Free The Guardian by Carey Corp Page A

I gasp. “This,” I exclaim holding up Our Lady Peace’s A Decade , and waving it in front of his nose, “If you don’t have this , I’m getting it for you.”
    Gabriel takes the case from me, his warm fingers brushing softly over mine. Flipping it over, he muses, “I don’t know this one.”
    As I gaze at him my face cracks, the sensation of smiling now both familiar and pleasant. I’m happy to share this part of myself with him, even if it’s bittersweet because of my yearning for Derry. Gabriel’s luminous eyes drift from the CD back to me, and my thoughts, even the music and Derry, fade away. Not since our first meeting have I felt so engulfed by his presence.
    In this moment, nothing exists except him. He devastates me with his radiance.
    Like a scene in a movie, everything slows. The pupils of his eyes expand, swallowing up the vivid blue with desire. His smiling mouth opens, as his tongue darts between his lips causing them to glisten. Heat and the sweet scent of nature roll off him, filling my senses, intoxicating me. His halo blazes like a beacon.
    Caught in his gravitational pull, an invisible force pulls me toward him. I’m leaning and he’s leaning. My skin prickles from my toes to my neck as Gabriel reaches for me. As his head tips forward, mine strains upward to meet him.
    Less than a hair’s-breadth apart, Gabriel’s eyes widen and I know something’s wrong. The CD slips from his fingers landing on the floor with a jarring crash. His soft caress turns hard as he grips my arms, stopping my body from closing the distance between us. Time stops as he stares at me in horror.
    He doesn’t want me.
    I can’t breathe, can’t think. There’s a painful thumping in my chest and the roar of humiliation in my head is deafening. I have to get out of here—away from him! Before I can force myself to flee, Gabriel twirls us around so I’m at his back. Utterly disoriented, it takes me a moment to comprehend he’s not reacting to me, but to something behind me.
    Gabriel’s now between me and whatever that something is. Keeping a death-grip on my arm as he edges us backwards down the aisle, I strain to see around him. But he’s too close. He fills my vision.
    At the end of the aisle he whirls with dizzying speed, grabbing my face with both hands. Unable to move my head, I still can’t see what’s causing his panic. His forehead touches mine as he forces me to stare into his agitated eyes. “Alex,” he whispers, the urgency in his tone increasing my terror, “We’re getting out of here! Right now! I want you to bury your face into my shirt and not look at anything until we’re outside. Okay?”
    My head shakes slightly and I realize it’s Gabriel’s hands, trembling. I manage a nod, the barest of movements, and then I’m being pressed against him. His arm wraps around me, pinning my head tightly against his chest while his other arm blocks my vision as it curls to grip my shoulder. Against my hair he hisses, “We’re moving. Now!”
    Stumbling alongside him, Gabriel propels us purposefully down the far aisle toward the door. All I can see are the inside bulges of his upper arm and the sleeve of his faded blue t-shirt, until a beam of light slices across his chest indicating the door’s just ahead.
    I sense rather than see the clump of people between us and the exit. We don’t slow as we maneuver through the human labyrinth. My hip bumps against a rack throwing me off-kilter and my feet tangle with Gabriel’s. For a second his iron grip is broken as he tries to steady us. My arm flails connecting with soft human flesh.
    Instantaneous and excruciating cold, like being freeze dried, flashes through my body. Reflexively, I search for the source of the pain, my eyes scouring the immediate space. Instead of a person, I’m inches from a black abyss. Paralyzed, I watch as the blackness extends toward me in the form of thick oily tentacles. Smoke, acrid and thick, chokes my airways as I gasp,