My hands tremble. My eyes are wet and wide.
“What’s happening, Nero? What’s happening?” I ask desperately, even more panicked when he tries to speak and his voice fails. Sweat soaks his forehead, the veins in his temples and neck standing out sharply. He keeps struggling until he finally manages to choke out an answer.
“N-nothing.”
The word launches me to my feet. I run to the window, a scream already clawing its way up my throat.
“Atlas! Apollo! Drako!” I shout, frantic. “Apollo! Drako! Atlas!”
I’m about to scream again when the sound of running footsteps reaches me and, a second later, Apollo and Drako are at the gate.
“I don’t know what’s happening! I don’t know!” I shake my head wildly and run back inside. I drop to my knees beside Nero again and see that all the color has drained from his face. He’s pale, breathing with difficulty, drenched in sweat—far more than just moments ago.
“Forgive me?” he asks one more time before passing out.
I stay there, frozen, staring at his inert body, unable to do anything. All my years of training, the hours of practice, the procedures I know I should follow—paralyzed by the fear of seeing someone I love like this.
I can’t do anything. I can’t touch him, can’t stand up, can’t even register what’s happening around me for I don’t know how long—until Apollo puts a hand on my shoulder and speaks to me.
“You need to step back, Nina. The ambulance is here.”
***
“Here,” Drako says, stopping beside me against the wall and offering me a cup of coffee. I take it.
I blink, looking at the place I come to every day and still not recognizing it. Being here as a companion doesn’t feel different only inside me—it feels different outside, too.
No one tells me what’s happening. All I want is to go to my locker, put on my uniform, and walk into the exam room where Nero is so I can follow everything closely—but they’ve already forbidden me from doing that. And even though I rationally know I’d hinder far more than help, I can’t help resenting it. We’ve been here half an hour, and the waiting is killing me.
There was only one other time I’d been in this position—waiting for news in a hospital—when Kael jumped out of the window. My son had just turned three and did it while I was in the shower. The despair and guilt I felt back then made me cry for nights on end even after Kael was already home, safe.
The feeling poisoning my chest today is so similar it leaves my mouth bitter and my throat dry.
“Thank you,” I murmur, still trying to understand what happened. One moment Nero was taking in everything I was consciously throwing at him—and the next… the next, he was on the floor.
“Your mom already got home. She’s with Kael. Atlas is on his way here,” Drako tells me. I nod. “I don’t know if it should beme telling you this, Nina, but I’m worried that if no one explains what’s going on, you might storm the exam room—and I don’t think your superiors would appreciate that.”
He tries to joke, as always, fulfilling his official role as tension diffuser, but I don’t have the strength to laugh. After some more silence, when he speaks again, there’s nothing playful in his tone.
“He’s been dealing with panic attacks for years, Nina.”
I turn my head so fast toward the man beside me that my neck hurts. I blink at him, eyes wide.
“W-what?”
“It took us a while to figure it out, but they started sometime after you left. Nero didn’t share or process his feelings—he hyperfocused on finding you, and it didn’t take long for that to take its toll.”
“Panic attacks…” I whisper.
“None of us were surprised that this was the way his body chose to ask for help.”
“He’s been living with this for five years?” I ask. Drako nods. “Why… why didn’t he get help? Why didn’t he get treatment?” A sad smile forms on my son’s uncle’s lips.
“Rejection is a complicated theme for the four of us, Nina. And back then, Nero was feeling it more than anything else. My guess is he simply thought he deserved it. He could blame you for everything else, but part of him blamed himself for not beingenough to stop you from doing everything he thought you’d done.”
“That’s…”
“Sad,” Drako says quietly. “I know.” He nods. “All of us are broken in ways that are hard to explain. We deal with it differently, of course. I make jokes. Apollo lives like there’s no tomorrow. Atlas tries to change the world. And Nero… he hadn’t found anything worth holding on to yet. Until you came along.”
