A/N: Ahhh! I'm so unbelievably sorry that it's been so long-I just started my first semester of college, so this month has been super hectic. This story is definitely not abandoned though! I have big plans for the next few chapters (enter Penelope & Spencer ;)) and then pretty soon, we might have a fun little time jump (enter Papa Rossi). Keep reading and reviewing! I'm always open to suggestions.
Emily didn't remember when JJ had begun clinging onto her arm. Perhaps it was when the sound of the wolves—she assumed the animals producing those terrible screeches were wolves—had drawn nearer. Perhaps it was when the temperature in the forest had fallen to freezing. Perhaps it was when they'd heard the hollow mewling of a smaller animal being preyed upon, then that bloody squelching noise. Then the triumphant cries of the wolves celebrating their kill.
The children knew that they, too, were small animals. Prey. After all, they'd been the casualties of predators once before, albeit human ones. Who was to say that history wouldn't repeat itself?
"E-emily?" JJ said. Her teeth were violently chattering.
"Yeah?"
"How long have w-we been out here?"
From Emily's other side, Derek shifted in the dirt. "Th-three hours," he said. "I think. Maybe more."
The wolves sang another bloody victory song in the distance. Aaron hugged his knees as tightly as his scrawny arms would let him, trying desperately to allay his body's shivering. "S-sun will come up in five more h-hours."
"Can't feel. F-feet," Emily said. She huddled closer to JJ. The smaller girl nestled her head into the crook of Emily's neck and closed her eyes. She pretended that she was in her childhood bedroom with Roslyn, in that fleeting stretch of time before their parents had known more than drinking and fighting, and before the endless bills had tied a noose around the Jareau family's collective neck, and before Ros had made the decision to erase herself.
Something darted through the bush behind them, rustling the burdock leaves. The moonlight felt like one unforgiving ray of ice.
"P-probably. Just. A r-rabbit," Derek said. None of them believed it, least of all him.
Another rustling. The animal sounded large. The children unwittingly scooted even closer together.
"Wrists h-hurt," JJ said.
"Shouldn't have p-pulled so hard on your cuffs," Derek replied. He slipped his hand into hers and squeezed. She folded her free hand into Emily's, who in turn grabbed Aaron's, who then latched himself onto Derek's other side. It was as though four sorrowful ice sculptures had become entwined.
Hours passed like dripping honey. The cold turned into pain, and it was a breed of pain that the children were unfamiliar with. They knew how to handle quick gusts of hurt. They were experts at picking themselves up, brushing themselves off, and moving on with their day. But this long, slow aching was new territory, and the monotony of it threatened to dissolve their tough facades entirely.
"H-how long. Has it b-been now?" JJ asked a long while later. The children had become one trembling cluster, limbs folded into limbs in an attempt to preserve what little body heat they had left. A bat whizzed above them, cawing as it darted through the blackness.
"F-five hours," Aaron said. "Three more 'till s-sunrise."
"How do you know we won't f-freeze?" JJ practically whispered. He had no answer to offer her.
"I miss the b-basement," said Derek.
"I miss my mom," said Emily.
The next time JJ asked how long it'd been, Aaron's concept of time had all but fizzled out, and so he simply shook his head. He thought maybe he was hallucinating, because the silhouettes of the trees above him had turned into giants, and he could swear that at any moment the branches would come alive and reach down and snatch him. Then they'd probably shove him into their giant white van and cart him away to their giant basement where a giant old couple would torture him for giant shits and giggles.
He wondered if seeing the Roycewoods in the trees meant he was already too far gone.
"Derek," Emily said. "O-open. Eyes."
The boy didn't even stir.
Aaron nudged his semi-conscious friend. "D-der. Gotta s-stay 'wake."
A pair of miserable brown eyes stuttered open. I don't want to be awake, they whispered. I just want to dream.
When another hour passed without JJ asking her customary question, Aaron grew alarmed.
"J-jaye?" he said, shaking the little blonde girl. Her eyes were vacant, staring off into nothingness. "You okay?"
None of them could be sure whether the tiny bob of JJ's head was a nod or just a reverberation of her shivers. Even through the deep navy of twilight, her lips were unmistakably blue.
Just as frozen silence took over and it seemed that there was no returning from the icy brink the children had been forced across, the sky began to slowly fade into the soft violets of early dawn. How, Aaron wondered, do we keep skirting death? How far will the Roycewoods have to go for our luck to run out?
He wasn't sure if he wanted to know. The ashen boy cast a glance around at his motley crew. JJ and Emily were still holding tight to each other, but the brunette appeared to have drifted off into either sleep or unconsciousness. JJ's eyes, however, were wide open, fixated on the horizon of thick trees. She'd stopped responding to the others' questions hours ago. Derek, meanwhile, was curled into a fetal position beside where Aaron sat, also toeing the delicate line between a nap and a coma.
But the second Aaron heard the footsteps, he knew they'd all need to snap into obedience as soon as possible. Defiance wasn't an option this morning; none of them were in any position to bear the fallout.
Aaron watched JJ's empty eyes fly towards the sound of crunching leaves. He watched her burrow even closer into Emily's shoulder. He watched her come alive again for the first time in hours, only to be consumed by fear.
A wide silhouette was strolling towards them, twirling a ring of keys around his pudgy finger. Aaron hurt too much to even scowl.
"'Mornin' kiddos," Mr. Roycewood crowed. "Sleep well?"
Jason was grasping at straws. Theories and ideas flew through his brain faster than he could harness them, and he still had no earthly idea why his four cellar-mates were huddled together on the bottom bunk in the boys' room, catatonic and unresponsive. His various attempts to goad some life back into them had failed miserably. They all just sat there, wrapping themselves in the sheets that were almost as blue as JJ's lips, clinging to the cheap polyester like it was a lifeline.
"Guys," he said, crouching before the bed full of younger kids. "Can you at least try and look at me?"
Aaron was the only one who obliged. Emily's gaze stayed locked on her hands; Derek seemed to be staring at a particular stain on the wall; JJ had her head tucked between her knees.
"Guys," Jason tried again. "You can talk to me." He turned to the boy who he'd once considered a brother, back in the days where his soul still felt capable of human connection. "Aaron. Please. I need to know how to help you."
It deeply pained Jason to see a new thread of terror in the thirteen-year-old's deep brown eyes. A fresh glint of hauntedness.
"Can't get them back," Aaron murmured.
Jason reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but the younger boy jerked away.
"What's them?" Jason asked. "What can't you get back?"
Aaron's eyes wandered to Derek's motionless form. "The pieces," he said. "The pieces of us that we left out there."
It took an entire day for the children to at least lose their flat, ghostlike affects. Jason liked to imagine that their minds were thawing out alongside their bodies. And yet, he couldn't shake the feeling that Aaron had been right; even as the color returned to their cheeks, they seemed… changed. Not broken, per say, but more dented than they'd ever been before.
And so, in a backbiting turn of events, he became the cheerleader.
The next morning, he paraded around to each bed whistling some folk tune. Whistling. Jason couldn't remember the last time he whistled.
"Up and at 'em!" he said to Aaron and Derek, who had spent the night side by side in the bottom bunk. "Today's a new day, people."
Both boys sat up. I guess that's progress, Jason thought to himself. He herded them into the schoolroom, then repeated this charade with the girls. The four younger children sat down on the floor almost mechanically. As he stood before them, feeling all too old, Jason could swear he was looking at a tribe of little robots.
"Look," he said. "I don't know exactly what happened after poker night, but I know that when they dragged you guys back down here you were frickin' icicles. And I know that it must've been terrifying, to be so cold for so long. And I also know I haven't been the friendliest guy lately, so I know all this coming from me doesn't mean a whole lot."
He took a deep, weighty breath.
"Which is why I'm gonna make it mean something. I know none of you are stupid, so I'm not gonna mince words; you all could've died the other night, and those psychos upstairs wouldn't have given a single shit. They're getting braver as we get older. And I'm not going to let time run away from us like this anymore. I'm not going to sit here and let one of us die."
He saw a spark swirling together in each of their eyes; a mixture of confusion, wonder, and some tiny amount of hope.
"So happy Monday, kids," Jason said, "and welcome to your first class of the day. I call it Get the Fuck Out of the Basement 101."