Something warm and dry and heavy is thrown over my shoulders.

“Get her inside.”

I’m scooped up. I fall back, and everything goes black.

I wake a second time on a couch, cocooned in towels and a thick down quilt. A fire burns beneath a massive wood mantle topped with iridescent vases and a huge abstract painting almost as big as the fireplace itself. The fire casts an eerie glow, bringing warmth to the muted daylight.

Pressure grips my chest, like I’m wrapped in weighted blankets.

I reach for my inhaler on instinct. I always have it. My life depends on it too often. And it’s gone. Kicked aside on Navy Pier? Lost at the bottom of Lake Michigan? I take two deep breaths, testing the limits of my lungs. Air wheezes as it scrapes against the back of my throat, but breathing isn’t as difficult as I’d expected.

I fumble for my silver pendant, the one thing I can’t replace. Still there.

But my phone. I can’t remember what happened to my phone. An aching lump hardens at the base of my neck. The pictures, the videos—they’re protected. They would’ve uploaded to the cloud. But if the Swarm were to discover them . . .

I lift my head, determined to find my phone before anyone else, but the room tilts and spins. It’s too much, and I collapse against the pillow, taking another deep, burning breath.

It’s always my body that fails me.

“Turn it up.”

The man’s voice comes out of nowhere. I think of the dock and the footsteps. I try to dredge up how many sets of steps I heard, but instead I picture Lip Spikes and the Initiators charging that man on Navy Pier, parting the crowd like a missile through water.

My hands start twitching, like some Pavlovian response. I try to steady them, but the twitching spreads up my arms, my elbows.

This is temporary, I try to convince myself. It will pass.

But the surge of panic doesn’t subside. It’s overwhelming and suffocating and threatening to take over every nerve in my body.

I bury the image of the pier and replace it with a favorite memory. I visualize Pa’iloa Beach in Maui. I squeeze my eyes shut and narrow in on details. The damp black sand beneath my feet. The purple sky filling the horizon. The sun rising against a stormy backdrop as the ocean’s white foam swishes along the shore. Mindful of the air coming in and out of my lungs, my spasming heart searching for its rhythm, I focus and breathe and stay in the moment the way I was taught after my dad’s death by a shrink whose name I can’t remember. The twitching simmers to mild trembling until I’ve gained control over my limbs and I’m able to think logically.