Page 120 of Tracking Snow

I grab the pencil case again, pressing it flat over my sternum like I can shove Rosie back into the hollow place and make her hold me together.

I keep replaying the fight. His voice saying we’re done. One removing my hand from his sleeve, gentle, so gentle, and now I understand it. That wasn’t him letting me go.

That was him saying goodbye before he did something unforgivable.

I should hate them.

All seven of them.

But I can’t.

That’s the worst part. It’s exactly like I told him.

A complex mixture of personalities and power, and I fell for each one separately, and for the whole man.

My body still remembers the first time One pinned my wrists and the whole world sharpened around his hands. He didn’t look at me like I was his equal then. Not yet. He looked at me like a reckless human girl with too much mouth, too many knives, and no survival instinct.

Needling One for his critical, control-freak nature became one of my favorite hobbies because he always noticed. Every plan. Every trick. Every twitch before I moved. He could keep up with my speed, my mouth, my fury, my stupid need to throw myself at danger just to prove I could still move faster than grief.

He saw the worst of it and came after me anyway, protected me like I was another part of himself. And then he sent Four after me when I threw myself into the harbor.

Four met my dare and jumped. He turned the freezing water warm around us like my recklessness was something to answer, not scold. He made my blood catch fire, but more than that, he made me feel like my too-muchness had finally found another too-much.

Six gave me the truth without sanding down a single edge. He said what he thought. Asked for what he wanted. No games, no soft little lies, no pretending desire was a gift so few people are willing to give.

Two played the game with me. Pretended not to care. Let me pretend not to care right back. We were a pair of smug disasters acting too cool for every soft thing in the room, when really, the soft things were exactly what could kill us.

Five made sweetness feel dangerous in a completely different way. When I squealed over those tiny pigs, shame flooded his face, and then delight came rushing through so bright it hurt to look at. Like maybe some part of him had been waiting for someone to love the thing he hated in himself.

Three walked into my dreams, my past, with such careful footing that it made it easy to share the biggest pain of my life. The way he took my face in his hands, cradling it so carefully as he kissed me for it, drilled down into my bones.

He was wrong. It was never about loving them for their powers. I fell for the way they made me feel like every strange, sharp, hungry part of me had somewhere to go. Like I didn’t have to shrink to be loved. Like I didn’t have to become softer, safer, quieter, easier.

Like maybe I had never been ordinary at all.

And Seven.

Seven.

The part I wanted to reach but was scared to touch. The black-eyed wound at the center of them. The hunger that looked too much like mine. The part I swore I could love too.

I didn’t lie when I said I love unconditionally, which is what makes the betrayal tear me apart. Love sits under my ribs like a knife I can’t pull out.

I should hunt them. I tried tracking them down. But I realize when they don’t want to be found, they can’t be.

Which means up until now, they’d let me.

Every rooftop. Every alley. Every time I thought I was catching up because I was good enough, fast enough, stubborn enough.

I wasn’t.

But some part of them wanted me. Some part of them wanted me to see.

Some part of them wanted me to stop them.

I pull my knees closer to my chest until I’ve fallen over onto my side on the couch, Rosie’s pencil case still on the ground.

I want to die.