MALLORY HAD HEARD MANY STORIES of people dying and then coming back to life. Before now, she'd dismissed them as mere superstitions, false stories, as evidence of man's desire to ease the painful reality of death. Yet here she was, as living proof of the veracity of those stories, once dead and now alive. She knew she was dead because she'd felt it, that nothingness, that inexplicable, elusive abyss, and she'd also felt what it was like to rouse out of it, to burst out of the surface of unconsciousness and be overwhelmed by such eruptions of joy that she almost jumped out of her bed to dance and dance her way back to death.

And she would have, sure enough, if the creepy doctor hadn't pulled her back. She thought him creepy because there was something indeed creepy about waking up to meet the smiling face of a man you hardly knew, and even creepier about hearing him say, "congratulations, you were dead and now you're alive."

"Now I need you to stay put for a while. You're still quite delicate. I'm going to check your pulse and your breathing. How do you feel? Any palpitations, any bodily malfunctions?" He was drawing pieces of equipment she'd never set her eyes all over her.

But all she could think about was the pain that imbued her all body. All she thought about was the scorching heat she'd felt in the fire, the darkness. Jason.

Jason.

"Where's he?" Mallory asked, nearly climbing off the bed. "I need to see him. I need to see—"

"You need to stay here, miss," the doctor demanded. "Last thing we need is for someone to die on our account. Your step-mom and your boyfriend's mother are on their way. Just stay put."

Mallory felt the heat spread onto her cheeks when he said boyfriend's mother. There was a pride she got from hearing him believe that Jason was her boyfriend, that they were together. Fear overwhelmed her features again. She had to know if he was okay. She had to—

"I need to see him!"

The doctor sighed. "For the last time miss, you do not need to see your boyfriend. He's in another ward. He's doing fine. You don't need to worry about him. Now, all you need to do is breathe and try not to die. Because there's no saving you again if you do again."

Mallory looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"Well, how you made it alive is still a miracle to most of us. Your burns were lethal, they ate through most of your arteries to the extent that we thought there was nothing we could do again. The surgery did nothing to help matters, and just when we thought it was over, well, here you are. Breathing and undead. It makes me almost want to believe that miracles do happen."

Mallory smiled widely at him. She was one in a million. She was part of the one per cent that died and then roused back to life, that had the opportunity to experience life again. But something still bugged her.

"How did I get out of the fire?"

He scribbled something on his clipboard. "Some fire-fighters got to you. Your boyfriend protected you. He shielded you with his body. He, on the other hand. There's no saying that he'd ever fully recover."

"What?"

The doctor stood up from her and looked away. "Look, that's as far as I can tell you. I don't want to add more to your burdens."

"What happened to him?" Mallory yelled. "What?"

The doctor only looked at her with pity. He stared down at his watch. "Good, your family is here. I've got to bring them in."

Could he have been any more obvious in his deflection? She began to make up different possibilities about what could have happened to him. She was completely attuned to her anxious thoughts, so attuned she hadn't realised when Susan had walked into the room.

"Mal!" Susan yelled.

Mallory nearly fell off the bed with the jolt of her exclamation. She ran towards Mallory and hugged her tightly until Mallory yelled for her to stop. The burns were still raw and fresh.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she apologised over and over again. "I'm just. I can't believe I'm seeing you right now. I thought you were dead. I really thought you were—"

"What difference would it have made?" Mallory asked. She was disgusted by Susan's fake show of concern. "Please, Susan. We both know you don't give a flying crap about me. If anything, you'd be happy to see me dead."

"How can you—how would you say such a thing?" Susan's face turned into a mask of hurt. "If you had died, I would have died too Mal. Believe it or not, I love you."

"Well, I'm sorry but it's hard to believe, considering you were the person who.."

"Do we need to rehash that again?" Susan asked. "Look, Mal, I know I wasn't the best mother or stepmother—whichever suits you well—and I regret every single terrible thing I did to you. But you have to understand that I'm trying to make an effort to rectify my mistakes. I'm trying to get to know you. I'm trying, Mal."

Mallory almost retched at the sincerity on her face. The thing was, she wasn't ready to forgive Susan. She liked hating her. It had grown on her. It had become part of her identity to hate Susan Wells with everything, and to let go of that, was to let go of a part of herself.

"Thank you for the flowers, Susan," Mallory said. The Translation was, "get out of my room."

Susan began to rise up from her bed. She paused to look back at Mallory. "When will you stop hating me?"

"When a million years go by, Susan Wells. But I suppose that would never happen, would it? Because we'd both the dead. What do you think would happen? You think I don't know you're leveraging on this moment to get my forgiveness. I might have gone through flames, Susan, but my brain is still intact. I'm not forgiving you."

Susan shrugged. She smiled. "I know it'd take time, but let's skip that for a moment. How are you fairing? I know Cole's death really took a big toll on—"

"Look, look. I don't want to talk about Cole right now." Mallory breathed out loud. She was intentionally deflecting on that specific subject Susan had brought. She didn't want to think about him. He'd been the reason she'd nearly died in the fire. He'd been the reason she wanted to die. But after seeing his prideful apparition in the fire, her grief was slightly allayed. But there was still grief. There was enough grief to last a lifetime.

"And don't make this about me, Susan. You also lost him. Wasn't he your boyfriend the last time I checked?"

Susan looked at the ring on her finger. She smiled down at it. "And he would've been my husband if only he'd lived a week longer. I had enough time to grieve, Mal. I was with him all summer, staying by his side during the whole cancer process—"

"Well if you came to rub it in my face about how much of a terrible daughter I was, you're accomplished. I know I wasted time I could've spent with him chasing vanity, Susan. Chasing stardom. Wasting my time in the same organisation that landed me where I am today. I'm so freaking stupid and naïve, I know."

Susan smiled. She was doing that a lot. "I was going to say that Cole told me to tell you he loved you. He knew you would blame yourself for losing time with him." Susan took Mallory's hand. "You were the best thing that ever happened to Cole, Mallory. The version of Jane he could never have, the better version. He found his peace by fathering you."

Tears spilt from Mallory's eyes. "And yet he would be here if I hadn't taken that stupid offer from William from day one. Don't try to convince me that all this isn't my fault, Susan. I know it is. Cole's death is all my fault. William's death is all my fault, and only God knows what happened to Jason, but whatever it is, it's probably my fault too."

Susan sighed. "Probably."

"Well, that's comforting..."

"But you have time to make things right again. To rectify your mistakes. That's all you can do."

Mallory smiled weakly at Susan. She was different from the Susan she knew, worlds different. She had depth in her words now. She had warmth in her bearing. Loving Cole had changed her.

"I'm glad my father met you," Mallory said. "Thank you for being by his side all this while, Susan."

She got up from Mallory's bed. "Sure thing."

"Please, tell me she's awake now." Diana stormed into Mallory's room, carrying an ice bag and a box of chocolates. Locking gazes with Mallory, she stopped deadpan, the biggest smile etched on her face. She ran towards Mallory without hesitation, and if not for the backrest behind her, she would have toppled over with the forcefulness of Diana's hug. Mallory hugged her tighter.

Diana rose her head. There were tears hanging at the base of her eyes, tears Mallory thought she'd never ever see treading on Diana Gilbert's face. Who knew she was as capable as any other human of crying.

"You've got a little something in your eyes," Mallory said, touching her face to demonstrate. "I refuse to believe it's what I think it is."

Diana rolled her eyes. "Of course they aren't tears, Mal, but hey they actually are, but onion tears, not tears for you. I could never cry for you, never shed a tear for something as abhorrent as Mallory Trent, not even if she walked through flames and became the human version of a cooked turkey, not even if she almost died," Diana said, sarcasm underlying her tone. "I could never shed a tear for her."

"That's the Diana I know." Mallory smiled at her. She hugged her again. They'd been through hell and back this last summer. They hated and come to love each other. They'd fought for each other. At least Diana did. Mallory would give the world to have Diana, her sister, by her side for eternity.

"Here," she handed Mallory the ice pack and the box of cholates, "I was going to eat the chocolates if you didn't make it alive. For a moment there, I hoped you actually died. I mean, have you tasted the cinammon chocolate, it's heaven..."

Mallory laughed. She looked all around her. If someone had said these people would become her family; Diana Gilbert, the girl she'd spent an entire summer hating, and Susan Wells, the woman she'd rather die than to be in a room with, she would've laughed in their faces and called them delusional. But here she was, after all, in a room full of people she'd thought she'd rather not be with. But now, staying with them, she felt like she was home.

At least, almost...

"Have you by any chance seen Jason, around here?" Mallory asked. "I asked the doctor, and he was all weird about it. I thought—" she stopped when she noticed they were being weird about it to. Susan refused to maintain eye contact and Diana fiddled nervously with the sheets.

Something was definitely wrong with him.

"If something's wrong with him, you have to tell me!"

Diana sighed. "Look, Mallory. You literally just came back for the dead. If anything, you should be resting and not worrying about your lover-boy. I mean, when are you guys going to get together, already, it's been all summer, geez"

Mallory was about to respond to Diana's snide remark, before it struck her that it was a distraction to shift her train of thought from him. All this family bonding was just a distraction, an abstraction from whatever terrible thing had happened to Jason. Fear, anger, betrayal dulled out her sense, and all she could think about was killing Susan and Diana, but she channelled all those emotions into a more worthwhile one instead. Her unmatchable love for Jason. Her unrelenting desire to find him. She owed that to him, after everything he'd done to save her worthless self.

"I'm sorry," Mallory said, to all of them.

Confusion eluded their expressions. "Sorry for what?"

"For this." Mallory jumped off the bed, in spite of the excruciating pain rippling through her body. She knocked Diana off the bed and pushed Susan towards the wall. Then, she pulled out the key she'd managed to steal from the creepy doctor while he wasn't looking, walked out of the room, and locked them all in.

"I'm sorry," she mouthed to herself.

She was sorry for what she'd do to anyone who would stop her from seeing Jason now.

She was sorry that she might have to kill them.