Chapter 4 #2
By the time I'd dressed—jeans, a clean shirt that didn't smell like a locker room, my least-offensive pair of shoes—it was six forty-five. I stared at myself in the now-clear mirror and tried to summon something that looked like confidence.
I failed. But I went anyway, because Mark had said it was realistically mandatory, and I couldn't afford to screw up another job by being antisocial on top of everything else.
The ballroom was massive, filled with round tables and too many people.
The team had clearly claimed the center section, players sprawled out like they owned the place.
Staff clustered at the edges, forming their own smaller groups—video with video, equipment with equipment, a clear hierarchy I didn't quite understand yet.
I hesitated in the doorway, scanning for an empty seat that wouldn't require me to insert myself into an established conversation.
"Cinder!" Max's voice carried across the room, loud and cheerful. He waved me over like we were old friends instead of people who'd exchanged maybe ten words total. "Sit with us!"
Every instinct I had screamed to politely decline and find somewhere quiet. But Mark's words echoed in my head—realistically mandatory—and I forced my feet to move. Max had claimed a table near the front with Cole, Phoenix, Julian, and—
My stomach dropped.
Taranis.
Of course Taranis was there. Because the universe had a sense of humor and apparently thought I hadn't suffered enough today.
"Plenty of room," Max said, patting the empty chair beside him. The only empty chair. Which happened to be directly across from Taranis.
"Thanks," I managed, sliding into the seat and immediately regretting every decision that had led me to this moment.
Taranis didn't look up. He was studying his menu like it contained the secrets of the universe, jaw tight, shoulders tense.
The same posture he'd had on the plane when I'd walked past him.
Phoenix leaned over and said something to Cole that made him smile, the kind of intimate, easy affection that made my chest ache.
Julian was arguing with Max about something hockey-related, their French accents thickening as they got more animated.
Julian’s wife Lizzie leaned over, her hand out.
“They’re only speaking English for my benefit,” she teased.
I shook her hand and grinned as I was expected to.
I knew Lizzie from photos Julian showed to everyone, but this was the first time we’d officially met.
I caught the accent immediately. New York.
The clipped way her vowels didn’t linger.
She was friendly and Julian was very attentive, borderline anxious.
"First road trip?" Phoenix asked, pulling me into the conversation with surprising gentleness.
I nodded. "Yeah. It's... a lot."
"It gets easier," he said. "Or you get used to it. I'm not sure which."
Cole squeezed his hand where it rested on the table, a small gesture that spoke volumes. I looked away, uncomfortable witnessing something that private.
My gaze returned to Lizzie. Julian was half-turned toward her, one hand still wrapped around his beer, the other hovering uselessly at her back like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to touch. She said something low I couldn’t hear, and he leaned in automatically, head dipping without thinking.
She shook her head once. Small. Almost apologetic.
“I’m fine,” she said. A little too careful.
Julian frowned. “You sure?”
She nodded again, then shifted her weight, one hand pressing briefly—protectively—against her lower abdomen before she caught herself and dropped it. The movement was unconscious. Instinctive.
Julian noticed anyway. His expression changed—not alarmed, just… attentive. He angled himself between her and the flow of people moving past the table without making a show of it.
I looked away before they caught me watching.
It wasn’t anything dramatic. No hand on her stomach. No talk of nausea or cravings. Just a handful of tells I’d seen a hundred times before—guarded movements, subtle reassurance, the way he checked in without asking a real question.
Could I be wrong? Sure. But if I had to guess—
I exhaled slowly and filed it away, the same way I did everything else that wasn’t mine to name yet.
Then because I couldn’t help myself, my gaze landed on Taranis.
He was watching me now, expression carefully blank, and for a moment we didn't move. The noise of the ballroom faded into background static. There was just him, and me, and the weight of everything I'd said and hadn't said hanging between us like smoke.
Then Max said something that made everyone laugh, and the moment shattered.
The server appeared, taking orders with practiced efficiency. Around me, conversation flowed—easy, comfortable, the kind of banter that came from years of knowing each other.
The food arrived. I ate mechanically, tasting nothing, hyperaware of Taranis three feet away doing exactly the same thing. I was cutting into my chicken when the sound cut through everything else.
Not a shout. Worse.
A wet, choking gasp—the kind that meant someone's airway had just stopped working the way it was supposed to.
My head snapped up.
Three tables over, a man in his sixties lurched forward, one hand clutching his chest, the other scrabbling uselessly at the tablecloth. His face had gone gray, lips already tinged blue at the edges. His companion—wife, maybe—screamed his name, her voice sharp and panicked.
I was moving before I consciously decided to.
A chair scraped back. A napkin slid to the floor. The space between our tables vanished as my body took over, muscle memory and training kicking in without asking whether this was my job or whether anyone wanted me making calls anymore.
“Call 911,” I said sharply, already dropping to my knees as the man slid sideways out of his chair.
His eyes locked on mine—wide, terrified, desperate. I caught him before his head hit the floor and eased him down, one hand cradling his shoulder while the other went to his neck. Carotid pulse. Fast. Weak. Thready.
Heart attack. Acute. The color, the clutching, the panic—it fit too cleanly. And if it tipped into arrest, we’d be racing the clock.
“Sir,” I said, loud and clear. “Can you hear me? What’s your name?” He tried to answer. What came out was a wet, wheezing sound that barely counted as air. His eyes fluttered. Then rolled back. The pulse vanished under my fingers.
Shit.
I lowered him flat, ripped his shirt open, buttons scattering across the carpet, and placed the heel of my hand at the center of his chest. “Someone get me an AED!” I shouted.
I started compressions—hard and fast, straight down, letting my weight do the work.
The kind that cracked ribs if they had to, because broken ribs healed and dead hearts didn’t.
One and two and three—
The ballroom went eerily quiet except for the woman sobbing beside us and the dull, rhythmic thud of my hands against his sternum. I counted automatically.
Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.
People were moving now—chairs scraping, staff running, someone shouting into a phone—but none of it registered. There was only the count. The rhythm. Keeping blood moving until something stronger than my hands arrived. “Come on,” I muttered. “Stay with me.”
Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one.
Footsteps skidded to a stop beside me. “I’ve got the AED,” a voice said—young, breathless, trying hard to sound steady. I glanced up long enough to see a hotel employee kneeling beside me, name badge swinging, hands already shaking as he popped the red case open.
“Good,” I said. “You know how to use it?”
“Yes—yes,” he said quickly. “I’m trained.”
“Then follow the prompts,” I told him, and went back to work. He tore the pads free, fumbling once before pressing them onto the man’s bare chest exactly where the diagrams showed.
“Clear,” he said, voice trembling.
I pulled my hands back immediately. The machine analyzed, its mechanical calm grating against the tight coil in my chest.
Shock advised.
“Clear,” he repeated, louder this time, and pressed the button. The man’s body jerked once, muscles locking, then went limp again.
I was back on his chest before the AED finished speaking, compressions resuming without pause. The employee fitted a pocket mask to the guy simply to protect himself, and we became a team.
Thirty compressions. Two breaths.
Another analysis.
Another shock.
My arms burned. My shoulders screamed. Sweat soaked through my shirt. I didn’t care.
Thirty-two.
And then—
A cough. He hadn't needed a Guedel airway.
Weak. Wet. But real.
I froze for half a second, then leaned closer, watching. His chest moved again—on its own this time. Shallow. Uneven. “I’ve got spontaneous respirations,” I said, my voice rough. “He’s breathing.” The hotel employee let out a shaky breath beside me, relief written all over his face.
I sat back on my heels, hands trembling hard enough I had to curl them into fists, and stayed there—watching the man breathe—until the sound of sirens finally cut through the ballroom.
Paramedics burst through the crowd, equipment clattering, radios live. I moved aside automatically, letting them take over, watching as they worked with the kind of efficiency that came from doing this every day.
Mark gripped my shoulder and pulled me to my feet. "You did good, Doc."
"Cinder," I corrected absently, still staring at the man's chest rising and falling. "Not a doctor."
"Could've fooled me."
The paramedics loaded the man onto a gurney, his wife clutching his hand, tears streaming down her face. She looked at me as they passed, mouthing something I couldn't hear over the noise.
And then I heard it again. The camera shutter. Closer this time.
I turned.
A photographer stood five feet away, lens trained directly on me, snapping shot after shot like I was a goddamn spectacle. Behind him, another one. And another. All of them crowding in, pushing past hotel staff who were trying—ineffectively—to keep them back.
My stomach dropped.
I watched as Taranis moved. Max appeared at his shoulder, and Cole materialized from somewhere behind me, the three of them forming a wall between the cameras and where I stood.
"Out," Taranis said to them. Not loud. Not threatening. Just absolute.
The photographers argued—of course they did—but Taranis stepped closer to the nearest one, and something in his expression made the man lower his camera. Not fear, exactly. Just the sudden, instinctive understanding that pushing further would be a mistake.
They left.
But I'd heard the shutters. Seen the flashes. Counted at least a dozen shots before anyone had moved to stop them.
The exact kind of attention I'd been trying to avoid.
The exact reason I'd walked away from Taranis.
And now it had happened anyway.