Notes: Just a short li'l chapter.

Sam was just a teensy tiny bit awkward about that trial. Just a bit. Just about… oh, the last 20% of it. Where she'd been responsible for Jake's mori, and Jeff had seen her stay with Frank in exchange for a free out.

Just a little nervous about the way things had gone, not gonna lie.

Jake was still pissed. She may have had time for it to dull in her mind, to blend in with the rest of the constant blood and pain that was the trials, but she knew how it felt. How much it would keep hurting for a few more hours yet. He wasn't talking to her, but he didn't talk much anyway. Give it time. Maybe they could fix this. It wasn't the first time he'd been mori'd, and it wouldn't be the last. If he understood her reasoning, he might see it how she saw it: a mercy killing.

Ace had been the only one out of the loop on their final encounter. "Any of you find my key? I dropped it at the hook, I hoped one of you would get it."

Sam shot a glance at Jeff, warily. Would he tell the truth? As much as she was generally for transparency… in theory… that really wouldn't look good on her. It was a little damning, actually, to know she'd willingly stayed with a killer.

Fuck, she'd willingly stayed with a killer. And willingly touched him. To enact a plan, sure, to get her petty revenge, but there was no denying she'd…

No, no; there was denying. She'd deny that. Didn't like that at all. Hated every second. Not one pleasant sensation among them.

"I found it, yeah. Got a chance to escape and took the hatch."

So he would keep her secret. And Jake made no move to ask how he'd managed to escape, or how Sam had finished out the night. She might need to come up with an excuse for that one.

When they got back to camp, Jake disappeared immediately. Sam headed for the mess to avoid any immediate questions about the trial.

"Sam, can I— Can I talk to you? For a second?" For such a big guy, Jeff was really soft-spoken.

Shit. This might be… Yikes. Well. As much as she'd love to avoid it… No time like the present, she supposed. "Privately?" She wasn't going to do this here.

"Sure."

As much as she might have preferred the forest, the closest real place for privacy (a door and everything!) was the storeroom.

Once inside Sam avoided eye contact. If this was going to be some kind of lecture… Well, she didn't know how to respond.

"…So what happened out there?"

Sam swallowed, putting together an excuse in her head as she wandered the shelves. Food, supplies, emergency items for trials… "You left, Frank was a dick, I got sacrificed." That was believable, right? She still kept her back to him, finger tracing along a shelf of spare keys, maps, flashlight parts, tools…

It was quiet for a second. That couldn't be good.

There was a soft clink at the other end of the shelf and Sam turned, stomach sinking.

He was setting down a key.

He hadn't used it. She should've known. She'd never gotten that thought, that reminder to find the hatch. He hadn't left.

Jeff didn't look at her, and she was grateful for that, because she felt herself stuck somewhere between shock and shame.

"You, er… You might want to come up with a more believable excuse. You're pretty obviously different after a sacrifice." His voice was gruff, but he didn't seem angry. Which… was good? Maybe?

"How…" Her throat felt tight, and she cleared it awkwardly. "How much did you see?"

"Not much," he assured her quickly. "I had to find the hatch just in case, I heard you two arguing for a bit, and— and then I went to find the hatch…"

That wasn't the end of it. She could tell there was more. What else had he seen?

"Look, it's… It's not my business, really."

Fuck, it was obvious neither of them wanted to talk about this. And yet he continued to talk. Sam felt her neck growing hot.

"I'm not here to tell you who you're allowed to— to…"

"I'm not," Sam said, quickly. "We're— it's not— That's not a thing." Jesus, this conversation was a mess.

"It's just, he doesn't take off his mask, and he did for you, so—"

"It's—" Fucking Christ. How the hell could she explain that. "He did it on a whim in another trial, that's all." Her hands kept wandering, refusing to look at him, moving from shelf to shelf. "Pretended to be a survivor the first time he met me. I'm not— If anyone, I might be friends with Susie, she's the nice one—" Was that better? Was it enough to take his attention off of the Frank issue?

"But that's part of it, too. Most of the survivors, we see them as a unit. The others, they give them nicknames, sure, but that's just to tell them apart."

But those are their names. I'm not allowed to call them by their names?

She didn't know what else to say.

"…I just hope you're taking care of yourself. I trust you to know what side you're on."

That seemed like a very nice way of saying don't forget, they are the enemy. Or don't betray us. It wasn't quite a threat, just a reminder in kinder words. "I do," she assured him, quietly, fingers plucking at a drawer of the rusted filing cabinet.

I am very well aware. Especially every time he kills me.

Which had been… Well, actually, he'd really only killed her twice. The mori in her first trial with him, and their… weird assisted suicide. He'd given her the hatch their second trial. And this time she'd been the one killing herself with his knife.

Two out of four is still a whole lot. A 50% chance of painful death is not a good bet. A 50% is below an F. You're getting an F in self-preservation. Congrats.

"If you and Frank—"

Sam wrenched open the cabinet drawer, mostly so the metal-on-metal would drown him out. She didn't want to think about 'if you and Frank' anything. Or maybe she did, and that was the problem.

Jeff went quiet again, and she felt guilty. She should come clean to someone about this. But there was not a single person she could trust with it. She couldn't even trust herself with it, why the hell else would she be so full of denial?

The items in the drawer briefly distracted her from her guilt, brows furrowing at the sight of that second box of tapes. The one with the pincer-like doodles was right on top, but there were several others, some looking like duplicates - or close to duplicates - with minor changes to the handwriting or hastily scrawled artwork. And another tape recorder, identical to the first, right down to the scratch across the speaker. She had to wonder how that was possible.

And speaking of Frank… his name was on one of them. Two of them, actually. And Susie's, too. Along with a couple varieties of Project Awakening in view, and more below. A whole mixed bag of cassettes. Her gaze lingered for a moment. …Sure wouldn't mind listening to some of those tapes. If they were anything like the Lost Tapes, she stood to learn a whole lot more about this place.

"…that I think you should be careful."

Shit, she'd missed the first part of that.

"They may not be as warped or monstrous as some of the other killers here, but they still are killers."

"I know." Sam turned back to Jeff, finally looking him in the eyes. "I know, and thanks."

After a second of awkward hesitation, he added, "…So, Susie, huh? You met her?"

"Yeah." The corner of her lips turned up. "No clue how she ended up here, that's for sure."

"Still a killer. Even if she's a sweetheart. Fell in with the wrong crowd, I guess."

Fell in with Frank. She didn't need him to complete that thought to get the gist of it. More warnings. What, like she wasn't already warning herself about this constantly?

"Well. Thanks for the heads up, Jeff. And—" Sam swallowed briefly. "If you could, y'know… not mention it to anyone…"

"…Sure. Sure, Sam, I'll— Just… be careful."

Notes: Fun stuff next chapter. Good times. And the chapter after it? Better times. And after that? Even *better* times. Fun fun fun.