Page 17 of Into Ember

The corner was not fine.

I am not fine.

Nothing is fine.

Chapter 6

Elara

I am dying.

I’m almost sure of it.

Why doesn’t anyone see that?

They’re all looking at me like this is fine. Like I should just breathe.

Yeah, right. Breathe.

In and out. Out and in.

Doesn’t matter.

Because none of it’s working right now.

If I could breathe I would be breathing.

My heart is going too fast to count and my hands are doing something electric and there is a sound in my chest. There is a sound IN my chest. Low. Rolling. People don’t make that sound. Chests don’t make that sound. It’s getting louder when I panic and I’m panicking about it getting louder and—

Hospital. I need a hospital. Do they even have hospitals here? I’m going to die in a weird place with four moons and no urgent care and my last meal was very good, at least there’s that—

A chair scrapes.

Erik’s hand closes around my wrist.

Oh.

That helps.

Why does that help? I don’t care why it helps. Don’t take it back.

He’s saying something. My name, maybe. His thumb is on the inside of my wrist, right over the panic, pressing like he’s holding a wound closed, and one notch of the awful comes down. One. I grab that notch and I hold on.

Someone moves behind me. Big. Warm. Rayner — I know without looking, don’t ask me how, my back knows, my back has apparently met him — and heat soaks through the chair into my shoulders and something up there lets go.

I take a breath. Not fully but way more than three seconds ago and that’s something.

More. I need more. Of what? Who knows, I just need it.

Okay. Okay.

Brock is on the floor next to my chair now. He’s saying words. I can see them happening, calm ones, reasonable ones probably, his mouth is making very good shapes. None of them are arriving. What’s arriving is his knee, pressed against mine, steady, and I hold onto that too.

In for four.

It gets to three.

Three. I could cry about three.