Page 52 of Nightmare Rising

Still naked below the waist, I pushed up until I sat perched on the edge, feet on the bumper—at this point, modesty would seem out of place.

Val shone. The light slick of sweat covering his naked torso caught the morning sun. He kept his gaze on my eyes as he unscrewed the cap of a bottle and raised the water to his lips.

“I guess we can try this partner thing.” The husky edge in my voice reminding me how I’d screamed; I maintained the eye contact without a flinch. Look at us both, so fucking grown up. “A life for a life and all that today makes us even.” I held out my hand for a sip of the drink.

His smile was slow and easy as he reached out and shook my hand. “I was hoping we’d come as far as friends. With benefits.”

I laughed. “I bet you were.”

“It takes two, darlin’.”

This time, a flush heated my cheeks as I took a long cool swig, and my gaze traveled beyond his shoulder, to the tree by the river. “What was that thing that attacked you?”

“She. The thing was a she. A Jorogumo, I think, comes from Japanese mythology. Half woman, half spider. She would seduce men, then pull them into a waterhole to drown them.”

“So a nightmare creature, just like the tentacle-thing.”

“Like the tentacle-thing.”

“I remember...the first day after the bomb? I saw these little black arms waving from beneath my toilet door. At the time it didn’t make sense. I mean what’s normal when the world is exploding around you?”

“I thought you couldn’t see them?”

“I guess it comes and goes?” Except that didn’t seem right, no, I’d seen nothing since the first day. Today...there had been Val fighting beside the creek.Spiders, wriggling blackness, and the face of a woman.“I saw her when she touched you?” I started nodding. “I could see and stab her after she touched you.”

“Ahh. So if we find more, I’ll hold hands with them first just so you can see them.”

I rolled my eyes. “I hope they’re rare. I mean, if they come from nightmares, who knows what’s out there? We could get hurt.” The shiver was involuntary. “Besides, I just want to get this done. I need to settle what happened to Yvaine.”

For a few breaths, he said nothing then nodded. “We should finish up looking. The area around here seems deserted, but I don’t want to push our luck. We don’t want to find out we’re on private property or something.”

Just like that, we were back to business. Somewhere during the conversation the high of adrenalin and endorphins had fizzled, leaving nothing but a sense of weight. I let gravity slide me off the car, my feet landing near my shorts.

“Hey.”

I looked up.

“You good?”

I wanted to say no I wasn’t, but even after what we’d done, admitting that would be giving too much to him. Instead I focused on the bandage around his hand, my gaze following the trail of cuts and bruises up his arms and across his chest. “I should ask you that.”

“Takes more than a scratch.” The smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

I stood there, undecided. Men always wanted to have the last say, to pretend they had things covered, but I did worry. The knife wasn’t just a knife. What if it poisoned him? I should say it.

“What if you’re poisoned by the knife, or by her?”

“Do I look poisoned? It’s okay. Come on.”

Val walked round the car before I could press him further. When he came back into sight, he handed me his ripped shirt and the bottle of water.

“Clean up and get dressed. We can go back and finish looking around the creek.”

The creek? He looked so unfazed—as if he hadn’t almost died.

Did he let everything go this quickly? Easily?

I wet the T-shirt to wash and handed him back what was left of the water. He gave me some space, pouring the remains of the bottle over his chest and back as walked back to the trunk. By the time I was zipping up, he was tugging his mostly buttoned shirt over his head. Then he picked up his Taurus, shoved it into the holster, which he draped casually over his shoulder. “Bring the knife. And listen to me if I say anything is coming. Because it won’t be a snake.”

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