The War of Elevens| Book 1 of the Space Thief Chronicles

Chapter 22| Panic

Lilly steeled herself against the sharp pain in her thigh and shoulders, then locked eyes with Stevia, whose gorgeous features were elongated in that of perfect surprise: her dark, hawkish eyes were narrowed, her mouth was agape, and her hair had tumbled out of its braids from the force of the solar wind. 

Then Lilly ran. 

She didn't know what else to do, because if she stayed in the training room Stevia would question her and call her murderer, space thief, dangerous, violent.  Sadness swallowed her whole; no part of her body, soul, or spirit was left behind. 

The second she got into the Private dormitory, she collapsed to her knees and bent double. She heaved her lungs out, gasped out staccato-sharp cries, clutched at her hair. She just murdered someone. She'd brought down something dangerous and violent and the wind did not simply hurt Lydia, it killed her. Lilly killed her. 

She was in so much trouble. 

Her chest constricted. She tried to pull in air through her mouth between cries, but the oxygen felt sticky and unwilling to satisfy her respiratory needs. Pressure crushed her chest. She was hot all over, dizzy, reeling, shaking. Her mind scrambled to put her thoughts in order, but she couldn't pull herself together. Her head pounded, and the pain in her shoulders and thigh dulled so that all she felt was suffocation and the throb of her heart in her throat and temples. 

"Lilly?" 

Max's voice. Right in her ear. He sounded as if he'd spoken from a mile away. 

His hands were on her shoulders. Why weren't her lungs working? What was she doing on the floor? What was wrong with her?  

Dying, she thought. I'm dying. 

"I can't—" she gasped as Max's fingers dug harder into her shoulders, "I can't breathe! I can't—" 

Max's face in front of her went blurry. Her fingers and toes tingled. She bit out a sob of frustration and desperately tried to regain control of her breathing, but she couldn't. She couldn't. 

Oh crap, she'd just murdered Lydia, and now Stevia knew her magic, and— 

"I think you're having a panic attack," Max said, voice muffled from Lilly's attempts to draw breath. "Breathe with me. Lilly? Lilly, you're hyperventilating. You're hyperventilating—Lilly!" 

"I think I'm dying," Lilly heaved, hands splayed over her chest. Sweat beaded along her browline, poured down her back. "And I—I—I can't—" 

Max shook her, hard, so hard her teeth rattled. "You can breathe. It just feels like you can't. Breathe with me: in. Out. In. Out. In. Out. Breathe like that until it stops hurt—oh, you're bleeding. I'm going to get you some bandages from the bathroom. Just...stay here." 

Lilly shook her head as Max stood up. "You have to hide me," she whispered, coughing. "Please." 

His eyebrows dipped into a furrow. "What? Why?" 

Her arms and legs trembled as she tried to get to her feet. She staggered; Max's hands shot out to balance her before she hit the floor. 

"Stevia knows about my magic," said Lilly quietly, "and I just killed someone." 

Max didn't say anything. His eyebrows merely dipped deeper as he put one arm around Lilly's shoulders and let her use his other arm to lean on for support. They staggered past the crackling fire fountain and into Max's room, where they both sank onto Max's unmade bed. Lilly didn't care that they were half-friends or that there was a wall with a face on it that gasped an exaggerated and prolonged "Ohhhhhhhhhh! A girl!" She wrapped her arms around Max's neck, buried her face into his chest, and sobbed, "I messed up, I really messed up. I-I-I killed Lydia."