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"I hate you, Jack Hunter"

I want to hold her until she can’t stand me anymore, until she runs away to somewhere safer Somewhere without me

I nod instead

"I know"

"No You don’t know You think that immature as hate But this – this is –" She squeezes her eyes shut "You left ive you for that"

"You don’t have to," I offer "You don’t owefor just a h the cracks

"And you don’t owe odda, oh, I don’t know, ‘I’ , don’t wait up for er because I’ve hurt her Sophia’s anger was always because I’d hurt her This purer, brighter anger is because I ht I was dead, or rather, because she didn’t knohether or not I was alive She is too kind, toobut a protective instinct denied its full course I held that sort of anger once, too I took it out on Isis after I’d caught her into get to Sophia

I’ve known Isis long enough (not nearly a year, but it feels like centuries) to know that when she shakes, she is far gone When she tre shadows on herher, froh I scream at myself to remy head in her neck

"I can’t do it anyod I tried to be the strong one To do the right thing for everyone"

Isis goes stiff, and for a split second I realize what I’ desperate and dark is eating away atandIsis again blew cracks in that dah the cracks, the realto seenot to be, broken and dead inside and I have to leave, have to co her arainst her, against her war silence

"I t-tried," I whisper "I tried to protect her, and you, and everyone But all I did was kill her I failed I failed and I killed her, and hurt you"

I squeezein the the air from me

"Stop," Isis says

"It’s the truth –"

"Newsflash; not everything that drops froeous dumb mouth is the truth" There’s a pause "Ah, shit I just called you gorgeous Now I have to commit seppuku"

"Don’t you dare," I mumble into her neck

"See? That’s how it feels That’s how it feels when you say you don’t deserve to live New rule: Nobody gets to talk suicide ever"

A tear escapes, and I bury it in her shirt collar She puts a hand onit

"If you really think you’re so bad," she says "Then live Live, and suffer Live with the s you’ve done Don’t take the easy way out"

There’s a poignant pause Then she adds;

"- nuht The cracks in me relieve the pressure of the last year, of the year before the last, the water flowing through thes I look up, and cup either side of her face

"I’ll only say this one time, so listen carefully"

Her eyes are wide, her lips parted and her cheeks are flushed Her eyes too, I notice, are ht," I finish "You’re right for once, Isis Blake"

And then she smiles, and for the briefest half-second before her friends co in the world is right, and bright, and better We part,her warmth, and she looks back at them