The Last Chance (sequel to A Hundred Lifetimes)

Fifteen

“Gabriel was a soldier—cherry-picked from a bright, young age,” Dorian recalled, completely unaware that the man they were talking about was just a few kilometers away down at the beach. “Since he was human, it was instilled into him to be a good little teenage boy and do the master's bidding. He was trained to become a defending machine who would view his body as a weapon rather than something that was his to own and use. For years and years, he fought and trained and did as he was told, and when he was finally of age, he was turned into a youngling with his brothers to pass a test.”

“His brothers?” Chiara curiously asked. “He had family?”

Dorian shook his head. “The other orphans he was trained with. I did not see this myself, but the story went as such—as newly turned younglings, they were placed in a room with only one container of blood in the middle and told to save it. Now, that in itself was already impossible. Just imagine, you had just become a vampire and all you could want, crave, and think of is blood—blood that was right in front of you. But that was the order that a dozen of younglings were given, including Gabriel: ‘Stay in this room, and save this container of blood,’” Dorian recounted. “They were all locked inside and left for a night. No one saw what happened inside, but when the room was reopened, there Gabriel was, standing amidst bodies of people he had used to call his own brothers. There was blood in his hands, but the packet of blood still remained unopened in the middle of the room—uneaten. He had defeated all of his brothers, and even at his thirstiest—a part of a person’s transition into a monster when all reason breaks loose—he managed to become the perfect soldier still.

“After that, he became the star pupil. His master brought him into the Council to do these little jobs, and he did them all without question—no matter the task. It was only when his master died that he was forced to ascend the ranks against his will. He was never supposed to be a leader—he had always been a better soldier than one, but with his master gone, the only thing he had left to provide him a structure was the Council.”

***

“If you’re not here in behalf of the council and you’re not here to kill me, then why are you here?” Mary asked as she finally let go of the local under her—as soon as she lifted her knee off his back, the boy went running away for his dear life. She pushed herself up from the ground and was just coolly placing her dagger back into concealment when she realized that the person she thought she was talking to was already out of earshot, and he seemed to have no plans of stopping from walking away.

“Hey!” Mary called out after Gabriel, who kept at his pace as if his strengthened hearing didn’t pick up her rushed footsteps in the sand. “I asked you a question!” she said through gritted teeth as she finally caught up beside him.

“I do not have to answer to you,” Gabriel simply replied, looking sideways as they trudged through the beach and passed a group of drunk teenagers heading to another club.

“Actually,” Mary scoffed, “yeah, you do. You messed up my night.”

Gabriel stopped right in the middle of nowhere and squinted up at the sky. “I did not mean to,” he replied, looking out into the sea then back at the island as if he were tracking something. “I happened upon you and they thought we were acquainted. I was just passing by.”

Mary frowned at what he was doing, trying to see what he was trying to by copying his actions. “Did you really think you could pass by wearing a freaking suit in the middle of—” the soft sound of footsteps in the sand let her know that once again, she was beginning to talk to air. Gabriel was already moving out of the sand and onto the pavement, looking like a man on a mission that couldn’t be bothered.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Mary hissed after him, admittedly becoming more and more irked the less she was attended to. “I’m telling you right now, dumbo, if you’re here to kill Mr. D or Chiara or—"

That made Gabriel’s pace falter for a second as he slightly looked back and said, “I am not here to kill anyone.”

A corner of Mary’s lips lifted as she knew she struck another nerve. “Well, you’re obviously not here for drinks and the sun,” she sarcastically muttered as she watched the hawk-like man just stop and sit on a bench on the side walk. Choosing her cards carefully, Mary sat on the bench right across from his and continued, “Or should I just go up there and tell Dorian right now that we should leave because someone from the Council is here?”

Gabriel’s eyes flew like a dagger at her. “If you do that—"

“If I do that, what?” Mary asked with a smile, challengingly leaning her elbows on her knees. Gabriel kept his mouth in a straight line, and Mary narrowed her eyes. “What are you here to do?”

“I mean no harm, but they cannot hear of my arrival.”

“Right,” Mary scoffed, looking at him from head to toe with disgust, “like how you meant those local vampires no harm.”

“I only fought back,” Gabriel simply explained. “They were hindering me from keeping a low profile, and should you hinder me, too—"

“Oh,” Mary lightly chuckled, “is this a threat?”

“Pray it does not have to be. Do not mention me to your master and we will have no problem.”

Mary scoffed and rolled her eyes as she sat back in her own bench, watching and waiting for Gabriel to make a move or make another remark; but to her surprise, he just stayed there. He sat with his shoulders and back straight not touching the backrest, with his head facing forward as if he was just there, waiting in the middle of the night, under a faltering streetlamp, amidst a cold and empty road in an island.

“Are you just…” Mary raised an eyebrow at him then looked around to see if she was missing anything. “Are you just going to sit here all night?”

“I am keeping a low profile,” Gabriel replied, as if that was an adequate response to her query.

“Let me get this straight,” Mary cleared her throat as she tried not to laugh. “You’re here not to hurt anyone, you’re not here as part of the Council, you don’t want Dorian and anyone else to know you’re here, and this is you… this is you keeping a low profile?”

“Yes,” was all Gabriel answered.

“You do know that Mr. D has people around who would report you to him once they get a whiff of you, right?”

Gabriel didn’t answer, but that did make him glance subtly at her.

“You do know that those locals you beat up would talk, right? Even if I keep mum about everything I saw. And once Mr. D’s connections see you out here in that suit, just sitting there like a weirdo, it’s going to be easy to piece two-and-two together,” Mary said, blowing on her fingernails then brushing them on her top. “Now, I know where to find them and how to intercept them before they report back to Mr. D, and I know how to help you keep a low profile. All for the small, small price of a bit of information.”