Chapter 54: One Breath Left I stared at the number on my chest. Just one. A single digit glowing faintly against my skin, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. It wasn’t mine. Not really. It belonged to Mira. Or Mirabel. Whoever she was now. Whoever I made her into. The transfer was real. I felt it. Not in my lungs or my ribs, but in the quiet space behind my eyes, where guilt used to live. Now it was full of her. Her breath. Her last breath. I sat up fast, ignoring the stiffness in my back from the table. My fingers scrambled over the cold metal surface, searching for anything—a button, a slot, a second syringe. Something to undo what I’d done. I didn’t think. I just moved. My hands swept left and right, pressing into seams, tapping corners, lifting edges. Nothing. The table was smooth. Sterile. Final. The machines around me stayed silent. No hum. No click. No warning. Just the soft glow of the counter on my chest, ticking down in my head even though the number hadn’t changed yet. One breath. One chance. One mistake. I turned to the surgical arm above me. It hadn’t moved since the scalpel retracted. It hung there like a question mark made of steel. I reached for it, fingers brushing cold metal. I tugged. Nothing. I shoved. Still nothing. I cursed under my breath and stepped back, scanning the room again. The walls were blank. The floor solid. The ceiling untouched. No hidden panels. No blinking lights. No mercy. Then the arm twitched. Just a small jerk. Like it had been waiting for me to give up. I froze. Watched it. The joints rotated slowly, deliberately, bringing the tip of the arm down toward me. Not with a scalpel this time. With a syringe. Clear glass. Silver cap. A single word etched along the side in thin black letters: RETURN. I didn’t move. I just stared at it. The machine knew. It always knew. It didn’t care about fairness or second chances. It cared about balance. About symmetry. About making me choose again. I reached out. My fingers closed around the syringe. It was cool. Light. Too light for what it carried. I pulled it free from the arm’s grip. The machine didn’t resist. It just retracted, folding back into the ceiling like it had never been there. I held the syringe up to my eye. The liquid inside was clear. No color. No swirl. No warning label beyond the one word. RETURN. I turned it in my fingers. Flipped it. Shook it slightly. Nothing changed. No bubbles. No reaction. Just silence in a tube. I knew what it meant. Returning her breath meant giving mine. Simple math. One for one. But it wasn’t math. It was her. It was me. It was the last thing I could give her that she didn’t already take from me. Or that I didn’t steal first. I thought about the chair. The envelope. The photograph of a woman I didn’t recognize. I thought about the first question. The key that fell from the ceiling. The map under the table. The locket. The knife. The shoe. The crib. The water. The mirrors. The logs. The drive. The name. Mirabel. I thought about all of it. Every breath. Every lie. Every memory I buried. Every truth I ran from. I thought about her laugh. The real one. Not the one from the machine. Not the one from the memory drive. The one that escaped when she was trying not to. The one that came out when I tripped over my own feet and spilled coffee all over her favorite book. I thought about her hands. Not the ones strapped to the table. Not the ones reaching for me in the mirrors. The real ones. The ones that fixed my collar before a presentation. The ones that shoved me out of the way when I was about to walk into traffic. The ones that held mine when we stood at our parents’ grave and neither of us knew what to say. I thought about her voice. Not the calm, flat tone she used in the white room. Not the whisper from the monitor. The real one. The one that cracked when she was mad. The one that went soft when she was tired. The one that said, “You’re an idiot, but you’re my idiot,” after I forgot her birthday and showed up at her apartment with a melted ice cream cake and a bouquet of dandelions I’d picked from the park. I took those things. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t plan to. But I took them. I took her time. I took her trust. I took her safety. I took her future. I took her name and buried it under paperwork and protocols and procedures. I took her body and turned it into a case file. I took her pain and called it necessary. I took her silence and called it consent. I took her life and called it an accident. And now she’s here. Not dead. Not gone. Not erased. Here. Awake. Watching. Waiting. Counting. One breath left for her. One syringe in my hand. One choice left for me. I didn’t hesitate. I pressed the tip of the needle against the side of my neck. I didn’t search for a vein. I didn’t brace myself. I didn’t close my eyes. I just pushed. The needle slid in easy. Too easy. Like my skin remembered this. Like my body had been waiting for it. I pressed the plunger. The liquid didn’t burn. It didn’t sting. It didn’t rush. It just… went in. Like water into sand. Like a sigh into silence. I pulled the needle out. Dropped it on the floor. It didn’t shatter. It didn’t roll. It just lay there. Empty. Useless. I waited. Nothing happened. No lights. No sounds. No tremors. No voices. Just me. Just the room. Just the counter on my chest. It flickered. One. Zero. One. Zero. One. The number stuttered. Jumped. Flickered like a dying bulb. I watched it. Didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t think. Just watched. Mira’s voice came from nowhere. Not the walls. Not the ceiling. Not the machines. From inside me. From behind my ribs. From under my skin. “Too late.”