Salvation

Chapter X

A strong hand pushed me against the sofa.

"Don't you know what you've just done, little girl?", he said, his voice lowering in a growl as he whispered against my ear. I was stunned by this sudden change.

My body stiffened from the tension caused by his tight grip on my shoulder.

"You do know that I could kill you in a matter of seconds, don't you?", his eyes flared as he tightened his grip on my arm. The words thrown weren't said in a mindless anger, instead they flew smoothly from his mouth as if he had already planned every word he was about to say.

"Or do you think I wouldn't dare?" His blurry gaze fell on my neck and if I hadn't known better I would've thought he was debating whether to bite me or not, but I knew he was well aware of the consequences. His figure hovered over me as he leaned in to whisper starling words to my ear. "I already said I wasn't very keen on listening." I flinched, opening my mouth in an automatic reaction to oppose him. But I was distracted by the gaze of his face and how close it was. He was so close that I could feel the soft contour of his disheveled hair tingling my neck.

One of his beaten hands found its way down my throat, shakily trying to draw fear into me. Strangely enough, the contact with my skin didn't cause as much pressure as I expected it to, considering that I was being threatened and all. It was more like he placed it there to prove something, more to himself than me.

"Ugh..", I barely mumbled turning my head towards the side of the sofa. I suddenly felt a slight sting of pain in my chest, but as my determination to speak grew, I ignored the feeling despite sensing how my heart beats also fastened with it.

"You think this will scare me?", I uttered, my whole body beginning to tremble from the stress.

I began to feel extremely light-headed and as I tried to mumble the words, my throat only felt tighter like I couldn't properly breathe anymore.

"Wrong. You're so...", I started, but I could no longer focus on my words, the pain of thousand needles burned through my chest and I found myself staring at the crimson fabric of the sofa gasping for breath.

A bare hand now seemed to become an iron death clasp and I wondered whether lack of air or heart failure would finish me first. But as I glanced down, the hand that was supposed to be causing me pain wasn't there at all and as I looked up, a pair of green eyes worriedly starred back.

"I can't...breathe...", I uttered gasping half-way through it.

"Calm, uh...calm down.", he nervously swallowed, biting on his lower lip. "I think you're having some kind of panic attack." His shaky, unsteady movements revealed the panic that began to spread in his eyes. He clumsily tried to hold down my hands that were now itching to cut the bind around my throat since I still had a feeling something was holding me down. His eyelids suddenly dropped as he realized what he had done, that it was his fault.

"Just try to breathe.", he uttered calmly this time and gently tried to push them down, to prevent me from moving around. "It's alright now. I was just...", he began, but then decided not to finish the sentence.

I had no idea what was going on. I felt helpless and had this disgusting feeling of my body finally giving up on me. I tried to focus all my concentration, or what was left of it, on his words that were surprisingly calm in this situation.

"Try to breathe..that's it..slowly.." I listened to the soothing words, composed tone of his voice and stared at his vivid eyes, trying to hold on to that slight hope that seemed present in this person's words. I didn't want to notice it, but it was there. The paleness of his cheeks, now even more so than before, became the evident reason that he was scared.