Chapter 38 Keira
THIRTY-EIGHT
KEIRA
The darkness presses in from all sides, drowning me. My lungs won't fill. My hands won't stop shaking. There's a strange sound coming from somewhere, and it takes me too long to realize it's me.
I'm hyperventilating.
Having a full-blown panic attack in this tiny bathroom.
How long have I been hugging my knees like this?
Has it been ten minutes yet?
He's going to take Hale from me.
I'm on the floor, cradling my knees and gasping for air that won't come.
I'm going to pass out soon, and then he's going to take my baby from me.
There is nothing I can do to stop him.
The thoughts spiral, each one worse than the last. Switzerland. Boarding school. I see Hale's eyes growing distant and cold, empty of any memory of me.
The cry that rips out of me sounds like a dying animal.
I pull at my arms, at my neck, at anywhere I can reach, needing to feel something other than this soul-crushing panic.
You're going to lose your son. What even is the point after that?
I don't want to live in a world where Hale is no longer with me.
I just don't want to live anymore.
The door opens and I throw my hands up instinctively.
He's back…no, please no.
"Y-ou…yyyo—lock…ed—" I can't talk.
Fuck. I can't even get my words out to explain that he locked me in here.
"Keira."
Not Ewan's voice.
I can't see him in the dark and through the tears, but it sounds like Henri. Maybe I'm hallucinating him.
"Jesus Christ."
He drops to his knees in front of me, and I try to force myself further back, but it's nearly impossible. The spasms from rapid breathing have turned my hands and feet into claws, forcing my muscles to contract and tighten.
"Hey. Hey. It's okay. I'm here."
It's not okay. It's never going to be okay. I'm losing my baby.
"Keira. I need you to breathe with me. Can you do that?" He sounds like Henri but also nothing like him. The French accent is gone.
Am I dreaming again?
This is so not the time.
My chest heaves. No air. There's no air in this room.
"In for four." He's breathing audibly, making it easy to follow. "One…two…three…four. Hold it. One…two…three…four. Now out. One…two…"
I try to match the rhythm he's setting. My lungs stutter and catch, but ever so slowly they start to remember how to function.
"Good. That's good. Keep going."
In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.
"Tell me four things you can feel."
"The…the cold floor. My wet dress." My hands move toward him. "Your shirt. Your hands." They're warm against my cold fingers.
"Good. Four things you can hear."
"Your voice." It's the steadiest thing in the room. "My heartbeat. The—the pipes. Someone walking upstairs."
"Three things you can hold."
I swallow, realizing I can move my fingers and toes again. "The dress. My—" I look down. He's placed his hand palm-up on the tile between us, a tissue resting there.
I take the tissue and wipe all the snot from my nose.
"Your hand." I stare at it for a long moment in the dark. Then I take it.
His fingers close around mine. Henri's here, and he's real.
This is real. It's not a dream.
"There you are." He sounds gutted. "There you are."
I don't understand why he sounds like that. Like familiarity and stillness…even amidst total chaos and damage.
"He's taking Hale. He's sending him away, and I can't—I can't stop him. I can't…I can't lose him…I can't—"
"I'm not going to let that happen." His other hand comes up, smoothing back the pieces of hair that came undone.
"There is nothing you can do. You're just a guard."
"I can. He's not taking Hale. Not to Switzerland. Not anywhere." There's something fierce and certain in his voice that makes me want to believe him.
Light shines dimly from beneath the door. His face becomes clearer, and I stare at him. At the hard lines of his jaw. At the sadness and concern in his eyes. At the tension in his shoulders. At the way he's looking at me like I'm worth fighting for.
I don't know why it's only just occurring to me that the brown in his eyes are different. It doesn't look real, not in this dim light.
I lift my hand and slowly reach for his face, fingers trembling as I brush his cheekbone, tracing up to the corner of his eye.
He goes completely still.
"These aren't really your eyes, are they?"
He doesn't answer me.
"What aren't you telling me?" I whisper.
He doesn't offer any words, but he doesn't move away either. Just sits there, watching me with an expression I can't read.
"Take them out."
I can't believe I just said that. It's the first real demand I've made in years.
I expect him to deflect, to lie in order to protect whatever secret he's been keeping since he walked through Ewan's doors.
But after what feels like an eternity, his hand comes up to rest over mine.
And in this moment, clarity slices through the fog of panic, and I already know what I'm going to see.
I've known for a while. Maybe since the first time he said my name like it meant something. Maybe since shitty reception and good coffee. Maybe since the garden. Or when he looked at Hale with an intensity that made no sense for a stranger.
Maybe I've always known.
I just wasn't ready to believe it.
"Take them out," I say again. My voice doesn't waver this time. "Let me see you."
He looks almost relieved. I drop my hand and watch him tilt his head back, fingers pressing against one eye, then the other. The contacts come out silently. He holds them in his palm like the final piece of a mask he's been dying to tear off.
When his head drops back down, his eyes are closed.
My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my temples.
Open them. Please.
His lashes lift, and my mouth drops open.
Gray. Not brown.
The color of storm clouds gathering over Dublin Bay. The color of the rain that soaked through my clothes the first night he kissed me.
The color I gave to our son.
I'm speechless.
The bathroom tilts. The walls close in. The universe narrows to a single, impossible point—this man, this face, these eyes I thought I'd never see again.
"Tristan."
His name falls out of me like the first breath after drowning.
"Hi, Red."
Two words that change everything.
He came for me.
After everything I did. After the lies. The silence. The years of letting him believe the worst—that I set him up that day and chose someone else. That I wanted this and left him behind without a backward glance.
He came anyway.
I crumple forward, and he catches me, arms wrapping around my body like he's trying to hold me together, like he's afraid I'll dissolve if he lets go. And maybe I will. Maybe I'm already fading.
Maybe I've been in pieces for years, and I just didn't notice until this exact moment, when someone finally showed up to help me find them.
"You're here." I fist my hands in his shirt. "You're here."
"I'm here, Keira. I've got you."
"How long?" I pull back, wanting to watch his face. "How long have you been—"
"Months." His jaw tightens. "I've been searching for months. Three feet away from you for weeks, and I couldn't—" He stops, trying to collect himself. "I couldn't tell you. I couldn't touch you. I had to stand there and watch him…I'm so sorry."
And that's when I realize he's been drowning too.
Different water. Same depth. Both of us gasping for air in a world that forgot we existed.
I reach up and cup his face—his real face, beneath the beard and the disguise—and I feel him shudder under my touch. Feel the barely contained restraint that's cost him everything.
"You came for me," I whisper.
His forehead drops to mine. His breath shakes.
"I came for you both."
Both.
He knows about Hale. Of course he knows.
"You know that he's—"
"Mine? Yeah…I know." Tristan stops, swallowing hard. "He's so fucking perfect, Keira."
Tears slip down my cheeks, and I don't bother wiping them.
"You named him after me." His breath catches.
"I promised I would when we were in hiding, in that cabin. I told you I was stealing your name. That it was mine."
He brushes my tears away. "I thought you were joking."
"I never joke about theft."
He laughs, but the sound breaks near the end.
His hands come up to cradle my face. "You gave him my name." He says it again, like he needs to hear it twice to believe it. "You were trapped here, and you still gave him a piece of me."
"I wanted him to have something real. Something that was ours. Even if you never knew. Even if I never saw you again. I wanted him to carry a part of you with him. Always."
His chin trembles. "Keira…"
"I didn't know if you'd ever find us." I'm crying freely now, all my flimsy walls crumbling to dust. "But I wanted him to have your name. So that somewhere, somehow, you'd still exist in his story. Even if you were never in mine again."
"I'm in your story." He presses his lips to my forehead, letting them linger. "I've always been in your story. I never fucking left it."
I break quietly into a thousand pieces that he catches in his hands like he's been waiting his whole life to hold them.
"I've got you," he murmurs against my hair. "I've got both of you. And I'm never letting go again."
For the first time in years, I let myself believe.
Holding onto him and trying not to think about what the hell comes next.