I’m trapped again, can’t breathe, can’t move, they’re going to let me die…
I tried to gasp, tried to fight it, but the morphine Henry had shot into my vein while I was out wrapped everything in thick, dreamy syrup.
Memories crashed into me without mercy: the hiss of the ventilator, the endless beeping, the tube choking my throat, the black nothing I’d fought to escape while voices above me filtered into my awareness. Henry’s voice had cut through the sterile haze like a blade, low and triumphant, telling the doctors he’d known all along I’d wake up. That I was a fighter. That he hadn’t let Vivian anywhere near the decision to end my life support, and he never would.
He’d stood guard over me for three years, refusing to let her win.
Even after my father had mysteriously died, and Vivian had fled the country before anyone could question her, and Henry knew he didn’t have to worry about her anymore, he still stayed and advocated for me.
That was why he’d insisted on every treatment, every specialist, every extra day. He’d known I’d come back swinging.
He’d believed in me when no one else did. Even when I hadn’t believed in myself.
My panic surged, desperate and animal, but the drug dragged it down into slow motion and turned the scream in my head into a distant, muffled hum. I could feel the panic attack trying to break through, lungs seizing, vision tunneling, but it stayedjust out of reach, floating in that surreal haze where everything felt like a dream I couldn’t quite wake from. Terror without the sharp edge. Suffocating dread without the release of losing control. There was only the sick, heavy, floaty fog pressing on my chest, making every breath feel like I was wading through mud.
I forced myself to breathe deeply, then started cataloging my environment to try to ground myself.
The lights were low, my sheets were soft, and the room was warm.
I half-expected Chrissy to be long gone and to have police knocking down my door any minute now about the two men I’d killed to stop them from hurting her, but she wasn’t gone. She sat in the chair at my bedside, body curled forward, elbows on her knees, her face buried in both hands. Her hair was a wild, tangled halo around her. Her shoulders shook once — barely — but I caught it.
Relief punched into me hard enough to both hurt, and leave me feeling like a wrung-out dishrag, all at once.
“Chrissy?” I rasped.
Her head jerked up, and my heart ached at the sight of her.
Her big, brown eyes were red from crying, and her cheeks were blotchy.
“You’re awake,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
I swallowed hard and winced at how painful that simple movement was.
“Barely.”
The word tasted like blood and regret.
She stood too fast, grabbing the side of the bed for balance, then reached for me on instinct, but she caught herself mid-motion and pulled back. Her hands closed into tight fists at her sides instead.
I tried to sit up.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t sit up. Henry said you lost a lot of blood.”
“I’m fine,” I grumbled.
Her eyes flashed with fury.
“You are not fine, Ben. You were stabbed. You ran barefoot into a storm like a fucking lunatic. You nearly died.”
“You screamed for help. You needed me,” I said quietly.
She froze. Emotion flickered across her face so fast I didn’t catch it all… fear, anger, confusion, and something softer underneath that she crushed ruthlessly a second later. She bit the inside of her cheek and looked away, refusing to meet my eyes.
I shut my eyes, inhaled once, and forced the words out before I lost the nerve.
“Chrissy… you’re free to go.”
A deafening silence fell between us, immediate and suffocating.
