“We’re always around her, though we know she can’t see us,” Uncle Ezra added. “Tell her that.”
“She’ll love to hear it.” I paused. I looked around, waiting for the one person I longed the most to see. “... Will I get to say goodbye to Monica?”
Nobody said anything. I realized the truth.
“Monica didn’t come to see me because she wanted me to go back. Didn’t she?” I asked. “She knew I wouldn’t return to Charlie if I saw her.”
Lindsey gave me a soft smile.
I turned away. “She knows me too well.”
“She wanted you to have these,” Aunt Stevie said. In her hands materialized a bouquet of huge, bright pink flowers that looked like buttons. “They’re Spirit Flowers, grown here by Monica’s own Nivita magic. They’ll always be in your soul. They never fade and never die. Whenever you think of them, she’ll be nearby, and it’ll always remind you how much she loves you.”
I took the bouquet of flowers with a tear streaming down my face. At my touch, they dissolved, and I felt a warmth enter my spirit. “I knew she never left.”
My loved ones parted. They bowed as Coyote proceeded up the path, walking in a straight line toward me.The time approaches. You must return now, if you wish to go back. Is this still what you want?
I remembered the awful pain. I almost changed my mind and told him no. The last thing I wanted to do was crawl back into that broken and sick body that I’d come from.
But Charlie was on the other side of it, and reaching him was more important than suffering through the agony.
I once said I’d do anything to get back to him. Time to prove it.
I nodded. Coyote Spirit reared up on his hind legs to touch his nose to the area between my eyes, and I gasped. My loved ones and the mountain range faded around me. I felt my spirit crumble into nothing more than ether as I went spiraling backward, leaving the paradise of the Ancestral Lands behind…
Retreating from the light and immersing myself into darkness once more.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
CHARLIE
Iwanted to cry… to scream… to doanything, really. But I didn’t move, nor speak. All I could do was sit there, clutching the armrest of a leather chair. Oberi whined lowly from where he lay at my feet.
I sat in a private room in the hospital wing, waiting for Ava to emerge from surgery, but it felt as if I sat somewhere outside of time itself. I didn’t know how much time had passed. Nothing seemed real. I’d let myself go completely numb, because if I dared myself to feel…
I couldn’t fathom it.
The sound of the gunshot echoed over and over in my mind, and my hands shook. I’d been so afraid that Ava would pull the trigger— and shehad. She’d brought the whole Underground down on herself to save the rest of us. My soul seemed to crumble all over again just thinking about it.
Perhaps this is what she truly wanted.
Had I made a mistake? What pain had I caused her by bringing her back? Could the doctors save her? Would she evenwantto return to me?
I couldn’t bear to have these questions answered, because I feared the worst.
At least I was alone. I didn’t need reassurances from Kallie and Marcus, and I didn’t care to face the grief from Ava’s parents. Surely, they blamed me as much as I blamed myself.
The doctors had only allowed one person to wait for Ava in recovery. Everyone else sat in the waiting room. I needed to be here, so I’d know the second she was out of surgery.
Heavy footsteps sounded down the hall in a quick beat. Adrenaline shocked my system, and I snapped to attention. I shot to my feet the same time he burst through the door.
“Where is she?” the Warden demanded.
My hands curled into fists, and Air began to swirl around the room. I couldn’t control myself. Oberi jumped to his feet beside me and growled. If the Warden thought he could lay a single hand on my pidge, he could burn in the fires of hell.
“What do you want with her?” I growled.
“Dr. Taurus,” a nurse from out in the hall said gently. “If you’re looking for Mrs. Wahkin, she’s still in surgery. We can take you to her if you’d like.”
