Chapter 4

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility of our future. - George Bernard Shaw

"Um," I jumped in Elsa's arms, Kristoff's slightly uncomfortable voice drifting through the constant stream of 'oh my god, oh my god, it's Elsa, Elsa's here, Elsa's hugging me, I'm looking at Elsa' that had been a repeating mantra in my mind for a good few minutes. Elsa, however, barely seemed to notice that Kristoff had spoken at all, her head merely shifting where it rested atop mine to glance at him.

"Yea?"

I grinned; every time I heard her voice a happy buzz of butterflies started flitting around inside my stomach.

"I mean, I'm happy that you guys are reunited and all," I could practically hear Kristoff roll his eyes, but it was really hard to focus with Elsa still occasionally scratching her nails across the base of my scalp, sending pleasurable tingles down to my toes. "But just to clarify, you collapsed into the house covered in blood, screaming about Anna, so I feel like you kind of owe us some sort of explanation. I haven't ever had to put the window guards up here, Els."

Elsa sighed, and loosened her hold on me, finally stepping away completely after a moment. It occurred to me that I had stopped crying sometime during her hugging me, but I could still feel the tear tracks on my face; I wiped at them in irritation.

"I'm sorry, I was panicking, being stupid. I got too worked up, forgot the plan, some part of me just expected to find Anna in her apartment, and when she wasn't there, I..." She trailed off, her cheeks turning a light pink. I stared at her, but she didn't look at me, unwilling to meet my eyes. "We should sit down, it's a lot."

The three of us made our way to the living room, Kristoff immediately taking the armchair, forcing me and Elsa onto the sofa together. There was about a foot of space in between us, and it made me twitchy. I saw Elsa's fingers dance a little across the space between where we sat, like she didn't know what to do with them, and it had nerves racing up and down my spine.

She cleared her throat and I snapped my attention upward, back to her face.

"The plan was going fine." She ended up pulling both of her hands to her chest and clutching them together like a vice. "I left an hour before you, counted the ones I was positive had been following her. I got three, some behemoth of a man in a back alley, a boy about our age close to her job, and a tall guy near her apartment complex. I hid, watched some others find the bodies, watched them call a meeting, I knew that you and Anna would be gone by then, the distraction went down without a hitch, the two of you got out of there smoothly. They have no idea where she is now, I heard them talking about it." She hesitated for a minute, then her eyes glazed over a bit, the haze frightening, transforming her cold blue eyes into something I didn't recognize, something dead.

"They were so close, Kris. They knew which apartment was hers, they'd already decided to do it, tomorrow night, we almost..." Her jaw clenched briefly and she shook her head, as if to clear it of cobwebs.

It occurred to me that Elsa wasn't really talking to me, just Kristoff, and a part of me knew why. She hadn't been explicit in her description, but it was clear enough that she'd just admitted to killing at least three people. I stared at her; the news not being something I knew how to handle. I knew that Elsa had killed at least once before, I'd seen it, in the gym that day. In some way, I had always known that that wasn't the first time, though. I remember her confidence to this day. She knew exactly what she was doing; she knew exactly what would happen. She had experience. And it was one of the most frightening things I'd ever seen in my life. I knew, deep into my bones, that Elsa would literally rather die than hurt me; it's written into every action she performs, every word she says, so I wasn't scared of her. But that was the first time since I'd known her that I understood why nearly everyone else was. Elsa was ruthless, it was obvious, a fact she'd clearly accepted about herself, but it wasn't something I'd seen in anyone else I'd ever known, and it wasn't something that I could easily understand.

I wasn't stupid, though. I knew what was going to happen, despite Kristoff never exactly explaining what Elsa was doing when she was "taking care of the problem", it was pretty clear what the situation called for. It was kill or be killed; Elsa and Kristoff had to be as cruel a The Kolai, their lives depended on it. And the rational part of me, the unemotional part, understood that, and accepted the finality of it, knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was nothing I could ever do to change it. But the other half, the half that stopped for a moment and really knew what she had done, thought about how one of them was "about our age". Maybe not even old enough to legally drink. He was doing what he thought was right; he was performing a duty he believed to be necessary, followed so religiously that he had been willing to die for it. He had died for it, and somewhere in the world, someone was crying because he wasn't going to come back home.

I understood what Elsa had done, the practicality of it, but only in theory. As soon as I remembered that this was all real, and these were real people we were talking about, I couldn't really look up from the carpet, a sense of shame dredged up from the pit of my stomach.

Your fault. It whispered, laughing lowly in my ear. She did it for you.

I bit my lip, and looked away, thankful that Kristoff and Elsa were too focused on her explanation to notice me.

"We were wrong." Elsa swallowed hard, and I could hear the catch in her voice. She was scared, that much was obvious, but not the kind of scared that I'd seen in her before. This was a deeper kind of fear, an instinctual kind. It was like she was running for her life. Without a second thought, I scooted my hand across the cushion and laced my fingers through hers. No matter what Elsa did, no matter what she said, I could never stand to see her upset, always trying to find someway to keep her happy. She looked shocked for a moment, but before I could regret it she tightened her grip intensely, the cool palm of her hand pressing against my warm one, and gave me a weak smile in gratitude, turning back to Kristoff and continuing, with a less shaky tone. "We were wrong about all of it, why they wanted her, what they want to do, who it is, everything."

"Well, then what's going on?" Kristoff's brow was furrowed, his confusion apparent. "There's no other reason for them to be after her, you'd be able to tell if she'd been with a foreign spirit," It might have been my imagination, but I swore I felt Elsa's grip tighten on my hand slightly. "And if it's not the cell we found the other week, then who is following her? How many Kolai members could possibly be in New York City?"

"Not members." Elsa shook her head, and something dawned on me, her words making more sense then they had before, some of the things she had been screaming when she came in finally clicking into place; her absolutely unreasonable panic, except now it was reasonable, it made perfect sense. This time I knew I didn't imagine it, Elsa's grip tightened to near painful, and I could feel her hand shaking in mine. "Leaders."

There was a long pause, heavy with a hopelessness that twisted my stomach in a sickening way.

"It's them." Elsa's voice was hollow, lifeless. "The Rayalti."

/

Elsa explained everything. How she'd tailed a couple of them to the meeting, how she'd been confused because there were way too many of them, how they worked like a court, led, oddly enough, by a young man, maybe a few years older than us, with red hair and winning smile.

Elsa's lip curled in an arrogant way, her obvious distaste a sight to behold. "You should've seen him. Parading around, shrieking like a banshee about decimating our entire race, boasting over his number of kills." If anything, her sneer got more pronounced. "The Rayalti is losing it's grip; letting itself be managed by a child."

Elsa's vocabulary always got a bit more sophisticated when she was angry, her presence became more arrogant, her aristocratic tendencies strengthening; something that I found endlessly entertaining.

She told us how she'd listened in on the portion of their meeting she could hear before things went south.

"They were talking about you." She told me. "The leader, he-" She bit off the end of her words, her anger a nearly physical thing. "He's obsessed with you, Anna. I don't understand it. The only thing I could hear is they think that you're somehow connected to the Arendelles."

"What?!" Kristoff barked, his voice hopping up an octave. "That- Anna? How could Anna possibly be-"

"I don't know." Elsa shook her head. "But they believe it, every one of them."

"Wait." I held my hand up. "Who are the Arendelles?"

"One of the most powerful spirit families in the last four centuries." Elsa spoke, her voice quiet. She had long since given up on merely holding my hand, and had instead pulled it fully into her lap and started playing with my fingers. It was soothing, but distracting. I didn't have the heart or the strength of will to pull away, though. Elsa was acting different. A lot different; leaps and bounds farther than where she had been three years ago when she couldn't even look at me after a few minutes of shy flirting. There was a certain resignation to her actions, as if she was tired of trying to control them. It worried me. If Elsa decided to start being that confident, flirtatious person that would occasionally emerge from some back corner of her mind, I didn't know if I could deal with it on a daily basis. "They were renowned; the whole lineage had a strange predisposition for fire. Usually spirit children don't really copy their parents when it comes to the elemental aspect, it's supposed to be completely random, but the Arendelles were different, the family was made for fire, nearly every new child over 400 years was a Ti. A fire spirit." Elsa clarified at my confused look. "But it doesn't make any sense. They died out. The last Arendelle was a scandal anyway, he didn't even try to continue the line, if I'm not mistaken. There's no way you could be connected to them, there aren't any of them left, and you're not even a spirit."

There was a very, very strange coldness wiggling in my gut, making me feel a little bit sick.

Arendelle

Why does that sound so-

"They want to kill you." Elsa interrupted my thoughts, her tone worrying. It was flat and dry, no emotion, no life. Nothing. "Badly."

She looked down, away, her voice getting quieter and quieter. "It doesn't even have anything to do with us. We've been wrong for so long, it's about Anna."

I tried to reassure her. "Elsa, it's oka-"

"Don't." She snarled, cutting me off, and her frame shook heavily. I don't think she even noticed. "Don't say it's okay." She took a deep breath and her shoulders snapped to attention, her body rigid with anger. When her eyes met mine it was with a kind of frigid authority flashing behind her irises. "They're not going to touch you. I swear they won't."

She spoke with a finality that left absolutely no room for argument. I didn't know much about The Rayalti, or how powerful they were, but in that moment, I would've bet everything I had (which, granted, wasn't much) on Elsa.

"I had been listening for a while," She eventually continued after I had been staring at her for way longer than what was normal. "But I got distracted, I was too caught up in listening to the meeting, and..." She trailed off, her jaw clenching in anger. I wiggled my fingers a little where they rested against her, now immobile, hands, and she started a bit, before continuing to mess with them, calming down enough to speak again. "I got jumped. I was stupid, let my guard down, and five of them that were patrolling the building got me in the side of the head with something, a bat maybe."

I winced at the visual, and Elsa ran soothing circles against the lines on my palms. Except they weren't exactly soothing; I suppressed a shiver and carefully removed my hand from her grasp. She turned and gave me a strange look, but I darted my eyes away, a small pink tinge dusting my cheeks. I didn't meet her gaze, and she eventually continued.

"I woke up, I guess a few minutes later, they were dragging me somewhere, that's where a lot of the cuts came from, the ground was rough. The hit rattled my brain or something, though. I couldn't see straight. I tried to get all five of them with one blast. It- it should've been easy." She seemed to struggle with her words for a second. "It hit three of them. Two were out, one was down, but I thought that they had been taken care of, I wasn't paying close enough attention. I couldn't fight the other ones the way I normally can. One grabbed my arms from behind, like how the police do, but he twisted it way too far back, I felt my shoulder give, I-" She gritted her teeth. "It hurt. My instincts kicked in, he was shot through in seconds, pinned against the wall with the ice. His friend was easy, he was running away when..." She trailed off. "He didn't make it far. I was just going to catch my breath, just for a second, and then the last one had me by the neck, I-" Her eyes widened a little. "I thought he was going to kill me."

"Els-"

"I did, Kris." She shook her head. "I thought that was it, no one's ever had me like that. I didn't even see him coming. The only reason I'm not dead is because I flat out panicked and punched him in the nose. There was ice in it; he didn't get back up after that." Elsa's shoulders were scrunched, her face a mixture of resignation and utter despair. "I was so freaked out I just ran. I ran to Anna's apartment. I don't know what I was thinking, my head was messed up, for some reason I thought I'd find her there. When I didn't I was frantic, I could barely remember how to get back home, I forgot that she'd even be here, nothing was making sense to me. I'm lucky no one saw me walking down the streets, I looked like a raving lunatic, and covered with blood on top of that."

There was a moment of silence, before I couldn't stand it anymore.

"So..." Both the twins raised their heads to stare at me. "What now?"

"Now, we have to make a plan." Elsa stood abruptly, my hand falling away from her lap. There was a fire in her eyes, a driven purpose that she could see now, and she was thrilled with the prospect of actually achieving something, I could see it in the way she straightened her shoulders. Elsa had always been better when she had a plan, an idea of what she needed to do. "Kris, we should get the passports. The farthest house is probably in Sydney, and we haven't been there in a few years, it could be perfect. Also the Kolai is almost wiped out in Australia at this point, I don't think there is anyway they could follow us there. I can get a flight within four hours, tops, and.."

Elsa continued, but it had turned to a muted buzzing in my ears. There was a bottoming out in the lower half of my stomach, making it feel like all my organs dropped to my feet, and suddenly it was very, very hard to breathe. "W-What?"

My voice shook violently, and Elsa finally turned to stare, concern drawing up her eyebrows in the middle.

"You guys can't- you can't just leave- I-"

"No, no, no." Elsa smiled and ran a hand through her hair absently, the way she did when she was nervous. "You'd be coming with us."

I ceased my babbling immediately my jaw smacking closed with a loud click, almost making me bite my tongue. "What?"

Elsa huffed, blowing air up into her bangs that dangled across her forehead, fluffing them out, making them even messier than before. It was an old habit of hers, and I almost grinned at seeing it again. Almost.

"You can't stay here, Anna." She spoke as if it should be obvious, and I felt my hackles rise on instinct. "The people that are hunting you now, especially now that I left the ice behind like an idiot, they're going to be after all of us-"

"I can't just leave, either." I glared at Elsa.

She glared right back at me, her frenzied planning finally calmed, replaced with irritation. "Yes you can. And we're going to, all of us."

For as long as I can remember, Elsa and I got along in nearly every aspect of our lives. There had always been one thing though, that absolutely set my teeth on edge.

Elsa was bossy.

She always had been, ever since I first met her. Maybe it had something to do with that trademarked regal appearance, that (somehow insanely attractive) arrogance that she had, the way that she used to glare down at me, always insisting that she knew what was best. (Which was often times true, but that only served to make me angrier.) Elsa was, in every way I could see, a modern day queen, minus the traditionalism. She lived to give orders, she was fantastic at making people listen to her. Every time I had seen her work someone over, absolutely enforce her authority, it had been... something of a turn on, if I'm being honest. It was one of the reasons I couldn't ever go to her basketball practices in high school, because of the way she ordered people around, kept them working like a well-oiled machine. (Which probably speaks to my insanity, but it was goddamn hot.) And I think that's why she always got so pissed at me when it didn't work.

Because I didn't listen. I never did.

"No, I'm not." I crossed my arms and jerked my chin up in defiance. Elsa smiled a little bit at that. "I'm not leaving New York, I love it here. I can't just fly halfway across the globe because some random group of freaks is after me. I can take care of myself."

Elsa's smile got a little bit colder, the way it always did when she was about to royally piss me off. "If you think I'm letting you stay here, you've got another thing coming, princess." She smirked when the tops of my ears went red with indignation. Kristoff had been calling me princess since the first week we met. I vividly remembered the first time Elsa had said it though, because my reaction was way too strong, which had led her to start using it as a weapon. Which only served to piss me off more.

"Letting me?!" My voice raised in volume, and I could feel my face getting redder. I stood up from the couch, glaring up at her and her stupid three inch height adavantage. That was the difference between Elsa and I. When it came to confrontation, I was loud, angry, seething with palpable frustration, open and out for everyone to see. Elsa was quiet, slinking like a predator, her eyes cold and flashing in an incredibly intimidating way. Her anger was controlled to the max, with enough biting acidity to corrode your ears with every word. "You're right, Elsa. You're not letting me do anything. I'm doing whatever the hell I want."

Elsa took a step closer to me, using her height to an advantage to tower over where I stood. I'd called her petty once, after she'd done the same in an argument years ago. She'd merely shrugged and said she'd use whatever she had over me, which had, in turn, led to another argument.

"I will drag you, kicking and screaming, all the way to the opposite side of the planet if I have to." She spoke through gritted teeth, her jaw clenched tightly. There was something much deeper than anger swimming in the back of her irises, but I couldn't see it yet. "You're not staying her to get yourself killed. I will not allow it. You don't even understand what you're up against. The Rayalti isn't a 'random group of freaks'. They are soldiers; every one of them, trained killers. And you're in over your head."

"You're not the boss of me!" I spat at her, my face now a flaming red vision of anger. If I had been listening at all, I would've understood that she was trying to be protective. (Given, in an overbearing sort of way.) but once I get even then slightest bit frustrated, I immediately have problems listening to anything or anyone, no matter how rational they're being. In fact, Elsa's rationality had always enraged me further whenever we ended up in any sort of argument. "I have a life here! If you think I'm going to completely uproot at the drop of a hat then you've got another thing coming!"

Elsa laughed.

Laughed.

I shook with anger.

She was abruptly right in my face, not two inches from our noses touching, her sudden proximity forcing me to crane my head upwards to meet her eyes. She smirked in satisfaction. I could count the freckles across the bridge of her nose. There was a radiating coldness coming from her, I could feel it against my skin, her eyes were like ice chips, cold and unyielding. Her voice was steady with a promise, the uncompromising, unshakable certainty that settled somewhere atop my chest.

"I will not let them kill you. If that means that I have to kidnap you, then so be it. I can't fight them on my own, but I will run to Antarctica with you in tow before I let them take you. And you're coming with us, whether you like it or not."

"You can't make me go!" I yelled at her again, the no-argument tone driving me up the fucking wall.

"Oh, yea?" If anything, Elsa seemed to shift closer, her smirk shrinking a little, her eyes sharpening. "Wanna bet?"

I opened my mouth, ready to rip her a new one, but Kristoff stepped in before I had the chance. "Guys, stop."

The moment he spoke Elsa seemed to snap from a daze, and took a large backward step away from me, blinking rapidly. I gave a small sigh of relief that she wasn't so close to my face anymore, making it much easier for me to think. My breathing was heavy and my hands clenched to fists. I could feel my heartbeat in my ears. I darted a quick glance at Elsa's face, and found myself immediately frustrated that she looked almost completely unfazed.

Damn you and your stupid, perfect face.

I noticed that her hands shook a little, though, and took a large amount of satisfaction in it.

"Elsa, Anna's right, it's unfair. We need to talk about this. And we can't make her do anything-"

"I'm not letting her stay here." Elsa snarled immediately, the fragile control she had gained falling away as quickly as it had come. "I don't care what you say. The Kolai are animals. You know what they'd do to her-"

"Elsa." Kristoff did not relent, refused to back down, his voice as steady as ever. "It's her choice."

"Her choice to get herself killed?!" Elsa's voice raised slightly, and I snapped to attention, my surprise clearly evident on my face. Elsa never shouted; not in arguments. She said that if she couldn't get her point across without yelling then she shouldn't be arguing in the first place. "You're insane if you think that's happening."

"You don't have a say, Els. It's not up to you."

"The hell it isn't!"

Elsa shook. Like full body trembling. She was gesticulating wildly, her hands flying all over the place. Something was kind of freaking me out about how she was acting. Everything Elsa did was controlled, reserved. It had been that way since we were kids. I was the loud one, the wild one; the twins were the long suffering managers of my dramatics. Elsa didn't shout, she didn't pace, she didn't act like this, ever. It was that feeling you get when someone that is very calm suddenly becomes unhinged, like a bomb going off in front of you and all you can do is watch and try not to get blown away. "You know what they do, Kristoff! We know what they do! This isn't a matter of discussion anymore; it's not a choice. If we stay here, we're going to die. Period."

"You and I can leave, whenever you want, I don't care where we go, whatever. And yes, she should go, it's her best option. But you can't make Anna go with us, it's wrong. You'd never forgive yourself for forcing her into something like that."

"I wouldn't have to if I knew she was safe!"

Elsa's voice cracked. It felt like something in my chest cracked a little too.

"She can stay if she wants to; it's her life."

"I'm not leaving without her!"

"Elsa-"

"No, Kris!" Elsa's voice wavered. "I don't understand why you aren't getting it! Its The Rayalti! God only knows how long it will take them to track me down and lead them right here! Do you understand? They're looking for us, all of us, right now! And I can't lose more people to them! Why am I the only one that can see the danger? Why are you turning a blind eye when when our parents-"

There was an abrupt drop in temperature, the whole room nearly frosting over. Elsa had frozen on the spot, her face shocked, her eyes wide, like she couldn't believe what had just come out of her mouth.

"Elsa-"

She held a hand up, cutting Kristoff off without saying a word. She turned abruptly and walked down the hall, toward her room. I heard the door slam a few seconds later.

There were a few moments of silence. The apartment hadn't gone back to the right temperature.

"Well," Kristoff rubbed the back of his neck and turned to meet my eyes, his own incredibly uncomfortable and sad. "That could've gone better."

/

"Okay, Hart." I breathed deeply, muttering to myself. The light blue door seemed incredibly large for some reason. "You've got this. It'll be okay."

Kristoff and I had mutually decided that it would be best if I were the one to go and talk to Elsa, as she would be more forgiving if I were the one to approach. And by "mutually decided" I mean Kristoff literally threatened to punt me down the hallway if I didn't go first.

I sighed, inhaled deeply through my nose, and knocked, the same rhythmic way that I used to when we were kids.

knock knock knock-knock knock

"E-Elsa?" I cleared my throat, trying to rid it of the stutter. "Um, hey, I- I just wanted to say sorry. About earlier. I-I shouldn't have yelled, and I know you were trying to look out for me, and I just got frustrated 'cause you're always so bossy- not that I don't love that about you! I mean, sometimes. Not right then, obviously. But I mean, I know that you were protecting me, and all- I, um, I appreciate it, and I just-"

The door that I had been been giving an embarrassing monologue to abruptly swung open, startling me enough that I almost fell over backward. Then there was a hand hooked in the collar of my shirt, yanking me through the door frame and slamming in closed behind me in the same second.

"I'm sorry." Elsa spoke into my hair. Her voice sounded scratchy and rough, and it sent a warm heat swimming through my blood. Her arms were back around me like before, one hand in my hair, the other hooking around my ribs. I was frozen for a few seconds before wrapping my arms around her waist and shoving my face into the crook of her neck. She smelled like vanilla and pine trees and mint. "You don't have to apologize, Anna, I was acting ridiculous, I-"

"No, Elsa." I shook my head against her shoulder. "It's completely understandable. With everything that The Rayalti has done, I wouldn't expect you to act any different. Kristoff told me... pretty much everything."

She stiffened, and slowly backed away from me, dropping her arms. "Define everything."

"You know, about your past and what happened and why you had to come here."

Elsa paused for a second, and then, for a very small moment, she almost seemed relieved. "Oh... Well, I'm glad that you know everything now. I don't like keeping things from you."

I grinned, and then it slowly dropped as my eyebrows drew up. I was upset, scared. Terrified honestly. I didn't know what was going to happen to me, I didn't know why people were looking for me, why they wanted to kill me. Once I had finally thought I understood, another mystery was thrown at me, as if I hadn't already had enough for one lifetime. That stupid name, Arendelle, would not leave me alone. I knew I'd heard it before, but I couldn't remember when, or from who, and the frustration was almost more than I could deal with. I abruptly felt like I was going to cry, which was stupid, because up until a few days ago I didn't cry; it went against everything I stood for. Now, however, it seemed to be the only way I could respond to anything.

"Els, I- I don't know what to do. This..." I rubbed furiously at my eyes and looked away. "I'm scared. I don't get this. I don't know why they want me. I don't know how to fix anything. It's all so messed up-"

Then there was a hand under my chin, pulling my face upward with an irresistible force. I was staring into Elsa's eyes, and was violently thrown back to the first time I had spoken to her, outside the principal's office, how terrifying her eyes had looked to me then, how they had become such a comfort over the years.

"They won't touch you." Elsa refused to let me look away, the intensity of her gaze almost impossible to meet. Every time Elsa looked at me I felt studied, memorized, as if, even though there was no way she wouldn't recognize me by now, she was still trying to burn my features into her brain. "Anna, I promise. They won't."

I just stared at her. The flyaway hairs across her forehead, constantly looking windswept and gorgeous, her pale cheeks with lightly sprinkled freckled, her lips, quirked up slightly to the left, and incredibly close to me. I could lean forward, just a few inches, Elsa was being so much more affectionate lately, maybe-

And then she stepped back, dropping her hand and looking almost as disappointed as I felt. However, there was a huge part of me that was grateful, I had almost just ruined any kind of relationship I could have with Elsa, platonic or not, on a stupid whim. I didn't care if she didn't want me the way I wanted her, even though I had a suspicion that she must feel that way, at least a little bit, I just wanted her. In whatever way I could have.

Stupid! Use your brain, you idiot!

"So, listen..." Elsa scratched at the back of her head. "I've been thinking about it. I have a safe house we can go to, here, in New York. It's unpleasant, but there is absolutely no way they could track us there. It will give us a while to figure some things out." She paused and glared slightly. "I hate the idea of staying here. It is completely unsafe. If it were up to me, we would be on a plane right now, but... Kristoff is right. You have a life here. I can't ask you to uproot after being back for a few hours."

She sighed and sat on the edge of her bed. I joined her, once again, sitting with about a foot of space between us. There was a tightened jolt in her shoulders, and I almost asked if I could give her a massage, it looked so uncomfortable.

"Anna..." She sighed again. "We will have to leave. At some point, the safe house won't be enough. The Rayalti are relentless, like dogs. They always find who they're after, and the longer we stay in the city, the easier it will be for them to sniff us out. It's not a matter of if, but when. And when the time comes, we can't stay here. I can buy us a week or two at the most, but after that, we have to go, okay? We have to."

There was a certain pleading tone to Elsa's voice that was foreign and unsettling, because Elsa didn't beg. Hell, she barely ever even asked for anything, let alone pleaded for something, and it finally sunk in just how desperate she was. Desperate to get us out of here, desperate to run, desperate to keep me safe, and she was sacrificing it all, for my comfort. It occurred to me that there was no one else, on this entire planet, that I trusted as explicitly as I trust Elsa. She would always do everything in her power to make everything okay, to keep me safe and happy, and Elsa had a lot of power, that much was obvious. And I knew, deep in my heart, that Elsa was right. We couldn't stay here, we would die. And it would be all of us because I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if I died, Elsa and Kristoff would end up the same way. And it was that thought that sealed it, the certainty that the end of my life would mean the end of the twins, as well.

"Okay."

Elsa's head snapped up, her eyes wide with surprise. I just watched her, her mannerisms and her expressions, her traits and quirks, everything that defined who she was, and I understood that if she died with me, not even ending up in heaven could drag me from the anguish it would cause. I would be stuck in an eternal loop of depression, spinning round and round with self-blame and self-hate, never ever forgetting that it was all my fault.

"When the time comes, and we have to, I..." I swallowed hard and held her gaze. "I'll go. We'll run away together."

I smiled internally at my choice of words, laughing at how perfectly cliche they sounded.

Elsa smiled and leaned towards me, cupping my face in her cold hands and pulling me forward to meet her. Just as I was positive that my heart was going to pound right out of my chest, she shifted and pressed her lips firmly to my forehead.

I nearly swooned.

She then leaned down, and did that incredibly frustrating thing where she whispered right against my ear. I squirmed where I sat, my breathing a little labored, my cheeks absolutely flaming.

"You've got some packing to do, princess."

"Elsa!"

She cackled and ran out of the room, leaving me barely able to move.

I hate that stupid nickname.

After a few generous moments where I regained my sanity I stood with a sigh, and looked around the mess of the room.

Or, what should've been a mess.

Elsa had neatly folded all of my clothes, and sat them in two separate piles beside my, already open, suitcase.

I rolled my eyes and glared and the tidy room.

"Packing my ass."

Author's Note: Hey guys! First, I must apologize for how long it's taken me to update, I know it's ridiculous. I literally just moved into my dorm room yesterday and have barely had time to breathe, let alone write this chapter. I had to use one of the school computers to finish up the last of this chapter, now that I'm not home I don't have a computer anymore. I'm saving up for a laptop which will hopefully help out with this situation haha

Anyway, I hope my lack of sleep for the last few days will excuse this chapter; I don't really like it. I am having a very difficult time reintroducing Elsa at an acceptable pace, since I honestly just want to jump right into some Elsanna romance shit, but I know, I can't, and it pains me daily. Elsa's kind of an asshole, right? I gotta say that I like it, I love rude!Elsa.

So, yea, I'm totally rambling, but I'll blame it on sleep deprivation and the hell that is college. Y'all please tell me the shit that I'm fucking up, it helps a lot, and seriously, you have no idea how much your reviews motivate me. Without them, I don't know if I'd be able to finish this story. I soooo appreciate you guys, y'all are the real deal, you're fantastic.

Much love XOXO

-AJ