Page 95 of Ramshackle
I glance to Aiden, having assumed he’d already filled him in, and he shrugs. So, he did, but Gabriel wants to hear it from me?
“I guess to see if you can fix my knee?”
He nods and waves me on. “Yes, but give me the whole story. How did you get it, what happened to it, and you know…all that jazz.” He waggles his fingers at me.
My eyes immediately move between my guys nervously.
“Don’t worry about them,” Gabriel says with a flippant wave of his hand. “It’s just you and me right now. Or, do you want me to have Zedd kick them out? He can do that, you know.”
I can feel the sudden tension radiating at my back and side from the others.
There would be an all-out war right here in my room if he tried that.
No, thank you.
“It’s fine. They can stay.” They already know the gist of it anyway, right? “Someone shot me in the knee. And he had the healer make sure to heal it wrong.”
Gabriel hums softly, the humor gone from his expression as he listens intently. “Why did he do that? Shoot you and then have that done?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters,” he answers solemnly.
“He shot me because I didn’t do what he asked the first time. And he had it healed wrong so that I would remember that moment. Remember him.”
Gabriel leans back in his seat and clasps his hands together behind his head. “Is he still alive?” I nod, and he blows a breath out and shifts forward again with an encouraging smile. It’s like he can’t keep still for more than a few seconds at a time. “Well, let’s fuck up his plans then, shall we? Which knee is it?”
I point automatically to the messed up one. Wait. “Are you saying you can fix that? How?”
“I have theunfortunateprivilege of the gift ofmemento dolor.” He says the last two words with a heavy lilt. “Or, as they say, remember the pain.”
I twist around to Jackson, who looks as surprised as I am. What are the chances someone else has some attachment to a similar phrase?
“Does that mean something to you?” he asks, and I turn back in my seat.
“It’s…it’s nothing. Sorry. You were saying?”
Gabriel blinks but thankfully continues without pushing it. I doubt it’s more than a coincidence, and I don’t want to share with others what Jack and I have with the similar Latin phrases. “My gift replays the memory of when you received that injury. You’ll live through it again as your body rewinds that injury back to the state of the memory. So, your hack healing job will go in reverse, and then we can have a healer here fix your knee properly.”
“I’ll call Cassandra,” Aiden says, his phone in hand again.
“I’ll bring her in,” Cibrina—who I completely forgot was still in here—says to him before leaving the room.
My stomach drops. “I have to re-live that?”
He smiles and pats my knee. “Yes, but I’ll be there with you, so you won’t be alone.”
“If you can do that, why don’t you bring her knee back to before the injury? Without making her go through that again?” Dane demands angrily.
Zedd shifts his stance to square off with Dane. “Don’t speak to him like that.”
“I’m just saying—”
“If it worked like that, he would do it. Gabe lives through the memories with them. He feels every injury he’s brought back. Don’t think this is easy on him, either.”
I stare at him in shock. He’s going to feel like his knee is shot, too? Why would he go out of his way to help me if he has to go through it?
Gabriel chuckles and strokes Zedd’s arm. “It’s fine. There’s no need to worry.” He searches around in his cardigan and pulls out a clear plastic bag filled with multi-colored pills. “That’s why I brought these!”
