Chapter 20 Totality #3
And in the same breathless beat, I’m laying her flat along the sand, positioning myself over her. With an enraged groan, I wrench the astronomical watch from my wrist and cast it to the rocks.
I’ve known the exact month, day, hour, minute—the goddamn second her heart would stop. And I’ve known there would be nothing I could do to prevent it from happening. I couldn’t intervene. Couldn’t fucking save her.
But this time—
“I can bring you back.”
I tear her drenched shirt open, removing all barriers, a touch at the boundary, and have the heel of my palm braced to her chest.
She didn’t come to me the way they did, soaked in darkness, devoid. She’s an anomaly for this reason.
My anomaly.
Without hesitation, I begin compressions, my hands centered atop the cruel scar that becomes my guide. “Come back to me,” I command, pressing down in furious demand. “Come on, starling. Collins, I know you have some fight. You have to fucking fight.”
Tilting her chin up, I seal my mouth over hers and force my breath into her lungs. Then, keeping a merciless rhythm, I count each second, each compression, each breath.
Time narrows, the eclipse holding the sky in suspended darkness. Quickly, I check for her pulse before forcing another breath into her. Each compression is a defiant plea. Each breath I breathe into her is an intimate demand to reignite her fire.
I work her heart, pumping with a determination that borders on madness. Terrified I’ll break her, desperate enough to risk it. The window to revive her shrinks, close to collapse.
Her echoes held at the threshold of loss.
Mouth hovering above hers, I whisper, “Collins, it’s entrainment. Remember? Two heartbeats aligning. Pulses matching. I need you to catch my beat, baby.”
I drive down, compressing in a relentless rhythm. My heart clenches at the give and recoil of bone beneath my hand.
The sand hard under my knees, an ache tearing through the hollow cavern inside my chest, my voice is a ragged whisper across her still lips as I count, modeling the pulse. “One—two—three—four—five—”
At thirty, I tip her chin. Seal my mouth over hers. Breathe for her.
Palms braced over her sternum, I whisper fiercely, “Breathe.” Muscles rigid, I start to tremble. My voice cracks. “Fuck. Come on, angel. In for four…hold two…out four. Lock onto my heartbeat.”
Between compressions, my fingers tap out a cadence—her pulse; her melody—over the cage of her ribs. The beat of her fucking heart I’ve memorized.
Forehead touching hers, I say, “One rhythm. One pulse. Find your way back to me—”
Beneath my palm, it’s faint and arrhythmic but it’s there—a flutter.
My own heart seizes, muscles frozen in an infuriating, painful grip of hope. With a trembling hand, I apply another gentle compression to her chest, coaxing her weak heartbeat to strengthen.
“That’s it,” I whisper roughly against her parted lips. “That’s my girl. Breathe with me, baby.”
Her chest rises with a shallow gasp, life flooding back into her lungs. Relief slams through me as her heartbeat climbs beneath my touch, and I never stop drumming a steady beat across her chest.
Her breath is a soft brush of warmth across my lips, and I draw it in like the sweetest relief. Pressing my forehead to hers, I whisper in my own broken breath, “Stay with me, angel.” I swallow, my throat tight with salt and desperation. “I need you to stay with me.”
Overhead, the corona flares around the eclipsed sun. Shadow swallows us, the chill sinking deep into our entwined bodies. My breath holds, lungs burning, until the moon starts its slow retreat into third contact—and her heartbeat steadies.
Her pulse stabilizes under my hand, rhythm aligning to mine. Two separate beats locking, a syncopation of pulses fusing into one beneath the waning shadow.
As I lift away, her eyelids flutter, opening to reveal those slate depths threaded by blazing striations of gold. Like a second corona igniting, its fiery filaments reflected in her eyes that flare with heat and life.
With a strenuous exhale, I lower my lips to the pulse in her throat, tasting of salt and life and her.
The moon shifts, shadow receding farther. Light bleeds across the shore. Warmth floods me as her breath meets mine on a shallow exhale.
“There you are,” I say, the anguish slowly ebbing like the tide. “There’s my fire.”
Her chest rises beneath my palm, and she coughs weakly. Her cold fingers find mine still splayed across her bare chest and she grips them, a sob catching in her throat.
“Take me in,” she whispers, her breath breaking. “Make me warm, Orion. Take me somewhere safe.”
Tenderly, I cup her cheek, powerless to deny her anything. Shifting onto my knees, I gather her into my arms and lift her from the sand. Just as I did once before, I cradle her close against my chest. Only this time, the threat isn’t in touching her.
As the shadow of totality retreats, a new, sinister fear seeps cold into the marrow of my bones.
I hold Collins tighter, desperate to keep her close, to keep her fragile melody playing as my fingers obsessively tap against her bare thigh, keeping pace with the arrhythmic beat of her heart.
“You know once I show you my secrets,” I say, voice low in warning, “I can never let you go.”
Collins cups my face, forcing my gaze on her. “Then show me everything.”