…“So,” she really needed to start a sentence with anything other than, so, “they must have known, somehow, that I existed, and then used me to get at you, since I can’t exactly turn into hundreds of rats and get away.”
It took him some time. Finally, quietly, “Yes.” She felt him watching her. “That’s why he bit you,” he said, tension now in his voice. “Lazarus, the older one.”
She nodded. “I do remember that part, then everything got fuzzy.”
“That’s how it can be,” he said. “It keeps a victim sedated.”
“Nice of him and all.”
He smiled but it was grimly done. “He didn’t take much blood, it wasn’t the point. He was sending me a message.”
“What was the message?” She thought she knew but it was hard to take. All of this was hard to take.
“Did you notice how after he tied you up they simply left you?” his voice softened as if telling her something she might not take very well.
She nodded and he lifted his brows, prompting her. “So that you could come get me,” she said.
“Yes.”
“All right, but,” she swallowed hard, “what was the message?”
He was struggling. It seemed he couldn’t hide it now. He was breathing, and harder than was normal. It drew her in and she found she was doing it too. A few more breaths and they were mirroring each other.
“That they can take,” he had to stop to breathe, “whatever’s mine away from me.”
There it was.
What was worse was that she’d known that he would say that. She dropped the wine glass and it shattered all over the floor.
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