“He is much bluster—but that can be fun. In his heart, he is pure.”
“He says he’s never going to Dandelion again.”
“It was nice inside. I liked the flowers.” She frowned. “That was one of the last things I said to you, wasn’t it.”
“I just remember stepping outside the club and seeing that man on the ground, the bouncer. You were really nice to him. You knelt down and then came the pops.” Nate shook his head. “It didn’t hurt very much. I thought if you died… it was supposed to hurt.”
“I would not know.”
There was another period of silence. “Rahvyn?”
“Yes?”
“Are you like me? Or, I mean, am I like you?”
She focused on him properly, seeing him for the handsome young male he was—and yet recalling all that had been done to him in that lab. Indeed, she had been inside his brain, not because she had sought to take something from him, but because he had welcomed her with his emotions. In offering empathy to her, he had created a connection that had given his past over.
She had been horrified by all that he had endured.
“In some ways,” she said softly, “I am very much like you.”
He nodded a little. Then looked her straight in the eye. “Promise me you won’t leave without telling me.”
As she considered what she had burdened him with, there was one and only one reply to give him. Reaching across the table, she put her hand on his.
“I promise,” she vowed.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Erika ended up leaving the silver Honda a couple of blocks over from CPD headquarters. Locking things, she took the key, and as she started walking away, she was struck by the fine spring air. Downtown could be nasty as a proverbial armpit—particularly in August, down by the restaurants, when the dumpsters became stews of decaying food—but not today. Even with the trucks rumbling by, and the cars, and the pedestrians who smoked, there was only the smell of earth and growing things.
As she walked up to the place where she worked, she paused and stared at the building. It was modern, but not in a contemporary architecture sense. Modern for the Caldwell Police Department building was rows of windows you couldn’t open, no adornments or design work anywhere, and six entrances with metal detectors in them. Basically every municipal structure erected in the sixties.
And yet it meant a lot to her.
Trey’s conversation had opened her eyes. Or maybe her new perspective was from Balthazar this morning when he’d accepted her brokenness so easily. Either way, she was seeing everything from a fresh viewpoint.
The idea that she was making a difference for people who had been through what she had? That was a balm of sorts to her pain—and one she hadn’t recognized she’d been applying to the scars she carried on the inside.
A solace she had instinctively identified and self-medicated with.
Funny, how you could take care of yourself without even knowing.
Heading down to the back of the building, she entered the parking lot. Trey had put her car at the far end, right in front of the impound dock. When she came up to it, the backup key fob was in the cup holders in the center console between the seats, just like he’d said. As she got in and started the engine, she felt like she should be checking in with someone. She supposed she had.
Leaving the lot, she glanced in her rear view and watched the gate arm fall back into place behind her. For a panicked moment, she worried whether she was going to have some instinct hit that told her these two or three days off were going to turn into forever. When nothing like that came, she was relieved, even though she’d never been psychic or anything.
The Northway was not that far, but courtesy of a broken water main, she got rerouted and then missed a turn. The next thing she knew, she was in a different part of downtown, less skyscraper, more upscale-ish retail. Passing by some of the shops, she saw things in the windows like dresses and pants and blouses—
The parking spot appeared from out of nowhere, the lineup of perma-parked, grille-to-tailpipe cars broken by a perfectly beautiful metered space.
Why she backed into the vacancy, she had no clue. And when she got out, she was still confused.
But then she looked at the facade of the Ann Taylor store and saw a dress… that also did not make a lot of sense. It was red. A bright red, with a deep V for the bodice and a skirt that was way too short—which for Erika meant it was just slightly above the knee.
“I don’t have any change to put in the meter.”
As she spoke, a guy walked by her and looked at her like he was wondering why he was being informed of this.