Page 90 of Vetted for Vengeance

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His words remind my body of what happened, and my knees give out on cue.

I drop backwards, losing my grip on the brick. Rhys wraps himself around me, dropping with me. My elbow bashes hard on the floor, but the rest of me lands on Rhys.

The world swims, then it tilts.

Like everything has shifted slightly out of place, and I can’t find where I’m supposed to stand anymore.

Voices echo somewhere above me. Danielle. Tree. Others I can't place. Everyone is moving and talking. Fussing.

It's all too much. I need to shut it all out.

“Noah, keep your eyes open. Look at me.”

I obey, looking at Rhys, and forgetting everything else.

Nothing else matters while he's looking at me.

Holding me.

His legs are under me. His arms are wrapped around me. I press against his firm chest, resting my head on his shoulder. Feeling nothing but Rhys.

Rhys and the tightness in my throat.

“You’re safe,” he says, low and controlled, as if saying it enough times will make it true.

Safe.

My fingers curl into his shirt, gripping tightly.

I don’t feel safe.

I feel…

My stomach twists violently.

“I can’t…” My voice breaks into nothing. My throat burns with every attempt at sound. “I can’t breathe.”

“You are breathing.” His hand presses lightly against my chest. “Slow it down. In. Out.”

I try. I must be breathing; I just can't feel it.

My eyes flick past him to the man on the floor.

He's motionless. Surrounded by nurses who know exactly what to do with a man who had been hit on the nose with a brick.

“I booped him.”

The words come out small. Wrong. The voice isn't mine, even though it comes out of my rasping throat.

Rhys makes a quiet sound; half breath, half disbelief, but he doesn’t correct me.

“You stopped him.” Rhys mutters the only words that matter.

That isn’t the same thing.

My hands start shaking. I pressed them into his shirt to hide it, gripping the fabric like a lifeline.

“I could have killed him.”

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