My thighs are trembling from holding this position. My core is screaming. But I can't move because the Doctrine says I hold Display until dismissed, and Lorcan told me to wait here, and my brain has apparently decided that "wait here" means "perform advanced yoga until your muscles give out."
I want to touch myself so badly I could cry.
Wait. Iamcrying.
Why am I crying?
No seriously, why are there tears running down my temples into my hair? Is this grief? Withdrawal? Am I having a nervous breakdown?
I force myself to stop. Just—stop.
Stop trembling. Stop crying. Stop performing the world's saddest interpretive dance routine on a stranger's floor.
I pull my arms down and close my legs, then roll onto my side and curl into a ball, pressing my cheek against the cold floor.
Breathe.
In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.
The Navy SEAL technique I read about in some self-help article when I was trying to survive Tyler. Back when I thought breathing exercises could fix a man who threw you down the stairs.
In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.
My heart rate slows. The white noise in my head starts to quiet.
OK.
I need to have an actual conversation with myself. A real one. Not the spiral-brain disaster movie I've been starring in for the past—Jesus, what time is it? How long have I been here?
I push myself up to sitting, cross my legs, and stare at the bedroom wall.
Fact: I am currently in Boston.
Fact: I got here by being kidnapped by a very attractive Irish mobster who thought he was rescuing me.
Fact: The moment he uncuffed me, I threw myself at him and begged for my "Master and King" like some sort of feral sex-cult escapee.
Fact: Then I arranged myself in a position specifically designed to make men want to fuck me.
I bring my hands up to my face.
What. The actual. Fuck. Am I doing?
Because here's the thing that's making my brain short-circuit. Lorcan didn't kidnap me because he's a predator. He kidnapped me because he saw a naked woman wearing a collar, covered in bruises, emerging from a mobster's library on a Sunday night.
He saw evidence of abuse.
He made a decision to intervene.
My heroic kidnapper.
And my response to being rescued was tobeg to go back.
I stand up. Pace the length of Lorcan's bedroom.
"OK, Emmaleen. Focus. Be cool. Let's get that big brain of yours warmed up because we've got?—"
"There ya are."
