Author's Note
Shark by Oh Wonder really kinda sets the romantic tone in this book- if we ever get to it cx.

The coffee had grown cold in the freckled, trembling hands of the middle-aged redhead. Her skin had morphed pallor, the flush in her cheeks gone, aside from the red tip of her nose. It had been rubbed raw from her constant scrubbing of involuntary snot that came with her uncontrollable sobs.

The Brodys' house was well accommodated for natural horrors, but the sudden and almost out of place cave-in she was experiencing seemed too odd, even for the Brodys, who were located ten miles deep into pure Alaska wilderness, much like her own home and family.

The only road back into town, a thin, hardly graveled pathway big enough to fit her pickup truck, had been cut short by the sudden crashing of four healthy pine trees blocking her exit to town, back to her babies. Not even all of the Brody boys, who were growing into strong men with sharp minds, couldn't manage even moving one of the monstrously tall trees farther than a step's width.

"Misses Maverick?" The second eldest of the Brody boys silently walked towards her, he kicks his abused boots off before his journey, leaning up against the doorframe of his kitchen.

She sobered at the shoes, not even unlaced and the snow already melting on their wooden floors. It was a sure sign the boys were done for today, hopeless even though it was hardly two in the afternoon. It was pragmatic, the temperatures were bound to drop even further as the day passed on.

"Yes, Salix?" She asks, her hands tightening around her cold mug of coffee, the one Salix's mother, Sofia, had brought as a way to soothe the hysterical mother. To any parent, knowing your children would be forced to supply themselves in the last frontier would be incredibly nerve wracking, but she seemed to have gone to the next level with pure unadulterated fear.

"Ma'am," he begins; he takes a seat to the stool next to hers, tucking back his own long, dark hair as he stared her directly in the eyes. He was sincere, she respected that, especially considering the wild hysterics she was in. "We aren't going to be able to move the trees today," Salix finished while he tugged off his thick, leather work gloves.

Rowena brought her fingers to scrape over her face, as if the touch of her own skin would wake her up out of this nightmare.

"Thank you, Sal, for trying," she replied with a wavering voice.

On shaking legs, she stood from the stool and placed her coffee cup into the sink. Without addressing the boy, she slipped out of the kitchen to the laundry room, where her heavy jacket, meant for weather like this, hung next to the rest of the Brody boys' mixed and matched assortments of winter clothing. The mother tugged on her own worn wool socks onto her feet, immediately, her boots followed with trembling hands attempting to lace up and knot the damn things.

The plan, as of now, was to simply suck it up and trample through ten miles of terrain to get to her babies.

Her truck had necessary survival kits, blankets and dried food in the sundry of assortments, beneath her passenger seat, a loaded rifle and a black Glock that fitted perfectly between her palms.

She packed her supplies from the bed of her truck, her traveling backpack loaded to maximum capacity before she was halfway finished.

"Misses Maverick!" Salix's voice carried over from the front porch to her parked truck. His dark skin poked out of his rolled up plaid shirt, his crossed forearms were crawling with goosebumps and veins. "What are you doing? We're about to serve dinner, stay for the night- we'll figure this out by the end of the week!"

"I don't have a week, Sal!" She shouted back to him sternly- and she didn't. Just being here, away from her Rowan and Rory had her stomach reeling with angst, when that... when that thing was in their home, practically taking her twins captive.

Salix groaned from where he stood on the porch before he disappeared into his home with her words. The woman let out a cold breath of relief- Rowena thought she was going to hassle and beg for the young man to let her begin the descent to her home.

She pulled one of her arms through the backpack's straps, her feet standing apart sternly as she lifted up her bag and kept her Glock on safety, tucked securely between her gloved palms.

"Miss Maverick!" Salix called out from the porch again. Rowena turned to level her gaze with the man completely outfitted in his full uniform meant for hiking in the dead of Alaska's winter. He held his own pack of supplies, no doubt full of the necessary assortments for safety. His trusty dog, a Siberian Husky named Marmalade, bounces at his feet in excitement, her wide blue eyes staring at her owner with elation from the promise of a journey.

"No, absolutely not," Rowena whispered beneath her breath. The young man trekked his way towards her, desolating the fifteen feet between them.

"I know you're going to be a hard ass about this," Salix told her, and now, all she could see through his white face mask was his almond brown eyes, his pure Inuit inheritance blatant even through a small slit of fabric. "So, I'm coming with you."

"What?" Rowena growled out, even if she did need the assistance. "I don't need a babysitter, I'm a forty-three year old woman- I've survived worse," she claimed, the creases in her forehead becoming more apparent as her eyebrows drew close together out of annoyance.

"I know," he tells her, stretching out his fingers beneath his gloves. "But for my peace of mind, I'm coming with you. It'll be faster, safer, and hell- I'm even entertaining, my momma says I've a mighty fine singing voice," he grins, because he's all smiles- he has no idea what lurks beyond his family's safe hundred acres of frozen land.

"And what does your momma say about you going on a suicide mission? I can hardly imagine Sofia agreeing to this," Rowena retorted, her mouth going into a tight, thin line as she attempted to scare him off for his own good.

"She says I can do whatever the hell I please, I'm nineteen, not twelve," he told her, nodding to himself as if aging was an incredible accomplishment.

She rolled her green eyes, tapping one of her fingers on the edge of her truck while she placed her Glock on bed of the vehicle. "Salix, this isn't safe. I advice, strongly, for you to turn your ass around, for your own good."

"No reason to bite, Misses Maverick, I'm experienced here, I've been through about everything Alaska could throw at me. You, though, have only been here a month short of eighteen years. It's impressive, but this is in my blood- practically innate, I'd rest better at night if I knew you and your children were safe, even if that means having to freeze my ass off for a couple of days," he declared, his voice low as he placed a hand on her shoulder, eyes staring directly to hers. So God damned sincere for such a young man.

And hard-headed.

"Turn around, young man," she scolded, using her mom voice and narrowing her eyes with disappointment, trying her best to intimidate him with the threat of being treated like a child. "You've got your brothers and mother to take care of, I forbid you to come with me. It's selfish."

"Misses Maverick, that's what Dale's for," he grins, unwounded from her attempt of shooing him off.

"Is Dale here to bury your body, Sal?" Rowena retorted to him, her eyes flashing with lurid warning.

He finally pauses at her words, his throat surely bobbing beneath his zipped jacket from a nervous swallow.

"My older brother is a big boy, if it comes to that, he could handle it," Salix finally said, his eyes unblinking as he stared directly into Rowena's. Marmalade jumped at his feet, her bark so well timed it sounded almost like an agreement.

"Fine," Rowena clenched her jaw as she thoughtfully pulled her bottom lip to chew it. "You can come, but there's ground rules, for our own safety."

"Anything, Misses Maverick, s'long as you let me help you," he grinned. The young man was so childish, with his dimples and his handsome face completely perfect and smooth aside for the stubble that crawled at his jaw.

She tracked her eyes down him, and then up again, slowly. Rowena almost felt guilty for the fate she was letting him walk into.

She wondered for the first time, and not the last, if Salix would still smile after tomorrow.

*

"You get off on this, huh?" Rory screamed vainly through a muffled mouthful of fingers and blood, the taste of salt so strong on his tongue that he hardly tasted anything other than Dimitri's bare skin.

"Shut up," Dimitri yelled, not kindly, as he shoved the boy into the shower, closing it behind him and growling something inaudible to the teenager. "And stay."

Now, through the morphed glass of the shower, Rory gathered himself up. He spat out the taste of the man, letting his mouth turn dry and lips chap as he coughed repeatedly from the fear of inhaling and digesting anything from Dimitri, like a fingernail or an ounce of blood.

The man had walked out of the bathroom with rage apparent in the way he slammed his own terrifying fist into the wall of his mother's room. It echoed off into the bathroom, to where Rory stood frozen in shock at the sudden display of fury.

The sound of horrid tearing and a crack, imitating shattering bone, resounds into the silent air, until the teenager is faced with Dimitri's silhouette outside of the bathroom's shower with his mother's headboard in tow, one hand dangling down with the weight of the heavy wood and the other propping open the shower.

"I'm leaving you in here," Dimitri declared, his dark eyes suddenly twisting with something that told Rory to absolutely obey, but he knew he had to stall. He had to give time for Rowan, to give her at least the slimmest chance of escape.

"I'm claustrophobic," Rory whispered, which wasn't a lie. He was a tall boy and tiny spaces were not congruent to his body's dimensions. He watched Dimitri with desperate, wide eyes, trying his best to look at least a little remorseful for disobeying.

"I know," Dimitri growled out, before he paused- as if he was going to contemplate a new place to trap Rory in. Finally, he looked back into the younger boy's eyes, and shook his head ruefully and grinned a toothy smile that forced Rory's hands to shake. "I just don't care."

"What are you going to d-" Rory was cut off by the clap of the shower door slamming. The headboard was suddenly fitted horizontally, completely levitating in the air with the wall and door keep it up, leaving it impossible for Rory to open the shower's door.

"You're locking me in here?" Rory's voice cracked; his hand beat on the foggy glass before he let his fingers linger slowly down the smooth plane. They felt boneless and weak, beneath his nails, he could feel drying blood burrowed deep. Blood that had came from Dimitri, when he flailed his fingers around his neck and peeled back skin in a desperate attempt to keep him distracted for just another second from Rowan.

Dimitri didn't reply, his back already to the teenager.

Rory was desperate, every moment that passed between them was one more second Dimitri would spend with Rowan.

"Dimitri," he whispered- and this time, there was black spots in his vision. He could feel his pulse through his lips, his hands felt swollen, they had to be swollen; he could hardly breathe. It had been so long since he had a panic attack that he hadn't remembered how it felt- like he was the biggest thing in a shrinking world. There wasn't enough room for him, not anywhere as far as his mind was concerned.

"Dimitri, let- let... come back," Rory's voice was strangled- too strained for his throat. There was no remedy for this- his mind was fading fast, trading rational thinking into coveted fear he had no idea he possessed. There wasn't glass beneath his fingers, but a wall that's keeping him in, corralling him with its wicked, cool crystal fingers.

He wanted to scream, so he did. Screaming because he could see his fingers in front of him, but he couldn't feel them anymore. Or his feet. Or his face. Not even his heart, there was no pulse- he couldn't feel his own pulse. He was dying. He could be dead.

He wanted to run, so he did. Or he tried to, because obviously, if one is trying not to die they should try to outrun death. He flew forward five inches before he bounced off of the shower's glass walls and roughly hit the wall tiles. He was boxed in. How could he possibly escape if he was trapped?

"Not another one," Somewhere, someone whispered it. "I thought you outgrew these," the someone told him. Rory thinks it's the same voice, but he's not sure. There's cracking, the sound of something moving, and a grunt from the someone.

The shower door swings open. And Rory flies through it at the first chance, before he suddenly was halted by two arms wrapping around his waist and bringing him down onto the wood floor of his mother's bedroom. Even now, he could only feel the someone's hands around him, the fingers as heavy weights to keep him grounded on his chest, but he couldn't feel his chest. He knew the hot breath of the someone was lingering in the crook of his neck, but where was his neck located?

"If you wanted out of the shower you could've just asked with your puppy eyes," the someone's voice says. Rory's hand move to catch the someone's fingers, to keep them steady on his chest- he was scared if the someone wasn't keeping him down, then he'd dissipate into the air. "You didn't have to have a damn panic attack to get your way."

Rory listens to the someone's voice.

It's the familiar thing in this small universe made up of the two of them.

That fact makes him clutch tighter to the hands beneath his fingers.

AN

So that was my attempt at Rory's panic attack. I think people get anxiety attacks and panic attacks confused, because like anxiety's are you being stressed out and suddenly just wow, everything is bad, I can't control anything, why am I crying I don't want to cry. And panic attacks are like wow, what is happening. I feel everything at once, now I can't feel anything and I can't tell what's happening and why doesn't this stop, why am I so terrified?

Sorry this was weird. God, I am so sorry.

Comments appreciated tho. c:

(I freaking love Sal and Marmalade, okay?)