Rituals (Cainsville 5)

When Gabriel looked around for more footprints, Patrick shook his head. "No, this is the way. Damn dryads are like monkeys. Give me a boost."

Gabriel did. Then he walked off as Patrick called, "Where are you going?"

"To find something to step on."

"You're a big guy. Haul your ass on up here."

"The fact that I'm a 'big guy' means that my 'ass' and the rest of me requires additional upper-body strength to lift."

"No, you just don't like to roll up your sleeves and get dirty. Why are you wearing a dress shirt anyway? It's Saturday. Wait..." Patrick peered down at him. "You aren't wearing a tie. I knew there was something different. No tie. Top button undone..."

"If I'm not wearing a tie, I'm hardly going to fasten my top button."

"I don't think I've ever seen you without a tie."

"You have. You just didn't notice."

Gabriel unbuttoned his cuffs and meticulously rolled his sleeves. It was not so much a matter of getting dirty as of permanently damaging an expensive shirt. He'd already lost one today, and while he did not regret the loss if he was going to damage shirts, he'd rather lose them in that manner.

Gabriel grabbed the bottom of the elevator car and hauled himself up, hoping the exertion might distract him from the memory of how he had lost that other shirt. It did not. When he pulled himself into the car, he stepped past Patrick and took out his phone.

"What are you doing now?" Patrick whispered.

"I need to check in with Olivia."

"This very moment?"

"Yes."

He checked his texts--none from Olivia--sent one, and then took another moment to fully distract himself.

"You're checking your stocks?" Patrick said, looking over his shoulder.

The market was slightly down, which had the proper effect, as did the disappointment of not having Olivia immediately text him back. He didn't expect her to--she was busy--but it successfully redirected his thoughts to the matter at hand.

"Oh, now we can leave?" Patrick said as Gabriel hefted himself out of the car onto the next floor. "Are you sure you don't want the weather report first?"

"Clear and cold," Gabriel said. "A chance of light snowfall tonight."

Patrick pulled himself from the elevator car. Gabriel continued tracking the dryad footprints down the hall. He was almost to the end when a sound made the hairs on his neck rise, and he stopped short, Patrick bumping into him.

"Time to check sports scores?" Patrick said. When Gabriel didn't respond, Patrick saw his expression and lowered his voice. "Gabriel?"

"Did you hear that?"

The sound came again. He couldn't quite place it. No, that was a lie. A shameful one, born of fear rather than uncertainty, like a child listening to thumps under the bed and telling himself he'd heard nothing.

Gabriel had spent twenty years building his defenses. Grow up, get in shape, learn to fight, and banish his fear of physical intimidation and abuse. Go to law school, work hard, invest wisely, and banish his fear of hunger and poverty. Learn to live alone, without attachments, and banish his fear of neglect and abandonment.

The last two were not ones he would ever acknowledge, but he had enough self-awareness to know they festered there, remnants of a very small boy who would light up when his mother was kind and then analyze his behavior to figure out what he'd done to please her. That child did not survive long--he quickly evolved into a boy who realized Seanna's kindness was as capricious as the moods of a dryad, untethered to his actions.

Gabriel had gone years without knowing true fear. That changed with Olivia. Allowing himself to form an attachment meant allowing himself to fear for another person. And, yes, to fear that person would leave him, would decide he was really too much trouble.

But the fear strumming through him now? The one that made him lie and insist he'd heard nothing? It was a fear he hadn't experienced since he'd been locked in that cubby, hearing the creaks and rattles of an old building and imagining all the terrifying creatures from his aunt Rose's wonderful and terrible books. It was, indeed, the fear of the child who dares not look under the bed.

Gabriel heard the beating of wings against glass.

He knew there was a rational explanation. Perhaps a bird had flown into a window. Or it was simply the wind. But it sounded like what he'd heard with Olivia in the vision, and therefore that was what came to mind, dragging with it the sheer and mindless fear he'd felt then, trapped between himself and Gwynn and some memory so deeply rooted it was part of both human and fae DNA.