Page 34 of The Rut in the Road

“Rayn—” I could hear the concern in Raj’s voice.

“I’m fine,” I repeated, more strongly, this time, shooting him a look that I hoped he understood meant that I didn’t want to talk about it—and that I really was fine to do this.

Raj opened his mouth to say something else, but Hart spoke, instead.

“We have the case materials from the RPD,” he said. “We need you to touch the evidence from both scenes again.”

I nodded. I’d known they were going to ask me to do this, although I wasn’t particularly happy that they were asking me to do it now.

“Will Ward be back today?” Hart asked.

I shook my head. “No. I can put you in tomorrow or Wednesday, once we’re done here.”

“Tomorrow would better,” Raj said, and I was grateful he was remaining professional, although he hadn’t stopped staring atme as though he might be able to tell whether or not I was going to overextend myself.

“Put us on,” Hart said, “but I’m calling Ward’s ass when we’re done to see if he’ll let us invade the toddler-house or some shit.”

Raj looked startled. “We shouldn’t?—”

Hart rolled his lavender eyes again. “I’m not going to literally invade his house, Tony. But if he says we can come do it tonight, that would be better, yeah?”

Raj nodded. “It would.”

Hart shrugged. “Then I’ll text him.” Those eyes turned back to me. “When we’re done here. Might give us a better sense of what we need from these poor fuckers, anyway.”

“Some amount of decorum would be appreciated for the dead, Hart,” Raj grumbled.

Hart shrugged again. “Not like I’d say that in front of family, Jesus, Raj.”

Raj huffed a little. “Still,” he replied, but that seemed to be the end of it, since he turned to me. “Are you ready?”

I was glad he hadn’t asked if I was sure I’d be okay, or sure I wanted to do this. Justwas I ready.

“Yes,” I replied, settling at the table.

Raj and Hart both sat down, Raj putting the satchel on the table’s surface, pulling back the flap so that he could remove two evidence bags. The first was small, and held a cigarette butt. The second was larger, containing a sizable shard of curved yellow-orange plastic, presumably from a blinker. I knew what both of them contained, although I hadn’t touched the cigarette butt in… six months.

“Which one do you want to start with, kid?” Hart asked me.

I gestured toward the cigarette.

Raj opened the evidence bag and shook the butt out onto the table’s surface in front of me. I drew in a deep breath, thenreached out and picked it up between my thumb and forefinger, keeping my psychic barriers fully in place.

I looked between Raj and Hart. “What do you want from this?” I asked them.

Hart blinked. “You’re not reading it?”

“Not yet,” I replied. I was making a point. It was probably childish of me to demonstrate my ability to block out memories until I wanted them, but I wanted it to be clear to both of them that I wasn’t beholden to my abilities—they were beholden to me.

I could feel Raj’s eyes on me, and I wasn’t sure if he was disapproving because he knew why I was doing it and didn’t approve, or if he simply didn’t approve of me expending the energy it took to block psychic impressions unnecessarily.

Hart glanced over at him, his expression uncertain, although I wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t have an answer for my question, or if he was sensing the tension between us.

“Anything you can give us,” he answered, when Raj didn’t.

I nodded once, letting my eyes close and the memories wash through me. I’d started narrating what I read, the strange, trance-like state of doing a reading making it feel almost like automatic speech, the words running through me rather than being produced by conscious choices.

As I started to speak, I heard them both suck in surprised breaths, but I kept going.