A Secret Rage by Charlaine Harris Page B

next room. Had he meant immediately? Or had he meant some night in the future?
    Oh God I can’t stand it if he comes back. I can’t survive it again.
    There was not such a thing as time. There was only breath after breath, one more breath that I had lived, then another . . . In. Out. Not dead, I’m not dead, alive alive alive. In. Out.
    There came a breath when I was convinced he was gone.
    In one convulsive shove I threw the pillow from my face and the chilly night touched my face. I stared into the dark corners of the room. Even the shaft of moonlight had vanished, covered by clouds.
    It was really over. It had really happened. I smelled of it, to my sick disgust. I had lived through it. And I had to have help. I managed to roll. I stretched my arm. I found the switch on my bedside lamp.
    Light. Blessed light, emptying the room of shadows that might hold him. He was truly gone; I would truly live. I was filled with an intense shock of astonishment.
    Now. If I could get up. I looked down at my body and shuddered, feeling more naked than I had thought it possible to feel. There was damage. He must have worn a ring; maybe he’d put one on especially to cause more damage. I felt as sorry for my body as if it were a separate thing, not a part of me. My mind pitied my body for what had happened to it. It had to be covered, poor bleeding raped thing. I had to reach the closet to cover up that bruised body. I didn’t want it to be naked anymore, ever.
    But the closet was a few feet away. Need drove me. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, bringing them together in a tight protective parallel. Holding on to the bed table, I stood. I swayed for a second and caught myself. I shuffled forward, my knees trembling, and turned the handle of the doorknob. Opened the closet. My robe, my winter robe, the long one that closed up to the neck, that had a sash that I could tie tightly; that was what I wanted. It took me a long time to find that robe and get it on. I had to rest before I started for the hall. If my knees would just stiffen; come on, please, legs.
    Raped
. Oh Jesus God,
raped
.
    I hadn’t left the door to the hall closed when I went to bed. It was closed now. I opened it with infinite effort. It swung in silently, disclosing the blackness of the stairs and hallway.
    And I wondered if Mimi was still alive.
    The terror started all over again. My hand independently found a switch and pushed it up. The stairs leaped into light. Attila was huddled in a mass of wild-eyed panic on the landing. His tail twitched as he stared down at me. I couldn’t climb the stairs; I tried to lift my foot to the first step, and failed.
    ‘Mimi,’ I whispered. Louder, Nick, I told myself.
    ‘Mimi,’ I said raggedly in a voice I didn’t recognize as my own. I felt fluid running down my thighs. I gagged.
    Then I screamed, ‘MIMI!’
    An uncertain sound upstairs. Then a whole series of little thumps, a door opening. Attila turned his crazed eyes upward.
    Alive and unhurt, Mimi appeared at the head of the stairway, buttoning her bathrobe. She stopped on the landing when she saw me. I stared up at her.
    ‘Oh no,’ she said quietly. She brought her hands up to cover her mouth. ‘Not – oh, Nickie. Not you.’
    The tears that started down her cheeks ran over her hands. She jumped when she felt the wetness, dropped her hands to grip the banister, and crept down the stairs to me, hand over hand on the wood, like an old crippled woman. When she was level with me she looked at my face, into my eyes, and shuddered. I didn’t feel anything, anything at all. I knew that would end, soon. And there was a lot to do before it ended.
    ‘Call the police,’ I mumbled. Something was going wrong with my mouth. My knees gave way and I sat on the stairs. ‘Call them right now.’
    She moved past me. The cat streaked past her heels, mad with all this abnormality, wanting out. Away. I huddled close to the banister and crossed my arms over my breasts,