The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 89

With a heavy thud, his knees smashed into the gravel. The black briefcase hit the dirt, the nitrogen canister spilling out, gleaming coldly in the moonlight.

"Garrison!"

Sloane threw the door open and sprinted to his side.

He was kneeling, hands braced against the ground, gasping violently for air. The moonlight exposed his chalk-white face, drenched in a cold sweat. His pupils were blown wide and completely vacant. His entire body was racked with uncontrollable tremors.

"Garrison? Garrison!"

Sloane dropped to her knees, taking his face in her hands and forcing him to look at her. "What's wrong? Look at me!"

His lips quivered, his teeth chattering loudly. He looked at her, but he wasn't seeing her—his gaze bored straight through her into a distant, nonexistent nightmare.

"He's dead... Arthur is dead..."

Sloane's stomach bottomed out.

She wasn't a doctor, but she knew exactly what this was: PTSD.

The trauma he had buried so deeply for decades had been violently triggered by this horrific parallel, short-circuiting his entire nervous system.

The psychological wounds from his childhood kidnapping had never actually healed.

Seeing him so thoroughly broken sent a sharp ache through Sloane's chest. In their five years of marriage, she had never witnessed a single crack in his armor. Even knowing he didn't love her, she had always respected him as a brilliantly fierce, unshakable man, and a devoted father.

But right now, he was just a terrified, wounded little boy.

"Garrison, listen to me." Sloane pulled him into a desperate embrace, pressing his head into her shoulder and locking her arms around his violently shaking frame. His shirt was completely soaked with cold sweat.

"I'm sorry, Sloane. Call the police," Garrison gasped, his voice laden with defeat. "In this state, I... I can't do this."

Sloane looked down, gently brushing the damp hair from his forehead.

"I already did. The police are on their way."

Garrison looked up in shock. "When?"

"Before we left the lab," Sloane replied calmly, her eyes glinting with fierce resolve. "Don't worry. They won't storm the building. They're just setting up a perimeter for extraction."

"So... the ransom exchange..."

"I'll do it."