Gabriel's Inferno (Gabriel's Inferno #1)(22)
She first heard them in a club back in Philadelphia. She was dancing with him, and he was grinding all over her. She hadn’t minded at first; that’s how he always was, but then that song came on, and as soon as the music began, Julia felt mildly ill. It was the strange sequence in the opening bars, then it was the voice, then it was the lyrics about f**king like an animal, and the look on his face as he brought his forehead to hers and whispered it to her, staring straight into her soul.
Whatever Julia’s religious beliefs and her half-hearted attempts to pray to lesser gods and deities, at that moment she’d believed that she heard the voice of the Devil. Lucifer himself held her in his arms and whispered to her. And the very idea, coupled with his words, frightened her.
Julia had wrenched herself from him and fled to the ladies’ washroom, looking at the pale and shaking girl in the mirror, wondering what the hell had just happened. She did not know why he had spoken to her like that or why he had chosen that moment to confess. Nevertheless, she knew him well enough to know that the repeated lyric was a confession of his deepest and perhaps darkest intentions and not just a mindless repetition.
But Julia didn’t want to be f**ked like an animal; she wanted to be loved. She would have foresworn sex forever if she thought it would guarantee her the kind of love that was the stuff of poetry and myth. That was the kind of affection she craved desperately but didn’t actually believe that she deserved. She wanted to be someone’s muse — to be worshipped and adored, body and soul. She wanted to play Beatrice to a dashing and noble Dante and to inhabit Paradise with him forever. And to live a life that would rival the beauty of Botticelli’s illustrations.
And that is why at the age of twenty-three, Julia Mitchell was still a virgin, with the photograph of the man who ruined her for others tucked in the back of her underwear drawer. For the past six years, she’d slept with his picture under her pillow. No man had ever come close to comparing to him; no feelings of affection had ever approximated the love and devotion he inspired in her. Their entire relationship was based on a single night, a night she relived in her memories over and over again…
Chapter 7
Julia parked her bike next to the Clarks’ large, white home and walked to the front porch. She never knocked when she visited them, so she skipped up the stairs and pul ed the screen door open. What she found inside shocked her.
The glass coffee table in the living room was smashed, blood spattered on the carpet. Chairs and cushions were strewn about, and Rachel and Aaron sat huddled together on the sofa in the center of the room. Rachel was sobbing.
Julia stood there, gaping in horror. “What happened?”
“Gabriel,” said Aaron.
“Gabriel? Is he hurt?”
“He’s fine!” Rachel laughed almost hysterically. “He’s been home less than twenty-four hours, and he’s already gotten into a shoving match with my dad, made my mom cry twice, and sent Scott to the hospital.”
Aaron continued rubbing his girlfriend’s back in order to comfort her, a grim expression on his face.
Julia gasped. “Why?”
“Who knows? No one ever knows what’s going on with him. He got into an argument with Dad, Mom stepped in between them, and Gabriel shoved her. Scott said he’d kill him if he ever touched her again. So Gabriel threw a punch and broke his nose.”
Julia gazed down at the pieces of glass that were now embedded with blood in the carpet. A dozen or so cookies, crumbled now, were scattered in and around the glass along with the remains of what appeared to be a couple of cups of coffee.
“And this?” She pointed at the macabre mess.
“Gabriel pushed Scott through the coffee table. Scott and Dad are at the hospital, Mom is locked in her room, and I’m spending the night at Aaron’s.”
Rachel began to drag her boyfriend to the front door.
Julia stood frozen to the spot, unable to move. “Maybe I’ll try to talk to your mom.”
“I can’t stay in this house another minute. My family has just been destroyed.” With that, Rachel fled with Aaron.
Julia intended to climb the stairs to find Grace, but she heard a noise coming from the direction of the kitchen, so she quietly padded to the back of the house. Through the open back door she could see someone sitting on the porch, swinging a beer bottle to his lips. A shock of brown hair shone in the fading sunlight. Julia recognized him from Rachel’s photographs.
Before she had time to think about it, her feet walked out the back door, and she found herself sitting some distance from him on a chaise lounge, her knees drawn up under her chin. She wrapped her arms around her legs and looked over at him.
He ignored her.
Julia traced his appearance with her eyes, hoping to burn the vision into her memory. He was far better-looking in person. She looked at his blue and bloodshot eyes, which were startling under his brown brows. She followed the angle of his high cheekbones, his straight, noble nose, and the squareness of his jaw, noting the two or three days’ growth of beard that shadowed his skin and the kiss of a dimple. Her eyes came to rest on his full lips, noticing the curve and fullness of the lower one before she was able to drag her gaze reluctantly to look at his bruises.
Gabriel had bruises and blood on his right hand and something purple on his left cheek. Scott’s fist had met its mark, but surprisingly, Gabriel was still conscious.