ya

That was the beauty of Family, Dakota decided, you knew what it took to make them bleed. The magic was in choosing not too.

We fight the same and we love the same. Just because we are different does not mean that we aren__ equal.

The mouse began to shift and Kammy marvelled at the sight. Soon a second boy stood before her. She hardly noticed Eric appear beside him.He was dressed much like Eric, though his shirt hung looser on his slimmer frame. His hair was a fluffy, chocolate mess. He was taller than Eric and he glared between them both before his eyes came to rest fully on Kammy. The first thing she noticed was the purple bruise on his cheek. The second was how bright his blue eyes were.

He smiles at her before ever opening his eyes. The innocence in his face ensnares. Wraps her heart in a cocoon.They did this to him. The Society. Constructed that smile with malicious expectations. Now she must rip it off his face. Because she doesn__ deserve his love. Or Gage__. This madness coils around her throat, darkening every inch of her soul.

His lips press into mine in a kiss meant to make the world fade away.And it delivers.

Why aren__ you smiling?_ Cameron asks. She picks up the Astropad and stops the video.__ecause this is the beginning, not the end.

Death and his scythe do not come. No sweeping black capes or ethereal escapes. There__ no pearly gate, no prisms of colors as his soul slips away. The stillness is cold steel. The silence is empty with no memory to mend it.

Time keeps ticking away, unaware of the suffering each second generates. Time doesn__ care, because if it did, it would__e reversed.

Seconds ebb and wane. She__ not afraid of her voice anymore, but she__ not entirely sure she trusts it. She__ seen the damage caused with a single word. Right now, each one is a weapon, a conduit of war, and she won__ just throw them out there all willy-nilly.

The night surrounds, breathes across her skin. They__e lost in the shadows of the moon.

A glacial chill rushes through Gage. He whips around just in time to see arms clutch Summer around the middle and drag her into the dark. Panic seizes him, and he takes off after her, regardless of the chaos brewing behind him. Her cry of surprise echoes all around them, drilling into his bones.

I still have the scars from when they captured me and beat me in the middle of the street.""You don't get scars.""Emotional scars then.

Her mum is leaning against the wall, arms crossed, when Summer exits. __age left from here a few minutes ago,_ she says, tone neutral. __is hair was ruffled._ She gestures with her hand above her head.The haze Gage left Summer in vanishes. She frowns.Her mum sighs and steps forward. Smooths her daughter__ hair. __f he hurts you,_ she says in a mild tone, ____l kill him.

Wishing that I could stay right here in this moment of not doing, but simply being, forever.

She's not close enough. She'll never be close enough...

Time is a thief. A killer. Time is killing him.

If this is my final moment,_ she says, __hen I can die happy.___s that why you__e saying all this? Because you think we__e going to die?___ don__ know,_ she admits.__ammit, Summer._ He clings to her waist, grip desperate, eyes heavy with torment. __ou__e saying everything I want to hear, but I don__ know if I can trust it.

Her gaze travels back to the lie twisted in a tempest of mud and blood. She witnesses the culmination of her recklessness through a curved lens. Absorbed in life uncoiling, unaware of the world beyond this ridge. His light hair, darkened by rain. His stiff shoulders, full of pain. The vision poisoned with truth. With rust-stained hues.