FromTumblr: My English teacher once wrote a short story in Creative Writing class that ended with it all being a dream. She was not impressed when I was like, "Lady, no."
Pixie1913: Won't Dixie Chicks and Swift just give you sad flashbacks now? Lol.
SunDanceQT: I never liked Dixie Chicks, so it's weird listening to them now.
Vickstik: Prepare to cry more.
RJRMovieFan: Yeah, Posens vs Beales are definitely a huge contrast.
Bechloe-bible-49: Just wait to be cut deeper.
Guest: This chapter has some present.

Arrhythmia

It's like a storm that cuts a path.
It breaks your will,
It feels like that.
You think you're lost,
But you're not lost on your own.
You're not alone.
- Rascal Flatts

Aubrey can do this. Aubrey can do this. There is no time for doubt. She is proficient. She is resourceful. She is competent. If anyone can find Chloe, it's her. She can do this.

Beca is staring at her – just staring at her – not even bothering to wipe the rain away from her face.

If Chloe could figure out how to leave a trail in those tunnels, she could figure out how to leave a trail in this.

Aubrey kneels down in the water and the mud, shining the flashlight slowly around her. Chloe has faith in her. To her right, the dirt and mud are kicked up from the ground – just barely, but enough for Aubrey to see it. Don't be from an animal digging around. She goes that direction still on her knees. Someone has definitely been alternating between dragging their feet and kicking the ground. "This way."

Beca follows her – no questions asked.

It's not possible to keep crawling along the forest floor. Aubrey's knees are sinking into the mud, and sticks and rocks are jabbing her through her jeans. She places the hand of her injured arm on top a large rock then extends her other hand out to Beca, because she literally cannot get up. Her body doesn't want to remain upright, even as Beca pulls her up. She has to stand still for a moment, weight leaned sideways against Beca's shoulder before she can move.

"We're following that," Aubrey tells her, pointing the light at the ground.

"Following what?" Beca asks, "It all looks like mud."

"Look, the blades of grass are pressed flat right here," Aubrey shows her, "And there, someone kicked up the plants. You can see the roots."

Beca nods.

It's hard to notice at first. It's hard to follow a trail. It's hard to follow a trail in the daylight when it's dry. Aubrey knows this from a lot of experience. She's sure Beca is nodding just to move them forward, not because she sees what they're looking at. But Aubrey doesn't have the time to properly teach her how to track right now. She wishes she did, because if she dies, someone needs to get to Chloe. And, if Aubrey is being honest, her body feels a whole lot like it's dying.

xxxxx

Everybody had to experience Disneyworld one time. That wasn't something Aubrey's father always said – it was something his coworkers always said. And James Posen could not be the only person who never took his children to Disneyworld. What kind of father would he look like then?

Aubrey was pretty excited. Not so much for the theme park itself, but because every year since Pre-K, her teachers asked what everyone did over the summer – and at least ten kids talked about going to Disneyworld while everyone ooh'd and ahh'd. No one ooh'd and ahh'd when Aubrey talked about reading or camping. Finally, she would be that kid. She would be entering fourth grade, her last year of primary school, with a healed nose and a story about Disneyworld. No one could possibly make fun of her after that.

Not that Aubrey cared that they mocked her.

They just didn't care about good grades and maturity in the same way that Aubrey did.

They would catch up.

Most of them, probably too late.

They would be jealous that Aubrey already had everything figured out – whatever that meant.

But it would be nice to have a year where she could pay attention in class with no one throwing paper at her head or passing her those irritating 'teacher's pet' notes. Most of them couldn't even spell 'teacher'. Some of them couldn't even spell 'pet'. One time, she had to interrupt the whole class to turn around and ask the kid who wrote her a note what a 'teeshirs pit' was. (She knew what he had meant, but it was worth it to cause the entire class to burst into a fit of laughter at him.)

Anyway. None of that mattered.

Aubrey was at Disneyworld.

And she was determined to experience something great to tell her fourth grade class about.

And that great thing was going to be riding It's A Small World.

She already had it all planned out.

xxxxx

"Nobody wants to ride that ride!" JJ shouted, pointing at Aubrey, "Nobody wants to listen to that song for fifteen minutes!"

"You rode every ride you wanted to ride." Aubrey knew better than to try begging her father, so she fought JJ instead. "I didn't ride any rides."

"You didn't want to ride them!" JJ yelled at her, "You just sat on the bench!"

"This is not a dema-croc-acy!" Liam yelled at them both.

"The word is 'democracy', and you don't even know what it is," Aubrey argued with him too, "You just heard Dad say it before."

"We don't need to argue, babies," Aubrey's mom said sweetly, eyeing the people around them, "Let your sister ride one ride."

"She could have rode all the rides!" JJ continued yelling. "She said no, cause they'd make her stomach hurt! Her stomach always hurts, and she ruins everything, and now we have to ride the stupid ride!"

Aubrey looked up at the sky and shook her head. Maybe it did hurt a lot lately. But only because everything this past year was turning out bad – all the time. She couldn't get a break. She couldn't even ride the one ride she wanted to go on at Disneyworld. Her stomach hurting didn't even affect him. He still got to do everything he wanted to do always, and somehow, he got to use Aubrey not feeling well as an excuse for him to feel bad. Any time she said her stomach hurt, it was just 'suck it up, Aubrey'. But any time one of the boys said it, it was always poor them for having to put up with how Aubrey didn't feel well. And they didn't even know how awful it was to always feel sick right on top of sad or angry or scared. She couldn't just feel something - she had to be sick to her stomach too, and they didn't even know how that felt. None of them.

"It's not a stupid ride," Aubrey said, trying not to feel anything at all, "It's educational."

"School isn't fun!" JJ said.

"It is for people who can read." Aubrey loved school. Even when the other kids were cruel. She loved it, because her teachers loved her. All of the teachers loved her.

JJ tried to charge her, but only got one step before her father grabbed him.

"Aubrey, that's not nice," her mother told her – which was public code for 'shut up if you don't want soap in your mouth later'.

"Nobody has to go with me," Aubrey said, trying to keep herself calm for her own sake, "I can go by myself."

"Please!" JJ begged.

"Yeah!" Liam backed him up.

Aubrey looked up at her father. "I'm almost ten." Okay, that was a lie. Eight months did not count as almost, but still.

Her parents shared a look.

"I want to write about it for school." That should have been enough to convince her father. Aubrey looked around as she waited for them to silently deliberate. She had learned a lot of big words so far that summer. She had been reading a lot. She accidentally locked eyes with a woman a few feet away, who appeared to be watching this all go down. The woman smiled sadly at Aubrey, and Aubrey gave her a glare that she hoped came across as 'mind your own business', then turned her back to her.

"Do you have your watch on?" James asked.

Aubrey held up her wrist.

"We are leaving a 8:30," James said, "One minute late, and you'll find your own way back to the hotel, do you understand?"

Aubrey's heart skipped an elated beat, and she did her best to suppress a grin. "Yes, Sir."

James handed her a map.

"Meet us at the exit," her mother said.

Aubrey nodded.

James handed her a twenty dollar bill.

Aubrey folded it carefully and put it in her dress pocket.

"Oh, come on!" JJ whined, "Why does she get money?!"

James absently handed him a twenty.

"Awwww," Liam complained.

Another twenty.

Whatever. Let them whine. "May I please go?" Aubrey asked. Finally, she could be alone doing what she wanted to do.

"Can we go?" JJ asked.

"You know the rules," James said. Then he walked off with the boys and her mother.

Yes! Aubrey immediately unfolded the map to see where she was supposed to go. Northeast. She traced the path with her finger.

"Oops." Someone dropped a brochure of some sort next to Aubrey.

Aubrey bent down and picked it up, handing it back to them without looking up.

"I'm so sorry." The brochure fell again as Aubrey was handing it off. "I must have butter fingers today."

Aubrey sighed and picked it up again. This time, she looked up to make sure this clumsy person managed to hold onto it. It was the same woman who had been staring at Aubrey before. Aubrey hated her already.

"Thank you." The woman took it from her and placed it in her bag. "So helpful." She looked at Aubrey's map. "Do you know which direction you're going?"

"I know how to read a map," Aubrey stated. She didn't even need a map. "I'm going Northeast."

"Which way is that?" the woman asked.

Aubrey motioned vaguely in that direction.

"I'm didn't know that," the woman said, "How did you know that?"

"It's an innate feeling that everybody has," Aubrey answered. Her irritation was starting to boil up. Couldn't this lady see that she was busy? Couldn't this lady see that she was so frustrated? "Listen, Lady." She didn't normally speak to adults in such a way, but this person was a stranger, and Aubrey had spent the past few months feeling like she was on the edge of a breaking point, and this woman wanted to shove her right off the edge. "If you'll excuse me, I have places to be."

The woman's eyebrows shot up. Was this funny to her?

"Well, I have never had that innate directional competence," the woman said, "So, maybe, you can help me, because I'm kind of lost."

Aubrey heaved a loud sigh.

This was how life was going to be, wasn't it? Everybody needed Aubrey's help. But did anyone ever help Aubrey? No, they didn't. Not that she needed help. But what did Aubrey ever get out of helping anyone? Pushed in the metaphorical dirt. And, sometimes, the literal dirt.

"Where are you trying to go?" Aubrey asked.

"Why don't you show me where you're going, and I'll tell you if we're going to same way," the woman offered, "If not, I'll ask someone else."

Deal. Maybe they weren't going to same way. Aubrey pointed to her ride on the map.

"Oh, I'm trying to go right here." The woman pointed to a few centimeters above Aubrey's ride.

Aubrey stared at the map. "To the middle of the path?" There was nothing there!

"Yeah!" the woman replied with enthusiasm.

This woman was weird. Not in a probably going to kidnap Aubrey and sell her for drug money weird like her father warned her strangers would do, no. She was just weird. "Great." Aubrey shook her head. She felt like crying. She wasn't going to cry. But she was so irritated, and everything was just pushing on her and pushing on her.

"Maybe we can walk together?" the woman suggested.

Aubrey folded up her map. She didn't need it. "Keep up, Ma'am," she said simply, "I'm in a hurry." In a hurry to get away from her.

"What's your name?" the woman asked.

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," Aubrey decided to pull that card.

"Oh. You know, that's very smart."

Aubrey was very smart.

"I like your dress," the woman said.

Aubrey looked down at it. They were supposed to be walking.

"I like all the bunnies on it."

"It twirls," Aubrey mentioned. Why did she tell her that?

"Show me."

Aubrey frowned. No one wanted to see her twirl her dress. Why would anyone want to see that? "Can we go, please?"

"You sure you don't want to tell me your name?" the woman asked.

"I want to go," Aubrey said. Please?

The woman smiled and nodded. "Okay, Bunny-girl, lead the way."

xxxxx

The rain refuses to let up – and it's already slowing them down too much. Aubrey imagines they're not even going one third of the speed they need to be moving at to catch up. She's drenched in a matter of minutes – and, then, worse, the sky opens up into a downpour. She can't see anything. She can barely hear it when Beca calls her name. Everything is rain.

"Beca!" Aubrey calls back to her. She tries to cover her eyes with her sleeves, spits water out of her mouth. "Don't move!" She can't track Beca and Chloe at the same time. This rain is no doubt ruining her path to both of them anyway.

"Aubrey, where are you?!" Beca sounds farther away this time.

"Just stay where you are!" Aubrey shouts. She covers her face with her arms and finds a tree to huddle against. Water cascades down around her. She presses her forehead against the trunk and ducks her head to try to keep it out of her face. It's like standing directly under a waterfall. And she just wants Chloe. "Beca?!"

Silence.

Aubrey tries to look up. She can't see Beca. She can't see anything.

"Beca!"

Someone grabs her from behind – and for the briefest fraction of a second, relief washes over her heavier than the rain when she thinks it's Beca. And then it's gone. She's spun around and pinned against the trunk of the tree – her face centimeters away from Luke's.