Lux (The Nocte Trilogy 3)

I stop.

I stop breathing.

“You’re dying,” Dare whispers into my neck. “If you don’t wake up, you’ll be lost.”

The water slides down my cheek into my neck and a hand holds mine and blackness is here and I slip into oblivion.

Oblivion is real.

That much I know.

It’s warm and comforting like a blanket.

It hugs me, and I’m gone.

And all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Amen.

Chapter Thirty

The world slows to a stop.

It’s dark.

There is no ocean.

There are no waves.

There is no sun or rain or moon.

I stay this way for so long, suspended, alone, unafraid.

And then,

A breath.

From my lips.

Suddenly, without warning.

I gasp, and there is only my breathing, and beeps, and fingers wrapped around my hand, and I’m in a bed. I’m not in the ocean or on the cliffs.

“Come back to me, Calla,” Dare whispers, and angst laces his words, and his words impale my heart. “Please God, come back to me. Time is running out. Don’t do this, please, God, don’t do this. They’re going to take you off the machine, and if you don’t breathe on your own, you’ll die. Please God. Please.”

He begs someone, whether it is God or me, I don’t know.

“We’ve already lost everything else,” he whispers. “Please, God. Come back to me. Come home to me. Come home.”

I try to open my eyes, but it’s too hard.

My eyelids are heavy.

The darkness is black.

Dare keeps talking, his words slow and soothing and I might float away on them. It would be so easy.

Death waits for me,