"I'm fine." A lie. His leg was screaming. He could feel warmth spreading—blood, again, always blood. "Just—help me up."
More gunfire. Closer now. But it wasn't directed at them. It sounded like—
Were they shooting at each other?
Evan tried to see through the darkness, through the trees. Flashlight beams cutting in different directions. Voices shouting—some Morrison's soldiers, some unfamiliar.
Hayes's forces? Had they tracked them too? Were Morrison and Hayes's teams now engaging each other by accident in the darkness?
Didn't matter.
All that mattered was moving.
Evan tried to stand. His leg gave out immediately, fresh pain shooting through him. The wound was bad. Deep. He could feel it.
"Papa, you're bleeding again!"
"I know. It's okay. Just—" He gritted his teeth, tried again. Managed to get upright this time, leaning heavily on a tree trunk. "We need to keep moving. The barrier—"
"Is right here. We're so close. Just a little further." Anaya moved to his side, trying to support him. "Come on. You can do this."
They stumbled forward together.
Behind them, the gunfire stopped.
Everything stopped.
The sudden silence was almost worse than the noise.
Evan's ears rang in the absence of sound. No more shooting. No more shouting. No more roaring bear.
Just silence.
And in that silence, footsteps.
Someone was moving. Searching.
"Faster," Evan breathed. "We need to—"
His leg buckled again. He went down on one knee, his vision swimming.
Too much blood loss. Too many injuries. The gunshot shoulder. The new leg wound. The fever. His body had nothing left.
"Papa, please!" Anaya was crying now, pulling at his good arm. "Please get up! We're so close!"
"I know, baby. I'm trying. Just—" He pushed himself up again. Took one step. Two.
His leg screamed.
He fell against another tree, breathing hard.
This was it. He couldn't go any further.
But he couldn't tell Anaya that. Couldn't let her see—
When he looked at her, something strange happened.
His vision—already blurred from fever and blood loss—shifted.
And for just a moment, he saw what she saw.
His inside.
The light she always talked about. The fierce brightness that tried to hide but couldn't. The love that scared itself with its intensity.
It was dimming.
Flickering like a candle in the wind.
Dying.
"Papa?" Anaya's voice cracked. "Papa, your light—it's getting smaller. Why is it getting smaller?"
Evan blinked and the vision was gone. But the truth remained.
He was dying.
Maybe not in the next ten minutes. But soon. Without medical care, without rest, with all these wounds—
Soon.
"I'm just tired," he said. Another lie. "The light's just—it needs rest. That's all."
Anaya opened her mouth to respond—
Then her whole body went rigid.
"No," she whispered. "No no no—"
"What? What's wrong?"
"The pull. The barrier. I—" Her eyes were huge, terrified. "I can't feel it anymore."
Evan's heart stopped. "What?"
"It's GONE! The pull is gone! The barrier must have shifted while we were—while you were—" She spun in a circle, frantic. "Where is it? Where did it go? It was RIGHT HERE a minute ago!"
"Anaya, calm down—"
"I CAN'T CALM DOWN!" She was spiraling into panic, her small face white with terror. "It's gone! The barrier shifted and now we are stuck here forever and you're hurting and Morrison is coming and—"
"Baby, breathe—"
"I can't BREATHE! I can't feel it! I can't focus! Everything's too loud and too bright and—" She pressed her hands over her ears. "I can't do this! I can't—"
Evan grabbed her shoulders with his good hand. "Anaya. Look at me."
She did, her amber eyes swimming with tears.
"Do you want to hear a story?"
"What? Papa, now is not—"
"Just a quick one. To help you calm down. Please?"
She stared at him like he'd lost his mind. Which, to be fair, he might have.
But after a moment, she nodded.
"Once upon a time," Evan said quietly, "there was a little light. The brightest light in all the world. But she didn't know she was bright. She thought she was just ordinary. Just small."
"Papa—"
"One day, the little light got lost. Very lost. In a scary place full of darkness. And a man found her. A man who'd been living in darkness for so long he'd forgotten what light looked like."
Anaya's breathing was slowing slightly, drawn into the rhythm of his voice.
"The little light was so brave. So impossibly brave. She looked at the dark man and she said, 'You're my Papa.' Even though he was nothing but shadows. She chose to see light in him anyway."
"You're not shadows," Anaya whispered.
"And the man—he tried to stay dark. Tried to keep his distance. But the little light wouldn't let him. She kept shining. Kept loving him. Kept believing he was good even when he didn't believe it himself."
Evan's vision was blurring again. Not from fever this time.
"And slowly—so slowly—the light started to change him. Started to burn away the darkness. Started to show him that maybe he could be more than what he'd been made into."
"You ARE more, you are my papa" Anaya said, tears streaming down her face.
"The little light saved the dark man. In every way a person can be saved. And even though they had to say goodbye—even though the light had to go home and the man had to stay behind—" His voice cracked. "FOR just a while,the light would always be with him. In here." He touched his chest. "Forever."
"Papa, please don't—"
"It's okay, little light." He pulled her close with his good arm, holding her while they both cried. "It's okay. You're going to be okay."
"Come with me!" She pulled back, grabbing his jacket. "Please! Just come with me! We'll cross together and—"
"Baby, I can't."
"Yes you CAN! Just walk with me! Just—"
"Anaya, listen—" He couldn't tell her. Couldn't say the words.
"The barrier," he said instead. "Focus. Try to feel it again. Close your eyes and really focus."
"But I can't! It's gone! I told you—"
"Please. Try. For me."
She closed her eyes, her small face scrunched in concentration.
Evan watched her, memorizing every detail. The way her pointed ears twitched when she concentrated. The small scar on her chin from when she'd fallen weeks ago. The way she chewed her bottom lip when she was thinking.
"I can't feel anything," she whispered, opening her eyes. "It's really gone."
And then—
Light.
Tiny points of green-gold light appearing around them. Dozens of them. Hundreds.
Fireflies.
But moving in patterns that weren't natural. Weren't random.
They were forming a path.
A glowing trail leading away from where Evan and Anaya stood. Leading toward—
"The barrier," Anaya breathed.
The fireflies arranged themselves in two lines, creating a corridor of light. Pointing the way.
Evan stared in wonder. "You got your ability little light. You can talk to bugs. Can control them." What could be expected from him.
Anaya looked at him, her face breaking into a smile even through her tears. "Papa. It's—. I can speak to nature. To the forest. To everything living." She looked around at the glowing path. "I asked them to help. And they did."
"That's—" Evan couldn't find words. "That's incredible."
"That's why the pull stopped. We were already there." She turned to face the path of fireflies. "The barrier is right there. Maybe ten steps. We're standing right at it."
Ten steps.
So close.
Anaya turned back to him, joy and sadness warring on her small face. "Papa, come on! Let's cross together! Your face will change and you might forget things but we'll be together and—"
"Anaya." Evan cupped her face with his good hand. "I can't cross with you."
"Yes you can! The fireflies will show us the way and—"
He looked at her.
"Please," she said. "Just walk with me to the barrier. Just try."
"Baby—"
"Please, Papa." Her voice cracked. "Please just TRY."
He wanted to say: I can't. Two simple words. Clean and done.
But this was Anaya, five years old, pressing both hands to his chest, looking at him with the complete and unshakeable certainty that he was her father and fathers come home.
So he said instead: "There are still people in those facilities. Elves. Trapped. If I disappear into the other side right now—"
"Then they'll still be there when you recover!" She grabbed his jacket. "You can cross and get better and come BACK. You can save them from there, once you're healed—"
"If I cross, my memory goes fuzzy." The truth that cost him nothing to give her because she couldn't fix it. "That's what happens to humans on the other side. Faces. Names. Plans." He met her eyes. "I wouldn't remember who to save. Wouldn't remember the network, the locations, the people who need finding. I'd lose it all."
Her face worked through that. He watched her try to find the hole in it.
She was crying now, properly, the kind of crying she'd been holding back for the whole walk. "Please, Papa. Please just come home. We can figure out the plan part later. We can figure EVERYTHING out later. Just come. Just cross. Please—"
"Little light." He cupped her face in his good hand. "I need you to listen to me."
She pressed her face into his palm and cried.
Her whole body sagged with defeat.
"Then I'm not going either," she whispered. "If you can't come, then I'll stay. We'll hide together. We'll—"
"No. You're going home."
"I WON'T! You can't make me!"
They were at an impasse. Both stubborn. Both terrified. Both trying to protect the other.