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“Cass.”

Ryder was in front of her. He’d crouched down so they were close to eye level, and he had something in his hand. A washcloth. Damp and cold.

“Lie back.”

She didn’t move. She still couldn’t quite figure out what was going on.

“Cassie. Lie back. You’re safe. The door is locked, and nobody is coming in here.”

Right. Unless they just decided to burst through with their guns.

She lay back. He placed the washcloth across her forehead, and the cold was so sharp and so good that she closed her eyes and felt tears leak out before she could stop them.

“Are they going to kill us?”

“No.” His voice was steady. “They bought it. We’re okay for right now.”

“Bought what?”

He was quiet for a second. She opened her eyes. He was sitting on the floor next to the bed, his back against the nightstand, looking at her like he was deciding how much she could handle at once.

All of it. She could handle all of it. She was scared and confused, but she could handle the truth.

“Tell me,” she said. “Whatever it is, just tell me.”

“When I told you to follow my lead in the kitchen, I had about five seconds to come up with a reason for you being here that would keep us both alive.”

“The girlfriend thing. I remember that part.”

“That was the start. But when you started the spiraling thing, the girlfriend cover wasn’t enough. Your eyes were jumping from face to face and you couldn’t stop, and these guys were about to decide you were either on drugs or having some kind of episode. Either way, it would’ve ended badly for both of us.”

She remembered that. The faces, the light, her brain pulling in too much, too fast and refusing to let go. Then his voice cutting through. His hands on her face. The word princess landing like a slap that somehow centered her instead of hurting.

“Princess,” she whispered.

“Yeah. I called you that. I don’t know. It was the first thing that came to mind since, you know, we’ve joked about that.”

“You told me to look at you.”

“I was hoping that would stop the spiral. I didn’t know what would happen to you if it went unchecked.”

That had happened before. Not often since she went in public as little as possible, but there had been a few times when she couldn’t get out of a spiral once it started. Eventually, she’d blacked out, her brain completely overwhelmed by all the data.

“It…would’ve been bad.”

He rubbed the cloth across her forehead, and she closed her eyes and just enjoyed the cool against her heated skin. “That’s what I figured. I was hoping that a sort of command to just look at me would override what was happening. It seemed to work.”

“It must have. I should have a migraine right now that would have me puking everywhere. There’s a little pain but not nearly what it should be.”

“Good.”

“And then…did I kneel?” Was her brain playing tricks on her? Had that happened? It had to have; she could feel the slight soreness in her knees.

He set the washcloth down. “Yes. I… It was the best cover story I could come up with. I needed something that would distract them.”

She could remember it now. Kneeling, staring at his shirt, voices carrying on around her, but they hadn’t mattered. All that mattered was as long as she stared at his shirt, the spiraling didn’t overtake her.

“What was the story you told them?”