the price we pay || delacroix + eris; percy & atlas funeral

I remember the day she came home.

It was a particularly torrid afternoon, the sun beating its fists down on me as I bolted at breakneck speed to the Square, where a hovercraft carried a small box to the ground. I had seen time stop and the boy from Two rip open my little sister's chest — I blinked and she crumpled to the floor, blooding dribbling down her side and pooling into the floor in a great scarlet sea.

"PERCY!" one of her friends screeched from the chaos, but there was nothing that could be done.

I had seen time stop and her chest tear open, and yet I refused to believe it until I opened the coffin. And there she was, paler than I remember, stiller than Percy could ever be. She had been cleaned up before she was sent home. Her hair had been washed and brushed neatly, so that it was no longer matted with crimson and fell in its usual golden waves. The blood had been cleaned off of her skin, but it still stained her sunset orange tank top, and I could see the terrible rip in the fabric where Two's blade had cut into her.

I saw the fault line in the fabric, and yet, I still could not believe it. And so I felt for a pulse — anywhere, anything. Pressing my fingers into her neck, I found that there was nothing to be felt. Only a cold stillness that I refused to comprehend. I felt her wrist, next, but discovered the same.

Then I rested my hand over her heart, just above the gaping canyon carved into her chest, and that is when I couldn't deny the truth.

Suddenly, I could not breathe.

No matter how much my lungs gasped for air, their efforts were choked out by the sobs that seized me, wrapped around my chest and my throat like a boa constrictor. But I didn't care, I could only focus on the agony ripping through my mind at the concept of my sister being dead. It was a sharp, white pain, weighing down my heart like a great boulder and pressing against my skull like a knife with such an intensity that I feared the bone would break open.

In my desperation, in my refusal to believe that she was gone, I lifted her body from her coffin, felt her skin like ice against my flesh but denied it still. I cradled her in my arms, like I would when she cried into my shoulder, like Atlas White did as she drew her final breaths.

And I ran my fingers through her hair, over and over again, brushing the stray strands out of her face, crying weeping sobbing as I did so. I had never cried so much before, hurt so deeply. The last time I let a tear slip down my cheek, I was sixteen years old and turning away from the girl I loved.

As the minutes passed by, the sobs turned into screams, and my family behind me was left to either stare in utter shock or come to my side.

I do not say goodbye with a scream today.

I say goodbye with the strike of a match and a proper farewell, softly spoken in a eulogy.

She rests where she belongs, beneath the gentle light of the sunset and at the side of her district partner, Atlas White, the boy who held her in his arms as she died. They lie next to each other in stone caskets, looking so peaceful, as if they have fallen into a deep sleep. (I know better than to believe that.)

It is here where hope dies, beneath the blazing sky of a dead day, where I watch everything I built crumble and feel the ashes kiss my flesh like snowflakes. Percy is gone, and with her, a part of me.

Percy's body is in a deep blue dress that flows gently down to her feet, as if the fabric is made of water. Her hair pours down her sides in soft, big golden ringlets, adorned with delicate white lilies I had picked from our spot overlooking the meadow. The only thing missing is her necklace, the one with the sun pendant I gave her for her birthday long ago. Instead of burning her with it, it is still sitting in its small black box on the dresser of Percy's room, a place I do not dare to touch.

It's all I have left of her; I couldn't bear to let that burn, too.

I stand before Percy's body, looking at her one last time before striking the match ablaze. With a shaking hand and a heavy heart, I bring the flame down to my little sister's corpse, letting it kiss her flesh. And she ignites with a furious inferno, spreading quickly from her chest to her entire body. I blow out the match, and as the pale gray smoke coils into the air, I cover my mouth with my hand as another sob racks my body.

For a moment, I just stand there, still as stone, and watch the fire take her. And I do not wipe away the tears when they come.

My eyes flicker to the small crowd of people gathered for the funeral, among them, Abraxas, my mother, Helios, Xanthe, and my sisters (original and recruited) but two of them are here to say goodbye to Atlas. Tate Seraphim, a member of another powerful gang in Nine, who Atlas volunteered for, and Eris White, Atlas's little sister.

I saunter toward Eris, match box in hand. "Do you want to do the honors for your brother?" I ask gently, offering the box to her.