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“Move, Sweeney, or we’ll move you,” Fielder’s voice is deadly soft, and I have no doubt that he means it.
“Don’t fucking threaten her!” Cohen snarls. “Isn’t it bad enough that you let the entire campus beat her down repeatedly? Do you really need to do the same fucking thing to her now? When she trusts you?”
That pulls them up short and they all glance at each other, likely having a conversation that Cohen and I can’t hear. And then Hardin looks right at me and says, “her safety is more important than her trust. Move, love.”
My chest collapses, like he’d just punched me right in the goddamn heart. Tears prick my eyes and I grit my teeth against them. “Cohen isn’t here to hurt me. He’s here tohelp.”
Gideon and Hardin chuckle, humorless and chilling. “No, sweetheart, he’s not.”
“Goddammit! Why won’t any of youlisten?” I stamp my foot with the last word. I blink. The world around me is suddenly black. Fully and completely black. Gone are the trees and the sunlight, the forest floor thick with pine needles, Ezra’s house. The driveway with Cohen’s car.
Cohen himself. Fielder, Ezra, Gideon and Hardin. All gone.
What the hell happened? What thehellhappened?
My chest clenches, my lungs go tight, and I can’t breathe. I bend at my waist and press my hands between my breasts, trying to soothe myself, but it doesn’t work. Nothing works. I can’t see anything. My ears are muffled and aching, like they need to pop. Sounds come, but I can’t make any of them out.
I’m gasping, clawing, trying to suck in a portion of air, but I can’t. Or if I am, it’s like I’m sucking in the black, taking it into myself and it isn’t giving me what I need. It’s not giving me the air my body craves.
Where are they? Where are they? Where are they?
Someone bumps into me, nearly knocking me to the ground, but their hands on my shoulders keep me on my feet and then urges me up to a standing position. A muffled voice filters through, but the ringing in my ears gets louder. The hands slide up my shoulders to my neck and a hard body presses against me, from my forehead all the way to my toes.
My fingers clutch at him, curling into the fabric of his sweatshirt.
His breath puffs across my lips and that reminds me I can’t breathe. I need air in my lungs.
My ears pop painfully and suddenly sounds come rushing in at me. Four voices calling my name frantically, trying to find me in that infinite black.
“You can breathe, wildcard,” Cohen says urgently, forehead pressed to mine. “You can breathe. There is air around you, you just need to take it in. Don’t fight it.”
“Breathe, baby,” Fielder says from somewhere nearby, but not touching me. “Please, please breathe.”
I wish I could see him, wish I could see all of them, but there’s just black. Black. Black. Black.
Even Cohen, who is right in front of me, I can’t see.
“She’s going to pass out,” Ezra warns, and my face twitches toward him, but Cohen keeps me firmly pressed against him.
Oh, fuck, he’s probably right. I haven’t had a breath in at least a full two minutes. Bright light flares behind my eyes. My knees try to buckle, but Cohen keeps me standing, one of his arms sliding around my waist.
“Take a breath and then we can deal with the shadows,” he urges. “Please, wildcard. Stay with me.”
God, I want to. I want to do as he says. Why can’t he tell that I want to breathe more than anything, but I can’t? I can’t.I can’t.My body just will not allow it. My hands scrabble at his shirt, trying to remain lucid, trying to grab something that will keep me here with him.
But I lose the battle and the darkness that surrounds us takes me under.
When I wake up, I think I’m still there, still in that deep black space. But it doesn’t feel the same, not in the slightest. That had been inky absolute black, and now I can see flares of light pressing against my eyelids.
Your eyes are closed, you idiot.Oh, right. That makes sense if I passed out. Groaning, I peel open first one lid, then the other and blink up at the white ceiling with thick wood beams. Voices filter to me, muffled again, but this time I recognize it as a silencing spell cast by Fielder. They’re having a conversation in the same freaking room as me, that they don’t want me to overhear.Again.
Wonderful.
I sit up cautiously and the murmur of voices ceases. I’m on the couch in the living room, with a blanket draped over me. Movement catches my attention and I turn my head toward the four men sitting nearby. Ezra pushes to his feet and approaches slowly, like he’s worried I might run or something, but I feel too woozy to even contemplate such an action.
He brushes the tips of his fingers over my cheek, then tucks a strand of hair behind my ear as he smiles down at me softly. “How are you feeling, Ro?”
“Like shit,” I answer truthfully, my voice raspy like I’d been to a concert and spent three hours singing at the top of my lungs or something. Or like I’d been screaming too long and too loud into a void. “Where’s Cohen?”
