Page 22 of Curious Hearts (The Healing Hearts #2)
CHAPTER TWENTY
Jessica woke to darkness, the vague sense something was wrong. Her mind pulled reluctantly from sleep, body still heavy with exhaustion. A sound, faint but persistent, scraped at the edges of her consciousness—a light scratching followed by quick pattering.
She lay still, listening. Nothing. Perhaps one of the cats was?—
There it was again. Scurrying. Followed by a thump.
She pushed herself up on her elbows, removing the black-out facemask.
The digital clock on her nightstand read two seventeen a.m. A shadow moved on the floor at the foot of her bed—Empress, tail lashing, body coiled tight as a spring.
The calico’s attention was fixed on something beneath the antique dresser.
Jessica reached for the lamp, fingers fumbling in the dark. “Empress? What are you?—”
Light flooded the room. Empress darted forward, paws batting at something that shot across the floor. Something large, brown, with a long, naked tail.
Jessica’s scream died in her throat, a strangled sound that barely escaped her lips. Her body seized with a primal, consuming terror that bypassed all rational thought. A rat. An enormous fucking rat was in her bedroom.
“No, no, no—” She scrambled backward against the headboard, drawing her knees to her chest. The rat zigzagged across the hardwood floor with Empress in close pursuit, knocking into the bedside table.
Jessica lunged for higher ground, her elbow catching the lamp. It toppled, crashing against the partially open bedroom door, slamming it shut with a splintering sound.
The rat raced along the baseboard, disappearing behind the curtains. Empress followed, a blur of fur. Jessica’s chest constricted, each breath shallower than the last. Her hands trembled violently as she reached for her phone.
As a child, rats had terrified her. One had bitten her on a trip to India, aged eight, requiring booster rabies shots and leaving a small crescent scar on her palm that she could still trace with her fingertip. Twenty-five years later, that fear lived in her bones, rising now with brutal force.
She scrolled to recent contacts, finger hovering over Ali’s name. It was after two in the morning. But the alternative was spending the night trapped with the rat, alone with her terror. Pride warred with desperation for three rapid heartbeats before she hit the call button.
One ring. Two. Three.
“Jessica?” Ali’s voice, thick with sleep. “Everything okay?”
“There’s a—” Jessica’s voice broke. She inhaled sharply. “A rat. My bedroom. Empress is chasing it and I knocked over the lamp and now the door is stuck and I can’t?—”
“I’m coming,” Ali said, suddenly alert. “Ten minutes. Can you get out of the room?”
“No,” Jessica managed. “The door won’t?—”
Empress leaped onto the bed, front paws landing on Jessica’s legs as she pounced after her prey. Jessica jerked backward with a cry, the phone slipping from her grasp and clattering to the floor.
“Ali?” She couldn’t reach the phone without leaving the bed. The rat scurried beneath the nightstand as Empress circled, tail lashing with anticipation.
Jessica forced herself against the safety of the headboard again, her knees tighter to her chest, breathing in quick, shallow gasps. To be held prisoner by eight ounces of rodent wasn’t rational, she knew that theoretically, but her body had other ideas.
Minutes stretched like taffy. Jessica tracked the rat’s lightning movements by watching Empress, who stalked her prey with silent intensity.
Occasionally the calico would freeze, then pounce, sending the rat skittering to a new hiding place.
Each appearance sent fresh waves of nausea through Jessica’s body.
A sound in the hallway cut through her panic—footsteps, then Ali’s voice.
“Jessica? Are you okay?”
“In here,” she called, voice cracking. “The door is stuck.”
“Stand back from the door,” Ali warned.
“I’m on the bed!”
A solid thud, then another. Wood creaked. On the third impact, the door burst open, sending the light which had been jamming it closed, rattling across the floor. Ali stood braced against the doorframe, breathing hard.
She wore gray sweatpants hanging low on her hips and a faded UCD Veterinary Medicine T-shirt with no visible bra underneath. Her dark hair cascaded in tangles around her shoulders.
Jessica had never seen anything more welcome in her life.
“Where is—” Ali began, but Empress answered the question for her. The calico made a lightning-fast lunge beneath the dresser, emerging with something large and brown dangling from her jaws.
“Holy shit,” Ali breathed, eyes widening. “That’s not a rat, that’s practically a beaver. How did she even get that upstairs?”
Jessica couldn’t respond, still frozen on the bed. Ali snapped into action, pulling a pair of thick gloves from her back pocket and a folded bag from the other.
“Empress, good girl,” Ali crooned, approaching slowly. “What a mighty hunter you are. Jessica, can you call her? She might release it for you.”
“I’m not calling her if she’s going to release that damned thing!”
“It’s okay. I’m here. The minute she releases it, I’ll dispose of it. Just trust me.”
Jessica swallowed, her eyes darting from Ali to the cat that had caused this mayhem. “Empress. Here.”
The cat’s ears twitched. She padded toward the bed, prize still clutched between her teeth, neck arched with pride.
Ali moved with care, unfolding what looked like a medical waste bag while keeping her eyes on the cat. “That’s it. Good girl.”
In one smooth motion, Ali dropped the bag open beneath Empress just as the cat deposited her trophy towards the floor.
Jessica shrieked regardless.
“Perfect timing,” Ali murmured, scooping up the dead rat and sealing it in the bag before Jessica could properly register what had happened. “Always bring medical waste bags to a rodent emergency. First rule of veterinary school.”
She withdrew antiseptic wipes from yet another pocket, thoroughly cleaning the spot where the rat had been, and then in wider arcs across the floor.
Her movements came obviously from years of sanitizing much worse situations.
She peeled off the gloves, tucking them into the waste bag and securely sealed the end.
Jessica watched, still unable to move from her position against the headboard. The panic was receding, but in its wake came mortification. She had called Ali in the middle of the night, screaming about a rat like a cartoon character standing on a chair.
“Thank you,” she managed finally. “I’m sorry I woke you. It was just?—”
“Hey. No apologies needed.” Ali set the sealed package by the door and crossed to the bed. “Everyone has their thing. Mine’s centipedes. Can’t handle those wriggly little monsters.”
Jessica unfurled her legs slowly, muscles stiff from being tensed for so long. “Still. It’s embarrassing.”
“Being afraid isn’t embarrassing. Neither is asking for help.” Ali stood at the edge of the bed. “Besides, you definitely had cause. That was a monster rat.”
“How did you get in?” The question only occurred to her now that Ali was standing in front of her.
“Vivian’s emergency key!” Ali glanced back towards the front door.
“She kept it in one of those plastic rocks. I wasn’t sure if it would still be there but I found it.
” She held up the key, in much the same as Empress had presented the rat minutes earlier.
“She worried about what would happen to the cats if she died in the middle of Walmart.
Not that she'd shop there now, even if she was still?—"
Before Jessica could think better of it, she lunged forward and wrapped her arms around Ali’s shoulders, pulling her close. “Thank you,” she whispered against Ali’s hair. “I don’t know what I would have done.”
Ali’s body went momentarily still before her arms circled Jessica’s waist, returning the embrace.
The touch of her hands against Jessica’s bare skin was electric—Ali’s warmth seeped through the thin cotton of her shirt, and Jessica became acutely aware of the sheerness of her camisole and shorts as their breasts pressed together.
“That’s what—” Ali’s voice caught, and she cleared her throat. “That’s what friends are for.”
Jessica pulled back just enough to meet Ali’s eyes, their faces inches apart. She could feel Ali’s breath against her lips, see the faint constellation of freckles across her nose, notice the way her pupils had dilated in the dim light.
“Friends,” Jessica echoed, her gaze dropping briefly to Ali’s mouth.
The word hung incomplete between them, insufficient for what Jessica felt building in her chest. Her skin prickled with awareness, pulse quickening beneath Ali’s fingertips.
The distance she’d maintained for weeks collapsed in the aftermath of fear and relief, leaving her with nothing but honest need.
Ali’s lips parted slightly, her fingers flexing against Jessica’s back. Neither moved away. Neither spoke.