Laurel willed her feet to move. She darted down the stairs to the suite and grabbed Ash’s bag. As she left the room, the door slammed behind her. She jumped and yelped, but kept running. Just wind. The breeze tugged at her hair, the snap of it stung her scalp. Yellow over red over red over red . . .

She ran back to Ashley. “We’re going to need to set the break before we wrap it,” she said.

Ash nodded. Laurel could see her throat working to hold back panic. She’d always shown her fear there, in the front of her neck, tendons tight against the skin. She lay pale on the floor.

Laurel gripped the cooling ends of Ash’s toes. They were slick with blood. She pinched hard, pulled the toes straight. Bone scraped against splintered bone until the break aligned and settled in place. The jagged plates of Ash’s toenails came away in Laurel’s hands.

Ash’s scream shook dust from the plaster around them. The floor groaned under the arching of her back as if she might thrash the whole place apart.

Laurel squeezed her sister close and felt the tremble in her shoulders, tasted the dirt in her hair. Just like when we were kids. She combed the dirt from her hair with her fingers. I’m going to make you beautiful. There was never anything they could do to make Ash’s hair curl. It hung straight as wet yellow satin, always. I bet it would glide through the eye of a needle. Lie smooth against the embroidery backing. Ash had always wanted to play with Laurel’s hair—to tame its wildness. Mine would snarl before you could pull a single stitch. It would tangle in the rest and pull out all the work. Ruin everything. She had hated acting the doll. She remembered when Ash had set the iron too hot and burnt the locks of her hair clean away. Remembered the smell as she pressed the iron to Ash’s mouth. How her eyes widened. How her burnt lips split when her mouth stretched to scream.

The echo of Ash’s screams sent a chill down Laurel’s spine. She gave Ash a teary kiss and left blood smeared across her cheek. She gripped her close until her hands hurt, her knuckles white like the snowy peaks outside. “Sorry,” she said, and released her sister.

“You’re right,” Ash said.

“About what?”

“I can’t do this. It’s too much.”

Laurel fought down the impulse to agree, to say that her injury was the natural consequence of her cockiness. That she should have listened to her big sister. That’s what you get. Mom had said it often enough. That’s what you get for being stupid. For not listening. For not minding your own business. For a moment, it was like she was there again, whispering it in her ear.