I eyed my legs and then shook my own head. “I’m not really dressed…”
The big guy didn’t even take in anything other than my face. “You always look fine. Come on.”
He didn’t wait for me to argue. He just shut the door on me.
I growled under my breath and got out, tugging my damp bottoms down and realizing that Aiden’s hoodie was actually so long it went over my shorts… Great.
With a resigned sigh, I found Aiden waiting for me off to the side. At least he had the decency not to mock me for how much of a mess I looked. Thunder and lightning shook the walking bridge we had to take to cross over from the lot to the building, and I might have walked a little faster than usual. Aiden had barely opened the door for me when the lights inside the building went in and out for a second.
The lights in the hallway flickered twice more as we walked to the elevator bank. Then they blinked again just as the big guy pressed the button to go up.
I paused, taking in the deserted hallway. “Should we take the stairs?”
He gave me a side look that said what he was thinking—you’re an idiot, Vanessa. Instead, he verbally went with, “I’m too tired.”
Oh. Huh. “Okay.”
Before I could think too much more about the consequences of riding around in an elevator during a storm, the doors slid open. A couple was already inside, and they shuffled over into the corner to give us room when we entered. I didn’t miss the way the man’s eyes widened as Aiden backed against the opposite corner where they were, across from the doors. I put my back against the wall closest to him. “What floor, big guy?”
“Six.”
Pressing the button, the lights blinked again as the doors shut. Wariness made my stomach churn as the elevator eased its way upward. The lights flashed one more time before the elevator jerked, stopping, plunging us into total darkness.
One, two, three, four—
Holy shit.
Holy freaking shit.
I tried to blink as the other woman in the elevator squealed, and her partner asked, “What the hell?”
There wasn’t even an emergency light on.
It was pitch black.
Shouldn’t there have been a backup light?
Panic instantly seized my throat. Okay, it gripped my entire body, stringing every muscle so tight it hurt. In the time it took me to suck in a breath, my body began shaking. I made myself squeeze my eyes closed, ignoring the couple whispering in the corner.
Okay. Okay.
Everything was okay.
Everything would be okay, I told myself.
I was fine.
It was just a little outage because of the storm; big buildings like this had backup generators that would kick in in no time.
Didn’t they?
I started patting the wall next to me to find the buttons on the panel, easing my touch around until I felt a small gap in the metal, feeling around the perimeter of it. It was rectangle-shaped, where I figured an emergency phone had to be. Elevators had emergency lines… I thought. The latch opened easily, and I grabbed the small phone from inside. I couldn’t see a single thing, and as I touched around, there wasn’t any pad of any sort to call out. There wasn’t even a dial tone. The elevator wasn’t moving. The lights weren’t coming back on.
I held the phone against my ear, but there was no noise of any sort on the other end.
The power was completely out. The power had to be out.
My stomach seemed to drop to my knees.
It was so dark I couldn’t see my fingers when I brought them up close to my face. I could hear my breathing getting louder by the second, feel my chest start to puff in quick, restless breaths that I hadn’t experienced in a long time.
But the hum I was expecting, the one that signaled the power coming back on, didn’t make its appearance after another minute. It didn’t come back on after three or four minutes either, and the fear I’d been trying to ignore seized me in its rude, greedy grip even tighter.
“Vanessa?”
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think.
“Vanessa,” came Aiden’s voice again, whispered, strict and tight in the small space. “What the hell are you doing?”
I squeezed my eyes closed tighter, fighting it, fighting it, fighting it. “Nothing,” I think I managed to wheeze out.
Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Chill out. Everything is fine. Everything is fine. You’re just in an elevator. You’re okay.
I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t anywhere near being okay.
I had asthma. Since when did I have asthma?
A hand touched my shoulder just as I blindly replaced the phone where it was and moved my hands down my stomach and thighs until I was hunched over, gripping my knees for dear life.
Think, Vanessa. Think.
“You’re Aiden Graves, aren’t you?” the male voice speaking sounded like a hum in the background.
“Yes,” Aiden bit back in his familiar low grumble, his tone not inviting another remark. The hand on my shoulder tightened as I fought back a gasp for air. “Vanessa,” he repeated my name.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
But I couldn’t. I was panicking. I squeezed my knees harder with my palms and somehow managed to suck in a rabid breath.
Think.
I was fine. The elevator wasn’t that small. The lights were going to come back on eventually. I gasped sharply through my mouth.
“Sit down,” Aiden hissed, the one hand on my shoulder putting enough pressure that I didn’t bother picking a fight as I sank to my knees.
My keys! I slapped my hands around the pocket of Aiden’s hoodie, and finally found the hard lump I was looking for in the right pocket. I yanked my keys out and latched on to the slick, metallic tube I’d had on my keychain forever. The small button on the back clicked into place… and nothing.
It wasn’t working.
My phone! I started patting around my pockets when I remembered watching Aiden set my phone into the cup holder in my car. Cold dread sucked me in.
“Calm down,” Aiden demanded in the dark.
You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re in an elevator. You’re okay, I reminded myself.
“Vanessa.” I sensed the radiant heat of his body against my knees. “You’re fine,” he stated over my wild pants.
I was too riled up to be embarrassed that I couldn’t seem to breathe. I definitely couldn’t open my mouth to talk either, much less get all bent out of shape for him bossing me around.
Another hand joined the first and curled big and consuming over my shoulders. “You’re all right,” Aiden’s low, gravelly voice murmured in the dark elevator.
“What’s wrong with her?” the unfamiliar male voice on the other side of the elevator asked. “Is she okay?”
“Take a deep breath.” Thumbs kneaded my shoulders, ignoring the question from the stranger. “Breathe.”
Breathe? I tried, but it came in and out as mostly a choke.
“Through your nose… come on. In. Out through your mouth. Calm down.” Those big thumbs made small, almost angry circles over me. “Slow breath. Slow. In your nose, out of your mouth.” If this had been any other situation, I would have been surprised by how calm and cool his tone was. How gentle and unrushed. How very unlike the person who had just been snapping at me when he first realized something was wrong.