Page 15 of Chasing the Wild
I grab my jacket plus a spare one from the hooks just inside the door and hurl myself outside, following after her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I yell into the wind as I shrug into my coat and boots. But she keeps heading down the steps like she’s got somewhere to be, and I have to lengthen my stride to grab her before she does something fucking stupid.
Catching up to her in the yard, my fingers wrap around her arm, but when I yank the girl around to look at me, the stricken expression contorting her features is instantly recognizable. There’s a mask frozen on her face I know all too well.
Shit.
Hands clamped into fists. Mouth hanging open like she can’t taste oxygen. There’s a glazed look to her green eyes and even though I’m standing right here in front of her, she’s not seeing me right now.
That much I know from personal experience.
“Come here,” I mutter and bundle the coat around her shoulders, but she’s as rigid as a plank, and it’s not due to the cold.
Panic attacks aren’t pretty at the best of times, but in the middle of a below-freezing snowstorm, having her locked up like this could be deadly.
I’m cursing my son with every unholy thought I can muster as we get safely back inside, setting her down on the armchair closest to the fire. Gently pushing her head to drop between her knees, I leave the room for a moment, going to rifle through the pantry and cupboards. Jesus, this is the last goddamn thing I need to be doing.
When I return, she hasn’t moved, and her tiny fingers are still cramped into the shape of claws. She’s making a desperate,gurgling sort of noise and as much as I’ve got the horses to look in on, and wood to stock, and storm warnings to check, I can’t leave her hyperventilating like this.
I do my best to soothe her, encouraging her to sit up now and pressing the paper bag I’ve just grabbed from the kitchen over her nose and mouth and slowly rub circles on her back.
It’s not a perfect solution by any means, but right now, it’s the best I can do to triage a crappy situation.
“You gotta breathe nice and slow for me. You’re ok.”
I see the bag inflate just a fraction, then hollow out.
“Slow. Deep breath. Again.”
We sit like that for a long moment. Me talking this stranger through a panic attack while planning multiple ways to murder my own son.
Her shaky, shallow breaths fill the bag a few more times, deepening one by one, until I see her fists begin to uncurl just a fraction. That’s enough for me to toss the bag aside and with my free hand, I take one of hers and then the other. Massaging the tense muscles, I help her fingers to straighten out.
As I do so, I feel her stiff frame ease slightly beneath my palm. Guiding her by the shoulder, I press a little, encouraging her to shift her body more upright.
“Count to four while you breathe in.” Her eyes won’t meet mine, and I’m not surprised.
It was the same for me.Afterwardwas always somehow worse.
Confident that she’s somewhat out the other side of it, I get up and head over to grab a glass of water from the kitchen. While there, I swipe a bag of gummy worms from the back of the pantry.
Returning to the lounge, I crouch down on my haunches, holding out the water. “Can you take a sip of that for me?”Nodding, she clutches it in two hands, bringing it to her mouth, grip more than a little unsteady.
“Good. Now eat these…” Removing the water, I offer an exchange and hand over two worms, setting the glass down on the coffee table beside her. “And don’t think about moving.”
A good fifteenminutes pass while trying to get a message through to Kayce. For now, the Wi-Fi appears to still be working. However, the asshole probably hasn’t charged his phone, so he won’t be checking his email. Of course, he hasn’t picked up or returned the call I put out to the radio fitted in his truck. I’d been nagging him about the forecast and the risk of getting stuck down in town, but of course, he still disappeared earlier today.
Now, I’ve got an even bigger problem, and she’s sitting in my lounge.
Whatever is going on with this girl, it’s bad enough to send her spiraling into a panic attack, and I’ve got a really bad fucking feeling about the trouble she’s got herself into.
There are too many old, familiar sensations buzzing through my veins right now. Memories of fluorescent lighting and the smell of disinfectant. Shoes squeaking along hospital corridors and the beep of machinery at all hours of day and night.
Wanting to crawl out of my own skin all because of a stupid fucking mistake I’d made at seventeen years old when I thought nothing could ever touch me.
How wrong I was nine months later when the consequences of one foolish decision arrived.
Inside my fist the radio crackles, and a familiar, deep voice distorted by static fills my postage-stamp-sized office just acrossfrom the kitchen. The place where I keep a computer, business shit, paperwork, all the parts of being a rancher that aren’t my forte, but that I have to deal with all the same. While the device in my hand might be considered old-fashioned technology to some, up here in the mountains it’s about the most reliable thing we’ve got.
It can be the difference between life and death.
