Tate glanced towards the window and suddenly smiled. "It's snowing."

    "Is it really?" Sure enough, light flakes fell through the sky and spiraled towards the ground.

    "I couldn't smell it coming, because it was downwind when we were outside," he mused. "But it looks like it might snow pretty good. I didn't think it snowed that much in September."

   "Pretty sure that TV is a smart TV," I remarked. "You can Google it."

   He shrugged. "No need. Maybe it'll stick." 

   I wrung out the last of my hair and set down the brush, yawning. Tate unmuted the TV as I wandered back into the bathroom to change into the pajamas. I spent the next half hour braiding my hair back out of my face. He glanced my way. "So, what are you going to do while you wait?"

   "Sleep." I flopped back onto the mattress. "I haven't slept in a bed without threat of crythals or Alexie in five months. I haven't actually gone to sleep in days, either."

   Tate flicked off the TV. I waved a hand lazily at the curtains and dragged them closed from a distance. The light turned off as I pulled back the covers. It was maybe eight in the morning, but I'd been awake for too long. Burying myself into the cool sheets, I blew out a breath and immediately felt myself start to fall asleep.

   Maybe a few hours later, my ears picked up on a rustling. My mind woke up automatically. Gritting my teeth, I rolled over. Having been in the stupid Ghost Realm had tuned my ears to listen for anything that signaled danger. The lightest sound woke me up, now. I'd been a hell of a deep sleeper until then. Stupid, stupid Ghost Realm.

   The rustle quieted. I cracked an eye open tiredly to see that Tate was awake. He was lying on his back and looking up at the ceiling. He looked far from tired.

   A small breath blew out of his lips. "Go back to sleep, Rox. Sorry for waking you."

   Bah. He heard me wake up. Damn shifter hearing. I detected something in his tone. My hand rubbed my eye. "What's the matter? I'm amazed you're awake."

   "Nothing you need to worry about."

   "Well, it's obviously worrying you." I stretched my legs and nestled my head further into the pillow, still half-asleep. "So spill."

    Tate's fingers twitched from where they rested. "I just . . . I just haven't been on a proper bed in so long. I slept on a cot for two years, and then a tree branch for months. It doesn't feel right to be on a bed."

   My eyebrows pinched a bit. "Doesn't it feel relieving, though?"

   "Not enough for me to relax," he muttered. "Every sound in the building keeps me awake. Housekeepers, guests, facilities, appliances, and even when the front door opens."

   Oh . . . I hadn't considered that before. If the slightest rustle woke me up, I couldn't imagine everything that was keeping Tate awake. His hearing was a hundred times better than mine. He had to be miserable. I made a decision to stay awake for the time being and rolled onto my side better, lifting my head onto my hand. "What's it like, having that kind of hearing?"

   Tate glanced my way and saw how I was wide awake. "Well, it can be really useful. I know when someone is lying, sneaking up on me, and I can determine a lot about how they're feeling by the sounds their body makes. But at the same time, I never have silence. There's always something. It can be a cricket in a forest a mile away, but I'll still hear it. It's not easy."

   "Would you ever willingly give that away?"

   His head shifted slightly. After a moment, he said thoughtfully, "No."

   I nodded a bit. It didn't surprise me. Tate constantly relied on his hearing for safety. Sure, it might've come with annoyances, but I'd be stunned if he ever wished it away. After a moment, I remembered something and asked, "If you don't mind me asking, what's the story behind the white rock in your front lawn? The one with the carving of the flower."

   His hands stilled. Uh oh. Sensitive topic. He blew out a breath. "It's a headstone."

   Yup. Definitely a sensitive topic. I made a noise to confirm I'd heard him, but I didn't ask. That was his business. I had just figured that the stone had caught Mrs. Leon's eye and she'd bought it. Well, I actually hadn't thought about it that much.

   "It's my sister's," said Tate abruptly. "She was twelve when she died. Her name was Tulip." His lip quirked up. "She was practically a carbon copy of my dad. Quietly smart but a spitfire whenever she was hyped up. She wanted to be an Enforcer. Tulip was a species shifter, and she specialized in birds. She wanted to go be an Enforcer to prove that anyone was capable of improving to that level.

   "One day, she was practicing shifting mid-air from that tree. She'd jump from a branch and shift into a bird in time to avoid getting hit. I'd been struggling with that maneuver for ages, and she was trying to learn how to do it to help me. When you start to fall," explained Tate softly, "adrenaline pumps into you so fast that it's hard to think. You start to figure out how to land in the least damaging way possible. We were trying to learn how to rewrite our instincts to shift into a bird to fly out of the way. It's a lot harder than it sounds.

   "She figured it out eventually. She flew back to the tree to do it again. We didn't know it at the time, but there was an eagle nest in the tree." Tate wet his lips. "The eagle watched Tulip shift and knew that she was a threat. When Tulip flew back towards the tree, the eagle attacked her. Tulip had spent the day rewriting her adrenaline reaction, so her instincts were too slow. She wasn't able to shift in time. The eagle got a talon right into her chest. She shifted back as she was dying, but she was gone by the time that we realized what'd happened."

   I held still, almost too quiet to let myself breathe. Tate closed his eyes. "We put the headstone there because we were forced to cut the tree down. It had been dying anyway. We didn't cut the tree down to spite the bird, because that wasn't fair. She was protecting her kids. The tree caught a disease later and we put the headstone next to the stump. Because she had wanted to be an Enforcer, I switched from my current career path and enrolled in the camp. But that's why there's a headstone in the lawn. I haven't . . . I haven't really been the same since. She was my little sister. She'd grown up in my protection. I was the one to teach her how to shift for the first time. And then she'd died doing something to try and help me. I've never been able to get past it."

   There was a moment of silence. Tate lied there, staring up at the ceiling. His skin looked like chalk. Grief seemed to hold him so tightly that he didn't want to move. I'd never even considered the fact that Tate could be holding such sorrow behind his eyes. His gaze had never revealed it. He'd never mentioned a sister before. 

   "I'm  . . . I know that apologies don't do anything to help the pain, but I'm sorry anyway."

   "Thanks," he said quietly.

   I looked at my hands. After such a speech, I felt like an asshole. I'd asked a personal question and for no reason. Shaking my head, I blew out a sharp breath. Fine. A story for a story. "I'm not actually as confident as I pretend to be," I said finally. Tate looked over, his eyebrows pulling together.

   "What do you mean?"

   "I fake it. 'Fake it 'till you make it.' It was the defense mechanism I came up with to survive my high school. I grew up in an apartment building that sits about a block from the worse side of town. As such, the school holds most of the kids from that area. Everyone was a bully and a victim; you got beat up but you had one kid you always tripped in the hall. There were only two kids in the school that broke that rule: me and my best friend, Simone."

   My fingers rubbed my middle finger on my left hand, where I used to have my senior ring. "No one bothered us. Simone managed to be left alone because she had full power over the high school paper. The first time someone gave her a black eye, she wrote a rumor piece on them and they never touched her again. I escaped by being threatening. I joined the boxing team and learned how to throw a mean punch. When the first kid showed up and started mouthing off, I let him swing one punch before I nailed him right here." My hand tapped the bridge of my nose.

   "After that, Simone wrote a piece that overplayed my ability. It only took two more punches before I was left alone. After that, I kept my confidence level really high to make sure that no one bothered me. I guessed I started to play into the act more than I thought. It took until after high school that someone cleaned my clock and reminded me that I'm not invincible. And I'm not better than everyone else."

   Tate was genuinely puzzled. "That doesn't sound at all like you."

   I shrugged a bit. "It's not, really. But it was, back then. All I could do was throw a good punch. So I faked it 'till I had my ass kicked." My jaw ticked slightly. "It's part of the reason I hate Dani so much. I had myself convinced that I was untouchable until she showed up. Then she strung me up like a turkey and made a fool out of me, before putting me into the worst pain I've ever felt.

   "When Alexie told me that I was a part of this magick world, I refused. I want nothing to do with it, even now I still don't," I admitted. "Part of that reason is because of how I was introduced. The moment I was involved in this world, I was in pain. My introduction to this world was a dark magic link that started to kill me.  I wanted nothing to do with you guys. As far as I was concerned, I'd gotten my ass kicked once and I wasn't going to do it again."

   "You don't seem to have that attitude anymore."

   "No. Alexie spent five months forcing me to practice magic. He convinced me that I was going to be able to defend myself against Dani once we were done. Once I had finished, I'd be able to protect myself and my loved ones. He convinced me pretty well, too. He built me back up. I didn't even realize that until the night of the party." A sardonic laugh left my mouth. "And then Dani whooped my ass as if nothing had changed, and she killed Alexie in front of me."

    Tate had fallen silent. He was watching me, but I didn't meet his eyes. I looked down at my hands. "Alexie had taken five months of his life to save mine. By the end of that period, Dani was still better than me, but something happened to Alexie. He saved my life again and then lost the fight. Three times, he helped me. And I got him killed in return. But he taught me that just because I fell down once doesn't mean I get to stay down. He practically hauled me up by the back of my shirt and shoved me into the fight. He's the only reason I'm alive. And I may not be unstoppable, but I'm still a badass." I grimaced. "I just wish it hadn't taken him dying for me to realize."

   Silence reigned over the room for some time. I hadn't ever said those words out loud, but they were true. They had been sitting in the back of my head for ages. They were the reasons that I was going to kill Dani. She'd taken so much away from me. And Alexie was right. I wasn't going to stay down. I'd get to my feet, cock my arm, and swing the punch.

   Tate shifted in the sheets and looked over at me. "Did you ever get to say that to him? Did he know?"

   I pursed my lips. "No. He was gone before I could thank him." There was a moment before I looked back up. "Did you ever learn how to do the falling maneuver?"

   He shook his head. "No. I hadn't shifted into a bird since then until I shifted into a hawk in the Ghost Realm." We both lied on our beds, silent as the snow fell outside.

Out of all 81 chapters, this one is my least favorite. Rewrote it like three times. Will probably rewrite it again, anyway. Anyway, have a nice day :) Thanks for reading.