Severed Shadows

Prologue

Sometimes when I look outside, the world doesn't look how

I remember it. Everything's the same-the sky, the earth,

the sunshine on water, the way people laugh-but it is

not the same. It hurts to think that it's not so much the world

that's changed forever...it's me. How could I have not known?

Did I really wish to be normal so badly that I made myself

blind to everything? I don't know what's real anymore, and

that scares me. Are we all living a lie, or am I a lie that's living?

- written by Allison Argent, one week after finding out

about the supernatural

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There are two little girls on a lonely merry-go-round in a desolate park, and one of them is crying. Her scraped knee is bleeding and doesn't hurt too badly-it is the shock of the fall that makes tears leak from her eyes. It is the surprise. At seven years old, both girls are wise enough to know to stay away from strangers, to watch each others' backs always. They are practically sisters, after all. They can come here alone if they please. The bleeding one sniffles her discomfort, and the other-the one with the sharp blue eyes and nimble fingers-casts a wary look behind her. There is a boy with blonde curls and luminous eyes playing in the sandbox a few feet away, humming to himself. The sharp-eyed girl's companion can't see it, or ignores it if she can, but every so often, the boy's eyes flash golden in the sunlight. She tends to her friend's knee and continues to scowl, feeling the boy, the creature staring at her. She's been charged to protect her friend. And that is why, when her mother says, scoldingly, "Matilda, what on earth happened to Allison's leg?", the little girl just shrugs and says they tripped over one another while playing tag. Her friend affirms this notion with a nod. But, of course, the sharp-eyed little Hunter girl knows the truth-she pushed her best friend while they were running, afraid that the creature behind them would lunge. She was trying to keep Allison safe, not make her fall. She had wanted her to run faster.

She lies to her mother out of shame, more than anything else. She's supposed to be the Argent girl's protector, but so far, she is a failure.

There are two girls walking along a rickety bridge under the shade of Californian redwoods, and one of them is laughing. She is the innocent one of the two, the one who has the blood of a predator but was never given the training to act on her instincts. She is the better of the two, her less innocent friend knows. They are eleven, and eleven is the age of first crushes and middle school and awkward growth spurts. The girl with the sharp blue eyes tells her friend that she needs to get away from the edge of the bridge, but she's smirking while she says it, like it's a lie. She has been trained in every art of defense, and lying, out of all of them, is her specialty. She is a wolf hiding in sheepskin, but in this story, it is not to lure in her prey. It is simply to protect her own, to find a semblance of normalcy. She teeters near the edge of the bridge after her friend, always watching and observing and waiting. Because there is always something to wait for. It might come suddenly, or eventually, but it will come, and those who wait are prepared. So the sharp-eyed girl waits, and when one of the rotten boards of the bridge snaps and falls into the water below, she is prepared. But her bright-eyed, easy-grinning, lovely-hearted friend is not.

'Watch out for Allison, Tilly. Allison Argent must be protected at all costs. Allison is your main priority, do you understand?Make sure she knows nothing of monsters. She's too delicate far too delicate don't let her seetheworldasitis-'

The murmurs rush together as she watches her friend plummet over the side of the bridge, and she doesn't think-she does just as she was trained. She throws herself down on her stomach just in time to catch her friend's hand. Just in time to see the look of absolute terror make her pupils blow wide. Just in time to save her. And isn't that what this is all about, anyways? Saving her best friend, again and again and again, in different ways every time. It is the life she leads, and she would not have it any other way. Would she?

When the sharp-eyed girl hauls her trembling friend back onto the solid bridge and wraps her arms around the other girl, sighing in relief, she thinks, no, she would not.

There are two teenage girls sitting out on a patio in the summer heat of San Francisco, and one of them is yelling.

"Lied to me again, Tilly!" she is saying, and the sharp-eyed girl watches her friend fume. She is silent. She knows she deserves this. She knows that this fight is inevitable, like all things. She has been waiting for it even before she knew she was waiting. She is all ears and understanding as words are thrown at her like weapons, daggers that pierce her very soul. Coming from anyone else, they would be tolerable, expected, even. But coming from the good-natured, clueless, wonderfully alive friend of hers-they are poison of the worst kind. And because she is designed for battle, she throws her own poison right back, and regrets it instantly. But it is too late. It is always too late for her.

She doesn't remember the words said later, because she blocked them out almost immediately after the conversation ended, but the last thing her friend ever said to her was this:

"You're unknowable. Who are you? So many lies, so many broken promises-are you just one yourself?"

And it haunts her in the worst ways imaginable, and it is all she allows herself to remember about the fight that ended their friendship. Everything else she tucks away, because these words alone are enough to punish her, to damn her.

She was charged with keeping her best friend safe, but only a few days before her sixteenth birthday, everything comes undone once and for all.

The would-not-be-a-Hunter girl's family packs up and leaves San Francisco in one night.

She does not get to say goodbye.

There is one girl lying on her rooftop, and she is inexplicably alone. The stars over her head are dull, and the chasm in her chest yawns with every breath. She feels incomplete, but she guesses that's what happens when one existence is forced to revolve around another. She never asked to be the guardian of a girl who should have been taught to guard herself. She was never given a choice. And if she could go back and choose her own fate, would she have picked a better one than this? Or would she have ended up so broken and angry and volatile in the end, anyways? Was it really the fault of her parents, her friend's parents, or was she destined to be the forgotten one, the protector whose charge had disappeared?

She doesn't know. She honestly doesn't understand. When the tears come, they slide down her cheeks in torrents, and she allows herself to scream and gasp and kick the roof with her bare feet until they are raw. No one can hear her. She doubts they would care if they could. She is a warrior throwing a tantrum on the roof, but she doesn't care. Those who put up a facade of strength break in the most alarming ways. She is not broken, she thinks, just on the brink of breaking. Her tears make the stars blur into a kaliedoscope of different colors, swimming above her. The world is infinite-the world is finite and fading. "Perspective is everything," her friend would remind her. But her friend is no longer here.

The sharp-eyed girl pushes herself to her feet and wobbles over to the edge of the roof. The cool breeze picks up her hair and tosses it behind her, drying her tears almost immediately. She sets her jaw and unclasps the bracelet on her wrist. Several charms jingle-one of a notched bow, one her family crest, linked together with the Argents' crest. One charm is bushel of wolfsbane. She measures the weight of the charms in her hand, feeling the years of friendship and trust unravel second by second, breath by breath. When anger finally consumes her, she flings the bracelet as far away as she can, and in the darkness, she does not see where it falls. It's better that way-she won't be able to change her mind in the morning.

The girl she is now doesn't need silly charm bracelets or someone to take care of. She doesn't need to be selfless and kind and constantly waiting. She needs to look out for herself, and herself only. She needs to harden herself, to drive innocence away. It is the only thing that will keep her alive.

Once, the name 'Matilda Lovec' was never heard without the name 'Allison Argent' right behind it.

That was once, and this, Tilly thinks, turning away from the edge of the roof, this is now.

There is one girl standing on a rooftop, and she is reborn.