Ava's POV I was still sitting in the cold, hard chair beside Eli’s bed, my hand wrapped tightly around his limp, unresponsive one, when my phone buzzed violently on the chair beside me. The harsh vibration, a sound of the outside world, cut through the profound stillness of the ICU room like a blade, a jarring, unwelcome intrusion. Damian. His name lit up the screen in stark, white letters, cold and commanding, just like his voice, just like his presence. My heart, already a fragile, broken thing, hammered against my ribs, a new kind of terror seizing me. I let it ring for a second, my thumb hovering uncertainly over the decline button, a desperate, childish impulse to shut out the world, to hide in this sterile, silent space. But I answered. I knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that declining the call would only make the inevitable fury worse. “…Hello?” My voice was a raw, cracked whisper, a fragile sound stripped of all its strength by exhaustion and grief. “Where the fuck are
Last Updated : 2025-08-03 Read more