ON YOUR LAST BREATH | Mike Schmidt ✔️

chapter nine .. come find me

CHAPTER NINE —    " come find me "

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          SHE WAS DEAD. For an excruciatingly long couple of seconds, there was no pulse, no breath, no heartbeat, and Mike experienced what he wouldn't wish on anyone else — the clenching fear that he was touching death, clinging to a corpse he couldn't help but blame himself for being there, like that. Good job, Mike. You've killed another one with your carelessness. But once those seconds ended, the world came to a halt spread over the sound of Haley's coughing.

The sight of life returning to her eyes was a sunrise over an eternal darkness, fluttering her eyelashes and freeing his heart to return to a normal pace of beats. A tint of redness returned to her cheeks and his relief experiencr became a little too much for him not to burst out crying, some tears that have waited years to be shed, such that when they fell, their drops were like rain from heavy dark clouds, left behind by a storm long passed. With every ounce of self-control left, Mike had to hold back the embrace he very much needed, in fear that he might suffocate her with just how grateful he was to hear her shaky breath, but once he allowed himself to take her hand, he didn't let go for the rest of the night, not as they waited for an ambulance on the floor of her house, not as they waited in the ER, not even once they made it before a doctor and most definitely not as the police showed up looking for them both.

Had it not been for the police demand that once they got to the section by their own free will to be questioned separately, Mike Schmidt would still be holding Haley's hand like his life depended on it — and it might as well have depended on it, since he was certain now losing her would kill him in ways far worse than death's final blow could phantom.

Truth was, he knew all too well that night was going to be printed on his mind for as long as he would live. He remembered too much not to be aware that from now on he will be haunted by the terrible image of Haley slipping away into the cradle of death, slipping away from him and growing cold and stiff. She came back to him and the price he had to pay was the nightmares that would follow — he would have it no other way.

Haley Anne on the other hand only remembered Mike. Everything before that was such an amalgamation of incoherent details tampered with first by an inexplicable amount of fear and second by whatever hallucinogenic gas she was forced to inhale. But Mike... Him she remembered. The moment she recognized him from underneath the fading shadow, Haley knew she wasn't alone in the nightmare, that for once, she called and someone answered, someone was there to help. It was for the best that she focused on that memory alone, posting the spotlight of her mind on it and hoping that everything else would not slip through.

"So there was no break-in?" Officer Kim inquired. They knew each other well thanks to Charlotte, his wife.

"No," Haley refrained from shaking her head, because though the hospital cleared her, the dizziness was going to linger a while, much as the blur in her still bloodshot right eye. "I was having an asthmatic attack and I panicked, so I called Mike."

"Twice?" Kim's partner asked, having the records already on what calls happened.

"The first time I called to let him know I will come over to sit with him during the nightshift. After that call, within minutes, my condition worsened and since he was the last person I dialed, I called him the second time for help."

"And can you recall when he got there," the questions continued, "did he break the door down?"

Haley gave a shrug, "I suppose he did. He doesn't have a key to my place and I was on the floor, not exactly fit to open any doors." From the corner of her eyes, her sight was playing tricks on her, courtesy to just how much of that purple gas she actually inhaled. Sharp teeth. Red glowing eyes. "Can I please get another glass of water?" Haley hurried to turn herself away from that dark corner of the interrogation room staring her down.