Page 55 of Border Control

Like camera flashes, the ones pointed at my dad, ten years ago. How those photos turned out, black and gray, hard shadows, plastered on all the newspapers. Blank. Hollow. Beaten down. Not my daddy at all.

He was a victim, crushed by the uncaring system.

My hands shake over my laptop keys. I can’t get enough air, something sucked it all out. I can’t breathe. I can’t let this happen again.

I’m failing all these victims. What if they can’t cope? What if they choose a way out, like Alice, like so many others?

My throat tightens, like the words I need get trapped on their course. I can’t get enough air, every inhale too shallow, too quick.

My fault.It presses in again, louder, harsher, until it fills every corner of me. I’m the reason. I’ll destroy this case. I’ll be the reason they’re destroyed, like my dad was.

And below it all, a churning dread sucking away at me.

It slams into me, sweeping me aside.

Dom falls to his knees in the center of my office. “Law-rah,” he grates out. He swings his gaze up to meet mine, eyes bleached to a sickly gray, not a single flicker of violet left. His hands squeeze either side of his head, pressing so hard his biceps shake. As if to contain whatever’s going on inside.

‘Scared danger where is it? Where is threat?’Nevare's mind roars through mine with the raging power of a storm surge, vast, cold, and hungry for a target.

The phone slips from my numb fingers.

What is this?

Dom surges forward and scoops me into his arms. I barely feel him, but he holds me mentally too, holding firm against the torrent of angry, swirling floodwaters. Dom holds me as the panic takes hold.

Nevare spins around us like a cyclone of fear and fury. Arik’s presence is silent, lost in the maelstrom.

‘No physical threat,’Dom shouts into the void, aloud and in my mind.‘We’re alive!’

‘Human terror. Threat against Law-rah?’ Nevare’s presence slams against my thoughts.

“It’s not a physical threat,” Dom repeats, his voice echoing in every direction.

He collapses forward, barely catching himself before crushing me. “Law-rah, it isn’t a physical threat,” he tells me, breath hot against my forehead. “You’re safe. You are with me.”

I hold on to his feel on his arms around me. Not a physical threat, no, but it sure feels like it. “I… I can’t,” I begin, gasping the words out.

Hard amethyst eyes meet mine. “Breathe with me, Law-rah. Breathe.”

He holds me steady in his arms. Mentally he calms Nevare, turning his head to track our surroundings. He’s being pulled in three directions, stretched so thin his pain echoes through me.

And I don’t know how to help him.

My limbs tingle, painfully reawakening, as if I’ve just returned to it. As Nevare’s rage quiets, Dom folds his arms around me, breathing hard, holding me close like I might vanish.

“Lisa!” a tiny voice screams, and I scrabble for my phone, hands shaking.

No. I can’t have another panic attack.

Hair in my face, heart thudding, I close my eyes for one beat and force calm into my voice. “Sorry, Morgan, bad signal.”

“You’ve shoved us in the shit, Lisa,” he growls. “We needed those summary documents. We turned up empty handed, like beggars on the street! And that’s where our clients will end up.”

Ice slices through me.No.Accu-Care can’t get off the hook because of me.

Dom’s warm hand lands on my shoulder. I focus on that. “Breathe. Nevare only panicked becauseyoupanicked,” Dom explains.

Shit. I can’t freak out. For them. For everyone.