The first thing Clare Whitmore understood after the crash was that silence had weight.

It wasn’t the cinematic kind, clean and poetic. It was heavy like wet wool, pressing against her ribs while a machine breathed for her, forcing air in and out as if her body had become an object someone else owned.

She couldn’t open her eyes.

She couldn’t lift a hand.

But she could hear everything.

A ventilator hissed at the rhythm of a stranger’s lungs. Monitors beeped like impatient punctuation. Somewhere beyond the door, voices moved in and out of focus, the way sunlight flickers through blinds.

“Severe trauma,” a man said, clinical and careful. “Unresponsive. Deep coma.”

Another voice, softer, answered, “What are her chances?”

A pause. The kind doctors learn to use when truth is sharp.

“We’ll do everything we can.”

Clare tried to move her fingers, to protest the conclusion, to claw her way into the world with even the smallest proof of presence.

Nothing.

Panic arrived first, hot and animal, then receded as her mind caught up to the body’s refusal. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t gone. She wasn’t floating somewhere in blackness, waiting for a miracle.

She was here.

And if she was here, then something else was also true.

They didn’t know.

The thought landed with a cold, almost intoxicating clarity.

In the boardroom, information was currency. Secrets were leverage. Silence, when chosen, was strategy.

She had built Whitmore Industries on control. She had learned, early and painfully, that showing softness invited predators the way open trash invited rats. She had watched men with charming smiles sign agreements with one hand and sharpen knives with the other. She had watched loyal employees become loyal until the day a better offer came along.

And she had trained herself to be untouchable.

Now, stripped of movement and voice, she was vulnerable in a way she had never allowed anyone to see. Her power was gone on the surface, buried under tubes and blankets and a diagnosis spoken like a verdict.

But beneath that surface, her mind was awake.

Sharp.

Calculating.

And suddenly, a choice lay in front of her like a door left slightly open.

She could fight to wake now. Force them to see her. Demand her position back before anyone could reach for it.

Or she could stay silent.

Long enough to learn what people truly were when they thought she was no longer watching.

Clare Whitmore had never been sentimental. She didn’t believe in fate, or karma, or the comforting lie that the world rewarded goodness if you waited politely enough.

But she believed in patterns.

And she believed the crash would reveal one.

So she decided, as the machines breathed for her and the ceiling lights burned too bright through her closed lids, that she would remain still.

She would become a ghost in her own life.

And she would listen.

---

The first twenty-four hours blurred into touch and sound and the faint sting of needles. Nurses moved around her like competent shadows, checking vitals, adjusting drips, speaking over her rather than to her. They didn’t mean harm. They simply treated her as what the chart said she was: a body in a bed.

It was an odd justice.

Clare had built her career treating most people with the same detached efficiency. Now she received her own philosophy back, served cold and professional.

By the second day, the hospital allowed visitors.

The board came first.

They arrived in expensive coats and polite concern, carrying flowers that smelled like obligation. Their footsteps were confident, unhurried. The room changed when they entered, filling with the perfume of power and the soft rustle of tailored fabric.

“Terrible tragedy,” Richard Crane said near her bed, voice carefully pitched for sympathy. He was the kind of man who didn’t sweat under pressure because he rarely had to. His family money had protected him from consequences the way a tall wall protected a garden from storms.

Beside him, Margaret Hail offered a sigh that sounded rehearsed. “She’s always been… formidable.”

“Formidable,” Richard repeated, and Clare could almost see the smile he must have hidden. “Of course, Whitmore Industries will continue in her absence. We’ll honor her legacy.”

Legacy.

It was the word people used when they assumed you were already gone.

Clare lay still while they spoke around her as if she were furniture.

Richard shifted his tone into something more businesslike. “We should discuss interim leadership. Shareholders will want stability.”

“Decisive action,” Margaret agreed.

Another board member, David Wells, cleared his throat like a man trying to make his conscience audible. “Maybe we should wait a few days.”

Richard’s response was immediate, warm on the surface and sharp beneath. “Waiting is what companies do right before they collapse. Clare wouldn’t want that.”

Clare would have laughed if she could have. Richard Crane had never once asked what she wanted unless it aligned with what he wanted first.

They continued, murmuring names, numbers, responsibilities. They spoke about her strategy as if it were a mess they needed to clean up. They spoke about her acquisitions as if she were reckless rather than visionary. They spoke about the company she had built from scratch as if it were a house left abandoned and available to whoever arrived first with the right key.

When they left, the room seemed to exhale.

Only the monitors remained, loyal in their steady rhythm.

Clare stayed silent, feeling something settle in her chest that wasn’t fear.

It was certainty.

She had suspected Richard wanted her position. Now she knew.

And the thing about certainty was that it didn’t comfort you. It sharpened you.

---

That afternoon, softer footsteps entered.

Clare recognized them immediately.

Ethan Brooks didn’t move like the board. He didn’t arrive with the arrogance of people who believed the world would catch them if they fell. His steps were measured, careful, as if he always knew exactly where he was placing his weight.

He was her assistant. Her quiet shadow. The man who made her calendar look like it obeyed physics.

He stopped beside her bed and said nothing.

For a moment, Clare felt only his presence, the way a room changes when someone enters with a different kind of energy. Ethan didn’t smell like cologne and expensive confidence. He smelled faintly of soap and outside air, like someone who had hustled from one responsibility to another.

Finally, he spoke.

“I’m not sure if you can hear me,” he said, voice low. “But I’m going to talk anyway.”

His words didn’t carry the syrupy sweetness people used on the sick. No “you’re going to be fine.” No “we’re all praying.” No empty promises that made the speaker feel good.

Just truth.

“The office feels… wrong,” he continued. “Like everyone’s waiting for the bell to ring so they can run.”

Clare listened.

Ethan pulled a chair closer and sat down, the fabric of his pants brushing softly as he moved.

“They asked me to sign something,” he said. “A statement. Confirming your condition. Something they can use for ‘next steps.’”

A small pause. Clare could hear him breathe in.

“I refused.”

Something inside Clare shifted, subtle as a lock turning.

“They told me I was being difficult,” Ethan said. “I told them I work for you.”

He didn’t say it dramatically. He didn’t announce it as a heroic act. He said it like it was the simplest thing in the world: loyalty as a default setting.

Ethan’s voice softened, and for the first time, it held something like caution. “I know you don’t trust people easily. I get it. In your position, trust is… dangerous.”

He leaned closer, and Clare could feel the warmth of his breath near her hand.

“But I want you to know something,” he said. “I stayed here all these years not because I’m chasing power. Not because I thought you’d… reward me. I stayed because you gave me a chance when no one else would.”

Clare’s mind flickered to the day she hired him.

She remembered the résumé, the clean competence, the lack of fluff. She remembered how he didn’t sell himself with desperation. He simply presented facts.

Widower. Single father. Gaps in employment that other executives would treat like flaws.

Clare had hired him because she needed someone reliable. Because he was qualified. Because she didn’t have time to waste training a pretty liar.

She hadn’t considered what it might mean to him.

Ethan continued, and his voice grew more personal without becoming sentimental.

“After my wife died,” he said, “I applied everywhere. I kept hearing the same thing, just dressed in different words. They were worried I’d be distracted. Worried I’d need flexibility. Worried I’d be… a complication.”

He swallowed. Clare heard it.

“You didn’t ask about Emily,” he said quietly. “You didn’t ask if I had childcare. You didn’t ask if I’d break under pressure.”

A small, almost bitter laugh. “You just expected me to do the work.”

Clare had built her life on expectations. On demand. On standards so high they made people either rise or run.

She had never thought that could feel like kindness.

Ethan’s voice dropped even lower.

“I tried to quit once,” he admitted. “Got an offer. Better hours. Less pressure.”

Clare remembered that conversation too. She had told him the offer was garbage. That he was worth more. That she didn’t have time to replace him.

At the time, she’d believed she was being practical.

Now, hearing him, she wondered if practicality and care sometimes wore the same outfit.

“I don’t know if you’ll wake up,” Ethan said, and for the first time, his voice cracked like something inside him had given way. “But if you can hear me, I need you to know this.”

He leaned in close enough that Clare could feel his presence like gravity.

“You built your empire on control,” he said. “You didn’t let anyone get close because you thought closeness meant weakness.”

A pause.

“But the truth is,” Ethan whispered, “you’ve been alone for a long time, Clare. And you call it strength because that’s the only way you can live with it.”

The words struck her harder than any flattery could have.

Not because they were cruel.

Because they were accurate.

Clare Whitmore had spent years thinking her loneliness was simply the cost of success, like taxes or gravity. Ethan had named it as a choice. A strategy. A prison she called a fortress.

He touched her hand lightly, just a brief contact, then pulled away as if he was afraid of taking too much space.

“I have to pick Emily up,” he said, voice steadying. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

The door clicked shut behind him.

Clare lay motionless, but inside, she was wide awake in an entirely different way.

---

The days that followed became a parade of truth.

Visitors came in with condolences that sounded like auditions. Board members spoke around her body as if it were already a memorial. Executives from her company came in, leaving flowers and whispered promises, then stepping into the hallway to negotiate their own survival.

She learned quickly which grief was real and which was simply a new costume for ambition.

Richard Crane visited twice more.

The second time, he brought Margaret Hail, and they stood at the foot of the bed like people inspecting property.

“We’ll have to cancel the acquisition,” Richard said. “Too risky. Clare was getting… aggressive.”

Clare remembered Margaret supporting the deal two weeks earlier. She remembered Margaret praising Clare’s “bold vision” with a smile that had never reached her eyes.

Now Margaret’s voice was smooth and neutral. “The market won’t tolerate instability.”

Richard nodded. “We need steady leadership.”

He spoke as if steady meant obedient. As if caution meant never taking a risk unless someone else bled first.

When they left, Clare felt rage collect in her chest, cold and patient.

Not wild rage.

The kind that made plans.

Ethan came every day.

Always late afternoon, after he’d picked Emily up from school and settled her with homework or a neighbor. He never stayed long. He spoke about small things, almost as if he was trying to stitch normal life into the edge of her abnormal one.

“Traffic was awful,” he said one day. “Someone tried to merge like they were the main character.”

Another day he told her Emily had decided she wanted to be a veterinarian because she’d tried to rescue a stray cat behind their apartment building.

“She named it Captain Whiskers,” he said, and Clare could hear the faint smile in his voice. “Which sounds like a cartoon pirate, but Emily insists it’s dignified.”

Clare had worked beside Ethan for years without hearing about his daughter. In the office, he kept his personal life tucked away like a private file.

And Clare had never asked.

Now she listened, and each detail felt like a piece of a person she had never allowed herself to know.

One afternoon, Ethan came in looking like he hadn’t slept.

He sat down hard, rubbing his face with both hands.

“They’re pressuring me,” he said. “They want emails. Files. Anything they can use to claim you were erratic before the crash.”

He exhaled. “They’re building a story.”

He leaned forward, elbows on knees, staring at the floor like the weight of the world had suddenly become very specific.

“Richard says if I cooperate, I’ll be rewarded,” Ethan said. “If I don’t… I’ll be gone.”

His voice tightened. “He mentioned Emily.”

Clare’s rage sharpened into something dangerous.

That was the line Richard had crossed.

Ethan looked up toward Clare’s face, toward her closed eyes, toward the stillness he believed was emptiness.

“I’m scared,” he admitted. “I’m not a boardroom shark. I’m not built like you. I’m just… a guy trying to keep his kid safe.”

A pause.

“But I can’t sign it,” he said. “I can’t lie about you.”

He shook his head as if trying to dislodge the fear. “I’d rather lose my job than teach my daughter that integrity is optional.”

Clare wanted to sit up and tear the ventilator tube out with her own hands. She wanted to walk into the boardroom wearing hospital bruises like armor and remind them what she looked like when she didn’t have power.

But she stayed still.

Because she was still learning.

Because timing was control.

And because she needed to see the full shape of the betrayal before she cut it out.

---

On the morning of the ninth day, the hospital hallway felt different.

Even with her eyes closed, Clare could sense it. The way nurses moved faster. The way voices outside her door carried urgency.

A nurse mentioned to another, “They’re meeting upstairs.”

Clare’s mind latched onto the words like a hook.

Emergency board meeting.

10:00 a.m., she’d overheard earlier. Richard wanted the board close, ready to vote while she lay down the hall like a silent excuse.

Time passed in counted beeps and measured breaths.

Then rapid footsteps approached, too fast, too uneven to belong to anyone calm.

The door swung open hard enough to thump softly against the wall.

Ethan.

He crossed the room like the floor might disappear if he didn’t move quickly enough.

“They moved the vote up,” he said, breathless. “They’re voting now. Richard says we’ve waited long enough.”

He gripped the bed rail, knuckles whitening.

“He wants me in the room,” Ethan said. “Wants me to confirm you show no signs of recovery. Wants my signature on a statement.”

His voice cracked. “If I sign, I keep my job. If I don’t, I’m escorted out. Today.”

A silence followed, thick as smoke.

Ethan leaned closer, shoulders shaking with restrained fury.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I tried to buy you time. I tried to stall him. But he’s already built the narrative. He’s already convinced them.”

He swallowed hard, and when he spoke again, the words sounded like they cost him.

“I don’t know what else to do.”

That was the moment Clare understood she had reached the edge of her experiment.

She had seen enough.

Richard Crane and his allies weren’t waiting for her to die. They were erasing her while she still breathed.

And Ethan, the one person who remained loyal when it didn’t benefit him, was being cornered and threatened with the thing he cared about most.

Clare made her decision.

Her eyelids lifted.

The movement was small, but in a room built on stillness, it was thunder.

Ethan jerked back like someone had snapped a rope near his face. His eyes widened, disbelief and relief colliding so hard he looked almost dizzy.

Clare blinked slowly, letting the light sharpen. Her throat ached around the ventilator tube, the discomfort immediate and brutal.

Ethan hit the call button, voice shaking. “Nurse! Now!”

Clare raised a hand, slower than she wanted, but deliberate. Her fingers wrapped around the tube.

Ethan’s voice turned urgent. “Clare, wait. Let them handle it.”

She had waited nine days.

She pulled.

The tube slid free in one painful motion, a raw scrape that made her vision flare white for a second. She drew in a breath unassisted, ragged but real, the air tasting like metal and freedom.

Her voice came out rough, a whisper that sounded like it had been dragged through gravel.

“Ethan.”

He stared at her as if he couldn’t trust his own eyes.

She swallowed, forcing the next words out with more strength.

“I heard… everything.”

The door burst open. Nurses rushed in. A doctor followed, eyes widening as he took in the impossible scene: their comatose patient sitting up, breathing on her own, speaking.

“What’s your name?” the doctor asked quickly, stepping to her side. “Can you tell me where you are?”

“Clare Whitmore,” she said, voice steadier. “St. Larkspur Private Hospital.”

The doctor blinked, stunned. “How long have you been conscious?”

Clare looked at him, then past him, as if the walls could no longer contain what mattered.

“Nine days,” she said. “And I have a meeting.”

The doctor opened his mouth to argue.

Clare cut him off with a look that reminded everyone in the room who she had always been.

“You can either help me,” she rasped, “or you can step aside.”

A wheelchair appeared. Clare refused it at first, swinging her legs over the bed, standing on muscles that trembled with weakness and fury.

Ethan hovered beside her, hands ready, not touching unless she fell.

“You don’t have to do this,” he whispered.

“Yes,” Clare said, taking her first step. “I do.”

Because this wasn’t just about her company.

It was about what people did when they believed power had disappeared.

And what kind of world that created.

---

The elevator ride to the administrative floor felt like a countdown.

Clare leaned against the wall, breathing through pain, each inhale reminding her how close she’d been to losing everything without ever truly leaving.

When the doors opened, she stepped into a quiet hallway and followed the sound of voices toward the conference room.

Through the glass panel, she saw them.

The board seated around the long table. Richard standing at the head with a stack of papers, confidence in his posture like a crown.

Margaret at his right, composed, watching like someone waiting for the last domino to fall.

Ethan had beaten her there. He stood near the door inside, tense and pale, as if he’d just told them a ghost was coming and they’d laughed.

Richard’s hand was mid-gesture, dismissive.

Then Clare pushed the door open.

Silence slammed into the room.

Every head turned.

Richard’s expression shifted rapidly: irritation, recognition, disbelief, then something thin and sharp that looked like fear wearing a smile.

Margaret’s eyes widened.

David Wells looked like he’d swallowed a coin.

Clare walked in wearing a hospital gown, bare feet, bruises on her arms, and a kind of presence no tailored suit could manufacture.

She moved to the opposite end of the table from Richard and placed both hands on the polished surface.

Her voice was rough, but it carried.

“I’ve been awake,” she said, “for nine days.”

No one spoke.

Clare let the silence stretch, savoring it.

“I heard your condolences,” she continued. “Your concerns. Your plans for my ‘legacy.’”

Her gaze locked on Richard.

“I heard you try to pressure my assistant into falsifying records,” she said. “I heard you threaten his livelihood and mention his daughter.”

Richard recovered enough to straighten. “This is highly irregular,” he said quickly. “Clare, you’re not well. You should be in bed.”

Clare’s eyes narrowed.

“The only thing that’s irregular,” she said, “is watching a man confuse ambition with entitlement.”

Richard’s smile tightened. “The board has a fiduciary duty. The company needs stability.”

Clare’s laugh was short, humorless. “Don’t dress theft in a suit and call it responsibility.”

She turned her gaze to the others, letting them feel the heat of her attention.

“Some of you were misled,” she said. “Some of you were cowards. Some of you were eager.”

David Wells flinched.

Margaret lifted her chin as if composure could erase complicity.

Clare’s voice sharpened. “Any vote taken in my absence will be challenged. Any document fabricated will be audited. Any attempt to remove me using false pretenses will be treated as what it is.”

She looked back to Richard.

“A coup.”

Richard’s face reddened. “You can’t prove that.”

Clare didn’t smile.

“I don’t need to prove you’re ambitious,” she said. “You’ve done that for me.”

Then she shifted, and the room felt it.

“And I don’t need to guess who stood by me,” she said, her gaze moving to Ethan.

Ethan’s eyes were bright, exhausted, disbelieving.

Clare’s voice softened slightly, not into sentiment, but into something rarer: acknowledgment.

“Ethan Brooks refused to sign your lies,” she said to the room. “He refused to help you dismantle what I built. He refused even when you threatened him.”

She inhaled, pain flickering across her face for a moment before she crushed it.

“Effective immediately,” Clare said, “Ethan is promoted to Chief of Staff. Full authority to act on my behalf.”

Ethan’s mouth opened as if to protest, but no words came.

Clare held up a hand. “Don’t,” she said quietly. “Let me finish.”

She turned back to Richard.

“Richard Crane,” she said, “your position on this board is terminated, effective immediately.”

Margaret’s composure cracked. “Clare, you can’t just…”

“I can,” Clare cut in. “And I will.”

Richard scoffed, trying for power he no longer held. “This will be a legal nightmare.”

Clare’s gaze didn’t move.

“Good,” she said. “I’m awake now.”

She pressed a button on the conference table phone, and the line clicked open.

A voice filled the room, unmistakable.

Richard’s voice, from days earlier, smooth and cruel: “If you want to keep your job, you’ll sign. Think about your daughter.”

The room froze.

Margaret’s face drained.

David Wells stared at the table as if it might swallow him.

Ethan’s eyes widened. “How…”

Clare didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze stayed on Richard.

“I asked hospital administration to review security protocols for VIP rooms,” she said calmly. “Because I suspected someone might try something while I was ‘gone.’ Turns out, the hospital records audio for liability in executive suites.”

She let the lie sit there like a loaded weapon. Whether it was fully true didn’t matter as much as the effect.

Richard’s confidence collapsed into fury.

“You set me up,” he hissed.

Clare leaned forward, voice low and lethal.

“No,” she said. “You revealed yourself.”

Richard grabbed his papers with shaking hands, eyes darting around the room, looking for allies and finding only fear.

He stood. “This isn’t over.”

Clare’s voice was quiet.

“It is for you,” she said. “Leave voluntarily, or security walks you out.”

Richard glared, then stormed out, the door slamming behind him with a sound like a chapter ending.

The remaining board members sat in rigid silence.

Clare looked at them.

“We’ll meet again next week,” she said. “When I’m medically cleared and fully functional. Between now and then, you will provide full transparency on any decisions you attempted to make during my incapacitation.”

She paused.

“And you will decide whether you want to be board members,” she added, “or vultures with nameplates.”

Then she turned and walked out.

The moment the door closed behind her, the adrenaline that had carried her through the confrontation began to fade, and her legs trembled.

Ethan caught her elbow gently.

“Wheelchair,” he murmured, no judgment, only practicality.

Clare nodded once, the smallest surrender.

They moved back toward her room, the hallway blurring slightly at the edges.

“You didn’t have to mention Emily,” Ethan said quietly, voice tight.

Clare looked at him. “He did,” she said. “I’m correcting the universe.”

Back in her room, the doctor was waiting, looking relieved and furious, the way professionals do when patients survive and ignore instructions.

“This was reckless,” he scolded.

Clare sank into the bed, exhausted enough to allow it.

“Yes,” she rasped. “But necessary.”

When the staff finished checking her vitals and left them alone, the room softened. Afternoon light slid across the window like a tired hand.

Ethan sat beside her bed again, the same chair, the same position, but the air between them felt different now.

Clare turned her head slightly. “Thank you,” she said.

Ethan shook his head. “I just…”

“No,” Clare said, voice firm despite its weakness. “You didn’t just. You stood still when everyone else moved to take what wasn’t theirs.”

Ethan’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t want her growing up thinking her dad sold his spine for a paycheck.”

Clare’s gaze lingered on him.

“I heard what you said,” she admitted. “About me.”

Ethan went still, like a man caught stepping into a room he didn’t realize was occupied.

Clare didn’t flinch.

“You were right,” she said quietly. “I call it strength because it’s easier than admitting it’s loneliness.”

Ethan stared at his hands for a moment. “I didn’t mean to…”

“I needed to hear it,” Clare interrupted. “And I needed to hear it from someone who wasn’t performing.”

Silence settled, not heavy this time, but almost… clean.

Then Clare asked, “Will you bring Emily to visit? When it’s appropriate.”

Ethan blinked. “You want to meet her?”

Clare’s mouth curved slightly. Not a smile built for cameras. Something smaller.

“She’s been in my room for nine days,” Clare said. “Captain Whiskers too. It seems rude not to introduce myself.”

Ethan let out a breath that sounded like relief turning into laughter.

A week later, when Clare was stronger and no longer tethered to machines, Ethan brought Emily.

Emily was seven, with eyes too observant for her age and a posture that suggested she had learned early how to be brave beside grief. She held a drawing in both hands like it was an offering.

Clare looked at it. A stick-figure woman in a crown, lying in a bed, surrounded by tiny hearts and what appeared to be a cat with an eyepatch.

Emily looked up at Clare and said, “Dad said you’re scary, but in a good way.”

Ethan’s face went red. “Emily.”

Clare laughed, real and unpolished.

“I am scary,” Clare admitted. “But I’m working on the ‘good way’ part.”

Emily studied her for a moment, then stepped closer and placed the drawing carefully on the blanket.

“This is for you,” she said. “So you don’t forget to wake up again.”

Clare felt something twist in her chest, sharp and warm at the same time.

“I won’t,” she promised.

Later that month, Clare returned to Whitmore Industries.

She didn’t do it with a triumphant speech or a press tour. She did it with quiet changes that mattered more than headlines.

She restructured the board. Added independent oversight. Removed the kind of people who treated loyalty like a tool rather than a bond. She launched a scholarship program for single parents returning to the workforce, not because it made a good story, but because she now understood what one chance could do.

And in the executive suite, something else shifted.

Clare still demanded excellence. Still spoke with precision. Still refused to be soft in a way that invited knives.

But she started learning a different kind of strength.

The kind that didn’t require isolation to survive.

One evening, months later, she stayed late at the office, signing documents while the city lights glittered like scattered coins outside her windows.

Ethan knocked softly and stepped in. “You promised Emily you’d come to her school play,” he reminded.

Clare didn’t look up. “I don’t do plays.”

“You do now,” Ethan said, calm as gravity.

Clare paused, pen hovering.

Then she set it down.

She stood.

And for perhaps the first time in her life, she let work wait while she went to keep a promise to a child who had drawn her a crown and reminded her waking up mattered.

On the way out, she stopped in the hallway and looked at Ethan.

“You know,” she said, voice thoughtful, “I thought power was the only thing that kept people loyal.”

Ethan raised an eyebrow.

Clare continued, “Turns out fairness buys more devotion than fear ever did.”

Ethan’s smile was small. “Welcome to the human race, Clare.”

Clare exhaled, almost amused.

“Don’t get used to it,” she warned, but there was less steel in it than before.

And when they stepped into the elevator together, Clare realized something that would have terrified her a year earlier.

She wasn’t alone.

Not because she had more power.

But because she had finally learned how to see the people who were still there when the power disappeared.

THE END