Chapter 16 - "Close your eyes, trust me."

It was night time when he woke up.

It took a moment for him to remember where he had been, and closed his eyes again, exhaling a long breath when he realized he was safely in his room.

Until he remembered why he had been in his room in the first place, why he fainted, and instantly, his eyes shot open and frantically searched across the room.

It was at that exact moment that the door opened.

"I'm not staying that much longer," Kane said on the phone, closing the door behind him. He had removed the coat from his suit, rolled up the sleeves from his dress-shirt and in his hand, he was carrying a brown bag with a restaurant logo on it. "I should be back in about an hour or so...yes, I already picked it up, it's in the trunk of my car...no, I—" He heard choking, sharply turning his head and meeting the blue eyes of Charles, who were starting to get bloodshot. "Let me call you back," then he shut his phone.

It was another attack that started, but this time, Charles couldn't move his hands or his legs. He hadn't even realized that he was seated upward on the bed, with his arms cuffed to each side and his legs strapped down, so he couldn't move a single body part to defend himself. His eyes started to get much more blurry, his throat was closing in on itself and felt as though it was burning with acid, and he was choking on his own air.

"Anything reminding you of that night," Kane approached him, sitting on the bed near his feet, "will make you react that way until you find a way to fight your own nervous system. You have to tell it that you're not in danger."

Charles felt his throat squeeze so much that he couldn't even vocalize anything, but he wanted to shout, how the fuck do I tell my own brain anything?

"Close your eyes, trust me."

There would never come a day that Kane would be trusted.

Still, Charles closed his eyes since there was nothing else he could do. He needed any sort of solution that could get rid of this excruciating sentiment across his chest. That only made it worst, as though he was having motion sickness since the entire room felt as though it was spinning. It was as though he had been drunk and was trying to fall asleep, feeling as though there were waves going through the mattress.

"You have to talk yourself through it; convince yourself that you're not in danger of anything."

The clanking of the cuffs were terribly loud that Charles was surprised no staff member rushed inside, but that wasn't his worry. Right now, his entire body trembled uncontrollably, he could feel his mind slipping away, and he was trying to think of anything to say to himself. He tried to convince himself that he wasn't in danger, shouting it in his mind, but the next thought that crossed his mind was that he was in danger.

Because the man that shot and killed Natalia is sitting right next to me.

Charles heart rate raced even more, his trembling only got worst, and now he was scared to open his eyes to see Kane again.

He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, he couldn't move, he couldn't do anything. His skin was burning, electric shocks were rushing through his blood, the thought of dying started crossing him mind, which only made him panic even more.

He was going to die here, and his parents would find him and he would have died in vain without ever avenging the death of his best friend and he—

Suddenly, a gush of air was pushed into his lungs.

One push of air made his entire body stop quivering, just one. The next one made his mind stop racing and his heart started to slow down. By the third one, Charles felt completely back to normal, enough that he realized that the reason there was a burst of air that entered his lungs and opened all his airways was because there had been lips that pressed firmly onto his own.

They were soft, much thicker than his own, but had a warmness and tenderness to them that made Charles want to be vulnerable to them. They didn't move, there hasn't any use of tongue, neither did it seem to be a genuine kiss, but it still made Charles pushed his head forward, wanting to feel more of them, begging for them to envelop him. They felt a bit moist, as if they had been licked before being planted on him, and Charles' fingers instinctively went forward, trying to grab onto whoever's face it was and pull them in.

He could breathe again, he could think again, he could move again.

He could think again.

Charles' brows furrowed.

There was only one other person in this room.

Instantly, his eyes shot open and he realized that those lips that he felt as though had saved his life, were Kane's lips.