Language Warning: I raised the rating with this chapter due to the use of some strong language.


Chapter Thirteen: The Inevitable

Trevor died two days later.

Holden had been successful in removing the mass from Trevor's abdomen, a tough, charcoal gray tumor that had been attached to his stomach with two thin stocks. Trevor had revived again after the surgery, waking a few times, but he never regained his strength. It happened quietly. Holden officially declared Trevor dead around mid morning and quietly informed the boy's mother. She, in turn, informed the rest of the camp by unleashing a loud wail and crashing down onto her son's body, weeping over him.

The loss of Trevor was felt keenly across the whole camp, everyone processing it in their own ways. Even the newcomers to the group seemed to grasp the weight of this event. If Trevor's mom was the most devastated, then chasing behind her in a close second was Dr. Booker Holden. The physician sat with the boy's mother for as long as he could bear, and then stood and stormed out of the cave. Ronnie was quick on his heels, Richard was less quick on his, and Camille followed after all three of them.

Holden marched deep into the jungle, as far removed from the main body of the camp as he could manage before a roar of anger swelled up inside of him. He grabbed a large branch from the ground and started swinging, hacking away at a bush, releasing his fury onto the poor thing.

Ronnie stood back several paces and just watched. Silently, Camille and Richard joined him.

The victim of many dozen strikes, the bush was stripped of all of its greenery just as its abuser started to lose steam. Holden rocked back on his heels, his arms falling limp at his sides, his chest heaving up and down. The branch fell to the ground with a thud.

Slowly, Ronnie approached his friend, cautiously placing a hand on his shoulder.

Holden instantly shook free from the grasp. "Pointless," he spat vindictively, staggering a few paces and turning back to look at his small audience. "Fucking pointless, all of it. You three risked your lives for nothing. That boy was as good as dead the second those filthy animals surfaced, and we were fools to think we could stop it. He needed a hospital three months ago! He needed a surgeon! Not some…bloody, family physician who hasn't touched a scalpel in ten years! I operated on a corpse! And for what? To stave off his mother's tears for another day? Pointless."

"It was more than that, Holden. You gave her hope," Ronnie said, trying to comfort his friend.

It didn't work. "Then I'm as heartless as I am inadequate," the doctor said grimly, pushing past his friends and stalking back towards the camp.

Richard stayed in place with his arms crossed over his chest, keeping his gaze low as the doctor and then Ronnie passed him. A few seconds ticked by before Camille spoke.

"The poor man; he's heartbroken. You should go speak to him."

The tiniest movement at Richard's shoulder suggested a shrug. "And say what exactly? He's right."

Camille's mouth slowly dropped open. "You don't believe that," she said after letting his words sink in.

"Don't I? Everything he said was true. Trevor needed serious medical attention even before the cryptos attacked, and once he was cut off from receiving that care, he was as good as dead. His fate was sealed months ago, and it's true for the rest of them, isn't it?" Now Richard was the one whose emotions were mounting towards eruption. He had half a mind to go pick up that branch and give that bush another few rounds.

He took a few steps just to pace out his energy and went on. "We're not saving lives here; we're delaying the inevitable. That's what all of this has been about from the beginning. Those people came to us, they look to us. But we don't know what we're doing, Camille! Even now, there's some poor sod out there somewhere else on this island, seeing that X just as you did, and they're making their way here this instant, expecting some promised land on the other side, some salvation to this hell hole. But we don't have it. We're no more capable of saving them than Holden was of saving Trevor. We just don't have the means." He stressed these words in a pained voice to the woman who stood there agape, listening. He huffed and looked away, feeling a stinging welling up behind his eyes. But he didn't cry. He wouldn't cry.

"Every day," he continued, his voice cracking, "we lose a little bit more: ammunition, water, food…And the more people who come, the faster we'll lose. Sometime very soon, Camille, I won't be able to protect them and I won't be able to feed them. And they'll all come to realize that that X promised nothing at all! Nothing but a slower train headed to the exact same station."

Richard took a deep breath, fighting against the tears that threatened to come. He felt defeated. Utterly so. As if voicing all of those fears was all that had remained between Richard and his own crushing end. He paced around in circles, his cheeks staying dry while his lips quivered around shaky breaths. The pain in his foot felt good.

When he spoke again, his voice was small, like that of a child. "I don't…I don't know how to help these people," he confessed, too fatigued to evade her when she gently approached him.

Wordlessly, she stepped into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his middle and letting his face fall into her shoulder.

"I don't know what they need."

"Shh," she soothed, stroking her hand over the back of his head. "Yes you do. You know what they need." She pulled back in his grasp, forcing him to look up into her eyes. Camille tenderly held his face in her hands. "You said it yourself when we were heading out," she told him. "Fidel and the others questioned you about your decision for us to go out into the city. And you told them it was a risk you were willing to take. You spoke to them about seizing a chance, even if it was a very small chance, to prevent someone's death. After facing too much death already, you said this was finally an opportunity to do something to fight back, to save a life. You spoke about hope being restored."

Camille watched his reaction intently, needing to see that his clever mind was comprehending what she was telling him. "That is the Richard these people need. They need the one who doesn't give up. The one who tells them there is still hope, that there's always hope. And that you will continue to do whatever you can, take whatever chance you get, to see them safely to rescue. You can do that, can't you?"

Truth was: Camille's little speech had actually worked to lift his spirits slightly. It was hard to look into those deep brown eyes, feel her gentle touch on his cheek, have his own words thrown back at him, and not feel compelled by it all. It felt like she was picking up his pieces and pasting them back together, just enough for him to see the image that existed on them, and be reminded of who he really was. It helped, more than Richard could readily say.

But when she posed that final question, he just had to sigh. "I have no idea," he answered truthfully. "I want to do it, be all those things you just said. I really do…but, it's bloody hard. God."

He pulled back from her grasp a little more and they both mutually removed their hands from each other. Richard rubbed a hand over his forehead, noticing his splitting headache for the first time. "Why is it so much harder to tell people not to give up than it is to bring a sadistic serial killer to justice?"

"That's an easy one: because a murder inquiry has a solution. You are a man of puzzles. Your brain thrives on order and logic. Every murder has an explanation, and if you just ask the right questions, eventually, you will understand all of the whos and whys and hows. But here?"

"There is no solution," Richard realized. "No facts. Just…questions."

"Just faith," Camille corrected.


The pair slowly returned to camp and Camille watched as Richard slipped back into his role of unwavering leadership. He delivered a formal address to the group, thanking them and commending them for the way they had all rallied around this cause and done their part for one of their own. He told them he was devastated by this loss, just as they all likely were, and he encouraged everyone to take their time in grieving. To Trevor's mother, he offered very specific condolences, even apologizing on behalf of Holden, Ronnie, and himself for any way in which their leadership had contributed to this tragedy. "All of us ask ourselves those questions in times such as these, don't we? What if I had done something differently? What if I…had acted sooner? Could this have gone a different way?" Richard paused and looked out at the crowd, seeing as those words resonated in many expressions. Richard gulped.

"I don't blame you," a voice called from the side of the cave. Richard turned and made eye contact with Michelle, a woman he had been avoiding throughout this entire ordeal and to whom he had scarcely spoken two words since their initial meeting. With puffy red eyes, she stood and looked out over the crowd. "I don't blame any of you. I don't know who I blame. I just…I will miss my boy."

A wave of sympathetic nods rippled across the crowd, and Richard joined in the movement solemnly. He gulped again. "Thank you," he said quietly, perhaps too quietly even to be heard. "None of us wanted this to happen…and we did everything in our power to prevent it," here, he looked at Holden specifically. "That is all any of us can do. That is what we must continue to do. Fight in whatever way we can to prevent this island from taking another life. We depend on each other, you see?"

Again, nods bobbed over the crowd.

"I think the loss of Trevor has certainly hit us all hard, and it's a blow we will likely feel for some time. Not only because of the absence of his charming personality," as he said this, a few people chuckled at unspoken, happy memories. Personally, Richard knew very little about the young man, but he included this comment knowing that, though short lived, the boy's membership in the group had left quite the impression on several others. He had been very well liked. Richard continued, "but also because it has reminded some of us of the very real subject of mortality in our situation."

He looked over to Camille, standing along the side of the cave. She nodded at him reassuringly and he steeled himself for what he must say next, trying to convince himself it wasn't a lie. "Rescue will come; it can't be long now. I want you to know that it is my intention to see each and every one of you to safe rescue. I know my colleagues, Ronnie, Dr. Holden, DS Bordey, are all in agreement with me on this: your health and safety are our primary concern. But…we cannot do this alone. If there was one thing that struck me about this island when I first came here, it was your unity. Everyone seemed to be in agreement on everything, dress, music, food, work ethic, recreation…time management."

People chuckled at this, many of them remembering how very much like a sore thumb Richard stood out in those first few months. In every way he mentioned they had been in agreement as a community, Richard had adamantly disagreed. They all considered it a group victory the first time he was seen out for drinks with his team, or that time he showed up at a concert, or the few times they had seen him in his little boat out on the water. And the service he did to the community by bringing their murderers to justice (sometimes after decades of silence from the police force) had done a lot to endear him to the community. The people had already adopted him as a Son of St. Marie long before he finally started to think of the island as home, he just hadn't been aware.

"My point is: You are a community built on cohesion, and our situation calls for that unity again. Myself and the other three will of course do our very best to lead you. But where we lack, each of you can fill the void. Look out for each other. Give to each other. Rescue will come, but in the interim, we have to rely on one another to get every one of us across that finish line. Can we agree on that?"

Everyone nodded again, some even voicing their agreement with confident "sures" and "you got its." Richard nodded, seeing the hope restored to the expressions before him. He cast a look over at his fellow leaders and noticed how even Holden looked a little surer. Finally, Richard looked over at Camille in wonder, marveling at how perfectly she had read the situation. Hope. That was all they needed.

He dismissed the group only after getting a few volunteers to help organize a funeral and burial for Trevor. As the volunteers began to huddle together to discuss plans he approached them with a single rule: no digging. He didn't want to draw any unwanted attention with a lot of noisy, terranean activity. The volunteers had to scratch their heads at this restriction, but he left them to figure it out on their own.

Camille watched him with a curious expression as he approached her. "Another fine speech," she told him with an approving nod.

He glanced over their surroundings to see if anyone was listening to them, but everyone had gone back to their own affairs, and no one was really close enough to eavesdrop. "Thank you," he said modestly.

"Might one dare to say that you even started to believe it yourself? Maybe a little bit?" she prodded, a hint of teasing in her voice, yet he could tell she was actually being sincere.

"Perhaps," he conceded, because it was true. There was still a part of him that doubted rescue would come in time, but he couldn't deny feeling some confidence restored in their ability to hold out long enough for that to happen.

"Mm, bon," she said, clapping her hands onto his chest in a congratulatory gesture. "Then come with me; I have a reward for you."

Richard felt his face heating at her words as she took his hand and began to lead him from the cave.


Author's Note: I'd call this chapter "short and sweet" except, well, it's not too much of the latter. Much like the title suggests, I always knew this chapter was coming, but it still made it a difficult one to write. It's hard to put your characters in a low point while also providing a way for them to climb out. Thank God for Camille Bordey and her optimism.

Please let me know your thoughts on this one. I love hearing from you! The next chapter is one of my personal favorites. So stay tuned for that!