CHAPTER 8 – AVA WAKES AGAIN
Ava woke fully in the hospital that evening.
The room was quiet, machines soft, pain managed, injuries serious but not described in graphic detail. She opened her eyes to find Officer Cole seated nearby and a nurse checking her chart. Through the window, sunset had turned the sky pale orange.
“You’re safe,” Dana said.
Ava tried to move. The nurse gently stopped her.
“Don’t,” the nurse said. “You need to stay still.”
Ava’s first clear word was not about Tyler.
It was: “Emma.”
Dana leaned forward. “She’s safe. A neighbor has her. Child services is involved because of the trust documents.”
Ava closed her eyes.
Tears slipped down her temples.
“The handbag?” she whispered.
“We have it.”
“The flash drive?”
“We have that too.”
Ava exhaled shakily.
Only then did she ask, “Tyler?”
Dana chose her words carefully. “He’s being questioned. Your gesture at the scene is documented. There were physical findings on the deck. We’ll need your statement when doctors clear you.”
Ava nodded faintly.
Her throat worked around fear.
“He said nobody would believe me.”
Dana’s expression softened, but her voice stayed steady. “He was wrong.”
Ava stared at the ceiling.
She remembered the push.
The impossible bright flash of sky.
The white railing slipping from view.
The stone path rushing up.
The sound of her own breath leaving.
Then waking to Officer Cole’s face and Tyler’s voice above.
It was an accident.
Ava had not known if she could speak. She had not known if anyone would understand. But she could lift one arm. She could point.
May you like
Sometimes truth does not arrive as a speech.
Sometimes it is one trembling finger.
