The boy's footsteps grew closer. Each one a hammer blow against my already fraying nerves.

Three steps away. Two steps. One.

His hand reached for the closet door handle.

We all held our breath. Five people compressed into shadows, muscles locked, waiting for the inevitable discovery.

The handle started to turn—

"FOUND YOU!"

High-pitched voices exploded into the room. Children—maybe three or four of them—burst through the doorway in a chaotic rush.

"Maja and Piotr are in here together!" one shrieked in Polish, the universal tone of childhood tattling transcending language barriers.

"Kissing probably!" another added with gleeful accusation.

The girl—Maja—went rigid with mortification. "GET OUT!" she screamed, her face flushing red even in the dim light.

"Maja and Piotr sitting in a tree—" the kids started to chant.

"OUT!" She lunged toward them, and they scattered with delighted shrieks. Piotr followed, his own embarrassment evident as he tried to corral the children while Maja chased them down the hallway.

The door slammed shut behind them, leaving us in darkness again.

For a moment, nobody moved. Nobody breathed.

Then Sienna let out a shaky laugh. "That was way too close."

"Way too close," Camille agreed, her voice trembling slightly. "Like, millimeters from disaster close."

Alexis released my hand, flexing her fingers where she'd been gripping so tight. "We need to be more careful. Any sound—"

But I wasn't listening anymore.

My chest was pounding. Not just fast—pounding. Like my heart was trying to break through my ribcage. Each beat violent, painful, out of rhythm.

I couldn't get enough air. My lungs kept pulling in oxygen but it wasn't enough. Never enough. Like breathing through a straw while drowning.

This wasn't the most dangerous situation I'd been in. Not even close. I'd fought Hugo. Survived brain surgery. Been declared dead for three minutes. This was just hiding in a closet. This was nothing.

So why did it feel like I was dying?

"Rey?" Evelyn's voice came from somewhere distant. "Rey, what's wrong?"

My hands were shaking. I looked down at them in the thin light from the door gap and saw—

Blood.

Anthony's blood. Coating my palms. Dripping between my fingers.

No. No, that wasn't real. I'd washed it off. Days ago. This wasn't real.

But I could see it anyway. Could feel the warm stickiness. Could smell the copper tang.

"Rey!" Alexis's hands on my face, forcing me to look at her. "Look at me. Focus on my voice."

I tried. God, I tried. But my vision was swimming. The closet walls felt like they were pressing in. Getting smaller. Crushing us all together until—

Anthony's chest. The bullet hole. His eyes going glassy.

"Can't—" I gasped. "Can't breathe—"

"Yes you can," Alexis said firmly. Her medical training taking over, voice calm and authoritative even as I fell apart. "You're having a panic attack. Your body is fine. Your lungs work. Just breathe with me. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four."

She demonstrated, exaggerating her breathing so I could follow.

I tried. Managed maybe two seconds before my lungs demanded more air, faster, now.

"It's okay," Sienna said, her hand on my back. "You're safe. We're all safe."

Safe. The word was meaningless. How could we be safe when Mark was World President? When eighty-three percent of the world wanted us captured? When we were hiding in a closet during a party celebrating the man who'd killed my best friend?

Tears burned at the corners of my eyes as they started wattering. I tried to blink them back but they came anyway. Silent. Unwanted. Evidence of weakness I couldn't afford.

"I should have—" My voice broke. "Anthony. I should have protected him. Should have been faster. Stronger. Should have—"

"No," Camille interrupted, her wild energy subdued into something gentler. "Don't do that to yourself. What happened to Anthony wasn't your fault."

"He died because I brought him to Ghana." The words tasted like acid. "He died protecting me because I wasn't good enough to protect myself."

"He died because Mark shot him," Alexis said sharply. "Because Mark is a murderer. Not because of anything you did or didn't do."

But that didn't help. Didn't ease the crushing weight on my chest. Didn't stop my hands from shaking or my vision from blurring with tears I couldn't control.

This feeling—this complete loss of control, this inability to think or breathe or function—was foreign. Terrifying in its unfamiliarity.

I'd been injured before. Exhausted before. Beaten before. But I'd always been able to compartmentalize. To push through. To separate emotion from necessity and keep moving forward.

Now I couldn't. The walls I'd built between feeling and functioning had collapsed, and everything was flooding through at once. Anthony's death. Hugo's revelations. Mark's betrayal. The weight of eighty-three percent of the world believing I was a fraud.

All of it crashing down simultaneously while I stood in a closet trying not to be discovered during a party celebrating my enemy.

"Breathe," Alexis kept saying. "Just breathe, Rey. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four."

Sienna's hand rubbed circles on my back. Camille squeezed my shoulder. Evelyn's hand found mine in the darkness.

They surrounded me. Anchored me. Kept me from completely dissolving into the panic that wanted to consume everything.

Slowly—agonizingly slowly—my breathing started to even out. Not normal. Not okay. But less desperate. Less like drowning.

The blood on my hands faded. Still felt like I could see it in shadows and afterimages, but no longer the vivid hallucination it had been.

My heart rate decreased. Still elevated. Still pounding. But no longer trying to break free.

"That's it," Alexis encouraged. "You're doing good. Keep breathing."

"M'tired," I mumbled, the panic attack having burned through whatever reserves of energy I had left.

"Then sleep," Sienna said gently. "We've got you. Nothing's going to happen while we're here."

I wanted to protest. To stay alert. To keep watch.

But exhaustion was absolute. The adrenaline crash combined with days of inadequate rest and the emotional breakdown left me with nothing.

My eyes closed. My body went limp against whoever was supporting me—Alexis, probably, based on the positioning.

And despite the party still raging outside our hiding spot, despite the danger we were in, despite everything...

I slept.

I woke to light.

Not the thin gap under the door, but actual daylight. Someone had opened the closet.

I jerked awake, panic spiking again before my brain caught up with what I was seeing.

Elliot stood in the doorway, surveying the five of us crammed into his storage closet like refugees. Which, I supposed, we were.

"Finally found you," he said, his tone caught between amusement and concern. "The guests left about two hours ago. You can come out now."

Around me, the others were waking up. Camille groaning. Sienna stretching carefully in the limited space. Evelyn already alert despite having been asleep seconds ago. Alexis watching me with careful assessment.

We extracted ourselves from the closet one by one, muscles cramped from hours of staying still. I was the last out, my legs unsteady as blood flow returned properly.

"That party," I said, my voice rough from sleep and earlier distress, "I'm never doing that again."

Elliot's expression shifted to concern. "What happened? You all look worse than when you went in there."

I ignored the question, moving past him toward the main house. "We have field work to do."

"Rey—"

"Field work," I repeated, not looking back. "That's what we came here for, right? To work the farm while we figure things out?"

"Reynard," Elliot said, his voice firmer.

I stopped but didn't turn around. Couldn't face whatever concern or pity or understanding I'd see in his expression.

"Leave it," I said quietly. "Please. Just... leave it."

Silence stretched between us. Then I heard Elliot sigh.

"Alright. Field work. There's tools in the shed. Meet me outside in ten minutes."

He left, footsteps retreating down the hallway.

I stood there, staring at nothing, feeling the others' eyes on me.

"Rey—" Sienna started.

"Ten minutes," I said, cutting her off. "We have ten minutes. I'm going to wash my face and meet Elliot outside."

I walked toward the bathroom before anyone could argue. Before they could ask questions I didn't want to answer. Before the concern in their voices could crack whatever fragile control I'd managed to rebuild.

Behind me, I heard quiet conversation. Worry. Debate about whether to push or let it go.

I didn't hear the conclusion. Just closed the bathroom door and turned on the faucet, letting cold water run over my hands.

Clean hands. No blood. Just water and soap and normal human skin.

I splashed water on my face, trying to wash away the lingering sensation of panic. The memory of not being able to breathe. The terror of complete loss of control.

Ten minutes, I'd said.

I had nine left to make myself presentable. To bury everything that had surfaced in that closet. To become functional again.

Because that's what survival required. Functionality. Not healing. Not processing. Just the ability to keep moving forward.

So that's what I'd do.

I'd work the fields. Do what Elliot needed. Stay busy enough that thinking became optional.

And maybe, if I was lucky, the panic wouldn't come back.

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