Rhysand came to the house a week later, accompanied by a man that Feyre didn't care to acknowledge for more than a second. She was sitting in the living room when they came in, Rhysand in his usual leather jacket and jeans, the man in a plain suit behind him. Tamlin came to greet them, and she heard him call the man "Mr Hybern," but she couldn't have cared less if he was actually the CEO of Hybern Inc., she didn't get up from her armchair.

Tamlin and the man went to Tamlin's office, and Rhys stood by the front door, right in the corner of her vision. He stayed there for a few minutes, but then he came inside.

"Hey, Darling."

"Hi."

He took a seat on the armchair in front of her. "How are you?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay."

They fell silent, Feyre looking anywhere but at him, Rhys playing with a loose thread from the chair. She was wondering how long he would stay there, when he spoke.

"I don't sleep much either, since that night."

"Why do you think I don't sleep?"

"Well, unless the violet circles under your eyes are a fashion choice, I'd say you didn't catch more than two hours a night in two weeks."

She rolled her eyes at him, and he smiled.

"Have you been having nightmares? Is that why you don't sleep?"

She didn't want to answer at first, but Rhys kept staring at her, and she knew he wouldn't let go until she'd answered.

"It's part of it. Most of the time, I just can't seem to fall asleep. But then yeah, when I do, I have… images."

"What sort of images?"

"I see Sandy's hair," she admitted.

"Her hair?"

"Yes. When she died, her hair was spread out around her head like a crown, and the blood mixed with her hair and… anyway, I keep seeing her hair."

She had blurted all of this out in just a few seconds, as if she had been eager to let it out. And maybe she had been, because now that she had told Rhys, it seemed like a minuscule part of the weight on her chest had lifted. Not a lot, not enough to make a true difference on her feelings, but maybe enough to allow her to think about something else from time to time.

"You must think I'm crazy," she told him.

He stared at her for a while before saying anything.

"The first dead body I saw, the woman had been picking sunflowers when she died. She was in her kitchen when her neighbor came in and stabbed her, so the sunflowers were displayed neatly in a blue vase, and the vase was splattered with blood. To this day, sometimes I can't fall asleep because I picture the drops of blood on the vase. I don't think you're crazy, Feyre. I think you're a good person who lived through something very traumatic, and now your mind is finding a way to cope with it."

She considered what he'd said for a while. "You really think it's normal?"

"Absolutely. You know what I keep seeing this week, everytime I close my eyes?"

"What?"

"You."

"Me?"

"I keep seeing the look of horror on your face when you were kneeling next to her. And I keep seeing your silent tears when I was washing the blood off your legs. I see more than my share of dead bodies in my line of work, and although it's never pleasant, I've gotten more or less used to it." She didn't want to know why his line of work required him to have seen that many dead bodies. "But seeing the pain and the horror on your face… It haunts me."

"I don't know what to say." He got up from the chair as he heard the door of Tamlin's office opening. He went up to her and handed her a piece of paper.

"There's nothing to say, Feyre. You can call me at this number anytime, so don't hesitate if you need to talk."

"Why are you doing this?"

He considered. "Because your pain is already haunting my dreams, Darling, and I don't want you to suffer more."

He left her with that, and was back at the front door by the time Tamlin and Mr Hybern arrived. Clenching the piece of paper in her hand, Feyre gave him a small smile before he left. 'Don't hesitate if you need to talk.' He'd told her he thought it was stupid that Tamlin didn't want her to talk about Sandy's death. Apparently, he had decided to do something about it.

02:14 - Are you sleeping?

Feyre stared at the text message she'd just sent. It was the third time in as many days that she wrote to him.

She'd slept nearly three hours without interruption after their conversation, and she'd kept her small lunch down. But the liberating effect of their talk hadn't lasted. It had taken her a few more sleepless nights before working up the courage to write, but now that she had started, she didn't want to stop. They'd talked on the phone the first night, because Feyre was afraid of writing about the murder. But Tamlin had gotten up at the sound of her voice in the living room, so the second night, they'd only texted about trivial subjects.

Rhys, 02:15 - No. You okay?

She let a small smile spread across her face at his immediate answer.

02:16 - Not really. I keep seeing her eyes tonight.

Rhys, 02:17 - I'm sorry, Darling… what do you want to talk about?

02:18 - Why can't you sleep?

He took an extra minute to answer.

Rhys, 02:21 - I kept seeing your eyes.

02:22 - Oh. I'm sorry.

Rhys, 02:23 - Don't apologize, it's not your fault. What were you up to today?

02:25 - Not much. I tried to go into my painting studio, but it was too hard. The last painting I started had red roses in them and now I can only see blood when I see that color.

Rhys, 02:26 - I'm sorry. You paint?

02:27 - Yes. It's not amazing, but I usually enjoy it.

Rhys, 02:30 - I'm sure it's beautiful. And you shouldn't force yourself to paint right now, I think it'll come back to you when you're ready. I went to a painting exhibit yesterday, I'd have invited you if I'd known you liked it.

02:31 - You went to an art exhibit?

Rhys, 02:32 - Is it that improbable?!

02:33 - I just didn't take you for the artsy type, that's all.

Rhys, 02:34 - Because of my job? ;)

02:35 - Well… yeah. It's stupid, I know.

Rhys, 02:37 - It's not stupid. But yeah, I do enjoy going to exhibits from time to time.

Smiling at her phone, Feyre tried to picture Rhysand, with his black leather jacket, his old pair of jeans and his Doc Martens, in one of the immaculate galleries of the Rainbow, saying praises about an abstract painting. She laughed at the image in her mind, sent him a text describing how she had a hard time imagining him fitting in at an exhibit, and she then yawned. She was curled up on an armchair in the living room, a blanket thrown on herself to fight the chill of the night. It was May already, but the nights were still cold, especially in the living room. But she had difficulty falling asleep anywhere else, so she'd taken to coming in there everytime Tamlin was asleep.

And then there was the matter of the text messages.

She knew she should have been able to tell Tamlin. After all, Rhys and her were just texting harmlessly, trying to get through this horrific time. Tamlin wasn't in good enough shape to talk to her about all that had happened, so she had found someone who could, even if it was just asking how she was doing, and then talking about anything else. But even as she thought about how harmless their texting was, she knew Tamlin wouldn't see it that way. He was jealous of the smallest interactions she would have with a man who wasn't him, even when it was with friends of his like Lucien, so she didn't dare to imagine how he would react if he knew she texted another man in the middle of the night. He wouldn't listen to her saying that there was nothing more than understanding between them. He wouldn't care that those text messages helped her get a little better. He would just tell her to stop. And she didn't want to. Not when the only thing making her smile these last few days had been the sound of a new text in the dead of night. She knew it was wrong to hide something from Tamlin, but if she was being honest with herself, she didn't really care. Tamlin wanted her to get better, he wanted her to stop talking about his illegal job, and what had happened to Sandy. And she wasn't talking about it anymore. She was giving him what he wanted, and she wasn't obligated to tell him how.

They kept on texting for maybe an hour before finally, Feyre fell asleep on the armchair, and spent the rest of the night sleeping better than she had the past two weeks.