Chapter 34 Come Back to Me!

Chapter 34 Come Back to Me!
"Jax!"

Mira's voice tore through the stone courtyard with a rawness that didn't belong to someone still standing. The sound cracked at the edges, dragged thin by exhaustion and pain, but she forced it louder anyway, one hand braced against his chest while the other shook his shoulder hard enough to jolt his limp body against the ground.

"Jax, wake up!"

The stone beneath him was cold. Not the damp, living stone of the dungeon floor, but the worn, even slabs of Ravelin's inner courtyard. The difference settled somewhere deep in his bones, an old familiarity his body recognized long before his mind managed to catch up.

Air scraped its way into his lungs.

The breath came shallow and uneven, dragging across bruised ribs that protested immediately. Pain spread through his chest in slow, heavy waves, each pulse reminding him that something inside him had been pushed too far before it finally stopped.

"Come on, please," Mira rasped, her voice trembling now despite the effort she was putting into keeping it steady. "Don't do this right now."

Her grip tightened on the front of his shirt. The fabric twisted in her fingers as she leaned over him, her weight shifting unevenly when her injured leg threatened to buckle beneath her.

Jax floated somewhere just below the surface of it all. The sound of her voice reached him first, distorted and distant, like something carried through deep water. Each word struck the darkness behind his eyes and rippled outward, faint but persistent.

"Jax."

His name came out softer that time. Just spoken, like she was trying to remind him it still belonged to him.

Her palm flattened against his sternum, fingers spreading wide as if she could feel the answer she was waiting for through bone and muscle alone.

"Please."

Mira kept shaking him. At some point the movement stopped being controlled and turned into stubborn refusal. Her hand slipped against his shoulder, fingers tightening in the fabric of his shirt as if grip alone might drag him back into the world.

"Jax," she said again, her voice rough from shouting. "Jax, come on, damn it. Come back to me."

The courtyard lights burned somewhere above them, warm against the stone, but the ground still held the night's cold. Jax lay motionless across it, one arm twisted half beneath him. Mira leaned closer, forcing her injured leg to hold while she pressed her palm flat against the center of his chest.

Nothing.

The thought hit harder than the pain spreading through her side.

"No," she muttered immediately, shaking her head like the word itself could refuse the idea. "No, you don't get to do that."

Her hand tightened in his shirt again and she shook him harder this time, the motion pulling a sharp breath through her teeth when the strain dragged across the wound in her leg.

"Jax, wake the hell up!"

His head rolled slightly with the movement, dark hair falling across his face, but the rest of him stayed heavy against the stone.

For a moment Mira stopped moving.

Her hand remained pressed against his chest, fingers splayed wide while the courtyard around them seemed to fall quiet.

Then she felt it.

A slow rise and a rhythmic fall.

The breath pushed weakly against her hand before settling again, shallow but unmistakably real.

Mira froze.

Her fingers tightened slightly.

Waiting.

A second breath followed. It dragged in unevenly, the motion catching somewhere in his ribs before finally filling his lungs. The sound escaped him as a faint, ragged inhale that barely carried across the stone between them.

He was breathing.

The tension left Mira's shoulders all at once, though it didn't look like relief. Her head dropped forward as she exhaled hard through her nose, one hand still planted firmly against his chest like she was making sure the movement continued.

"You idiot," she said quietly.

The words carried no heat, just exhaustion and something too close to fear to be anger.

Her thumb pressed lightly against the edge of his collarbone, grounding herself in the steady rhythm beginning to return beneath her hand.

Another breath.

Then another.

Jax's fingers twitched weakly against the stone beside him.

The movement was small, almost nothing, but Mira saw it immediately. Her head snapped up, eyes locking onto his hand before moving back to his face.

"Jax?"

His brow tightened slightly, the first real reaction his body had given since they'd dragged him out of the dungeon. The faint line of pain across his forehead deepened as he pulled in another breath, this one a little stronger than the last.

The sound came out of him as a low groan.

Mira leaned closer immediately, her grip shifting from his chest to his shoulder as she steadied him against the stone.

"Easy," she said, the word softer now. "Just breathe."

His head turned a fraction toward her voice, eyes still closed, awareness crawling slowly back through whatever darkness had taken him.

"Mira…?"

Jax's eyelids felt heavier than the stone beneath him. He tried to open them anyway. Light bled through in a thin, unfocused smear that made the world swim immediately. The courtyard ceiling above him fractured into dull shapes and torchlight halos that refused to settle into anything clear.

Pain followed the movement a heartbeat later. It spread through his ribs first, deep and bruised, before crawling down his arm and settling somewhere behind his eyes. The breath he pulled in to steady it came out rougher than he intended.

Mira's hand tightened instantly on his shoulder.

"Hey," she said quietly, leaning closer when his head shifted. "Don't move yet."

Her voice sounded steadier now, but the strain hadn't left it. He could feel it in the way her grip stayed firm, like she was still bracing for him to disappear again if she let go.

Jax tried to focus on her. Her face hovered somewhere above him, blurred by light and exhaustion. He could make out the shape of her eyes, the smear of dirt across her cheek, the way her hair had come loose from whatever tie had been holding it back.

"Mira…" he managed again, the word barely more than breath.

She exhaled slowly, relief slipping through despite herself.

But when Jax tried to sit up, the world tilted.

His body didn't follow the command.

And somewhere deep in his chest, something heavy shifted.