Page 114 of A Fearless Heart
“If you’re alive, it’s not too late!” Cady wasn’t certain her still-untested chemical would work. But she had to try.
She reached in and uncapped the bottle. “Here, Gabe. Drink this.”
He pushed her hand away, his eyes unfocused. “No. It’s a trick.”
“It’s not! Gabe, it’s Cady! I’m here, and you need to drink it, before it’s too late.”
“No more. It was all tricks before. Sleep and dreams and forgetting. I’ll never forget the things I did. But he tried to make me.”
“Gabe, please.” Cady held the bottle closer, but she was afraid he’d knock it out of her hand and send the liquid inside spilling out on the floor. “For me. Won’t you please do it for me?” She felt like crying. Here she was, and it didn’t matter?
“Just a sip,” she begged. “Just a drop.”
“No.”
Then she got an idea. She poured the contents into her own mouth, then knelt down and kissed him.
He responded to that, probably out of pure instinct. Cady opened her mouth and let the liquid flow into his, bit by bit, hidden in the kiss.
He started to resist her, but she grabbed him, hands on each side of his face, and kept him there until she’d emptied all of herself to him.
“You tricked me again,” he moaned as she pulled away.
“I’m returning the favor,” she said.
“Let me die down here, Cady. I deserve it.”
“Gabe, don’t say that. In a moment, you’ll have enough strength to get up and I will help you out of here.”
But Gabe closed his eyes, and didn’t answer. With a cry, Cady flung herself over him and tried to shake him back to consciousness.
That was how the others found her, shaking and crying over the still figure stretched on the ground.
Chapter 37
The Disreputables got both menand Cady safely out of the dank hallways of the heating shaft and the coal room, and back into the main house. Cady suffered another attack when it seemed that Gabe wouldn’t wake up even after the dose of antidote, and Bond had to drag her away from his prone form.
After a while, Cady came out of the worst of it, only to find two huge dogs flanking the chair where she sat. With a shock, she realized she was sitting in the very armchair her father loved, and where he’d passed away. Now she was there, and Romulus and Remus were looking at her with the sort of devotion they’d always given him.
She reached out to scratch Romulus’s ear. Deciding that he looked worried, she said, “It’s all right, boy. I’m fine. I’ll be just fine.”
Bond walked into the room. “My lady, both Mr Addison and Mr Courtenay are awake. But I’m not sure that Mr Addison has very long. If you wanted to speak to him, now would be the time.”
Cady rose on shaky feet, the dogs rising up too so she could lean against one of them if needed.
“Let me speak to Gabe first,” she said.
Gabe had been helped to bed in one of the guest rooms. He looked like hell—pale and dirty, his cheeks hollowed out. But he was alive.
He sat up when Cady entered, but didn’t smile. All he said was “Addison?”
“Here. Still alive. The Disreputables have him under guard, but he told me he took a dose of clephobine as well, so he may not have long. Assuming hedidtake a dose and it’s not some trick.”
“You can find that out easily enough,” Gabe said. “Just give him a dose of that stuff you gave me.”
“What?”
“Whatever you put in my tea that night.”
