I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. It wasn't the blank look that spread across her face. It wasn't her haunted eyes, dazed and expressionless. It wasn't her pale skin and sunken veins.

I was staring at her shadow. A shadow that didn't smile as we entered the room. A shadow who didn't acknowledge our presence. A shadow who merely studied us, her eyes nothing but diluted pools of darkness against the hospital lights.

Ethan had embraced her, wrapping his arms around her enough for her hospital gown to crease. She didn't move, no emotion flickered across her face.

It had been months. Months without seeing her brown eyes glinting with adventure. Months without her spitting sarcastic comments and months without feeling her touch.

I had dreamt of this moment. The time when she would open her eyes, her frown finally pulling into a smile. I would hear her voice, her soft voice slipping through her lips. I thought tears would pool in her eyes, rinsing her once lifeless face. But I was only given a fragment of what she used to be. I was given a stranger.

"Aleena," I whispered, my voice cracking. "You're awake."
She moved her head towards me, a wisp of knotted hair trailing over her gaze. She didn't push it away. She didn't even speak. She only studied me. Her eyes trailed over me in a way that was unsettling. It was like she was looking further into me, picking away at my thoughts until they crumbled away in a crashing mess.

When she answered, it wasn't the voice I recognised. "They spoke of you."

Ethan had stiffened at her side. He hadn't spoken much. After Aleena didn't respond to his questions he had sunk back into his regular seat, his skin drained of colour and his will to continue lost. Now he was biting his lip, his leg jittering into jerky, anxious movements.

I didn't move from my position at the door. "Who spoke of me?"

Aleena didn't blink. I wasn't used to seeing her face so naked, so free of emotion. Makeup didn't line her eyes, her hair wasn't brushed, her was skin shrivelled and dried. "The people your mother walks with."
My stomach retched, bile rising to sear the back of my throat. I struggled to hold down the sudden fear of nausea. My mother. I hadn't seen her in two months. I only remember her eyes skimming over me, studying me as I clutched Isaacs broken body in my lap. At the time she was carrying a whip in her hand and silver was piled in armour over her. I hadn't looked at my mother then. I had looked at another person, a person I had no connection with. It was like staring at a mirror and seeing no reflection back.

Aleena regarded me with her icy gaze. "She was protecting you."

I felt my knees shake and I swallowed openly. I forced myself to meet Aleena's gaze. "She was protecting me from who?"

Aleena's brown irises slid over to Ethan's. He was watching her urgently, his face as open as a book. I could see the silent plea in his eyes, the nagging need for Aleena to make sense – for any of this to make sense. There was no recognition in Aleena's eyes, it was like she was staring at a wall. She examined him, her lips tilting into a fine line. After several seconds, she reverted back to me. "The Arcade."

I didn't know what those words meant, but the way she said it brought a shiver up my spine. They were meaningless but the weight behind them seemed to anchor me down, pinning my head under water until it felt like I couldn't breathe.

"Aleena, what does that mean," Ethan breathed from across the room. His lips were bloodied from where he had bitten them, his nails chewed down to the quick. I had never seen him so anxious.

Aleena glanced towards the window, taking in the dulling light with little to say. Her hair fell away from her neck, outlining a single white scar. I knew it was from the night she was attacked. I knew whose claws had torn her windpipe.

"It means war is coming," she finally said, her face still turned to the window. "And we won't stand a chance against them."

Ethan abruptly rose from his seat, taking a swift stride in front of the window, blocking Aleena's view entirely. He looked distraught, his eyes red. "Aleena, please say something that we can understand."

Aleena frowned, her mouth outlining into an expression of annoyance. It was the first emotion she had given to us. She ignored her brothers agonised gaze and turned her attention back to me. I shrunk against her gaze, feeling like a fox caught in a trap. All I could see were her lifeless eyes, her pale face and limp arms. It was like staring at a nightmare. "She understands." Her eyes travelled to the scar just visible on my palm. I saw her pupils narrow, her lips thinning. "She is the reason behind this rivalry."

I stared, forcing my legs to stabilise me. I felt my heart drum in my chest, rattling my ribcage. "Did my mother tell you this?" I asked, thankful my voice wasn't as unsteady as my thoughts.

"No," Aleena said, "Your mother said little about you. She only spoke of the boy you were with."

The boy. Isaac.

I nodded slowly, watching out the corner of my eye as Ethan sank back into his chair, looking ill.

"Where is she?" My voice broke at this question, but I knew it would. It was the question I had asked myself for weeks. Would my mother ever return? Would she ever come back to me, and if she did, would I let her?

Aleena moved her hands to rest beside her, the veins along the underside of her wrists standing out against the white hospital bedsheets. "She is in a place that your kind could never reach."

"My kind?" I echoed, feeling the marrow turn to ice in my bones. But Ethan had finally had enough. He rose from his spot again, his cheeks flushing.

"What is going on?" He asked, his voice rising with hysteria. "Both of you are speaking in a second language and you," he spun to Aleena, his blue eyes glowing dimly. "I don't even recognise you. I'm staring at you but nothing is familiar. You look like her, but you aren't her." His voice cracked, and I watched in pity as his eyes began to shine with fresh tears.

He disregarded them. "What happened to you Aleena?"

Finally something passed beneath her eyes. It was gone as quickly as it came, but I still saw it. A deep longing, one that seemed to embed deep within the haunted look in her irises, colouring her despair enough for me to look away.

I heard her voice as if from afar. "They did something to me Ethan."

My head shot back up at this, and it was as if the real Aleena was beginning to seep back into her soul. It started by the clouding of her eyes, her pupils diluting into their usual honey brown.

Her bottom lip trembled. "They made me something I feared." She whispered, her eyes widening. She looked maddening, the red veins in her eyes throbbing.

Ethan was shaking, sweat sprinkling his forehead. He was standing by her side but never reached over to touch her. I could see the fear etched across his face, I could see it in the way he held himself rigged. He was scared of her. He was scared of his own sister.

Aleena blinked, a single tear dusting her eyelashes. "They made me into a monster."
I stood, frozen as her eyes rolled back into her head, her mouth slackening. She collapsed back into her pillow, Ethan's hands catching her head from lolling. Without so much as a word, he gentle propped her head up, his touch gentle as if he was clutching glass. He himself looked shattered, his eyes hazy with unshed tears.

He slowly turned to me, and I thought for a second that he was going to faint. He swallowed, his lips a pale blue. Finally, he rose his eyes to mine.

"What was that?" He whispered, one of his hands clenching the railings on the side of Aleena's bed. I myself was horrified, shock coursing through me until all I could respond with was silence.

Ethan, acknowledging my tremor, stepped forwards. "Ren, please, what is wrong with her."

His voice broke me, it was like his words untethered my heart that was only held in fragments, so now they came tumbling down in great shards. I couldn't stop my voice from shaking. "I don't know," I sputtered. It was the truth. I didn't know why a stranger seemed to have taken a hold of Aleena, turning her into a shadow of the girl she used to be. I didn't know why she was afraid of herself, and I didn't know why she had suddenly cut off, her admitting's swallowing into unconsciousness. I didn't know. And it was tearing me up inside.

"Ren," I blinked to see Ethan in front of me, his skin drained of colour, a tear stain just visible on his strained face. "Please I'm begging you, please tell me what is going on."

I wanted to shut him out, to turn his innocence away from the world I knew of. I wanted his blue eyes to advert to reality, to forget about this evening. But I knew he couldn't. I knew he would never come back from this.

"You said to me at Brines that you thought I knew of something darker in Brookefield. I do know, I've known for months. But telling you will only cause you more grief." I whispered, my gaze involuntarily flicking to Aleena's pale form.

Ethan's lips thinned, a line creasing in-between his eyebrows. He was searching my eyes, as if trying to look at the girl I used to be. The girl who wasn't haunted by last winter. The girl without the scars, without the stories, without the paranoia. The girl I had been, the girl that would never return.

He sucked in a breath. "Aleena," he hesitated, his lips trembling. "That thing wasn't my sister. I couldn't even decipher who she was. And yet she stared at me like I was a stranger. But she knew you, out of everybody, she knew you." He took in another ragged breath, as if hoping that the increase of oxygen would support his world that was tearing apart in front of him. "Why did she know you?" He dropped his gaze, his chest shuddering.

I would've comforted him, or at least touched him. A simple embrace, a skin to skin contact. It would've been what I would usually do. But now Ethan was looking at me like I was a new person. Like I held the answers to Aleena's condition. I wish he knew how much I wanted them.

"Ethan, I—"

"Renee, please help her. She sounded afraid, in that split second before she collapsed I saw her. I saw the real her." He broke him, his eyes wild with sheer hope.

I felt my hands ball into fists, not out of anger, but agony. At seeing the one person who I never wanted to see upset. For seeing my rock crack, his eyes riddled with tears that had never touched his irises.

"I don't know how to Ethan," I said quietly, my voice barely audible. "I didn't understand half of the things she was talking about."

I could tell he was struggling with his thoughts, the tendon along his neck throbbing. "But she spoke of Melissa."

The mention of her name sent another mouthful of bile into the back of my throat, making my eyes water. Looking away, I stared out the window. "I haven't spoken to my mother since the court hearing Ethan. I don't know where she is."

I looked back to see Ethan's eyes remaining on me. He was studying me, his eyes skimming over my face. I hoped he could see the brokenness in my gaze, I hoped he could see how much pain I was in. Then at least he would know I was being truthful.

Finally, he spoke. But it wasn't the words I wanted to hear. "What are you?"

My bones fused together, an icy wave rushing through me, tilting my world enough for me to wonder if I was dreaming. But then I snapped back into reality, my eyes focusing back onto Ethan. "What?" I whispered.

He took a step backwards, his knees trembling slightly. "What are you? Aleena said 'your kind."

The fear in his voice undid me. It was like watching a pebble break the surface of glass. It shattered and distorted an image that was familiar to you until it began to look cracked and broken. Until it would never be the same.

"Ethan, you don't believe her do you?" I managed to utter. "She was talking nonsense, she didn't mean what she was saying—" I made to step towards him, but he backed away, his blue eyes searing holes into mine.

His movement was like a blow to the chest.

"I saw the fear in your eyes when she mentioned war. You knew who she was talking about." He swallowed loudly, his eyes shifting wildly to Aleena's slumped figure. "You knew the people your mother is with. You know what happened to her."
"No Ethan, I don't know anything about Aleena—"

"Renee." His voice rose, shaking as openly as his legs. "What happened to you the night of the court hearing."

He said my name. He called me Renee. I couldn't remember the last time he had called me Renee.

"Ethan please," I begged, making another move towards him but I forced myself to remain in my spot, my limbs screaming at me to go to him, to prove I was still Renee. "I am me, I am normal."
But despite this, despite the crack in my voice, he still shook his head. "That scar," he pointed towards the sharp, pricked scar just visible under my collarbone. "You never had that scar before the court hearing." I glanced down to where I knew the scar was.

Memories flooded back, the Parazonium resting just above my heart, cutting the surface of my skin. I quickly looked back up to Ethan. He was shaking all over now, only just holding himself up by leaning his weight on the side of Aleena's bed.

"I thought Aleena was the person I didn't recognise," he breathed, his blue eyes nothing but ebony coals of grief. "But it is you."

I could taste salt on my lips, mixed with the essence of blood. But it was like I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't feel the pain that touched the crevices in my bones. I couldn't feel the stinging drum of my heart. It was only him, only Ethan. It was Ethan and his pale face, and the terrible expression he wore.

"Ethan I'm telling you I don't know what is wrong with Aleena, at least please let me explain—"

But his voice cut in. "Go," he said, his voice quiet but sharp.

I paused, blinking against the tears in my eyes. He was still breathing raggedly, but his eyes were dark with pain. "Go Renee, and never come back to Aleena and I again."
A sob attacked my body. I forced it down. "Ethan, no please don't do this. I'm not responsible–"

"I said go." He growled. He had never risen his voice at me, he'd never gotten angry or irritated. But now tears were gathering in his eyes and he was watching me like I was a raven. A disgusting, ugly creature that broke havoc with it. An omen of death.

He wasn't wrong.

And so I left. I left without a backwards glance. I left my makeshift family. I left the people who had loved me when I couldn't even love myself.

It wasn't until I reached the woods that I realised I had nobody left to turn to anymore. I was alone.