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“Gabe.” Noah barrels into us, dragging Gabriel away before he can finish his poem. Gabe doesn’t seem to notice. He raises the horn to his lips and starts guzzling the contents. I remember that conversation we had in the hallway of Malloy Manor, where he told me why he doesn’t drink. I slap the horn from out of his hands.
“Fuck, you bitch,” the punk swears at me. He’s covered in sticky, sweet-smelling alcohol.
“Bollocks. My mead is gone,” Gabriel slurs, reaching for the horn. He teeters and falls into me. My knee slams into the cabinets and it fucking hurts, but not as much as the crazed look in Gabriel’s eyes.
I don’t like seeing him like this – the fallen angel a booze-soaked mess. He said he didn’t drink, and yet this is twice in as many weeks he’s got completely plastered.
It’s because of me.
I remember back in our room in Midnight Grotto, when Gabriel said that when he looks at me, he sees Dylan. I didn’t understand what he meant, but I think I’m starting to see.
Gabriel broke something open inside me, some seal that kept all the darkness inside. It was Gabe who broke through my heart of ice first, who saw something in me beyond Stonehurst’s head witch bitch.
It never occurred to me that I might’ve broken something open in him as well. And while I’ve been dealing with Alec and Noah’s dad and avenging Queen Boudica, all his old wounds have started bleeding again. All I do is pour poison into the cuts, so much poison that he’s drowning, and I’ve been too distracted to see it.
I’m the poison.
I’ve already poisoned Noah and Eli. I’ve turned the Golden Boy into a ball of anger and hate, and the dark-horse valedictorian into a wannabe mobster.
No more. I may be too late to help Eli, and Noah is in too deep to draw back now, but I won’t let the darkness take my fallen angel.
“Gabriel.” I touch his cheek. He turns away, moaning a little. Noah shoots me a look – we have to help him.
How do you help the boy who sings the stars when the sky falls around him?
“Gabriel, I—”
“Hide and seek!” Gabriel’s eyes light up. He flails himself from our arms. “Come on, let’s play. I’ll hide, and you seek.”
I grab for him, but he’s gone. He’s surprisingly fast on his feet for someone who’s totally smashed. He disappears into the crowd. Noah grabs my hand and dives after him.
Noah drags me toward the DJ, but I see a flash of Gabriel’s jacket in the opposite direction. I slip my fingers from Noah and follow Gabriel as he disappears up a wide staircase curving up a glass atrium. I haul myself up after him, cursing myself for wearing six-inch stiletto heels.
There’s a couple of guys drawing lines of coke on the windowsill as I hobble past. I can’t help but think this party is kind of tame, not what I expected at all from the richest kids. They can do anything they want and all they want to do is forget their lives in a drug-fueled haze. Now, my father’s parties… Saturnalia, Lupercalia… those were wild. Gangsters know that you party as if tomorrow never comes, because there’s always a chance someone might put a bullet between your eyes.
Or bury you alive.
I shiver as I round the corner, and my gaze flicks to the glass walls that look out over the peninsula. The cemetery appears closer, its grave teeth open wide, ready to swallow me whole. I pour on speed and manage to sprint up the last flight of steps without snapping my ankles.
I’ve reached the top floor, presumably where all the housemates have their bedrooms. I pass a guy slumped in the hallway, his eyes swimming from some cocktail of drugs, but his ass is too ugly to be Gabe. I peer into the first room. A girl kneels on the bed with a guy pounding away behind her. His hair flops over his eyes, and for a moment I think I see my fallen angel and a knife twists in my heart. But no, no butterflies flutter around his neck. I move on. The next room has a few guys laughing as they crowd around a computer screen, watching what looks like amateur porn. I back out before they notice me. I push the door of the next room open. It’s completely dark inside, and nothing moves or stirs. One entire wall is covered with floor-to-ceiling glass, and the cemetery leers up at me with a mocking grin. From this angle, I feel as though I’m toppling forward into its waiting mouth. Or perhaps that’s the terror of watching Gabriel fall and not being able to save him. I start to back out, but a voice startles me.
“Claws.”
That one word undoes me. It’s a silly nickname Antony gave me when we were kids, but Gabriel speaks it with awe and reverence as if he kneels before a goddess. I squint into the gloom, and I spot him. He’s slumped in a beanbag chair, facing the window, his features shrouded in shadow. The horn lays on its side at his feet, spilling mead into the expensive carpet.
I rush to him. I go to kneel – I need to look into his eyes – but Gabriel grabs my legs, wrapping me against him. His whole body shudders with a sob. Over his shoulder, the cemetery’s mouth yawns wider.
I’m pissed as hell at him for drinking himself into this state. I had plans for after the party, plans involving continuing what he and Noah started on the dance floor. But I can’t ignore the crack in his voice. He’s breaking apart, and the stars are far away and cold. But I’m here, and I have to do something.
“I killed him.” Gabriel’s shoulders tremble. “I killed him because I’m a selfish prick. He was my friend, and I didn’t listen to him. I was so busy lapping up all the attention that I didn’t notice what was up with him until it was too late.”
“So what? Being a shitty friend isn’t the same as murdering someone.” I roll my eyes. “You didn’t point a gun at his head and pull the trigger. You didn’t stab a knife through his chest.”
“I might as well have.” Gabriel’s eyes roll back in his head. “I’m such a useless prick. No wonder my parents…”
“Your parents what?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. I’m nothing.”
