They got back to the car, and immediately he started it up and cranked the heat. Jacinda was pale and shivering, her lips nearly blue.
Gabriel.
He got out and closed the door. Headed for the trunk. There was some dry cleaning shoved back there, and he tore open the bag, retrieving one of his suit jackets.
Gabriel.
Back in the front seat, he draped the jacket over her shivering form, expecting her to resist. Preparing for the fight. He’d pin her down if had to, tie her up, force her to let him take care of her.
Instead, teeth chattering, she clutched the jacket tighter.
He didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried.
“Jacinda,” he whispered, a broken man with a head full of confusion and a heart full of thorns.
He reached for her face, but she turned away, tears cutting through the salt staining her cheeks.
Gabriel.
With nothing else to do but drive, he navigated them out of the parking lot and did just that.
* * *
“We were right about Renault. He’s not far from the city at all.”
Gabriel had gotten so used to the muted hum of the tires on the highway that it took him a few beats to realize the words had come from Jacinda’s lips and not his imagination.
It was the first she’d spoken since they’d left Montauk an hour ago.
“Jacinda,” he breathed, more relieved than he cared to admit. He glanced at her across the dim space of the car, a pair of passing headlights illuminating her face, then throwing her back into darkness. “Are you all right?”
“Working out of a warehouse in Jersey,” she continued, as if Gabriel hadn’t said a word. “Newark, if the dead mages can be believed. But, you know what they say—”
“Jacinda, please listen. I—”
“Dead men tell no lies.” Laughter bubbled up, but it wasn’t warm and soft. Wasn’t hers.
“I don’t care about bloody Duchanes. I only care that you’re safe.”
“Sure I am.” Another laugh, wild and wicked. Crazed. “Safe as any witch who just fled the scene of a mass mage murder—hey! Say that ten times fast! Mass mage murder. Mass murder of magical… mass… mages. Murdering murderous mass—”
“Jacinda.”
She clamped her mouth shut, but she still wouldn’t acknowledge him. Wouldn’t even look at him.
He tried again, his voice low and soft. “Jacinda, we need to—”
“Stop.”
The sharp, sudden command rose up between them like a solid wall, smashing right through him.
In all their arguments, all their threats, all their bloody games, it was the one word she’d never uttered. The word they both knew held more power than a spell to put Gabriel back on ice.
“I can’t do this with you anymore, Gabriel,” she said, the sound of his name just as grating as it had been on the beach. The crazed laughter was gone, leaving only exhaustion in its wake. “I get that we’re not exactly… friends. I don’t knowwhatwe are. And you’ve got a million reasons not to trust me, which I also get, and there’s so much more I—”
“This has nothing to—”
“Let me finish.”
