Chapter 38 Breath Between Worlds
Breath Between Worlds
The day after we escaped from Kyle, the world shrank to nothing but the four walls of Aiden’s cabin and our battered bodies. Sleep is supposed to heal. But fear just knocks you out. And we both had a toxic dose in our veins.
Mateo stretched out along the couch with his head on my thigh, one arm hooked around my waist like he was pretending not to hold on.
I woke him once, gently, with my thumb smoothing his hair, just to make sure he stirred.
He did. I watched his back rise and fall until the motion itself hypnotized me, until I was the one fighting off sleep while my son floated somewhere far inside himself.
Aiden was gone most of the day in a semblance of privacy. I was grateful for it. I didn’t want to answer questions or relive what had happened, not yet, not while my arms shook when I tried to pour a glass of water or my vision swam with ghost images of Kyle’s sneer.
The only evidence that Aiden was still nearby was the trail of muddy boot prints leading from the door to assorted corners of the kitchen, the faint metallic clatter of tools from behind the shed, or his shadow passing the fogged window with a wolf trailing behind him.
He left us be, and that was what I needed.
By early afternoon, Mateo finally roused himself. He blinked around the cabin before looking at me. “Is it over?” His voice was hoarse.
I wanted to tell him yes, but even that lie would have felt like a betrayal, so I just kept stroking his hair and told him, “It’s over for now.” He nodded, and that was enough.
We spent a few hours pretending to be normal: I found an ancient deck of playing cards in a sticky kitchen drawer and taught him a version of UNO using them.
He added house rules every time I started winning.
We pushed the battered armchair next to the woodstove, propped our feet up, and watched an old nature documentary on mute while we ate dry granola bars and the last of the good apples from the fruit bowl.
As the afternoon light began to dim, casting long shadows across the cabin, Mateo and I succumbed to the gentle pull of sleep once again. The warmth of the fading sun wrapped around us, and the rhythmic sound of his breathing lulled me into a tranquil state.
When the sky deepened to purple, Aiden’s reappearance roused me from my nap.
This time, he came with two thick steaks wrapped in butcher paper and a bag of slightly wilted salad greens.
He moved around the kitchen with an ease that surprised me, washing his hands at the sink, slicing onions, and setting pans on the stove while I watched from the couch.
After ensuring Mateo remained nestled in his dreams, I shifted from my spot. I slid off the couch and found a sturdy stool by the counter. Settling onto it, I let my fingers trace the edges of the wood, feeling the warmth radiating from the stove as Aiden prepared dinner. We didn’t talk much.
At one point, he caught me studying him. He offered a sideways grin and said, “I figure you two could do with something more than cereal for dinner.”
I nodded and then hated myself for how much I wanted him to stay close, to keep being normal for just a little longer.
He left again to grill the steaks outside. I set the table with chipped plates and mismatched forks, found an old mason jar to use as a water pitcher, and pretended it was a real meal and not just a last supper before the next disaster hit.
Mateo shuffled into the kitchen, still rumpled and heavy-eyed. “What’s that smell?” he asked, suspicious but intrigued.
“That’s what meat is supposed to smell like,” I told him, and he wrinkled his nose but didn’t move away.
We ate together, and for the length of a meal, the world was safe again. Mateo inhaled his food, barely chewing, and gave a running commentary on the documentary we’d abandoned earlier. Aiden listened, offered the occasional correction or joke, and kept refilling my glass even when I protested.
At one point, Mateo said, “If he knows about this place, we’ll have to move again, right?”
And Aiden replied, “Not tonight,” with a kind of certainty that made it sound like a promise.
After dinner, we played another round of UNO, and this time Aiden joined in, losing on purpose so obviously that even Mateo caught on and teased him for it.
It got late. I tucked Mateo into the old bed in the guest room, lay beside him until his breathing evened out, then drifted back into the kitchen to clean up. Aiden was still there, stacking dishes, and the urge to say something real rose in me like a tide.
“Thank you,” I said, finally. He shrugged like it was nothing. But when I turned to go, he reached for my wrist.
“You don’t have to be okay,” he said, and the gruffness in his voice made the words hit harder than they should have. I nodded and went back to Mateo.
Sometime after dawn, I drifted in and out of a restless half-sleep, my gaze fixed on Mateo as he lay curled under the covers.
I couldn’t shake the unease coiling in my stomach. The morning light seeped through the cabin’s dirt-streaked windows, casting a muted gray hue over everything. I listened intently to the soft thud of wolves pacing on the porch.
Mateo stirred first. “How did you sleep?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
He hesitated. “It was… weird,” he murmured, his voice cracking. “I feel the buzzing inside me getting stronger. I don’t think I can control it much longer.” His admission sent a chill through me.
“It’s okay, Mateo,” I said. “We’ll figure this out together.” My heart raced with uncertainty.
When we came out of the room, Aiden was already up, dressed in a flannel and jeans, hair still damp, but the effect was oddly domestic. He looked at me with a strange sort of gentleness.
“C’mon,” he said to Mateo, jerking his chin toward the living room. “I want to show you something.”
I started to stand, but he waved me off. “You rest. I won’t break him.”
They sat cross-legged on the floor, facing each other like two mirror images from alternate universes. Aiden’s hands rested on his knees, palms up, fingers loose. He motioned for Mateo to copy him.
“We’re gonna do a breathing drill,” Aiden said, voice low. “Not magic. Just…breathing.”
Mateo shrugged but followed suit, hands on knees, eyes on Aiden.
Aiden took a long, slow inhale, then let it out. “Do that,” he said.
Mateo tried. The first attempt was a sharp sniff and an even sharper whoosh out, more angry than meditative. But he watched Aiden do it again, long in, longer out, and copied it.
“Wolves,” Aiden said between breaths, “have to listen to their bodies. If we freak out or lose control, we lose the hunt. We lose the pack. So we learn to stay steady, no matter what.”
Mateo’s face flickered between skepticism and awe. “So is that, like… only for wolves?” He paused for a beat. “Or can I do it too?”
Aiden grinned, a dimple forming in the corner of his mouth, giving his smile an endearing lopsided charm. “You can be anything you want. But first, you learn to breathe.”
They kept at it, back and forth, a call-and-response of lungs and willpower. I watched as, minute by minute, the tension slid off Mateo’s shoulders. His cheeks softened. His lips parted, slack with focus.
Aiden opened his eyes and caught me watching. He winked. “Works for grownups, too.”
I snorted. “I’ll stick with coffee.”
He shrugged, conceding the point.
They did another round. Inhale, hold, slow exhale. It was so basic, so human, that for a second I almost forgot what we were running from.
When the drill ended, Aiden leaned forward and clapped Mateo gently on the shoulder. “Nice. You did good.”
Mateo beamed. “My head feels floaty.”
“That’s how you know it’s working.”
I realized I hadn’t unclenched my jaw for the past five minutes. I let it go, rolling my neck, and something in my chest loosened with it. Maybe this was how you survived, the small rituals, the borrowed tricks, the simple act of breathing in and out and believing it would matter.
Aiden stood and stretched, knuckles popping. “Your turn, Josie.”
“Oh, I’m way past saving,” I quipped, but he crossed the room and stood in front of me as I busied myself with the coffee maker.
“Try it anyway,” he said, and before I could refuse, he took my hand in his, pressing it flat to his own chest.
“Breathe with me,” he said softly.
I did. And for a moment, everything faded away except for the rise and fall of his chest, the steady drum of his heart under my palm, the warmth of his skin against mine.
Mateo watched us, eyes wide. He didn’t say anything, just made a face like he’d just solved a puzzle and leaned back against the couch, trying very hard to look uninterested.
When Aiden let go, my hand tingled with leftover heat. He smiled and gave me a nod that felt like a secret handshake.
Breakfast was a blur: oatmeal, fruit, a leftover sandwich cut in half and split like an offering to the gods of Normalcy. We ate on the porch, watching the mist lift off the trees, and the wolves patrol the edge of the yard. Nobody talked much.
After breakfast, Aiden took Mateo out to the woodshed, allegedly to show him how to stack firewood but really just to give him an excuse to move, to burn off the last of whatever haunted him.
I watched them go. For the first time in what felt like forever, my mind was quiet. The woods beyond the cabin were just woods. No lurking monsters, no hidden dangers, just trees and birds and morning hush.
I wrapped my arms around myself and let the quiet sink in. The world hadn’t ended. We were still here, still breathing.
Maybe that was enough.
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