A Secret In Your Throat

Prologue

I sat up straight in bed, as wide awake as though someone had shouted in my ear.
The room was dimly lit by an oil lantern on the table. The single-room apartment, provided to refugees by the crumbling city governments, was hot and sticky. The window unit air conditioner, that had been humming when I drifted to sleep, sat silent - not particularly surprising. Glancing outside the sheer curtains at the city line told me we were under yet another rolling blackout.
I was used to this now. Used to waking up with my short, inky black hair stuck to my head with sweat. Used to the old-fashioned, government-issued oil lamp flickering in the dark and giving my home an eerie glow.
I was too afraid to sleep in the dark anymore.
Something was strange about tonight. I had the sick feeling in my stomach that I wasn't alone. I sat up straighter and glanced around again - the only part of my apartment that was not visible was the half-closed bathroom door.
Rubbing my eyes with the heel of my hand, I grabbed the cup of water on the plastic milk crate I kept upside down next to my bed - which was just a government-issued twin mattress on the floor. I drank what was left of it down in one swallow and put my bare feet on the cheap linoleum floor.
I moved to the second window and opened it wide, hoping to catch a breeze from the stifling, humid Seattle summer night. I was disappointed.
I was annoyed that I had used my rationed shower during the day. I knew blackouts were at least a weekly occurrence. I never thought to save it for a nice cool-
Something creaked.
I whirled, taking a step backward. In my thrift shop cotton shorts and tank top, I felt extremely vulnerable. Even as I moved to my table - a cheap card table, left by the previous tenant - and picked up the stake I'd carried with me for months, I felt unprotected. Unsafe. Frail.
I crept toward the bathroom, silent on my bare feet. Just like he taught me. Slow and soft and always tense and prepared to drive the stake home.
I slowly pushed open the bathroom door, and ripped the curtain aside.
Nothing. Empty.
I sighed and leaned against the door, the adrenaline still coursing through me. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. I rubbed my face with my free hand, the tears stinging them already.
Stupid. Paranoid. Wishful.
"Rae."
I froze, my heart thrumming again. I caught a dim glimpse of myself in the tiny mirror, the light gleaming very softly on my silhouette.
I always knew he would come for me, someday, because he made me swear. And he had laid the most obvious trap. A quiet trap. Sure to not wake the neighbors.
I steeled myself and spun, with no more hesitation, and threw the stake end-over-end with all my strength in the direction his voice had come.
As he evaded my only weapon, it flew out my open window and fell.
I gritted my teeth and growled, "You made me SWEAR!" as I launched myself at him, hating him, furious at my stupidity. He waited for the blackout. He climbed six stories to my open window. No need to break it and draw attention to himself. I had let him in.
He grasped my upper arms and held me at bay as though I were a mere child struggling to reach him. I kept my eyes down, on his shoes - absurdly clean and shiny under his black suit pants. I couldn't look him in the face.
I hated him.
"Rae," he said again, "Look at me."
He used his thumb and forefinger under my chin to lift my head. I was caught in a gleam of hazel, so ethereally mesmerizing that I forgot to breathe. The eyes I'd known. The eyes that had promised me safety and shelter and held laughter as he patiently taught me to survive.
I began to tremble. I couldn't look away. For all my failures, my loneliness, my guilt, I still loved this man.
I hated this man.
"Gee." I whispered.