“I can’t?—”
“Mia.” The way he said my name—urgent but somehow intimate—made me look at him. He cupped my cheek. “You climbed out on that deathtrap fire escape in Seattle even when I told you not to. Fourth floor, rusted through, shaking with every step.”
My breath caught. He was talking about my old apartment, the one we’d spent so many nights in before he deployed.
“You stood on it anyway to get those shots of the sunrise. Should’ve known then you were meant to be a photographer.” He was already on the branch, hand extended back to me. “This branch is solid steel compared to that thing.”
“That was different?—”
“Yeah, it was worse. Come on, beautiful. You can do this.”
I forced myself to move, not looking down, focusing on his face in the dimness. Halfway across, the branch dipped sickeningly.
“Keep coming,” he said. “You’re doing great.”
Three more steps and his hands caught my arms, pulling me against the neighboring trunk. We descended quickly, using branches like ladder rungs, reaching ground just as flashlights swept the tree we’d abandoned.
“This way.” He led us deeper into the woods, circling wide around the search pattern. We moved through underbrush that grabbed at my legs, over a creek that soaked my feet with icy water, always staying ahead of the lights behind us.
Finally, the woods opened onto a different section of the compound. Our cabin sat fifty yards away, silent and unlit.
But between us and safety, two guards walked a lazy patrol route.
And they were going to walk right by us.
Coop pulled me behind an equipment shed, pressing us into a hollow between stacked lumber and the building’s wall. The space was barely wide enough for one person. With both of us, I was crushed against him, the walls pressing in from both sides.
The familiar tightness started in my chest immediately.
Not the slow build I sometimes got, that I could work through, but the instant slam of panic that meant I was about to lose it completely. The lumber seemed to lean inward, the gap shrinking even though I knew—knew—it wasn’t moving.
My skin went clammy, cold sweat breaking out across my forehead, down my spine. The space between the wood and the wall felt like it was compressing, like the car all over again, metal folding inward, no escape, no air, trapped, trapped,trapped?—
“Hey.” His whisper was barely sound, more vibration against my ear. “You’re okay. I’m right here.”
But I wasn’t okay. The wood pressed against my shoulder blades. The wall scraped my chest with each shallow breath. Too close. Too tight. My lungs wouldn’t expand fully, each inhale getting smaller, faster, my body screaming for oxygen it couldn’tpull in. My fingers clawed at his shirt, trying to push him back, to make space that didn’t exist.
“Hey, look up,” he breathed, his hands finding my face, tilting it back. “See the stars?”
I couldn’t. Couldn’t look up, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The panic had me fully now, that complete override of rational thought.
I was dying. I was being crushed. The walls were closing and?—
“Mia. Baby. Listen to my voice. Feel my breathing.” He pressed my palm flat against his chest, his heartbeat steady under my hand. “Match it. In through your nose, slow count of four.”
I tried, but it came out as rapid gasps. My knees wanted to buckle. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision.
“That’s it. You’re doing it,” he lied, voice impossibly calm. “Now hold for four. One… Two… Three… Four. Now out through your mouth, like you’re blowing out candles. Slow.”
His chest rose and fell under my palm, that steady rhythm like an anchor. I forced myself to follow it, though my exhale came out shaky, interrupted by the urge to hyperventilate.
“Good. Again. In… Hold… Out. You’re safe. The guards are walking away. Twenty more seconds and we can move.”
My breathing started to sync with his, the panic still there but loosening its stranglehold. The lumber was just lumber. The wall was just a wall. I wasn’t in the car. I wasn’t dying.
“Five… Four… Three… Two…”
Boot steps crunched past our hiding spot. A radio crackled—checking in, all clear. Moving farther away by the second.
