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“So it’s like this, right? We’re both prepared to die, but since you don’t trust me to off myself, you’re gonna try to kill me first.”
“Yes.”
“Funny. I was thinking the exact same thing, One.”
One does not jerk to consciousness, soaked in sweat as she gasps for breath. She does not allow a strangled cry to escape her throat, aching with the phantom pains of a stifled song.
She takes a deep breath, then another, because she is in control. She breathes deeply and evenly and remains perfectly calm because she is in control.
“One?” Bright blue eyes flicker open, dimly illuminating the darkness.
Shit.
“Gabriella,” One murmurs. “My apologies.”
“The hell are you apologizing for?” Gabriella grunts. The bedsheets rustle as she sits up.
“For waking you.”
“As if you’re the one who’s supposed to be worrying about me,” she scoffs. Her eyes soften, and a warm hand finds its way to One’s wrist. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine,” One says, a little more harshly than she’d intended. “I should prepare to leave, it’s a long drive and—”
Her voice breaks off into an undignified yelp as Gabriella wraps her arms around her, pulling her in until her back is flush against Gabriella’s chest.
“If you keep closing yourself off like this, I might think you actually don’t like me,” Gabriella murmurs in her ear.
One sighs, and all at once the tension in her body slips away as she leans back into Gabriella’s embrace. “…Of course I like you.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Gabriella says. One can tell she’s smiling, and the thought brings the edges of her mouth to tilt ever so slightly upward.
“There you go,” Gabriella continues. “Now then. Do you wanna talk about it?”
One closes her eyes for a moment, simply enjoying Gabriella’s warmth. She runs one hand along Gabriella’s forearm. “No,” she eventually says. “It was just more of the same.”
“Alright,” Gabriella says. Once, One would have thought her tone uncharacteristically soft. “You know, you don’t have to go today if you don’t want to.”
One shakes her head. “She’s my sister. I have to go. And…” One adds, almost as an afterthought. “I miss her.”
Most of her means those words. She hopes, in saying them aloud, she might assuage the rest.
“No need to convince me,” Gabriella says. “Just… take care of yourself, alright?”
One squeezes Gabriella’s hand. “Alright.”
Fifteen minutes later, One has gotten dressed and cooked Gabriella and her a light breakfast. Save for the two of them, the house lies still, pale early morning light shining through the curtains. On some days, Four would be awake this early as well—but even she tends to sleep in on a Saturday morning.
Three, too, still lives at home with them, but her wakefulness was never in consideration.
Gabriella is clutching her mug of coffee like a lifeline as One locks up and heads for her car. She grumbles as she joins One in the passenger’s seat, brushing her thick black hair, streaked with red, free from her face. “You know, I’ve got half a mind to transform right here and stretch my wings. It’s been awhile since you and I went flying.”
“Some other time,” One says as she twists the key. “Dragons and skyscrapers don’t mix well.”
Gabriella rolls her eyes. “Maybe if you’re some uncivilized brute who doesn’t know their left from their right, like—”
She catches herself before she says the name and holds her tongue.
One understands. Best not to speak ill of the dead, after all.
“That does sound like him, though,” One says, smiling softly.
“Yeah,” Gabriella says, a little wistfully. “Bricks for brains that he was. Maybe next time I’ll pay the kid a visit.”
“Maybe,” One says. She doesn’t voice the slightest shock of fear that runs through her at the thought of Zero meeting Gabriella.
They lull into a comfortable silence, after that. When they pass the city limits, One pulls off to the side of the road and watches as the black shadow of Gabriella’s true form vanishes above the clouds.
Two and a half hours later, the scent of the sea drifts through One’s window as her gaze settles on a small cottage.
One pulls off the gravel road into the grass, retrieves her key, and shuts the car door. She stands there for a moment, watching the cottage entrance in silence. Mikhail hasn’t come to greet her yet. Perhaps he and Zero are out.
Stepping forward, One raises her knuckles to the wooden door and knocks. “Zero?” No response.
She’ll just wait a moment then. There’s no rush.
One leans against the wall next to the door. Reaching into her purse, she pulls out a book and flips it open to where her bookmark sticks out. Her eyes scan the page but fail to glean their words' meaning.
She hates this feeling. It reminds her of sitting in a small chair in the heart of a cathedral and waiting, alone, with only the distant yet ever-approaching sounds of death for company.
The calm before the storm.
There’s a reason she comes to these meetings alone.
One tilts her head back and peers through the window. There’s a knife resting on an end table beneath the window. The sort you’d use for gardening, One thinks, its metal dull and muddied. It would be a simple enough matter to crack the window open.
She’s finally found peace, here. Peace for herself, peace for her sisters. Isn’t that worth protecting?
Isn’t that what Zero would do?
All at once, One’s train of thought grinds to a halt.
There’s still a part of her that hates her, she realizes.
There’s a part of her that hates her so, so much.
“Whatcha readin’?”
“Ah, Zero,” One blurts, adopting a familiar mask to shield the way her entire body jolts upright at the sound of her voice. She slides the bookmark back between the same pages and places the book into her purse. “It’s a historical fantasy novel. You might like it.”
“Not sure I have the patience for that, Sis,” Zero says. She looks much the same as she did the last time One visited, though her hands are caked in dirt. She must have been tending to her flowers. Two black-and-white crutches stick out from beneath her arms. “Sorry to leave you hanging,” she continues as she unlocks the door. “Couldn’t hear you pull up from the shed.”
“It’s no trouble,” One assures her. “I wasn’t waiting long.”
“Good. We wouldn’t have wanted that, after all,” Zero says. She looks to One with a deadpan yet all-too bemused expression, and perhaps that is a valuable reminder as to who One is speaking to.
One smiles back at her sister. “Of course not. That would make you a terrible host.”
Zero laughs, fully and freely, and the cold weight upon One’s heart releases as she too lets out a small chuckle.