my sister's keeper. jules / day four.

Strange creatures of the deep dance around me, playful and friendly. At first they frighten me, stumbling out of the water and dragging the thin line behind the ripples and wake - but I don't feel pain. Instead they leave me a gift, red like blood. DRINK ME! it says on the label, I smirk. As if.

Turning it once in my palm, I spy a new set of letters.
SERIOUSLY! DRINK UP!

I shake my head and shove it into an open space in my backpack, turning to look up at my feathered friend. "I don't know about you, but I think that's suspicious as hell."

He doesn't respond. No matter - it's getting colder as the sun sets. Another two canons have fired since this morning. They send a chill down my spine, sitting in their echoes and twiddling with the twine in my good hand and zipping up my jacket with the other. As it passes, relief washes over me. The same relief I'd get when Bailey returned to the shop with our supplies just sold. When I'd find Jamie, alive and asleep, in his bed the morning after a mission. When Noah's name wasn't called at the reaping.

The tense hand around my heart squeezes hard. Noah, my Noah. Our Noah. Safe. Alive. Because of me. Juliet Monaghan, keeper of her siblings' fate. I wonder if Mom can bare to look at me on the screen. I wonder if she can go a day without crying. I wonder if she feels any remorse at all sending me here. I wonder if she feels a guilty, horrid, taboo pinch of regret like I do.

I love Noah. But I...

I love Noah. I love Noah. I love Noah. I love Noah.
I. Love. Noah.
But you don't hate living.

Jamie. So clear, as if he were sitting right next to me watching the sun set. But he's not. Neither is Noah. I'm here. I'm here to keep them safe, so Eli and Jamie can look after them. So Noah didn't wander off of her pedestal before the Bloodbath began. I'm here, and they're there, and it hurts more than any blade or tooth or claw I've felt in this place. Hot tears spill quietly from the corners of my eyes and I wipe them away quickly, and Jamie laughs in the space between my ears.

It's alright, he says, eyes twinkling. I'll look after them.
"But I'm supposed to-"

I realise I'm talking to no-one and clamp my jaw shut, cutting the life of my pained sob short. Chicken doesn't seem to notice. If he does, he's being polite about it. Mosquitoes hover, the river hums along gently, the sun sets, and the line between my fingers tugs.

I say no more.