My eyes went to the folder still lying open on the table. My picture was still visible. So was hers. Long dark hair. Eyes like mine.

“Gabriel’s outside,” Bales told me. “It was everything I could do to keep him from coming after you. I’d take it as a kindness if you could go tell him you’re in one piece.”

A kindness? I thought incredulously. If Bales hadn’t come into this room, there was no telling what I would have done. I’d lost control, and I knew from experience that for weeks—maybe even months—I’d be standing right on the verge of losing it again.

An animal. A dirty little animal. I swallowed. I reached and closed my hand around the file folder. I picked it up, and step-by-step, I made my way toward the door.

“The next time you come after my family?” I heard Bales tell the sheriff behind me, his voice low. “I’ll take advantage of the fact that I’m dying and make it a point to take you with me when I go.”

Chapter 42

Bales led the way out of the sheriff’s office. Gabriel was standing on the street outside. He wasn’t alone.

The librarian who’d caught Jude’s fancy was standing beside him. When she saw Bales and me, she laid a hand lightly on Gabriel’s shoulder, then took her leave.

“Checking up on you?” Bales asked.

Gabriel shrugged. “Apparently, I need checking up on.” As if to prove the point, he brandished his wrists in my direction. “Look,” he said. “No cuffs.”

Was he really joking around right now?

“I’ll get the truck.” Bales raised an eyebrow at the two of us. “Try not to kill each other before I get back.”

Moments later, Gabriel and I were alone. His smirk wavered ever so slightly. “I didn’t ask you to come with me.”

“So?” I didn’t have energy or words to waste on why I’d come. I was literally holding my past in my hand, and I had just as literally gone for the sheriff’s jugular. If Bales had arrived a minute later, there might have been no coming back.

“I could have told you they would separate us, Kira.” Gabriel kept his tone light, but the glint in his eyes was anything but. “Do you think I was in a better position knowing that if I didn’t give him what he wanted, he’d be more than happy to go play games with you in the other room?”

What he wanted, I thought. And what exactly did he want, Gabriel?

“Seriously, princess, do you really think having you here helped?”

The fact that he could stand there and call me princess, like I was some pampered, spoiled little girl, like he had to protect me, pushed me over the edge.