Chapter 126 126
It felt like something invisible was tethering her to the surface, keeping her from slipping completely under. She clung to it desperately.
A voice was calling her.
It sounded distant, like an echo carried through a tunnel. She tried to focus on it, to understand the words.
There were hands on her warm, large, roughened palms gripping her arms. Whoever it was was shaking her gently, trying to pull her back.
Who…?
He was calling her Jacq.
Something about breathing.
Wasn’t she breathing?
She tried but she couldn’t. It wasn’t within her control. The darkness swallowed everything. It pressed against her eyes, her skin, her chest. It haunted her.
Then
A faint glow seeped through the thin veil of her eyelids.
Light.
Slowly, cautiously, she opened her eyes.
Light.
The sight of it broke through the suffocating grip around her lungs. Jacqueline dragged in a trembling breath. It was shallow, forced but the fire in her chest dulled slightly.
“That’s it. In and out. Just breathe.”
The person holding her guided her rhythm, his voice steady and grounding. She followed it blindly.
It worked.
Air filled her lungs again.
“You’re doing good.”
That voice.
Deep. Familiar.
Her mind cleared just enough to recognize it, and her eyes widened slightly.
Damien.
“I—I’m f… fine…” she stammered, pulling in a deeper breath before scooting away from him. She retreated into the corner of the elevator, hugging her knees tightly to her chest. Her body trembled uncontrollably.
Damien noticed immediately. She didn’t want him touching her.
Without protest, he moved back and slid down the opposite wall, giving her space. He kept his phone in his hand and switched on the torch.
The small beam of light cut through the darkness.
And she could breathe again.
Damien watched her carefully as she struggled to regulate her breathing. She looked… shattered. As if the dark itself had clawed into old wounds.
It wasn’t his place to ask.
He glanced at his phone.
No signal.
He cursed silently.
“Here. Hold this.” His voice was rough as he extended the phone toward her.
Jacqueline accepted it with shaking fingers.
Damien stood and approached the elevator doors. For him, forcing them open would’ve been easy but the moment he applied pressure, the elevator jerked downward slightly.
Jacqueline shrieked.
“D-don’t! Don’t do anything… You’ll get us both killed,” she whispered fearfully.
He exhaled. The doors had parted just enough to reveal they were stuck between floors. Concrete and metal framed a narrow, useless gap.
No way out.
He stepped back and examined the control panel instead. There was an emergency intercom. He pressed it.
Dead.
No electricity.
“Stop experimenting,” she muttered faintly.
Damien returned to his place opposite her and sat down again. She handed him the phone back, and he set it on the floor between them, the beam still on.
Jacqueline cursed herself inwardly for leaving her phone behind at the mansion. If she’d brought it, she could’ve called someone. But she hadn’t wanted to risk texting her friends at the event Julien wouldn’t have approved.
Silence settled over them.
Heavy.
The darkness pressed closer again, despite the thin strip of light. If she didn’t distract herself, she would spiral back into panic.
“What do you think happened?” she asked quietly.
“A mild earthquake,” Damien replied calmly.
His composure unsettled her more than the shaking had.
“Will someone… come for us?” she swallowed. A horrible thought crept in what if the building had collapsed? What if they were buried beneath rubble? But she hadn’t felt the elevator drop… so maybe
“Hopefully,” he answered flatly.
Silence again.
She was grateful he didn’t switch off the torch.
“I like your pet sparrow,” Jacqueline murmured suddenly, recalling the small red bird. It had been beautiful. Gentle. It had even warmed to her.
Damien’s gaze lifted sharply to her. In the dim glow, only her eyes were visible above her folded arms. She was staring down at the floor.
For a second, surprise flickered across his face then he remembered she must’ve seen the bird in his room.
“His name is Coco,” he said quietly, and something distant entered his eyes.
“Oh… it’s a boy.” She paused. “Coco? Why would you name him Coco?”
It was an unusual name for a sparrow. Odd but strangely fitting.
“Coco isn’t mine,” he replied, voice faraway.
“Oh.” She shifted slightly. “But you have him.”
A pause.
“Because Coco was all she left me.”
The words came out fractured.
Her heart stirred painfully.
She.
So there was someone.
Someone who had mattered enough to leave behind a wound like that.
An uncomfortable sadness crept into her chest at the thought that he had loved someone. That there had been a girl in his life.
“Who is she?” Jacqueline asked before she could stop herself. Maybe if she heard about his past, about his love, her foolish crush would fade.
“She was… special.” His voice softened in a way she had never heard before.
The gentleness stunned her. It was as if he’d slipped into another world while speaking of her.
Did she break him?
Did she leave him this cold, brooding version of himself?
“She left you?” Jacqueline asked carefully. She knew she was treading somewhere fragile but tonight, in this suspended moment between floors and fear, he seemed unguarded.
“Hm.” The quiet hum was confirmation enough.
Seeing him like this stripped of arrogance and edge hurt her more than she expected.
“I was fourteen when my mother died,” Jacqueline said softly.
She didn’t know why she was saying it. The words just came. Maybe because the moment felt raw. Honest. Painful in a way that demanded truth.
Silence filled the space between them.
But she knew he was listening.
“I was in the car with her when it happened. The accident…” Her voice thinned. “She died on the spot.”
Her fingers tightened around her knees.
“I survived.”
A breath trembled out of her.
“She left me.”