Vacant Heart

Chapter Sixteen

My eyelids drag apart, reluctant to see the light of day. I emerge from utter solitary darkness, only to enter more of it. The bedroom is dark, apart from the flames of the fire, which is roaring inside the fireplace. The realization that I'm alive, that I'm blinking, that my fingers can tap into the blankets, is daunting.

I'd given up. I'd felt my body giving up, and yet here I am.

Everything hurts. Well, not so much hurts. Everything is sore. I'm not sure if I can move. In all my travels, in all the dangers and unknowns I've faced amongst them, never once have I felt the end as close as I did here. It only took a couple of seconds, and my life was nearly over. Just like that. Trying to find my bearings, I blink to restore my vision. My sweeping gaze stops the second my eyes land upon him.

He's seated on the edge of the mattress, one leg bent, one hanging off the side. It looks as though he's been there for some time. He's like a statue, unmoving even when he knows I'm awake and staring right at him. The expression sunken into his features scares me. It's a desolate, blank look, one that rids his face of any real color or life.

He's in clothing now, and he's changed me into some as well, layers upon layers of it. Dressed in an oversized hoodie that's hanging low enough to reveal to me that he's not wearing anything else beneath it, and navy sweats, he looks like he's the one who has been through the true trauma.

"What were you thinking?" he whispers, almost inaudibly.

"I'm sorry," I apologize, stunned by how hoarse my speech currently is. "I didn't know I was walking on it."

"You could have died. You nearly did."

My determination is stronger than my pain, pushing me onto my palms.

"Don't," he says, with concern as I sit up, scooting across the short distance to him. I crawl onto his lap and clasp both his cheeks, weakly, pressing my face to my hand. The room is spinning, and at my wavering, his arm circles around my back to hold me close, despite his anger.

"I'm sorry," I breathe, stroking his hair, kissing his cheek softly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

I look upon his face, admiring the way his eyes are closed, savoring my affection and drag my thumb slowly over the curve of his brows. I'm rendered breathless when they re-open, now swelling with water. His usually hard features are cracking under the strain of his anger and my repentance.

"You stopped breathing, Jo," he whispers, and my chest swells with shock, shaken by those words. "I worked over you for three damn minutes before you took a breath again."

To hear my heart stopped beating is enough to get it racing now. I have no clue what to say, what to do, how to comprehend any of this. One minute I was in a rage, and the next, I was relying on the man who was the reason for my reveling to save my life.

A lot of the incident is cloudy, but his panicked pleas aren't. I remember falling unconscious, and can only imagine what that must have done to him, what that must have been like...to be trapped in this manor in the middle of a storm with an unconscious woman and no connection to the outside world. What it must have been like to find me out there in the snow and ice, in the same place he found his wife and child, rendering him helpless all over again.

The look on his face tells me he's been sitting on those dwellings for a while now.

"Maybe I am cursed," he confesses darkly, his voice choked with overwhelming pain. I shake my head, horrified when he snaps his face away from me stubbornly so I won't be witness to the tears falling from his eyes. I urge him back to me, unable to stand it.