While My Heart Is Still Beating Novels & Stories

I hissed. Yet even as I stood there, breathing hard, I could still feel it. That faint, persistent echo beneath my own heart. Alive.

Each beat hit like a hammer against the earth's crust. The horizon glowed with artificial fire. My lungs locked. Air trapped. "They're here," I whispered.

For a brief second, I feel unstoppable. My heart beats so loudly that it makes my body vibrate. Voices echo in my head, sounds of anger, annoyance, all shouting at me. Nyx works hard to shut them down, blocking out each individual until I hear a familiar voice. “We are coming for you.”

"Do you feel your heart? I can feel it beating against me." "That's 'cause I'm about to have a heart attack," she said. "Not if I beat you to it.”

Seventy-two beats a minute, which I know because Laurel told me, because I've started counting and because of this small device I’ve around my wrist that monitors how well my pulse is. Counting the beats the way I used to count the clicks of the mechanical heart has now become a habit, except these beats are warm and alive and sometimes they speed up or slow down for reasons I can't explain or when I see something nice or beautiful, like the heart has opinions I haven't learned to translate yet. At midnight, I hear heavy and deliberate footsteps, paced like someone counting. Back and forth down the hallway outside my door. It’s not rushed or aimless. It’s measured, like a human metronome in

The whisper of wind through the trees. And the sound. That beautiful, rhythmic sound in my ear. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Her heart is still beating. And so I keep breathing.

Rather I accept my fate, knowing that my time is up. Ready to succumb to my fate, I lower my head to the ground, no longer trying to keep it up. I can hear the steady rhythm of my heartbeat, as it begins to slow. I can hear the pounding of my chest echoing on the tile. Which is when it dawns on me. There's no way it could be my heart. It's far too powerful for it to be my heart.

She wasn’t even sure if she had any talent at all aside from working very hard. [Sho & Nelson] If you want it, do it until it comes true Do it all If you can grab it, don't hesitate Take it all [Theo] Instead of staring at the pouring rain It's like I'm starting to jump and run There's a light in my heart So, hold on now Her sight caught up with Red’s passionate dance and he’s almost leveling to Asher’s dance moves. All the performers are excellent at dancing since they have different styles and movements, but what caught her the most was Red’s movement.

In a daze, I staggered out and collapsed into someone's arms just as I was about to faint downstairs. When I woke up again, I saw Gideon. My injuries had already been treated. "Jovienne, don't you want to know the truth?" Gideon handed me a folder. "I'm the Maverick Quincey kept talking about. Quincey loves daffodils the most. She says people should only love themselves. She has a mole on her chest—" "Stop," I cut him off as I shut my eyes. I knew there was no way Gideon could know Quincey that intimately.

"And I’m yours." The room erupted into cheers, but all I heard was the steady, unshakable beat of his heart—and mine, answering in kind.