Page 12 of Ashen Souls

My name felt like a snare, hauling me back into a body I wasn't ready to inhabit. The voice was tight with fear.

Mom.

I willed my head to turn toward her, but I moved too fast. The world lurched sideways in a dizzying smear of white and gray.

A firm hand settled on my shoulder, holding me down.

“Easy,” a voice said. A nurse. Blue scrubs, antiseptic, and eyes that had seen too many broken people to be surprised by me. “You’ve been through a lot.”

A lot. The understatement felt insulting.

Memory returned in splinters. Rain on a windshield. The blinding gold of headlights. A scream torn from my own throat.

And beneath the chaos... the Voice.

“You’re awake.” Mom stepped closer, gripping the plastic guardrail until her knuckles turned white. She was a nurse herself, someone with a heart big enough to worry for everyone at once, but right now, she just looked like a terrified mother. Her eyes were bloodshot, hollowed out by the kind of fear that stays even after the worst is over.

“I’m… here,” I managed. My voice sounded wrong—thin and dry, cracking before I could even finish the sentence.

Dad lingered just behind her, his hand resting firmly on her shoulder. His fingers were stained with the dark smudge of bookbinder’s ink. He spent his days repairing forgotten things in the university library, and that small, mundane detail nearly made me sob. His steady hands couldn't fix this.

Harper leaned back against the far wall near the door, arms locked tight across her chest. Her usual mask of caustic sarcasm looked brittle. With her eyeliner smudged into dark hollows, she looked like she hadn't slept since the turn of the century. She tried to offer a smile when my gaze found her, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.

“Look who decided to rejoin the living,” she rasped. “You really have a flair for the dramatic, Aves.”

I tried to mirror her expression, but my face felt like a puzzle with missing pieces.

“Matt and Chloe were desperate to come,” Mom added, her tone wavering, “but they have a strict limit on visitors. Especially since Harper was already here.”

“That’s what you get for naming me your second emergency contact,” Harper said, finally pushing off the wall. “Consider me the designated witness to all your bad decisions.”

I managed a weak smile that immediately pulled at a bruise. “Good. Chloe probably would have tried to post me all over her socials, and Matt would just complain about the hospital Wi-Fi.”

The nurse adjusted the IV drip, not looking me in the eye. “You took a massive hit, Aveline. You’re incredibly lucky to be talking to us right now.”

“The doctors said…” Mom swallowed hard, forcing her composure back into place. “They said it was a miracle you survived. The car… it shouldn’t have left anyone alive.”

“What about the driver?” I asked.

Dad’s fingers dug into Mom's sweater, locking her in place as if trying to keep her from collapsing through the floor. Harper suddenly found a very interesting spot on the linoleum to study.

Even the nurse went still.

“He didn’t make it, Aveline.” The nurse's voice dropped into that soft tone reserved for the unthinkable. “He died on impact.”

The words didn’t bring a sudden explosion of grief or horror. Just a sickening lurch. Like stepping off a stair in the dark.

“He… died?”

The nurse offered a measured nod. “I’m so sorry.”

I closed my eyes. Something else was pushing its way to the front of my mind.

Fog curling around my ankles. Wet, ancient stone. A heat at my back. A voice speaking my name as if it had always belonged in his mouth.

You’re not leaving me yet.

My fingers curled into the hospital sheets, bunching the fabric under my nails.