“Then don’t extinguish it.” She presses into my touch. A tense silence envelopes us as the soft patter of rain outside the dome fades, leaving only the rhythm of our heartbeats.
“Your eyes are so dark, Orion,” she murmurs, searching me. “You look like you haven’t slept in days, and that can worsen compulsions. Obsessive beliefs can become indistinguishable from delusions.” Her free hand covers mine along her cheek, voice breaking. “That’s all this is, a delusion driven by fear.”
My jaw tightens, a fierce pain rupturing through my chest. “God, I hope you’re fucking right. I hope I’m insane. And—” I move in closer, towering above her as I reach for the duct tape on the pier “—I hope you’ll forgive me one day, angel.”
“Orion, no—please.” She twists, turning her face away, fighting with one hand. “There’s something I need to tell you. You have to listen?—”
Her fingers claw at my shirt, and I groan, denying myself the deviant pleasure of feeling her nails rake my skin. I close my hand around her jaw, forcing her face toward mine. With clenched teeth, I tear a strip of tape free and seal it over her mouth.
“I promise,” I whisper hoarsely, pressing a tender kiss to the tape, savoring the warmth and delicate curve of her lips beneath. “I’ll come back for you.”
I grasp her wrist, my jaw set hard as I unlatch the handcuff from the pier. She thrashes wildly against my hold as I draw her hands together and clasp each cuff around her wrists, binding them on either side of the RA wheel, the finalclicka harsh crack through my resolve.
Slowly, I draw back, my gaze locking with hers—tearful, blazing. Alive. Those eyes I’m determined to keep lit with her beautiful, fiery light.
Even if I have to hurl myself from the highest cliff to keep her heart beating?—
I will take that leap.
The Ψ (psi) symbol stands as a connection between the study of the inner world and the outer universe. In psychology, it representspsuche(the mind). In physics, it symbolizes the wave function; the mathematical description of a particle’s quantum state. The same Greek letter encompasses both the study of the mind and the fundamental building blocks of the cosmos.
19
Syzygy
The conjunction of the king and queen, the supremesyzygy, is a union of opposites par excellence.
—CARL JUNG,PSYCHOLOGY AND ALCHEMY
COLLINS
We shouldn’t be so fragile that one moment out of the whole of our existence should alter us. But that’s the cruel reality every victim of a crime comes to realize, just how delicately fragile we truly are when caught in the fury of a storm?—
And that storm is furious.
I clamp my eyes closed, shutting out the dirt trying to creep in. A tide rises in my lungs. Panic snags my breath, and I force a trembling breath through my nose over the tape, easing the sharp pressure beneath my ribs.
One. Two. Three.
Despite my desperation to hold purchase in the present, time bends, folding aroundme in a suffocating clutch. With one harsh twist of the knife between ribs, skin splits. Pectoral muscle parts. The blade slices through cartilage, tearing past muscle and sac, until steel kisses the wall of my heart.
Like the frail exoskeleton of a seashell, my breastplate cracks.
My vision tunnels under the intrusive memory. Pinpricks assault my fingers, my hands turning cold above the metal cuffs. My chest seizes with palpitations, a dizzy rush flooding my head as the damaged valve catches, the leaflet refusing to move. My heartbeat falters. Too fast, uneven—then skips. Blood rushes backward in a sickeningwhooshas my lungs fail to pull air.
I make a failed attempt to reach for my pocket, only to recall my pill case is in my jacket.Dammit.
Stilling my body, I focus my breathing. Taking slow breaths in and out, I count—four in. Hold for two. Four out. I manage to find a rhythm, slowly stabilizing my heart rate.
And then, I open my eyes and stare into the low-lit depths of Orion’s observatory. Rain lashes the windows and slams the dome, drumming with the same force as the heavy pulse in my ears. The torrent rages with the same silent wrath swelling within me.
Time is always against me. Another cruel reality.
I’ve been caught in the fury of a storm since my life ended beneath the hands of a monster driven by obsession. Since my heart stopped beating, damaged by the edge of his blade.
And I fucking swore I’d never again be so fragile. That I would never again be a victim.
Muffled by tape, a desperate sound escapes, something between a laugh and a sob at the fucking irony.
