The Quietest Knife Chapter 91 - Eighty-Nine — Attack in LA

Willow sensed the wrongness before she could give it a na.

At first it seed small enough to ignore. A subtle pressure settled beneath her ribs while she stared at the line of text on her computer screen. She read it once, then again, and realized she had no idea what the sentence actually said. The words refused to attach themselves to aning. They drifted in front of her eyes like shapes that would not settle.

She leaned back in her chair and pressed a hand low on her abdon, instinctively protective, hoping the discomfort would fade the way ordinary fatigue sotis did.

It did not.

The overhead lights seed to brighten at once. The fluorescent hum sharpened until it sounded like a swarm trapped above the ceiling panels. The printer across the room clicked and whirred as soone sent a docunt to print. Normally she barely noticed the machine, yet the sound now grated across her nerves like tal scraping against bone.

Laughter rose from the hallway outside the cubicles. It was an ordinary laugh, light and careless, the kind of sound that usually blended into the rhythm of an office afternoon.

Today it pierced her spine.

A sudden wave of heat washed beneath her skin. The pulse in her neck jumped violently and began beating too fast, far faster than it should. Willow blinked hard and leaned forward slightly, trying to ground herself in the familiar shape of her desk.

Her hand drifted to her belly again.

"Not now," she whispered under her breath. "Please. Not now."

Her body ignored the plea.

The pounding in her chest accelerated until every heartbeat landed with the blunt force of a hamr striking bone. Air refused to settle properly in her lungs. Each breath ca in thin, uneven pulls that failed to satisfy the instinctive need for oxygen. A prickling numbness spread through her fingers and crept slowly along her palms. At the sa ti the edges of her vision began to dim, as though soone had quietly lowered the lights inside the room.

Recognition arrived with terrifying clarity.

This was panic.

It was not nerves or simple stress. It was the deep animal terror she had believed she left behind when she boarded the plane and crossed half the country, the kind that rose from sowhere older than reason and refused to listen when the mind tried to reassure it.

Jamie’s voice drifted over the cubicle wall.

"Willow? You okay?"

The words reached her as though they had traveled through water. They sounded distant and distorted, separated from the room by an invisible barrier she could not break through.

Willow pushed her chair back too quickly. The wheels shrieked across the floor. She grabbed the edge of the desk to steady herself when her knees softened without warning and the room tilted slightly to one side.

Her thoughts scattered in frantic directions while her chest tightened further.

Just breathe.

She tried to follow the command her mind repeated, but the air caught halfway down her throat and refused to move any farther. The tightness in her chest surged upward so sharply that she bent forward with a small involuntary cry. Her heart raced faster and faster until the rhythm lost all sense of order, each beat uneven and frightening.

One thought pushed violently through the rising panic.

Protect the baby.

The words pounded through her mind with desperate urgency. Her hands moved instinctively toward her stomach as the mantra repeated itself again and again inside her head, drowning out everything else.

Soone called her na a second ti. The voice carried more concern now, sharper and closer. Willow muttered sothing about needing air while shaking off the hand that reached toward her shoulder. She could not stay still long enough to explain anything. Every instinct inside her body demanded movent and escape from the suffocating walls of the office.

She pushed away from the desk and stumbled into the hallway, her steps unsteady as she moved past the break room and toward the exit, driven by the desperate belief that if she could only reach open air her lungs might finally rember how to breathe.

Past the elevator.

She rushed down the stairs two at a ti, gripping the railing when the world tilted slightly beneath her feet. By the ti she pushed through the glass doors and stumbled into the courtyard, the sunlight struck her face with blinding intensity. The warmth should have helped, yet instead it sharpened every sensation around her. The light felt too bright, the air too hot, the sounds of distant traffic and voices suddenly overwhelming.

Her breathing continued to trip over itself in shallow bursts. The tingling in her fingers spread slowly up her forearms while the dull tightening in her abdon deepened until fear flared violently through her chest.

The baby.

A bench waited beneath the shade of several ficus trees near the edge of the courtyard. Willow collapsed onto it and folded forward, her elbows braced on her knees while one hand pressed against the center of her chest as though she might force her lungs to cooperate through sheer pressure.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

She pulled it out with clumsy fingers that barely seed to belong to her. The screen blurred as she scrolled through her contacts until she reached the only na that felt safe enough to press.

Victor answered on the first ring.

"What happened?"

His voice remained controlled, but the focus in it sharpened instantly.

"I cannot breathe," she gasped. Her words ca out fractured between uneven pulls of air. "I am trying but I cannot. It hurts. Victor, I cannot breathe."

"Where are you?"

"Office courtyard," she managed between breaths. "By the trees. My chest. My hands. My stomach."

"I’m ten minutes away."

Her head lifted slightly despite the dizziness.

"You’re in the state?"

"Of course." His voice shifted into the precise calm of a man giving instructions under pressure. "You said breathing is difficult. Listen carefully. Put both feet flat on the ground."

She obeyed automatically, planting her shoes against the pavent while the trembling in her legs continued.

"Good," he continued. "Now inhale slowly through your nose. Tighten your stomach muscles. Hold for three seconds. Release through your mouth."

Her lungs attempted to follow the command.

The breath broke halfway through.

"Again," he said firmly.

Through the phone she heard the rush of wind and the rapid rhythm of footsteps striking pavent in quick succession.

He was running.

Tears began sliding down her face without her noticing.

"Victor," she whispered helplessly. "I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happening. My baby. What if sothing is wrong with the baby?"

"You do not apologize for breathing," he replied, his voice cutting cleanly through the rising panic. "And you do not apologize for protecting your child. Do you hear ? Calling was the correct decision."

Another wave of pressure rolled through her chest.

"It feels wrong."

"It is a panic attack," he said. "A severe one. The pain you feel is your muscles tightening under stress. It feels dangerous, but it is not harming the baby."

"But what if it is?" she choked.

"It is not."

The certainty in his voice did not waver.

Willow pressed both hands over her stomach, clutching the fabric of her shirt.

"I cannot lose this baby," she whispered. "I cannot lose anything else."

"You are not losing anything," Victor said. "I am almost there. Stay with ."

Her vision blurred while the trembling in her legs worsened until she feared she might collapse entirely. The world seed to tilt again as the pressure in her chest surged.

Then she heard footsteps.

Real footsteps, approaching quickly across the courtyard pavent.

A shadow fell across her as the sound stopped directly in front of the bench.

Victor dropped to one knee before her, one hand lifting her chin with careful precision while the other steadied her shoulder so she would not fold forward again.

"Look at ," he said.

She forced her eyes upward.

His gaze remained calm and centered in a way that felt impossible compared to the chaos tearing through her chest.

"You are having a panic attack," he said quietly. "It feels like dying, but it is not. Your body is rembering fear. That is all."

Tears stread down her face while she struggled to keep her focus on him.

"I hate this," she whispered hoarsely. "I hate that my body keeps rembering things I am trying to forget. What if the stress hurts the baby?"

Victor closed both hands around her trembling one, holding it firmly between his palms so she could feel the steadiness in his grip. His voice remained calm and level when he answered, the tone of soone refusing to allow fear to dictate the mont.

"Your body reacted because it was hurt," he said quietly. "Because it was frightened. That is not weakness. That is survival."

He continued breathing with her, guiding the rhythm without raising his voice. Each inhale ca slow and deliberate, and each exhale followed with the sa steady patience. Willow focused on that rhythm, forcing her lungs to follow the pace he set until the violent pressure inside her chest began to loosen. The tingling in her arms faded little by little, and the desperate burning in her throat eased as air finally moved through her lungs without resistance.

Only when her breathing steadied did Victor place one hand gently over her abdon, the gesture careful and respectful, as though acknowledging the life she had been protecting through sheer instinct.

"Safe," he said quietly. "Both of you."

Willow leaned forward then, her forehead falling against his shoulder while the final tremors of the panic attack drained slowly from her body. Victor shifted his position beside the bench so that she could rest against him without discomfort. He did not make the mont dramatic or draw attention to the closeness. He simply remained there, solid and unmoving, offering warmth and quiet support like soone who had decided he would not leave until she was steady again.

Several minutes passed before he helped her stand.

"Let’s go ho," he said softly. "You need rest."

She nodded, still shaken but no longer fighting for air. Victor guided her carefully to his car and fastened the seatbelt for her when he noticed that her hands were still trembling too badly to manage the buckle.

During the drive Willow watched him through tear blurred eyes. Victor kept one hand resting on the steering wheel while the other remained near her knee, not touching her but close enough that he could steady her if the panic returned. The tight line of his jaw revealed how much the episode had shaken him even though his voice remained calm. Every few seconds his gaze shifted briefly toward her before returning to the road.

Sothing inside her chest shifted under that quiet vigilance.

"I wish you were the father," she whispered before she could stop herself.

Victor’s hand stilled on the steering wheel.

Willow closed her eyes imdiately as sha rushed through her.

"I didn’t an that."

"Yes," he said quietly. "You did."

She folded both hands protectively over her stomach, her fingers pressing lightly against the fabric of her shirt.

"It would have made sense," she murmured. "It would have been safe."

Victor’s knuckles tightened briefly on the wheel before his expression settled again into controlled calm.

"You deserve more than safe," he said. "You deserve a life that does not make you flinch every ti you breathe."

Willow turned her face toward the window so he would not see the tears gathering again. The city passed quietly outside while her thoughts tangled together in a way she could not untangle.

When he parked outside her building he walked her upstairs and stayed until she was settled comfortably in bed with the blankets drawn up around her and her breathing finally even again. Before leaving he touched her forehead gently with the back of his hand, checking her temperature with the sa careful attention he had shown all day.

"You and the baby are safe," he said quietly. "I’ll be here tomorrow."

The door closed softly behind him.

Willow curled on her side around the gentle curve of her belly and stared at the dim ceiling while the apartnt settled into silence. Her hand rested protectively over the child growing inside her as the emotional exhaustion of the day finally caught up with her.

"I really wish you were the father," she whispered into the empty room.

Tears slid slowly down her temples and disappeared into the pillow while another voice stirred from the broken pieces of the heart she had left behind, a quiet whisper rising from mories she could not erase.

"Liar."