Christine Cody [Bloodlands 01 Bloodlands (epub)

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.He’d chased off Chompers and made such a productive day out of work.Not that I really needed his help, of course.The tunnel door opened, and I grabbed a cloth, starting to wipe down a cooler while trying not to feel the thud of Gabriel’s footsteps in my chest.Chaplin trotted into the prep section, brushing against my leg, and I smiled at the dog, masking all my concerns about what I’d heard on the visz.Shortly thereafter, I heard Gabriel stop just before he entered the room.Awareness trickled over my skin, a simultaneous warm and cold that came to settle in the center of me.The sensations were confusing, turbulent.I hadn’t ever enjoyed such a reaction before he’d come along, and I the heat separating itself from everything else, stretching through my limbs, enlivening every cell.While my breathing upped its pace, I kept wiping the cloth over the cooler, telling myself not to turn round, to keep working.Stop, I told my body.It needed to stop what it was doing.Chaplin nudged my leg, because he knew that I was off balance.But then Gabriel spoke, his low voice only adding to my ever-growing aches.“Mariah.”Hearing him say my name.I pushed back with the only thing that had ever saved me before—defiance meshed with the fear of what might come.“Why didn’t you just tell me about this Abby before?” My voice was low and grating, but it sounded better than I’d thought it would.“You lied about why you were here.You could’ve asked me about her and I would’ve told you that she hasn’t been round.Then you could’ve gone on your way to find better solutions.”“You wouldn’t have told me squat, and you know it.” Gabriel shifted, as if he’d come to lean against the doorframe.“I’m glad I visited with the others.Now I know the extent of your situation with Stamp.and I know that he very well might’ve had something to do with your Annie not being here any longer.”My hand gripped the cooler.“But you must’ve heard all of that on the visz,” Gabriel added.There was something in his tone that sent up another red flag in me, just like the one I’d detected when he’d seen the crucifix on the back of the door.An out-of-place, what-doesn’t-belong-here? inflection in his words.Could a vampire mess with a visz if he put enough mind to it? Was that what’d happened when the screen had gone on the blink? Had Gabriel wanted to keep me out of Stamp’s way, just as he had with Chompers?I finally turned round, and the sight of Gabriel punched at me, made me twist inside with unsettling force and motion.He was indeed leaning against the doorframe, head bandages and all, the length of him as casual as always.But there was a stiffness to him, too, although he was doing his best to cover it with the raising of his brows.“I’m afraid I didn’t hear any such thing on the visz,” I said.“I know you were tuned in.Let’s not fool each other about that.”Okay, I was willing to give him this much, especially because I did want to know what I’d missed while the reception had been down.“The visz did blank for a short time.”Now he frowned.“So you didn’t see when Stamp and some of his boys found one of the tunnels to the common area? That they paid us a greeting?”Whether he was perniciously omitting that he’d interfered with the visz or not, I stood away from the cooler, my pulse coming faster, pushing under my skin now, but it wasn’t just because Gabriel was in my full sight.Stamp.Here?Everything else—Gabriel’s “differentness,” Gabriel’s search for Abby—went by the wayside as fear crowded me.“You already know that Stamp lost one of his men recently,” Gabriel said, “and he wanted to inquire as to how it might’ve happened.If a member of your community had anything to do with it.”I warded off the accusation.“He should’ve read up on the area before coming out here.”“That’s pretty much what everyone told him.”Gabriel was running his gaze up my body, then down, and even though I knew that he was reading my physical reactions for the truth, I couldn’t help feeling the skim of his attention, how it left scratches of sensation behind, inch by inch.“And after everyone set him straight,” I said, “Stamp left you in peace?”“After some play with us, yeah, he did.His men had taserwhips, and one of them—he wore a whale-hide hat—used the lash on the oldster because the guy couldn’t keep his dander down.”A lash? On the oldster?Anger licked at me, pushing my temper.But I’d just seen the old man on the visz, and he’d looked okay.“He’s fine,” Gabriel said.“Stamp meant to ring a warning bell, is all.”“He’s going to stay away, then?”“I think he realizes that he can’t force friendship, so maybe he will.”“And you place stock in his word?”Gabriel seemed surprised that I was actually asking his opinion, but it wasn’t long before his expression became a cocksure grin instead.A sign that he liked how I wasn’t fighting him right now.I melted, just a little, but won myself back when I thought I heard Chaplin chuff.Then Gabriel seemed to become reflective again.“I don’t trust his boys in the least, and that’s reason enough not to trust Stamp by extension.”As I tossed the cleaning cloth onto a counter, I was still all too cognizant of Gabriel thinking that I’d gone and accepted him or something.“Then I’ll take that into consideration after you’re gone,” I said.He didn’t move from his spot against the doorframe, and that told me everything about how long our guest intended to stay.But having him here was impossible.He’d bring too much damage.“You seem fit enough.How long do you think you’re going to be round?”“Well, Miss Mariah,” he said in that mild tone of his, “I think it’ll be for a while.”Chaplin gnawed on his words.He’s fine here, Mariah.I almost argued with that, but then I remembered that Chaplin had a handle on Gabriel.My dog probably wanted our guest round here as backup in case Stamp acted out.Sounded reasonable enough, I supposed.Gabriel said, “I made a vow to Chaplin about staying on and giving a hand here, and I don’t break promises easily.”I shouldn’t have been even slightly happy that he was persistent about this.Best that he went soon, after Stamp had calmed down and decided to back off.Best that he—He was talking again.“If I have to, I’ll find myself a place outside your home so I can keep watch.In good conscience, I won’t leave just after a man like Stamp has escalated matters.”But it was more than that, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t leave just after he’d heard that Annie.or maybe Abby.had disappeared from New Badlands under shady circumstances.He’d be looking into that, too.God-all, I had to be realistic about this.Smart.Think.think.All right.Gabriel was serious about staying, whether it was inside my home or outside.Was there a way to lead him to answers that would satisfy his curiosity about Annie for the time being? A way to keep life just the same as it had been until things with Stamp could be resolved and Gabriel could move on and leave us in solitude?I went out of the room, past Gabriel, feeling the tingle of his presence over my skin, even though I didn’t touch him at all.Chaplin barked.We’ll make sure Abby isn’t Annie—at least as far as Gabriel knows [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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