Sorry, that chapter took longer than expected, but now it is there - enjoy !

Two weeks before

His computer screen painted his room in blue-ish areas and harsh shadows. The sun had set down hours ago and Mike knew he should get up to switch on the main lights, but he couldn't be bothered to get up. Not when he was laying down in the only position that his cracked ribs didn't resent too much. Or perhaps not when the switch was all too familiar to the one in the lodge, because a part of him couldn't help but fear it would blow up too.

He grunted and shook his head, as if it would get that thought out. His gaze went back to his computer. Out of boredom, he opened his mail box, though it was usually empty during college breaks – but not today. The first one was from Sam, answering with a "Do you really think it works ?" to a website link he had sent to her a few days ago that was about an alleged cure for Wendigos. The second one was from Alberta police station. He felt his heart leap down in his chest as he opened it.

The first words he read were "mines", "Joshua" and then "wendigo". It could mean they had found Josh, or his body ; it could mean they would finally believe them, or that they haven't seen trace of the monsters. His vision had become too blurry for him to make out the rest of the email. Mike didn't know if it was from tiredness or tears or shock. Or a bit of the three.

After the longest time, his phone buzzed, shaking him out of his haze. He still hadn't read the email, yet decided to look at the smaller device first. It was their group conversation, he was just able to pick up a few words in capitals letters before the notification disappeared. His blood is pounding in his ears.

"Cochise : HAVE YOU RECEIVED IT TOO"

"Californian-bitch : Yes, stop screaming"

Apparently, Em still hadn't noticed the new nickname she had earned from her fight with Jess back there in the lodge. It seemed so foreign, that time when the only things he feared was not getting laid that night and his ex's reaction to a stupid nickname in an online group chat.

"Rockclimber : They sent it to all of us, it's written."

He smiled weakly. Sam had the best control over her nerves out of all of them since that night, he had to admit it.

Until the darkest hours of the night, he watched the conversation unfold without saying a word. Em left the chat after arguing with Chris about how she couldn't care less about "this psycho's fate". Matt was weakly trying to defend his girlfriend, which was apparently right next to him since he started randomly yelling at Chris again with words that weren't his. Jess hadn't even showed up – that wasn't really a surprise since she seemed to avoid everything that could remind her of the events of the lodge, including all of them. Ashley was probably crying, given her emotionnal texts full of spelling mistakes. She said it was all their fault. Sam was trying to calm everyone down, as always, because apparently she was the only one that could think straight in face of such news.

From what he could decipher, the search party found half-eaten corpses in the mines and the burnt remains in the lodge were at last formerly identified as "non-humans", which meant they definitly wouldn't to be labelled as "crazy, traumatized teens" anymore. That was good news. However, the second part caused all of the group to freak out : Josh was alive, and he was turning into a Wendigo.

Mike still hadn't read the email.

Exactly two days later, he had finally discover these information with his own two eyes, yet it didn't seem any more real. What was definitly real, though, was the very agitated Sam standing in the middle of his living room.

"… What ? Could you repeat that, please ?"

She sighed, placed her hands on her hips on a very Sam-like way.

"You heard me well, Michael Monroe."

"I sincerely doubt that."

"Fine. I said : 'what if we go back to rescue Josh' ?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't we 'go back' to that godforsaken mountain where we nearly died once, to find our friend that had a lot of fun as a psycho that same fucking night and that is now a fucking cannibalistic monster to try to… what ? cure him ?"

She made a face.

"First, that was a lot of swear words. Second… that did sound kinda crazy when you put it like that."

" Just 'kinda' ?"

"Whatever."

She stopped to cough – last remains of the pneumonia she had caught back then on the mountain.

"And thirdly, what was that about the 'psycho' part ? I thought you didn't resent him anymore, after you learnt that Jess was alive and that anyway he had no responsibility in… that part of the mess we lived through."

"I-"

"Besides, you weren't even there, it's not like he had done anything to y-"

"I know that Sam ! And while I'm pretty sure he had some messed up stuff somewhere in his plans for us, he…"

"He what ?"

He would have been right to do so.

Hannah's face was all over his mind, her eyes glistening with excitment behind her glasses, before widening in shock and horror as the others got out from their hiding places. He had known it wasn't a good idea, of course, he wasn't that stupid, but he only had realised how wrong it had been when he had seen that look on his friend's face. He liked Hannah, he genuinely did. What made it worst was that he never saw any hatred towards him in her gaze, even when she had turned into that monster and she could have killed him, both in the water and in the lodge. He should have realized that she really loved him.

I deserve it. The words swam round in his head restlessly, keeping him from sleeping most nights, yet they couldn't escape his lips.

"Why me, Sam ?" He asked instead.

"What ?"

She couldn't help but ask, even if she knew damn well what he was talking about.

"Why are you asking that to me in particular ?"

"I mentionned the idea with Chris before. I thought he would agree, since he was so close to Josh, but… He's scared." She shrugged. "I don't really blame him."

"You didn't answer my question."

She finally met his eyes.

"Because you ran after Jess, you followed the man who you thought to be a murderer, you befriended a wolf, you tried to make sense to that mess you saw in the sanatorium. Because you went back to the mines for the key to 'get us all the hell out of there', because you came up with that crazy, hopeless plan back there in the lodge. You very likely save my life."

She paused to take a breath. He was speechless.

"I'd be glad to have you by my sides, because I trust you to do what's right."

Please, do not hesitate to leave a comment or just to follow the story, that means the world to me ! Also, chapter 3 should be up soon, I'm halfway through writting it... Mike and Sam will finally arrive on the mountain ;)