9. Chapter 9
Loralee
Iwake beneath a blanket that smells faintly of cedar and Rocco.
For several seconds, I don’t know where I am.
The mattress beneath me is firmer than the one in my rental cabin, and the room holds none of the familiar objects I unpack whenever I travel.
There is no rose-quartz lamp glowing on the dresser.
No shallow bowl for my rings and crystals.
No scarf draped over the nearest chair because I always bring too many and never hang them properly.
Then memory returns. The cash box. Shattering glass. Smoke burning my throat. Rocco’s blood on my hands.
I sit up too quickly. The room tilts, not enough to send me back against the pillows but enough to make me close my eyes and breathe through it.
The vision took more from me than any reading ever has. Even the worst sessions leave me tired in a way sleep can reach. This exhaustion is different. My energy feels stretched thin, as though part of me remains caught inside a moment that has not happened.
I place both feet on the floor and wait until the dizziness passes.
My boots sit neatly beside the bed. Rocco must have removed them after carrying me in here. The thought brings a warmth that has nothing to do with the blanket pooled around my waist.
I remember waking long enough to catch his wrist.
Don’t let it happen.
I won’t.
The promise should not comfort me. Rocco cannot control every person attending the festival, every weapon hidden inside a vehicle, or every decision made in anger. He knows that better than most people, yet he gave me the promise anyway.
A radio murmurs beyond the closed bedroom door. Rocco’s voice follows, low and precise as he asks for an update on the west vendor lane. I cannot make out the response, but I hear him acknowledge it.
He stayed.
Part of me relaxes at the realization. Another part tightens.
I like knowing he is in the next room. I like it far more than I should after three days. His presence feels solid, warm, and oddly familiar, as if some part of me recognized him before we met and has been waiting for the rest of me to catch up.
But presence requires energy, even when the person asks for nothing.
I have learned not to apologize for that truth. Solitude is not loneliness for me. It is where the edges of my energy return to their proper shape. It is where I separate what belongs to me from everything I have absorbed from other people.
Right now, I am carrying too much fear to know how much of it is mine.
I stand carefully and open the bedroom door.
Rocco sits at the small kitchen table with a laptop open in front of him. Two radios, a festival map, and several incident reports occupy the rest of the surface. His long hair is tied at the base of his neck, and his black shirt stretches across shoulders I know beneath my hands now.
He looks up immediately.
The intensity of his attention moves over my face and body, assessing whether I can stand, whether my color has returned, whether I am about to collapse again.
“You should have called me.”
“I walked approximately twelve feet.”
“You were unconscious when I put you in there.”
“I was asleep.”
His mouth lifts at one corner, but the concern in his eyes remains. “How do you feel?”
“Depleted.”
He closes the laptop. “Dizzy?”
“A little when I first sat up. It passed.”
“I can call the medic.”
“I don’t need the medic.”
“She said to contact her if the dizziness returned.”
“She said to seek follow-up care if it returned or if new symptoms developed. I sat up too quickly after sleeping. That is not a medical crisis.”
Rocco watches me for another second. I wait for him to decide what should happen next. His gaze flicks toward the bedroom, then returns to me.
“What do you need?”
The question loosens something in my chest.
“Time alone.”
He becomes very still.
“It isn’t because I don’t want you here,” I add.
“This is my cabin.”
“That complicates the request.”
“How much time?”
“Thirty minutes. Maybe forty-five.”
His attention moves toward the locked door. “I can work outside.”
“You don’t have to leave entirely. I could go back into the bedroom.”
“Would that feel like being alone?”
Not completely. He knows it before I answer.
“No.”
Rocco rises and begins collecting the radios and papers from the table. “I’ll be at the command cabin downhill.”
“You don’t have to move your work because I invaded your space.”
“You didn’t invade it. I brought you here.”
“Without asking me at first.”
His eyes meet mine. “I’m working on that.”
The simple admission touches me more than an elaborate apology would.
“I know.”
He places one radio on his belt and picks up the other. “The door locks automatically. Keep it locked. My team has the cabin in sight, but no one will come inside unless you ask or there is an emergency.”
“That sounds suspiciously like security.”
“It is.”
“And if I decide I need longer?”
“Text me.”
“What if I decide to leave?”
His jaw tightens. I wait.
“Text me,” he says again. “I’ll drive you wherever you want to go.”
A reluctant grin betrays me before I can contain it. “That was very good.”
“It was painful.”
“I’m proud of you.”
“Lock the door, Loralee.”
He steps outside. I turn the lock after him and listen as his boots cross the porch. He does not linger or look through the window to make sure I follow instructions. Within seconds, the cabin becomes silent.
The relief is immediate. So is the small ache beneath it.
I return to the bedroom for my canvas bag. Rocco placed it beside the nightstand where I could reach it easily, and the care behind that detail follows me back into the main room.
My emergency grounding kit is tucked into an interior pocket. I carry a larger version when I work, but this one contains enough: a small piece of black tourmaline, a muslin pouch of dried cedar and rosemary, and a vial of salt blended with lavender.
I open the nearest window before sprinkling a thin line of the salt into my palm. The scent rises as I rub my hands together. Lavender softens the sharp green of rosemary that clings to the pouch.
Then I stand in the center of Rocco’s cabin and breathe.
The first breath catches high in my chest. The second reaches deeper.
By the fifth, I can feel my feet against the floor rather than the remembered impact of the cash box leaving my hands.
I close my fingers around the tourmaline and picture the vision moving out of me.
I don’t want it to totally disappear. Ignoring a warning does not make it harmless.
But I need it to loosen its grip on my body.
Glass.
Red.
Smoke.
A child screaming.
The crack that may or may not be a gun.
Rocco’s blood.
My pulse quickens. I breathe until it returns to something close to normal. The images belong to the vision. The fear belongs partly to me and partly to whatever I touched through the cash box. I cannot separate every strand yet, but I find the edges of myself again.
I am Loralee Tilsby.
I am standing in a quiet cabin in the Colorado mountains.
My hands are clean.
Rocco is alive.
When I open my eyes, sunlight falls through the window across the scarred wooden floor. Dust moves inside the beam. Outside, wind passes through the pines with a hush that sounds nothing like a crowd running in panic.
I remain still until the quiet no longer feels empty.
Forty minutes have passed when I text Rocco.
You may return to your own cabin.
His answer appears immediately.
Are you feeling better?
Yes
Certain?
Mostly
That answer doesn't match yes
It's the only one you’re getting