Into the Fading Twilight (Starlight Grove, #2) (121)

Everything felt hazy as I followed her. Down a hall and toward a bank of elevators. Up a handful of floors and then down another hall.

She paused to douse her hands in sanitizer before swiping her key card, and I did the same. The alcoholic solution stung in places, my cuts from breaking the glass making themselves known. But the pain was a respite in a way. It helped distract me from the organ in the center of my rib cage, the one currently in pieces.

“This way,” Dr. Jeong said quietly, leading me down a hall.

A younger man in scrubs exited a room and gave the doctor a nod. “They’re just getting her settled.”

Her.

Nova.

Supernova.

Phoenix.

All those names had one thing in common—they were each powerful beacons of light in their own ways. Not the kind of thing that could be snuffed out easily.

Beeping sounded from almost every direction as we waited, a disjointed cacophony of sounds that grated against my eardrums. Just when I thought I couldn’t take it for a second longer, a woman stepped out of the room and nodded at us. The action made her tight braids swing. “She’s all ready for you.”

Dr. Jeong turned to me. “There will be a tube helping Nova breathe, another keeping her lung inflated, an IV, and wires connecting her to a heart monitor that will measure her heart rate, oxygen, and blood pressure. None of it is hurting her. You can still hold her hand, talk to her. Studies show that all of that helps.”

I forced my head to nod, but the movement felt slow and clumsy, like I was moving through molasses. But I kept going—through the sea of darkness and into the light.

The beeping got both louder and quieter as I moved into the hospital room. Nova looked dwarfed by the hospital bed. So tiny. Delicate. Breakable.

My lungs cried out in protest as I realized I wasn’t breathing. Sucking in air, it felt like I was inhaling shards of icy glass. Still, I kept moving forward.

Some part of me was aware of sinking into the chair next to the bed and taking Nova’s hand. “Phoenix.”

Her name was a guttural plea ripped from my throat.

She’d given me a place to simply be. A place of acceptance. Of safety. Something I wasn’t sure I’d ever truly felt until her. And I didn’t want a world without her in it.

My heart spasmed as I carefully lifted her palm to my mouth. I spoke against her skin, my lips forming the words and hoping she would hear them in two ways. “You’re alive. You’re breathing.”

And I didn’t stop saying them until sleep claimed me.





CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN


Nova




HARD VOICES. NOT ANGER BUT FRUSTRATION.

My brain tried to place them—the owners of the voices, what the words they were saying meant.

“You need to go home. You’ve been here for ten days straight.” Male voice. Something inside me said Dex.

“You’re starting to smell.” Maverick’s voice.

“I showered this morning, asshole.” That voice. It reached something deep inside me because I knew it like no other. Yet it lacked emotion, despite the biting rebuttal. A deadening.

“Come on, man. This isn’t good for you,” Dex said, his voice gentling.

“I’m not leaving her,” the other voice growled. “I wasn’t there when she needed me.” His voice cracked. “I’m not leaving her again.”

Kol. The voice was my Kol. I battled against the heaviness of my eyelids. I needed to get to him. Tell him it was okay.

“You know this wasn’t your fault, Kol,” Maverick said carefully. “You didn’t know.”

“I shouldn’t have risked leaving her.”

The vehemence in Kol’s voice, the self-hatred … they had me fighting harder.

My eyes fluttered the barest amount. Tiny glimmers of light pierced my vision. They hurt, like little ice picks to the brain, but I kept fighting. Even as Dex and Kol went back and forth.

“Uh, guys,” Mav cut in.

“What?” Kol snarled.

“I think Supernova is waking up.”

“Get the nurse,” Kol barked.

And then hands were curling around mine.

“Phoenix?” he whispered. “That’s it. I’m here. I’m right here. Just waiting for you to open those eyes so I can see that silver.”

I took on more of the light, letting it burn me, and then climbed out of the ashes and into pure beauty. Kol’s face was there. So close to mine. Those dark-hazel eyes. The deep forest and the pure gold.

“Hi,” I rasped.

Kol’s eyes filled then, his massive shoulders shaking as the tears began to fall.

My big, beautiful warrior was crying. Weeping. And I could feel it all. The pain, the relief, the love.

“Come. Here,” I choked out.

He shook his head. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.” My side ached, and my throat was raw, but all I wanted was to feel Kol around me.

So carefully and gracefully you would’ve thought he’d been a ballet dancer in another life, Kol climbed onto the bed. He slid one arm under my neck while gently cocooning me with the other. “You’re alive. You’re breathing,” he whispered against my temple.

“I’m alive, and I’m breathing. Because of you.”