She shakes her head wildly. “Leave…me…alone,” she gasps out.
“I will,” I soothe, taking a chance and walking a couple steps closer. She keeps a wary eye on me, but she doesn’t retreat any more. I’m not sure if that’s because she’s starting to trust me or because she’s so shaky that she doesn’t trust herself to move. The fact that I’m pretty sure it’s the latter doesn’t make me feel any better about this whole clusterfuck. “But first I need you to breathe with me. Can you do that?”
She doesn’t say no, so I take another step closer and then another and another. Only a few feet separate us now and I can see the fear and the pain in her eyes as she looks at me. The idea that I somehow did this to her, somehow drove her to this state, wounds me more than I ever thought possible.
I shove that away though, so I can concentrate on this. Concentrate on her. “Okay, Veronica, I need you to take one deep breath. Just one. Can you do that for me?” I take a deep breath in to show her what I’m talking about. “One deep breath in and then just hold it.”
My words have no effect as her chest continues to rise and fall rapidly. She’s swaying now, her eyes starting to go blank, and if I wasn’t worried about her having a seizure or falling and hitting her head, I’d be tempted to just let her go on this way until she passes out. Then, when her breathing regulates itself, we can try to figure out what the hell brought this on.
But I am worried about those things so I keep talking to her, keep trying to get her to match my breathing. It only takes ninety seconds or so before she manages to take that one deep breath, but it’s the longest ninety seconds of my life.
“Okay, baby, hold it in while I count to twenty. Can you do that? Can you hold your breath for me?”
She doesn’t nod or give me any other form of acknowledgment, but I’m watching her closely enough that I can see her chest still as she follows my instructions.
“Okay, good,” I tell her after I count out loud to twenty. “Now let it out slowly. That’s it, baby. That’s it. Perfect. Can you do it again for me?” I take a deep breath to demonstrate and hold it for several long seconds as she does the same.
We do this half a dozen times or so until I feel like she’s steady enough to listen to a shade more complicated commands. “Okay, Veronica. Now I want you to cup your hands over your mouth and try to breathe normally. Not slow, not fast. Just normally. Like this.” I demonstrate a few times, then wait to see if she’s going to follow my instructions.
After a few, nerve-wracking seconds, she does.
“That’s it, baby. What you’re doing now is breathing back in some of the carbon dioxide you expel when you exhale. This is going to help balance out your oxygen levels and get that wooziness to go away. It should also help the tightness in your chest and the tingling in your extremities.”
I pause for a few seconds, let her take a few more breaths. “How’s that?” I ask eventually. “Are you starting to feel better?”
She nods, but doesn’t take her cupped hands away from her face. All I can see of her face are her eyes, and they’re huge and bruised looking as they stare back at me.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her once it becomes obvious that she’s calming down. “Whatever it is I did to scare you, I’m so, so sorry. But now that you’re all right, I’m going do what I promised and leave. Okay?” Once again, I hold my hands up and keep them in front of me so she can see them. “I swear, I’m not going to hurt you.”
I don’t turn my back on her as I make my way to the front door, as I’m not quite ready to trust that she won’t grab the nearest thing and fire it at my head. But now that the crisis is over, I’m a little weak in the knees myself. The idea that I somehow did something to traumatize Veronica that badly tears me up inside. And since I can’t think of anything I did in the kitchen tonight to set her off, I’m afraid it was memories of what I did last night that caused everything.
Fuck. I feel like a total and complete bastard. I knew she was fragile going into this, knew that Vargas had had her at his mercy for almost three years. And still I was rough with her. Still I tied her to that goddamn bed and took her places she had no business going. If I could kick my own ass, I would do it in a heartbeat.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her again as I reach for the door handle. “I’m so, so sorry, Veronica.”
I pull open the door, start to leave, but at the last second Veronica’s voice—low and thin and hoarse—cuts through the tense silence and my own self-flagellation. “Where did you get that brooch? The one you handed me in the kitchen?”
I turn to look at her, confused. “It was in your hair. It’s been in your hair all night.”
She makes a wounded sound, like I just reached across the room and slapped her. Then she whispers, barely loud enough for me to hear. “I think I’m losing my mind.”
Chapter 22