Gabriel’s Inferno Trilogy by Sylvain Reynard Page 0,216

dollars to some dangerous people and had no way of coming up with the money. Paulina tried to kill herself in the hospital, so I wanted to check her into a private mental health facility, somewhere where they would be gentle with her. When I called her parents begging them to help, they told me I was a disgrace. That I needed to marry her, then they’d help us.”

He paused. “I would have done it. But Paulina was too unstable to even discuss it. I made up my mind that I would discharge my duty to her, and then kill myself. That would put an end to all of our problems.”

Gabriel looked up at her with cold, dead eyes. “So you see, Julianne, I am one of the damned. Through my own depraved indifference I caused the death of a child and the permanent destruction of a young woman’s bright future. It would have been better if I had had a millstone hung around my neck and been cast into the sea.”

“It was an accident,” said Julia quietly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He laughed bitterly. “It wasn’t my fault that I had sex with Paulina and made a baby? It wasn’t my fault that I treated her like a whore, addicted her to drugs, and pressured her to have an abortion? It wasn’t my fault that I stumbled in, high, and didn’t even bother to check to see if she was in my apartment?”

Julia took his hands in hers and grasped them tightly. “Gabriel, listen to me. You contributed to the situation, yes, but it was an accident. If there was so much blood, then something was wrong with the baby. If you hadn’t called the ambulance when you did, Paulina would have died. You saved her.”

He wouldn’t look up, but she moved her hand to his chin and forced him to look at her. “You saved her. You said yourself that you wanted the baby. You didn’t want the baby to die.”

He flinched beneath her touch, but she would not release him. “You are not a murderer. It was just a tragic accident.”

“You don’t understand.” His voice was cold, listless. “I am just like he is. He used you, and I used her. I did more than use her. I treated her as if she were a plaything and gave her drugs, when I should have protected her. What kind of devil am I?”

“You are nothing like him,” she hissed, her emotions getting the better of her. “He has no remorse for what he did to me, and given the opportunity he would do it again. Or worse.”

She took a deep breath and held it. “Gabriel, you made some mistakes. You did terrible things. But you’re sorry for them. You’ve been trying to make up for them for years. Shouldn’t that count for something?”

“All the money in the world cannot pay for a life.”

“A life you didn’t take,” she countered, eyes flashing.

He hid his face in his hands. This was not how he expected this conversation to go.

Why is she still here? Why hasn’t she left me?

She stepped backward and watched him momentarily. She could feel the despair rolling off of him in waves as she frantically wracked her brain to find some way to reach him.

“Do you know Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables?”

“Of course,” he muttered. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“The hero abandons his sin and performs a penance; he looks after a young girl as if she were his own daughter. But all the while, a policeman hunts him, convinced that he hasn’t reformed. Wouldn’t you rather be the person performing penance than the policeman?”

Gabriel didn’t answer.

“Do you think that you should have to suffer for your sin forever?”

No response.

“Because it seems that’s what you’re saying—you won’t allow yourself to be happy. You won’t allow yourself to have children. You think you’ve lost your soul. But what about redemption, Gabriel? What about forgiveness?”

“I don’t deserve it.”

“What sinner deserves it?” She shook her head. “When I told you about what happened with him, you told me to forgive myself and let myself be happy. Why can’t you do the same thing?”

He looked down at the floor. “Because you were the victim. I’m the killer.”

“Let’s say that’s true. What would be an appropriate penance, Gabriel? How would justice be served?”

“An eye for an eye,” he muttered.

“Fine. An eye for an eye would mean that you would have to save the life of a child. You’re responsible for the