Page 263 of Breathe Like Hell

I slammed the sides of my fists into the ground and screamed as loud as I could.

No.

It was supposed to work.

I wrapped my arms around the tree and pressed the side of my face against the bark, my teeth clenched, my eyes squeezed shut, tears pouring down my face. My chest was so tight I could hardly get a single breath in. It felt like my heart was going to break through my ribs.

I can’t do this.

I can’t breathe.

I just need it to stop hurting.

I squeezed the trunk harder, shoved my face against the rough bark, my tears staining the wood. I just kept pushing harder and harder, needing the pain, until a sharp piece of the bark finally cut through my skin, stinging my cheek. That tiny sting reached right into the very heart of me, spearing deep into my soul, ripping me to shreds.

No longer did I get bruises on the backs of my thighs, leather kisses, cruel hands that knew how to take care of me better than anyone else. I only got this. Wood pricking my tear-slick cheek.

It was so fucking unfair.

Before I could make sense of what was happening, something hot and bright appeared to the side of me, taking my breath—a crimson flame, building up taller and taller and⁠—

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

MICAH

The world came back to me in stages. Shadows first, then shape and color and detail. I was standing in a forest, my eyes blinking open, my head spinning. Heat dissipated off my skin, red embers drifting into the sky.

Dakota crashed into me, burying her face in my chest, shaking and sobbing and grabbing onto me for dear life.

What is happening?

“You’re okay,” I forced myself to say through the pain invading my withered lungs, through the sheer panic making my thoughts race. My voice was rough, and I tried to clear my throat. All my muscles ached, all my veins burned, and I could barely keep myself upright through the disorientation. “I’ve got you now.”

“Micah,” she cried, her tears warm on her cheek pressed to my skin, her small hands holding my back.

“Masters,” I murmured, trying to hide the way my throat was closing. I held the back of her head, felt her soft hair on my palm.

All my thoughts were disjointed, like I was missing all the connecting pieces, and I couldn’t figure out what’d just happened to me. I was alive again, somehow. Dakota had somehow dragged me back into the world. And I was terrified because I had no clue what that meant, or what my life would be like now.

“Are you okay?” Dakota asked, turning her head to look up at me, her chin wobbling and her eyes full of tears. I just nodded and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, ignoring the trembling in my fingers.

She needs me.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Are you okay?”

“No.”

“Come here.”

I managed to shift my eyes and look down at my arms wrapped around her. My veins were black, snaking under my skin, webbed like a sinister spiderweb over my forearms and hands. Without looking, I knew the rest of my body looked the same. I could feel it.

When I’d burned all the neon out of my blood, it’d blackened my veins.

Every inch of me hurt, and there was a weakness in my body I’d never felt before.

I looked around, taking in all the trees surrounding us. There was moss under my feet, damp with rain, and more droplets sprinkling on my shoulders and the top of my head. The air was thick in my tired lungs, heavy and settling, the neon content too low to help me now.

My eyes landed on another figure through the dark trees. He was walking away from us, and I wasn’t strong or lucid enough to feel for his emotions, but I didn’t need my aspect to see the shaking of his shoulders.