Page 141 of The Rut in the Road

It’s okay, I sent back, because I was at least partly the reason he was still working.

It’s not,he replied.But I don’t have a choice.

I know, I told him.

I’ll come see you as soon as I can,he sent, and that, at least, made me feel better.

Okay.

Take care of yourself, he told me, and I tried not to feel resentment about that. I did need to take care of myself.

I just didn’t want to have to—and I really didn’t want to be told to.

27

He was tired—tootired to get up and make his way to bed. And worried about Rayn, but he only had a few hours before he had to be back at work, staring at the photos of the dead, some of them centuries old, some of them parishioners of the Church of Holy Judgment.

One of them had been Dale Durant, the minister, or reverend, or whatever of the church.

They still had three of the recently dead in need of identification, as well as dozens of the resurrected. Ward Campion had been there every day, almost as long as he had. Hart and Cass were both back, too, and everybody had been putting in long hours.

He just wanted to sleep.

I pushedthe pillow to the side, not wanting to know anything more. I already felt guilty enough about the amount of work I’d created for Ward.

I was feeling better—not completely, but well enough that I’d been able to drive over to Raj’s house, although he’d tried to convince me to let him pick me up. I’d managed to win theargument by pointing out that if he got called to work, I’d need a way to get myself home without him. Given the mess that the Church of Holy Judgment had left in their wake, Raj getting called back to work was pretty likely.

The minute I’d set foot in the house, he’d bundled me over to the couch and brought me a glass of iced tea. I like iced tea, but I’d had enough of being coddled. I’d drained my own magic raising the dead—I hadn’t been shot or injured like Cass or Hart.

And it wasn’t like I hadn’t ever experienced post-magic-drain recovery.

Just every few weeks for most of my life up to the age of twenty.

And it was better when you were the one who had drained yourself, since your body went into shutdown before you could go too low, unlike when someone forcibly stripped it from you.

So while I didn’t feel fully energized, I was fine. I could even have done magic, if I’d had to, although Mason had warned me, when he and Ward had brought me some pre-made meals, that I should leave that for longer than it felt like I had to.

So I took my tea and got up to see if I could be useful in the kitchen.

Raj looked up when I stepped into the kitchen doorway. “You should have called me if you needed something,” he said.

“I don’t,” I replied.

He frowned. “You should be resting,” he said, and where once his concern for me would have felt sweet, now it rubbed me the wrong way. And I didn’t think it was just because of what Hart had said at the warehouse, although that had made it clear that I wasn’t irrational for thinking it to begin with.

“I’m fine,” I told him. “I’m not exerting myself just standing here.”

He studied me, then decided to drop it, turning back to his cutting board.

“I don’t suppose you’ll let me help,” I said, wincing a little at just how bitter the words sounded, at least to me.

“I don’t need anything else done,” came Raj’s response as the chef’s knife cut through the onion, and it bothered me that I couldn’t tell whether or not he was just saying that so that he didn’t explicitly have to say no.

“Are you sure?” I didn’t want to pick a fight with him—but I also did. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he didn’t think I was capable.

And, despite what Hart had said to him, he hadn’t apologized.

Probably because he didn’t think he was wrong.