77

"What did you say, ma'am?”

Reacting to the impulse that only a panic attack can give us, I push the man who holds me so tightly that the reverse reaction makes me stagger, hitting my heel on the step above, and I almost don't fall on my back.

He lets me go, and I arch in search of air, feeling my lungs so tight that I take a hand to my chest. I am all the time aware of the burning that spreads under the leather boot that does not cushion the blow to my foot at all, but I do not show my pain. The man curses while regaining his balance, expressing a stunned reaction, and cautiously moves away, as if I were an angry animal.

I don't judge him for thinking this way. Because I just had a sudden, and brief, worse crisis.

“Suzy! What's up with you?”

I see Hunter supporting the stranger between us, holding him by one of his arms to prevent him from collapses on the adjacent steps, but without ever ceasing to see him as a threat. It is a relief to realize that the shadows cast by my hallucinati