The skin on its outer side was split like a zipper, revealing fat and muscle, and despite not feeling any pain, Gabriel barely kept himself upright.
“It’s… I’m fine,” he uttered, but took off his T-shirt in a desperate attempt to cover the wound white ants began crawling at the edge of his vision.
After a moment of hesitation that seemed endless, he ripped the sleeve of the garment and handed it to Adam. “Here, gag her.”
As soon as Adam let go of her mouth for half a second, she spat at Gabriel with a vicious snarl. “You should have been dead, you maggot! The only purpose you could have in life was ruined—!” Adam stuffed her mouth with the fabric and then shoved her at the wall to tie her hands with his belt. She tried to kick him, but the difference in posture put her at too much of a disadvantage. She stilled when he hissed, losing his patience.
“You want that baby to live? Then shut up and stop thrashing.”
Gabriel squeezed the T-shirt around his arm, but while it was starting to hurt, the wound was shallow. “What the fuck do we do with her now?” he asked, hating himself for looking to Adam for guidance.
The man who’d betrayed him. The man whom Gabriel still chose to save, risking his own life, hummed, checking whether Sister Beatrice’s bonds were strong enough. “We lock her up.”
Gabriel spread out his healthy arm. “Where?”
“Where no one will find her,” Adam said in a grim tone.
The trip back to the pyramid passed in tense silence, as both of them had focused on making sure Sister Beatrice didn’t get a chance to alert anyone. The revelation of her pregnancy was still a shock, and Gabriel had to check once more to confirm that she hadn’t just gained weight, but no, her baby was alive and kicking, which derailed their original plan to… he had no idea where.
Once they got her down to the cell in the basement and left her surrounded by horrors of her own making, Gabriel’s head spun again, and he swore, staring at the dressing made out of his torn T-shirt. The wound had stopped bleeding, but the numbness that he’d initially felt was replaced by dull pain.
Adam, who’d been unusually silent so far, faced Gabriel as soon as the passage at the feet of the statue was shut. “I’ll need to take a look at it.”
“It’s fine,” Gabriel mumbled, even though he couldn’t see his wound well, and he would obviously need help once they reached Martinez’s car. He just couldn’t bear letting Adam take care of him after weeks of lies. He was an injured cat. All he wanted was to lick his wounds in a dark corner and rest until suffering was over.
“You’ll get it infected,” Adam insisted and, after a moment’s hesitation, approached Gabriel’s hunched form.
“I don’t care. I’ve been infected by you and I’m still alive.”
Adam stilled, and his face fell in an expression of utter misery. “That’s unnecessary,” he whispered. “Now let me take care of your fucking arm so we can move on.”
Gabriel sighed, and huffed, and huffed again, but followed Adam to the vehicle. The blanket they’d made love on lay folded in the back like a brand of Gabriel’s shame, but he refused to overthink it. Instead, he grabbed the packet of cigarettes out of Martinez’s glove compartment.
When Adam gave him a stern glance, Gabriel raised his eyebrows and lit his cig to make a point. “You wanna say something?” He extended his arm to Adam.
When he peeled away the T-shirt-bandage, the coagulated blood stuck flesh to the fabric, and he winced in pain when the two were separated.
“You know what I think about you smoking.”
Gabriel shrugged, finding strange relief in the pain, just like when he used to cut himself. “Well, you don’t get a say anymore.”
“So you’re poisoning your lungs just to spite me?” Adam huffed in frustration, but took care of Gabriel’s arm with the gentleness of an angel.
“No! I’m smoking because I want to. Because I didn’t get many choices in life, but at least I have this one. And if I even survive this night, I’ll be going to prison, so I’m enjoying the damn cigarettes while I have any!”
“You won’t be going to prison,” Adam said through gritted teeth.
“Are you sure you’ll be able to kill your own mother?” he asked, trying to sound tougher than he was feeling. He blew out a cloud of smoke into Adam’s face to drive his point home. “I could do it for you. Since it’s no longer your mission and all that.”
“She’s not my mother,” Adam said in a tone made of flint blades, “and whether you believe me or not, taking those rotten people off the face of the Earth is still my job.” In the glow of the dome light, his face was flushed and twisted, but when he opened the first aid kit and felt Gabriel’s injured arm, his touch was nothing but gentle.