Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gravity hooked her and her bones vibrated from the force of the sky falling away, a plane crashing down. Nat was intimately familiar with the sensation. Hysteria formed a vice that restricted her breathing down to nearly nothing, body immobile but for the desperate pulse of her heart, each beat terrified, each beat kicking faster and faster. 

She was in the plane again and every single seat was empty. Nat knew what would happen, how the shape of the plane would both crumple and slide against the land below. They’ll be torn up by trees, walls torn open to reveal soft guts. Technically she was dying, probably dead, and she knew the plane just like she knew fear. Intimately, just like a father. 

I died alone and surrounded by everyone left, Nat thought just as a hand touched her wrist. She looked down and barely recognized the chipped black nail polish and clunky silver rings. She recognized the face looking back at her even less. 

Bleached hair, sleepless rings under the eyes. Natalie, Natty, Nat, Antler Queen… herself. Nat knew the beat-to-hell black jacket easier, cheap material trying so hard to replicate real leather, fabric cuffs scrunched up around the wrists. She bought it for the school year after a summer weeding gardens and trying to give a shit about landscaping for rich people, enough cash in her pocket to buy brand new, fresh from a coat hanger inside of a real, clean store, a basic universe away from the bargain bin specials she grew up with. Gently loved and with all the bruises and scars muted down to a dull shine! You’ll look just like the other girls. And that jacket, worn to shreds, got disposed of without a second glance after their rescue. Every jacket after was a darker, harder version of it. Zippers like teeth, material cold like a snake. 

Those fingers, her fingers, squeezed around her wrist like a decent imitation of a handcuff. Nat can’t jerk away. She didn't know if she even should try. Pain was radiating from her chest, bleeding down from her shoulder, vision dissolving into spots. 

“Get off the plane,” Nat told her very quietly over the sound of her heart beat failing, a low engine whining. “Get off and don’t ever come back.”

Her vision blacked out. There was nothing left, nothing at all—

Trees. 

Nat staggered into the nearest one. Her chipped nails dug into the bark until her legs wanted to cooperate, wobbling around like some kind of drunk two hours after an AA meeting that couldn’t stick. An engine screeched louder and she pushed her forehead against the tree, feeling the textured whirls of the bark, a pulse banging against her skull from both the inside and outside. Misty killed me, she thought and the pain spikes up a notch. 

Heat bloomed from the plane, the wrecked plane just a shadow away, and fire whooshed out and up. It was a near miss from her current post of sanity. And, despite the proximity to it, she doesn't even flinch. 

Nearby Tai was screaming for Van. She lurched against Mari, alive Mari, and shook her by the shoulders. She then thrust away for someone else, everyone swarming and scattering, perfect Taissa Turner scuffed up and searching…

She, despite the pain, knew exactly how this went. If this was a story, this was the beginning part. She got off the plane and Tai was going to find Van, the others were going to eventually cluster like a hive of yellowjackets for real, and they were all going straight to hell. 

The ending was obvious. Mostly everyone died, a few people lived, and everything was a total waste. 

Nat forced her face away from the harsh skin of the tree and gazed back over at the flames, the black smoke throbbing in the air. A scream wrenched from her throat and it bled onto the wreckage, cut loose from mind. Hell was this, hell had been every minute since the plane crashed the first time, and she’s at the start again. There was plenty of bad, a legacy of it, but she had always been a seed of darkness. And something planted her out here once, made her come into full bloom. 

She screamed again and again and again—

“Let me process you!” Misty snapped in her face while flicking one finger fast across her vision. “You’re in shock and distress—”

“Don’t touch me,” Nat snarled. The word process set her nerves on edge, made her want to get a wall to put her back against. She pushed her away with both hands, proving that they’re working and fully functional, that she was totally fine. Her bag was somewhere and it wasn't much, actually, packed for a soccer game, some kind of fancy ass party, and a weekend of bumming around a hotel to either nurse a loss or reward a win. Pre-Crash Nat never thought about the positives of packing, say, a first aid kit. She didn’t consider vacuum sealing a bag of winter clothing just in case she got stranded in the springtime and nobody came looking by the time seasons changed. The first thing she packed, and arguably the most important thing back then, was her flask. 

There was a foggy memory of finding her bag the first time. Nat turned and wheeled around, legs rubbery, and scans the area. Tai’s designer luggage set, ironically twin to Jackie’s travel set, laid nearby like a fish out of water. Gen’s casual duffle bag was slouched across Van’s backpack. She’s looked and her head kept hurting—

Travis came from the brush with swollen eyes and a comfortable expression of anger on his face. 

The heat from the smouldering wreckage goes ice cold. Nat stopped. 

He looked at her like a stranger and Nat looked at him like he was alive for the first time in a long time. And if he was alive…

Misty went off to mend some other poor soul and Nat couldn't fill her lungs with air, busy shedding her jacket and rolling up her shirt sleeves in a dizzying desperation. This isn’t real. Her skin was nearly blank. A stubby burn is hooked below her elbow. This isn’t real, this can’t be real. No track marks. No thin scars. There’s trauma, lots of trauma, but she’s on one side of it. 

Her fingers traced over her left arm like she could feel the damage that couldn't be seen when someone grabbed her. Their own fingers hooked around her wrist and it sent chills down her spine, a tiny plummet of anxiety that mimicked a plane falling, a body hitting the ground. 

“Are you okay?”

The noise of everything was still ringing in her ears. Nat had to look up and stare into the face of Jackie Taylor, perfect and alive, complete with a pulse. “Jesus, Nat. I’m just asking if you’re okay. Did you hit your head or something?”

Green trees were all around them but dead leaves rustled on the ground, crushed by the toe of Nat’s boot. She flexed her wrist to one side, breaking Jackie’s connection by pushing to where her fingers met with her thumb, second nature. But then she leaned forward to grab Jackie, hands locking up on her arms, the gasoline taste of adrenaline sharp in her mouth. “You’re here.”

Jackie blinked owlishly. Something dark was smudged across her forehead. “Of course I’m here. We were literally on the same plane.”

Starving people do desperate things when something has been cooked. White pain flashed. Nat remembered eating what was left of Jackie, of sitting elbow to elbow with the others, desperate to eat and be full, chewing burnt mouthfuls of Jackie and her melted clothing, every bite bitter to the bone. 

Her fingers unlocked and she let Jackie go. And then her feet started to move, faster and faster, a one man race for her bag. 

Maybe Pre-Crash Nat knew exactly what she was doing when she was packing a bag. A flask sounded like a perfect solution to this emergency.  

Everyone was sitting around the fire and playing ‘if your house was burning down, what would you save?’, but they already went and given it a darker twist, if a plane was going down, what would you save? Some of the answers were playful, like Laura Lee's teddy bear, to a bit obvious like when Van requested custody of Nat's flask. Voices peppered in fake and funny answers, louder for the darkness itself. 

Nat was quiet, sitting alone, and with both hands clenched tight around the flask. She wasn't sharing it with anyone. Technically sobriety was a hard battle to win the first time around, but then she went and ended up dying sober.

What was the point? It was all going to dry up again. Did it even matter? Her problem with drinking seemed small to the shit Nat got into after their rescue, the highs she chased. 

She sipped to replace one buzz with another. 

There’d been an awful moment when she’d fallen into step with Travis earlier, migrating down a crudely made foot path from the wreckage to the burning campfires. His grief was so obvious that she nearly passed him the flask in automatic sympathy, but…

Travis and her had shared enough vices before. It was safer to keep distance, do less harm. 

“—want your mom,” Lottie pitched suggestively to Tai, wiggling her eyebrows and looking almost cozy in the firelight, her sweater slung around her shoulders like she was modelling for a magazine. “Next time a plane goes down, I’m hoping she’s on board.”

“God, you’re gross,” Tai said, laughing with the others. They’re giddy post shock, post blood, post everything. 

They would have to dig graves for the body tomorrow with the full advantage of light to work with. Another thing she’s already done before, Nat acknowledged, saluting the upcoming responsibility with another sip from her flask. The whisky burns like a good friend, singeing the back of her throat. She had been standing over the flight stewardess with Shauna and Tai when she nearly went and said ‘we should process the bodies soon before they rot’. Something dead provoked that urgency, the understanding that a knife could cut down through skin to purpling muscle, everything vital to keep going.  Thankfully she shut her mouth before saying a single thought out loud, just silent while the two blinked tears away.

Those were just the wrong words now, wrong until they went hungry. Right now, everyone expected to bury the deal because that’s what they were supposed to do. 

Nat wondered blearily about her own body. What happened to it? Did it get a grave? Would it be rendered down to nothing and swallowed whole? She was gone but everything from before…

It had happened. It would continue. She had been removed and restitched in a different place, but it didn’t seem fair that it could all vanish. Her body would’ve hit the ground, Nat didn't know if she remembered looking up at the night sky or if it was a made up idea inside her head, but someone would have to deal with it. Move it, call someone… tidy the place she left behind. 

Jackie flopped down beside her before elegantly crossing her ankles and thrusting one hand out, clearly not caring that Nat’s picked a quiet place to quietly go insane. Fingers wiggled, a plain demand for the flask. 

Her teeth remembered scratching against bone. Nat handed it over without complaint. She also snapped those teeth just to make an audible click in Jackie's direction to keep her away. 

She took a fast sip and scrunched her face up. “God, that’s like a bottle of nail polish remover.”

“Forgot to pack the girly shit in my emergency bag this morning. What’d you bring?”

“Not enough, clearly,” Jackie scoffed at herself, a little quiet compared to the group nearby. 

They’ve sat beside each other before. Nat’s knocked her knee against Jackie’s on a bus ride when Shauna was sick. Scatorccio and Taylor were on the backend of the alphabet so that put them within the same distance of the line up, matched by their near heights. But never like this. Not with Nat fracturing from the presence of two versions of herself inside of her skull, not with Nat vibrating with guilt and the old, dying taste of adrenaline.  Never with Jackie fidgeting with her flask, tracing one finger across the unmarked surface. There was something unsaid that felt loud to her, a sensation that didn't slide away.

“What’s with the loner act? You’re acting like someone’s gonna bite you.”

Nat didn't know how to answer that. She was busy thinking about leaving Jackie’s bones in a wrapped up thing of canvas at the plane. Their plane, currently, is still smouldering. Thick smoke burns the back of her throat and she has to keep washing it away with whisky, desperate for a little more. 

The flask calls to her. The metal glittered from the firelight, showed Jackie’s fingers holding it. Nat was about to ask for it back when Jackie asked another question. 

“What do you think the purpose of all this is?”

I lost my purpose. And, purpose. Find a purpose. Even just looking for one is enough to set you on the path. Her skull throbbed and she was thinking about rehab and the harsh lights of an ER, washing up sober and wrecked. Chasing relief. 

Nat looked at Jackie and her heart was racing, a wild thing under her skin. They were both here. She was back at the beginning. 

The end, distant and near, had not come yet. 

Chapter Text

Grief was a bitch. Grief was also a dizzying spiral around the classic moods of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Nat was rotting, foul tempered and barely contained, next to the wreckage of their plane. Everyone else ambled around, clearly without purpose, and time slowed down to a trickle. What was the point of shifting around? What was the point of feeling every inch of absolute vile grief without a decent form of pain relief?

She knew, unlike the rest, that nobody was coming for them. They’ll ditch their mossy, damp campsite in favour of water. And then the really bad stuff will sink teeth in wherever possible, killing the killable, damaging what just won’t die. Nat barely scraped herself out the first time. 

A second time, though? 

She wanted to hit her head off a tree until she passed out. Her wrist was already blotchy from where her fingers have pinched, desperate for a wake up. And she also wanted to just get on with it. 

Pick their stuff up, brush the dirt off their legs, and get moving. Shelter wouldn't last forever, clearly not flame resistant, but a solid roof and four walls was the best thing they’ll have for a while. A routine was built into her brain that she couldn't entirely shut off, that need to wake early and exit for a hunt. To come back either with something or nothing. 

And, vital to everything, there was a gun waiting her. 

Nat felt the immediate ghost of it in her hands, already felt the ache in her shoulder from the kickback. North to south, east to west, she’ll eventually return to her particular compass point. And she's missed it. Getting out of the wilderness meant that gun being taken away, boxed up and buried, and no gun has ever felt the same since. Her finger curled and mimed the little pull of the trigger. 

Akilah was hopping over a fallen tree nearby. Misty’s trailing after her like an odd duck, some of the other JV girls hanging in a cluster. A tiny snatch of their conversation floated to her, audible enough, and she tuned them out when she realized they’re still going on about nationals. What'll happen to their guaranteed victory. If the other team was going to postpone until they're out of this place. The big, spooky woods have them a little tense at setting off solo which means they keep forming tiny little mobs, flashes of the gold and blue uniform at her peripheral vision constantly. Nat inched back a little to keep distance between her and the numbers of them, a plastic bottle crunching under her hand, fingers all too willing to shape down into a fist. 

The last time she saw Akilah…

The pain from inside her mind burned, a coal white hot, and she bent under it. Pushed away the memory of Akilah in the snow, Akilah dying, Akilah choking on her own blood. That’s the thing, Nat’s figured out. Remembering anything hurts like a bitch. Maybe the future, her particular future, was all grief and a total bitch. Akilah’s alive now, feet stomping on crunchy leaves, and she’ll stay that way for a little while longer. 

She breathed out slowly. The campsite was getting on her nerves and she was somehow even more frustrated that she ever forgot how tedious it all was, the direct aftermath. Nobody can go anywhere alone without provoking hasty, frantic questions. If Nat said that she’s taking off for a piss behind a bush one more time, Misty’ll glue herself to her side to inform her about UTIs and the critical necessity to keeping clean and healthy down there. 

And, critical to Nat’s ability to keep herself managed, she needs at least twenty yards of space between Misty and her at all times. 

“You’re twitching. What’s your damage?” Tai asked abruptly, seating herself down on the ground. She was nibbling at a split cookie, her share of the haul brought back from the plane. Gen’s crossing the clearing with her head tilted straight up to peer at the slits of sky between branches, totally blind as she walks, somehow avoiding the snarls of roots coming up. And months from now, Gen'll be running until she trips, and that's how she'll start to die. Ran down and surrounded by teeth.

Nat’s done this before, has been here before—

“Hey. How do you know if you’re going insane?” 

Tai brushed stray crumps off her lap and looked ten times more indifferent for it, reflexively snobbish whenever she was out of her depth. Unless the person was Van for totally unbiased reasons, shocker, her patience was gone. “Pretty sure Einstein says that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results for it. Why? Think you’re crazy now? How often do you experience plane crashes, burn out?”

She’s surprised when the old name hits. Nat looked away to hide her wince. Technically she’s upgraded far beyond that reputation. Junkie, OD Queen. Plenty of titles have been tossed her ways and a few even managed to brand themselves under her skin. Antler Queen, the worst of everything, was still there. She could feel it, that eerie chill. 

But ‘burn out’? That’s a homecoming. 

“At least twice,” Nat snarked.  

“Whatever. Keep your craziness to yourself, okay?” 

Night cartwheeled above Nat’s head when she woke up choking on a gasp. A few of their fires were down just oily looking flames, mostly spent, doomed to go out before morning comes. 

She hitched herself up so she was leaning on her elbow and could scan the area. Bodies were splayed out. Counting them was an old habit. There was Van and Tai, face to face, both with their hoods yanked up. Lottie liked sleeping on her back so she was easy to spot, looking vaguely Jesus-on-the-cross with both arms stretched out. Deeper in the pit of Yellowjackets was Shauna, balled up and miserable, hands like fists under her chin. And Nat, uneasy and restless, kept looking until she found Misty. The final count to their survivors. Misty, living and alive, as gentle as she’ll ever be. 

Just looking at her provoked emotion. The third rehab place, the one called Saint Mary’s, liked preaching about breathing to help calm excessive emotions, and everything about Nat was and is excessive. A need to get the fuck out of this place, a need to survive without gnawing her way through rock bottom. 

But she tried. Nat’s breath was hot and shaky against her palm, hand naturally sliding up to shield any sound from being heard. If a tree fell in a forest and no one was around to hear it, did it make a sound? And if a girl tripped and fell in the woods and no one is around to listen, did she really scream? Pain flared from her chest. It hurt sucking down air and letting it all go again, but she kept going. She counted backwards and forwards inside her mind, whether it being bodies or sheep to fall asleep. The numbers just scaled up and down. 

The ground wasn't;t very comfortable but she’s made a good start of adapting to it, burrowing in where the roots are a little forgiving. She sluggishly moved so she could rest her head on one of them and remembered, pain a knife, her head on Lottie’s lap. Her head on the sticky carpet of the motel room. Her head stuck on a bed in an ER, lights shining down on her. 

If Nat fell asleep, she would either dream about dying or she would just wake up again. Both were shitty options. 

So her eyes stayed open, watching. The air was literally humming with the sounds of other Yellowjackets breathing. Melissa, her baseball cap tossed to the wayside, was nearby. She turned a little in her sleep, unintentionally wriggling to get a little warmer, strings of her hoodie pulled tight around her neck. The vice clutching around Nat’s chest eased marginally and she counted the bodies for real, counting every single person accounted for. Not just the survivors from before. 

And, later, she managed to fall asleep. Cradled by the dregs of firelight still lingering. 

The acidic smell of the burning plane had mostly faded, replaced instead by the dense, wet smoke that came from burning damp brush. Nat risked the still present heat that morning to go in and pick through for decent supplies, ghosting her future version of herself as she worked. 

Someday she’d be in and prying up sections of fabric from the floor, the seatbelts. Anything that could be carved up and salvaged for a new purpose. Nat, thanks to the throbbing bank of history inside her skull, already knows about the plastic tarp in the closet off from the cockpit. She took it and hoisted it up with Rachel’s shoelaces and some spare zip ties, Rachel being dead for a second time in her memory, and rigged it so it’ll stay taunt between branches. They’ve got a few more days but at least it’ll collect some dew, a tiny bit of moisture to top off their limited water supply. 

When a ship was sinking, a body needed to work faster. Nat didn't slow down. A hatchet strips branches from brushes and she hauled it off into tidy piles beside their campfires to dry out a little faster, coughing from the strong smell of woodsmoke hanging around. She’s positioning the last of her haul when she felt eyes on her back, stiffening right up and shifting around to drag the branch into a better position, casually lifting her gaze at the same time to see Shauna in the act of watching.

Loner Shauna looked different without Jackie at her side. Nat automatically surveyed and spots the missing girl, apparently comfy nearby Laura Lee, casually painting her nails. Shauna had her sleeves rolled up and they showed splotchy, pink burns across her forearms, and she’s silent as a fox, watching Nat like she’s memorizing every motion. 

That’s the problem, Nat thought. Shauna’s always been observant. Maybe she was lining the version of Nat she should know with the wrecked version, checking what fit and what didn't. Her skin itched. Nat squatted down and casually fixed up the last of her work, trying hard to find a neutral exit that won’t have Shauna screaming something crazy like ‘Nat’s come back from the future!’ and bring everyone else in for a look. It seemed crazy, but Nat was crazy now. Paranoia fit like a glove. 

Her mind unspooled a little. Nat slept by herself, tiny patch of solitude amongst a group of so many, and woke up to get work done. She went to the plane, hung the tarp—

That’s it. 

She mimicked the same knots that Shauna taught her once, the really good ones that took forever to unpick, the kind that only a deadbeat dad could teach. The Shipman special. 

Pain started from the base of her skull. Shauna’s watched her execute perfect knots that this version of herself shouldn’t know, and it wasn't right. Nat’s utilized them for a tarp, a tiny trap to collect moisture, and Shauna first taught her how to hang a body up to drain the blood out with them. 

Her hands lashed out blindly and picked up a length a plasticky rope. She looped a decent noose out of it and slid it down over her head, squinting over at Shauna and making a face. It didn't drive her away, though, until Nat took the end and pulled it straight up, head cocking on an angle, and mimed death. 

It worked.

Shauna wasn't aware that she’s a vulture yet. She thought death and dead things made her uncomfortable. Her middle finger flips up and she strode off, bothered and restless, flannel shirt vanishing through the trees. She’ll probably scribble basic bitch talk in her diary later about Nat being so hilarious that it isn’t funny, and that’s all it ever was. Something small and stupid. Totally forgettable. 

Nat’s fingers hesitated only a little on the clumsy knot of her noose before unpicking it, letting the rope become just a rope again. And then, for the sake of trying, she pinched her wrist again. Wake the fuck up. Come on. I got off the fucking plane and now I’d really like to wake up.  

She wanted to go back. She wanted to save a little of the blood that’ll spill. She wanted so much that it physically hurt, an ache that lived permanently inside her chest, so permanent that it practically had a mailing address. Nat never was a stranger to wanting a little something, and now a lot simply stacked itself higher. 

They dug a shitty grave after waiting for a 'just in case'. The bodies got tucked off to the side, everyone loud enough to detour animals from getting involved, but the bodies weren't lasting. Two days and nothing meant getting to work, blinking tears away and trying to a decent a job. The others weren't much good at this yet, the scraping of dirt to form a space, hastily shovelling to finish the job. And when they started rattling off vague details of Rachel to put her down to rest with, awkwardly fumbling for something nice to say about Coach Bill…

Nat’s hands continued to work. She pulled a ring free from Bill’s stiff little finger, no doubt saving herself a nastier job. It felt cold inside her palm and she clenched it there, tight, and pushed the wetness from her eyes away. 

“Do you want to say anything?” Lottie whispered to Nat when she stood back up, fingernails black from nail polish and grave dirt. 

There was a gap. She could toss something into the lingering silence. Bill made me run laps for everything he hated about me. And, I don’t think he ever let me stop running. The joke was a lot funnier inside her head, but she didn't think it’ll land properly with an audience. 

“I will if you do,” Nat said, brushing the offer to the wayside. She knew Lottie wouldn't. 

“We should sing the school’s anthem!” Misty chirped. Nobody had pointed out that her face was still marked up with dried blood and it gave her a wild, chaotic expression. Half her curls were matted from dirt. “Send them off with grace.”

That word caught Laura Lee’s attention. She visibly perked up. “Maybe we should say a proper grace.”

Some of them started bickering, already digging in their heels to shut down a longwinded, enthusiastic prayer from being pitched. Nat’s got a foggy memory of Laura Lee going for about seven minutes, Van timing her with Bill’s stolen timer, something about the hungry and the tired, maybe a bit about for war orphans. Nat shoved her hands into her pockets, held the ring a little tighter, and tried to remember when that happened. Maybe Thanksgiving? Jackie usually begged, forced, and demanded all the Yellowjackets do a group ‘friends-giving’, which definitely provoked religious sentiment from one end of the table.

She was hungrier thinking about that shitty spread, whole team laughing over a bottle of Pepsi, two boxes of greasy pizza, and the world’s stalest potato chips. And, yeah. Tai made one of the JV girls go home in tears. Nat definitely pissed somebody off, showing up hung over and a little sullen, a black contrast to Lottie’s unsubtle red eyes and slightly dazed grin. But the food wasn’t bad. And the rest of it—

Nat’s worst habit, maybe, was that she forgot those soft parts. Her mind was stuck on the mouths that bit and took, her own hands that grabbed and took plenty. 

Some stuff wasn’t bad. 

Lottie elbowed her to get her attention and held one hand out. Nat didn't want to take it. Lottie’s Lottie again, eyes focused and clear of any cult-starting ideas, but it wouldn't last forever. Someday they would grow up. Lottie would have at least two cults to her name, and she'd definitely use that power responsibly, peddling organic honey to farmers markets and having her cronies come and kidnap Nat at the last possible second. 

And, fate being future, Lottie would crack open old wounds and start up the delightful tradition of murdering a friend for a benefit. 

Her skin crawled at the idea of it but everyone else was gathering together to hold hands, a chain of faces all the way around a grave. Lottie had her hand flipped up so the palm lines face the branches above their heads, openly waiting for Nat to join. 

Nat inhaled. The air, woody and sharp, drowned her lungs. She let the ring sit safe in her pocket and gave Lottie her own hand, frustrated as a grudge, and grabbed for Mari’s next to her. Their fingers twist together, practically locking, and the circle doesn’t break until it has to.

Laura Lee was spinning with both her arms outstretched, looking very much like a child of Eden. Her blonde hair poured from her scalp and looked without colour from the slant of sunlight coming through. Someone rigged a music player to blast on full volume and she wasn't quite dancing in rhythm of the pop hit playing, but was clearly going through the motions. 

It’s easy to watch her. If Nat started looking around elsewhere, she might see where Ben was set up. He spent half the night before crying from pain. She’d seen his face, twisted up and slick with sweat, and layered this version with the Ben she had known. How he died in pain. How she watched it, even coaxed it with her hands. 

The agony, fresh as it was, had been there at the end. And guilt, bitchy like, choked her whenever she looked his way. 

“Are you crying?”

Nat scoffed at Lottie. “What? No. There’s dust in my eyes. Go away.”

She didn't leave. “You’re the one sitting by my bag. Why should I go somewhere else?”

They end up in a vague quiet together. Lottie twisted a lock of hair around her finger and huffed, clearly bored. The day’s heat baked down through the trees. Nat touched her own scalp and felt the heat from the sun lingering amongst the strands. “This sucks,” she finally said. It came out like a sigh from her mouth, irritable. All her cigarettes are stashed away in a roll of clean socks for later and the craving needled her, the fact that she still had something and wad holding off from indulging. Nat’s used to fidgeting with a lighter, going through cigarettes like water whenever she’s in a mood. 

“It isn’t great. Probably could be a lot better,” Lottie agreed dryly. “Travis is kind of a dick, you know?”

“Look at you shit talking.”

“I’m stating the obvious. It isn’t shit talking if you’re being honest.” 

“I hate to break it to you, Lot, but your honesty is kind of shit.”

“Guys! Guys, there’s a lake!” Tai sprang into their area. She pointed somewhere over her shoulder like they could magically squint and see the water. “I saw it from that hill. It looks about four or five miles away.”

Yellowjackets gathered in loosely. The campsite was a wreck despite Nat’s careful efforts. Weak white smoke curled from one extinguished pit and her stomach sunk somewhere down to her feet, the sensation of a stone beginning to roll down a hill. 

“Can we hike it?”

“It’s pretty rocky, but yeah.”

A silence caught. And then Jackie crossed her arms, discomfort flickering across her face, and said, “We can’t just leave. What if a rescue team comes?”

Nat hurt. It didn't matter what they’ll do. Nobody was coming. And everything was going to keep moving on regardless. They'll end up calling a winner for nationals, they'll get a chunk of a trophy case carved out to them in their memory. All the medals they won, all the potential that got wasted. And their families will put up headstones without bodies, people would keep living their lives. 

“If they knew where we were, they would be here already,” Tai pointed out. “We’ve got two days of water, maybe a little more. But that isn’t much.”

“What do you think, Coach?” Misty stage whispered to Ben and everyone could hear her, awkwardly shuffling away from her lovestruck expression. 

Ben’s one leg shifted. “I don’t… I don’t know. I mean, you’d have to leave me behind, I guess, but whatever.” Pain was carved into the set of his mouth but he looked almost hopeful to be ditched. 

Nat couldn’t help but think of a coyote caught in a trap and chewing it’s own leg off to get free. 

“We could make a stretcher,” Tai proposed. When Jackie went to say something else, she threw a hand up high in the air. “Let’s put it to a vote. All in favour of waiting here?”

Pretty much everyone agreed with Tai instantly. And when she put up for staying, Jackie’s hand was alone. 

Or, at least, it was alone for a few seconds. Nat thrust her own arm up and stared blankly at the faces of people who were supposed to be her friends. It wouldn't change anything, but it felt good kicking fate in the teeth a little. It also countered that building dread wrapping around her heart. Beside her, Lottie’s stayed neutral. She hasn’t put a voice to either leaving or staying, but she curled that lock of hair a little tighter around her finger. The confusion radiating off of her matched the look Jackie sends her way, surprised by support. 

Yellowjackets go to assemble a stretcher. Nat didn't help because she wanted no part in bringing Ben with them. Instead she tore down the tarp set up, plucking at the knots until they go slack, and folds it neat. She’s been waiting for their exodus so her stuff is packed and ready to go, basically prepped for a slog through the woods. The fancy bags some of the others have will get gummed up in the dirt and soft moss, but at least her duffle bag was reliable. The strap cut into her shoulder but she managed the burden all the same, foot stomping out any living ashes left behind. 

Misty tripped over her own feet to help transfer Ben from the ground to his stretcher. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders tight, an octopus clinging for two long minutes, and the others tried to manage his pain some. Nat pointedly looked at a tree and refused to blink until Jackie came up to her side, head cocked. “I don’t remember you being like this before,” Jackie said. 

She was looking at a tree, Jackie’s looking at the folded tarp in her hands. Nat didn't like being seen so intently. “Me being a team player?”

“You’ve been all…” Fingers fluttered in her direction, pausing for the right words. “Rambo-like. Or G.I. Jane. I don’t know. How’d you figure that thing out? For water, right?”

“I read about it in a book.”

“You read a book.” Jackie sounded skeptical, like she was asking something without a question. 

Nat gave her a tight smile. “Some books have real world applications, you know.” 

“Just so you know, you didn’t have to give me a pity vote. I’m a big girl. I can handle holding the unpopular opinion all by myself.” 

She’s spared needing to answer by Van flinging her arm around her shoulders, physically wedging her off and away from Jackie. The cheeriness of her expression didn’t seem to match the pink burns up around forehead, marking up her temple, but she still grinned anyways. “Onwards and after the other hoes,” she teased, stumbling and hopping to maintain balance when the roots trip her up. “There's a beautiful world waiting for us."

Chapter Text

Van’s compass pulled them up every single incline possible and Nat’s legs were burning from the constant march, feet sinking in wherever the ground goes soft. “This shit is way longer than four miles,” she complained. The duffle bag hanging from her shoulder felt like deadweight. “What if we missed it?”

Tai looked back, unamused. “From the angle of the sun, it looked left due of north.” 

Chills, despite the day’s heat, went up her spine. Jackie’s right after them, practically stepping on their heels and she grouched softly, “Oh, great. ‘Left’. That’s a precise way of doing it.” 

“I’m not a fucking cartographer.”

“Or maybe you saw a mirage,” Jackie continued, getting a bit louder. She had to use both her hands to wrench at her suitcase from where the damp ground has sucked it down, wheels lodged with twigs and small stones. A little tag hanging from a zipper jangled, flashing both her full name and home address. Which made sense, Nat thought. Jackie would go away every winter for a ski trip and come back with one of those ski lift tags still on her coat for the rest of the season. She liked the proof of having been somewhere, was always the first to write her name on the inside of a locker or something. "Maybe you saw nothing, actually, because you were just so desperate to see something in the first place."

“Oh, shit!” Van’s sharp cry snagged Jackie and Tai from their brief spat before it could develop further. “Oh, hell yeah, bitches!”

Nat felt the lake without even seeing it. A cold breeze was coming through where the trees thinned out, the sky above pearly grey. She closed her eyes and stood very still while the  whole group staggered forward, dropping bags and belongings just to move a little faster. Van’s continued cries carried in the air like a few shades left from a scream. 

“Aren’t you coming?” Jackie’s voice was right in her ear. “Hello. Earth to Natalie. Are you alive?”

She felt defeated when she opened her eyes and saw that sliver of dark water ahead. It stared back at her like a dare, like some provoked thing. “What?”

“Don’t you want to see the lake that everyone is going nuts over?” She prompted her. 

Everyone but Jackie had left her behind. Her feet automatically started to move, coming in slowly. “Yep,” Nat said through a clenched jaw. Silvery birch trees trembled and the wind iswascold, just like the air inside of her lungs. 

Yellowjackets fan out along the shore and shed clothes like skin. Van flung herself first into the water and the others were quick to join, fast to dive under the cool waves. 

The lake was empty, Nat knew. In a few months they’ll try with nets to drag up fish but won’t get anything but scrubby little weeds. It felt good now, but soon they’ll be disappointed by what it lacks. 

The dirt and roots beneath her boots transformed into rough stones and she picked up the pace, walking faster and faster until she saw the whole expanse of the lake again, until she could outrun the throbbing inside her skull. She forgot this part, how the whole sea of trees and woods melted into nothing, the end of a world meeting a whole other place. 

It made her smaller. The sky tunnelled straight up and was reflected across the surface of the water, endless. Her duffle slid from her shoulder and hit the ground like a body, thumping from the force. She then proceeded to tug her shirt off, cautiously following the others in slow, delayed movements. Nat was both present and not, feeling everything through over sensitive nerves. A scream made her head snap up automatically, but for no reason. Nobody's hurt yet. 

“Guys, come in! It feels fucking great!” 

Shauna sniffed a little as she pulled off her flannel, burnt up arms revealed. “God, Van’s a liar. We’re going to get hypothermia out there.” 

“What? Scared of a little cold?” Jackie bantered lightly, not quite disguising the barb in her voice. They’ve caught up to Shauna and Mari, pulling up right where the water hits the shore. Nat could feel the temperature of it through her boots and socks, that wetness melting against the material as it looked for a vulnerable crack in the waterproof leather. “It’ll feel like bath water. Really, really cold bath water.”

“You first.” 

“Whatever.” Jackie bent down to untie her shoes, peeling her socks off. “Fuck, it’s freezing.”

Travis went right in. He sent Nat a lazy splash as he passes that barely even registered to her senses. 

“Is Travis actually… hot?” Mari asked after a minute of shameless looking. 

Jackie scoffed, folding her arms across her chest. “It’s been three whole days. You guys can’t be that desperate,” she said defensively. “Why don’t you keep it in your pants?”

Mari smugly unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them down, tossing them to the side. “You putting your name on him first, captain?”

That was something they never once talked about, Travis and her. Jackie was a forbidden, blacked out subject that could not be discussed. They once had sex and a day later she was dead. 

And the rest—

No. 

Nat breathed out through her nose and rubbed at her eyes to force away the stinging, the guilt festering in her stomach. 

She wasn’t any good for anyone and Travis was not the exception to that fact. She damaged him, left bruises under the skin that turned to rot. Nat only gave him reasons to grieve. I just know how this story goes, Tai’s voice echoed through her skull, you two are the worst for each other. 

If Jackie wanted him, she could have him. Do no harm. 

“You’ve got an eyelash,” Lottie told her, coming up on her side. “Jesus, relax. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Nat couldn't help but flinch anyways  when Lottie brought both of her hands up to her face, one steadying her and the other gently brushing a stray eyelash from her cheek and onto a finger. “You’re supposed to make a wish and blow it away.” 

“Who the hell came up with that?”

“I don’t know. Probably the same guy behind the Tooth Fairy. I didn’t make the rules, okay?” 

It ended up balanced on the back of her hand. Nat could barely look at it. How many times had Nat wished she could undo all of it, change every single action? 

In a morbid twist, Nat was getting her wish. Just incredibly delayed, not at all what she had wanted…

“Should I wish I was on an extended camping trip in the middle of nowhere?” Nat asked sardonically. 

Lottie laughed a little, edges of her mouth curling into an easy smile. She then brushed her dark hair over her shoulders. “Shoot. That was gonna be my thing to wish for.”

Laura Lee’s pale hair was slicked back to the shape of her skull from water, looking vaguely otter-like as she cut around the others. They were all engaged in rough housing, eagerly splashing and knocking around like bumper cars at a carnival, and she’s neatly avoided the fray by diving down and coming up only for air. 

She was a good swimmer. Nat’s pretty sure she did a stint as a life guard the summer before. 

She’s adjusted more to the temperature so she went ahead and plunges a bit more, water up to her hips, and stared at everyone. Laura Lee died. And now she wasn’t dead. 

Goosebumps pricked her arms, making her shiver. “Fine,” Nat said to Lottie, to the stupid eyelash balanced on the back of her hand. I hope you live this time, she thought to Laura Lee. She automatically blew it away. Belatedly she winced. I hope you all get to live this time, Nat quickly amended. Hopefully it still counted. 

Nothing happened. No cosmic light, no flashy helicopters buzzing around. 

She started grinding her teeth from frustration as she waited and watched. Every second that passed felt like a nudge to old history, that she’s stuck in the painful process of carving every single one of her scars open while everyone else dances around the water and laughs. She’d just barely gotten out of this place the first time and now there’s a list of dead names inside her head, extra baggage to handle. 

Fuck this place. 

Some of the stones under her toes are sharp so she ducked down and scooped a few up, idly shifting through before tossing them further out. They splash, rippling in the water momentarily. The trees behind her, the one guarding her back, were eerily silent compared to the shouts and laughter of the group. 

Akilah and Tai were close by on a piece of drift wood. A catch of Akilah’s voice was loud enough to be audible. “You know, you’ve got all the JV girls fooled…”

Something else got said but she didn't care, just kept moving further away from them. Water splashed around her legs and she’s still plucking up stones to try and make them skip, but the waves are too rough for that. They go straight down every time. 

More screeches came from the water. Van’s encouraged someone, maybe Gen, into climbing up onto her shoulders. It summoned a new game to pass time with. In contrast, Ben was painfully silent, seated on his makeshift stretcher while Misty giggled overtop of him, spraying him with water from a bottle.

His hands were visibly shaking. Whether from pain or anger, Nat didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. There wasn’t anything to be done about it for now. 

Her own wrist snapped and the stone went flying out further. It was enough to make Nat want to start screaming again. And then, standing over the edge of the lake and the woods, livid as she ever was, she finally heard it. 

Lottie. 

Always Lottie, forever. 

“Look,” she directed, standing up and pointing straight towards the trees. “What is that?”

Light broke off of something in the distance, clearing reflecting back. Van cupped both hands up over her eyes to squint, whole face bunching up from focus. “It’s hitting something. Let’s go check it out.”

What could Nat say? Don’t? It only looks safe because you can’t see the teeth? We’re stranded and you shouldn’t go checking out the only standing structure in the area?

They left the lake. Of course they left the lake. She swallowed her protests until her mouth went sour from the sheer dislike of everything, hands fisting up inside her pockets because there’s nothing for her to grab and hit now. Late afternoon light pours down around them through the trees. 

The best traps were the kind that looked innocent. Nat had tried her best in rigging up wire and rope, arranging branches and leaves to disguise the point of impact, but it never worked. The cabin came around the bend and blood rushed to her head in a frenzy. She’s seen the cabin from different angles and places, seen it burning down from something and into nothing. Nat had even seen herself in parts of the cabin; her faint reflection in the windows, her shadow on the wooden floors, her hands clawing at a burning door. 

Memories, painful and sharp, come down on her all at once. She’d lived in this place, nearly died as well. 

Nat just never thought she would be able to see it again. Now it showed in a fading string of gold light, upper window glossy from where it hit. It showed no danger, minimal risk. The door wouldn't even be locked. 

Yellowjackets descended upon it. Shauna’s rapping on the window while Mari tried the door, everyone calling and shouting, desperate for someone to be inside. 

Jackie stopped in the yard with her hands up at her face like she’s got a headache, expression pinched. She was already disappointed. The place was obviously abandoned, reeking like anything that’s been unloved for a long time. 

Someone popped the door open and any trace of civility vanishes. They’re strangers investigating. Nobody gets to keep privacy. 

“Dude, come on.” Nat turned back for Lottie, physically aware of her standing behind her. “Maybe there’s food or something.” Go find the gun, she thought. You did it once. Do it again. 

Nat couldn't just walk right in and pluck it up off of a body. She shouldn’t know this place at all. 

“I don’t know.” Lottie looked sickly all of a sudden. She gazed across the dirty porch, the plain windows. “I don’t know,” she repeated. “I just— does this feel okay to you?”

Nat hesitated  before saying, “Feels just like home.” The other girls were banging around inside the cabin, loudly checking every surface and corner. It won’t take them long to discover the spoiled food. “Relax. We’re just taking a look around.”

“I just have a bad feeling. Maybe I’m crazy—”

“Shut up.”

Lottie blinked, a little stunned. “What’s your problem?”

“You aren’t crazy.” Nat stared without blinking. “You’re stupid as fuck when you’re high, but you aren’t crazy.”

“I could be.”

“But you aren’t.” 

“Would you— would you tell me if you thought I was?” Lottie’s voice went thin, hitched on a question. “If I was going mental or something, would you tell me?”

She swallowed. “Yeah. I’d tell you. If I really thought you were off the rails crazy, I promise that I’d tell you.”

She stuck out her hand, pinkie finger extended. 

“Are you serious?” Nat huffed. 

“Deadly,” Lottie told her. “Come on. Pinkie promise or it means nothing.”

“What are you, five years old or something?” 

Lottie tipped her head. The watery glow of light made her look younger, look as small as Nat felt. And something about her stare also made Nat feel resigned enough to reach forward and hook her own finger in sacred promise, tugging lightly against the hook. 

A yawn pulled her deeper. Nat pushed herself onto her back and tried focusing, sluggishly coherent all at once. Maybe it was the warmth of the room or the bodies around her, but Nat inexplicably felt safe. 

Maybe it was, she thought dryly, the whole safety in numbers concept in action. 

Or maybe she had just missed this. 

Van’s habitual rubbing of her feet in her sleep was just faintly audible from across the room. Nat tried focusing on it, pinching her bruised wrist just to stay awake. Her whole system was crashing down despite her best efforts. 

Floorboards creaked overhead. They performed a brief song in the late hour. 

And they were also the very thing that roused Tai up from her own sleep. 

Blankets rustle as she sat herself up, head swivelling to peer around the dark, unfamiliar room. Nat shut her eyes automatically and evened out her breathing. Misty had plucked out a stash of matches earlier and their current dwindling fire was the result of that find, dying flames casting just enough heat to warm the room up. 

A body is snugged up against her side. Nat felt everyone all at once, a nest of sleeping yellow jackets, could even feel the dense, pink pulse of Jackie’s heart just by proximity. They’re separated by a few of the others, Jackie choosing to sleep alone against the dirty wall, but it didn’t matter. Nat’s listening for every inhale, every proof of life. 

Heard it like a song, just like the symphony of creaking floorboards. 

Curiosity summoned Tai up. She’s cautious to avoid stepping on anyone, navigating the mess of sleepers. 

Nat’s heart kicked up a notch. 

She had heard Lottie getting up earlier, of course, that creaking doorway cutting through her sleep. Knew exactly what she'll find, how Tai will find her. 

Anticipation held her tight.

Chapter Text

The gun was supposed to sit and rot with an utter lack of attention until Travis picked it up, until Ben shuffled them through trials, until a proper pair of hunters could be assigned to it. Nat knew that. 

Nat just couldn’t sit and rot beside it while time slipped by. 

It probably would’ve made sense to ask permission before taking the gun, but she had always been reputable for senseless behaviour so she opted for the petty theft of it. When the others went to scrounge up non-toxic mushrooms, she peeled off. She returned the weight to her arms and cradled it, warm from the watery shafts of light sliding through the open door and windows. Her hands took the task of rummaging for ammunition and loading her pockets up, every step a motion to completing some version of herself. 

A dinged up piece of tin was propped against a dusty shelf. Nat saw herself then, her eyes thick with liner, gun propped against her shoulder. 

If the cabin was home, so was the weapon. She was really only herself with a gun and knife, with her teeth. 

Half the morning was wasted from waiting the others out, but it was worth the lesson on patience. Travis had lurked around the fire until stomping off to shadow his little brother, half watching and half pretending to not be watching. And if he wasn’t in position for the gun, he wasn’t going to get marked up by it again. 

There was only so much familiar history she was capable of withstanding. 

While he lurked, Nat searched the outer area by the cabin. Checked the ground for tracks, counted the birds flying overhead. Hope was cheap. Hope could also be a bitch, just like grief, but Nat wouldn’t deny herself a little bit of a good feeling. A living sensation thrummed from the wild and she wanted to answer it, search out what was calling. 

She was halfway from the trees when Tai squawked incredulously behind her, “you’re taking the gun? Seriously?”

Nat’s feet stopped automatically. The coolness of the shadows pooled around her, tugging her towards the wilderness, and she was on the doorstep of both it and the cabin. “You hungry?” She called back, sharpish with want and dislike. 

Tai stomped down from the porch. “You can’t just decide to take the gun for yourself. You don’t even know how that works.”

She’d waited out Travis, sure. But apparently not the main knot of the ground. Nat clenched her jaw and surveyed Tai and Lottie, Jackie lurking behind them. They were coming up to meet her and the numbers they had as a trio made her stiffen, more inclined to bolt than to wait for them. 

Lottie looked a little uncomfortable at Tai’s side. Her faux fur coat was still soft and new looking, definitely not the matted, reeking of smoke version Nat still remembered. “It’s just a gun, Tai. Would you even know how to use that thing?”

“Yeah, totally. Right between AP biology class and AP literature, we covered the basics of shooting,” said Tai sarcastically. “What do you think, Lot? None of us are,” she broke off, floundering momentarily for a word, “equipped to be out here.”

It probably wasn’t fair that Nat liked Tai better when she was wrecking her own marriage. This Tai was volatile, less show and more mouth. “Dude, go talk to Ben or whatever you want. I’m out,” she said, saluting her with two fingers against her brow lazily. 

“Fine. You want Ben? I’ll drag him out so he can tell you how stupid you look holding that thing.”

“You can’t go off on your own.” 

Nat looked at Lottie as Tai twisted on her heel and stalked off. “Relax. I’m fine.”

“Ben won’t actually like this,” she told her. “He’s super big on the buddy system.”

She held her spare hand up again and wiggled her fingers tauntingly. “I’ve got the only buddy I need right here. Tell Ben I’ll be back with dinner.”

It hurt knowing Lottie, knowing who Lottie would evolve into. It was the same kind of hurt that matched how she felt when she looked up at the cabin. 

Her hands shoved at the strap of the rifle until it hung evenly across her back and she made a fast escape, ditching the scrubby yard in favour of trees. Tai might be quick, but Ben wouldn’t be moving fast. She drove herself through where the brush went dense, feet blindly navigating an old thread. Everywhere she looked at had the familiar bones of the past. She had been here, had been through here before. The trees all had the same faces and she instinctively knew where to follow a game trail. That blurry map was throbbing inside her mind, the one she carefully laboured over for nothing. 

The land sloped down a little and formed a loose space. The ground under her boots transformed spongey and soft, a bit of moisture sucking at her heels. Nat picked her best direction and pursued it. 

An old cedar tree was downed and she drifted up to it, left hand ghosting across the whirled surface of it. She had smashed that hand-turned-to-fist into a wall a few times after a black out rage and broken three fingers. Now her hand was just a hand, no more pain. 

Figures, Nat thought. Take an eraser to her history, she wouldn’t be able to forget the hurting. Phantom aches, skeletons in closets, premature grief… she was a haunted house ready to split open and ooze blood.

A bit of sky flashed overhead and eventually the branches went looser, the overhead more visible. A stick cracked from behind and Nat whirled immediately, heart in her throat, hand dropping to her knife. “What the hell?” She breathed out in a low hiss. Her fingers were frozen over the hilt of the knife tucked into her belt. “What are you doing out here?”

“I’m helping you, obviously,” said Jackie unhelpfully. The woods were bubbling into something that verged onto a marshy area and Nat had been shifting along it, scanning soft mud for fresh tracks. A few cattails quivered around the syrupy, spoiled looking water. 

Jackie’s pink converse shoes were somehow spotless. She must’ve been jumping over the muddy bits of Nat’s trail. “Right. You’re going to help me,” Nat slowly said. Guilt squirmed inside of her chest. 

“You’ll need the help bringing whatever you get back.”

Don’t provoke, the rational part of her mind tried screaming. Don’t get involved. Don’t—

“Wow. That’s a lot of confidence to have in me.”

The eyeball was audible. “I’m just saying, you jerk, that you’ve always had good aim. And if you think you’ve got, you know, dinner covered or whatever… I’ll help.”

Nat couldn’t think of a single good thing to say to send Jackie back to the safety of the group so she settled on shrugging her shoulders and turning away in silence. In her urgency to swipe Travis away from his future, she hadn’t thought about the benefit of a second person help dress and deal with the kill. Keeping Travis away meant preventing him from being spoiled. And Jackie…

Nat’s whole skull felt like it was trying to split into halves . Jackie’s body in the meat shed, Jackie’s body cooked down to almost nothing, Jackie’s body being split and devoured under their hands and mouths…

Her feet sunk a little deeper in the mud. Maybe the point wasn’t to escape the woods by leaving it. Maybe she was going to sink straight down and under. 

“Whatever. You know we have to actually kill game out here, right?”

“Yeah. I kind of figured with the whole…” Jackie trailed off and flicked an awkward finger gun at her. “Dying and dead stuff won’t scare me. Seriously! Just as long as it’ll be painless, probably. You’re not going to actually hurt anything, right?” 

Midday heat was coming fast and had her yanking her hair back in frustration, gathering as much as she could of the layers and tying it with an elastic. She looked down in the water’s reflection as they crossed further along the avenue of not-quite-woods and not-quite-swamp, a little caught up on the visible whiteness of her hair. 

Her hair had grown out over time. And then she never bothered, not after their rescue, with her aversion to natural colour. Tolerance of resignation, she didn’t know, because that was back when she was a goner for a few pills and whatever bottle was mostly full. 

An optimist, Nat thought bleakly. Nothing ever set her up for success better than a full cup of  Jack Daniel’s. 

But now she was at her beginning, not even her roots showing. 

They trailed further along. Jackie smelled sweet, faintly floral, and Nat would have to cut that habit of pretty soap or hairspray if their one-off was going to be consistent. 

The wind swirled through, stirring the thick water.

“Do we have to be quiet?” 

“It helps.”

“How do you even know what you’re doing?” Jackie’s voice sounded thin from impatience. 

Nat shrugged and tried to figure a decent way to lie without lying. It got messy playing different stories. “My dad taught me how to shoot,” she settled on, pointedly being morbid to shut the conversation down. “You know. Load the gun up, aim, and pull the trigger. If you’re lucky, nobody’s head explodes.”

Jackie frowned, looking somehow offended on her behalf. “That’s a terrible joke.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

“Whatever. Don’t tell me.” Jackie took care to avoid stepping on a low cluster of white flowers. They were coming up out of the dark soil like bits of lost snow, cut off from the season. “I don’t even care—”

The water stirred again. “—shut up,” Nat ordered. She sensed the movement at the edge of her vision and turned slowly. A doe was coming along the brush. It wasn’t focused on them and took it’s time, ambling slowly. Mud speckled the legs and underbelly, golden coloured from the sun slicing down through the trees. 

It was wreathed in the wild. 

Nat adjusted the gun around and threaded her arm properly through the shoulder strap, adjusting automatically into position behind it. The doe paused, black eyes peering through the place as if it was looking for what didn’t belong, for the danger facing it. 

A gun was the best language that she had ever known. Aim, shoot. Like father, like daughter. Nat knew what a safety was, knew the impact of a bullet… there was gravity to account for when shooting from a distance, the way wind could fuck everything all up. But this? 

Easy shooting. 

The doe stood waiting and Nat took her measure before pulling the trigger. 

Jackie jolted from the sound of the gun firing and the doe dropped down all at once, dead weight meeting the soft rot of the wild. Her own finger slid the safety back. Like a magician sliding a rabbit up it’s sleeve, the gun turned suddenly harmless. 

Nat envied it. 

“Hungry?” She asked Jackie bleakly. Blood was spilling out from the wound, lacing the murky water. It wasn’t deep but they needed to drag it up onto the shore. 

“You killed it.”

“Don’t go vegan or whatever.” So much of the animal would be wasted and hunger was looming over their heads. She pushed the gun to rest across her back and worked loose a coil of rope. “Lose your shit somewhere else or be helpful. This is what you wanted, right? To be helpful?”

“You’ve never hunted before,” Jackie said, voice quiet. 

Nat tried one of those cleaning breathing exercises from Saint Mary’s. “If you’re not up for this, go and get Shauna.” Shauna was good with blood. She was always kind of shocked that she never turned into some fancy phlebotomist. If Nat was going to need someone, it would have to be someone with a tolerance for gore. 

Jackie stared wide eyed at the body on the ground. And then she blinked, jaw tightening, visibly yanking herself up to meet the challenge. “What now?”

Van whistled loudly. “Finally. Holy shit, guys.”

Nat ducked her head and helped Jackie lower their burden to the ground. For all of her handwringing, Jackie was strong enough to handle the task. They had taken a longer route back just to avoid the slick, greasy stretches of muddy banks, following Nat’s lead the whole way in absolute silence. “Whatever,” she muttered. The back of her neck felt warm from their clapping and she just wanted to get on with it, make her fast retreat while she could. 

“Whoa. They did it,” Misty said, looking at them wide eyed with wonder. Her hair was damp from a fast wash up and was just starting to dry into tight curls again. The admiration in her gaze was a physical thing that Nat could feel, practically teeth opening wide and ready to snap shut.

She focused on the plain dirt beneath her feet, the awkward tip of the doe’s head as it laid there. Dead things tended to look dead. Nat couldn’t help but wonder how she had looked on the ground. If she got buried. That thought kept cycling around her brain, a nagging curiosity. 

Her heart thrummed an uneasy pattern inside her chest. As badly as she needed to know, there wouldn’t be any answers. Nat died. Nat was currently living in hell. The acknowledgment of a shallow grave wouldn’t do a thing for her now. 

“Of course we did it— Jesus, what happened to your face?” Jackie started. Horror lit her own expression pale. 

She looked up and saw Van properly. Her cheek was red from scratches that matched the ones on her hands. Looking at Jackie apparently provoked a sullen scowl, Van’s enthusiasm melting down into a coolness. “Dunno, but it probably looks a whole lot better than your face.”

“We found a plane,” Laura Lee interjected as calmly as she could. “A two seater.” 

“It probably belonged to Dead Guy,” said Tai, looking directly at the gun Nat was still carrying. 

Nat tried to keep her hands steady. She had trussed up the deer like Ben taught her once and her knots held firm. He was coming down the steps slowly and awkwardly, not quite used to the rigged crutches they had assembled from branches, and she didn’t want to watch his approach. The guilt she felt when she looked at Jackie only turned worse when she met his gaze. 

Van gently nudged her foot against the body on the ground, curious. “Yeah, and I nearly got chopped up into a million pieces by a propeller. So, thanks a lot Dead Guy. Super cool hobby.”

“I said I was sorry!” 

“Oh my god, Laura Lee. Relax for five minutes.”

The knot finally slid loose. Nat started to pull at the rope, pooling the slack in her one hand. 

I want off this fucking plane. 

Ben’s voice called almost smoothly, “Nice work, you two.”

Her hands flinched and she dropped the rope. Jackie mustered up a flashy grin on their behalf. “It was all Nat. Right?” 

She stood up slowly. “So, what do we do with it now?” Nat asked roughly. She couldn’t do all the work for the group, couldn’t just dodge out of answering specific questions. 

“Well, first thing we got to do is bleed it out. Who wants to try?”

Shauna had been on the edge of the group the entire time in silence, gaze sliding around like she was keeping score of something. She pushed free from where Mari half blocked her and thrust one hand out for the knife. “I’ll give it a try,” she decided firmly. Interest was stamped across her face. 

It was history in the making, Nat realized, as Shauna jerked the knife across the throat. Blood came freely. 

“Angle it a bit more— yeah, you got it,” Ben corrected. “Use your other hand to adjust the weight of the head.” 

Half the group was losing interest in the free show and were staggering off to their own bits of privacy. Nat had been closed off before, stuck in some kind of bubble with Travis. She strayed away from the blood just to watch some of the others, uneasily hanging in Laura Lee’s shadow as she ran through a lengthy apology to Van again, feeling a bit numb with her success. 

Give her a gun and a target, and Nat had divine purpose. Take away one thing? 

She became nothing. 

“Jesus. If we’re really out here, in the actual sticks, shouldn’t we burning our bras?” Mari wiped her fingers clean on a rag. “Isn’t that the dream?”

“I’m not stopping you,” Travis snarked back, jabbing his stick into the fire to bank up a piece of wood. 

“Whatever. Bite me, Martinez.”

“I think we have to be out here way longer before we start burning the intimates. Six months, at least.”

Lottie hissed a weak laugh, face grimacing like she was the recipient of a punch to the stomach. “Jesus, Van. You can’t say that.”

“Hey. I’m just saying we should have a proper timeline.”

Sparks burst and spiralled upwards in a bloom of dark smoke. They were cooking their dinner on sticks held over the flames and Nat was intentionally on the edge of the group, seating herself on a hypothetical corner spot that left little attention her way. 

When she looked at the trees, flashing lights burst back. Tiny lightning bugs spotted their morse code between branches, flickering like wayward streetlights. It was early for them, but at least they showed in dark places. 

Nat had been with less light before. 

Travis finally stood up and sauntered off around the cabin. She craned her head and watched three minutes slide by curtesy of Misty’s wristwatch before she abandoned her seat to go after him, quietly looping around and scanning the trees. 

Laughter echoed from where she left. It got quieter the further away she went, sinking straight into woods. Familiar moss carpeted the ground beneath her boots and she knew where she was going. It was dense around the cabin, but one singular spot opened up to a tiny clearing. Green brush grew on the edges and they used it before—

A painful whiteness burned through her mind and Nat felt the memory slide through her fingers. 

They burned green brush to generate smoke. It was supposed to be a sign. For what, though?

Nat swallowed, feeling suddenly sick. Despite her best efforts, it hadn’t been easy choking down the meat by the fire with everyone talking. It sat like a stone inside her stomach and she clenched her jaw tight and breathed out slowly. 

“What? Are you stalking me now or something?” 

Like Jackie, Travis smelled faintly of his soap. It hadn’t surprised her at all when he slunk behind her. 

Her hand slid into her pocket and withdrew a ring. “Figured you’d want this,” she said plainly, turning to meet him with it held out. 

“Is that—?”

“Your dad made a big deal about it,” Nat lied. “If you don’t want it, give it to your brother.”

Night veiled the expression on his face but she didn’t need to see him to know him. 

“You’re weird,” he said neutrally. And then Travis turned away from her and left. 

It made her feel something to watch him go. Phantom pain flared all at once. 

She followed him back to the cabin in favour of sleep, but Ben was waiting for her on the edge of everything. “What?” It took effort to keep that one word even. She trained her vision on the space above his left shoulder, refusing to match his stare. 

“Don’t ever do that again,” said Ben. “Yeah, that was good shooting, Natalie. But you can’t go off on your own like that.”

I hunted you. 

“I can’t do my job if you’re running solo.” 

I brought the others down on you. 

“What if something happened to you out there? If you got hurt?”

Her pulse was loud in her ears. Nat took an unwilling step away from Ben, rocking back gingerly on her heel. “Someone had to figure out the food situation,” she heard herself say. “Am I supposed to apologize for doing something about it?”

Ben squeezed his crutches tighter. “You’re not alone in this. Not all of this comes down on just you.”

“I did what needed to be done.”

“And that’ll be the thing that gets you, if not someone else, hurt. Do you get it?”

Her vision sparkled and Nat rushed away, barely catching herself on time with a tree before gagging. She tried to breathe her way through it, but the memories spiralled beyond her control. She remembered that hunt, remembered guiding the others through the woods, damp and green springtime crushed beneath their feet, remembered the urgency of an eye-for-an-eye. 

Someone was trying to pull her hair back from her face as she threw up. 

“Fuck,” Nat managed to say thinly. 

“We’ll get you some water,” Ben said. He was stilling pinching her hair back, awkwardly hovering behind.

She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth slowly. Her vision was still speckled with white, that pain lingering in the back of her skull. 

“I’ll take Jackie with me,” Nat suddenly promised him despite herself. 

“We can talk about this later.”

“That’s the deal. I take Jackie hunting, I’m not out there alone.” 

He released her hair. The shorter strands fell like a curtain around her face. “Fine. Let’s just head back. You can take it easy tonight, maybe sleep off whatever this was.” 

Nat finally met his stare. We ate you alive, she thought. She smelled smoke on the wind and that roasting meat, heard the group shrieking together. “Okay.”

Chapter Text

A weight dropped down on Nat and she was flung awake, one hand grasping hair and yanking to the side, hips attempting to wriggle free from where she was pinned. Someone shrieked. Sleep dissolved into the snowstorm of terror. Her ribs were being crushed, her lungs flattening out as she tried gasping for air, and her attacker was shoving right back against Nat’s seizing hands. 

“Jesus! Stop it!” Tai snapped. 

The cabin clicked into focus and Van’s face hovered just inches away, grinning and grimacing all at once. “Dude,” she said weakly, clinging to Nat’s wrist to try and alleviate the pain. “You wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?”

Her hand felt severed from herself. Nat needed to focus to remove her grasping fingers. “Bitch,” her mouth said automatically. “What’s your problem?”

“You literally broke into my room a week before we left and gave me a heart attack. Payback is payback,” Van informed her. At Nat’s blank expression, she laughed a little. “Fuck. You climbed in through the window like a bleached version of Romeo with zero warning.”

That sounded vaguely right. “Shit. Yeah, I did that.” Nat managed to pry herself away from Van, free from physical touch. She focused on the chalky taste of smoke in the air, dirty chimney plugging away with a merry bed of orange ashes. The flannel blanket was scratchy and it slid over her bare feet, up her legs. Focus, Nat told herself. Don’t feel anything but the essentials. 

“How high were you?” Tai scoffed, grabbing Van’s hand to inspect the red mark forming. 

“High as a kite,” Nat gamely lied, not entirely sure of her sobriety that time. There had been a dozen times she bothered to haul herself up the drainpipe to get into Van’s room for a safe, warm place to crash. And of those times, it was a general sliding scale of sobriety.

Van, apparently unbothered, started retelling the event of Nat dropping out of a dark window and onto her bed to some of the others nearby, voice theatrically dipping into the guise of a storyteller, and Nat politely tuned her out. The ache of her beating heart was slowly settling down into something numb and tolerable. 

The rabbit touched along the wild edge of the trees. Thick bunches of green growth was coming up and it skirted the grasping fingers of the plants, soft fur like velvet. It showed honey at first, and then turned to amber as it shifted to shadows. 

Birds shouted overhead. The woods was a chorus of song, trees creaking and groaning from the passage of wind, rich movement flowing. The rabbit was content to keep moving, tiny heart a song of it’s own beneath the skin and bone, completely unseen. 

Nat studied it through the scope of her gun. Her finger teased the surface of the trigger as the rabbit came more into view. 

Sunlight crowned it properly again. Honey, amber, and into gold. 

“Don’t,” Jackie suddenly hissed, grabbing her by the arm. Her voice was loud enough to spook, the rabbit practically flinging itself through the underbrush, suddenly aware of a predator crouching nearby. 

“Are you serious?” Nat had to choke the words out, swinging the gun up and to her side so it was pointed at a tree, fingers already fumbling for the safety. 

She didn’t budge. “I like rabbits.”

“And I like having dinner.”

“Okay. So shoot something else.”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” 

Jackie folded her arms and tossed her hair back a little, scowling to match. “You’re not killing that one. It’s bad enough that we’re out here looking for cute woodland animals to chow down on, but I totally draw the line at rabbits.” 

Nat felt the faint urge to either smoke or smash her fist against a tree. She managed to do neither, earning herself a non existent gold star sticker in emotional stability. 

“You can’t relate to prey,” she said, saying the wrong words at the wrong time. Nat remembered saying them to Akilah at the end of winter. She tried again, grasping for the illusion of softness. “I can’t give you a fucking soy burger out here. Don’t drive off the animals just because you’ve got warm, fuzzy feelings for them.”

“Shoot a squirrel. Fuck, Nat. There’s, like, zero difference between a squirrel and a rabbit.”

“I’m not going to pass up an opportunity.”

“And I’m not going to let you shoot that particular opportunity.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh my god, we are so not match made in heaven material for this.” 

Jackie’s attempt at a braid without an elastic was slowly fraying into wavy, manipulated sections. Her fingers came up to comb through the golden strands, softening the pattern. “What? If you lined up the whole team, would I really be your last pick?” 

“Not dead last.”

“Generous,” she said, frowning. “So, what? Second last? Third?”

The conversation had taken a sick twist and Nat had to turn away, head throbbing. “You’re going to drive away anything out here. Can we start playing the quiet game and shut up for a bit?”

“Sure. I can be as silent as a corpse.” Jackie’s shoulder bumped into Nat’s as she stomped through, feet magically finding every small branch to snap. 

Sighing, Nat followed like a shadow to Jackie’s heels. It was a mistake bringing her out, Jackie was soft enough that her arms had scratches from the low hanging branches, was turning pink from the sun. Becoming hard wasn’t in her nature. The woods and Jackie weren’t meant to combine. 

But somehow she was all too willing to hike around from sun up to sun down, going whatever direction Nat was going. Not even a complaint at hitting the trail before the light was fully up.

Ben’s urgent ’no person goes alone’ motto was apparently serious. Jackie wasn’t even ditching her for Shauna. It was just them, both stubbornly holding to the task, and the fact of it was almost impressive.

Messing around with Travis before killed time, at least. Nat missed the ghost of intimacy, of knowing someone to their very bones. They screwed around while waiting for animals to show right up, taking score with casual arrogance. One bush hosted reddish berries and she plucked one automatically, squeezing the juice across her wrist and rubbing it in to check for a reaction. Her one thumb was crusted with blood from biting at it, a brand new habit that formed apparently in the absence of smoking. “What’s the deal, anyways? About rabbits?”

Jackie looked back briefly, face full of passive judging. “Why do you care?”

“Just trying to figure out if you had a pet rabbit or something. Seems personal, your issues.”

“No. It’s just a stupid stuffed rabbit. I’ve had it so long that I can’t remember not having it.” 

Her skin burned a little so Nat rubbed it against her shirt, tossing the spent berry to the wayside. A faint pinkish mark showed where the juice had been pressed. Her entire understanding of Jackie was simply perfection. Perfect hair, perfect attendance, perfection on the field… Nat was guilty for forgetting that Jackie consisted of bits and pieces of history, both private and public. 

“Right.”

“Shut up. I can literally feel your condescension from over here.”

“I’m not saying anything. Jesus, stand down or whatever. I forgot my white flag in my other duffle bag, you know, the one that I didn’t bring on the plane.”

“Oh, you’re ridiculous funny,” Jackie informed her while yanking away a branch so it wouldn’t launch back at her. “Get the jokes out now.”

“What’s the rabbit’s name?” Nat opted to ask instead, losing her barbs in favour of curiosity. 

“Bunny.” 

She tipped her head to the side. “Bunny?”

“I was a kid, okay? Let it go. We can stop talking about this at any moment.”

“Bunny the stuffed rabbit?” A laugh escaped. “That’s weird.” The forest sang from every direction, briefly disoriented by the passing wind. “I like it.” 

“There’s this thing,” Jackie hesitated to start. “I guess my parents think that I’m obsessed with rabbits because I’ve had that one for basically all of eternity, so they always get me rabbit figurines for birthdays. They’re kind of freaky, actually.”

“So you don’t want a rabbit statue or something next birthday? Shit, man. There goes what I got you.”

Her mouth slid into a sudden smile, like a shared joke between them was a surprise. “Don’t take it personal when you get the exact same rabbit statue when your birthday rolls around.”

“Jackie Taylor regifting a gift to the original sender? Doesn’t that break at least five dozen rules in the WASP handbook?” Nat snarked. Their passage was widening enough that they could walk side by side, looping around the distant marking point of the crashed plane. Despite knowing the area like the back of her hand, Jackie was a total stranger to it. Every morning when they set out, Nat took the easy routes. Notched her knife against the soft wood of a few trees, visibly making markers for Jackie to know even if she didn’t say anything about it directly. 

“Secret’s out. I’m kind of a horrible person,” Jackie told her. 

They went quiet. Spring was gripping the woods in a tight, green fist. Old trees mixed with newer ones, clusters forming around the thick trunks. Later, months and months into the future, the others would hang bones from the trees. Nat wasn’t sure who started that particular aesthetic choice, but it stuck. They fused death with the living beast of the wild. They draped the pieces where it could be hung. Their dead kept to the pulse of green, that snaking moss covered thing. 

“Hey, Nat?” Her voice interrupted the hazy, pain streaked thoughts. 

“What?”

“Is it lame that I wish I packed Bunny for Nationals?” 

“Nah. You’re not really lame,” Nat said. It offered very little to give little, and that concept was a brand new experience. This kindness wasn't going to make her bleed. 

But Jackie was still looking for conversation, apparently lacking any decent hunger. Their volume would drive away any skittish animal from their proximity. “What’s the one thing you wish you packed?” 

Snow shoes, her mind supplied. Ice cold beer. There was plenty of stuff they would need as time went by. “I want stuff I don’t have. Not really worth narrowing down to just one thing. Hey, look. Tracks. You gonna let me shoot this one or…”

Van shoved a plate towards her, brows tipping up. “Didn’t think you’d come up swinging,” she said lightly, words saying one thing and tone conveying ‘I’m a little sorry but you're fucked if you think I'll actually say it’. 

“Sure.” Meat was frying in melted fat. One crafted comment had shuffled responsibility around in the group daily. Mari wasn’t fastened to the stool by the fire today which meant she was probably coming back to the cabin tanned to a perfect gold, basket swinging from her fist. One of the JV girls, Kimmy or Krystal maybe, was prodding at the mess of cooking venison. “Where are the others?”

“Laura Lee’s apparently five days from knowing everything about that stupid little plane. Her group hung back to pick berries, but they’re probably being forced to pray over the engine for traveling mercies or something.” 

Her mouth unwillingly tugged up to a smirk. “Sure.” Laura Lee was good for that. Praying before a game wasn’t so appealing until she framed it as a chance to pray for the opposition’s loss. Suddenly everyone was jumping to hold hands and spit a passionate ‘amen’ when the time came. 

“I think Shauna’s got a new bestie,” Tai said, teasing the word out. 

They looked to where the girl was sitting by the window. Travis was a careful two chairs separate from her, gaze stoically glued to his feet. “Wow. You can feel an arctic chill from here,” Van said, giving an exaggerated shiver. “Winter’s coming early.”

“He’s socially challenged.”

“Don’t be a dick,” Nat said, holding her hand out for the JV girl to spoon meat onto. She was humming something upbeat, tapping her foot. 

“Don’t be so quick to hand out the spirit of friendship,” Tai advised. “He’s a snap show.”

She rolled her eyes, prickling from irritation. “His dad literally just died.”

“Is that a thing? Your dad dies so you have to act like obsessive—“ Tai’s words stuttered to a stop, suddenly looking guilty for what she had and hadn't quite said. “Shit. Sorry. I’m sorry, that wasn’t what I meant.” 

Nat’s appetite shrivelled to nothing at the sight of meat on her plate. Despite her best efforts, eating was a total chore. She struggled to consume her share of the plenty, meat shed groaning from the animals hanging from the rafters. Soon it would dry up, and the anxiety of knowing made her starting chewing at her fingernails, struggling to coax herself. Tai and Van awkwardly slid away to sit somewhere different, leaving her with the mercy of her own thoughts. 

The stronger she was, the more capable she would be. The math made sense. 

“You want this?” She said to Shauna, holding her plate out. “I’m done.”

“Your left overs?” Shauna snarked thinly back. The venom sounded exhausted, like it was more habit than sting. Her hands did take the plate. 

Nat didn’t mind it. It was actually a little comforting. They never stood equal to each other before, it was nice being in a neutral position. “You’ve never had an issue with taking left overs before,” she said before standing back up, back aching a little, and heading outside. 

Nighttime air was sweet and clean, free of any smoke. Nat was stockpiling her cigarettes and flask for when she would need it most, but the craving for both kept finding her. 

A figure was perched on the steps with a stubby candle in a saucer beside her. Wax had flooded the chipped based. “Hey,” Jackie greeted her. “You’re a super routine person for being so anti authority, you know.”

Confusion flickered. “What?” 

“Every night you end up out here alone. Totally ditching the group sing along Kristen puts on.”

“Who?” 

“Crystal the Pistol? Jeez. You really don’t pay attention to anyone on this team if they aren’t Van or Lottie.” Jackie pulled up her Caboodle kit and popped the lid open. “Take a seat.”

The desire for a cigarette wasn’t shrinking any. “Why?”

“Can we skip that ‘what’ and the ‘how’? Just sit down and give me a hand. I'm not going to bite you.”

Nat slowly complied and looked for the issue stupidly until Jackie apparently had enough and grabbed her arm to rest Nat’s hand on Jackie’s knee.  “So you meant that literally. Fascinating.” 

“Well, I wasn’t asking you to cut your hand off.” 

“No. That would be totally crazy,” Nat said dryly, watching as Jackie rummaged for something. A shell compact slid over and the faint light showed a pink blush, a round disc of blue eye shadow, and a lipgloss. One mascara nearly fell out and the tester sticker was stuck on it still, presumably swiped from the counter. Ballsy, Taylor. 

“So we’re lacking choices but I’ve got… yeah, ‘Claws Up’,” Jackie read slowly, squinting at the bottom of a nail polish bottle. “This one is ‘Frenzy’. And the other one should be ‘Sky’. What do you want?”

“None?”

“That’s not an option. Try again.”

“Wow. Manicure at gun point. I feel totally relaxed.”

Jackie shot her a look and vigorously shook one bottle up before twisting the lid open. “You’ve been biting your nails down to nothing and Misty won’t cough up the bandaids from the first aid kit. Maybe this’ll help. Maybe it won't. But you can shut up and let me do this.”

She was startled by Jackie’s observance. “My fingers are okay.”

She swiped colour onto the nail in a thin coat. “When something is pretty, you won’t be as willing to ruin it. That’s what my mom always says, anyways.”

“Shit. I don’t know about that,” Nat drawled roughly. She stole black polish from the shop two blocks over from their high school but wasn’t much for doing anything with it. It was mostly a trophy. Jackie’s touch was dainty, barely felt, and the colour looked almost white in the weak light. Her fingers hurt from the habit, bad enough that it hurt to press down on any of them. The skin around the nails were irritated and red even in the absence of blood, but Jackie carefully reduced the damage by making it prettier. 

“Well, you can at least try,” she said primly. “It wouldn’t kill you.”

The rabbit was greyish and moved in a lazy pattern. Nat watched, barely breathing, and felt rooted into the woods. Her feet were locked into place, heavy boots leaving an indent on the carpet of moss, and a spray of leaves kept pushing against her back as the greenery swayed. Her faint, shallow inhale felt like the pulse of the wild. She was part of it, stuck to everything, and it cloaked her. 

A slash of light burst against the rocky ground. The rabbit paused there and she saw the veins in it’s ears, the way it moved casually. It wasn’t aware of her. She had been standing for so long, waiting and watching, and her patience painted her right into the scenery. 

It saw the woods. It saw through her and into the woods. It saw her as the woods. 

Nat balanced the rabbit through her sight lines. The position was good, the set up perfect. A clean kill was a good kill. It wouldn’t be like her dad’s face, smashed open and gaping. She could commit to a task without the violence sometimes. 

The safety slid off. 

The woods rippled with movement again, practically stretching. Every green thing was trying to unfurl at once. Empty branches were sun kissed and thick with veins of sap, free of a burden. 

The rabbit paused. It held position, perfectly angled. 

Nat tested her finger against the trigger. If she pulled it home, the gun would burst against her shoulder. All the pieces would jerk to release that bullet, to finish the business that came with watching and waiting. Do you like being hungry?

It would be easy to shoot. And somehow it was even easier to let the whole perfect set up slide away, to drop the gun and let the rabbit scatter off somewhere, bolting for an unseen place. 

Chapter Text

The same sun felt like a punishment. 

She was sprawled on her back where the grass grew long and thick, using the wild as a veil to hide behind. Nat knew the dangers of sharp tongues and angry teeth. It didn’t matter that her timeline hadn’t synced to that blood yet, because her reflex was to always avoid. 

A flinch was a withdraw. It was a weak shift back from pain. 

Ben was cleaning the gun inside the cabin for the sake of doing nothing and Nat had taken her leave slowly, wary to have one less weapon, and ended up curled against soil and roots, the ache of wilderness pressed to her spine. 

Some of the birds were singing. Some of the birds were silent from their perches. Judging, loud, everything. 

“Ugh! These batteries. Fucking cocksucker,” Jackie’s voice burst from somewhere. 

Nat pushed her hand against her mouth to keep from smiling. 

“What’s your problem?” 

“Batteries, obviously.” There was a shocking amount of ice in her tone being directed to Shauna. “Call me when you’re ready to shake Misty down for Motrin. She’s kind of a dick about the whole sharing concept.”

“Oh my god. Come on.”

“What the hell?”

“You’re coming with me. Let’s go. Come on!”

Nat popped up from the grass with her hand coming to rest on the hilt of her knife, peering for the direction that Shauna and Jackie had gone. Lately Shauna had been hanging with that diary and no one else, awkwardly fending off small talk by scratching down edgy little commentary. You’ll never guess who won the unofficial but official popularity contest out here- Natalie Scatorccio. She’s barely in charge and we’re already going to hell. 

“Can you stop?” Jackie didn’t sound hurt, but Nat didn’t immediately pull her fingers away from the knife. She paused right at the corner of the cabin, perfectly within earshot of the working set up at the meat shed. 

“No. You’re being weird.” Shauna’s voice was waspish, practically pecking at Jackie as she cornered her near the back end of the building. They had dragged back two geese for plucking earlier and feathers scattered the ground, broken and dirty looking from rough handling. “People are noticing, Jackie.”

Nat leaned against the side of the cabin. Her head tipped right back and she focused her stare up onto the sky, listening. There was a dull throbbing in her chest and shoulder from the kickback of the gun, but she relished in the pain. At least there was something to level the gun at. As tiring as it was hauling back their kills, at least there was satisfaction with it. 

It was just a stupid spat between best friends. Nothing that required Nat to move defensively for. Shauna could draw blood, sure. But this Shauna still thought she was fangless. 

Her hand separated from the knife finally. 

“So?” 

“What’s your problem? You’ve been practically glued to the woods ever since we found this place.”

There was a scuffing sound like someone was kicking loose dirt or something. “Sue me for helping out. I’m just super passionate for this back-to-the-land bullshit.” 

“You’re not exactly being friendly with any of us. Tai’s calling shots out here and you’re just letting her! What is wrong with you, Jackie? Since when are you kicking back with Natalie?”

“Oh my god, I am so not doing this right now,” Jackie’s voice said, rising in volume. “You didn’t have my back out there when we all voted on staying or leaving, nobody gives a shit what I have to think about any of this. I suck at this stuff. I wasn’t made for poison ivy or mosquitos, or any of this exposure to the elements in general, and I don’t want to be here! I get it, Shauna. I’m terrible. I’m a terrible captain for the team and a horrible friend. But I’m trying to just stay out of everybody’s way now.”

Silence. Nat closed her eyes. She missed clean clothes, the kind that came out of the dryer warm and still smelling of detergent and softener. That was on the one thing she always missed. When they got rescued from the woods, the rescue centre dumped them in a ward that reeked of disinfectant. Afterwards it was grungy motel rooms with Travis, their first apartment with walls covered in mold. She never got that quiet cleanness that she craved. Now? Greasy cooking meat mixed with smoke from a still burning fire coated the air. It was probably embedding itself into her clothes and skin, deep enough that soap and lake water wouldn’t be able to banish away. 

The rumble of a dryer finishing a load of laundry. A heated car in winter. She squeezed her eyes tighter and ran through a list of things she missed the most. No matter how she phrased it, it was always about comfort. 

Selfish, Nat told herself. She needed to let it all go. 

“Do you remember when Kiffy Schumacher broke her arm right before we were supposed to go to WhipSplash River? And you told her that if she shared her Percocet, we’d all crash bingo at the Elk’s Lodge instead?” Shauna sounded a little thoughtful. 

“You trying to give me a pep talk or something? Wowza, Shipman. Not really your style, is it?”

“Shut up. I’m just trying to tell you that— that you’ve always been good with people.”

“I just don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this.” The shaking in Jackie’s voice was audible to even where Nat was lurking. She started to say something else, but cut herself off. 

There should be a limit, Nat thought. A total allowance of how much a person could hurt. 

Warm sunshine pooled itself under her feet and around her, baking the side the of the cabin. She smelled that meat and smoke, the faint perfume of the wood. The living greenness of everything was thick, but in a few days flowers would start carpeting the area. Purple blossoms, yellow. The white little petals were just a sign of what was to come. 

The best flowers, the most poisonous, always decorated themselves in bright colours. The woods around them were no different. Everything was simply an invitation. 

“Don’t say that.”

“I want to go home.”

“You’re pretty much halfway to becoming a total badass out here. Nat’s kind of cool when she isn’t flaking out, you know? So shut up, Jackie. You’re gonna keep showing up and… being your dumb, hot, awesome self. I mean, you do look pretty cool bringing back the haul from the woods.” 

Jackie’s laugh sounded wet. “Right.”

“We need you. We still need you. I mean, you’re basically the best.”

“Did you know that you’ll go to hell if you make eavesdropping a habitual sin?”

Nat jumped and jerked to the side, spooked by Laura Lee’s sudden appearance. “Jesus fucking Christ, why don’t you make more noise when you walk?” 

Completely unperturbed by the venom in Nat’s voice, Laura Lee brushed at some dirt on her elbow and gave her a look that was half angelic and half flinty, practically glowing with moral righteousness. “Yes, Nat. Jesus frowns on listening in on private conversations.”

Her stomach knotted itself at the idea of Shauna or Jackie catching her in the act of eavesdropping. Nat forced Laura Lee away and into the trees, maneuvering for a beaten path down to the lake. It must have been there since the original occupant of the cabin because the plain dirt was muddled with growth and moss, wilderness slowly taking it back over. “I read Mari’s Cosmo three times already. I’m bored,” she said evenly. “What are you doing for entertainment?”

Laura Lee was silent. And then her mouth softened, transforming into a fast smile. “I’ve been winning against Van at cards. She keeps getting a terrible hand dealt each time.” 

“What’s that fancy book of yours say about cheating?”

“We’re talking about your moral transgressions, not mine.”

She let out a sudden and surprised laugh. 

“Here. I— I was saving it,” Laura Lee said, pulling something out of her pocket. It was a protein bar in a plain blue wrapper. “You can have it.”

Nat’s hand automatically took it. “Why?”

“You need to eat. I can’t give you anymore than that.” Laura Lee made it sound simple. 

It had gotten marginally easier to eat, but Nat was still struggling to eat her full share. It was worse, actually, because sometimes Ben watched her during dinner. And now that she knew Jackie was observant enough to realize her routine ditch-the-group plan, Nat felt constantly watched. Her neck burned with the sensation of eyes on her. 

“Aren’t you going to pray?” Laura Lee asked, cutting her off before she could tear the wrapper open and take a bite. 

“Religion isn’t really my deal.”

“Why?” 

It wasn’t the first time Laura Lee had asked her that. They had grown up together. Laura Lee was grass stains on her skirts tumbling after Nat while she ran up the street, walking home from soccer practices, simply existing in mutual places. Usually Nat would brush the question off with sarcasm. It was expected. It was habitual, even. 

But her Laura Lee was dead. And this Laura Lee was looking at her and breathing—

Honesty speared through Nat’s heart. “Dunno. My dad wasn’t much of a dad. I’m not going to put faith in some guy who calls himself the father.”

Laura Lee’s hair was the colour of bones bleached by sun. “You don’t have to believe in the structure of good based off of a patriarchy system.”

“Sure.”

“I’m serious! You could believe in love.”

It took effort to iron out her reflex to scoff. “What? You gonna baptize me in the name of Valentines Day or something?”

“You and a baptismal sounds like a chance for a really fancy bath.”

“Hallelujah. I’d take some bath salts right now.”

“It isn’t just some man’s face, Nat. The thing? I don’t know. I think we love what we worship because it has everything to do with the heart. We live kindly, we trust… everything I know is about how to love.”

“I’ll give you credit,” Nat said awkwardly. “Your religion is a lot nicer than the shit I know.”

The lake bottomed out around them. It shone silver, practically a mirror of light with no depth. Laura Lee said nothing but looked out, hand flipping up to wave at someone in the distance. 

It took Nat a minute to properly see Lottie. Her pink satin pyjamas were dark from water. She was coming up along the shoreline with bare feet and looked completely disheveled. 

She tightened her jaw. 

“Aren’t you cold?” Laura Lee called. The wind tore the sound of her voice away, though, because Lottie couldn’t hear them. It wasn’t until she got closer that she repeated the words, lake resting at their backs. 

“I—I thought it’d be warmer,” Lottie’s teeth chattered out. Goosebumps pricked her arms. 

Nat said nothing. All her words felt like they had been taken from her. She peeled off her jacket, though, and thrust it in Lottie’s direction. Sharing possessions wasn’t her particular skill. That jacket was her best jacket she had ever owned, and that made her possessive of it. Uneasy to watch Lottie slide her arms through the sleeves and tug it up to fit a bit better, cold fingers fumbling for the zipper. 

Her next jacket, the one she got sometime after settlement money, would be one purchased full price. Nat wouldn’t even get the receipt for the thing. It would come from some nice store where the cashier watched every single movement just in case something went missing, and Nat would buy for the single luxury of not thinking about the dollars on the price tag. 

And despite it, despite herself, that brand new jacket would never compare to this current one. 

This fake leather was buttery soft from constant wear, elbows only a little creased. A few months? It would be ragged. Blood would be stuck on the left cuff. Her own blood, also, would get stuck on the lining and no matter how hard she tried scrubbing with a bit of Van’s shampoo, it wouldn’t come out properly. 

Nat, knowing what the jacket would turn into, missed what it had been when she first saw it on the rack. The knowledge somehow tarnished it. If she could go back even further, to the very beginning, she would still rot with the facts of what she would become. 

“You good?” Nat asked in a strained voice. Lottie’s eyes looked huge and dark, her stare blistering with chaotic thoughts. 

“I’m not crazy, right?” Lottie tried sounding like she was joking, that they were sharing a joke. Knock! Knock! Will you remember me in a minute? Will you remember me in a week? she would ask on a bus ride to a soccer game. Knock! Knock! Who’s there? You didn’t remember me, you liar. 

She stuck one hand out, the other concealing the protein bar from sight, and offered her pinkie finger up. “You’re not crazy,” Nat said, promised, when they linked. 

Laura Lee stared at them, her expression closed. 

“This guy should’ve put in a hot tub or something,” Lottie shivered. The cold had stolen the colour from her face. “Would’ve been a really sick party place if he put some thought into it.”

“I’ll learn how to fly that plane and I’ll bring you somewhere with a hot tub,” Laura Lee said solemnly. 

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. So, like, fuck everyone else, right? As long as Lottie gets her hot tub fix,” Nat joked. 

“I’ll come back for you after.”

Some of the others were looping through the trees and met them on the path. Two metal buckets had been dealt out for the task of gathering but already some of the girls had crafted terrible, barely-a-physical-form baskets from sticks and long grass. 

Misty hopped right beside her, handle hanging from her bent elbow and beamed. “You should be more sunlight. It’ll be good for your immune system to take advantage of the sun. Maybe we could make a mandatory breather where we sit somewhere sunny, just so you can soak up enough rays, but not enough to have consequences, you know? You’re so pale and—”

“Why don’t you hang out with Cry-Kristen.” She stumbled over the name. The other JV girl was lagging behind them all, clearly focused on belting out some song.

She fixed her with an owlish stare. “But you’re never around.”

I’ll kill you. 

Nat wanted to shove Misty away. She wanted to physically beat her face into nothing. If she could take a rock to her bones, she would. There was plenty that could be done to a body and Nat had learned from experts on the subject. 

“Go make friends with somebody who’ll be around, then.” Nat was relieved that her voice sounded steady. “That’s how you find a best friend.”

That did the trick. Misty peeled off and glued herself to Kristen’s hip. The cabin came into sight and Jackie was standing right at the steps with a scowl on her face that only deepened when she saw Lottie. And then her gaze slide to the right and pinned itself to Nat as if she knew about the eavesdropping. 

“We brought salad,” Van told her dryly as she bundled their loose mix of mushrooms and leafs inside. A few non toxic berries speckled the bunch. The group followed her in, but Nat hesitated. 

The sky was grey and loose, soft puffs of clouds rolling around. It looked soft. It looked like a bedsheet pulled from the dryer, still faintly warm. 

Jackie was still looking at Nat, though, like she could see something. She struggled against the urge to make a face back. “What?”

“Since when does Lottie wear your jacket?”

“I’m a nice person.”

“Right. You’re the local knight in shining armour, right?”

“I hate when my reputation speaks for itself,” Nat said dryly. “It’s a jacket, not a promise ring.” 

A scream tore itself from inside the cabin. Birds automatically jumped to the sky from the trees around them, whole world spooked by that shriek. “Oh my god,” Jackie muttered under her breath as Mari came flying out the door, bashing her hip off the railing while fumbling with the hem of her shirt. 

She looked terrified. She looked like she had when Nat killed her. 

Pain came fast. It drilled itself through her bones, sawing her vision under fuzzy white lines. 

“Get it off, get it off, get it off!” 

“Hang on,” Nat snapped. She grabbed for Mari but she was fighting against her, wrists twisting under Nat’s hands. More memories shuddered. Mari shoved back and screamed louder, face contorted. “Hey. Hang on for one second.” 

“I don’t see anything,” Jackie said louder. She stopped Mari before she could stumble down the steps. “There’s nothing on you.”

“I— I was standing under the trapdoor.” 

“I don’t see anything at all,” she repeated herself, squeezing onto Mari’s hands to replace Nat’s splintering efforts. 

“But something crawled down my shirt,” Mari protested. “It was, oh god, it was—”

“You’re fine.”

“Maybe it was a ghost,” Van said dramatically, sticking her head out the open door. “Dead Guy trying to get a feel.”

“Don’t say that!” Jackie snapped.

“Please. Sometimes you have to laugh at bad shit. Otherwise you’re just looking at something bad and immediately running for the fucking hills.”

Her face coloured. “Something you want to say to me?”

“Can we not?” Tai interrupted. “Let’s just shut up and make dinner while there’s good light to work with.”

“You know what? I just had a total brainstorm,” Jackie said with a flare of sarcasm. “We should have a seance.” 

“Fuck no,” Nat muttered and got jabbed by a sharp elbow to the ribs for it. 

Tai sighed loudly. “There’s all sorts of work that needs to be done. Maybe we should focus on that instead of knock off Halloween. Besides, we’re not in middle school.”

“Remember how fun this used to be? Besides, maybe if we can laugh about this, then it would help.” 

“The occult is no laughing matter,” Laura Lee’s voice floated out, just barely visible from inside the cabin. 

“Just a game, Laura Lee. Come on, guys! We should do something fun all together.”

Mari still looked spooked and wild, skin clammy from her fright. She wiped her palms off on her thighs and didn’t look inclined to throw her vote in with Jackie. But Shauna spoke up, finally loud for Jackie’s sake, backing her for the first time since—

Well, Nat didn’t know exactly. For an alleged duo, they spent more time apart. 

“I mean, it’s not like we have anything better to do,” said Shauna stiffly. “Think of all the life advice we can get from this dead guy.”

“Like how to blow your brains out?” Nat asked seriously. 

But nobody was listening to her. 

Chapter Text

It was tempting to pack a bag and ditch. The whole idea of setting down for a seance had her edgy and foul tempered, snappish enough that not even Mari wanted to hang around and trade bitchy retorts. 

But her feet wouldn’t cooperate. Her hands wouldn’t either, faltering at the idea of picking up the gun and vanishing. If she left, everyone died. It wouldn't serve anyone's purpose. 

So instead Nat found herself prying open the trap door of the attic and hauling herself up, doggedly determined to stick close to Jackie’s heels. Everyone had split for the sake of excitement, rushing to spread the word to everyone scattered around. And Jackie, mastermind of the evening, and vanished. 

Straight up into the attic of general horrors alone. 

“Joining the party?” Jackie asked sarcastically, not looking up from what she was doing. 

“What’s that?”

“A bit of light reading.” 

Nat frowned at the floppy, large book in Jackie’s hands. It was a course catalogue.  “Picking out your whole future?” Between it and Akilah's SAT prep book, they had a shitty library worth of reading material to stave off boredom. Some of the girls had taken to dramatically reading out passages of Laura Lee's bible, including Lottie who like standing on the kitchen table and announcing in her loudest voice: and if thy right hand leads thee to offend, cut it off, and cast it from thee. Mari's little stash of magazines were the best of the crop, constantly being swapped and debated over, each person judging what season they were best suited for based off of colouring. Melissa was a spring, apparently, which was fitting because they had killed her in the springtime. 

“Pretty sure I missed the window for registration,” said Jackie without looking up. Her finger turned a page. “Trying to figure what I would’ve liked.”

“Can you major in soccer?” 

“Not really.”

Jackie was drenched in golden hour light that poured in through the window of the attic. It turned her hair honey, amber and into gold. Nat approached carefully in case the light would somehow burn her. 

The whole college thing was always a long shot. Ben pitched the soccer team to Nat originally as a method for getting out of town, maybe snagging a halfway decent sports scholarship and faking it until she made it. But her personal choir of teachers, guidance counsellors, and mother told her better. You’re just wasting time, Natalie. Don’t confuse hills for mountains. College wasn’t in her personal deck of cards, but the idea of everything being condensed down into a single book was intriguing. She hesitated before dropping down and sitting beside Jackie, peering over the pages. 

“So? What’ll be?” Everyone either lived or died. Nat’s curious about where Jackie would’ve gone if she had the chance. 

“Art history sounds cool.”

“But?”

“But my dad would totally hate it. ‘You have to do something of value with your life, Jaqueline.’” Jackie lowered her voice to exaggerate how Mr. Taylor sounded. “He’s into something like communications or business. Stuff that makes money.”

“Fuck it.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Jackie turned another page. Intros to accounting, aerospace engineering, and ancient history turned into banking and finance, biology, and business management.

Nat scowled. “Do what you want, Jackie.” Jackie, not Jaqueline. “Wanna look at some half naked dude on a canvas? Shoot for the moon. Your life, not his.”

“Gross. I think the collective ego of men has been studied enough. I could skip it” 

“Cool. Try for the half naked ladies, then.” She’s braced for Jackie’s eye roll before it happens and switched conversation immediately. “Why the fuck are you hosting a seance up here in this place? We literally pulled a body from up here. There’s bad vibes everywhere.”

The book snapped shut. “Since when are you superstitious?” Jackie’s face was unnaturally serious. “I know it was you who killed the power that time we fucked with an Ouija board.”

Technically that was Nat and Van together with a flashlight down in the Turner’s basement. “Innocent until proven guilty,” she said dryly. “And that’s completely different.”

“You’re not scared of anything.”

She barked out a laugh, surprised. “Not true.”

The sunlight poured around Jackie. It showed their shadows on the floor together. It made Jackie’s skin look incredibly molten. She leaned back on her hands and gave Nat a flat stare, unreadable in the crooked light. “Okay, Nat. What exactly are you so scared of?”

Everything. The word was perched on her tongue and she nearly spat it out for the sake of giving it up. 

But Nat held silent. She twisted the silver ring on her finger and refused to blink, feeling vaguely snake like. “I’m scared of the dead.” The was true. Nat still looked over her shoulder for her dad. She spent years looking over her shoulder for Mari and Akilah. Javi. Ben. “I’d hate to end up surrounded by dead things with no where to go.”

That bit of cloaked honesty had her bracing for some kind of hit, like she was back in school and minutes from flunking a test. Coming back to relive the place crash was cruel, but at least she hadn’t been dragged back any further. Nat had a whole record of missed assignments and miserable grades she struggled through once already. 

Jackie’s mouth knit itself into a flat line for a moment. “A game never hurt anyone.” 

“We’re out here because of a game.”

“Sure. Or maybe we deserve it. Like some kind of divine punishment.” 

“Shut up,” said Nat roughly. “What’s your problem, anyways? You’ve been, like, hermit number one out here.”

She wasn’t stunned by her anger. Jackie merely accepted it and didn't look away. “Why do you think Bill made me team captain?”

“Because you’re a good captain—”

“Because I’m likeable. I have influence.” The gold light washed across Jackie’s brow when she turned her head. “If you think about it, that’s kind of funny. I couldn’t stop Tai from breaking Allie’s leg. Barely stopped all of you from ripping each other apart at the party. Shauna’s with Tai now and I keep making mistakes, I know it’ll get worse—” Jackie cut herself off. “It’ll get worse and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“They’re bitches,” Nat said roughly. “And Bill’s an ass. Was an ass.”

“Sure. But if you’re not with them, you’re against them.” 

You have no idea. Pain obediently lurched up as she remembered Shauna in her face and saying ‘you’re not in charge anymore’. Life got shitty when the many came up against the few. 

Nat looked around the empty attic to separate her mind from the pain and tried to shield her wince. “So? You’re hosting some game night bullshit to socialize so you can slink back off into the woods? Hit your quota of together time and max out?”

“Taking a page out of your book, hermit number two.”

“That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard.”

“Whatever. It’ll be fun.” Jackie grinned. “We’re speaking to the wilderness—”

“No.”

“Jesus, when did you turn into a buzz kill?”

“Power of suggestion is freaky. Talk shit about spirits and suddenly everyone’ll be dressing up in furs and holding hands around a fire,” said Nat thinly, pain suddenly provoked into new and fresh levels. “Don’t.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Just—” she swallowed. Smoke, wooden floorboards, the faint sound of Kristen singing from down below… she grounded herself back into the present. Cartwheeling through the future would have her buckling over. If she could dig claws into the ground and hold herself still, she would. Pain was turning her transparent.  I’m asking you for one thing.” 

Footsteps came up the ladder and Shauna’s head popped up through the gloomy part of the attic, not quite touched by the same sun Jackie was under. “I got the candles. Misty coughed up three matches and refuses anymore on principle of wastage.” 

“Don’t worry, Nat. I’m a good actor,” Jackie said quietly. “I’ll keep the power of suggestion down to a minimum.”

Whatever. Nat got up roughly and wiped her hands off against her jeans. She tried. 

“What’s that?”

“Tea.” Ben didn’t look enthusiastic about drinking whatever was in the cup. His hands were clenched around it, white knuckled to the heat of it, and he couldn’t quite school his face to hide emotion. 

“Don’t drink it,” Nat advised. Some of the girls were filtering in through the trees. The official chore list wouldn’t kick in until winter and until then it was a staggered free for all. Travis hung out by the lake with wire, trying to fish, and someone hauled water up. They were getting lazy from sunshine, ghosting trees and restless, coming back to eat their fill by the fires. 

“Why not?”

“Looks gross.” 

Ben gave the contents of the cup another look before pitching it into the fire. It hissed and turned smoky, but kept burning. “Delicious,” he said sardonically. “Don’t tell Misty.”

One chore done, Nat caught Lottie at the ladder and squeezed tight to her arm. She could do this. There was a chance, she had one chance—

“Don’t go up there,” said Nat roughly to the girl she had known. 

“Dude. Group hang out. What’s your trauma?”

Nothing was for nothing. Maybe if she bargained with Jackie, she could’ve scraped the whole seance deal. Nat twisted one silver ringer from her little finger and pressed it into Lottie’s palm, leaving her with exactly four left. “Skip it. It’ll suck.” 

“No,” Lottie said, still confused. 

Take another step up that ladder and I’ll haul you back by your hair. 

“Laura Lee’s gonna be alone. And Tai gets mean. You wanna ditch her?”

“She’s learning how to fly.”

“Help her.” 

“Hey.” Lottie pulled back a little, dragging Nat further from the line of girls heading up for the attic. “Are you high or something? Because if you’ve got something, sharing is caring.”

She hissed a furiously annoyed sigh out and clenched her teeth. “I’m not high.” It was like being in the present again. Are you on something? Did you take something? Did you shoot up? 

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll hang out down here,” Lottie said, mouth pinched. “I’m keeping the ring.”

“Whatever.” She stole it from some house party. Nat wasn’t sure which one, but had the fuzzy memory of slipping her hand into her pocket one morning and finding in there. Not her worse crime. 

Her friends looked faceless in the dark. The course catalogue was gone and in it’s place were dozens of candles. Shauna and Jackie had staggered them around the room in clusters, illuminating a shakily drawn circle. 

She wished she was high. It would probably help.

“I saved you a seat,” Jackie said helpfully, pointing to a blank spot right before Misty could fling a hand up and wave her over. “Best seat in the house.”

“This is gonna be dumb,” Mari whispered eagerly, eyes bright. Her fingers combed frantically through her hair to smooth it down, so polished even with grass stains on her knees. All her previous fear was gone, replaced with bravado. “I can’t wait.”

A bowl passed from Shauna to Jackie. It looked syrupy. Jackie dipped her finger in and marked an ‘x’ on her forehead, saying, “We are gathered here tonight to ask for guidance of the heart. We anoint ourselves with blood and earth… oh, for god’s sake, Travis. It’s just dirt and deer blood, classic witch recipe. Would you relax?”

A giggle went around the circle. Some of the girls leaned forward eagerly for Jackie to properly mark them. Nat couldn’t see it, but she felt as if Jackie’s finger slid in a plain line across her forehead, not quite an ‘x’. Her skin tingled. 

Once finished, Jackie fished a string and bit of bone from her pocket. “We offer this as your instrument,” she said dramatically. “Come to us, and speak your truth.”

It was silly. Everything was staged to the maximum. Nat glared into a sputtering candle and dared it to blow itself out. 

Jackie waved a hand at Shauna to pick up her place. 

“Ask your questions and the pendulum will answer,” she intoned in a grave, deep voice. 

Van leaned forward with her face serious under the combination of blood and mud. “Dear dead hunter guy… did OJ do it?”

“Oh my god, don’t waste this once in a life time opportunity with fake questions,” Jackie said, not letting the string budge. She had her feet evenly planted and was staring straight at Van. “News flash, guys. There is such a thing as dumb questions.”

“Oh, I’ll go. Is Principal Berzonsky screwing Ms. DeWine?” Mari grinned. 

Yes, Nat knew. There was a wedding announcement in the paper not long after their return. The bone and pendulum swung in a slow, lazy circle. “Definitely,” said Jackie, grinning.

A few questions were tossed around to varying success. “—your mom and I are splitting up, but don’t worry— your tits are gonna be amazing,” Van joked, but Nat missed the preamble leading to the punchline. She was busy clenching her teeth and counting heartbeats. 

Jackie’s shoulders were drawing back, perfect posture all at once. Her hand clenched around the string holding the broken bit of a rib. “Okay, guys. Next question.” Misty’s hand thrust up but Jackie ignored it. “Let’s get into serious business. Who is Shauna Shipman’s fated lover?”

“God, why?” Shauna hissed. “Knock it off.”

“Relax. It’s all in good fun, right?” The string started to move. “Looks like the spirits are trying to spell something out.”

“Silly, Jax. Everyone knows that spirits are illiterate.”

“No. Look at it. See how it’s moving?” The string did another exaggerated swing. 

“It’s just a curve. You’re fucking with this yourself.”

“It looks like the letter J.”

Shauna’s face was waxy under the spell of candlelight. “How are you seeing that?”

“It’s doing it again!”

Nat felt sick watching it. 

“Okay, Jackie. You’ve had your fun. This is getting weird.”

“J-E-,” Jackie started before stopping. “Why is it spelling out Jeff’s name?”

Guilt was a fascinating shade of Shauna’s face. Her lips turned colourless and interest was beginning to stir from around the group. Nat suddenly felt a little less sick. Karma was karma, and she didn’t mind watching Shauna take the blow for once. 

“Stop it.”

“Something you want to tell me?” Jackie laughed but it didn’t sound authentic. Nat was familiar with her laugh. She had heard it from the back of a bus, from across a soccer field. She heard it from the trees, Jackie scampering across a fallen log like some kind of drunken gymnast. Jackie’s laugh in that moment was smoke and mirrors, sounding like a trick. “Don’t worry, Shipman. We’re just playing, right?”

Nat scratched at the polish across her thumb. The light blue was flaking off and she helped the process. Something about the room reminded her of home. Two parents fighting in the dark, some unpaid bill sneaking up on them. 

“—I told you to stay downstairs,” Travis hissed to Javi who was kneeling beside him. 

“Whatever. It’s boring.”

Gen and Mari starting humming dramatically while Melissa sang, “Jeff and Shauna sitting in a tree…”

“Shut up!” 

“First came love, then comes marriage…” she paused dramatically and tipped her head back. “Then comes a baby with a baby carriage.”

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Shauna suddenly seethed, teeth clenched and eyes set by shadows. “So can you shut up? You’re not funny. None of this, actually, is funny!”

“Relax. We’re all just hanging out. Isn’t this what you wanted?” Jackie asked.

“You know what? I give up. This is weird and I’ve had enough.”

Some of the girls laughed when Shauna took her leave, trapdoor slamming shut. Javi pitched his hand up and started speaking without waiting for Jackie to call his name. “Are we gonna die out here?”

Amusement evaporated. Nat felt ice sluice through her veins. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Travis breathed. “Seriously? This is why you were supposed to be downstairs—”

The pendulum slipped from Jackie’s relaxed grip. “No offence, Javi, but that’s considered a dumb question. None of you guys are going to die. Don’t waste the veil of the spirits or whatever on stupid stuff.”

“Yeah, Javi. Shauna’s love life ranks higher than our status on surviving,” Van said sarcastically. 

“Chill.”

“You left me to die in a literal fire. It’s a little insensitive to tell me to chill out.”

“But did you actually die?”

Nat felt distant. Chills went up her spine and she remembered winter, felt the horrible sting of cold water against her face and hands, the way blood froze tacky on her skin like warpaint. Van and Jackie’s arguing voices turned into a buzz and she was stuck inside a film reel of memories. Winter, summer, fall, and winter again. The rotting flesh. Bones hanging from trees. One girl breaking her spine from a fall and the relief of pushing off a hunt because they had something— green brush burning, somewhere and for some reason. Ben’s trial against a hive of yellow jackets. 

Her mouth peeled open and she screamed. 

Dying. She was dying. Misty’s face floated above her, adult Misty, and Nat was seeing stars dissolve into black. 

Blackness filled everywhere because the candles were gone and so were the stars, it was just her and the hive, her blood both cold and hot all at once. 

“Who has the matches?”

“Can someone get the window?” 

A tang of blood filled her mouth. 

“There’s something wrong with her.”

“Natalie!” 

“It— it.” 

Mari’s voice was high with terror. “Should we… uh, Misty?” 

Misty floated through the darkness. Her face was sculpted by a lit match and delight was pronounced across her mouth. She liked being needed. Nat jerked back. She flinched and she shoved, thrusting herself away. 

Candle smoke, she tried. Wind from outside. Her senses were shutting down and she gasped for air, choking in an effort to follow Saint Mary’s Rehabilitative breathing guidelines. In, out, in—

Nothing. 

Her lungs squeezed flat and she was smoke and blood, nothing more. 

“It—!” Nat heard herself wrench out. “Wants—!”

“Are you seriously fucking with us?” Van grimaced. Her face hung close to Misty’s shoulder. “This isn’t funny, dude.”

“Is she, like… possessed?” Akilah added. 

Whatever was in face was enough to make Misty back away. Nat blinked and saw a mask made from rabbit’s fur. Remembered her teeth scraping against bone. Felt the thud and impact of the plane crumpling beneath her feet, not just once but twice. 

Tai was suddenly present. She stormed through the thick of Yellowjackets and looked livid. 

Nat remembered Tai. 

She remembered and remembered and remembered—

“Hungry,” she said. 

“What is ‘it’?”

Her hands clenched. Her mouth kept moving, kept speaking, the words being spat out like bullets from a gun. 

Something was breaking. Nat wasn’t supposed to be here, this wasn’t her position. “It— it is hungry,” she said again. 

“Cut it out,” Tai commanded. “This isn’t a game.”

There had been a show. 

Nat remembered the opening scenes, the way everyone in the whole world had to talk about it. A plane, people stranded on an island… she had gone to a bar to slow down from how fast she was going courtesy of the pills when it had been up on the television. Any therapist from a fancy rehab would say the same thing. It was a trigger, she was triggered. Through a filmy haze of pills and whisky, Nat had watched the show unravel. 

And then she got up and left with her tab unpaid, found a baseball bat, and smashed three storefronts before the cops showed up to arrest her. She only really came back to herself when she was face down on the asphalt and her hands being wrenched behind her back and cuffed. 

That had been anger, twisted up rage finally coming out with violence, and Nat had been merely a passenger to it. Couldn’t stop it, couldn’t pull back her hand once it all started. 

This felt like the same. 

“Au début, il a pris soin de moi. Je l'ai nourri. Il m'a apporté ses cadeaux. Les cadeaux des bois... Mais il avait toujours faim…”

Van squinted. “Is that… French?”

“Since when does the burn out know French?” 

“Jackie! Didn’t you take French last semester?”

“Yeah, but— she flunked out! Skipped after the first intro class!”

“Okay, so? What’s she saying?”

“I dunno! I suck at French! I skipped half the classes!”

“Mes offres étaient trop maigres, Il voulait du sang. Il veut toujours du sang,” Nat’s mouth kept going on. Her skull was white fire and agony knit together. 

“Well, damn it, Jackie, try not to!” Van spat. 

“Il voulait du sang. Il veut toujours du sang.”

“Blood. She’s saying blood,” Jackie said very slowly, somewhere beyond Nat’s vision. 

She squeezed her hands tighter. “S’il vous plaît, ne me faites pas de mal,” forced Nat. Her hands were stuck to the wheel of an out of control car, but she tried wrenching it. She repeated herself louder, voice hitching itself to a shriek. S'il vous plaît, ne me faites pas de mal!"

“She… no, I think— she doesn’t want to be hurt,” Jackie translated roughly. 

Some of the hands holding her went slack. It was enough to pull free, to stagger up to her feet like a drunk. 

Her finger jabbed into the glass of the window and Nat saw the Antler Queen peering back at her. The crown, the maskless face. 

She was pointing back at her. 

A tiny degree of separation stood between them by means of the glass. 

“Le sang could ice,” the Antler Queen said. 

“What’s she saying?” Someone hissed. 

Before Nat could say another word, someone slammed into her from behind. Jackie’s face came up beside the Antler’s Queen in the reflection and her arms fastened around Nat tightly, squeezing like a vice. “Don’t, Nat!”

But her body was beyond her control. 

Nat smashed her skull forward against the dark, the night, and the Antler Queen all at once. Something cracked from impact. 

Chapter Text

Nat couldn’t risk moving. She breathed very slowly, counting the seconds with a desperate sort of awareness. The bear made an odd snuffing sound as it lumbered around the cabin, groaning and growling while it looked for something. Her fingers pinched at her belt for the knife that she liked sleeping when it felt safe to reach for it, locking in on target just as it swung a small, dark head in her direction. 

And when it stepped closer to where she was lying, blankets tangled up around her legs, her mouth flooded with the foul smell of it. Greasy, rotting fur was just somewhere above her gaze and she didn’t dare twist her her to look up at it, was stuck on the ground with teeth so close. 

It ducked lower and nosed around the edge of the flannel blanket. Her hand clenched on the hilt of the knife, that abandoned thing originally from the previous occupant of the cabin. By burying his bones, she had somehow equipped herself with his own teeth. Gun, knife. Probably a healthy dose of his original fear as well. 

The skin would be thick. Her angle wasn’t any good either, stuck on her side with her dominant hand pinned. She would need a decent amount of leverage to drive the blade up through the fur, hopefully avoiding getting stuck on bone. 

And one stab wouldn’t be enough. A lucky hit would knock it aside, give her an opportunity for a second, better attack. 

She squeezed tighter and her fingernails bit into her palm. The whole word dissolved and she was awake, heart racing. The loss of something felt so disconcerting that Nat needed to swipe her hand over the blanket, convinced the knife had somehow fallen from her grip. Blinking rapidly, her eyes slowly adjust to the barely present light cast from orange coals, barely enough to see Van’s sleeping face directly across from her. 

No bear. 

Sweat soaked through her shirt. She kicked the blankets and got up, exiting the quiet cabin. She slept in her boots out of paranoia, and she was relieved for that habit. No fumbling for her laces in the near dark, no searching for a rogue boot by Lottie’s sneakers and Tai’s faux fur slippers. 

The light from the swollen moon was brighter. It sliced down through branches, showing silent places. Trees grew thick. They came up out of the ground from the rot of the previous and grew plentiful. Literal sections of space formed gaps between each tree, crown shyness, and Nat dropped down to the ground in order to admire it. 

Silence was without a break. It surrounded her, growing amongst roots and greenery. Summer heat had been crisping up at the dampness, muting colours down some, but the whole place was finally drenched in a bit of coolness. 

Yesterday Kristen had tried singing her prettiest notes in hopes of attracting birds with no success. Nat tried not thinking about what that meant. The whole woods had turned without a pulse. Walking through it was like walking into an abandoned house and hearing her own heartbeat. 

The gash across her forehead ached dully and Nat also refused to think about it. She just wanted to feel nothing. The moss under her hands was like velvet and she faced up at the constant trees, tired again. 

“Fuck you,” she said to whatever was hanging unseen above her. The fear wasn’t easing any. 

Neither was the anger. 

“Let’s go,” Nat said, shrugging the game bag over her shoulder. The leather was greasy and left a stain against whoever carried it, and she didn’t mind the burden. Her clothes were dark and task friendly compared to Jackie’s mix of lighter colours. 

“Take Travis.”

She blinked. A fire was cackling outside and someone was talking softly, different conversations all at once from all sides of the cabin. Privacy was a joke. Unless she exited into the woods, she was stuck with nosy listeners. 

And everyone was keeping an eye on her after her meltdown in the attic. 

“We’re going hunting.”

“I’m staying behind,” Jackie said. She was standing at the table and brushing her hair with some fancy looking brush, the kind that cost a lot just to serve a single purpose. “So go and tell Travis you need a partner out there.”

“You’re joking,” Nat said without hearing much a punchline. 

It had been three days since the seance. The cut across her forehead was going to scar, a definite consequence of smashing her head against the glass before Jackie and some of the others were able to wrestle her down. 

The brush was set down very quietly. “What’s your deal with Martinez? Don’t wanna slum it around with him out there?”

“If you’ve got an issue with me, Jackie, just go ahead and say it,” Nat sniped back. Everyone was watching her like she might meltdown into another fit. Lottie’s course trajectory from the original seance to hosting a cult suddenly made a lot of sense, Nat thought. If everyone kept acting like she was crazy, she might go insane. Cults had to be profitable for a leader.

Nat was standing by the door which meant Jackie had to walk right by her to exit. She didn’t even bother to look her in the eye. “Sorry.” 

“It wasn’t— dude, seriously?” Nat spun on her heel and watched Jackie vanish, walking furiously away from her. Whatever, Taylor. Guess you’re not my problem today. 

Van caught her floundering and tugged on her arm, smiling in a way that seemed only a little forced. “Hey. C’mon with us. We’re looking for berries. And, if you’re nice, Mari’ll let you fill her basket.”

The idea of stepping out in the woods in the daylight alone exhausted her. Even with her gun strapped across her back, she felt empty of a task. Following the others was easy enough. They went down through the marshy grass and her mind worked to mentally man great slabs of rocks and the thick, green crusted bushes. Down and across a dirt pathway trampled into place by their constant movements were familiar looking plants. Buying berries fresh was expensive, but jumping a fence and plucking to her heart’s content after hours at a local farm back home was free. 

But the branches were empty. She fingered one and flipped the spindly arm of it upwards, jostling to check. Her mouth flooded with bitterness. 

“Seriously? How the fuck are there no fucking berries?” Mari demanded, hanging over her shoulder to investigate. 

“The birds could be picking them off.”

Nat let the branch go. It bobbed back into place with a restless snap, leaves bristling. 

“Maybe mice. I’d eat the crap out of a mouse right now.”

“Ew. Gross.”

“You know, some animals live off of eating their own vomit,” Lottie said quietly, crouched down low to check the branches at the bottom of the bush. 

Mari scrunched her face up with dislike and gave her a dismissive look. “Okay. Thanks for that image, Lot. You’re so weird.”

The stiffness in her shoulder was seizing up so Nat rolled it briskly, stepping around and away from the cluster of her teammates. “You survive somehow,” she said, not liking the division between Mari and Lottie. “Your body will self cannibalize itself if there’s no better choice.” 

“And you’re such a mood killer, jeez. Did Dead Cabin Guy tell you that, or do you guys just chat about blood and stuff?”

Lottie suddenly stood up. “Didn’t you hear? Nat and I have a secret club with Dead Cabin Guy and talk about how Danny Mears dumped you for his own cousin.”

Red stained her cheeks. “Hey, they’re second cousins. And that’s totally legal, you know.”

She rasped her fingers against the bark of a tree and pulled away. Yellowjackets were spacing out around the other trees and she needed to ground herself back down. She forcefully drew in air to her lungs and measured her breathing out, forcing her mind to go blank. Hunting after the seance hadn’t brought anything in. History was familiar. Starvation was like an old friend she was being reacquainted with. 

Van’s voice caught her attention. She was standing at Lottie’s shoulder, a little comical with their height difference, and was scuffing one foot through the greenery sprouting up. “—look, ignore Mari, okay? I don’t think she’s taken a shit in, like, two weeks.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay. What’s wrong?”

Nat circled around to see Lottie’s face properly. She was familiar with what fear looked like on her expression. Her eyes were staring out at something, jaw clenched. “You good?”

“Nothing. It-it…” Lottie trailed off, eyes darting to look around. “It’s fine.”

“Liar.”

“Hey. Just mind your own business, alright?” She suddenly snapped, turning away from Nat and Van both to storm off. 

“Bet she woke up on the wrong side of the floor,” Van teased coolly, unbothered. “What about you? Because I’m gonna give this place a five out of five rating when we get home. This whole rest and get back to nature shit is turning me into a better person.”

She swiped a hand across her mouth and pretended like it wasn’t shaking. “Good to have a plan.”

“Kind of the thing everyone talks about.”

“Didn’t really notice.” Had they? Nat was tunnel vision stuck on what was going to happen. Summer was warmth and winter would be cold. She hadn’t bothered to listen for whatever pipe dream Mari was mumbling about with Gen. “You? Shit, let me guess. You’re gonna run some janky movie rental place and bitch about the classics to anyone coming through the door.” 

Van laughed. “No. Can you imagine? Being stuck in one place, for like ever? Owning property is for suckers. The nine-to-five idiots.” 

The hair on the back of her neck was sticking up. “Sure.”

“When I get out of this place? First thing I’m gonna do is take a really good shower. And then I’m pawning whatever I have to for a decent camera. Once I got that? I’ll start filming something, or everything, and get as much raw footage as I can, you know?”

“Wow. Wiskayok from the dirtbag angle.”

“Laugh, Scatorccio, but I’m gonna clean house someday with indie film awards. What about you?”

“Nothing.” But that wasn’t a good answer. Nat swallowed and tried again. “Maybe I’ll get a six pack of beer,” she said, because that was how it started for her. She rotted in a motel room with beer and it was comforting, being like a kid again back home. Months of wilderness turned her and Travis into a pair of lightweights and one of them, probably herself, spilled some of the beer across the bedsheets.

And the smell reminded her of her dad’s shirt, of curling up onto the couch surrounded by a graveyard of empty bottles. A ghost, maybe, of childhood that was gone. 

Van flicked her wrist. “You’re not thinking hard enough if that’s the best thing you’ve come up with.”

It was hard thinking of something when there wasn’t anything. Nat’s mind was a wreckage of pills and mixed drinks, of lying down somewhere and hoping she was finally tapping out. 

“Probably gonna get some settlement money, right? Maybe I’ll use it for a house somewhere. That way I’ve got somewhere to go when all this is over.” 

“So you wanna be stuck in one place, huh?”

“Maybe,” Nat said without desire to commit. “Shut up. No point in wanting shit when we’ve got shit.” 

“Scared we’ll jinx it?” Van asked dryly. 

“Maybe. Fuck with fate and you’ll find out, right?”

“Well, ugly as this whole place is, you can’t deny that view.” The trees dropped as the ground gave way, whole space a ridge of colour. Van sunk into the shadows and propped her elbows on her knees, small to the void of air, rocks in grey and reddish colours sticking out of the ground, trees shivering all the way down. 

It was still possible to salvage the day. She had the gun and hunting bag together, a good chance to strike out and make the most of the light. 

But Nat wouldn’t have many options to sit beside Van and admire something harmless. 

Just this once, she promised herself. 

Holding onto the key was like a joke. After everything, the wilderness and their rescue, Nat wouldn’t go home to stay again. But here she was, hand clenched around the key so tightly that the teeth were biting into her palm, proof that she technically belonged somewhere. 

Her knuckles were colourless. In a couple years, if fate kept unspooling in a familiar direction, they were would be ridged with scars. Hurting every winter like an annual reminder to get fucked. 

“What are you doing?”

Lottie’s voice made her jump a little. She looked up and frowned at her, forcing her fingers to unfurl and show the key. “Thinking about home. What’s up?”

Her face unexpectedly split into a smile and she reached down into her pocket to pull out a keychain. “I keep carrying them around out of habit.”

“Whole lot of good they’re doing out here.”

The keys jangled as she sat down. Lottie didn’t have just a a house key, but also key for her car and one of the few spares for the locker room. A smaller, slender one was for her bike lock, and Nat didn’t know the story behind the rest. A rabbit’s foot hung from a ring as well as a fancy little Charolette engraved on metal. “I missed curfew right before we left and had to climb in through a window,” said Lottie quietly. “Figured they would’ve heard the door so I went in through the dining room, pretended like they were the crazy ones for thinking I wasn’t home.”

“Classy.”

“Figured you’d like that.”

“Entering through a ground floor window? Child’s play,” Nat said, scoffing. The dusky sky was darkening, sunset fading to night.

That earned her a fake glare. “Oh? Let’s see you do better.” 

Nat hastily separated stupid stunts into before and after sections. Telling some fucked up story about the time she walked barefoot across a railing four stories above pavement while loaded on a cocktail of drugs wouldn’t fully fit the ‘youthful misbehaviours’ category. She ended up muttering something about scaling her way up into Van’s room for a place to crash during a storm, handing her the same story that Van had been telling everyone just weeks before. Plagiarizing the punchline was easy. 

A beat of silence slipped by before the amusement faded from Lottie’s mouth. “I miss home. But I don’t miss being home. Do you know what I mean?” 

“No,” said Nat, lying. 

The cabin was loud behind them and she felt a moment of sympathy for Ben who couldn’t just get up and walk away from the constant sound. 

The key in her hand was alone. She didn’t have multiples like Lottie did. She squeezed her hand once more and felt the natural shape her fist made with something sharp buried. And then she drew her hand back and snapped it forward, hurling the lone key into the spray of trees. 

Lottie gave her a questioning look before her fingers went to work, pulling free the house key from her nest of options and tossing it in the same direction. 

“Everyone’s talking about it,” she said plainly, finally prying up a stone that was better left alone. “Even Mari’s had commentary, which is impressive, you know? Because she’s so self absorbed?”

“It?”

“Your spectacular freak out.”

“Yikes, Matthews. Your bedside manner is atrocious.”

“I don’t need to sweet talk you,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I know what a freak out looks like, by the way.”

“So you’re the authority of freak outs?”

She hummed. Her fingers knotted together in her lap, focus suddenly very intent on her hands. “What did you see?”

“Nothing,” Nat said instantly. “It wasn’t real.”

“It doesn’t have to be real for you to see it.” Her fingers tightened. “You’re kind of looking like Frankenstein.”

She automatically brushed a hand across her forehead, feeling that gash. Pain came from her fingers needed to check that it was still there. “Don’t compare me to the dead thing that came back to life,” Nat said irritably. 

“Blame Van. She made us do the classic horror marathon.”

“Van likes really old, shitty movies. Dunno why you said yes. You knew what you were getting into.”

“Let me guess, you only agreed because she was offering liquorice?”

“Wave a pack of that stuff around and tell me to jump, and I’ll ask how high.” A slight bit of warmth found her on that porch. She dropped her hand away from forehead and saw Lottie’s unmarked brow. Fuck consequences. Nat could stick her own hand in the fire if it meant keeping someone else from getting burned. And it was lucky, really, that she was so skilled with handling pain.

“If you see stuff, you know… I’d get it.” 

“I know you would.” A pause, loud like a heart beat. “But it wouldn’t be any of your business, right?”

“Fair,” Lottie said, shrugging. “If it makes you feel any better, I saw a bloodied up deer. But I don’t think it was actually real. Just something that was in my head and felt real in the moment. Forgive me for being a little uncivilized about it.” 

Nat was used to Lottie spitting fortune cookie bullshit and exaggerating rules without knowing the full size of the game. The clarity of truth was different. 

Silver glinted from Lottie’s finger. One of Nat’s rings. 

“Could’ve been real. Animals do walk around in the woods.” She thought about it, a little bitterly. “Usually,” she amended.

“Yeah? Well, I hope I imagined it.”

“Scared?”

“Scared shitless. You?”

Nat had blurry memories of the seance. The one true thing that remained was looking into the window and seeing the Antler Queen looking back. 

“Pretty much,” she admitted. 

Travis didn’t look at her as he scraped up meat onto a plate before holding it out, one hand not letting go even as she tried to take it. “You gonna start frothing at the mouth?”

“I promise I’ll bite you first if I do,” Nat said, tugging a little. Finally he let go. 

“How’d you know, anyways?” Travis talked but didn’t bother to properly look at her. Weeks of standoffish silence was finally coming undone and she felt guilty knowing him and being a stranger, that she had a skeleton key to his secrets that he hadn’t yet given her. “About the ring? Not like my dad talked shit about stuff that wasn’t soccer. It was some stupid family heirloom that he got from his dad, but he wouldn’t say something like that to any of you guys.”

“Dude, I’m hungry. Do you want a story or something?”

“Nah. I just want to know why you took a ring off my dad’s dead body.”

“I figured Javi would want it.”

Travis dropped the serving spoon into the pot and finally looked at her. “There’s something weird about you,” he told her. 

She shrugged. “So you’ve said.”

Continuing, Travis said, “All the girls on this team? Dumb. My dad had to get up and help half of you with your oxygen masks— I think you’re a liar.” 

Laura Lee hovered silently by her elbow, apparently sensing a fight brewing before it could start. 

“Cool,” Nat allowed. “I think you’re the third smartest guy out here.”

His glare was harsh, but the interest showed on his face. Shit. Travis liked a good challenge. That’s how they ended up keeping score of kills, literally competing for best shot. 

Nat made a fast choice to let Laura Lee tug her away, carrying their meals to some corner of the room. For all of the banter and general conversation, the air inside the cabin felt weighed down— unsurprisingly; it being the third night in a row that Nat brought nothing back from the woods. Ben was seated awkwardly with his crutches splayed out to cut off access to the chair beside him, forcing Misty to take a seat with Kristen elsewhere. 

Nat drained the water from her cup and felt tired. 

Jackie was seated cross legged on the floor with Shauna and Tai, somehow with them while being half turned to face the fire. Her nose scrunched at something Tai was saying and she shook her head. Her shoulders were relaxed. Nat tried not to give a shit, but something looked weird about them together. 

That was the one thing, she thought grimly. Her meltdown was a great feature of conversation, but so was Shauna’s alleged emotional affair with Jackie’s boyfriend. Everyone took great delight in discussing it, accounting for every party where the three were witnessed in attendance, that one time Akilah saw Jeff pick Shauna up from the library, how maybe it made sense- if Jackie and Shauna weren’t the ones fucking around in the locker room when everyone else was gone, maybe it was Shauna and Jeff doing the nasty. 

Can’t love someone that much without getting a little something, Mari had muttered the night before while passing through the room, earning Shauna’s ire. 

Nat didn’t mind it. She knew what was going to happen, how sad the outcome was going to be… 

But she also knew Shauna would do terrible things. That she had a history of doing terrible things. That there was a reason they never got along after the wilderness and their rescue. 

Is Jeff still hocking futons?

Pain crawled up. She rubbed a hand against the cut on her forehead to make it stay, welcoming it like a guest. 

“Why the long face?” Laura Lee asked her, trying to balance a flight manual on her knee while eating. 

“Why the short face?” Nat countered. 

The heat of the fire was stifling with the general heat of summer. Even at night the temperatures persisted, leaving her to kick off the blankets and try to cool off in order to sleep. 

Tai seemed determined to keep conversation flowing between her and the Jackie and Shauna pair. She kept talking, eyes darting around the room like she needed to summon some new bit to keep it all from stalling out. 

She heard a snippet of what Shauna was saying, something about being jealous of Lottie for not burning in the sun like she was when Jackie turned, suddenly fully engaged. “You know, jealousy is kind of funny. I think when you want something so bad, it makes you scared.”

Shauna’s brows shot up. “Philosophical. That’s new for you.”

“Jealousy is the opposite of love,” Laura Lee pitched in. She had been listening to the quiet conversation like Nat was. “It is the vile combination of pride and greed, the twin of envy.” 

Tai looked unenthusiastic at being stuck between Jackie, Shauna, and Laura Lee. “Doesn’t jealousy act as motivation to do better? You know, grass is greener so earn a better lawn for yourself?”

“I think you can’t be jealous without being a coward,” said Jackie. Her eyes were wide, almost like she was the one who was scared. “You want something so badly and you know you’ll never get it for yourself unless you take it.” The speculation of Jeff and Shauna fucking had apparently gotten under her skin, provoked by bullshit summoned from a string and bone.

“I’m seriously just complaining about how nobody packed any sunscreen. Can we tone down all this talk about the soul rot of chronic jealousy?” Shauna winced. 

“Sure. Happy to drop it.” 

That was something Nat had forgotten. Somehow in the mess of coming back and reliving everything again, she’d gotten stuck with Jackie for company. And old history pretty much guaranteed a healthy three inches of space at the very least between them, but Jackie was usually a positive vote for physical touch. If she wasn’t launching herself at someone else, she was expecting to catch someone in turn. 

Jackie’s edgy, careful positioning of herself away from Shauna and Tai while still being part of their little cluster was bizarre. 

“Yikes. Troubles in paradise,” Van huffed quietly. “Guess Jeff’s a hot commodity.”

They all snickered as Shauna stormed out of the room. 

Fresh morning, fresh prospects. Nat tried to guard herself with careful optimism. She packed extra ammunition, rolled double rations in torn pages from a magazine to stuff in the game bag. And even Jackie was grudgingly following her, all of a sudden quiet at her heels. 

Summer heat was rotting through their meat. They needed something if they wanted to eat. 

Even Jackie saw the logic of pulling herself together and tagging along for the trail that Nat set. 

Her fingers itched to light a cigarette. Nat twisted back twice to make sure Jackie was following still. 

A convenient shortcut showed through the trees, saving them time as they hiked out the plane. It was safer putting distance between them and the cabin, saving Nat from pulling the trigger by mistake by friendly movement of one of the others. The path went through natural vegetation, far faster than the initial trek from cabin to lake to plane. Her previous trips had eroded some of the ground cover, echoes of her steps preserved into the dirt. 

She checked, constant, for other pathways. If the woods was alive with game, animals would be leaving their own obvious trails. 

But nothing. 

Jackie walked around her and hoisted herself up into the blown apart plane with irritation, every movement measured to avoid delay and interaction. Nat’s hand had been held out with the offer to assist stuck on her tongue. Whatever. 

“You want water?” Nat asked, dragging the bottle from the game bag. Touching it left her palm marked black. 

“Nope.” 

“You wanna sit in silence?”

Jackie’s stare quickly flicked her way. “Sure.”

“Sucks. Because I wanna talk and talk and talk,” she said dryly. The plane was the best place to hang around and stay put while waiting for game. She sat down on the floor and picked at the blood stained carpet, thumbnail scratching at the rust coloured mark. “You loving this yet?” 

“Can’t you just shoot something?”

“Can’t you buck up and get over your shit?” Nat said, scoffing. “I go a little nuts one time and now you hate me, right? That's why you're avoiding me, trying to make me come out here with Travis, which by the way, the fuck was that? You made me bring you along and suddenly you've got cold feet?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Jackie snapped. 

“Update, Jackie. Pretty sure all the teachers back home were of the opinion that I’m dumber than a box of rocks.” She tipped her head slightly. “Good thing I don’t let it get to me. I don’t care what anyone thinks, huh? So authentically myself that an opinion means jack shit?”

“What’s your problem?” 

Fuck. Nat didn’t even know. She leaned her back against one of the seats and gazed out to the empty clearing. Her desire for a cigarette had shifted to an intense desire to poke at Jackie until she snapped and quit her issues. “Kind of missing hermit number one lately.” 

“We are so not bonded by anti-social attributes. I’m a conversational delight,” Jackie said even as she knocked her foot into a broken armrest. 

“Totally. Yeah, I’d give you a high score.”

She kicked it harder. And apparently that felt great because Jackie swooped down a snatched up a broken pick of metal, original purpose unknown from the current state, and whipped it up to the cockpit. “Why aren’t you mad?” Jackie snapped, grabbing another piece and hurling it further. “Because you should be. You were all buzzkill about the seance idea and I made it happen— I pushed and tried to make it fun, and clearly it wasn’t fun, seeing how it was your head trying to smash through the freaking window--”

“Relax, Taylor,” Nat interrupted her. “I’ve got a thick skull. I can take it.” 

“This is just what I always do! Tell Sha— people, I tell people, what to do and all that stuff because maybe it’ll make them happy, or maybe it just makes happy.”

“Are you upset because I hit my head a few times?”

“Obviously I’m upset because you hit your head.”

“God, you’re ridiculous.”

“I was trying to do it right, I just wanted—” Jackie looked frustrated. “I’m trying to do it right.”

Nat shrugged. “Everyone pretty much thought it was funny.”

“Why’d you do it? The whole…” she knocked her head forward in a poor imitation of what Nat had done. 

“Dunno. Dude, I’m not lying. It was just…” she fumbled for a decent answer. “I was there and I wasn’t there.” 

Jackie looked down, some of her hair falling into her face. The light against her made her look vulnerable, suddenly exposed with the backdrop of a literal wreck behind her. “You don’t know.”

“Would it make you feel better if I promised to never try and give myself a concussion again at the next party you throw?” 

“Yeah.” 

Nat put her hand over her heart and promised with sincerity. 

“And I’ll never do the whole creepy ‘talk to the dead and party down’ thing again,” Jackie said weakly. “I just don’t like when people get hurt.”

“Think that makes you pretty much the textbook definition of someone who isn’t selfish,” Nat told her. She thought about Shauna pushing a knife against her throat, of letting Javi die. Tai taking the gun, and Lottie spilling blood on the ground. Misty standing over her while Nat died flat on her back. The bodies they left behind. The crimes they had committed just to survive. “You might be the only good person I know.”

Whatever it was that held them all together, they were hers. Razor wire was strung out in a crude illusion of a family tree. Nat had the Yellowjackets or she had nothing. 

Jackie scrubbed her hands across her cheeks. “Before we left, we got into a stupid spat.”

“You and…”

“Shauna.”

“Right.” Nat closed her eyes. “You and Shauna.”

“It was over this red dress.”

“What red dress?”

“The one from the party, right before we left?” 

It didn’t ring a bell. Nat’s whole memory of that particular evening was spotty, her own fault for imbibing in a little extra on top of the free access to the keg. “Sure.”

“I just wanted her to feel pretty. To know that somebody wanted her,” admitted Jackie. “Maybe I push a lot more than I should. And that’s why she— she’s replaced me with Tai,” her voice tripped over itself. “They’re together, pretty much a package deal now. Tai probably doesn’t do that shit.”

Nat opened her eyes again, scowling up at where Jackie was still standing. “Lots of people hurt people when they like them.” Nat was the expert of that science. “Did you intend on doing that? Like, did you go out of your way to say shit to make her feel bad?” Rehab unfortunately twinned itself with therapy. Nat knew plenty about triggers and coping mechanisms, the emotional reason to a physical action. And her file was a fun bit of paperwork to explore for any professional looking to dig in. She wasn’t a priest giving forgiveness for nothing, but she could at least plant a few bandaids. 

“No,” Jackie said, but her expression looked unconvinced, like whatever she was thinking was turning into a sharp thing in her heart, cutting her to shreds for every moment of self doubt. 

Funny, Nat thought. Jackie stood so tall, perfectly capable of supporting the weight of anyone who was faltering. 

This was what she looked like when she was the one who was faltering. 

“I know lots about bad people,” Nat said, thinking of herself. “You’re not one of them.” 

"Thanks for the of confidence."

"Whatever. All that shit about Shauna and Jeff-"

"I so don't care about that," Jackie sighed. "Wasn't like we were fated to be lovers or anything. He's my first boyfriend. Statically those never work out. She could have him if she wanted. It was- he liked me, and it was nice being liked. Wanted. I can live without it."

Movement flashed through the trees. A deer emerged from the brush with a bent head, antlers extended in bloody strips of gore. She went still, flinching back with the intention of reaching for the gun across her back. 

But what was the point?

“Is there—” Jackie asked, belatedly dropping her voice down to a hissed whisper, “— something?”

Nat looked at the bloodied, wrecked deer. “Nah. There’s nothing.” Before Jackie could get to a window and peer out, it was gone. 

They came back slowly and quietly, stepping heavy with the lack of a burden to haul. Yellowjackets were spilled across the spongey, thick grass, idle from heat. Tai’s mouth sneered at Nat’s empty hands and she leered back, barely feeling when Jackie threaded her arm through hers and pulled her along. 

“We cannot keep fucking doing this, you guys,” Tai announced to the group, standing from where she had been sitting on the steps. 

Heat blistered across her tongue. “You give it a whirl, Turner. Tell me when you find something to shoot.”

“What happens when winter gets here? You’ve brought back nothing and Shauna found maggots in the meat from the shed— we’ve got less today than we had yesterday.” 

“That’s how consumption works,” Misty argued quietly. “Take more and more from the source until nothing remains.”

“Could boil bones down into soup broth,” Mari suggested. 

Van shook her head. “Gross. Please don’t talk about soup when I’m roasting to death with heatstroke.”

“Heatstroke is serious business, have you been hydrating—”

“We are either going to fucking starve to death or freeze,” Tai continued, speaking louder to account for the chorus of complaints from everyone to Misty. “We cannot count on getting rescued anymore. All of us know that it’s not gonna happen at this point. We have to save ourselves. That’s why I’m gonna go find help. I’m leaving in the morning. Come with me if you want to get out of this fucking hellhole.”

Chapter Text

“What’s with your face?” Jackie asked when everyone was gathering in a tight circle, smokey campfire burning in the middle. She folded her arms almost self-consciously and peered up at Nat, obviously curious. 

Nat tried schooling her expression blank. She was technically an expert of what an intervention looked like, had been the recipient of Tai’s attention many times in the future. It wasn’t that she wanted to put her down as an emergency contact, she just never had anyone else to call. Shauna was a definite no, Van wouldn’t leave her shop even if it burned down—

Everyone was gone. And Tai had bundled her up and sent her off to different rehabs, spitting tough love over a phone line, emotionally distant while being involved. It was the one constant thing she had to hold onto. If Nat was belly up in an emergency room, Tai would be spitting molten lava at her while making the phone calls to get her booked somewhere. 

She forgot about this. How everyone gathered to give Tai brutal sidelong glances, made her seem like the reckless one for the first time in her entire life. It wouldn't be easy to leave the cabin. Splitting from the group, trusting the woods... she'd be giving up access to a water supply as well. It was a massive gamble with no promise of success. 

“If it helps… some of us think that there aren’t any good ideas about this,” said Shauna, apparently willing to kickstart the conversation. She bit at her bottom lip and looked at the dirt on the ground. 

Tai looked upset about the loss of Shauna’s support. Nat hadn’t realized how much time Shauna and her were spending together until Jackie mentioned it. Friend groups had a habit of shifting out in the wild. Someone was always getting cut out, was going to be cut out. And Tai and Shauna were always huddled up by the fire and setting off to forage. If Tai wasn't with Van, she was with Shauna. Funny how a secret could build loyalty out of no where. “Well, newsflash, we have to do something. We’re starving. There’s nothing to hunt. And it might still be warm enough during the day, but it’ll get cold at night soon.”

Misty shivered at the idea of winter. “The animals must be migrating.”

“Our luck is shit, guys. Everything dried up over night? You haven’t seen anything out there?”

Nat blinked, startled by Tai’s question. Just one fucked up deer. “Nope,” she said, lying. “No tracks, either.”

“Great. And maybe you don’t remember how seasons work, but it’s just gonna keep getting colder. We’re talking ‘dying-feels-like-falling-asleep cold.”

“At least that’s painless compared to this,” muttered Jackie to Nat. 

Laura Lee’s face was painted with uncertainty. She, like Jackie was to Nat, leaned towards Lottie. “What do you think?”

“It isn’t up to me, right? Because I don’t know. I’m not sure.” Lottie’s mouth pressed into a flat line for a moment. “Nobody really came on this trip packing hiking supplies. And you’re going to be leaving a water supply… this is a major risk.”

“Look you guys, not to be an asshole—”

Nat snorted, unable to help herself. 

“—but I’m not, like, submitting a motion for approval here. Anyone who wants to come with me is welcome. But I’m going.”

“You’re gonna want to take stuff with you, right? Like food and supplies? That’s not up to you,” said Akilah, speaking up for the first time. “Collective supplies in kind of a thing where you have to submit for approval.”

“Hell no, you cannot take our food.”

“Well, we can’t just send her out there with nothing,” Shauna argued with Mari, settling her weight somewhere in the middle of the argument. 

Nat had been focused on Van’s face the entire conversation. Had watched her chew on a thumbnail, eyes darting across the group like she was waiting for someone to say the right thing to a put a stop to it. “This is insane. We don’t even know where we are, just that we’re surrounded by big-ass mountains. What are you now, Edmund fucking Hillary?”

“Who?”

Tai’s frustration matched Van’s, but for different reasons. Her look sharpened. “We are not on an island. If we go south, we’ve gotta run into something eventually. A road, a town. Anything.” She swallowed. “And we won’t need to take much. If Misty’s right about this, the further south we get, the better for foraging. And game, maybe.”

She felt exactly when her moment snapped into place. “You can’t take the rifle,” said Nat, speaking in the current, the future, and the past all at once. “You wanna save the day? I’m with you. But the gun has to stay here.”

It was a little funny, she realized, knowing how cards would end up in the future. Tai was a born politician. She was obviously wanting it, knew that a gun would be a massive advantage, but was willing to shift to appease the many of the group. “Fine. I can bring the stuff we don’t use every day. One of the axes, the compass…”

Jackie stuck her hand out, showing a flare gun. “Found this in the plane. Figured you’d want to bring it with you.”

She took it slowly and weighed in her own hand. “Right. Thanks, Jackie.”

“Don’t tell me that you, of all people, are on board with this,” Van snapped at her. 

“It isn’t a crime to want out of this place. If Tai’s willing to head out for us—”

“Jesus, wait. I forgot who I was talking with— of course you, Jackie Taylor, would be okay with someone getting killed. God forbid you put your own neck on the line, huh?”

Jackie flinched a little and Nat was tired, suddenly exhausted. “Wanna focus on the important stuff, Van?” She cut in roughly. “Tai’s planning a one woman expedition with fucking bobby pins to her advantage. Now she has a flare gun. That’s like jumping from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age in a whole five minutes.”

“All I’m saying is that it makes sense. Maybe you’re a little biased about what’s happening, possibly a little close to the subject at hand—”

“Fuck off,” Van said nastily in response.

“Have you considered what happens if you’re wrong about this?” Laura Lee said to Tai, trying to shut down the growing spat. “If there’s… just nothing?”

“I don’t know,” Tai admitted. “Or, yeah. If I’m wrong, I’ll die out there. Or we’ll be dead here. Odds of anything aren’t great, but I have to do something. Wanna come? I’m leaving in an hour.”

She stormed off, apparently shaking her hands clean from the group intervention, and Van lurched in an opposite direction. The back of her neck was pinkish from how angry she was. 

Nat, in a different life, would’ve faded to the sidelines. She would have watched Tai go through the motions of packing and preparing herself to leave, content with the inevitable. No matter how much she loved someone, she was always stepping back and away when they meant to leave. 

But this felt like standing at a doorway. She could do nothing or break her fist against it. 

“Hold on,” Nat muttered to Jackie, turning on her heel and following Tai to the backend of the cabin. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her bones had that peculiar ache, struggling to sort her thoughts from her memories. I can change this, Nat thought, Nat promised, Nat demanded. 

“Hey. I wanna talk to you,” she called to Tai. She was holding a knife in her hand and the sight of it made her stop cold, fully aware that Tai was going hack at her hair but unable to forgive herself of the fear. 

She frowned. “You planning on coming with me?”

“No.” Nat’s purpose was with the group. “Just a suggestion.”

“Save it, then. I don’t need your words of wisdom.”

“Shut up and listen—”

“You know what? I know you, Natalie. I get that you’re running around with a rifle and acting like you’re a totally different person, but I know you. You don’t contribute shit because you’re high as a kite or drunk. Every time we’ve ever counted on your for games or anything, you let us down.” Tai swung around to face her properly. “You’re not better than I am just because you didn’t want to freeze Allie out.”

“You should try going east,” Nat snapped. “Don’t go south. You should follow from where the sun rises.” 

“Oh my god, I am not redoing the plans just because you’ve got a better direction to go.”

“Your plan is to start walking and I’m telling you to start walking east.”

“Sure. And when we run out of foraging spots, what happens?” She demanded sarcastically. “Go hungry and hope for the best? It makes sense to go south, to go where it’ll be warmer. You're amazing for a crisis, aren't you?” 

“What’s your problem with me? Shit, dude. I’m trying to have a conversation with you like you’re an actual human being.” 

Tai narrowed her eyes. “How many times have you suggested something absolutely stupid and Van says yes?”

She hissed a frustrated sigh. “Seriously? You’re pissed because it takes two to tango?”

“You’re bad luck, Nat. You don’t take anything seriously. And some of us actually plan on futures! Every time you get a detention or suspended from school, Van’s right there with you.”

“Fuck you.”

“What’s it like, being useless?”

“Familiar,” Nat bit out. 

“You’re unbalanced. And a screw up. If you have nothing productive to say, don’t contribute.” Tai turned to leave but she lunged forward and caught her wrist in a tight, uncompromising grip. “Get off of me.”

“I’m telling you to go a different direction.”

“What does it matter?”

Looking at the sky for patience gave her nothing. She was rapidly losing her control on the situation. “I’ve got a feeling about it.”

“We are heading out into the unknown based off of a feeling?” Tai scorned. “Ridiculous.”

If she squeezed tighter, she would leave a bruise on Tai’s wrist. She would hurt. And that was thing, Nat knew. Hurt somebody once and it wasn’t hard to be expert on the subject. “I won’t be part of Van’s future,” Nat said coldly. “Just go east, please.” 

Tai held still for a moment. And then her mouth softened a little, pulling to separate herself from Nat’s grip. “It isn’t that I think you’re a shit person, Nat. We’re teammates. I just— have you ever wanted a future for yourself? You live like you’re a wrecking ball and sometimes you don’t know where you’re swinging. Who gets hurt.” 

“Think that makes us pretty much the same, doesn’t it?” 

“Probably. That’s how I know you. I figured out what to expect from you.” She frowned. “I figured out that you don’t want much and it shows.” 

“I want you to go east. Hope that counts for something.”

“Guess so.”

Tai had apparently managed to sway Van, Akilah, Mari, and Travis to her side. They quietly packed their stuff up, following Tai’s lead. Mari even wrestled one of the few pillows they had into her bag, willingly leaving behind a bottle of vanilla body spray and the one deck of cards they had to make room. 

Nat sat and kept watch in the yard, poking and prodding with the campfire until it was a dull roar at her feet, well fed and hot tempered. 

Lottie slipped something into Van’s hand when she came into the yard. Nat did a double take, expecting something bad like a stag’s vertebrae and some sticks bundled together, and saw it was a slightly fuzzy rabbit’s foot that had been on her keychain earlier. “If you have to go, will you at least this? For luck.”

“Think this was lucky for the rabbit? Sucker had four feet and all.”

Lottie was visibly anxious. Her fingers kept twisting together, pinching and locking up before releasing. “Just take it, alright? I passed my driver’s test with it. Has to be good for something.”

“You sure?”

“I had dreams. I’d feel a lot better if you took it with you.”

Mari hissed to Akilah, “Do we really not matter here or what?” As they slipped by, jerking bags with them. 

Ben was busy helping Tai practise setting an animal trap with some wire, patiently demonstrating the steps before resetting it and letting her try. Nat leaned close to act as a spectator, inconvenient to Misty who wanted to fuse her hip to Ben’s side. “You need more tension,” she said to Tai. “The one end is slack.”

“Right. Like this?”

“Yeah. Better.”

Misty was staring at Ben as he rubbed his cheek idly and watched the progress. Nat sighed and waited for it. Travis was trying to say goodbye to an upset Javi, Mari was looking around for someone to talk to—

“Wait! I’m coming with you guys!”

“Oh, that’s—”

“What a great idea,” said Nat, trying to force the sarcasm from her tone. “You’d be so helpful out there.”

“Ben— I mean… Coach. Please don’t try and stop me. I’ve given it a lot of thought and I just… I think my team needs me more right now.”

“Oh. That’s… so brave. I’ll do the best I can without you.” Ben fumbled to say, perking up a little. “But if you feel like you have to leave… I won’t stop you.”

She cupped her hands around her mouth and ducked lower. “I’ll come back for you, I promise,” she whispered, still audible to Tai and Nat. She then darted off to hastily pack, flinging an arm out in farewell to Kristen. 

“Oh, thank god,” Ben breathed out. “Have fun out there.”

“I’m doing a nice thing. Why am I being punished for it?” Tai muttered back, coiling up the wire right as Shauna came up with a bag. “Oh, wow. Is this—”

“As much as we could spare,” Shauna admitted. “I wish we could give you more.”

“Thanks. Hey, try not to do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

“Can’t make promises.”

Nat blinked to clear her eyes from the stinging smoke and found Van coming her way, rabbit’s foot stuck on a belt loop like a fashion accessory. 

Van stuck her hand out. “Well? You gonna stand here and say nothing or are you gonna wish me luck?”

Nat took it and held very tight. “Good luck out there.”

“We’re going east. I've got a feeling about it,” Tai said, calling attention from everyone in her small group. The hatchet in her hand looked familiar. 

“South is better,” Misty started before faltering under a glare. “Right. East.” 

East, Nat thought. Not south, not with the wolves. 

Danger free.

Nat was wide awake when the night shattered under red light, that flare gun screaming amongst the stars before it popped and blistered into fizzing streaks. 

Chapter Text

Silence echoed around the cabin, ringing from each of the trees. With their group splintered into halves, it felt unnaturally quiet. Some of the girls were venturing down to the lake to swim and she wanted full advantage of the cabin alone, finally freed up from the constant bumping of elbows with someone else, sleep interrupted by someone brushing up against her, the endless touching… Nat bumped the door open with her hip, arms loaded up with split wood, and regretfully interrupted Jackie and Shauna together. 

They both looked spooked at her appearance, pair of them a perfect match with the guilt on their faces. Whatever conversation she had interrupted left a sour mark.

“Relax. I’ll leave,” said Nat evenly. Her mind kept doing the math. She was in the room with two Yellowjackets. It didn’t matter that her back was against the door, she still felt a thrum of fear that came from being outnumbered. 

She crossed the room on wooden legs, dumping the wood beside the fireplace. Mari had scratched into the stone bye bitches with something sharp. 

Jackie jumped a little at the sound of wood falling. One piece made a particularly striking smack when it bounced against the wall. “You can stay. Not like we own this place. Right, Shauna?” 

Shauna rolled her eyes and brushed past Jackie to grab her bag, yanking it open and digging around for a tube of lip balm. Her silence was edgy, speaking volumes in the absence of actual words. 

Nat resisted the urge to roll her own eyes. She nudged the wood a little neater into a pile with her foot and dropped down closer to the wall herself, lying on her back to stare up at the ceiling. Fear was a nasty pest. Lying still didn’t make it go away. Her heart only raced a little faster. Jackie’s Jackie, she tried thinking. Jackie doesn’t even handle a gun. 

Shauna… Shauna was bad history. And most of it was unwritten. Their current status was a muddy one based off of playing on the same team, interacting through stiff little what’s-up-who-are-you-with? at parties. Nat swallowed. To give her credit, Shauna usually had a molten fuck you whenever Tai or somebody tossed a comment a little too real in Nat’s direction. 

Bad situations made bad people. Nat was the only truly bad person around now. Everyone else? Blank slate. 

“Pretty sure everyone went down to play volleyball,” said Jackie. “You’ve got that mean spike, right?”

Nat cracked her eyes open. “You hear that?”

“No?” Jackie scrunched her face up a little, confused. 

“Exactly.” She breathed out. “Isn’t it nice?”

Shauna’s mouth did a funny thing like she wanted to smile. “I think Coach is enjoying his freedom without Misty following him everywhere. Tough break, getting dumped by Quigley of all people.” 

That was one more perk to their situation. Let the others try at getting out of the wilderness. Nat had steered them in a better direction, hopefully pushing them to their best avenue possible. No bloodied rivers, no wolves… fate was a damaged bitch and she was trying to mend up the rips where she could, pricking her own thumb for the effort it took. 

And she wasn’t going to deny that space from Misty wasn’t nice. 

Jackie laid down on the floor herself, hair sprawling up in a cloud of mixed colour. Nat took special delight in bleaching the natural colour from her own hair, and Jackie’s hair interested her. It was lighter, bleached slightly by the sunlight. Not quite brunnette, not quite blonde, just somewhere in the golden region of the colour wheel. Shauna sat down crosslegged a little apart, her own dark hair sliding around her shoulders. “It looks like a rabbit,” Jackie said, lifting her finger to point up at a stain on the ceiling. 

Nat needed to squint accordingly and adjust the angle of her head to see it. “Yeah. The ears, right?”

The cabin was covered in little marks and scuffs. Beyond a deer’s head stuffed and mounted on the wall, the decor was really just the impressions of age on a physical place. But it had evolved a little. Mari dug her mark over by the fireplace, Lottie had accidentally smashed her suitcase against the doorframe coming in and left a ding there. If Nat slashed her knife across the wall, it would match all her invisible scars. 

“I always wanted those glow in the dark stars for my bedroom,” Shauna said suddenly. “I always thought they looked so cool.”

Jackie rolled her head to look at her. “I didn’t know that.”

“You don’t know everything that I want.”

A beat of silence hit. Nat questioned her choices that guided her to hanging out with Jackie and Shauna together. Without Tai to play neutral party, they were awkwardly side by side but undeniably still separated. The suffocating fear was fading fast to the overwhelming feeling of discomfort at being a third wheel.

“The stars would’ve looked so cool on your ceiling,” Jackie finally decided. “I don’t think you’ve ever seen Shauna’s room, Nat. Her mom converted the attic for her so the walls are angled and everything. I was so jealous of her room that I used to beg my mom to let me move into our attic, but she always said no because that’s where the Christmas decorations lived.”

Confusion lit Shauna’s face up. Her fingers twisted a lock of her brown hair, forming a temporary ring. “You were jealous of my room?” 

“Obviously. Don’t be so dense, Shauna. You’ve got pretty good taste.” She gave a little smile. “Your mom put up all that wallpaper and stuff, it was like living inside of a tent that was inside of a house. It was kind of magic.”

Nat had only gotten a glance of Jackie’s bedroom once. A team sleepover meant crowding around the living room at her place, shoving the furniture to the sides of the room just to fit everyone on the floor, carefully eating pizza on an expensive white carpet. And she’d gone upstairs to use the washroom that night. Jackie had left the door to her room partially open, tempting enough that Nat stood with her fingers on the doorframe and not a step inside the place, content with just looking. 

It had looked like the kind of place that was safe from bad dreams. Some kind of magic, Nat thought in agreement. 

And then she turned on her heel, walked down the stairs, and wedged herself back between Lottie and Van, practically identical to the current set up. 

Shauna slid down to lie down on the floor, suddenly alright with blending into a trio. “I don’t see anything,” she said. “How’d you see a rabbit from a water spot?”

Nat let her gaze slide across the ceiling. Dusty beams interrupted her vision but she kept looking until she saw something. “Hey. That one kind of looks like a bear.”

They both had to slide their bodies around to see exactly what Nat was pointing at. “It looks demented,” Shauna said, not disagreeing. 

“I think I like my rabbit more.” 

“Why didn’t you go with them?” Shauna asked after a beat of silence. “You’re a whole different person out here.”

“Group dynamics? Not my thing,” Nat said briskly.

“Could’ve gotten some one on one time with Travis. Speaking of which,” said Jackie, rolling onto her side and propping herself up on her elbow, “why aren’t you all over him? He’s pretty much your type.”

“I don’t have a type.”

“He’s a little dense, sure, but that’s something you could work with.” 

“You’re a shit Cupid.” 

The door slammed open right when Jackie went to say something, Lottie showing up soaking wet, her hair turning the collar of her shirt dark. “You guys are missing it,” she announced loudly. “We’re getting crushed out there and our team needs back up support.”

“I hate volleyball,” Shauna told her seriously even as she pulled herself upright. 

“You hate all the things you’re good at,” Jackie said lightly. She followed them out of the cabin, leaving Nat to lie inside of the tomb of her own mind. The silence poured over her, dragged fingers over her scalp, folded itself against her. Nat’s hand felt very warm, suddenly aware of the exact distance that had laid between it and Jackie’s own hand. 

Darkness crept over the trees slowly, grazing the branches tenderly before breaking, sky melting from an orange wash to indigo. Nat sat stoic on the steps, watching. The trees couldn’t move without her notice, the wind couldn’t toy with the brush without catching her attention. Their clearing around the cabin was tidied up, bushes hacked back for easy material to start fires with, wood piled up to dry. They domesticated their patch of hell. Beyond it? Nat was blinded by how far the wilderness went. Trees stretched like a wall. Every branch seemed lined with thorns. The great rocky slabs of mountains looked like teeth. 

The few stars in the sky were faded in contrast to the fire burning across from her. It was dying, wood reduced to a white husk that begged to crumble to ash, and she was making sure sparks didn’t ignite any of the dry grass around it. The smoke from the fire filled her head with awful things. When Ben burned the cabin down, it left them with a wreck to survive around. Half melted bits of metal, the sculpted mouth of the fireplace, charred remnants of a table… Nat leaned herself against the wooden support and gazed up in vain to stop thinking about that night, the way her feet stumbled out in the snow, all that acidic smoke pooling in her lungs. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” Lottie said, creeping up behind her to sit on the step as well. 

“Gotta pay a lot more if you want my thoughts.” 

“Shoot. Left my wallet back home. Can I give you an IOU?” 

Nat said nothing. Her gaze felt hooked to the sky like she was waiting for something. Lottie hummed lazily, wiggling her bare toes. The summer heat melted into a coolness from the dark, a lucky break. “You know any of them?”” She gestured for the stars. 

“Never been on first name basis with any of them before.” Lottie tipped her head a little and considered the bodies above them. “Pretty sure the one of the left is a George.” 

Her mouth unwillingly tugged into a smile. “Sure. George.”

Laura Lee split out of the trees like a pale candle. Her hair was damp from a late-night swim, a blanket tugged around her shoulders as a makeshift towel. A light breeze broke from the trees behind her and Nat heard the quick call of some kind of songbird from somewhere, and there-and-gone-again song. “Is this a separate party from the party inside?”

“Yeah. I’m trying to talk Nat into sharing her contraband.” Lottie made a show of huffing. “I know you’ve got that flask kicking around somewhere.” 

“Totally empty,” Nat said, lying. “Drank it down to the last drop after the plane crashed. Hey, I hear that alcohol is an excellent coping strategy when your plane crashed in the middle of no where.”

“I feel like there’s harder stuff for a decent coping mechanism,” Lottie joked and unintentionally jabbed at soft parts buried under scabbed up knuckles and scared skin. 

It stole her voice from her own throat. Nat’s mind went blank. She couldn’t risk thinking of anything, couldn’t dare let herself remember the times she overdoses accidentally and on purpose, the times she got wild off of pills and a few drinks, the nauseating first moments that came with being sober… everyone got to go home after their rescue. 

She made herself a home at the bottom of a bottle. 

Nat rubbed the mark on her forehead, feeling for that dull flare of pain. As it healed, it hurt less. 

She hated it for it’s ability to heal. 

“Do you think they’re okay?” Lottie asked after a moment, focused on Laura Lee. Her pale hair looked muted in the dark. 

“They’re in God’s hands now. All we can do is have a little faith in their abilities to work as a team.” 

“Pretty sure Tai’s never taken home a report card that says ‘works well with others’ before.” 

Laura Lee shrugged. “Well. He has two hands. That should be enough to handle her.”

“It’s been a couple days. I’m worried about them… how long do you think it’ll be before they hit a road or something?”

“When we were flying—” Laura Lee paused and sat down on a step below them, twisting to stare up at them. “Right before the plane started to fall? I remember looking out the window and seeing so much land. No houses, no towns… I thought it was pretty. Everything looked like a patchwork quilt when we left the airport.” Her fingers caught the edge of the blanket and she jerked it up, offering to Lottie quietly to share the warmth of it. “I think we are a long way from anywhere right now. This is a country without individuals.”

“There’s always some stupid hiker off the beaten path. Maybe they’ll collide,” Nat pitched in awkwardly, head hurting faintly. “Someone has to get lucky.”

Lottie wiggled the blanket over some, including Nat to their cocoon of faint warmth. 

The agreeable silence provoked a question from Nat. “Why did you give Van your lucky rabbit’s foot?” 

“Felt like she needed it. Why’d you send Tai east instead of south?”

“Felt like she needed to go that way,” she countered, prickling. 

“You’re the worst liar, you know. You put so much effort into keeping your face straight, it gives you away every single time,” Lottie informed her, elbowing her. “Don’t start a poker habit, you’ll never make it big— holy shit.”

Misty, Akilah, and Mari staggered through the trees.

A cold understanding sunk teeth into Nat’s heart. 

“You’ve got to help,” Mari moaned, face crumpling beneath exhaustion and sweat. “They’re still—”

“Guys!” Lottie shouted, jumping to her feet. Her shout called attention from the people inside, Jackie and Shauna first, the awkward shape of Ben trailing behind. 

“Oh my god,” Jackie whispered. 

“Where are they? Where’s Van and Tai?” Shauna demanded, face drained of colour. 

What was the point of watching the fire? A single spark could chew up everything. It didn’t matter. Nat stood slowly. Nat felt her pulse hit a furious pace, could feel it through the bones of her body. 

Misty looked confused in her shock. “She— she told us to leave them. We had to go and get help.”

Laura Lee looked undaunted. She stepped forward. 

“Show us which way to go.”

Nat sprinted. The woods bent to clear her passage and she tore through unhindered, barely aware to Shauna on her heels. Some of the girls carried sputtering oil lanterns with them and they were faint markers of light in the gloom, barely chewing back the shadows to reveal tangled roots, dangerous places to get caught up. 

“Tai! Taissa!” Shauna screamed, hysteric in her urgency. 

And Nat shouted Van’s name over and over again, body humming with her own kind of hysteria. 

“Are you sure you came this way?” She heard Laura Lee demand, voice coloured with the slightest frustration. Patience was godly, but unfortunately the woods had no room for Laura Lee’s God. 

“I… I don’t know! It’s too dark, I can’t see anything now…” Misty whirled around and Nat reluctantly slowed her charge, one arm shooting out to catch Shauna before she slammed onto a dew slick slope to the ground. 

“Try harder,” Nat choked out. “You were the one out here. Does any of this look familiar?”

“They’re just trees,” she sputtered. “I don’t know!”

“What direction did you come from?”

“I don’t know.”

“Van!” Jackie shouted. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted louder, demanding to be heard. 

Red light burst in response. The flare gun whistled as it shot up before popping, red smoke fizzing up in a smooth arch. It highlighted the space ahead of them, coloured the canopy of trees. 

“It’s them!”

Nat’s whole vision went blind. She broke herself against branches suddenly, no longer coherent of her passage. She tore the skin across her knuckles when a tree jutted in her way, tripped over a loose rock. The only thing she was capable of seeing was Tai and Travis.

And Van. 

Van was bent across Tai’s shoulder, face hidden beneath bloodied bandages. Her arm moved limply to catch herself when Tai collapsed, barely staying upright on her knees to keep them from hitting dirt. The flare gun was in her spare hand, Travis trying to pull them back up, pair of them struggling under the weight of a person dying—

Everyone was screaming. She heard it like a long siren as she came forward and shoved Travis away, forcing herself against Van’s side. She hauled her up and felt the awful stickiness of blood, the way it came through her clothes. “We can fix this,” her mouth said slowly, piecing each word together like it was a foreign language. “Akilah can sew you together again.”

Van moaned in response, head hanging down. 

“You’re not going to die,” Nat said, dragging Van and Tai along. If the forest was a sea, they were the drowning sailors. Someone had to keep them afloat. “This is fixable. You’re gonna survive this part. The wolves— some overgrown dog isn’t going to put you out of business, Van.”

“Wasn’t a dog,” Tai spat, exhausted. Her skin was wet from a mix of tears and sweat. 

“I know.” 

Shauna tried taking Tai’s position but was shoved away. “You sent us east,” she said, voice thick with accusation. “Said— said it would be a good idea. A good feeling.” Tai had a smear of blood across her cheekbone, obviously Van’s blood. “You sent us there.”

Van’s fingers curled against Nat’s chest. They were dragging her, Van’s feet barely moving to keep pace. She squeezed a limp fist on nothing like she was holding onto something. 

“I didn’t know there’d be wolves if you went east!” Nat wrenched out, betrayed by her own choice. 

They had gone south first and her change in direction hadn’t changed anything.

“There weren’t any wolves,” seethed Tai. She clenched her teeth and forced them faster, marching and rushing, chasing down the light ahead. A faint scent of smoke coloured the air. Nat knew they were getting closer to the cabin. The trees trembled overhead like they were smothering a laugh. 

Nat could taste that smoke. Blood coated the inside of her mouth. 

Finally they got Van into the cabin. It took three of them to lift her onto the table, barely comforted by a blanket stretched across it. Jackie dabbed weakly at her skin, trying to banish some of the grime and sweat while Akilah pinched a fish hook with tweezers, holding it over the a flame of a candle to sterilize it. 

“This isn’t like embroidering a pillow case,” she told them wearily, trying three times to thread it properly. “I never figured out how to get the French knots right. My mom always had to fix them for me— she had a trick to getting them right and I never figured it out.” 

“Shut up,” Tai snapped at her before bending over the table, whispering something into Van’s ear. 

“Hey. In and out, okay?” Nat told her, thinking about Saint Mary’s. “You’re just scared right now. Doesn’t mean you can’t do this.” 

Akilah gave her a wide eyed grimaced and exaggerated deep breathing for her benefit before nodding at Tai, suddenly ready. 

“You’re gonna be okay. She’s going to fix this and we’re going to New York, we’ll do it all right,” Tai said, gripping the sides of Van’s head firmly. “And we’ll go to other places, too. Montreal. You’d like Montreal.” 

The needle wiggled a little, Akilah forcing it through the flesh that remained of Van’s cheek. It summoned an awful moan in response, Van’s mouth clenching visibly. She tugged it to the other side, fingers clenched on her tool. She then tightened, forcing the skin together. Making the hurt worse for the sake of recovery. The next stitch drove Van to cling to the sides of the table with her hands. And the third stitch was finally tore Van from consciousness, eyes rolling straight back, simply flesh and sinew to be worked at. 

Nat looked up and saw Laura Lee clinging to a book for stability. Some of the girls were praying behind her, hands clutching hands for balance, and she wasn’t with them. 

And that book… Nat forced a second look, vision tinted red from all the blood, and flinched at what it was. 

It wasn’t a bible. 

She walked through the trees and wanted to be near daylight again, wanted the reassurance of a sun lifting up. That was always her problem, Nat thought. She wanted more and more every single time she got a crumb of something. Her feet took her to the plane. The night, now quiet without the pulse and boom of a flare gun, guided her patiently. She felt a ghost of Van’s hand curl against her shoulder, that limp fist hanging over her heart. 

The faint sliver of a moon highlighted the body of the plane. It was a humble piece of equipment and Nat had an eye to appreciate it now, was capable of hoisting herself up and touching the wheel with her fingertips. Playing around with the guts of a car was a bit different from intentionally slicing at the brain of an aircraft, but if Nat was ever decent at anything, it was ruining a perfectly good working thing. 

She fumbled blindly for a panel and wedged it open with the edge of her knife, forcing it to snap open. Every action felt reverberated through the shadows, noises amplified. Once open, her fingers began feeling for wires. Every mechanical thing resembled a body to a degree. Nat knew an interior based off of the veins, a heart. And then there were the joints, a tricky nervous system, fluids that leaked just like blood. 

Her dad sometimes got work on cars. Nat used the bulk of her settlement for the nicest car she was capable of imagining. Sometimes it was easier to pop the hood open herself and peer down, imagining what her dad would say if he was looking at it. 

The controls were splayed out. Faint moonlight helped guide her hands so Nat could trace a decent pathway, judging the best kind of damage with the least amount of effort. Laura Lee had switched the plane on before, proving that the engine was functional to some degree. Nat needed to dismantle the ability to fly without obviously butchering the unit. 

If someone was going to cut me open, Nat imagined to herself while reaching in and pinching one specific wire between her fingers, they would have to keep me from running first. 

It wasn’t enough to just nudge fate a little. She had to dig deep, form an undeniable refusal to proceed with her old timeline. Get off the plane and don’t ever come back. Maybe this was what she had meant all along. 

Cutting a wire would kill their hope. 

A cold wind came against her face, making her shiver. Nat had done plenty of awful things. There was enough, actually, that she couldn’t quite nail down the worst of the worst on her personal list of sins. But she hadn’t forgotten what it felt to see Laura Lee take flight, engine thrumming at full capacity as she made her incline into the sky, wings wobbling… that gentle shape of flight leaving them all behind. 

Hope was a bitch, just like grief was.

The memory automatically blistered through her skull, shooting sharp pains down her neck and shoulders. Nat shut her eyes because she was capable of working blind, had never once needed to see just to make a cut. 

She shifted her hand, wire pinched between two fingers, and wedged the blade into the tight space. 

Nat slid the knife straight through the wire and remembered how the explosion popped the shell of an airplane into a fireball, washing the sky out under a veil of flames. 

Nobody really slept in the remnants of the night. Nat heard the girls whispering softly from all corners of the room, heard the creaking of the attic above them while Shauna and Tai talked. Heard Van groaning from where she laid spent. She opened her eyes and saw Laura Lee staring at her, curled up with her knees tucked to her chest. “What?” She asked automatically, brushing her hand across her face. A bit of colour spooked her, a reddish smear on her fingers. She checked to make sure it wasn’t oil from the plane, redhanded proof to her betrayal, but it was just dried blood. 

“We need help,” Laura Lee admitted, voice wet sounding. “We need things. People who know how to do this.”

“Help would be nice right now,” Nat allowed herself to say, sliding herself a little tighter to Laura Lee to avoid being stepped on when Lottie trailed over to the water bucket for a drink. “Maybe someone saw the flare gun last night.” 

She rolled onto her back and then rose smoothly, drifting to the fireplace and patting it reassuringly with her hand. “I have an announcement.” Nobody perked up to listen. Laura Lee snatched up a spoon and smashed it against a metal pot, forcing their attention. “Hi! Excuse me! Thank you. In light of the expedition ending as it did, I’ve decided that… I’m going to take the dead guy’s plane and fly south. I’m going to find us help, and I’m going to get us out of here.”

The silence was immediate. And then Lottie broke, face tinted with a slight shade of betrayal, “You’re… gonna fly.”

“Don’t,” Nat said, forcing herself to sit up. Her head ached, splitting with a migraine of a terrible night and her memories. 

“You’re insane,” Mari told her. “I don’t remember flight courses being part of Wiskayok High’s finest education.”

“I’ve been studying the manual for weeks, and I checked the gas tank — it’s full. I used to watch my grandpa fly. He even let me steer a few times! I know that I can do this.”

“Sure. Maybe you’ll get upright. But what about the landing part?” Jackie pitched in, wide eyed. “We’ve got a terrible record with the landing part of planes.”

Laura Lee looked at Van’s body. “You can’t deny that Van needs serious medical attention…” Van’s face, somewhat visible, was shiny from fever. She grimaced a little, half aware of the conversation around her. 

Tai and Shauna climbed down from the attic together, summoned by the conversation. “You’ll never get that plane off the ground,” said Tai coldly. She went straight to Van’s side and touched her hand lightly, folding it between both of her hands. “We’re stuck out here.”

“I’ll die trying.”

“You’ll die for nothing.”

“Let her try,” Nat said suddenly, not wanting to get in a pissing match between Laura Lee and Tai. “What’ll it hurt? Either it’ll fly or it won’t.” 

Tai’s head snapped to glare at her. “Don’t. We’re in this mess because of you, Natalie. I don’t think we need your input on what’s happening.” 

“Dude. We’re screwed either way. Nat picked a shitty direction. She’s not the one who crashed our plane out here,” Mari suddenly pitched in, hair tangled from a sleepless night. “Give it a break, Tai.”

“I trusted you and we paid for it. Every single time you get involved, something gets fucked up. Jesus, fuck.” Tai swiped her fist across her mouth, livid. Her eyes were lit by fury. “There was a bear. It shredded Van, nearly killed her— you were the one who sent us out there.”

A bear. 

Her dream, that chaos--

Nat couldn’t summon a single word to her defence, but Mari was mouthy, standing up and waving a hand around the room. “ And where were you? You were supposed to be keeping watch while we slept! You’re the one who left us. You’re the one who showed up after the bear came through and attacked us!” She sniffed, haughty and cold. “How safe were we if you were taking a fucking walk somewhere?”

Tai reacted with a flinch, suddenly humiliated. Her mouth twisted into a grimace. 

“We’ve got to get her home,” Jackie pitched in faintly, eyes stuck on the shape of Van’s ruined form. “That’s what matters.”

“This is a sign. We found the plane for a reason,” Laura Lee agreed. 

Ben stood, looking nervous of the development of Laura Lee’s idea. The more support she gained, the quicker a stone would start rolling down a hill. “Okay, Laura Lee, you cannot do this. Nothing about that plane seems safe.”

“There is no ‘safe’ anymore, Coach. It’ll be winter soon. If I don’t do this, we’re all gonna… fucking starve.”

Everyone recoiled slightly from Laura Lee’s curse. Ben used his crutches to hobble closer, trying in vain to plant himself in a position of authority. “Look, I’m the only adult here, and I’m not gonna let you—”

“What are you gonna do to stop me?”

He cast a shaky look around the room but no one rose to take his side. They were all silently and passively watching, content to let Laura Lee put faith in the sky. How had Nat done this before? Laura Lee looked small. Her head was stuffed full of dreams and confidence, secrets Nat had never gotten to know about. And they let her pack up, fill a two seater plane with her bag alone, taking to the sky with nobody beside her. Her own previous compliance sickened her. 

It’ll be okay, Nat tried to convey to Ben. He looked ruined by his lack of ability to stop anything. 

Those three words filled her mind on an endless loop, even when Laura Lee used a knife to cut away some of the vines from the plane. Other girls circled to pick away at the obstacles, clearing the area out. A dusty runway was faintly visible beneath all the plant growth, a previous scar on the land that was trying to heal. 

“We should stop her,” Jackie said, suddenly hovering right in her ear. “This is nuts. This plane doesn’t look maintained, nothing about this plane screams sane.”

“You pretty much gave your vote of confidence. We have to get home? C’mon, Jack. That was an agreement.”

“I was just saying something to keep Tai from clawing your eyes out. You're welcome for that, by the way.”

“Let her.” A bear. Nat wrenched her focus on the roots, tugging at them with both hands. “It’ll be okay.”

Jackie stared up at the plane and her mouth trembled. “Laura Lee’ll never make it.”

“Have a little faith,” she muttered, finally clearing the mess. “And get out of the way.” 

There was enough progress that Laura Lee finally stepped back to admire the full shape of the runway, nerves shoving in her face. Her hands twitched like she was counting the steps in her head to start. But that fear, Nat saw, only vanished when Lottie cast a weak smile her way. Laura Lee rolled her shoulders back and looked up at everything like it was one single obstacle to overcome. 

Some of the girls dropped their things to watch Laura Lee scoop up her bag and stuffed bear. Nat remember Jackie talking about a stuffed rabbit, that wanting of something soft to hold onto. 

Some of the others cheered, patting Laura Lee’s shoulders. “Be safe,” Shauna tried thinly, fumbling to show confidence. “Hope the view’ll be good up there.”

“For God’s sake, don’t do this, Laura Lee,” Ben said loudly, stopping her by the door. 

“Thanks for worrying about me, Coach. But… this is my purpose.” 

Nat stuck herself close, gripping the door while Laura Lee climbed up to take her seat at the wheel. They made eye contact, silent, before Nat let the door pull close. 

It’ll be fine, she told herself. It’ll be okay. 

The engine switched on and everyone jolted back. Jackie was watching the propeller as it began to spin, lazily at first before a fast blur. The plane moved forward a single inch before whining, stuck before the long runway. Nat watched Laura Lee’s brow scrunch as she switched controls again, hands fumbling across the dash to force the plane to roll forward properly. 

She had severed that function herself. It couldn’t lift without momentum. 

Laura Lee shrieked at the plane from inside the pit. Her fist came up before smashing down on something, livid with the inability to force it to move. All her fear and confidence melted into rage, the fact that everything was lined up for success and yet unable to proceed. She wouldn’t roll forward. She wouldn’t steer it along the dirt runway. She wouldn’t guide the plane over the cliff and up into the air, she wouldn’t escape the country they were in. 

Her fist collided again and again with the dash, face lit with the fire of her own anger. 

It seemed especially cruel for someone like Van to die somewhere where the glow of the fire failed to resemble the glow of a television screen, stolen somewhere between sunset and sunrise. 

Chapter Text

Grief, that absolute and total bitch, ruined Tai. 

Nobody could hear Van’s final breath because Tai was shrieking and howling, tipping her face straight back and screaming up at the old water stains on the ceiling of the cabin. All they knew, really, was that something had finally broken beyond any repair. Van’s mouth wasn’t smiling. Her face was slashed up and ruined, hair dark and matted from her own blood, and she wasn’t going to heal from it. The damage wouldn’t get to to turn to a scar. She wasn’t going to pick herself up and carry on. The body could only take so much damage. 

Nat couldn’t drag her stare away from Van’s unmoving feet. They weren’t rubbing together, was absolutely still. Van was always the one on the team incapable of sitting still, fingers needing to twist a Rubik’s cube around even if she never actually cracked the code to aligning the colours, constantly burning in an effort to expel her energy. It barely even made sense, her mind sluggishly thought, putting her in the goal. Out of the whole team, she was the one who needed to run the most. 

“Oh,” she said very quietly, hardly audible under the raging sound of Tai’s grief. This time they would have a body to bury. Everything was practically the exact same except for the fact that her guilt had increased to a brand new level. 

Good intentions meant nothing out in the wilderness. 

It was her fault every single time. She couldn’t lift a hand to ward off pain without doubling it somehow. 

Laura Lee staggered back and mumbled a choked prayer. Some of her hair was sliding loose from her headband and she looked like a Victorian ghost straight out of a movie. A movie, Nat knew, that Van could’ve named off the top of head. Give her a single reference and Van could figure it out, no matter how obscure or foreign. If Nat was going to hide herself under layers of drink and drugs, Van was going to lurk somewhere beneath film. They both had their safe places. That’s what kids from broken homes did when they grew up a little. Found safe places to break apart again and again—

“God,” Laura Lee said into her bruised hands, speaking to the room, maybe, or suggesting some sort of plea to someone above. 

A dead body in the room absorbed the faint light coming through the window. Their collective awareness that Van Palmer was dead and gone rippled around the room and she felt it like a physical wave, knocked slightly when Mari tipped against her shoulder, struggling to inhale around the tightness in her throat. Ben’s muffled curse came from one corner of the cabin and was carried over, repeated by a few of the others. 

Her skin burned. Everything hurt, technically. Like grief had dug itself somewhere inside her and she needed a knife to cut it out properly. It was Nat’s fault. Her only purpose was ruining everything, was taking a wrecking ball and smashing perfectly fine things and people. She needed to stop before someone else became a consequence. 

Misty scrambled forward, naturally mixing herself into a tragedy, trying to put her hands on Van and feel for something. 

But Tai was senseless. She dragged the body back against her own, provoked and with her teeth clenched. “Do not touch us,” Tai bit out, voice hot with a threat. “Do not come any closer.”

“She’s gone, Taissa. We have to do something,” said Misty, her own voice pitched upwards like she was asking a question. 

“What are you gonna do?” Her laugh was rough. It scraped itself over Nat’s exposed nerves, battered itself against the walls of the cabin. “What’s the perfect fix? You think a freaking bandaid and some Aspirin will fix this? Van isn’t breathing. She’s— she’s not here anymore! You can’t fix death, Misty! Nothing in your Red Cross training taught you about putting life back inside someone who died, right? This won’t get better, she’s never gonna get better. This is all she's ever gonna be!”

“We should wrap the body or something, maybe clean her up a little…” Misty trailed off weakly, stuck under Tai’s harsh glare. 

“Shut up! Just shut up!”

But Misty was provoking something dangerous and seemingly unable to stop. Maybe she grew up jamming a fork inside of a toaster, maybe she spent enough time playing on railroad tracks that it made her numb to consequences. Nat didn't know why she was so determined to try and push against the wall of Tai's emotions. “We have to make her look like Van again. This isn’t who she is. If we put her in her uniform, maybe she’ll look like herself again.” 

Laura Lee suddenly buckled beneath grief. Her knees hit the wooden floor and she was bent over, struck by the awfulness of it, completely untouched by the heat of the room. Her hands clamped down over her mouth tighter like she was trying to suppress her own cries. Tears streamed freely down her face. Mari, in response, twisted away like she couldn’t stand to be a witness of a hurt so fresh. Her own face blanched. 

Nat touched Mari’s arms lightly and Mari, in turn, clung to her wrists. They temporarily braced each other, heads bent together, and it was a little easier to keep breathing when she wasn’t looking at Van’s perfectly still feet, Laura Lee’s despair, the proof building up that their situation was shit. Mari’s shirt smelled faintly of perfume and Nat tried grounding herself where she could, feeling the absolute least just to stay upright. 

But the last time they had been so physically close together was when Nat and the group killed Mari. The memory made her feel nauseous, forcing herself to release Mari. She staggered back and collided into Melissa’s side, nearly crushed Gen’s foot under her boot. More guilt added higher and higher. Akilah’s sob was familiar. It all rung inside her head.

“She wanted to do New York together,” Tai said faintly. “We had a plan.”

Yeah, Nat thought. Van had ideas for the future, like trading her mom’s wedding ring for some easy cash and snagging a camera. When did that pipe dream change? The grown up Van she knew built herself a trashy little rental spot, cozying right up with old movies and a limited clientele. Can you imagine? Being stuck in one place, for like ever? Because Van had. They all split post rescue and she burrowed down into her own trenches. Didn't step a foot outside of the box until the very end. 

“You need to take it easy,” Shauna said smoothly even as her chin trembled. “Stand up. Let us help you. All we was to do is to help.”

The sound of Tai’s screaming came right back in an instant. It stole the air from the cabin, took every scrap bit of light possible from the rising sun outside. It dug into Nat’s skin and found where she was hurting the most, that soft mess of chambers and blood flow under her ribs, and clung there. Nat would never be free of that sound. 

So she left. 

She tore out of the cabin like her soul was on fire and kept on walking. Nat went blind, not even carrying her gun or a knife. The only things she had was the greatest currency possible in a place with absolutely nothing, her flask and cigarettes. Collective living standards with teammates meant shoving her contraband in her pockets just in case someone got curious and started digging through her bag. She, an addict, carried her burden daily like she was stashing rocks in her pockets before jumping into a river. Keeping her hands clean felt like an achievement considering she wasn’t even earning a chip for the progress. 

Her hands now compulsively handled the chore of lighting the first cigarette. Smoke sank down her throat and she coughed, wincing at the burn. And then Nat was leaning against a wide tree and sliding straight down, letting gravity pull her to rest amongst the rot of everything. 

Lifting her head was impossible. The cigarette pinched between her fingers became her entire world, that orange-cherry glow momentarily blinding her. 

It felt good giving in. It felt better when that cigarette burnt her fingers, dwindling down to almost nothing, so Nat went ahead and lit her second cigarette off of the dying one. Chain-smoking was a luxury in the Scatorccio family. If cash flow was good, maybe there’d be food in the fridge, diesel topped up for her dad’s truck. Definitely cigarettes to waste instead of rationing. Her parents liked gorging their appetites off that smoke, liked getting dizzy from the taste of something burning. Pinched economics meant stretching a pack of cigarettes out until the next one could be purchased, a necessity. 

And Nat was her father’s daughter. Was a perfect match to the dead thing in the grass outside their trailer. Knew him best by the blood and gore splattered everywhere, a decent twin to what she saw when she looked in the mirror. 

She smoked the way her dad taught her. 

And when she slowed down, head throbbing, she fished out the flask from her pocket. Gave a sneer and salute to the version of herself that packed her bag for nationals and figured the contraband was necessary. Couldn’t survive a weekend without something to spice it a little, had to supply a little whisky to cope with everything. 

Tai was right, she realized. Nat was unbalanced. She never wanted anything because that meant implying that she needed something. A future? That wasn’t in the books for someone like her. 

Surviving was a mistake. Surviving had cost everything once and now it was demanding more. 

The taste of alcohol reminded her of different places. Nat closed her eyes and let herself think of Travis and bourbon. Cheap beer swindled from a senior at a party. The fizzy, sweet drinks Lottie supplied sometimes. Van tipping a red plastic cup in her direction from across a table. 

She swallowed down more of the drink until nothing was left and then she hurled the flask away. Screamed at her empty hand. Kept smoking until Jackie was the one stumbling through the trees looking for her, light all slanted as morning melted into afternoon, sky suddenly unrecognizable. 

The sun, truly, was brand new. Nat had never seen a sun in a world in which Van was dead. 

No matter how familiar and recognizable it was, how the burn in her stare was no different from the one yesterday or the one twenty five years in the future, it was completely different. 

“Go away,” Nat demanded, flicking ash away from her cigarette and stashing the final one left in her pocket with the red lighter. “I’m not screwing around, Taylor.”

But Jackie was holding her ground. Her face was twisted in anger. “Get up. Jesus, stand up right now.” 

She thought about saying no. That word sat on the tip of her tongue, ready to be spat out. 

But somehow, despite herself, Nat’s body reluctantly rose to stand. She struck her hand out to catch her balance on the tree before stepping down from the bed of twisted roots, slowly drawing herself closer to her captain. The whole woods around them felt on edge. “Does this make you happy? Is this good enough for you?” Nat asked, voice vibrating from the mess of emotions circling around her head.

Jackie looked torn between wanting to kick something or to start crying. “What is happening here?”

Nat clenched her jaw and had to force the words out, “I’m not digging this grave. Go find someone else to do it. Misty wants to be helpful? Let her pick up a shovel and dig for a bit.” 

“Why didn’t the plane work?”

“How should I know?” Her mind was stuck on the mechanics of grave digging. They only had to cobble a shitty cross out of some scrap wood for Laura Lee. The plane vanished under a fireball, leaving no trace of the girl behind. And she packed all her possessions, leaving them with nothing for the sake of her memory. Van was just a body now and eventually it needed to be buried, had to go underground deep enough where the predators couldn’t get to it, that her bones could rest undisturbed. “Why don’t you go hang off of Shauna? You wanna be her number one person so bad? Great. I think Tai’s a little distracted right now. Probably got a clean shot at taking back your position.”

Jackie leaned towards her. A cheap shot didn’t even make her flinch. “Why didn’t the plane work?” She asked again. 

This time Nat heard the accusation and bristled accordingly. “Why the hell would I know? I’m not a genius with a degree in aerodynamics or something. Go take your issues up with the flight guide.”

“It should’ve worked.” 

“That thing was glued together with rust! Don’t fucking blame me for shit.”

“Something isn’t right here. I know there’s something off about you.”

“Are you being serious?” Nat spat roughly, dizzy from the pulsing rage. “That plane wasn’t exactly first class quality. It’s junk! Someone left it out here to rot. You’re not seriously blaming me for it, right? Because it didn’t magically work? You literally told everyone yesterday that we’ve got a shit record for flying. A plane not working? That’s not brand new for us. How the fuck is this my problem?” She spun away from Jackie and drove her hand against a tree, a mirror to Laura Lee slamming her fist against the controls. The pain came up like relief. She nearly crumpled from satisfaction. “What am I supposed to say, anyways? That I, what? Scrambled some buttons? Plugged in a few things backwards? whatever. Fuck you, Jack.”

She felt Jackie’s eyes on her. Heard when she stepped closer. 

“It was working fine before.”

“Laura Lee has driven a tractor, like, twice. Never even got her license for a car. Maybe, just maybe, something broke when she fucked around with the thing.” She remembered Van’s torn up hands, the result of tossing herself out of the way from the propeller. Stuck herself deeper in the lie. Had she left some vital evidence behind? A sign under the control board reading ‘nat ruined everything no big surprise here’? “Why should I defend myself to you over this? Is this why you've been following me around? Because you think I'll do something crazy? Jesus, dude. I was pretty used to you and all your friends back at school calling me a whore, but this? Brand new level of psycho. Congratulations.” The shape of her anger was terrifying. Nat could barely see straight. And it was almost funny because she had no reason to be so mad. “Why aren’t you blaming Laura Lee for at least half of this bullshit? I'm not the idiot who thought I could hop up in a plane and fly it.”

“Oh my god, can you just stop talking and listen to me?” Jackie demanded, grabbing her roughly by the arms and squeezing tight to hold her in place. “That plane should’ve gone up. And Laura Lee was going to die.”

Icy coldness drenched through her system. It froze her beneath Jackie’s bruising grip and kept her from shoving free and bolting, heavy enough it felt like her feet were stuck in blocks of cement. It was suddenly impossible to run. 

“What did you just say to me?” Nat wrenched the question out. The recent memory of a cigarette lingered against her tongue and made her lungs ache from the effort of breathing without smoke. 

“It has been full freaking circle out here. We’re back, again, and everything is how it was. The lake, that creepy shack— I keep thinking that I’ll wake up, that I’m gonna be home again, but I’m still here. I haven’t left, I can’t leave… everything about this place is the same except for you. You’re the only person in the group doing it different,” said Jackie in a low, shaking voice. 

‘I don’t remember you being like this before.’

The wild stood around them in dead silence. Nat struggled to think straight. What was she missing? A memory flickered of when she saw the cabin again. Everyone had gone straight up to it while she hung back, frozen under the spell of it. And it hadn’t been just her holding up. Mari had been at the door, Shauna beside her…

But Jackie kept talking. Her fingers felt like they were forged from metal. “This has to be because of you, Nat. You’re the only thing out here that’s gone off script or whatever. Van wasn’t supposed to die here, but now she’s gone. And I don’t know what you did to change fate, but it has to be your fault.” Jackie was colourless except for the smudges of purple under her eyes, the redness to her chapped lips. “Jesus, she was your best friend.”

Pain had a nasty habit of demanding to be felt and Nat felt all of it at once. Biting down on the inside of her cheek helped push away the urge to cry. Van was dead. Nat hadn’t realized it was going to be transactional, a body for a body, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t a saviour of anything. If blood was going to end up in the snow, it would be spilled by her own hands.

It had been a long time since Nat bothered calling someone her ‘best friend’. That was for the girls that had plenty, the ones raised with options. Nat didn’t have that. She knew the stubby, burnt lawn in the trailer park. She knew the way trash looked in the gutters after the snow melted, ditches rotting with garbage. She knew an empty fridge, the shoes that got taped up for a few more months of wear. Nat didn’t have best friends, didn’t have a best version of anything—

But it didn’t matter. Van was her best friend. 

She used to feel safe with Van. That was why Nat would haul herself up through her bedroom window, curling up against her side without a single reason why. If she needed a place in the dark, Van would leave a light on. 

Nat’s best friend was dead and it was entirely her fault. 

“Let go of me,” Nat said sharply. 

But Jackie was desperate, refusing to budge. “What did you do, Natalie?”

Natalie. She broke under the extra syllables. “How are you even here? How do you know any of this?”

“Because I died,” said Jackie, snapping each word out like they were bloodied and ruined. “I died and I came back. Nothing makes sense and I know that it sounds totally messed up, like I’m crazy, but I’ve done this all before. Our plane crashed, again, and I was just here! I died in one place and came back in my seat right when it was going down, I’m here because I already died.”

Chapter Text

“What?” Nat snarled. An awful feeling lashed through her. It felt a bit like dying, that way her heart went still and cold right at the end. She didn't like it. 

Jackie finally unclamped her fingers from around Nat’s arms and ducked back. “You heard me,” she said, sounding like a she was trying to taunt her. Like she was yanking down a mask to hide an insecurity. “What did you do to it? To the plane? Because it should’ve gone up, Laura Lee was supposed to die. I’m not crazy. You can’t stand here and honestly tell me that you had nothing to do with it.”

“I took a knife and cut some of the wires for the controls out.” It was her turn to white knuckle the truth now. “I figured that plane couldn’t explode if it didn’t go up.”

That stole Jackie’s words. Her mouth snapped shut. Compliant truth was enough to shut her down. 

It was Nat’s turn to want to grab Jackie and keep her from running, but she managed to keep her hands at her side, terrified of breaking the spell of the woods. Her head was swimming from drink and cigarettes, that loose snap of adrenaline collapsing in her chest. Nothing was making sense and somehow bits and pieces were lining up. 

“How’d you know to do that?” Jackie finally asked. She looked betrayed. 

“We’ve got plenty of shit in common. You’re not the only one who kicked it and came back,” Nat admitted, forcing a sneer. She didn’t want to spill out all the details. The body got left behind, not the shame. Never once had she tracked down a priest to confess her sins to. She wasn’t going to start giving that weight to Jackie. “I didn’t think it was a one or the other set up,” Nat added hotly, clenching her jaw. “Cutting those wires wasn’t supposed to lead to a dead body. I was trying to save someone.”

Jackie’s watery eyes stared at her. “You died?”

Nat reflexively took a step back, insufficiently braced for the hurt in Jackie’s voice. 

“Are you messing with me?” 

“No.” Nat swallowed. “I died.” 

“Is it just us? Are we all dead and back? Like some kind of really fucked up group experience?”

It was a struggle to wrangle the rising panic inside of her. Just the thought alone of the others knowing had her heart racing before cold logic could prevail. “They’re not like you and I,” she said, desperate to be right. It was hard enough hanging around the group and not reacting to a knife in someone’s hand. If Mari had a sense of the future? There was no was she wouldn’t just stab Nat in the back. A list of Nat’s crimes and sins were pretty stacked, and unfortunately most of the names on it sat at the same fire at the end of the day. 

Jackie physically turned away, needing the bulk of a tree to catch herself again. Her shoulders were bending forward and her free hand came up to press to her chest, halfway between standing and crumbling. 

“Did you even get out of this place?”

Nat looked down. “Yeah.” 

“And Shauna?” 

“She got rescued.” 

Jackie started to ask something else before she stopped, like she knew she was getting close to the fine difference between a list of names and a body count. She finally looked back at her. “Is this how it goes? Another cycle of this— of this fucking bullshit?” She asked, wrenching the question out. All of her sadness evaporated to rage, quick as a rabbit. “We die again and we’re right back at the start?”

“I don’t know.”

Her laugh sounded harsh and fake. “I really thought I was making it easier on everyone this time. If I just kept my distance and didn’t give them reasons to hate me, they’d have a better go of it, that it wouldn’t suck so much. What’s the point of this?” Jackie jerked her hand down from her chest and it curled into a fist, the shitty kind with her thumb tucked inside her fingers, liable to break if she tried hitting with it. “Did I even get to go home? Not me, I guess, since I died. But my body… did my parents get that much, at least?” Did I get that much?

Nat dropped her head down and struggled on an inhale. The air inside her lungs had frozen up. She couldn’t quite manage the fine mechanics of breathing. 

“They took back all the bones. The ones they could find, those are the ones that went back.” There wasn’t any hiding the bite marks. “Yours were safe— I kept them safe, Jackie.  They would’ve gone back. Your parents—” Nat stuttered, suddenly not quite sure. She wrapped Jackie’s remains up and carried them to the plane. And when spring came, ground suddenly pliable after all that cold, she scooped a shallow grave for them to rest in. She just never knew what happened after the search and rescue teams swept through, if the bones went from their hands to the Taylors for a proper burial. Blanking out on everything was how Nat coped when they got back. “They would’ve made sure you got buried.” That’s what people did when they loved someone. They tried to soften dirt to make comfortable, they assembled a marker to keep a name in place. And Jackie was the kind of girl who was loved, who would’ve had people to make sure that happened. 

“Bones? My— my bones?” Jackie asked raggedly. “What about the others? Their bodies?”

It felt like a hand was squeezing her throat. “It was all that was left.” 

“What happened?” Silence formed an answer to the question. Nat watched as Jackie’s face went white, a mixture of horror and anger playing out across her features. “There was nothing left but my bones,” she said, suddenly understand what wasn’t being said. Clarity was a burden.

“Yes.”

Jackie shoved further away, stumbling to get space. “Oh my god. You all hated me so much that you just split me open and— and ate me?” Her eyes, even when angry, were bright with tears. “Was it good? Did I taste good when you all broke me apart and ate your fill?” She sneered. “Come on, Natalie. At least tell me I was worth it.” 

She used to think it was anger that made her drink. That she had her dad’s temper, she might as well match it with his habit. 

But it really was just guilt. Guilt provoking her down a bottle. Guilt prompting her to reach for the next hit of something. Guilt had her chasing numbness. 

And guilt, that guilt, was choking her. Nat couldn’t speak around the grip it had on her, the way it was smothering the air from her lungs. 

“Tell me how this goes!” Jackie demanded. Now her voice sounded wet. “How long did it take before you all ate me? What happened to everyone else. Was it— did it end with me?”

Nat shook her head. 

Jackie stole another step back, further from reach. “And? What else happens to everyone?”

The pain inside Nat’s head was blistering and she couldn’t stop thinking about the future. It hurt, a white line inside her skull that matched the scar on her forehead. God, she thought blearily. She really hoped that Jackie didn't have the memory of her own death locked inside her skull. 

“Do you think I’m some kind of magic eight ball? That if you shake me, I’ll spell everything out for you?” Nat spat out roughly, finally able to speak around the grief. “You didn’t belong out here with us. That’s the thing that makes you different. Winter was shit. Everything that happened after? Total shit. You’re lucky you didn’t have to live it.”

It was just like Jackie said. She always had good aim. Nat knew how to make something soft into a target, could hit just as good with a bullet or a few words.

“Well,” Jackie said quietly, managing to force a smile. “You can’t do a thing about death, can you? Guess I’m next up on the metaphorical chopping block.”

It was her turn to take a hit. Nat sank back against a tree and watched as Jackie turned on her heel and left, darting through a slip in the brush. The loneliness sunk teeth into her. She couldn’t even feel the ground sliding beneath her feet, the way she dropped down in slow motion. All her attempt to breathe and calm down were shredded, she couldn’t fumble her way through the breathing exercises she learned from—

There was a blank spot in her memory. 

Nat remembered the place. Tai had sent her and promised it was more clinical than back to nature bullshit, that hiking around some trees was definitely not going to be the fix to cleaning her up. And she hated it, just like the other rehabs, because it left her with full sensation of everything. Totally sober and coherent to everything wrong with her. And even though she hated it, Nat had gotten along well enough with the program to stay clean for a whole six months after her exit. 

But the name was gone. She remembered everything, had absolute clarity, and couldn’t summon a name to the place. 

Why the fuck, Nat seethed inwardly as she gasped tiny inhales, could she remember peeling Mari’s scalp off and not this?

Tai’s fist smashed against her nose and someone screamed for Nat’s sake. 

Nat had gone back slowly into the cabin where Van’s body was still splayed out and was met with Tai’s own fury. She reacted to the violence by stumbling backwards and catching herself against a wall, shoving one arm up like a guard for her face. Her vision dissolved under white spots, cheek hurting from having bit it. All the emotions inside her were knotted together into something that felt like a noose and it only Nat a few seconds to make a decision and let herself swing. 

Smashing forward, she met Tai with her own fist. Felt the impact of skin against her knuckles. Fighting was a bit like finding herself stuck in quicksand. One hit just begged for another. And if she was going to sink all the way down to hell anyways, Nat might as well earn it. People shouting just served as a soundtrack, a fuel to a fire. Her vision exploded with colour and she spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor before lunging again.

It wasn't enough, hitting. She wanted to dig her fingers into skin and shred it back from the bone. 

Tai clawed at her hair and pulled. She was flung back, shoulder cracking against something. Nat blindly grappled for Tai and dropped a punch into her stomach when she was able, bouldering forwards. 

Something was going to break and Nat wanted to do the breaking this time. She wanted so much that it made her greedy.

“—your fault, it was your fault,” Tai warbled in her ear as they clawed at each other, swinging sideways and trying for leverage. 

It was Nat’s fault that Van was dead. It was undeniable. 

Somebody locked their arms around Nat and hauled her away. She hissed and tried twisting, looking to dislodge whoever had the advantage. Travis, her mind supplied. He was sensitive about his back. His left knee sometimes hurt, the souvenir of a shit stunt pulled with on a bike with some friends. Nat felt herself shift her weight and prepare to drive her foot against a weakness, to hurt him just so she could resume hurting Tai, wanting just a little more fire to warm her fist against. 

The white spots dissolved and showed the scene in painful clarity. Some glass plate, one of their few, was smashed into pieces on the floor. Tai’s mouth was red from blood, curtesy of a returned punch. She was being held back by Lottie and Mari, breathing thready from anger’s high. 

“That’s enough!” Shauna snapped at them both, driving herself between them like she could sense the thoughts inside of Nat’s mind. “This isn’t what she would want.”

“You don’t know that,” said Tai weakly. Blood dripped from her chin. 

“She was our friend. We’re going to hold peace and put her to rest because that is what Van needs right now.” 

“She’s dead.”

“I know, Tai. But this isn’t going to help her.” 

The arms around her went slack. Stupid, Nat thought. Her hand was fast. She could go for the knife at her belt and fling herself around Shauna. Lottie and Mari holding Tai would be enough of a delay that she could slash her throat. The first cut might be shallow, but Nat was fast, she had practise in that sort of thing. Hit first to stun, hit second to mean it. And if a third is necessary, you never learned your lesson. That was the kind of shit her dad liked muttering. 

Van’s hair was glowing from the light of the fire. Her face, in contrast, was grey and cold. They would have to be fast with the burying. 

Nat wrenched herself away and grabbed for the shovel leaning against the wall. Her hand ached as she clamped down on it, twisting around to glare at Tai. “I’ll dig the grave,” she said, because there wasn’t any denying it. She was good for the task. 

Laura Lee’s marker was supposed to be on the edge of the clearing. It had good light, Lottie like dropping little mementos when she could. Flowers, tiny stones… whatever looked pretty. Nat started digging at the dirt there. It made sense to repurpose the space. 

Blood dripped from her nose and splattered over the disturbed dirt, mixing together again. Nat kept digging. She scraped the shovel and tore up the rocks blotting through the soil. She kept digging and digging, the whole thing almost meditative once she started, and didn’t stop until the grave was deep enough. 

It had to be deep, Nat knew, so predators wouldn’t dig up the remains to satisfy a hunger. 

The shovel dropped from her hand when she was finished and she staggered back, finding a spot to sit. The hole in the ground looked like a mouth. She covered her eyes with a dirty, bloodied hand and tried to keep from crying. Without anger to focus on, hysteria was trying to bubble up. 

Maybe Nat would die again and come back. What would be worse? Everything staying the same or more agonizing changes? It could be a fucked up kind of hell to spend eternity to smooth out all her mistakes, or maybe there was infinite shots at getting it right. She didn't know what the point was, if it was worth trying to save some tears.

But it couldn’t be hell. She knew that in a single instant, that rational little thought bursting through her mind. 

Jackie wouldn’t be in hell. 

Sunlight draped low, skimming over the cabin. Soon it would be night. Nat heard the door creak open as Tai exited, felt her heart race a little at the sight of her approach. 

She caught the shovel and squeezed it in her hand, ready to swing it if necessary. “I hit back,” she snapped pointlessly, having already done so. She figured a threat was a bit like waving a white flag. You hurt me and I'll hurt you back. 

“I always figured you’d fight like trailer park trash,” Tai responded neutrally. 

“Only trash knows what trash is.”

“Funny. That’s something Van would’ve said.” Her brows arched a little. “Can I sit? Or do you’ve got a monopoly out here?”

She jerked a shoulder up. “Help yourself. What do you want?”

“I don’t know. Van’s dead inside. I can’t really— I can’t stand being inside with her,” Tai said. “That makes me a shit person, right? I should be able to sit with her.” She tipped her head back, cheek and mouth puffy from hits. “I just keep thinking that it isn’t really her anymore. That maybe her eyes are missing and how can she be Van if she doesn’t have her eyes?”

She wasn't looking for a follow up fight. Nat slowly released her weapon and it became just a shovel again. “I get it.”

“I was serious for her. You knew that, right?”

“Wasn’t exactly rocket science to figure out.” Nat felt uncomfortable and looked down at her hands. She didn't know what to do with them if they weren't going to start hitting each other. “You had one of her sports bras in your bag once. Plus you guys were always hanging around the locker room, waiting for us to clear out.”

“Was it really that obvious?”

“Only when you looked at her. Kind of a heart on your sleeve deal.” Her fingernails were blackened from the dirt, smudges of filth mixing with the red marks. Eventually she would have to face the audience of the cabin to get some soap so she could scrub up in the lake, try and wash some of the tragedy away. 

“She wanted to go to New York together.” 

“Yeah. You said there was a plan,” said Nat faintly, not quite able to summon the ability to look at Tai properly. 

“Van’s always been ready to lay her cards out on the table. I told her no.” Tai scratched at her wrist. “Said we both had stuff to think about. That if we made it a proper kind of deal, there’d be consequences. And I wasn’t ready for that sort of thing.”

Nat couldn’t judge that. It was hard being in a small town and it was easy to shove the emotion of shame in the same box as love. “I get it.”

“I should’ve been ready. I wasted time we didn’t have.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“It is. And this— the fact that she’s inside and dead?” Tai’s voice cracked a little. “That’s on you.”

She swallowed. “I know.”

“You had a bad feeling? Jesus. You were the one promising to fucking vacate Van’s future. I don’t know what the fuck this is,” said Tai. She sniffed and shot Nat a look. “Have you been drinking? Fuck, Natalie. I can’t even be surprised. You’re exactly who you have always been. Nobody is going to call you a hero just because you’re walking around with a shotgun. We could’ve gone south. It made sense going south! You pulled us the wrong way because of a fucking bad vibe?”

“I know,” Nat repeated herself. 

“We’re going to bury Van and I don’t want you near us.”

“Okay.” 

Shadows stretched fingers into that grave, pooled over the loose dirt and blood. The pair of them watched their own shadows dip into the grave as well. 

“I just… I don’t want to be awake anymore. I don’t want to be part of this.”

Nat forced herself to stand. “I get it,” she said thinly. “For what it’s worth, Turner? I’m sorry about your face.”

She exhaled lightly. Stared back at her. “Sorry you just lost your best friend,” Tai finally said, repeating Jackie’s earlier words. 

They hit just hard, but Nat’s pain tolerance had grown some. She didn’t fold around the hurt, managed to keep walking. She sloped a slow path to the cabin and met Travis by the steps, clenching her jaw. When she saw him, she tore a ring off her thumb. It left a stripe of pain from the force. “Make sure she has this when they bury her,” she told him numbly, thrusting it out for him to take. “Promise me that you’ll do it.” 

He cupped both hands around the ring, perplexed. “Van?”

“Yes.” He owed her. Nat took a ring off his dead father and now she wanted a ring on her dead best friend. Something to be with her. 

“Okay. I can do that.” Travis nodded. “Are you guys going to try and murder each other again?”

“Probably.”

“Maybe avoid having a witness?” He joked thinly. “Can’t be a murder if nobody knows about it.” 

There were a thousands things that Nat wanted to say to him. She instead went inside. A bar of flowery soap was by the bucket so she snagged it, barely able to stomach the sight of Mari bent over the broken plate. A tiny thing of glue was beside her elbow and she was busy trying to press fragments together, fingers white from holding pressure. She was trying to fix damage.

“This isn't on you,” Lottie suddenly said, lurking from behind. “You shouldn’t take blame for this.”

It would’ve been nice to believe Lottie, but her mind couldn’t quite submit to the lie. There were always going to guilt to accumulate, consequences to suffer through. “I’m going to wash up. I’ll be back in a little while.” 

“Want some company?”

“Not really.” 

It was nice how much Lottie trusted her. She didn’t say a word when Nat scooped up the gun with the soap. Merely held the door open with one hand, brows scrunched together in concern. A slit had been trampled into the clover and grassy area and she followed it along, turning from person to hunter in a single heartbeat, and slowly pulled off the trail. 

Downhill sprouted tiny little flowers. The colour stood out like individual beacons. Nat pulled the gun up properly and peered through the scope, gently tracking movement. 

Some of the girls were below. They had also wandered off of the trailhead in favour of ripping flowers up, forming muddy bouquets in their fists. 

Van was dead. There wasn’t any undoing it in this lifetime. 

And Jackie was right, technically. She was next up to die. Winter was coming and soon they would all be starving and feral, demented enough to rip into her body and consume every last piece. Twilight was rising up like a wall, a few slivers of stars just barely coming through, and the Yellowjackets would have to proceed quickly. Finish their little responsibilities, put Van to rest before her body began to rot. Nat had technically done the hard work, digging a hole, and now they had to soften the final bits. Flowers to go down with her, hammer a limp looking cross, wrap Van up in a blanket… funny how dying left behind more chores. An obligation to settle over love's sake.

Misty knelt beside Kristen. Her face was tipped up and she was beaming as she clawed a fresh flower up. Dirty roots dripped from below her clenched fingers. Nat couldn’t stop looking at her through the gun. Could barely pull her finger away from the trigger. 

From memory, Jackie was the one who had a perfect life. But Van was the one who bent her head close to Nat’s, after, and whispered the awful details into her ear. 'Misty threw her under a bus, but we were the ones behind the wheel.'

Chapter Text

Mari gagged when Shauna wordlessly thrust a bucket of larvae at her. “Oh, no. Absolutely not. I’m not going to be responsible for this culinary atrocity.”

“Seriously?” Shauna huffed back, stuck holding it still.

“Yup.” 

“There’s literally nothing else to cook up. I don’t think we get to have standards right now and act picky.”

Mari’s arched her brows and leaned back on one heel, glow of the fire to her back. “You wanna try and cook this? Go for it. I’m tapping out. There’s no way in hell you’re going to… five Michelin star this up.”

Shauna pursed her lips and visibly looked to consider dumping the bucket and it’s contents over Mari before she shouldered by her and grabbed the skillet roughly. “Maybe somebody should’ve thought about a spice rack or something when they were packing.” 

“Surprised you even know what spices are,” Akilah muttered against her cupped hand, stuck passively watching as the entire group sprawled around the cabin’s main floor, a bitter cold barely kept back by the fire burning. Every night the cold felt a little worse, a signal that the season was ready to shift into winter. “Bet you’ve got a salt and pepper shaker doing the hard work back home.” 

The hunger that lived inside Nat’s stomach constantly had evolved in it’s craving. She wanted the dirt cheap ramen noodles with a bottle of hot sauce, but the night before it was simply a cold soda and sleeve of crackers. Easy comforts. They used to talk about the foods they wanted the most before realizing it simply made the hunger worse, so now they were passively enduring it. They wanted what they couldn’t have. A conversation about it simply was like dousing a wound with vinegar. 

Shauna worked quickly, tossing a log into the fire to crank the heat up a little hire, sliding the larvae and grubs onto the worn surface of the skillet, expertly giving the thing a shake by the handle to keep it from burning. The fry up cast a sweet, smoky scent over the room. Nat tipped her head back and gaze at the room with narrowed eyes, a spectator to the silence. Shauna seized a worn pot holder, some relic of the previous occupant, when the skillet got hot and gave it another shake. At some point, far into the future, Shauna was going to evolve into the perfect kitchen wife. She'd butcher up some tiny animal and serve it, roasted to perfection, with possibly an apple stuffed in it's mouth. This was just practise. 

There wasn’t much life in the group in contrast. They had shuffled back from Van’s funeral miserable and spent, and that grief hadn’t gone away. Nobody was going to talk idly. It didn’t seem fair when Tai was around, when her knuckles were cracked and split from taking cheap shots, when Nat was hanging around with a bashed up face. 

Grief straddled a line between sadness and anger. Couldn’t feel much of one without the other. Getting the totality of that emotion off of Tai’s chest might end with more blood. It wasn’t worth it. 

So Nat kept like a spectator, awkwardly on the edge of everything, picking at the skin around her thumbnail. She had scraped the remaining polish off sometime after Van’s death, and now her fingernails were chewed up and red looking. Mari slumped over their dishes and piled them up, apparently willing to serve their limited dinner up, and started her end of the process. A ration was first dealt out and was delivered to Ben. And then Laura Lee, Lottie. The whole group received their share and Nat was curious, watching who waited to eat until everyone had their serving and who dug directly in, unable. 

It wasn’t an enjoyable meal. 

Jackie scoffed quietly at the bowl in her lap before setting it aside, not touching it. 

“Jax. You have to eat,” Shauna instructed wearily. She scraped the last bit into her own bowl.

“Why? Is there a point? Someone else can have my share,” said Jackie. “Hungry? You can have it, Shauna.”

“Right now? It’s about staying strong. You don’t know what’ll happen.” 

Jackie tapped the side of her forehead with her fingers lazily. “I think I’ve got it pretty much figured out, actually.”

Shauna slowly looked around at the rest of the group like she was searching for help. Laura Lee was sitting apart from everyone, mechanically scooping up burnt grubs with a fork and eating, so pale that she looked transparent. The conversation was completely beyond her notice. “We all have to eat what we can get,” she said to them, voice trying to inflict some kind of passion. 

Like the gap felt between them all could be ignored. 

Tai slid her fork across her plate to emit a terrific, horrible screech. It made Lottie flinch, nearly dropping her own meal. Tai then proceeded to replicate the sound for the sake of listening to it whine a second time. The space beside her was kept empty. Mari was keeping a healthy distance away, shoved hip to hip with Akilah, and shot her a glare of annoyance. 

Nat frowned. She could feel the tension rising within the walls of the cabin. She had consumed her ration without complaint, familiar with far worse. 

“Okay. I seriously can’t take this anymore,” Mari finally announced, setting her bowl aside and staggering up to collect a jar of murky, dark liquid from a dusty bin by the pantry.

Ben squinted at her in confusion. “I’m afraid to ask, but… what is that?”

She wrenched the lid open and sniffed at the contents, beaming. “I was trying to save some berries. But I think they might’ve… turned into booze? I don’t know about everybody else, but I could definitely use a drink right now.”

“Why waste it?” 

Jackie was peering up at Mari with faint interest. Her mouth even did an imitation of a smile. 

“What do you mean?”

“You made booze out of some sour grapes, Mari. We shouldn’t waste it on this,” Jackie said dryly, shoving her plate away. The contents had gone untouched. “Right now? All we have is each other. We might as well do some last supper bullshit and drink it properly.” She looked around. “Come on, guys. Who wants to be Judas?”

Laura Lee didn’t even react. She stayed exactly where she was, hunched over her meal, barely recognizing the conversation rising around her. Lottie leaned over and brushed her fingers over her thin shoulder and got no reaction. 

“Think it’ll be safe?” Tai asked hoarsely, fork frozen in her fist. 

Ben winced. “Do we really care at this point?” His authority seemed to have dried up. Looking at him hurt. Nat couldn’t stomach his stare, couldn’t tolerate the memories of eating him alive. What was safe, anyways? In a few weeks, they’d all be running around with sharp objects looking for the softest place to stab. 

“A special drink calls for a special occasion,” Jackie coaxed. 

“Not everything has to be a game,” Nat told her quietly, trying to separate her thoughts from the tangle of impending doom, the gritty fact that fate was sliding beyond her control. “Why don’t we just drink the cave man’s wine and call it a good night?”

Travis perked up a little. “I’m game for that.”

Mari started to pass the jar over, but Jackie shook her head. “How much of this stuff do you have?”

“A few jars,” she admitted, flushing. 

“Screw a game,” she said to Nat. “Let’s have one last great party. Rip the bandaid off and have a really good time while we’re all capable of it.” 

It took effort to keep her face blank, to hide all the anger. 

“You wanna bang some pinecones together and dance circles around a fucking tree?” Nat said, trying to diminish the idea. Already, though, she saw interest sparking up from around the room. Akilah had slid closer to examine the jar Mari was holding. The idea of a party was like a flame to a moth, and they were all so tired of being in the dark.

“There’s nothing to celebrate out here,” Laura Lee pitched in timidly, finally peering up. Dark shadows ringed her eyes. It made her hollowed cheeks more wretched looking, face gaunt from many sleepless nights. 

It was enough to soften Jackie’s mouth, ironing away her false enthusiasm. “We’ve never needed a reason before. We might as well have one last night together where it doesn’t suck.” She paused. “We’re just going to keep dying. Might as well enjoy a final night before it all goes away, right?”

Nat closed her eyes. She heard Misty add in, “there’s a full moon tomorrow night,” and Akilah say something about homecoming. Van was dead and it was her fault for not understanding the balance to it. They had to give a little in order to get something, that’s how it had always worked. Blood didn’t bleed for nothing. 

“We packed dresses, right? For the awards dinner?”

Jackie snapped her fingers. “There you go. We have alcohol, we have dresses. We can even decorate a little. Make this place a totally hot Moon Homecoming.”

“Call it what it is,” Nat cut in. “You’re planning on fixing up a doomcoming party and it’s stupid. Let’s just drink the booze we’ve got tonight and save a bit of time.” 

“You want to vote on it?” Jackie offered. “All in favour of partying one last time tomorrow night?”

Hands went up. Nat felt the heat of the party pulse through her as she realized every single hand was up to support Jackie’s pitch. 

“Guess I’ll handle the unpopular opinion all by myself,” Nat said evenly in response to Jackie’s smug hand held up. It felt good, despite everything, to toss Jackie’s own words back at her. That if she couldn’t pull the knife out, she might as well twist it a little.

“I’m kind of shit at the whole arts and crafts thing,” muttered Travis as he shoved a bundle of dried flowers away. Akilah, in contrast, hummed as she arranged a centrepiece from a repurposed deer skull. Tiny, prickly looking purple flowers burst up through the empty eyes. “Can’t someone else do this? Whole team of girls and I got slammed with decoration duty?”

“Sexism isn’t attractive,” said Akilah.

“I’m just saying that we’ve all got different skills.” He cast a wary glance to Tai who was yanking handful of feathers to her end of the table, trying to layer them on a flat strip of bark with some sticky sap carved off of trees. “Guys can do a lot of shit better, but decor is for—”

“Wasn’t our pilot a dude?” she interrupted him. 

That put him off. Confusion had his brows furrowing slightly. “I don’t know.”

“I’m pretty sure it was a man dressed in uniform that we buried.” She gave him a politely-false smile. “Kind of nose dives the idea that men are so superior, huh? He couldn’t fly a plane… maybe he would’ve been super handy at putting some flowers together.”

“Don’t remember Laura Lee getting that plane up off the ground,” he shot back. He hadn’t seen her walking behind the table outside, flinching at his casual barb. “Whatever. I’m over this.”

“Oh my god,” Lottie muttered. “Is that… please tell me she isn’t.”

Nat clicked the last piece of the gun back together and looked up. Misty was cradling a homemade boutonniere as she slid up to where Ben was working on improving his homemade crutches, wrapping torn up fabric around the grooves of the wood to mimic padding. “Here,” she said shyly, face pinking up. 

Ben automatically grimaced. His hand went up, but didn’t quite extend to take it. “Oh. What—”

“I know it isn’t a Sadie Hawkins, but— but, Jackie says we’re doing a party with zero rules and I wanted to know if you would go with me to the dance?”

“I think she’s striking out,” Lottie said quietly, ducking her head to hide her grin. She slid Tai a knife before she even needed to ask for it, one finger pinning down twine to keep her creation from sliding. 

“This is gross,” Nat said quietly, unable to look away. 

“It’s okay. I get it. It’s just, nobody ever asked me to one, and… I thought maybe this would be my one chance to— I’m sorry. It was dumb…” Misty paused. “I know I’m not pretty.”

Akilah shook her head. “Dunno. Think she gets points for weaponizing tears. What scares a man more than emotions?” 

Nat watched as Misty started to turn away. It was creative, she realized. Poisonous, deadly flowers usually hid their violence under a colourful exterior. Every word out of her mouth might’ve been delivered honestly, but there was something crafty about delivering the invitation in front of an audience. They weren’t the only ones watching. Half their group was scattered around the clearly, awkwardly climbing up on a chair to reach branches of a tree to drape makeshift garland, and all eyes were focused on Ben and Misty. 

Ben’s mouth started, but Nat shoved the gun up to rest against her shoulder. “Misty. Wanna come?” She was loud enough to interrupt the masterful set up Misty created.

Several faces whipped to face her, but Nat didn’t flinch from the scrutiny. “Me?” Misty asked, thumping her hand weakly against her chest. 

“Yeah. Let’s go.” 

Her gaze slid back to Ben. “I just—”

“I’m not waiting around all day. Are you gonna pick your shit up and come with me?” 

“You should go,” Ben said quickly, shoulders pulling up in a hasty shrug. “We’ll see you both when you get back.” 

It was enough to send her trudging for her sweater, boutonnière dropped onto the table. They had pulled the wooden table out from inside just to take advantage of the morning light, heaping as much supplies as possible across the surface. Tai, hunched over at one end, barely processed any of the conversation. She kept folding fingers across the surface of her craft without pause, building something piece by piece from elements of the wild. 

“You really want to go hiking with Quigley? That’s not very lone wolf behaviour,” Lottie told her. “If you come back alone, everyone will totally know you left her out there.”

“It isn’t a murder if nobody knows about it,” she said dryly. “I’ll be fine.” 

“Careful going out there,” Ben advised, limping over on his crutches. “Shauna said she was heading out to the hills by the lake with Jackie. Don’t shoot anything wearing a Wiskayok sweater.” 

“Got it.”

“And, uh… thanks. Good save, Scatorccio,” Ben said. 

It felt a little like coming off of the field up a goal. Nat hadn’t felt that kind of feeling in a lifetime. She blinked, surprised, and tried to cover up everything with a rough shrug. “Yeah. We’ll take a loop around. Maybe we’ll sync up with them when we’re out.”

“Great. I’m gonna be anywhere but here when you guys get back.” Ben’s jaw ticked as he turned away, adjusting his weight to shift forwards. Over his shoulder he called a hasty good luck, vanishing for the trees. 

“You want a chaperone?” 

“Nah. What kind of damage is Misty gonna do to me?” Nat joked roughly. “Make something pretty. Laura Lee could use a little pick me up.”

Lottie looked down. She was trying to assemble a bundle of dried flowers into a wreath, but they kept crumbling under her knots. “Don’t think so dead flowers is gonna do a whole lot for her right now.” 

“Make something not dead then.”

“Maybe,” she said faintly, tipping her head to the side to consider the wreck heaped together. “Get out of here. Go do something good out there.”

Nat waited until Misty was coming out of the cabin before she started walking, heading straight for the thick wall of trees. Jackie had coordinated efforts earlier to get bits and pieces of decor propped around the space, intentionally recreating the scene she and Nat both knew. It made her feel a little sick to see it assembled so easily, knowing what Jackie was driving them towards. 

“Do you think we’ll catch anything?” Misty asked, scurrying to walk at her side. 

Nat, irritability smug, took pride in twisting for a tight passage that forced Misty a few feet behind her. “It’s not really about catching anything out here.” She held the gun up a little. “You shoot it.”

“Okay. Do you think we’ll shoot something?” She amended. 

She looked back at her. “Maybe,” Nat said, yanking back a branch and letting Misty slip through unscathed. 

There wouldn’t be anything, though. The woods had fallen into a stillness around them, unbothered. Colour had melted from the canopy overhead, autumn dying in slow streaks, and all Nat felt was the coming coolness of winter. It snapped from the shadows, a glittery frost that arrived every morning and melted sometime by noon. 

It wouldn’t take long for winter to arrive. 

Nat knelt down to examine some dirt for tracks and saw nothing. Behind her, Misty hopped from foot to foot. She was singing something quietly, just a shade less annoying from the Misty that Nat remembered, the one belting broadway hits off at the top of her lungs in the car. It would’ve irked her more if there was a risk of scaring game away. “This way,” she said bluntly, driving them further along. Her pulse was racing with Misty so close. After careful months spent away from her, now they were alone. 

And it would be easy, so perfectly simple, to slide the gun around and shoot her. 

She had imagined it plenty of times. Had compared Misty’s face to the memory of her dad’s blown apart expression. Blood on the grass was just blood, didn’t matter who was doing the bleeding. 

“Are you going with anyone? Tonight? The dance?” Misty’s sudden voice made her flinch, lost in her own thoughts. 

“No.” 

She guided them both up a sloping hill. 

“Do you think Ben might ask me? We had a tiny moment before and I don’t know if he’ll have the confidence to follow through.”

Shauna’s plaid shirt flashed through scraggly brush and Nat turned for it automatically, curving around the thistles to meet them. She and Jackie had gone off to collect materials for the party, but it looked more like Shauna was looking while Jackie jabbed at the ground with a long stick. 

“Anything?” Shauna called out, spotting her and the gun together. Her expression was neutral, hope long since spent. 

Nat’s empty hands probably didn’t serve to build confidence from anyone. 

“Want an escort back?” She made herself ask. Since Van’s funeral, Jackie had gone and planted herself amongst the Yellowjackets. Hunting had become a solo activity. If Nat needed to see Jackie? She simply had to turn her head until she found Shauna, until she found Mari. 

Right now she wanted to know what the hell Jackie was thinking by prompting the whole mess for a second time. If the memory of dying was stuck inside her skull, if she hurt the way Nat was—

Nat wanted a lot of answers from Jackie. 

Shauna’s mouth slipped into a weak smile. “Wow. You know, if you ever offered to come out into the woods with me and a gun before all this, you know, happened, I probably would’ve said no.” 

“I probably wouldn’t have been offering.” 

“Do you ever just sit and think about what we’d be doing right now if the crash hadn’t happened?” Jackie said. She tossed her stick to the side and it vanished amongst the shadows of the wild. “Like it’s probably rush week at Rutger. We’d be going to all the parties. Right, Shauna?” 

Shauna busied herself by tying to loose ends of her flannel up, the material just enough to conceal her obvious development. “Not really something I think about.”

“Seriously? What about you, Nat? Where was life supposed to take you?” 

“Dunno. Probably dead somewhere,” Nat sniped back smoothly, adjusting the gun so it hung properly across her back. 

“I’d be school shopping right now. You know, since all the best deals happen after school officially starts,” Misty added, looking around uneasily. “You just have to wait a few days until they slash prices down.” 

“Being out here? It’s all I can think of. What if this is it? Everything we never did, we’ll never get to do. The mistakes we make? They’re, like, permanent.”

Nat remembered Jackie’s smile when she promised she was a good actor. Every word was a pointed twist of a knife, a casual sidestep around a fire burning. 

“Pretty sure you didn’t make any mistakes. Everyone loved you,” Shauna said. They were lingering at the top of a sunbaked hill, plants burnt to a crisp. Nat had a decent view of the sloping area around them, sliver of lake prominent through the trees. 

“Yeah. I’m sure they did.” 

Misty bent to tug a handful of weak coloured flowers up. “Maybe we could brew a tea out of these,” she said to them. 

“Probably better than Mari’s messed up juice.”

“Technically it would be very easy for berries to ferment. They have natural sugars and when they sit for a while, they’ll naturally turn to alcohol,” Misty told Nat. “We should have taken advantage of our resources sooner. Made more, increase the stockpile some.”

“Some stockpile. We’re blowing it all tonight.” Shauna made a face. “I have a feeling that stuff won’t hit like your mom’s wine coolers did.” 

“We’re coming up on the end of the world, Shipman. Might as well pull out all the stops.”

“Can you stop talking like you’re going to die?” She hissed back at Jackie, grabbing her by the elbow. “This is getting ridiculous. You don’t know that a helicopter won’t come over the hills or whatever, looking for us. There’s going to be a search party. People back home won’t stop until they know what happened to us. And a plane— a plane doesn’t just vanish off the face of the earth with zero explanation.” 

“Can we just start walking back? They're gonna bitch if we prevent their party from happening.” Nat interjected. Jackie’s face was cool and still, some barbed response waiting on the tip of her tongue and it was dizzying knowing exactly what she meant. 

Shauna heaved a sigh and nodded. “Let’s. We can show a bunch of nothing when we get back.”

“A totally brand new concept.” 

“Maybe there’s going to be a helicopter waiting for us. How boring and tragic is this? I bet everyone back home is probably crying,” Jackie said a little smugly, setting off to take the lead. Nat saw the concern on Shauna’s face before slipping behind her, quiet in Jackie’s shadow. 

A clock was ticking. 

Nat wedged the shitty mirror on a shelf inside the cabin, refusing to budge even when Gen had to shove past her, awkwardly cradling a container of homemade eye-shadow. It hadn’t been a bad invention the first time, blending ash and oil together, her eyeliner stick snapped and in pieces from the plane crash. 

The whole point of bleaching her hair was proving that she was capable of change, even if it was superficial. Her eyes, though? 

She couldn’t avoid them. They looked just like her dad’s. Heavy liner at least helped alter their shape, make a difference just enough she could stand her reflection. 

The black around her eyes this time looked like warpaint. It also reminded her of being a kid with a black eye, going around the neighbourhood with the mark turning from violet to sickly yellow, everyone knowing what went on back home and not a single word said for it. At least a marked up face made her look a little tougher. 

A few girls came into the room, Misty behind them. They were all carrying items for the party and splitting off to get ready, working around the limitations. One curling iron had gotten tossed into a bush in favour of braiding damp hair to imitate wave and curl, a torn dress had been quickly mended with a rough thread pulled out of someone’s sock. 

“This looks like a nightmare,” Gen told Mari seriously, eyeing the tiny sprawl of bugs and leaves scattered around. A few bones left over from their last deer was being boiled down to a weak broth for a third time, a handful of aromatic leaves tossed in for a hopeful flavour quality. “When this is over, you should seriously write a cookbook or something. My mom loves those cooking shows. Maybe you’ll get one.”

“Yeah. Rub two sticks together and come up with a meal to feed twenty. Daytime television will love it,” Mari said sarcastically. She then held up her messy hands. “Misty, can you go and help Gen with the wood? I’m kind of just not able to do it right now. And seriously, someone has to cover me so I can get ready at some point. I didn’t make all this booze to be the only person not dressed up.”

“Sure!”

Misty sat her burden down on the table and followed Gen out back. Travis, earlier, had chopped wood for their festivities. 

Nat glided over to the table and placed her container of homemade eyeshadow down. “Kind of bad ass that you can throw a bunch of roots and shit together.”

“This is literally the bare minimum.” 

“Dunno. Still pretty cool.” 

“Can you braid hair?” 

It took a second to process the question. Nat planted her hands on the table and leaned her weight against it. “What?”

“Can you braid hair?” Mari said, repeating herself slowly. “I don’t really know what to do with mine.”

She hesitated. A lifetime ago, Nat was the one scalping Mari. She and Lottie had braided portions of Mari’s hair into the Antler Queen’s crown, high off of adrenaline and demented rage. And hunger, the only other constant they had out there. 

A sour taste filled her mouth. “Yeah. I can braid.” She pushed herself away from the table just as a few of the other girls were coming into the room, fumbling to keep ahold of her little container of ash and oil, dropping something. She thought it was the brush she used, falling down under the table. 

“Great,” Mari said, dragging the word out. “I’ll find you when I’m done.”

Nat exited the cabin just as Travis was helping Javi figure out his tie. The sight of him patiently working the material around and slowly doing a casual knot was another gut punch. 

She was going to go crazy. Everything around her was unraveling and yet she was surrounded by so much familiarity. Nat’s hands felt a ghost of Mari’s hair sliding through her fingers. She remembered Travis howling over Javi’s body. She remembered all of it at once, a drill through her mind, and nearly staggered over. 

“Dad taught me this,” Travis said gruffly. “Ties are stupid, though. You just have to wear one long enough for photos and stuff.” 

“Doesn’t James Bond wear a tie?”

“James Bond makes stupid stuff like this look actually cool.” 

She hissed out a sigh and tried to make sense of everything. Sunlight was straining against the bleached trees, proof that time was running out. It wouldn’t take long for everyone to gather properly to kick off the night. 

A wisp of colour showed at the edge of her vision and Nat turned her head, finally seeing Jackie alone. 

It was impossible to stop herself. Nat surged forward and grabbed Jackie, dragging her without a word to around the back of the meat shed, deaf to her snappish resistance. Everything was getting bad. They were on the doorstep of another loss, of another trial. 

She just needed to change enough this time to get it right. 

She dropped her burden onto the ground and pushed firmly, caging Jackie against the wall with her arms, clenching her teeth in a sincere effort to contain her frustration. It was a limited window before someone came around the corner of the building. “You are not going to die,” she said in a low, trembling voice. Anger helped conceal worry, all that terror twisting up inside her. “That’s not going to happen this time.”

“I’m going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Jackie said evenly. 

Their faces were close enough that Nat could’ve swallowed the distance and kissed Jackie. The proximity made her heart race a little more, made her think of the last time they were in a tight space together. I’m here because I already died. Jesus, Nat thought. Jackie died and Nat somehow lived an entire life in her absence. 

“I can’t fix what we did or make it better, but I am not going to let anything happen to you.”

Jackie’s mouth curved into a wretched smile. “You really haven’t figured it out, huh? There’s no better deal. Look what happened to Van! It was a one or the other situation and this time? It’s just me. I’m going to die. There’s no alternative.” 

There was a hot, frantic energy thrumming through Nat’s body and wondered if Jackie could feel it through the tiny degrees of separation between them. If she could see that feral desire to grab onto something and never let it go. 

“Watch me.”

“When exactly did you die?” 

She narrowed her eyes. “Twenty five years from now.” 

Jackie processed that time and unsaid history silent. She tipped her head and gave her a considering look. “Well? Aren’t you going to tell me what I missed? Do cars at least fly everywhere?”

The idea of feeding Jackie information of the future filled her with revulsion. When Jackie died, the team at least resembled humans. She didn’t need to know the gritty details. The consequence of blood. How far they fell. 

“I’m not telling you shit.” 

Jackie slid her hands against Nat’s shoulders like she was about to push her back, but froze them there. “I left them behind, you know? I died and came back, poof, and the plane was on fire. And Shauna wanted to try and help Van get out of her seat, the belt was stuck or jammed, and I figured fuck it. They were my friends, my favourite people— and they hated me. I didn’t belong with them. I knew it happened, I knew it because I lived all these shitty, awful weeks. That’s not just stuff you dream up somewhere between New Jersey and wherever the fuck we are now,” she said raggedly. “I knew the plane was going to go. And I could’ve forced Shauna out with me.”

The memory of Shauna’s burnt up arms after the crash popped into Nat’s mind. How they matched Van’s burns. 

“You left them behind.”

“I left them behind.” Her smile cracked a little. “What’s the point in trying to change anything? They hated me so much. And we both know I’m not getting out of these woods alive. Or— or one piece, right?”

“Stay with Ben tonight,” Nat ordered roughly. “Don’t go off on your own. Don’t— you cannot fuck Travis tonight.”

No harm was going to find Jackie today, and her determination felt awfully similar to desperation. 

“I don’t even want to have sex with Travis,” sniped Jackie. “Get off of me.”

Fate couldn’t be stone. Nat needed to trust that there was a balance; that she could find a way to push against it. Above them was the whole sky itself, rippled with loose clouds and watery sunlight. It was untouchable and they were here, stuck, limited by the ground itself. 

Nat refused to budge. “Promise me, Jack.” 

“There’s no point. There is nothing that you can do about this,” said Jackie. “I made my peace or whatever with it. Maybe it’ll even stick this time.” 

“Let me try,” Nat persisted, gambling. 

“Maybe this time they’ll like me a bit more this time.”

“Hey. You want them to love you? Don’t come crying to me when they crown you homecoming queen.”

“I’m not their leader,” Jackie scorned. 

She refused to let go until she got a grudging promise of compliance, Jackie scowling at her as she finally pushed Nat away. Her dress was pretty. The satin hung plainly, but the colour shifted between yellow and green when she walked through the light. It was the dress, Nat recognized belatedly, that Shauna rescued from a burning building and slept with every night until the end of winter, refusing the part with even when the fabric was reduced to ragged bits. 

She forgot what things looked like when they were whole and complete. At their point in time, the dress was just a dress. In a different place? It was a ruin, absolutely ruined. 

Nat scooped up her fallen burden and stepped back. Javi was hitting a bit of plane siding with a hammer, summoning Yellowjackets. Lottie’s voice echoed belatedly in greeting, the girl spinning around in her original dress, a moody purple affair that was a contrast to Laura Lee’s. “Let Doomcoming begin!”

Torches were arranged around the clearing. A few tree stump and bold bushes were centrepieces to the affair, each one carefully decorated with candles, deer skulls, and crude little carvings. Their semi-formal gowns had been selected with the idea of a banquet hall and a spiked punch bowl. Here? Lace flashed, hemlines brushing over the long grass. Flower crowns were tipped back and woven through their hair, a strange collision of modern and wilderness. Lottie extended a crown composed strictly of autumnal leaves to Laura Lee, blushing, and helped her position the creation of bright red and gold properly on her head. 

“Wait, are they…” Mari hissed, elbowing Akilah. Her hair was pulled back in an easy fishtail, secured with one of their few elastics. “That looks pretty romantic.”

“Can you put a label on a crown?” She retorted dryly. 

“We should have a moment of silence,” Tai cut in. She was carrying something in her hands. When she got closer, she placed it down on a blackened tree stump, the final piece to their artistic abilities. 

A bear skull. 

A murmur came up appreciatively and they slid into a dull quiet, eagerly waiting for Tai to be satisfied. 

Nat wondered if she would ever be satisfied, though. She had come through the curtain  of garland alone, hands full of death. When the moment ended, they split off. It was like any shitty high school dance where half the people went for the walls to cluster around in little groups and the other half tried for the food. Shauna was filling two bowls slowly, dress tight to her midsection, unaware that Misty was watching intently from across the clearing. 

“Pretty sure we need music or something,” Lottie said loudly. “Anyone have any batteries that they’ve been hoarding? Because now would be a great time to share.”

“I didn’t know it, but I’ve been secretly training for this for a very long time,” Travis said before spitting out some awkward, over the top techno sounds. It earned a tiny applause in his favour, warming the group up a little. 

“Can’t we have a slow dance?” Misty asked. 

Lottie hummed a few bars from Kiss from a Rose, encouraging the others to join in the fun. But there was an emptiness to her efforts, Nat knew, because Van wasn’t there to join in. 

Mistry approached Ben who managed to redirect her to Javi, and Nat watched as Jackie and him then peel off. They wouldn’t go far, technically, seeing as how Ben’s crutches were limited to the immediate area around the cabin. But they would probably hit that weak little creek area, far enough for privacy to feel comfortable. 

And Ben was decent. He wouldn’t hurt somebody. If Nat could trust anything, it was the fact that Jackie and Ben were safe together. 

“You look nice,” Travis said awkwardly, coming up beside her. “The dress and everything.”

Her attention snapped to him, startled out of her thoughts. “Thanks.”

“Did you want—” Travis jerked his chin in direction to where the others were swaying around, awkwardly dancing to make shift music. Gen had started warbling a beat out with that hammer on the metal, trying to reinforce the music Lottie was singing. 

And on the other side of the group was Misty. 

She was peering around, clearly looking for her target. 

“I have to do something,” Nat said weakly. “I’ll just find you later.”

“Right. Sure.”

What really divided prey and a hunter? The impulse to run? Teeth? 

Nat was already walking. When Misty went into the woods, she closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe evenly, following. Lining Misty up with the gun was easy, but it would’ve been cheating. If there was a window for death, she had to line up fatality close to the original. She couldn’t fake out without making a proper switch. 

Jackie was going to die if she didn’t stop it. 

“I think you dropped this,” Nat called to her, holding up a bag of mushrooms. “Figured this wasn’t meant for the communal pot.” 

Misty whirled around and gaped at what Nat held. Fuck everyone, she thought. When Nat got high off the shrooms, she laid on the ground and felt the earth pulse beneath her palms. Her team? They went nuts. They tried sacrificing Travis. It was unbelievable how messed up they got on a little trip. 

They couldn’t handle their shit and so Nat wasn’t giving them a second chance with that. They could rock out with Mari’s fairy wine. Fermented berries wasn’t going to provoke them into any bloodlust. 

“That was private, I was planning on using it for personal business,” Misty stumbled to say. 

“You’re not going to find Ben out here.” 

“I wasn’t—” her face was turning pink, but Misty clenched her jaw. “I was trying to open his mind to the possibility of us. This was harmless.”

A tired sort of anger rose up inside her. Nat half remembered shitty parties, getting loaded and passed around. A lot of harmless stuff went on back then according to half the school. 

Her boots crunched dirt and little twigs when she stepped forward. It was getting dark all around them, enough of a veil that she could slip free from everything that made Nat herself and right back into the skin of the Antler Queen. I forgot what this felt like, she thought thinly as she crammed mushrooms down Misty’s throat. Her hands weren’t desperate at all, but calmly focused. Nails raked down the side of her face and she felt the pain distantly, focused on shoving Misty down, of holding her down. 

Her hands squeezed even tighter. Misty had killed her for nothing and now she was the one killing her for something. Somebody. 

The purpose of it all made every bone in her body feel as if it had been cast in metal.

“You were going to do a whole lot of shit,” she rasped as Misty’s face coloured red and purple, straining for air. “And right now? You’re as innocent as you’ll ever be.”

A pulse flickered to nothing beneath her palm. Nat dropped back, clambering away from the body when the work was finished. Disgust rose up in her instantly and she nearly gagged, shivering with awful memories. There were a few empty spaces in her memory, details scorched out, but she had painful clarity of her previous work as Antler Queen. 

Time didn’t fade it any. And now she had new memories to mix with the old.

She got up unsteadily and forced herself to haul Misty’s body away, tucking it safely beneath the cover of brush. Trusted that the wilderness would hold Misty long enough until something could be done. 

And then Nat left her to rest, choosing to walk away and rejoin the party of their friends, fully alive. 

The party went as it should have the first time. 

Kristen got sick off wine and threw up in some of the bushes. Mari, Gen, and Melissa made a terrible attempt at acapella, each one of them guided by their own individual sense of how the music should’ve been performed. Tai went back to the cabin and curled up for sleep in front of the fire, patience with the affair finished by the time true dark hit. Everyone else formed lazy circles around torches and their bonfire, casually devouring the minutes between midnight and after, smoky air warm enough to divert some of the chill. The cheerfulness around them was thick from alcohol and jittery conversation. They were all bursting with the knowing that they were consuming their last truly good night and it was enough to scrape emotions raw, to make them want more. 

Not a single one of them really imagined they were going to survive it. That they could be bigger than their exile, their tiny world. 

Jackie and Ben cautiously came back for a jar of wine and lingered, perched on the edge of a group containing Laura Lee, Lottie, and Nat. Nothing was said, but the jar was circled around. It didn’t have the same hollowed out bite that the whisky had, but Nat drank enough to feel full. Warmth dripped down her veins, help banish some of the residual adrenaline. When her heart felt like it was stuck in her throat, Nat only needed to look at Jackie. To see the fire burn against her eyes, the way her hands trembled. She had made a choice and eventually, Nat would have to feel the full consequence of murder. The way it had been intimate, a careful selection. She hadn't even given Misty the chance of cards to play out in her favour. The cuts across her face throbbed, new damage, and Misty's body was stolen under branches and bits of green, sinking right into the wilderness itself. 

The world was ending. The full moon sat high above them and they rotated senselessly beneath it, bodies full of wanting, and a new world was ready to crack open and begin. They slowly trickled back into the cabin, the best thing they had to resemble a home, and dropped into sleep. 

It was enough for a single night. 

It was enough to fold herself into the warm body of someone else, legs tossed over top of her own, head resting in proximity to Jackie’s knee. The whole room felt like a nest, like a haven of different people stitched together. It was like her chest was being crushed, painful but survivable. She wasn't dying, she wasn't fading out, she wasn't on the plane again. 

Chapter Text

A nightmare sent Nat clawing her way back to coherence. She shuddered and twisted, sweat slick across her shoulders and hands. She looked over her shoulder for danger and found the other girls scattered around the floor of the cabin, motionless, still dressed up from their party before. A rogue bottle from Mari’s fairy wine was tipped over with a sticky, red stain beneath it. It looked like blood and Nat remembered how sweet it tasted against her tongue when they all chanted pop songs into the fire’s light, how her hand knocked against Jackie’s when they traded it back and forth. 

Lottie stirred and panic immediately flickered across her face. She winced and scrambled to sit up, balancing precariously on her elbow. 

“Shitty hangover?”

“There’s teeth,” Lottie said slowly, looking up at her. “I couldn’t count them all.”

Something like ice shot through Nat’s veins. “Teeth?”

“Teeth.” 

“What… what happened last night?” Shauna asked, cutting herself off with a yawn. She had eyeliner smeared under her eyes, the gold melting from waterline. Her fist came up and rubbed wearily at it, spreading the colour down closer to her cheek. 

The others were waking up. Mari bolted up and grimaced, seeking a bucket. “Singing. So much singing.” She clutched it to her chest when she found it. 

Nat stared down at her hands. An intense guilt sank down onto her chest and it was a struggle to hold herself still around the crush of it. She blinked and saw Misty’s face coloured dark. She blinked and saw a flash of yellowish eyes peering at her. Jesus, she thought. She wanted a drink. “Any of that wine leftover?”

“Maybe. You’ll have to look outside.” 

She obliged by scrambling up and casting a nervous look around. Everyone looked hungover. Jackie, in perfect contrast, had scrubbed her face clean and was burrowed into the warmth of her coat, back braced against the wall like she was in particular need of it's support. “You good?”

“Dunno. This hangover might kill me,” Jackie joked thinly. “We’ll have to see how it goes.”

Nat scoffed at her. “You’ll be fine.”

Exiting the cabin, she found Ben leaning over a campfire to bank up some of the wood, a kettle hanging safely above the flames by a hook. Laura Lee was on a kitchen chair beside him, legs folded beneath her, one finger marking her place in a book. “Morning,” Nat said gruffly, looking for a bottle.

It was familiar, she considered. Waking up after a fucked up bender and looking for the nearest drink. 

“I boiled some drinking water. If you and everyone else is half as hungover as I am, I figured you’d need it.” 

“What about the cave man booze? Any of that lying around?”

Ben didn’t look at her. “I already checked if we had any leftover.” He swallowed. “Best we’ve got is this bone broth. Everything else from last night is gone.” 

Nat grimaced. Laura Lee twisted to look at her, hand coming up to wave some of the smoke away. “What happened to your face?”

Her hand came up to hide the scratches on her cheek. “Tree.”

“Those are some big scratches.”

“It was a big tree.”

He exhaled a faint laugh. “Tame night for you, huh?” Ben asked with a faint knowing. Someone had to get the phone calls when her mom wouldn’t pick up. He was familiar with Nat’s juvenile antics. “They getting up?”

“Yeah.” 

Ben stretched his hand out for his crutches and deftly got positioned to balance out his weight before hobbling forward. He was getting better, more confident. Voices streamed out when he opened the door, but they vanished when it snapped shut again. Maybe if they got some animal fat, Nat could rub it on the hinges of the door. Olive oil could take care of a squeaky whine, maybe it would be the same. Bear meat was fatty, dense. Nat just had to wait. 

“What’s up with your face?” Nat asked. She bent down to scoop some water into a cup. She pretended she was going to be okay, that everything was fine. “You didn’t live it up last night?”

“Not really,” Laura Lee admitted. She coughed, eyes irritated from the smoke. It wreathed her, making her slender form waver and tremble before the wind shifted, drawing the smoke away. 

Nat didn’t look at Van’s burial plot. “You’ve been quiet.”

“I know.” She sighed. The book, she realized, was the plane manual. Laura Lee was clutching at it like it was her bible, that it was the only thing keeping her afloat. “I failed.”

“You didn’t.”

“I thought I had it all figured out, that I had this purpose,” Laura Lee said. “I couldn’t save her, though.”

Lottie had an obsession with some guy who could turn things to gold with a single touch. That little thought popped into her head just as Nat squeezed Laura Lee’s thin shoulder, a bizarre fear springing through her mind that touching her might kill her, might spread a rot. “I know. But that wasn’t your fault.”

“Do you ever see it inside your head like a movie? And you know how it will all go? I really thought I could do it. That I’d switch the controls over and start moving forward, building up my speed like the book said to do, and then I’d have to climb up. I could see it all happen. I was ready and the plane wouldn’t even let me try.”

Her fingers jerked involuntary like she was physically remembering the process of cutting the wires. Of burying them in the dirt so nobody would ever find the evidence. 

“Something bad could’ve happened,” Nat said weakly. “You might’ve died up there.” 

“I wasn’t afraid of death.”

“Maybe you should’ve been.”

“I loved Van a lot. I was going to try for her.” 

Laura Lee looked so impossibly delicate. Her hands were clutching the book, clinging to it, and Nat wondered if she had made a mistake. If Laura Lee would die anyways and it was for nothing after all. 

“You’re alive. That’s what matters,” Nat said, hoping it was true. “Should go inside. Cold as shit out here.”

She stood up slowly and held the book up mournfully like she was trying to commit the cover to memory. “Maybe,” Laura Lee said before dropping the flight manual in fire. The flames immediately devoured, bursting around the form of it, orange heat blackening the pages until they melted into ashes. “I’ll never know what could’ve happened now.”

Movement burst from the edge of the tree line and Nat was instantly uneasy until she realized it was Travis coming through, not a bear. They still had a few hours before it ambled out, she reminded herself.

Nat stepped out of his way as he made a beeline for the bucket. He scooped up water with his hands and splashed it across his face, collar dark from where it trickled down.“Jesus, dude. Where have you been?” Something wasn’t right. “Are you… alright?”

He turned to look at her and Laura Lee, gaze darting around. “Have you seen my brother?”

She froze. 

“Isn’t he somewhere around here?” Laura Lee asked, confused.

“I woke up and he wasn’t in the cabin. I looked around and I can’t find him, like Javi vanished off the face of the freaking earth,” Travis rattled out. “I tried down by the lake and he wasn’t there. Do you think— would he walk all the way back to the plane alone? It would’ve been dark when he left. He’s a kid. He got lost in the mall back home and cried about it for weeks.” 

“Shit,” Nat said with feeling. “We can try and search. Do you want any help?”

“I don’t know.”

Someone shrieked from inside the cabin. Laura Lee jumped. “Does Mari think that the walls are bleeding again?”

Shauna slammed out the door like a bull exiting a china shop. “Is she out here?”

“Is who out here?” Nat shot back, a little disturbed by the fear tinting Shauna’s face. 

“Misty. She never came back.” 

“Fuck. Maybe we should start putting up faces on a milk carton.”

“That’s not funny,” Shauna snapped. “These woods are huge. What if she’s lying somewhere hurt and we don’t know about it?”

Travis sucked in a shaky breath and stepped back. “I’m gonna check the plane. I don’t know where else to look.” 

It took sincere effort to show no reaction. Learning how to keep her thoughts behind a careful mask was always an advantage when she was pledging sobriety to some do-better group while thinking about her next hit. Nat kept herself blank, refused to show a single true emotion. Sharks fed off fear. Sharks got hungrier if blood was in the water. “Go and check for Javi. We’ll hang around here for Misty, see if either one comes back.”

It was tempting to follow him. It was hardwired into her to stick with Travis when he went into the woods, to stick to his side like a partner. Staying put was like taking a sharp knife to the strings between them and hacking them clean off. 

“It’ll be okay. Misty’s not going to stray very far,” Laura Lee said, trying to sound sincere and confident. “Maybe she stepped out early for a walk.” 

Shauna shivered from the cold air. Her flannel shirt wasn’t much protection over her pyjama shorts and old concert shirt. “We lost our minds partying last night and didn’t think about her. I don’t even remember her at the fire.”

“Travis said that Javi’s missing as well. We can spread out and check over the area. Maybe they’re together.”

“You think so?”

“Nobody stays lost forever.” 

Nat blinked away the sudden pricking of tears. 

“Tell that to Crystal. She’s losing her mind inside,” Shauna said nervously. “You know the area, right? Could you draw something down?”

She belatedly realized Shauna was directing the question to her. Her chin jerked up and Nat dropped her cup down to the ground, robotically swivelling for the cabin. She would need paper. Last time she sketched out maps, Ben kept them hidden. No sense waving around the size of the known space around them verses the unknown. Nat could’ve redrawn those maps blind and when Shauna shoved a gel pen into her direction, her hand automatically started etching down details. Her fingers measured the size of valleys out and worked clockwise from the cabin, roughly marking the shape of the lake out. Javi died inside the cold water, Nat knew. They dug the first set of graves at the plane and she put that down next, a crescent shaped figure amongst scribbled in trees. They’d figure out what trees to tap with a pail to collect sap in the warmer end of winter, favouring that area particularly, boiling it down to a faint resemblance of table syrup. 

The wilderness spiralled out in dark pink ink. Nat recognized it, saw her own face in it. 

Jackie hesitated by her elbow. The table was left outside and damp from moisture, so Nat was pressing the torn paper against the wall and working from exact memory. “What did you do?”

“Shut up,” she said tersely. “I don’t know where Javi went.” 

She jerked back like she was electrocuted from what Nat implied. It was probably obvious. Her cheek throbbed from where Misty gouged at her with her fingernails, blindly desperate to throw her off of her. It wasn't a kind death, strangling. But it was mostly clean. 

“Here.” She thrust the papers out to Tai. “That’s everything I know.” Minus a few select hiding spots. Nat wasn’t giving up her secrets for nothing. Shit got bad? She’d haul Jackie kicking and screaming and hunker down until something worked out. She was selfish like that.

Everything, however, didn’t earn approval from Tai. She clutched them tight and scanned them frantically, biting her cheek. “There’s zero landmarks. If any of us ever get lost… this is serious. We should’ve done something sooner, like put up ribbons or something.”

“Maybe we should gather around and talk about it, maybe pray?” Laura Lee tentatively offered. Her hands were outstretched with the palms flipped up. "It might help us find some guidance for navigating God's master plan."

Nat put the pen down on the frame of the window and stayed quiet. Something wasn’t right. She felt something eerie rake nails down her spine. The air in the room seemed heavier.

“I’m going to find her,” Kristen said, lurching through the group. She snatched up a hatchet and faced them grimly. “She’d look for any of us.”

Mari frowned. “Have we considered the fact that we’re kind of dying right now? All our food is gone. Maybe Misty just… took off. Wanted to go with a little privacy.”

“She wouldn’t!” 

“Do you hear that?” Lottie spoke up. She’d been standing in silence while they all buzzed around, frantically shoving feet into their boots and grabbing sweaters. “Look. There’s— there’s something outside.”

The brush rustled. Nat saw the movement faintly before it got sharper, branches rustling. 

She expected a bear. 

That was how the history went. A bear would come out stumbling and weak, practically moaning with feverish desperation, and Lottie would be the one to kill it. 

But it wasn’t a bear. 

Nat stifled a shriek of frustration. A scrawny wolf slipped through the dense brush. It sulked, growling low, ears pinned back. She couldn’t drag her eyes off of it. Ben winced and scuttled further back, pressing against the exterior wall of the cabin to get away from it. 

“We’re gonna get fucking eaten,” Mari said with faint horror. “I hate dogs.”

“Shit. What do we do.”

“I need the gun,” Nat said uselessly. She wasn’t holding it. That was her mistake, her fatal flaw. Whenever a good opportunity came, she was never ready for it. Kept the safety on, didn’t keep it on her. Fuck, she wasted everything. “Grab it!”

Jackie spun for it. Her face was blank. The wheels were turning just as quickly in her mind. 

“Everybody needs to just stay calm,” Ben said with one hand outstretched. “It’s probably just curious.”

It growled again, louder. “We don’t need a gun,” Tai told them all. She stepped forward and the wolf froze, head shrinking back as it examined her. Yellow eyes glowered up at her and it barred teeth at her, an impossible amount. Maybe it was warning her of the danger. Maybe it was a plea for mercy. 

Lottie clung to the wooden post of the porch. She squeezed her hand so tight that it was a pale, terrified thing, her own eyes doubling in size. 

Tai examined the lone, sickly wolf and it in turn examined her. And then she killed it. She jammed the knife into it, hitting a soft spot behind the skull, fast enough that it died instantly. Everyone exhaled at once, synchronized, recoiling from how fast she moved. 

Someone let out a sob. Nat tasted salt against her tongue, the faint echo of tears. 

Kristen was hovering as the girls descended on Tai’s kill. Shauna yanked out her hunting knife to start carving, hands shaking as she positioned the wolf better. “Get us some tarp,” she ordered roughly. “We’ll need something to put the meat on for tonight.”

“I’m so hungry,” Gen moaned pitifully. She didn’t have a knife but she braced her hands against the still ribcage of the wolf and tipped it to help Shauna. “I’d eat it raw. I don’t even care anymore.”

“You’ll care when you’re hurling your guts up,” Mari told her. Her knife was considerably smaller than Shauna’s, but still useful for working the smaller cuts once they got into the processing. 

Everyone worked fluidly. Nat kicked a piece of wood closer to the fire and Ben tossed it straight in, stoking the flames higher. There’s nothing elegant about their maneuvers. Akilah notched her knife against a flat rock to sharpen it and they’ll work until the animal vanishes into pieces, taking large chunks to the shed and small chunks to be cooked in a pan over the flames. Someone with steady hands will have to scrape flesh off from inside a hide and then treat it with brains to properly tan it and prevent rot. 

Mari batted Kristen away when she tried tugging at her arm. “Here, we’re losing daylight. We could spread out in lines from here and maybe we’ll find her.”

“Right. Like we’re just going to ditch all this food to go manhunting someone who might be perfectly fine.”

Kristen looked upset. “Help me find her. I swear, she’s probably just stuck somewhere. Maybe even lost! Misty needs us.”

“Oh my god, Misty gives me the creeps. Can you just— Jesus. Get away from us and let me work.”

Her mouth trembled. 

“Where should I go?”

“I don’t care. Pick a direction and see if you can find Misty. Tell her we’ve got dinner on the table.”

“Is anybody going to help me?” Kristen tried, reaching for a shred of sympathy. She looked miserable in her soccer shorts and sweater, casual-formal shoes a total contrast. 

They looked away. Nat got particularly busy with helping Shauna extend a stiff leg out, holding it for her while she cut deep into tendons to separate it. Eventually she left, dipping out of the clearing into the woods. “Watch it,” Nat said. “You’ll get blood on your shirt.”

Shauna paused and looked at the knife. Impulsively she dragged her finger across the flat side of it, touching the red blood. 

“That could make you sick. Don’t touch it,” Akilah added, perking up to watch Shauna’s motions. 

Quickly she wiped her hand off on the ground and ducked her head low. 

“It looked sick,” Lottie said to Ben. “That’s why it’s alone, right? Lone wolves don’t survive without a group.” 

“Something isn’t right about it,” he agreed, swirling a wooden spoon through the mix of cooking meat. The air was heavy with it, grease splattering and popping from the uncontrolled high heat. “There’s soap inside. Make sure everyone washes their hands after this.”

Akilah grimaced. “Should we eat this? Maybe we’ll get sick.” 

“I’ll die sick and satisfied,” Mari said, smirking up at her. “Best odds we’re gonna get out here.”

“Oh my god, please hurry the fuck up,” Gen whined pitifully. Her hands folded across her stomach and she bent forward a little, wincing from sharp hunger pains. “The smell of this meat cooking is literally making everything worse.”

“Should we set something aside for Misty and Javi?” Laura Lee rushed plates outside. Everything was being transferred quickly from fire to their greedy hands. “Travis? They’re going to be hungry.”

“They can eat when they get back. We’ll save them their shares,” Ben told them evenly. 

Nat felt like her face was on fire, pain radiating from the scratches left across her face. “We done yet?”

Lottie faced Tai. “How did you do that? How… did you know that you could even do that?”

“I just did,” Tai admitted weakly. 

“It isn’t that impressive,” Jackie snarked. “Nat brings back game all the time. That’s an overgrown dog. It probably smelled us and came looking for something to eat.”

“Nat hasn’t brought back much lately,” Shauna pitched in, a shade teasingly. She sneaked a glance at Nat and smirked a little. “Maybe you’re not the only hunter around here.” 

“Maybe we should say something before we eat,” Lottie said, redirecting the conversation to Tai. “This was big. We should give thanks for it. What you did... that was incredible.”

Tai gave her a sharp look and bristled. “This came from the wild clearly sick. It wasn't a challenge putting it down. That's as wildly fantastic as it gets.” She caught herself on the edge of a blistering curse. “Fine. Just make it quick, okay?”

Everyone was focused on Lottie. It was a strange shift in power and Nat felt nervous watching the attention rotate around, everyone lit gold from the fire and smoke. Laura Lee looked surprised and stepped back. The ashes of her hopes were buried under the fire, the central point to their needs. Hesitating for just a second, Lottie struck out her hands. Took the metaphorical wheel and yanked it hard.

People began linking up. Palm to palm, fingers lacing together… Nat was disturbed by it all. She looked and saw Jackie inching closer to Laura Lee. Ben stared hollowly into the fire instead, both hands braced on his crutches so he wouldn't have to get involved. 

Nat didn’t touch anyone. Couldn’t stand the touch of skin under her hands without thinking about Misty dying slowly and intimately. 

“For this gift from the wilderness, the wild, we give our thanks. To the spirit of the wolf, who sacrificed so we could live, we give our thanks…” 

Everyone chimed in as if hypnotized. 

“To the— to the god of this place, we give our thanks…” 

Laura Lee’s mouth parted like she wanted to say something before it snapped shut again, staying silent. Lottie finished and gave Tai a firm, approving look. Everything had been rewritten but was marching down a familiar vein, inching straight into horrific familiarity. It should’ve been Van  gazing up at Lottie with blind faith, not Lottie to Tai. 

It was all wrong. 

But despite it, the flaws and misdirections, they ate quietly and with total reverence. They bit down on the tough meat and chewed miserably, gorging themselves on the bits Shauna had measured out. Their was a universal desire to be full, the soak in the heat of the space. 

No one said a word. 

The next morning Jackie was standing with her feet planted in the exact spot where they should’ve been finding her body. 

For a moment, Nat simply stood at the top of the steps. The cold sunk straight through her leather jacket, making her shiver. She busied herself by pulling out the last cigarette and lighting it before coming down slowly. “What are you doing?” She called hoarsely, feet crunching over the fresh snow. Everywhere around them looked like a shitty kind of winter’s wonderland. 

Jackie jerked her thin shoulders up in response. 

Nat exhaled a short burst of smoke. “You shouldn’t be out here. Come back inside where it’s warmer.”

“It looks pretty out here. I just wanted to— I wanted to see the sun coming up,” Jackie said, stumbling over the words. The dusty, bleak sky seemed the scrape itself across the tops of trees. A faint scattering of snowflakes was coming down like an afterthought of the cold, an echo to what had already gathered on the ground. 

“Sun came up. Let’s go.”

“She’s still pregnant. Still hates me, actually.” 

Her stomach was hurting, a consequence to suddenly being satisfied from a real meal. That was something she had forgotten from the first time. 

“You know,” continued Jackie slowly, unbothered by the returned silence. “I think it’s my birthday today.”

Nat blinked, thrown off by the change of subject. “It isn’t. You’re a summer bitch, right? You do a whole fucking birthday week in August every time.” That was the thing, she remembered faintly, where Jackie would mail out personalized invitations to everyone. She’d block off a section in the calendar for a whole celebration, demand everyone show up, and wouldn’t take a rational no for an answer. 

That was just how Jackie was. 

She loved celebrating her existence, her life. 

Jackie shivered. “If it isn’t my birthday now, what do you call this?”

The wind groaned through the trees. She felt it skate over the snow and frost, snatching away the weak cigarette smoke in the air.  “Dunno. There’s not much of a name for it. You gonna stand out here all morning?”

“What am I going to do now?” 

Another question that Nat had nothing to answer with. She gave a pathetic shrug and shielded the cigarette with her spare hand a bit. 

“I think that if we stay out here any longer, all I’m gonna know is this. These fucked up trees, the cabin… I won’t be who I was when we left. That girl died. I’ve been stuck in this slow motion system failure since the plane and I don’t want to be here, I hate it here. I’m— I’m not me anymore. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be out here. I don’t know how I’m supposed to separate myself from dying, from being dead.”

Nat inhaled slowly and felt smoke seep into her lungs, warming her throat and skin all at once. That was the beautiful thing about fire. It devoured everything in a pale imitation of the sun itself. The cigarette pinched between her fingers was her last one. She enjoyed it, undeniably, and still mourned the inevitable loss of it. 

“You’re gonna think about it every single day,” Nat admitted after a long while. Her gaze kept to the mouth of the woods, but she still felt when Jackie turned to look at her. “You’ll think about who you could’ve been if all this shit hadn’t happened. Maybe you’ll bargain with something to try and get it back. That’s what desperate and sad people do. They spend every hour of every day hoping that they’re good enough to go back. And you’re going to have to do awful shit because maybe it’ll all come through okay, like you’ll get through one hard spot and maybe the other side’ll be easy again. Fuck, Jackie. I don’t know. I sure as hell got none of it back.”

She felt horribly exposed. All her eyeliner tricks had been washed off, leaving her barefaced and without a touch of warpaint. Jackie was looking at her and maybe she saw all that hidden damage all at once. She got out of the woods, sure, but she never really left the wilderness. 

“Were you happy, at least? After everything was over?”

Taking a quick drag, Nat decided not to answer Jackie. She instead breathed out slowly and pushed her hand out in a silent offer to let Jackie finish the cigarette. 

A different smoke from the chimney behind them churned up, dark coloured. Someone was probably awake inside the cabin and tending to the fire. It would be a good morning for everyone. A hot meal to be shared and no body to grieve over properly… it was as good as it would ever get out in the woods. 

The cigarette turned into the memory of a cigarette and Jackie still hesitated, lingering right on the edge of where she had died once before. Nat carefully shed her jacket, trying not to think about the different strands of fate she had clawed at, and held it out to her to take. “Here.”

Jackie’s hand darted up to wipe away a few stray snowflakes that had gotten caught in her eyelashes. “What?”

It was cold. They had slept coiled around each other inside the cabin, barely aware of the final shift of the season into winter. Nat didn’t want to think about Jackie curled up on the ground outside, how lonely of a death that really was. 

Fuck, she thought. Nat died on the ground in front of her friends. Jackie died on the ground with all their friends just on the other side of the door. Funny how a heart could betray so easily. 

Nat shoved the material roughly at Jackie, watching her finally relent and take it. The black was a strange colour on her, a complete opposite to her pinks and blues. But Nat felt better, at least, watching Jackie slide her arms through the sleeves. It wasn’t much, but it was the best she ever had. “Keep it on,” said Nat roughly. “You might freeze to death otherwise.”

Jackie exhaled a soft, weak laugh and complied. They both stood together, cold and with the memory of fire and death tracing through their heartstrings, and Nat could feel winter beginning to shift and unfurl properly around them. She was sixteen years old again and wasn’t ready, couldn’t be ready for any of it to come. 

Chapter Text

Jackie was on ground zero, brand new territory. She knew it the moment Misty’s digital watch started to chirp in a way that vaguely sounded like Salt-N-Pepa’s ‘Whatta Man’. Her hand lashed out on it’s own accord, thumping down on the space beside her head like she might smack her own alarm clock off, muscle memory automatic. It just wasn’t her bed and it wasn’t the ceiling of her bedroom above her. Her alarm clock was miles and miles away from wherever they were and her palm narrowly missed hitting Mari’s wrist, the girl sleeping close to her.

Day two, Taylor. She sat up slowly and saw the digital watch on a shelf by the fire, abandoned by Misty during all of their pre-party pageantry. Retrieving it, Jackie turned it off and fixed the fabric strap so it could fit her own wrist, temporarily taking custody of it. A calendar would’ve been nice, visibly scratching off a day, but she’d settle for watching the slow crawl of time instead. 

She wasn’t dead. A minute snapped by and she was still alive to see it. Jackie wasn’t dead, she should’ve died out in the cold, she wasn’t dead, she should’ve stayed dead—

It was impossible to shove that thought aside as she went through the stiff motions of morning preparations. Cold air whispered around the door and it motivated her to resupply the fireplace with fresh wood, building the flames back up to a healthy crackle. 

Her hand froze over the fire. She might actually get out this time. Jackie automatically compared the scratchy blanket with her own bedsheets, felt an intense longing for everything that she missed, and considered the fact that she might survive long enough to live again. The original story was scratched out. There was a chance she might die anyways, some other fatality sneaking up on her, and there was a chance she might still be standing around with a pulse when the rescue plane finally swung around. 

How did they get out before? Nat didn’t say. She didn’t even tell her how long they spent out here. The future was once again a mystery, blank slate wiped clean. She was pretty much like anyone else on the team, just as ignorant to whatever was going to happen. Only one person had the knowledge in her skull of what to expect.

And Nat sucked at sharing. 

The heat felt nice against her fingers and palm. It made her feel a little more solid, skin reddening from the warmth, a tiny spark snapping back at her with a puff of air. The fire curled over the fresh wood, catching on it from the edges and climbing upwards. It swallowed the wood in greedy mouthfuls. 

“Watch it. You’ll catch your sleeve on fire,” said Shauna suddenly, also awake. “And the only person around here who actually knows first aid is missing in action.”

Jackie drew her hand back. She kept her face to the fire so she wouldn’t have to watch Shauna sit up and put her hand to her stomach, so the guilt on her own face wasn’t visible. “I’m just getting warm. Relax. You’re such a mother hen,” she said back, tone somewhere between flippant and forced casual. The guilt of association with Nat’s crime kept jumping up on her whenever someone mentioned Misty or if Jackie happened to see Nat’s face. The cuts on her cheek were reddish purple still, not yet healed over. 

Misty was dead. Nat hadn’t said it, refused to put it into words, but she was dead. I can’t fix what we did or make it better, but I am not going to let anything happen to you.  Her rough voice had been in Jackie’s ear, swearing on her life. Apparently fate took the switch. Misty for Jackie, Jackie for nothing. It was a coin toss. A stroke of luck, some kind of fixed game results. 

Shauna moved at the edge of her vision. She seemed to be hesitating, lingering like she wanted to say something. Come on, Shauna. Just say it. Tell me how much you hate me. 

“Hungry?” 

Jackie deflated a little bit. “Yeah.” 

Exiting the cabin together, a delicate process involving much sidestepping and exaggerated leaping to avoid crushing sleeping Yellowjackets, Jackie found Nat. Her blood ran cold at the sight of her done up in her leather jacket and long pants, carefully layered to the best of her ability with the contents of her duffle-bag alone. The gun was slung across her back. She was going hunting, obviously, and appeared to be set to go it alone. 

“Aren’t you forgetting someone?” Shauna asked waspishly, swiping some of her dark hair back from her face. Her baggy flannel wasn’t much of defence from the cold. 

Nat’s face didn’t reveal a trace of guilt. She was good at that, Jackie realized. She just met their stares evenly and finished adjusting the strap so the gun hung comfortably, easier to swing around in a pinch. “Travis is already out there,” she said, jerking her chin in the vague direction of underbrush. “He wanted to start looking for Javi with the sun coming up. Figured we’d check before you all sent out the second search party.”

Her breath was visible in the air. It was an imitation of smoke from a cigarette, a flash of warmth then-and-gone again. 

“I could come with you.” 

“I think he and I’ll be good together. We've got this figured out.” 

Jackie frowned. She met Nat’s long exhale with one of her own. “It won’t actually kill me to put up with Travis. He’s got that sad boy hair cut and everything, but I’m sure I could tolerate him for an extended period of time.” 

She didn’t mean to keep beating at a dead horse. It was just nice having an inside joke with somebody, even if it was a shitty, morbid one and was probably pissing Nat off every time she said it. 

“Yeah? You falling in love with him or something?” 

“Dunno. Obviously he has nothing on Jeff, but maybe there’s potential for something.” Jackie snuck a look at Shauna and tried to smirk. It didn’t feel good, though. She didn’t delight in twisting a knife. Nat was obviously taking off without her, rushing to meet up with her woodsy boyfriend and kickstart that romance back up again, and Jackie had to stop holding on. Needed to let Nat do whatever it was that made her happy. “Let’s go. I’m starving.” 

Shauna’s mouth pinched into a tight line but led her to the meat shed dutifully, bracing the door shut so the wind couldn’t pop it back open. Their wolf was torn open from greedy, starved hands, and sat on two crates in the middle of the room. Jackie sat down against the wall to watch her work, strangely content. It was like being back home and watching Shauna scribble notes in a composition notebook, her pen flying across pages. 

Now her hands were measuring the distance between bones. Her fingers jabbed into the sinew and flesh, oblivious the frozen gore. Everything about it was a calculated move. When she made a cut, it was an incision. She scratched the knife across in a perfect, straight line. Didn’t falter once. 

“You’re good at this,” Jackie acknowledged. Did she do that enough before? She knew Shauna was incredible, but maybe she didn’t say it enough. “Total bad ass with that thing.” 

Shauna’s brows arched up a little. “Right.”

She sighed loudly. “Think about the stories we’ll have for college. We’re so going to get some serious mileage out of this shitty, nature-infested commune. If that’s still on the table, anyways.” The wood was rough against her back, prone to splintering. She felt it catch at the material of her jacket, her hair. “Stuff is different now. Maybe the plan has to change. College doesn’t have to be just Rutgers. Everything we talked about… it just— it isn’t really us anymore, is it?”

“Wow. You really ready to retire the whole green and pink colour scheme?”

The coldness of winter folded around them. Jackie thought it was an awful feeling, the chill inside of the meat shed. She propped herself up a little more comfortably against the wall and tried to think warm thoughts. “Maybe. Are you still a go on the green and pink?”

“I didn’t exactly have an opinion on that aesthetic choice.” 

Right. Jackie squirmed a little, guilty. 

“How would you have done it? Tapestries?”

“I don’t know,” Shauna told her. “Does it matter? Pretty sure we missed the deadline for tuition payments. We’re probably shit out of luck.”

“Can you imagine it? At least?” She closed her eyes. “I always had this idea college would be like it was in movies. You and me… everything staying the same, just less rules. Anything we wanted it to be.”

There was a rough exhale as Shauna wrenched the knife down. It popped a little bit, blood a little less frozen. It flecked out and splattered across her cheek in a gory imitation of freckles. “Rutgers would’ve been the same as Wiskayok,” she said slowly. “Everyone would’ve loved you, like, instantly. I could see you taking over the dorm room to host a party just to get to know everyone. Get your name out there… make friends. Be the queen of the hive or whatever.”

“I don’t think I’m very queenly.”

“You’ve been Wiskayok’s perfect princess for your entire life. I think you could’ve handled it just fine.” 

Her jaw hardened. Jackie felt the strange urge to bite into the raw, cold meat and swallow it down, that filling her stomach with the taste of blood might make her feel better somehow. 

Everything Shauna was saying was so matter of fact and offhanded, like she was lobbing grenades thinking they were apples. The blows just hit home. 

The air tasted like iron. It made her want something warm and comforting like tea, something hot to wrap her hands around. She wanted the hot chocolate that came in little paper packets with miniature sized marshmallows. Toast and marmalade, hard little candies that were perfect for tossing into her purse. Cherry chapstick, even. That imitation of sweetness across her mouth.

“Right,” she said, admitting it after a long pause. “You’re right.”

She worked in silence for a bit before breaking it, tentative: “Do you think that they’ll find them? Javi and Misty?”

Javi was a dark horse for Jackie. She didn’t know how that story worked itself out. “Duh. This place is majorly spooky. They wouldn’t go far,” she said, bluffing. 

“The cold— Tai said it would be bad, that it’d be one quick-and-you’re-asleep deal… maybe that’s why they haven’t come back.”

“Winter’s kind of shitty like that.”

“Javi just kind of reminds me— ” Shauna cut herself off. “I just want them to get back here. There’s food and they’re missing out on it. It makes me feel guilty being this hungry and knowing they’ve got nothing out there.”

“Don’t worry,” Jackie said, straining herself to sound kind. “Nat’s gonna find Javi. He’ll be okay.”

Because, yeah. Obviously Shauna looked at a quiet kid with a shitty, distant dad and saw herself. Dead dad, deadbeat dad… the whole thing lined up. Jackie could admire the symmetry there. Had seen it, actually, when Shauna willingly tore pages out of her diary to give him. 

“That’s a whole lot of confidence you’ve got for Nat.” 

“She’s good out there. If Travis doesn’t slow her down.” 

“You guys are weird,” Shauna said, veering sideways to get at something specific. A chunk of animal turned meat fell from her hand to a metal tray. “Did you guys screw around and make a secret language together? Everything you say to her sounds like a message in a bottle.”

Jackie huffed a weak laugh. “Are you asking me if I screwed around with Natalie Scatorcio?” 

She shrugged. Her hands were frozen above the cold flesh of the wolf, gloveless, and Jackie could see how pale her fingers were. The way they shivered a little like they hungered for something warm to imitate. “You just latched onto her. Pretty much glued yourself to her hip when we first got out here,” she said in a neutral kind of voice, one lacking any emotion at all. 

This was Shauna Shipman trying to provoke a conversation, maybe even a fight. The realization was jarring. Shauna always burrowed down deep into her journals and privacy. Stitching her heart onto her sleeve wasn’t her deal. That’s why Jackie had tried waiting before, had held onto her own silence for days and weeks after finding out the truth, sick from the truth. Baited verbal traps, tried luring the whole thing out into the open. Had cried with the trees until she was dry heaving, so completely destroyed... Jackie just wanted Shauna to yank the bandaid off and admit it.

Had wanted Shauna to just open her mouth up and admit, confess. Say the words so Jackie wouldn’t have to. 

A tiny, treacherous voice inside her head wondered what Shauna could have said that would have made it all better somehow.

Jesus. This is so fucked up. 

The knife was easier to look at. Jackie watched it saw through a particularly dense section, frozen skin and meat resistant to Shauna’s work. It stabbed through the back of the wolf and rocked to the left, finally finding purchase. And it was just like this, the entire conversation. Pushing at subjects until they finally hit one Shauna could use. 

“Aren’t we all on the same team?” 

Brown eyes looked up at her. “I don’t know. Are we?” 

Anger returned. And then it was replaced by sadness. Jackie didn’t even know what she wanted to feel anymore. “I like Nat,” she said plainly. “She’s great, actually. I don’t know why we never hung out before. Nat’s, like, super trustworthy. Wouldn’t fuck your boyfriend or anything behind your back. I like that in a friend.”

The blade hit down, once again piercing the back of the wolf. It was vanishing steadily. 

“Right.” 

She forced herself to smile. “Besides, Shauna. You’re the number one in my heart still.” Her hands clenched. “Don’t be so jealous.”

Shauna brutalized the body again and again, sectioning off rations. They weren’t very big, limited by the shape of the wolf. Jackie recalled the exact shape of the lumbering bear and felt a wanting for it, that perverse twist of fate. Shauna was trying to stretch what they had out indefinitely, was hoping to restore all that lost muscle mass and nourish their bodies with something, and eventually the cuts would get smaller and smaller. The hunger wouldn’t go away, would just get bigger and bigger in the shape of all that nothingness. 

And they would want for something else. 

A sick feeling twisted in her stomach. Shauna seemed to notice her grimace because she looked down hard at the knife and said, “how high on Nat’s scale do you think you rate? Because she’s pretty tight with Lottie. Weren’t they always messing around back home?”

An invisible finger prodded an invisible bruise. She felt it down to her bones. 

“You’re so serious about this. What’s gotten into you?” 

“I’m just worried about you. She’s kind of— Nat’s just who she's always been.” Shauna pursed her lips and seemed to be thinking of what to say. “I like Nat. She’s great and stuff. I just worry about you. You’re so involved with her lately… I just feel like I hardly know you when you’re with her. Like I said, Jax. You’ve got a secret language or something.” 

Her heart thrummed against her ribcage. Felt invisible scores of a knife across it per each throb. “Who cares? At least she likes me.”

Shauna’s shoulders came up in a limp shrug. “She’s not gonna hold your head above water, Jax. This whole place is messed up, but she’s not exactly knight in shining armour material.” Her hand was frozen again, the blade resting against the bloodied flesh. “You’ve always had influence over everyone. I just don’t think I’ve ever seen you as the one influenced before.”

Ground zero was shitty. Ground zero was digging the same grave all over again with zero audience. Jackie got to her feet and was struck with the impulsive desire to hit something. She wasn’t much for breaking things before, that was never her emotional release, but for once she wanted to leave an impression of something. That irreparable crack down something perfect. 

“None of you are my friends,” said Jackie hotly. “I don’t see why you even care. You’ve been off in your own world with Tai. And let’s not even mention the times you’ve been running around with Jeff behind my back.” 

Nobody gave a shit the last time, but Jackie still felt like the betrayal deserved a scandalized gasp or two. That’s why she rigged a whole seance just to shut Shauna up and air some dirty laundry out, dramatic enough that the whole team cared this time. 

The silence of the shed was ringing in her ears. It made a whole orchestra with the pounding of her heart, the way her stomach dropped. If they were playing cards, she had just smacked down nearly everything she had in a ballsy gotcha. 

Shauna said nothing. Her fingers squeezed tight on the knife. Held it like she wanted to stab with it, like she couldn’t bear to separate her hand from it. 

Like the knife was somehow her anchor. 

Horror, though... that showed. And it was almost satisfying to see just how quickly her mouth snapped shut, the widening of her eyes. Nat had stalked the woods hunting and killing things, pretty much hanging around patiently with the expectation that something was going to go right for her. Jackie had been hunting her own kind of game this entire time. Waiting until Shauna got into position, her finger on the trigger. Bam, she thought. Bullseye. 

“You really thought that you were just so clever. How often was it, anyways? I know Jeff was desperate, but you guys really kept it together.” She smacked her hands together in a loose, lazy parody of an applause. “Congratulations. Just… wowza. You really scored my desperate boyfriend. Was it your idea? His? C’mon, Shauna. Fill me in on the juicy details. Tell me what I missed exactly.” She didn’t pull her stare from Shauna’s. “Was it love?”

“You read my diary.”

“No.” Not this time, anyways. “I’ve known for a long time that you guys were screwing behind my back. And that you’re pregnant.” 

Her hand jerked. It went to her side, knife still in hand. “How? How did you know?”

“When you hate someone,” Jackie said, lowering her voice so it was a conspiratorial whisper, “like, really hate someone… it’s kind of written all over your face.” 

She didn’t expect grovelling. The first round had been the equivalent of pulling back a stone and finding worms. Jackie knew that Shauna disliked her, despised everything about her. 

She just didn’t expect the absolute nothingness on Shauna’s face, the lack of guilt for having done a shitty thing. “You don’t actually care, do you?” Shauna said. She stood up properly, face colourless, and didn’t pause. “Jeff’s just a thing, some kind of status symbol to flaunt around. I just took something that belonged to you.”

“Christ, Shauna. You can have him. Just make sure he either steps up or mails you the child support.”

Shauna’s hand spasmed and the knife dropped. It hit the bloodied, cold floor with a thump. 

“It’s so easy for you to give up on someone, isn’t it? Fuck. You’re so tragic. You just— you just grew up in this huge house with parents who barely give a shit about you, no wonder you look at people like they’re dolls. I hate soccer! But you made me play the sport that you love. We go to parties that you want to go to. You were shopping in a design catalogue for the both of us, planning every detail of a dorm room out single-handedly. There’s nothing about me that you wouldn’t customize or alter to match some ideal.”

“What? Do you wanna go ahead and blame me for scoring the goal that put us on a plane for nationals?” Jackie asked roughly. “Go ahead and add that to my list of crimes. Apparently it's a long list.” Shauna started to say something, but Jackie shook her head. It took sincere effort to cling to her rage, to keep it just so she wouldn’t cry. “It’s funny. I can’t be around you, I… I can’t even fucking look at you right now.”

Jackie went for the door. It shuddered beneath the wind, handle snapping against her fingers as she tugged it open. Shauna called from behind her, “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

It was funny. It was enough to make her turn back and look at Shauna properly. “Or maybe you never did.”

Jackie walked straight through her death spot and didn’t stop. Snowflakes, thick as cotton, were dropping down from the aching sky. They caught at her hair, melted against her salted cheeks. The trees formed archways above her. A tiny memory bubbled up from nowhere of lying on the ground and feeling the snow collected over her blanket, the slight weight of it on her shoulder and face. That memory, like all memories, formed a dull ache between her eyes. She didn’t stop to look at the snow, didn’t linger to marvel at each individual snowflake that came down. It was enough that it was happening, winter cold and ugly. She was scared of it, scared of going back, scared of everything—

Chapter Text

The Yellowjackets had been marching around the woods going in circles since late morning, shoes soaked from the snow. Kristen looked torn up by the whole ordeal, hands cupped around her mouth and shouting Misty’s name over and over again. It sounded against the trees and brush, vanished somewhere in the sky overhead. The whole ordeal was making her feel guilty, stumbling through the snow drifts with Mari and Gen, pretending like Misty wasn’t murdered. That this was some kind of extended field trip. Wispy bits of voices kept coming up through the trees, various snippets of songs. They're not the same girls bellowing out lyrics in the locker room anymore, but they're also not totally above muttering Salt-N-Pepa at each other. 

Maybe that was the cost of this place. She would never be entirely innocent. She didn’t kill Misty, but she was keeping quiet about it. Pretended she was deaf whenever somebody commented on the state of Nat’s face. Jackie’s been angry before, shouting on the top of her lungs kind of mad, but never murder-somebody angry. She couldn't even picture it. Not even Taissa Turner on a bad day had her thinking about first-degree murder in a fun-leaning-towards serious way. 

Every new day was technically an adventure. Jackie breathed out a suffering kind of sigh and shifted by Mari, contemplating some bright red berries hanging from a branch. Akilah had rubbed some against her wrist already and showed the visible rash on her skin, ruling them out from her diet. Pretty looking berries had her mouth watering immediately and it took sincere effort to keeping moving. 

“How much longer are we doing this?” Mari asked, catching Jackie by the sleeve to steal her attention suddenly.  

Jackie had to grit her teeth, hoping Kristen was listening. “Until the number of people wanting to quit is greater than the number of people wanting to look.” 

“Fuck. This sucks.” 

Some of the trees formed a dense wall, blocking them off. Yellowjackets split around it, forming their own passages through the snow drifts. Now that she was with Mari, it wasn’t so bad trudging along. There’s a lot of things that she didn’t know, future and murky fates of everyone, but she can handle an afternoon with Mari. That’s why they always worked, pairing off for assignments when Jackie wasn’t in a class with Shauna, hanging out late in the locker room while Shauna was in the showers, Jackie and Shauna showing up at her birthday party every year. Jackie(Shauna) with Mari in every scenario apparently.

A branch scratched her shoulder roughly. It was almost as painful as the realization that Jackie didn’t even have a life separate from Shauna. 

Chill out, she thought. It was just one step at a time. Jackie wasn’t dead yet. There was enough time to reinvent her future. She just needed a bad hair cut to start the process, kick start personal growth.

“Misty!” Kristen shouted again. 

Tai cut through the snow like she had a personal grievance with it. Her feet stomped down on crunchy layers of it, hurtling along the avenue of trees. Lottie stumbled to keep up with her. Unintentionally the Yellowjackets had fallen in with a buddy system. Considering the fact that they were down two bodies from their group, that made sense. Jackie made a mental note to call dibs on Mari if they kept splitting up like this. The whole thing would be both embarrassing and devastating if she got stuck with Shauna somehow. 

She dug out a water bottle from her pocket of her coat, unscrewing the lid and taking a swig from it. Cold tea, or what passed for tea these days. Ben had tried boiling bunches of pine needles for vitamin C content, replacing their early morning Dunkin Donut coffee orders with bitter, stewed tasting water. If she could, Jackie would cut off her hand for tall vanilla iced latte, full of perfectly shaped ice cubes and sugary syrups. She was tired, wanting and needing, and was more tired for every day that passed. It was cutting into her bones, infecting every dream. A coldness that couldn’t be shaken off, a terrified dread that if she slept, she wouldn’t wake up again, or she would be back at the plane for a third round. 

The whole situation made no sense. 

“Want some?” Jackie offered belatedly, holding the bottle out. It was a plastic water bottle rescued from their original rations after the crash, plastic wrinkled and label long peeled off. “If you pretend this is Gatorade, you might be able to gaslight yourself into tasting it.”

“I liked the blue Gatorade the best,” Mari told her, taking it and sipping at it, nose wrinkling a little. “But I’d take red right now.”

“That’s funny. Blue isn’t even a real flavour, but it always comes out the best.”

“Nothing will ever beat a blue raspberry Slurpee. Scientifically, anyways, they cracked the fucking code.”

“That’s, like, all corn syrup, but you’re right. It’s the ultimate choice.”

Mari huffed a weak laugh. “Do you wanna get Slurpees after all this?”

A plan. Jackie needed a plan. That was why she invented roughly one million life plans for her and Shauna. She needed to latch onto somebody and keep afloat. 

It was weak and desperate, but she was so goddamned tired of being alone. And Nat wasn’t going to hang out or anything, probably wasn’t down for matching manicures at the mall. Jackie’s feet kept moving, stepping through deep snow, forcing herself further, but she nodded. Screwed the lid back on tight to her bottle and managed a flimsy smile. “Yeah, Mar. That sounds super fun. I’ll add it to my agenda.”

This was progress, technically. Jackie hadn’t recoiled out of her skin earlier when Lottie brushed against her arm. She was alive and needed to get used to it. 

Bits of snowflakes fell down. They clotted against her eyelashes and she needed to wipe them away with her hand. The damp made her clothes feel heavier. 

Familiar faces came in and out of her peripheral vision. There was a whole lot of woods around them so she made a point of trying to keep track of where each individual went off. If Jackie went off and got lost? She would be terrified. That’s why she charted when Akilah led Laura Lee down by some pines, ducking to peer beneath the low hanging branches. Paid attention when Shauna went off on her own, hair hanging around her face like a curtain. Jackie wasn’t a leader anymore, but she wasn’t going to get blindsided with a third vanishing. 

Did Travis and Nat stick together when they went off alone? That thought popped into her head and it bothered her. Jackie had made sure to stick to Nat like glue, refusing to budge from her heels while she navigated the area like some pro. Travis was a dick, though. He might not care when Nat separated, might not even pay attention. 

Irritation curled up tight inside her chest like a fist. There were a lot of things that could happen to a person. Someone needed to keep track of Nat, make sure she wasn’t falling off a cliff or getting lost somehow. That irritation shifted a little, turning to a ripple of horror as Jackie realized that Nat wasn’t actually indestructible. She died, after all. 

“I spy with my little eye… something that is white.”

Jackie whipped her head around to stare at Mari. “We’re in the fucking woods in winter. Literally everything is white.” 

“Are you gonna guess or what?” Mari’s eyes darted towards where Shauna was walking solo. She had come back, curving generously around some of the brush. “I’m not gonna pitch a fit or something if you ditch me, by the way.”

“Please. You and me? We’re cool.” 

“Okay. So… do you wanna talk about it?”

She felt herself go rigid. “I don’t think there’s much to actually say.” 

“Did you guys, like, break up or something?” She laughed a little, air coming out of her mouth in a tiny, silvery puff of heat. “You guys acted like wives. Dude, relax. I’m just saying… you guys weren’t just friends, you were super friends.”

Was this bait? Privately Jackie studied the ground, walking with great care. Her feet kept splintering through the crusted snow. “I wouldn’t call us super or anything. Not now.”

Mari came to a dead stop. Her black hair framed her face, pretty and long. “Are you serious? What the fuck?” 

“This really doesn’t matter. Like, pretty much the only thing that does matter is carving open a deer or, fuck, shooting a deer.” Now she cracked a little smile. “Or cooking a deer, I guess.”

“Is it really a technical skill to stab something that’s already dead?”

Apparently Shauna was walking close enough to hear that snarky line, whipping her head around to stare at them. “Are you seriously talking shit about me?” She asked, speaking to Mari but aimed at Jackie. Her brown eyes looked black with all the white light around them, sun caked into the snow and ice, dark orbs glaring at them with accusation. 

“Not everything is about you,” Jackie told her. 

“Right. This is so you that it’s unbelievable. You can’t handle anything without immediately flocking to someone.” Shauna’s mouth curled a little, ugly and pretty at once. The butcher, the person who took something and left only carnage behind. “Grow up and get your own back bone, Jax.”

Jackie was short for Jaqueline. Jax was short for Jackie, a title only allowed for Shauna. Her spitting it out felt infinitely personal, like Shauna had taken a knife and slid it through her ribs.  

Jackie died from the literal cold and now it was framing them together, some weird back drop to their melt down. “Is it scary for you to realize that maybe I don’t need you at all? That I’m actually okay without you?”

Shauna strode through the snow and got right in her face, tall enough that her face blotted out the sun all together. “I actually know you. It has always been you and me; you in my car, you in my house, you with half your shit in my locker. You’re… you’re absolutely incapable of holding yourself together without help.” Her gaze cut towards Mari, scorn obvious. “Now you’ve got replacement Barbie to fill the gap.” 

They’ve been close like this before. Face to face during sleep overs, knees knocking against each other’s. Jackie gently dabbing a coat of sticky gloss to her mouth, pinkie finger brushing her cheek. They’re so close that it wouldn’t be hard to get closer, physically merging until one swallowed the other, bones clicking together. This could be a hug, a kiss. If Jackie brought her hands up, she could choke Shauna. Rip her apart. Find a gap and get the fuck out of Dodge. 

“Are you serious? Can you climb off my dick?” Mari snapped, face flushed from cold and irritation. 

That split Shauna’s intense stare, swivelling to look at Mari. “Oh my god, fuck off. This has nothing to do with you.” 

“Didn’t anyone tell you? We’ve gone fucking communist out here. Your business is our collective business.” 

“Can you back off?”

“Why? We,” Mari said, gesturing to her and Jackie like they were a duo, “were having a private discussion that you interrupted.” 

“Yeah. Talking about me.”

“Move ten feet that way and you won’t even have to hear us talk,” Jackie directed. “Wasn’t the whole point to spread out and search for Misty?”

“Please. We’re only out here until enough people want to call it quits and go back,” Shauna brushed off. 

Something strange cracked inside her. Somehow they were so synced up that it was almost ridiculous. “Well, relax. You got Tai in the divorce. Don’t bend yourself backwards pretending you give a shit.” 

Shauna merely shrugged and made a big show of looking around. “I don’t see Natalie anywhere. Did she get bored and take off? Poor baby. Everybody gets tired of you. You’re just— you’re nothing, actually. Everything you have done is for nothing. All your accomplishments have been for nothing.” 

Yellowjackets formed a loose circle around them. Jackie hadn’t noticed them at all, far too busy getting smaller and smaller for every single word. Their faces looked almost impassive, studying them and watching, a shade off from spectators in the locker room. “Guys, can we cool it for a minute?” Robin said wearily. 

Jackie lurched away from Shauna. Her feet crashed blindly through the snow, going deeper into the woods. She needed perspective. People went on nature walks all the time. This wasn’t any different. Her head ached as she remembered their first fight, the last one from Jackie’s original timeline. She was nothing, totally a big nothing stitched together from all sorts of weak shit. Coach Bill figured that out already. No matter how hard she worked or tried, Jackie was always behind on her game. 

She scratched at her throat with her nails, uncomfortable. All those faces watching— a silent audience, unfeeling stares. That’s how this went. She couldn’t imagine it going any other way. 

Someone crashed after her. For a raw, awful moment Jackie was afraid that it was Shauna looking for round two, or maybe three? But Mari whirled around her, yellow hoodie vibrant amongst the whiteness around them. “So I’m pretty much overdue on all of my assignments for that agenda,” she said tightly, shoulders a little hunched. “If you’re gonna pencil me in, scheduling might get a little messy.” 

She blinked, confused. 

“Slurpees. I’m dead ass serious. I could die for one right now.”

Oh. Light bulb moment snapped on. “We’ll figure it out. Could— if you wanted, I mean, we could do mani-pedis.” 

“Yes,” Mari said, looking delighted to be asked. Behind them everyone was milling about, not quite veering towards Shauna. This was different, Jackie realized. She had left Shauna, but one person had come after her. And Shauna, for all that she was, had not a single person wedging her up. 

Some of the sun thawed straight through her skin. Maybe this wouldn’t be so impossible. It really was just one step at a time, figuring her shit out, and keeping her head on straight. Just as she was thinking that, Lottie suddenly called out. They rushed through the woods and found her and Tai, the other girl on her knees, hands brushing snow away from the shape on the ground. Misty’s body appeared beneath layers of snow and frost, unknit patiently. She’s blue eye shadow smeared across her eyelids, hair frozen to her scalp. Misty, the girl on the bench, Misty, the girl who helped to braid hair before games. 

Jackie thought she was guilty already, but seeing the whole crime? New guilt rose up. Seeing it made it real. Kristen was crying and Akilah dry heaved off to the side, whole team gathering. Some of them spun around in the snow to get away, streaming back to the cabin with great, gulping sobs. Death was funny the way it reduced the living down to almost nothing. That could be us, she thought blearily. It would’ve been her. 

Tai twisted around and gazed up at her like she could sense her thoughts. Her bloodshot eyes looked especially weary with Misty splayed out like that. “I felt her here.” 

“You found here. Now we can bring her back, figure out what to do.” No burial, obviously. Van got lucky, dying when the ground was soft and pliable. 

“No. I felt her here,” Tai said, repeating herself. Her fingers trembled a little, pressing down on Misty’s sharp collarbone. Blood was in her eyes and they gleamed like great black stars. “She was in my head and now I got here.” 

“You have a gift,” Lottie told her, chin trembling. She didn’t look anymore steady than the rest of them. “You have to think of it like that or else you’ll only see it as a curse.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Something greater has picked you.” Lottie dropped to her knees. Now they went two girls kneeling there, one girl dead, and Jackie standing over top of them like some fucked up tableaux. “Do you— have you seen the eyes watching? They’re watching you, Taissa. You’re chosen for this.”

Now Tai shook her head, troubled and distant. “She’s dead and I can’t feel her anymore.” 

“It has been here for a long time and now we’ve joined it. That’s why this house was here. The gun and the knives, everything that matters has always been here.” 

“It doesn’t matter. We don’t matter.”

Lottie clutched at her arms. “Look inside your head. This whole place is a circle. It wants you to understand it best.” 

“I guess we can go back now,” Mari said awkwardly, folding her arms and gazing down at the bleak sight. After a few moments some of the others came forward in agreement, coughing politely about freezing their asses and tits off. 

Together they lifted their burden. She was frozen and stiff, mouth smudged looking and discoloured. It was only days prior that Jackie was smudging lipstick across her mouth, dressing her up in all the shades of beauty she learned from her own mom. Careful with lining your lips, dear. As you get older, your mouth changes. What you line today will make you look twice your age once you start wrinkling. 

“Do we… you know, bring her in with us?” Gen asked, coughing a little. She looked disturbed from her end of the body, carrying Misty by her feet. “Or just leave her out here? What’s the better option?”

“I guess we can put her in with the meat,” Shauna mumbled, stuck like the others. Warm heat looked visible from the orange light against the windows. 

Laura Lee opened the door slowly and peered out at them. The blanket tossed around her shoulders gave her the general saintly appearance. “You’re back.” 

“Well, our current mailing address is definitely this shit spot, so yeah. We came back,” Shauna told her.

She floated down the short few steps. The weight was sagging between them so they carefully lowered her down to the ground. Ironically she was stretched out on the spot where Jackie died, frozen to death. Laura Lee crouched down and petted her hair softly, fingers ever so gently. “This is so wrong. We’re losing each other out here.” Tears dripped down her face. “We weren’t supposed to get lost.” 

Lottie tried to give her support but Laura Lee stepped back, teeth snapping shut. Her face turned bloodless, eyes like blue flames. “Stop it. I’m not okay with this.”

“We can pray. If that’s what you’d like.”

Nobody wanted to pray and hold hands with Laura Lee. Jackie could see it on their faces plain as day. This was a dirty job, hauling Misty back from the wild, and they were tired. Calories burnt, bodies cold. This grief was simply temporary for the rest of them. It wouldn’t wreck them or ruin their lives. As terrible as it was, this was merely a brick in a wall. “Guys. Let’s take a moment and think about this. This is our one chance to say goodbye to Misty Quigley. She was— you know what, she was pretty good to us. And now she’s gone.” She gestured towards Laura Lee. “You’re right. That matters.” 

Laura Lee shook her head. “I’m not praying to the fucking wilderness.”

They each flinched like they had been stung. “We’re talking to each other right now. Buzz, buzz and all that.” Jackie shot Lottie a look. “No spirits or anything.” 

“Fine. Misty had a beautiful soul,” Laura Lee declared, cheeks turning red. “God loved her for it.” 

“Misty saved my arm from falling off, probably.” Gen shrugged one shoulder, demonstrating the function. “After was crashed.” 

“Yeah. Her first aid stuff was totally bad ass.” 

More comments were fed into the circle, Misty in the middle of everything, and it was almost ridiculous how sentimental they were getting. Ben refused to put her on the actual team because he knew they would’ve torn her apart. Tai shattering Allie’s leg into pieces was nothing compared to what she would have done to her. Jackie kept her gaze focused directly on Misty’s face. Acted like she wasn’t three bodies separate from Shauna, that she wasn’t wearing Misty’s watch on her wrist. 

Nat and Travis slunk back through the trees right as their circle broke, revealing the body as it was. She didn’t even flinch, to her credit. Just stepped right up and peered down at Misty. 

But Jackie was hot on Travis’s heels, following him to where he was peeling off layers of clothing. “Do you guys stick together the whole time you’re out there?”

“Can you go somewhere else?”

“Take three minutes out of your very busy day of being yourself and answer me. Are you sticking together or do you separate?”

He brows knit together a little. “We’re pretty much together.”

Jackie tried very hard to keep emotion off her face. “You should make sure she doesn’t wander off on her own. She’s terrible with directions. Tell her practise is at one and she’ll show up for two.” That’s why Jackie always told Nat that their practises were scheduled for an hour earlier than they actually were. Being captain meant she had to be a genius with managing individuals and just because Nat was hard to manage didn’t mean she was impossible. “You have to watch out for her. Be there for her.” 

Travis flicked his fingers at her, patience evaporating. Didn’t say a word before storming up to the attic. 

Chapter Text

Mari stood in a white shirt roughly five sizes too big for her and held up a candle to her face which illuminated the sheer blackness of her eyes. “I think I’m being haunted,” she announced to the group. “I think Dead Cabin Guy is saying— oh shit, I think he’s calling us a bunch of freeloading bitches.”

Akilah tore suddenly a sheet of paper from her notebook and balled it up to toss at her. Some of the girls twitched with amusement. “Shut up,” Akilah told her with obvious fondness. “Just let the poor guy rest in peace, okay?”

“Don’t be so nice.”

“I always knew that landlords were without souls,” Laura Lee pronounced from over by the fire. Her knuckles were white from clutching the armrests of her chair. A clash to the slumber-party-atmosphere that Mari was trying to force. Everything about Laura Lee seemed harsh and soft at once, skin scrubbed to a bright shine, a sure match to her pink lungs and throbbing heart, clean down to her soul. Somehow she was above the basic grime that coated everyone else, so tidy it was annoying. Like Laura Lee knew what Jackie was thinking, her fingers came up to brush aside an invisible speck of dirt from the Peter-Pan collar of her shirt. “Their main source of income is the incomes that are provided by other working people. Gluttony, soulless work— they drain the system.” 

“Come on, Laura Lee. You can call them what they are. A pack of soulless bitches,” Jackie said dryly, hoping to get her to react a little. Play with me, she thought. Things were different, but she wanted even a shadow of the girl giggling beside the keg at the party again. 

It didn’t work. Laura Lee said nothing. Ben seemed to notice the divide between them and the group because he stood over them awkwardly on crutches. “Seeing as how we aren’t currently paying rent, maybe we should put a hold on the worker’s revolution for now?”

A hint to settle in for the night. Time was useless out where they were, but their lives were governed by the light and dark. Akilah was struggling to read with the watery light of the fire, two candles arranged nearby for additional light, but eventually she would snap her book shut with a huff. Already two of the others were curled up and asleep, oblivious to the conversations around them. Mari flopped down to the ground and started piling her hair up on her head in a messy bun, stretching an elastic around it until she was satisfied. 

No Nat. She was gone elsewhere. Nobody said anything about it, her and Travis, but Jackie felt their stares whenever Shauna dealt rations. Those two got extras. They were wasting more calories hunting than what they needed and a wolf wasn’t very big, it wouldn’t last forever. Whenever that tray came into the room and everyone went silent, Jackie tasted salt. 

Mari was turning around to speak to Akilah, voice lowered down to a whisper, and Jackie felt eyes on her. Shauna. 

Casually she looked over and saw her against the wall. For the last few days she had been smiling with her teeth and nodding along to the conversations, participating like some kind of wooden doll. Somehow there was a gap right beside her, a space intently left empty. Jackie had loved Shauna, but maybe she loved her in the wrong way. That people, their friends, thought of Shauna as Jackie’s property and were reserving a space for her automatically. That by loving Shauna, Jackie had turned her into something different. 

The corona of light formed a ring-shaped halo to Shauna’s head, staining her already dark hair black in contrast. As loyal best friend Jackie had served her time dutifully beside her during the Catholic phase. Hanging out, looking for God— whatever it took to spend some time together on Sundays and during weekday Mass. Tell you what, Shipman. I’m getting down on my knees for you, not Jesus. And Shauna’s sudden laugh in response, the way she swerved her car across the lane by accident. Right now she wasn’t laughing. Right now Shauna Shipman looked like a saint, but not one Jackie could recognize. 

Laura Lee brought her faith into the wilderness, but now it seemed lost. In the absence of it was the reinvention of newer saints, even more tragic than the original cast. Would the baby survive? Jackie hadn’t risked asking Nat, but she wasn’t stupid. She could add up the calories on a plate back home like it was nothing. Wolf meat was going fast and eventually they would have nothing. Looking at Shauna gave her the sense that she was watching a slow motion train crash, something unavoidable and so upsetting to witness. 

Jackie closed her eyes, remembering every single thing from their original confrontation, and how stupidly pathetic she was for dragging out a bitchy line from a movie just to try and punch down at Shauna. How angry and terrifying it was when she realized she really was on her own. How much it hurt letting go, forcing her body to stick it out with the cold, refusing to budge. If the situation had been reversed, Shauna outside and Jackie inside, would she have let it happen? 

She really needed out of this room and away from old history. She might be in this place forever. She might never make it through okay. She might—

“I’m gonna go,” Jackie mumbled to someone, not really bothering to verify which JV girl was beside her. She cast the blanket to one side and stood up. 

“You want some company?”

“Nah. I think I can handle the cold for a bit.”

That was a bad bluff, Jackie realized. The cold physically hurt. It blew against her face and arms as she got the door shut behind her. She stood against the darkness and it breathed right back at her. She came down the steps and angrily kicked at it, bringing up a spray of snow. What she wouldn’t give for an electric blanket right now. Her proper bed, actual pillows. Also just as good, the winter jacket hanging up in the closet back home with the pink snow boots she got for last year’s skiing trip. 

The very trip she begged and forced her parents into adjusting so Shauna could come with them. Was that bad? Assuming Shauna would be doing nothing in her absence and very much needed to be forced onto their trip? Was it obnoxious, Jackie very easily managing the hills and Shauna a beginner to the sport? She had six winters prior of constant weekend ski trips. Shauna went once on a field trip. Jackie’s family liked skiing in the same way that they liked traveling to beaches on March Break, marking the calendar up with expensive little places they were destined to visit. 

My dad’s taking me camping, Shauna said one summer. 

That was just the summer her dad flopped out on plans with her because his new wife was knocked up. Camping didn’t happen for Shauna, but a glamped out version did happen for Jackie, summering for a week in a cabin off of a lake. Maybe sending her a postcard was like rubbing salt on the wound. 

Jackie was made for loving people. That didn’t mean she was good at loving. 

Right now she missed the skiing jacket. Warmth she didn’t have to work for. That’s what Jackie craved so deeply. Splitting wood for their fire made her arms feel rubbery and weak. Now that winter was truly present, the wood had frozen up on the inside from moisture. It was hard to break down into smaller pieces. She had never done the whole ‘roughing it in the woods’ thing recreationally before, just that one stint in a cabin, plumbing and built in AC a guarantee. Never once had she needed to gather wood for burning, never needed to hold a match to a crumpled up porn magazine to catch flame. All she knew was lazy comforts, not the slippery process of surviving. 

And here she was. Somehow on the sidelines. 

Snakes shed their skin to grow. Maybe that was what was going to happen out here, that Jackie was going to turn into a snake and the damaged parts would come off. 

A gust of wind yanked smoke around the yard, acrid and black against her face. Jackie coughed automatically, waving a hand belatedly to try and clear it some.

“Does it look like water to you?”

The girl standing against the trees didn’t look like Tai. Her face, her voice, her body—

Who the fuck are you?

There was nothing to do now that winter had come except to rest and wait. Maybe that was why Tai looked so different. She’s never been so stuck in one place before. Her feet were planted firmly at shoulder width apart, a stone that the wind was pushing against. 

Jackie stepped closer, eyes adjusting slowly to the dark. Her one foot sunk straight through the snow and soaked through her jeans immediately. “You good?”

Tai repeated herself cooly. Her bare hands spasmed a little. A tiny touch of light showed the sudden wildness on her face, dark eyes peering at her. Does it look like water to you?

“I don’t really know. It just looks like snow.” Should Jackie bring Lottie out? Riddles weren’t her strength. Whiteness was blowing in from every direction seemingly and beyond the immediate trees, all wilderness seemed gone. A tiny patch of light wasn’t nearly enough to make a dent in it. 

Quietness folded around them. Inside the cabin was loud; muffled conversations from every corner of the room, someone coughing, attic creaking above their heads. All she could hear out here was the pounding of her own heart, fast enough she could feel the nervous thrumming of it through her skull. She had a poster when she was a kid, a free one torn out of a magazine, of a rabbit. Jackie thought of it distantly, those soft ears with the veins running throughout, body tensed up to bolt, instinct telling it to run. 

“Aren’t you freezing?” Jackie asked Tai, reaching out to touch her arm. “Come on. We’ll kick someone out of the good seat and you can warm up inside—”

Her breath crystallized in the air in a panicked exhale. “What? For fuck’s sake, Jackie. You gave me a heart attack.”

Weird. Jackie shifted back a little. “Seriously? What is your problem?” 

She couldn’t see through the darkness around them, but at least Tai moved a little closer to the cabin. She shivered roughly, cold air biting through her thin layers. “You should go inside, Jackie. You’ll freeze out here.” 

They’ve never been friends. 

Her and Tai? Not a pretty combination. Tai, for starters, was fiercely competitive. Like to be the best, wanted the best… couldn’t function if she wasn’t getting a pretty golden trophy for all of her efforts. 

Which technically also went for Jackie. 

But they mixed, regardless. Their friends were in the same social circles. If Jackie was going to a sleepover, decent chances were that Tai was also invited. And hadn’t Mrs. Turner mentioned something very quietly about Tai’s sleepwalking? How it didn’t happen often anymore— God, Jackie thought belatedly. Was it safe to wake Tai up if she was sleepwalking or was she supposed to coax gently back inside? 

“Are you good?” 

“Obviously,” sniffed Tai. She wiped a hand across her eyes, smudging away snowflakes from her lashes. 

“Right. Because you look totally fine. What are you even doing out here?” Jackie couldn’t remember when she had seen Tai last. 

“Since when was it a crime to want a little breathing space? Jesus Christ. You can’t turn sideways without looking at someone. I just wanted to be alone.”

“Fair point. It is pretty uncomfortable inside,” conceded Jackie. “This really has been the extended sleep over from hell that nobody asked for.” 

Her joke fell flat. It wasn’t much of a sleepover when they were starving. 

Tai looked tired. Darkness was all around her. “Nothing about this is sufficient. This cabin isn’t going to last us to see Springtime. People are going to have to get used to uncomfortable things.” 

“What do you want to do? Go inside and pack everybody up? Try hitting the road again?” Jackie frowned. “Metaphorical road, obviously, because there’s no road out here to follow.”

That didn’t impress Tai any. Maybe it was Jackie’s voice in her ear, her face in front of her. “We can only travel so far before we run out of supplies. And Coach can only go so far on foot.” 

There were certain qualities that actually made Tai and Jackie alike. Not frequently, not many, but just enough to wedge them together in constant competitive likeness. No, Tai wouldn’t pack up again to try her luck a second time. No, Jackie wouldn’t leave someone behind. They came out here as a team and splintering off had felt terrible, was terrible, had been terrible when Tai led her tiny numbers away. On extreme occasion, Jackie would sometimes look at Tai and think that maybe they could be a very specific kind of friend. 

But that didn’t happen often. Tai usually had other girls in their classes, Van. And Jackie glued herself to Shauna. 

“Does that mean you’ve thought about it? Leaving?” 

“Obviously. Haven’t you?”

Jackie considered the darkness and shrugged. “Feels like we’re stuck here until someone comes for us. If I had known this was going to happen, I would’ve packed better.”

“Yes, Jackie. Your collection of cashmere sweaters are exactly what we need right now.”

“I mean, I was thinking about an actual winter jacket, but go off. Whatever.”

Just as Jackie turned to leave, Tai caught her by the arm. Squeezed gently to keep her from retreating. “I don’t know why I do that to you.”

“I can take it.”

“It doesn’t make you better just because you can.”

“No,” allowed Jackie. “But that’s okay. I’m okay. We’re on the same team, right?”

“I cracked open Allie’s leg. We weren’t playing the same game.”

“You can apologize to Allie when we get home.”

“That girl is the luckiest girl in the entire world.”

“I mean, she only dreamed about going to nationals for five months straight… yeah, I’d say she’s pretty lucky.” Jackie hesitated. “What did you dream about? What was the original big Taissa Turner dream?”

“You trying to steal my vision board for the future?” Tai scoffed, but it was almost playful. “Top of my game, even if I didn’t know what game I was playing. Best school, best score card, best GPA.”

“Wow. You really are an overachiever.” 

“What about you?”

“I don’t know.” Rutgers, yes. But that was a bandaid fixing the gap between her and Shauna post high school. “New York, maybe. Travel a bunch, see the world. And I have to say,” said Jackie, lowering her voice to an exaggerated whisper, “I’m not loving this part of the world. Could use a major scenery switch.”

“Let me guess. A beach?” 

“Oh, absolutely a beach.” 

They went quiet, considering each other. She would have liked to return inside and call it quits, but that felt like betraying something fragile between her and Tai. 

Tai was strong. Always had been. Agile as hell, trying around on the field like she was prepared to sacrifice her ankle if it meant scoring a goal. But she looked less strong now, short hair cropped close to her skull, chin turned upwards the take in the full song. Muscles had melted off her frame. Now she was brittle to look at, thin shoulders and thin legs, barely fed enough from the wolf neat to rebuild what was lost. 

They’re bigger than their dislike for each other. And they won’t be friends, but they can survive this together. Jackie stuck out her hand. “I’m not here to fight you, Tai. Same team, same game. Let’s say we don’t address our personal flaws and just… put one step forwards?”

“You being the bigger person is actually incredibly irritating,” Tai said, huffing a laugh. She took her hand in agreement. “I can try and— I don’t know, whatever.”

“And for the sake of keeping things peaceful?” Now she hesitated, fingers still locked around Tai’s. “Save your girl. Rip the bandaid off and spill the details to everyone inside that Shauna Shipman is up the river with Jeff’s spawn.”

Her face went flat. Tai had known. “You want me to—”

“The one person in our group cutting up the meat and deciding the rations is gaining weight,” said Jackie, detaching her hand to push it against her stomach very slightly for emphasis. “Eventually somebody is going to say something.”

“I can’t do that. She doesn’t want anyone to know.”

Jackie said nothing. Shauna hadn’t wanted her to know. That wasn’t the same as everyone. 

“I don’t want to be the one to do that to her.”

“Yeah, and I didn’t want my best friend to cheat on me with my boyfriend. It is a shitty situation all around. But you have to pull the cat out of the bag or whatever, because it’ll be way shittier if people here think she’s stealing extra rations.”

“Why don’t you—”

“Oh, no. That’s so not my job.” 

“Bitch,” Tai said, testing the word with a surprising amount of gentleness. “Fine.” 

Her breath crystallized in the air, exhaustion pooling up on her shoulders. Jackie wanted to sleep. She needed her bed back home, but would settle for the floor of the cabin. Somewhere warmer than this. “You done with the nature scenery out here?”

They were just turning to leave for inside when the meat shed’s door popped open. Kristen came out. Her hair was half pulled back by a butterfly clip and at some point after their miserable dinner had rubbed blue eye shadow around her eyes. “Jesus Christ,” Tai muttered a little heartlessly. “You shouldn’t be hanging out in there.”

“Shauna is in here all the time,” came Kristen’s fast retort, shoulders bunching up a little. 

“Shauna isn’t exactly touching up her manicure in the meat shed.” Fairly thoughtless, calling it that. It probably had a clinical name, place for butchering game, but they had all called it the Meat Shed since day one. A decent place to hang animals up to drain of their blood, to shut the door to prevent any predators from getting in and stealing their haul. 

Misty was propped up on one side of the shed with a blanket over her for general comfort of everyone involved. They were stuck with the body until they could bury her in the springtime, and Shauna said she hadn’t wanted to feel Misty’s eyes on her while she cut up an oversized dog. The blanket was the best thing they had to solve the problem. 

Jackie shivered and rubbed her hands over her arms briskly, trying to feel warmer. “I’m sure Misty appreciates you visiting her. It would mean a lot knowing she had someone looking after her.”

“Do you— do you ever feel like you’re missing something? There’s a story and I’ve got it all mixed up…” Kristen stammered. “I wish she wasn’t dead. Nobody talks to me like she does.” 

“I think we’re all pretty sad right now. But if you want my advice? Figure your shit out. Misty wouldn’t want you wallowing around just because she’s dead.”

A little hypocritical, Jackie thought, given Tai’s general mood post Van’s death. 

“I lost somebody.” She touched her chest very gingerly, fingers splayed out. “I thought it was funny before. Like, I lost something I didn’t really know. You get that? I could’ve had a twin, but I ate her or— or whatever, she was just blood and bone, I don’t know what a fetus is supposed to be, and then I took whatever potential she could have had! And Misty… we clicked. She understands what I’m saying before I have to say it.” 

Kristen didn’t notice the looks Tai and Jackie quickly exchanged. 

“I do it for Van,” Tai eventually said. “Whenever I’m feeling like shit because she’s dead, that’s what I think. I do it for Van because she sure as hell wouldn’t want me falling apart.” 

Clearly they were bypassing the twin bombshell. Jackie tilted her head towards the cabin. “I think she was very lucky to have had someone like you.” This was her sidestepping the fact that the Yellowjackets team as a whole were total bitches to Misty Quigley. Ben skillfully put her as equipment manager and relief player because he knew they would have torn her apart in the locker room before the first practise could have begun. Misty was their greatest fan and they were unkind in response. Even Jackie had sidestepped her in the hallway while rolling her eyes at Shauna, skillfully avoiding being seen talking to Misty before third period. “You were a really great friend to her.”

Kristen stared sullenly through them before turning and trudging up to the cabin. Jackie was going to follow her when she froze, stuck at the door of the shed. Misty was dead in this timeline, but this would have been her. Jackie’s body propped up in the corner, dead and cold. Jackie laid her hands against the door. It was heavy, but all she needed to do was shove it open. Snow was coming down hard around her, sticking to her skin and clothes like foam. Just when she was about to force it open, Tai spoke up: “You’re wasting time. Let’s get in before one of us freezes our asses off.”

That was a generous plural, Tai still standing while Kristen was entering the cabin. An olive branch. 

A single light burst from the edge of her vision. Twice more it pulsed before cutting out. “You go on ahead. I think you’ve got some hot gossip to spill. I’ll give you a ten minute head start and come in for the fall out.”

“Whatever. Don’t get hypothermia and die out here.” 

“God, that would be embarrassing and dramatic.” 

Tai vanished for warmth and social upheaval as Jackie felt herself pulled into the darkness. The trees parted for her, framing her, and herded her deeper. Winter meant frequent storms, their proximity to the mountains guaranteeing heavy snowfalls, but the trees helped hold off the build up. She walked quickly to meet where the light had flared in signal. 

She turned automatically when the light flashed off at her peripheral. Like it was teasing her. Jackie bit her tongue to keep from cursing as she obeyed the silent command. 

It wasn’t until she saw Nat that Jackie realized how badly she missed her. The old version, the new version— both were tangled up together inside her mind. Confident, always confident, facing down a room of people without even a blink. That hadn’t changed. But now she was quiet. Much more guarded. And this divide might be Jackie’s fault, she realized, given the fact that she pretty much crucified Nat for old history. 

That hadn’t been entirely fair. Her mind just…

It glitched out. 

And it was easier to be mad at the one person who knew. If Jackie was back home, she would’ve screamed and slammed her bedroom door shut. Maybe tried to channel her inner Shauna and scribble down her rage in a diary. But she didn’t have that luxury of clarity out here. 

Not when it was her body splayed out. Not when it was her friends pulling her apart and eating her—

Jackie needed to stop thinking about it. She was mad at Nat, but she missed her. The days pre-knowing. When they hunted — Nat with the gun and actually doing the surveying for game while Jackie trailed after her like a shadow — it had been nice, like they were just hanging out. Albeit in a strange place, technically, because Jackie had rarely gone traipsing through the woods with anyone before. 

I miss your confidence, Jackie thought suddenly when she looked at Nat. The dim light of a flashlight showed her pale expression. “This fun for you?” 

“A real riot.” Nat stepped backwards, further beyond reach. “C’mon. You have to see something.”

“Please tell me that it is pink and fuzzy.”

Nat didn’t say a word. Just silently guided through the trees. Winter had formed silvery arches of branches that went over their heads. Jackie’s mouth trembled a little from cold and she tried hard not to show it, desperate to match Nat’s steady pace. But it didn’t long before they came to a cluster of rocks jutting up, surface covered in snow and ice. 

“Think you can remember how to get back here on your own?” Nat asked her, flashing the light around to highlight the exact outline of the rocks. 

“Oh, yeah. Walking in the dark was super helpful for memorizing— I don’t know, what do you think?”

Nat rolled her eyes. “Great. You’ll be fine.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

She dropped down to her knees and brushed snow away. The action reminded Jackie of kneeling at church somehow. Very carefully she cleared away a sizeable space before reaching in and pulling out a box. “You have to remember this when the time is right.”

Jackie gaped at her in disbelief. “Oh my god, can you seriously lay off of the cryptic time traveling bullshit? I don’t do extremely vague hints.” 

Nat cracked the tiniest of smiles before turning solemn. “Misty is dead.”

“I know.” Kristen was hanging out with a corpse. Jackie needed to find Kristen a new hobby. 

“We need Misty for this.” She unlatched the box lid and swung it open to reveal the contents. “There’ll be a point where this comes into play.”

“Holy fuck,” Jackie said. “You have the fucking transponder?” 

Chapter Text

Nothing about the box of broken pieces resembled a magical red button that would immediately fire off an SOS to the nearest rescue centre, but that was all Jackie could see. A box of potential. A box of magic. 

“What the actual fuck?” She demanded. “Jesus Christ, Nat. You’ve had this all this entire time and didn’t say anything? What the fuck— what the fuck, Nat?”

“I know,” Nat said very quietly. “I know,” she said again. No plea, no defence. Only by the honest light of the moon was her face truly visible, pale and weary. She, Jackie thought, looked just like the moon. 

“You let us starve for nothing. We’ve been dying and you had that— that thing, and you could have fixed this? Fuck!” 

The Yellowjackets couldn’t play Monopoly as a team anymore because the last time they tried Tai screwed everyone over as the official banker by charging interest per every transaction. Nat refused to give up her Get Out of Jail Free! card after her first time in the slammer. Van flipped the board over when Lottie bought Boardwalk and Park Place. Lottie had then flipped over the whole table in retribution. Jackie quietly tossed the whole game into the back of the closet and instead had insisted upon friendly games of Twister for team gatherings, refusing to wade back into that particular bloodbath again. Someone losing an eye to that game felt a lot less personal than every person screaming at each other for cheating. 

She hadn’t thought about Get Out of Jail Free! cards in a long time, but that was what the transponder reminded her of. 

Painless avoidance of a bad outcome. Something Van had needed. Something that would’ve rendered the Misty-for-Jackie situation null. A simple option to remove them from the wilderness without paying for it. 

“I know,” Nat repeated herself. Quiet against Jackie’s loudness. 

“We talked about setting the freaking trees on fire. You literally just sat there and watched us go on and on and fucking on about the merits of smoke inhalation.” Misty’s point against staging a fire. 

So many feverish ideas to generate attention from the outside world; scribbling on the side of their burned out plane where they were going, Tai trying to hike out of the wilderness with just a hatchet and a prayer, Laura Lee willing to launch an antique plane up into the air, anything to make an impression big enough that rescue might come. How changed her life had become, Jackie suddenly realized. She knew a fire that wasn’t as simple as the flames decorating the candles on a birthday cake. Now she was intimate with it, coaxing and starting a flame to keep herself warm, curling herself around it. When she thought about surviving now, it was always about what she could possibly burn to stave off the cold. 

Nat started to say those words again, the heavy I know, and Jackie lurched to her feet, abandoning the box. “Do not give me that bullshit right now,” she demanded. “You hid this from the group and— and I don’t get why you would do that.” They faced down starvation and Nat armed herself with a gun to solve it. They endured the wilderness by peeling meat from bones and gorging themselves full until there was nothing left. 

Immediately her mouth ached for the sweetness of a cold Coke. Her mom always said it was unladylike to drink from a can, but Jackie didn’t care. The memory of the drink was an explosion against her tongue, tastebuds prickling with the wanting of it. It wouldn’t cure her hollowed out stomach, but Jackie had been starved of other things beyond basic nutrition. 

She was hungry. She hungered for something sweet. Even the chapstick on Nat's mouth looked good enough for her. 

Nat stood. She looked prepared to take a hit. That it wasn’t enough to be hungry and cold. Nat wanted a bruise to show for it. Her feet were frozen to the snow. Willing to stand, willing to hold her hands down at her side. Jackie didn’t strike her, but she did lurch against her frame and grasp her by the collar of her coat. The material felt familiar beneath her angry hands from that time Nat loaned it to her, looked just as black and glossy as the time she had loaned it to Lottie to wear. 

“What the fuck?” Jackie seethed through clenched teeth. She squeezed the fabric tighter until it felt fused against her fingers and palms, one thing that glued them together. 

“I can’t tell you.”

“No. That’s not good enough. Tell me something real. Make this make sense.” 

“No.” 

She laughed into Nat's face. “You know the story. You’re just refusing to spill the details. Is this a game for you? Having all the cards while we blindly go around and try really hard not to die?” 

Fingers hooked around Jackie’s wrist. No attempt to pull herself free, but they held very carefully. “Does it hurt you? Because I can’t think without my head coming apart. I remember killing Ben—” Nat’s mouth split into a grimace. “—and it hurts. I cannot remember without something splitting straight through me. And I’m forgetting pieces of the future, that there are these gaps inside my mind, details that make up a big picture… If I’m playing a game, then somebody else is erasing the rulebook. If I dragged this back out and showed everyone the transponder now, maybe that fucks us in a different way. I killed Van by thinking I could save all of you and I killed Misty because I couldn’t let you die again. I might kill everyone by doing the one thing to save us all. If I tell you everything I know, maybe it all comes apart. I don't know anything because this place keeps taking things away from me.” 

How quickly her anger turned to nothing. Jackie’s grip went weak. “It hurts you?”

“I’m showing you this now because someday you’ll need it. You play this card at the right time and nobody pays for it.”

“It hurts a little. Like when you drink a milkshake fast. I think about Shauna locking me inside the cabin and I feel it,” said Jackie, speaking quickly. Her words felt jumbled up inside her head. The transponder was suddenly unimportant. “And it hurts you a lot more, right? Is that what you're saying, that you are in pain?” 

Nat hesitated, her eyes widening a tiny bit. “Yeah.”

“I was just getting started. You’re the one with two lives bottled up inside your head. Maybe that’s why it has to hurt.” Twenty five years. Jackie cannot imagine such a lifespan. Nat doesn’t strike her as somebody who would mow the grass every weekend in the summer or to pay taxes, but maybe she had. Jackie was the one who died and Nat was the one who grew up. Got a whole beautiful life somewhere at some point. “Maybe we’re stuck in some kind of ridiculous cosmic pattern.”

Automatically Nat scoffed, but then she jerked her shoulders up like she was considering it. “Maybe.”

“I think we just have to get it right this time.”

“What do you mean?”

“We are the only ones here that remember. Maybe we did something wrong and this is a free do over.”

“Right. Because you did terrible things and the universe just had to punish you,” Nat said sarcastically, jerking away and retreated a few steps. She scooped up the flashlight from where it had fallen into the snow and the beam of it slashed out, a white line before she snapped it off. “I’m pretty sure you watching The Colour Night is why you got fucked over on the cosmic level.”

She bristled. “Like you’re such a villain?” No response. Her shoe collided gently with the transponder box. “How did we even miss this, anyways?”

“Misty.” 

Shit. “Oh.”

Snowflakes swirled around them. She felt them collect against her hair, her throat. As lonely as Jackie was, winter still held her. 

“It wasn’t— shit, she broke it because she wanted a few more days of being part of something. That’s what she said. I just… lonely people get desperate. And that’s what Misty was. Desperate. After she broke it, Misty needed to hide it. Because the longer we were stuck out here, the more guilt she was scoring up.”

“How did you even know about this?”

Nat scoffed. “Because I’m the one who found her with it. The only reason she had it out was because she thought she could fix it. That we had something new to fix it. I walked right into her with the box, the world's shittiest show and tell.” 

“New?”

That word caught her off guard. The Yellowjackets were living elbow-to-elbow against each other. She knew the contents of every suitcase in the cabin. Somehow Shauna was wearing Jackie’s own shirt and the only thing that bothered her more was the fact that she didn’t have the spine to reclaim it. Mari groused about not having a new magazine the day before which prompted a whole conversation about wanting new bars of soap and razor blades, the desire for brand-new clothes fresh from the mall. They had nothing new. Even the cabin was old and full of castoff junks like the broken pair of snowshoes in the attic. What was new to them was simply already old. 

They had nothing new. 

But Nat shook her head, keenly aware of what Jackie was asking. “No. I can’t tell you. It isn’t time.” 

“I don’t care. Give me something. I want to know. There’s two of us for a reason and maybe that’s so I can take some of the burden.” Jackie refused to flinch. “How long are we out here for? Does Shauna’s baby make it? You said that you killed Ben. Why? Something, anything— just give me what you can.” 

“You don’t need that on your shoulders.” 

“Fine. Too personal? Whatever. I’m assuming you all called Misty terrible names after finding how she broke and had the transponder the whole time?”

Nat peeled off her gloves and stashed them in her pockets. “No, because I didn’t tell them.” 

Finally a crumb of something, Jackie thought. “Why not?”

A long moment passed as Nat considered it and the cold around them, her gaze sliding from Jackie to the box of broken pieces. “We had something called The Antler Queen. A person in charge.” Now she glanced down at her fingernails. She was biting them habitually still, skin around the nails red and sore looking. “We had a few of them over time and there never was a good one.”

“Because you all suck at establishing a decent social hierarchy unsupervised?”

“Yeah. That’s been our collective failing this entire time,” intoned Nat dryly. “We can’t figure out how to build a social pyramid without bloodshed and sacrifices. If I told them that Misty was responsible for the transponder being broken, it would have been bad. I didn’t want to see that happen. At some point it stopped being a jury, judge, and executioner, but a single person playing every role at the same time.” 

“Were you one?”

Nat’s face lifted a little in surprise. “A sacrifice?” 

“No. An Antler Queen,” said Jackie, testing the title awkwardly. “You’d have been good. I think you have lots of leadership potential.”

“You don’t actually think that,” Nat deflected. “And like I said, there never was a good one.”

Praise always made Nat wary. Tell her that her form on the field was good and she wouldn’t show up for the next two practises. Jackie shut her mouth and considered the box on the ground. “Can we actually fix this? Or do we need a guy to do this part?”

“You just set feminism back by at least two centuries,” said Nat incredulously. 

“I’m just saying, you dick, that if somebody has to be electrocuted to get this working again, I’d rather it be Travis than us.” She helped stash it in the hiding place again and shoved snow against the entrance. “How are we going to fix it without Misty?”

“I don’t know. It took me forever to find where she hid it in the first place without her.”

“Do you regret it?” Jackie blurted out without thinking. “You killed her. She’s the thing you need to get this working again. You did that to save me.”

Nat exhaled roughly. “I wasn’t going to just let you die again. You were mine to save.” Something warm flooded her chest. She lagged behind as Nat started walking, leading the path back to the cabin. “Hurry up, Jack. We aren’t camping out here. And relax. I think it’ll work out alright in the end.”

Her feet felt disconnected from her brain. She walked without feeling. How many times had Jackie watched those fingers pinch on a cigarette or rip apart a strand of red liquorice? Now they were empty of anything and Jackie had no idea why they were so inexplicably appealing to her now.

The cabin, however, was loud. People were talking noisily about their opinions. Jackie opened the door right at the end of a blunt ‘eating for two’ from Mari and a blunter ‘go fuck your purity culture’ from Shauna in response. Somehow it reminded her again of playing Monopoly. Tai was seated against the wall and looked miserable, knees drawn up to her chest. 

“Wow. I wonder what we’re talking about,” said Jackie with false-brightness. “Let’s hear it for Jeff’s manhood.”

“Did you know that Shauna’s knocked up?” Akilah asked her suspiciously. 

“Jeff knocked Shauna up.” She reworded it properly for everyone in the room, a limp olive branch tossed in Shauna’s general direction. “If we’re going to talk about it, we at least have to remember that it takes two to tango. I’m pretty sure the Virgin Mary was a one time show. Right, Laura Lee?”

Laura Lee looked at the room and tilted her head just a fraction. And then she closed her eyes. “Only the devil does the tango. That’s why school dances are hotbeds for sin.” 

“Yeah. Because when you gyrate your hips—” Mari said, demonstrating a decent Elvis impression, “—you know you’re going straight to hell.”

The collective freak out seemed cooled off with their interruption. Tai stripped off her sweater and curled up on the ground, it pillowing her head. The rest followed clumsily. Shauna stormed up to the attic to sleep alone in the cold space and the rest drifted quickly, tired and hungry. Rations would be cut again tomorrow into smaller portions. Sleep would stave off some of the hunger, just like filling their stomaches with water. A thin whine escaped Kristen’s mouth as she contorted a little, dreams of little comfort. 

It wouldn’t be the first time somebody cried in their sleep. They were tolerant of the sound, used to tuning it out. 

But Jackie sat up awake at the fire. Barely felt when Lottie sat down beside her. The fire split down the length of the wood and ate at the edges of it, crumbling the scorched black marks into ash.

“This is some prime television,” Lottie said dryly. 

“This is a shitty re-run. I think I’ve seen this before.”

“What are you thinking about? Beyond the bun in Shauna’s oven news…”

“Home.” Lottie was harmless. Jackie couldn’t find a reason to lie to her. As strange as she was lately, the way she followed after Tai like some kind of acolyte, Lottie was just Lottie.

Safe. 

“Do you miss it? Being home?”

Jackie nodded. The transponder made it all seem so much closer. That she just needed to reassemble the pieces and call for help. Easy business, Jackie thought. Minus the cryptic time line and other unknowns. 

“That must be nice.”

“Is it different for you?” Lottie's always been the cool girl and the outsider at once. Jackie's grown up with her, but she doesn't really know her. Same classes, same sport, same friends... but they don't go to the same parties, they don't have the same after school plans, they don't share the same lives. Belatedly Jackie felt bad for never picking up the phone before and calling Lottie up to hang out. Like she's missed out on something important this entire time. 

“I think this place understands me better. I’m here and I feel it around us, watching us. It just needs for us to understand it.” Lottie’s brow furrowed. “What home do I have to go back to? For someone like Natalie? Some of us need it out here.”

The wood snapped open, flames jumping. “What?” That wasn't the answer that Jackie expected. Yeah, fuck the woods or a sarcastic these trees sure are a lot more lenient with a curfew than my parents. 

“We gave up our keys.”

Dread creeped down her spine. “What keys?” 

“The keys for home. We gave them away and now we don’t need keys.” Lottie’s voice was soft and small, a sound as wispy as the smoke from the fire. She raked her fingers through her hair.“The wilderness wants us to stay here. That’s why this happened. It just— it needs us to understand better.”

Jackie’s attention split suddenly on the ring that glittered on Lottie's finger. “Isn’t that one of Nat’s rings?” Loaning Lottie her jacket, something about their house keys, and now a ring... Shauna once gave her half of a friendship necklace, fractured hearts that came together as one, and that seemed to match the solemn nature between these two. How was she supposed to understand anything without a manual? Assuming Nat and Travis were an item again seemed wrong.

“It doesn’t belong to her anymore.” But Lottie flipped her hand up to stare at it. Silver, clunky. Jackie had the same feeling as when she had seen Lottie returning to the cabin while wearing Nat’s jacket. “Pretty, though.” 

“You guys hang out a lot.” A statement, not a question. “Are you guys, like, close?” It was hard asking if Lottie was friends with Dorothy without actually saying it out loud. Jackie looked around the room and made sure everyone was asleep. Tai and Van had been accepted before, but this wasn't the same time line. And maybe that wasn't so much acceptance as it was tolerance. 

She yawned. “If you want to label it, she’s my best friend.”

That didn’t clarify anything. Shauna had been Jackie’s best friend. 

Best friend. Those two words sparked immediately. Nat was Lottie's best friend and Van had been Nat's best friend. 

Jesus, she was your best friend. Jackie had spat those words out at Nat after Van died. Fired off each word to kill. It wasn’t Nat’s fault that Van was dead and gone, but had Jackie put that guilt on her shoulders? Just tonight Nat had said it, that she killed Van. 

Guilt banished jealousy. Jackie’s shoulders curled inwards. She fucked something up without meaning. 

Time was a ticking bomb inside Nat’s skull. That wasn’t a fair burden to assign her. She tried to manage it, tried to save someone—

Van was a consequence. 

God, she could picture it now: Nat sneaking out in the middle of the night to make sure the plane wouldn’t operate properly. Damaging something just enough to keep Laura Lee grounded and alive. Van on the table with her teeth exposed through her torn apart cheek, blood smearing down her chin… Van who matched Nat in every way possible. Relentless, thoughtful, bold… everything that made a person good. 

“God, I’m exhausted. Do you have any hand lotion left?” Lottie asked suddenly, hauling herself up. “Thanks,” she said when Jackie pointed towards her cosmetic bag. It was a little tube of lotion that smelled like peppermint. Just smelling it made Jackie miss Christmas time. Lottie rubbed a small bit into her palms and immediately found an empty place on the floor, curling up with a tattered blanket. 

She gazed hard at the fire until her vision turned spotty. Jackie needed a plan. The transponder was a fragment of a plan, yes, but Jackie needed something more to keep her functional and moving. Guilt was bitter against her tongue. Mari had glued together the plate that broke during the fight between Tai and Nat, and now it was her turn to fix something damaged. 

Time was inevitable. It was crawling forwards. She couldn’t stop what would happen, all of those unknowns. Her mind conjured panicky versions of what an Antler Queen could be. Bill tossed up names for leadership roles all the time, calling out Tai and Shauna for their fast footwork, herself for her ‘social skills’. Jackie didn’t know what it would take to crown someone out here as a Queen. 

The wilderness seemed without a crown. It seemed harsh enough without a face. 

“Okay, Taylor,” breathed Jackie against the fire burning. “Figure this shit out.” 

Tonight would be the starting line into the future. She had breadcrumbs to follow, a tiny hint to what would eventually unravel. 

But something—

Nat had unintentionally given her one single clue to their current situation. 

Jackie had been in the woods with her before. Nat hunted, Jackie followed. Now she was replaced by Travis. But if Nat had been searching for the transponder, trying to figure out where Misty had stashed the evidence of her crime, she would’ve needed to be alone. 

Travis lied to her. Whatever they were doing out there, they weren’t together. 

Chapter Text

The cabin groaned beneath the pressure of the wind. It kept howling outside, slashing against the door and windows, begging for permission to enter. Van, if she was alive, would have taken it as an opportunity to perform some creepy story. That’s what she had always done during sleep away camps and any late night by a bonfire, cracking her knuckles and putting on a theatrical show. It never occurred to Jackie that Van could be dead, that they could be missing so much of her. Her stomach twisted every time she thought about her. 

Jackie spent two days waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. The storm was just a storm. Ben had noticed the skies darkening and shut down the cabin immediately, putting a halt to any hunting. You go blind into that mess and you won’t come back, Ben had said, locking the door. We can’t afford to take anymore chances out here. 

Travis had taken the orders stoically, like he was being punished. Nat bristled and went tense, also acting as if she were being punished, glued to one of the windows. It must have been cold, the draft coming straight through, but she didn’t budge. Just kept watching the roiling darkness outside, the huge gusts of wind slamming against the glass, balling up her gloves into one fist. 

Nobody talked. Nobody was alive to tell a story. How did Van do it? Jackie wasn’t sure. She had made it look so easy and natural. Majority of the team had deadbeat fathers (or dead, Nat’s dad buried in a patchy cemetery at the church Laura Lee attended), and usually they were present in some awkward fashion. Shauna would brandish a tube of lip gloss, a belated birthday gift from her dad. Mari cried right before her biology exam when her parents were getting divorced and got exempt for it, crocodile tears hitting just the right note to appear authentic. And once, right in a middle of a fight when Tai turned on Nat and sneered ‘you know you’re an asshole, right?’, Nat had sneered right back and said ‘thanks, I get it from my dad’, temporarily immortalizing her as the winner in that spat. Even Jackie’s own father was a bit of let down, tossing her a country club membership for the summer like it made up for only seeing him once every two weeks. But Van? Nobody ever really knew what her dad was like, but she summoned up dozens of stories just to bully his name around. It was less humiliating that way, maybe, pulling him apart for an audience. Nobody really cares if you are sad, Jackie thought, but they care if you either cry or laugh. A reason to be invested. 

And that’s what Van’s storytelling had been; reasons to listen. 

They passed the time silently, grimacing into the fire, cupping their hands to drink from the bucket of melted snow. Tai slept fitfully the entire time, leg spasming. The first night of the storm Jackie had been up late watching the fire, charitably having volunteered for it, when she noticed Laura Lee kneeling over Tai, her hands splayed out around her skull. 

“I’m just praying that she’ll be alright,” Laura Lee’d said. The darkening of the room made her paler in contrast, white dress and white skin, still so insufferably clean. Her hair was a bundle of cornsilk. When she finished her business, she backed away and practically nosedived into her own blankets, apparently exhausted. Jackie hadn’t said anything about it later because it didn’t seem important; Laura Lee praying over a person wasn’t at all peculiar ir new. She once put in a prayer that the grass stains in Jackie’s brand new white jeans would lift before her mother realized they were wrecked, was always praying that Nat and Lottie would finally prioritize their lungs and give up their cigarette habits. If there was a situation that could be lifted up in prayer, Laura Lee always had her hands extended. Dear God, please let the other team break their arms and fail to show up. Dear God, please let Coach Bill get food poisoning. Tai’s slow pain was fit for prayer apparently. 

I do it for Van. Jackie figured that just meant eating their small, pathetic scraps and drinking water now because Tai was barely awake anymore, constantly sleeping or trying to sleep. 

Two days. All of them were bottled up behind the walls. Nobody was talking about a rescue anymore. Tai slept, Laura Lee prayed, Nat watched the storm from the window. And Jackie was watching all of them. What happens next?

She slept when Shauna was awake. Stayed awake when Shauna was asleep. They were a pair of sun and moons, constantly in rotation. Jackie didn’t know if the others actually liked her anymore, if she had grown tedious on their patience, but she didn’t pick a fight that she wasn’t likely to win on her own. It was confusing enough sorting her own mind out without listening to the snide, almost bored comments being slung around, less upset that Jackie had been cheated on and more that Jeff was the boy Shauna had slept with. 

What did that say about her? Jeff was good enough for Jackie, but not Shauna? That her pregnancy was a strain on the group, but the betrayal wasn’t so great? Jackie had loved the girls more than she ever loved herself, but at some point she had ruined it. Robin wore a pair of satin sleep shorts that Jackie had gotten her for her birthday last year, a couple of the girls still had the cherry tinted lip balms from a sleep over she had hosted… physical tokens were everywhere, even in this cabin, and they didn’t weigh enough to make a difference. 

I can’t believe you slept with Jeff, Lottie had scoffed. How drunk did you have to be to make that happen? 

Implications made Jackie sensitive. It was probably better that everyone had shut up. The storm outside got louder and kept building itself up. Two whole days of it passed before Tai staggered up, startling everyone around her, and smashed her fist against the door. Her black stare seemed to burn through the wood to the other side. Jackie had been brushing oil over her cuticles when it happened, accidentally jerking the brush of apricot oil down her thumb. It took willpower not to drink the bottle down.

“I’m so tired of this,” Tai spoke bluntly, striking the door a second time with her knuckles. 

Instantly the wind died in response. They felt an immediate difference. Mari’s head popped up. Half her hair was braided, the other half loose and wavy. “Preach it, sister.” 

Travis looked perplexed. He drifted over to by the window, hovering over Nat, and gazed outside. “What just happened?”

“A miracle,” Laura Lee and Lottie said together. But Laura Lee shook her head and stood up, a lacy scarf wrapped around her throat. “This has to be a good sign.”

“No, Tai just out-bitched a weather phenomena. That’s perfectly normal,” Nat rejected quietly. Tai and Jackie had a truce now, one that left her quiet when Jackie spoke, blissfully free of any opposing eye rolls and scoffs. The truce between Tai and Nat was shakier, much more forced. Thankfully they weren’t trying to smash each other into nothing with their fists, but neither one of them had forgotten that unfinished brawl either. Nat only spoke to Tai when at least five bodies separated them. Tai refused to speak to Nat at all. 

And Tai, as usual, ignored her. She struggled to get the door open, kicking down a wall of snow to shove a passage out. Most of them were sleeping in layers and she was wearing her shoes already. The cold air coming through all at once was a shock to Jackie’s hands and face. She plucked up her jacket and shrugged it on, doing up the buttons clumsily. 

Lottie followed Tai out immediately. Her sweater was slung around her shoulders, laces of her shoes untied. She stumbled but kept walking. Ben looked up with alarm. “Hey, guys? Let’s not.”

They all peered out. Snowflakes were coming down so gently it was like they were suspended. Above them was a dark sky, business still unfinished. The clouds looked swollen and heavy, like they were aching to spill more. “Great,” Nat said. “We can go hunting now.”

Ben staggered up, leaning on the crutches. “No, it’ll just get darker. It’s late in the day. We can wait until morning before sending you out.”

“Why? Do you think all the woodland creatures go to bed at… what, five in the afternoon?”

“She’s right.” Travis said briskly and the old Nat would’ve smirked at the validation. He went through the business of arming himself, taking the gun and loading his pockets with spare ammunition. It was a standard ritual at this point, emptying their pockets of the exact number of bullets taken, not a single shot fired during their hunt. “We’ve wasted two days of just sitting here. We should be out looking.”

“Okay, stop for a minute and use your heads. Everything out there is going to be covered in snow. You’ll just get lost. You don’t know if any of your landmarks are visible. You can’t save Javi if you die in the process.” Ben looked down. “And you might have to consider that Javi’s not coming back.”

Travis looked angry. “You literally just let them go out.” Tai and Lottie had vanished through the trees. 

“I didn’t just let them go— Jesus, guys, no. Hold on.” Ben tried to move to stop them but Nat and Travis were faster, exiting the cabin without a second glance, plunging into the deep snow. “Fuck.”

Jackie had always put too much faith in the coaches. They knew what they were doing; if they wanted to get to nationals and take the gold, they needed to listen to Bill and Ben. Hard work needed guidance. But Ben was faded, standing in the middle of the doorway with no power, hands clenching down on his crutches until his fingers were bone white. 

“They’ll be fine,” Jackie told him. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Ben not to worry because Nat wouldn’t die until twenty five years from now. “How about we all get some fresh air while we can?” She raised her voice to attract the attention of the others milling about. “Get some fresh water and wood, maybe see if we can figure out where Tai and Lottie went. Make sure that they are safe.”

He hesitated. “That storm might come back.”

“Serious clouds means serious business, got it.” She clumsily saluted him. 

He stepped back from the door, balancing awkwardly. Permission to exit. She could have sworn Ben muttered something about Bill screwing him over with his own marriage problems. 

The first few girls were tentative to leave the warmer cabin, crashing through the crusted snow. That was the nice thing out here, Jackie thought, all the old was buried under layers of new. The first snowfall, the snowfall where she should’ve died, was somewhere beneath it all. 

Mari shoved up the hood of her yellow sweater up and grabbed Jackie by the arm, hauling her out. It wasn’t surprising given the fast that the girl had been trying to catch her eye ever since the storm rolled in, right on the tail end of the pregnancy reveal, but the confined space left no privacy. 

But Kristen scrambled after them to catch up, tripping over snow. “Hey, can I borrow some make up?”

Jackie looked over her shoulder. “Some of it, sure.” But then she stopped, forcing Mari also to a grudging stop. “Why do you need my make up?”

She rubbed at her cheeks with her hands. “I’m bored. I just thought a make over would be fun.” 

The woods around them were extreme. In contrast their cabin seemed predictable. They were all going stir crazy, tired of the silent and equally tired of talking to each other, sitting around with the same blankets, skin reeking of smoke from the fire. There was nothing to do. Jackie met Kristen’s gaze and tried to summon a reason to say no. Instead she saw helplessness, how wet her eyes seemed. 

“Okay,” Jackie finally said, disgusted with her own hesitation. She was being selfish. 

Only child syndrome, Shauna would tell her, acting like she also wasn’t an only child.  

“Great! Thank you,” Kristen chirped with enthusiasm, turning around and bolting for the general warmth of the cabin. 

“You didn’t have to say yes, you know.” 

“It didn’t hurt me to say yes,” Jackie countered, letting Mari lead her deeper into the trees. “Shauna stole my shirt, anyways, so who cares at this point? It’s just stuff. I could die today and you guys would divide it all up.” She held up her arm, showing off Misty’s watch. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Not the only thing she stole, huh?” Mari laughed miserably. “I had no idea that the Taylor-Shipman breakdown was so bad. That’s shitty.”

Jackie figured out at a young age that there were limitations to how much a person could love. That’s why her mom never talked about her own sister, Jackie's aunt. If she wasn’t pretty and thin and popular, it would run out. And it wasn’t so bad when she had Shauna because that had felt limitless, that Shauna would love her regardless, but like most things, Jackie had fucked up. Shauna was her best friend, her love of her life, and nobody could’ve figured the difference out. “I’ll live,” Jackie ended up saying dryly, shoving a needle-thin branch out of her face and keeping it back to avoid smacking Mari with it. “Her business now, not mine.”

“You guys were serious, though.” Was Mari talking about her and Shauna or her and Jeff? 

“I guess not that serious. I don’t know.” The crust of snow didn’t break beneath her feet. It was like she was floating above it. “I probably didn’t even like Jeff that much. He was, like— I don’t know, one of those really big, oversized tee shirts that you keep because they’re comfortable. He wasn’t exactly hard to get along with.”

Mari scoffed. “Half the boys baseball team act like lobotomized golden retrievers. They're all easy to get along with.”

“Which is why they suck at bringing home medals.”

“And they get all the school spirit shit! Every time! Like that stupid sign back home—”

“—Oh my god, we were literally going to motherfucking nationals—”

“—and Coach Bill said he would rather burn the school down before handing out participation trophies to us, but no, gotta inflate their egos just a little bit more.”

“Totally ridiculous,” agreed Jackie. “Did you that sign before we left?”

“‘We’re proud our boys jack it’?” Mari quoted statically. “Nat should’ve gotten a real trophy for that.” 

She stopped. “Wait. Natalie did that?” 

“Obviously. She and her stoner friends. She half assed our presentation in geography, but at least she full-assed that. Thankfully I kick ass at geography anyways.”

Nat had been high off her ass at that messy party. Jackie felt a twinge of irritation. She could’ve fallen and broken her neck. “Good for her,” she muttered. 

Mari looked her over quickly. “You’re really letting Shauna go around in your shirt?”

“She took it before everything happened. I can’t just get it back now,” Jackie said distractedly, mind reeling with a thousand ways Nat could’ve hurt herself. “She can keep it if she wants it so badly.” Shauna was wearing that shirt constantly, the one with the butterflies across it. There wasn’t really a subtle way to demand for it back without causing a scene in front of everyone, but it was driving her crazy. “Holy shit.”

A massive, warped tree stump jutted up from the snow, area around it marked up with a pair of tracks. It wasn’t Travis or Nat, Jackie knew, recognizing the outline of regular shoes. A deer skull was planted up on it. 

An alter. Jackie compared it to the ones from the witchy movies Van liked. It lacked candles, those being to precious to waste, but a smear of red across the rings of wood completed it. A tree stump, she thought, without a fallen tree. This wreckage, ruin, predated their arrival. The wood had hardened up with the cold, but she imagined that it would be soft in the summer. Her hands had gotten dirty from handfuls of crumbling, rotting wood she pulled away from fallen trees. 

“Definitely weird,” Mari agreed, sniffing at it. “Think they’re close?” 

Jackie looked around. She spotted something else in the snow. “Yeah. How about we split up? I’ll go this way— see if we can find them? Make sure they aren’t hurt? That looks like blood.” 

“Some therapist is going to make a serious fortune someday.”

“Mani-pedis, Slurpees, and a joint therapy session. It’s a date.”

Mari cracked an awkward smile. She seemed shy. “Can’t wait.” 

They split. Jackie felt guilty for ditching her, but she had spotted familiar boot prints in the snow. She hadn’t learned that much following Nat around hunting, but she could recognize this. Chasing Nat down wasn’t going to make getting answers that much easier, but it beat having an audience around for it. 

And loneliness looked pretty obvious in the snow. Jackie followed until she saw where the tracks splintered off from each other. “Gotcha,” she said sarcastically to herself. Travis went left, Nat went right. She followed Nat’s direction. Proof that they were splitting up.

Late light filtered through the clouds. After so much darkness, the light made her feel cleaner. Someone could take that substance of the sun, Jackie mused, and bottled it up to sell alongside the bleach. Jackie used to love Tuesdays the most because that was when the cleaning service came through to clean their house. She liked the clean smell of vinegar and bleach around the place after they were done. She tried explaining it to Shauna and she laughed because of course Jackie’s family had a cleaning service. Tuesdays, Jackie knew, meant a clean house. And her mom would be in the kitchen, browsing magazines, physically present. It felt normal coming home, like she was some kid on a sitcom, but that was hard to describe to someone who didn’t get it. 

Some of the nearby trees were bent over and frozen in curious shapes, whole trunk pulverized by the recent storm. Jackie skirted around them cautiously, never once losing sight of Nat’s tracks. 

Jeff. Awkwardly her mind circled back to him. They dated because it was easy. He wasn’t so bad, agreeable and easy— yes, she thought, a lobotomized golden retriever, like Mari said. She touched him because that was the kind of thing that implied that could be touched in return. Being frigid was a slam on girls who didn’t harbour crushes for the boys in class, who didn’t notice their biceps or hair, how they joked around. Jackie mimicked fascination because that had felt safest. Jeff was easy. He was a ready made date for weekend parties, prone for a break up Monday morning and ready to make fast amends by Friday afternoon, an easy circle to fit herself into. Jackie never had to worry about people saying things because they were always talking about them as prom king and queen, the hometown romance. Back home she had a box of dead poppies from him, the flowers Shauna made him get her. Jackie loved them because if felt like the flowers were from Shauna. 

She stepped further into the wilderness. It wasn’t hard walking. She was so light she didn’t break the crust of the snow, walking above it. She listened to the wind calling and the trees creaking. 

A chill went down her spine. She stopped and turned around. “Hey, Nat.” Jackie didn’t lift her arms up in the mockery of a surrender. She simply stood very still, a rabbit frozen before the hunter’s rifle. “I hope you know what you’re doing with that.” 

Nat lowered it. “You following me now?”

“You’re just so damned mysterious, I figured some light stalking was necessary.” 

“That’s creepy.”

“Are you asking me to stop?” 

She scoffed. She then turned away a little. “What are you doing out here?” 

“Curious what you’re doing since you and Travis clearly don’t go around holding hands out here.” Jackie forced herself to smile. “What happened to traveling around with a buddy?”

“Travis isn’t my type.” 

Now she rolled her eyes. “That's a funny joke.” 

“You can’t be out here.” Nat looked back at her. “I’m serious. I can’t have you here.” 

“Why? Top secret time traveling secrets?” Jackie refused to budge. “I’m not going anywhere so you might as well tell me. And if you don’t? Well, Tai’s rigged up the weirdest thing back there and we can talk about that instead.” 

“It gets a lot weirder later,” Nat muttered. “Go back.”

“Nope. I’m not doing that.” 

“Fuck, okay…" She hesitated, making a decision quickly. "You can’t freak out. You have to promise to not freak out.” 

Jackie shoved her hands into her pockets for warmth. “Cross my heart, hope to die.”

“That’s not funny.” 

“You’ll live.” 

“Oh my god, can you be serious for five minutes?” 

A strange sense of giddiness was building up in her chest. Jackie knew Nat when she was angry or sad, the occasional Nat when she was happy. But Nat when she was exasperated? It was fun. “I’m dead serious.”

“Holy fuck. Fine. Hey, Javi— Javi, you can come out.” 

Jackie’s jaw dropped. “Javi?”

Nat whistled, a sharp little three note trill. It echoed off of the trees around them. She repeated it twice before movement came, a boy slouching out from around one particularly wide tree. “Don’t freak him out.” 

“Have you known where he was this entire time?”

Javi came up slowly, wary. A blanket was knotted around his throat so it dragged like a child’s costume cape. 

“It’s okay,” Nat said. “She’s my friend.”

Jackie found that surprising. “Is that what we are?”

He didn’t say anything. Nat took something from her pocket, half her ration. And her gloves, Jackie realized. She gave them up to the boy who took the weak bounty and tore off, rushing back to the safety of the trees. Faint prints showed in the snow. 

“You knew?” Jackie said weakly, watching him retreat. 

“And you’re not going to tell Travis because Travis cannot know. I’m trying to save Javi.” 

Jackie was a time traveller, but was so far beyond her thread of prior existence that it made it worthless. But she did know Nat. In this life and the last one. “You’re trying to save Javi,” said Jackie very quietly. “This time.” 

Two words so fragile that they seemed to crumble as she spoke them. 

Nat didn’t meet her eye. “He’s just a kid.”