Gabriel's Hope

She heard the words, but they made no sense. At her silence, he continued.

"The surgeries that first year integrated the tumor into your brain using science and magic in a combination that even I was unable to reverse, when I finally realized you weren't the same woman I recalled. All the surgeries the third year" he shook his head "desperate attempts by me to undo what I'd done."

He was quiet.

"What made you change your mind?" she managed.

"Seeing you for the beautiful person you are. You are now everything I wished you were in a past life."

She looked away. Her hands were shaking too hard for the wine. Wynn stretched across the distance to grasp it as it started to slide from her hands.

"At least you tried to undo it, right?" she half-joked. "That counts for something."

"Deidre, love, you're not hearing me," Wynn's voice was gentle. He set down his wine and settled his hands on her shoulders.

Deidre swallowed hard. She was trying hard to push away the gathering emotions that told her Wynn was not the man she wanted, needed him to be. He was the remaining pillar of the foundation of the reality that existed before her trip to the beach. If he crumbled, so did she.

"I didn't just want you dead." He spoke the words in the cool, detached tone that she recognized from their interactions at the hospital. "I wanted you to suffer a long, painful death and was willing to do whatever it took to make that a reality. My vengeance was so well-planned, Death himself cannot figure out how to save you. Deidre, I'm the one who will kill you."

Speechless for a long moment, she did nothing but stare at him. Her mental wheels began to move again as she grappled with not only what he'd done, but why Andre and Gabriel - who knew the truth long before she did - chose now to have it revealed to her.

"I, um, think I need some air," she said hoarsely. "A swan dive off the roof sounds good right about now."

"No, love," Wynn replied. "Trust me one last time and go to the Sanctuary. It welcomes people like us."

People like us. "You mean sociopathic, indiscriminate killers who can't sleep a night in their own beds without someone trying to kill them."

"Exactly."

"I'm not her!"

"I know that now. Not many others do." Wynn released her shoulders and returned to his side of the kitchen.

Deidre's insides were cold. A familiar sense of calm filled her. It was the same sensation as when she opened the door to the guest bedroom in her apartment for the first time to see the mess the demons made of some poor human. It was the moment she realized her nightmare was beginning.