Page 108 of The Royal Art of Revenge

I jump off the bed and quickly reach her things. “This bag?”

She looks around, then nods when she sees which one I’m holding. I hesitate. It’s instinctual. I’ve always been taught that you never go in a lady’s bag, much less rifle through the belongings in there.

Which is ridiculous.

Because that doesn’t matter right now.

I bring it over to the bed and tip the contents of it onto the end. A small hairbrush, a lipstick in her signature red, a half-empty container of mints, a roll-on perfume, a packet of tissues...

“Zip.” Another breathy word.

Zip?

I look inside the bag. There’s a zip compartment I hadn’t noticed, and I undo it. A handful of brightly coloured squares fall out as I grab blindly, and the remaining item left in there is a small strip of bright pink pills.

I bring them around to her, and she nods. I pop out one, then another, and then a third at yet another nod from her. There’s water on the bedside table, so I grab it before putting the little pills on her tongue. She accepts the water as I raise the glass to her mouth, and she quickly swallows some down, almost choking on it as her panic attack persists.

And still, I don’t know what I can do to help her.

Is it just a matter of waiting? Will those meds stop this in its tracks? What about rubbing her back? Would touching her more overstimulate her or would it calm her down?

Just as my mind is about to go into full overdrive, she reaches for me. A gentle touch of her clenched fist to my stomach and one look into her exhausted, glassy eyes is all it takes for my body to take over.

I slide up next to her, opening my legs, and stretch them around her so she’s tucked between them. I pull her against my body, and she rests her head against my chest, the top of it just tickling under my chin. She fits so perfectly in my arms, even if her body is trembling from top to toe.

Her fists are still clenched. She’s still hurting herself, and I don’t know if it’s inevitable sting of pain in her palms or the meds that are slowly bringing her back to the here and now. I want it to be the meds. I want it to be anything other than what I know is the truth.

The pain.

It kills me that she has to do this to herself.

Hattie’s breathing slows. The harsh, short breaths of a few minutes ago are morphing into deeper, more controlled inhales and exhales, but even now, they’re not quite right.

“Four.”

Four?

What does she mean, four?

“Count,” she gasps.

“You want me to count to four?”

She jerks in what I assume is a nod.

“One, two, three, four.” I keep my voice low, my count slow. “Like that?”

Another jerk of her head.

“One, two, three, four,” I repeat. “One, two, three, four.”

I keep counting.

Over and over again. Same volume. Same pace. Same gentle cadence to my voice.

And I hear it. How she responds. How she uses my count to re-centre herself, to bring her breathing back to a stable, steady pace.

She breathes in for four.