nolens volens

salem, massachusetts

a.d. iii non. nov., 2766 a.u.c.

A blizzard.

It had made sense when she had first initiated it. Now she just felt like a fool for letting her emotions get the better of her. Repeatedly. In a very quick succession of what could be the greatest fuck ups of her very short life.

She still wasn't sure what had happened. She didn't know who to blame. Herself? Had she truly been so irrationally blind to her own power? Or was she being tricked yet again?

It had all gone so smoothly until he started freezing.

Annie hadn't known what exactly to feel when she'd kissed Armin. Was there supposed to be feeling? Usually she wasn't quite attached to her own emotions, her heart constantly numb and constantly keeping her from comprehending her own mistakes. But even so, there had always been some sort of flicker of warmth there. When she was with the team… feeling some semblance of normality, of care and foreign contentedness, she'd always felt warm and safe and sad beyond belief. Because it wasn't real. Because none of it was real. She was just a liar, and they were just doomed.

But Armin's lips had been so soft, and his skin so abnormally warm, overheated it seemed by his sickness, and his fleshy lips had burned her. Trust was a two-way street, that was for sure. And she had no choice but to trust him. What were her other options? It was either Armin or captivity.

She wouldn't be trapped like a rabbit in a snare. She was not going through this horror again.

I'm such a fool, she thought, collapsing in a snowbank as the drifts grew thicker and thicker, layering the roads with blankets of white. All schools had been called off. Annie felt like those children should be kissing the snow that she walked upon. I'm a foolish little girl, and I never learn, not even when it matters most.

Wind and ice clung to her skin and her hair and her clothes, and she likely looked like some kind of snow witch, with all the hoarfrost and icicle that seemed to grow from her very skin. It, in fact, did. Every little burst of snowflakes was a result of something she'd thrown up, quite literally, which was terrifying and a little disgusting. She wished she could freeze herself like she'd frozen Armin.

She should've known from the moment it started. She should've quit while she was ahead, and never let it go so far.

The moment she'd pulled back to see frost caking his pale lips, she knew she'd royally fucked up. But it had only gotten worse. Her power had grown on its own. And suddenly he was being devoured by ice, and shaking so badly that she thought he might snap his neck. She hadn't even realized her own terrible distress until she'd felt a gentle hand on her back, rubbing small circles between her shoulder blades.

"Oh, Annie," Marco had sighed, watching Armin convulse and freeze in a duel presentation of grotesque nature. "Look what you've done now."

She'd been sobbing, she'd realized upon coming to her senses, and clawing at Armin's feet with her blackened fingers, attempted to break apart the ice she'd created but only blasting more icicles into spiking, crystallized existence, watching them as they grew and twisted and writhed around his skinny body. Her power was utterly consuming him, and he was powerless to stop it. He was dying. He was seized by his malady, and there was nothing she could do to stop it, or herself, or any of this horror.

"No," Annie had sobbed, "no, no, no!"

"Stand up," Marco whispered. "You're only worsening the damage done."

Annie had been so distraught, she could barely think, barely function. This wasn't fair. She'd liked Armin. She really, really liked Armin, she liked that he understood her, and she liked that he was clever and concerned, and she liked that exhilarating thought that maybe he could figure everything out just by being his odd little self, but now that dream was shattered, and she was watching him become a casualty of her own making.

"I don't—" Annie'd been breathless, her tears crystallizing upon her cheeks. "I don't understand!"

"What?" He'd sounded so confused, and he laughed at her. The sound was familiar and sweet, and she wanted him out of her head, she wanted all these stupid boys and their stupid, sweet little lies out of her head. "Oh, c'mon. Did you really think kissing him was a good idea? You can barely touch me without making my fingers numb."

"I thought it'd be different," she gasped, "I thought—!"

"You little fool…" Marco had murmured, his voice light and affectionate as he rested his hand on her head. She was still clawing at Armin's feet, sobs bubbling up in her chest. "A lovely fool, granted, but a fool nonetheless. Look at him. Look what you've done. What on earth were you even thinking?"

Every tear was a line of ice stuck against her cheek. She'd never felt so cold in her entire life, and there was ice in her bloodstream. Winter was her beating heart, and snow was packed around her frigid insides, glittery porcelain skin to match her cold, hard heart.

"Stop it!" she'd screamed, watching her black fingers produce a myriad of broken, busted ice that danced around the tree, laughing in sweet crackling sounds at her madness, her sadness, and her grave stupidity. "Help me undo it!" She was breaking apart, melting and cracking and every little thing that she'd held inside her, bottled up beneath the frigid exterior was spilling through, and it was so warm and sickening that she thought she might puke. "I can't, I can't melt it, you have to do something!"

Marco stood smiling at her side, watching as her ice smoothed delicately over Armin's sweet, astonished face. It solidified nicely.

"Annie," he said gently, "come on, now, chin up. Let me take care of it. You trust me, don't you? I mean…" Marco looked up, his soft voice drifting over the lashing of the wind. "After all, if anyone can help him, it's me."

"Liar," she spat.

He glanced at her as she lurched to her feet. She scrubbed at her face with her icy fingers, scratching away at the frozen tears, and she took deep, harsh breath as the air became cold and knifed at her lungs with every short intake.

"You—" she snarled, stumbling away from him, her sneakers crushing leaves and sending swirls of frost across the dead yellow grass. "You liar!"

"Oh, aren't you being dramatic?" Marco rolled his eyes. "If I'm a liar, Annie, what does that make you?"

She wanted to scream. She wanted to scream, and throw herself to the ground and cry and scream and thrash until the world broke apart. She hated this.

"Stop it!" she snarled. "I can't— I can't do this anymore. I can't keep lying for you!"

"You do realize," he said, his eyes warm and bright against the shuddering, ice clustered dawn, "that you can't get away from this, don't you?" Everything was ice and snow now. Everything was dust and frost.

"I will," she told him, staring into his warm face and his warm eyes and his warm, warm smile, and she decided that she could definitely despise him. "I'm through with all of this. If you don't help me free Armin, then I'll— I'll never speak to you again."

"That's kind of childish," he sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "Not to mention rude."

"Fuck you," she snapped.

"Wow." Marco looked at her. Really looked, and his shoulders slumped a little as he took a step forward. Instinctively she stumbled back, and icicles sprouted up from the dirt where her heels collided with the earth. "You're really angry. I'm sorry, Annie. I didn't realize you cared about him that much."

She wanted to sob. She could feel one bubbling in her chest, and she stared at him incredulously, shaking her head over and over, little bursts of ice and snow dragging into the air from the tips of her fingers. His expression softened considerably, and she shook her head again, and again, and again, unable to believe him and his apology, and yet she found herself breaking apart at the very seams as his strong arms found their way around her tiny shoulders, and she was pressed up against his chest, her face buried in the buttons of his shirt.

"You'll forgive me, won't you?" he murmured into her hair. "I never think before I do things. I thought making him come to you would fix it all."

"You made it worse," she choked against his chest, sinking into his embrace as fresh tears sprung into her eyes. "You kept feeding him lies! You made him have a— a seizure, or something! What did you even show him?"

"Mm…" He rested his chin against the top of her head, and for a few sweet moments it seemed normal again, like everything was back the way it was supposed to be, and she could just forget about Armin and the others, forget and be happy, be happy, be something that wasn't inexplicably terrified. "I made him see Ilse instead of me. I thought it'd work, but his mind is a lot stronger than I anticipated. And the seizure… well, unfortunately, I've been gambling on his life a little too long. I don't think he'll live much longer."

Annie was breathless. He won't live much longer, she thought, peeking through Marco's arms to look at the face of the boy beneath the ice. He looked serene, somehow, and she wanted nothing more than to shatter the frozen mass and make him breathe some real air. This is too cruel. Life's too cruel.

"What's going to happen to him?" Annie whispered.

He rubbed her back reassuringly, as though that could make the pain of what he'd done go away. She was numb to so much in this world. Why not him too? What was this, her weakness for sweet smiles and open, friendly minds?

Sweet boys always ended up being the cruelest, it seemed.

"Well," Marco chirped, "thanks to you? I think he'll live a little longer. So don't cry over it, doll. Chin up!" She didn't look up at him. She hated it when he called her doll. "Or not. Okay. Look, I'm really sorry this happened."

"No you're not," she muttered into his chest.

"Hey, I want Armin to live as much as you do," he said softly, taking her face in his hands and tilting it up so she could look him in the eyes. "See? No lies this time. I'm me, see?"

"I can't even tell the difference anymore," she hissed, shoving him away. He looked genuinely hurt, and he stared at her confusedly. "What's real, Marco? This face? Or Ilse?"

And he'd stared at her.

And he'd smiled.

"Don't you trust me, Annie?" he asked innocently.

"No," she said, taking another step backwards, sickened as icicles spun around her, curling against the harsh morning light and glittering in her wake. "No, I don't think I trust you at all."

"Now who's the liar," he cooed.

"Get out of my head!" she'd snapped, her dark fingers flying beneath her hair, tearing at her scalp as she squeezed her eyes shut. "Get out of here! Go!"

"I thought you wanted me to help you get Armin out of this terrible, terrible mess you've made."

"You did this," she gasped, tears flooding her cheeks and gathering in clumps of snow around her eyelids. It was obscuring her vision, turning everything bright white. "Not me!"

"Look around," he said, waving his arms at all the ice bursting from the ground, at the boy incased in a frozen prison, at the snow rising from her tear ducts. "This was all you. Every little bit of it. All I did was lead him here."

"And look how well that turned out!"

"It's swell, I think," he said earnestly, glancing at Armin's frozen body. "I mean, I thought you wanted him to live. Well, now we have more time to help him."

"You can't just keep him frozen…"

"Is that a challenge?" He quirked an eyebrow, and clasped his hands together excitedly. "Oh, boy. You really haven't learned a thing."

"Marco," she said, lowering her hands to her sides as she heaved. "I'm done. I'm done with you. I'm done playing pretend!"

"You were always free to go and come at your leisure," Marco said, watching her with an odd, vaguely pained expression. "I can't stop you from leaving. You've always been free to leave, Annie, you just always come back. Which is why I'll excuse this insubordination."

"This is the last time you'll ever see me," she declared.

"Oh, I'm sure." He grinned at that, and wandered over to Armin's frozen encasement, resting his fingers against the jagged, glassy surface. He stared into the boy's face, and turned his bright, salient brown eyes to her. Warmth was him. He was warmth. It was as though he'd captured the sun in his eyes, and he exuded its energy without so much as lifting a finger. "Oh, Annie. They hated you when you killed me. What are they going to think of you when they find out what you did to their precious mind reader?"

Her heart had battered against her chest, wild and frenzied and faltering at the thought. It hadn't occurred to her. All she wanted was out, but there was no way out, not when Armin was a boy on ice, not when she'd already fucked up enough that they'd hunt her down and skewer her. Eren will hate me for this, she thought, certain and terrified. Mikasa might kill me for this.

"Ah, see." Marco cocked his head as he smiled. "You're lucky I made them pity you. Elsewise you'd be a dead girl walking, I'm certain."

"They only hated me," Annie whispered bitterly, "because they thought I killed you."

"Well, technically you did," he said brightly. "Marco Bodt needed to die. You played a big part in that. And I'm really thankful!"

"Oh, eat shit," she snapped at him.

"Ha ha!" He pulled his hand from Armin's crystalline prison, and he clapped his hands together. "Gosh, you're always a treat. I'll really miss our little talks, you know." He sighed loftily, rocking back on his heels. "I sure hope no one kills you. I'd be pretty pissed."

"Go to hell," she said hoarsely. "That's where you belong."

"Yes, yes," Marco sighed, glancing around him a little irritably. "Right, I know. Son of Satan right here. Anyways, call me if you need me. Key's under the mat. That sort of thing. Oh, and try not to get killed."

She couldn't take it anymore. She screamed.

"I hate you!" she snarled. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"

He'd smiled then, but grimly. "Doll," he said softly, "get in line."

He was the reason Armin was frozen.

He was the reason her life was in a gutter, and she was lying in a bank of snow, allowing herself to be buried in her own sickness because she was too tired and weak to care.

Part of her had wanted to stay, to try and protect Armin from whatever Marco had in store for him, but she knew she had no chance. Marco wanted Armin. That was so clear to her. It was so apparent that she did not matter anymore, that her disappearance meant very little in the grand scheme. Had he been pushing her away when he'd broke her arm, stabbed her, disemboweled her just to prove his stupid, selfish point to Jean?

Annie couldn't take it anymore. Her life was one of fabrications and lies, and she'd never had the chance to be real, or part through what was real and what was a farce.

She wondered how Reiner and Bertholdt were fairing. They'd never had the same disadvantage as her, since she was where Marco had always liked to focus his attention. Of course, she'd never felt that it was a bad thing until very, very recently. She'd always been so happy to please him, so excited when he doted on her, because it had always felt normal and nice, like she truly had someone in the world who cared about her.

When he'd been torturing her, Marco had explained to Jean that Annie would never leave him because she loved him.

That was true enough. It was hard not to love someone who gave you nothing but warmth and kindness for the majority of your life. She couldn't recall the faces of her parents any longer. Marco's face was the only face that was preserved in her memory, and she had no doubt that he was responsible for that directly.

She saw now how he'd been manipulating her. She'd always known, at least a little bit, that she was nothing but a tool. He'd never made that apparent, though. He'd always been kind, always tried to make her feel like she belonged somewhere, at least.

She'd wandered off a few times. She always came back.

It was just the way with her. She wasn't good at standing still, and Marco had always been so accepting of that.

"Welcome home!" he'd gasped upon one of her more recent returnings. He'd run up to meet her, enveloping her in one of his warm, soul crushing hugs. "Are you okay? Have you been eating? I'll have someone bring something up to your room, while you shower, okay?"

Tears were burning inside her eyes, and they were freezing before they could make it out. He made it so hard to hate him.

He was too nice. Too charismatic. Too funny, and smart, and caring.

He knew exactly how to gain unwavering loyalty. And that, she'd realized, was exactly why they were all in this mess in the first place.

She was such a fool.

When he'd asked her to go find Eren, she hadn't known what to think.

"Why Eren?" she'd asked. "Why now?"

Bertholdt and Reiner ran off a lot too. They always went their separate ways, but sometimes Annie felt like they were her only friends. They understood. They got it. In this world, they might as well not exist at all.

"I'm getting really worried about the other patients," Marco had admitted. He disappeared a lot too without warning. Annie had put together, of course, that he was playing a game of lies far more malicious than her own. She'd been lying because she hadn't wanted any of the others to remember their own mortality, in case of the worst. Marco lied because he was curious.

"Why?" Annie recalled her irritation. Perhaps it was jealousy. "You're the one who let them all go."

"Yes, true." He'd smiled at her wanly. "But the procedures were all experimental. For all I know, all that work could be for nothing. What if an illness comes back? I need to be there for them."

And so she'd sought out Eren upon Marco's request.

She hadn't expected to find Armin there as well.

He'll mess everything up, she'd thought upon fleeing. He'll read my mind and remember how sick he was. And then Marco will have to wipe their memories again, and he'll be angry because I fucked up.

She was fortunate that she had grown up with a telepath. She'd built a very good defense against them. Marco could hardly push through her mental wall, and when they had first met again, it had actually been a strain on Armin to just be near her. It had made her feel safe, if not for just a little while. She hated the sensation of people roaming around inside her head.

But she had underestimated him. It seemed to be the norm with Armin. Everyone expected him to just lie down and take it all. But he refused. She admired that, of course, though it was undeniably frustrating.

"That robot," Armin had told her after the fight in Chicago, "had your powers."

True enough. The robots had been modeled after herself, Reiner, and Ymir. For irony, she had to guess. Armin was the only one clever enough to catch it. She'd been rather irritated when he approached her. What did it matter if the robot was like her or not? She'd scrapped it anyway. It was gone. It had served its purpose, and now it was nothing but a scrap of metal.

She knew that Marco had been playing with everyone's heads that day.

"It looked like it was alive," Armin had said.

She'd bit back a snide remark about how easily he was fooled.

No, the robots had never been alive. But Marco sure as hell made them a spectacle.

She'd seen it herself while fighting the one that had looked like her. Marco had bent its image in order to look uncannily as she did, from its glassy eyes to its frozen fingers. She'd watched it, studied it, felt its vivacity in her heart, seen its sentience with her own two eyes, and she could not for the life of her understand why he wanted to make such a pointless illusion.

When she'd asked, he'd told her quite candidly.

"I thought it'd be fun," he said innocently. "Mysterious, and stuff. Also, it distracted most of you long enough for the robots to do their scans. That ugly, eerie feeling you got in the pit of your stomach when you stared into that robot's eyes? That was real. That wasn't me. That was the machinery staring through you, and analyzing every molecule inside you."

He'd been rather excited about that.

That had been after The Brigade mission. She'd already been growing wary of Marco's influence, because she'd been far enough away from him for a long enough time that she was able to think through what he was doing, and see that he wasn't making any logical sense. What was the harm in just telling them that they'd been sick? She understood that it was all a question of morals, but she couldn't help but think the hindered communication would just cause more problems in the long run.

She was right.

Armin was catching on quickly, and Annie wanted to hate him so badly that it made her chest ache. She was so very wary of mind readers. They got under your skin, and made you love them, and want to do everything in your power to please them, but the harsh reality of it was that nothing could please them.

She'd expected Armin to be just the same. But he had no want for her mind, not truly, and she could taste that in their mental contact. All he wanted, she realized, was to be normal.

They weren't really so different, it seemed.

That was why she'd decided to tell him about what was really going on. The illnesses, the robots, and most importantly, Marco.

She'd hoped her mental wall would be sufficient enough to keep him in the dark about it, but she figured out very quickly that it wasn't. She was trapped. How could she possibly tell Armin anything with Marco's ear turned to her at all times? Not a whisper, not a breath, not even a flutter of a thought could be kept from him.

When she'd volunteered to stand outside with Marco, she'd been terrified. She kept her terror to herself, kept it locked up within her cold heart, kept it hidden, kept it in chains, but everything inside her was about to shatter from that fear, because she knew he was not happy with her, and that she was going to regret ever trusting Armin.

They'd been outside for about a minute in silence before Marco had grabbed her hand and pulled her away.

"I've been thinking," he'd said as they'd exited The Brigade headquarters. "I've gotten too involved."

"What?" Annie had asked. It had been a long time since they'd been alone, and she recalled feeling hollow as he'd pulled her into an alley. Part of her had wanted to remind him that they were supposed to be guarding the others. But she knew Marco didn't care. "What do you mean?"

"I don't think my lie is going to hold much longer," he'd admitted, turning his head up toward the sky. "Which makes me sad. I loved this."

"Your lie can last forever," she said, bitter and furious. "What the hell are you talking about? If something's threatening you, you make it go away. That's just how you are."

"Not this time," he'd sighed, resting his back against the alley wall. "Unfortunately. Sometimes I forget how easy it is for others to build up immunities to telepathy. My illusions won't work. They need to die, and quickly."

"What does that mean?" Annie had asked with a sharp look. Marco had glanced at her with his warm eyes alight in the darkness. No, she'd thought, her heart crumbling into dust, no, please, don't make me do it.

"I'm sorry, Annie," he said softly, putting his hand on her head and ruffling her hair. "You know I wouldn't unless it was absolutely necessary."

"They'll hate me," she breathed.

He'd quirked an eyebrow, smirking at her with a light amount of amusement in his warm expression. "You actually care?" he teased. "That's actually kinda surprising. I guess this really was a good experience for you!"

"Shut up," she mumbled, rubbing her face tiredly. "I don't want to do this. Why does it have to be me?"

"Who else could?" he'd asked her, blinking with his bright, warm, innocent eyes, and she peeked at him through her fingers and felt her stomach clench in terror. "Marco Bodt has to die, Annie. You have to kill him."

"But I don't want—"

"Do you think I want this either?" he'd asked sharply, his face suddenly contorting in frustration. "I liked this life! I liked being a real, normal boy. But the jig is up, doll. We're not the people we're pretending to be. It's time to let the illusion die."

She'd been close to tears. She hated this. She hated him. She hated the world. Why can't I just be normal? Annie had thought, pulling her glove from her right hand, letting it slip through her fingers as her onyx skin glittered in the darkness. Why couldn't you erase my memories too?

"Do I really have to…?" Her fingertips had been centimeters from his cheek, hovering shakily as they gleamed starkly against the warm hue of his skin, and the dark splotches of his freckles. "What if you actually die…?"

He smiled at her, and grasped her wrist. She watched in utter horror as his fingers frosted over, ice clinging to his skin. "Don't you trust me?" he asked her gently.

She hated him.

He dragged her hand through the air, and pressed her icy fingers to his cheek.

In truth, he'd done most of the work. She felt him in her head, a gentle nudge by a gentle voice, and she saw his lips moving, and heard his calm, sweet voice as it urged her to sink her fingernails into his flesh, frost spiraling in slow rhythms over his freckled face, connecting them in careful motions, careful, careful, careful. She was always so careful.

"Kill me," he whispered, his voice worming its way into her brain, slipping through the cracks of her mental wall, and devouring all sense of agency she had. She felt his voice in her heart, curling around the chains and crags of ice like a snake slithering and curling and constricting with all the force and all the vise, and she watched in confusion and horror as Marco's skin began to fold, and suddenly, as if from a nightmare, icicles burst through his one eye, and bent outwards as they crawled down his face and neck and shoulder, throwing blood and muscle and ice into the air, the sound like stained glass windows shattering under the shrill twittering of a hymn hitting a vibrating pitch.

She'd stumbled back, watching his body crash upon the alley floor, blood and brains and bliss swirling around her, her mind cloudy and crumbling.

If Annie could wipe her mind of all the horror she'd seen and done, she'd do it in a heartbeat.

My pain makes me stronger, she tried to convince herself. I will not crumble. I will not fall.

She'd fled, hopeless and terrified, but in the end it didn't matter. There was no safe place to run from mind readers. She would never be free of them. She could never escape.

"See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Marco had laughed when he'd found her again, throwing one arm around her shoulder. She'd slept in a park that night, cramming her body in a little wooden castle, carving a plea amongst the other little sharpie-scrawled graffiti. Help me, she wrote, save me. I don't want to lie anymore.

"They all hate me," she'd said dully, staring ahead with dead eyes. She wondered if he'd steal everything that was inside her. He'd already taken her thoughts, her mind, and any emotion that managed to burgeon within her. What else could he possibly want? "They'll probably want revenge. You've made a bigger mess, Marco. I had no motive to kill you."

"Don't fret, doll," he told her, patting her head as he smiled brightly. "I can handle it from here. Why don't we go home now? I have a few errands to run, but I can do those after you're safe in your bed."

Safe in confinement, she ached to correct him.

She should have told Armin while she had a chance.

She was so good at following orders.

I wonder, she thought now, lying in a bed of snow, if I ever had any sort of choice to begin with.

Had she done these things out of her own free will? Or had it been Marco influencing her every move, every thought, every little breath?

The reason she'd been so scared of Armin in the first place was because she knew.

Mind readers were the most dangerous kinds of people.

They trick you into loving them, she thought furiously, and manipulate you until you've broken apart.

Even Armin had tricked her his fair share. Even Armin had made her want to love him, for no reason in particular, and the worst part was that it was no fault of his own. She was weak. She was a weak little girl. And she truly never learned.

She couldn't pretend to understand Marco, or Armin, or even herself. She couldn't pretend to be anything any longer. She wasn't sure who she was, if she had ever been anything more than the lies Marco had laid upon her shoulders.

"Why did I have to break Levi's wings?" she'd asked Marco, rubbing her recently healed eye. He'd been sitting placidly beside her on their plane from Rome back to America. "They weren't even close to finding Dr. Jaeger. It seemed pointless."

"I wanted to slow them down," Marco said. "They're getting too nosy. It's probably best if they shift their focus from Grisha, and onto something actually important. Like Armin."

"What about Armin?" Annie had asked warily.

"Well, he's in all certainty ill again," Marco had mused, resting his cheek against his fist. "Brain tumors are funny things. I'd really love to see how he ticks up close. Did he seem stable to you when you lived with him?"

"Um…" Stable? Well, he hadn't seemed like he was dying, if that was what Marco had meant. "I guess, yeah. He had headaches a lot."

"Oh, that's natural." Marco waved offhandedly. "I always got headaches, way back when I started learning to control my power. That's nothing unusual. But I'm wondering what a tumor would do to the brain of a boy with incredible mental abilities." He'd glanced at her, and she could see the excitement gleaming in his warm brown eyes. She felt sickened by it. "Will he become more powerful as a result? Or will he simply succumb to the atrophy?"

"I don't want to know," she said firmly.

"Fine," he snorted, "I won't tell you anything about it."

She'd looked at him, and it seemed in that moment that she had made a very grave mistake.

True to his word, he'd told her nothing about Armin's condition. In fact, he kept her out of the loop for most things. So when Marco led Jean to Annie, tricking Jean's mind into seeing a dog when it was really nothing but Marco, she'd been astonished.

And, once again, terrified.

Marco had been trying to prove some kind of point to Jean, but Annie didn't care at all. She was furious that she was being used as a pawn, or a tool, and she decided that if Marco didn't want Jean to be a killer, then she'd make him be a killer. It wasn't like she'd die anyway.

And of course, Marco had taken things into his own hands.

So this is what betrayal feels like, she'd thought, patting at the blood staining the front of her sweatshirt. A nice change to be on the receiving end.

She'd imagined being tortured would be a lot different.

She felt like she should have been expecting this.

Running away from Marco was a lot easier upon the revelation that she was irrevocably terrified of him.

She kept running, and running, and running, but it was so clear that she could never escape them. Armin had found her simply by thinking about her. She was doomed to dance around these illusionists until her feet blistered to the bone.

Annie had fled Marco and abandoned Armin, too scared and too sick and too shattered to even care. She'd run until her legs throbbed, she'd run until tears leaked from her eyes and plastered onto her cheeks, strands of ice glistening madly against the flushed skin. She'd run until she fell onto her knees, the air around her thinning out, and she couldn't breathe, and she couldn't think, and her heart was racing, and she puked.

Instead of vomit or bile, she puked snow.

It was unlike any pain she'd ever felt. It was her entire body being torn away from the inside, frozen blood and frozen bones, and retched up flurries, her skin sloughing off and regenerating in layers and layers of ice, and it felt as though she was going to explode, because suddenly the entire world was white, and she was expelling all sense of feeling, all her terror and all her pain, and it was turning the earth into a toiling storm of snow and ice and her disbelieving, pain filled laughter became the steady wail of the wind.

Did I do this…? she thought numbly, half buried in her own sickness.

It was so funny.

She didn't feel a thing.

She must've been lying there for a while. The snow was blanketing over her now, and she could hardly breath as she sunk deeper and deeper into obscurity. What would happen to Armin? What would happen to her? They were all doomed, it seemed. Reiner had been right all along.

"We are a god's forgotten children," he'd once told her, "and we are his wasted miracles."

She'd stood up and left him to stew in his own self-loathing. She had no use for his existential crisis. They were alive. Wasn't that what mattered?

But she didn't feel alive. Perhaps all her time with Marco had drained her of all sense of emotion. It was an empty life. A desperate one. She wasn't even sad with her situation. Just… terrified… so… so… terrified…

Annie had a theory that Reiner had once asked Marco to erase his memory. But she couldn't be certain.

Thinking about it now made her feel sick.

Weak, she thought bitterly, snow digging into her skin, becoming her. He's just weak. He can't live with his pain.

She wanted to scream.

Or sob.

Or puke.

She envied him so badly it hurt to breathe.

God, and she'd thought she was numb to it all.

She was just as weak as he was, if not more.

Marco ruined us with his lies, she thought. We're nothing now. Reiner was right, we're nothing in the eyes of gods.

She found herself being grappled at, hand prying her from her icy bed and tearing her from the snow. She heard shouting amidst her wailing winds, and she felt hot fingers brushing against her cheeks. She pried her eyes open, and saw nothing but white. Great. Why were people touching her?

"Stop," she mumbled hoarsely. She squinted through the haze of white and the snarl of wind, and she shoved at the person holding her. "Let go of me!"

"Holy shit, she's alive!"

"Nice, Marlowe. Real nice."

"Holy shit," Marlowe gasped, his voice familiar and distressed. He set her down very gently on a gurney. "It's Annie!"

Annie squinted at him through the frost the clung to her eyelashes. He was wearing a very heavy winter coat. She wouldn't have recognized him amidst the blinding white and the bundle of his coat, if not for his name being spoken.

"Yeah," she said in a dull, throaty voice. "No shit."

"How long were you lying in there?" Marlowe asked, tearing his coat off and throwing it over her shoulders.

"No—" she choked, her eyes flashing wide as she tried to push the coat away. "No, that's not necessary—"

"You're lucky to be alive!" he cried over the snarl of wind. She stared at him, taken aback by his concern. She stayed silent as he bundled his heavy coat around her, dusting the snow from her hair and frowning. Well, she couldn't really explain her resistance to cold anyway.

What am I supposed to do now, she thought numbly.

She wondered if the blizzard would stop if she started feeling again.

Marlowe put his hand on her face, and she jerked away from him, nearly toppling right off the gurney. She was breathing rather fast, her heart racing, and she curled into the jacket he had given her and squeezed her eyes shut. Was this what it was like to have a panic attack? Was she having a panic attack? Was she going to go half mad like Bertholdt and Reiner?

She remembered once Bertholdt had broken down before her. She remembered him crumpling like tissue paper, and tearing himself apart.

"Please," he sobbed, fingers drawing down his face, hands curling around his ears, lips trembling so very pitifully. Annie had stood in her silent vigil. Reiner had run to get Marco. They'd only been children then. They were only children. "Please, oh please, oh god, oh god—" He'd dropped to his knees, his eyes wide and wild. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry— I didn't— I couldn't— please, stop, I didn't, I didn't mean—"

She'd wanted to hug him. She'd wanted to tell him that it would be okay, that it wasn't real, that it was all in his head, and that it was just fine, just fine, you're fine, please stop crying, you're making me cry. Instead, she'd stood and watched him fall apart, his sobs rattling the air like little fists at a cage.

Instead, she'd run away.

She was so good at doing that.

Marlowe looked utterly remorseful, and he pulled his hands as far away from her as possible. She closed her eyes, imagining Bertholdt's face when he smiled, imagining Reiner when he joked, imagined Eren when he was excited, imagined Armin laughing, imagined Christa braiding Mikasa's hair, imagined even Ymir, lazily drawling away at how stupid the world was, even Jean, who'd hated her so badly, but wanted to save her in spite of everything. None of it was making her heart rate slower. It was only worsening her shallow breaths.

"Hitch," Marlowe said urgently, "calm her down, will you?"

"And you expect me to do that how…?" The woman who had spoken was wearing a very nice beige coat, her hood up and a lime green scarf bundled up to her nose. She had pale, fluffy hair that poked out from under the fur lining of her hood. "Oh, let me guess. Womanly touch?" She gave a shrill little laugh. "Fuck yourself, buddy. I came here for a story, not a nanny service."

"I'm sorry, Annie," Marlowe said to her gently, holding his hands up to show her where exactly they were. She was almost touched by the gesture. "This is my friend Hitch. She'd been helping me get people off the streets." He sighed, shooting a glare at the woman, who struck Annie as rather self-absorbed and careless. "Unfortunately she's the biggest bitch in the country."

"Oh my gosh, you really mean it?" Hitch feigned awe, and then she pinched out Marlowe's cheek. "I'm the only bitch you've got, pal."

"Um, can I go?" Annie asked weakly.

Marlowe glanced at her worriedly. She appreciated the concern, but they hardly even knew each other. They'd met when Annie had stumbled into the soup kitchen a few nights ago, looking for a place to crash. She didn't expect anyone to really care, because she wasn't an unusual case, she was just like any other homeless kid roaming around.

"Annie," Marlowe said, "why don't you come back? There are lots of people seeking shelter right now, you might as well."

"No thanks," she said. She saw Hitch's eyebrows rise.

"Come on. You can't stay out here in this weather—"

"I probably could," she said. "Can I go now?"

Marlowe looked a little distraught, and he grimaced, whirling around to Hitch. "You talk to her!" He shoved Hitch forward, much to the woman's dismay, and she glanced at Annie uncertainly.

"Oh boy," Hitch whistled, "you are an absolute wreck. Okay, hon." Hitch hopped onto the gurney beside Annie, much to her dismay. "You're cute, you know that? You've got a kind of rugged Icelandic look about you. Totes adorable, bet you get a lot of boys."

"No," Annie said. The wind was howling pretty loudly. What the hell was this lady going on about with boys? Annie didn't give a shit about boys.

Hitch squinted at Annie's face. She was a little impish, her features angular and pinched, and she reminded Annie of sharp edges that needed to be padded over so little children didn't crack their heads open.

"Hey," Hitch chirped, "Marlowe, why don't I take her off your hands?"

"What?" Marlowe asked flatly.

Annie glanced at this woman, slight and smiley and shrill, and she wondered if she'd be able to take an hour with her, let alone a day.

But actually… going with this woman would probably make it harder to be found, wouldn't it?

Annie was a fifteen year old girl, alone in a blizzard, and she'd fucked up so badly that she was pretty sure she'd signed her own death certificate. And it'd be a lot easier to run away from this one woman then, say, an entire building of sheltered homeless. She had to give it some consideration, but in all honesty, she had nowhere to go. I'm going to regret this, she thought, eying Hitch warily.

"Okay," she said, hopping off the gurney. "Let's go."

"Whoo!" Hitch shoved Marlowe away, jumping over a mound of snow as her boots cracked against the fresh powder. "Let this be a lesson, Marlowe! I will always be your superior in every way!"

"You're the worst type of person, Hitch," Marlowe said quietly.

"And loving every minute of it," she crowed over the roaring wind. Annie peeled off the coat she'd been given, and she offered it back to Marlowe. He stared at her, snowflakes gathering in his hair, and he shook his head furiously.

"No way," he said, shoving the coat back in her face. "At least let me give you this much. I trust Hitch enough not to kill you in your sleep, but be careful, okay? She's really not that nice."

"You're just jealous because she chose me over you," Hitch sneered. "Come on, Annie, I'm not staying far from here."

Annie followed her quietly, wondering if Marco was lurking somewhere around here. He had a tendency to stalk. She wasn't sure if it was out of curiosity, boredom, or insanity. Perhaps a combination of all three.

But Marco was busy with Armin's frozen body right now. Thankfully Annie was a low priority. For how long, she could not say.

"So like," Hitch said, marching forward through the frigid whip of wind that lashed out at them, "gotta ask, what were you doing passed out in the snow?"

Annie's sneakers sank heavily into the fallen drifts. She was very glad she could not feel this vicious cold, because her sneakers were soaked completely through, and the inside fabric was sticking uncomfortably to her soles. She might've been terrified. She couldn't tell anymore, it was all so cold, and it was all the same. She wasn't sure if her heart was in the right place, or if she even had a heart anymore.

She wanted to tell Armin that she regretted so much, that she wanted so much, but she had nothing, and she was nothing, and she wanted him to know that. She wanted him to understand that she was weak, weaker than him by far, and that she had no sense of right or wrong, just some spark of feelings sometimes when it seemed okay to feel.

She wanted to tell him that she'd never meant to hurt anyone. Especially not him.

He's dying, and frozen, she thought. And he's going to haunt me forever.

Forever seemed like a long time to be haunted by a silly little boy with hollow eyes and a silver tongue.

"Okay…" Hitch glanced at her, and rolled her shoulders. "So, why were you so jumpy around Marlowe back there? Yeah, he's kinda a lot to chew, but like, damn that boy's got a heart. He'd never actually hurt you."

Annie had a lump in her throat that was difficult to swallow. It hurt to breathe, the air was so thin. She stepped forward, stepped and stepped, her boots crashing upon the ground.

If she told them it was Marco, would any of them believe her? Or would they take her for a liar when she was finally telling the truth, and put her to the axe anyway? Marco always made himself appear as Ilse. And Ilse, Annie knew, was such an intricate fabrication she may as well be a real live girl.

"You're not all that talkative, are you, doll?"

Annie went rigid, all her muscles locking as though the cold had finally gotten to her, and ice had licked up from wet, squishy toes, slipping across her feet and slithering around her ankles, clawing up her calves and clenching her thighs in an iron grip. She stared at Hitch, wondering if she had enough energy to be furious, or if her fury would just be another lie.

"Don't call me that," she said in such a sharp, quiet tone, that her voice tore from her throat in a strange guttural snarl.

Annie was a wolf that had been trapped so many times, it had lost its legs and was forced to crawl.

Little omega wolf was waiting for her old pack to put her out of her misery.

It'd be a mercy. Wouldn't it?

"Jesus, yeah." Hitch threw up her arms, blinking at Annie confusedly. "Sorry. Are you okay?"

Annie couldn't reply. Okay? Well, to start with, her skin didn't sit right on her bones, and she was pretty sure that was because it'd literally torn off not too long ago to release a fucking blizzard. And that was only to start with.

Had Annie ever been okay? It was hard to think. When was the last time she'd been happy?

Talking to Armin, she reminded herself. That had been nice. And then before that, there was Mina.

"I don't… really know," Annie admitted, watching her sneakers kick up slush. This was her world. All sparkling and pure for only just a few moments before everything gets trampled, and blackened footprints dug into her soul. It was all violent, hissing wind and protruding icicles, and death come knocking early.

Hitch stopped at decent looking hotel, stepping up to the stoop and kicking the snow from her boots by knocking them against a rail. She glanced at Annie, and she waved her forward. "Well," she said, "come on. This is where I'm staying."

Annie followed Hitch obediently, like the good girl she knew she was not, and she sulked along, not really feeling a thing as the warm burst air from the hotel's heater smacked her in the face. She almost missed the wailing winds. At least she'd felt at home outside. Now she felt like a prisoner again.

Why, she wondered, are my prisons always the warm, innocent kind?

If someone locked her in a hard, cold basement, at least she'd know who to hate.

"Kay, so," Hitch said, letting herself and Annie into the hotel room. It was a little trashed, clothes strewn across the floor, a beer bottle lying on its side beside the bed, an open box of condoms half-tipped over the corner of the nightstand. Annie tried not to let her eyes linger on it. "This is it? You're totes welcome to the couch. Actually, some of my clothes might fit you, so that's good, I guess."

Annie slumped a little, pulling off the coat Marlowe had given her, feeling sweat break out across her back. Heat was disgusting. She wanted to be back in her blizzard, and to be frozen over like Armin.

"Is Marlowe your boyfriend?" Annie asked suddenly, unable to meet Hitch's eye.

She barked a laugh so genuinely amused that Annie found herself flushing at her naivety. "Oh, gosh," she breathed, snatching Marlowe's coat from Annie's hands and tossing it onto her bed. "Sometimes. When I'm in the mood for him. How old are you, anyway?"

Annie felt like lying. Nineteen? Nineteen seemed like a good age to lie about. But she didn't look like she was nineteen. She looked like she was thirteen. And that was on a good day. She didn't want to be treated like a little kid, though. She wasn't a kid, she was… she didn't know. A monster, maybe.

"Seventeen," Annie said, because she knew she couldn't get away with being legal.

"Huh." Hitch kicked off her snowy boots, stripping herself of her coat and scarf, revealing a tight pair of jeans and an oversized purple sweater. "Okay, so tell it to me true. What were you doing out in the snow?"

"I don't know," Annie said truthfully.

"Oh, come on." Hitch cocked her head, and her soft blonde hair curled around her cheeks. "You were half-buried. Freezing to death isn't exactly the way I'd choose to go."

"I wasn't going to freeze to death," Annie said.

"No? Because seemed like you were pretty damn close to it."

You don't know anything, she bit back.

"Can I shower?" she said instead.

Hitch quirked an eyebrow, and she smirked. Her lips were a little blue from the cold outside. She pointed to a door on the far wall, and Annie strode over to it, kicking her sneakers off as she went and ripping her hair from its bun. It was wet and scraggly around her ears.

The bathroom was as scummy as any hotel bathroom, she guessed. So, it probably could be a lot worse. The grime was only really in the grout of it tile, and the sink and tub were still white. Annie closed the door behind her, pressing her back to the wood and taking a deep, shaky breath. Her clothes were completely soaked.

She thought about kissing Armin under that tree in that cemetery, and she hated herself for it. It hadn't even meant anything, really, because neither of them wanted it to, and neither of them had any sort of interest in romance or sex, and yet that was what was so attractive about the entire situation. Because they'd been on the same level. They were thinking the same thought, and this time, for once, she knew it was out of her own will.

It was a kiss that probably killed him.

She was so good at fucking things up.

She locked the door, taking great care in peeling the clothes from her back. They were stuck firmly to her skin, clinging helplessly until she was forced to tear them off and kick them away. There was a towel folded on the sink that looked big enough for her to use, and she shivered as she looked at herself in the mirror, half of her skin blackened and gleaming with crystals of ice forming in the very creases of her flesh. Her face was splotchy, and her eyes were bloodshot, and she saw ice in her eyes as she saw ice riddled across her entire body, chunks of flesh missing to reveal solid crystal structures.

It seemed like her skin was growing back, but slowly.

She turned on the showerhead, making the water as hot as possible, and she climbed in. She didn't bother shutting the curtain. The scalding water hit her like a sandstorm, and it brought tears to her eyes. Steam blinding her, tears stung her eyes, and water lashed upon her back with the kind of pressure that made her feel as though her spine would snap.

Annie stood for a moment, her mouth open and her lips trembling against the excruciating pain, and she wondered if it made sense to punish herself, or if she was simply losing her mind. Hot water streamed around her, enveloping her in fire when her entire body was ice, and she hated every moment of it. She sat down on the floor of the tub, liquid flame slicing brands into her pale skin, rivulets of scorching water tracing the protrusions of her spinal column. The beating of the heated water on her icy skin was like being dipped in molten gold.

After a little while, she let the tears go, and sobbed into her knees.

She didn't feel anything, so she didn't know why she was crying. She was growing weaker and weaker, and she was powerless to stop it. The world was melting for her. She was melting with it. She didn't understand. She didn't want any of this.

Through the steam and the pain, she imagined what it would be like to just be a normal girl who could touch things and play sports and have friends without lying through her teeth for someone who considered her disposable. She wished she'd escaped with the rest of them five years ago. Then she might have a clean heart. A clean slate. Maybe then Armin wouldn't be trapped in ice, and she wouldn't be in such a terrible place thinking such terrible things and feeling that there was nothing at all inside her but ice.

She didn't wash her hair, but she scrubbed at her body until her body was raw. Then she dunked her head in the scalding downpour, and let it lash upon her face until she felt sufficiently clean. She felt a hollow place in her chest where a beating heart might've been not so long ago, but she figure it was gone by now. Shattered or melted with the rest of her.

This was terrible.

She turned off the water, trying to get her head straight, but the water had just made everything murkier, and she felt like she was going to puke. No, she thought. No more blizzards, holy shit, please no.

She sat on the floor of the tub for a little while, letting the burns from the shower heal slowly. She ran her finger over one, brushing over the raised skin, blinking at the tingling spark of pain that rushed through her. She wished someone she knew were here. Someone not Marco, someone like Armin, or Reiner, or Bertholdt, or Eren, or even Mikasa. She'd give anything to see a familiar face.

Sniffling pitifully, she climbed out of the tub, dripping water everywhere as she snatched the towel and flung it around herself, burying her face in the downy fabric. What was she supposed to do now?

Armin, she thought into a great void. I'm so sorry.

If he had heard her, he did not respond. Perhaps he was already dead.

A knock at the door nearly had her toppling onto the floor. When had she become so frigging jumpy? She needed to calm down.

She wrapped her towel tighter around herself as Hitch called through the door, "Hey, are you alive in there?"

That was probably a matter of perspective.

It wasn't really like her to be so worked up over such trivial things, and she honestly really tried not to get emotional because it was easier to play pretend if her insides didn't feel like they were about to spill out. But she wasn't playing pretend anymore. The jig was up. She was no longer expected to act as the tool she knew she was, and she could go along and spout all sorts of truths without any fear. The only problem was that no one would believe her.

The wolf, or the girl who cried wolf. It didn't matter. She was doomed either way.

Hitch's fist was rapping on the door, and Annie watched the doorframe shake in the steam and the mist, her body quaking and her skin stinging from excess healing. She felt the residual stretch of scorching water branding into her back. She hadn't taken any sort of pleasure in that pain, which was frustrating to her, because she wanted some kind of release from the pressure building inside her. Kissing someone again might do the trick.

What if I seduce her? Annie thought, eying the doorway thoughtfully. She'd take the bite. She's just that type of person.

But Annie's mind was on the crystalline structure her single kiss had trapped Armin in. Annie was too unstable for such thoughts. And, also, she wasn't sure if kissing Hitch, or doing anything else with her, would make her feel better. Armin had been a good first kiss, because Armin was odd and awkward and inexperienced. Hitch was a stranger, and a confident one at that.

"I'm gonna get someone to chop down this door!" Hitch warned. "I swear!"

Annie readjusted her towel so it knotted at her breasts and covered her body as best as it possibly could. She'd always tried to cover up out of self-consciousness, feeling that her body was too strange to trust on any level. It was too strange and awkward for her, even with people she'd trusted completely like Reiner, Bertholdt, and Marco. Privacy was not a luxury she got often, so she compensated by burying herself in clothing.

Her life was too complicated for this shit.

She unlocked the door, and before she could pull it open, Hitch burst into the room. Annie stumbled backwards, her heels colliding sharply with the grimy tile, and she regained her balance after a little dizzy spell of cool air rushing to greet her. There were snowflakes dancing inside her eyes.

"What the hell were you doing?" Hitch asked. "Preening?"

"Showering…" Annie was self-conscious again. She found herself clasping her left elbow tightly in her fist, feeling foolish and awkward and far too vulnerable. Her thin legs were wobbling, well toned muscle turning to jelly as she realized her fear of intimacy extended to this woman too. She'd never be able to seduce her. Or, really, anyone. Annie was too terrified.

"Gosh," Hitch said, squinting through the steam. "You're a real mess, aren't you?"

Annie couldn't respond. It was true.

"Well, come on," Hitch said, waving her out of the bathroom. Annie followed hesitantly, every moment passing another blow to her ego. She stood silently, flushing and furious with herself, because showing fear was a huge mistake. "You're really tiny, so I didn't know what exactly would fit you. Your hips are pretty narrow, and my ass is glorious, so most of my jeans and stuff are out. My leggings should fit you, though." Hitch shoved a black bundle at Annie's face, and then tossed a faded blue sweater her way. Annie caught it, watching it wilt between her fingers.

Hitch seemed to notice that.

"Oh my god!" Hitch exclaimed, her eyes flashing in horror. "Shit, you have frostbite!"

Annie glanced at her blackened fingers, and she sighed. "No," she said glumly. "No I do not."

"Hon, your fingers are black as my soul. Oh man, what do we do?" Hitch scratched her head, not looking particularly distressed. "Call a doctor? But who'd take you in this weather…?"

"Hitch," Annie said firmly. "My fingers have been like this for years. It's not frostbite, it's just a skin condition."

Hitch glanced at Annie, pursing her lips indignantly. "For some reason, I just don't believe you," she said.

Whenever I tell the truth, Annie thought bitterly, I'm a liar anyway.

"Believe what you want," Annie snapped. "Just don't expect me to see a doctor."

She marched back into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her with careful ease. She didn't want to make a ruckus, or anything. She stood with her clothes clutched between two shaky hands, and she gritted her teeth. Weak, weak, weak. A weak little girl. A weak little dream.

She let the towel drop, and found, thankfully, that Hitch had wrapped the leggings around a pair of underwear. She got dressed hastily, the fabric clinging to her wet skin, but all in all she felt much better upon slipping into fresh clothing. She gathered her old clothes in the towel, plucking her gloves from the damp mass and slipping them on. She didn't want anymore comments about her supposedly frostbitten fingers.

Annie exited the bathroom again, and stood watching Hitch as the woman sprawled out on her bed, looking bored and exhausted. Annie set her clothes aside, noting a small window with the beige curtains drawn. She peeked out into the blinding whiteness of her sick creation, and she was astonished to find it had stopped.

"You're super jumpy," Hitch said. And, true to form, Annie jumped in alarm, whirling away from the window. "Look, I'm not subtle at all, so I've gotta pry. Did someone assault you?"

"No," Annie said.

"Then why are you so uptight?"

"I'm homeless," she said dully. "I don't trust a lot of people."

"Well, you should definitely trust me," Hitch said brightly.

Not on your life, Annie thought darkly.

Hitch began talking to Annie about things that Annie didn't really care about, like celebrities and movies. Annie plucked at the hem of the sweater she'd been given, recalling that Armin liked musicals. She was making things so much worse for herself by focusing all her thoughts on that stupid boy. But she couldn't help it. She was guilty, and he was dying, and she had lost a real friend today.

Happy birthday to you, she thought, staring distantly ahead of her, and many more to come.

What a terrible joke.

"So where are you from?" Hitch asked.

"All over."

"Why'd you run away?"

Annie glanced at her sharply. "Who said I ran away?"

"You're a homeless kid, I kinda just assumed."

"It's not really your business."

"Fine." She tucked her legs under her, and took a swig from her beer bottle. "Do you have a boyfriend?"

"No."

"Girlfriend?"

"No."

"Anyone special at all?" Hitch was definitely grappling at straws to get Annie to talk. And all she wanted was to get her mind off Armin. This wasn't fair at all.

"Not really," she said.

"Not really is someone, though!"

Annie glowered at Hitch, and she snatched the beer bottle from her fingertips, bringing it to her lips and throwing it back. The taste wasn't exactly nice, and it was a lot like cold piss slithering down her throat, but she did not gag and she did not balk, and she downed the bottle in three long gulps.

"Damn," Hitch whistled. "If you were thirsty, you could've asked."

Annie wanted to tell Hitch that she wanted to die, but she was terrified of dying, and the worst part of all of it was that her body forced her to live no matter what, so she could probably kill herself a dozen times, and she'd still be plastered to this whitish hell on earth.

"If I was interested in a boy," she said thoughtfully, "not in any sexual or romantic sense, just out of curiosity, would that be strange?"

"Like… what?" Hitch looked a little surprised, and Annie found that satisfactory enough. "Companionship?"

"Maybe."

"Well," Hitch sighed, "that's all sorts of messy, especially for a little lady like you who's got lots of trust issues. I don't trust boys at all. I just fuck them."

"Nice."

"Oh, it is." Hitch smirked at her, and Annie felt discomfort gnawing at her cold insides. "But I can tell you're not interested in any of that."

Annie sat on the edge of Hitch's bed, her heart returning piece by piece, and she found herself in the terrible position of knowing exactly what she wanted with no way to attain it. She wanted to scream, and sob, and let the entire world freeze. But there was truly nothing she could do.

"I want to go home," Annie said. Her voice was lost. Her heart was lost. She was lost, and life was crumbling.

Hitch was quiet. Annie was not used to being candid about things, especially not about her feelings. Perhaps this was her great release. Admitting something so trivial, and yet so utterly impossible. She wanted to cry, but she didn't think she had any tears left.

"Look…" Hitch said, shifting uncomfortably. "If you want, I can take you home when this blizzard blows over. Just promise me you weren't abused."

"No," she said. "I wasn't. I just… I made a mistake. That's why I ran away."

"Okay…" Hitch studied her uncertainly, and then rose to her feet. "I'm going to go make a few calls, because I need to let the place I work for know I'm stuck here. I can probably grab some dinner, or something too. Soup sound good?"

"Sure."

"If I leave the door unlocked," Hitch said, staring into Annie's eyes, "do you promise not to run away?"

"I have nowhere to go," Annie replied in a quiet, dull voice. Hitch stared at her, and nodded sharply, rounding the bed and marching out the door. Annie watched her go with a mixture of curiosity and disgust.

Annie attracted the strangest people.

She curled up on Hitch's bed, suddenly aware of her exhaustion. She hadn't slept in over twenty four hours. The room was growing darker and darker, and time was slipping through Annie's fingers, and suddenly it was nightfall and Hitch had not returned, and Annie began to cry. She buried her face in the soft bedding, and muffled her sobs into the warm sheets.

Weak, weak, weak.

She must've fallen asleep, because when the door opened with a quiet squeak, she saw nothing. The room was as black as her fingers, and her sight was lost as she shifted her position, the skin around her eyes feeling tight and sticky from her tears. She decided to pretend she was still asleep so Hitch wouldn't try to strike up another conversation with her, and she closed her eyes, listening to the sound of her own breath rattle in the darkness.

Quiet steps, barely a sound to be heard. Annie's eyes snapped open. Hitch was not that quiet.

She sprung upright, leaping from the bed as a large hand closed around her hair, tearing a great chunk of it out as she crashed to the floor, gasping in astonished pain, her fingers trembling against her throbbing scalp. She skittered to her feet, blind and stumbling over clothes, her body crashing into a wall in order to avoid another swipe of a hand, her instincts kicked up into over drive as she listened and felt and ducked away, kicking her pursuer blindly. By the quiet grunt, she knew she'd caught him.

The light flickered on, and Annie saw, horrified, a broad chest between her and the door. She backed away, breathless and terrified, and she saw his face. His blue eyes watched her. There was cold hatred there.

Erwin Smith was furious.

"Annie," he said.

His voice alone, she thought, could easily skin a lone wolf.

She backed away some more, her eyes flashing. The bathroom. The window. She could hide, or she could escape. She would not be trapped and skinned, no, not today.

"I'll scream," she said suddenly. He watched her with his calm face, and livid eyes, and he lowered his hand from the light switch. "Don't come any closer. Don't come near me."

"I want to talk to you," he said. His voice was level, but his words were like monosyllabic jinxes cast upon her, locking her in place. She could sense the danger here. He would kill her if he had the chance.

"No." Looking at him, all she could see was Armin's pained little face as his body convulsed, and ice crawled over his skin. "Go away."

"You understand," he said, taking a step forward, "why I'm here."

"Please," she breathed, her shoulders sagging in defeat, "please, just leave me alone…"

He was within a foot of her. She tore off her gloves and flung her hands out, watching icicles bloom like spiky flowers. Erwin dodged them, barely, and caught her wrist in his giant fist, wrenching her arm back so hard that her shoulder popped. Her scream shuddered through the air, and she kicked the back of his knees, her eyes watering, but he was too sturdy and she was too badly injured, and so he stayed upright and bent her other hand away in order to ensure his safety from her icy skin.

"Tell me," Erwin said in his sharp, frenzied monotone, "what have you done with my son?"

Oh god, she thought, teary eyed and glowering, he's going to kill me.

She didn't think she could take another session of torture like what Marco had inflicted upon her.

Be a liar, be a liar, be a liar.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she spat, her frigid bones cracking.

Weak, weak, weak.

He wheeled her around, and she watched a wall come rushing to meet her, colliding with her face and sending a blast of black snow flurrying across her eyes, her vision obscure and tilting as blood spilt from her nose, collapsing onto her tongue and promptly freezing over.

"I want the truth," Erwin said. "No more games, no more lies. Where is he?"

This time, the liar in her could not win.

She stared dazedly into Erwin's cold, furious eyes, and she grinned her bloody teeth away.

"No idea," she said, relieved that she could say something honest for once.

He didn't believe her.

When he backhanded her, she had to remind herself that he was a pacifist. Whatever vision he had seen, whatever he believed she was capable of doing to Armin, it must have fucked him up. She didn't even think she could blame him for this. What he wanted was Armin. She just happened to be his only clue as to how to get to him.

"Tell me," he said, his voice rising ever so slightly. She was a little disoriented from the blow he'd delivered, and she kicked away from him, blinking rapidly as she was released, and she leapt at the bathroom door. He grabbed her by her sweater, yanking her back, and she twisted away from him, her knee jutting out and colliding with his stomach. He buckled, but did not stand down. She flipped herself so furiously that she landed on her back, her body rolling against the floor, and she planted her hands on the rough carpet, watching it grow frosty and white until every inch of it was ice.

Erwin did slip, but Annie didn't have any better traction as she slid sideways, her hair gathering in her eyes, and she shrieked as he pinned her wrists above her head.

"Get off me!" she snarled.

"Armin," he said as she kicked and squirmed, "my son. What have you done with him?"

She rolled her body backwards sharply, and her feet collided with his face. She was panting her body still healing itself, and the ice beneath her cracked as she leapt to her feet, stumbling a little blindly, her head pounding and her breath ragged. Maybe she should just tell him. But then, wasn't he trying to kill her? She just didn't know. This was confusing.

"I don't know, okay?" she cried hoarsely, her hands flying to her head, knotting in her hair. She didn't want to cry again, especially not in front of him. "Just leave me alone!"

She ducked a punch and punched him back, her ice clinging to his shirt, but he did not care, and he kept coming with startling precision, knocking her off her feet and catching her before she could fall. Her problem was her emotions, and his strength was his. Suddenly she was being held in a chokehold, his forearm crushing her throat.

"Give me a reason not to kill you," he whispered.

She was grappling for air, her lips parted pitifully, heaving little breaths, little breaths, weak, weak, weak little breaths.

The door burst open, and Annie was actually relieved to see Hitch's hazy face. She had her phone in her hand, and she held it level with her stricken face.

"Say hello, pal," Hitch said staring at her phone with pale, frightened eyes. "You're going to jail."

Erwin did not let go of her. Annie twisted a little in his grasp, heaving for breaths, hardly even caring that Hitch was taking a video of her.

"Annie," Erwin said. "Tell me where my son is."

"I don't know," she rasped. "I don't, I swear!"

"Why should I believe you?"

"Because it's the truth!"

"I'm gonna text this to the entire staff of The Brigade," Hitch declared. "You better—"

Annie elbowed him in the gut and slipped out of his grip, lurching toward the window. He once again snatched her by the hair, and she whirled around, placing her palm flat against his bicep and letting an icicle pierce right through his skin, muscle, and bone. He didn't scream. He merely stared at her, his shirt reddening, and she watched in horror as she retracted the ice, leaving a strangely perfect hole in his arm, blood bubbling up with every second that past.

He grasped her by the shoulder, wheeling her around, and pointed to Hitch. "Call her off," he said.

Tears stung her eyes. This man was hardly human.

"Hitch," she said, "turn the phone off."

"What?" Hitch's voice heightened in distress. "What the fuck was that? What'd you do to his arm?"

Erwin's fingers squeezed her collarbone, and she said desperately, "Give him the phone or he'll kill me."

And then, uncertainly, Hitch lowered the phone and tossed it at them. Annie caught it, and she stared at it dully before Erwin snatched it from her fingers, threw it upon the floor and crushed it with his heel.

"Jesus—!" Hitch cried.

"Annie," Erwin said in a dark voice. "Tell me everything."

"You won't believe me," Annie said weakly, weakly, such a weak little voice from a weak little girl.

"If you can lead me to where my son is," Erwin said steadily, "I will be in your debt forever."

A tantalizing thought, to be sure.

"But I don't actually know where he is," she said, pushing her hair from her eyes. She glanced at him, watching as his entire arm bloomed bright red. "You should probably stop the bleeding."

"I'll be quite alright, once you give me an idea of what happened to Armin."

"You'll just try to kill me again," she said bitterly.

"Brute force seems to be the only thing you truly react to," he said calmly.

"Go fuck yourself."

Erwin whirled her around one handedly, his eyes alight with his chilly rage, and he shook her once, hard enough for her to feel as though her brain was rattling in her skull. "He's dying," Erwin said tersely, "did you know that?"

She averted her gaze, staring at the floor and wondering what she could possibly do to get out of this mess. "Yes," she admitted.

"You know this," he said, "and yet you refuse to tell me a damned thing, when it's clear you know something."

Habit, she thought. I'm a creature of habit.

"You can't help him," she murmured. She felt him tighten his grip on her, and her eyes flashed to his face. "Oh, but that's not what you want to hear, is it? You want to know where he is, and that he's perfectly safe and whole, but he's not, and there's nothing you or I can do about it! He's a lost cause!"

Erwin shoved her, and she collapsed onto the floor, feeling a sob bubble in her chest. No, not now. Now wasn't time to be weak on the outside too.

"Tell me what you know, Annie."

She ran her fingers through her hair, her lips trembling miserably. "Do you want Hitch to learn all of our secrets too?" she asked bitterly. "Hitch, sit down. You get to be the neutral party."

"Annie, this guy just beat the shit out of you," Hitch said. "I should call the cops."

"No, I actually deserved this one." She sat up, staring at her knees as Hitch moved deeper into the room. "I accidentally froze his son."

"You did what?" Erwin said in a quiet, deadly tone.

"It was an accident," Annie said.

"How could I possibly believe you?" Erwin asked, bending onto one knee and holding his bloody bicep tightly in one hand. If Annie wanted to, she was positive she could win.

"I told you that you wouldn't," she snapped at him. "I told you that you wouldn't believe me, but you wanted the truth, and here it is. I never meant to hurt him. I never meant to hurt anyone."

Erwin was quiet then, listening to her attentively. His anger was still prevalent, but at the very least he wasn't trying to attack her any longer. He knelt before her, watching her with his clever eyes, and he reminded her so much of Armin that it made her want to attack him again. She wanted him out of her head for good.

"He's alive," Annie mumbled, "if that makes you feel any better."

"It truly does not."

"Well, I'm not happy either." She slumped, tucking her loose hair behind her ears and scowling somberly. "It wasn't like I was trying to freeze him. He was having a seizure and I panicked."

"You're not making this any better on yourself, Annie." Erwin's fist clenched around his wound, and Annie watched rivulets of blood seep through his fingers. "Where is he now?"

"I don't know, remember?" She shook her head furiously. "I left him in the cemetery with Marco."

"Marco." Erwin studied her face, and she noted that he was utterly unreadable aside from his terrifying rage. "The boy you killed. That Marco?"

"Exactly that Marco," she said bitterly. "Great deduction."

"That boy is dead," Erwin said, "I saw his corpse, Annie. You shattered half his head."

"This is the part," she said, staring into his cold blue eyes, "that you won't believe."

The fury in him seemed to be replaced by the most tender curiosity, because he leaned forward, matching her gaze.

"Try me," he said.

"What the hell is going on?" Hitch called to them, waving at them as though to remind them she was still there.

Erwin glanced at her. "You know she's a reporter for The Brigade, don't you?" he asked her.

Annie had not known that. "I don't really care," she said honestly.

"Fine." He watched her, his expression unchanged. "Tell me about Marco. Why did you kill him?"

"I didn't want to," she sighed, rubbing her face tiredly. "He made me do it."

"Why on earth would he want you to kill him?"

She exhaled sharply. "Because," she snapped, mimicking Marco's sweet voice, "Marco Bodt has to die. He faked his death so you wouldn't suspect him, and it worked! You were all eating out of the palm of his hand, doing exactly what he wanted you to do! Even now!" She jerked an accusatory finger at Erwin's face. "You're playing right into his hands! He let me run away again because he knew you'd see my future, and confront me instead of focusing on Armin! I'm the decoy!"

"I'm not following," Erwin said. "You're saying Marco has powers too, yes? He was experimented on with the rest of you?"

"You're just as much of a fool as Armin is," she spat, close to tears once again. "Marco didn't take part in the experiment, he ran the experiment!"

Erwin was suddenly attentive to every word she spoke, and she realized, alarmed, that he believed her.

"Annie," he said softly, "what is Marco?"

"I don't know," she said, her voice shaky and thin. "The beginning, I guess."

"The beginning of what?"

"Of us." She stared into his eyes fiercely, and sat up straighter. "He's our creator, our savior, our everything. We owe him everything. He is the only one whose power is natural, the rest of us were poked and prodded at. Even Ymir, somehow, even in 1912, Marco was able to create a human with the power of a god. We're nothing without him." We're nothing with him either.

"But who is he?" Erwin was no longer clutching his bleeding arm, and he leaned very close, his breath barely over a whisper. "What can he do?"

Annie's heart was thudding in her chest. Weak, weak, weak. How foolish she'd been all this time. She wanted to take it all back. She wanted to spill her guts, and let them all know what abominations they were.

"His power is telepathy," she admitted. Erwin's eyes darkened considerably. "It's why he's so interested in Armin. I think… I think he thinks they're the same. If…" She swallowed thickly, feeling dizzy and sick as she thought about this betrayal. Marco had raised her. He'd given her a home, and a family, and she was repaying him with these truths. But all he ever did was feed me lies, and paint me to look like a fool, or a monster, or a pawn, she thought feverishly. No more. "If I'm right about one thing, though, it's that Armin is stronger than Marco. The only difference is that Marco has had… years and years… centuries, even, to perfect and yield his power. His control is unlike anything you could imagine. He can control minds, trick minds, make minds see not him, but someone else, someone sweeter or kinder, someone you want to see desperately. Marco preys on your fears and insecurities. He knows you. He knows all of you. He knows how you think, he knows what you love, and he's tricked you into adoring him because it's just what he does. And now he has Armin."

Erwin was disturbingly quiet as she took a deep breath, tears leaking from her eyes and freezing upon her cheeks.

"And now he has Armin," Erwin echoed her softly.

She buckled under the weight of her own words.

"Marco's been inside Armin's head for months," she said, her voice bitter and broken. "One telepath created us. Two telepaths could control the entire world."


If anyone missed the reveal where Marco is responsible for everything, maybe you should go back and reread a bit, that might help.

I think I explained a whole lot this chapter, didn't I? Yeah.