Page 180 of Mud

I was trying, and I could feel the air going down my throat. I could feel my lungs expanding, and somehow my nervous system was still convinced that I couldn’t breathe. That I was drowning, that I was going to die any second—and I’d been here a lot of times before, so I recognized the panic attack just fine. On a normal day, I could manage it because I’d taught myself the best, fastest ways to get over it—but right now?

There wasnothing normalabout any of this. About my life. About this stupid fucking challenge.

“Hey, look at me, sweetness. Can you focus on me for a second?” Taland’s hands were on my face and his eyes were right there, anchoring mine. Pinning my thoughts down. “Can we breathe together?”

Like we used to?I wanted to say, and in my mind, he replied,yes.

So, I nodded. And we breathed.

He held my face and I held his wrists, and I saw him breathing deeply, and I mirrored his every little move. The air was there. My lungs were working. It was just this fear that wanted to make a fool out of me, wanted to turn me against myself. Just the fear.

But it was okay. Because I wasn’t alone. Taland was right there with me.

“That’s better,” he said, smoothing my hair away from my face. “Remember that the absolute worst thing that could happen is that you can die.”

Oh, goddess.

I burst out laughing and I held the sound with my hands in front of my mouth only barely. He was absolutely fucking insane.

“And that’s still the worst possible thing you could choose to say in a moment like this. Like,the worst.” Which he knew because I’d told him so before. A million times.

Taland grinned. “But it puts a smile on your face every time.”

That it did.

I wanted to say something—those awful three words again.

I wanted to say more, to thank him, to remind him who I was and what I’d done, to remind him of the fact that he didn’t need to do this for me. I was a monster as far as he was concerned. And I felt exactly like one, too.

But the moment was so heavy. The words were locked inside me and they refused to leave my shattered heart. And Taland didn’t wait—I suspected he knew exactly what was in my mind and he didn’t want to hear it.

Who could blame him? I certainly didn’t.

“Come on, let’s see what the fuss is about,” he said, standing up and turning toward the spider, who kept on spinning around in place still. Closing my eyes, I took in a deep breath, made sure my lungs were working one more time, and I stood up, too.

The key I’d gotten in Night City was still in my hand. I didn’t even give it a glance, only put it in my jacket pocket together with my other ones. All three were there, secured with the zipper.

In a flash, I was reminded by my own brain with a series of disturbing images of the last—what felt like—daysin the Iris Roe, and the fact that I had been about to be incinerated by a large, fire-spitting dragon just minutes ago.

Right before falling on the webs of a house-sized spider with blue eyes.Damn.

And I thought myselfweakfor having a panic attack just now?

Two more keys to find,I told myself.Now we focus on the challenge.

I held onto the wet bark of the tree we were standing on and I looked around as my heartbeat steadied. I’d done this a million times before on missions. I was here now, and my thoughts could wait for later. The situation needed assessing, and I was going to assess the shit out of this spider trap they’d put me in.

“Look, they’re putting it on their bodies,” said Taland, pointing to our right, to an identical tree nearest to ours that I hadn’t even noticed before, to a Whitefire woman who was in the process of rubbing her thighs.

It took me a moment to understand what she was doing—popping the blisters emanating blue light that dotted the bark of the tree, then using the liquid inside—the same liquid that had wetted the trees and was dripping onto the water below—to cover every part of her body.

Taland moved closer to our tree and popped one of the blue blisters with his finger. Thin, colorless liquid poured out and it smelled like I was standing on lemon slices all of the sudden.

“Citrus,” Taland whispered, bringing his finger to his nose to sniff.

“Spiders hate it.” And these trees were full of those blisters that also served as light.

I turned around again as the Whitefire continued to drench herself in the liquid, and it made sense. Spiders hated anything citrusy and it was going to repel them, and it probably worked onthisspider who apparently had an actual name—Madame Weaver.You’ve got to be shitting me.

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