Us

by DeejayMil

When a search for a missing girl leads the BAU to the shores of Dark Score Lake, a place none of them has any memory of, the last thing they expect to find is a photo of them all together, dated some twenty years prior. So far as they know, the picture is impossible. They've never been here-but they're wrong. They might not remember this place, but It definitely remembers them.

11. The Rot Within: Pt II (1988)

Chapter Nine: The Rot Within: Pt II (1988)

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1

Manuel Garcia loses his head.

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The first Manny knew of the new reality of his world was Derek screaming. Derek fucking Morgan, that tough sonofabitch that Manny had made fast friends with over the last impossible span of time since they'd gotten to this place, screaming like a little lady, like a frightened girl. It was enough to give you the chuckles, it really was.

Except, really, there was nothing to laugh about when it came to screaming in this place. Manny had already seen that tonight. They were in the rec hall in clustered groups divided roughly by age and gender in the natural way that kids of their varied ages tended to, the littles all sitting together regardless of whether they were boys or girls and the kids like him who were pushing into puberty making sure to avoid their other halves. And then there was the group in the middle that they were all watching, which was the counsellors and those that tended to cling to those bigger kids, and it was Emily.

Manny couldn't really stop looking at Emily. She was awake now. She hadn't been when they'd brought her in, hoo boy no she hadn't. She'd been right out of it and even now her speech sounded slurred and didn't make much of a lick of sense to any of them. Manny stared at her face, wondering what the fuck had big enough hands to do that much damage to what had really been a pretty girl before now, pretty in a kind of dangerous hot way that he knew he'd never go near no matter how much he dreamed about her. She was all huddled in a too-big sweater, the sleeves folded over her hands which were curled to her chest, and her one good eye wasn't looking at much at all no matter how much Sarah talked sweet to her.

"Should I help?" fretted Penelope, who never could handle people suffering. "Maybe I can get water or something?"

"Aaron's got the water," Manny pointed out. It was true, Aaron was hovering there with a mixing bowl of water and some towels, but Emily sure as heck wasn't letting him anywhere near her with them. Every time he tried, she'd flinch and twist away, staring at him like he was something nasty. Manny didn't like that look. It set something hard in his stomach, something that had him eyeing Aaron warily. Girls only looked at boys like that when they'd gone and been what Manny's mom, before she'd died, had called being 'handsy' which he'd been told never to do under pain of being strung up by his family jewels if she found out.

"A clean sweater?" Penny asked.

Manny shrugged. "Don't think she much wants to be fucking around with clothes," he said since there was a spreading red stain just starting to darken on Emily's chest and around the collar. It all looked like it would hurt to be pulling clothes on and off, so she may as well just stay dirty. That was how Manny preferred it.

And then they all heard the screaming.

Manny had to hand it to the big kids; they were fast as fuck now. The first few days things had gotten weird had been chaotic and messy, and they'd lost a lot of kids, especially if Manny was counting that disaster run to town. But now? Now, when someone screamed, they moved like a team. He watched in awe: Aaron went for a knife on the table beside Emily, the one with the already-bloody blade, and Sarah had a bat in her hand conjured from nowhere in particular. Within seconds, the rest of them were armed—Manny saw a broken table leg, half a soda bottle, and a couple of sports bats among those that carried weapons—and then they were moving in a group towards the door, splitting into two teams to make sure they were between whatever was approaching and the rest of the kids.

"Where's Rafe?" Manny heard Aaron call out. "He's got the gun."

Manny heard her, but no one else did. He heard the voice that he shouldn't have been able to hear, turning around and looking back to the centre of the room where no one else was paying attention. There was Emily, still sitting on the table and looking blank and confused.

"What?" asked Manny, sure he'd heard her say something but not quite sure he'd understood it.

"He went with Derek and JJ to get the first aid kit," someone else called out.

And Emily whispered again, "He's gone. It promised to kill him next."

Manny stared. His brain bubbled over that.

And then it clicked home exactly what she'd dared to say, what lie she'd spat out.

"You're a crazy bitch," he yelled, scaring the shit outta Penelope as he leapt up and found himself gesturing rudely at her and screaming at her in a vicious mix of Spanish and English. "You pinche, you bitch, you're fucking crazy!"

"Manny, what the fuck?" someone snapped, Aaron he thought. And Penelope was yelling at him to stop, but he couldn't, because how dare this stupid goth freak sit there and say his brother was—

The doors thumped. Two voices screamed on the other side to be let in. Manny almost yelled at the counsellors not to unblock the door, that they weren't knocking how they'd decided everyone would knock to be sure it was camp kids and not dead kids—but the counsellors were unblocking it anyway because the voices were clearly JJ and Derek and they were scared to shit.

It was about then that Manny found himself thinking that Derek was a bit of a pussy for screaming, a bit of a girl, but these thoughts bubbled up in his brain and brought with them cold terror that escaped almost as giggles, and he knew, really, he didn't blame his buddy. He didn't blame him at all. There was nothing girly about screaming these days, in fact, screaming really seemed like the in thing to be doing.

See Rafe, Manny thought hysterically as the door was dragged open and the two kids raced in both shrieking over each other trying to tell their story. I'm finally in with the popular crowd. The screaming meemies, that's in this month, that's the radical thing that every kid wants a shot of. Screaming and pissing your pants and dying, oh boy, and dying.

"It got Rafe," howled JJ, crying so fiercely that she was practically choking on her own tears. "It got Rafe! It got Rafe! It got Rafe!"

Guess you're still cooler than me, Manny thought, sitting down hard. Always hitting those trends first. Well, well, Rafe, buddy oh brother, guess we won't be far behind you now.

"What an asshole," he said to no one since everyone was busy freaking out because their protector, their adult, their one shot outta Dodge, was gone. And Manny did laugh this time because maybe their hope was gone but that hope? That hope was his brother, his best mate, his always-there. And he said again, "What an asshole," because fuck Rafe for doing this. He was their hope but he was Manny's brother and that was more than hope.

That was family.

In the chaos of those first however many minutes it took for the news to sink in and shocked faces to start turning grey with worry as they realised how alone they were—Manny watched it happen with a distant kind of amusement, refusing to grieve because he was mostly just angry right now—no one paid attention to Manny, who was numb, or Penelope, who was crying. That only made Manny angrier. She didn't deserve to cry for Rafe. She hadn't even liked him that much, had she? Not like Manny had liked (loved) him.

He looked at Emily. She was still sitting there, this weird inlet of peace in an ocean of kids freaking out. And he asked her, "How did you know?"

"It showed me," she answered without emotion in her voice. Maybe it was because her voice was so bland that it carried as far as it did, a weird ripple of quiet spreading around them.

Manny shuddered. It. That fucking thing, whatever this was… this murdering bitch that had apparently taken his brother. "Did it show you anything else?" he asked, his voice a little too fierce. Penelope sobbed some more. He ignored her.

Emily just stared, like the knocking around she'd gotten had snookered all her brains. Maybe she was like that girl at Manny's school, the one who'd been a normal girl until grade five when she'd vomited while asleep and choked on it and come back a year later without any of her senses. Now she was in the classes they set aside for the kids who weren't quite right and never really did much but played by herself in the schoolyard with a pack of cards that were missing half the pieces.

Manny shifted uncomfortably. It weren't right to yell at someone who wasn't quite right, even if he was angry and scared.

"You knew!" he tried to say without yelling. It didn't really work. "You knew it was going after Rafe! Why didn't you warn us?"

"She didn't know," Aaron snapped, suddenly there with his dark eyes all furious and his body the kind of tense that meant he was up for a fight. "Don't be a dumbass, Manny, she didn't know. We don't even know what happened, how could she know?"

Emily blinked. Manny watched it happen, watched the strange blankness suddenly vanish. It was weird, weird as hell, but it made an impression on him for sure. He watched her go from peculiar and vacant to Emily once more, intelligence snapping back into those dark eyes.

"It didn't tell me shit," she said in her voice, the spitfire kind of voice that was guaranteed to get your back up, even when pushed out through a fat lip. "I don't even remember what it was, let alone if it could fucking talk. All I remember is…" She paused, scrunching her face up and wincing as this hurt her battered cheek and swollen nose. "Helping Spencer with the bathroom…"

"That was ages ago," said Spencer helpfully.

"You don't remember my daddy?" asked Sean.

Manny had no fucking idea what these weirdos were smoking, but he was getting angrier—why was she lying to him? Why wasn't anyone talking about Rafe? Why were they just standing here all confused and useless instead of going out there and…

"What if he's not dead?" he burst out with, finally finding his feet. "You two, you look freaked out. Maybe he's not dead, you just thought he was because you were scared and wanted to run without being chicken shit cowards."

"Hey, man, watch it," Derek said in his 'tough' voice, but the effect was kind of ruined by how much he was shaking. "He was dead, I promise you."

"I saw inside him," whispered JJ.

Manny almost puked. Penelope made a faint noise, curling up tight on her side with her arms over her head and face hidden. Dezzi walked forward and crouched next to her, hand on her shoulder. Down for the count, Manny thought, and shook his head. What a girl.

Aaron spoke to Emily in a voice that wasn't supposed to be heard, but Manny heard it. Probably everyone heard since the usually loud hall was dead quiet. It was really sinking in: without Rafe, they were fucked with a capital Fuck.

"We have to go see," was what he said. "Rafe has the gun."

"We need to stop splitting the group," replied Sarah Morgan, standing there with the tip of her bat resting on the ground. "I think…" She swallowed. "I think we should all go."

This caused an outcry. Manny listened listlessly. They were saying stupid bullshit like what about the kids, what if it was horrifying, and they shouldn't let Manny and Penelope see, and this was about when he really started to laugh. They all looked at him then, really looked, and he pointed and kept laughing.

"You're all high, totally crackers," he burst out with between guffaws like his mouth was running away with him because everything that he kept in control had died with his brother. "What the fuck is this, this soccer mom bullshit? What about the chill-derin! What about the babies, fuck off with that, that baby there?" He pointed to Spencer. "That kiddo, that little baby, what's he gonna see that he hasn't already? The clown went for him first! And me? You think I'm scared to see my brother dead? Fuck off, I'm angry. I ain't leaving his body for the crows. JJ watched you—" He pointed to Aaron now. "—smash her sister's head in, her super dead fucking sister, may I add. Pop! There she goes, we watched her skull smash. We don't need protecting, you knobs! That horse has bolted right into the clown's mouth and it is traumatised already, my friends, we are all heading to the quackhouse!"

He stopped, breathing fast, as though the torrent of words had run out without warning. Very suddenly, he remembered his mom dying… he remembered how much trouble he'd gotten in after that, running his mouth off like he couldn't help it like he was possessed by the ghost of some loud-mouthed comedian with no ability to tell a joke. He'd kept that up until Rafe had stood him aside and said

(Manny, come on kid, there's nothing tough about taking a beating you're asking for)

he really needed to stop asking for trouble because it was making it harder for all of them.

"Just saying," he finished with weakly. "Better nuts then dead, right? So let's go, we'll make it a party and everyone is invited."

Except Rafe, said the small bit of his mind that was trying to force him to understand how momentous Rafe being gone was, how final and fatal and crushing. But he ignored that corner. He'd grieve, later, when there were no clowns or crazy goths or screaming meemies to be found. Right now, he was angry, which was good. Anger he could use.

Maybe if Rafe had used his anger instead of his good sense, he'd still be alive.

No one said anything. They were all looking nowhere in particular, all trying to avoid being the one to balls up and step into the shoes Rafe had been ripped out of. That hurt, it really did. Realising how important his brother was? That caused a hot burn of love deep in his chest, fringed with a wild pride and then shot right through with a gutting grief of realising important hadn't saved him.

"Come on then," Manny said, squeezing those words out past the pain as he turned to face Aaron completely. "Get over it, Hotchner—stop standing there like a lump. You're up."

"What?" croaked Aaron, his gaze jerking up to lock with Manny's before he looked around nervously. People had begun to turn to him, to gravitate towards him, and Manny gestured to them. "Wait, no. Don't look at me—I don't know what to do."

"You're the oldest," said Sarah.

"And the biggest," someone else said. "Aaron, come on. You gotta get us out of here, man."

"We have to get Rafe," Penelope whispered from her huddle on the floor, teary eyes just appearing over her arm. "We can't leave him there… that's not right. He wouldn't leave me there, he wouldn't. Aaron, please."

And then they went quiet, waiting to see if Aaron Hotchner would finally step up and take charge. Later, Manny would think of this moment and realise that not everyone was, as he'd mistakenly suspected, as on board with this as he was. He'd think back and realise Derek was frowning and Jackson wasn't looking anyone in the eye and the singular group of kids was beginning to splinter into many, their faith in the collective shattered by Rafe's death.

He'd realise that this, and what followed, was the wedge the monster who'd killed his brother needed to get to the rest of them.

"Alright," said Aaron with a deep breath, trying to square his shoulders and look tougher than he was. "Alright, then. But not together. I'm not taking kids down there to… see."

"I'm not going back," Derek said firmly. "Neither is she."

He was pointing to JJ, who stood alone. Maybe she'd learned that clinging was dangerous. It made her vulnerable to this crushing loss. Good on her, Manny thought. Good on her.

"This is a mistake." Sarah Morgan. Manny agreed with her, but he shrugged, now listless. He'd said his piece and passed the torch. Now, all he could focus on was what was directly in front of him: foot in front of foot, walking him all the way down to that lake where his brother was dead.

"I'm coming," said Jackson quietly. "I want to see."

"I'm coming," said Emily. Aaron scowled at her. "Don't you dare tell me I can't. Don't you dare—he died trying to get help for me." And, even though Manny would have sworn she was too messed up to stand, stand she did. On her own two feet too, ignoring Aaron's arm held out to her. Manny respected that, even if she was the craziest of them all.

"I'm coming," whispered Penelope.

"Ayy, I don't think you should," said Manny, blanching at the thought. "You're a…"

She looked at him.

"Stay behind me then," he said grudgingly, pulling his hand away when she reached for it. Maybe later he'd help her with her shock and grief, but not yet. Not yet. Not when he was still sour that she'd never really even got Rafe when he was alive, never understood how good a brother he was.

Yeah, maybe later. If she lived.

Manny now knew that wasn't guaranteed.

Before they left, Manny made one last stop.

"Sup'," he said to Derek, pausing in front of him. "Hey, man. Rough time, yeah?"

"Yeah," said Derek. He didn't meet Manny's eyes. Manny, in response, bunched his fists and tried not to let his voice waver at all. His grief was too big to think about right now, his complete loss of hope too adult for him to understand, but he knew one thing: he really needed a friend for this next bit, and he only had one friend here. "Sorry about your brother, Manny… I didn't… I would have done something if I could."

"Naw, we know it would have killed you if you'd tried. JJ too, probably. Running was smart." Manny's gaze kept dropping, dragged to the floor by his misery and surety that Derek was going to reject this plea. "I…"

Derek didn't look up.

"I don't want to go alone," Manny finished heavily.

"Aaron's with you. Emily too."

That hurt. Manny winced at the pain of that quiet rejection. "I don't want to go without a friend," he rasped. "That's my brother, man, my big bro. He's supposed to… he's not supposed to die."

"Then don't go," was Derek's whispered response. "Don't do it. You don't need to see, Manny. Stay here with us. We… we gotta think about what we're going to do next."

"We have Aaron for that." Manny was angry now, his fists tight with fury rather than fear. This was bull, total fucking bull—Derek was supposed to be his friend. "Aaron ain't shit to me as a friend, that's you. Let him lead. Can't you…"

"I don't trust him." Derek finally looked at him, something dark stealing into his eyes. That darkness scared Manny. He didn't understand it. "And I don't think you should either. Look what he did to Emily."

"The clown did that to Emily. They all say it did."

"Aaron says it did. Emily doesn't remember—and Sean says he saw Aaron going in there. Sure, he says it was his dad that hurt her—but he's six and it was dark and he was scared to shit. I don't think we should rely on Aaron to get us out, Manny, not like we relied on Rafe…" He went quiet, but Manny had got the message. They looked at each other for a second, before Derek finally leaned forward and whispered, "Some of us are thinking of running, tonight. Without them."

Them was the bigs, getting ready to go get Manny's brother. To lay him and everything he'd done for them to rest. Manny looked at them.

"It can't chase all of us at once," Derek finished firmly.

Manny thought about that for a bit. It made sense, sure, if they were assuming that the clown bothered about their silly rules like what it could and couldn't do. And it seemed to him that if it had been what had beaten Emily—because Aaron didn't seem the type to do that to a girl, at least, Rafe had never thought so and Manny trusted Rafe—and yet it had also been in the lake waiting for Rafe not even an hour later, well then, it might be a bit magic. And if it was magic, he figured it could probably chase as many of them at a time as it wanted.

"What will you do with them?" he asked instead of pointing this out, nodding to the few littles they had left. Not many now, just the two little boys and one girl of seven. They'd had six when this had started. That was a fifty per cent loss of littles—Manny didn't like those odds. "You gonna take them on, huh? Wipe noses and asses for them when they shit because they're scared or cuddle them at night like Emily and Aaron do when they're crying their bitty selves to sleep because mommy isn't here?"

Derek tensed. Manny watched some tremendous battle flicker over his face.

"Or are you going to leave them here while you run?" Manny asked, no emotion in his voice. No judgement. He knew that it didn't really matter what Derek answered; their friendship had ended the moment Derek had refused to help him through this, even if it made sense that Derek didn't want to go back to where he'd seen it happen.

"I don't know," answered Derek finally. Manny nodded.

"Well, I hope you figure it out soon," he said, holding his fist out. Derek bumped his against it. "Good luck, man."

"You too," said Derek, like they were about to play ball instead of going to get a body or doing a kamikaze run into the mouth of a monster.

And then Manny turned his back on him and walked away.

They filed out of the rec hall, those that were going, in a silent line of muted faces. Down the path they went, a funeral procession of teenagers and pre-teens, most of them armed. Behind them, those that were staying locked the doors. Manny could hear blockades being put back up. He doubted it would help, even as he wondered how many kids would remain behind those blockades when they returned.

It was a full moon and Manny thought that that was sickly apt. Those that held flashlights barely needed them, only to skirt the sides of the path to make sure nothing nasty lurked. The moon lit their way.

It lit the lake too. It lit the scraggly group of kids who were way-too-fucking-young-for-this, each and every one of them, as they filtered out of the woods and stood staring. Every one of them, just staring, even those that had seen Ros's body and even those that had faced the dead kids. Because dead kids were one thing, they were supernatural and fucked up and like something out of a movie. Movies could be turned off. They could be muted or thrown away or forgotten, but Manny had never ever seen a movie in his life that had shown something as ghastly as this.

The lake had pushed Rafe back against the shore. His body moved slowly in rhythm with the lapping of the water. The water around him was darker than the rest, even in the moonlight, and Manny took three shocked steps towards him before he realised that it was blood. Not just blood. There were other bits floating in the water around him too, parts that were still connected but not where they should be anymore.

As soon as he realised that, he broke. Tough until that moment, sure until that second: his brain recognised that there, that long slippery thing that shifted in the water like something under the surface was nibbling at it, that was his brother's intestine—and he turned and hurtled away from the sight with a whistled gasp that should have been a scream.

Someone caught him, holding him close. Hugging him tightly. He let that person hold him as he closed his eyes and shuddered through the shock, ignoring everything that was happening around him… and then he realised who it was.

"You shouldn't have come here," he said through a thick taste of snot and tears.

"He'd have done it for me," said Penelope, her tears fierce but, for some reason, more composed. "He'd have absolutely done it for either of us."

That was true.

With a rasping breath, Manuel Garcia—who'd forget this night just as quickly as his sister would in the hazy years following their tentative escape from Camp Moribund—turned to face the lake and his brother's death front on and without hesitating.

"Where are the shovels kept?" he asked anyone that was listening, knowing now that there was no moving forward until this was done. Not once did he consider leaving it for an adult; Ros, after all, had died and been whisked away and there had been no funeral, no wake, no chance to grieve. That wasn't happening here; he'd see his brother buried, not vanished.

Rafe would have done it for him.

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2

Derek Morgan leads the way.

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Derek sat silently. There were twelve down at the lake seeing what evil had been done there. Another fifteen here, all arguing. Those that wanted to stay were adamant that they should all stay; those that wanted to run thought that their best bet was if there were as many distinct groups as possible. Derek had been a part of this second group, his brain locked on hard to what he'd seen down the lake… but Manny had said, what had Manny said?

He'd pointed out that there were little kids here, just kids like what Dezzi had been when his dad had died. And what would his dad have said if he'd known that Derek was planning on running and leaving someone as small as his little sister had been back then?

Dezzi was sitting with Sarah, who'd begrudgingly agreed to stay when Aaron had decided the kids shouldn't see. Derek walked over there, feeling numb. Feeling like he'd been scooped out and left raw, rawer than even Carl had ever left him.

"Listen to those cowards," Sarah said when Derek walked over there. She was frowning at the boys who were planning on going and who, Derek knew, were trying to entice others to abandon ship too… only to help draw attention away from them. Sacrificial lambs. He was torn between hating the thought and wondering whether it would help him get his sisters out. "That's fucking disgusting, listen to them—they're just trying to save their own asses."

Dezzi was quiet. When she looked at Derek, he saw the same thought in her eyes: maybe it was a chance…

But Sarah wasn't done.

"I'd rather die than run out on kids who can't defend themselves," she said with a stubborn shape to her mouth. "Imagine facing down Dad and telling him we let kids die to save our skin? That's not how he raised us. That's not what a Morgan does."

The shame that slammed home to Derek then made him feel weak-kneed, his guts turning to water with the sheer and utter embarrassment of it. When she fixed him with a look like their momma did when they were fighting, he knew that she knew what he'd been planning. Oh, she knew.

"No Morgan is a coward," she said quietly.

"Momma needs her babies to come home," Dezzi said suddenly. "She needs us, Sarah—she can't lose us and Daddy too, it'll kill her. I think it's sick too, leaving kids to… well, it's horrible. But it's worse to think of Momma dying from a broken heart because none of us ever come home from camp. If we can get to the road, we can hitch a ride—get clean out of here. Back home to Momma, don't you want to see her?"

Derek realised with a strange feeling of disconnect that he hadn't thought about his mom in, what? Weeks, almost.

Actually, looking around, cold stole into his gut; no one had talked about home in a while. At first, they had. They'd tried to call home, get their parents… the little kids had cried themselves to sleep howling for their daddies. But now? They talked about escape, but not where to go. And, when they did run, they ran not for home… but for town. Castle Rock. Like they were pulled there, magnetised. Drawn there by something that was in their minds as surely as it was the water, driving away all thoughts of their families…

He frowned, thinking that over.

"Sure, I do," Sarah was saying, although she had a face on like she was also trying to remember something long forgotten. "But I damn well know I need to be able to look her in the eye when I see her next, otherwise that's it for us. We'll never be a family again. And, come on, Dez. Don't be that naïve. Anyone who picks up three dirty looking black kids on the side of the road, two of them girls, they're not the kind of people we want to be hitching rides with."

Something dragged on the floor. Derek looked up. They were going. The dragging was them unblocking the barricades, carrying all the weapons and the flashlights too.

"Let them go," Sarah said bitterly. "We're staying. We're damn well staying. Derek, look at me. The both of you—both of you look at me."

They did. She pointed. And they followed her finger.

Derek swallowed; she was pointing to a huddled group of kids left behind, all watching with worried eyes. One of them called out, "Where are you going?" but he was ignored. Just four. Four little kids.

Conroy stopped. Derek hated him. He liked to wait until no one was listening and whisper cusses at Derek, all kinds of cruel things. Derek had learned words he'd never known before from him, all kinds of words the likes of which would have made Sarah murderous to hear.

"You can come if you like," he called back to the small kids, who looked at each other. Some of them inched forward. "Come on, run after us. We'll wait for you."

Derek lurched up. "Don't move," he told the kids firmly. "He's lying. He's not going to wait for you, he's going to run and leave you behind."

"You disgusting pig," Sarah snapped, Conroy rolling his eyes at them. "You're going to get all those kids with you killed."

"Don't see you stopping me," he shot back, before vanishing out the door. It closed behind them.

Derek looked at the kids, who looked back at him. He recognised Aaron's little brother among the group, standing next to Spencer who was writing in his book again, and JJ, whose expression was cold. She was the oldest there. Everyone else her age had taken off with Conroy and his friends.

"Why didn't you run?" he asked her.

"Why didn't you?" she shot back. "I know you were thinking about it."

He probably deserved that.

Uneasy with how few they were now, he looked at Sarah as though hoping for guidance, but found none there. She looked just as worried as he did, and just as lost, and he wondered why she hadn't tried to stop them leaving. After all, she'd been the one who wanted them all to stay together.

"Maybe we should go down to the lake," Dezzi said suddenly, cold horror sinking into Derek's gut at the thought. "There really aren't many of us left… and we should tell Aaron what happened. He's going to want to know where everyone went."

A small voice spoke up, surprisingly firm despite how young it was.

"I think we should go the library in town," said Spencer, not even wavering when everyone looked at him. "It's safe there."

"What?" Sarah asked, shaking her head. "Don't be ridiculous, we already tried to get out and it—"

"He's right," said Sean Hotchner, shrinking back at the attention it gained him. "It doesn't like stories and libraries are full of stories."

"Stories…" murmured Sarah, exchanging a glance with Dezzi that Derek didn't understand. "The bear?"

"It really didn't like us reading to it," JJ added, standing up and looking more alive and fiercer than she had since Ros had died. "They're right, Sarah—they're right. It didn't like the stories!"

"But that doesn't make sense." Sarah looked absolutely confounded by that, looking from Derek to Spencer as though either one of them was going to clarify this for them. Derek thought of the radio… he hadn't heard anything, but the others had. The smaller ones had.

Smaller kids, kids who probably still believed in the stories they read.

"I think I get it," he said slowly. And it was time to be brave, he thought, picturing his dad and holding his image in his mind. "It's gotten worse the more of us believe in it, right? The more of us that are scared? That's why it didn't attack you guys, the counsellors, until after you all started believing in it—maybe it couldn't? Maybe it needs us to be scared of it, to really know it's coming after us. And maybe… maybe that works both ways. Spencer, how safe is the library?"

Spencer nodded, his eyes wide and very serious behind the thick lenses of the glasses he'd lost under the burned down cabin until Emily had crawled back under there to get them. His hair was way too long, all in his eyes and matted around the ears from no one helping him brush it.

"It's very," he said. "Nothing can hurt you in a library, nothing."

"You really believe that, huh?" Derek pressed, walking forward and kneeling down so he was eye to eye with the little kids that Conroy's group had thought were useless and Aaron's group had thought needed protecting—but who Derek was beginning to realise might actually be the ones to get them out of here.

"Yeah, of course," said Spencer. "My mom says books are magic, that there's nothing safer than a book. So a library has to be even safer since it's made of books."

"If Spencer believes it, it's gotta be true," Sean added, the other kids around him nodding too. Spencer had made his mark among them. "He's the smartest person in the world."

Derek looked at Sarah for guidance, only to find that she was looking at him. Looking at him like Manny had, desperate for him not to disappoint them… well, he'd disappointed Manny. He'd let his fear turn him into a coward.

But Morgans weren't cowards, and his dad had always said the only cure for doing wrong was to do twice as much right.

"Come on," he said. Ignoring his fear, he stood and held his hand out for a kid to take. One did, a girl of seven who Derek didn't know because she'd always—until now—had friends her own age to hang out with, and he wondered how long she'd been alone. But Sean then took her other hand, Spencer standing with his book under his arm and his pen capped and safely put in his pocket as he took Sean's free hand with his. And then they were a straggled line of kids holding hands, like an elementary school excursion with Derek and Sarah capping the ends.

"Where are we going?" Dezzi asked, darting over to pull the door, that Conroy had left unblocked, open. "Derek, where?"

"To the lake," he said firmly, holding that little girl's hand tight. "We're going to the lake to get the others, and then we're all going to the library—together. We'll be safe there."

"Promise?" asked the little girl, looking up at him trustingly. He wondered if this was how Rafe had felt.

"I promise," he said firmly.

.

3

Penelope Garcia marches on.

.

Penelope had always hated herself for a lot of reasons. One of them was that she was chubby and spotty and gross, and another was that she was emotional and erratic and hated that the smallest thing could bring her to tears. Tears, she believed, were a terrible weakness that she and she alone had been struck with. The day they pulled the step-brother she'd never loved as she should have from that lake, she cried a lot. Cried because she hadn't loved him but she did miss him, miss him terribly, and maybe she'd been coming around to loving him and was shattered that this had put a horrible stop to that.

She also cried because Manny was crying. Because he was acting just as erratic as she'd always been told she acted, flipping from anger to misery so fast she could barely keep up. And he was tough as they marched down there but broke apart when they saw the body floating there. Maybe the idea of Rafe being dead hadn't been as bad for him as the reality of it.

That was strange, Penelope thought. It was entirely the opposite for her. Knowing he was dead was somehow worse than seeing it like the confirmation gave her the okay to feel everything she was feeling without resenting herself for it. And, in some strange way, seeing the body was important in other ways for her too.

Maybe, she thought as she sat on the rocky shoreline with Manny huddled, still crying, under her arm. Maybe crying and tears and emotions and everything she'd hated about herself… maybe they weren't because she was a girl and stupid and gross. Maybe that wasn't it at all.

Maybe they were human and, therefore, okay. Normal.

Important.

She thought this because, that terrible night as those kids tried to pull together to do something that was beyond them, they were all very human. She watched, her tears finally dry—watched because she knew her limits, and Manny's too, and neither of them could get in that water—as the others tried to bring Rafe out.

Aaron was angry, sure; he yelled at Jackson because Jackson was refusing to help carry the body out, and he yelled at Manny to stop and sit because Manny had found a shovel and tried to dig a grave with it even though he was sobbing so hard he couldn't hold the tool up. But he wasn't just angry. He was crying. He was crying in the lake as Emily helped lift the body, and then he threw up when something went wrong with that. Penelope thought that maybe they'd looked at the ick, which she was determinedly not doing because she didn't need to see all of his dead bits to grieve her brother, thank you very much. She was instead focusing on imagining ducks on the water, happy ducklings and white boy ducks and colourful girl ducks, all swimming around…

Emily was crying too, she noticed, which was also interesting. If there was anyone least likely to cry in her mind, it was Emily. But she was. And so were the two other girl counsellors there, even though they weren't helping, although Jackson wasn't helping or crying but just watching with this expression on his face Penelope didn't like looking at. She focused on the others instead, listening to them but not looking.

It made Aaron seem different to her, those tears, Emily too. She'd been awed by Emily ever since that first night at the lake, and Aaron scared her a little. But, after this… less. He scared her less. And Emily seemed less unapproachable. They were just human like she was human, hurt by loss and able to cry, and Penelope took a slow breath and realised: she had loved Rafe. She'd loved him like she loved Aaron and Emily and Manny and even Derek, who'd been too scared to come down here which was okay and totally understandable, to Penelope at least.

She loved them because they were human and able to hurt, and she wished she could hold back all the hurt from them despite this.

In the years to come, despite not remembering this night, Penelope would be shaped by it.

They heard the others approaching before they saw them, and it was after they'd gotten Rafe out of the lake and laid him down on the shore. Penelope felt sick. She hadn't been looking, but she'd heard alright… and she knew that Emily had thrown up not only because her head was still achy from being hurt earlier, but also because she'd done what Aaron couldn't and helped put what was outside of Rafe back in.

Rafe was covered now, in a tarp that she didn't know where they'd gotten from but was glad for because it didn't let any blood stain the blue. She could almost pretend there was no body under there, especially after Emily and Aaron washed their hands of the blood.

And that was how they were standing when the strange line of kids emerged from the camp, hand in hand like a long snake. Penelope still holding the now wetly breathing Manny, all cried out, and Aaron and Emily standing on either side of the tarp-covered body like funeral angels on guard. The other three keeping back.

JJ let go of the line and walked forward when she saw the tarp laying there, her eyes wide and, in the moonlight, very bright.

"Oh," she said, beginning to cry quietly at the confirmation of Rafe's death. Emily walked forward, crouching before her and hugging her gently, trying to avoid getting her damp despite Emily's soaked clothes which still had blood staining them, hers and Rafe's both. But JJ clung hard, crying even harder, and Emily didn't push her away; instead, she hugged her tight and cried too.

Penelope clung to that as evidence that losing someone didn't mean losing everyone. Rafe was gone, just like Ros was gone… but JJ still felt. She still cried for someone else. And she rather thought that maybe JJ was the strongest of them all, in the end, because, even though she'd never admit it, Emily needed the hug much more than JJ did. She needed that wordless acceptance, because what they'd just done, pulling Rafe from the lake… that had been terrible. JJ had somehow known that, just like Penelope knew it, and she'd hugged Emily in response to it even though maybe she'd have preferred, by now, to cry alone.

When Manny pulled out of Penny's arms and stood, making his wobbly way over to Derek, Penelope stood too. She walked to Emily, slipping her hand into hers and leaning close. Emily looked down at her, her expression odd in her swollen, battered face. Her normally wildly spiky hair damp and flat against her head, her make-up washed off and dressed in a too-big plaid sweater, she didn't seem like Emily at all. Not that untouchable, wild girl who'd smoked by the lake.

Penelope, showing a hint of the empathetic adult she'd become, recognised that maybe Emily needed back a little of that power she'd had stripped away.

"We're going to be okay," said Emily finally, squeezing Penelope's hand. Some of that frozen exhaustion and fear faded from her features in the face of the two girls who needed her as she'd been and not as she was now. "You two stay by me and we're all going to be okay."

Derek was there. He looked different too. Not as raw as Emily and Aaron were looking, not as punch-drunk with grief as Manny. He looked sure of whatever he was thinking, whatever had made him lead the way down here—Penelope saw his calm, focused expression, so different from his earlier terror, and a little of her prior childish love for him surmounted once more, but different this time. Deeper. Realer. She loved him despite him leaving Manny to come here alone and despite seeing him in a moment of weakness; maybe, much like Aaron and Emily, she loved him because of those things.

"Spencer had an idea and I think it's a good one," Derek said, ignoring Aaron suddenly noticing how few they were and asking where the rest of them had gone. "He says we should go to the library. It's safe there. We really believe that it's safe there, just like Spencer believed that reading to the bear would stop it getting to them before you could them out from under the cabin."

His eyes pinned Aaron, daring him to believe too.

Aaron was quiet.

"The others ran, didn't they?" he asked. Derek nodded. "Alone?"

Another nod.

Aaron looked around at them. Penelope did too, at the few who were left. She wondered, although she'd never ask, if they'd run because Rafe was dead… or because Aaron wasn't. She knew that people wondered who had really hurt Emily so bad; those that hadn't heard Emily screaming that she'd kill him if he (bit) hit her again had heard the others whispering about it.

But she trusted Aaron. He was good.

"Why the library?" Aaron asked.

"Because we believe it's safe," answered Derek with an astounding simplicity. "This thing gets us when we're most scared. When we're most ready to be got. Who says we can't use that against it? Who says we can't try?"

"How the hell are we going to get the kids down to the town without them panicking?" Emily asked. "Last time it was them bolting like scared sheep that got us surrounded—we can't stop that happening again."

Penelope thought about the bear, shuddering a little when she remembered its terrible face—and then pushing those thoughts away because maybe in this place, bad thoughts had a kind of power. Instead, she focused on the good.

"I think I have an idea," she said, looking back at the lake and imagining her ducks once more. It helped.

It helped.

.

4

Aaron Hotchner finds Sanctuary.

.

Aaron got the gun from Rafe's waistband where it still was, slippery with blood and other things, and he cleaned it as best he could while pondering Penelope and Derek's plan. It felt like a good one or, rather, it felt like as good a plan as they had right now. He was a smart boy, even at this supposedly stupid age, and he knew when they were running out of time. He knew it in the burning blisters on his palms and the way Emily was swaying, and he knew it in the faces that were missing. He knew it in Manny's manic misery and Rafe's body that was beginning to attract blowflies as the morning sun rose and they kept up taking turns digging a grave for him.

It had been decided that they would, that they would dig this grave, before Aaron would tell them what he'd decided about The Plan. The Plan which had gained the importance of a proper noun and thus needed to be spoken as gravely as such, after an appropriate amount of deep thought had been given it.

And while Aaron was busy pondering and digging, intermittently, he couldn't pay any attention to how Emily flinched away from him like he was

(his father)

something she should be wary of.

The day was what his father would call a real stinker. The hot sun felt swollen in the sky overhead, their skin burning within minutes of being out under it even before it had climbed high enough to get some real bite to it. Flies buzzed around them, congregating on the sticky tarp that, in the light, was covered in bloody handprints. The flies landed on the thin circle of kids too, buzzing at eyes and mouths and landing on dirty skin. They were a real sight under that swollen sun. Their mothers could have walked right up to them and not recognised a single one of them, not a single one.

Aaron's mother would have screamed to have seen Aaron, whose clothes had dried into stiff and muddy shapes from the lake-water, his hands black with dirt and with dark-brown stains from Rafe's body dug into his nails. They bled too, his hands, from the shovels he relentlessly wielded as they dug deeper and deeper into the stinking earth. She would have screamed to see Sean too, who had a steel soup ladle from the kitchen and was helping dig too, his pants so muddy and torn by this point that he'd taken them off and was kneeling pants-less in the dirt in just his kiddy underwear. His blonde hair was now rat-brown with dirt and as matted as it could get, stuck in knots and clumps. His blue eyes stared out from a grime-encrusted face, the mess worst around his mouth and nose where snot and tears had collected above his upper lip. By the time this day was done, the skin that wasn't filthy would be a bright lobster-red, burned all the way around.

JJ took her turns digging too. Despite her clean clothes—she was too fastidious to let herself get as dirty as some of them had—her mother would have had to take a moment to recognise her as well, her eyes unfamiliar behind their blank stare. Her hands bled as Aaron's did. She didn't seem to notice or care, wiping the blood on the cleanest shorts she'd been able to find in her suitcase and leaving lines of rust-red on them that dried brown. Occasionally, her gaze would flicker to the tarp, which the kids milled around calmly. The dead didn't bother them anymore. A body was a body; at least this one was covered and, most importantly, staying dead. Spencer, in fact, sat barely three feet from Rafe's body, playing with the yo-yo Emily had given him with his book tucked under his knees.

Penelope and Manny dug too, dug until they were shaking from the effort. Dug until they were just as coated in the dark mud of Dark Score Lake as the rest of them were, which at least was some protection against the sun and the flies. There wasn't a child there that wasn't dirty, wasn't battered, wasn't bruised. An unholy sight of wildlings, waiting for the sound of a shot to send them scattering to the wilds… or waiting for someone to call them back to civilisation.

Aaron, seeing this, decided. He turned to Emily, who inched a little bit away from him when she saw his gaze on her and, in the process, broke his heart a little more.

"I think we should go," he said.

"If you say so," she replied with her voice teetering dangerously close to the blankness the attack had precipitated. The one eye that wasn't still swollen was red and heavy-lidded; none of them had slept. Her lips were cracked, her skin tight and swollen where it wasn't bruised deeply.

"Penelope's idea is probably a good one," he pressed, desperate to see some life in that reddened eye.

"If you think so," said Emily.

"If I get you there safely," Aaron said frantically, grasping at straws as he felt the one thing that made him feel good in this camp begin to slide out of reach, "will you trust me again?"

She looked at him now, looked at him proper with her good eye narrowed.

"I'd never hurt you," he pleaded. "Emily, please. Please listen to me. If I get you to the library, somewhere we can be safe, will you believe that?"

"I guess if you managed that," she said quietly, "I'd probably believe you were capable of anything."

He held that close, determined that she'd look at him sweetly again—or, if she didn't, that she'd have a moment to catch her breath, recover, and get some of her riotous spark back. That was his guiding motivation, he decided, he would see Emily find herself again.

He would.

"Penny," he called, standing over the grave that was now almost six foot deep and almost ready to be filled with the man who'd died because he'd let his desire to see them all safe overcome his desire to stay alive (and Aaron knew, despite recognising this, he'd probably make the same mistake if it was Emily, or Sean). From inside that hole, Penelope looked up at him, sweaty and red and dull-eyed enough that he crouched down to pass her the almost-empty water bottle. "When the sun goes down, tonight, we're going to do it. We're going to try your plan. It's a good one."

A thrill rippled around the shore. They looked up to the sky, where the swollen sun hung.

And they hoped.

There was little to be said about the burial of Rafe Garcia. It wasn't beautiful or memorable. Two years from now, few of them would remember this day; fewer still would remember that Rafe had died at all. The terrible forgetting of Derry and the surrounds would have worked its cruel magic on them and they, like all those before them, would conjure up illusions of things that could have happened that made more sense than reality. They didn't know how to get his body into the grave gently and it made a gutting noise hitting the wet ground, which was filling with brackish water from the porous sides. It squelched, the tarp barely hiding the sound, and the shore where he had been lying was left stained with the vaguest outline of a person made from everything that had leaked from him as he'd rotted.

They tried not to look at that.

"Does anyone want to say anything?" asked Aaron as he stood over that grave with his shovel in hand, ready to fill the hole. They all knew, somehow, that this was probably the only memorial Rafe would get. Just like Ros, the terror had him—his life and his death—and it wouldn't let him go no matter what.

No one did, but Emily tried. She felt like someone should say something, even if it wasn't enough. And, standing there beside the box of torn up shirts and sheets that they'd fashioned into blindfolds for what came next, she cleared her throat.

"I guess, thank you," she said, her voice rasping. They all looked at her. "Thanks for trying, Rafe. You really, really tried and… and I hope we can learn something from that. To keep trying, no matter what."

"To hope," said Penelope.

Manny said nothing.

And Aaron looked down at the tarp-wrapped shape of the man whose shoes he was now expected to wear—realising somewhere deep inside him that if he stepped into Rafe's shoes, well, that didn't leave any space for him to turn out like his father, did it? — and he whispered, "I'll do my best."

Then he let the dirt fall.

By the time the grave was filled loosely (and not well enough, it would sag in as the body holding it up rotted inward quickly in the damp mud), it was night. The moon had replaced the sun. Shovels were thrown down and the loose group, fewer than they had been, gathered around Emily's box.

"Anyone who thinks they'll get scared, hand up," said Aaron firmly. "You'll get a blindfold."

"Don't be scared," said Penelope to them all, making sure to push through her sadness to smile at each at every one of them. "We're all going to hold hands and we're going to make noise so we can't hear anything awful, and no one is going to let go of anyone—got it?"

They all nodded.

"Who wants a blindfold?" called Aaron. Hands shot up. Some slower than others, some determined; they all remembered how clotting the fear of seeing the dead kids had been. At least this way, if they died, they'd die without knowing the terror was coming for them.

In the end, when Aaron and Emily were finished knotting blindfolds tight and lining the kids up in a line of two-by-two with more knotted rags tying them to each other like a team of workhorses before a cart, there were six kids without blindfolds. Only six from the group left who'd kept their hands down, for varying reasons.

Aaron and Emily, who knew they had to face their fears and trust each other to be the eyes for the kids they were responsible for. Derek, who was determined that this time he'd see the danger coming and stop it rather than see someone else buried, who was determined that if he had to face his dad anytime soon he'd do it as a Morgan and not a coward (Sarah had kept her hand down but he'd sworn to her that it was his job to keep them safe and begged her to wear it, please—he needed this). JJ, who doubted anything could really scare her anymore so she may as well face it much like she'd faced the something in the lake that had lost some of the terror in the knowing of what it was. Penelope, who felt responsible for this idea and therefore a part of making sure those kids that couldn't see didn't stumble on the way.

And Spencer.

"Put the blindfold on, mouse," Emily was saying softly to him, crouched down beside where he was tied neatly to Jackson behind him and Dezzi in front of him, his hand locked through Sean's beside him and his book under his other arm.

"No," he said firmly, pulling away when she tried to drape it over his eyes. "It's dark. I don't like it."

Aaron went over there, ignoring Emily's wary stare.

"Can you be brave?" he asked the boy, who nodded. "Even if you see Ethan? You can't go after him, Spencer—if you see him, you need to ignore him. Can you do that?"

"Yes," rasped Spencer. "I'll be good, I promise. And I'll look after Sean."

Aaron nodded. "Let him go," he told Emily. "I trust him."

Although he'd never know this, that single line went a long way to repairing what had been broken between him and the girl crouched there; she thought at that moment that no man who'd done to her what had been done would ever have validated a small boy's fears like this, or trusted him so much, no matter what her shaky memories were telling her.

With those six sets of eyes open against the dark, they set off into the night, with Aaron in the lead and Emily walking alongside. They, unlike everyone else, were not tied into the group; instead, they worked to clear the path for those who couldn't see, helping those who stumbled as they made their slow way out of the camp.

And Emily, as they moved further into the woods that whispered around them, sung. It was a shaky kind of singing, her voice raspy and her tune a little off, but it drowned out anything that drew the children's attention away from her. She sang any song she could think of, anything from her collection of albums with their long-remembered lyrics. And, when the kids recognised the songs that she was singing, they joined in.

The night gave way to them, letting them pass as though it didn't know what to do with this strange, straggled sight. And Aaron didn't see a single spook, even though he was looking out for them. For some reason, they'd been given this respite, this relief—they'd been given this chance to leave the camp behind, even though they were still all coated in the stinking mud of it. It gave him hope as nothing else had before, his shoulders straightening and stride becoming firmer, as though the ghost of Rafe Garcia was walking beside him whispering, "You're doing it, Aaron, you're saving them—all of them."

And it was right when he gave in and joined in on a shaky rendition of a George Michael song he'd remember suddenly in twenty-one years (cos I gotta have faith faith faith), that he heard it. A thin cry.

He paused, calling out for everyone to stop. Obediently, they did. Emily took the chance to help the little girl with her shoe, which she'd hooked the strap through a branch, and Spencer watched Aaron curiously.

They heard it again.

"It's a trap," Derek declared, holding up his own weapon, the shovel they'd buried Rafe with. "Ignore it. Let's keep going, man."

"It lured Rafe into the lake with a girl drowning," JJ added.

Aaron listened. He heard it again (help us) and thought, what was the worst that could happen? And he knew the answer—he could die. Die and leave these kids alone, right when he knew they were right near the road and almost to Castle Rock, die at midnight of this shaky night. Die when he could be getting them to the safety of the library which would surely be closed right now but would open again as surely as the sun would rise, open and welcome them inside to Sanctuary.

"Emily?" he asked, turning to her. "What do you think?"

She looked surprised to be asked, looking at him oddly. "Why are you asking me?"

"Because," he said simply, "you're my co-pilot in this plane we're flying out of hell. Captain doesn't do shit without the co-pilot's okay."

Emily gave him another intense look, one he wouldn't understand until he was far far older than this. The cry sounded again, louder this time and with other voices chiming in as though whoever were voicing those yells had heard the singing and thought rescue was close.

Finally, she spoke. "It could be the ones who ran," she said. "Or it could be the clown. I don't know, Aaron. They ran—do we risk ourselves for them?"

Aaron thought about that for a moment but, in the end, he knew the answer to that.

"Our strength is in each other," he said quietly, looking down the row of blindfolded faces who'd let him lead them blindly into the unknown. "No one let go of each other—no one, do you understand?"

"Where are you going?" asked Derek uneasily. "You're coming back, right?"

"Absolutely," promised Aaron, tugging out Rafe's gun and checking it was loaded. It was. "Emily, you're coming with me. Derek, Penelope, JJ—" After a moment, he added, "Spencer," because the kid wasn't blindfolded and, shit, maybe Manny had been right: they'd seen enough that they were all the same now, weren't they? Just as capable and traumatised as each other. "Get the others to the library. Keep singing. Me and Em, we're going to go save the others from their own dumbassery—and we'll meet you there."

"Damn right we will," said Emily, stepping firmly away from the nightmare It had tried to feed her and back beside Aaron where she belonged. He'd done something no one had before and that was stronger than any false face: he'd trusted her completely. Not even her mother trusted her like that and, at the moment, she'd have followed him to Hell if he'd asked it of her. "Let's do this."

They went one way while the kids went the other, neither group sure that they'd see each other again but at least one of them sure that the risk had to be worth it. Rafe might have died because of his humanity, but humanity was what was keeping the rest of them alive.

A worthy gamble.

.

5

Spencer Reid keeps a record.

.

They made it to the library. Spencer felt very pleased when he saw the familiar building looming ahead on the silent, lamplit street. Oh, he'd never been here before, not this library. But he'd been to a lot of libraries in his life, all kinds, and one library was just as exciting and safe as the next. He could have recognised a library no matter what guise it took and this? This was definitely a library.

"Remember, it's going to be closed," Derek was saying as they unknotted ties and began to run towards the overhang before the building, desperate to huddle up against that door, lined up the stairs waiting for morning. "So we need to wait quietly for—"

Spencer could have told him he was being silly: a library would never be closed when they needed it and, sure enough, the door of this one stood open. Stunned, the older kids exchanged surprised and wary glances—because it was well after one o'clock—and the younger kids just shrugged and accepted it as part of Sanctuary, which would, of course, be open to them.

"Don't go in yet," Sarah commanded, back in charge now her blindfold was off. She grouped them all before the doorway looking into the dim interior, calming everyone who was whispering excitedly—would there be beds inside? Food? Who knew! — "We should wait for Aaron and Emily. It's weird that it's open…"

Spencer didn't think it was weird, but he was okay waiting for Aaron anyway. Sean kept looking around for his brother approaching on the dark street, his face twisting as he got more and more worried. His hand, in Spencer's, was clammy.

"Maybe we should knock?" said Ashlee, one of the counsellors.

"We should go inside," said Jackson. Spencer looked at him. He was standing there holding his little brother's hand and, when he saw Spencer looking at him, he looked away with his cheeks flushed red. "Come on, it's supposed to be safe, isn't it? So go in!"

He yelled the last a little, the shout echoing up the street. They all tensed—a gathering of dirty, worried children waiting for the policeman's eyes to fall upon them—and then there was a soft gasp.

"Goodness," said a lady in the door of the library, staring out at them through her glasses with her hand pressed to her fluttering heart. If she'd expected anything when investigating the odd noise pulling her away from the overdue accounts that had kept her here long into the night, it certainly wasn't this group of ragged and pinched looking children, all dirty and scared and looking at her like she might bite. "Where on earth did you all come from?"

"Excuse me, ma'am," said Sarah, who'd meant to explain where they'd come from and why they were here but found all those words stripped from her in favour of these: "Do you have any food? We're all so hungry."

A soft whine of agreement whipped around the group, small hands going to bellies and sad eyes turning sadder as they all became suddenly aware of their growling stomachs.

"And tired," whispered JJ, hugging her arms around herself. The librarian, looking at her, saw her bloodied nails. "I just want to sleep."

Sean sniffled, still looking up the street for his brother.

And the woman, who was sixty-eight and had never turned down a soul in need in her life and wasn't about to start now, stepped back, held the door open, and asked them to come inside.

They did.

With the efficiency that she'd run the town library with for thirty-nine years, Barbara Manning soon had those wild children in order: she got them all inside and then commanded, with a stern look in her eye not a single one of them could deny, that they would all wash before she'd feed them. Into the bathrooms they were duly marched, those who finished washing as best they could in the high sinks returning to the main hall of the book-lined building to be put to work in the attached kitchen—that Mrs Manning was now very smug about having asked to be installed, back when the library was smaller and a hub for various other groups who all required tea and feeding—making sandwiches from frozen bread and long-life preserves kept there for emergencies like this one.

By the time Aaron and Emily sidled in through those open front doors, eyes wary and looking starkly out of place with Emily's face and Aaron's mud-covered clothes, the kids were cleaner than they'd been, calmer, and sitting in loose groups on the floor of the hall devouring sandwiches as fast as they could be made.

"More of you!" declared Mrs Manning, stunned to look up and see yet more children in need of care slinking into the hall. Why, there were two teenagers looking the worse for wear and, yes, even more behind them! "Well, wash up and eat and then I demand an explanation before I call your parents!"

"Sandwiches," moaned Emily, darting from Aaron's side towards the plate and nabbing one before she could be scolded for her dirty hands. Aaron, who was too well-mannered to snatch, merely nodded with a dazed look on his face and wandered in the direction of the bathrooms he'd been pointed in—Spencer watched in awe as no less than three more kids filtered in after him, three kids that Spencer had last seen leaving the rec hall with Conroy and his friends. Three kids who should be dead, but weren't, and Spencer at that moment believed completely in Aaron's ability to save all of them.

Not once did he think of the other five who'd left out that door and weren't back here now, those that Aaron hadn't saved, not at all.

"And when you're done eating, come see me, please," said Mrs Manning, leaving the door of her office open as she shook her head and went back to her books, keeping one eye on the children outside whose existence she couldn't explain but who she suspected might be here because there was something wrong with this town, and growing wronger—and she'd seen the camp polos some of them still wore.

Spencer ate until he felt like he might pop if pushed too hard, making sure Sean was eating too, and then he huddled down by a bookshelf looking around at the kids around him. The older ones had filtered into the office, closing the door a little behind them, and he could just see Aaron through the partially-shuttered blinds of the window between them. They'd eaten and then gone in there, Spencer guessed to tell the librarian about the monster that was hunting them.

He wondered if she'd believe them.

"Do you think she'll let us stay?" Sean asked, also watching that window. They all were, all of the gathered kids, each of them thinking the same thing: if she didn't, they'd die. If she called the police, they'd be taken back to the camp—where they'd die. If she called their parents, well, it had never worked before so why would it now?

"I think she will," said Spencer firmly. "She must know that this place is safe too."

And it certainly felt safe. Not once in the bathroom had his belly twinged nervously and from no shadowy corner did Ethan peer out at him. No bears stalked the romance section and there were no dead kids poking wormy fingers at him through the encyclopedias. It was a Sanctuary, he knew, and they'd be safe so long as they were inside here.

But he had to distract the others because he could see them worrying about whether it was as safe as he was sure it was.

"Sean, help me," he demanded, letting his book fall open to the page he knew he was up to and pulling Emily's secret note-taking pen from his pocket. He uncapped it, smelling laundry soaps and something biting, before pressing the point to the page. It left no mark, as it was designed and as everything else he'd been writing in here had left no—visible—mark. "Want me to write something for you, too?"

"What are you writing?" Sean asked, his curiosity about this overcoming his nervousness about that conversation for their lives.

"What's been happening," said Spencer, who knew this was very important. Other kids were looking at him too now, peering to look at the pages. "Because people don't believe us about it and they should, so if we write it down we'll always remember and we can make people believe, but I put it in secret ink because… well, the policeman broke the camera. If they knew about this, maybe they'd break this too. And I wrote about Ethan, since he can't, and I wrote about Rafe—"

"Telling our stories," said Manny suddenly, the first thing he'd said in ages. He scooted over, holding out his hand. "Let me. I want to write in it too."

"Okay, but you have to be sensible," warned Spencer, frowning at the boy who told more jokes than he did practical things. "It's an important record, like a… a, um…"

"Memorial," said JJ. There was a breath of silence following that before she spoke again. "I want to write in it too. I want it to remember me as well."

And, as Spencer watched, his book slowly went around the circle, with everyone waiting patiently for their turn. That was what they did, until the door of the office opened and the bigs walked out, everyone now looking at them.

Spencer, despite his surety that they'd stay, felt nervous when he saw Aaron walking towards them, Mrs Manning at his side.

But the lady said, "You boys, get up—come help me get the mattresses from the room out back. You'll all sleep here tonight and we'll work out what to do with you all when the sun is up and you've all rested, you poor sods."

Those that cried at the news were judged by none of them, because all knew that at least now they had a tomorrow—and that, these days, was a rare knowing.

.

6

Jackson Kallum chooses a side.

.

He sat quietly on the wall near the window, and he did this so he could hear the outside whispering. It had started with the dead kids, the whispering. The telling him that there was no escape, no escape from Camp Moribund. That he would

(change and float and die, oh you'll die, you'll die like us all)

if he didn't obey. If he didn't do what he was told.

(be a good boy, Jackson, be a good little boy. Your nana would be proud, of a good boy like you, doing what you must to keep your brother safe, sweet little Ant)

And it had gotten worse when Rafe had died. Jackson had stared at that body in the lake and he'd known how doomed they all were; he'd have known that Aaron was hopelessly naïve, thinking that they could get out of here alive, even if the trees hadn't confirmed it from him as they'd laughed together behind him.

(trust us, Jackson)

(do as we say)

(feed us)

He hugged Ant closer now, pressing his face close to the boy's sweaty hair and refusing to let go even when Ant complained and wiggled. He loved his brother and had since the day his parents had handed him the tiny, swaddled infant and told him that he was a big brother who had Responsibilities for now and for always.

He had Responsibilities.

(that's right, Jackson, you can't let him down, can you? Not little Ant)

(so just do as we say)

"How?" he whispered, Ant almost asleep now that he was filled with sandwiches and cordial. The other kids were helping the old lady get out plastic camp mattresses and lining them up on the ground, the hall sticky-hot with the air-conditioning not working (which was why the door had been open, the lady had told them, but the trees had whispered to Jackson that the doors would be open even before they'd gotten here, hadn't they? It was all part of the plan). No one looked at Jackson or his brother. No one ever looked at them. They were invisible.

(don't drink it)

That was all the answer he got. He leaned against the wall, hugging his brother close as he looked across the hall to where the boy, Spencer was writing in his book. Sean Hotchner sat beside him, Sean Hotchner who Aaron had once run towards instead of helping save Ant, who'd needed saving more. That little brat who would always get the help he needed even if others died, just because Aaron was oh so much more important than everyone else and therefore so was his stupid, bratty brother.

Or so Jackson told himself, feeling sick inside like maybe it wasn't all true, not really.

(oh, but it is. They'd see you die, so be the better man. The better hero. Give me three so all shall live… all shall live…)

(Ant shall live)

And he made his choice. He hugged Ant once more, told him firmly not to drink anything he was given, and then stood. Without hesitating he walked over there, crouched beside Spencer—who looked surprised to see him, but Jackson refused to look him in the eye (the small one, the smart one, I want him) and he said instead, "Can I write in it too?" while pointing to the book.

This would be his absolution and, if no one saw what he meant to write, well then, they deserved what they got, the three that had been picked. Just three. Three instead of all, three instead of the countless ones Rafe had gotten killed.

Really, Jackson was a hero.

A goddamn hero.

.

7

Emily Prentiss runs away.

.

While the kids were helping set up their beds, Emily was somewhere else. She'd gone poking around the basement rooms, fascinated to find that there was a whole room just dedicated to old newspapers down here—moving away from the scurrying of kids fetching mattresses and laughing and talking amongst themselves, already losing the fear that outside had layered upon them in this safe place. And she was still there when the voices faded, the door banging shut, walking alone in the archive hall as she touched paper clipping after paper clipping and wondered whether, in twenty years, if any of these would tell her story. She felt no fear about being alone. After all, before this, she'd always loved to be alone—and this library, this place… well, Spencer had known.

It was Sanctuary.

"Emily?" asked a voice from the door. She went cold for a moment, went scared, but it passed quickly. The last time she'd heard him call her name like that, it had been followed by the beating of her life—but, when she turned, it wasn't the barely-remembered cold-eyed Aaron standing there, but her Aaron. The Aaron who had plucked those three kids back out of the wilds even though they'd run from him thinking he couldn't help them. "You shouldn't be down here alone. It's not safe."

"I'm not here alone," she teased, leaning against a filing cabinet and trying to find her old smile to taunt him with, even though her heart still raced as though a part of her still feared him. "You're here with me."

He laughed softly, moving over to her and peering at a shelf of film reels. He whistled. "Spencer would love this place," he said, shaking his head. "If that lady doesn't kick us out come morning, maybe she'll let us watch them."

Emily wondered how long he expected they'd be safe here. It couldn't last forever, could it?

And she was still thinking that when she realised he was looking at her with some tremendously complicated expression on his face.

"What?" she asked, worried there was something on her face.

He reached out to her. This time, she managed not to flinch away, as he brushed the pads of his fingers so gently across her damaged face.

"I can't stand looking at what happened to you," he breathed, stepping closer. Her heart hammered faster and she was furious at herself for still being scared, even now. Hadn't he proven himself over and over since that moment, that he wasn't the demon who'd hurt her?

So why was she so scared?

"It's no big deal," she said with forced nonchalance before something took hold of her mouth and run it stupid. "I'm sure you've gotten worse from your dad."

He looked at her oddly.

"Sean said he…" She swallowed, choking a bit. Oh, she'd thought a lot about what Sean had thought he'd seen, and why would a child picture their daddy doing something so awful. "What he saw, who he saw with the belt… I don't know, I just don't think he's old enough to imagine that from nothing, is he?"

Aaron looked away. Maybe if he hadn't trusted her then, what happened next wouldn't have happened at all. After all, it took vulnerability from her that was harder than ever to find, following John. Following It.

But he did.

"He uses his belt," Aaron rasped, breaking her heart just so cleanly in two at his resigned misery. Even the clown made more sense than a father doing this; at least the clown just wanted to feed. "On m-me… sometimes, Sean. But I try not to let him hurt Sean. I-if I think he's going to hurt Sean, I… I…"

"Piss him off more so he hits you instead?" she guessed.

He nodded.

"God, you're so fucking damaged," she said with a shake of her head, and then she kissed him.

It hurt. It hurt all the way through, from her hammering heart to her cut lip to the bruises he was bumping against in his clumsy attempts to kiss her back. And she wasn't the same girl who'd decided he was fuckable the day he'd sauntered through camp in his clean-cut jeans and too-neat hair, but he wasn't that same boy either.

"We could die," she told him when they broke apart, both her hands on his muddy jeans, holding him there. He looked at her. "We could, we could die at any moment. You want me to trust you, yeah?"

A kind of desperation drove her: she wanted to keep this boy, to chase away her doubts about this boy and bare her heart to this boy in a way her words would never let her. She wanted her power and her agency back and she wanted to show him how much she owed to him, her life and her sanity and everything.

"Emily," he breathed. He knew. Oh, he knew. He'd never had a girl like her—never had a girl, actually, and he wasn't sure now was the right time to be breaking that record—but he knew the look in her eyes was the same as the first day she'd cocked her hip at him and beckoned him to follow her, follow her right down to the lake where he'd refused sex but gotten thoroughly mussed up by her anyway, her and her pretty, clever mouth. He'd refused sex because he'd been young, but not stupid, and they'd had all their lives ahead of them.

That didn't feel true anymore.

"My last guy knocked me up and threw me aside," Emily burbled out, seeing him blanch at the confession. "Fuck, Aaron—he left me so dirty, just a…"

She went quiet.

"I don't want to die having only been with him," she managed, flushing hot from her toes to her nose. "I just… I just want to know what those girls talk about, you know, in books and stuff… when they talk about feeling lo… like they're worth something. Like they're worth living for."

He said very intently, "You don't need sex to be worth something."

But he didn't say they weren't going to die.

"One night," she asked for. "Just one night, please. Before we face tomorrow."

And, in the end, that's what he gave her and she gave him in return.

One night.

When they emerged from the basement archives to find the lights of the hall dimmed and the kids settled down and quiet, it was with a new feeling around them. It wasn't, Emily thought, to do with the sex at all, which had been over fast and left her feeling sticky and sorer than before, but probably more to do with him choking out I love you midway. Those words bubbled in her mind as they dodged drowsy kids who barely stirred to look up at them—those that did smiled trustingly at Aaron, their faith in him absolutely returned, and she noticed that he walked taller having seen this—and tried not to kick over mugs of drink placed beside them.

"There you two are," said Sarah when she saw them, sitting at the front desk of the library with her own cup in hand. The lady stood on the other side, frowning a bit when she saw them. "Here, Mrs Manning says it will help us sleep."

"What is it?" Aaron asked, taking a mug and sniffing it warily. Emily sniffed it too, recognising it before he seemed to.

"Just a nip of brandy, lad," said the lady, who'd seen the look in the eyes of all the kids before her and known that the night would be restless and filled with nightmares for all of them. And she'd done this for her own kids, when they were sick, hadn't she? Helped them sleep peacefully, and it had never hurt them, not a single one, even when they were babes. "Not much for the littles, and watered right down. It'll get them dozing and hopefully keep the nightmares away but it's no magic pill, so be quiet and don't go banging about or you'll wake them."

(and she frowned a little, wondering why she wasn't telling them about the something extra in there she'd put in to help, just to help. She really did mean well, she did, but meaning to help in this place didn't mean actually helping, not even a little)

Aaron sipped it, pulling a face. Emily did too, frowning when it left an unholy aftertaste in her mouth, like cherry mixed with what she'd jokingly have called 'ass' if she wasn't standing before the lady who could toss them out if she was sassed.

She'd make this joke to Aaron before the night was over.

Aaron drained his mug, looking relieved that it was over when it was done. Emily sipped hers a little more, smiling disarmingly at the woman when she glanced at her. It didn't taste right, not as brandy should. Maybe it was some bullshit old lady mix, but Emily didn't like it at all and she'd partied too hard in the past to trust drinks that tasted off.

"Come on," Aaron said, taking her hand and leading her to a free mattress beside where Sean and Spencer were already fast asleep. He thanked the lady as they went, but Emily was too busy noting the empty mugs beside the two small boys. Something twinged, nervousness in her gut, and she twisted around and watched the woman watching them. "Emily?"

She looked at Aaron, having startled at the sound of her name. The aftertaste lingered in her throat.

"Come to bed," he coaxed, pulling her hand and offering her the same shy smile he'd given her in the basement. She wondered if he was still thinking about what they'd done, that explosion of something he'd set off in her that she'd never felt before and still felt shaky about. Maybe that was it. Maybe that was why she was feeling off. "Come on, we need sleep. You're exhausted. I'm exhausted. And we wore each other out…"

He gave her another smile, this one cheeky and a little lopsided and a reminder of who he could be if she got him out from under all his misery.

"Okay," she said unsteady, lying down beside him and setting her, still full, mug on the ground. "Tastes like cherry ass," she muttered, hearing him snort with laughter. And then, with his arms around her and his head leaning on her arm, she closed her eyes and fought for sleep…

… what felt like minutes later, she opened her eyes. Too wired to stay asleep despite her exhaustion. The lights were off now and the hall was quiet, everyone fast asleep around her. Except, it was wrong. The sound of it was wrong. There were no cicadas calling outside, no lap of the lake down the slope… no pacing guards… no… no…

It clicked.

Everyone was sleeping silently. The library hall, despite being filled with people, was completely and utterly noiseless. That was what had woken here: no one was crying or whimpering or farting or yelling or laughing or talking or doing any other of the myriad of annoying noises a couple of dozen kids made when shoved into the same room together.

She rolled, finding Aaron breathing deeply behind her. Very alive, and she breathed out in a huff that was almost a laugh as she realised she'd been expecting that he'd, what? Died?

Ridiculous.

"Aaron," she whispered, wincing at the noise. He slept lightly. He'd wake easily.

But he didn't.

She frowned, inching closer without sitting up, pressing her fingers to his chest—he was warm and his heart beat steadily—and shaking him a little and then a little more when he didn't even twitch. And he was heavy against her hands, limp and unmoving, and she shook him even harder but his eyes remained as closed as if… as if…

"Oh, you stupid bitch," Emily breathed, flattening herself with the terror slamming deep into her heart and making it race. They were drugged; she'd drugged them. Maybe to help them sleep, maybe for some reason more dastardly—but the end result was the same. They were helpless, and she was alone. Terror driving her now, she inched up and crawled from the plastic mattress, which made an unholy noise under her, scuttling across to where Sarah was sleeping and shaking her.

She didn't wake. Neither did Dezzi.

Neither did Ashlee, did Manny, did Kelly. None of them woke. Emily sat up on her knees, looking around the room frantically and seeing only sleeping bodies, unmoving faces, no one to—

There were lights outside. She crawled to the window, not even bothering to be careful about knocking people on her way, and kneeled before it with her cramping fingers locked on the sill as she looked out at the night outside. And her hammering heart ceased hammering as dread silenced it.

Police cruisers. Three of them, lined up, lights flashing. Here for them. She pressed her face closer, and saw the old woman standing before the police with her arms crossed, refusing… refusing them entry. But they were going to come in anyway, Emily knew. An old lady couldn't stop them.

She fled from that window, not bothering about noise as she cried, "Wake up!" to anyone who'd listen, flinging herself down beside Aaron and battering his broad chest. "Aaron, please! Wake up, wake up, they're coming!"

"Emily?" someone gasped. She whirled, finding Derek staring at her, half-sitting up and looking terrified to see her so wild. "What the fu—"

At that moment, looking down along the row of beds to where Derek was—the five beds between him and her, one of which held Aaron—Emily realised. They weren't going to come in. There was nothing potential about their entry at all.

They'd already been in.

Sean was gone.

So was Spencer.

And, when Emily made herself look, really look, horror thudding home, she realised: so was JJ. They hadn't been drugged, but they'd slept through the removal of some of their smallest charges anyway, their exhaustion deadening them to sound; after all, it hadn't been sound that had woken her, had it? It had been silence. Silence, here, was dangerous.

They'd failed. And they'd fail more if they stayed. Aaron wouldn't wake. None of them would, except Derek (who hadn't like the taste either, it reminded him of Carl, who always gave him alcohol to make you feel like a man, Derek and sometimes that alcohol tasted off too). None of them would wake.

"We have to go," Emily realised out loud, Derek scrambling up and making a noise as he saw the lights too. "Derek, we have to go—now."

They heard the distant sound of keys in the heavy front doors.

"But my sisters—"

There was no time. Emily dropped, pressing her mouth against Aaron's in a desperate, fleeting goodbye—wishing she'd said it back now that they were definitely out of time—before leaping up and jumping prone bodies to grab Derek's hand.

Before she leapt up, she paused only once—to lever out the gun from Aaron's waistband and tuck it in her own.

"Run!" she hissed at Derek, dragging him after her as she fled for the weak light of the fire exit to the back of the hall. "Run!"

Derek, obediently, ran. He didn't question her, even though she saw him twisting back towards his siblings, horrified that he was fleeing them. For a heartbeat, as they fetched up against that door—while she reached up to disconnect the alarm—she thought he was going to run right back over there, to where flashlights were moving around, obscured by the aisles of books between Emily and Derek and them.

"They'll just kill you too," Emily hissed, dragging him close and spitting the words right into his ear. "If you go there, they'll kill you too."

"Okay," he said, turning back to her. He understood: the only way they could do anything was by surviving.

The door was cold under Emily's hands. She pushed it open fast and slid through the gap, holding it open for him to slide through before easing it shut. And they were out, out in the night with the shadows around them and everyone they loved inside, in the monster's mouth.

The library had been safe, Emily realised dully, the place was safe. The people, though?

No person in this place was safe. No one could be trusted.

"You're going to run now, aren't you?" Derek asked her. His fists were bunched, his face tortured. He knew as well as she did that there was no escape for those they'd left behind but maybe, just maybe, there was escape for them. "Don't lie to me. I know you're the kind of person to run away. I don't know why you haven't yet. Well, I'm not going, I'm not leaving my sisters, fuck you, I'm not—"

"Quiet," she whispered. Something had caught her eye. She crept around the edge of the building, using the stinking dumpsters to hide her as she inched closer and closer to the corner and peering around it, out to the street before them. From here, she could just barely see the backs of the police cruisers, squat and ugly. She stared at those for a while, before turning and trying to work out what she'd seen move in the shadows.

Her heart stammered to a stop, stalling right the fuck out with shock. She heard Derek gasp behind her, his hand suddenly snatching at her arm and biting in. But she didn't need him pointing it out, she'd seen as clearly as he had: the clown stood there smiling at them with his grease-painted mouth, pointing to the back of the closest cruiser. It was far away from them, a full three parking lots out of reach, but Emily still struggled to tear her eyes away from that monstrous sight to see what it wanted her to see. The car it was pointing at.

"Wait here," she told Derek, feeling like this was probably the second dumbest thing she'd ever do, the first being falling in love with Aaron fucking Hotchner (who was dead now, she told herself, because if he was dead he wasn't alive and in need of her saving him, which would surely end in her death and probably his too). But still, she stuck close to the wall and dragged herself across it, the rough brick grabbing at Aaron's woollen sweater she was wearing… she still didn't pull away, inching along it like a spider until she was at the corner near that cruiser, where anyone could look over and see her as she leaned and looked inside.

JJ. Curled up small on the backseat, fast asleep. Not moving when Emily tried to wave to catch her attention. Desperation biting home as Emily remembered Ros begging her to look after her (and she hadn't because Rafe had stepped up, but Rafe wasn't here anymore, was he?), Emily took three wobbly steps out into full view of anyone who cared to see, and she knocked on that glass.

This close, she found Spencer and Sean. They were in there too, Spencer moving a little at the noise and looking up at her groggily. She stared down at him even as she tried the handle (locked, of course) and then looked to the driver's side door. She could jimmy it, she could…

She looked up and her gaze locked on Jackson Kallum. He was sitting across the street, a uniformed officer by his side. The officer wasn't looking at Emily, but Jackson was. He was sitting there watching her with a strange expression on his face, his brother sitting at his side. Both awake. Very awake and… unsecured.

"Mine," purred the clown behind her, so close that she felt the hot, rancid breath on the back of her neck. "He is mine, Emmy, my dear. And oh, he's fed me, look at those delicious snacks… waiting to be delivered to my hungry stomach…"

"Let them go," she whispered, too scared to move as she tipped up onto her toes and fought the urge to race away like a deer. "Take me instead."

"Oh, darling, you don't taste anywhere near as good to dear old Pennywise… not so good at all, all used and ruined and filled with that boy's mess. What a disgusting little slime you'd be. I'd still eat you, but you'd be nasty, a real vegetable. So what are you going to do, little girl? Little whore? Will you run?"

Emily whipped around, hand curled into a claw ready to slash at him and the other going for the heavy weight of the gun. But there was nothing there, except Derek gesturing her frantically to get back out of sight.

Like a drunk, she staggered back over there.

"Jackson did it," she told Derek, feeling sick. "He did it. And they've got Spencer and Sean and JJ to… to feed to it. Just like Ros said they would."

Derek looked at her.

"Well," he said finally, his voice deep and low and, she realised with a dull thud of amusement, finally broken. It didn't crack at all. What a time to notice that. "What are we going to do about it, Emily? We're all that's left. We're all they have. What are we going to do?"

Emily closed her eyes for a moment, thinking furiously. What were they going to do…?

A memory twinged. Something she'd seen.

No.

Something she'd been shown.

She opened her eyes, looking up the street to where she could see a distant glow of a gas station sign. It gleamed, the brightest thing on this darkest night.

"I know where it lives," she said dully. Because she did, didn't she? It had shown her, just like it had shown Ros… Ros, who'd gone down there. Ros, who'd tried to get the kids it had been fed back too. She'd known where they were being taken and now, Emily did too… sort of.

She knew who'd know anyway.

"What? Really? Where? Emily?"

But she was already walking away, keeping to the shadows of the buildings as she turned her back on Aaron and the others who were captured, walking towards that glow in the sky. "Go away," she called back. "Hide somewhere—I'll come back for you. If you come, it will kill you. I have to get them out by myself."

Derek caught up, jogging by her side. She wasn't surprised.

"What are we going to do when we get there?" he asked her, shoulders as stubborn as Aaron's were. She looked at him and knew he wouldn't be budged. "Do you even know?

She did.

"We're going to burn it," she promised, eyes locked on the display of gas cans inside the gas station ahead. "We're going to burn that fucker alive. And Ros is going to show us how."