I lay in stunned silence, forcing myself not to give into my swelling exhaustion while simultaneously grappling with the insanity pinning me down to this bed. I remember it all. I’m not confused. I’m here because I was brutally attacked. I’ve been asleep for ... five days. Jens—no, not Jens—somebody who looks like Jens put that awful sound in my head after shattering my hands and other bones in my body and somehow or other, the Shamans weren’t able to fix me? That there’s something wrong with my mind? That there might be those who believe me beyond saving?
I attempt to disseminate all of this rationally as I ground myself by matching Jonah’s soft yet steady breathing. I’m not dead. This is a good thing. If I were to die, the worlds would fall into chaos. My friend Etienne Miscanthus, one of the premier Storytellers on the Council, has repeatedly told me how a living Creator is crucial for the worlds’ functionability. I’ve survived multiple Elders attacks—been stabbed, cut, and beat up—and I always got back up on my feet. But one person, this one being who looks like Jens Belladonna but isn’t, managed to take me out so easily. What stopped him from killing me? He’d alluded to how it wasn’t my time, but ... he also didn’t shy away from nearly tearing my life out of me, either.
Like a flood breaching a dam’s walls, all the memories of that horrible night come crashing right over me and drag me into its undertow of clarity. I’d been so happy. Despite its bittersweet origins, my happiness was incandescent. Jonah and I—that was the start of our life together. The one we chose to share together. And then in a singular moment, somebody decided to try to rip it all away from me.
I’ll be damned if I let that happen. I didn’t fight so hard to find and accept my happiness only to lose it so easily. I redouble my efforts to voice Jonah’s name, to let him know I’m here. And when that doesn’t work, I focus instead on our connected hands. On the Connection that we share. Wake up, love, I want to say to him. I need you right now. Feel me.
I will myself to squeeze harder until my breaths come hard in exertion, all over such a simple action an infant could accomplish it. Move, I order my body. Whatever happened to me? Whatever that bastard did? It’s gone. I’m me. I’m in control of myself.
Somewhere deep within me, something shatters painfully alongside the windows throughout the room. My entire body convulses in nine-point-oh magnitudes and aftershocks, all dying, twitching fish desperate for water on dry, barren shores.
Jonah jolts awake during my combined seizure and destruction of glass, lurching up in the bed to straddle me as my eyes roll deep into the back of my head. I’m choking, I can’t breathe, I’m falling apart and crashing and dying all over again, and he’s got my face in his hands, saying my name again, and this time—
This time when he orders me to look at him, to stay with him, I’m able to.
My body aches, like it’d been at the bottom of the ocean, anchored with heavy chains to a two thousand pound anchor. Tiny tremors rattle my teeth and my muscles and bones, threatening to split me clean apart and drag me back down, but his hold on me is strong. The blue of his eyes is sky and water and love and I refuse to let go.
“You’re safe.” He hauls my twitching body into his arms. “I’ve got you, Chloe.”
For the tiniest moment, I let myself sink into his warmth as the tremors fade, into his solid, steady comfort before I completely lose it. Hot tears gush out amidst eerily noiseless sobs as my arms weakly loop around him, but it’s okay. I trust him. I’m safe. I’m here with Jonah, and I’m not dying. Or, at least, not dying today.
He tells me ridiculous things, like how he’s so sorry he wasn’t there for me when whatever happened to me happened, how he feels like he failed me, and how he’ll never let it happen again. He’s so relieved I’m awake, and he loves me, and while I dismiss all of his misplaced fear and frustration, I hold on tightly to those last words.
The door bursts open, and Kellan’s here, wide-eyed and worried and hopeful all at the same time. He ignores the glass littering the room and instead stares at us for about three seconds before murmuring, “Thank the gods.” And then he collapses back against the wall, a shaky hand running through his hair.
The room fills with my loved ones within minutes, which is wonderful and sweet yet exhausting all at once. So much of me wants to just spend time right now with Jonah. With Kellan. To prove to them I’m okay, that they haven’t lost me ... but I suppose when a Creator has been down for the count for nearly a week, her personal desires must take a backseat to everyone else’s.
There’s chatter in the hallway, rubberneckers, too, all curious whether a bomb went off a few minutes prior while wanting to get a glimpse of the sideshow freak of a Creator. Right when my anxiety is ready to dive into a tailspin, the man I’ve come to consider to be my father quickly closes the door. Words of gratitude fail me once more, my mouth open with nothing but soft, wordless sounds escaping, so Jonah is the one to thank him.