R_S: It's been ages since I updated, but this has been done for months… I finally just decided to post it.

Chapter 14

Nightmare

Katrina's insomnia only worsened after the incident with the physician. She had immediately written her best friends from home, Melanie and Brianna, to complain, as well as her mother. Both her parents were working steadfastly through the appeals process to see if there was anything they could do. The first night, she went outside and wandered the cool dark camp, but that proved to be a foolish plan. A yellow-spotted lizard showed up, and Mr. Sir had to shoot it right outside the tent, waking all the boys and damn near traumatizing her. Henceforth, she decided to lie on her cot and feign sleep during the nights, lest she cost anyone else their sleep or nearly risk life and limb yet again. But the cooped up indoors proved to be too much for her to handle, and after a couple more nights, she slipped back out again. This time, though, she stuck to the relative safety of the tent 'porch.'

The night was silent and still. It should have been comforting. Most would look out on a cool, dry night like that one, stare up at the stars, and imagine how the world could be so big and beautiful. Once upon a time, Kat thought, she would have done that. She would have said something sappy and poetic about beauty existing without moving, something about it being infinitely indefinite. But now? Things just looked stagnant. A single, slow tear rolled down her cheek. God, her life was so not how she pictured it. Freshman year, she had been certain she would be on varsity cheer, spending her days giggling with Bree and Mel and her evenings curled up with a boy who loved her. She was a rich, white, upper-middle class girl from suburbia. Her life was supposed to be perfect. She was supposed to be perfect. Instead, she was at Camp Green Lake, a place where she could never be free, never relax for even a moment lest someone take advantage. Not even her body was her own anymore… it hardly felt like it ever was.

Ironically, given the danger of carelessness, lack of sleep had dulled her senses, and she did not notice Squid until he noticed her, stumbling out of the tent.

"Bambi?" His voice was horse from sleep, hair messy and sticking up at odd angles. "Whacha doin' up?"

She shrugged. "Too scared to sleep." Squid frowned at that, looking down at her as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

"There's nothin' to be afraid of; we ain't gonna let nothin' happen to ya." She shrugged in response and changed the subject.

"Why are you up?"

"Gotta take a piss… You good out here by yourself or wanna take a walk with me?" She smiled tiredly.

"I'll give you your privacy." To her surprise, he shook his head.

"Nah," he said, "c'mon. I could use the extra look-out for lizards." He brushed past her aggressively, and when she did not follow, he looked back. "Get to it, my bladder can't wait all night."

Despite herself, Kat laughed at that and followed him. The sound of him relieving himself brought a blush to her face, but she steadfastly ignored it as best as she could. He was done quickly, and they walked back together. Squid was not a gentle boy most times, but she appreciated the effort to cheer her up. It was a lot for him. Knowing it made the boys anxious to have her outside the safety of the tent, she slid back in with him and curled onto her cot. In the dark, she thought she saw him nod approvingly, but she could not be certain. To her surprise, she fell asleep swiftly, her last conscious vision of the boys sleeping around her.

Her dreams were still riddled with horror, cruel nightmares that left her unrested and shaking in the morning. She spent the day exhausted from lack of sleep and accidentally dropped too much salt into the green beans she was preparing for that evening's meal. She had wanted to nap before then, but some snakes had gotten into the supplies. Once Mr. Sir dealt with it, everything had to be cleaned up and restocked. By the time dinner rolled around, she all but collapsed onto the table with the rest of D-Tent. They eyed her wearily.

"Hola, Bambi," Magnet greeted uncertainly, "how ya feelin' today, chica?" She looked at him with her big, sad eyes. They were ringed with darkness. A couple of times the boys had joked that they should change her nickname to Raccoon, but luckily Armpit inadvertently shifted the embarrassment to himself, citing his intimate knowledge of Disney (he pointed out that the Disney raccoon was named Meeko and that Bambi actually had brown circling his eyes anyway, earning himself quite a few looks).

Without any energy left, she only groaned in response, earning a chuckle from X-Ray. "Damn girl, you would think you was out doin' real work n' diggin' holes." The warning was not sharp in his voice, but it was there. Wisely, she held her tongue and feigned liveliness for the remainder of the meal, trying her hardest to pay attention to whatever it was that the boys were talking about. It was easier said than done. Unfortunately, her night only got worse when she stood to leave.

"Not so fast, girlie," Mr. Sir interrupted with a firm grip on her arm that made her jump like a scared rabbit, "you got clean-up duty t'night. Get to it!" Magnet sent her a pitying look, but the group filed out obediently.

"I'll come back to get ya before lights out." Zigzag told her, stepping in front of Squid. With a nod and quiet thanks, she bid them adieu and returned to the working grind. Time moved surprisingly fast as she worked, perhaps because she did so through a haze of exhaustion. Her muscles moved mechanically, and by the time Zigzag escorted her back to D-Tent, she was hardly aware of the world around her.

Exhausted beyond words, she fell onto her cot and slept instantly for the first time in a week.

That night, Katrina dreamed she was in a big-tent circus or indoor carnival, it was hard to say. The people around her were laughing, shadowed and distorted, but everything around her shined with effervescent light and bright colors. It was a happy place, though something hung ominously in the background- obvious to the part of her watching but unnoticed by her dream form. She danced and spun around, weaving in and out of the attractions and rides, feeling protected rather than closed in by the red and white striped canopy above, despite the unseen force that followed her. Still, as she reached the other end, she stepped through a tiny doorway and into an open meadow with flowers and lush grass. The tent was nowhere to be seen, only blue skies and puffy clouds like cotton candy, like an escape.

Somewhere, in the distant cloud of sleep, she heard a dull whirr, like a zipper being slowly pulled. A cool breeze danced across her skin, carrying the scent of wildflowers, and dream Kat closed her eyes. She went to take a deep breathe, to fully inhale the heavenly scent that surrounded her, but the hand over her mouth stopped her lungs.

Her eyes flung open, darting around wildly as she was yanked from her bed through a cut in the wall of her tent. They wrapped her in the sheet from her own cot to confine her movements and dull her sound. All that was heard was a dull rustle as they carted her away into a different tent. The adrenaline that pumped through her head contrasted jarringly with the sleepiness that did not wish to leave, making her brain lightheaded and her vision swim. She was in A-Tent, she could tell. Squid and Zigzag had told her all about them, warned her to stay away.

Almost immediately a boy that had been lying on his cot stood. "I don't want none of this. It's your fuckin' funeral." His name was Apache, she recognized, and he strolled out calmly with nary a glance in her direction. Another smaller boy, Catfish, sat curled up on his own cot watching warily, but he neither did nor said anything. One of the stronger boys that had grabbed her pushed her to the ground, someone kicking the back of her knees out from under her. Twisting her arms to pin them at the small of her back, he forced her face down. Other than the one still upon his bed, the boys circled in varying stages of interest.

"Guys," one commented cagily, looking left and right, "guys this is a bad idea. We shouldn't do this. Just… just put her back before she's awake enough to tell who we are. Guys-"

"Dude, shut it." The one pinning her growled. Sarge was his name, second in command and broad, with a haircut leftover from the military school he was arrested in. He was having none of Ghost's uncertainty, and Ghost was nothing of a fighter. It was only bad luck that landed him in that tent, considering his crimes were purely related to thievery, but he was just too good and stole too much. He was in and out without ever being there, like a Ghost.

"Please," Kat sobbed, exhausted and desperate, "please just let me go."

One of the other boys, the leader, dropped to one knee to grab her face. "Not another word, bitch. Got it?" Iceman, she thought his name was, because he was ruthless and unfeeling… made of ice. Her big eyes watering, Katrina just nodded and let them begin. Numbness spread over her body, and she neither made a sound nor fought back. It was as though she was floating away, watching The Butcher and Tank argued in hushed tones about what was to come next. Iceman worked quickly, tossing away the sheet and tugging down her pajamas. Unlike with Meatloaf and Snake Eyes, he was not going to waste any time, readying himself immediately. Kat's eyes found a spider crawling across the floor across the tent, just barely visible in the slivers of moonlight and flood lamps that cut into the tent through plastic windows. She watched it skitter in between the shadows as she waited for something that would never come.

D-Tent burst in without a moment to spare, Iceman's boxers tangled between his knees and his fingers hooked in the side of her underwear. He tried to stand quickly, but even he looked silly as he tripped over himself. The fight was immediate, but Kat paid it no mind, simply rolling out of the way to watch the spider creep. As though through a door, she listened to the commotion- the boys fighting, Mr. Sir's arrival, Pendanski's insistence that everyone calm down. It was over quickly, though time seemed to still for Katrina. She had not even seen the fight, noticed what happened in her haze. Hands pulled her up, then her pants. They led her out of the area and walked her. They were trying to speak to her, some part of her brain thought, but her head felt like it was under water, their words coming from somewhere up above as she was pulled out to sea. At some point, Zigzag lifted her and carried her back to their tent.

The boys, or at least some of them, helped him put her down gently. She lay motionless on the cot, unresponsive for what felt like an eternity to them. Her big sad eyes stared out at nothingness, nearly unblinking. It felt like a defeat to them, like she had given up on everything. Armpit lowered his face to be level with hers and looked into her vacant expression, trying to garner some form of response. There was nothing. Their pleads and words went unanswered. Pendanski tried for only a moment before growing flustered at the campers' accusations ("Ain't you a psychologist?" the insisted, "Shouldn't you be able to fix her?"). He excused himself quickly to see to the perpetrators.

After a while, they all simply sat and stared. They watched her watch nothing with a hollowness that left Zero looking lively. A couple of times, Zigzag leaned in to see if she was breathing- he doubted she was, no matter how many times X-Ray insisted "Damn, foo', she ain't dead." It was also X-Ray who lost patience with her first, standing to lean over to her cot from the semi-circle the group formed. Only Squid stood off to the side, shrouded in shadow with arms crossed hotly. He was too wound to sit.

"Man, don't…" Magnet protested weakly, but there was not fighting with the leader, especially when he had had enough. With a strong, rough grip, X-Ray clamped onto the girl's shoulder to give a good shake. She jumped away instantly, as though a spell had been broken. Big, innocent eyes darted around like a scared little animal that had been cornered, heart pounding as she hyperventilated. Those enormous brown eyes swept across the concerned faces around her, filed away the familiarity, and broke her. Shoulders slumping, she dropped her face into her hands and wept. She wept with a ferocity that left all the other sobbing she had done since arriving at camp behind.

"Hey, Bambi," Armpit tried softly, "don't be like that…" No one mocked him for his attempt at sensitivity as her body shook with misery. Squid snarled and cursed beneath his breathe before pushing forward and waving them all back.

"Well back the hell up n' give her some air-" He was cut off by the girl catapulting herself against his back, burying her wet face in the skin between his shoulder blades and reaching out to fist a hand in Zigzag's shirt beside him.

"NO!" She exclaimed desperately through her tears, "Please… please don't leave… please don't leave me, please…" Awkwardly, he turned around, letting her nestle against his chest. The stiffness of his shoulders did not recede, nor did he make any move to hold her. He simply let her cling to him like a safety net, as Zigzag laid a hand that attempted to comfort on her hair. Magnet's hand gently slid across her upper back in small circles, and the boys moved carefully closer, so she felt safely encased. It was terrifying to be in such close proximity but less so than feeling open and vulnerable, she found.

Her only solace was that it felt like goodbye.

End of Chapter

R_S: Short and dark.