Then I hear a flush, running water, and the creak of floorboards as he returns to bed. His weight on the mattress pulls me towards him as my body floods with the warm buzz of relief. He tucks his hand around my waist to drag me the rest of the way, safely encompassing me within his broad, supportive arms until I fall back into my dreams.
CHAPTERNINE
KAI
I wake before Nadia,using the time to stare at her sleeping form, nestled within my embrace. Her lower arm is across her midriff, the hand resting on her hip. The upper is caught between us, palm flat against my chest.
The sense of peace I feel, watching her, is incredible. My mind is still working out plans, evaluating our situation, updating where required, but the constant buzz of static that overtakes me if I let it is gone. I’m not fighting just to think.
Part of that could also be that I slept the night through, except when I woke to go to the bathroom. That’s unheard of, not just in prison but before. Dating back to when I was a kid, listening to the soap opera of my parents fighting, then my dad and uncle partying once she’d left.
In sleep, the lines of Nadia’s face have smoothed, shifting her from worried to peaceful. The grey in her chestnut hair catches the morning light, like highlights picked out in the wrong colour.
Everything about her is tiny, sculpted out in miniature. I wonder at how someone as big and dumb as Joshua emerged from this lovely diminutive soul.
I want to kiss her, but she didn’t like it. Didn’t like me trying to remove her clothes and get a better look at her, not that the dim lighting lent itself to clarity. She’s probably sick to death of large men tramping through her life. From what I know of Josh, his dad wasn’t the greatest character, and he’s hardly a saint.
A schoolteacher. Back home, I bet she has a nice, neat boyfriend. One of those dapper gentlemen who looks fantastic in a suit. I bet she invites him over a few times a week and they curl on the sofa with large glasses of wine, listening to music, discussing books, arguing over philosophy and enjoying it, not getting angry like half my family does the moment someone disagrees with any thought they’ve ever had.
I’m jealous. How sad is that?
Jealous of an imaginary boyfriend. One that I invented. I’ll be even more jealous if he turns out to be true on any level.
My eyes close and I rest my head as near to Nadia’s as I can without waking her. I try to let my thoughts drift, just listening to her breathe.
She offered to take the blame for Razek.
The kindness behind that gesture is overwhelming. I grabbed the brick, I pounded it into his face more times than I needed to beat him into submission, more times than I needed to ensure he was dead.
I can’t imagine a more clear-cut case of murder. The stomp to his ribs would have been enough to subdue him. Training his own gun on him would have sufficed if he somehow rallied. There was time to take another course and I know because I thought of doing just that. Thought of it then still killed him.
So similar to what happened with Rachel’s partner. Except back then, she’d been shouting in my ear to finish him, to finish what I started. Shouting that he wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t leave her alone until he was dead.
She’d yelled that at me but never once offered to share the blame, let alone take all of it.
I’ve wronged this woman ten times over, but she still thought to shelter me. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone with such a generous heart.
I wish I could lie here with her forever.
Then her limbs shift, her breaths quicken, and I open my eyes just in time to see her blearily part hers, exposing their amber brightness to the world.
Nadia stares straight into my face, her thin lips curving into a smile. The expression fills my soul with warmth when she has the right to far more negative emotions, anger, blame, fear.
She takes the hand away from my chest, rubbing her eye with it as she rolls onto her back, mouth opening in a yawn.
“What time is it?”
“Around eight,” I tell her, knowing it without needing to look. I’ve always been aware of the passage of time, recognising how cruelly it slows to luxuriate in pain while leaping ahead when everything is good.
In prison it barely moves at all.
Right now, it’s speeding.
Her finger touches against the tattoos on my right arm, tracing their story from my wrist up to my shoulder, nail lightly etching out the fur of a growling wolf, a snake coiled, ready to strike, before moving across to caress the petals of a gigantic rose. Then her fingertips twitch and she draws her hand away, blushing deeply and turning to stare at the window.
I wish my fingers could travel the same path on her but from the way her hands twist in her oversized tee shirt, she wouldn’t appreciate the attempt.
“You should take that off,” I say in a light voice. “It’s dirty.”
