“What do you need?” I ask, because information matters, even now. Especially now.
“The message, of course,” he says.
He crouches in front of me, holding the phone loosely.
“You’re going to talk tohim,” he says. “And you’re going to sound like yourself. Calm. Steady. Someone he recognizes.”
My throat tightens. “I’m not helping you.”
“You already are,” he replies.
My jaw clenches.
He watches me, then tilts his head slightly. “Or I can make this harder.”
The threat sits there, quiet and obvious.
He doesn’t have to explain it, to raise his voice, to touch me, he already knows exactly how to make me understand.
I swallow, because this is part of it.
If I can get a message out, if I can say something that reaches them,anything, even if it’s just my voice, even if it’s just proof that I’m still here…
“Fine,” I say.
The word tastes like defeat.
I force myself to breathe through it.
It isn’t.
Not if I use it right.
Cole studies me, then unlocks the phone and holds it up, angling it toward my face.
“Try again if you sound like you’re about to break,” he says lightly. “I want him thinking, not reacting.”
Of course he does.
I straighten as much as I can, ignoring the way my wrists throb, the way my heart is trying to climb out of my chest.
I fix my gaze on the screen. On the small reflection of my own face staring back at me. I look… different. Paler. Eyes too bright. Hair a mess around my shoulders.
But I’m still me, I have to be.
“Go on,” Cole says.
I take a breath.
Then another.
“Ryder.”
It comes out softer than I expect.
And my chest locks into place around it, like saying his name gives me a solidness to hold onto.
I picture him standing like the world is something he can hold in place if he just refuses to move.
