Page 80 of Tracking Snow

I shake my head. It’s difficult to find my voice for a moment. "No. You haven’t...exactly. I’m Three."

We’ve technically slept together but bringing that up feels like it would be a creepy voyeuristic flex.

"Let me guess, Three. Your power has to do with getting into other people’s heads?" Even while speaking to me, she can't keep her eyes off the other girl for more than a second.

I’ve seen her electric blue eyes in the flesh, and I’m still mesmerized. I’m tempted to reach out and trace a finger over the curve of her jaw and kiss the corner of her mouth. Instead, I clasp my hands behind me.

"Dreams," I explain, studying the scene she built instead of the curve of her mouth. "I can walk into dreams."

Again, I notice sheer white curtains whipping about in an open window off to the side. It doesn’t match this room. It’s a different memory, a different dream hovering at the edges of this one.

"Isn’t that kind of...I dunno, rude?" she asks, facing me again. Though there is no anger in her voice.

I scratch my head. "Probably, but it’s the best way I can understand people."

"You want to understand me?" She throws me a saucy yet challenging smile.

"I—" Again, words fail me. I’m not used to being in lead, talking to anyone directly, and I don’t want to say the wrong thing. "Who is she?" I ask instead.

"Rosie." Snow's smile slips at the edges as she watches the young girl. "She was...she was my friend. My sister." The words thicken with emotion.

Was. Past tense.

"What happened to her?"

Snow sighs and folds her arms as if to protect herself. "There was an outbreak of some kind of sickness in the home where we grew up. I don’t even remember what kind. Honestly, I don’t even remember feeling sick." She shakes her head. "But it was killing kids our age, and both of us caught it when we were sixteen. So we had to be treated for it."

The white curtains at the corner of my purview begin to wave and flap with more insistence. Another dream seeping into this one, invading it.

Snow just continues to watch Rosie on the ground, making the one apple float.

The curtains whip faster, harder, elongating, waving over the current living room until I can’t see it anymore.

Snow continues to stare at the spot where Rosie was.

"What’s over there?" I ask quietly, looking toward the source of the white curtains.

"My worst nightmare," she whispers, still staring straight ahead.

I shouldn’t do it, yet I can’t stop myself. I follow the flapping fabric until it slows, and a new scene reveals itself. The curtains calm, yet still slightly wave on either side of the large, nearly floor to ceiling window that’s open. The breeze flows into a makeshift hospital room with two beds.

A teenage Snow is waking up from one of them. She looks around the room, taking in her surroundings before looking up at the IV she is attached to. She pulls the needle out carefully. Slipping out of bed, she walks over to the window, hands on either side of the frame. Her eyes close as the breeze lifts tendrils of her hair. She’s wearing the same dull beige pajamas I’d seen her wearing before. They resemble a prison uniform, yet she is beautiful.

Even as she stands at the window, I can see how free and untamed she is. Like her clothes, her surroundings, nothing could stop her from being who she is. Deep admiration wells in me. She’s like no one we’ve ever met before. Snow can’t be broken.

Whereas I am nothing but a collection of broken pieces. Just like that tattoo on her arm.

I feel a presence at my side. Adult Snow is standing next to me, watching with growing trepidation. She holds her arms around her body even tighter, as if both attempting to protect and brace herself.

Teenage Snow opens her eyes and sighs before facing the room, her attention trained on the lump in the other bed that faces the other way.

"Okay, Rosie, time to wake up, sleepyhead. I’m bored, and you need to talk me out of running away for the hundredth time." She walks over to the other twin bed, managing to get in it and squeeze her arms around her friend.

Teenage Snow stiffens. "Rosie?" Her voice is suddenly hoarse yet hesitant. Her arm slowly pulls back, and she lifts up onto her elbow. "Rosie?" she asks again, a little more panicked.

Snow tugs Rosie’s shoulder so she rolls onto her back. As soon as she does, a half gasp, half yelp escapes Snow even as she claps a hand over her horrified face.

The teenage girl's pallor hasn’t just paled; it has a distinct grayish blue tint. Eyes and mouth closed, there is no mistaking that the girl is dead.