Chapter Seventeen
Raine
I wake in uneven fragments, my body and mind agreeing something is different, but unable to sort out what that might be.
Parts of me are warm.
Warmth means hands. Hands mean correction. Correction means pain.
My muscles seize on instinct, breath catching hard in my chest before I force it to move again.
I wait for the familiar cues. The hum of ventilation. The weight of thick cloth over my face. The stale, recycled air, thick with chemicals and neglect.
But it’s quiet. I don’t smell…anything.
I keep my eyes closed and take inventory instead.
I’m horizontal, lying on something soft. Too soft. A steady, even warmth spreads from my feet to my chest, stopping short of my arms. The skin there prickles, oversensitized, braced for contact that doesn’t come.
My hands are free. They’re never free. That single realization is enough to terrify me.
I don’t move them right away. I wait, counting breaths that come almost too easily without forced posture, finally testing one finger, then another.
Pain flares immediately.
But it’s the right kind of pain. Sharp and localized and entirely mine. Not the heavy, numbing pressure from the restraints digging into my wrists.
I swallow and risk opening my eyes to slits. Light exists here—dim, but still bright enough to blur everything. I clamp my lids shut and breathe through a flare of panic.
When I try again, the room resolves slowly. Neutral walls. A window with the shade drawn. An open door.
Open?
My right shoulder throbs in a steady, nauseating rhythm. My legs feel distant, like they’re not fully attached to my body. When I try to shift them, the motion pulls a thin sound from somewhere deep in my chest.
A flash of movement registers at the edge of my vision.
Someone’s here.
Close enough that the air feels occupied, but not threatening. No one’s touching me, but my body braces anyway, waiting for a correction that…doesn’t come. The space around me stays still in a way my nervous system can’t interpret.
That’s new.
I take a deeper breath, and my ribs protest sharply. This time, I swallow the whimper. No noise. Noise brings attention. Then correction. Then—
“Raine.”
The voice is deep. Soft, not clinical, and filled with unmistakable concern.
“It’s Asher,” he says. “You’re safe. You don’t need to talk. I just want you to know where you are. And that I’m here.”
Names matter. He’s using mine, offering his. An exchange rather than a demand.
I don’t look at him yet. If I do and there’s nothing there, I don’t know if I’ll come back from that.
“How long?” I ask.
The words scrape over my throat, brittle and hoarse. My mouth tastes wrong. Old. I can feel it on my teeth, the stubborn film I haven’t been allowed to brush away.
Nausea rolls through me, and sweat prickles across my brow.
Fabric shifts, but I don’t think he’s moved closer. The sound places him without advancing.
“Four hours, twenty-three minutes,” he says. “You passed out before we got to the service elevator. We’re at my safe house in Seattle.”
I turn my head just enough to see him.
He’s in a chair across the room. High back, padded, and as neutral as everything else here. Except him.
Reddish brown hair, a few locks out of place. His blue button-down shirt is rumpled. Gray slacks.
I blink hard until his face comes into focus—most of it, anyway. It’s still a little blurred around the edges.
“You moved me.”
“Only as much as I had to.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands steepled, then stops. “Would you like the full rundown?”
“Yes.”
“I caught you when you passed out. Carried you to the car and put you in the front seat. We changed vehicles twice. I checked you for a head injury. Took blood pressure and heart rate readings. That’s it.
” He pauses, and I think I see a slight flush to his cheeks.
“You’re under a heated blanket. You can remove it.
Turn it down. The control’s on your right.
Or I can do it. But only if you want me to. ”
I slide my hand an inch. Fabric bunches under my fingers. My next breath is easier.
“You’re dehydrated,” he continues. “There are electrolytes on the nightstand. Strawberry flavored. They’re halfway decent.”
The idea of drinking is so foreign. Like it belongs to someone else. The few times I could bring myself to ask for water, it arrived the same way the thick, chemical “food” did.
I try to sit up.
My abs seize. My shoulder flares white-hot. The room tilts hard enough that the sound I make doesn’t feel like language.
Asher grips the arms of the chair hard enough they creak.
“Do you want help?” he asks. “I’d have to touch you. I’d move back right after.”
He keeps giving me exits. I don’t know what to do with that.
“Yes.” The word catches in my throat, and I try again. “Help me up slowly. Then take two steps back.”
“All right.”
He moves carefully. One hand under my back, the other held in such a way I can hook my good arm around it. He lifts me an inch at a time, pausing when my breath hitches, waiting for me to settle before easing me the rest of the way.
“Can I put a pillow behind you?”
I nod. The effort costs more than it should, but I don’t black out. That feels like a win.
As soon as I’m supported, he retreats exactly two steps.
I can see him more clearly now. Broad shoulders. Large hands, steady and relaxed at his sides. A short layer of stubble shades his jaw, and the first hint of lines crinkle at the corners of his eyes.
A brief flush of heat crawls up my neck. He smells like the outdoors. Like rain and trees and pine. While I’m covered in a layer of grit and grime so wrong I can feel it without looking.
Turning my focus to the glass, I try to force my fingers to cooperate. They don’t, and the liquid almost sloshes onto the nightstand.
“I can get a straw,” he offers. “Or hold it. Or we can wait.”
“No straws.” The words escape shattered, and he freezes. “Hold it. No movement. Let me do that.”
“Can I sit on the edge of the bed?” he asks. “I don’t want to stand over you. But I will if that’s better.”
I inhale too quickly, and my eyes burn.
I hadn’t known that mattered until he said it.
“Yes,” I say. “You can sit. But I need to see your hands. The whole time.”
“You will. And if you say the word, I’ll back away.”
The mattress dips. He doesn’t touch me. He lifts the glass and brings it close enough that I can angle it with the heel of my hand.
The liquid tastes faintly of strawberries.
No chemicals. No sickly sweet aftertaste. Real.
Tears leak from my eyes without permission.
“I’m not crying,” I say.
“I know.” There’s no pity in his voice. No humor. “Your body’s processing. That takes a minute.”
I file that away for later. When thinking doesn’t feel so…hard.
Two more sips, each one easier than the last, until my stomach cramps hard enough to stop me.
“Enough,” I say. “Any more, and I’ll throw up.”
He’s back in the chair in seconds. Giving me space. He’s not asking anything. Yet, he’s offered me more in the past few minutes than I can name.
“You’ll…stay over there?” I hate how small my voice sounds.
“Unless you need me to be somewhere else. Yes.”
I press my useless fingers to my stomach, breathing through another cramp before I risk speaking again.
“I can’t have anyone touch me without warning. Or consent. I don’t know how long that’ll be true.”
“As long as it needs to be,” he says. “I won’t touch you unless you ask. And I won’t be offended if you never do.”
Something in my chest tightens—something fragile and dangerous and uncomfortably close to hope.
“I’m not okay,” I whisper.
“I know.” Asher settles back, his hands loose on the arms of the chair. “But you’re alive. And you’re not alone. We’ll take the rest one piece at a time.”
I believe him.
That surprises me most of all.