Lilah listened to tonight's argument with a numbness that had taken twenty-one years to perfect. The fights were a recent, unwelcome change, but they were better than the looming death that had plagued their house for years.

It was hard listening to her mother's coughs because that served as a reminder that the stress of the argument probably wasn't helping.

Standing in the hall, Lilah watched the crack of the door, debating going in. She wasn't sure what she could say or how to intervene. Fate made that choice for her when the door slid open, and her younger brother's tall frame lumbered out then ran.

"Gus?" her mother called, too weak to manage more beyond a whisper. The trembling hand on the doorframe pulled away in time. "Can you find him?"

"No. Let him stew for a little bit," Lilah's father said. "And you're getting worse. So come lie down. I want to get you some more food. You can't stand to lose much more weight."

Rarely called upon, but always eager to be useful, Lilah risked going to the door. When she peered through, the sight of her parents gave her pause.

Her father's blue hair came from a troubled youth—he couldn't change it. The slender, near dead figure in his arms looked like a stranger. It wasn't often Lilah saw them together.

The stark contrast just made it worse—her father's strong, brawny figure, clinging to the delicate body of his dying wife.

"I..." Lilah said, disturbing their calm, "I can make some food."

An audible gasp preceded the hood of the robe going up to cover her mother's stringy, black hair and gaunt face—as if that would block out the sight of the woman's illness.

"I told you to announce yourself a little sooner," her father scolded.

Lilah struggled to respond but could only repeat herself. "I can make something."

"No. No thank you," her mother wheezed. Those words left her winded. "Please find Gus-Gus. He took the news rather hard."

"Attention: new arrivals from stasis," DAWN announced.

The computer didn't often seem imposing. Today, it took all life out of the room.

"Another one?" the frail woman asked her husband. "Aren't they a little frequent?"

Lilah's father kissed the top of the robe and answered, "Don't you think about that, Lee. It'll get you worked up. Come let me feed you."

"And Gus-Gus?"

At her father's sigh, Lilah spoke up finally. "I'll...I'll get him. He can't be far."

"Don't you have work?" her father asked.

She did, but with her mother's condition getting worse each day, she feared going into work only to be called back to a deathbed. No. She wanted to stay home...needed to.

"Go to work after you find Gus. Do you understand?" her father said.

It wasn't like him to be this gruff. He was scared. Lilah wondered if he even noticed how he'd been pushing her and Gus further away to hide that fear of loss.

That might mean things were on the edge. She couldn't leave. She refused to—not with so many things unsaid and so many questions unanswered. A million utterances of I'm sorry needed to come and go. Many of those she'd give, but a few she expected in return. She couldn't leave. Not even for her job.

"I'll...I'll find Gus," Lilah said again.

"And then work?"

Without answering, she bowed her head and walked past him. Gus was a bigger worry. He was taking this all the hardest.

The badge on Lilah's shoulder flashed, and she turned it toward her.

"Shit," she whispered. "Not now." Instead of answering the work request, she walked down the hallway faster and eventually broke into a run.

The computer sounded, "Attention enforcer. Your team needs you."

Maybe, but not as much as her family.

"New arrivals from stasis complete. Please check the roster for possible relatives."

Lilah hurried down the hall, more than happy to get away from the medical smell of her home. The door at the end led to nowhere. Literally. Years ago, her father started building another room, intent on another child, but then the illness got worse and...he never finished.

So here was this door, leading nowhere. He'd even finished the fire escape for it—a ladder that led to the ground—two stories down.

She took hold and climbed up instead. Sure enough, her twenty-year-old brother sat on the roof.

In the distance the energy tear in the sky began to mend as the last of the returnees came into the city from stasis.

Stasis, hundreds of thousands of souls locked in a perpetual limbo in another dimension. Stasis was hard to enter, impossible now for anyone to create, but meticulously extracting people one by one was within their reach. Year after year, more and more people returned from it, having never aged, and experiencing none of the hardships necessary to create their new city, the Fan.

"They shouldn't be here," Gus muttered. "How's it fair they can come back and get cured and...?"

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Lilah wasn't sure what to say, so she sat down and asked, "How's work?"

He cut her a glance.

"Attention: possible blood match from a returnee. Permission to reroute," DAWN announced from the badge on Lilah's left shoulder.

Gus looked out at the tear again and the hover crafts floating around it to make sure the portal closed.

"What's that about?"

"Don't know," Lilah said. "A distant relative's come outta stasis it seems. Dad must not be taking calls if it's come to me."

Before she could touch her shoulder, Gus boxed her hand aside. "Leave it. Let whoever it is rot for all I care. How come we can't get stasis? It'd stave off the sickness till they can find a cure. You're high up. Can't you ask someone?"

Lilah wasn't all that high up, actually, but her little brother always thought so. She was nobody. Just a grunt trying to make a name for herself—least she had been trying until this.

A tear slid down Gus's cheek. She tried to pull him close, but he resisted.

"They're gonna cut my hair," Gus said. "And Dad even agreed. He didn't say anything against it. He's an Elemental of old. He knows what that means."

Lilah knew what it meant, too. To limit his hair was to limit his abilities. Her own hair had been cut at birth. As an Elemental's hair held most of their power, even cutting it once would have consequences. Her father had been careful to cut only a little. Over the years, she'd kept on with the cuts.

But Gus, born two years later, months before chaos came and mass stasis with it, wasn't as fortunate. Their father had said at the time he was more concerned with staying alive. Deep down, Lilah thought the man should have found a way. And deep down, Lilah thought her father allowed Gus's hair to grow because he was a boy. Girl Elementals had more power, and as her father grew to manhood with his hair—his power still intact, no doubt he had wanted the same for his son.

Now it was impossible to cut it.

"He's fashioned the blade, he says," Gus muttered. "Without even telling me or asking."

"Nothing can cut it," Lilah assured him. "When they try and fail, they'll stop."

"You don't get it." Gus glanced at her. "A knife made from a parent's power can definitely cut it."

Lilah didn't have an answer. That was why he was so upset. Bad enough to be losing his mother, watching her slip away daily, now to lose his power as well.

The badge on her arm flashed, but she ignored it. She struggled for something to say.

Gus didn't mask his bitterness. "There's a threshold, he said. I've reached mine. Now instead of getting stronger, the energy I collect will start to poison me. That's what he said. But I feel fine."

The door below busted open if the bang was any indication. Sure enough, their father leapt onto a hover bike and sped away, heading for the tear like a bat out of hell.

Gus grumbled, "How could he just leave?"

Whoever'd come out of stasis must have meant a lot. That meant the house was empty...almost empty. Lilah could go down and maybe have that heart-to-heart. She could go and see about spending a few minutes in the presence of someone she'd somehow forgotten—who'd maybe forgotten her.

"They're going to cull it into a child," Gus said. "I don't want a fucking kid."

Lilah's eyes widened. "What?"

He didn't repeat it—that meant he was serious.

"Can we do that?" Lilah asked. She'd seen a few reports here and there, but nothing she read with intent.

"Our energy is life. Cut it away it dies, but not if we harness it. It'd make a seedling, they said. But if I wanted to make it human, I could...and it was best to make a baby. Otherwise, I could never get rid of it. Send it out into battle and it dies, it'd come right back to me and I'd have to cull it again. And it'll just...be there, like a puppet. So those are my options. Don't cut it and potentially poison myself by drowning in power. Cut it and keep it unaware like a very real shadow, or make it into a kid and...and what? Give it away?"

Lilah tried to make peace with the imagery. That wasn't going to happen. Their father would never allow Gus to just hand it over to someone and never look back. And did that dying thing always happen? Even with the kid?

"It's not fair. I wanna finish school. I wanna get a nicer job. This isn't what I wanted. Being syphoned of my power then responsible for another life wasn't on my list."

"Why can't you give it away?" Lilah asked. "If you do it without Dad knowing...."

Gus focused on her. "You assume I even want to cut my hair at all."

"No. I know you don't."

Lilah's own reached mid-back, a direct contrast to the shock of black curls of her brother. He tied it up with a braid usually.

"I know you don't," Lilah repeated. She yearned to go down into the house before she missed her chance. It had been ages since she and her mother last spoke alone.

Gus caught her arm before she stood.

"Don't," he said, "stress only makes the illness worse."

That was true. Still, Lilah thought to try. Those prospects faded when the shaky hovercraft came to a halt at the house. Father had returned.

He'd keep his watchful eye as always. Today, she decided that was okay. Her readied questions were personal, but she'd better ask them before it was too late.

"Do you ever wonder about it? About our dwindling numbers?" Gus muttered, "Is it wrong for me to refuse to do this? Is it selfish?"

Considering that they both were the last two natural born Elementals in all the Fan, the thought of the shrinking Elemental population had come and gone over the years.

"We outlive humans. If we do have the power to create life at will—even from our hair, I don't think it's perverse, no. And I don't think it's selfish to choose not to, either."

For a long minute, he watched his boots. A tear landed on the black leather. "She's not getting better. So where's that nonsense about outliving most of the Fan? It's like we lost her ten years ago and she's never come back. And I've been waiting—you've been waiting, Lile, but she's not coming back to us. She's this shell." He picked his head up and met her gaze. "And we're turning into shells along with her. Even Dad."

Tears stung Lilah's eyes and that wasn't acceptable. She couldn't shed even one in their presence. That would mean she'd given up. And she refused to admit defeat.

"Even you," Gus told her.

Lilah flinched.

It was rare he'd stare at her head on but his gaze held a challenge. "You can't even cry."

Though the words stung, Lilah kept her composure. It wasn't that she couldn't cry. She only feared that if she did give in, she'd never stop. And what good would any of that do? Somewhere along the way in the last ten years, she'd convinced herself that her crying would mean it was all hopeless. So she internalized it—kept it all to herself: fears, anger, regrets—waiting for the reset, the moment when she was allowed to let them go.

Her mother needed the attention, the comfort. Not Lilah. Lilah wasn't the one dying.

"Come on, we shouldn't stay here. You never know...." Lilah regretted her words because her brother could barely stand.

The blinking badge made her want to rip it off and throw it over the edge.

She squeezed it to hear what was so important.

"Male running on all fours, no mutation visible, possible Newbreed. Use non-lethal force. Do not get close and stay to the streets. If he gets high up, he's long gone."

"A Newbreed?" Gus asked.

Imps.

And not even the problematic imps themselves but their kids, who were apparently trying to make a record.

"Your boyfriend, again?"

Lilah wasn't sure. "Fiancé. And no. Running on all fours isn't his style. He's got a bike." She sighed. "I'll get the briefing later. Come on. Let's go down."

Dinner was tense and lonely—just the three of them, Gus crying through most of it. That wasn't so far from a typical night. Today, Dad wasn't doing his manly crying, too. He seemed composed, almost numb. He didn't even comment on her not being at work. He wore a peaceful expression, the sort that said he'd come to some sort of decision about life—and his family.

Whatever it was, that was fine. Lilah had made her own. Say what she needed to say and say it all tonight.

She waited until Gus disappeared into his bedroom before she went about seeking an audience.

The room door was opened, which was unexpected.

"Lee, it's gotten worse, hasn't it?" her father knelt by the bed whispering. "I can't stand to see you like this. I'll see you on the other side."

Lilah wasn't sure what he meant. She stepped into the doorway in time to see her father bring the knife down.