Chapter 12 #2
Holden sucked in air and held it. His fingers ached from gripping the plywood. Splinters drove deeper into his palms. Good. Pain meant he was still solid, still here, still present.
He could feel it now, the pull. Not outward but inward, like something hooked into the center of his chest and started reeling him backward through space that didn’t exist.
Not yet. Let me hear it. Let me see Megan’s face when they say it.
Jenna paused, looked down at her script, then back up at the audience. Her eyes found Megan in the front row. Something passed between them—permission or pride or both.
“His name was Holden Reed,” Jenna said, her voice ringing with conviction that filled every corner of the gym. “And this is his true story.”
The gym erupted.
Not polite applause but genuine enthusiasm.
Parents rose to their feet, cameras flashed, and whistles and cheers mixed with clapping that built to a roar.
The children beamed, soaking in the approval they earned.
Ethan took a bow, still holding Einstein’s lead rope, and the mini horse tossed his head like he understood he had performed perfectly.
His name. Celebrated instead of forgotten. Honored instead of buried.
Megan stood. Her hands came together in applause. Tears tracked down her face, and she didn’t bother hiding them. Pride, relief, and exhaustion all mixed together, her attention completely fixed on the stage where twenty-four children took their bows.
Brave. Stubborn. Willing to burn her whole life down for truth.
When had he fallen in love with her?
He couldn’t point to one exact moment. It didn't arrive all at once. Maybe it started the day she hauled him through that Walmart barn of a store and laughed every time he jumped at something new.
Or when they cut down that tree together and dragged it through the snow like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Could’ve been while they hung those ornaments she saved from childhood, or when she let him help bake cookies even though he made a mess of her kitchen.
Or working on the pageant beside her. Sitting with her friends like he belonged there. Somewhere in all that, she went from stranger to the person he looked for first.
Four days. Four impossible days, and somehow she became the thing he wanted most in either century.
Gold light burst from his pocket.
Blinding. Searing. The air crackled.
No!
Holden shoved away from the stage flat. He took one step toward the curtain, toward Megan beyond it. His boot caught. It wouldn’t lift. He tried again, throwing his weight forward. Nothing. The floor held him like he put down roots.
Light flooded his chest, his throat, his skull. The gym blurred at the edges. Sound went distant and muffled, applause turning to white noise.
Move. He threw everything he had into it, every ounce of will, every bit of stubborn refusal that kept him alive through the blizzard. His muscles screamed. His bones ached. Nothing shifted. The magic held him locked in place, dissolving him from the inside out.
Rage roared through him.
This wasn’t right. Wasn’t fair. He’d done everything asked of him, ridden through the blizzard that should’ve killed him, saved a town full of people who forgot his name, waited a hundred and fifty-five years for someone brave enough to tell the truth. He deserved more than four days.
The anger accomplished nothing. Changed nothing. The light didn’t care about fairness or what he earned.
He tried again. Pushed against the invisible force holding him, fought to move even one inch toward her. His leg muscles trembled with effort. Sweat broke across his forehead.
Nothing.
The light wrapped tighter, pulling from the inside out. His edges started to blur, not visibly yet, but he could feel it. The boundaries of himself growing uncertain.
Megan stood ten yards away. Ten yards and an impossible gulf he couldn’t cross.
She was clapping, crying, radiant with the relief of having survived.
She didn’t see. Nobody saw. The audience watched the stage.
The children waved. Life moved forward without noticing one man coming apart in the wings.
Tell her. He had to tell her. Had to make her understand what these four days meant. That she gave him back more than his name. That she made him want to belong to this strange new world. That he loved—
Wouldn’t work. He tried again, forced sound up through his throat. Nothing came out but silence.
The light brightened. Gold turned to white, searing and absolute.
His hands started to fade. Not disappearing—not yet—but becoming translucent, like morning mist before the sun burned it away. He watched his own fingers lose solidity, watched the calluses and scars and rope burns that told the story of his life turn ghostly.
Four days.
He’d known it wasn’t enough. Told her as much this morning when they stood on that empty stage and made promises neither of them could keep.
I’d rather have four days with you than a lifetime of never having known you.
He meant it. Even as golden light consumed him and erased him from a world he’d barely begun to understand.
The children filed off stage, laughing and hugging. Parents surged forward with cameras and congratulations. Megan turned to Tessa, said something that made them both laugh. She wiped her eyes. Looked so damn proud.
Beautiful. Brave. His love.
For four days, anyway.
I love you.
The words stuck as his throat dissolved. The light climbed higher—his chest, his shoulders, his neck. The world narrowed to a pinpoint, everything peripheral vanishing until all that remained was Megan’s face across an impossible distance.
She turned toward the stage. Looking for him?
He tried to lift his hand. Wave. Something. Anything to make her look.
His arm wouldn’t move. Wasn’t solid enough anymore.
The applause continued, washing over everything. The sound grew distant, like he was underwater, like he was already gone.
His vision narrowed further. Megan. Just Megan wiping fresh tears, glowing with the kind of joy that came after surviving something.
She’d be all right. She was strong enough. Brave enough. She’d weather whatever consequences came and build something new on the other side.
She’d do it without him.
The thought sat heavier than anything else.
His vision went white.
The applause faded to nothing.
Megan’s face—the last thing he saw—burned into memory like a brand.
Four days.
Not enough.
Never enough.
The light took everything.
The wings stood empty.
Holden Reed was gone.