Rivals 🌈 ✔

2 - Not Alone

The first 30 minutes were fine. Juice had pressed the alarm button; there wasn't much else he could do. He was in a hospital, a broken elevator wouldn't escape anyone's attention. But after that first half hour... the unrest started to creep under his skin. He sat on the ground, feeling positively frozen because of his wet clothes, but tried not to show it to the Mayan.

The guy was sitting in the opposite corner. At first he had been busy on his phone, now he seemed to get bored as well.

"What's your name?" Juice asked after a while.

The silence felt suffocating. Having a normal conversation with the guy might help him to feel less locked up, less antsy.

"Why?" the other huffed. "You think you and me are gonna be friends now?"

Juice rolled his eyes and stared at the floor. I guess not.

Well then, they would stay quiet for another hour.

. . .

After one hour, their situation hadn't changed. His elevator buddy had called someone who was in the hospital and people were working on it, but nobody could estimate how long it would take.

Juice tried to banish all negative thoughts. He failed – after all, there wasn't much he could do but think. He had been playing games on his phone for an hour, but his battery was getting low and he had no idea how long they would be stuck in here. He thought of all the news reports he had read. About people who had been locked up for days, who had only survived by drinking urine. What was driving him even crazier, was the fact that they didn't know what was wrong with the elevator. What if one of the cables had broken? What if the other couldn't bear the weight and would break too? They would crash. He knew it was all in his head, but he was sure he heard something crack.

His breathing became deeper, more laborious. Suddenly his temples started to sting. Oh god – not a panic attack, not now... He rubbed his face, trying to concentrate on other things. He failed; all he could think of was that he would be hyperventilating like some idiot. The Mayan would know how weak he was. Soon, the whole Oakland charter would know that he had lost his mind because of a freaking broken elevator. They would drag him off his bike, take him to some remote place and torture him until he had confessed all club secrets.

But maybe they would never get that far. Maybe they would crash down and die, or maybe they would die of thirst. He hadn't taken anything with him, and neither had the Mayan. And even if he had, he probably wouldn't share it with a Son anyway.

He could barely breathe. He sat up straighter, tried to imagine that he was alone, that he wasn't stuck in a shitty elevator, that he... He squeezed his eyes shut, taking deep breaths. It felt like not a bit of oxygen reached his lungs, as if there was a stone stuck in his throat.

He started to sweat, while his nails scraped across the floor of the elevator.

"Hey. What's going on? Hey!"

A hand on his knee, for a very brief moment.

"You havin' a panic attack?"

Juice wasn't able to answer; he felt lightheaded. He could already feel the elevator falling down. Soon they would hit the ground and get crushed.

"Hey, look at me."

Juice did as he was told, glad someone told him what to do. Before he got lost in his head, before he would suffocate, before...

"Deep, slow breaths. Okay? Tell me what color my eyes are."

What?! What kind of question was that?!