Page 23 of The Associate
Someone to his left sniffed softly, a wet, stifled sound.
A shame chair creaked ominously as a boy shifted, trying to alleviate the pain.
Samuel stared at the chipped blue patch on the wall until his eyes lost focus and the world blurred into a smear of color.
And he didn’t move.
∞∞∞
Present
One moment Samuel was staring at the chipped, faded blue line painted on that gymnasium floor, his young knees shaking uncontrollably, the counselor’s heavy, calloused hand slamming across his knuckles with a crack that echoed in the hollow space…
And the next, he was back in the stark, modern kitchen of Voss & Wise.
But his body hadn’t caught up with the sudden temporal shift.
A violent, full-body shiver tore down his spine, completely uncontrolled, as if the room's temperature had suddenly plummeted to freezing. His breath came in sharp, ragged, shallow bursts that did nothing to fill his lungs. His hands trembled openly now, his fingers twitching and spasming around the ceramic mug he hadn’t realized he was still clutching in a white-knuckled grip.
His eyes squeezed shut on a raw, panicked reflex, too tightly, creating starbursts of pressure behind his eyelids, as though he could physically force the invasive memories back into whatever dark, subconscious corner they’d crawled out of.
The clean, tiled floor seemed to tilt and sway slightly beneath his feet, threatening to give way.
Air scraped into his lungs in thin, broken, useless pulls.
He tried desperately to ground himself, tried to command his body to breathe, his mind to think, to find a single, solid anchor in the present, but every attempt slipped through his mental fingers like water. His muscles locked and unlocked in painful, erratic jerks, his shoulders flinching away from ghosts and touches that weren't actually in the room.
Then… Atouch.
A hand pressed firmly, decisively, to the back of his neck.
Cold skin met the sweat-damp skin at the nape of his neck, the contrast so stark and unexpected it stunned him into absolute, motionless stillness. His entire body froze mid-shiver; his breath trapped somewhere between a desperate inhale and a complete collapse.
The fingers were long, the palm broad and flat, the pressure soft, steadying rather than restraining.
The world narrowed to that single, focused point of contact.
A voice followed, low and calm, spoken close enough that Samuel felt the faint, warm vibration of it ghost across the shell of his ear.
“Steady. Deep breaths, boy.”
The wordboyhit him like a physical blow.
A punch to the lungs, knocking the remaining air from him.
A huge, shuddering breath tore out of him; a ragged, uncontrolled exhale that burned as it escaped. His knees nearly buckled with the sheer, overwhelming force of the release.
Hot air brushed his ear again, making goosebumps rise in violent, successive waves across his skin, crawling from his nape down the length of his arms.
The thumb at the back of his neck moved.
Slow.
Steady.
Rubbing small, firm circles directly over the frantic hammering of his pulse point.
The effect was instantaneous.
