"Shouldn'tve been looking around like a lost puppy," Julie snarled as she hoisted her victim on the basement hook.

Susie watched from the shadows, waiting for her chance to go out while the older girl had her turn. Julie had beef with this one. It had been a while since the weird beach - she thought, anyway, time didn't really work like that here - but Julie had held the grudge with delicate hands. She cocked her hip to the side and rested her hand on it as she stared up the hook. "Remember me, bitch? I didn't forget you."

Her victim struggled against the hook weakly before the horrible spider leg burst from the top of the post and swung down to her chest like a scythe. The girl only barely caught it before it ran through. Julie traced her knife down the hippie blonde's sternum to her stomach as she struggled. "Did he cum inside you, you little whore?" From the sound of her voice, Susie knew she was grinning wickedly under her mask. Her blade stopped below the hooked girl's - Kate's? - belly button. "Will his baby come out if I slice you open? Let's find out together."

Susie slinked up the stairs, partially because she wanted to get the remaining victims down here, but mostly because she hated it when Julie got like this. It reminded her too much of when her cat back home would bat the half-dead mice around before eating them. She winced as she emerged from the basement and Kate let out a bloodcurdling scream followed by the heavy, wet slap of organs falling to the floor that gave way to silence. There really wasn't any need for all that, but Julie always got mad and bored and took it out on her toys, even before they found themselves here. Memories of dismembered Barbies and mangled ballet slippers on her bedroom floor made Susie frown. She shook her head to clear it. Even if she did think some of these guys were okay after the beach, she had a job to do - for Frank and for the spidery thing that ate them after they hooked them.

The one with the funny English accent was bound to come looking for the blondie if Frank or Joey hadn't gotten him first. Julie would take care of him, otherwise. That just left the cute, tired looking boy and the tall, hairy man. She could wait nearby or head into the woods to see where they were on generators. Frank's past instructions to never leave the gens alone echoed in her thoughts and prompted her outside.

- ️-

Jeff winced, shooting David a look as the scream echoed out through the mountain. The Brit was scowling, averting his eyes as the swirling mass of spidery legs carried the shadow of Kate's body up, through the seemingly solid resort building, and off into the sky. He knew that David knew that Kate would be back at the campfire momentarily, completely fine and healthy, but that didn't make it any easier. They'd been together a lot, lately, Jeff had noticed. He was happy for them. Had to make the best of things, right? It wasn't as if they were getting out of here anytime soon. Jeff had accepted that a while ago.

"Right, you head off't the far side, I'll try'n finish up the gen in the building," David grunted, his abrasive nature masking his obvious distress. Jeff nodded in response, breaking away and slinking off to a generator that was right up against a snow machine. As he began working on it, his back cried out in protest; strange that any injuries sustained during trials healed completely as soon as they left, but anything they brought into the realm seemed to hang around forever. Just his luck.

As he worked, his eyes and his mind wandered to the lodge. He recognized it, in a way. It wasn't quite the same, but in most respects it was Mount Ormond Resort, a place he'd loved as a kid and found to be a good hangout spot as a teenager. Memories of drinking with some other kids from school made a hint of a smile appear below his large, bushy beard.

- ️-

Susie snuck out the door of the resort, thankful that the cold didn't bother her in trials as much as it had when she was home. She hated living in Alberta; cold and wet and snowy all the damned time. At least now there were chances for her to appear in places she would never have gotten to see before. A twinge of annoyance in her stomach reminded her that it would be great to paint some of those places, if she could find paints. Ugh. That didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was getting these guys on hooks.

Unbeknownst to her, she ran past David, her eyes set on the man by the snow machine - but she did see the boy her age run past. She smiled beneath her mask, giving him a little wave as he darted past with a panicked, confused expression. Not him right now. He was awfully cute, though. She'd have to get him next.

She drew closer to the hairy man, readying her ruler to drive into his ribs. Her strength, gifted by the Entity, made it so much more fun to hook the men, especially when they could feel how small she was in comparison.

The sudden pounding in Jeff's ears told him one of the quick, stabby assholes was headed his way and he didn't care to find out which one. Hopping up and breaking into a sprint, he got about twenty feet before he felt his side burst into flames. He'd been nicked, and his attacker was circling around to hit him again. He vaulted over a low window, heading for the small cabin that served as a side building where he knew there was usually a pallet. If this dickhead kept following him, he could throw it down in their face and get some distance.

Another slash, and Jeff cried out. Goddamn it, he wasn't going to make it, was he?

Susie panted as her mind fogged, overstimulated from the repeated attack. This one had a funny yelp when he screamed. She hoped Frank could hear it. She felt best when he was proud of her. She spun back around, ready to cut her victim again, and sped into the cabin. A pallet stood inside, unused. "Aww, cute idea!" she giggled, darting back and forth to confuse him into a direction to run.

Jeff knew he wasn't as quick as her, and instead of running for the pallet and hoping to make it before she did, he turned and jumped out the window, hitting the ground hard but stumbling back to his feet and starting to run again. He didn't dare look back.

She dashed out the window, giggling again as the distance between them closed. Pulling out her sharpened ruler toothed with compass needles, she readied herself for the blow. "Too slow!"

That's what you think.

Jeff made a note to thank David for teaching him this trick later, and with a quick burst of speed he made about five feet in the blink of an eye. Shit, though, he was out of breath from that. Would be a bit before he got it back, and with that knowledge, he was fairly confident she'd catch up. Looking back, his suspicions were confirmed as she came from behind a rock at an angle he didn't even know was possible. The ruler hit him again, and he went down hard, tumbling over himself and smacking his head off a ski boot that was on the ground.

"Ooh! That looked like it hurt," Susie cried gleefully, stomping her feet over either side of the man. "Ready to come with me, mister?"

She reached down to pick him up, but her body froze when he turned to face her with an angry, irritated look. He looked...familiar?

"...What?" Jeff spat, blood and a tooth flying out. Goddamn it, that hurt his pride. "Do it, then. I'm right here. You little freaks like this stuff, hurry up and get it over with."

Susie's head tilted inquisitively. That voice was familiar, too, wasn't it? It was grittier and lower than when she last heard it. But.. she definitely knew it from somewhere, somewhere outside of this realm. Here, she only had her little makeshift family.

Memories of her past life flooded in. A classroom bathed in the orange light of sunset. The smell of acrylics and chalk. Buzzing neon signs and dust under fluorescent lights. Picking up the most horrifying looking VHS covers and laughing at the illustrated screaming women. A snowy night with the hiss of spray paint cutting through the sound of brown glass bottles clinking together. But...that was...was it? She tentatively lifted her mask, shaking her head to keep the rusted nail heads from catching on her hoodie. "...Jeffy? Is that you?"

Jeff blinked, trying to place the face in front of him. She was cute, small, probably 16, 17? Pink hair, braces and a hint of a lisp when she talked - because of the braces, idiot, he thought - and eyes that he suspected hadn't always had those dark rings around them. She knew his name, too, why did she...?

"Um. Yeah?"

"Oh, my God!" Susie covered her mouth as she let out a horrified gasp. "You look like total shit!"

He really did. His brown-gray hair and beard hid wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and brow. A deep scar ran down one side of his face, a scar that hadn't been there when they had spent those afternoons in the art hall.

She huffed slightly as his face didn't change into one of understanding, only further confusion. "Like, okay," she sighed, rolling her eyes. "Clearly it's been a total slog for you, considering how bad you look, but do you remember Ms. Martha's art hall? We could take it instead of detention. And I was in detention a lot." She pointed to herself. "We took it together. Remember?"

Was she asking him about high school? That was, like, twenty years ago, what did that have to do with anything?

Jeff shook his head. "I'm sorry, I'm not following...?"

"Oh, my God. Susie! Susie Whitmore!" She pointed at herself insistently. "We did acrylics! You worked at the movie place? It was, like, way better than Blockbuster for horror movies. Frank used to bring me 'n Joey 'n Julie on Thursdays and Fridays." She jutted out her lower lip. "Don't tell me you don't remember! I'll be, like, totally heartbroken."

Okay, now Jeff was pretty sure the Entity was fucking with him. "What the fuck," he muttered, trying to prop himself up on his elbow and falling back down when it gave out.

Surely this was some kind of cosmic joke? The group who had given him his very first commission, who'd he'd spent a weekend hanging out and drinking with as he completed it, who'd slapped him on the back and complimented his skills... the Legion. It made a sick kind of sense when he thought about it. His mind flashed to the convenience store murder, the one that had been attributed to a copycat of the Ghostface down in Florida... oh Jesus. So the news reports were right. It had been them.

Susie pouted. She shook her hood back and adjusted her mask to the side of her head. Her pink hair, faded and tangled, shivered in the cold wind of the mountain.

"You really don't remember me, Jeffy?" She frowned deeply. "I really liked your art. I wanted to be just like you." She was kidding when she said she'd be heartbroken, but...it actually did hurt a little that he didn't seem to remember her. His art genuinely made her feel something. It made her angry, and excited, and made her want to be alive. That was why she told Frank about him, about how he worked at the video store. Frank saw his sketches and agreed with her, with a pat on her head: he was perfect to make their mural.

"You used to talk about your parents fighting. You wanted to get out of the house. And you moved, just before grade twelve."

Jeff's heart sank. He barely remembered that - though at least for him it was on purpose - so how had she? "I... yeah, I did. I did the mural for... Frank?" The names she'd said had been lodged in his mind, somewhere, resurfacing now that he'd been reminded of them. "I worked with your older brother, didn't I? Jimmy Whitmore?"

Susie scowled. "Jimmy? You remember Jimmy, but not me?!" She stomped her foot, making him flinch beneath her. "Yes! I'm his sister! The sister you went to school with! Ugh, this is stupid," she whined, scratching at her head. It hurt a lot, as the Entity reminded her to do something to feed it. She pulled him out from underneath her legs and hoisted him on her shoulders. "I don't really want to kill you, but I'm mad! You should've remembered me!"

"Susie, wait!" She stopped moving. "I... I do remember you, it's just…"

I can't believe you're doing this.

Susie dropped him unceremoniously and stared him down with a perked eyebrow. "You do?" A hopeful look crossed her face before her eyes narrowed. "What do you remember?"

"I remember... you always wanted to show me what you were working on. You said it wasn't great, but I thought it was much better than you gave yourself credit for. I never told you that."

Her eyebrows furrowed, eyes softening but still wary.

"I remember listening to your mixtape, up at the lodge, while we drank. You said Depeche Mode and Nirvana were your favorites, but you told me you also really liked N'Sync and to never tell anyone that. Especially Julie."

"I love N'Sync," Susie said quietly, a feeling she'd thought long since forgotten growing in her chest as he spoke. "You do remember." She pressed her index fingers together. "I thought you were really nice. Everyone thought you were kinda mean. I wanted to make you less mean. But...you weren't mean at all. Just kinda, like...sad."

She chewed on her lip nervously, unsure of what to do next. The headache reminded her she had a duty, but that pain paled in comparison to the fear she felt at the idea of Frank or Julie finding her talking to a victim.

Jeff suspected she wasn't going to hook him, and he did know how to get up from being knocked down at least once - someone else to thank, though he figured Bill would only acknowledge it with a grunt - but did he really want to scare her into attacking again by suddenly standing up and running? For now, he stayed on the ground.

"I tried not to be," he nodded in agreement. "My home life wasn't great, like you said. So I withdrew into my art. Kind of the same as you, I'd guess?"

Susie nodded. She felt little. She hadn't felt little in a long time. Frank and Julie and Joey made her feel big, and tall, and strong, and like no one would ever hurt her as long as she lived - well, maybe Julie could tease, and maybe Frank would yell, but they wouldn't ignore her or tell her what a loser she was. They didn't trash her canvases or smash her cassette player. They didn't pull her hair and throw her into the front yard with accusations of "tramping around" when she hadn't even kissed anyone, just smeared lipstick over herself to practice. They didn't threaten to cut her hair when she came home with bright pink strands.

"Yeah," she said quietly. She paused, making eye contact with him fully before she continued. "Your art made me feel like...like I could be tough. And cool."

Jeff couldn't help but laugh a little at this, and he shook his head as she scowled at him for it.

"Sorry, sorry, I don't mean anything by it! I just... never thought of myself as tough or cool or anything like that," he chuckled a little. This nearly made up for the stinging in his leg where she'd gotten him.

What had brought this out in her, he wondered? The Susie he knew was bubbly and bright, loved to show you her music and wore band t-shirts with paint all over them from art class. When he thought of what the news had said about the convenience store murder... it made him sick to think of her being involved in that.

She cocked her hip to the side and crossed her arms in the cool pose Julie made regularly. Her skirt fabric flounced against her thigh, making the pose girlish instead of intimidating. "You were cool," she insisted. "I had to tell Frank about you. Your art totally fit our look."

He acquiesced, giving her a nod. "You guys were pretty punk," he said this as un-patronizingly as possible, to make sure she wouldn't get upset. "I can remember Joey telling me Frank was the coolest one, though. Is he still around?" Jeff knew the answer, but the more information he could get from her about what happened without coming right out and asking, the better.

Susie grinned enthusiastically. It made her unbearably excited for one of her high school idols to think they were cool. "Yeah! He's totally still here. And the rest of Legion!" She posed with her ruler wiggling in a way that was meant to be frightening. "I'm sooo glad you remembered him. He's the best! So cool, and confident! He taught me everything I know."

Jeff hesitated. He didn't think he had it in him to agree that Frank was anything less than repulsive, especially if he'd been the one to influence the others to kill.

"Everything, huh? Like what?"

"Ummm…" Susie tapped her chin in thought and licked her chapped lips before answering. "So, there's this trick you can do to get snacks out of stores. You, like, have one person talk to the cashier, maybe show a lil' something, flash a lil' something - that could be your boobs or a gun, hehe!" She giggled through the sentence. "The other person goes in and just grabs whatever they can hide in their jacket! It's suuuper easy to do, as long as they can't see your faces. What else...ummm, he taught me how to tag! Mine's a kitty face. I think I showed it to you at the mountain." She smiled wide. "He taught us how to get paint and blood off our clothes, too! Sometimes when you try to snatch wallets it doesn't go so good, so that was super helpful. There really isn't anything Frankie doesn't know how to do. Oh, don't tell him I said that! He hates it when I call him that."

She pulled the neck of her hoodie down and slid the strap of her tank top off her shoulder to reveal her bare clavicle. A small, shaky black poke tattoo sat above her heart: "F."

"Julie gave this one to me," she said with giddy excitement. "We have matching ones."

Jeff's stomach turned as her eyes glittered in excitement . He tried to maintain his jovial tone as he responded, hoping his disgust for the man she idolized wouldn't come through. "Yeah, that sounds great. Frank sure seems to have taught you a lot. Although..."

Her smile faltered a little.

"It kind of sounds like he had you help him rob some people. It was a big case, actually. A robbery went south, and the person who did it was never caught. It was so brutal there was speculation that it might have been the Ghostface Killer, but Ormond was too far North for him."

Susie's heart raced. "They fired Joey. They deserved to be robbed." She clutched her ruler tighter as her fingers trembled at the memory of Frank's hands wrapped around her wrists, diving the blade into the janitor's throat. "And that guy…he was gonna hurt Julie. Frank knew we had to do it together." Her voice rose in pitch. "We needed to do it! Together! It was us or nothing!"

Jeff could feel that he was losing her, but he pressed harder.

"And then what? You could have gone to the cops and said it was in self-defense, but you knew it'd end up busting you because you had broken in anyway, right? So what then?"

"I don't know!" Susie suddenly shrieked. "Frank knew what to do, we would've been okay!" She stomped her foot as she approached dangerously close to Jeff, rage in her eyes. "What do you know about Frank, anyway? What do you know about being part of a family? Yours broke! I found my family!" Tears threatened to prick at the corners of her eyes, and she rubbed them frantically as she screamed. "They're mine! Mine! I love them! Don't talk bad about them!"

Jeff shook his head, not bothering to hide his revulsion at what she was saying. "What kind of a family makes the people they love hurt others? Hell, how do you know they love you, Susie? How do they show it?"

Susie's steps faltered, but her volume didn't. "Families stick together!" Her screams were definitely going to catch someone's attention, but she didn't care. It felt like years - decades - centuries? - of anguish and rage and pain came pouring from her mouth and spilled all over her long lost classmate.

"Families are supposed to watch out for each other! They're supposed to protect each other! My own parents wouldn't even look at me unless they thought I was fucking their rep! They wanted 'Suzanne,' not...not me! No one fucking wants me but Frank, and Joey, and Julie!" She spat out her words with every ounce of venom she could manage. "I don't care what Frank tells me to do. I'll do anything for the only people who've cared for a loser like me. They're the only ones who make me me."

"You don't think I get that?" Jeff snapped.

She didn't respond.

"You think my parents wanted an artist who went to death metal shows and spent his allowance on clothes he definitely couldn't wear to church on Sundays? But Susie..."

I didn't turn to murder, was what he thought.

"Just because someone keeps you around and doesn't restrain you doesn't mean they're good for you. That's not what it's about. Family is someone cutting you off when you've had too much, so you don't get hurt or hurt someone else. Family is about accountability, about helping to lift each other up, not about bringing out the wildest and worst in each other."

Memories of nights spent on a bus, around people whose names he didn't remember now but at one point considered his closest family. Drinking and partying after a show. Helping up a girl who'd fallen in the pit. Kissing her when she came by the bus later on to thank him.

Susie's heart shuddered at his words. They were warm. Unfamiliar. It hurt to hear them. It hurt so much. Her lower lip wobbled. "Stop it," she cried, the tears spilling down her chin. "Stop. They're my brothers. My sister. They love me." She rubbed her eyes on her sleeve roughly, enough to draw scratches at her brow. "I don't have anyone else...it's too late to have anyone else." Her fingers instinctively pulled at the friendship bracelet around her wrist, feeling the two Js, F, and S beads clinking together.

It pained him to hear her so convinced of a love that didn't exist. "Susie..." He picked himself up onto an elbow. "It's not too late. Never is."

Susie clenched her fists a little, looking down at Jeff, years beyond her. "Did they ever look for me?" she asked quietly, averting her eyes.

Jeff remembered the province-wide manhunt for Frank and Julie, of helicopters flying over and teams of cops being dispatched to the whole Mount Ormond area. News coverage of Julie's parents, begging her to bring Susie back safely. Joey's smiling face on TV, as the talking heads questioned why such a promising young man who was so talented and made his classmates smile would turn into a common, two-bit thug. Frank's mugshot from a previous arrest with a fake ID, saying that he must have kidnapped these two young teens to use as collateral when he and his lover fled the country.

"We all did. I did."

Sitting outside the resort, aged 42, his father having just passed and the Legion symbol he'd painted flaking away.

Susie sniffled, her jaw jutting out as more tears dripped from her face. "I miss art class," she wept. "I miss painting. I miss concerts. Julie said she'd take me to see Garbage. Frank was helping her get the money for it and it was gonna be, like...the best night ever." Her ribs shook as she sobbed.

He couldn't help but smile a little. "They released some great stuff later down the line, y'know? I think you'd have liked it."

Her face was confused, and it dawned on him then. She didn't know. As she searched his face, much older than hers, she seemed to comprehend.

"O-oh," she murmured, trying to figure out how much time had passed between the two of them. She didn't want to think about it. She couldn't. She didn't want to think of all the music she missed. Did Jimmy ever escape the house? Did her parents ever feel remorse? What happened? Her questions hurt. There were too many to ask him.

Susie rubbed her eyes again with a shaky breath, out of tears. She looked down at Jeff and looked around nervously before her eyes grew to the size of saucers. "Oh, God," she whispered, quickly snapping her mask down.

"Susie!" Frank's agitated voice called from behind her. "What are you fucking doing?"

She panted quickly, fear clutching at her heart at the thought of Frank finding her out. She scooped Jeff up onto her much smaller shoulders, his fingers dragging across the ground behind her as she ran towards the nearest hook.

"I'm sorry," she whispered beneath her mask. "I'm so, so, so sorry."

Jeff didn't want to admit it, but his eyes stung. Fuck, the poor kid.

Susie swung her head around as she reached the hook, slinging him up onto the post quickly as Frank dashed past.

"Heh, you got 'em!" he laughed, giving her unhooded hair a quick pat before he ran off after the punky boy who dashed into another cabin.

How doesn't he know? The question burned in Susie's mind, although it hurt less than the pain that disappeared from her head as the Entity fed.

She looked up at Jeff on the hook and lifted her mask again. "One of your friends will get you," she whispered. "Avoid Frank. Get out if you can."

Jeff tried to believe it, that somehow David would avoid them and that Quentin could get away from Frank. He didn't think it would happen. As Susie turned to leave, he called out through the burning pain in his collar.

"Susie! ...I'm sorry. I wish I could have been there to help you."

She stared up at him, a sorrowful ache in her chest as their eyes met. She always liked his eyes. They were warm. Friendly. Invited her to talk about her problems. He looked like home - the kind of home she saw in sitcoms. Happy. Free. Fictional.

She blinked back another round of tears and slid the mask back down before she made a mad dash into the resort. The big guy with the accent was finishing the generators. She quietly ran up and tapped his shoulder, pointing behind him as his head whipped around.

David didn't know quite how to respond; his first response to being surprised was to throw a punch, but that reflex had nearly been beaten out of him. He wanted to anyway when he saw the one touching him was one of the Legion fuckers.

"Fuck d'you wa-" He stopped when he saw her pointing insistently at Jeff, up on a hook. She nodded once and ran off in another direction.

David noticed a strange sobriety in the artist's expression as he pulled Jeff down and started to patch up his wounds. He cleared his throat and asked "So, er... what was up with the lil' one?"

Jeff remained silent as he tried to process all the new information he almost wished he never learned. The hazy memories of the cute, perky, pink-haired girl wandering down the near-derelict hallways of Ormond High challenged the rawer experiences of being sliced open by the angry teenagers in trials. He tried to think of something he could've done or said to her back then, anything at all, even though he knew the exercise would only make him feel worse. He stared up at the hook. For all the pain he had in his body before - for all the pain the trials inflicted on him and his teammates - nothing in the world could've prepared him for the pain of thinking of that kid completely enraptured with people who didn't give a shit about her.

"She's just having a hard time," Jeff managed quietly.

David looked confused, but jerked his head up in alert as the ping of the last generator being finished sounded throughout the trial. Quentin must've gotten away just in time. David cocked his head towards the closest gate. "We should get goin'."

Jeff nodded.

Once they burned back into the campfire, Jeff made his way to Ace's makeshift trading post. The gambler stood from where he was leaning in a rusty foldout chair and greeted him with a smile.

"Hey, man. Everything go alright with you? I guess poor Katie got beaten pretty bad." He lowered his shades in curiosity. "Got anything for me?"

Jeff handed a bottle of whisky he'd picked up a while back to Ace. He had been saving it near one of the tents for a special occasion, whatever that would've entailed in this hellscape, but it was the only thing he had left to trade.

"I'm lookin' for, uh... a sketchbook and some pencils, maybe."

With a raised eyebrow, Ace clicked his tongue and bent over the plastic tub that held his miscellaneous items he didn't think folks would want on his blanket. "Yeah, I got a notepad. And a few number twos. Nea got here before ya, she has a sketchbook if you need a page. You sure, pal? Not exactly an even swap."

"Should be fine," Jeff replied, taking the items hastily. It might have been a little rude, but he needed time to practice.

Jeff stuck the page into a crack in the banister of the resort stairs. Hopefully she'd see it if she happened to run by that area. Once he was satisfied it would stay, he took off for a generator.

A few minutes later, Susie dashed past the resort entrance looking for whoever would be her victim this round when a flutter caught her eye. She ran inside, expecting the retreating steps of a survivor, only to discover it was just a piece of paper… but the visible markings on the page seemed too deliberate. Curious, she pulled it from its spot in the stairs.

The page held a small, sketchy drawing of a cat, and a short note.

Susie,

I had to base this off what was left of your tag at the resort, so it's probably not exactly accurate. But hopefully you can take this back with you. You need something to remind you that there are other people who care about you.

I miss art class with you, too. If you ever need to talk, just find me.

Best,

Jeff J.

Susie's mouth hung open as she traced the shape of the cat with her finger and read the note over and over, memorizing the final words so she could see them clearly when she closed her eyes.

Julie's quick steps behind her prompted Susie to stuff the note in her hoodie pocket.

The older girl tilted her head. "Find something?"

"Just some trash," Susie said, bouncing outside the cabin with light steps. Beneath her mask, a wide grin spread across her face.