7. Chapter Seven #2
“He'd have reacted by now,” one of the other men says. “He didn't get enough of the allergen.”
Master Mica grins, showing me all of his teeth.
“Good thing we have plenty more. Grab that box for me.”
“No!” someone shouts. Master Mica drops my face, turning to glare at whoever just spoke.
My head bobs on my neck, but I manage to look too.
It takes a few blinks for everything to stop spinning.
By the time reality solidifies, Bryce is saying, “-kill him. Please. Please, don’t.
I - I can close my throat for you. You can choke me.
Okay? With your hand. Just collapse the fucking thing.
I don’t care. Please. Not him. He’s good. He’s-”
“Someone shut that cumrag up,” Master Mica growls.
There’s one last, “Please!” before a choked-off sound and men laughing.
I don’t dare look over at Bryce. I don’t move.
I… breathe. Sort of. It’s not getting any better, but it’s not getting worse either.
Master Mica smiles at me, all teeth. “Chew good for me. Wouldn’t want you to choke, sweetheart.”
He hooks a finger beneath my bottom teeth and yanks my jaw down. A handful of the candies are shoved in, each a chocolate-covered ball that I know hides a thick glob of peanut butter beneath.
My body heaves halfway through, like it’s begging me to get rid of the candies, to get rid of anything I’ve swallowed while I was at it. He says something about swallowing anything that comes back up. About licking it up off the floor.
“You’re taking too long.” He presses his hand over my mouth and nose, blocking the little bits of airway I had left and forcing me to hurry, to chew, and chew, and chew. “You can breathe once you’ve swallowed it all,” he tells me with a laugh.
But by the time I’ve finished, I can’t.
I can’t breathe at all.
I wake up alone, Nolan nowhere to be found in the darkness of our shared room. My tongue is heavy and thick in my mouth, an intrusion I can't get rid of. It makes me gag and heave. I barely make it to the bathroom before purging what little my stomach has to offer.
It's not enough, though. My tongue is still tingling, still swelling, even if I know it's only really happening in my mind.
I pinch it with my fingers, squeezing it as flat as it'll go.
It feels like even the air is sticky and thick, just like the chocolates had been.
It feels like my throat is swelling shut.
I turn the light on, blinking rapidly to clear away the stars that dance in my vision at first. Then I lean forward and stick my tongue out at my reflection in the mirror. It looks just as flat as it felt with my fingers squeezing it. There's a perfectly visible, open passage to my throat.
I can breathe.
I can see myself breathing.
Stop, I try to tell the paranoia inside my head. It's just anxiety. It was just a dream. I can breathe. My tongue is normal. My mouth is otherwise empty. See?
I can breathe. I can breathe. I can breathe.
But the second I turn away from the mirror, my tongue is swelling again, a phantom death I can’t escape.
I've never explained to anyone what happened that night. Bryce was there, trying to save me. Jake was there, too. I don’t know what parts either of them heard or saw, though. Not all of them.
All I know is my death started on the sticky floor of the party room.
I died with my eyes locked on a pair of shoes, Jake looking down at me as people laughed and laughed.
My afterlife started in the pantry closet, my body half-draped over Bryce’s.
I came back to life with a gasp of air and blurry vision, Bryce’s tear-soaked face the first thing I saw once the oxygen rushed into my lungs.
I remember Bryce sobbing before dragging me up against his chest. He had clung to me, his whole body shaking, as he said, “Fuck, oh, thank fuck, Matt, Matty, you with me? Yeah, yeah, fuck, you’re okay. You’re okay, Matty. I’ve got you. Just breathe. Just breathe, please, keep breathing.”
If my screams still haunt Nolan, what must they do to Bryce?
Neither of them know what it felt like that night, or what my life has felt like ever since.
The things they do know are foggy, guesswork and observations pieced together.
They know I struggle with food, maybe they even tie it to the chocolates, but they don’t know what happens when I try to eat, they don’t know how hard I really do try, they don’t know how often I’m sick.
They know about the nightmares, but they don’t know how little I sleep, they don’t know about the bone-aching exhaustion, they don’t know that sometimes the nightmares come for me when I’m still awake.
They don’t know why I don’t talk.
Then again, neither do I.
They’ve always been there, though. By my side. They keep me company as I sit trapped in silence. They talk me through waves of panic and grief. They tell me it’s okay that I can’t talk, that everything is okay, that they love me, that they’re so fucking happy I’m still alive.
I won’t ever tell them I’m not so happy.
I cup a hand under the faucet, filling it with cold water before sipping it. It hurts to swallow. That’s probably from the anxiety, or maybe my throat is sore because I was screaming in my sleep again, but my brain won’t drop the what ifs.
What if your throat is closing again? What if you ate something earlier and it’s just now triggering you? What if the reaction before did some sort of damage and your body is just finally giving out?
What if you never actually caught your breath? What if you were right to be afraid? What if you really have been a ghost all this time?
I need Nolan. I need him to sit with me until this feeling goes away. Until I can convince my mind to accept reality. I need him to tell me that my throat is open, my tongue isn’t swelling.
I need him to tell me that I’m real.
I don’t know how to tell him I need those things, not with how messy my thoughts are or how shaky my hands, but him sitting beside me and not panicking should be enough. He’d never ignore me if those things were happening. He’d save me, just like Bryce had somehow.
That's why, even with a tongue that feels doubled and legs that barely hold me up, I force myself to go look for Nolan.
My search doesn’t last long. I don’t even make it to the first floor, getting caught halfway down a hall by the sound of Jake’s voice in the too-near distance saying, “I’ll be right there.”
Any bravery I’d managed to scrounge up evaporates.
There’s a moment where I’m no longer on my feet in a safehouse. I’m laying on the floor, at the Roarke compound, suffocating, and that voice is saying something else, is - is saying - and he’s Master Benny - but he’s - he’s Jake now - and - I can’t.
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t breathe.
I grab the nearest door handle without even considering the consequences. I’m already stepping into the room before I can process that it’s at the very least rude, if not dangerous, to just walk into someone’s space like this.
It’s at least not a bedroom.
Not a bedroom at all.
All I see is a wall of light at first, too bright, so many colors, but I figure out what I’m looking at after a few blinks. It’s a computer setup, with small monitors mounted on the wall in rows, some tilted, others facing straight-on, all angled toward… a man.
There’s a man sitting in a chair in front of them.
I suck in a sharp breath, turning back toward the hall, but then I hear Jake’s laugh.
My skin crawls, memories pinpricking in my head.
He’s closer now.
So is the man from the chair, suddenly standing behind me, hovering near my shoulder. I flinch as I catch sight of his hand reaching for me. He steps to the side, giving me room, and I realize he’s reaching past me - to the door.
I look over at him, chest heaving, and - oh.
Ace.
It’s Ace.
He keeps his eyes locked with mine as he closes the door. It should feel threatening, I think. I should probably be scared.
Instead, it feels like I can suddenly breathe again. Like the oxygen was spilling out of the room and now, with the softest click of the door and the easy curve of his smile, I can finally fill my lungs with air.
He smells fruity. Bright, somehow, even if that isn’t actually a smell.
It’s dizzying.
I look away, focusing on his hand instead. It’s safer that way. Safer to just watch as his fingers trail up to a deadlock none of the other rooms I’ve been in have had. He doesn’t turn it, just taps it twice like he wants to make sure I've noticed it.
“Is it Jake you don’t want to see?” he asks, his voice soft, quiet. “He doesn’t have the key to this lock. No one does, actually - apart from me. Whoever is out there won't be able to find you if you want to turn it.”
It’s not a hard decision. Jake is the man who stood by on the worst night of my life, just watching when Mica - when all those men - when they - when I - I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t breathe at all.
Jake is the man who told the doctor I was only without air for 45 seconds. As if that was nothing. As if I haven’t been suffocating every second since.
Ace is the man that gave me the power to control and care for my body. He gave me the tools to communicate despite being locked in silence. He gave me the apple, crisp and juicy and so, so good.
I can somehow breathe around Ace.
That alone is enough.
I carefully turn the lock, making sure I listen for the click of it engaging. I give myself a moment to appreciate the relief. Just one moment. I know I have to face the next threat now that Jake is handled. Ace will probably want me to explain myself.
Except, when I turn around, I find that he’s not paying me any attention. He’s already seated in his chair again, his back to me as he reads something on one of his screens.