Erika focused out the Honda’s front windshield and wasn’t surprised that her vision got wavy as tears came to her eyes. She didn’t feel anything, though.
No… that wasn’t quite right. She felt something, it was just very deep, and really painful so she was shutting it out.
“You know,” she said hoarsely, “I’ve always done this job for myself. To make peace with my personal demons. It never occurred to me that…”
“That you were helping people? That your partner and your division depended on you? Come on, Erika, get real. You didn’t think we were just enjoying your charming personality, did you?”
She laughed in a rush and brushed under her eyes. “Fine. I’ll take a little time off—but I want to be kept in the loop. Everything is still cc’d with me, and if there are any problems, I want you to call me.”
“Fine. It’s a deal. Talk to you soon, partner.”
As Trey hung up the phone, she took her cell away from her ear and just stared at the thing. Then she looked out the side window. Trey was right. She was down close to the river. Just two blocks over and she could have gotten herself up on a bridge where there was a big drop and a lot of cold water.
Instantly, she was back in the bookshop’s storage room, and Balthazar had that knife to his own throat—
She covered her eyes, even though what she did not want to see was not in front of her, but in her mind.
And then she saw the pink bedroom at the Primrose scene, that young hand with its carefully polished pink fingernails still around the butt of that gun.
Finally, she remembered the first suicide attempt she herself had made in college. Then the other two. It was after the third stomach pumping that she’d called the psychiatrist. As helpful as the guy had tried to be, it wasn’t those sessions that had changed things—and it certainly hadn’t been the antidepressants she’d been prescribed but hadn’t taken.
In the end, she had stopped with trying to kill herself because she hadn’t wanted to get out of the punishment of staying alive. Her living and breathing, and suffering, seemed like the penance she deserved for having stood there and watched as her mother had begged her for help.
And she’d done nothing but watch the killing.
Dying was easy. The living was the much harder option.
With the decision made, she’d never thought again about taking pills with vodka. She’d just stopped with the suicidal ideation. But it was weird. Sitting here in this old silver Honda, which had been provided to her by vampires, with her lover in her basement hiding from the sunlight, and a dear friend and colleague having been worried she’d jumped off a bridge… she found herself very grateful to be alive.
Even if suffering was the only reason for her survival.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
In the subterranean healing place’s cafeteria, Rahvyn walked with her tray through a maze of empty tables and chairs as Nate got to his feet. He seemed taller than she remembered somehow, although maybe that was just because they were truly alone for the first time. Previously, there had always been others around, at Luchas House, at the club of Dandelion, here in this facility.
“I’m glad you came to eat,” he said as he pulled out the chair across from where he sat.
“I just woke up.”
“Me, too.”
As she lowered herself, he helped her move the chair in, even though such action would not have been a hard thing for her to do. And then he was across from her and she was peeling her orange and he was picking up a half-eaten sandwich.
They ate in silence for a while, and it was the kind of silence that seemed to permeate everything. Here at the far-back of the eating area, with those doors shut and nobody else getting or making food, they were insulated not only from immediate noise, but from the sounds of the larger enterprise.
“You have questions,” she said eventually.
“Well, yeah.”
“I am not surprised. It is a lot to comprehend—”
“I’m always waiting for you to leave,” he blurted. And then he clapped his mouth shut as if he’d surprised himself by speaking thus.
“I am sorry.” And in those words, was she not apologizing for so much more than his worry? “Truly.”
“You know, I come to Luchas House and I always expect you to be gone.” He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “And I mean, that’s your right. Totally. Except I feel like we’re… friends. So I don’t want you to go, and if you do, I want a chance to say goodbye to you.”