Page 93 of The Rut in the Road

I jerked myself out of Violette’s thoughts at the interruption from Raj’s voice, looking over to see him pushing open the passenger door of his car.

I’d been walking home from work, as usual, and apparently he was not happy about that. He definitely wasn’t happy aboutsomething, and I assumed that was the reason, since we kept arguing about it.

I almost didn’t—get in the car. I didn’t like being ordered to do things out of anger, and I didn’t like that he didn’t trust me to get myself safely home.

But, that annoying little voice inside my head reminded me,you did get kidnapped once on your walk home, didn’t you?

So I got in the car.

I didn’t say anything.

He did.

“Why are you walking home?”

I tried for reasonable. “Because I live a mile from work, it’s not raining, and walking is good exercise.”

He shot me an incredulous look. “Are you shitting me?”

I knew what the phrase meant, but that was two curse words in very close succession for him. It wouldn’t have been for Hart, but Raj was not Hart. “No. That’s why I walk home.”

“We talked about this,” he said, and I could tell he was gearing himself up for another tirade about how it wasn’t safe, I wasn’t safe, and especially with the hit-and-run killers I shouldn’t be walking, especially now that I had a car.

“And we disagreed,” I reminded him. “I don’t look like an Arcanid, because I’m not one, and so I’m not a likely target for the Church of Holy Judgment, especially since they have thus far only attacked visible Arcanids late at night.”

He growled.

I deliberately kept looking straight forward. “Were you going to drive me somewhere, or did you just want to yell at me inside your car?” I asked, knowing the answer was probably both, but I was annoyed enough to point it out, even though I knew that was rude.

“Rayn, you know?—”

“No,” I interrupted, because I had a pretty good idea where this argument was going, since it had been there before. “I don’tknow.You have a theory that I am in danger because I work for Mason, but no one at Beyond the Veil has had any occasion to intersect with people from the Church of Holy Judgment.”

“You’re helping investigate the hit-and-run killings,” Raj retorted. “You have been from the beginning, even before the FBI got involved. You think they don’t know that?”

I’d thought about this since our last fight about it. “They believe themselves to be doing the work of God,” I reminded him. “I don’t think they think they’re going to be caught and stopped because they believe God is protecting them.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do,” I retorted. “Do you remember the man who stocked the flyers thinking that he was pleased they were under God’s protection?”

Raj’s jaw clenched, a muscle ticking, annoyed that I’d made the point. After a beat, however, he had an answer. “Yeah, some of them probably do,” he snapped. “But Durant is probably a good deal more practical and savvy than his parishioners, andheis likely both aware of the investigation and paying very careful attention to its progress.”

I couldn’t argue that point, both because I didn’t know otherwise and because he was probably right. “They’re still not going to come afterme,” I said. “I’m nobody. They’ll target Mason or Hart, or possiblyyou, not me.”

He huffed out a breath. “We thought that this spring, too,” he retorted. “And look where that got you.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, hurt and angry. “If I hadn’t told you where I was,” I asked him, only daring the question because he’d pushed me. “Would you have found me before I died?”

He physically flinched, his expression stricken. “I—” His hands gripping the wheel tightened, lightening the skin over his knuckles. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he whispered.

I agreed with him, but I felt like I shouldn’t say so out loud.

I watched him struggle with himself, then swallow. “I’ll take you home.”

It was two blocks.

It was ridiculous.