Page 114 of The Rut in the Road

I leaned back in my chair and scowled up at him, annoyed. “You know what happened,” I retorted, because I was pretty sure he did. “Or you wouldn’t be here.”

He might have growled at me, but ERs are noisy, so I wasn’t completely sure. “How close were you to it?” he asked.

I met his gaze. “Closer than I wanted to be,” I replied. “But I broke my arm when I fell in the rush of the crowd.” I didn’t mention the fact that I’d essentially thrown the dead at the car in order to redirect it. I’d also thrown a lot of death magic at it without really paying attention to how much I’d cast.

I didn’t ask about the welfare of the drivers.

I didn’t dare.

Raj looked over at Ward. “You were together?” he asked.

Ward shook his head. “I’d asked Rayn to get some supplies from the truck,” he answered. “There was more than one vehicle.”

“There were three,” Raj replied, his voice tight.

“How many people?” I asked him, afraid to hear the answer.

He sucked in a breath through his nostrils. “Seven dead,” he answered softly. “Another nineteen hospitalized. Dozens being treated, including you.”

“Did they catch the drivers?” Ward asked.

Raj nodded. “One is in the hospital, one died, and the last is in RPD custody. For now.”

I didn’t ask which driver. But Ward did.

“One of the drivers died?” he asked, sounding surprised. “From hitting a wall or something?”

Raj’s features were tight. “There was an impact,” he replied. “But it’s far too early for cause of death.” He shifted his weight. “Could be that they were all on drugs and it induced a heart attack. Could be trauma from the crash.”

“Was the driver still in the car?” Ward wanted to know.

I really wanted us to stop having this conversation.

“Maza didn’t say,” Raj replied. “Just that the ME would have more information for us soon—hopefully tomorrow, given how high-profile this is.”

Raj’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he scowled even deeper, then pulled it out. He thumbed a button and lifted it to his ear. “What?” he asked. Then he paused. “Fucking pull it. It’s ours,” he said, his voice tight and sharp, but with an undercurrent of something that might have been excitement. “I’ll be there ASAP.” He pronounced it like a word: a-sap.

Then he looked down at me, and something I couldn’t identify crossed his features. I was expecting him to leave, but he took the two steps to cross the room, bent, roughly grabbed the back of my head, and kissed me almost bruisingly hard. Then he pulled back and rested his forehead against mine. “Please stay with someone tonight,” he whispered, the words almost begging.

“Vi was going to stay with me,” I replied.

“Good,” he replied. “Please,pleasebe careful.”

“You, too,” I answered, recognizing that while my trials for the evening were over, his almost certainly weren’t.

He kissed me again, quickly and more softly, then left, nodding to Ward on his way out, but not saying another word.

“Are you okay?” Ward asked me, after a good thirty seconds of silence had passed in Raj’s wake.

I nodded. “Yes.” I was a little confused, but I was okay. The injection of pain medication was starting to wear off a little, and I could tell that it was going to be a very long night for more than one reason.

No. Not a long night. A long day, because a quick check of my watch—which now had several shiny scratches on the black metal around the screen—told me that it was nearly dawn.

Ward let out a sigh, then leaned back in his hospital bed. “Are you two… okay?” he asked me.

“What does that mean?” I asked him. “Are we okay?”

Ward let out a little hum that meant he was thinking. I was pretty sure it was a habit he’d picked up from Mason, and I wondered if he knew he even did it. “I suppose it means I’masking if you feel like your relationship is a good one,” he replied. “If you’re happy and you think he’s also happy.”