Chapter 41 Ava
Ava
Dark.
Weightless.
Like I’m drifting somewhere without edges.
No pain.
No noise.
Just quiet.
It would be easy to stay here.
Nothing pulling.
Nothing hurting.
Nothing asking anything from me.
I float.
Time stretches—seconds or hours, I can’t tell.
And for a moment—
I forget why I was fighting.
Why I kept pushing.
Why it mattered.
Then—
a voice.
Faint.
Like it’s coming from far away.
“You don’t get to disappear on me again.”
It cuts through the silence.
Familiar.
Rough.
Ethan.
Something tightens in my chest.
Not pain.
Something deeper.
A pull.
“I didn’t spend eight years looking for you just to lose you now.”
Images flicker.
Broken.
Incomplete.
His face—
Closer than anything else in the dark.
His eyes—
Locked on mine.
Like I mattered.
Like I was worth everything.
I do.
I still do.
The thought lands solid.
Anchors me.
I’m not done.
Not yet.
Not when I just found him again.
Not when there’s still time we didn’t get.
Not when there’s still a fight waiting.
My fingers twitch.
Small.
Barely there.
But real.
The darkness shifts.
Cracks along the edges.
Light pressing through.
I reach.
Toward it.
Toward him.
Toward everything waiting on the other side.
No.
I’m not going anywhere.