9 Hours Novels & Stories

I feel so blessed and a smile appear on my face. “Hey, our sleeping beauty finally wakes up.” Aaron already awaken, with a yawned his hand goes to my forehead. “How are you, baby?” “I am much better now, how long did I asleep?” I asked him while looking at the sunset on the window. “Thirty hours.” It was Elm who informed me, and I was in shocked. “Seriously?!” I still can’t believe him. He was grinning to me. “Actually sixteen hours, I was messing with you.”

Ninety minutes. "Time to work," I said, and dove into the code.

Because the kitchen had the fire and the warm draft from the bread oven and the specific smell that both babies had decided was acceptable, and because no one wanted to be awake at the fourth hour alone. On the ninth morning, Kael found the note Kade had left on the kitchen table. There's a ledger, the note said. I started it at week four. It tracks the hours. Currently: Lirien has the longest average awake window (28 minutes). Cedric has the more frequent wakes (3.2 per night). Combined average nighttime disruption: 4.1 hours per adult per night. I'm projecting improvement by week twelve based on the developmental curve. I'll update the ledger weekly.

This news could derail everything. So I sat on the bathroom floor, alone and terrified, with a secret that felt like it was tearing me apart. And for the first time since he left, two years felt completely impossible. …………… I hadn't slept in days. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those two pink lines that rewrote my entire life in thirty seconds. I had tried reaching Zadok four times this week but the calls went straight to voicemail and my emails sat unread. The time difference made everything worse. When I was awake and panicking, he was asleep and when I finally worked up the courage to try again, he was in meetings.

No Harold. No Reese. Just 2:47 PM. Just normal. Just 8 holding.

I huff, "But trust me here, It's mandatory!" He looks down at his watch and sighs, "3 hours 20 minutes and counting."

He said to me. “How long?” I asked, settling into the seat by the window. The coat he gave me was still around my shoulders. I hadn’t taken it off since the basement. “Nine hours,” he said, sitting across from me. “We’ll land at dawn.” I nodded. I looked out the window as the jet started to move. The engines roared and we lifted. I sat quietly near the window as the jet finally lifted into the sky. For a while, neither of us spoke, then after some time silence felt comfortable then suddenly… My wolf stirred softly again.

-Week 13~ day 7, 500 hours. I haven't got any sleep for the past 35 hours. having to find our way back to base, after out transportation got eliminated. Then I remembered Kota, and that she would tell me to suck it up and keep going. That my life is more important than sleep, and so are my comrades around me. -Week 14~ day 2, 700 hours.

Slowly, it clicked into place. I closed my eyes and paid attention. “Two… three…” I counted the seconds in-between each goodbye. "Three hours," I murmured. "They change shifts every three hours." I closed my eyes again, counting the footsteps and how long the silence lasted after each goodbye. "Twenty minutes," I whispered, a flicker of hope sparking within me. That was the window I needed. By the time I opened my eyes again, it was night time. Time to strike.

Eighteen hours. The compound was ready. I was going to make sure it stayed that way.