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I.
This isn't how Jade thought they'd be spending their anniversary: running down the corridors of the academy's basement, sending bullets into the brains of the guards that seem to spawn endlessly from around each corner. Jade can feel someone else's blood dripping down her face and taste it on her lips, and although she'd grown up doing her fair share of shooting, for all her bravado facing Irina years back, she'd never been as good as Jimmy and had never thought, nor hoped, a gun would feel this familiar in her hands.
But here they are. Somehow Jade had known, yesterday, when she lay next to Casey beneath the sleeping bag they used as a blanket and wrapped an arm around her waist that Casey had forgotten it had been one year since she had taken Jade by the hand and kissed her, but Jade doesn't blame her. There is a lot Jade tries to forget about that day and that kiss: the tears streaming down both their cheeks, the sharp and bitter chill of the woods in the dead of night, how neither of them has slept with any kind of comfort or security since. It was also the day that they lost Hunter, leaving just the two of them alive out of their original group.
"I love you," Jade had said, her voice shaking. "I need you to know before they come and take me from you."
Casey had gripped Jade's hands hard in hers. "That will never happen. They will try so goddamn hard because you are the only thing left. Let them. I will die before they take you, and we know they won't kill me."
Jade's stomach had dropped as Casey kissed her again because she knew there were fates so much worse than death.
Yet, last night, when Casey turned to kiss Jade on her forehead and whispered, "Tomorrow. We'll do it tomorrow," Jade felt a thrill in her chest and could do nothing but agree to come along.
II.
They get caught, which isn't unexpected, but not before they've shot all the locks on the cells for unruly students and sent the prisoners running upstairs. They're prodded and shoved into two desks in a classroom, as much a torture chamber as any basement dungeon, as Casey well knows, and Daramount enters, her grin as stiletto sharp as her step. Both falter when she sees Casey and Jade smiling.
"We've been far too indulgent with you, Miss Blevins," Daramount says, grabbing Jade by the arm and hauling her out of her seat. Her nails press into Jade's flesh like claws. "It's time you learned bad girls get their toys taken away."
"Better make good use of them, then," says Jade, and she slides a switchblade out of the sleeve of her free arm and stabs it into Daramount's cheek. She drags it an inch or two toward her mouth, blood pouring out to wash her hand in red, before she is slammed to the ground. Pain surges through her body as the guards employ their stun batons. She was prepared for this, but she nevertheless bites her lip and tastes copper. She hears herself yell in harmony with Casey.
"You think you're clever, you little bitch?!" Daramount shrieks from one side of her mouth. To Jade's satisfaction, the woman is on her knees, and the blood that escapes from between the fingers pressed to her face drips onto her skirt. Jade hopes it'll stain. "We've caught you! We will destroy you! The guards are rounding up the escapees as we speak. You have lost this day!"
Casey laughs between shouts of pain. What Daramount doesn't understand about playing games is that each side names its own terms of victory and failure, and the important thing today is not that they got caught, nor whether any of the students they set free get away, but that they cut the Academy and the Academy bled.
III.
The greenhouse shatters, fire erupting out of the roof and walls. Shards of glass rain down, along with flowers falling like fiery snowflakes amidst regular ones. Casey and Jade lie in the wreckage, fingers entwined. The unearthly death cry of the Headmaster roars and rattles overhead and through the earth, reverberating in their bones. They don't look anymore like the girls who walked through those academy doors two years ago. Their features are harsher, their lips chapped and cheeks bruised, and their faces dusted with ash. There's a nasty cut on Jade's forehead. It's the only one Casey can see, but she knows the damage is much worse farther down.
"My fingers are cold. And numb," Jade says.
"That's because it's snowing."
"Or because I'm fading. It's all right. I just wish I could feel you."
Casey grips Jade's hand tighter in hers. She rubs her fingers, trying to warm them. She would use her other hand as well, if she could actually move it.
"I love you," Casey had said one year ago. It was after one of their first attacks on the school. She hadn't wanted Jade to go with her, but Jade had insisted, and it was the first time Casey realized that Jade, too, had only one thing in this world and would give all of herself to burn the Academy to the ground before they took it away.
"Are you scared?" Jade asks now.
"Terrified," Casey admits. "Not of death. Of the idea that this is the last time I'll see you." She has to let go of Jade's hand to touch her face instead, to trace the skin and lips roughened by hardship. Casey wishes she could kiss them and grant their owner life like a prince to a princess in fairytales, but the space between Jade's mouth and hers feels vast and growing vaster. "I'm scared that I'll go through all of my next life not loving you and not even know how much emptier that life is for not having you in it."
"Are you kidding?" Jade says, and her voice is necessarily weak and wavering as her eyes begin to drift shut, yet both assured and assuring. "Casey, this is us. We'll find each other."
The important thing is not that they're dying in the snow.
IV.
…
V.
Two baby girls breathe air for the first time.