Chapter 151
Ellie POV
There is no light.
I’m dying, again, I think.
It’s the same.
There isn’t even pain at first. Just a vast, endless dark that presses in from every side. It feels familiar in the worst way.
Only this time, there’s no white light. Waking back up when I was young again. This feels colder. Permanent.
I curl inward instinctively, arms folding around myself even though I don’t remember having a body anymore. The cold seeps into places I don’t have words for.
Did… I really waste my second chance?
The thought comes slowly, dim and distant, like it’s floating up from the bottom of a deep well.
But…I wasn’t ready. Again. I wasn’t done. I guess no one is ever really done.
Maybe… this is it.
The idea settles over me like ash. After everything-after fighting, after refusing, after insisting I wanted my own life-am I really going to end up back here?
I curl in on myself more, feeling tears in a body I don’t have.
It’s cold.
I don’t want to be alone.
I don’t want to disappear into this quiet nothing.
I don’t want to be here. I want…to breath again.
Please.
I beg selfishly to nothing.
Please, I want warmth.
I want to feel the wind.
Smell my mother’s cookies again.
I want…I want Dominic to know-
Something hits me.
It’s like a train.
Not soft, not like white light.
But life. It slams back into me all at once, a rush of heat tearing through the cold, filling my chest, my limbs, my skin. My body snaps back into existence with a jolt so sudden it steals my breath.
There’s pressure at my lips.
Warm. Urgent. Real.
+30 Bonus
Tears weld my eyes before they even open.
I make a sound-half a gasp, half a sob-and lean into it without thinking, instinct guiding me before my mind can catch up. My hand lifts weakly, fingers trembling as they search blindly, finding fabric, finding warmth, finding who I knew would be there.
Dominic.
I knew his lips before this life and I’d know them even in the next.
My eyes fly open.
Air rips into my lungs in a harsh, desperate gasp, tears spilling immediately, unstoppable. The room swims into focus in broken pieces-white lights, blurred faces, frantic movement-but all of it fades when I see him.
Dominic is right there.
He’s holding me. His eyes are wide and shining, fixed on me like I’m something impossible. His hands are on my face, my shoulders, everywhere at once, shaking like he doesn’t trust himself to let go.
I try to say his name. It barely comes out.
He pulls me against him suddenly, fiercely, crushing me into his chest. His breath is uneven, almost a sob, and I feel the tremor run through him from head to toe.
“You’re here,” he says hoarsely, more to himself than to me. “You’re here. You’re-”
He can’t finish.
Around us, everything has gone eerily still. I register, distantly, the stunned silence of the healers, the way no one moves, like they’re afraid to break whatever fragile miracle just happened.
My hand curls weakly into the front of Dominic’s shirt.
“Thank you,” I whisper. My voice barely exists, thin and broken, but it’s real.
I’m alive. Again. I don’t even know I died, or how he brought me back. But he did.
I feel relieved, but more then anything, exhaustion. Bone-deep, soul-deep tiredness.
Dominic exhales like he’s been holding his breath for years and carefully adjusts his grip, easing me back just enough so I can breathe, so I can settle. I don’t pull away. I let my head rest against his shoulder, let the warmth stay.
And for the first time, instead of running from him, I let myself stay against him. Because…maybe fighting him forever only ever led me back to that cold, empty place.
And, god’s, that place was somewhere I don’t want to be again till I’m old and grey.
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