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CHAPTER Sixteen — THE LESSON HE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO GIVE

Autor: Miranda Miley
last update Última actualización: 2025-12-24 11:59:00

Nora’s Point of View

He was gone before I could answer.

Not walked-away gone. Not slam-the-door gone.

Gone like the room had never held him at all.

The air stayed heavy anyway, thick with the memory of him, like it did not know how to move forward without his permission. My living room looked exactly the same as it had minutes ago, but it felt altered. Too still. Too quiet. As if the world itself had paused to see what I would do next.

My hands were shaking. I pressed my palms against my thighs and focused on breathing. Slow. Controlled. Human.

Accounted for.

The word echoed in my head, sharp and unforgiving. I was no longer overlooked. No longer tolerated.

I was accounted for.

It sounded like a ledger entry. Like someone had finally written my name down in ink that could not be erased.

I swallowed and dragged the sleeve of my sweater across my cheeks. Only then did I realize I was crying.

“You said there would be a cost,” I whispered into the empty room. My voic
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  • Claimed by Death    CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE — THE NAME HE KEEPS

    His Point of View She wakes flushed. That is the first thing I register. Not fear. Not confusion. Heat. Her breath stutters as consciousness returns, her body still caught between what was imagined and what was real. She does not look toward me. She curls inward instead, as if instinct understands before thought does. She knows. The knowing settles in her chest like weight. I remain where I am, just beyond the edge of her perception, my presence held tight and contained. She cannot see me. Not fully. But the room has changed around her, aware in the way spaces become aware when something ancient occupies them. I came to speak with her. Something impossible had occurred, and the only place it could be addressed without consequence was here. In sleep. In the one place the weave does not observe. Her door was already open. Not unlatched. Not cracked. Open. Wide. As if something within her had unfolded without realizing it was being seen. I went inside. Not fully. Not with

  • Claimed by Death    CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO — WHAT DREAMS KEEP

    Nora’s Point of View By the time I finally lie down, my body feels hollowed out. Not weak. Spent. The kind of exhaustion that doesn’t ask permission before settling into muscle and bone. My limbs ache with a deep, pulsing heaviness, like they remember effort even after the effort is over. My chest still won’t settle properly, breath catching shallow, as if it never quite learned how to return to normal after everything that came before. Bringing her back took more than I expected. Not force. Not strength. Presence. Holding her here, guiding her back into weight, into breath, into the undeniable insistence of being alive again. I can still feel it in my hands. The moment her pulse wavered and then steadied. The warmth returning where there had been nothing. The quiet relief in her eyes when she realized she was still here. That part stays with me. It hums beneath my skin, low and persistent, like my body hasn’t quite decided it’s finished yet. I don’t bother fixing the covers

  • Claimed by Death    CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE — WHAT SHOULD HAVE REMAINED

    His Point of View Distance is not difficult for me. It is the state I was made in. I step back from her thread with intention, not severing it, only removing myself from its immediate pull. I do not abandon it. I place it aside, where it will remain until I choose to return. That choice matters. Distance has always been the difference between function and fracture. Between what I am meant to do and what I must never want. I have learned, over long ages, that proximity invites distortion. So I do not linger. I do not watch what I am not meant to touch. Some endings must be witnessed before they are softened. Some truths lose their shape if mercy is shown too early. I move on. Souls arrive as they always do. Some frightened. Some ready. Some already leaning toward the quiet beyond me. I guide them without hesitation, without preference. This is the part of my existence that requires no thought. No judgment. No struggle. It is clean. It is certain. And yet— There is one presen

  • Claimed by Death    CHAPTER THIRTY — WHAT WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE COUNTED

    Nora’s Point of View He is gone. Not abruptly. Not cruelly. Just… gone. The way silence settles after something immense has passed through a space and left it altered. I stand where he left me, my breath uneven, my chest tight like it forgot how to expand without permission. The air still smells wrong. Burned. Sharp. As if the world remembers what he showed me even if it refuses to speak of it. The streetlight above us hums faintly, uncertain, its glow too weak for what it’s meant to illuminate. I can still feel the heat beneath my palm. Not on my skin. Inside it. I don’t move right away. I don’t cry. I don’t pray. I look. The woman lies where he showed her to me. Still. Too still. Her clothes are torn. Her body twisted in a way bodies are not meant to rest. Blood darkens the ground beneath her, spreading slowly, as if even it is reluctant to keep going. A shoe lies several feet away, the lace snapped clean through. Somewhere nearby, a car passes, unaware, tires hissing aga

  • Claimed by Death    CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - LESSON TWO

    His Point of View I leave her before the dream can thin any further. Not because it is unsafe, but because it is the only place where function does not dictate me. The weave does not record what passes there. No thread tightens. No balance reacts. What occurred between us leaves no mark that can be traced. What leaves no record does not matter. What it leads me to do does. It lingered longer than it should have. Not the contact itself. That was gone the moment I withdrew. It was the recognition. That quiet, dangerous sense of alignment that has no place in something like me. I was not made to be met that way, and she should never have to become what being close to me would require. So I lock myself back into distance. Into precision. Into the role I cannot afford to step out of. Time resumes its ordinary crawl. Morning breaks. Threads move. Lives continue, unaware of what was almost allowed to matter. Nora goes to the café and takes a seat near the window. The ba

  • Claimed by Death    CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - WHAT A NAME MEANS

    Nora’s Point of View I am dreaming again. I know it not because the world feels unreal, but because it feels too precise. The orphanage hallway stretches the same length it did before. The fluorescent lights hum with the same dull insistence. The air smells faintly of bleach and old paper and something underneath it that reminds me of being small and careful. It smells like rules and order. Like being watched. I stand where I stood then. But this time, I am not inside the memory. I am watching it. The girl I was moves through the hall with her shoulders slightly hunched, her hands folded in front of her like stillness is something she learned young. Like taking up less space might make her easier to keep. She stops when the woman behind the desk speaks. “Miracle Grace.” The flinch is immediate. Sharp. Involuntary. I feel it in my chest even now, the way the name lands like something placed on me instead of something that belongs. Like a label written before anyone bothere

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