"Eris." Collin looked at me in surprise as he opened the door. "Back so soon, but late at the same time?" He laughed and looked at his watch.

I wrote to his secretary and she told me that Collin works until eight in the evening. So I arrived just before eight. The last time we saw each other he told me to come anytime, so here I am.

"What can I say, you've impressed me." I smiled.

"Come in." He laughed and stepped back so I could enter. "Tea? Coffee?"

"Water will do." I answered him as I took my seat. Soon he came with a glass of water and placed it on the table in front of the house. "Thank you."

"Of course." He sat across from me. "How are you doing?"

"Good. I've been quite relaxed since our last session." I took a sip of water.

"I am glad." He smiled. "I would like to talk to you today about what happened to you a few days ago. At Killian's place." He elaborated.

"Oh, that." I cleared my throat. "What do you want to know?" I timidly asked.

I thought we would not return to this topic. We talked about it in our first session. I mean, we started, but we ran out of time. He had another client.

"First I'd like to know what happened. How you felt. Anything you can think of."

"I was just upset." I started playing again with the bandana on my wrist. "It was like a wave of emotions, but after a while it passed."

"Do you remember how you felt?"

"I remember not being able to breathe properly. I was trying to keep my eyes open even though my body didn't want me to." I tried to think about what happened that day. "When Killian was talking to me, sometimes I couldn't really hear him."

"Did you feel anxious? Like someone was squeezing your heart?" I nodded. "Did any parts of your body shake?"

"My hand, but that's normal, isn't it? It happens to everyone."

"Eris, I know you don't want to hear this, but..." he breathed heavily "what you experienced was a panic attack."

"I was just upset." I repeated it about the hundredth time in the last few days.

"What you listed are signs of a panic attack. It's perfectly normal in your situation. You've been through a lot, and this is just everything you've been avoiding over the years. It could be caused by things you've been through before, and it could be longer or shorter. Symptoms may go away in a few weeks, months, or longer. It depends on many things."

"It wasn't a panic attack." I said quietly.

"Are you trying to convince me or yourself?"

"I don't know why I'm here if you don't listen to me." I stood up and started walking towards the door. I heard Collin's voice yelling at me, but I didn't care.

Who does he think he is? I know myself better than he knows me.

I left the building and headed for the car. The sun was already setting, and soon the lamps were going to light up everywhere.

Everyone thinks I'm incapable of anything because I had one minor accident. They think wrong. And I can prove it to all of them.



"But please, this is one of the worst ideas we've had today. You can't even think about it." Richard, one of the seven people present in the room, snorted.

"Mr. Acker, listen to me." Christopher, another person present, tried to convince me about working with the Cuban Mafia.

"We've been sitting here for over two hours now and you haven't given me one good reason why I should ever work with them again. You have the last ten minutes." I told him, already slightly tired.

"Like you said yourself, we've worked with them once before. Guns and drug dealing. They've followed through on everything they agreed to, there's no reason why we shouldn't work with them again."

"I don't know if you've heard this before Christopher, but the Cubans did the same thing to the Spanish mafia before they betrayed them." Jeremy, who was sitting on my right hand at the long table, spoke for the first time in a while.

"We don't know exactly what happened there, the fault could have been on the Spanish side." Christopher defended himself. "What we do know is that we could count on them."

"This meeting was irrelevant in my opinion. Just a waste of time Mr. Acker." Richard turned to me.

"But..." Christopher started to speak again but I stopped him.

"No. That's enough. We have no guarantee that the Cubans don't just want to use us. I won't risk that..." Before I could finish my thought, my cell phone rang.

I quickly pulled it out of my pocket and hung up when I noticed the name Eris. She will wait. I put my mobile on the table and continued.

"I won't risk it. We heard here today what their habits are. No one in their right mind would accept this. Like it or not..."

My monologue was interrupted again by the phone ringing. Eris again. Can't she wait five minutes? I hung up and continued.

"Like I said, whether you like it or not, I'm not going to risk it. If at the next meeting there are reasons why we should work with them, and why it would be beneficial for us, I'll be happy to hear from you. For now this discussion is over." At the moment when I finished, my mobile phone rang for the third time. "That's all for now. Excuse me."

I took my phone from the table and started walking away from the office. As I walked out the door, I still heard voices behind me, but I blocked them out when I picked up the constantly ringing phone.

"This should be a life and death situation or you're going to be in trouble. I had to rush the meeting. What's going on Eris?" I grabbed my head. This has been a busy day and the last thing I want to do is argue with her about something primitive.

"Well," she breathed heavily "I don't know if it's a life and death situation, but it's developing in that direction." She hissed in pain.

"Are you okay?"

"I don't know if a hole in the stomach is considered okay, but if it is, I'm amazing." I heard in her voice that she tried to smile.

"Where are you?" I started walking towards the exit of the building at a fast pace.

"By the harbor. Where we spent the night after you drowned your car." With each word her voice grew weaker and weaker.

"Eris, I swear if you went to see Whitlock after I told you not to." I said between my teeth as I got into the car and started it.

Thank God I'm in town. I can get to the port faster than if I was back home.

"Okay. Okay. Tell me this when you get me out of here."

"I'm on my way. Hold on a minute, I'll be right there."

"How long will that be?"

"Five minutes with pines."

I heard her laugh on the other end of the line. "I won't pay for those."

"I didn't even expect that." I passed the harbor sign and turned onto the shortcut that would lead me straight to Eris.

"Killian."

"Yes, I am listening."

"Tell me it's you." I heard a noise on the other side.

"I'm still two minutes away from you."

"Shit." There was another voice in her background, but I couldn't quite make out the words. Something thumped and suddenly there was silence.

"Eris. Eris!" I shouted at her but she couldn't hear it anymore. "Shit."

I sped up, not caring that I almost crashed, making two minutes into one. I left the car running and jumped out of it.

I stopped at the door that had been kicked in and took my gun from my belt. I walked in slowly, looking around every corner.

I walked to the entrance of the room with the fireplace and entered carefully. The first thing I noticed was a body on the ground and a pool of blood underneath. I lowered my gun as I noticed Eris leaning against the wall with her hand on her stomach.

Her skin was pale. Eyes slowly losing their life. Sweat was running down her forehead, to which her hair was sticking.

I ran to her. "What happened here?" I looked at the body behind me.

"He stepped on my foot while dancing, what do you think?" She hissed in pain.

"I told you to leave it alone. Why can't you listen to me?"

"Can we save this conversation for later? Preferably when I'm not bleeding out on the floor?"

"I'll look at it, okay?" She nodded and I carefully rolled up her shirt. "Did someone stab you?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Can you laugh at me later?"

"Give me a second. I pulled away from her and threw off my jacket, placing it on her stomach to which she only hissed. "We have to get you out of here. Can you move?"

"I did that, so I guess so." She nodded at the corpse behind me.

"Slowly." I grabbed her by the knees, put my other hand on her back and slowly lifted her up. A fair number of curse words came out of her mouth, but I tried to ignore them, as most of them were mild towards me.

I carefully put her in the passenger seat and told her to hold the wound properly so that it wouldn't bleed.

On the way, I called the personal doctor and gave him the address where Eris lives, since it is closer than if we went to my place.

The whole time I tried to talk to her so she wouldn't lose consciousness. I managed to keep her conscious all the way to her apartment. Dr. Barlowe was already standing in front of the door. He immediately walked up to us and began to examine her while I still had her in my arms.

We walked into her apartment and Barlowe ordered me to lay her down on the couch, so that's exactly what I did. I automatically brought him a bowl of water and a rag so he could clean up the blood.

I stood next to him the whole time and did what he told me. Eris fell unconscious every four minutes and woke up after two each time. We also gave her morphine, but it didn't seem to help her fast enough.

Barlowe stitched her up and said she had no internal injuries and would be fine. Before he left, he told me everything she would need and what she shouldn't do. He also told me that he would come back tomorrow to check if her wound had become infected.

As he left, Eris was unconscious, but this time she didn't wake up after two minutes. The effects of morphine should last another two to four hours. So that's the time she'll probably be sleeping.

So much for a peaceful evening.

*****

I woke up in probably the most unpleasant way possible. When something hit my face, I jumped out of my seat and immediately looked around to see what was going on.

I noticed a pillow on the floor, which is probably the cause of my interrupted sleep, and immediately looked at Eris, who had her arms crossed over her chest and was sitting up slightly.

"Good morning to you too." I sat back down and ran my hands over my face.

"How did I get here?"

"You called me, remember?" I said without looking at her. I didn't sleep well all night, and now that I finally fell asleep, she had to wake me up.

"Not really."

"But what you will definitely remember is how you got into this situation." I looked up at her. "Tell me what you were doing there? And I swear if it has anything to do with Whitlock...."

"So what? What are you going to do?" She cut me off. "You'll kill me?" She snorted. "Help yourself, I won't make it difficult for you."

"Collin called me. Apparently you left during the session. It was a few hours before you called me. You have a lot of explaining to do."

"I'm taking the kill option."

"Eris, this is no time to joke." I said slightly irritated. "You could have died."

"I'm sure no one would mind. On the contrary, I'm sure some people would be happy. FYI, you're in the second group."

"What about Luna? What would she do if she came back and couldn't find you? Have you thought about that?" I tried to read her through her eyes, but all I could see was that she didn't care. She didn't care what happened to Luna or herself.

"She would be better off without me."

"Then why did you call me?" I asked the question that was in the air. "You called me to come get you. Why?"

She avoided eye contact before answering me. "I don't remember."

"Really?" I snorted and stood up. "I have no idea what's going on with you Eris, and honestly, I don't even know if I want to find out. Whatever it is, pull yourself together."

That was the last thing I said to her before I left her apartment.

I don't know why she left Collin yesterday, or why she's doing what she's doing, but she's hurting herself and the people around her in this way.

*****

But did he hesitate when she called?

Hope you enjoyed. <3