He releases a small sigh. “Not good enough, Mira. What do you need in order to snap out of it?”
I feel my brows furrow with vague confusion. “Why would I want to do that?”
Dorian squeezes his arm around me. “Because zoning out isn’t the answer. Because you can trust me to have your back. Because going through life without feeling, with that empty look in your eyes, isn’t good for anyone. Least of all you.” He kisses my cheek. “Because this version of you scares me, and I want my Mira back.”
His words do something to me. They reach deep inside, accessing the person buried under layers of dissociation, stirring something odd. Making mewantto snap out of it, which is a brand-new experience for me.
My brows furrow as the fog surrounding me lessens by the faintest margin. It doesn’t disappear entirely; it just recedes a tiny bit, only enough for me to perceive the warmth of Dorian’s arms around me, for me to start feeling curiosity accompanying the questions floating around in my mind. Faint worries that accompany the thought of Val and Cara downstairs, alone with Seamus.
“Stop,” I murmur, glancing at Dorian. He’s trying to ground me, but I don’twantto be grounded right now. If I come back to myself, I’ll have to talk to him about my conversation with my stepfather. I’ll have to face the reality that I’m getting sucked back into the life that nearly killed me once, one I fought hard to escape.
“No,” Dorian says immovably, his tone hardening. “When shit gets difficult, you do not get to disappear into yourself. You face it. And you don’teverface it alone; you come to me and let me stand by your side, or at your back, or in front of you as a shield. Whatever it is, whatever that fucking monster wants, we’ll figure it out together. You willnotzone out; you will come tome.” His voice softens as he plantsa kiss on the nape of my neck. “Come back to me, Mira. Trust that I’ll protect you.”
“Stop,” I repeat, because his words are working. I yearn to trust him, to believe in him, inus. I long to believe that he’ll protect me, to be able to trustsomeoneafter a lifetime of only being able to trust myself.
My mother, though a good woman at her core, was weak. She tried to shield me as best as she could, but when push came to shove, Clyde would hurt us both. She could do nothing to stop him because she didn’t have the strength or will.
Then she was gone, and Clyde only had me to hurt.
“No,” Dorian says again. “Give me some trust, Mira. Just a little. Give me a chance to come through for you and I will.”
His words snap me back to reality. Everything slams into me at once—every feeling that faded with my dissociation. The abrupt return of all my emotions, all my fear, everything that’s built over the last hour yet was pushed into the background as I dissociated rather than processed, is too much. It feels like a freight train ramming into me. It’s crippling. It’s devastating. It physically and emotionally shatters me, making me hunch forward.
Breaths saw in and out of my chest, harsh and quick and grating. The tremor in my limbs feels overwhelming. My entire bodyburnswith anxiety, and the nausea that sweeps over me is so overwhelming, I heave. Knowing what follows when I come back from a dissociation at a bad time, I drop the blanket, rushing to the bathroom on shaky legs.
I barely get to the toilet before my dinner makes a reappearance. My nose burns, my eyes water, and my stomach contracts with painful cramps as I vomit until there’s nothing left inside me. Until I feel empty.
Dorian’s there beside me an instant after I flee. He stays with me, holding my hair out of my face, rubbing my back, murmuring words of reassurance that I can’t hear between all the choking, gasping, and puking.
Once I’m done throwing up, I slump to the side, my face contorting at the powerful cramps twisting my stomach into knots. It feels nearly impossible to get a full breath in between everything. I’m hollowed out yet filled with a swirling, angry swarm of emotions that threaten to tear me apart from the inside out.
The only stabilizing force is Dorian. Heedless of how clammy and gross I am, he flushes the toilet and takes a seat on the floor beside me, pulling me into his arms. He snags a washcloth from its resting place on the counter and uses it to clean me up as best as he can. In the complete absence of my own strength, his starts to seep into me, like sunlight penetrating the leaves of a flower in the warmth that follows a frost. The process is instinctive, almost biological, and incredibly powerful.
At any other time, I might fight it. Now, I have neither the strength nor the will.
“Clyde called,” I say, my voice a haunting whisper.
Dorian holds me a little tighter. “I know.”
“He wants me to use you to get him in contact with Sergei Novikov, who I guess is your boss.” I squeeze my eyes shut. “He wants his local, piece of shit gang boss to go into business with Sergei.”
Dorian tenses. “I see.”
“You…” a shrill laugh escapes me. “You probably would’ve found out anyways, considering you have my phone tapped, or whatever the fuck.” I release another laugh, this one sounding like it comes from a cackling witch. “The monster from my past wants to get connected with the menace in my present. It’s gotta be fate.”
“Don’t go there.” Dorian’s words are spoken in a mild tone, but there’s something razor-sharp beneath them. “I might be a menace, but I am not harmful to you. I never will be.”
“Youkidnappedme,” I rasp.
“I made you a reluctant guest for the sake of your own safety,” he retorts calmly.
“You won’t even tell mewhenI’ll stop being your guest—I might never get out of here!”
“You’re not a prisoner. You can leave whenever you want.”
Yeah, right. “If that’s the case, give me keys to my car. Let me leave right now.”
“In your current state you’d wrap us around a tree,” Dorian says, brushing the backs of his fingers up and down my arm.
