I was light-headed, unsteady on my feet. I paused in the tunnel, scrambling backward until my back hit the cold, hard concrete of the wall. The freezing feeling sinking deep into my bones cut my tether to reality.
“Leona?” Cas’s voice was frantic, but he was so far away.
I was underwater. Drowning.
I was in a metal cage.
I was getting kicked over and over.
I was being pressed into the ground, a weight forcing the air from my lungs.
Hands groped my body.
A knife slashed my skin.
Blood dripped down my face.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t breathe.
Cas’s face hovered in front of mine, but he was on another planet compared to me.
“Fuck, Leona, you’re scaring me,” Cas said. “You’re having a panic attack. It’s not real, baby. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.” He gripped my fingers. “Shit, you’re frozen cold. What can I do? We need to calm you down. I need to get help, but I don’t want to leave you.”
Help.
“Max,” I croaked. No matter how many breaths I took, nothing helped. I was going to suffocate. Black spots encroached on my vision.
Cas’s eyes narrowed. “Did he cause this?”
“Max. Please, Cas,” I begged, tears streaming down my face. “Get Max.”
“You…want Max?”
My eyes squeezed shut, but that was a fucking terrible idea because all I saw was Buzz Cut’s sneering face. His snarling yellow teeth while his nails cut grooves into my body. Penny and her girls. The dead bodies Max and I had to leave there.
I didn’t want to remember it.
The smell. The death. The pain of that ship.
The promise that it would happen to me.
How close he came.
“Okay, baby, I’ll get Max. But I have to leave you to find him. The rest of the guys are helping Wynn and cleaning up in the big hub chamber.”
“Please,” I gasped.
Max helped me on the boat. He could help me now.
Cas hesitated for just a moment before he pressed a hard kiss to my forehead. “One minute, baby. I’ll be back in one minute, I promise. Try to breathe. Try to focus on somethingreal.”
I tried to ground myself with one thing I could see and one thing I could feel, but all I could see was dark, metal cages and all I could feel was cold. So fucking cold.
I wasn’t sure how long passed until Max’s face swam in front of mine.
