The Savage Grace: A Dark Divine Novel(21)

“I believe in you, Grace.” Gabriel had never said anything like that to me before. I’d started thinking of him as the world’s oldest skeptic. “You’re the girl who withstood the wolves. The Divine One, they say.”

“I don’t feel very divine.”

“You must try, for you father.”

I nodded. Gabriel pulled in a long breath and then let it out between his lips. I did the same. He closed his eyes. I did also.

“Concentrate on your love for him. Clear your mind of doubt, and imagine him becoming whole.”

Gabriel was still for a moment, but then his hands clasped tightly over mine. Heat swelled from his fingers and pulsed into my hands. I tried to picture my father well again, tried to call up memories of him from my life. The way he smiled. His patient voice. But as the heat swelled in my hands, growing with intensity, my memories flashed to the scene in the fiery corridor. The way my father looked, limp and lifeless in Talbot’s arms, when I found them. I couldn’t stop him from getting hurt, so what made me think I could actually help him now?

You’re too weak, my inner wolf snarled. You can’t help him. You can’t help anybody.

I winced. The heat radiating off of Gabriel’s hands was almost too much to bear. I gritted my teeth, trying to hold on. Dad needed my help. He went to that warehouse because of me.…

Images of the fire ripped through my mind. The sound of the explosion I heard over the phone. Words the nurses said. My father lying so still.

It’s your fault. It’s your fault. It’s your fault. It’s your fault.

No, I tried to tell the wolf’s voice. I didn’t tell him to go there. He insisted on going. It should have been me in the corridor. He shouldn’t have gone.

It’s his fault!

Gabriel cried out like he’d been stabbed with a sharp pain. His hands lifted off mine and the intense power dissipated with a sudden surge that made my eyes pop open from the shock. Gabriel stumbled away from the bedside, his hand clasped over his cheek.

“Are you okay?” I asked between panting breaths.

Gabriel moved his hand away from his face. The scar on his cheek looked like a fresh cut now, oozing blood. The once faded bruises on his jaw now looked fresh and painful, like someone had slammed a mallet into his face several times. Gabriel looked at his bloodstained fingers. “I need to take care of this,” he said, and staggered toward the door. “I am sorry. I thought you were ready.”

He left through the sliding door before I could ask him if he needed my help.

You did that, the wolf said in my head. I looked down at my father. What if I’d hurt him more, too? My fear was confirmed a few seconds later when one of his monitors started making a frantic beeping noise.

Two nurses rushed into the room. I felt numb, completely unable to react, as they pushed me away in order to get to his bedside.

ANOTHER HOUR LATER

I stayed outside the room, watching through the small opening of the curtained glass window, until the doctor was able to do something to Dad to make that horrible beeping monitor noise stop. One of the nurses told me I could go in for one more short visit, but then I must go home. I knew the drill from last year when Daniel had been trapped in one of those hospital beds. Even though the ICU had open visiting hours, I was still a minor, and I wasn’t allowed to stay here at night. I’d nodded and told her I would go, but it still took me another few minutes before I could tear myself away from Dad’s bedside.

I wanted to squeeze his hand to let him know I was leaving, but I hesitated, afraid my very touch might hurt him again. Instead, I left a note on the table by his bed just in case he woke up and I wasn’t here. I didn’t want him to feel as abandoned as I did at the moment.

I left the ICU and went out into the lobby. I started toward an elevator that would take me down to the main floor so I could leave the hospital. But I stopped in front of the closed elevator doors and stared at the triangular up and down arrow buttons—not knowing which one to push. Down would take me to the exit. Up would take me to the psych ward.

To my mom.

When Dad and I came into the ER from the ambulance, someone had asked me where they could find my mother. When I told him where she was, the man said they’d have to call Dr. Connors first and let him decide if my mother should be informed about what had happened.

The fact that she hadn’t come down here to see Dad yet didn’t bode well to me.

I knew if Dad had been awake, he would have told me to go visit her, just like he’d wanted me to visit Jude. I hadn’t seen either of them since I’d come home from the warehouse, and I knew Dad would have said something about how, by not visiting them, I wasn’t acting like myself. Just like April had.

The thing is, Dad had been my go-to parent for the last few years, but there had been a time in my life when Mom had been my rock. Back when I still wore pigtails and lived off of peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Back when I thought a mother’s kiss could heal any hurt, whether it was a wound of the flesh or of the heart. I longed for the days when I could bury my head against her side and she’d stroke my hair, telling me everything would be all right.

I’d spent the last year shutting her out. Keeping her away from my secrets. Maybe it was out of some noble idea of protecting her. Maybe I thought she was too fragile to handle it. Or maybe the real reason I’d kept her in the dark was because I worried that she’d be afraid of what I’d become.