It ripples through the darkness behind my eyes. I frown, trying to focus on it. Then it comes again, clearer this time.
“Charlotte… stay with me.”
I know that voice. Even through the haze, I recognize it instantly.
Dane.
The realization drifts through slowly, but it doesn’t make sense. He isn’t here. He’s still back at his camp. So this has to be a dream.
“Don’t leave me.”
The voice is closer now, edged with something I don’t recognize.
“Charlotte, stay with me.”
A warm pressure settles against my arm, like a hand gripping my shoulder.
Impossible.
Dane would never say those things. Not to me.
He hates me.
“I can’t do this without you.”
Even now, my mind is filling in what it wants to hear.
“You don’t get to go.”
The real Dane would never say that. But dreams don’t have to make sense.
For a moment, there’s only quiet. Then I hear it again.
“Charlotte… please.”
The words linger, fragile in a way I’ve never heard from him before.
Please.
Dane has never said that to me. Not once.
Something in me pulls toward it, faint but insistent, like a thread tugging at the edge of sleep.
But the warmth is stronger.
It wraps around me again, heavy and soft, pulling me back toward the place where nothing hurts.
Maybe this is the end. If it is… it isn’t something to fear.
The darkness closes in gently.
And I let it take me.
Chapter 4
Dane Gallagher
For a second,everything just… stops. Charlotte isn’t moving.
