CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT:WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING
Arielle drifted somewhere between the waking world and a half-remembered dreamscape. The edges of her consciousness were soft and distant, as if she floated on waves of memory and time. In the haze, she heard her mother’s voice, soft and commanding all at once, scolding her gently for staying out too long in the rain. She saw flashes of her siblings—Airyana clinging to her hand after a scraped knee, Olivia laughing with a juice box in hand, Jace asleep on the couch with a book on his chest. And then, Damien’s voice—deep, uncertain, then pleading—cut through the fog like a lifeline. She turned her head toward the sound, but everything dissolved into mist again. --- Damien sat beside her hospital bed, his elbows on his knees, eyes rimmed with sleeplessness and worry. His gaze hadn’t left
- Writer
