“What was she like?” I asked softly.
“Kat? She was great. Funny, smart. She would have been finished with school already, except for all the loan stuff. I told her—”
Her eyes welled up suddenly with tears. Trembling, her lips pressed together so tightly they went white.
“I told her she was boring,” she said. “I called her a slacker. That was the last thing I said to her.”
Her face contorted with grief. I had the thought of putting a comforting hand on her shoulder, but that would be worse than nothing. The cause of her grief was standing right in front of her, and there was no way for me to fix it.
“Excuse me,” she said. Her hand wiped away tears, held back her sniffling. “I—I have to go now.”
“I’m sorry about your friend,” I said. “I hope they find her.”
She nodded and fled, leaving the books on a pile in the middle of the aisle next to the cart. I could hear her sobbing as she walked down the aisle, her feet nearly running away from me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Gav
When I got back home, the house was quiet.
“Kat?”
I called her name as I walked up the bedroom stairs, holding the books I’d picked out for her. Hopefully these were better. A couple of suspense novels, and a book of short stories. A bit more literary than the romances I’d originally picked out.
“Sorry I took so long. I—”
I stopped in the doorway. My heart stopped too.
Kat’s head lolled to one side, grotesquely. Her eyes were closed.
The books dropped to the floor as I strode forward. The smell of urine hit me as I leaned over the bed.
“Kat? Kat!”
I shook her shoulder, but she didn’t move. Quickly I pressed my ear to her chest. My heart was pounding so hard that I could barely hear over it, but it was there. Her heartbeat. She wasn’t dead.
Stupid. Stupid, to leave her chained up with no way to get to the bathroom. I needed locks on the outside of the bedroom door. I needed— I needed her to wake up.
Shaking, I untied the knots that bound her wrists. Her hands were limp and white, cool in the air. I rubbed her wrists with my thumbs, urging the circulation back into them.
“Kat? You’re okay, Kat. You’re okay.” I whispered the words like a chant, like a prayer. Had she fainted? I went into the bathroom and turned on the cold faucet in the bath. I took a washcloth and ran it under the stream of water. And ammonia—I could use ammonia.
I fumbled through the cabinet, trying to find the inhalant. It would be a last resort. There it was. I tucked the bottle into my pocket.
I ran back out to the bed and pressed the washcloth to her forehead. Her lips fell apart but there was no other sign of motion, just her breath, warm against my arm. The water dripped down her cheeks like tears. It turned her hair dark brown with moisture.
“Kat! Kat!” I shouted desperately, choking on her name. Still she would not open her eyes.
This—this was my guilt, my true sin. All of my life, I’d known that I was different. I did not care for others. I had a horrible urge to kill, to destroy. And now, through my own stupidity, I’d destroyed the one thing I’d come to care for.
“Please wake up, kitten. Please.”
My hands flitted over her body, squeezing her limbs as though that would bring her back from wherever she was. And in the back of my head, the shadow taunted me.
This is what you wanted.
“No,” I said. “Kat, wake up.”
This is the easiest way. Cut her up. Burn her. Like the others— “No!” I howled the word so loudly that she must wake up, she must. The thought of taking a knife to her body made me as ill as I had been when I’d tried to cut my own wrist, and it was with great effort that I suppressed the bile threatening to rise in my throat. But she slept on, unhearing.
The only noise in the room was the sound of water running from the bathroom.
“Come on,” I said. I flung away the red ropes from her wrists. Carefully, I gathered her up into my arms, not caring about the wetness soaking her lower half.
The bath was shallow, a few inches of water. The rush of the cold water filled my ears. I had no hope. In my arms, I thought I already carried a dead woman.
I knelt.
“Please,” I whispered, not knowing who I whispered to. Supporting her neck with my arm, I lowered her into the cold bath. I picked up the ammonia inhalant, pressed it under her nose.
Her body convulsed. Her back arched against the ceramic bathtub - I caught her head before it hit the hard tile. And then—oh, God, and then—my kitten opened her eyes.
She gasped once, a breath of air sucked hard into her lungs. Her hands flailed, clutching at my chest and splashing water over the side of the tub. Her eyes were wide with fear, and as she inhaled gulps of air I supported her back, gave her room to breathe. Relief washed over me, driving away the shadow with the fear of her death.
“Gav—” she said, her throat hoarse. Her breaths came in shudders through her body.