CHAPTER ONE
For the third time in nine days, Miles Sterling was sitting in his therapist’s office.
And though the space was starting to feel comfortable, it currently felt like the walls of Dr. Mitchell's office were closing in.
Miles knew they weren't actually moving, that it was his brain playing tricks on him, but the sensation persisted anyway.
The room felt smaller than it had when he'd walked in twenty minutes ago.
The air felt thinner. His chest was tightening in that familiar way that meant he was losing control.
In other words, it was par for the course in terms of his life once these Elementalist murders had started.
"Miles, I need you to focus on your breathing.
" Dr. Mitchell's voice cut through the static in his head.
She was wearing the same calm expression she'd maintained throughout their sessions over the past three weeks.
"In through your nose for four counts. Hold for four. Out through your mouth for four."
Miles tried to follow the instructions, but his lungs wouldn't cooperate.
Each breath felt like pulling air through a straw.
He could feel the walls of the environmental chamber pressing in around him; he could see Mario Stevens' gray face in the darkness behind his eyelids.
The memory was so vivid it might as well have been happening right now.
It was like flypaper in his brain, the memory always there to haunt him.
"The chamber isn't real," Dr. Mitchell said. "You're in my office. You're safe. The door is open. Look at it."
Miles forced his eyes open and looked at the door across the room.
It was propped open with a rubber doorstop, letting in light from the hallway.
He'd insisted on keeping it open when he arrived, another new requirement he'd developed since closing the Stevens case in Seattle.
The oxygen murders. Closed doors triggered something in him now that he couldn't quite control.
"Good. Now breathe with me. In for four."
This time Miles managed to pull in a full breath. Dr. Mitchell counted him through the exhale and then another cycle. Slowly, the pressure in his chest began to ease. The walls stayed where they belonged. The air stopped feeling so thin.
"Better?" Dr. Mitchell asked after several minutes.
"Better." Miles slumped back in his chair, exhausted from the effort of fighting off the panic. "Sorry. God, that’s embarrassing."
"You don't need to apologize for having a panic attack in therapy. That's why you're here." She made a note on her tablet. "How many this week?"
"Three. No, wait…four if you count this one."
"And the nightmares?"
Miles looked away, focusing on a potted plant near the window. "Every night. Sometimes more than once."
"Are they the same as before, or have they changed?"
"Worse." Miles heard his own voice crack slightly.
"They're getting worse. I'm back in the chamber but now the walls are crushing me.
Or Stevens is still alive but he's choking me with the pipe.
Or I can't move and I'm just watching the oxygen gauge drop while he stares at me. In every dreamed scenario, I’m going to die. "
Dr. Mitchell set down her tablet. "Miles, I'm going to be direct with you because I think you need to hear this. You're not recovering from Seattle. You're getting worse. Each session we have, I see more signs of post-traumatic stress, not fewer."
"I know."
"Do you? Because you keep showing up to these appointments and going through the motions, but I don't think you're actually processing what happened to you. You're just trying to white-knuckle your way through it. And whenever I suggest medication, you instantly shut it down."
Miles met her eyes. "What else am I supposed to do? Aside from meds, I mean?"
"For starters, you could consider taking a break from cases involving Kane's disciples. Every time you work one of these investigations, you're essentially re-exposing yourself to the trauma. It's like picking at a wound that won't heal."
"I can't do that."
"Why not?"
The answer was so simple to him, but he knew others simply didn’t understand it.
But he did his best. "Because they're still out there," he answered, sitting forward as his hands gripped the arms of the chair.
"Kane's network is still active. His disciples are still killing people.
If I step back, someone else has to take my place, and they won't know what I know. They won't recognize the patterns. And they’d have to essentially be trained from the bottom up. I’ve been following these people since before we even knew there was a network. "
Dr. Mitchell was quiet for a moment. "Do you hear yourself? You're making yourself indispensable to this investigation, which means you can't allow yourself to step away even when it's destroying you."
"It's not about being indispensable. It's about responsibility."
"To who? To the victims? To the FBI? Or to yourself and this idea that you're the only person who can stop Kane's followers?"
Miles didn't answer. The truth was, he didn't know anymore.
The line between duty and obsession had blurred somewhere along the way.
He thought about Gabriel Kane sitting in his cell, wondering if the madman had perhaps figured out a way to send messages to his followers even when he was in prison.
He thought about those disciples spread across the country continuing their work despite their leader's imprisonment.
"You mentioned in our first session that you have colleagues you work with," Dr. Mitchell said, her tone gentler now. "Agent Stone and Agent Kim. Do you talk to them about what you're going through?"
"Sometimes,” he said. He smirked when he thought of Sarah Kim being referred to as an agent. She’d find that hilarious. “A little."
"What does 'a little' mean?"
"I've had drinks with Kim a few times. We talk about cases mostly. She's good at what she does. Analytical, thorough. She keeps me grounded when I start to spiral. And she is very good about making sure all of the conversation isn’t just about Kane."
"And Agent Stone?"
Miles thought about Vic, about their partnership and the tension that had developed during the Seattle case when he'd dismissed a suspect without proper explanation. "Vic and I have worked together for almost a year now. She's solid. Reliable. But we don't really talk about personal things."
"Why not?"
"Because that's not what we do. We focus on the work."
"But the work is what's traumatizing you," Dr. Mitchell pointed out.
"So maybe focusing only on the work with the people who understand it best isn't the healthiest approach.
These are people who've been through similar experiences, who understand the psychological toll of this job. They could be valuable support."
"Or I could drag them down with me." He cringed internally, realizing how dramatic that sounded as soon as it was out of his mouth.
"That's not how support systems work, Miles. You're not a burden for struggling with trauma. You nearly died in that chamber. You watched a man suffocate in front of you. Those experiences don't just go away because you will them to."
Miles knew she was right, but admitting it felt like weakness. Like failure. He'd survived the chamber. He'd caught Stevens. The case was closed. He should be able to move on.
Except he couldn't. The panic attacks kept coming.
The nightmares kept intensifying. He'd started drinking more, using alcohol to dull the edges enough that he could sleep for a few hours without waking up convinced he was suffocating.
It wasn't sustainable and he knew it, but he didn't know what else to do.
"Look, if you’re insisting that you don’t want to consider medication, then I want you to seriously consider stepping back from Elementalist cases," Dr. Mitchell said. "At least for a few months. Give yourself time to actually process what happened in Seattle.”
“That’s all well and good in theory, but what happens if another disciple kills someone while I'm taking a break? What if people die because I wasn't there to stop it? Because I was too weak to stop it?”
"That's not on you, Miles,” she said with a stern voice. “You're one agent among thousands. The FBI will continue investigating with or without you."
Miles stood up, feeling restless and trapped despite the open door. "I should go. I have another appointment at the office."
Dr. Mitchell glanced at her watch. "We still have fifteen minutes."
"I know. But I need to leave. This is…I don’t know. This is too much right now."
She studied him for a moment before nodding. "All right. But Miles, please think about what I said. You can't keep doing this to yourself. Something has to change."
“I know. And thank you, Dr. Mitchell. Truly.”
“See you on Monday?” she asked.
“Yeah. Monday.”
Miles left the office without responding, taking the stairs down to the parking garage because elevators felt too much like sealed chambers now.
The cold air hit him when he emerged outside, and he stood there for a moment letting it fill his lungs.
He relished it, as it was proof that he could breathe.
That the world wasn't actually suffocating him.
The drive home took twenty minutes through the traffic of it all.
His apartment greeted him with the same emptiness it always did.
Miles dropped his keys on the table by the door and went straight to the cabinet where he kept the liquor.
The bottle of bourbon was already half-empty from the past week.
He'd been drinking more than he should, more than was safe or healthy.
But it helped. It dulled everything enough that he could function.
He kept it smart, though—he never got sloppy or fall-down drunk.
He only drank just enough to get swimmy-headed, where his thoughts were like taffy rather than unyielding concrete.
He poured three fingers into a glass and stood there looking at it. Dr. Mitchell's words echoed in his head. Something has to change. But what? Step back from the cases and let Kane's disciples continue their work unchallenged? Keep pushing forward until the trauma broke him completely?
Neither option seemed acceptable. And he didn’t like the idea of meds, either.
He knew it was foolish and old-fashioned but he felt the need to get a handle on this on his own.
If he got to a point where he absolutely knew he couldn’t, then he’d be open to meds.
But he wasn’t completely broken just yet. At least, he didn’t think so.
Miles raised the glass and drank deeply, the bourbon burning down his throat. He poured another measure and drank that, too. Then another. The warmth spread through his chest, loosening the knots that had been there since the panic attack in Dr. Mitchell's office.
He knew this wasn't the answer…that he was just trading one problem for another. But right now, standing in his empty apartment with the weight of Seattle and Kane and the uncertainty of other disciples somewhere out there, he didn't care.
Miles filled the glass again and kept drinking.