Five days.
Five days of Natalia's handwriting filling notebooks. Five days of Emi's aura sweeps every eight hours on the dot, her green light sinking into my chest and coming back with numbers that made her lips press into a thin line she thought I couldn't read. Five days of Skylar sharpening knives on the back porch without speaking, her silence louder than Jaime's entire motivational catalog. Five days of Soomin's seashell charm clicking against her gauntlets as she ran the rooftop route Jacob had mapped, the Fox's blue fire flickering behind her eyes whenever she passed my window.
Five days of my body building itself into something that terrified every person I loved.
