Chapter 9 #4
He made a grumbling sound in the back of his throat as he used his chopsticks to gather a ball of sticky white rice, then dabbed the end of it in some of the sauce on his plate.
“It’s not just that,” he said. “It’s—if the lawyer succeeds in making the jury distrust you, then Garraway will get away with it. ”
That made sense. It wasn’t so much that he was concerned for my feelings, although I’m sure he was, but that he was worried about what would happen if Garraway were to be acquitted.
It hadn’t actually occurred to me that such a thing might happen.
I’d been kidnapped, drained, and thrown in a well.
I couldn’t imagine how the man who did that could possibly be exonerated.
But if a lawyer were able to convince a jury that I was either delusional or a liar—or both—then the unthinkable suddenly became a possibility.
My concern must have been visible on my face, because Raj put his chopsticks down again, opening his mouth in order to say something, but I spoke first.
“What happens if he does?” I asked, and although I’d tried to keep my voice steady and calm, it sounded small and scared, even to me.
Raj reached out one of his big hands, once more covering one of mine. “That’s not going to happen,” he said, and his voice—unlike mine—didn’t waver.
“You can’t know that,” I half-accused, almost the same thing I’d said to him about catching the hit-and-run killer.
His hand squeezed mine gently. “I promise you, Rayn, he’s not going to walk.”
I decided not to argue the point with him, even though I knew he couldn’t actually promise me that.
I woke up gasping, the air closing in around me in the dark and cold at the bottom of the well.
At least I’d managed to keep the nightmare to myself, although the feeling of a big, warm hand on my back told me that I’d either been too loud or too restless, and I’d awakened Raj.
“Sorry,” I rasped, feeling guilty. I knew he had to go to work in the morning.
“C’mere.” The hand slid down my side, hooking me close to the waist and pulling me back against his chest. “I’ve got you.”
I sighed, trying to let go of the tension that still held my muscles tight, the adrenaline making my hands tremble and my heart beat too fast. I tried to relax into the warmth of Raj’s big body, the protection of his arms, the slow and steady beat of his heart and breath.
It helped, but when I closed my eyes I could still taste the mud and feel the roughness of brick and gravel, and my arm ached where it had broken.
I couldn’t see it in the dark, even with the dim light filtering in from the streetlights outside, but if I’d run my fingers over it, I’d have felt the puckered skin where each stabilizing bolt had entered flesh, the ridge of the surgical scar, the faint crooked bumpiness where hardware still held the bone together under the muscle.
“You okay?” Raj murmured against my hair, his breath warm.
I debated lying so that he’d go back to sleep, but I’m a terrible liar, so I just shook my head.
His arms tightened around me. “The well again?” he asked softly. It was one of my more common nightmares, and I’d mentioned it to him more than once.
I nodded.
“You know they filled it in?” he asked, softly.
I nodded again. It didn’t matter that the real well was now just bricks sticking out of solid earth.
The well that mattered, the one I found myself trapped in again and again, was entirely of my own devising.
If I wanted to think seriously about why, I probably could have come up with a dozen reasons.
I felt trapped by my past, my magic, my job—although I really didn’t want to resent that—and even, sometimes, by Raj’s constant worry about my physical safety.
And it wasn’t that I even wanted to change all those things—or could, I suppose.
I couldn’t change my past, of course. But I was working on my magic, trying to control it rather than letting it control me.
I did actually like my job, even if I didn’t like the fact that I felt obligated to the men who had given it to me because there was absolutely no way I’d ever be able to repay them.
And I didn’t want to get out of my relationship because I did feel safer with Raj—safer, cared for, protected.
With Raj—and also with Vi, although in a very different way—I felt like I could stop constantly trying to be someone that I wasn’t in order to make other people happy, and I liked that.
So I guess I didn’t want to fill in my well. The psychological one that haunted my nightmares. I sighed heavily, and Raj’s arms gave me a little squeeze.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked.
“No.” I didn’t like talking about things that I hadn’t thoroughly thought through yet. If I tried, the words got all knotted and tumbled together and didn’t make much sense, to me or to anyone else.
A squeak came from somewhere near the door.
Raj stiffened behind me, then pushed himself up on his elbow.
“I—” I heard him swallow, my own body tense as adrenaline re-flooded my muscles. “I think your new friend might be worried about you,” he finished.
“What?” That made no sense.
“Your rat. Victor. He’s… sitting in the doorway.”
I squinted through the darkness at the doorway. “He’s… in the doorway?”
“Yeah.” Apparently satisfied with the fact that there was an undead rat sitting in the doorway, Raj’s body relaxed, although he stayed propped up on one elbow behind me.
“Although I don’t think I want to share a bed with him.
” A pause. “No offense, little buddy,” he said, and I thought he might have addressed that last comment to Victor.
I couldn’t really blame him for not wanting an undead rat on the bed. I wasn’t really bothered by Victor, and I wasn’t sure I wanted him on the bed, either.
“I’m okay,” I told the darkness of the doorway.
Then, remembering what Mason had said about me having some sort of metaphysical connection to the rat, I tried to send calming thoughts through the aether—the magical space between people and things that was sort of like air, but also not at all like air. I only sort of understood the concept.
“Not on the bed,” Raj told the darkness, presumably talking to Victor.
“He’s not going back to his box?” I asked.
“No,” came the response, but Raj didn’t sound particularly upset. “He just curled up in your shirt on the floor.”
I thought about that for a second, then decided I didn’t care, since I wasn’t going to re-wear my shirt without washing it anyway. “Okay,” I said.
“He probably likes the smell,” Raj remarked as he lowered himself back to the mattress, then pulled me against him. “Can’t blame him,” he murmured into my hair.
“Do I smell?” I asked him.
He laughed softly. “You smell good,” he replied, sticking his nose in my hair and inhaling.
“You like how my shampoo smells?” I’d never really thought about it much. I used cheap shampoo. It smelled more or less like soap to me.
“No,” came the response. “I like how you smell. Your shampoo is at least non-offensive, but it’s you I want to smell.” He nuzzled against the back of my skull, breathing in again.
This time, when I tried to settle back into his big, warm body, I found my muscles were willing to loosen.
“Mera ravi?” he murmured against my hair.
“Yeah?”
“You need a better rat cage than a cardboard box,” he told me.
“Um.”
He nuzzled against my ear. “We’ll go to a pet store,” he murmured, his voice already heavy with sleep.
I let myself relax into him, pleased he was willing to accept Victor as at least a semi-permanent addition to my life. “Okay,” I agreed.