I'm desperate to run, I'm desperate to leave; if I lose it all, at least I'll be free.

Audrey Spenser.
Las Vegas, Nevada.

Something buzzes from a few feet away—muffled, but still irritating enough to rouse me from my dreamland.

I grumble and roll over, stretching my arm towards it. My fingers scratch against a rough cloth surface. It's in my bag, then. Definitely not worth the effort of opening it.

There's a rustling beside me as one of the girls unzips the bag and roots through it. I half-open my eyes just to see Madison loosening the top of a small black pouch. She pulls a watch-like device out—it's got a strap to match, but the screen is far too big to really work as a watch. It's something Jackson would definitely wear, though. For the clout. Whatever the fuck that means.

I shut my eyes again, already bored.

"Hey, Audrey—Madison. Would you put me on with Audrey, love?"

My whole body spasms. It's like a gag reflex, but everywhere. "What the fuck?"

Madison faces the screen my way, wincing. Even tiny, Milo is just as repulsive. "There you are. Wonderful to see you again. Listen up, I want to have this conversation even less than you do, so I'll keep this short. You ready?"

"Yeah… sure," I say, still shaken. What is he doing here?

"Great. Here's the deal. We—that is, me and the other leaders, so to speak, do this thing where we bet on which of you we think will win. Everyone puts money in, the top three get a pay-out, it's all great fun. It's kind of like March Madness. Last place even gets a plaque for how terrible they did. You follow basketball, Audrey?"

"Do I follow—are you kidding?"

"I wasn't," he says, "but it doesn't matter. Anyways, yes, we're betting on who lives and who dies, it's dehumanizing, unfair, whatever. Save it, I've heard it before, you're wasting both our time trying to make a moral argument here. Long story short… I was supposed to have Shane, but his idiot ass chose the easy way out. So, I'm stuck with you."

I grimace. "You couldn't have picked… I don't know… anyone else?"

"I wish," he says. "Trust me, you're about the last person I wanted. But Zara was the only person who really wanted to trade, and she had Yuto originally. Honestly, that would have been far worse. The one thing you've got going for you is no one's going to think you're a threat, whereas Yuto might actually be taken seriously."

"Because he's a guy," I sigh. "Got it."

"It's actually kind of funny how it all played out. Davina wouldn't trade until Zara offered her an extra thirty grand to get rid of him. In my opinion, she's not much better off now because she's got Brandon of all people, but I really shouldn't be talking. Like I said, I'm stuck with you. So here's my spiel: I get money if you win. So, win."

I take a moment to process this—the idea of trading people I know for each other, putting a price on our lives… but mostly, the ridiculousness of him, of all people, trying to get me to win—then shake my head. "I'm going to be honest, I really wasn't that motivated before, but now there is actually nothing I care less about than winning."

"It's true," Mariana chips in. "She literally just woke up from like a three-hour nap. It's honestly inspiring how little she cares."

"Shouldn't you actually be trying to motivate me?" I ask Milo. "I mean, if this is so important to you that you get your cash prize or whatever, isn't there something better you can say besides hey, I literally have no choice but to throw money at you, also, you're the worst, good luck?"

He scoffs. "Are you that lazy that you actually need motivation to win a death contest? I mean, don't you want to… you know… live?"

I steal a look at Madison, who only shrugs. "Honestly, I'm indifferent. I'm kind of over this shit. But then again," I frown, "if I die, I'll miss the Destiny release, which wouldn't have been a problem if they had just dropped it in March like they were supposed to. So, I guess the short answer is, who knows?"

Milo's glare is just about strong enough to crack the screen. But if he wants to make my life hell, so be it. This works both ways, motherfucker.

"I… assume… I wouldn't be able to bribe you?"

"Sorry if that normally works for you. But read the room. Everyone here's got a rich daddy. Don't you have my file, or whatever? Why would you even ask that if you already know?" I pause. "Wait, do you have an in with the Destiny guys? Because I'd definitely consider trying to live if you got me the game early."

He rolls his eyes. "No. We're not bargaining over a video game. Do I have to remind you that this is literally life-or-death? Can you be serious for even a minute?"

I sit up and grab the watch from Madison, which, to be honest, I probably should have done sooner to keep her from being the awkward third wheel in this conversation. "Look, man," I say, right into the camera. "First of all, I can't believe we're having this conversation, either. Obviously, it's shitty you're actually bargaining money for us, but I can look past that part. It's your asshole-ness that's really pissing me off. I'm not sorry you're stuck with me. I think you're lucky to have someone to bet on at all considering you're enough of a dickhead that I'm sure at least two of your fellow leader people are just looking for a reason to beat your pudgy jaw so far into your skull it actually nicks your pea-sized brain. And you know something? There is something you can offer me that I will guarantee will motivate me. And it's not Destiny."

"Let me hear it then," he says simply.

"If I win—" I say, nodding at Madison— "somehow, by some freakin' miracle of God—you leave me alone. Forever. Don't go near me. Don't even look at me. I want your greasy ass as far out of my life as Alex was after I told him what actually happened on prom night. Oof, too soon?" I ask Mariana.

"I literally have no idea what you're talking about."

"So all I have to do is leave you be," Milo, ever the genius, deduces, "and you'll try to win?"

"Oh, that applies to right now, too. I don't want to talk to you ever again. So it's been nice… but see you never."

"Audrey, I'm supposed to check in on you every so often—"

I half-laugh. "What did I say? Leave me alone, or I swear to God, I will stab my own face out with a pinecone. God knows that's what this conversation feels like."

"Is that even possible?" Madison asks, unfazed.

"Guess we'll see," I say grimly.

Milo shakes his head, but eventually gives up. "Fine. Good luck." The screen goes black.

Mariana and Madison both exhale.

"God, imagine being stuck with that guy," Mariana says, then looks at me. "Oh. Shit. Sorry."

"Audrey," Madison says cautiously, as she stows the watch back into its pouch and tucks it in the front pocket of my pack. "I'll be honest, I was really trying to back you up there as much as I could. But—seriously—what the hell was that conversation?"

"All I'll say is, I had every right to be hostile," I say, rolling back over onto my side and shutting my eyes again. "He woke me up."

Chanel Agresti.
Scarsdale, New York.

If the circumstances weren't so dire, I might be comforted by the familiar glow of the sunset above the crags. But it only serves as a sign that we didn't make it to the top in time. I'd planned to reach the peak and use the remaining daylight to scope out a way down to safety. Unless time freezes, we'll be walking in the dark—with one less day to find a way to survive this.

It might have been a rash decision. It probably won't even work. But as far as a plan goes, it's the only one I've got, trying to escape this wilderness and get home before I get killed. It's the only sense of direction I've got, in any case, and since I've more or less dragged Seraphina along with me all day, how am I supposed to turn around and tell her it was a waste of our time, that we should just go back the way we came?

Sera's been distant all afternoon, anyways, ever since we stopped to eat. It's not worth trying to get her to talk to me anymore, not when I've tried for the last few hours and she won't bite. Well, good for her for being stubborn, but I'm over her silent treatment. All she does is fiddle with her watch and ignore me, and as there's only so much time I can go without talking to someone, I'm starting to get antsy.

I don't even know what she's doing with that thing. I don't know if I never got a watch, or if I somehow lost it while unpacking my other things, but either way, I don't have one. Which is fine. See if I care. I have a gun right in my waistband. But all I've seen of the watch is its electronic map of the mountain, which we took a few minutes to look over during our last break, just to ensure we were going in the right direction. At least, what I think is the right direction, because who can tell? It's been awhile, though. And I don't like being out of the loop.

"Let's look at the map again," I say, just for an excuse to use her watch. "I want to see how far we've gone."

Seraphina takes her watch off and taps the screen a few times, bringing up a minuscule version of the landscape in front of us. I tap it again to zoom out and notice something new: a greyish strip, crossing over our path only about a quarter-mile ahead. It almost looks like… "A road!"

"No way," Sera says, breaking her hours-long silence in disbelief. She zooms the screen closer, bringing into view a blur of yellow dash marks in the center.

"We must have missed it the first time," I say, trying to keep my composure but honestly freaking out a little. "How long do you think it will take us to get there?"

She considers the slope in front of us. "It's not too steep… we could make it before it gets dark. But then what? It's probably too late for anyone to be driving."

"Maybe there's hiking trails up there, people always misjudge the time and come back late. Either way, we should just go there and see what our options are." My body drums with adrenaline. Let's go, let's go, come on…

Sera bites her lip, looking hesitant. "Why can't we just wait until morning?"

"Because this is our way out!" I practically yell. "Don't you want to get out of this place? You're the one who was pushing us to keep going earlier. Why are you so scared?"

"I'm not scared!" she snaps.

"Then let's go! Before someone else finds it and we lose our only chance to escape with our fucking lives!"

"Fine!" she says, starting off. I follow close behind, trying to keep from running at full blast ahead of her. We found a stream a few hours back, but with only a single water bottle between us, and no water in sight, I have to drink sparingly. At least it's cooling down—we should be able to make this last the night and tomorrow morning.

The way forward is more or less a straight-shot, and within fifteen minutes Sera and I are approaching our destination. We come to a lookout about ten feet above a plain from which we can survey the rest of the land in front of us. But it all still looks like normal landscape, crisscrossed with tire tracks and marred by clumsy dirt mounds every few feet.

"We should be here," she frowns, comparing our view to our position on the map. "It says we're right on the edge of it."

"Let me see," I say. She hands her watch over, and for a second it glitches in my hand—buzzing and going blank for a second before going back to its previous view. Some sort of precaution to keep me from using someone else's, I guess. Nice of them to think through that part but not actually give me my own damn watch. "Okay, why don't we just explore this area a bit? We're probably just missing it."

I expect her to be more hesitant, but Seraphina nods with hardly any hesitation. "Yeah. Sounds good. Why don't you head up a little higher in case you can see something? I'll look around down here. We'll cover more ground that way…"

It's a little odd for me to be taking orders for someone like Seraphina, but I don't have a better plan, so I nod and start up the slope to my left while she slides down. All the while, the sky grows brighter, more orange—but it's only a few minutes before that brightness starts to fade and night really starts setting in. All the while, Sera's watch has been glitching out in my hand, buzzing intermittently before going still for another few minutes. I'm just about to call it a night, to head down and find Seraphina, when her watch buzzes again. This time, the screen comes alight, showing the worried features of a familiar Latina woman. One of the leaders back at camp, though I have no idea what her name is.

There sounds like fighting on the other side, wherever she is, and it's hard to hear her over the voices behind her. "Hang up—you can't tell them—Sonique—"

As the figures behind her try to wrestle the screen from her grasp, she speaks, panicked, right into the camera. "Chanel, it's a trap! There's no road—they changed the screen when they saw you were going towards it—Get Seraphina!"

The screen cuts out a few seconds later, but I'm already running.

"Sera!" I scream, coming back to the lookout. It's too hard to see her in the dimness. "Sera, we have to go back, there is no road!"

"What?" I hear her yelling, but she's still out of sight.

"Come back! Please, please, we have to get out of here—"

She comes out of the trees, still far below me. "I couldn't find it!"

"That's because there is no fucking road!" I repeat. "It's a trap for us! They knew we'd bite— come on, we have to leave!"

Now she's running towards me. I put my pack down, flattening onto my stomach to reach down over the ledge so I can pull her up.

But she never makes it to me.

She steps on the edge of one of the dirt mounds, and in an instant the ground bursts beneath her feet.

A chain of explosions is set off in every direction. I'm lucky to have been on the ground already, but even so, I'm knocked over twice as I scramble to my feet, just throwing myself back the way we came, desperate to get away. Booms shock my entire system as my feet pound at the ground. All behind me, the earth is shattering. I'm running across broken ground, no longer a person, only a mess of uncoordinated limbs that scream with fatigue, with only one goal in mind: get away, get away, get away.

I have no time to look back, hardly any to see where I'm going. Branches scratch at my face and arms. I step too hard in a hole and something twists and pops in my knee. Then I truly am nothing but a sense of vibrant, fiery pain as I shriek and crumble to the ground. There's no way to move. All I can do is cradle my head with my arms. Rocks tumble, trees are uprooted, and I'm thrown down the slope like I weigh absolutely nothing. My heart explodes in my throat as bits of earth crash down inches from my head, slice my calves open, and send new shockwaves of white-hot pain through my right leg.

How long do I lie there, helpless, entirely powerless? Hours later, it seems, the earth is still rumbling. Even when it feels entirely still, another explosion goes off. I don't dare risk moving. Not just for the fear of pain, but what if I can't move? I can breathe, at least, even if every inhale is of chalk and dust, of smoke. Every cough means, if anything, that I'm alive.

When the earth is finally, truly silent, I try to lift my head; it's sore, and my neck aches, but I can do this simple motion. I move my shoulders, wiggle my toes. All mobile. I don't want to move that right leg, but I don't need to, not yet. My hand buzzes again, and I realize I've been gripping onto Sera's watch this entire time. It's amazing that I've maintained it in the madness… it must have been all I could hold onto as everything around me spiraled out of control.

I wish I hadn't. Because this time, when the watch buzzes, it's to announce a single, horrifying fact: "Seraphina Corvo is dead. Manner of death is unknown."

No—no!

I try to get up, but I'm dizzy with the exertion and the pain. I end up twisted on my back, dazed and panicking.

I can't get to her… she's gone.

The agony and the frustration are too much, and I scream into the sky, not caring who hears me, not caring if someone comes and kills me right now. I scream until my throat and my eyes go dry and my voice gives out, until the last sliver of sunlight dies behind the hills.

Alaina Calline.
Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

"Seraphina Corvo is dead. Manner of death is unknown."

Our group falls silent; Brandon's eyes, typically so playful, are wide with shock. "Whoa…"

"You think someone killed her?" Yuto says abruptly.

"They said it's unknown…" Eimer mutters, her face pale even in the crackling firelight. "What does that even mean?"

"They'd tell us if someone killed her," I say. "I bet it had to do with that shaking."

"Explosions," Yuto says. "It felt like them, it sounded like them, they were explosions."

"Why the fuck would there be explosions on a mountain?" I snap, already tired of trying to be civil. Less than a full day and I'm losing my cool… my parents would be furious.

"Who knows?" he snaps back. "Why has any of this happened? There's no rules out here, princess. If you really think this whole contest is going to go according to whatever your plan of it is, you're dead wrong."

"And how do you even—"

"Shh!" Eimer cuts in. "Look!"

We go silent, eyes facing where she's pointing. It all looks like darkness to me. Then, a silhouette appears. Another person.

Yuto and Brandon are on their feet in an instant. I shrink back, out of the light of the fire. I don't want to fight—not now, not on the first day! Why is this happening so fast?

The figure comes closer.

"Who are you?" Brandon yells.

It stops. "Brandon?" The voice is deep and familiar as it calls out.

Brandon turns to look at us, his mouth agape, for just a second. Then he takes off running. "Blake!"

When he gets to him, he wraps him in a wide hug. They appear to talk, but I can't make out what they're saying from here.

Yuto raises his eyebrows at me.

"What?" I ask.

"Do you think this is a good idea?"

"Not at all," I say, watching as the two amble back towards us. "We had a solid group of four just a minute ago. Why should we mess with that?"

"I know. But we can't just kick him out. He just showed up."

"Yeah, but he's a threat to us. Or he could be. We don't know why he's here."

"Let's just let him explain," Yuto says. "Then we can decide."

Blake and Brandon come back, the latter grinning like a fiend. He gestures for Blake, who waves awkwardly at us, to sit. "Guys," Brandon says, dropping back down next to the fire. "You'll never guess how Blake found us."

"These watches," Blake says, raising his sweatshirt sleeve to reveal his watch, "you can use them for a lot of things. You've probably seen the maps already, gotten a call from your Benefactor?"

"My… what?"

"Oh, the leaders, that's what they're calling themselves now. Since they're betting money on us, or funding us, or whatever they call it. Evelyn called me earlier. But anyways. You know more or less how to use them, right?"

"Uh…" Yuto, Eimer, and I look at each other. Truth is, we didn't spend much time with those watches. We were busy most of the day finding a spot to settle down and building a bit of shelter and a fire to keep us going through the night. I'd all but forgotten about the watches. If anyone tried to call, we definitely missed it. "Yeah. So how'd you find us?"

"Well, turns out, you can actually use it to track people's locations. I was on the map earlier and accidentally found Brandon's location, and since I was alone, I figured… well, we might all do better together."

He doesn't seem to mean that last sentence. I wonder, whenever he saw Brandon on the map, if that was when the other three of us were out collecting water and wood. He probably thought he was about to form a paired alliance, not be thrown in with a group of four.

Either way, I don't trust him. I don't think he's lying about wanting to be with Brandon, but he introduces a new dynamic to our team. I'm not sure it's good for us.

But there's no right way to get rid of him. If I ask him to leave, he still knows where we are. He could leave with Brandon at any time. Or attack us, if he wanted to. But I'm not about to kill him to get rid of him, either, even if I'm worried he could hurt us.

"What do you have in your bag, Blake?" I ask him. "If we're going to work together, we might as well have everything out in the open."

"Fair enough." From every pocket, it seems, he pulls out something new. A water bottle with purifying tablets, some food, socks, bandages, and matches. Then the empty pouch that his watch was in.

"No weapon?" I ask.

"Nope," he says. I look in his eyes for a hint that he's lying, but I can't tell. I didn't get a weapon, either, but it's not like I'd even know how to use it. Blake, on the other hand, would probably be lethal with a knife. I don't like having him so close… but maybe it's better to know where he is, rather than letting him sneak up on us.

"Well, we don't have much food or water," I say, getting to my feet, "but if you need something, you can have a bit before we get to bed. It's late, anyways. I was thinking we could set up a watch—if you found us, who knows who else might be out there?"

No one argues. I wrap myself in my sweatshirt and find the watch in my bag, pulling up the map. Aside from the five dots in the center of the map—one for each of us—the surrounding area is clear. But I keep the screen up, just in case.

"How about Brandon and I take first watch," I say. "Then Yuto and Eimer, Blake and me… we can cycle through. A few hours at a time, so we all get some rest. Sound good?"

"Fine by me," Yuto says, curling up and using his pack as a pillow. But he watches Blake as he takes a handful of our dried fruit, and the pistol he grabbed when Blake first appeared is wrapped in the sleeve of his sweatshirt. Just in case.

"By the way…" Blake says as he props himself up against a log. "You guys hear about Seraphina? It's really sad." We nod grimly, and he shuts his eyes.

In the firelight, both he and Brandon are unreadable. I know that they've decided to trust each other without a doubt, but what about how this might affect the rest of us? If anything, Blake's comment serves as a reminder that this alliance, whatever it is, is fleeting. Most, if not all, of us will be dead when this is done. It's my job to see that I'm the one who makes it out of this. And if that means staying up a few extra hours at night, just to make sure Blake is accounted for, then so be it.

I set myself up in a comfortable position, and prepare for a long night.

Griffin Ellings.
Macatawa, Michigan.

Wrapped up beneath a tree trunk, I doze uneasily in the night's chill.

I've been camping once before. Neither of my first two foster families took me, for obvious reasons. Max brought me once, but it was less of a vacation and more of an outdoors lesson. Well, I wish more of it had stuck, because I have no fire, no tent, and not a single idea what I'm doing out here.

Max was never the warmest, but at least when I was out with him, I knew he would be there to protect me if anything happened. Here, of course, there's no one but me to watch out against whatever might be out there in the darkness. Not that I'm sure I've seen anything yet. At this time of year, there will be moose or bears out, no doubt. I've got a knife, if it comes to it. But after the other night, I'm not sure I want to use it. Having the others hear any sort of message that I've killed—that will only confirm the rumors that I'm dangerous, violent, some sort of monster.

Are they even rumors anymore, though? My reaction proved that what Trina said was true. So what's there to lose?

Especially when Seraphina has already died tonight. Making it seven now, after Trina, Simone, Quincy, Giles, Shane… and someone else. A wave of guilt rolls through me, not just because I've forgotten the other person, but because I'm actually relieved to have whoever they are out of my mind. It's better not to remember them. But that's an awful way to think.

At least I still have the capacity to mourn Seraphina. It hurt even worse, hearing of it in such a callous and impersonal way. Not that we were ever best friends—God knows I wouldn't have allowed that—but we liked each other, I think. At least, respected each other from a distance. I should have made more of an effort with her; just because we weren't in the same friend group shouldn't have meant we couldn't have spent more time together. And even if I didn't know her, she deserved far more respect than she's been given out here.

I wrap myself further in my sweatshirt—it's a little snug, but at least it's warm—and close my eyes again. I'm so, so tired. And it's only the first day. If I'm this exhausted, physically and emotionally, how weary will I be in a few days? I have no way of knowing what I'll be like by then. Alive, hopefully, but in what kind of shape? I can only hope I'm still in one piece. Or that I haven't gone completely crazy or something.

It's weird to think about how different things could be in only a matter of days, but to be fair, I'm already so much different now than from when we first arrived at camp. So much in my life has changed… not only with being here, with my classmates likely out to kill me and I, in theory, out to kill them. But also with the knowledge of how my family at home is taking my loss.

With a day to calm down from what happened with Trina the other night, I can think more clearly about how it happened. Now I realize it was all orchestrated. What they said about me wasn't wrong, necessarily, but it could easily have been embellished on paper. Even if it wasn't, that boy who did those things was fourteen. How can I possibly think I would ever stoop to that level of rage again? Living with my new family—my real family, now that they've adopted me—has straightened me out even if age hasn't, which I swear it has.

At least, it has so much as normal life goes. Now I'm somewhere where violence is actually going to be necessary. But until it comes to it, I don't know if I'll be capable of it anymore. I've spent the last four years making sure I'd never do that again. I've beat myself up countless times over the way I ruined a good family and a good situation. I was happy there before I went and messed it up! And now, I'm here. Which wouldn't have happened had I not gone to Haversmith… which wouldn't have happened if Max and Camilla hadn't adopted me… which wouldn't have happened if I'd just learned to keep my cool.

I guess it's fate, if you believe in that, or God's plan, if you're religious. Which I'm not, or wouldn't be even if I had been before seeing six of my classmates get their throats ripped out. No good being would let that happen. I do hold faith in karma, though, and it seems I'm getting mine.

That doesn't mean I have to accept it. I can prove that this isn't what I truly deserve—that I've changed for the better, and deserve another chance at life. Yet to do that, I'll have to survive this. I'll definitely have to kill someone. Do I dare risk it all, just for a chance to live a life that, in spite of that, will surely still be broken and scarred beyond repair?

Or haven't I already?

Yes, the mistakes I've made have put me in a terrible place. But rolling over and accepting this fate, giving up, doesn't make that right. If I want a chance to find closure, to right my wrongs, I'll have to fight against the darkness.

And to do so, I'll need to remember who I really am, especially when everything has been stripped from me. This is an opportunity for me to reset, because nothing in my life matters anymore, only what I do from here on out.

For once, I have complete control.

Calmed by this realization, I close my eyes again. The woods and my thoughts are quiet, though I'm far from comfortable. But in time, I feel myself falling slowly into sleep.

Free by Broods.

24th: Seraphina Corvo. Died from Grievous Wounds.

I realize this is long overdue. In my defense, I meant to write this back in the fall because my course load was lighter, but I fucked around and concussed myself playing volleyball so this story physically couldn't happen for a bit (read: the last 5ish months. Post-concussion syndrome is a bitch and a half). As for the entire year before that, honestly, I don't know why I didn't just sit down and do this. I could have been doing anything. Use your imagination. Make me look cool.

In regards to Seraphina, she was the first ever form I received for this story. To EverlastingImpression: thank you for being so accommodating and allowing me to use her! As we both talked about, unfortunately she was never meant to live for very long… but I liked getting to show her growth, even if it was only for a few days. She was lovely to write for!

Benefactors have been posted on the blog: themurderedhg on Blogger

The soundtrack still slaps: The Murdered Do Haunt Their Murderers on Spotify

Plus there's a few tumblr blogs: themurdered for aesthetics, heathensofhaversmith for moodboards/memes. Shoutout to Alice Kingsleighs for being my meme dealer for that last one.

Till next time!