This story is the continuation of Behind closed doors so if you haven't read that one I suggest to start there. This novel is more storydriven than BCD and also involves more focus on the other characters in the Overwatch family.
The story picks up...
Another session done. A blood-drenched one. Gabriel had fought hard this time, but Jack could not afford to lose. Not anymore.
He was broken. All over.
He walked through the stables, the ones that once had proudly displayed the many horses that his family had kept, but that now echoed from the emptiness. As he walked, he left bloody footprints behind him. The beast had been fed and satisfied, but at the cost of blood from them both.
Jack looked down at his trembling hands. His knuckles were stained with blood, sore underneath from his skin being ripped as his fist had connected with Gabriel and his armor.
He groaned to himself as he closed his fists. Everything hurt.
Gabriel's urges were becoming ever stronger and with that, Jack became ever weaker.
The former Commander reached inside his pocket. A lighter and a cigarette he had nicked from Jesse.
He sighed as he lit the cigarette. If there ever was a time he deserved a smoke, it would be this one.
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He kept walking back to the house, but in the middle of the yard he stopped. He could not show himself looking like this to Angela. He had to wash up first.
He looked up. It was dark, but the moon supplied some light. It would be cold, but the lake would hopefully wake him up, along with washing off the blood.
...
Angela looked at Gabriel.
"That was close," she said worried. "He could have drowned."
Gabriel nodded.
"I just do not understand why he does not tell me!" she continued distraught. "If it was not for me taking a walk..."
A tear ran down her face. Gabriel put an arm around her, trying to comfort her.
Jack was lying in bed, deeply asleep.
"He needs to rest!" Angela said as she could no longer keep her tears back. "He cannot keep doing this!"
Gabriel gritted his teeth as he swallowed hard.
"He is Jack," he said in a low voice.
"I know! I know about his pride and all of that... but I could help, if only he would talk to me about what is going on!" Angela cried out.
"He is Jack," Gabriel repeated.
Angela turned her head and gave Gabriel a kind but tormented smile. She could see the pain in his eyes and gently stroked his cheek.
"And you are Gabriel," Angela almost whispered. "And Gabriel needs to rest now."
She took him by the hand and led him back to his room. Ropes tied, as Jack had insisted. Gabriel sighed as he laid down on his bed.
