Not About Angels (A Tom Riddle Story)

Chapter 67

A magical only last so long. Before long, the night fades away and the ordinary day comes back, rainy and grimy with its depressing grayness and mundaneness. 

Gabriel sat on the banks of the black lake, not really doing anything in particular, just looking out into the horizon, sipping from his flask again. 

He was hiding from his friends again, who were searching for him.  

He didn't want to deal with people right now. All he wanted was to be alone, and to feel and do nothing.  

She looked at him from the distance, debating wether to face him or not. It was all her fault, wasn't it? She stood behind the tree, and felt the sudden urge to cry. She wanted to love him. She wanted to fix him, but she knows that no matter what she did, she could never make up for her mistakes.

Some mistakes are the ones we will never fix.

But we can always try.

"Gabe..." She called. He turned around, his eyes very empty, but seeing her, they filled up with something. She couldn't place a finger around it, but she knew that it was something very profoundly sad.

"You okay?" She said, sitting next to him and taking the flask from his hands. "this isn't good for you." 

He laughed emptily. 

"You're not good for me. But I was stupid enough, wasn't I?" 

"Gabe-Please.  I know I can't say sorry anymore because it won't change anything...but please don't push me away. Let me be here for you." 

"What do you care, Abi? Did he put you up to this too? Tell Tom Riddle he already won. Tell him to leave me alone."  Gabriel said quietly, not looking at her. He was afraid to look at her, to look into those hazel eyes that made him delve deeper and deeper into mistake and mistake. He was afraid that if he looked at her, he wouldn't be able to keep her away. That he wouldn't be able to shut her out. 

Abigail shook her head. "Let me make this up to you." She said. 

"How?" He asked, turning his face to her. She saw the dark circles underneath his red eyes and her heart bled for him.  

She almost reached her hand out to touch his face, but stopped herself. It would only bring them both pain and suffering.  

Then she saw it. He was an angel too, a fallen one. He was a creature created by the heavens, just like Tom Riddle. Heaven made him soft and beautiful, and made Tom Riddle dark and charismatic in all the right ways. 

One was a prince of the sun, and the other, the king of the underworld.  

Then she realized that Gabriel didn't know. He didn't know who really killed his mother. He didn't know that it was Tom Riddle. 

He was so lost in everything, and he was the victim of it all.

The sacrificial lamb. Tom Riddle's sacrificial lamb. 

He pays for his father's mistakes.

She wanted to warn him. She wanted to save him, so bad. She needed to save Gabriel from Tom Riddle's wrath before he strikes again, and this time, for the kill.

She had to save him. 

"Be careful." She whispered. "Please be careful." 

"What do I have to lose?" he laughs coldly. "There's really nothing left, last time I checked." 

"Everything. You have everything to lose, Gabe. You don't know what you're up against. You don't know what-some people-are capable of."

"Tom Riddle? Oh, stop protecting him, Abi. I'm not scared of him, you know. Tell him that, won't you? Tell him that I can take whatever he throws my way. I don't care anymore. "