Page 44 of Until You

chapter

eleven

Oliver

She goes down like a candle flame in a strong wind.

One second she’s in my arms, her head against my chest, the warm weight of her swaying with me through the last bars of the song. The next, her fingers are digging into my shoulder with a grip that has nothing to do with dancing and everything to do with holding on.

I feel it before I see it. The way her body changes—the particular quality of dead weight that’s different from relaxed weight, that split-second when a living thing stops cooperating with gravity.

“Cora.”

No response. Or rather, a response that sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a well.

I don’t think. I react. My arm locks around her waist before her knees finish their betrayal, pulling her hard against my chest, my other hand coming up to cup the back of her head, pressing her face against my shoulder. She’s warm. She’s breathing. She’s not unconscious—not quite—but she’s not fully here either.

“Hey. Hey.” I keep my voice low. Controlled. I’ve talked down spooked animals in the dark. I’ve called calm into a situation while everything was going sideways. I know how to be steady when steady is the only thing that helps. “I’ve got you. Lean into me.”

“I’m fine,” she mumbles into my collarbone.

She is not fine. Her legs are barely functional and she’s gripping my shirt like it’s the only fixed point in a moving world.

“You’re not fine. You’re about to pass out.”

“I don’t pass out.” The words are slurred around the edges. “I’m not a passing-out person.”

“Mischief,” I say it quietly, into her hair. Not loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. Just for her. The bar name. Our name. The one that existed before everything got complicated. “Stop talking and breathe.”

A beat. Then I feel her chest expand. Once, slow, deliberate. Then again.

Good girl.

I don’t bother with worrying about the optics of this. I just swing her up into my arms. I carry her towards the parking lot. I holler at my brother, Payton, who jogs over immediately.

“Shit,” he says. “Everything okay?”

“I’m thinking dehydration.”

He thumbs over his shoulder back at the crowd. “Want me to grab Uncle Graham to take a look at her?”

“No, I’m going to take her in and have her checked out. Can you let everyone know?”

“Yeah, of course, man. Let me know if you need me to do anything else.”

“Thanks.”

Cora tries to say something, but I shush her.

“You can yell at me later, Mischief. Right now, I’m in charge.”

Once we reach my truck, I load her in and push on her back a little. “Head down,” I say. “Between your knees.”

She goes without argument. That alone tells me how bad it was, because Cora, without an argument, is Cora at the end of her rope.

“Breathe, darlin’, just breathe.” I rub circles on her back. I listen to her breathing even out. Watch the rigid line of her shoulders slowly soften. “When’s the last time you ate?” I ask.

“I ate.”