Frustrating numbness worked its way through my muscles just like it always did when I took my pills. Just one of the reasons I hated them. It made life feel like I was viewing reality through thick soup. My senses felt deafened, my vision tunneled and watery. The pills did a number on my motor skills, if I took them too late in the day I swear I could almost feel their presence running slowly through my veins the next morning as I tried to work at the keyboard.
Tav didn’t realize how much I’d skipped my pills over the last few months for this reason. I felt more clear-headed, but also more on edge. Like my life was in a blender and it’d only just slowed down as I stumbled out blind into the sunshine.
I made my way slowly across the big living room, pausing where the hallway met the kitchen and where Tav had set the gun when he’d taken it from my hands minutes ago.
“Freya?!”
“Coming!” I called, clamping down on my bottom lip as I imagined him hiding out down there, gun drawn and waiting for me to enter the depths of his Hell.
Or was thismyHell? I had to be conjuring this insanity, Tav got under my skin some days, but that didn’t make him a deranged wannabe murder. I cursed myself inwardly for taking that pill and leaving my mind murkier than it’d been only moments ago.
Had Tav packed the gun in the back of the car when I wasn’t paying attention? Or was it always there, tucked under a seat while I was none the wiser.
“Can you walk?” I called down the stairs, trying to get a read on him.
“No!” I heard the scrape of metal on cement and a grunt.
Shit.
I took the steps two at a time, holding tightly onto the railing as I did.
I reached the basement. Darkness shrouded everything.
“Tav?”
“Over here.” He called from a corner.
“What were you doing over there? The ice melt is right in this closet.” I cast my eyes on the bag, realizing he would have seen it when he came down the stairs. In fact, maybe it’d been the ice he’d tripped over.
But where was the gun?
“I can’t believe they haven’t been sued for that last step. Everyone must trip over it.” Tav was clinging to my shoulders a moment later, leaning heavily on me with one hand and using his other to help keep him steady.
“Probably pretty hard to sue the department. Have you been working out?” He was bulkier than the last time I’d felt the full weight of him against me.
“I’m bored without you in the city. Instead of missing you, I go to the gym.”
I wondered whether that was a compliment or a lie or both. “It’s paying off.”
He didn’t answer me.
We reached the top of the stairs. He paused, holding the door jamb as he winced.
“Do you want an ice pack?”
He shook his head, walking along the kitchen counter and putting as little pressure on his foot as he could. He slumped into a kitchen barstool. “The snow is starting again. I should have walked to that cabin in the valley when I had the chance.”
He opened his laptop, almost talking to himself before the black screen shifted to lines of pale grey text. I tried to focus on the lines, but the font was so tiny it blurred together. I didn’t know exactly what he’d been up to behind his screen over the last few days. He always put me off by commenting that the internet wasn't available, but from that perspective, he seemed logged into the work chat platform. Didn’t that require a connection?
“Is there an instruction manual for this place? All the smart-systems must come with a user manual, right?”
“Dunno,” he answered.
I frowned, trying to zero in on the messages on his screen.
Each of the lines began with a numeric username, with some of the lines of text in computer lingo that was unfamiliar to me. I scanned the screen, noticing another minimized window that was blinking with a new message alert from someone named V.
Who is V?
