Page 65 of The Associate
Samuel watched his face. It was like seeing a door slam shut behind a series of fleeting, unreadable emotions, frustration, calculation, something that might have been concern, all gone in an instant, replaced by a cold, familiar exterior.
Samuel recognized it a heartbeat before the word came.
“Kneel.”
The word did not feel like an attack.
It was a lifeline, thrown with perfect, unerring aim into the churning, black water of his panic.
His body recognized it before his mind could protest. There was no decision, no conscious thought. His knees, which had been locked, trembling pillars, simply gave way. They buckled, folding beneath him, and he dropped.
The world lowered, the perspective shifting from a terrifying, panoramic vulnerability to something smaller, contained. The tilting walls stabilized. The receding ceiling found its fixed height again. He was on the ground, and the ground held him.
He bowed his head. A full-body shudder racked his frame, starting at the crown of his skull and traveling down his spine, a final, violent tremor of the storm passing through. Then, a deep, hollow stillness.
Hot, silent tears welled in his eyes, overfilled, and streaked down his cheeks. They fell, one after another, darkening the neutral grey of the rug in perfect, separate drops. The frantic, clawing need to flee, to decide, to hold the shattered pieces of himself together, evaporated into the air.
Gael remained a few feet away, a steady, immovable column in the periphery of Samuel’s vision. His voice continued, that same low, controlled timbre that had issued the command. “Breathe in.”
A pause, just long enough for Samuel to register the instruction, to feel the expectation settle upon him. He dragged in a breath. It was ragged, wet with tears, catching in his throat before it finally sank deep. It filled his lungs, pressing against the familiar, throbbing ache in his ribs; an ache that now felt distant, secondary.
“Hold.”
He held it. The world narrowed to the burning pressure in his chest and the sound of the voice. The static in his ears faded. The speckled grey at the edges of his vision receded, the corners of the room drawing back into sharp, clear lines.
“Out.”
He released the air in a long, slow stream. With it, a tangible fraction of the coiled tension left his body, dissipating into the cool morning air. His shoulders dropped a half-inch.
“Again.”
They repeated the cycle.
In. Hold. Out.
Each time, Samuel’s breath grew deeper, smoother. The violent shaking in his hands and shoulders subsided to a faint, occasional tremor, then to a profound stillness. The panic, a screaming chorus moments before, receded like a tide, leaving behind a flat, heavy calm.
The silence that followed was thick. But it was a different silence than the one that had greeted his waking. In it, Samuel found a perverse, undeniable safety. He was where he was supposed to be. He was doing what he was supposed to do. For the first time in days, perhaps in years, the world made a terrible, beautiful sense.
He heard the soft shift of weight. Fabric whispering against skin. Then, footsteps. They approached him across the rug, the sound muffled.
Samuel’s eyes, which had been closed in focus, opened slowly. He stared at the intricate weave of the rug, the flecks of darker grey in the wool. And then he saw them, entering the frame of his lowered sight.
Feet. Bare feet.
They were positioned squarely on the rug, pale and elegant against the grey. They were tanned, the arches high and pronounced, the bones and tendons delineated. No shoes. No socks.
The sight was disorienting, intimate in a way that tightened the breath in his newly calmed chest. It felt illicit, a vulnerability he was not meant to witness. The Gael he knew was a composition of barriers; crisp wool, starched cotton, polished leather, cold metal. This… this was... Human.Unarmored.
Heat, unwelcome and confusing, prickled under his skin, a flush that had nothing to do with panic.
A new, thinner thread of anxiety began to spin in the calm. A flutter beneath his sternum. His breathing hitched, the perfect rhythm faltering. His mind, seeking its old, familiar chaos, began to whirl again.
What is this? Why is he… like this? What does he want?
His body tensed minutely, a faint tremor threatening to return to his stilled hands.
And then he felt it.
