Chapter 16
Rahat
The air tore from my lungs as the rope snapped around my neck.
I couldn't stop the sound that came with it.
I tried to find purchase on the crate, but it was gone.
I couldn't... I couldn't breathe. Black spots swam across my vision.
My neck burnt, my lungs screamed. All I could feel was pain. Death would be a mercy when it came.
For a moment, I thought I saw Rex, sprouting wings. A halo gathered around his head. He was Yama, the God of Death and Justice, come to guide me. But then I felt a hand on my back, then another, lifting me in the air. The pain lessened. And then we were on the floor.
"Rahat," he said, his thumb brushing my cheek. His voice sounded so distant, so lost and afraid. "Rahat," he said again. "Look at me. Breathe."
I tried to do as he asked. Each inhale scraped in raw and shallow. It hurt. But I did it anyway. I forced the next on deeper, and the one after that. Because Rex asked me to.
"That's it," he said. "Stay with me."
The room came back in pieces. The black spots receded and bright light replaced them. And then there was Rex's face, staring down at me. His jaw was set, and those dark brooding eyes held something I'd never seen in them before. Fear.
"I'm here," I tried to say. But what came out was barely a sound.
His hand stroked my cheek again and brushed the hair from my face. It was shaking. Rex didn’t shake. He was always steady. "Don't ever do that to me again," he said.
I lifted my head and tried to look at him. His face was close, and his eyes were moving from my face to my neck, and then the rest of my body. A vein twitched in his forehead.
“I've got you." He pulled me in against his chest, stroked my hair, and laid a kiss on the top of my head. His heart was racing and his breathing was fast.
I turned my head to look where Adam had been standing. He was gone. He'd dropped me, hung me, and left. The door was an open, dark rectangle. The rope hung loose from the ceiling, still fixed above in the iron hook, and swinging gently.
I pressed my eyes shut.
"Rahat." Rex shifted and pulled back just enough to look at me. He hovered his hand over my head and then my jaw and neck. "Where's the worst of it?" he asked.
"Throat," I said and tried to swallow. It didn't work. "Head."
He brushed my hair back from my forehead, and I lifted my hand to gently press the lump above my brow. Pain spiked, bringing water to my eyes. Rex clasped my hand and moved it away.
"Lets get out of here," he said before rising to his feet and taking me with him.
I drew in a deep breath and another. My legs were shaking and my knee buckled.
Rex had one arm under mine and the other hooked under my knees before I had the chance to drop.
He lifted me, the room swam, and nausea threatened.
I grabbed his jacket with both hands and rested my head against his shoulder.
He carried me out the door and down the stairs.
But with every step, I felt the tension, coiling in his body. I felt his anger building.
"I'm sorry," I said to no response. "Rex." His name was a plea, and he still didn't answer.
Before I knew it, we were outside. The cold night air hit my face. I turned into it, my throat still burning. There were voices and headlights. Gabriel. A car door slammed.
"Rahat," Carina's voice came out as a scream, and she came running in fast. Her hands were on my face before Rex had the chance to set me down.
She framed my jaw with her fingers and her eyes moved over me in the same way Rex's had.
Her hands were shaking. "Rahat," she said again, but this time her voice cracked.
"I'm okay."
"Fucking liar." She pressed her forehead against mine, being careful to avoid the side with the lump, and held it there. I closed my eyes, and for one moment, I was nineteen years old again, standing on her doorstep, asking for help.
Tears welled in my eyes. "I was so fucking stupid," I said.
She pulled back and looked at me before wiping the tears away.
"I'm not gonna argue with that. You're an absolute idiot of the highest order.
" She glanced at Rex out of the corner of her eye.
He'd moved about five feet away. Gabriel said something to him that made him tense.
Jameson clasped a hand on his shoulder. "But you know that," she said. "The question is, how do you fix it?"
Gabriel came forward with one of his men and a medical kit. Soon, I was moved to sit in the open door of a car, while the medic checked over me. He checked my eyes with a small torch.
“One pupil is reacting slightly slower than the other, which means your brain is dealing with some swelling,” he said.
“That eye's going to get worse before it gets better too.
It'll be swollen shut by morning. If you start seeing double or the eye feels stuck when you try to look up, that's an emergency. We need to keep the pressure down, so stay upright.”
He tilted my chin and pressed careful fingers along my throat. I held still and breathed through the pain. "Okay, try and swallow for me." I did. "Good. Your trachea feels stable, but there's considerable swelling around your larynx. You're going to have trouble speaking for a few days."
"Fuck, Rahat," Carina said.
"I wish that was all," the medic continued, set on making my fucking day. "Because you were knocked unconscious, we have to assume a Grade 2 or 3 concussion. You need to stay awake for at least four hours."
"Is that it?" I asked, making Gabriel flash me a disapproving look.
"Actually no." He huffed out a deep breath.
"The concussion is bad, but the strangulation made it worse.
Your brain was already struggling from the impact, and then the rope cut off the supply it needed to heal.
You're gonna be confused, and you might even lose parts of the last hour.
" He turned to Gabriel. "If she starts vomiting or her headache gets worse, you don't call me, you get her straight to a hospital for trauma surgery.”
The air shifted and suddenly I felt very hot.
For a second, I thought I was going to need surgery now, never mind if I vomited.
But then I realised the heat was coming from Rex.
I hadn't even known he was listening, but he stood, watching me now with that vein popping on his forehead again, and his hands making fists at his side.
He was holding things together by a thread
Jameson put a hand on his shoulder and said something in his ear. Rex dropped his chin and gave a short nod. But his eyes never left mine. Seconds later, he closed the distance between us and crouched in front of me.
"We're gonna have to talk about what you did," he said.
"I know."
"Just not here. Not yet."
"I know that too."
He reached out and brushed my hair over my shoulder. He looked at my neck for a second and swallowed hard. "Adam's gone. But Andrea caught his associate."
I knew Adam was gone. I also knew this wasn't over. I pressed my fingers to the bruising at my throat. Rex reached up and closed his hand around my wrist.
But, he didn't understand. This wasn't over because Adam wasn't caught. It wasn't over because I'd survived. It wasn't over because Adam hadn’t finished. And after tonight, he'd come back hitting harder.
He'd shown Rex what he was willing to do.
Shown me.
That had been the point all along.