_Amelie’s POV_The world all around me was dark.Not silent. Not numb. Just dark—like the space behind my eyelids when I was a child, trying to sleep after a nightmare. I floated inside it, suspended. There was no floor, no sky, no end. But there were sounds all around me and I struggled to make meaning of them.After a few moments of trying to force myself to understand the sound, it got clearer.It was Luca speaking.At first, it was like hearing him underwater. Distant. Warped. But even through the thickness of unconsciousness, I knew it was him.“You’re not allowed to die.”The words reached me like a ripple through a lake. I didn’t move. Couldn’t. But my mind stretched toward the sound, the voice that cracked when he said my name.“Amelie…”I wanted to answer. Scream. Cry. Anything.Tell him I wasn't going to die, because hearing him this way broke me a lot more than I knew. But my body betrayed me.So I listened.By gauze that was all I could do. “You don’t get to die. Not now
Luca’s POV She was breathing, barely. The ventilator hissed softly. A mechanical, unnatural sound.Like a machine imitating life.Her life.She lay still with her body pale. Her hand in mine was cold, but not frozen. Even her pulse was faint beneath my fingers. A thread. A whisper. It wasn't enough. I stared at her, and I couldn’t stop thinking: I did this.I sent her back. I watched the car take her away. I ignored her eyes—wide and terrified—and told myself she deserved it. I told myself I didn’t care.Because I saw her kiss Nico.Because I thought punishment would be easier than pain.But now she was here. Dying. In that sterile room, surrounded by machines and staff who wouldn’t meet my eyes. She was hooked up to beeping monitors and plastic tubes, as if wires and voltage could hold her soul in place.I let Santiago touch her.And now I didn’t know if she’d wake up.It was all my fault. “You’re not allowed to die,” I whispered.My voice cracked halfway through the sentence.“
_Nico’s POV_I stared at the monitor as it beeped. It wasn’t loud, but it was enough to make the air shift.But I don’t move. For a while, all I did was sit there and listen.She had come back.Matteo gasped beside me. Luca cursed, his voice cracking as he lurched toward the machine. But as I stood there, my body frozen.In fear. In shock.That she had almost died and I would have lost her.I watched the line on the monitor rise—then it dipped and then rose again.Her chest moved. But she was barely enough.But barely was better than nothing at this point.It gave me hope.She wasn’t breathing on her own, but the machine did that for her.Some part of me felt like it didn’t mean anything.At least not yet.She was not yet awake, so I couldn’t believe she was safe yet.She still had whatever they had put inside her pumping in her veins.I looked at the syringe in my hand. The one that was almost used to kill her.In my head, one sentence was repeated. Over and over—I let this happen.T
_Matteo_ I watched as Amelia’s body jerked once, then it stilled. The beeping of the monitor stopped and it was followed by a shrill, endless note.And I froze.My eyes widened and I could barely breathe. “No,” I whispered before I could stop myself. “No—no—NO!” She couldn't leave me, she wasn’t allowed to leave me. My hands shook as I stared at her lifeless body, there was no way I would let Amelia leave me. Luca slammed the emergency button. The room blazed red with light. That snapped me out of whatever trance I had found myself in. I wouldn’t let her leave me. I reached for her, grabbing her shoulders like I could shake her back to life. It felt as if her skin was going cold already, and that made my heart drop. She wasn’t going to die, was she? “Help!” Nico shouted, but it was distant. I couldn’t hear over the static in my own ears. I instantly threw the blanket off her chest and started doing compressions. “One, two, three—“ Not again. She didn’t get to walk into
_The Triplets_The syringe hit the floor with a sickening clink, the liquid oozing.Nico looked between the syringe and the doctor, he had confirmed his suspicions.Matteo’s grip on the fake doctor tightened, “This isn’t medicine,” he growled. “What the hell is it?”He was one second away from carving the doctor’s face with is fist, if he was even a doctor that is.There was no way this was who Dr. Sandler had asked to check on Amelie.“Who are you and what have you done with the doctor that was supposed to be here,” Luca asked stiffly, meeting the stare of the fake doctor.For a brief moment, the doctor felt like he was currently at death’s door. The dark look on Luca’s face sent shivers down his spine. But he said nothing, his mouth twitched as though he was fighting something inside himself.“Whoever it is you fear; you should bear it in mind that we would do so much worse than them. So you better start spilling or else we would make your death very painful.”“You want answers? Her
_The triplets._They had watched her go unconscious once again, their heart pounding as they hoped she regained consciousness.The room had gone too quiet when her head hit the bed. She was delirious, calling out to someone who wasn’t there, fighting hands that weren’t even on her.Nico was certain that whatever was wrong with her had something to do with Santiago, but they couldn’t tell whatAmelie hadn’t told them anything when she had returned, and now he hated himself for not noticing anything previously.He sat in a chair pulled closed to the bed, elbows braced on his knees as he stared at her motionless body. Her lips were pale, breathing barely there, like it was a conscious effort for her to stay.Like one wrong thing and she would come crashing down, slipping away from them.And Nico didn’t want that to happen. He didn’t want to lose her, even if it meant sharing her with his brothers.He didn’t mind it, as long as he still had a piece of her.A lone tear slid down his cheek