Chapter 112 Ava: Waking Up
Darkness.
Light.
So cold.
It burns.
My lungs ache.
Something's holding me down.
There are whispers. Prayers, I think.
Chaos reigns in this hazy world. Something beeps incessantly.
I'm sweating. My hands are too warm.
… up.
What's that?
… Ava, you…
Who's that?
… can you hear me?
I struggle to reach the voice that calls me, but something sucks me away again.
Frustration simmers, but I'm too tired to fight it.
Ava, you have to wake up.
There it is again.
I know you can hear me, because I can finally hear you.
Hear me? Hear me what? Am I talking?
Yes.
No, I don't think I'm talking. I'm too tired. My body is crushed beneath the earth. Fire ate every last bit of me. I drowned. The air was sucked away.
You're alive. You're asleep in the hospital. You're just fine. You just need to wake up.
No, no.
No, no, no.
Waking is pain.
I remember the pain.
be no pain, Ava. Just
No way.
in this
back. This is
darkness. I feel pain, but it doesn't kill me. It isn't enough to kill
won't die, Ava. You're
Alive.
Alive means death—
feeling sorry for yourself. You
* * *
eyes crack open. They feel like sandpaper scraping against my lids. Everything is blurry, shapes indistinct. White.
Ava.
Her voice is warm honey in my mind, comforting. Grounding. I try to speak
weight of her head resting on my hand. I turn my head slowly, painfully. She's there, silver fur shining, blue eyes bright with
awake. Relief colors
swallow dryly, my tongue heavy and thick. "What
I want
my name,
* * *
disinfectant. Starched sheets rough against my skin. An IV pinches the back of my
eyelids are heavy but I force them open. The ceiling swims into focus—white tiles, fluorescent lights.
back. Her relief washes over
Lisa are here. They're asking me questions, one talking over the other. It's painful
long was I out?" I rasp, my
whines softly. We were so
Lucas asks, way
pipes up, from my other
helps,
an entire process that leaves
a few bags hanging off it. One of the bags looks like
my waist.
as I waver, dizzy. You've been through a
trying to piece together how I ended up here. Training with Jericho and Lisa. Collapsing on the couch. Then...
yawning black hole in
"What happened to me?"
reaches for my face, his fingers hesitant and gentle against my skin. Warmth flows between us, a feeling of comfort, and
sure. Vanessa thinks your wolf is trying to emerge. Do you feel
now, with all the strangeness surrounding my heritage, the idea fills me with trepidation. I flick a glance toward my wolf, disguised as a husky for a reason she has yet to explain, and her ears flick as she
She's way too big
soothes, sensing my unease. This is natural
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