I've come too far to see the end now, even if my way is wrong.

DROWNING.
CHAPTER 20.

Alexander Grim.
Los Angeles, California.

Mariana's limp under me. But she's not dead, not yet. Her head and face are coated red and the room reeks of gore and filth and the more I try not to breathe, the more the stench soaks into my throat. Don't think. Just strike.

I can't pierce her head and the more I try, the more I try and fail to drive the knife into her forehead, the closer I come to understanding what it is I'm doing. The knife slides choppily across her forehead and I give up, plunging it deep into the side of her neck.

Already passed out, she doesn't feel her death as it comes, vibrating along my wrist like a buzzing alarm. I'm on my feet before her body drops fully, the squeak of my sneakers on the slick tile muffled by the dry thudding of her head back against the seat, and then against the floor.

I see the dining room before me in a haze of blurring specks and colors and shake my vision clear. With it, a single thought springs to mind: where did they go? The dining room's empty. I'd wager the kitchen's empty, but I waste time checking, just to be safe. It's not only empty, but almost entirely barren but for their packs, abandoned in the rush to defend Mariana, and a tub of picked-over ice cream. My stomach churns—with hunger, or nausea? I can't differentiate the two anymore—but hunger doesn't overcome me. I'm all fury, all heated frustration in the wake of another, another betrayal.

I don't give staying and exploring an option; my legs are back in motion because it's them that I want, now, not whatever resources they may or may not have had and then kept from me. I'm scanning the trails, surveying the land around the cabins down the hill. Motion—there: two shapes near the lake, heading for the tree line.

Not if I can help it. I take off after them, feet carrying me faster, faster so my mind can't catch up. Down the slope, across the lawn. My jaw clenches, brow furrows as I recognize it as the place where Audrey and I talked, only three days ago. No, no, I can't forgive her. Can't forgive either of them, after what they've nearly done. Not only in not helping me, the only time I've ever been weak enough to beg the way I did (it's betrayal, is what it is from them—weakness, is what it is from me), but then in trying to trap me, catch me unaware? After all we've gone through? I can't let that behavior go. The time is well past for forgiveness—it's time to punish someone other than myself.

Pressure swells behind my skull, and I'm nearly dizzy with the instant onset of my headache, ebbing and flowing with the sharp, insidious pinch in the side of my abdomen. I'm not stronger than the pain, but I can outrun it. Yes, even with the head start, I'm gaining on them. I'm fast, always have been; it's the only good thing about my stupid skinny build, that even if I'm not that muscular I'm quick enough to make up for it. But where I'm fast on my feet, Madison's strong and enduring, her quads propelling her forwards beyond the water.

She doesn't wait up, and Audrey falls behind.

Everything aches. My lungs, the back of my head, where Audrey slammed me into the floor. The fury swells up in me again, fury at the remembrance I'm not enough. I'm not stronger than my pain, and I'm losing steam, lactic acid coursing through my calves, chest fiery even as my throat goes cold and numb with the effort of gasping against the wind.

Then Audrey freezes in place, whirling around to face me. I halt, more out of shock than anything.

"What do you want from us?" she yells, breeze whipping across the water and coating her words. She's still twenty feet away, panting and wheezing but still managing to hold herself upright. "We told you, we have nothing. You want to see for yourself, head back to the kitchen."

Hatred burns into the pit of my stomach, its grimy fingers interlaced with shame's slick grip. I despise her for how strong she seems—how strong they've all seemed. They've been eating, hydrating, probably sleeping just fine with the others around to watch their backs. They don't deserve that, not when I've been beaten into the fucking floor out here. It's not fair! "You're lying," I breathe. "I know you have supplies, you had your packs, and—and there's three of you guys, you've made it this long, no way you've got nothing left. And—" I cough, lungs still heaving with the effort of a full-blown sprint out of the dining hall, budding tears in the corners of my eyes. "You both lied to me."

"About what?"

"About Mariana!"

"She wasn't—" Audrey cries out in frustration. But her next words are muffled by the wind.

"What?"

"I said, you don't even care!" she shouts. "You'll see what you want to see no matter what anyone says to you. I should have known that, because God knows we've been through it oh so many times."

My stomach drops. "Don't bring that up again."

She just scoffs, the antagonism making my fingers clench. "Now you don't want to hear it?"

I don't, because now I know she's right. And I don't need to be reminded of my own mistakes, the fact that I ruined this, us, based off an unfounded assumption that when she disappeared on prom night she was upstairs, and someone else was fucking my date. Because that wasn't the truth, but the damage is done. I've ruined us.

I've ruined myself, too.

I can't stand knowing I'm wrong. As we eye each other, distance spanning even further than the physical space between us, I realize I can't even tell which of us is predator, which is prey. The knife is loose in my grip, palms slippery with perspiration, trepidation, vexation… but where has my resolve gone? That urge to lash out, to punish her, to make her pay?

The truth is, I don't know how to kill her. I don't know if I can, now that my thoughts have caught up with me.

She shakes her head at me, the simple expression of disapproval sending shivers dripping down from my shoulders into my toes. "What now? Madison's gone. Mar's dead… are you about ready to beat me into a pulp, too?"

I'm unable to even move my fingers, shame holding my limbs stony, not steady. She really thinks so little of me. Maybe she always did.

Now that the fury's past… all I can feel is regret. Regret for who I am, for every goddamn inch of me that's never, ever been worthy of anyone's sustained sympathy, that's been eventually despised by everyone who dares come close.

I try to open my mouth, to retort or tell her off, but no sound comes out. She stares coldly at me, her mere expression more substantial than my entire being, now. I've always been so drawn to her, but now, I just want her to be gone.

She takes off running again, and it takes a second for my fuzzy brain to process her movements, to shake the rigidity from my limbs. Go. Go! Finally my legs decide to fucking work and I'm on her trail, and she has to know I'm too fast for her, but she's pushing, straining to make it past the lake. I lash my hand out, close enough to tug at her hair. She shrieks as she's jerked sideways, thrown to the ground. I stumble with the change of speed, overrunning her by several steps, and it's this that forces me to pause, just feet away from her.

She's pushed up on both hands, her back and legs against the reeds of the bank. She grips a knife in her right fist, half-pressed into the mud. The sight of it brings my rage back in full force, beyond speaking, beyond anything other than lunging at her instinctively, animalistically, my own blade on course to drag open the skin of her exposed neck and uncover the layers of flesh and fluid underneath.

Our weapons strike, slightly staggered. It's hers that cuts quicker, deeper, the instant shock causing my grip to slip and I reflexively recoil, grabbing for my hip. She rips the blade out before I can even touch a finger to it and it can't be that serious, it's just my hip—but suddenly all the pain, the exhaustion, internal and external, rushes into one place and expresses itself in an explosion of agony. I curl into it, limbs rigid as I writhe to force it out, out, out of me, but it remains, so potent and crushing and suffocating. I have no effort to spare to keep Audrey from pushing me away from her and scrambling to her feet.

She doesn't even spare a glance back at me as she escapes into the trees.

I suck a breath in through my teeth, trying to keep from crying out, trying to find which position feels the least crushing when any attempt to press my hands over the wound sends hissing pain into my side. Then I remember my pack, twisted under my shoulder blade. I claw through it until I find my roll of bandages, all but tearing them apart in my manic rush to press them into my hip.

I grunt with the pressure; it's all I'll allow myself to voice even though there's no one left nearby to hear me.

The wound's not too deep, the bandages sufficiently staunching the blood flow. I try to slow my breath, force my panic to subside, and assure myself I'm not dying, I'm fine. I'm fine.

Except I'm not.

I'm not safe, I'm not whole, and I'm not fine. I feel entirely broken down. But I'm alive. I'm still alive.

And they're going to pay for it.

They're all going to pay for it.

Jeremiah Whittaker.
Calgary, Alberta.

I've grown used to the relative silence, but it doesn't mean it's any less tense. I find myself eying Monica, trying to make sense of her quiet. She glances over at me, quickly, panicked, like a deer spooked by sound. I duck away, almost feeling guilty… but why?

I had no power to protect anyone. I know I'm nearly nobody, in the grand scheme of things; almost entirely insignificant were it not for Freya and Monica. I owe it to both of them to keep going, to keep from looking as directionless as I feel.

My purchase on the trail is slick under my sneakers, and I catch myself before I can slip in the dust. It's the same steep part of the slope I remember from our first day, suggesting that we've reached our destination. What we do when we get there, though, is beyond me; the simple act of moving out, away, far away from Juliet's dead body is about as much as I could muster today.

But maybe it's too much to ask that Monica might speak up. Freya, too, seems to want to defer, but for a different reason entirely, hers built on trust and codependence.

The forest density reduces and the brush thins out, and there's camp again, looking somehow more decayed and dilapidated in our days-long absence. My abdomen tightens as I'm reminded of the last night we spent here: the letters, the fighting, the gassing, the executions…

And then the thought crosses my mind that being anxious about things that have passed is woefully foolish. I should be focusing on the day to come. Besides, the worst that can happen is that I die… which, at this point, is highly likely. I shouldn't waste time worrying about it.

But fear is a hell of a lot harder to banish than it sounds. Even rationality isn't going to drive that sinking feeling away.

As far as our security here stands, we know the camp is abandoned. The girls that were here this morning have since scattered. Alex is still located at the far end of the lake, but frankly, there's nowhere else to go at this point where we'll feel entirely safe. At least we have a way to keep an eye on him. And we've got weapons, should it come to it. For all of our sakes, I hope it doesn't.

"Where to?" I find myself asking, hoping someone else has an answer where I don't.

We stand, surveying camp, for a few silent moments. Sunbeams reflect off the swirling dust, a heavy breeze picking up across the exposed landscape.

Freya eventually breaks the silence. "The dining hall's right here, let's try that first. Honestly, I've had to pee for like, the last hour." A small smile peeks at the edges of her lips, but it's gone in seconds. "Does that work?"

"Lead the way," I assent, grateful to have a moment of following.

The doors are ajar, the few visible tables and chairs from my angle disturbed. I peer at my watch again, but no one's inside. Still, we proceed cautiously.

Monica and Freya tail off towards the kitchens, citing hunger as a need to check there first. I watch them go before turning towards the restrooms—and immediately freezing, stomach dropping on sight.

Mariana's bloodied face greets me. It's her closed eyes that keep me from entirely losing it, but she's certifiably, undeniably dead. Has been for a few hours, judging by the death announcement that came through earlier. I don't know if that makes it better or worse.

Bile rises in my throat as the sight of her pale, bloated skin sinks in. Worse. Definitely worse.

I pull the door shut with a slam, not even giving myself the chance to stare at the bloodied mess for any longer. Her? It? What do I even call her at this point, when she's just a messed up body, a corpse, entirely gone? I swallow my sickness down, inhaling deeply through my nose.

"Jeremiah?" The slamming has alerted both Monica and Freya, who peer out of the kitchen, concerned.

I shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to get the image out of my head. "There's a body in there."

There's silence, processing. Monica tests, "Who?"

"Never mind," I say, blinking my eyes and allowing my vision to come back into focus. "You both can use the men's room first, go ahead. I'll keep lookout."

Freya eyes me curiously as they go by, but I keep my gaze averted. Thankfully, neither of them is eager to push open the ladies' room door and expose me to what I'm trying to avoid. After a few minutes, I take their place while they head back to the kitchen, trying to shake my disturbance. When I come back out, they've got a few extra packs open on the floor.

"Not sure whose these are…" Freya says. "There's not much to eat in them, anyways."

I'm not surprised, but my stomach still clenches with fear. Every hour that passes without anything to eat just breaks down my resolve a little bit further. "What's in them?"

She empties the contents fully. There are a few sweatshirts, water tablets, and first aid materials, but no food. Of course not. But it's better than nothing.

One's clearly Mariana's. But I don't even want to know what happened to the others for them to lose their only remaining possessions.

"We should probably find somewhere else to camp out," I find myself saying. In terms of shelter and space, the dining room is about as nice as it gets. But I can't get over the presence of Mariana's body, hanging over the relative peace of the place. "…In case they come back for their supplies."

We try the lodge next, but are unlucky with the doors, which are locked tight. I'm surprised, then, when I press on the door to the first cabin and find it yields, but as the door swings open it becomes evident why there was no need to lock the door: there's nothing in here worth keeping locked up. The beds are stripped of their pillows, blankets, mattresses, any residual semblance of comfort. The shelves, too, are empty. There's nothing of value left over, but at this point, I'm just grateful for some sort of way to stay out of the cold tonight. At the very least, it will give us four walls of protection, even if the chances are slim to none that the heater will be working tonight. Guess it's a good thing we've got those sweatshirts, even if I feel guilty about the fact they're not ours and the only reason we've come across them is because something unspeakable happened to their owners.

I check my watch again as Freya unpacks the bags and sets the sweatshirts and other supplies out on the shelves for easier organization, but no one moves toward us. Still, I feel uneasy, as if something's about to jump out at us. I've lived so sheltered for eighteen years to the point that the mere presence of other people on this mountain has me feeling nervous. I wish I'd never taken my safety at home for granted.

"J."

I jump. Both Monica's and Freya's eyes are on me, as if waiting for a response. "What?"

"Just wondering what the plan is now."

I'm still not sure how I'm the one who's somehow been trusted to make decisions for the three of us. Isn't it obvious I have no idea what to do anymore? But if we've made it this far, I can keep up appearances, for their sake as well as mine. "We can go out again to look for food in a bit. But for now… I'm sure we're all tired. Let's try to get some rest while we can."

Griffin Ellings.
Macatawa, Michigan.

Brandon's face stares back at me, somewhat scratched up and muddied but otherwise fully intact. He's… not dead?

"Griffin," he says simply, sounding almost surprised to see me.

My first emotion is frustration. I've just gone through hours of hiking and half-jogging to stay away from the shape marked Blake Chapman on my screen, only to find out once I'm trapped against a rock wall with no other option but to stand my ground that it isn't even him, and that all my stress over the fact that he was probably, definitely, maybe going to try to kill me—I mean, who's to say what he would have done to me?—was for nothing. Yeah, I'm annoyed.

And parched. And dizzy. I've spent more time the last few days trudging through the undergrowth and steaming with sweat than the rest of my life combined, and to no one's surprise I'm not really built for this. Couple that with days of malnutrition and under-hydration and my legs feel heavier, my breathing shallower. I don't have the energy to play nice.

"What are you playing at?"

"Whoa," he says, raising his hands. "What are you talking about?"

"Scaring me into running. Driving me all the way over here." I'm fully aware that my annoyance is creeping into my expression and dripping from every word. "Don't act like you're shocked to see me here, like you haven't been following me the whole way."

"I'm sorry," he says quickly, and it's so unlike him to immediately apologize that I'm caught off-guard. What is he doing?

I spare a glance back to my left. I fled as far east as I could from him until I reached what's essentially a dead end. The ledge above me is far too high to climb. The drop down to my left is steep, but I can't fully judge how far it is. I weigh my odds against it for a second time. Would it kill me? Probably not, but the landing is rocky and jagged. Chances are I'd be lucky to get out of that jump with some scrapes and maybe a shattered ankle. Whereas up here, I have no idea what Brandon's capable of. What he's here for. I didn't give him much of a chance to explain himself when I saw the shape moving towards me on the map, just packed everything and started moving as Blake Chapman approached…

"Okay, wait," I say, glancing into the trees. There's no movement to be seen, but I have to trust my gut and its suspicion. "First off, you're supposed to be dead, I'm pretty sure. So how are you here? Why does it show you as Blake on here?"

"It—it does?"

I let him glance at my watch, take in the dwindling numbers spread across the watch face. There are thirteen of us left alive… just under half of the group we started with. I wait for the pang to come after the realization, but there is none. Good. Maybe I'm finally hardening.

"So," he starts, once his curiosity is sated. "Yeah, I'm not dead. Blake, though…" Pain flashes across his face as he stutters. "Anyways, there was an error with the watches, I don't know why, but the deaths were mixed up, and I…"

He trails off. I wait for him to continue, growing impatient as the silence extends. "Did you kill Blake?"

Brandon nods, swallowing thickly. He doesn't look at me.

"Why?"

Blake keeps his eyes down. It almost looks like shame, but I know that feeling more than anyone. It's not shame keeping his gaze from meeting mine. Even the pause he takes before answering could be interpreted as regret, but I can tell instead he's considering, coming up with a reasonable lie. I've done that, too.

"Actually, forget it," I tell him. "I know you're lying."

He looks at me then, face slack with shock. "Griff, why would I lie about that?"

"I don't know," I say, keeping one hand on the back of my waistband, where my knife is stowed. My eyes flash among the trees behind him, sensitive to any sudden movements, any suspicious sounds. "But I don't believe you."

"I... I'm sorry," he says, voice lowered. "You don't have to believe me. I don't blame you. I wouldn't believe me either."

It's that sympathy that makes me almost change my mind on the spot. Brandon, accepting my inability to believe him, is almost as much of a shock as him showing up in the first place rather than Blake. But then the truth strikes me—it's not true. Every word that comes out of his mouth is likely carefully crafted to ensure a proper response on my end. And I hate feeling like I'm inferior, secondary in this conversation.

The thing is, I want to trust him. He's the first person I've seen in days. But I still remember the way he looked at me that first night out here, or rather, how he refused to as we were pushed out of the vans. He didn't want to help me then; maybe he didn't think I was worth it. Maybe he was afraid of me... I wouldn't blame him, if I'd been lucky enough to hear Trina's cruel words about me without having a thing to do with it. I'd be afraid of me, too.

"It just doesn't make sense," I say. "That shit about the watches." It's unlike me to swear, but part of me is pretty damn furious he's trying to take advantage of me, like there's much to even give at this point. I have almost nothing. No food, no supplies. No energy. No reason to keep going.

Except. Except for that same desire to keep fighting that's kept me alive through home after home, one abusive family after another. The fight in me that's bubbled over only once, unforgivingly far, causing me to lash out against the only people who'd ever almost loved me.

And now I look to Brandon. Was he ever a friend? I can't say he ever did anything to hurt me, not directly. But my chest is icy with the memory of him dropping my gaze, assuming the worst of me when I needed someone, anyone, as we prepared to leave the vans. Instead, he took his pack and left with the others, leaving me defenseless and alone on the worst night of my life.

It's not really his fault. But it's not my fault either. And if he chooses to fear me, I can easily give him something to be afraid of.

"Well? Don't you agree?"

"It didn't make sense to me either," he says after a pause.

"That's because it's not true," I maintain. There's still no sound or movement in the trees, but I don't trust that. In my experience, relative quiet frequently precedes noise, fire, pain. I've never had true calm, only calm that's quickly overcome by crushing, destructive storming. "Where's Blake, Brandon?"

"He's not—"

"Where is he?"

As the words leave my lips, the bullet comes whistling out of the trees, missing me by several feet but setting my entire body aflame with panic. Instinct takes over and I surge towards Brandon, throwing myself on top of him as he turns to run. He's stronger, more muscular than me for obvious reasons, but I'm big, too. And I've got surprise on my side.

Of course they were working together. Screw you. Screw you both, I think.

Brandon's trapped underneath me. I'm working off the assumption that Blake won't try to shoot me again for fear of hitting Brandon this time. But I have to strike before Brandon regains momentum and hurts me. Kill him before he can kill me. The concept makes me dizzy. I have to. I pull the knife from my waistband and throw my arm downward, driving the blade into the space between his chest and his shoulder.

Brandon gasps sharply with the initial shock, gaping up at me, too stunned to move. I yank the blade out and aim again for his throat, but he kicks under me and the knife cuts through shirt and skin, landing inches from my first cut.

This time, he feels all of it. Brandon yells out— brutal, horrid, hellishly loud. It momentarily snaps me back to reality, sends fear coursing cold down to my fingertips as I find myself back in a terrifyingly familiar position, with a face contorted in pain and terror below me. For an instant, I think, What am I doing? Isn't this exactly what they expect me to be? What they want me to be?

And as quickly as it comes, the hesitation dissipates. He came here to kill me; everything I do now is simple self-preservation. It doesn't matter what they think—what anyone thinks.

I need to live. I need to survive this!

"Blake!" Brandon cries.

"No!" I snarl.

The blade is lodged below his shoulder. I try to pull it out but before I can get a solid purchase on the handle, Blake barrels into me. I'm knocked sideways, my breath shot from my lungs like I've been plunged into ice water. There's a sharp snap as we both hit the ground, Blake shouting in pain as I groan and gasp for air. In my periphery, I can see Brandon dragging himself away from us, skin pale and mouth still frozen agape, gripping at the knife in his shoulder.

"Stop!"

"No!" I gasp. "You did this. You did this to me."

There's a burst as his gun fires. Pain explodes in my left thigh and I scream, my voice intermixing with his shouts. That's when I see how awkwardly bent his wrist is- the kick hurt him, too, into dropping the gun. I thrash for it, but Blake throws a punch with his left fist, connecting with the side of my head. Rage and panic overwhelm me and then I'm on top of him, not quickly enough to keep him from lurching for the weapon, snapping it into his fingers and shooting again—this time, point-blank into my abdomen. I fold over, vision spotted with pain. Fury and adrenaline take over. I pull my hands from my stomach and strike at his face—once, twice, again, again. Blood splatters his skin. His nose snaps and there's more bleeding, so much red, and it's all I can see.

I don't stop. I can't stop. But the pain is swelling up from my leg, from my stomach, and my strikes are becoming weaker. Blake kicks into my stomach, right into the wound, and I howl, curling up around myself. He takes the moment of respite to throw me off of him and struggle to his knees, hissing and gasping with pain.

I don't move. I don't move because I see how much I'm bleeding and I'm suddenly terrified that moving is going to make everything worse, somehow, like it's not already futile. I watch as Blake helps Brandon to his feet, the former nearly unrecognizable with the blood and the bruising on his face.

"Why?" I end up gasping pathetically. "Why did you do this to me?"

Brandon shakes his head, still looking shell-shocked. "We want to live, Griffin. It's not…. It's not personal."

My humorless chuckle sounds more like a sob. "Of course, it's personal. How is it not?"

He doesn't say anything to that. My vision blurs, from blood loss or pain maybe just the beginnings of hot, furious tears.

I try to crawl to my feet, but the pain is too much. I fall back, gasping for breath, gasping against the knowledge that I'm… I'm dying. I can't be. I can't… I can't accept it.

Everything's fading—all sounds, all colors, draining from my body. I'm powerless. Utterly powerless. I can't even fight back as Blake comes up to me and pulls the pack from my shoulders—taking literally all I have left in life with it.

"Fuck you," I gasp, crumbling back to the earth, and I mean it.

His face falls, realizing what he's done—the cruelty of his last action—but he doesn't fix it, doesn't apologize. Doesn't even have the respect to finish me off himself.

Instead, he and Brandon vanish into the trees. I watch them go for as long as my vision hold, until the fury and hurt blends together into one final thought.

I never deserved any of this.

Freya Pritchard.
Fairbanks, Alaska.

"Griffin Ellings is dead, murdered by Blake Chapman."

It almost doesn't register. The immediate need to mourn him comes in so muffled behind the sheer volume of missing and mourning Juliet. Lovely, kind Juliet, who I can forgive now for wanting to kill Wesley only because now I realize the alternative—her dying instead—is so much worse.

The truth is overwhelming, swallowing and splintering what remained of my foolish hope that maybe we might all be able to save each other. More and more, it seems like my ideas have always been foolish. But I want to—no, have to—hold on!

And then I watch as Jeremiah's face falls at the news, and my heart crumbles.

For probably the tenth time today, I feel the tears press into my eyes. I don't even try to fight them. Nor do the two of us console each other the way we did earlier, gripping each other almost as if trying to convince the other that nothing that had just happened was real. But it was. Of course.

The three of us can't even acknowledge our shared grief anymore; instead, the loss of Juliet has driven a wall down between us. Monica's unlaughing, almost unspeaking, so serious it's like she's someone new entirely. Jeremiah… I don't even know how to talk to him. He's like I've never seen him.

So I'm the only one who tries to keep the conversation as the evening progresses, awkwardly interrupting the silences before they get too long. I can't even feel embarrassed for it because I can't afford to sit in the quiet in case I start thinking. "What do you think happened earlier?" I find myself asking. "With Mar. And Alex." I shouldn't ask, but as night settles into the seams of our alliance, I can't help my nervous curiosity. "I mean, maybe it was self-defense, or…"

"I saw Mariana," Jeremiah says simply. "She was the body in the bathroom."

I take in his stoic features, the way he tries to hold his face solemn, but behind it there's a rush of emotion he can't quite hide from behind his eyes. He kept that from me… as another way to protect me. "Oh," I say simply, and drop it.

"Excuse me," Monica says as she rises to her feet. "I've just—sorry. I need some time to myself."

"You okay?"

I'm surprised, somehow, by the honesty of her answer. "Fuck no. No, I'm not. And this isn't helping things, you trying to talk about everyone who's already dead. At all. Just… I'll be back in a bit."

Monica pushes herself away towards the other end of the line of cabins. An apology fizzles on my tongue, too insubstantial to take form.

"Let's not talk about that," Jeremiah agrees. He must see the redness in my cheeks even in the flickering light of the fire, because he reaches his hand out to me, laying it on top of mine. "It's just hard. You know that."

"It's all hard," I say, tears making the fire swim and swell in front of me before I blink them away. "I don't like the quiet. Can't we talk about anything without it being so painful?"

He sighs. "Probably not. Everything's going to remind me of before. I keep just thinking about home and trying to convince myself that it's still possible to make it back to the way things were. And then working through all the ways I might not have ended up here. Like, what if we'd never ended up at Haversmith? And then I realize that's selfish, because someone else would be here in my spot. We can't win."

I try, as I've tried so many times before, to see life through his eyes. He's thought about this much more deeply than I have, allowing his empathy to guide his mentality even where everything surrounding us is so cruel. In his face I recognize the boy I met halfway through my freshman fall, a little nerdy and a little awkward but, more obviously, so genuinely kind and empathetic. But now I also see someone who's so much more weathered and tired, beyond what a simple night's sleep can fix.

I wish I could save him. But I don't know if I can reverse the damage that's already been done.

"What's going to happen to us?" I whisper, paranoia starting to settle in.

He doesn't say I don't know. Nor does he try to calm me, even if I know that any attempt is a lie. It's nicer than what he does say, which is "It doesn't matter." His words are laced with more venom than I've ever heard from him, much less directed at me.

"What?" I say reactively.

"I'm sorry," he says quickly. "It's been a hard day, Freya."

"It's okay."

"It's not," he mumbles. "None of this is. I-" He shakes his head, climbing to his feet. "I'm going to go check on Monica. The sitting here, thinking, waiting… it's not good for me."

I want to stop him, help him talk through it, but I know I'm of no help to him right now. Not to Monica, either. "Yeah, go see if she's alright," is all I say, my words feeling suddenly so insignificant. I swallow the lump in my throat as he goes, locking my gaze onto the fading flames of our campfire. I shudder as the chill settles in between the seams of my sleeves, my breath igniting the air in front of me.

He's right. The sitting can't be good for us. And the fire's dying, too, because once we got it going, just a few feet from the cabin, no one really wanted to head back down and grab more wood for later. I'm hopeless at starting fires, but I can at least keep this one going. In any case, I should probably make myself useful. Because it's not like I've done much to help anyone out around here.

My knees wobble as I stand, the dizziness almost immediate. Down the slope, across the lawn, the tree cover grows thicker, shading the last of today's sunlight. Nervousness creeps along my spine, but there's nothing to jump out at me, to grab me, to hurt me. Nothing but me.

I trudge back with a bundle of branches that, once dropped into the fire, are evident that they'll do little to keep the fire going. Shame presses into my cheeks, my eyes tearing up. I hurry back and go in further, the breeze tickling my neck. With a new pile of wood in my arms, I twist inwards on myself to pull my sweatshirt tighter. But the chills don't go away.

This isn't enough, either. The flames crumble and crackle as they consume the new tinder but they're hungry, so hungry. I'm so hungry. Another pile, this one thrown against the side of the cabin in frustration, teeters over and drops into the flames. I go back into the trees for more, tears prickling in my eyes as the wind spits my hair back into my face, tangling against my eyes. I bat it away until I feel substantially pathetic and exhausted and just… so tired.

And then everything comes falling down, any efforts at damming my emotions obsolete, the floodgates not opening but bursting. It's no longer hot, sticky tears pressed into my eyes, but sobs that wrack my body, burn my throat, and leave me lightheaded with despair.

There's no one to see me sob but still, I feel so ashamed for it. Even if Jeremiah says he won't judge me, even if Monica feels the same grief I do, I know the way they've looked at me today. Like I don't get it. Like I'm lesser. And maybe they don't really mean it, but I know that look. I've seen it too many times before.

The sobs eventually slow, and I can shudder in some deeper breaths, calming my emotions just a bit. No one can see me, but I don't need an audience to feel embarrassed of myself for crying all day.

I wipe the tears away with the backs of my knuckles and pick up the bundle of wood that I dropped, not exactly ready to go back, but accepting the fact that I have to.

It's only as I come out of the trees that I can really see how much brighter the flames have become. I swear I couldn't see the fire from here the last time I went down here…

That's when I put two and two together, realizing the flames are not only higher, but they're feasting on the edges of the cabins. The first is entirely alight. Our bags are in there, I realize with horror. But that's not the worst part.

There's nearly no space between the cabins. It's not just the first that's aflame, but the second, the third, nearly two-thirds of the way down the row… as I race across the lawn, heart in my throat, I watch as the flames course across the old, dry wood, leaping across the roofs of each cabin, consuming them one by one.

This is my fault. This is my fault. This is MY fault! I inhale and get a throat full of chalky smoke. "Jeremiah! Monica!"

They can't hear me. I gag and cough to clear my lungs and yell their names again but I'm too far and the wind is too loud and I've done this, what have I done—

"Freya!"

I'd know his voice anywhere, if it were one of a thousand voices in a crowded room, I'd know his in an instant. Where is he? Which cabin did they go to? The fire's faster than I ever imagined it could be and it's on me to make it to him first, but I don't know where they went!

I start to call his name again, but it's cut off. There's a roar as the fourth cabin flares up brighter than the rest.

And I watch from afar as the roof caves in.

Nothing Left to Say by Imagine Dragons.

13th: Griffin Ellings. Killed by Blake Chapman and Brandon Prescott.

Yikes. This one took a minute. I could blame the summer classes or the moving back to college or the general COVID depression but honestly this chapter was just hard? I had it mostly done for at least a month and just… couldn't finish it. But regardless, here we are!

Griffin's was another death I chose to move up based on his alliance situation (none) and the fact that honestly, I didn't develop him as much as I wanted to early on and by the time we got to the Games portion, I just found myself really struggling with him. A great character nonetheless, definitely one of the main three from this cast I would have loved to have seen explored in Darkest Desires, as I just don't feel like I did him well enough. He'll be missed!

Wanted to take this time to say thank you for the recent reviews—shoutout especially to Spade, whoever and wherever you are! You're a guest so I can't respond properly to your reviews but they were SO kind and I just blushed and smiled all stupid the whole time I read them. Even rereading them just makes me so happy! Glad you're enjoying this so far :)

Not much else to say for now. Please stay safe and healthy, and if you're not registered to vote, now is an excellent time to do so!

Take care,

-socks