HOLD YOUR BREATH ─── six underground

xxiv. WHERE'S MY HOMICIDAL BROTHER WHEN I NEED HIM?

Zero pondered upon the question for a moment.

Did moving on really mean it didn't mean anything at all?

                       Six was dead now, and she had moved on. Or...tried to, at least. Because she loved him and he died and it hurt to remember so. But it had still meant something to her. Everything to her. Because Six was the first person she had ever fallen in love with and that was...special. And he had been one of the first to love her that never asked for anything in return. He was good and pure and better than anyone else she had ever met. And when he died, Zero had done just as Seven said. She simply moved on, as if he meant nothing, and found another number. But if the tables had been turned, Six would never have been able to move on. Eden Lambert wouldn't have either. But the girl knew that with each day ━━━ with each heartbreak, she strayed further and further from the girl she once was. She was becoming more and more like a ghost and less and less like a human.

The fact scared her.

"Why do you think I chose you?" One queried. "A man whose longest relationship is with a rifle."

Zero smiled.

                 "You don't know my fucking life, bro," Seven snickered back at him.

"You can't do the stuff that we do and have someone you love," One stated, his tone lowering. "It doesn't-...it doesn't work."

Zero's smile faded.

                    That was like a stab to her heart. And she wondered how many times she'd give her brother the opportunity to break it.

"Asshole," she whispered to herself.

Was he right?

                       She had loved Six and that certainly hadn't ended well. But now, her mind was drifting elsewhere. She thought back to that night on the tower. When Four was about to confess...everything. And instead of listening, she kissed him. She just wished she hadn't. Because now, she couldn't stop thinking about it. The way he had made her feel. Like she was human again.

But circumstance got in the way and he threw her off a building.

One was right.

It didn't work.

Which is why she had to leave.

"You're full of shit, man," Seven answered. "I've seen the way you look at your sister."

"And how's that?"

                  "Like she means everything in the world," Seven said. "And you, my friend, are a prick. You have no idea how lucky you are. To have someone like that love you the way that she loves you. But if you keep treating her like she means nothing, you're gonna lose her, man. For good."

There was silence on the other end and Zero didn't notice the tears pooling in her eyes.

"Maybe that's for the best," One finally admitted quietly. "This way, I can leave the world the same way I entered it. Alone, and my sister joining me twenty years later."