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I carried her sweat-drenched body in my arms, fast asleep but her chest heaving from the strain on her body. She snuggled close to my chest, creating a pocket of warmth against the cold that perpetually radiated from me.
She'd walked that parapet seventeen times before her body finally gave out.
Seventeen times. Blindfolded. Shifted. After falling once and nearly dying.
The first attempt after the fall had been disasterâshe'd frozen at step twelve, wouldn't move forward or back, just stood there shaking until I'd been forced to talk her through every single step. The second attempt she'd made it twenty steps before panic overtook her again.
But by the seventh circuit, something had changed. She and Kaia had found a rhythm. By the fifteenth, they were moving as one entity.
The seventeenth time, she'd walked the entire perimeter without hesitation. And then collapsed mid-shift, her body unable to maintain the transformation any longer.