Tears blurred my vision. As a final, giant fuck you from the universe, I’d lost the remaining wisp of my connection with Mzatal. Katashi had severed me from the arcane and my lover—a lover who needed me as much as I needed him. My silent weeping turned into heaving sobs drowned out by the sound of running water.
When the water began to lap at the edge of the tub, I pulled myself together enough to shut off the faucet, then lay back again, wrung out and exhausted. I wasn’t ready to get out and go to my bedroom. I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. Didn’t want to face all the reminders of what I’d lost. I soaked in the heat and hoped it would fill the gaping void.
A light tap on the door was followed by, “Kara?” Jill’s voice, heavy with concern. “You need anything?”
“No,” I said then added, “thanks.” I rested my head against the edge of the tub and gazed up at the ceiling. “I just need a little time.”
“Okay,” she said though she sounded no less worried. “If you get hungry, there’s meatloaf out here. And ice cream.”
“Thanks,” I said again and left it at that. A few seconds later I heard her footsteps retreating down the hall. I closed my eyes, not worried about falling asleep in the tub. Not with my mind jabbering as I struggled to make sense of the loss and twisted injustice of it all. When the water cooled to where it was barely tolerable, I let some out and ran more hot water in.
Eilahn was wrong, I thought. The bath didn’t help. It wasn’t bringing my arcane senses back. It didn’t change what happened to me one bit.
Well, maybe it helped a little. I didn’t smell like vomit anymore. I slid down until my ears were beneath the surface, and sound became surreal, distorted, and muted. I pretended that the outside world didn’t exist and that it didn’t matter that I wasn’t a summoner anymore or that I couldn’t feel Mzatal. I stared at nothing and clung to my sliver of peace as hard as I could.
A knock on the door echoed oddly through the water in my ears. “Hey, Gillian.” Pellini this time.
“What.”
“About time to come out, don’t you think?”
I had no idea how long I’d been in here. Nor did I care. I wanted to stay in the tub. Didn’t want that ripped away from me too. “I’m fine.”
“I didn’t ask if you were fine or not.”
I twitched in aggravation, lifted my head out of the water. “Leave me alone, okay?”
A pause. “For five more minutes. I’ll be back.”
“Don’t bother,” I said. Two minutes or five minutes, I’d have the same answer for him. I squeezed my eyes shut and slipped fully under the surface, and came up only when my lungs started to ache. All of my senses returned to normal except for the other which remained nonexistent.
Pellini’s heavy knock rattled the door again. I had a feeling he’d given me more than five minutes, but it was still less than “as many minutes as I damn well wanted.”
“Come on out,” he ordered.
“Leave me alone,” I ordered right back.
“I’m not going to do that.”
I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes. I knew he was worried I’d do Something Stupid, especially since I sounded nothing like my usual perky self. But it’s my house. My bathtub. My time. My skin that’s wrinkled like a Shar-Pei. And I’m fine.
All I wanted was to be left alone in my own fucking bathtub. How goddamn hard was that to comprehend? And who the hell did he think he was, anyway? My dad? Fuck that shit. I hadn’t been able to fight back against Katashi and McDunn, but I could hold my ground against Pellini and this particular invasion. “Five more minutes,” I lied.
He blew out a breath. “No more minutes. Get the fuck out of the tub.”
“Go. Away.”
“I’m counting to three, then I’m coming in for you,” he said in an uncompromising tone. “Your choice whether to grab a towel or not. One . . . Two . . .”
“Leave me the fuck alone!” I yelled. Tears of frustration stung my eyes. Where were Bryce and Jill for all of this? Were they hanging back and watching Pellini be a jerk-ass control-freak buttinsky?
Apparently so, since the next sound to reach my ears was the click of the lock in the doorknob. Son of a bitch. Other than the door to the basement, all the locks inside the house were the cheap-ass kind with a center hole requiring only a nail or wire to unlock.
“Three.” He entered and closed the door behind him, a flicker of triumph in his eyes.
Dismay washed over me. Not only was I stark naked, but no one had cared enough to rush to my defense while he invaded my space. With a sob-cry of rage I hurled a bottle of shampoo at him, but he ducked and deflected it with his forearm.
“Get out of the tub, Kara,” he said with infuriating calm.
I no longer cared that I was naked. Hell, he’d already seen my everything after I died and came back to Earth in the PD squad room. “Why can’t you leave me alone?” I demanded, voice cracking.