I didn’t want to wake up. I’d really, truly thought I was going to die on Lorne’s ship, and I’d made peace with it. When I begged Lorne to make that last jump to my father’s ship, the eternal beyond hadn’t scared me. Not after everything I’d been through. I might have begged for death a few times when Audrey was giving me nanos, but each time I’d woken okay with having made it through, and I’d been glad.

This time was different.

If I was alive, then that meant I had light-years to go. Light-years upon light-years to go before I could ever be free again, and I wanted to be back in that bright, warm, safe place. I wanted it like nothing I’d wanted before.

And as I lay there silently listening to my mother murmur to my father in hushed conversations, I knew I should be thankful to be alive, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t sure I had the strength left to survive much more.

Living on Earth had been a daily struggle. Sometimes the fear threatened to swallow me whole. Eventually, I’d gotten used to it. Dealing with fear was essential to surviving. But Jason’s assault and Abaddon and Apollyon changed things. It changed me. Even as I was going through it, I didn’t realize how much worse it’d been than the years and years of terror I’d already lived through.

The pain of slowly dying over and over had whittled away the little bit of myself I had left.

I didn’t think I’d ever not smell sulfur on me or feel the heat of the boots burning into my feet or hear the crackle of my skin burning.

I was empty. Done.

That made me a coward—and I hated it—but I was so tired, so incredibly exhausted and bone weary, that I wasn’t sure I cared about being brave anymore. I just wanted to fade away, back into that calm, warm place filled with peace.

I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping that no one would notice that I was awake.

Dying on the ship had felt like a nice end to all the fear and pain and millions and millions of lies I’d told everyone. Giving my life so that my friends could make it to safety? That felt like a good, decent way to end my short, miserable life.

I held my breath until I couldn’t hold it anymore. I was so scared that if I breathed, that I’d cry. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to give into the sob crawling its way up my throat, but I wasn’t sure I could stop it.

I held the air inside me until my lungs burned. Until my body fought for life. And then the sob slipped free.

All the little whispered conversations stopped.