Page 114 of Tracking Snow

"Years?" A lump forms in my throat. I work to swallow it down to find my words. "Did they hurt you like that too?" I ask before I can stop myself.

"Cats are weak and small. He didn’t understand what they were doing." His fingers flex once at his sides. "But we could be strong. We could help the doctors find out what was wrong with me by letting them...do whatever it was that they needed."

My throat closes.

"And flesh heals," he adds so quietly I almost don't hear it.

"Three, is this how you were fractured?"

He nods, looking away again. "They were trying to help, and they'd never seen so many level five powers show up, much less in someone so young. And no one had ever been marked with the ability to give others magic. I did it a few more times with plants and smaller animals." The shame fills his voice as he looks down at his hands as if remembering what they could do.

Three blinks multiple times and shakes his head until his eyes turn green. His shoulders straighten. It's as if the story is too heavy and he needs to call on the more logical, unemotional part of himself to finish telling me what happened. "Our mother worked closely with the scientists on a treatment that should have fixed me. Instead, my powers and my personality," he opens his arms, "split."

My eyes shut a moment, my brain overwhelmed as I try to take it all in. Then I look at Lucifer. At the sleek black fur. The yellow eyes. The fact that he is here, breathing, alive, is impossible.

Something hot and hungry opens in me.

"Could Seven do that for a person?" I ask.

The Seven goes utterly still.

The air between us thins.

"Don’t," he says.

"I’m just asking a question."

"No, you’re not."

I swallow, but the words are already there, clawing their way up. "Could Seven do it for me?"

"You want magic so badly..." His voice is soft now. Deadly soft. Six’s face changes as his eyes shutter to purple. Two is back in lead.

His mouth curves, but there is nothing soft in it. "There it is."

He’s not shocked or angry, but that smile tells me it’s far worse. Something makes my skin prickle with heat.

My stomach drops. "What?"

"All those pretty words last night." His voice lowers. "All that talk about loving us as we are. But what you really want is him."

"That’s not what I’m saying," I rush to protest.

"You want Seven to crack open his veins and pour magic into you," he says over me with such conviction I feel I’ve already lost the fight he’s played out twenty steps ahead of me.

I retreat a step. "Stop."

The fire in my belly kicks up with an almost deafening roar as I try to pretend it’s not hungry for what Seven can do for me. But it burns with such an aching ferocity, I’m left shaking.

I could have magic. Finally.

"You want the worst part of us because it can give you something," he practically sneers.

"That’s not fair." I love him. Them. All of them. Including their powers.

But part of me knows I spoke out of selfishness, that it’s exactly what I want. I want Seven to give me everything I’ve always thought should have been mine. Magic.

I tell myself it's because I would use the power to help find my friends, but that’s not the entire truth. I can’t even lie to myself. Even if it was a dumb power, any power would be better than what I have now. Nothing.