Page 97 of The Hangman's Rope

“Goodnight,” I told Torment. “And thank you, again.”

“Anytime – just try not to kung fu grip anymore glassware, though.” He made a face and I smiled.

“You take anything for it?” Corvus asked and I shook my head. My hand throbbed and hurt but not enough for me to want totake anythingfor it.

“You should when you get home. A Tylenol, at leastsomething.”

I nodded, logically he was right, and I could trust what Hangman and I had at home.

“Come on.” He put a hand out to gesture me to the French doors, here off the kitchen. The night beckoning beyond, the drive loaded with cars out there.

“Are you even going to be able to get out?” I asked and he smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “Later, Tor.” Tor saluted us and winked at me as we made our way out. I didn’t know what that meant – but I tried not to let it whelm me or panic me. It was a stiff and uncomfortable fifteen minutes or so from the mansion to the gates of Bonaventure.

“Shit, I don’t have a key to the gate,” I said. Just the house.

“I got it covered,” Corvus said, pulling up right outside the gate and killing the engine to his purring Mercedes.

We got out and he keyed open the smaller gate and let me through.

“You got it from here?” he asked me and I already had my keys out and nodded.

“I do, thank you,” I said.

“Go on inside, flash the lights for me so I know you got inside safe, then lock your doors, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, stepping to the other side of the gate.

He shut it and locked it back up and as I turned to walk to the house called out, “Oh, Lorelai?”

“Yes?” I asked, turning back to him.

“If you hear something out there tonight or any other night?”

“Yes?”

“No, you didn’t,” he said.

I blinked and nodded carefully, taking his meaning quite clearly.

“Heard, understood, and acknowledged,” I said with a slight smile. It was a thing that Hangman said regularly, although I didn’t think I would ever say the abbreviated version. It sounded silly when I did it.

I went up to the apartment and let myself in and flashed the light switch dutifully when the doors were locked behind me.

I got ready for bed, out of the fancy party dress and into my comfortable, white, regency vibe nightgown that probably looked prudish – but I didn’t care, and Hangman didn’t seem to mind either – although when I was feeling up to things, I tended to wear the sexier night things that’d been purchased for me.

No, tonight called for comfort, and thus I went for comfortable things, hugging my stuffed bunny close and curling on my side in the big bed, wishing Hangman were here, but also knowing that he was out there, doing bad things in order to make me safe… simply because I had asked him to.

I felt guilty, and like I maybe wasn’t a good person… but by the same token, I had been a good person. I had always been a good person and I’d been preyed upon becausewhy?

It bothered me. The not knowingwhy… why me of all people? Of all the beautiful women and girls wandering Savannah that night – why had I been the one?

I cried myself to sleep, my hand throbbing and stinging from the punctures and cuts from the glass I’d crushed and I honestly felt in some way I maybe deserved it. That maybe I wasn’t as good a person as I thought I was after all… maybe none of us were. Maybe there was no such thing as good versus evil – just varying states of being.

I didn’t know. I didn’t have any answers. I doubted anyone would.

I pushedmyself into a sitting position and listened, unsure of what I was hearing. There was heavy equipment moving outside and Corvus’ words came back to me… “If you hear something… no you didn’t.”

---