Chapter 13 #2
I forced my legs to work. One step. Then another.
The elevator—I needed to get to the elevator. The emergency lights would be on in the stairwell. The lobby would have backup power. I just had to get out of this room, out of this darkness, out of this building that had suddenly become a tomb.
My shin cracked against something—a chair, a trash can, I didn’t know—and I bit down on a cry.
The elevator was close. I could see the faint outline of the doors in my flashlight beam.
I jabbed the button. Once. Twice. Again and again, harder each time, like desperation could make it work.
Nothing. The power was out. The elevator wasn’t coming. I was trapped.
The stairs. The emergency stairs.
I turned and stumbled toward the stairwell door, my breath coming too fast now, shallow gasps that weren’t getting enough air into my lungs.
The edges of my vision were starting to blur even in the darkness. I recognized the signs—panic attack, my old enemy, the thing I thought I’d outgrown years ago.
My hand found the door handle. I pulled.
It didn’t move.
I pulled harder. Threw my whole weight against it. Slammed my palm against the metal, once, twice, three times.
Locked. The door was locked from the other side.
The panic crested, hot and suffocating.
I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, knees pulled to my chest, phone clutched in my shaking hand.
I was eight years old again. Waiting in that corridor. Waiting for someone to come.
I don’t know how long I sat there. Minutes. Hours. Time had stopped meaning anything.
Then—a sound. Footsteps. Getting closer. Heavier. Echoing through the darkness.
I stopped breathing entirely.
The stairwell door burst open, and light flooded through—real light, strong and steady, not the pathetic glow of my phone but a flashlight beam that cut through the black like a blade.
I threw my arm up to shield my eyes, a scream building in my throat—
“Pauline.”
Jack’s voice. Jack’s face emerging from behind the light, his features sharp with something that looked like worry.
The kind that made his jaw tight and his eyes wild.
“Jesus Christ.” He crossed the distance in three strides and dropped to his knees in front of me. “Pauline. Look at me. Are you hurt?”
I couldn’t answer. I could only stare at him—this man who had spent a week pretending I didn’t exist, now kneeling on the floor in front of me with panic written across his face.
“The backup generator failed,” he said, the words coming fast. “The whole building went dark. I was in the garage when it happened—saw your car still in the lot, and I thought—” He stopped. Swallowed hard. “I thought something had happened to you.”
He’d come looking for me. In the dark, in a dead building, he’d come looking for me.
“Pauline.” His hands found my face, cupping my cheeks, tilting my head up so I had to meet his eyes. His thumbs brushed the dampness from my skin—tears I hadn’t realized were falling. “Talk to me. Say something. Anything.”
“I don’t—” My voice trembled. Broke. Small and weak and nothing like the woman who’d been demanding he stay away for weeks. “I don’t like the dark.”
“I know,” he said softly. “I know you don’t. Come here.”
He pulled me into his arms.
I didn’t resist. He was warm and real, and when his arms closed around me, something inside my chest finally unclenched—a fist I’d been holding for so long I’d forgotten it was clenched at all. I buried my face against his shoulder and breathed him in.
The panic loosened its grip, receding like a tide pulling back from shore.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured against my hair. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
We stayed like that for a long moment. Just breathing. His chest rising and falling against mine, steady and even, an anchor in the dark.
“Can you stand?” he asked finally.
I nodded against his shoulder.
He helped me to my feet, keeping one arm around my waist like he was afraid I might collapse. Maybe I would. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else—borrowed, unreliable.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” he said. “Stay close to me.”
He led me through the dark building, his flashlight cutting a path through the blackness.
Down the emergency stairs that opened from his side.
Through corridors I barely recognized. His arm never left my waist, his body a warm wall at my side, adjusting his pace every time my steps faltered, slowing when I slowed, waiting when I needed to breathe.
We emerged into the parking garage, and I gulped the cool night air like I’d been held underwater.
Jack stopped and turned to face me. In the dim glow of the emergency lights, I could see the tension still locked in his jaw, the worry still carved around his eyes.
“Pauline. I need you to tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m okay.” It came out as a whisper. “I’m okay now.”
He guided me toward his car and opened the passenger door. His hand hovered at my elbow, steadying without pushing.
The engine started and I recognized the familiar route to my apartment.
“Jack.”
He turned. I met his eyes. My heart was hammering—not from panic this time, but from something worse. Something that required more courage than running ever had.
“Take me to your place.” My voice was steady. Quiet. Sure in a way that surprised even me. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
His whole body went still. For about three seconds he just looked at me—searching my face, reading something there that I couldn’t hide and wasn’t trying to anymore.
Something soft passed across his gaze. Want. And then—
His eyes turned to stone again.
“Don’t say something you’ll regret.”
I held his gaze. I didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away.
“You said you’ve got me.” My throat burned. “Did you mean it? Or was that just something you say in the dark when someone’s falling apart?”