“*Both of you.*”

For a heartbeat, old fear clawed at my ribs.

Then another voice rose in my memory:

*Now finish it.

*

Mrs. Ellery had been right.

Staying alive wasn’t just survival.

It was resistance.

Caleb and I stepped out of the courthouse into a sun that felt too bright for everything we’d endured.

He slipped his small hand into mine, warm and steady.

“Are we safe now?”

I thought about the trial.

The storage unit. The months of planning, the nights of fear.

And then I knelt to his height and said the truest thing I could:

“We’re safer than we’ve ever been.”

Not safe.

But safer.

Monsters don’t vanish when caged.

But survivors?

We endure.

We resist.

We keep moving forward.

We’ve rebuilt our world slowly, piece by fragile piece.

Every laugh Caleb lets slip, every night I sleep without fear, is a small rebellion, a quiet victory over the plans that once threatened to erase us. I’ve learned that survival is not a single moment—it’s a choice repeated every day. Monsters may lurk in shadows, and danger may come uninvited.

But we move forward anyway, carrying each other, awake and aware, stronger than we were before. Because the greatest act of resistance is living—and we are alive.