Funny how something so innocuous and commonplace could turn so quickly into the scuttle of a scorpion, the slither of a snake, the hand breaking through the grave. So why wasn't I laughing? Grimly, I turned the shower on full blast. The hard-running water provided covering sound as I wrapped a towel around my fist and shattered the mirror over the sink. Only then could I turn my back on it and climb into the shower. Only then did I feel safe.
The shower was actually an old iron claw-foot bathtub. It'd seen better days, like most of us. The shower curtain looped around it on a metal pole bent into a U. There was rust on the tub's outer belly, orange stains on the pregnant curve of a waddling hippo. But on the inside it was sparkling clean and smelled strongly of soap. I picked up a bar and sudsed it absently in my hands as the steaming water flattened my hair and ran in rivulets down my body. It wasn't long before the soap squirted from my grip and landed with a clunk on the tub bottom. I looked at it blankly. At that particular moment picking it up seemed… pointless. And not merely mundanely so, but senseless on a cosmic scale. Like it was fate that the soap should be lying there, melting in the falling water. Since I'd gone toe-to-toe with destiny and fate fairly recently, I decided I'd do something else this time. Sitting down in the bathtub, I rested my head in my hands. And then?
I cried like a baby.
Chapter Twenty-four
It was a testimony to what Niko had suffered that he was still asleep when I dragged my butt out of the shower. The hot water had long since run out and I emerged from the bathroom shivering, with parts of me wrinkled as a prune. With a towel slung around my hips, I returned to Catcher's room and borrowed some of his sweats. After I dressed, I moved on to the surgery, counting that as my best bet for finding my brother. Opening the door a crack, I saw him in one of the beds. Not my old one. I couldn't exactly blame him there. He lay on his side, face tranquil in repose against the pillow. The short hair managed to give his nose an even more Roman presence. I smiled despite myself. It might be a long time before I could tease Niko about that. It was difficult to even imagine giving him a hard time now… after all he'd done for me. But the day would come again; it was inevitable between brothers. Until then I tucked the image away for future ammunition.
I moved my gaze to his shoulder, the one I… the one Darkling had driven a knife through. A pinkish dimple was the only evidence it had ever happened.
Safe to say we'd given Rafferty a workout he wouldn't soon forget. For nearly a full minute, I watched Niko sleep on. He'd always slept the bare minimum, my brother. Too much sleep was bad for the body, he said, and made the soul lazy. I was definitely living proof of the second half of that statement. Niko, though, he was always up, always doing. Sharpening the mind, sharpening the body, and trying in vain to accomplish both with me. The contrast now was unsettling.
Closing the door silently between us, I leaned against the wall beside it. What else could I expect? Rafferty could knit the flesh, but there were things he could not do. He couldn't replace lost sleep, the same as he couldn't replace lost blood. He could speed up the production of red blood cells, yes, but not manufacture them out of thin air. Healing wasn't magic. Healing allowed your body to do what was natural, only at a much accelerated rate. Healing didn't erase all Niko had put himself through. Only time and Niko himself could do that. And if he proved stubborn about it, tying him to the bed for his own good wasn't out of the question. The four most terrifying words in the English language, aren't they? "For your own good."
Pushing away from the wall, I headed for the kitchen. I wasn't the slightest bit hungry, but my stomach had a different opinion on the subject. The kitchen was empty. Where Robin had gotten to was a mystery, but I could see Rafferty in the back working on the fence. I helped myself to whatever I could find in the refrigerator, which wasn't much, before hitting the cabinets. In the end I had to settle for canned soup and three peanut butter sandwiches. Luckily I'd never been especially picky about my food. Chasing it down with a carton of milk dangerously close to its expiration date, I wiped my upper lip with my sleeve as I watched Rafferty through the window.
Rafferty was an acquaintance at best. Maybe if we'd known him and Catcher longer, we might have counted them as friends. Although considering our levels of paranoia, it wasn't all that likely. Of course calling them merely friends now would be doing them a severe injustice. Move over, Gandhi; these guys had helped save our lives. Our lives and in my case maybe a whole lot more. Dumping the carton in the garbage, I walked to the back door and out into the yard.