The Dragon at the Edge of The Map

Chapter 1

She kept her eyes on the floor as she let the two detectives out. Locking the door and shoving a chair under the handle to block any forced entry didn't make her feel any safer. She slid to the floor and gave up fighting the inevitable. The darkness crawled over her as she curled into a ball, trembling with the memory of the room across the hall.

Monique untangled herself from the sheets and stretched the last vestiges of sleep from her body. She could hear Rafe in the kitchen. Judging by the fingers of light pushing through the slats of the blinds, it was lunchtime. She stumbled to the bathroom to brush her teeth, and try to deal with the mess sleep had made of her hair.

She'd called Rafe an hour after the cops left. He'd buzzed her into the building, and waited at the elevator. His warmth and strength driving the last of the fear from her.

Ten minutes after leaving Rafe's bed, she snuck into the kitchen to wrap her arms around him. He made her feel safe, at least until she remembered that safety was just a temporary feeling. Her neighbor had probably felt safe. Her mother had too.

She pulled a mug from the cupboard and poured herself coffee. Rafe hated her smoking in his apartment, so she'd have to wait for her other vice.

"Afternoon, babe. You hungry?"

She watched him flip a grilled cheese sandwich in the pan. His strong hands holding the spatula delicately. His dark skin was as different from her pallor as everything else about him was. He glowed with health, and he carried a comfortable amount of padding on his frame. She was thin enough to garner looks of concern from strangers.

"You know I am."

He flipped the sandwich onto a plate and reached for the bread to start another. "Are you ready to tell me what exactly happened last night?"

Monique shrugged. When she'd called Rafe, she'd told him there was trouble with a neighbor. Leaving out the details meant she didn't have to argue with him about how unsafe her building was.

"What makes you think there's anything else to tell?" Monique added a pile of potato chips from the bag on the counter to her plate.

"Nightmares. You were fighting something all night." His attention was focused on the contents of the pan. "You'll feel better if you tell me what happened." He glanced at her. "You know I hate that you live there, so I won't mention it again."

"I like that building, and I can afford the rent." She also liked her independence and knew Rafe wanted her to move into his place. Monique wasn't ready for that, maybe never would be. It was an old argument and she didn't want to have it again. "Sorry."

"I said I wouldn't talk about it and I won't. But unless you plan to work this out in your sleep, you need to tell someone how you feel." He muttered something else to the pan as he flipped his own sandwich.

"I don't need to –"

He slapped the spatula on the counter. "You do. You keep saying you don't need to talk about your feelings, but you're human and that means you feel something. It will turn you sour, Monique. If you don't deal with this, it will dry you up and kill you."

Monique felt the familiar tightening of her stomach at the memory of the last time she'd talked about her feelings. But she didn't want to lose sleep, so maybe Rafe was right, talking about it would make it go away faster. "Okay. Look my neighbor got murdered last night. I'm fine. I didn't even know him." Rafe didn't know what it took to talk to a psychologist. How they twisted everything you told them.

"Did you see what they did to him?" Rafe dropped his plate onto the table. "If you did, it would explain your nightmares."

"What do you mean, what they did to him?" There was no hope of getting out of this without a fight if Rafe had any of the details.

"I knew something happened. I checked the police radio transmissions. And then I called my friend in the morgue. He told me what the body looked like when it came in." Rafe had friends all over the city in all kinds of professions. His work as an investigative blogger meant he needed contacts. The goriest stories brought the most hits to his blog, and that meant more affiliate money. Monique didn't like the fact that he'd used those contacts on her. That he'd known what happened before she decided to tell him, like he was testing her.

No longer hungry, Monique pushed her plate away. Her hands reaching for the pack of cigarettes in her purse before remembering Rafe had no ashtrays. "Okay. Yes I did see it. Yes, it was horrible, but I am fine. I didn't know the guy. From what the cops said, it was personal, so I'm fine. I'm fine." She hated the shake in her voice at the end.

Rafe pushed her plate back toward her. "Eat before you get so thin you disappear. If you were okay, why did you call me? If you are okay, why did you have nightmares?"

"I called you because I didn't want to spend the night alone. I was already going to call you before I saw the... and I don't know why I had nightmares." She took a bite of the sandwich hoping she could get it down her tightening throat. At least it would give her some time to cool off before she ended up saying something that would hurt him. That's what always happened.

"You say that all the time. Nothing bothers you apparently."

Monique didn't want to have this argument, not now and, preferably, not ever. "I just don't see the point of talking about feeling crappy. I really don't feel that bad about it. Is that wrong? You used to like the fact that I didn't weep over stupid things." And it was safer not to care too much.

Rafe sighed, and she could see him work to hold in his temper. "Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who feels anything in this relationship." He looked away from her. "If it's just about the sex, let me know."

"It's not." She stood and went to the living area of the open plan apartment. "I'm going home. I think it's best if we don't talk for a couple of days." If he really loved her, he'd let it go. Maybe a few days apart would cool everything down again. She started for the door.

"Are you going to call me? Or is this your way of ending it? I deserve better than this if it is." His voice was quiet, and Monique knew she'd hurt him more than she'd intended.

"I'll call you," she said as she left.

Waiting for the elevator, she wondered if he was right. Was this relationship all about the sex? Why did he have to want more than she could give? He knew why she couldn't give him more, and it had been enough until recently.

Perhaps it was time to end it, before he got hurt. Perhaps she should take advantage of this fight to leave.

When the elevator arrived, Monique pulled out her cigarettes, ready to light up as soon as she stepped out of the front door of his building. Nicotine helped fill that hole inside where other people probably kept the feelings she hadn't felt since her eighteenth birthday.

***

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