herself that she could swallow, that her airway was open.
“It’s fine,” she said to herself. “Breathe one, two . . .”
But she couldn’t breathe one, two because the universe was converging to a point. It would be a welcome feeling to pass out, except there was a terror that somehow the merry-go-round would just go on, even in an unconscious state.
People say depression lies. Anxiety is just stupid. It’s unable to tell the difference between things that are actually scary (being buried alive, for example) and things that are not scary at all (being in bed under the covers). It hits all the same buttons. Stop. Go. Up. Down. It’s all the same to anxiety. The curtains said fear and the floor said fear. The dark said fear, and if she turned the light on, that too would likely say fear. She turned the light on anyway. The faces of the murdered Ellinghams looked at her accusingly from the case board. She hurried over to the dresser, pulling open the drawer with shaking hands. She knocked out one Ativan, then hurried back over to her nightstand and washed it down with a gulp of water from the bottle next to her bed.
It would take some time to work, and the universe was still howling in her ears.
She needed help.
She slipped into the hallway, bumping against the door frame as she went. She went to Janelle’s door and knocked. After a moment, there was a sleepy, “Yeah?”
Stevie tried the door and found it was unlocked. She was too muddled to be embarrassed or feel bad for waking her.
“What?” Janelle said, sitting up. “Are you okay?”
“Panic attack,” Stevie said. “Can I . . . can you . . .”
Janelle pushed herself out of bed, grabbed her robe, and put it over Stevie’s shoulders. She guided Stevie to the bed and sat her down, putting an arm around her shoulders.
“Sorry,” Stevie wheezed, “sorry.”
“Here,” Janelle said, taking her hand. “It’s okay. We’re going to do this. Hold my hand.”
Holding Janelle’s hand brought some semblance of reality back.
“Can I sit here for a minute?” Stevie said.
“You stay until it’s over,” Janelle said. “As long as it takes. Did something happen?”
Stevie couldn’t bring herself to explain. Everything was wobbling. She leaned back against Janelle and the wall behind the bed and waited for everything to stop moving, for the words to stop running through her mind, for Truly Devious to leave.
The next morning, when Stevie emerged from her room, Janelle was in the common room, looking amazingly perky for someone who had been up half the night helping a friend. She was wearing a fleecy sweatshirt that said ASK ME ABOUT MY CAT and a pair of yoga pants, and her braids were coiled up under a cheerful red scarf. Stevie, on the other hand, was still wearing the sawdust-covered sweatpants. She had not consulted her hair. It could be doing anything. She had not bothered to wipe her face or crusty eyes or brush her teeth. She just needed to get up and shake off the night.
Stevie was embarrassed looking at her friend. She’d never really had an experience like that before, outside of her parents, where someone actually took care of you like that. Janelle had put her back into bed just before dawn, and Stevie had slept heavily for a few hours. Now she was groggy and heavy and slow.
“How are you doing?” Janelle asked in a low voice.
“I’m okay,” Stevie said. “A little nauseous. Tired. But okay.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say “thanks to you” out loud, but she tried to convey it in her eyes, and then by generally being awkward. Janelle just shook her head in a don’t worry about it kind of way.
Stevie went outside. The morning was fresh and bright—big blue skies and shaggy, happy clouds blowing over the mountains. It was the kind of morning that mocked the fear of the night before. This kind of pleasantness almost made it worse. How could she be anxious when everything was so cheerful?
Very easily, as it happens. Brain chemistry doesn’t care about how pretty things are.
She stepped along the edge of Minerva, through the moist grass to retrieve her book from the ground outside her window. It was a bit damp, but on examination it showed no real damage.
What had happened? She had been reading case materials right up until the time she went to sleep. She was thinking about the kidnapping and the tunnel. She could have easily