Pure Redemption (Tainted Legacy) (10 page)

The
weight of the
surprise in his voice
crushed
her heart but she just nodded. Her eyes welled up with tears but she managed to blink them away.

“If I’d have known that was what you were planning, I never would’ve allowed it,” she fiercely replied. “I never would’ve let you trade your life for mine.”

Gabe looked contemplative for a moment. “That’s obviously why I didn’t tell you then.”

Ava blinked a few more times but a renegade tear made its way down her cheek. “It was awful,” she whispered, her lower lip trembling. “I was there and I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t stop you. I have never, ever in my life felt so helpless. It was the worst feeling in the world. Watching you die—,” her voice cracked, stopping her from saying more. She pressed her face into her hands, trying to push back the m
emory. “I’ve relived that moment
every day since, playing
it
out in my head, wondering what I could have done differently.” She took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Are you okay?” Gabe asked.

She nodded but more tears coursed down, disputing her.

“Hey,” Gabe said, pulling her into his chest, “don’t cry.”

This, of course, only made her cry harder. It wasn’t just the memory of that horrific night. It was a culmination of all of the emotions she’d been feeling since she’d found him. She’d stuffed them down deep but they were suddenly spilling over. When he pulled her into him, she wrapped her arms around him so tightly she heard him take in a sharp breath of surprise. After a few hesitant moments his arms tightened around her and she relaxed into him. When his hand started rubbing small, calming circles against her back, he felt so much like the Gabe she knew that it made the tears really flow.

“Ava,” Gabe said softly, “please don’t cry. What can I do?”

“C-can I just stay here a minute?” Ava asked.

“It’s your house,” Gabe said, sounding confused.

“No. I mean can I stay right here? Will you just keep your arms around me for a little bit
?
I never thought I’d see you again. I never thought I’d feel you again. I know I’m a total stranger to you
so if you don’t want me to, I understand.” She tilted her head up to look at him.

His features were dancing with unspoken emotions, confusion being the most prevalent.

He finally simply nodded and Ava put her head back down on his chest.
She curled into his warmth, into his familiarity.

Slowly, she managed to pull herself together. Finally, she forced a little laugh. “You look like you. You sound like you. You feel like you,” she quietly admitted, then smiled, trying to lighten the dreary mood she’d created. “But you smell like coconuts.”

Gabe chuckled. “Is that your way of saying you want to go shopping?”

She wanted nothing more than to stay where she was forever, but she sat up, allowing his arms to slide away. He’d allowed her to stay where she was for quite a while. She didn’t want to drag it out so that he was wishing she’d go away.

“We could,” Ava decided. “Maybe driving through town, seeing familiar sights will help.”

Gabe shrugged. “Is my…is Rafe still here? In town, I mean?”

A little shudder raced down her spine. “
Yes.” She gave him a brief summary of her recent encounter with his brother. “He’s obviously looking for you. As far as I’m concerned, that means we should do our best to stay away from him.”

Gabe nodded slowly.
“It’s not like I want to talk to him or anything,”
h
e assured her. “I was just wondering.
”

“You and your brother,” she shook her head, “well, I told you what
your relationship was like
. It wasn’t a good situation. I don’t know
what he’ll do when he finds out you’re back
.”

***

As Ava had driven them to Granville, he’d tried to make sense of everything she’d told him. He’d tried to pull it out of his memory but it was like grasping at an empty darkness. It was surprisingly exhausting.

He had wanted to protest when she’d told him that at his father’s directive, he was to end her life. Of everything she’d told him, that had been the hardest to believe. He was meant to kill her? And yet, he had believed her because there was a goodness about her that was hard to miss. Even if Molly had not pulled him aside, he could see it every time he looked at her.

He could understand why he had taken his own life instead of hers. He couldn’t imagine hurting her. Seeing her cry and knowing it was because of him had ripped him to shreds inside.

And she loved him. Not only had she said it, but he could feel it in the way she held him. Both in her sleep and when she’d been upset. To have someone feel that way about you? The realization was confounding. If only he could remember her.

Just something. Anything. Even just a glimmer.

But there was nothing.

She’d driven down by a river. Apparently they had been there together many times. Not only that, she’d told him that Molly and Julia were convinced they’d seen him there recently. The disappointment on her face when he’d told her nothing looked familiar had caused unpleasant feelings to stir inside of him.

For whatever reason, whether it was a stirring of his past or the connection he was creating with her now, he didn’t like to see her unhappy. It frustrated him that he seemed to be doing just that. He was constantly making her unhappy and disappointing her and he’d only just met her.

He didn’t like it.

Now they were shopping and he was letting his mind wander, wondering if he’d ever be able to remember and give her what she seemed to want. She was flipping through shirts hanging on a rack, trying to find a few more to add to their growing pile.

“Gabe? Are you okay?” she asked as she reached over to take his hand.

She startled him and he didn’t mean to snatch it away. It was just a reflex but her face fell and she took a step away from him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

Ava’s lips moved into a forced smile. “No, I’m sorry. It’s just habit. So, are these okay?” she asked, changing the subject and holding up a pair of jeans.

“Yeah,” Gabe told her. He didn’t really care what he wore. Ava was choosing clothing for him and he was trailing around behind her, carrying it all.

“Have we shopped together before?” Gabe wondered as he looked around.

Ava stopped in front of a display of shorts. “We have,” she carefully said. “But not here. We’ve never been to the mall together before. When we shopped it was down by the boardwalk at a few specialty shops. I thought a department store would be better today considering that you need, well, pretty much everything.”

He nodded as his eyes scanned the store. They were in the men’s department and
they
seemed to have the area pretty much to themselves. They’d already circled their way through most of the racks and displays. His arms were laden with enough clothes to last a week or so. Ava had just wanted to get a few more pairs of shorts and then they would be done. For now. They could always shop later if he needed something else.

“These are pretty plain but are they okay?” she asked, holding up a pair of swim trunks. They were blue with a simple white panel down the side
s
. “Sometimes I swim in the lake so I was thinking you might need a pair, just in case.”

“Sure,” he said with a nod.

“You don’t really seem to care what I pick out,” Ava noted, trying to keep her voice neutral. This was a new development. She was sure Gabe had always put a lot of care into what he wore.

Before.

He shrugged. “You seem to have good taste. You haven’t picked out anything I don’t like.”

“Okay. I think we’re done. Unless,” her gaze drifted over to the center of the store where glass cabinets held what looked like hundreds of little bottles, “do you want some cologne? You always wore cologne. And I think they carry your body wash here too.”

“You know what kind of body wash I use?” he curiously asked.

She blushed.
“I stayed at your house once. I saw it in your bathroom.”

He nodded again, feeling uncomfortable. It was a distressing feeling to know someone else knew you far better than you knew yourself. He felt guilty that it bothered him because he knew really, he should be grateful for it. If not for Ava, he would probably still be out there, just wandering around. Or whatever it was that he had been doing.

“Let’s finish up here and then we can go get some lunch,” Ava suggested. “Is down by the river okay with you?”

He raised his eyebrows, surprised she was asking his opinion when he obviously didn’t seem to know a single thing about anything.

She
smiled at him reassuringly. “What I meant was that if this is getting to be too much, we could just go home. I know you spent some time down there, not just with me. It might trigger a memory…or it might not. I can’t imagine how strange all of this is. I just don’t want it to get to be overwhelming.”

“No, I’m okay, we can go eat somewhere,” he assured her as they neared the counter.

“Alright, if you want to get cologne,” she pointed to a tray of men’s cologne samples that sat on the end of the long countertop, “that one, the pale blue bottle, is the one you used to wear. If you want to grab it, I’ll see if they carry the body wash.”

Gabe moved to the side, reaching for a blue bottle. He squirted it into the air. He didn’t want to disappoint her, but he really didn’t like the scent. He definitely didn’t want to have to smell like
that
all day.

She turned around holding two bottles, body wash and shampoo.
She could not miss the grimace on his face
. “What’s wrong?”

“Uh,” he said as he glanced at the offensive bottle he still held in his grip, “I’m not sure I like this. I don’t think I can wear it.”

“Maybe,” Ava said as she edged closer and plucked it out of his hand, “that’s because you grabbed the wrong one. I was pointing at this one.” She handed him the bottles she was holding before picking up the correct bottle of cologne. She spritzed some onto
a
little
white
strip.

Gabe leaned in and inhaled. Then he smiled. “I like that one.”

“Good,” Ava said, feeling relieved that yet one more thing about him
, regardless of how small,
was still the same. “Now let’s pay for all of this so we can get out of here. Then we’ll get some lunch and after that, you need a haircut.”

Hours later, they had eaten, driven around both Hunter Falls and Granville, walked through Granville and lastly, gotten Gabe a haircut. He’d paid for everything, even insisting on buying Ava her lunch, with the money in his wallet. They’d both agreed that it was best not to touch the credit cards
. That would likely be the fastest way to alert Rafe to his return.
Ava had offered to cut them to bits as soon as they returned home. Meanwhile, his purchases hadn’t even made a dent in the amount of bills that were still left inside.

On the way
back to the cabin
, Gabe
asked what i
t meant to be Nephilim. She
told him what she knew.
What limited information she had had come from Gabe himself. She reminded him they healed quickly and he
immediately realized that his razor nicks were gone by the time Ava’s friends had left. It was no wonder Molly had looked so surprised. In fact, he was fairly certain they’d been gone before he’d come out of the bathroom the second time.

Ava also told him she knew they were nearly impossible to kill
. A
pparently they—unfortunately that also meant his brother—had special gifts or talents. Talents that were often used to carry out malevolent deeds.

Gabe was
silent for a long while. Everything that she told him made complete sense to him.

“I know that since I told you that you heal quickly, you’re probably wondering ab
out the scars on your back,” she
said,
finally disrupting the silence in the car.

Gabe looked at her, head cocked to the side. “What?”

“The scars on your back? For some reason, they never went away,” she explained, simply because she felt Gabe’s mind was
wrapping itself obsessively
around
unsavory issues like malevolent deeds and the wickedness that so often was tied to the Nephilim. She didn’t want his mind to get stuck there.

He
shrugged. “On my back? I didn’t notice any scars. But I guess it’s not really like I looked.”

And that had been the end of it.

Until
they arrived back at the cabin and
Ava
ushered him into the bedroom as she
suggested he change into something new. She used the excuse that she should bring the baggy basketball shorts and the ancient fishing derby t-shirt back to the church. While that was tr
ue—she
planned on returning the
borrowed
donations—that was only part of it.