Chapter 18 Breathless #2
Kian’s face was carved from stone, eyes blazing as though he could no longer see Xavier as a person, but rather a threat to be eliminated. Xavier tried to run, stumbling toward the doorway, but shadows pooled at his feet, and he went down hard. His chin cracked against the concrete.
Before he could move, Kian flipped Xavier onto his back and pinned him there, one hand closing around his throat.
Xavier’s eyes went wide, hands clawing at Kian’s wrist. The shadows writhed around them both, darker and hungrier, coiling up Xavier’s arms and chest like they were preparing to consume him whole.
Kian’s grip tightened. Xavier’s face started turning red, then purple. His struggles grew weaker. Kian’s expression didn’t change. No hesitation or mercy, just absolute certainty.
His face held murderous intent.
My vision blurred. Each attempt at breath came out as a thin wheeze, a desperate whistle that brought almost no oxygen. My lungs spasmed, airways constricting. Panic fed the attack, tightening everything until I couldn’t even cough properly.
Black spots crowded my vision. My lips tingled, fingers going numb.
Can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe—
I clawed at my throat and my chest, trying to physically force air into lungs that wouldn’t cooperate. I was drowning on dry land.
“K-Ki—” I gasped. Kian froze.
He turned, and in an instant, the wild fury vanished from his face. His eyes went wide with horror. The shadows that had swarmed around him moments ago curled back as if his fury had burned out.
“Melanie.” My name broke on his tongue. He released Xavier, who dropped to the ground unconscious. He was beside me in a heartbeat, the violence from seconds ago completely gone. His hands hovered like he didn’t know where to touch without hurting me further.
“Easy, love. Easy.” The endearment seemed to slip out unconsciously. “Just look at me.”
His hand settled warm and steady against my back. The other cupped my face, forcing me to meet his eyes.
“Breathe with me,” he said, his voice dropping into something low and quiet. “In—” He exaggerated the inhale, his own chest rising slowly. “Out. You’re safe now.”
I tried to shake my head, tried to tell him I couldn’t, but all that came out was a choked gasp.
“I know,” he murmured, seeing me struggle. “I know it’s hard, but you can do this. You’ve done harder things than this today.”
He pressed my ear against his chest, letting me feel his heartbeat.
“Match this,” he said against my hair. “Don’t think about your lungs. Just listen to my heart.”
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
I focused on that rhythm, letting it replace the screaming panic in my head. His hand smoothed down my back in slow, steady strokes. I tried to follow his breathing, but my lungs wouldn’t cooperate. The panic had its claws too deep.
“That’s it,” he whispered. “You’re doing so well. Stay with me.”
Painfully slowly, my breathing began to deepen. Minutes passed, maybe five or ten. I lost track, focused only on breathing, on his heartbeat, on the steady warmth of his hand on my back.
My chest stopped spasming. The black spots receded. Air began to fill my lungs. When I could finally breathe a little deeper, I sagged against him. My fingers curled into his shirt, holding on like he was the only solid thing in the universe.
“You’re alright,” he whispered. “I’ve got you.”
After a few moments, I felt steady enough to peel my cheek from Kian’s chest, though my body still trembled. My eyes dragged across the cracked concrete until they landed on Xavier.
“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice raw.
Kian’s gaze softened. “I’m just glad I got here in time.”
But before I could say anything else, Xavier’s body jerked violently. Xavier’s back arched impossibly high, spine bowing in a way bodies shouldn’t bend. His eyes rolled back, but for just a second, I saw them burning like coals. He began speaking words in a language that made my bones ache.
Then his body went rigid, every muscle locked up before collapsing into violent convulsions. His teeth clacked together hard enough that I thought they might shatter.
“Gods…” I scrambled closer to Kian without thinking. His protective grip on me tightened.
“How hard did you hit him?”
“Not hard enough to cause that.” His voice was tight with dread. “This isn’t from me. This is whatever they put in him, burning through his system.”
I stared at Xavier’s convulsing form, my mind racing. Kian shifted, pulling out his phone with one hand while keeping the other firmly around me. “I’ll call an ambulance.”
Everything blurred after that.
Sirens split the night, red and blue lights spilling through the broken windows.
EMTs and law enforcement flooded the room, the beams of flashlights cutting through the gloom.
I was eased onto a gurney, an oxygen mask pressed over my face.
Cool air rushed into my burning lungs, and I almost sobbed with relief.
Xavier was loaded onto another gurney, unconscious, his wrists locked in handcuffs anyway. His face was slack, nothing like the fever-bright man who had dragged me here.
“Miss, can you tell us what happened?” A police officer asked, his notebook poised.
I tried, but how could I explain it? That Xavier had been normal until Ekklesia gave him supplements? That his eyes had been glowing?
I stuck to what I could prove. Xavier had been in a medical study, growing progressively more unstable over time. He kidnapped me from outside the hospital, brought me here, tried to…
I couldn’t finish that sentence.
“He said someone told him to,” I managed. “A doctor. That if he brought me, they’d make the voices stop.”
The officer and his partner exchanged looks. Skeptical, like they thought Xavier was just mentally ill. Random violence, unconnected to anything bigger.
Through it all, Kian never left my side. He leaned in close whenever my hands started to shake, grounding me with his presence. I watched him talk to the police, explaining he’d gotten a call from me, heard me in distress, and tracked my location.
The official story was clean and believable.
He only disappeared once, long enough to reappear with my bag slung over his shoulder, my phone clutched in his hand. He pressed them gently into my lap once the EMTs cleared me.
“Didn’t want you to lose these,” he said.
The weight of the bag felt like an anchor. My phone screen was cracked, but still usable. When the EMTs tried to convince me to go to the hospital for observation, I shook my head.
“I’ll be fine,” I rasped, voice muffled through the oxygen mask. “I just need to rest. I have my inhaler now. I’m not…” My voice hardened. “I’m not going anywhere near a hospital.”
Not after what I’d seen them do to Amy.
They didn’t push it. Eventually, the ambulances pulled away, red and blue lights fading into the night. The police followed, leaving the building empty again except for Kian and me. He didn’t leave, not even when they loaded Xavier into the back of an ambulance. I sagged against the wall.
“Luz is on her way,” he said.
I nodded, too exhausted to respond.
For a while, silence pressed between us. My body was drained, every nerve stripped raw. But my mind refused to stop spinning.
“How are you feeling?” Kian asked, hesitating like he already knew the answer wouldn’t be simple.
I drew in an unsteady breath, anger boiling in my chest despite the exhaustion. “I’m… I’m pissed.”
I sat up straighter, my hands clenching into fists in my lap.
“This was the third time in a month,” I said, voice shaking with fury. “First, Xavier cornering me on my way home, then those men in the alley, and now—”
I couldn’t finish. My throat closed up.
“I’m done being helpless and easy to grab,” I continued, voice cracking. “I can’t be prey anymore! I’m signing up for self-defense classes. I don’t care how busy I am, how much it costs, or how ridiculous I look.”
My vision blurred with furious tears. “I just want to feel safe. I want to walk alone without looking over my shoulder. I want to sleep without nightmares. I want—”
I want my life back.
But I didn’t even know what that meant anymore.
“I don’t even understand why,” I said, voice breaking. “Why me? Why am I being targeted by Ekklesia? What do they want with me? I’m not even in their stupid study!”
My hands dug into my thighs. “And what’s worse is that no one will tell me what’s happening.
You’re still keeping secrets. So is Luz.
My mom’s not answering her phone, and Amy…
” I couldn’t finish. “I can’t do this anymore.
I feel like I’m going insane! But everyone just treats me like I’m too frail to handle the truth! ”
Kian didn’t interrupt or try to tell me to calm down. He just listened, letting me burn through it. When I finally ran out of words, when the anger collapsed into exhausted silence, he spoke.
“You’re not frail, Melanie.”
I gave a bitter laugh. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“You escaped,” he said, something almost reverent in his voice. “Bound, gagged, alone in an abandoned building with someone twice your size hunting you. And you escaped.”
His eyes held mine. “You cut through ropes. You fought back. Even when you couldn’t see what you were doing with your phone, you found a way to call for help.
You survived.” His voice dropped lower. “Most people would have frozen. Would have given up. But you kept fighting. Even when you couldn’t breathe, even when you were terrified, you kept fighting. ”
Something in my chest cracked at that.