she talking about?
“I don’t know what you mean, but no, I didn’t come here to kill you. So, you can put that thing away now.” I pointed to the gun.
She raised her arm, pointing the gun straight at my forehead.
Great, now she was going to end up killing me, although a gun actually wouldn’t kill me.
“You’re not here to kill me?” She sounded like she wanted to believe my words. Almost.
“I don’t know why you’re scared of me,” I said, my voice not sounding like mine because it was a sad representation of my normal bravado. “I know you’re mad at me and—”
Abigail angrily cut me off. “What gave that away?” I could hear her heart racing, but her voice sounded stronger, angrier. “You called me stupid.”
“And I’m trying to tell you I didn’t mean it!”
“Didn’t mean it?” she asked in disbelief. The gun still pointed at me. “You made me feel something, and then you called me stupid. I thought we—”
“Just stop!” I shouted. I couldn’t bear listening to her say that whatever we felt wasn’t real. “This isn’t my scene. I hate this—feeling so…so human. I don’t do feeling guilty or thinking about a girl. And I certainly don’t do longing for someone to talk to me, so stop making me feel this way because you’re making me angry! And I hate getting angry at you because I—I want to be…to be with you, and…be—be happy…with you!” I had no idea why I said this. Abigail lowered her gun for a second, and then she lifted it up again.
“If you wanted to be with me, then why did you call me stupid?” I was never going to live that down. “I wanted to be—” she started, but I couldn’t let her say anything more. I didn’t even give her a second to blink before I appeared right in front of her.
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I whispered. I knew what she was going to say—that she wanted to be with me, too, but now she didn’t.
“How did—you were…”
No human could do what I just did, but I didn’t care if she learned of our existence. I just wanted to make her not hate me.
Abigail’s gun pointed straight at my chest. If she wanted, she could send a bullet right through me—not that it could hurt me.
“Abigail, put that thing away before you hurt yourself,” I said calmly. I wasn’t scared for my life, but I was for hers. I came to Earth to kill her, and now I wanted to protect her?
“But you…” Abigail’s shock lingered. “How did you do that?” she asked.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I promised.
Abigail didn’t look like she believed me, and I wasn’t sure I believed me either.
HEREAFTER
*Abigail*
“Better to light a candle
than to curse the darkness.”
Chinese Proverb
Gideon wasn’t human. I knew he couldn’t be—not after what he did to the lockers in the school hallway and his ability to move inhumanly fast.
I couldn’t risk lowering the gun. In the back of my head, I wished Logan would notice that I was late for training and come for me, and then he would find Gideon.
I wanted to run away from him, but I couldn’t, not when he was the Gideon from my nightmare. That Gideon caught me, no matter how fast I ran.
This time, however, I was prepared and determined to fight him. I had a gun; he didn’t. I was shaken, but I was sure I could still pull the trigger if I needed to.
“Abigail, I’m not here to hurt you.”
So he kept saying. I might have believed his words before, not after what I had seen him do.
“I didn’t mean to call you stupid. Tristan was being annoying, and I said the first thing that came into my head to get him off my back. I didn’t mean what I said.”
A part of me wanted to believe him.
“You still said it, Gideon.” His excuse made me angry and filled me with courage. “And then you—you did something to the lockers. And in my dream, you …” I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. I couldn’t say, “You killed me.”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said again.
I jumped because Gideon’s voice was right beside my ear. I turned to see him standing behind me.
“Stop doing that!” I shouted.
Now I was one hundred percent sure he wasn’t human.
Maybe I was stupid. Gideon had made me suspicious from the beginning, and yet it somehow didn’t bother me enough to stay away from