Page 29 of Raven's Dawn
All that grief certainly did a number on her mental health. But it wasn’t quite the same as what had happened here.
There was a part of me that wanted to pry. Curiosity was perhaps my biggest character flaw. But not here. Not now. Not when we were walking through blood.
“Sure,” I murmured, taking her hand once more. “I’m sorry.”
That, I got a smile for. “Don’t be. Like you said, I’m handling this a lot better because of it.”
“Small victories, I suppose.”
“Honestly, I was more worried about your mental state than mine here.”
I arched a brow. “Is that right?”
“It is.”
“And yet, Graham and I are the only ones who’ve seen a battleground before.”
“You saw the battleground. But you weren’t fighting on it.”
There was no stopping the ache that pinged through my chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Eyes sympathetic, she met my gaze. “Not that you didn’t witness horrible things or that you’re not traumatized by them. I wasn’t trying to invalidate your experience.”
“But?”
“No but, really,” she said. “Just that I know how much that shit has fucked you up. I wasn’t sure if being here, facing these things”—she gestured around—“would make you spiral or something.”
With a deep breath, I shook my head. “I doubt it. Trauma is an odd thing, you know. Humans, we’re so quick to adapt. When we’re in situations like this, when we know there’s danger around every turn, we act. Cognitive processing slows. It’s only once it’s over that we register it. Living through something is often easier than living after it.”
She snorted.
I laughed. “What?”
“You’re really giving me something to look forward to, aren’t you?”
Chuckling, I squeezed her hand tighter. “That’s not to say you’ll experience that. I may not either this time around. Many of the men I knew back then didn’t develop PTSD. It isn’t unanimous. People just handle these things differently. It fascinates me, really. The human mind—that’s what fascinates me. It used to intimidate me, but now that I can read people’s minds, it opens up so many doors.”
“Yeah? You gonna go back to school for a doctorate in neuroscience?”
“Perhaps with a minor in psychology. After all, with the ability to read minds, and the current scientific understanding of the human brain, paired with imaging and budding technology, there’s so much to discover. It makes me wonder why other mind readers haven’t.”
“Probably because mind readers understand the brain,” she said. “They don’t need imaging and technology to figure it out.”
“True. I wonder if that’s how Graham sees it.”
I was reminded of another question, then, with both trauma and mind-reading at the forefront of my thoughts. What had the inside of Camila’s mind looked like? Graham had known her. Surely he had glanced inside a few times.
“He used to say that it was like everything was firing at once,” Rain said.
“I’m sorry?”
“My mom. I asked Graham that same question about her mind once. What it was like. And that’s what he said. Like everything was firing at once.”
It shouldn’t have, but it took me a moment to realize how she knew what I was thinking. While I was used to Graham doing it, Rain had never gone into my mind without permission.
When the four of us bonded, shortly after, we decided it wasn’t right to constantly invade one another’s privacy that way. After talking to the other par animarum, they agreed that this was standard. Although we had access to one another’s mind at any and all times, it was best in relationships to respect one another’s individuality and private thoughts.
Because of situations exactly like this.