“I can’t breathe,” I rushed out, knowing that I could breathe. It just felt like someone had punched me in the chest over and over again. Every time I blinked, I saw that place. Every time I inhaled, there were knives in my lungs, cutting me up and hurling me into the oblivion of panic.
“Look at me.” I shot my attention to Cade, his angry browline furrowed with worry lines as he stared into my eyes. “You’re here. At St. Mary’s. You’re safe.”
A ragged laugh throttled out of my mouth. “I’m not fucking safe here.”
He grabbed my waist harder. “You think I’d let anyone touch you?”
My breathing grew even more frantic. “You already did.” I looked away, wincing as I breathed. The oxygen was cold, like I was standing outside in a snowstorm rather than inside the warm hall of St. Mary’s.
Cade muttered something as his hands left my midsection, and the panic suddenly grew worse, which should have surprised me, but it didn’t. He abandoned you that night, the tiny voice whispered in the back of my head. But my heart and body were not in sync. I was unnerved in every single way. I had completely lost it in front of everyone who had already formed an opinion about me that fit pretty damn well, given my reaction to a sleeve being ripped off my arm.
“Journey.” Cade’s hoarse voice snagged my frantically searching gaze. Our eyes crashed, and my heart thumped painfully hard in my chest when I locked onto the gold in his eyes. “Breathe.”
“I can’t,” I choked, feeling myself crumble in front of him. Weak. Weak. Weak. I wanted to grab onto him desperately and feel that safety and warmth that I used to feel. I craved it and could nearly taste the retribution that would come with seeking him out despite it all.
“Then, let me give you air.”