Mania (Fever Dreams Collection #1)

13. Maeve

Chapter 13

Maeve

There’s a rope in my hands. The jute is rough against my skin as I wind it round and round into a slipknot. I’m not sure where I am in the Ambrose Hotel. A room. Not mine. But similar. I open the closet. Check the strength of the clothes rod. It doesn’t budge. I loop the rope around it.

Somewhere, far, far deep inside of me, I’m thrashing, wailing, beseeching. Begging for my body to listen to me. Pleading to be heard. But that voice is much too small—barely a whisper.

The rest of me.

Feels at peace.

Resigned to the quiet ebbing of mortality. By my own hand.

I hope the suffocation won’t be too daunting. I hope this hurts my lungs less than drowning.

My chest squeezes in apprehension as if time traveling somewhere into the near future when the rope has already tightened around my throat. To a time when I’m hanging, the jute reddening the skin around my neck, the rope the only thing keeping me from crumbling to the floor. There’s a tremor in my hands when I hold up the noose to my head. Maybe my body can hear my whisper after all. But it continues nonetheless. The rope slipping past my forehead, my cheeks, my chin.

I’m crying.

Silent, stolen tears.

But I don’t make a sound. And I can almost discern a timid smile on my lips. There’s a perplexing calm to my movements. A heady resolve that my actions aren’t wrong —they are exactly where I’m supposed to be.

The noose tightens around my neck.

Tight. Tight. Tight.

This is it.

My hands delicately unfurl from the rope. My arms drop to my sides, and somewhere inside I’m now praying to a God I don’t believe exists.

Make it stop .

Please.

Make it stop.

My feet slide backward. The tips of my toes loosely rest against the carpet as my body pitches forward.

The noose tightens.

I begin to choke.

The sounds of my slow asphyxiation slowly replace the silence in the room.

I feel my eyes bulge from their sockets.

And pain. So much pain.

But I can’t move. I can’t make it stop.

Then the hotel room door slams open, crashing into the wall. I can barely focus on who storms inside.

I can’t breathe. My lungs. I can’t breathe.

Strong hands around my waist. They pull me up. The rope loosens. My airway burns but I’m breathing. I’m breathing .

The noose is yanked away from my neck and I’m dragged out of the closet toward the bed.

I finally focus on who’s carrying me.

It’s him.

He’s found me.

The spell—or whatever this is —has been broken and I can move again. I lift a weary arm, my breathing ragged. He’s still holding me, cradling me. My fingers slowly drag over the black sheet preventing me from seeing his face.

I don’t believe I’ve wanted anything more than to see all of him at this very moment. To watch him watch me. To feel his lips press softly against mine.

“You saved me,” I rasp quietly.

He doesn’t say a word.

Only runs a gloved finger gently over my neck as if needing to know I’m okay. His touch is intimate, and I suddenly have the urge to burst into tears for a significantly different reason than why I was crying before.

Then he lets me go.

Releases me from the safety of his arms, and settles me onto the bed.

He steps away.

I peer up at his veiled face, the hard curve of his jaw molding against the black sheet.

I hope my desire for him to stay is visible on my face.

He skates a hand over my hair and then caresses my cheek.

The silence is loud. I can’t compete with it. So I stay quiet.

I watch him distance himself from the bed and walk out of the room.