This is it. This is the final chapter.

Nya's P.O.V.

"I've been waiting for you." The thousand voices whisper.

I am not anywhere. I am floating. I am a shadow, I am a demon, I am a victim and a broken promise and I am dangerous.

I'm simply in the Darkness. And the Darkness is in me.

It took me instead.

"It's time for you to fulfill your destiny, your true destiny, Nya."

It knows my name. The Darkness knows my name. The Darkness knows.

"It's time for you to see the truth."

The ring floats in front of my face.

No. I took it off. I freed myself from that prison. I'm not going back.

"You know you want it."

I can't help but stare at the triangle of bone. It's beautiful.

"Take the ring, Nya. Just let yourself have that power again. You know how good it feels. It will help you."

I want it. I want it. I. Want. It.

It's like Cole. The damned thing causes me nothing but anguish and yet it pulls me in like I'm connected to it. I would do anything to escape the attraction but it's no use. No matter how hard I try to leave, to kill Cole, to destroy the ring, I can't. So wrong, so right. I love the ring. I love Cole. I disgust myself. I hate myself.

I take the ring.

"Good girl. Not for long." The Darkness chuckles to itself.

I slip the ring in my pocket. Safe and sound.

"Oh, just forget this little conversation. Forget me, at least for now." The voices are fading now. The darkness is transforming to light.

"Go. Go and face what he did. And remember-"

I'm almost free of the Darkness, but a final shadow breathes to me,

"He's not sorry."

******************************************

The light hurts.

        Really, every part of me is in pain. It's a dull ache in some places, a screeching agony in others. I feel drained, every bit of moisture, every tiny sliver of energy gone. My fingers, toes, hell, my hands and feet are numb.

I take a breath.

That hurts, too, against my throat, raw and dry. In my chest, tight and crushed.

What happened?

The spell. I did the spell.

I took off the ring.

And then...

What?

       I know that something, something important, took place between then and now, but I don't know what it is or why it's important or why I even need to know. I am alive.

          Tentatively, I open one eye against the brightness. The room is bathed in daylight, streaming through the windows. I haven't seen the sun for days, weeks, months, years. I don't know if I deserve it.

          The floor around me is still splintered and bloodstained, but throughout the rest of the training room the floorboards are smooth and undamaged, shiny even. Somehow I sit up, sending pain through every part of me, and from my vantage point I see that the wreckage surrounding me is in the shape of an equilateral triangle. Of course. I don't like looking at the triangle of destruction. I also don't like looking at my own legs, which ooze blood from cuts I don't remember getting, and seem more bone than anything else. The sight makes me nauseous. I decide it's better to close my eyes than look at the world.

         I know that I made things right with the reversal spell. Through my haze I hear familiar tones, I catch my brother's voice over the mumbles and it makes me feel safe. Kai is here, Kai can protect me. I don't know what exactly I need protection from, but just as strong as my feeling of happiness that my family is back is a sense of dread. Something bad is in this room, and it's going to hurt me. And so, I should be standing up and running to my friends, hugging them and glowing with the ecstasy of it all. I should at least let them know I'm here. It just seems impossible.

        My eyes are shut against it. It's too much, it's all too much. I'm still sitting because now that I'm here, I don't want to throw away my hard work and lay back down. At some point I will have to sit up again and then where will I be? So here I am, and my fingers are digging into my ankles, and my eyes are squeezed shut, and I think I must be in some sort of shock because I can't stop shaking even though I'm not cold. At least I don't think I am. Now my hands and feet aren't numb but maybe the rest of me is.

        I should be happy. I should run into my brother's arms and let him baby me and I should ask for oatmeal and hugs and movies and hot chocolate with marshmallows, but I am far too old for that. A decade and six years going on a century. I should be crying from joy that's supposed to fill me, not the sadness that's still here. Why am I still devastated? Why can't I smile and why are the tears coming so fast? My thoughts are not rational no no no no no no no I need help. If they are alive then why am I crying like they're still dead? I'm slippery, so why can I not slip out from the weight that's crushing me? Why? Why? Why? Why? I want to make a sound but I can't. I can't feel my fingers again and I can't breathe and this isn't how it's supposed to be. I'm supposed to be okay now. Life is supposed to go back to the way it was before, when the only worries I had were finishing my training so I could get out of the autumnal chill and not letting anyone know my feelings. I want to be reversed like everyone else. I want to be okay.

But I know that no matter how hard I try to be myself again, I can never be normal.

      This feels like wearing the ring. When I had it on, it seemed I had no control over myself, except instead of being filled with immense power, so strong and weightless, I'm being crushed, I'm drowning, I'm choking. And though they're alive, all I see of my friends are their dead eyes and their blood and I am not okay.

Luckily, there's something that reaches me through the veil of my own despair.

That thing is a voice. A voice that says one word in one way that I will never tire of.

"Nya."

Jay.

It's Jay.

      I open my eyes and through my tears I see him. He tries to stand, fails, accepts the hand offered by Kai, and uses it as a kind of launching pad. Jay shoves through the others like they don't mean anything, and he rushes toward me.

       I barely have time to unfurl myself before we collide, and everything else stops. He's solid. He's real. I feel Jay's shoulder blades through his shirt, the softness of the skin on his neck and his fluffy hair, I smell that special Jay scent of lemon and spearmint and gear oil still present in his auburn hair, I see the freckles dotted on his cheeks, now flushed with life, and his beautiful eyes. I'm shaking, shaking so much it's passed to Jay through my fingertips, and it's Jay, Jay is alive. Not dead not dead not dead at all. He's here and I'm touching him, I'm touching Jay's cheeks, cupping his chin in my palms. He's brushing the tears from my face and staring at me with his big eyes the color of the sky outside, a blue so unclouded that it seems wrong for pain to be there, and yet it still is. Jay says my name again and again, "Nya, Nya, Nya, Nya, Nya, Nya, Nya..." and I say nothing.

I kiss Jay.

     It effectively silences him when I press my mouth to his, except for the small squeak that escapes from deep inside. I get an electric shock for my actions but Jay's lips stop moving because they lock with mine.

      It's electrifying, like 200 volts suddenly flowing into my bloodstream, a dangerous voltage, one that could end up killing me. I've survived so much though, and with the energy running through me in a current, the rapid beat of my heart as it drums against my ribs, I know that this is what it means to be alive.

         My senses seem to have heightened-I'm aware of how warm Jay's lips are, pressed against mine, the buzz of static passing between us, my hands trembling, holding on tight so that he won't leave me alone like he did before. This time Jay is staying. This time I am never letting him go.

        Our lips separate, and I find myself gasping for air. I don't know who pulled away, me or him, and uncertainties flood my mind, causing my breaths to come even quicker. Jay is delicate, like glass under my touch, so fragile I feel uneasy, nervous I might break him. I did things to get him back, things that have ruined me forever. I have been touched by darkness, and I wonder if he can feel that. Jay can't love someone like me, not anymore. He loved the Nya that I used to be, but I can't be her again.

     Jay stares at me for a second, taking me in. His eyes travel my face, inspecting every curve and ridge and line, meeting mine. And in this moment I know that he knows I did something horrible, and he knows I am changed. But he doesn't say anything, because if I have changed then so has he.

      He should get away from me because I am nothing but a shattered girl, and he might get cut by one of my shards. He should stay away because I am broken beyond repair, and no amount of superglue can fix this. The old Jay would have been careful.

This new Jay leans in and kisses me back.

     Love. It's dangerous, and painful, and unpredictable, and frightening. More often than not, it ends up with someone getting hurt. Love. The thing that ruined my life, the thing that saved it. Love. The most powerful force in the world. Love.

I wouldn't trade it for anything else.

     I hold onto Jay, gripping his shoulders, pulling him so close I can feel the frenzied beat of his heart, a heart that's been broken and put back together and ripped and hurt and crushed so many times it seems impossible that it's still pounding in his chest. My own heart's palpitation thrums in my ears and my blood is buzzing. Jay's arms are encircling my waist and whenever his fingers brush my skin it sends a wave of feverish warmth through my entire body. When I kissed Cole it was cold and powerful. As I kiss Jay I feel the weakness. His weakness being fear and mine being him. The movement of our lips is fervent and filled with the same desperation I had trying to save Jay's life, when I told him I needed him and it was the truth. It is the truth.

We cling to each other, and I don't ever want to let go.

I love Jay.

***********************************************************

Third Person P.O.V.

Nobody saw Cole.

He hoped it would stay that way.

Cole had kept out of sight, practically crawling across the floor, sinking into a corner and wishing that he could be a shadow. So he stayed there and stared.

When Nya kissed Jay, the entire room grew silent.

Zane blinked in surprise.

Pixal nodded in assent.

Lloyd stared with a mixture of disgust and fascination.

Skylor smiled with satisfaction.

Kai frowned with disapproval.

Cole saw.

When the two broke apart, the audience held their collected breath.

And when Jay kissed Nya, the whispers started.

"I did not see that coming." Zane admitted, his eyebrows raised as he surveyed the scene.

Pixal pursed her metal lips. "My scans suggested that it may happen. Often, after two people have experienced a traumatic event together, they find each other as a source of comfort."

Skylor snorted. "Traumatic event? Nah, I say they hooked up after Kai croaked and now they're just picking up where they left off."

Kai growled and fought his urge to smack Skylor.

"We all just died, Skylor. Perhaps if you showed a little more empathy..." Zane trailed off when he saw Skylor's nonplussed expression. It was really no use.

Lloyd tilted his head slightly. "I think his tongue just went in her mouth!" he reported, wrinkling his nose.

Kai took a deep breath. "This is not okay," the spiky-haired teen said shakily, "this is not okay at all."

"Loosen up, they probably did more than some little kisses while you were dead."

"Shut up, Skylor." Lloyd had none of Kai's qualms about smacking the redhead.

"Ow! I was just being honest!"

"Cole killed us all and all my sister is thinking about is kissing? Kissing JAY, no less? This isn't a romance movie people! This is real life! She watched me die, people! Die!" Kai pulled up the bottom of his shirt, revealing a few words, as proof. "Real bad things happened and they're just-agh-" Kai waved his arms in the general direction of the pair. His hair was smoking.

"Shouldn't they be breathing?" Lloyd was back to studying the kiss. He seemed in too much of a shock from the events of the morning to do anything else. "It's like they're dolphins or something! Dolphins hold their breath for a really long time, right, Kai?"

Kai didn't hear.

"They probably had a lot of practice all alone for who knows how long..." Skylor had moved on from Lloyd's smack, not her 'theory'.

"We do not even know what events transpired from our deaths to now. This brings up the question of Cole. Does anyone know what happened to him? Last time we heard, he was terrorizing us. That does not leave much time for romance, Skylor." Zane reprimanded.

"Puh-lease! Fear is perfect for intimacy! It's the rules of horror movies!"

"Enough. We must focus on other things besides the display of affection currently transpiring in front of us. I, for one, would like to know how any of us are even alive. Where is Cole?" Pixal said, but teens being teens, nobody listened to her.

"Why do they both look so sad? Isn't kissing supposed to be a good thing?" Lloyd said, squinting. "They look kind of desperate."

"Something happened. Something we don't know about. I know it." Kai mumbled.

The group fell silent once again.

And Cole watched and he saw everything and he heard everything.

And he knew what they didn't know.

He knew what Jay didn't know.

He knew what Nya didn't know.

But Cole didn't say anything.

He just watched Jay and Nya hold onto each other for dear life, and hated himself.

The jealousy was still there.

Love never dies.

Cole knew.

**************************************************************************

It's a fact that every living creature needs air.

Even if they've been dead before.

      Jay pulled away but didn't let go of Nya once. They stayed in each other's arms, both keeping the other one upright.

      Nya rested her chin on Jay's right shoulder. In their embrace, Jay could feel how frail Nya had become. She was made from bones.

Nya's breath was warm on Jay's ear when she whispered, "I missed you."

But there was something that Jay didn't see.

Hazel eyes scanned the room through the overgrown tangle that was Nya's hair. She was looking for someone, and when she found him, he flinched.

Nya's eyes were as cold as ice and as hard as rock and as unforgiving as the world when they rested upon Cole.

The ring in Nya's pocket burned her with the cold. And it felt good.

Cole's eyes met Nya's. Cole knew.

There was still something bad in that room, and it wasn't Cole.

But Nya didn't know that the ring was making her eyes turn an unnatural color. Nya didn't know that the Darkness was still inside of her. Nya didn't know that Cole didn't want to hurt her, and really, he never had.

Only Cole knew that.

All Nya knew was those three words that had been hissed in her ear. Three words, it seemed, were the truest thing anyone had ever said. It made perfect sense.

"He's not sorry."

The light around Nya grew dimmer but nobody saw it except Cole.

Jay didn't see.

Jay didn't know.

Jay gripped Nya's arms and pulled her slightly away from him. With one hand, he turned her face so that she was looking at him.

Nya's eyes were hazel to Jay.

Jay held Nya and told her,

"I meant it. What I said."

His lips brushed her cheek with a warm kiss.

It was as warm as his words,

"I love you."

And in that moment, Nya didn't care about Cole at all.