All Chapters of Rise Of The Betrayed Omega : Chapter 311 - Chapter 313

**Stella's POV** I last four minutes outside Shawn's room. I know because I count them — standing in the corridor with my back against the wall beside the door, arms folded, jaw tight, listening to the particular quality of the silence coming from inside the room and finding it completely unbearable. Four minutes. Auntie Lisa is seated beside me, hands folded, eyes closed, lips moving. Joe is down the hall. The doctor is at his station pretending to look at something on his clipboard. And I am standing here in this corridor being told to wait while Shawn is in that room and Nara is in that room and I am out here doing nothing and I have never been good at doing nothing, I have never once in my life found a way to make peace with standing still when something is happening that I cannot see or control or affect in any way— I push the door open and walk back in. Nara does not look up. "I said—" "I heard what you said," I say. I close the door behind me quietly. "I can't stay o

**Stella's POV** Suddenly Shawn's fingers move. I feel it against my cheek and everything inside me that went completely still when the monitor made that flat sound — releases. All at once. Like a breath that has been held so long the body has forgotten it was holding it. "Shawn." I turn my face toward his. "Shawn." His eyelids move. Then slowly, with the unhurried resistance of a man who does absolutely everything on his own terms — They open. He finds the ceiling first. Then shifts. Then finds me. We look at each other. His mouth moves. I lean in close. "You kissed me," he says. Rough. Barely there. But unmistakably, completely there. I laugh. It comes out wet and wrecked and entirely undignified and I do not care even slightly. "You heard that," I say. "I heard all of it," he says. I sit back and look at him and shake my head slowly. "Of course you did," I say. "Of course you did, you insufferable man." The corner of his mouth moves. Just barely. But it moves and i