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30
Priest
The hissof the shower is still going.
I heard River come home, banging up the stairs to her room, which sits right next to mine. Who the fuck knows what she was out doing, but ever since she went to go kill Ivan and almost didn’t make it back, I’ve felt… twitchy, watching her leave the house.
She was gone for hours, coming back at that weird time of night where it’s so late that it’s almost early. I didn’t come out of my room to see her then, but she sounded like she was in one piece, and I told myself that whatever she got up to was her business, and it wasn’t up to me to care or wonder if she was alright.
River turned on the shower when she got to her room. That was almost a full hour ago, but it’s still going.
She’s probably just determined to run up our water bill. She’s probably sitting on her bed, laughing about making us pay for her tantrums or whatever this is. It’s a ploy. A trick. A stab in the back that we should have seen coming. Trouble on trouble that I predicted when we made the mistake of not killing her in the first place.
I shouldn’t wonder why the shower is still on. I shouldn’t care.
Just like when I followed after her when she went to kill Ivan. I shouldn’t have cared then either. But there was something in the back of my mind… some itch that told me things were going to go wrong and I needed to be there. Someone needed to be there. And in the end, I was right. In the end, me being there saved her life.
All the same, I can remember telling myself angrily that whatever she got herself into was her problem. I sat at the kitchen table with my hands balled into fists, staring down at the knots in the wood and telling myself over and over again that whatever issues she has are her issues, and she doesn’t deserve my help. But I still ended up getting in my car and going after her.
Despite myself, I get up from my bed and go after her this time, too.
I knock on her bedroom door, and there’s no answer. I open it a crack, expecting to see her sitting there, grinning or smirking. Asking if I’ve finally decided I want her. I don’t think about the night in the piano room. It might be more accurate to expect her to look tired or pissed off from whatever she’s been off doing. Presumably trying to track down more leads about how to get close to Ivan St. James.
But she’s not on the bed. She’s not anywhere in the room.
The shower is still going.
I know how our hot water heater works. That water will be icy cold by now.
The bathroom door is cracked open a bit, and I push it wider and step inside. River is sitting in the shower, hunched over her bent knees, arms wrapped around herself like she’s trying to hold everything together and doing a bad job of it.
Her silver hair is dark with water and plastered to her head and shoulders, and her shoulders shake with either the cold or silent tears. Her skin is pale, making the scars and tattoos that decorate her stand out starkly.
What really draws my attention is the fact that her lips are blue and her eyes are red, and even though I’ve been standing here for at least thirty seconds, she hasn’t even looked up at me. It’s like I’m not here at all. She just keeps staring at the drain and the water swirling down it, as if it holds the answers she’s looking for. Either that, or maybe she’s hoping it’ll take away all the things she doesn’t want to deal with.
I lean in and turn the water off, silencing the spray. She glances up at the movement but doesn’t seem to see me. It’s more like she’s looking right through me.
“Come on,” I mutter, holding a hand out for hers. “You can’t sit here all night.”
She doesn’t take it. If she even notices, I can’t tell.
“River.” I say her name sharply, raising my voice a little to see if it gets through to her. It doesn’t. She blinks and then glances away, eyes going back down to the wet floor of the shower. Her body shakes with a violent shiver, and I sigh internally.
She’s clearly not getting out of this shower on her own.
Fine.
I lean down and gather her up, and her wet hair and skin immediately soak water into my clothes. But I don’t put her down. Instead, I grab a towel and wrap it around her, drying her off as best I can while holding her in my arms.
Fine tremors wrack her body, and I rub the towel against her skin, trying to generate some warmth.
River doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t do anything. She just keeps staring into the middle distance, more out of it than I’ve ever seen her.
How long would she have stayed in the shower if I hadn’t come in?
Shoving aside that thought, I take her back into the bedroom and use one hand to pull her covers back. I settle her down gently and tuck her in and then stand back.
For a second, I just stand there, looking down at her.
