Page 9 of Ava: Part Three

They all turned to watch Mr Patrick walk into the room.

"It's our only choice," her dad answered as he stood. "Let's go."

"What, right now?" she asked.

She wasn't ready. She had only agreed to appease her father but hadn't allowed herself to think about what she had agreed to do.

"I already said that, Ava. We have to go now. Stop stalling," her father said as he headed out the back way.

"Should we come?" Derek asked.

"No. Stay here in case anything goes wrong," Zeke answered as he stood.

Zeke expected things to go wrong. Honestly, so did she. Their time in the forest still played heavily on her mind, so repeating that was just foolish. But she had nothing left to lose now. She only hoped that if she passed out again, her father would still leave when he was supposed to.

Zeke walked towards her and then held his hand out. She didn't push him away this time. She took it, knowing she needed him to soothe her, to take her fear of what was coming.

When they joined Mr Patrick and her father, they were looking out over the woods as if they were trying to sense if there was any danger.

"Follow me," Zeke said. "There's no one in the woods."

Could he sense even further than her father? That was interesting. She had never seen a wolf like him and would have loved to discover more about him. But their honeymoon was over, and it was time to do what needed to be done.

The canopy of the trees hid the sunlight the moment they walked into the woods, and she could already feel the darkness of the cursed forest dancing over her skin even though they were not close to it yet.

As Zeke led her forward, she turned her head to see her father following. He had already lost hope. He didn't think this would work either; she could see it all over his face.

She let go of Zeke and held her father's hand. He smiled slightly and gently squeezed her.

"I don't know if I ever thanked you for taking me in," she said to him. "I couldn't have asked for a better father."

"Stop giving me a goodbye speech right now, Ava," he said gruffly.

Soon, Zeke reached the clearing of their lake, but instead of going forward, he turned to the left. Up ahead was nothing but darkness, and she knew they had arrived.

She didn't know what to hope for. To find her wolf so her dad would be more hopeful when he left, or not to find her so she never had to talk to the monster the Council wanted to get their hands on.

"If it gets too much, connect with Zeke like you did in Isolation," Mr Patrick said.

Would escaping into her imagination help anything? She didn't think so. But the sooner they tried, the sooner her dad could leave and be safe.

"I'll monitor things from here. When you start to feel scared for your life, I hope your wolf will push through, and then Zeke will take it from there. Your bond should sort out the rest."

She was already scared for her life. And there were a lot of assumptions in Mr Patrick's plan. But she turned and hugged her father for a long time before she went to Zeke.

"No matter what happens in there, order him to go home," she said.

"Ava!" her father growled.

"I love you, Dad," she whispered.

And then she stepped through into the oppressive darkness.

Because she knew what to expect this time, she looked back immediately and saw the distance had already been distorted. And the magic was already licking her skin, probing her. She walked further in, looking up at the trees that looked like limbs and keeping her ears open for the hissing of the root snakes.

Her heart started pounding faster. What if this time she didn't make it out? What if the darkness claimed her, as it had been trying to do since she had escaped it?

Her breathing became laboured. This was the wrong time for a panic attack, but she couldn't stop it. She turned back to start running before remembering that this was how she got hurt the last time.

---