivulets of skin and blood as I watch his crazed eyes darken. I slap at his arm, his chest. Anything.
He makes a sound, releases me.
“You’re just like them! I hate you!” I scream, rolling onto my belly, scrambling away. I kick at him when he catches my ankle and drags me backward. His full weight is on me and one arm is locked around my neck, his bicep at my throat. When he flexes, I stop moving because I stop breathing.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Gabriela,” he says, his breath hot against my ear. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
A gurgling sound comes from my throat and he finally removes his arm.
“You’ll hurt me anyway,” I choke out the words.
He flips me over onto my back, keeps me trapped beneath him. “You don’t understand—”
“I understand that you’re no different than the man you hate.”
His eyes narrow and I know those are the words he hates most. “You need to open your eyes and see the monsters for who they are.”
“And the heroes for who they are?” I ask, sarcasm my poison.
But then Waverly’s words ring through my ears again.
You’ll vow to never see or speak to your brother again.
Sadness overwhelms me. I’m powerless. I always have been.
“You said you didn’t want to hurt me.”
This betrayal, it’s harder to take, because I thought things were changing. I stupidly thought Stefan cared.
“Fuck.” He lifts himself up a little and with his thumbs he wipes at my tears. “You said you wanted to trust me, Gabriela. Trust me.”
When he told me I was sweet and innocent, what he meant was I’m a fool. A stupid, naïve fool and his perfect target. A perfect target for all of them.
“Are you even listening to me?” he asks.
“Get off me. Don’t touch me.”
Something in the way he looks at me changes and he slides off me. Stands. He looks down at me, runs a hand through his hair.
