Chapter 13 #2
Garbled sounds filtered in through the panic. My sight tightened to pinpoints, zeroing in on the most random things to keep my brain from shutting down; the one dark strand of hair at the end of a blond eyebrow, a tiny freckle, little waves in a bathtub behind his shoulder…
“No, you look at me, baby. Right at me.” My attention returned to Ezra’s face, and I watched his lips widen as he spoke again. “Good girl, just keep looking right here. Can you take a breath for me?”
I know I did because I felt my lungs fill and then deflate.
Time slipped away like that, me noting random things as salty air made my chest move.
Eventually, I came out of it. The effects of that potion had long worn off, and I whimpered as my body felt like it would be crushed under its own weight.
At the sound, Ezra dipped down until he could see my clear gaze.
“And she’s back,” he murmured, his thumb gently rubbing along my cheek. “You had me worried there.”
I shook off his touch, the motion sending my head for a spin.
I managed to cover it with a shrug. Nausea lingered in the back of my throat, but thankfully, it didn’t do more than that.
I anchored myself to the cool marble under my palms and shivered when goosebumps broke out along my arms and back.
The shaking would start soon; it always followed an attack that hard.
“I’m fine.”
The words sounded dead, even to me. There wasn’t even a convincing lie attached to them. They just… were.
He snorted anyway. “Neither one of us believes that, but it's okay.” He rested his warm hands over mine, allowing his body heat to sink into my knuckles. “You know that, right? It's okay to not be okay. That’s why you have me.”
He was able to get my grip on the counter to loosen until my fingers rested lax in his palms. I looked down at them, at the pale, spindly things surrounded by such warmth and life.
The scars marring those warm hands were just as pale as I was, telling of a time that was maybe just as dark, just as difficult.
Those hands were okay, so it was possible I could be, too. One day. But I had to fight for it.
“You want me to go in there,” I said, staring at the full tub behind him.
He didn’t even look. His eyes never left my face as the reality of this moment sank in for both of us. “I have to do this, or you’re going to die.”
I tasted true fear in his words, and it sparked an answering alarm within me.
The shaking started, both an after-effect and continuation of the panic that hadn’t quite relinquished its hold.
Ezra’s hands quickly left mine to cup my face.
The new warmth on my cheeks was a shock to the system, and it was just enough to keep me from falling back into that empty headspace.
My chest buzzed with something hot. It pulsed and stretched, almost like it was reaching for the man in front of me. Or reaching for something to save us.
“Whatever thoughts you’re battling, let them go,” he commanded. “You’re not in control right now. I am. Trust me to get you through this.”
I couldn’t look at the tub again, not with his hold on my face, but the image was stained on my mind. It was so deep, so cold. So much freaking water.
“I don’t want to go in there alone.” My voice was small, weak. The perfect embodiment of what I was now, but I couldn’t hold it back. It was my last shot at pleading my way out of this.
“You won’t be, not for one fucking second,” Ezra swore.
I really hoped not, because dying alone the first time was enough to stain my soul. And I still bartered it away.
“You’re asking a lot,” I told him. He probably had no idea truly how much, and I didn’t have the strength left in me to tell him.
“I know.”
I wasn’t sure if it was the fierceness in his gaze or the simple fact that I didn’t want to die, but I let out a slow breath and then nodded. Without another moment of delay, he gently wrapped my wrists around his neck and pushed on my knees with his hips.
They widened against the pressure, and he moved in, nestling himself against me like a second skin.
Any other time, I’d be blushing, but this new position revealed the bathtub to me once again, and all other thoughts fled my mind.
With both hands on my hips, he lifted me from the counter, and my legs instinctively wrapped around him.
He held me to him. Tight. And we began to move. Each step brought that water more into view until I could see all the way down to the bottom. Nothing but white porcelain and death stared back at me.
“You won’t let me go?” My question was muffled by his shoulder, but he squeezed me in response.
“Not even for a second.”
“I’m serious.”
My eyes were clenched shut as I tried in vain to stave off the hyperventilation that was sure to come.
Ezra didn’t even know how much trust I put on him.
He could just open his arms and drop me in, and I’d never see it coming.
Fuck, I deserved that with how I’d been treating him.
But somehow, I knew he wouldn’t do that.
“I’ll suction myself to you like a horny octopus.”
The breath that left me was almost a laugh. Leave it to him to turn anything into a dirty joke.
I groaned when I heard the water slosh and tried to focus everything I had on his voice. “That’s… not helping.” It so was. He needed to keep talking.
He chuckled, and my entire body moved with it. “I think you like that visual.”
I didn’t even want to know what a horny octopus looked like, something about eight arms with suction cups and a squishy penis sounded terrifying.
I shuddered. “It’s actually disturbing.”
“Ah. But it got you in the water.”
There was no amount of preparation that could have made this any easier.
Whether I knew it was coming and counted the heartbeats, or I was surprised, the second I registered the water on my skin, I was going to freak out.
And freak out, I did. I flailed, sending saltwater over the rim of the tub in all directions.
Ezra kept moving, not slowing for a second until his ass met the bottom and my knees along with it.
The water came all the way up to my chest. It surrounded me.
Pushing and seeking a way inside, it soaked through my clothes and under my skin.
I couldn’t get away, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but scream into Ezra’s shoulder as my entire body suffered the onslaught.
It made and destroyed me all at once. My body greedily soaked up the nutrients and whatever the fuck else it so desperately needed while my mind fractured and I tried to hold on to the pieces.
My head is above water. My head is above water.
My chest rose and fell in deep breaths, trying to capture the very life this water offered.
My lungs are clear. My head is above water.
My skin loosened and no longer felt like it was going to crack along my joints. It stopped caging me in and started to once again feel like a part of me.
I’m not tied up. My head is above water.
Every single part of me, even parts I didn’t notice had shut down, were roaring with feeling and strength. I was starving, exhausted, and felt like I could arm wrestle a yeti all at once. Deep within me, my well of magick began to refill. There would be no denying it now.
Through it all, Ezra quietly rocked me. It sent even more water spilling over the side, but neither of us cared. He held me, while I held on to myself, and together we beat the monsters of my mind away.
My head is above water. My head is above water.
And with his help, I was never going to let it fall back under.