A couple of months earlier, Ricky had opened a door on the first floor, looking for TC, and gotten a blast of arctic air. When Grace caught him, though, the door had been locked. We hadn't had a chance to check it out since--Grace kept it guarded, and I wasn't of a mind to piss her off.
"We can either go talk to Ida or shower at your place," I said.
Gabriel studied the door, and I could tell he wasn't really listening, too intent on this challenge. He tried his picks again. As he was positioning them, he gripped the knob and...
The door creaked open.
I laughed under my breath. "How does one open a fae-locked door? With a fae-blood hand. Seems you've got the touch after all. We'll see if that works with my apartment, but first, I'm curious about what's in this one."
I slipped through into a pitch-black hall. I could see the apartment beyond, furnished as mine had been.
The blinds were pulled, and as soon as Gabriel closed the door behind us, the apartment went dark. He reopened the door enough to find the light switch. He flicked it. Nothing happened.
A thump sounded in the hall...and the door slammed shut...without Gabriel touching it.
"Okay," I said as I looked around the darkness. "I think that's a sign to get out now."
I felt my way along the wall, knowing the door should be right behind us. Except it wasn't. The wall just kept going.
I hit the penlight button on my switchblade. The light flickered, oddly dim, and I could see only Gabriel and the wall.
No, I saw Gabriel and a wall. An unfamiliar wall with peeling and faded wallpaper. The door was ten feet behind him. A thick wooden door that didn't belong here any more than that wallpaper.
"Do you remember I told you I stole a Dr Pepper when I was twelve?" I said.
Gabriel didn't ask what that had to do with the current situation. I was telling him a secret. That's how we handled my random visions--how we proved we were still us.
"That's not the only thing I ever stole," I said. "In high school, I liked a friend's boyfriend. I was fifteen and stupid, and I thought if he decided he liked me better, that wasn't my fault. We went out once, while he was still dating my friend. Afterward, I felt like shit. I'd disrespected her. Disrespected our friendship. And for what? A guy I kind of liked? It was never the same again, her and me. So that's the worst thing I ever stole."
"I stole fifty dollars from Rose," Gabriel said, and then let that hang there as he tensed, waiting for my reaction. The Walshes had a rule that friends are not marks, which went double for family.
When I didn't react, he said, "It was after Seanna left. I stayed in our apartment until the landlord realized he wasn't getting his rent. After that I spent a couple of weeks on the street. I was fifteen, and it seemed as if I could never get enough to eat. I wasn't sleeping, either, which meant my hands weren't steady enough to pickpocket. I hitchhiked to Cainsville. Rose wasn't there. I stayed the night, and she didn't come home, and by then I'd realized I couldn't put her in that position--having to care for a teenager. So I left. But...I took fifty dollars. I knew where she kept extra money, and I told myself I was just borrowing it. I snuck back a few months later and returned it, with an extra ten for interest. But that doesn't matter. I stole. From family."
"You borrowed out of necessity--"
"No, I stole."
"She'd never have begrudged you--"
"That doesn't matter." His face wavered in the dim glow of the penlight. Then he ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "And that wasn't the little secret you needed. Sorry. I'm..."
He made a face, and I knew what he meant. With Seanna's return, he felt off-kilter. Exposed. Vulnerable.
I stepped toward him, careful, watching for his wall to fly up. When it didn't, I put my arms around his neck and rose onto my tiptoes to hug him as tight as I could. "You need to tell Rose," I whispered.
He stiff
ened, but only for a moment, and then he nodded against my shoulder and said, "I do."
When he pulled away, I was ready to step back, but he was only breaking the embrace enough to kiss the top of my head. When something thumped again in the distance, he sighed, softly, the exhalation tickling my hair.
"Yes," I said. "Back to the terribly inconvenient reality that we're mysteriously trapped with a monster in the next room waiting to devour us."
"There is never a monster."
"True. Just bad plumbing, then."
Another thump. Another sigh from Gabriel.