13. Arden
Arden
Ibarely get up the steps to the second floor, and by the time I reach my room and the bathroom that branches off it, I’m gasping for breath like I just ran a full marathon rather than the short dash from the garage to my bedroom.
Because as far as my heart is concerned, I did.
The problem is, technically, my heart is broken.
I stumble into the bathroom, my hands skidding along the countertop in my rush to get to the medicine cabinet. Downstairs, the symptoms were light. A stuttering heartbeat. Slight faintness. The inborn knowledge that something was wrong.
Now, though, after the run up the stairs and the increasing panic of my body, the symptoms are so strong that I’m having trouble functioning.
My heart is pounding rather than fluttering but it’s doing it on the wrong beat, shouting out a song that doesn’t make any sense because the beats don’t match up.
And that’s restricting blood flow to my body and my brain, which is making it hard to both think and move.
My brain is screaming at me that this is wrong and that we’re dying, while my body is churning out ‘fight, fight, fight’ hormones to try to keep me moving.
And those aren’t helping, either.
In fact, the adrenaline is actually making it worse by increasing my feeling of sheer panic.
This whole thing is both physical and mental, my brain trying desperately to contain my panic while my body goes into sheer survival mode, and the two set each other off terribly.
It’s not the first time this has happened to me.
It is, though, the first time it’s happened so far away from the safety of my own home, where I could ride these episodes out in my bedroom, where no one could see me or give me trouble for getting in the way and being dramatic.
I crash against the counter again, my muscles twitching, and finally get to the medicine cabinet, where I dig through the shelves to find the medication I have stuffed there. I take the bottle out and shake it, horrified anew at the sound of too few pills.
I haven’t had a refill since I was kidnapped, and though I was lucky enough to be carrying my medication that night, for reasons I can’t remember, the fact that I’ve only had the one bottle for months now means I’ve had to ration the meds as much as I can.
I’m supposed to take them once a day to keep my heart smooth and measured, but obviously haven’t been able to do that.
Instead, I’ve been taking them once a week.
Or at least I was until I realized I was down to only three pills.
I counted them out, heart hammering, and decided I’d better keep them for emergencies only.
This counts as an emergency. My heart feels like it’s trying to beat its way out of my chest and I’m gasping for air, now, my lungs refusing to work around the frantic beating of my heart.
I know it’s probably my imagination but I feel like my fingertips are going numb and my legs are getting weak, and I know it’s only a matter of time before I actually faint. There are worse possibilities, too.
Syncope.
Heart attack.
Death.
The problem is, the beta blockers won’t actually work as a quick fix, now. They’re meant to be prophylactics. Take them to keep my heart’s electricity balanced and the organ beating the way it should. Stop taking them and it loses that balance and things like this happen.
And when they do, there’s literally nothing to do except wait it out, try to get my brain to regain control of my body, and hope to fuck that I don’t die in the meantime.
I put my back to the wall and slide down it, then close my eyes and try to reach for the meditation practices my doctor taught me. He said that once I was in the midst of an episode, the medication couldn’t save me.
But my brain could, if I let it.
I take a deep breath in, hold it for four beats, and then let it out for six beats.
Then I pause and frown. Is that right? Suddenly I can’t remember.
It’s four beats and six, but I can’t remember which one comes first and which one comes second, and that lack starts my panic up again, because if I can’t even remember how to do box breathing, what good am I?
The one thing I’m supposed to be able to do in a situation like this, and the numbers have gotten turned around in my head!
Fuck!
I bang my head against the wall, trying to get my brain to kick into gear, then freeze at the sound it just made. I listen closely to the world outside the bathroom, breath held and lip caught in my teeth, and then I slowly—and quietly—close the door to the bathroom.
The last thing I need is Mars or Orion or any of the other men hearing me up here flailing like a fish caught on a hook. I haven’t told either of the men that I’m sick, because I don’t want them getting involved.
I definitely don’t need them seeing me mid-attack.
I’ve spent most of my life dealing with Long QT Syndrome, learning the ins and outs of it and trying to get a handle on the symptoms. But I don’t tell people about it if I don’t have to.
There’s nothing they can do about it, and I can’t stand the looks they suddenly wear when they find out I’m sick.
Like they’re going to try to take care of me or, worse, heal me with some sort of magic or enough love or something.
News flash: They can’t. No amount of love or concern or advice will ever heal this.
My heart’s electrical impulses are wrong and there’s no way to fix that.
I mean I could get a device implanted into my heart to try to keep it on track, but that comes with a number of other potential problems, and they don’t always work.
Plus I’ve never been a fan of the idea. I don’t want a tiny ticking time bomb sitting in my heart telling it how to beat.
I like my heart the way it is, quirks and all. I like its flawed little impulses and the fact that it’s not like everyone else’s.
I’ve spent my whole life being told to be more like other people. Be brave like Stella. Be clever and flirty like Taryn. Be more glamorous like your mother was. Be more outgoing. Stronger. Funnier.
My heart took one look at that idea and said fuck no. We’re beating the way we want to, and everyone else can go fuck themselves. It’s us against the world. We’re the only ones who know how we feel or what we go through.
And handing that knowledge to other people feels like a betrayal. It feels like giving them access to a secret they have no right to. It’s even worse when they look at me like they can somehow heal me.
I know they can’t.
And I know they’ll stop trying as soon as they get bored of it. They’ll try for long enough that I’ll think they might actually care, and then suddenly they’ll get bored and desert me again. Leave me alone with my broken heart.
Well, I’d prefer they just leave me alone from the start. That way I don’t get my hopes up.
And I don’t have to watch them walk away when they decide I’m more trouble than I’m worth.
Right now… I don’t know how I’d deal with it if Mars or Orion suddenly realized that I’m even more broken than they thought I was.
They saved me when they didn’t have to and have been nice enough to let me stay, and I don’t want to cause any more trouble for them.
I don’t want them to think I’m even more complicated, or that they have to be even more careful.
I can’t stand the thought of it.
I don’t want to explain it, I don’t want to see the sympathy in their eyes, and I don’t want to have to tell them that I inherited this from my mother, who died from a heart attack when I was very young.
I remember her being small, delicate, and all bones.
Beautiful in a way that made sense to my three-year-old brain, though now I can’t recall what she looked like.
People say I resemble her, and when I look in the mirror, I often try to make my brain see her in my features.
It’s never any use. I can’t do it.
But I know my father can.
I also know it’s one of the reasons he doesn’t like me.
Because I may look like my mother, but in his mind, I don’t measure up to her. I never did, and I never will.
He wishes I was the one who died instead of her, and he’s never hidden that.
My hand clenches on the bottle of medicine and I push that thought away, reaching again for the deep calm my doctor tried to teach me about.
I sink down into myself, searching for the quiet space within me where I can better control my anxiety, and after several seconds of careful breathing—five and five this time, rather than the tricky four and six—I find it.
A calm comes over me and I tell my heart calmly to beat the way it’s supposed to.
I focus on forcing it to slow down, to even out, and to get into the right rhythm.
I fixate on the medicine bottle in my hand and promise my heart that if it’s good, I’ll start taking my medicine again.
And it works. My heart skitters, skips, and then suddenly relaxes, like a fist that has stopped squeezing. It starts to beat the right way, and relief floods my body. My panic subsides.
My mind comes back online.
It tells me that I should let Mars know what’s going on. He would help me. I know he would. He’d find me a doctor and make sure I had enough medicine to get through. Orion would probably protect me with his own body if he found out.
But I’d have to risk both of them looking at me like I’m more trouble than I’m worth.
Like I’m a broken bird in need of rescuing. Or like I should pay more for my chance to stay here.
I don’t want any of that. I’m sick to death of people looking at me like I’m broken or can’t take care of myself.
And though I know it’s not fair to myself or to the men I’m coming to care for, I also know that I won’t tell them;.
Because this is a secret that belongs only to me, and they don’t need to worry about it.
I wait until my heart has been calm for several minutes, then push myself to my feet and leave the bathroom.
I don’t want to go back downstairs yet, but I do want some fresh air.
As I walk toward the window, I hear the sound of motorcycle engines outside, and smile a bit.
More of the club coming to the garage, I suspect.
At some point I need to sit down and make a list of all the men.
Learn their names and what they do in their everyday lives.
Start to make friends with them.
Then, though, the sound keeps going. It doesn’t stop at the garage like I expected. Instead, they sound like they stop somewhere down the street.
Which seems… wrong.
I get to the window and brush the curtains aside to see that the bikers have indeed stopped down the block, in the parking lot of the diner. They aren’t ours, either. They’re not wearing the leathers of the Black Oaks, Mars’ band of misfits.
Instead, they’re dressed all in black.
The Iron Saints.
The gang that owns the compound where I was being held.
I still don’t understand what they have to do with my kidnapping, or if they’re part of it at all, but I can’t shake the feeling that they’re involved somehow.
After all, my guard put me on their property.
I don’t know why they haven’t come after me directly—challenged Mars over him having taken their prisoner—but the whole thing feels like the town is waiting to exhale.
Like there’s trouble brewing, only no one is looking at it yet.
I lean out the window and stare at the bikers, wondering, and then abruptly realizing that they’re staring back at me.
There are four of them, and they’re all looking right at me.
I pull back sharply, breath caught in my throat. What the fuck is going on out there? Why are they just sitting in the parking lot, and why are they staring at me? Was I right that they’re going to start a war because Mars and Orion took me?
And if I was, why aren’t Mars and Orion doing anything?
I lean forward and peak around the curtain again, to see the men talking amongst themselves, their eyes still on my window.
and though I pray they’re not actually here for me and that I’m overreacting, some deep, dark part of my soul knows that I’m not.
Because my body is caught in fight or flight right now.
The same as it is when my heart threatens to kill me.