Chapter 181

~ Franklin ~

The first thing I felt was warmth. It wasn’t the searing, localized heat of inflammation or the sticky dampness of blood, but a soft, golden radiance that seemed to soak into my very bones. The relentless, rhythmic pounding of the Amazonian rain had vanished, replaced by a silence so profound it felt like a physical embrace. I didn’t feel the suffocating weight of the canopy or the jagged edges of broken metal pressing into my skin.

I was home.

I opened my eyes, and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe. The ceiling above me was white, clean, and familiar—the intricate crown molding of my bedroom at the estate. There was no smoke, no scent of jet fuel, only the faint, comforting aroma of expensive linen and the lingering trace of Octavia’s perfume. I let out a long, shuddering exhale, my body sinking into the impossible softness of the mattress beneath me.

"See? I told you that you would be fine."

My heart didn’t just skip; it stopped. I turned my head slowly, terrified that even the slightest movement would shatter the vision. She was there. Octavia was sitting beside me on the bed, her skin gleaming under the soft morning light that filtered through the curtains. She looked like an angel. No, better—she looked real.

"Octavia?" I rasped, my voice sounding more like myself than it had in days.

She smiled—that small, guarded smile that always made me want to move mountains just to see it turn into a laugh. She reached out, her fingers warm and solid as she cupped my cheek. "I’m glad you’re finally back," she whispered.

I leaned into her hand, closing my eyes as her thumb brushed over my skin. I reached up to hold her wrist, anchoring myself to her.

"You’re really here," I murmured, a lump forming in my throat.

"Of course I am, silly. Where else would I be?"

I opened my eyes and searched hers, desperate to find even a hint of the resentment that had lived there during our last argument. It was gone.

I felt a sudden, sharp pang of guilt. "I thought...I thought I’d lost you. I thought I wouldn’t get to fix what I broke."

"You didn’t," she said, her expression softening into something heartbreakingly tender. "But you almost did."

The words carried a weight that made my chest ache. "I swear, Octavia, I was coming back. For you, for Grandpa, for everything. I was going to make it right."

"Franklin," she cut through my frantic apologies, her voice both gentle and firm. "I know. What matters is that you are here now. You’re safe."

We fell into a heavy, comfortable silence. I watched the way the sunlight caught the gold in her eyes. "I needed you, Franklin," she said, so quietly I almost missed it.

"I’m sorry I failed you," I whispered.

She didn’t answer immediately. She just looked at me with a profound, aching intensity. "Don’t ever leave me again."

"I won’t. I promise."

"Mr. Flemington?"

The voice didn’t belong to her. It was strange, distorted, and echoed with a hollow, metallic ring. I frowned, looking around the pristine room. "Octavia?"

"Mr. Flemington? Please, wake up!" 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

The sunlight flickered. The white walls began to bleed green and gray. Suddenly, I couldn’t feel Octavia’s touch. My hand was grasping at empty air.

"Octavia! No! Wait!"

I lunged for her, but she was slipping away like smoke in a gale. The warmth vanished, replaced by a sudden, violent chill that rattled my teeth. The silence shattered into a thousand pieces as the sound of the rain returned—louder, colder, and more vicious than before.

My eyes snapped open, and the ceiling was no longer white. It was the jagged, rusted underbelly of the fuselage. I wasn’t home. I was in a tomb.

A guttural groan of pure disappointment and agony tore from my throat as reality crashed back into me. The pain in my right leg hit with the force of a hammer, a brutal reminder of the infection and the trauma. I wasn’t safe. I wasn’t forgiven. I was still dying in the dirt.

"No," I breathed, my head lolling back against the cold metal. "No..."

Everything felt heavier now. The air was thick with the smell of rot and wet earth. Through the haze of my blurred vision, a face appeared above mine. It wasn’t Octavia. It was Raquel.

She looked terrible—pale, her skin streaked with mud and blood, her eyes wide with a frantic kind of terror. "You need to stay with me! Mr Flemington, do you hear me?"

I blinked, trying to clear the fog. "Raquel? You’re...you’re awake?"

"Barely. What happened? Where are we?" Her voice trembled, her Spanish accent thick with shock.

"The plane...it went down," I managed to say, my throat feeling like it was lined with glass. I swallowed hard, looking toward the cockpit. "Ian and Captain Harris...they didn’t make it."

The silence that followed was more devastating than the storm. Raquel’s eyes filled with tears, and she let out a broken, strangled sob. "No... no."

"I’m sorry," I whispered.

"I tried...I tried to reach them, but I couldn’t."

She pressed a trembling hand to her forehead, trying to steady herself. Then, her eyes dropped to my leg. She gasped, her face going a shade paler. "Oh my God. You’re bleeding out, Mr. Flemington."

"I’m fine," I muttered, but even I could hear the lie.

"You are not fine!" she snapped, the panic in her voice sharpening into focus. She moved with frantic urgency, tearing at the makeshift cloth I had tied. It was a grisly sight—the blood was dark and pulsing too fast.

She tore a strip of fabric from her own sleeve, pressing it firmly against the wound. I hissed through my teeth, my jaw clenching so hard I thought my molars might crack. A low, animal groan escaped my lips despite my best efforts to stay silent.

"Hold on! Just stay with me, please!" she begged. Her hands moved with practiced speed as she tightened the new tourniquet. The pressure was agonizing, but as it held, my breathing slowed just enough to keep me from slipping back into the dark.

"Did you kill a snake?" she asked suddenly, her eyes darting toward the edge of our small shelter.

I followed her gaze to where the pit viper lay, its head crushed and its body cold. "Yeah," I grunted.

She looked back at me, her expression shifting from terror to a quiet, profound understanding. "You saved me. Thank you."

I didn’t have the strength for words. I only gave a slight, weary nod.

The rain softened into a steady, rhythmic drizzle. Raquel leaned back against the wreckage, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. "We need to get out of here," she said after a long silence.

"Not yet," I whispered. "We should stay by the wreckage. If they send a search party, this is the only thing they’ll be able to spot from the air."

"That is if they are looking for us," she added.

I didn’t answer. I knew the statistics. In a canopy this dense, finding a needle in a haystack was easier than finding a downed jet. I didn’t know if the board had already written me off. I didn’t know if Octavia even knew where to start looking.

And then, I heard it.

It was faint—a low, rhythmic thrumming that was almost lost beneath the sound of the dripping leaves.

Raquel’s head snapped up. "Did you hear that?"

I strained to listen, my heart hammering against my ribs. It was a hum, distant and mechanical, but it was real. It was unmistakable.

"...helicopter," I whispered.

Raquel’s eyes widened, a flicker of raw, desperate hope igniting in them. "Do you think it’s them?"

I didn’t answer because I was too busy praying. The sound grew slightly louder, then seemed to drift, teasing us with its instability. I forced my eyes open, scanning the sliver of sky visible through the broken branches.

"Come on," I muttered, my voice a desperate plea. "Look down. Look down..."

Raquel pushed herself up, her eyes searching the endless green above. We sat in a stifling silence, two ghosts in a graveyard of metal, waiting for life to find us. The sound hovered in the distance—close enough to break our hearts if it turned away, and far enough to feel like another cruel dream.

If they didn’t see us now, there wouldn’t be a next time. I looked at the dead snake, then at Raquel, and finally at the ring on my finger.

Don’t let me leave her like this.