Chapter 32 Ares
Ares
Ares thought he knew fear.
He had felt it the morning he found his little brother’s bed empty, all those years ago. When he’d first stumbled across the
vision in the lake, convinced that he was hallucinating. When the knife had cut through his side, lying on the floor of the
Cave, tasting the blood in his mouth. But nothing can compare to the fear thrumming through him as he rushes down the hospital
corridor, almost barreling straight into the nurse.
“She hasn’t woken up yet,” the nurse tells him with a sympathetic kind of grimace.
“Can I . . . can I visit her?” he asks. His voice is so hoarse it barely sounds like his own. He doesn’t know if it’s from
the screaming or the smoke.
The nurse’s eyes pass over him. “You should really go get your own wounds treated first—”
“I’m fine,” he says quickly. “I’m used to it. I just . . . please. Can I see her?”
The nurse hesitates, maybe senses the desperation in him, this wild, animal feeling, maybe can tell that he’s losing his sanity, because she nods, pushes the door open for him.
Chanel lies on the hospital bed, almost motionless except for her slow breathing. He hates how small she looks, how fragile,
hates seeing the tubes in her skin, the raw, puckered burn marks that extend along the entire length of her left collarbone.
She would hate seeing herself like this too.
“Chanel,” he whispers, crouching down by her side.
He would give up thirty years of his own life for her to sit up and talk to him. Tell him again about her childhood hikes
up Lingshan Mountain, where the air tasted like pine and dew and there were butterflies everywhere, and how this one white
butterfly landed on her shoulder and wouldn’t leave her. About the first and last time she went camping, far enough away from
the city to escape the light pollution and count every single star in the sky, but they headed home early because she couldn’t
stand not showering for longer than a day. About late afternoons spent strolling the lanes of Solana, watching the sun skim
over the river, and the surprise birthday parties she’s thrown for her friends, with themed outfits and hired videographers
and free disposable cameras for everyone to use. About crowded airports and lonely limousines, looming skyscrapers and responsibilities,
summer trips to New York and Seoul and Venice.
About anything.