“Oh my god,” I moaned. “Fuck. What are we going to do?”
“Use our cell phones?” he said. There was a sharpness in his tone but also confusion, which made sense. I’d have felt the same if I saw some grown adult losing it like a toddler watching scary clown movies.
My fingers trembled as I reached into my pocket. “Right. Right, yeah. I…is there a number, or…?”
“Let me take care of it,” he said. There was little inflection in his voice, but he didn’t sound as mean as usual. I nodded, shuffling over until I was braced against the corner, and then I closed my eyes and listened. “Yes, hello. My name is Creek Middleton, and I’m trapped in your elevator. Mm-hmm. Main corridor, somewhere between the fifth and sixth floor. Yes, we were heading to the lobby. Two people. Oh. Well…aw,hell, okay. Yeah, I think so. Thank you.”
“Let me guess. We die in here.Hunger Gamesstyle, elevator edition,” I mumbled.
“Are you always this dramatic?”
“Only when I’m trapped in a tiny box with a man who would definitely kill and eat me, even before we ran out of food,” I said.
“You’re disgusting,” he snapped.
I laughed, but the sound came out just shy of hysterical, and I realized I was still on the verge of panic. “Will you do me a favor?”
“Probably not, but feel free to ask.”
I finally opened my eyes to glare at him, and I found him leaning to the side, his arms folded over his big chest, his prosthesis bent at the knee and resting against the elevator wall. “Are you always such a dick?”
“Is that the favor? Answering ridiculous questions?”
“No,” I snapped. I dislodged my fingers, which were now shaped into a hideous claw, and I forced them open so I could run a hand down my face. My palm felt clammy and gross. “Can you just…reassure me that we still have air. Like, you can feel it coming from the vents, right?”
He blinked at me like he was trying to assess whether or not I was serious, and then he shrugged and tilted his face up. He looked strangely ethereal and soft in the dim light—nothing like the man in PT with the hard edges and anger issues.
It was…strange.
And kind of nice.
Then he looked at me, and all the disdain was back, though maybe not as much as usual. “I still feel the A/C. The operator said it’s a connection issue with the cables, not an issue with the power. They called their IT team.”
“Oh, great,” I moaned.
At that, the left side of his mouth twitched, but a small part of me wondered if I’d hallucinated that or not. “So, you nervous in tiny elevators too?”
Too? He seemed fine. “Pretty sure it’s a shared universal experience. But, um…” I hesitated. It felt dangerous to share one of my vulnerable spots with this man. “I think my fear might be a bit worse than most people’s.”
Silence fell over us, and after what felt like forever but was probably less than five minutes, my hip began to hurt. I wanted to tough it out so I didn’t look like a weakling in front of this man, but after the stress of finding a sore and the relief of knowing I was fine, my body was tired.
I tensed my jaw, but I couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m going to sit.”
“You don’t need to announce anything unless you’re gonna crop dust this car. And if that even crosses your mind, Iwillkill and eat you.”
I rolled my eyes as I carefully folded myself down to the floor. “I am trained in self-defense, you know.”
He didn’t grin so much as grimace, and his teeth looked almost sharp. “So am I.”
I had no response to that. I had no doubt the man could take me apart piece by piece like the most experienced hunter. And despite my fear and the panic that would not relax, even after knowing we were fine, I looked at those big hands of his, and my traitorous brain started to get ideas.
What would it feel like if he grabbed me by the hips and pinned me to the wall? What would he feel like, running those calloused hands all over my body?
Nope. No. I needed to distract myself from that.
“Do—” I was cut off when the elevator lurched, then moved down several feet a little too quickly. It was only for a split second, but it was too late. The panic attack was taking over.
I felt all the blood rush from my face, and my vision went white at the edges. I couldn’t breathe. I was actually going to die. If the cable was snapping and we were hurtling to the ground, my heart was gonna kill me before we got there.
