TIME STOOD STILL and so did Sydney. A mortified gasp escaped her parted lips when she saw the permanent look of shock on Avery’s face.
Sydney stepped back as Avery began to stumble backward, mouth wide open and eyes the shape of a crystal ball.
The bullet penetrated her upper chest, blood was flowing out, staining her shirt.
” No, no.” Sydney felt suspended in the air. All she could hear were the echoes of silence.
The front door opened.
As Avery crumbled to the ground, Sydney’s gaze was now fixated on Gabriel, who stood wide-eyed by the front door.
” J**sus Christ, what happened?!” Gabriel stormed into the house nearly tripping over his leg.
He grabbed Sydney’s shoulder firmly and pushed her back protectively as if Avery would wake up and try to attack her.
Gabriel’s eyes quickly scanned Sydney’s pale face. ” Did she try to hurt you? Shit, I shouldn’t have left you alone. Did she touch you, huh? Sydney why aren’t you saying… ”
His words caught in his throat when he desicried the pictures below him.
His grip on Sydney’s shoulder loosened. Body slightly shaking. He swallowed the words down his throat and slowly looked at her.
” I was going to tell you, I swear. ”
” Let go of me, Gabriel. ” Her voice was like the calm before the storm.
Gabriel thought it through not to keep holding on to her. His hands dropped to his sides. He watched her walk to Avery.
She squatted and raised Avery to her so her body was in a sitting position. Sydney wrapped her arms around Avery and began to cry.
” Gabriel please call an ambulance.” She cried out through stretched lips.
Her eyes were shut. She listened to the fast-paced beats of Avery’s heart.
” Please hold on a little longer. Hold on.”
Her eyes suddenly popped open when she didn’t hear Gabriel making any effort to call the ambulance.
She shot him a vile look and barked, ” Have you lost your mind? I said I call the freaking ambulance. Can’t you see she’s dying?”
Gabriel snapped out of his horror and shakingly took his phone and called for an ambulance.
Within half an hour, an ambulance had taken Avery’s body away.
Sydney stood by the front porch with Gabriel by her side and watched as the ambulance drove into the sunset.
” You knew all along-” She turned to see him staring at the soil. A bitter substance melted on her tongue. ” You knew Avery was trying to seduce Gavin; you knew she wasn’t pregnant for him, and you didn’t tell me. What did I ever do to you, Gabriel?” She said the words too quickly she began wheezing afterward.
Silence.
” Avery said you pushed her to kill my mother, she said you threatened to kill her. You told her that if she didn’t get me and Gavin divorced, you’d kill her. I know she says a lot of rubbish, she was lying to me, right?”
She grabbed his face and raised it to look at her when he wouldn’t answer.
” Tell me you didn’t and I’ll believe you. Say you didn’t please.”
The only words that managed to come out of his mouth were, ” I’m sorry.”
Her hand slipped out of his. She blanched. She felt cold. Very cold. She drew a terrified breath and took a step back.
” You were the only person I trusted with my every heartbeat. You ruined me, Gabriel, you ruined me.”
Gabriel watched her as she cried into her palms. His heart wanted to rip out of his chest. He felt he was losing everything; he was losing her. He wanted to tell her why he did what he did but he knew it wasn’t an excuse.
He felt no less than his mother’s lover. He ruined her life. He ruined her children’s life. He took away her happiness because he coveted her. He could have stopped her suffering but he didn’t.
He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. He pressed his lips on her head and said queasily, ” Please forgive me.”
” Why didn’t you tell me who you were? Why did you lie to me? What if Sofia finds out she’s in love with an imposter?”
” I was afraid, I thought you’d find out what I’ve done in the past and run from me if you knew I was Alfred’s son.”
Sydney pushed away from him. She looked him squarely in his glistening eyes.
” What part of your past would make me want to run away from you? Is it the fact you killed your wife and mother or the fact you tortured Logan or slept with your father’s wife?!”
” I wouldn’t have left you, Gabriel. You needed medical help, I would have assisted you in getting help if you’d told me something was wrong with you. ”
Gabriel ran a hand through his face. ” That’s what you’d say. I know you would have left me if I told you if I’d shown you what I’ve done to people. It’s not just a mere medical issue, Sydney; it’s far beyond that; I’m untreatable. ”
He didn’t want her to know he’d become better ever since he’d been with her. He was less hyperactive. Less chaotic. He could control some parts of himself.
Sydney stared at him with a glare for almost a minute before walking past him and heading for the front door.
Gabriel went after her, ” What are you doing? ”
” I can’t stay here, I can’t stay with someone like you again. ”
She wanted to push her room door open when Gabriel grabbed her hand and drew her away.
” I know you despise me, but please don’t leave; I can’t breathe without you, Sydney.”
” I don’t despise you, Gabriel, and I’m trying not to; just let me go.”
” You will go back to Gavin again, won’t you? You are leaving me to go to him.” He sounded horrified.
He’d started breathing very loudly. Sweating. Shaking. Dominating.
His touch became electric and Sydney was shocked to stiffness.
He ran a hand through her hair and brought her impossibly close to his body. ” You have no idea how much I love you, please don’t leave me.” He breathed in the smell of her hair.
” I have to be somewhere, Gabriel; get yourself off me.” Sydney choked the words out.
When he didn’t listen, she slowly brushed her fingers up his waist to his chest. When she noticed his grip on her loosened, she shoved him away, making him stumble a few steps back.
She ran into her room and locked the door.
” I’ll call the cops if you try touching me again.”
Gabriel listened to the sound of the chifforobe opening. Her scared breathing. Her phone ringing. Her whispering to Gavin to come take her to the Hospital.
Gabriel’s eyes scanned the hallway quickly. He looked at the ropes hanging on a fire extinguisher. The handcuffs on the rope. Everything in the hallway could be used to knock her out and tie her down.
But, Gabriel’s hands were suddenly boneless. He couldn’t do it even if he wanted to. It would only ruin her even more and destroy her children.
Gabriel sat on the living room couch and listened to her footsteps approaching him. He watched as she walked to the door. As she turned to look at him. As she opened the door. As Gavin’s car pulled in front of the house. As she walked out and slammed the door shut nearly deafening him.
He went to the kitchen and grabbed a bowl and a towel. Filled the bowl with water. Watched as Sydney got into Gavin’s car. Watched as Gavin drove away. Watched his whole life crumbling at his feet again.
Gabriel scrubbed Avery’s blood off his rug. By the time he was done, he had filled a cup with water, slipped a pill inside, and emptied it into his mouth.
He went to the back porch, sat on a bench, and saw all that he could never have. A wife, a child. A happy home.
______________
” The bullet didn’t go through her heart, it missed her heart by half an inch,” Dr. Natasha explained to Sydney and Gavin. ” But, it dislocated her chest bone which punctured a fair part of her heart. There is a possibility she’d live but she isn’t responding to treatment. It’s either we save her life or the baby. The baby she’s carrying is almost four months, but we can save it, but we don’t guarantee the baby would survive.”
” Can’t you save the both of them?” Sydney asked frightfully.
Doctor Natasha nodded. ” No, the bullet has caused a lot of complications. If we delay the surgery for a quarter an hour more, both mother and child will die.”
” Oh God.” Sydney pressed a finger to her temples and turned away.
Gavin rubbed his forehead and after a brief moment, he responded, ” Save my child.”