HEREAFTER
*Abigail*
“Better to light a candle
than to curse the darkness.”
Chinese Proverb
Gideon wasn’t human. I knew he couldn’t be—not after what he did to the lockers in the school hallway and his ability to move inhumanly fast.
I couldn’t risk lowering the gun. In the back of my head, I wished Logan would notice that I was late for training and come for me, and then he would find Gideon.
I wanted to run away from him, but I couldn’t, not when he was the Gideon from my nightmare. That Gideon caught me, no matter how fast I ran.
This time, however, I was prepared and determined to fight him. I had a gun; he didn’t. I was shaken, but I was sure I could still pull the trigger if I needed to.
“Abigail, I’m not here to hurt you.”
So he kept saying. I might have believed his words before, not after what I had seen him do.
“I didn’t mean to call you stupid. Tristan was being annoying, and I said the first thing that came into my head to get him off my back. I didn’t mean what I said.”
A part of me wanted to believe him.
“You still said it, Gideon.” His excuse made me angry and filled me with courage. “And then you—you did something to the lockers. And in my dream, you …” I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. I couldn’t say, “You killed me.”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said again.
I jumped because Gideon’s voice was right beside my ear. I turned to see him standing behind me.
“Stop doing that!” I shouted.
Now I was one hundred percent sure he wasn’t human.
Maybe I was stupid. Gideon had made me suspicious from the beginning, and yet it somehow didn’t bother me enough to stay away from him, to not hold his hand. Wouldn’t a normal person have tried to find out more about him?
All I knew about him was that he moved here from Hollywood, he took my breath away every time our eyes connected or he touched my hand, and he was unrealistically beautiful. He was also funny, rude, a little weird, and sometimes charming. Did he have a family, a really cute little brother? Did he have a father who had married women fantasizing about him? Or maybe he had a dog? Where did he live?
“It’s the only way I can get closer to you without you backing away from me,” Gideon said. He carefully took my hand, and I didn’t immediately pull away. “You hate me, don’t you?”
Breathe, Abby!
“Infinity times two,” I whispered and pulled away from him.
“Good,” he said and smiled, but the smile disappeared a second later. He walked closer to me again and cupped my face in his hands. I still had my gun on alert.
My heart leaped. Electricity flowed through my veins.
His face was so close to mine. My eyes locked on his, and I held my breath. No, no, no!
Looking into his green eyes, I felt his breath against my lips as my heart pounded violently. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to resist the burning desires. Suddenly I felt myself lowering my gun, letting it hang by my side.
I wanted to pull myself away, but I couldn’t because the truth was that although I was scared and upset with him, I wanted him to kiss me.
Knowing I wasn’t strong enough to pull away, I whispered, “Please do not kiss me.”
I hoped that Gideon was strong enough to resist whatever was happening between us.
After another agonizing second, he pulled away. “I didn’t come here to hurt you, Abigail,” Gideon said.
At the sound of his sad voice, I instantly felt silly for thinking he was going to hurt me. I dreamt that he hurt me, but that didn’t mean he would hurt me in real life, did it? “I believe you.” The moment I said this, his whole body relaxed as if he had been holding his breath. He tucked the loose strands of my hair behind my ears.
My body was still shaking. “Do me a favor,” I whispered, looking up into his green eyes.
“Anything.”
“Leave. Please.”
Gideon looked stricken when I said this.
I wanted him gone, far away from me, but Gideon stood still in front me. “I…” he paused, and my heart continued its rapid beat. Just being that close to him made me tremble. “I meant no harm, Abigail.” He sounded sad, and that light in his eyes was replaced by something else—something dark. He pressed his hand gently to my cheek. I lowered my eyes, trying to find the courage to pull away. He tipped my head up so that I had to look straight at him.
I tried with every inch of my body to drag myself away from his gaze, but I couldn’t.
“Goodbye,” he said, and then he was gone. I looked around, but there was no sign of him anywhere.
I rushed over and closed all the windows in my bedroom when I was convinced that he was really gone. I had no idea why I bothered, when he could just appear and disappear into thin air.
I sunk onto the floor after that, dropping my head into my hands and crying.
Gideon wasn’t human—that much I was sure of. So, what the hell was he?
I had wanted to remember my nightmare, to put a face on Gideon, but when I finally had a match, I wished I hadn’t.
Maybe I misinterpreted the dream. Maybe he wasn’t going to try and kill me. Maybe he simply came to break my heart. But that didn’t explain what or who he really was.
I heard Gideon’s voice in my head saying, That stupid girl.
Of course I was stupid. No one had forced me to feel the way I did around him. That day in the cafeteria, no one told me to give my heart away. That day in the library, no one told me to lose myself. That night on my bed, no one asked me to long for him.
And, crying on the floor, no one made me wish I’d asked him to stay.