Chapter 25 #2
He huffed out a laugh. “I should be the one asking you that question,” he said, lifting up the bag and setting it on the rolling table they used to put my food in front of me. “I’m fine, just tweaked my ankle. Are you?”
I nodded, keeping the movement small so I didn’t set off a headache. It was much better than it had been, but it wasn’t great.
“I thought you might like some actual food for a change. The nurses said I could,” he added, leaning the cane against the side of the bed so he could use both hands to unpack the bag.
Up close, I could read the logo: Secret Sandwich Society. And I could smell the loaded pimento cheese fries.
“I got you a Lafayette,” he said, his eyes downcast. “Since that’s what you got there when we went.” He shifted, winced, then shifted back. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Thank you,” I said sincerely. I’d liked that sandwich.
“If you’d rather have a burger—”
“No, the Lafayette is great,” I interrupted. I liked fried chicken.
He gave me a flickering smile, then set the box in front of me and took out another for himself. Then he pulled out a third. “Loaded fries,” he said, setting the box in the middle before putting the bag on the floor.
He lifted the strap of his messenger bag over his head, set it down, then began to sit, but stopped himself. “Is it… okay if I sit?” he asked, weirdly hesitant.
I nodded, more enthusiastically than I should have, and I winced as my head throbbed.
“Are you okay?” He reached toward me, but pulled his hand back.
“Yes, I—I shouldn’t have nodded, that’s all,” I whispered. “Just—just a headache, when I move too much.”
“Do you want me to go?” he asked, softly.
I started to shake my head, stopped, and answered out loud. “No. Stay.” I swallowed. “Please,” I added.
He smiled, sitting, then opened the box in front of him to reveal his burger and a pile of chips. I did the same with my box, revealing my chicken sandwich and another heap of chips. I grabbed one and ate it, savoring the salty crunch.
“Oh,” Raj said suddenly. “Right.”
I watched him as he bent and pulled something wrapped in newspaper out of his bag, then passed it to me before taking two bottles of sparkling lemonade out of the messenger bag.
“Drinks,” he said, then nodded at the package in my hands. “And something to drink them out of.”
Curious, I unwrapped the newspaper sheets, then the paper towel underneath until I found my own mug—the handmade one I used at Beyond the Veil. I looked up at him, confused.
“I—thought you might feel more comfortable with yours,” he said softly, his cheeks a little darker than normal. “So I stopped over at Beyond the Veil to grab it. I—hope that’s okay.”
I felt my mouth pulling upwards into a smile. “Thank you,” I said, meaning it, savoring the feel of the ceramic under my fingers, safe and familiar.
He wanted to do something nice for Rayn. Wanted to do something that would make him smile.
Swallowing, I pushed away the thoughts, hoping that I was managing to keep a straight face. I didn’t want him to know—not because it bothered me if he knew I’d gotten an impression from something, but because he’d brought it to me so that I didn’t have to sense anybody else’s memories.
Fortunately, he’d been opening one of the bottles of lemonade and hadn’t noticed.
“Lemonade?” he asked, then filled the mug when I nodded.
I waited until after I’d had a couple bites of my sandwich and several fries before I asked the one thing Hart hadn’t been able to tell me.
“How did you find me?”
Raj finished chewing, then swallowed. “You said they’d thrown you into a well,” he said softly.
“And that it was Garraway’s house. No residence under that name had one, so I started searching other properties under the last name Garraway.
Property that Martin Garraway inherited from his mother about three years ago, and which she had inherited from her parents thirty years before that showed an old well.
There were no building permits, nothing to suggest that anyone had actually lived there, which made it ideal for… ” He trailed off with a grimace.
“Kidnapping?” I suggested.
He nodded, lips pressed together. “It was a risk, but nothing else that Garraway owned or would have access to seemed likely, so I ran with it.”
“Thanks,” I said softly. “It was… really cold down there.”
“It was,” he agreed.
“How did you get down, anyway?” I asked, picking up my sandwich.
He let out a huffed laugh. “Badly,” came his reply.
I felt my eyebrows rise in question, although I didn’t say anything because I’d just taken a big bite.
He chuckled a little. “I shifted—obviously—and thought I’d get enough purchase from the walls to be able to climb down.” He grimaced. “Crumbling brick does not, for the record, work like tree bark.”
“You fell?” I asked, having swallowed.
“I skidded, ripped out a couple claws,”—he held up one hand, wiggling his fingers, and I saw that he had band-aids on his index and middle fingers—“and then proceeded to sprain the shit out of my ankle and calf trying to land.”
“You said you tweaked it,” I reminded him, the guilt building up in my stomach.
He huffed a little. “It was a big tweak.”
Even I could tell he wasn’t telling the truth. “You injured yourself helping me.”
Raj set down his sandwich and leaned forward, his golden-brown eyes focused on my face.
“Rayn, you weren’t responsible for anything that happened.
You didn’t choose to be kidnapped. You didn’t choose to be thrown down that well.
And you sure as shit didn’t choose for me to jump in after you. I did that all by my stupid self.”
“Because of me,” I half-whispered, looking away from the intensity of his gaze.
“No, because of what happened to you.” A warm hand settled over mine where it rested on the little table. “Rayn…” But he didn’t say anything else, trailing off into silence.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“You are not to blame for this.”
“I—I went into your dreams again,” I choked out.
“And it’s a damn good thing you did!” he replied, the volume of his voice increasing. “Because if you hadn’t—”
I’d be dead.
Neither one of us said it.
Raj squeezed my hand gently. “Point is,” he said, his voice back to its normal pitch. “You didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do. It’s my job to take risks that might get me injured.”
I frowned. I didn’t like that way of characterizing what he did—mostly because I didn’t like the idea that Raj might be constantly putting himself at risk. Not that I got any say about what he did with his life.
“Rayn,” he said again, softly. “I would do it again.”
I looked up at him. “Why?”
“To save you.”
“Why?”
He let out another huffed sigh. “Two reasons. One, my job is to save people. Two—” He sighed, then leaned back, leaving my hand cold where his had been. “Two, it’s my fault you were roped into this to begin with.”
I blinked. “No, it’s not.”
“If we hadn’t asked you to work this case—”
“That’s not why Garraway took me,” I whispered.
“What do you mean?”
“They followed Violette to Beyond the Veil because they wanted to find me. Garraway knew my parents. That’s why he came after me.”
“Fuck,” Raj breathed.
“No matter what I do, I can’t ever leave Tranquil Brook behind.” My voice cracked as I spoke its name.
“Rayn—”
I shook my head sharply, winced, then grabbed a chip and stuck it in my mouth. “Don’t say you’re sorry for me. Don’t say you understand. Don’t pity me. I don’t want any of that.”
He was quiet for a while, and the chip stuck in my throat.
“I don’t,” he said softly. “I—I think you’re incredibly strong. Resilient. Brave. And I have no idea what it must have taken to do what you did. To go back to Tranquil Brook with us. To keep working this case, in spite of everything.”
I stared at him, no idea what to say.
After a little while, he let out a long breath. “So… did you ever finish Red Mars?”