We are frozen.

Ice is creeping through the room, I'm sure.

My first thought is Scylla. My arm around her tightens. She's still frozen.

My second thought is Nessie.

She's still onscreen, life flowing out of her, trying to blubber something. I realize that the last I ever see of my sister, Vanesse Odair, will be this pathetic image. Her on the ground with veins standing out and blood spurting out and her lips trying so hard to form words.

"I...won't break...for you," I hear whispered, until Claudius Templesmith's voice overrides hers and begins commentating on the funny way she's still holding on.

Scratch punching him in the face, I will murder him. I will throttle him and watch him beg for mercy and kill him and watch him die the way I am watching my sister die.

Nessie closes her eyes with apparent effort, keeping a defiant look on her face, and dies.

Everything is dead silent, except for the boom of the cannon.

Scylla jerks in my arms. Every muscle in her body has gone limp. She falls forward, eyes closed.

Dad has glittering tears perched on the ends of his lashes. Mom's face is buried in his side.

And me?

I'm completely numb.

No.

I will not accept this. This is just a nightmare, the worst I've had yet. Nessie isn't being lifted away on that screen. Of course not.

When the doorbell rings, I just get up to answer it. No questions asked. Yellow-hair hands me a paper with the presidential seal on it and closes the door. I open it robotically and read the words in curling writing.

Too late.