Chapter 26 Awake

Chapter 26 Awake
Samara pov

I don’t move away when he starts talking.
I don’t think I could, even if I wanted to.
My shoulder is pressed into his side, the steady rise and fall of his breathing anchoring me in a way nothing else has since I woke up. My body still feels like it belongs to something else, like I’ve only partially settled back into it. But him, he feels solid.
Real.
“There was once a soldier,” Derrick says quietly, “and a healer… who lived during a time of holy wars.”
His voice is softer than usual. Not distant just careful. Like each word has to pass through something before it reaches me.
And the second he says it—
I see it again. Like a movie scene unfolding just behind my eyes.
The pressing heat. Kneeling beside a man lying in the sand, choking on his own blood, a wound carved deep into his chest—too deep, too wide, something that should have ended him.
My breath catches.
“And she healed him,” I whisper.
The words come out without permission but they drag me back to reality with them.
Derrick’s voice doesn’t falter.
“Yes,” he says. “In more ways than one.”
Something in my chest tightens.
Something that feels like recognition and loss tangled together.
“He fell in love with her,” Derrick continues, quieter now. “So completely that, at the end… he promised to find her again. In every life that came after.”

I tilt my chin up, just enough to look at him.
His profile so still, so controlled in the low light from the lamp that it looks like he's been carved from marble.

“And did he?” I ask. He looks down at me his eyes shifting to meet mine.
“Yes.”
The word lands differently than before. Like they aren't part of some story any more.

Silence stretches between us. Something heavy hanging in the air. Like a storm that's just about to break.

I shift without a second thought, turning into him, pulling my legs over his like I’ve done a hundred times before, curling into his side until my head settles against his chest.
The motion feels automatic, like second nature.

How many nights have ended like this—after one of my nightmares, when I couldn’t shake the feeling of something watching me from the dark?
He never asked questions.
He just let me stay.
His arm comes around me the same way it always does, sliding securely across my back, his hand resting just beneath my shoulder.
And for a moment, everything quiets.
His heartbeat is slow beneath my cheek. Strong. Even. A rhythm I’ve known for so long I’ve timed my own to it.

This is safe.
This is normal.
This is—
Something shifts.
Not in him.
In me.

Because suddenly I’m hyper aware of it.
The weight of his arm. The warmth of his body. The way I fit against him like there was never meant to be space between us.
My breath catches a little. Sitting like this isn't new, so why is my body reacting like this. Why is my stomach fluttering and my heart racing.

His hand moves absently against my arm, tracing slow patterns like he always does, back and forth, back and forth leaving goosebumps all across my skin.
This small soothing touch would normally calm me, help me settle down.

But tonight— every touch feels sharper.
Like my body is noticing something it never used to. Like it’s remembering something I don’t fully understand yet.
I don’t move away.

I don’t know how long we stay like that before the question finally slips out.
“Do you miss her?”

Derrick noticeably stiffens underneath me, his fingers no longer dancing across my arm.

I lift my head to look up at him. He's staring at the wall as if he could burn holes through it with his eyes. But I can see the way his throat bobs, swallowing a little too hard.

“What?” he asks still not looking at me.

“Do you miss Aleira?”

There’s no softness in the question now, no pretending this is just curiosity.
Something in me has locked onto the truth and refuses to let go until I understand what all of it means.
He exhales slowly, like he’s buying himself time.

“It’s just a story, Sam.”
The words are measured, controlled. Too practised from years of lying to me.

“Is it?” I ask quietly.
My voice doesn’t shake, but something in my chest does.
“Is it really just a story, Derrick?”

Something shifts in his expression as he finally turns to look at me. Those blue eyes hiding a storm of emotions he refuses to let out.

“I saw you,” I say, the words coming faster now.
“I saw you dying. I saw her heal you. I saw you ask her to marry you.”
My throat tightens.
“I saw them break into her home.”
My voice cracks.
“I saw what they did to her.”
The room feels too small. Too quiet.
“I saw you holding her,” I whisper. “Promising you’d find her again.”
Tears slip down my cheeks without permission.
I don’t wipe them away, my body feels frozen in place.
His hand moves slowly to cup the side of my face, his thumb brushing a tear from my cheek.
The touch is so gentle it almost undoes me.
For a second, I lean into it.
My eyes close.
Because it feels- God it feels like everything. It feels like what Aleira felt when he was kneeling in front of her, it feels like the tender hands that scooped her up and held her as she lay dying. It feels like something I’ve been missing without knowing it.
But I force my eyes open again.
Because I need the truth more than I need comfort.
And when I look at him—
Something is completely different.

He isn’t looking at me the way Derrick looks at me.
He’s looking at me like he's seeing someone else.
Someone he knows.
Someone he lost.
Someone he—
My breath catches.

“Why did you stop looking for her?” I press.
My voice is quieter now.
“She could still be out there waiting for you."

His jaw tightens.
His hand lingers against my face for a second longer, his thumb still brushing my cheek. His hand slides to the back of my neck, his fingers threading through my hair.
His face moves closer.
Close enough that I can see the exact moment his control fractures.

“Because,” he says quietly
His voice is no longer careful. No longer distant.
Something that feels like it’s been held back for far too long.
“I already found her.”

\---

JESSE – POV

By Friday morning, I’m done pretending this is normal.

Her seat has been empty for four days.

Four.

At first, I told myself she was sick. Then maybe grounded. Then maybe that she really did run away and I'll never see her again.
Irritation spreads through my life wild fire.

But the thought feels wrong.

Wrong in a way that crawls under my skin and won’t shut up.

The classroom feels too loud. Too bright. Too full of people who don’t notice anything. Chairs scrape. Someone laughs too hard. A teacher drones on about something I couldn’t care less about.

And her seat—

Still empty.

My jaw tightens and I’m out of my chair before I even think about it.

The hallway hits me like noise and movement and bodies that don’t matter. I shove past people without apology, my eyes already locked onto the one person who might know something.

Casey Wright.

She’s at her locker, humming to herself, completely unaware of the fact that I am about two seconds away from losing my mind.

I don’t slow down.

“Where is she?”

The words come out sharp enough to cut.
Casey jumps as she spins around to face me, her hand flying to her chest, eyes wide.

“What—?” she breathes. “Jesse, what the hell—”

“Samara,” I snap. “Where is she?”

Her confusion deepens, like she genuinely doesn’t understand why I’m standing here ready to tear the place apart.

“You’re her friend, aren’t you?” I press, stepping closer. “So where is she?”

“Yeah—yes,” she stammers, thrown off. “She’s fine. She’s just—she’s at home.”

But that answer doesn't loosen the tightness in my chest because something still feels off.

“What happened?” I demand.

Casey hesitates, then shrugs slightly. “She… fell. In the forest. Derrick said she hit her head pretty badly, but she’s okay.”

The world narrows. My vision tunnelling as something dark rises up inside of me.
My stomach drops so fast it almost makes me dizzy.

Fuck.

Everything inside me snaps into place in the worst possible way.

She walked Connor home.

She made sure he got back.

And then—

She didn’t make it.

She got hurt out there.

Alone.

My hand curls into a fist at my side.

“Give me her number,” I say.

Casey blinks. “I—what?”

“Her number,” I repeat, sharper now. “Give it to me.”

“I don’t know, Jesse,” she says, shaking her head. “That’s kind of—like—an invasion of privacy and I don’t think Sam would—”

“Give me her fucking number,” I cut in, my voice dropping low and dangerous, “or I will pry your phone out of your corpse.”

I slam my hand against the locker beside her.
"Now!"
The metal rattles violently. Casey jumps, a small sound leaving her throat as she scrambles back.

“Okay! Jesus—okay!” she blurts, fumbling for her phone with shaking hands. “God, you’re such a freak.”

She scrolls too slowly.
Everything in me is screaming at her to move faster.

Finally, she finds it.

I don’t wait for her to hand it over.
I grab the number off her screen, punching it into my phone before she can second guess herself.

I don’t hear what she says after I've turned away. Heading to the big double doors that lead to the courtyard.

I’m already dialing.

It rings.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Come on. Answer the phone.

It keeps ringing.
My jaw clenches so hard it aches.

I hang up.

Call again.

Straight back to ringing.

No answer.

“Pick up,” I mutter under my breath, pacing now, my free hand dragging through my hair. “Come on, Sam. Pick up the fucking phone.”

Nothing.

I end the call harder this time.

Dial again immediately.

This time it only rings twice.

Then—

Click.

A deep male voice answers.

“Hello?”

I go still, every instinct I have sharpens at once.

“Where is she?” I snap.

There’s a pause on the other end. Time seeming to slow down as my heart pounds in my ears

“Who is this?”

My grip tightens on the phone.

“Put Sam on the phone.”

Silence stretches just a fraction too long.

“She’s resting,” the voice says finally. Calm. Measured. “Who am I speaking to?”

I ignore the question completely.

“What happened to her?”

Another pause. Shorter this time.

“She had an accident.”

My chest tightens again as I feel something deep and feral rising up in me.

“Yeah,” I say, my voice rougher now. “I heard. In the forest.”

Something shifts subtly in the silence.

“Who gave you this number?” he asks.

My lip curls slightly, my hands are shaking now.

“Doesn’t matter,” I shoot back. “Put her on the phone.”

“She’s not available.”

That does it.

“Listen to me very carefully,” I say, my voice dropping, all edge and warning now. “I don’t care who you are, or what your deal is, but you don’t get to decide who she talks to.”

The air on the other end goes cold and then the line goes dead.

I slam my phone against the wall so hard it shatters into pieces.
And then I see the glow radiating from my hands.
A warm, red glow coming off them, leading all the way up my arms in strange red tendrils.

I look down at them bewildered. What is this?
Inside me everything is shaking and I feel like the saying 'rip the world apart to find her' has taken on a very literal meaning.
A fire burns so hot through my veins it feels like it might consume me.

I'm struggling to breathe, my hands shaking even more now.

I head straight for my car. If anyone knows what's happening to me it would be the one person I hate asking for anything.

Lucian Carter.