Tangled in Moonlight: Unshifted - Chapter 193

Chapter 193: Ava: Mom’s Legacy (VI)
Vanessa glances toward Mom’s vitals, reported in real time by a monitor by her bed. “Everything looks good. Selene, do your thing.”

Selene pads to the hospital bed, leaving me behind.

There’s absolutely no sound or thought inside my head, and it startles me. I’d assumed that I would somehow be a part of this process; that I would hear my wolf reaching out to my mother’s.

Instead, I strain to hear even the slightest whisper, with no result.

Seconds stretch into minutes, and still, Selene remains motionless, her ice-blue eyes fixed on my mother’s frail form. The steady beep of the heart monitor is a metronome, a silent and rhythmic mark of time passing.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Selene shakes herself from nose to tail. Her voice echoes in my mind, a gentle caress against my frayed nerves. Her wolf has cooperated as much as she can.

A wave of relief washes over me, loosening the knot of anxiety in my chest. It’s not much, but it’s something. A small victory.

But the respite is short-lived. Selene’s tone shifts, becoming somber and weighted with unspoken implications. Your mother doesn’t know as much as we hoped, but what she does know is enough to worry me.

Her wolf won’t talk to anyone else. Her mental voice is tinged with a hint of frustration. But she’s very happy to hear you have a wolf of your own, Ava.

My mother’s wolf, who I’ve always imagined as a distant, uncaring entity, is pleased by my connection to Selene?

That’s a twist I never saw coming.

Selene’s next words, however, steal the breath from my lungs. It’s a tiny bandaid over the thousands of wounds of a lifetime spent under my mother’s rule.

She loves you like her own pup, Ava. And she’s so very sorry for everything you’ve been through.

Tears sting my eyes and blur my vision as I stare at my mother’s sleeping form. The machines continue their steady rhythm, oblivious to the emotional turmoil her words have brought.

How can my mother’s wolf claim to love me when my own mother has only ever shown me cruelty and disdain?

“Then why?” I whisper, my voice cracking under the weight of years of pain and rejection. “Why didn’t she ever intervene? Why didn’t she fight for my happiness?”

As if in response to my anguished plea, my mother’s eyelids flutter open, her gaze seeking mine. But instead of the familiar cold blue, her irises are rimmed with a golden haze.

This is not Grace Grey.

This is her wolf.

“I’m sorry,” she rasps, her voice barely audible over the hum of the machines. “I wasn’t strong enough to keep you safe, my pup.”

Tears spill down my cheeks, hot and bitter, as I watch her eyes drift closed once more, her features slackening into the peaceful repose of medicated slumber.

A moment.

Just a moment.

All I’d wanted was to see my mother’s face once again soft with love.

Hear her voice, telling me she loved me.

And now—I have it.

From a source I never expected.

All these years, I’d assumed that my mother’s wolf was just as cruel and uncaring as she was. I never once separated them in my head.

Now, faced with this glimpse of remorse, I find myself questioning everything I thought I knew.

Vanessa’s hand on my shoulder startles me from my reverie, her touch a gentle reminder of the present. Her eyes are on the monitor, and it takes me a second and a lot of blinking to clear my vision enough to see what she’s seeing.

Numbers are going down.

“She’s going.”

Her heart beat plummets.

95.

92.

87.

83.

69.

53.

Down and down it goes.

A soft, wet rattle comes out of her, and Vanessa squeezes my shoulder. “That’s normal.”

Every breath she takes has that sound, like she’s trying to breathe with water filling her lungs and phlegm in her throat.

But her face never changes.

Peaceful.

Quiet.

Weathered and worn, a ghost of the woman in my memories.

The numbers fall in a dizzying spiral, each one a step closer to the inevitable. Alarms blare, a cacophony of sound that pierces the stillness of the room. But Vanessa moves with a practiced ease, silencing them one by one.

“She’s DNR, Ava. Do not resuscitate. There’s nothing left to do.”

Her words are gentle, but they hit me like a punch to the gut. Do not resuscitate. The finality of it, the shocking end, is… crazy.

I didn’t know she was this close.

I’m not even sure how much I care.

A doctor and nurse slip into the room, their presence a silent acknowledgment of what’s to come. They take their places by the bed, their eyes fixed on the monitors, watching as the numbers continue their relentless descent.

Vanessa and the doctor exchange a glance, a silent communication passing between them. A polite nod, a shared understanding of the gravity of the moment.

And then, it happens.

No heart rate, and a red alarm blaring ASYSTOLE in capital letters, alerting us all to what we already know.

Just like that, she’s gone.

My mother, the woman who gave me life, who shaped me in ways I’m still trying to understand, is dead.

I stare at her still form, numb with shock. It’s surreal, the way death comes so quietly, so quickly. One moment she’s here. In the next, she’s not.

The doctor moves to her side, his fingers pressing against her neck, searching for a pulse that’s no longer there. He listens to her lungs, the stethoscope moving across her chest in a practiced motion.

“Time of death?” he asks, his voice low and somber.

The nurse glances at her watch, the dim light of the room glinting off its face. “11:47 p.m.”

The doctor nods, stepping back from the bed. “Time of death, 11:47 pm.”

The nurse taps away on her tablet, her fingers flying across the screen as she documents the moment. It feels strange, reducing the end of a life to a few taps on a screen.

The doctor turns to me, his eyes filled with sympathy. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he says, his voice gentle.

I nod, the words sticking in my throat. “Thank you,” I manage, my voice sounding distant and foreign to my own ears.

As the doctor and nurse leave the room, I catch snippets of their conversation, their voices low and hushed.

“Such a shame,” the nurse murmurs. “To end like this…”

The doctor nods, his reply too low for me to hear.

And then, they’re gone, leaving me alone with Vanessa and the shell of the woman who was once my mother.

Vanessa’s hand finds my shoulder, a gentle touch that grounds me in the moment. “Are you okay?” she asks, her voice soft with concern.

I shake my head, the movement feeling slow and sluggish. “I don’t know,” I admit, my voice barely above a whisper. “I have no idea how to feel.”

As I stand here staring at the lifeless form of the woman who brought me into this world, I’m lost. Adrift in a sea of emotions that I can’t even begin to name.

Grief, anger, relief, guilt… they all swirl together, indistinguishable from one to the next.

“Did I do this? Did I kill her because I wanted to talk to her wolf?”

She shake her head. “No. She was ready to go. We had another day, maybe two, at most.”

I want to ask why she didn’t tell me that, but I don’t.

There’s a strange sense of emptiness. A void where my mother once was, a space that I’m not sure can ever be filled.

Selene’s cold nose startles me out of my paralyzed state, brushing against the back of my hand.

It’s okay to not know how to feel, she whispers in my mind. Grief is complicated, and your relationship with her was even more so.

My fingers tangle in her fur as I try to anchor myself in the present. All I can do is breathe. To let the reality of my mother’s death wash over me, to feel the weight of it settle into my bones.

Vanessa brushes a hand against my shoulder. “Let’s go, Ava,” she murmurs, her voice soft and understanding. “You’ve been through enough for one night.”

I nod, swallowing past the lump in my throat, and allow her to guide me from the room. Selene follows close behind.

As we make our way through the quiet hospital corridors, my mind churns with unanswered questions and conflicting emotions. My mother’s wolf’s apology echoes in my ears, a bittersweet melody that both soothes and stings.

For now, as I step out into the cool night air, I allow myself a moment to breathe and for my tears to fall.