45. The Most Powerful Kiss
The Most Powerful Kiss
THE SEVEN - ALL OF US
"You’re never going to love me, are you, Mother?" we ask, clarity settling in so coldly it’s hard to see why we didn’t realize it before. "Us," we correct. "You don’t love us."
A spark of panic flashes over her eyes. "You’re not my son. You need to be fixed. And then we can be a family again. Just like I’ve always said."
"Why couldn’t you love us?" The pain rips through us like a fault opening into a chasm. But we don’t expect an answer.
The answer doesn’t matter anymore. We no longer want her love.
It would be conditional, fragile, and not freely given.
Even if we returned to one form, she would always remember what we were. Hold it against us.
Snow is right. We’ve been clinging to the old ways, the old excuses, but they’ve finally fallen apart, disintegrated because of her.
"She loves us," we say with absolute certainty, pointing at Snow.
We tried to blame it on her fascination with our powers, but as she admired and coveted having powers, she loved us for who we were underneath. All our parts. All our ugliness. Forgave us when we hurt her. Not that it’s possible for her to do so now that she knows everything.
We look at her with resignation. "We know you well enough to know you could never forgive us for hurting your friends." We shake our head, shame and anger at ourselves for what we’ve lost by chasing the love and affection of someone who could never return it.
"But we can try to make it right now," we say.
"What are you doing?" Mother’s voice pitches up in panic. Queenie’s grasp on the situation has slipped entirely, and we are free at last.
We do something we never thought we’d allow ourselves to do again. We let Seven take the lead.
SEVEN
Snow
It’s been so long. Like existing underwater in the shadows. But now that I’m in the flesh, I feel so much more. Not just the pain and longing to earn mother’s love. I feel the air on my face, the stretch of my muscles. And I feel every part of me that loves Snow.
I walk to her, her mouth slightly agape. I remember those few stolen moments when I’d been inside her, feeling her.
It had been so brief, but the feelings that came over me almost tore me apart. I wanted to destroy her because she made me want her so intensely it made me question everything.
Snow looks at me from inside the restraints, eyes wet, wrists bloodied from fighting to get free.
She loves us. Every one of us. Even me.
I cross the room and take her face between my hands, one sliding into her hair to grip the back of her head.
"Seven?" she breathes.
Hearing my name in her voice punches straight through me.
I kiss her.
The first brush of her lips sends sensation rushing through every inch of my body.
Her breath catches against my mouth. The stud in her tongue skates over mine, cool metal going warm.
Her hair twists around my fingers. Her cheek is soft beneath my palm, her pulse pounding where my thumb rests below her ear.
I’ve felt the others touch her. Kiss her. Want her. Trapped inside, sharing scraps of sensation that belonged to someone else.
This is mine.
I angle her head and take her mouth deeper.
She meets me with a hungry sound, her tongue sliding against mine as far as the restraints allow her to reach.
My body crowds into hers, chest to chest, hips pinning her to the padded wall.
After so long spent buried beneath the others, every point of contact hits me at once.
Warm. Soft. Alive.
Free.
Her fingers strain toward me inside the cuffs.
I want her hands on me. I want to tear apart everything keeping them away. I want hours inside this body with her beneath it.
But first, I want back what Mother stole from her.
I press my mouth harder to hers and pour myself into the kiss. My power rushes through the connection, searching for the place where her magic should be. I find it almost immediately.
The treatment never erased her power. It hacked through it, leaving a severed piece buried deep inside her. The edges are rough and scarred, every pathway beyond it shriveled from years without use.
All this time, her magic has been reaching for what was cut away.
I wrap my magic around the broken part of her.
Then I make it grow.
Snow jerks against me with a gasp.
Power pushes through the scar tissue in a bright rush, rebuilding every path the treatment destroyed. It spreads through her chest, down her arms, into the tips of her fingers. Stronger with every beat of her heart.
The lights overhead flicker. Metal instruments lift from the floor. Heat rolls through the room, followed by a burst of cold that turns our breath white between us.
"No! Stop him." Mother's voice comes from behind the row of monitors, pitched for the guards. "Sedate him. Now."
Boots move toward us.
Every light in the ceiling flares white and dies.
Darkness drops over the lab, total and ringing. My power keeps pouring. After so many years held down, it pours past the edges of us and out into the room, and I couldn't call it back if I wanted to.
I don't want to.
The dark fills with sound. A tray goes over. Glass bursts against tile. Boots scatter in every direction, and a man grunts, and a body meets furniture with a heavy thud.
"Lights!" Mother's voice climbs an octave. "Get the lights!" A crash swallows whatever she says next. Somewhere in the black, two men collide and curse each other for it.
Snow grips my hoodie with hands that should still be trapped at her sides.
She phased through the restraints. A laugh breaks from her lips against mine. Shocked and breathless and so completely Snow that my heart pounds harder.
I can feel her newly grown power reach for every trace of magic around her. Speed. Illusion. Dreams. Transformation. All of us reflected back through her, bright and alive in the dark.
The last pathway knits closed. The pressure behind my ribs eases, draining into her, finding its level.
The lights flare back to life row by row.
I pull away far enough to see her. Magic burns in her eyes.
Mother taught me to look at power and see an affliction. Something dirty that spread through the body and ruined everything it touched. She was wrong.
Snow stands before me with her magic restored, blazing with everything stolen from her.
She has never been more beautiful.
"Abra Cadabra," she whispers.