Free Gabrielle by Lucy Kevin Page B

changed.
    â€œWhat you doing bringing her here?”
    â€œShe’s okay.”
    Dylan led me inside by the hand and it took my eyes a little while to adjust to the darkness. We weren’t the only ones in the building. There were several other people, teenagers like us, reading, writing, playing video games.
    â€œIt’s a place for people like me to go,” he explained in a low voice. “The state set it up, so if something happens to our parents, we’ll always have a place to go. At least for a couple of days and nights.”
    I shivered at his words. In case something happens to our parents. Did he mean in case his father did kill his mother? In case he had to hide?
    He took me up the stairs into an empty kitchen. “I’ll make you a shake. What flavor do you like?”
    Just the thought of ice cream was making me want to hurl. But I was so afraid of doing or saying something that would make him run again that I forced myself to say, “Vanilla.”
    Pulling up a chair at the counter, I watched him mix it up in silence.
    â€œYou’re doing that whole mystery thing again,” I teased gently when he sat down next to me.
    Thankfully he was starting to smile as he said, “And you’re doing that question-asking thing again.”
    We sat there staring at each other for I don’t know how long. And then, his fingers were threading through my hair and he was pulling me in closer, lowering his mouth to mine. I kissed him not just with the desire I felt for him, but with something so much more poignant. I wanted to heal him. To wrap my arms around him and never let him go if that meant I could keep him safe.
    When we both finally came up for air, I said, “Tell me the rest.”
    He tried to pull away, but I refused to drop my arms from his shoulders. I kissed him softly on the lips again, ran the pad of my thumb across a cheekbone.

    â€œI know you brought me here to tell me. Don’t back out now.”
    â€œHe was strangling her. When I came home from school, I found them in the kitchen. She had tons of bruises across her face, there was blood on the counter, and his hands were wrapped around her neck. I didn’t think, I just grabbed one of the knives from the butcher block and put it up to his neck.”
    His lips were only a breath away from mine and I could feel every word he said. Seeing that his eyes were closed as he recounted the story, I let a tear fall.
    â€œHe dropped her then. I heard her hit the floor, didn’t know if she was alive or dead, but I didn’t drop the knife. Instead I dug it in deeper.”
    â€œDylan.”
    There was nothing I could say to make it better. Nothing I could do to take it all away from him.
    â€œI would’ve killed him. If I had to kill him, I would’ve done it. That’s what I was telling the cops, the lawyers.”
    â€œWhere is he now?” The words were thick coming from my throat. Whatever I had thought his damage might be, I could have never imagined this.
    He opened his eyes and saw my tear. This time it was his thumb running across my cheeks, wiping away the streak.
    â€œThey’re not sure. He was supposed to stay in California, but when he didn’t go to work this week they realized he was gone.”
    â€œAre you safe?”
    â€œThey’re trying to make sure we are.” And then he was shifting off his seat, picking up my bag in a clear message that sharing time was over and I needed to go home.
    I didn’t want to leave him, not now, not after everything he’d said. But he was right. I didn’t want my grandmother to worry about where I was.
    It made the most sense for him just to take me home, but something told me now wasn’t the time to introduce him to my grandmother. Not until after I went to her party. Not until I’d fully processed what he’d just told me.
    â€œI’ve got to pick some things up at school,” I told him, hating