Chapter 4 AVERY'S POV

The world feels... still.

Too still.

The kind of silence that follows a scream. Or a miracle.

My mural hums against the wall alive again. Like it's pulsing with all the time I lost, all the emotions I poured into it across loops I shouldn't remember. It's not just color anymore. It's memory. It's weight. It's truth.

And somehow, it's holding the loop open.

I can feel it in my bones.

We've bought ourselves a little more time. Not much. But enough.

Enough to breathe.

Enough to fall.

Enough to break if we don't figure out what's still missing.

Chase stands just a few feet away, like he's afraid to move too fast and disrupt whatever fragile balance we've managed to create. His expression is unreadable but his eyes? They're loud. Searching mine for answers he won't find in code or numbers.

"I don't know how I remembered," I whisper. "I didn't think I could."

He steps closer, slowly. "Maybe it wasn't about remembering. Maybe it was about letting go."

Letting go?

I want to laugh. Scream. Cry.

Because if I let go, I'll fall. And I don't think I'll survive the landing this time.

Instead, I shift my gaze to the mural.

"I painted this the first time I met you, Chase," I say. "Before I knew who you were. Before you tore it down. And before you... showed me what we were caught in. It just poured out of me like I was bleeding through the brush."

He nods, jaw tight. "I remember the way it made me feel. Even then."

"How?" I ask, turning to face him fully. "How did I know? How did I see the loop before I even stepped into it?"

His silence is deafening.

"Chase?"

"I've been thinking about that," he says, voice low. "You painted something outside time. Something pure. I think the mural is tied to the first fracture. You may not have built the Resonator but your mural reacted to it. Maybe... it triggered something."

My heart stutters.

"You think I started this?"

"No." He meets my eyes. "I think you're the only one who can finish it."

Chase POV

She doesn't flinch.

Not at the weight of the words.

Not at the realization that maybe just maybe this entire fracture in time isn't just scientific. It's human. Emotional.

Spiritual, even.

She absorbs it like she was always meant to.

"I didn't mean to pull you into this," I say, my voice rough. "You were supposed to be untouched by it."

Avery's lips twitch into something between a smile and a challenge. "Too late for that."

She walks past me and reaches for her sketchbook again, flipping to a clean page. Her eyes are laser-focused, mind racing faster than I can keep up.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"I want to map it. The loops. The feelings. The fractures. If I can see the pattern in art maybe you can translate it into tech. Logic. Equations. We work together."

"You think emotion can be coded?"

"I think the human experience is code. Just messier."

God, I love her brain.

And I can't say that not yet.

Not when I don't know if we'll even exist tomorrow.

But I sit beside her anyway, our knees touching, our minds syncing. She sketches. I draft formulas. She traces spirals. I scribble loop equations. We build something together wordless, chaotic, beautiful.

And when I glance up hours later and find her asleep against my shoulder, I realize something:

This moment might be the only thing that's ever made time feel right.

Avery POV

I wake to the sound of his heartbeat.

Steady. Solid.

Real.

The mural's glow has softened, but it's still pulsing. Still anchoring us. The loop hasn't restarted yet.

I glance around the room. It's quiet like the world is holding its breath.

Chase stirs beside me, blinking through the haze of equations and half-slept thoughts.

"You stayed," I whisper.

"Of course I did."

He says it like it's obvious.

But nothing in my life has ever been that easy.

My voice cracks. "What if we can't fix this?"

He turns to face me, something tender and raw in his eyes. "Then I'll stay with you in the loop forever. I don't care if we reset a million times, as long as I get one more second with you."

My chest tightens.

Because I believe him.

And that scares me more than anything.

I'm falling. Fast.

Into something dangerous.

Into him.

I look back at the mural at the storm of color, the heart in the center, the overlapping gears. And I realize something I hadn't seen before.

The center of the mural isn't just symbolic.

It's shaped like the Resonator.

And the heart in the middle?

It's shaped exactly like the necklace I've worn since I was a kid one my mother gave me before she disappeared.

No.

Not a coincidence.

I leap to my feet.

"Chase-"

"What?"

"My necklace. The heart it's in the mural. But I painted this before I even realized it."

He stares at it, blinking fast. "What if... it's not just symbolic? What if your necklace is the key?"

My mind races.

Could it be?

Could something so personal so human be the stabilizer we've been missing?

He steps closer, his hand hovering over the small gold heart around my neck.

"Can I...?"

I nod.

He lifts it gently, examining it like it's made of stardust.

Then he freezes.

"Avery. This is a data shard."

"What?"

He flips the pendant open, revealing a tiny chip embedded in the center. "This isn't jewelry. This is old-world tech. Government-grade. Hidden in plain sight."

I can't breathe.

"My mom gave that to me when I was eight," I whisper. "Right before she vanished. I never questioned it. I just wore it."

Chase's eyes light with a fire I've never seen.

"We need to run it. Now."

Chase POV

Her necklace.

It was here the whole time.

Right on her chest next to her heartbeat.

I feed the chip into my scanner.

The screen blinks.

Encrypted. Heavily.

But I've broken tougher.

As the data loads, I realize something chilling.

The timestamp on the files?

Two years before the Resonator ever went online.

"She knew," I whisper. "Avery your mom knew what was going to happen."

She sits beside me, arms wrapped tight around her knees. "She was a physicist. Quiet. Strange. Always talking about 'cycles' and 'windows.' I thought she was just eccentric. Then she disappeared. No note. No body. Just gone."

I scroll through the decrypted files.

Schematics.

Warnings.

Predictions of loop instability. Of emotional resonance. Of you.

"She tried to stop this," I say. "She saw it coming. And she left the only key with the one person she knew could finish what she started."

Avery stares at the screen.

Then at the mural.

Then back at me.

"Then let's end this."