Lifeless.
He said that her eyes were dead. She was dead. What made him think so? Nobody had told her that before. He was the first one to point it out. Normally people called her cold-hearted, emotionless and unaffectionate person but none of them mentioned her being lifeless yet alive.
"Gotcha!" Gabs cheekily played her. He laughed at her and then took out a piece of handkerchief from his pocket as he said, "Here take this. There's water over there if you want to wash off your blood."
She knew it! This man was just bluffing. He lied shamelessly. Gabs' randomness ticked Ava off so Ava and grabbed the handkerchief from Gabs as she glared at him fiercely before moving towards the said faucet nearby to clean off her hand which had some dry blood on the plan and the knuckles from the earlier incident.
Ava was reacting towards Gabs but she didn't realize it. The fact that she easily fell into his trap, she had exposed her vulnerable side to him unknowingly. While Ava immersed in scolding Gabs in her heart, someone approached her from behind and his voice broke Gabs's bewitching spell on Ava.
"Ava?" called him.
Ava looked at the owner of that voice and met his soulful eyes.
"Ryan! You're also here."
"Yeahh and I guess you've met Gabs." said Ryan while his eyes gestured at Gabs who now went back to his naps at the pavilion.
Ava weakly hummed as she replied, "But he has forgotten about me."
"Ava... something happened to him. That's why he couldn't find his way back to this city. 5 years worth of memories. He lost them. He still thinks that he's that famous and brilliant profiler. "
This stunned Ava. Ava froze. Why Gabs kept attacking her with all kinds of surprises? So he truly forgot about her...how they first met...their previous conversations and...his promise too.
"How?" asked Ava in disbelief.
Ryan just shook his head. "We've tried asking around but no leads. Nobody knew. We're lucky that one of our brothers found him but he was in a bad shaped when we got him."
Gabs had several old and new dark blue bruises on his body and he looked malnourished. The muscle he used to have were gone and he was very thin. Gabs's handsome face had deep sunken eyes and his legs wobbled when he walked. It took Ryan a lot of efforts to make sure that Gabs's physical condition return back to normal.
"We found him...under the bridge...the homeless shelter. Next town city." said Ryan as he looked at Gabs from afar. Gabs was sitting against the pillar, the same spot as before.
There was a faint sadness in Ryan's eyes. Probably he couldn't imagine what Gabs had went through that caused him to be in that horrible state when they first found him. Gabs was his best friend but he failed to protect him and maybe if he could find Gabs sooner, Gabs might be a better situation. Ryan was killing himself over these what ifs although he knew that it was all too late.
It must be traumatic for Gabs to desperately convince people that he used to be a great profiler but nobody believed him. Maybe they were the one who beat him which caused those bruises and Gabs was left undefended. Yes, Gabs was a brilliant profiler five years ago but he also was weak and didn't know how to fight back. Many things had happened over those forgotten period that transformed him into Gabs whom Ava had the chance to get to know him. But seeing that he still had his randomness and shamelessness, to Ava, he was still the same Gabs that she knew.
"How did you find this place?" asked Ryan after awhile.
"Uhh...I went to visit my aunt nearby and somehow I got here coincidentally. But Sophie also knows this place."
"Sophie?" Ryan smirked when he heard that and then he continued, "Ha ha this woman...she read my texts but never replied."
Ryan was the blind date who Sophie's parents had arranged for her and after the failed plan during their first dinner date, Sophie was forced to go for several dates with Ryan but they went separate ways around the time Gabs went missing. Ryan was busy searching for Gabs however once in a while he would text Sophie but he didn't get any replies.
Ryan seemed to still have some feelings for Sophie. If he knew that Sophie was about to get snatched by another guy, probably he would be rushing to Sophie's office right now and dragged her to Sophie's parents to forcibly get her engaged.
Honestly Ryan was a nice guy although he had dangerous job that could put people close to him at harm. Ryan was part of one of the East City's gang known as Black Eagle. On top of that, he was the right hand man of that gang's leader. In fact Gabs was also their sworn brothers. But this gang wasn't like those typical gangs that used violence and harassment to get money from the folks here. Black Eagle's members had legit jobs and they even were sent to colleges to get qualified. So Ryan went to law school and passed the bar exams. He became the lawyer to this Black Eagle organisation and was very close to the leader of this gang.
As for Gabs, he was specially recruited into the gang by the leader considering his great deduction skills. Gabs often worked alongside Ryan which then turned them into best friend.
As for how Sophie's parents managed to get Ryan onto the blind dates, it was the leader's arrangement. Sophie's parents had some legit businesses with Black Eagle and Ryan often represented the leader to go on negotiations with Sophie's parents. Of course to secure more beneficial business deals, Sophie's parents thought it was a good idea to tie down one of Black Eagle trusted men and the leader consented to this idea. That's how the blind dates were set up and four of them - Ryan, Sophie, Gabs and Ava got to know each other afterwards.