I continued walking until I was in the pack house, fingers digging into the edge of the sink in my bathroom, my breaths too fast, too shallow.
I could still feel him.
Even when we were separated by walls and even when my back was turned, the weight of Gabriel’s stare tugged at my neck, an imprint of his presence wedged into my brain like a brand I could not rub off.
Why?
Why now?
Why, after all these years, after all the pain, after I had built a life without him, was he doing this?
I closed my eyes tight, gripping the porcelain so hard, my knuckles turned white.
I wanted to be angry.
I wanted to hate him.
But the truth — the ugly, brutal, terrifying truth — was that my anger wasn’t as powerful as it had been.
Not when he looked at me like that.
Not when his voice broke at every
