Page 56 of When Sinners Rise
I wheel around in the room, feeling trapped all over again.
I could take the money and run. Call Landon and see if he can help. He’d be able to tell me what to do. But then I’d lose my only chance to save Naja, and she took so many risks – all to keep me safe. I believe that, in my gut, despite all the other crap that’s landed on top of that.
I get dressed and open the bag left on the floor by the bed. There are bundles of dollars shoved inside. Some neat and tidy, some scrappy and creased. I take a few bills and head for the door. There was a vending machine down the path to the manager’s office, so I go to see what rubbish they have.
A couple of sandwiches that look decidedly suspect are the only options that count as real food, but I’m not that desperate yet. I choose the safer bag of crisps, a candy bar, a couple of bottles of water and a soda and head back to the room.
As I crunch my way through the bag, I think over every step that led me here, and no matter what or where I start onthat story, it lands at Shaw’s feet. He’s the reason for this. And I feel so utterly broken inside for letting myself do what I did – fucking him. Where did that come from?
Thinking back over everything: the cage, the dark, Abel and the gunshot, it all piles on, and my body starts to quiver and shake. My vision goes spotty, and my hearing tunes out to nothing but my racing heart. Panic surges through me, and I can’t pull myself out. The food falls from my hand, and tears race to fall from my cheeks as my breathing hitches through my sobs. Everything is too much. Too hard. Too big.
And my mind centres on Shaw – his behaviour and how he played me, how he brought me here, and how I couldn’t do anything to protect myself. After everything I trained for and everything I fought against, it still wasn’t enough, and I had to rely on the very man I was supposed to fight.
That adds to the enormity and just makes me spiral faster.
Can I really believe him? Believe that he knows what he’s done is wrong, and that’s why he’s with me? He knows I’m right.He knows I’m right.
A sick feeling festers in my stomach, and it’s not from the lack of proper food.
I curl in on myself, holding myself together as the shakes continue, and I fall deeper into panic, uncaring that I’m sitting in a room in a motel.
Shaw busts open the door, sending it flying on its hinges, and steps inside. The action, plus my own anxious state, sends me skittering to the corner of the room. He looks at me, confused, and the pressure to pull myself together grows in my chest, compressing my beating heart. I can’t catch my breath, and the whooshing noise inside my head grows.
I crawl to the bed and pull myself up, trying to drag breaths into my lungs as I do.
“Miri?” Shaw asks as I look up toward him.
I shake my head, trying to push him out of my vision as I try to get my breathing under control. I start to stagger back and forth, and my breathing catches, refusing to cooperate. The tears start to rush, and I slump back down on the bed.
My body shifts as Shaw sits down next to me. I don’t have the energy to fight him away. He pulls the bottle of booze from the bag and takes a swig. Then shoves the bag at me.
“Breath into this.”
I take it from him and do as he says.
I focus on the rhythm, letting it bring me back from the edge. After a few deep breaths, it starts to work, a calmness spreading throughout me like the creep of morning mist. My eyes close with the feeling as I lie down on the bed and keep the brown paper over my mouth.
Slowly, the panic eases. It diffuses with each breath, and I feel pressure from Shaw’s hand on my shoulder. It doesn’t send me spiralling back into panic, so I don’t shrug it off.
“Breathe, Miri,” he says quietly.
We stay like that for minutes, maybe longer, and my mind seems to clear, and the fog of my attack lifts.
He doesn’t seem drunk. I remember him wanting to get drunk. Although, it’s not been very long for him to get drunk. I can hear him swigging the liquor from the bottle, though.
My hand scrunches the paper bag up, and I pull it away from my mouth. “I thought you wanted to get drunk.” I check how stable my voice is, but it doesn’t betray my frayed nerves.
He doesn’t answer but does take another drink from the bottle as he removes his hand.
“Sleep,” he says as he stands. “Mariana used to sleep after those kinds of attacks.”
“Why did she-”
“Leave it. Don’t wanna talk about that.”
I pull myself up the bed, pushing my head into a pillow. “Okay. What’s the plan?”
“Fuck knows. But I really want to stop talking about plans or actions for a while. I might lose it completely if you don’t give me a break. Just, I don’t know. Sleep.”
