Before (The Sensitives) - By Dawn Rae Miller Page 0,18

fumble with numb fingers to turn up the sound on my wristlet. The music matches the swirling snow pattern—swaying and floating in rhythm as if conducting it. With each beat, the flakes skip to the side instead of falling downward. And when I turn, the snow follows my movements.

At least, I think it moved with me.

I swish my hand back and forth. The snow glides from side to side softly, as if being rocked. How...strange.

The rational side of my brain says I should be concerned. We had a delay request because of Sensitive activity in the area and dancing snow isn’t normal. But the pretend feeling of control over something so powerful delights me. Besides, I’m inside the barricade, and I have my wristlet. And I’ve never heard “dancing snow” being in the realm of Sensitive abilities—it must be the wind.

For fun, I open and close my fist quickly, and once again the floating snow changes. This time it’s a small pulsing, whirling cyclone.

The rhythmic drumming of one song segues into the haunting melody of another. The cyclone sputters out and a familiar melancholy descends. I look up and watch my group pull further and further away from me. I wish everything could stay like this forever—the stillness, my school, the predictability. Lately, talk of graduation and our upcoming bindings consumes everyone.

I’m excited about the future, but things are changing. I’ll never be able to get back this moment. Almost as if in response to my mood, the snow stops dancing and falls listlessly from the sky.

“Heya, Birdie, you wanna hurry up a bit? If you haven’t noticed, it’s cold.” Beck waves his gloveless hands in front of me. “Daydreaming again?”

I shake my head. “Did you see that? The snow?”

“What? The snow devil?” His dimple deepens when he grins. “Yeah, it seemed like it was following you.”

“It did, didn’t it?”

He winks. “That’s my Birdie, master of the elements.” He scoops up a handful of snow with his bare hand and tosses it at me. I step to the side and the snow narrowly misses me.

Beck blows on his cold, wet hand and makes puppy eyes at me. I consider giving him grief for throwing the snow at me, but instead, I reach for him. “Give me your hand, Mr. I-Crave-Heat.” I push our joined hands into my pocket. Despite his claim of being cold, his warmth radiates through my glove.

He gives my hand a small squeeze and motions to my wristlet. “Can I share?”

I hit a button, beaming the sound into his feed, and turn up the music. He sings a few lines of the refrain while performing some weird dance move. Beck drags me along after him. I laugh and shove him with my free hand. We stumble, tripping over each other’s feet, but Beck catches me before I fall.

“Nutter,” I gasp between laughs.

“You mean that wasn’t an elaborate excuse to get me to wrap my arms around you?” I know he’s joking, but heat flares across my face. Thank God I’m probably already rosy from the cold.

“You are so bizarre sometimes,” I say as I right myself.

He bows and then shoves his hand back into my pocket.

Around us, the snow dances and sways again. We walk on a few more minutes, Beck leaning into me so that his hand stays connected to mine.

When we were younger, I was taller, stronger and faster than him. I protected Beck from the older kids, the ones who picked on anyone smaller than them and, in exchange, he made me laugh. Now, standing here next to him, it’s hard to believe. He’s a good foot taller than me and no longer a scrawny kid—he’s all muscle.

Beck may not need my protection anymore, but I still need him to make me laugh.

The school appears in the distance when we round the next turn. It’s a stately old brick building with sweeping views of the barren hills and the sparkling bay. According to our history texts, a large bridge used to span the gap where the bay meets the ocean. But it’s been gone for at least fifty years after having fallen into disuse maybe seventy-five years prior, when private cars were outlawed by the State in an attempt to restore our society’s fragile ecosystem.

“You know, Be–,”

My wristlet chirps.

My wristlet chirped.

Beck’s eyes meet mine and I know he heard it too. His head whips around, surveying the empty landscape around us. In the distance, our classmates appear as nothing more than dots bouncing through