Clara.
I’ve failed my sister—
“Rosabelle,” he says gently, tilting up my chin. “Look at me. Please—”
I look at him like I’m seeing stars. The sound of his voice is an anchor in the tempest of my mind but my chest feels as if it’s been trampled. I can’t catch my breath. I can’t feel my hands. I can’t breathe,I can’t breathe—
“Hey, you’re okay,” he says again. “I’m here. I’m with you. You’re safe.”
I realize only as I taste the salt of my own tears that I’m crying. I’ve lost all control. I don’t recognize these horrible sounds—these desperate sobs coming from somewhere inside of me.
It can’t be me.
I don’t cry. I never cry. Before I met James I hadn’t cried in ten years.
“Breathe for me, okay?” he says. “I’m here. I’m with you, Rosabelle. Are you with me?”
I look up into his eyes, my heart wrenching. I seem to tilt over and over inside myself, a reminder that I have a concussion. I blink, disoriented. A convulsive gasp escapes me as a violent shudder racks my body. I’m badly nauseous. I might be suspended in space, slowly suffocating in this nightmare.
“Rosabelle,” he says again. “Are you with me?”
I exhale unevenly before I feel the slow rise of a soft heat circling my throat, fingers of light moving up my face like a caress. The feeling soon intensifies, first silencing the agony in my ears, then soothing the pain in my head.
I cry out, my eyes closing.
“Rosabelle?”
I fight to draw a full, shaky breath. My racing heart begins to slow. My lungs begin to release.
“I can’t heal you here,” he says, his voice rough, his thumb moving across my skin. “Not like this, not in this state. My own body is too weak, your damage is too deep, and everyone is waiting outside. But I wanted to relieve some of the pain.”
A wave of crushing exhaustion closes over my head and the tide takes me apart, my bones coming loose from my flesh. I let my cheek fall heavily against his hand, allowing him to catch me.
I hear the intake of his breath.
I force my eyes open to find him searching my face, his own eyes tight with something like pain.
“Is it helping?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, breathless. “Thank you.”
“Stay with me, okay? Don’t pass out. We still have to get off the plane.”
Sounds carry from the world beyond; the thump of boots on metal as someone stomps up the ladder. Then—
“Hey, man, you all right up there?”
The stranger’s voice sharpens something inside of me, piercing the moment like a knife.
I stiffen.
I sit up, suddenly fully seated inside myself, shields rebuilding, exhaustion retreating, ice closing over my head. Survival instincts come back online, my vision clearing, my bones hardening.
I set aside the pain again, letting it simmer.
James doesn’t meet my eyes as he pulls back, his body shaking slightly. He pushes wet hair off his forehead, turning only a little when he says, without shouting, “Give me a minute.”
I wipe my tear-streaked cheeks with unsteady, bloodstained fingers, struggling to piece myself back together. In a shock of clarity James comes into focus: shirtless in the moonlight, the bare expanse of his chest and torso gleaming, rivulets of rainwater still snaking down the hard planes of his body. Shadows catch every curve and ridge of muscle, rendering him into something breathtaking.
