Chapter 17
Samuel
Consciousness returned in slow, disjointed pieces.
First, a deep, muscular ache; a persistent throb low in his ribs, a dull counterpoint to a sharper sting across his palms. Then, warmth. The air against his face was cool, but the weight on top of him was solid, real.
He opened his eyes.
The world was a blur of soft, granular grey. He blinked, his eyelids gummy with sleep. The grey resolved into slats of light and shadow.
Blinds.
He was looking at window blinds, but they were wrong. The ones in his apartment were cheap, plastic, warped with age. These were sleek, metallic, perfectly aligned, cutting the weak morning light into precise, even bars.
He turned his head slowly on the pillow. The movement sent a fresh, bright spark through the ache in his side. The pillowcase was cool and smooth against his cheek, the sensation foreign. It smelled faintly of lemon and something else; a clean, arid scent, like stone after rain.
Not his soap. Not his bed.
He stared at the wall beside him. It was a muted, grey-washed wood, stretching to a ceiling that seemed higher, smoother. There was a dresser. Low, minimalist, made of the same pale wood. Nothing sat on its surface. No dust. No clutter.
Confusion, thick and syrupy, clouded his mind. This wasn't his room.
A hotel? He tried to remember checking in, but the memory was a black hole. The ache in his ribs pulsed, making him grit his teeth.
He shifted under the weight of the covers, trying to sit up. He pushed the duvet down, the fabric whispering a sound of pure, expensive quality. He looked at his own body.
He was wearing sweatpants. Soft, heather-grey.
And a black t-shirt. They were clean, but they were not his.
His own pajamas were cheap cotton, worn thin.
These were thick, plush, and they hung on him in a way that suggested they were made for someone with a broader chest, longer arms. He brought the collar of the t-shirt to his nose and inhaled, tentatively.
The clean, lemon-stone scent was stronger here, mixed with the faint, ghostly trace of a detergent he didn’t know. And underneath it, something else. A darker, spicier note that tickled a deep, instinctual part of his brain.
Sandalwood.
The memory seeped in, like cold water through a crack.
A dark street. The taste of fear, metallic in his mouth.
A hand shoving him. The headlights; twin suns blinding him.
A silhouette kneeling. Strong hands. A voice, low and sure.
The smell of sandalwood and warm wool as he was lifted.
The blur of a car interior. A bright bathroom.
The touch of antiseptic wipes. And then…
the feeling of his shirt being peeled away.
The chill on his back. The sudden, paralyzing understanding that he was exposed.
Not just his bare skin, but the history written on it.
The silver lines, his private ledger of shame, were no longer private.
Gael.
The sleek apartment, the scent on the clothes; it all coalesced into a single, horrifying truth. He was in Gael Wise’s home. He had slept in Gael Wise’s bed. He was wearing Gael Wise’s clothes.
The confusion evaporated, burned away by a rising tide of pure, undiluted panic.
It started in his stomach, a cold, hard knot. It climbed into his chest, tightening around his lungs. His heart, which had been beating a slow, drowsy rhythm, stuttered, then began to accelerate, pounding against his bruised ribs with a force that made him gasp. Each frantic beat echoed: Run.
The air in the room, already cool, now felt thin, insufficient. He dragged in a breath, but it hitched, catching in his throat. He had to get out. He had to be anywhere but here.
With a jerky, uncoordinated motion, he pushed the heavy duvet completely aside and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. His bare feet met a floor of cool, polished wood. He stood, his legs trembling, and took one staggering step toward the door, a shipwrecked man sighting a mirage of shore.
He stumbled through the doorway, one hand braced against the frame, and froze.
The living room opened before him, vast and silent.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city was a muted, monochrome painting, the dawn sky a wash of bruised purple and grey.
The room itself was pure luxury; clean lines, pale wood, a rug the color of moss, low furniture that seemed to float on the polished floor.
And there, on the deep, forest-green sofa, was Gael.
He was seated, a tablet resting in his hands, a pair of thin, wire-framed glasses perched on his nose.
He was not in a suit. He wore black trousers and a simple white shirt, the sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows, the first few buttons at the throat left undone.
No tie. No jacket. His hair, usually a perfect, severe sweep, was slightly disheveled, as if he had been running his hands through it.
He looked up from the tablet, the movement unhurried.
The sight was more terrifying than the unfamiliar room.
This was not the Senior Partner, the impenetrable fortress of a man from the office.
This was someone else. Someone domestic.
Human. The casual drape of the shirt, the exposed line of his throat, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw; it was an intimacy Samuel was utterly unprepared for.
It felt like seeing the teeth behind a smile.
A wave of vertigo washed over him, deeper and more profound than the panic.
Gael’s gaze swept over him, taking him in. He said nothing for a long, measuring beat. The silence stretched.
Then, calmly, his voice low and almost conversational: “You’re up.”
The words reached Samuel as if through water.
They were muffled, slurred, their meaning dissolving before they could cohere in his mind.
All he could process was the tone; the unsettling normalcy of it.
His own breath was the only real sound, a series of short, sharp gasps that sawed in and out of his chest.
A violent tremor started in his hands and raced up his arms, making his shoulders shake. The edges of his vision began to dissolve into a speckled, staticky grey. The lines of the apartment seemed to warp, the walls leaning in, the ceiling descending. A single, frantic thought looped in his skull:
I have to get out, I have to get out...
He realized, with a jolt of horror, that the words had spilled from his lips. A thin, desperate whisper.
Gael set the tablet down on the coffee table. He stood up, his movement fluid. He took a step closer.
Samuel flinched, his back pressing into the doorframe.
Gael stopped. He took another step, his hands coming up slightly, palms open, a gesture meant to placate, to show he meant no harm. But every inch he closed between them was another coil of tension tightening in Samuel’s gut.
No… don’t… don’t come closer.
The words were stuck in his throat. He needed to run, to move, but his legs were pillars of stone. He needed air, but his lungs were sealed.
“Samuel.”
Gael’s voice had changed. It was lower now, quieter. It was the voice from the elevator. The voice that had cut through the roaring panic and commanded his body to stillness.
Samuel’s eyes, wide and unblinking, locked onto his.
“You need to calm down. It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t okay.
He knew he should obey. Some deep, shameful part of him wanted to obey, to let that voice pull him under into quiet.
But his body was a runaway machine, all shuddering pistons and failing systems. The trembling worsened, becoming a full-body quake.
He was drowning on dry land, and Gael’s calm was a shore he couldn’t reach.
Gael took another half-step forward, and Samuel’s breath hitched, a trapped, animal sound.
Gael stopped again.
Samuel watched his face. It was like seeing a door slam shut behind a series of fleeting, unreadable emotions, frustration, calculation, something that might have been concern, all gone in an instant, replaced by a cold, familiar exterior.
Samuel recognized it a heartbeat before the word came.
“Kneel.”
The word did not feel like an attack.
It was a lifeline, thrown with perfect, unerring aim into the churning, black water of his panic.
His body recognized it before his mind could protest. There was no decision, no conscious thought. His knees, which had been locked, trembling pillars, simply gave way. They buckled, folding beneath him, and he dropped.
The world lowered, the perspective shifting from a terrifying, panoramic vulnerability to something smaller, contained. The tilting walls stabilized. The receding ceiling found its fixed height again. He was on the ground, and the ground held him.
He bowed his head. A full-body shudder racked his frame, starting at the crown of his skull and traveling down his spine, a final, violent tremor of the storm passing through. Then, a deep, hollow stillness.
Hot, silent tears welled in his eyes, overfilled, and streaked down his cheeks. They fell, one after another, darkening the neutral grey of the rug in perfect, separate drops. The frantic, clawing need to flee, to decide, to hold the shattered pieces of himself together, evaporated into the air.
Gael remained a few feet away, a steady, immovable column in the periphery of Samuel’s vision. His voice continued, that same low, controlled timbre that had issued the command. “Breathe in.”
A pause, just long enough for Samuel to register the instruction, to feel the expectation settle upon him.
He dragged in a breath. It was ragged, wet with tears, catching in his throat before it finally sank deep.
It filled his lungs, pressing against the familiar, throbbing ache in his ribs; an ache that now felt distant, secondary.
“Hold.”
He held it. The world narrowed to the burning pressure in his chest and the sound of the voice. The static in his ears faded. The speckled grey at the edges of his vision receded, the corners of the room drawing back into sharp, clear lines.
“Out.”