With a groan, he stood and hobbled over to the collection of cartridges, pulling out a single vial of apexidone. He sat back down, then loaded the dose into the side of a biotool with trembling fingers.
Switching the tool into injection mode, he pushed his sleeve up and held the tip to the inside of his elbow. He tried to steady his shaking hand as he inhaled slowly, staring at the clear liquid sloshing inside the cartridge.
He flinched at the hiss of a door sliding open and looked up.
Rake stood in the doorway, her damp, lightly tangled hair swept to one side. A few of her Imprints buzzed over the skin on the unbruised side of her face, continuing to heal her burns.
She stared at him placidly with bloodshot eyes, cheeks flushed pink. Like … she’d been crying. There was clear evidence, but Cavalon couldn’t imagine it.
She stared at the biotool in his hand, then looked at the open case of apexidone, then back to him. “What are you doing?” she asked, her tone eerily impassive.
A wave of indignation washed over him that he couldn’t quite account for. He glared and stood, tossing the tool down on the table. “Do you always have to think the worst of me?”
“Are you kidding?” she growled, marching to stand in front of him. “I’ve done nothing but think the best of you since you got here.”
He couldn’t respond at first. Anger, which he now understood to be fueled by embarrassment, continued to flood through him. The tide subsided as he processed what she’d said.
She was right. She’d done nothing but give him chances, despite the aggressive, snarky jerk he’d been in their first meeting. She’d put forth more effort in believing in him than he ever had himself, and even then, expected more out of him. He owed it to her to keep trying.
“It’s not what it looks like,” he began, taking a steadying breath to settle his temper. “I’m not taking it recreationally.”
“Then why?”
“I’m in pain. It fucking hurts, okay? I thought I could go without it, but it’s too much.”
“What hurts?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters. Tell me what happened.”
“Just some bruises, they’ll heal. I’m fine.”
Rake’s composed expression wavered. “Bruises from what?”
He pressed his lips together and looked down at his feet.
It’d be easy to tell her. Let her storm off and take her rage about Griffith out on Snyder and his cronies. But then he was that guy. Though both his options were currently shitty, he felt better about being the silent outsider that got the shit beat out of him than the brown-nosing snitch that got the shit beat out of him. He couldn’t fall back on her every time something bad happened. He had to learn to stand on his own.
“Listen,” Rake said quietly. “If you’re in that much pain, and you need to take it, take it.”
He looked back up to meet her gaze.
“If you’re worried about the repercussions,” she continued, “I’ll help. I’ll restrict your access to it. I’ll chuck the rest out the air lock if I have to. I promised to babysit you, remember?”
He blinked back at her. Void.
No one had ever offered anything like that to him before. His bouts of addiction had been met with scorn and annoyance from his family and friends, and his rehabilitations had been undertaken alone, time and time again. But here was Rake, mere days in. Willing to be there. To slap the drugs out of his hands and tell him no. To have more concern for his well-being than he did himself.
Cavalon swallowed the lump in his throat.