Becausethatwas helpful.
Did he know what it felt like to be told to breathe when your body had already decided it wasn’t doing that correctly anymore? It was like telling water not to be wet.
My lungsweren’t cooperating.
They were stuck somewhere halfway, pulling air in just enough to keep me upright but not enough to settle anything.
“You can do it, baby.”
It scraped going in, my chest tightening around it instead of opening. There was a dull ache building right behind my sternum, spreading outward.
Sweat prickled along the back of my neck, my hands unsteady, fingers not quite doing what I told them to.
Another breath—if you could even call it that—hitched and stalled, and I swallowed hard against the nausea creeping up the back of my throat, my stomach rolling like it was trying to reject the entire situation.
For fuck’s sake.
I forced air down my throat, deeper this time, holding it because I didnottrust my body not to waste it the second I let go.
“Okay,” I gasped. “Okay.”
“Good boy. Now, tell me what you saw.”
“It’s—” My words tripped over each other as they came out. “It’s Otto— or William—or whoever the fuck he is?—”
“The neighbor?”
“Yes.” I nodded too fast, my vision still lagging a half-second behind everything. “Yes, the neighbor, the fucking neighbor. The guy who flirts with my mom. The one who fixed our sink, who—who waved at me every morning like he?—”
Jesus Christ.
“He drove me to school, Henry. For four years. I sat in his car. I?—”
My stomach lurched.
I swallowed against it, shaking my head, trying to force the pieces into place.
“He doesn’t have a mustache,” I said, grasping at it like it mattered. “And he’s younger there, but that’s him. I swear to you, that’s him.”
I looked at Henry, panic climbing again.
“Why is his name different?”
The question barely left my mouth before the room tilted.
My knees bent before I told them to, my hand dropping to the desk, then the floor, like I needed something solid to stop the spin.
I crouched there, one hand braced, the other pressing into my stomach as it twisted.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, my voice thin again, hollowed out. “Do you think?—”
I had to swallow twice before I could finish it.
“Do you think he’s the one who took Abel?”
The floor dropped out from under me.
My body lost track of where it was supposed to be, my balance slipping sideways before I could catch it.
