Page 16 of Illusory

He looked up and met my eyes, quickly ending any chance I may have had of an escape.

“How did it go with Tessa?” he asked, his eyebrows drawn together with unease as he watched me walk over to the table and then pull out a chair beside him.

“It went as well as could be expected,” I said and then shrugged it off, hoping he’d leave it at that. He of all people knew how excitable my sister could get when it came to matters of business and, well,me.

“I take it she agreed to hold off on enlisting Trace’s help,” he surmised, seeing that we weren’t currently down in the basement demanding Trace get over his life-changing trauma and help the two of us out instead. As Tessa would’ve had it.

“Barely,” I said and then sighed. “She gave me a day.”

“Well. That might be a new record for her.” The corner of his lip twitched as though he wanted to smile but decided not to, considering the circumstances.

“How is he doing?” I asked quietly, my heart lurching at the mere mention of Trace’s name. At the thought of him going through this alone.

I hated that I couldn’t be the one to be there for him—that he wouldn’t let me. It was taking everything I had not to run to the basement right then and there and throw myself down at his feet. If I had thought for even a minute that it was what he wanted orneeded, that it would make any of this even the slightest bit better for him, I would have already been there. But I knew that it wasn’t. I’d felt it in my heart. I’d seen it inthe awful way he had looked at me.

“It’s still very early…” He eyed me carefully, as though assessing the level of truth I could handle. “But he’s doing quite well,” he finally answered, his dark hair sweeping down into his brows as he dipped his head in a nod.

I shot him a look that saidbullshit.

“He’s doing as well as can be expected,” he amended, his moss-green eyes roving over me with apprehension, as though half expecting me to self-destruct at even the whisper of truth. “It’s a lot to take in…controlling the bloodlust, adjusting to all his heightened senses. These things take time. It’s not going to happen overnight, but he will get there eventually.”

Right. Eventually.

Despite not feeling even an iota of relief at his words, I managed to hold it together. “Did he say anything…about me?” I asked and then squirmed at my selfish question. Because this really wasn’t about me. I knew that. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to strike the question from the record and instead allowed it to dangle in the air between us like a desperate prayer to the heavens.

“He hasn’t said much of anything really. This is still all very new for him.” He shifted in his chair, appearing wholly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken.

I was obviously putting him in an awkward position and needed to drop the subject immediately. It was the right thing to do. The appropriate thing. “Does he hate me? Hemusthate me,” I said instead, unable to leave it the hell alone.

“Of course he doesn’t hate you.”

Hope swelled in my chest like a balloon, like a lifeline meant to pull me out from the hole of despair I was wading in. “Really? Did he say that?”

His lips parted on a failed reply. “Well…no, not exactlythose words,” he finally admitted, and my shoulders promptly dropped at his answer. “But he doesn’t need to say it, Jemma. You already know how he feels about you.”

“Yeah, well, that was before I turned him into theliving undead. I’m sure his feelings for me have changed a little bitsince then,” I added and then pressed my fingertips into my eyes, trying to erase the memory of his cold, vicious eyes glaring at me. “You saw what happened, Gabriel. He wouldn’t eventalkto me.”

“If it’s any consolation, he isn’t talking to me very much either,” he offered and then covered my hand with his own as if to console me in some small way. After everything that happened, I really didn’t feel deserving of the gesture but found myself taking solace in it just the same.

“So, he hates all of us,” I concluded, not feeling any better about that or the prospect of Trace being completely isolated and alone in this. Unease crept under my skin as I met his eyes again. “He doesn’t still think you had anything to do with Turning him, does he?” I needed to be sure that Gabriel wasn’t stuck carrying any of the blame for what had happened to Trace. The fault was mine alone and I needed to be sure Trace understood that.

He shook his head and then withdrew his hand from mine, taking my momentary comfort right along with him. “He’s just angry at the world right now and needs someone to take it out on. It’s best not to take it personal,” he said, as though that were even remotely a possibility. “You have to understand, the man he knew himself to be is gone and he’s slowly coming to the realization that he will never be that person again. That alone is difficult for anyone to accept. Even more so for someone like Trace.”

Someone who had never wanted this life for himself.

Someone who loathed vampires with every cell of hisbeing.

My chest squeezed into a painful knot and then stuttered into a slow, agonizing death as the reality of the situation crashed down on me all at once. “He’s never going to forgive me for this.” Of that, I was sure. I’d finally gone and done it: I’d broken the Reaper’s back.

“Hewill.”

I scrunched my nose at the reek of his bald-faced lie.

“It’s going to take some time for him to adjust to this, to regain control of his faculties, buthe willget there, Jemma, and with time, he’ll have the clarity of mind to understand why you had to do it,” he said and then searched my face for a beat before adding, “He may even thank you for it.”

I scoffed at the absurdity of it. “Right. Somehow, I don’t ever see that happening,” I said, remembering how angry and afraid anddisgustedhe had been with me. I’d never seen him look or speak to me the way he had in that moment and the memory of it had all but burned itself into my brain like scar tissue.

And Istilldidn’t blame him for it.

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