Page 84 of A Winding Wave of Magic
Not one.
“I can’t do that, Rein. I can’t bring this down on you or Sybil.” I carried my whiskey to the couch, then took another big drink and rubbed my head, which was still throbbing from the tumble I had taken. What did it matter if I was drunk? I was no better here than anywhere else.
“I’m not leaving you to do this alone. At least here you aren’t stuck out in the woods all by yourself.”
“This killer—Jonathan’sdad, for Pete’s sake—literally squeezed the life out of Gran like she was nothing but a bug in a fly trap. You think I want to bring him or his son to your doorstep? Absolutely not.”
I could easily imagine her pacing frantically across the on-call room. Strangely, my own fear was abating. I threw another log on the fire and watched it crackle as the flames overtook it.
Outside, the thunder rumbled again, but lower now. Almost like a cat’s purr.
Somehow, I had been able to keep Jonathan out of the house. I had told him to go—okay, shrieked at him—and pushed him. And he had done it.
It wasn’t what I was supposed to do. But it had worked. And I knew without a doubt, I would do it again if I was forced.
“Cassandra, this isn’t funny. You need to?—”
“Reina,” I interrupted. “He knows where you are, he knows where I am, and he’ll figure out where everyone else I know lives too. What he doesn’t know is where I’m going now. ButIknow I can keep him away from me.”
“But, Cass, you can’t just?—”
“Rein, stop,” I said gently. “Here’s my plan. I’m going to call the mortuary and have the ashes sent to you. That okay?”
“Sure. But Cass, come on?—”
“And then I’m going to disappear for a while. I’ll let my committee know I’m finishing my dissertation remotely while I deal with family issues. My chair will put up a fuss, but the department won’t fight it. I’m also going to defer my position for next year and just take some time. Gran left me some money, and I have a bit of savings. I’ll be fine. I’m going to finish this damn degree and figure out what’s next. But you won’t hear from me for a while. Don’t Look, okay? It’s better that way, to keep you safe.”
I took another drink of whiskey as the inevitability of the plan sank in with it. Like the whiskey, it burned.
“Cass…”
I could hear the pleading in my friend’s voice, but the fight in it was gone. She knew when my mind was made up.
“Keep her safe for me, Rein,” I said. “Okay?”
But before she could answer, the world disappeared.
A thick, impenetrable darkness of sight and sound and breath choked it all out of me.
“Cass?”
Reina’s voice seemed a million miles away, a tiny buzz against the opacity that encompassed everything.
“Cass? Are you there?”
I was bound.By what, I couldn’t tell, but every part of me was squeezed as if I were a tube of toothpaste. The living room looked as if it were covered by a heavy black veil, and my mouth seemed to be glued shut. My ears felt like they had been stuffed with cotton to the point where I was deaf to everything except a lurid, inscrutable murmuring.
It was so much worse, I would later recall. So much worse than I had Seen through any of her memories.
It was the shadowed man in the fedora. The monster who had literally wrung Gran’s life from her as if she were a twisted kitchen rag.
Oh, goddess, I thought, strangely calm.This is it. He’s back and now he’s taking my memories and killing me too.
The murmuring coalesced into a deep hum of one thought, one desire. It vibrated through my bones, a bass thrum that seemed to rise from the earth itself. It was deep, male, almost unnoticeable yet undeniable at the same time.
Tell me.
What?I thought, unable to speak.What do you want?
