Page 71 of The Rut in the Road

Victor let out a slightly muffled squeak around the food in his tiny, semi-decayed mouth.

I picked up the phone.

Managed to get off early. Dinner?It was Raj.

Yes, please,I sent back.

Whadda you want?

I didn’t have the energy to make a decision as important as what to have for dinner.I don’t care. I’m too tired to think, I sent back.

I was also too tired to feel hungry. I hadn’t actually eaten lunch, even though I’d taken a container to work. I just hadn’t had the energy to get up to go heat and eat it. I knew that was counter-productive, but I just couldn’t do it.

When I’d taken Victor in to see Mason, Mason had eyed me critically and then informed me that I wasn’t going to be of use to anybody if I drove myself to exhaustion—or if I let the FBI do it to me.

He wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t like I really had a choice. In theory, yes, I did. Raj regularly reminded me that I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do, although he didn’t actually mean that. What he meant was that I didn’t have to do anything I wasunwillingto do, which was a very different thing.

Wantwas not something one had relative to reliving the memories of killers or their victims.Unwilling, however, was adifferent story. I was willing. I didn’twant, but I was definitelywilling. How could I not be, knowing what I did? How could I possibly refuse to help find the killers of Arcanids, when I counted several of them as friends and one as my lover?

I couldn’t.

I didn’twantto, but I really had no choice. Not if I wanted to have any remaining quantity of self-respect.

So here I was, sleepless, exhausted, magically drained, and watching my undead rat eating leftover boxed mac and cheese.

I left Victor on the table, knowing that he could get himself down if he wanted to, and went to the beanbag, where I curled up to wait for Raj.

I’d meant to check my email and messages on my phone, in case Vi had any questions about the séance the following night.

I fell asleep.

It was cold,wet, and dark, and it smelled like decay. There were gnarled tree roots under my cheek, the lumps uncomfortable, making my arm and neck ache.

I tried not to move, turning my head to look up, trying to see how far up the well went. Whether there was a snatch of sky overhead and whether it was day or night.

I couldn’t tell.

It didn’t matter.

I was going to die down here, because no one knew I was here and no one was coming.

Tears pushed at the backs of my eyes, winning the fight with my eyelids and streaming down my face.

Raj wasn’t coming for me.

He was dead.

I’d been staring at his ribs, the fur streaked with black and white and orange. They hadn’t moved. Not even the ruffling ofthe thick, glorious fur in the breeze. There was no breeze down here.

It didn’t matter.

I wasn’t going to get out.

I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.

I gaspedas the sound of banging jerked me out of the well and the darkness of my subconscious.

More pounding—the front door.