“So, what about your lifespan? Does having Reflex Syncope make it shorter?”
The girls have been interrogating Eli for the past hour about his condition.
How often does it happen?
Can you tell when it’s coming?
Is there medication?
Is it genetic?
Question after question after question.
Eli answers every one of them with that patient, soft voice of his. And the entire time, I sit across the room pretending not to hover.
Not that I mind the interrogation. After Eli fell asleep on my chest last night, I couldn’t follow him no matter how hard I tried. So, staying as still as possible so he wouldn’t wake up or move, I grabbed my phone and researched everything I could think of about Reflex Syncope.
Symptoms. Triggers. Treatment. Emergency precautions.
But I never once thought to look up lifespan.
And now my lungs won’t fucking work because what if this thing is a ticking clock I didn’t know about?
Eli breathes in. Soft. Steady. Completely unaware he’s strangling me with silence.
“Only if I have an episode while doing something that could result in my death,” he says finally. “Like driving, for example. Legally, I’m not allowed to drive because I could pass out in the middle of the freeway.”
All the women nod sympathetically.
I’m trying not to punch a hole in the concrete wall.
“What about swimming?” Sunny asks gently.
“I don’t,” Eli says with that small, sad smile that cuts me open. “It’s too risky. I don’t even take baths. If I passed out like I did the other day… even if I was lying down, once my body went limp, my head could slip under, and I’d drown.”
Fuck!
I don’t even realize I’ve stood up until every head turns toward me.
“You’re never taking a bath without me in the room,” I say, voice rougher than gravel. “Or a shower. Fuck.”
Eli looks over at me slowly, brows scrunching together like he’s trying to figure out why I sound like someone just told me the world is ending.
He holds my stare for a few seconds before Sunny asks another question, dragging his attention away like my heart wasn’t just hanging out of my damn chest.
My pulse is thundering behind my lungs, too loud, too violent, like my ribs are trying to cage a fucking earthquake. I drag a breath in through my nose, then another, trying to shove all these wild, unfamiliar emotions back where men like me usually keep them.
But they don’t go.
They won’t go.
Never in my life have I been worried about someone’s life and well-being the way I am with him. And I’ve only known him three fucking weeks.
Three weeks…and somehow this man has wormed himself under my skin, behind my ribs, straight into the spot I didn’t even know was empty.
Eli doesn’t know it…but he has the power to fucking destroy me.
“Listen up, everyone,” Spike says as he reenters the bunker from the main door. “The compound is about to be home to a lot of fucking guests. Riley, Sunny, Lila, Abigail, and Eli…I need you five to stay down here with the children until I give the all-clear. I’ll have guards posted both inside and outside all entry points. Under no circumstances are you to go topside until myself or one of my officers comes to retrieve you.”
