Page 7 of When Death Whispers

The cold vanishes.

I collapse to my knees, trembling and gasping, chest tightening like I’m being squeezed from the inside out. I can’t get enough air. I can’t think.

Hudson drops beside me, flashlight clattering to the floor. He doesn’t touch me, but he’s close—his voice soft, steady.

“Hey… hey, it’s okay,” he says, crouching low. “Breathe with me, alright? In through your nose… slow, yeah?”

I try. I fail. My chest stutters. My eyes search the corners wildly, looking for shadows, but my vision is darkening at the edges, my mouth opening and closing with no air going in or out.

“Okay,” he says again, gentler now, like he’s talking to a cornered animal. “Can you look at me?”

I can’t. I can’t focus on anything, my vision blurry, the words familiar but making no sense through the fog of panic.

He waits a beat, then asks, “Can you tell me where you are?”

Still nothing. I know he’s speaking to me in words I’m supposed to understand, asking me things I should have answers to, but I can’t get air to fill my lungs, making my head swim with confusion and adrenaline from sheer alarm and dread.

“Parker, just squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”

I want to. Ido. But my fingers won’t move, my body locked in place by something colder than fear and heavier than shame.

“Hey, it’s okay. Betty got the generator going,” he murmurs. “I’m here now. You’re not alone. I’ve got you.”

And he does.

That’s the problem.

I finally manage a shaky breath. Then another. It’s not much—but it’s something.

He exhales and inhales loudly, his breath brushing against my cheeks and making strands of my hair flutter in the breeze, and the contact, the unexpected comfort from it helps ground me. He repeats the motion of inhaling then exhaling and I match his pace, my focus returning and the burn in my lungs slowly fading.

“There you go. Just keep breathing.”

The silence stretches between us, filled only by the distant hum of the generator and the flutter of my heartbeat slowing to something almost manageable.

I still can’t bring myself to look at him.

Because once again—I let someone get too close.

“You okay?”

I nod, because it’s the only thing I can manage. But it’s not reassurance. It’s an apology.

Because I know I’m going to pull away. I always do.

Because he deserves someone who doesn’t come with monsters.

And mine is back.

This wasn’t a warning. It was a claim.

I’d let my guard down. Thought he’d finally gotten bored and moved on.

But I was wrong. So, so wrong.

He’s stronger now. More precise. More possessive than before. Why?

And the new ache he left behind—shameful, lingering, still buzzing in places I refuse to acknowledge—is a cruel reminder that I was never safe and that I don’t really know how to stay that way.

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