the Long Road Home (1998) by Steel Danielle

Author:Steel, Danielle [Danielle, Steel,]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-12-19T00:40:47.859000+00:00

Chapter 13

GABRIELLA WAS AWARE of a high-pitched wailing somewhere in the distance. It was an endless sound, the howling of banshees, and sounded to her like the death screams of her spirit. She tried to speak, but found that she couldn't. She tried to open her eyes, but could not see. Everything was dim and gray, alternating with silent blackness. She had no idea where she was, and did not understand that the sound she heard was the siren of the ambulance she rode in.

It seemed like years before she finally heard a voice speaking to her, but she could not decipher what it was saying. Someone kept calling her name, pulling her back from somewhere, dragging her back forcefully to a life she no longer wanted. She wanted only to drift away, toward the blackness and the silence, but the dim voices she heard sporadically would not let her.

"Gabriella!... Gabriella!... Come on! Open your eyes now... Gabriella!" They were shouting at her, and clawing at her, and someone with a knife was tearing her heart out. She had begun to feel the pain now. It was like a dragon fighting from within her, tearing her from top to bottom. She didn't want to wake up to this, couldn't bear what she was feeling, and beyond the pain, she knew that something terrible had happened. She opened her eyes finally, but there were lights everywhere, blinding her, searing through her mercilessly, just as the pain was. People were doing something to her, but she had no idea what they were doing, only that the pain devouring her was beyond bearing. She could not even seem to breathe now. And then suddenly, as a pain so terrible it could not be borne ripped through her, she remembered why she had come here... her mother had beaten her... and broken her doll... she killed Meredith, and nearly killed her... and she knew that her father must be here somewhere, watching.

"Gabriella!..." They were shouting her name again, and the people around her sounded angry. All she could see was still light and dark, and no matter how hard she tried, as the demons of pain devoured her, she could not see their faces. And as she fought to see them again, and listen to what they said, a single horrifying pain seemed to tear her body apart, as she fought desperately to free herself from it. But it would not loose her from its clutches. And then suddenly, with total clarity, she saw not her father, but Joe smiling down at her. He was holding out a hand and beckoning to her, saying something she could not hear... the other voices seemed to drown out what he was saying. But when she looked at him again, trying to ask him where she was, he was laughing.

"I can't hear you, Joe..." she kept saying to him again and again. And then he started to move away, and she shouted at him to wait for her, but she found her feet would not move as she struggled to go to him.

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