Prologue

Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind. - Marcel Proust

We were tied.

But really, a good rivalry is only good if it's well matched. Basketball had never been my forte. I lacked the necessary bodily aspects for athleticism, things like muscles and stamina. What I could do is attract attention by behaving as moronically as possible.

In other words, I was the mascot.

The Warren Wasps were the pride and joy of McCartney County, Wyoming. (AKA the middle of nowhere.) Being the mascot was a responsibility that I did not take lightly; every joke, move, or dance was carefully thought out through a distinct and clearly formatted process that I had designed specifically for my cause.

Dude, I'm just kidding. I wing it.

Don't think I'm disrespecting mascots, their job is just as hard as everyone else's. But I, personally, am not a very good mascot. In fact, the only reason that I took the job of school mascot was for Elsa.

Another thing you should know: You'll hear me talking and thinking about Elsa. A lot.

But honestly, who could blame me? Her hair, and her eyes, how happy she gets when she shows everyone else up at AP Calculus, that too big sweater she wears that falls off her shoulder, and those cute little constellation freckles on her back that I -

Never mind.

Anyway, we were tied. 57 Wasps: 57 Stallions, 4th quarter, 42 seconds left. The gym was absolutely roaring with energy, not a single person sitting down, popcorn and soda flying everywhere, the high pitched squeal of shoes on the waxed court, the fight song blaring from the small pep band at every opportunity. I was bouncing up and down on my best friend, Kristoff's, shoulders screaming something about how #7 could shove that ball somewhere incredibly appropriate for a heated high school basketball game (I got kicked out of games pretty often). We were sitting in the student section which meant that, no matter how riled up the rest of the crowd was, we had to be even crazier, and the students did not take this responsibility lightly. Every once in a while a group of seniors would lead us in chants, basking in the boos it generated from the opposite side, the energy building within us all, the mania of the crowd reaching a crescendo. I glanced to the middle of the court.

Elsa was worried.

I could see it in the furrow of her brow, in the teeth biting her bottom lip, in the white skin of her fingers when it made contact with the ball. The behemoth of a girl guarding her was close enough that, if I was being honest, almost made me a bit jealous (I have a problem with that, though.)

The girl was massive, easily three times Elsa's size, and not afraid to use it to her advantage.

Suddenly Elsa cocked her head to the side, Her white blonde braid swinging wildly, almost as if she had heard something. She then ducked just as a girl who had been guarding near by jumped at the back of her head.

She shifted her body in some weird ass twisty motion that I had wanted to look up later because it was totally wicked.

The two girls collided with one another with a painful grunt, Elsa smoothly slipping out from in between them.

The crowd screamed, feet stomping on the stands to the same beat of the basketball, shouts echoing off the wooden floors and bouncing back at us over and over, only to be replaced with more noise, more movement, because if we couldn't play ourselves then we were going to be loud.

Elsa breathed deeply, took a step forward, and shot the ball.

There was a breathless moment of quiet in the gym, where it seemed that every single person held their breath at once, the suspense in the air heavy against my rapid pulse drumming loudly in my ears.

There was a clean swish and the ball sailed through the hoop with ease.

Nothing but net.

The gym exploded with movement and sound, the cacophony more deafening than anything I had ever heard. Elsa was being swamped with people rushing onto the court, her teammates running to bury her in a group hug. It was the most stupidly cliché thing I'd ever seen, but I couldn't stop grinning.

But then things start to get a little fuzzy.

I remember a scream. I remember there being two loud, ear splitting bangs that ricocheted off the walls and made Kristoff drop me to the ground. I remember the pain in my knee. I remember a man in black clothes shouting, and hundreds of people screaming, but not like before, there was no happiness or excitement in the shrieks that pierced the room now, growing and growing until it was one endless sound of panic. There was too much shoving, I couldn't see through the crush of bodies, pounding against one another and running to the exits, their feet slamming right next to where I lay on the ground. I remember a little girl crying.

Then I saw a gun.

Then things got weird.

I remember Kristoff shouting. In a different language. Which was weird because Kristoff sometimes had trouble with english. I heard him say Elsa's name. I remember the man's scarred face turning towards us. I remember how black his eyes looked.

I remember the gun pointing at us.

There were times in my life where I had felt panic.

When I lost my parents at the amusement park, when I wrecked my aunt's new car into a tree, when I snapped my wrist on the trampoline, when I first moved to this stupid school with these stupid people that didn't like me.

"You're snakebitten." My cousin had said to me when I cried to her in eighth grade about how horrible things happened to me all the time, and I didn't know why. "That's it, Anna. You're just bad luck."

Those times weren't like this.

This was pain and my heart beating fast enough that it made me feel faint and the steady knowledge that I was going to die.

And then the gun went off.

I was screaming, there was a terrible, burning pain in my upper arm, like nothing I had ever felt before, pinning me to the ground with the weight of the bullet, ripping through my skin and muscles. Blood quickly pooled, warm against my back.

I remember being somehow happy that my blood was warm, because it was so, so cold. The floor, the metal railing I had fallen against, the air, everything was freezing.

"Anna!"

And then a bright orange orb sailed through the air nearly at the speed of light, and connected solidly with the side of the man's head, sending him tumbling into the side stands. I remember a lighter, more feminine shout, in the same language that Kristoff had spoken earlier. If I try to remember it now, it almost sounds Russian.

And then I saw Elsa.

I saw her running faster than I've ever seen a person run, her body shaking with fury. I saw her do a weird, twisty, somersault thing over the railing next to the court, that would have probably amazed me, had I not already been in shock. She landed solidly between the gunman now rising from the ground and me. There was no one in the way of her landing, and it slowly occurred to me that the gym had cleared, there was no one around, no one to help.

She turned and shot me a quick glance, our eyes locking for half a second. I saw her panic set in at the blood, the pain on my face. She was frantic, her body trembling and her arms twitching with adrenaline, with the urge to do something.

Then, just as quickly, something in her eyes shut down, the light dimming first, then snuffing out completely, the blue turning to burning chips of ice, her jaw set and clenched, fists trembling. She turned slowly toward the still dazed man, not once pausing in hesitation.

"That was a mistake." Her voice came out a chilling growl, feral.

Inhuman.

Her stance shifted, crouched a little. She was standing directly in front of me.

I could see the man around Elsa's left leg.

I tried to keep my vision focused, I wanted it to be clear. I needed to get up.

I was really really cold.

The man's eyes widened as he struggled to his feet, darting around the room for some reason.

Elsa made some kind of noise in the back of her throat; something entirely menacing and unidentifiable.

It was one of those kind of sounds that gives you a physical reaction, makes you shiver, your skin prick, the hair on the back of your neck stand up. It was an instinctual kind of feeling; I shifted away from Elsa, something deeper than any rational thought I could have possibly had in the moment telling me to get away.

I yelped when the movement shot an arrow of pain up my arm and into my chest, so fast and sharp that I couldn't breathe for a moment.

Elsa stiffened further at the sound, and I noticed that there was not a single part of her that showed any indication of fear, no weakness, no doubt, nothing.

She was confident, cocky even.

I think that it might have been the most sure I had ever seen her.

He raised his gun.

Right when I was about to scream, the weirdest thing of all happened.

There was a flash of blue, a small buzzing in my ears, and every trace of heat was sucked from the cavernous room, frost creeping steadily along the gym floor, the railing, the announcers stand. Thick ice formed around the man's hands and gun, shooting up and against the bridge of his nose so hard I heard the crack echo across the gym. His knees hit the ground and he cried out, just as a small splinter of ice shot through his chest. He collapsed, and immediately, ice froze over his limp form, quicker than I could blink.

Elsa was glowing light blue.

"Kristoff!"

Up until that moment I had almost completely forgotten about Kristoff, so riveted was I on Elsa and the armed man. The lumbering boy came into view in the very far corner of my eye. I hadn't even noticed him leave his place behind me. Something about his shape was strange, I felt like I couldn't look directly at him, he seemed blurry, and for half a second I swear, it looked there were two people standing side by side.

When I finally voiced that detail to someone they told me it was because of the gunshot, because I was experiencing trauma, because my brain was trying to make sense of what was happening. I wasn't so sure.

"All doors except the front, standard blue, H-Sit, directly southeast two miles." He puffed, spewing air like he had just run a marathon.

Elsa nodded.

There was a pause where the only thing that I could feel was the bullet hole, the only thing I could hear was my labored breathing; but I could see Elsa.

A sadness much deeper than anything I have ever felt settled in the eyes of the girl in front of me, resignation ground to dust again and again, her cold blue gaze finally, finally directed at me.

"Anna."

Her voice caught, and a physical pain went through the center of my chest that had nothing to do with the gunshot wound. Her voice was desperate and pitched, broken in countless places. It sounded like she had glass in her throat.

She grabbed Kristoff around the neck and slung herself on his back as easily as I took a breath. Her legs locked around his waist and Kristoff held his forearms to the sky, as if something was going to fall on them. The blue glow surrounding Elsa left her head and shoulders to gather on her raised hand. The was a high pitched buzzing hum, Elsa shouted, and the man's body, now a boulder of ice, shot toward the ceiling, punching a large hole in the roof on its way with a massive shriek of jagged ice on groaning metal.

The gym was long empty, but I hadn't noticed the quiet. The hole let in the scream of sirens and shouts of a panicked mob beating a staccato against the walls, desperate to get in, now they realize they left someone behind.

"Anna!" I heard Coach Harper screaming. "Anna Hart is still in there! The Wolf twins, we have to get in! How the hell could the doors be locked?!""

I had yet to move, prone on the floor where I had fallen. I saw Elsa's eyes sharpen, her head snapping harshly to the side as if someone had slapped her across the face.

"Please, be safe." She whispered, but I felt it like a punch.

I remember screaming her name.

There were men outside, shouting about a ladder.

Then, before I could breathe, a flash of white, frigid air flew across the gym like a sandstorm, covering everything in snow, and Elsa and Kristoff shot through the hole in the ceiling like bottle rockets, flying as far as they could before they exploded.

My vision narrowed and faded; everything went black, and my head smacked against the ground with a resounding crack.

That was the last time I saw Elsa and Kristoff Wolf.

That is, until yesterday.