"Have you ever watched someone die?"

• • •

It is cold.

So cold.

Cold enough to see my breath, and I realize that I can't feel my hands anymore — not that I ever could, when I'm standing next to Ferra, anyway.

She is tall. Taller than me (not that it's hard) — always has been ever since we were kids, if the markings on the doorframe I'd nearly forgotten about hold any relevance.

I haven't looked her in the eyes, but I know they are dark. Seems that way from a distant memory that doesn't even feel quite like mine. Though it has to be, and I know that, but it still feels like I've stolen it from somewhere, somehow — not experienced it.

I feel like that a lot — like I'm lying to myself.

(But I never really believe me, anyway, so it really shouldn't matter to me as much as it does.)

But today is cold: wind biting at noses and ears and anywhere not covered. Hands numb, toes frozen. Body tense — but that's not really from the chill.

It's because she's walking near me.

Like always, I'm staring at the spot on her back that seems the only constant thing about her, volatile as she is. I'm not very tall, and she really is, so it's not too hard for my train of sight to befall the place, wearing it down like a staircase tread too many times.

It's right between her shoulder blades, just barely teasing at the clipped end of her braid — dark, like what I think her eyes are like — but I don't really look at it. It feels like taboo.

I dont know why it feels that way, but it must be another stolen memory of mine — well, not mine — and so I just keep my eyes on the spot on her back, trying to ignore the tickle of hair at the edges of my vision.

It's hard; the rough ends from where she chopped it off with a knife feel like they are tugging at my dry eyes (teasing, whispering a song that scratches my ears the same way the uneven tips scathe my gaze).

Still, I'm pretending that I can't feel the persistent caresses pushing and prodding at my line of sight.

I'm good at pretending, I think. Like pretending it doesn't bother me that Ferra forgets I exist (even though the markings carved and chiseled into a doorframe from a lifetime ago prove otherwise).

And really, it should feel like I'm burning a hole though her coat with my eyes at this point (but it just feels like I've created a patch of ice instead).

When our boots finally leave the towering trees behind us, find their way into muddy snow and sharp gravel, cracked pavement and rough stones, I know we're close.

My eyes — (still teasing the soft ends of her hair; hair that plays a tantalizing song of rough edges and uneven ends) — finally shift to the warmth of a fire that defrosts this block of ice that I've become.

And then I'm sitting on a cinderblock, flames licking at my boots — but my muscles still feel locked in place; though, that's not from the biting cold.

It's from the black hole of a person right next to me, sucking all the warmth from my bones, from the flames caressing the toes of my boots that don't seem warm at all anymore; the flickering vibrancy a sick black and white, the color bleached out of it, absorbed by her dark eyes, dark hair; her dark.

It's not until I watch the shell of a girl that shares my hair, my skin, my eyes leave (the spot on her back undoubtedly familiar, yet devastatingly foreign as she drifts away), that the frozen air she has stolen from my lungs rushes back in a wave of pure warmth; hot breath wet past lips and air steaming into vivid shapes around me.

And then the color is back; vibrant and beautiful and bright in the contrast of its leached presence — so I sit and soak it in as quickly as I can, even though time will still be moving the same no matter how hard I wish for it to let me just stay.

And then a soft presence; Rinx sits down next to me, and I let myself meet his eyes. Familiar and green and bright enough to warm me up even without a fire next to us.

He's taller than me, too (unsurprisingly), and he's already seventeen: older than me (barely), but still too young for this.

He takes my hands in his, (calloused and gentle), wrapping them up like his own are a blanket, but really, his eyes are all the warmth I need. I don't tell him that though, let him hold my hands, because I think him touching me is for him as much as it is for me.

When he finally leans in to kiss me, I forget why I was cold in the first place — because suddenly I feel like I'm on fire. (And I might as well have burned a hole into the back of Ferra's jacket for all the heat surging through my limbs.)

The feeling of his lips on mine; (chapped and chaste but so soft I could melt), and I let my mind drift.

Rinx is the opposite of Ferra, I think. He's warm when she's cold, and when I can't feel anything while Ferra's next to me, I can't seem to not feel everything when Rinx is there instead. His eyes are about the only thing I remember to see — and I wouldn't want it any other way (because I can never see Ferra's; never want to see Ferra's).

He eases out of the safety of the kiss; hands still firmly on my own, still and warm like an anchor to keep me front drifting away into an icy current; (he's always careful like that).

My lips are swollen, chapped, and stinging — but to me, it is the best feeling, because he is still looking at me, and I'm watching him watch me, and that's all that matters.

It feels like he's all there is at the moment, every part of me alive and filled with him; and he feels like green. Like the distant smell of springtime and the vibrant leaves on trees. The calming sound of a quiet river flowing though a forest just after rainfall.

Rinx is green; and that just makes sense.

His breath on my face, brushing over my cheeks, is like a soft spring breeze; and despite how it should be stale (mine probably is, but I can't find it in myself to care when he's looking at me like that), it feels like morning dew at sunrise.

His hands don't move; dont squeeze, don't rub, just still — and I wouldn't have it any other way.

But at the same time, he feels too far away; like the inches between us somehow scale to miles on a hand-drawn map of something so familiar it's muscle memory.

But it's enough. He's enough.

And his hands are still on mine, still unmoving, just holding, because that's all that needs to happen right now. His eyes still hold mine just as carefully as his hands seem to cradle my own.

When he finally speaks, I watch his eyes dim in that way they always do when he comes back to reality (and suddenly the sun seems to set on the spring meadows and quiet forests that he felt like before; rivers receding and birds withdrawing sweet songs as Winter's frost creeps over the horizon).

"Have you ever watched someone die?"

I don't answer right away. The gun strapped to my back feels a little colder and a lot heavier the longer the silence drifts.

Some part of me is confused: Rinx has seen me be the one receiving the half-conscience promises and maddeningly delirious whispers that shatter the dying breaths of those in my arms, so I'm wondering why he's asking me this.

But he asked my if I've watched, not seen — (and I'm not even sure of the difference myself).

And then I think that I've seen plenty of death, but I've only really watched a few go.

I'm wondering if he means that I let them go; had to let them go; (that watch means I knew them, and couldn't do anything but hold their hands, hear their words, feel their breathing falter and give out).

If that's the case, then the answer is still a yes — but even that seems much too painless to utter, too brief and easy and mundane for something so short to slip though my lips and explain the experience of feeling someone taking their last breaths; too unfair to describe what it looks like to stare into eyes that don't stare back anymore; too much and too little all at once to describe what it's like for someone to be so scared one second, hand squeezing all feeling out of yours, begging, their last breaths rattling in their chest like the ground is shaking (and that could be true, because you're shaking almost as much as they are) — and then nothing; hands stiff and cold and voice no longer imploring you to do something even you don't know; (and suddenly it feels like the vice-like grip that's gone slack on hands has moved to throats — breaths gone like the wind that whispers last words; stolen straight from lungs like a thief in Winter's daunting night) — but still; he knows that, too.

But that's not just watching; that's feeling.

As my eyes finally drift briefly away, they find the block of ice on Ferra's back; (cold and unforgiving and greeting me like an old friend) — and I suddenly know what he means; know it all too well.

I remember that those stolen memories that don't feel at all like mine really are mine, but shouldn't have to be just memories.

I remember the doorframe, with all its scratches and lines and faded marks; how it is the only thing I refuse to forget — because if I forget it like she has, then I'm afraid I'll end up forgetting her just as she has me.

Because I finally let myself remember why I haven't looked into her eyes. (And I let myself know that I don't remember when the last time I could was.)

I make myself remember that it's because they are so angry and I can't do anything but watch them be that way. Because letting the ice form on her back is so much easier than watching it take over her eyes; eyes that used to be like mine, but are now the farthest thing.

I find Rinx's eyes again — all spring meadows in the dark and racing rivers drowning those who cross them — and watch him watching me.

I give him the smallest of smiles — the kind you give when there's nothing else you can really do, unless you want to start crying — and whisper;

"All the time."