The relief I felt was so strong that it took me a second to register that I was now out of the chamber and my skin was still glowing. That had to stop before anyone else came into the room. I took slow, measured breaths, trying to calm down. I couldn’t hear anyone else moving around, but that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t show up any second.

“Hit the ground too hard.” Ahiga’s speech was groggy and slurred. “Should’a stayed in the chamber.”

I wasn’t sure where the nurse was, but it was probably for the best that she hadn’t seen my cryo chamber exit. “I needed out of there.”

“If you were claustrophobic, you could’ve told the nurse.” His speech was already sounding better. “She’d have added a bit of relaxant to the wake-up cycle.”

No amount of relaxant was going to fix what was wrong with me. “I’m not claustrophobic.” At least I hadn’t been, but after solitary and my reaction in the elevator and now two weeks in that chamber, maybe I was.

“Then why’d you jump out?”

I couldn’t answer that without giving myself away, so I stayed perfectly silent. I licked my lips. They were dry and cracked, and I would kill for a glass of ice-cold water.

I brushed my sweaty hair off my forehead, and my arms shook with the effort. The tingling was fading, but it left weakness in its wake. I wasn’t sure my legs would hold me, and that was worse than the tingling. I didn’t like feeling weak. Especially not here in a SpaceTech ship. Especially not now on Abaddon. The glow was gone, but I was far from being okay.

But there was nothing I could do while I waited for the drugs to process out of my body.

“How you hanging in?” Ahiga asked.

“I’m hanging.” Barely.

The urge to run beat against my mind, but I wasn’t certain I had enough energy to get up off the ground, let alone run. I didn’t want to be here or feel this way or have these chemicals in my body. My skin started glowing again, and I squeezed my eyes closed, taking another measured breath. Inhaling until my lungs burned and letting it out painfully slow.

Declan had mentioned that thinking of happy places and times helped when doing the breathing exercises. So I did my best and I pictured myself on a warm, sunny beach. The one I’d dreamed of, with perfectly white sand and crystal-clear water. I could almost hear the water lapping against the shore. I could smell the salt in the air.

I took another breath and happily sank into my imagination.

“Amihanna.” Lorne’s voice rolled through me.

My eyes flew open as I gasped and looked around. It’d sounded like Lorne was here in this room, but he wasn’t.