Chapter Thirty-Three #2
I stayed exactly where I was. Didn’t loosen. Didn’t tighten. Didn’t fill the room with anything unnecessary.
“Out.”
The breath came. Shaky. Broken. But it came.
Again.
“In.”
Out.
The rhythm built slowly, uneven at first, then steadier. She fought it for the first two breaths, maybe three. After that her body started taking the pattern whether she wanted to or not. Her hands stopped pushing. Not relaxed. Not soft. Just no longer fighting me as if I were the danger.
That did something vicious to the anger in me.
Not relief.
Not yet.
Something meaner. More pointed.
Because now I knew exactly whose doing this was.
Her grip shifted. Her fingers caught in my shirt instead, grounding instead of resisting. I felt the change immediately and held myself exactly where I was, no closer, no less controlled, giving her the only thing she needed from me right now.
Something solid.
Something unmoving.
Something that would not take more than it had to.
“In.”
She followed it. Not perfectly. Enough.
“Out.”
Her shoulders dropped by a fraction. The tension loosened in increments instead of all at once. The panic still moved through her, but it no longer owned the room.
I kept the rhythm quiet. Low. Held in the same voice I would use to order a man to stay alive if he was bleeding out under my hands. Because that was what this was now. Not softness. Not gentleness. Command forced into care because it was the only shape of control I trusted not to fail her.
Gradually, the sharpest edge dulled. Her breathing stopped fighting itself with every inhale.
The pressure in her chest eased enough that the rest of her could come back in pieces.
Her forehead almost touched my chest at one point, not leaning into me exactly, but no longer twisting away either.
The fight had burned itself down into something quieter.
Not calm. Not safety. Something she could survive.
I felt the shift the second it came. The point where she was back in herself. The point where the reaction stopped driving her and she started regaining command of it.
I didn’t let go immediately.
I waited.
Made sure.
Her grip loosened further, fingers slipping against my shirt, no longer holding with the same desperate force. Her breathing evened out, slower now, deeper, her chest rising and falling in a rhythm that no longer fought itself.
“I’m okay,” she said.
Quiet. Not forced.
I didn’t move right away.
Then, slowly, I loosened the hold, my hand easing from her shoulder, my arm shifting back just enough to give her space without fully stepping away.
She didn’t pull back sharply. She moved in small increments, sitting back instead of separating all at once, her posture straightening as she reclaimed her own balance.
Silence settled between us again.
Not easy.
Not clean.
Just quiet.
“I’m fine,” she said after a moment, more clearly this time.
I watched her.
“No. You’re steady.”
Something almost like dry amusement ghosted across her mouth and vanished.
“That’s close enough.”
I didn’t argue.
Another pause stretched, softer now, the weight of what had just happened settling into something we didn’t need to name aloud.
At last she lifted her head and looked at me again.
It wasn’t the same look as before.
Still awareness. Still edge. Still that new thing between us that had not existed before the study. But not unstable anymore.
Grounded.
“I don’t like that it still does that,” she said.
“It’s not something you switch off.”
“I know.”
Her gaze flicked away briefly, then back.
“I just thought…” She exhaled once. “I thought I had more control over it.”
“You did.”
She frowned.
“That didn’t feel like it.”
“You stopped it.”
She went quiet at that. Not agreeing. Not rejecting it. Just letting it sit long enough to matter.
Her hands had loosened against the bed now instead of gripping it. Her breathing had fully steadied. The room no longer felt like it was holding its breath for her.
“I don’t want that to happen again,” she said.
My gaze held hers.
“It won’t happen the same way.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” I agreed. “It’s not.”
Silence again.
Quieter this time.
She looked at me a second longer and then said,
“You didn’t let go.”
Not accusation.
Observation.
“No.”
Her brow shifted slightly.
“You needed something to push against.”
“And you decided that was you.”
“Yes.”
I didn’t soften it. I didn’t apologize for it either.
Another pause.
Then she nodded once.
Not agreement. Not entirely.
Acceptance, maybe.
“I didn’t panic because of you,” she said after a moment.
The words moved through me too fast.
Not comfort.
Not anything gentle enough to trust.
A hard kind of relief. The kind that leaves damage behind it. The kind that is dangerous because it almost feels like permission.
“I know.”
Her gaze stayed on mine another second, like she was deciding whether to say more. Then she let it go.
The room settled fully after that. The quiet no longer pressing. No longer amplifying. Just still.
She was upright now. Present. Fully back inside herself.
I stepped back then. Not abruptly. Not because I wanted distance. Because if I stayed where I was, the anger under my skin was going to turn outward, and I knew exactly where it wanted to go.
Daan.
He had leaned on the wrong wound. He had done it in my house. He had done enough.
I moved toward the door, then stopped with my hand on it and spoke without turning.
“If he approaches you again, you don’t stay.”
She didn’t hesitate this time.
“I won’t.”
Not good enough.
Useful.
Barely enough to keep the rest of me leashed.
I opened the door and added, quieter, colder,
“And if he tries to close the space again, you say my name.”
The room went still behind me.
Then—
“Okay,” she said.
That was enough.
For now.
I stepped out and closed the door quietly behind me.
The hallway was empty. The house was still. My hands were steady by force.
I stood there one second too long, looking at the wood of her door and seeing, not the room behind it, but Daan’s face when I made clear exactly what lines he had just crossed.
Then I turned and went to find him.