Chapter 62 - The Tale of the Almost-rape (2/2)
”You can't be serious,” Claire says.
”Well, I did find you, didn't I?”
Claire takes a deep breath in exasperation. Gabriel doesn't seem to be getting it. From her perspective, Gabriel was able to save her only by the thinnest thread of chance. If he were late by a few more minutes, she would have been a goner. But more and more, Claire feels that Gabriel isn't telling her everything. ”Are you sure that's how it happened?”
Gabriel bites his tongue. He shrugs. It takes him an enormous amount of will not to say what was true. ”But the bottom line is I found you in the nick of time. I stopped him. I stopped him with extreme prejudice. You have no idea what I did to him when I saw what he was trying to do to you.”
Claire almost doesn't want to hear it, but she feels she must face it. She wants to be shocked down to the core of her being, so that she'll remember this, burn this in her brain, so that hopefully, she would sense someone like Jake Magno from miles away. If that makes sense. ”How was it, then?”
Gabriel pauses. He looks out the glass wall. Really, he's just trying to buy time, composing the narrative in his head. ”I kicked the living daylights out of him.”
”Really?”
”Yeah,” Gabriel says, all blasé. ”When I first came, he was like, 'why are you here, man?' But even then I knew something was up. He was nervous. And he didn't want me to enter the house. So I shoved him then I began looking for you in the rooms.”
Claire is nodding; she's straddling that ”should I believe this shit, or not” fence, but Gabriel is in the middle of his narrative, and he's starting to be emotional.
”And then, boom! I saw you in a room, in bed, just lying there and not moving. And in that split-second, I knew what was happening. I knew what he was up to. So I whirled around, and on reflex I ducked—I narrowly dodged his punch! And you know how Jake is, he looks like he could kill a bull. But I also knew it was a matter of life or death—for both of us—so I let out all the rage in me and hit him in the most painful places.”
”So you instantly transformed into, like, a martial arts superhero or something?” Claire says, tongue in cheek.
”Yeah, absolutely,” Gabriel says, and he's becoming more and more animated in his gestures. ”At one point, Jake had a baseball bat, and he was pummeling at me left and right! The walls explode in powder as the bat hits it instead of me, because luckily I still got my moves and I was like a buŧŧerfly, just dancing around and flying, with all the footwork and the moves, you know.”
”Oh, I see.”
”And then finally, I surgically punched him in all his vital points, and before he knew it, he was down on the floor, paralyzed with pain.”
”Poor Jake,” she says, not really meaning it. ”I didn't know you're such an awesome fighter, Mister Tan.” Claire tries hard to stifle her laughter.
Gabriel shrugs, like it's no big deal. ”No big deal,” he actually says. ”By trying to harm you, he just brought out the beast in me. I can never let anyone hurt a single hair on you, Claire.”
There's something about that last line that ċȧrėssed Claire's heart. Of all Gabriel's bluster, it's that last line that impresses her. It feels like it's the only true thing in Gabriel's entire story. ”Thank you,” she mutters, softly. ”Now I know. Despite everything, I'm sitting here talking to you, alive, because of what you did. Thank you Gabriel.”
Gabriel is taken aback; one moment he was building himself up as this indefatigable white knight, the next moment Claire's nȧkėd gratitude hits him straight in his soft parts. He smiles. ”Anything,” he says, and hesitates for a moment. ”Anything, for my dear pretend fiancée.”
”At least you saved my life.” She smiles, too, despite the word ”pretend.” She stands up. ”If everything you've said is true, then I think I really need to see Jake.”
”What for?”
”I want that jerk to look at me straight in the eye,” she says, ”before I give him the hardest slap his face has ever tasted.”