Trigger warning for brief mentions of self-harm in Chanel's POV from the words "It's hatred…" until the end of the coinciding paragraph.

Cause I've done some things that I can't speak
And I've tried to wash you away, but you just won't leave

CHAPTER 23.
IMPURITY.

Brandon Prescott.
San Francisco, California.

As night falls, Chanel keeps her distance.

I turn Blake's watch over and around in my hands, its screen muted but back online. It's all I could make myself take from him. I left his pack, all his supplies, because we didn't need it enough to merit stealing what was his. But as my watch is broken, I know he'd be fine with me using his, now. Not like I wasn't already borrowing it.

I tap the screen, again, an idle gesture at this point. When I tap the black circle denoting my location, it's my face that appears, not Blake's, my toothy, idyllic smile hinting at a simpler time. Earlier, Chanel brought up that a similar thing had happened when she'd taken over using Seraphina's watch, that it had essentially become hers, displaying her face and name along with her location rather than Seraphina's.

"That didn't happen with me and Blake originally," I'd said, and explained about breaking my watch.

"Probably because he didn't die in the process," she'd grumbled, and then moved away.

The pang strikes me again, like a saber through my chest. Blake is gone. I don't like saying that he's dead because it sounds so clinical and so permanent. But he's gone, and it isn't fair.

Rest evades me. My mind is a flurry of thoughts and distractions, reminding me of Blake's prone body, limp and bloody. Of Blake, hours before he died, cracking jokes with me on the way down the mountain, just as we'd always done. Of Gabrielle, her savage features as she cruelly slit his throat. Loathing isn't a strong enough word to describe what I feel for her. But she's dead now. I can't take it out on her. She's dead and there's five of us left instead. Me, Chanel, Madison, Alex, and Audrey. That's it.

It's almost unbelievable that so many of us are dead, when just over a week ago we were all on that bus together, thinking we were being brought into town. Just over a week ago, I was sitting at the same lunch table as Yuto, Blake, Wesley, Alaina, Eimer. And now they're all dead. Every last one.

"You ever think about who else could have been here?" I wager into the darkness, trying to bury my grief in some attempt at cheap conversation. I know Chanel's listening; she's only pretending to ignore me. "Like, last five. If you were going to make a dream team of Haversmith students who were going to fight their way through this sort of thing, who'd be here right now?"

"That's fucked up," she says from fifteen feet away, after a pause. But after a moment of consideration, she indulges me. "Me, for starters. You, because you'll be pissed at me if I don't say your name, so. Quincy, let's be real, he would have smoked the shit out of some of us." She laughs, but it's cold, too. "And then, probably Gabrielle and Shane."

Gabrielle's name alone fills me with rage. And I shouldn't, but I test her. "Really? Gabrielle over Blake or Wes?"

She doesn't respond. Exactly. I push her again. "You really hate him."

"I don't hate Blake," she says.

"That's not who I was talking about, and you know it."

Silence, again. I look over towards my right and I can just make out her features in the darkness, the way she kneads her hands in her lap. What's making her tick?

"You never actually told me why you guys broke up," I say, finding pleasure in the way her fingers twist and knuckles whiten. "He told me his side—"

"Yes, I did," Chanel says quickly and firmly. "Wesley was a dick to me. Enough said. I don't put up with that sort of shit."

"But what did he do? I'm a dick to you all the time and you never cut me off."

"It's different. And regardless, it's none of your business."

I lick at my lips, trying to formulate another request. It isn't the time. We're still reeling from this afternoon, or she is—she's tried to keep herself way too busy, organizing and reorganizing our bags, pacing around, and thinking out loud. Except maybe we don't have much time left, anyway, and fuck it, I'm curious. "It is, though. Because I'm friends with both of you, or I was, and you don't even let me joke about how fuckable he is, you just say I'm not allowed to talk about him like that around you."

"It's not you," she says, and I can hear the composure being fraught in the wavering of her tone. In the darkness, I can just discern her narrowed eyes, the way her face flushes with anger. "I'd say that to anyone."

"That's what I'm saying," I push on. "You don't get to say things like that unless you tell us why—"

"Yes, the fuck, I do," Chanel snarls. "Don't you dare try to tell me what I can and can't do. I'm not your bitch, Prescott. Now shut. The fuck. Up. Before this gets messy."

She's made it plenty clear to herself, at least, that she's not to be toyed with or manipulated. She turns away from me, curling sideways against her tree. But she already has been. What she saw as a choice to pair up with me was on my terms alone, because when she needed a knife to slaughter Gabrielle, I had a clear opportunity to slide it into her back instead. But I'm biding my time. Had I killed her there, I'd still be injured but with no one to help me make it to the last two. Every move I've made has been intentional, and she doesn't even know it.

Madison goes first. I can make that decision because just as easily, I could cut Chanel down now. She wouldn't even see it coming. But Madison goes first, and then we figure out what to do with the others.

And then, when it's clear it's just down to us two… I'll make my move.

"Fine," I say, the delay painfully clear to both of us. "Sorry I brought it up."

The silence presses in, sucking my lungs dry. The insects begin chattering anew while Chanel and I give each other nothing but sullen silence. Neither of us will sleep tonight. Not simply from nerves or fear, but because who can trust the other?

A half-hour has passed, forty minutes at most, when Chanel gets to her feet. I hear her shift in the dirt, but she's not pacing. She stands still and straight, peering at her watch.

"What's up?" I say, as if we haven't just been fighting. Unease crawls across my insides at how normal my tone sounds. Like it's the only piece of me that's remained intact as my world, my relationships, my surroundings have all been torn from my present.

She clicks her tongue and wraps the device back around her wrist. "It's just been us and Madison for a few hours," she says, rezipping her bag. "We're going to have to go after her anyways. Might as well do it now, unless you think you can sleep right now."

"Not even a little bit."

"Let's do it, then." She lifts the pack back onto her shoulders, though as I watch she wavers slightly with the effort.

She waits for me to pack my belongings. But as we head out in Madison's direction, she keeps next to me, but with a few feet to spare between us.

Audrey Spenser.
Las Vegas, Nevada.

Alexander Grim.

It's only him on the map. Still. I'm not so blind I would have missed three whole people dying, either, so it's there for a reason. One person, maybe, amidst all my puking and half-napping to try to wait out the stabbing pains in my lower abdomen. But not all of them.

Alexander Grim. Fuck's sake. What a ridiculous fucking name. And how perfect it is he's probably going to be the one to kill me. When I'd called him the Grim reaper I hadn't intended to actually mean it, but here we are, because life is fucking stupid. The best I can hope for is that this—whatever happens—passes somewhat more quickly than the hell going on inside me right now.

Turns out that awful twisting in my stomach from earlier ended up being less from nerves and more from some sort of debilitating sickness. If I prop myself up at a ridiculously specific angle against the body of a felled tree, I can avoid most of the sharp stabbing around my belly button. But it doesn't stop the vomiting. I crawl as much as I can to distance myself from my resting spot before my insides coil and I spit up bile and acid. There's nothing more to give.

Shivering, I stumble towards the water to rinse my face as cramping wracks my abdomen. My reflection appears in greyscale. I rinse my mouth and swallow more water, but it simply drains into my stomach where I can hear it grumbling, displeased at my meager offering. In minutes, I've vomited that up, too.

I curl up at the edge of the trunk base now, folded in on myself. My stupid collar is pinching at my neck no matter how I angle it, and I want to rip it off for just that extra bit of breathing room. But I can't, of course, because that's what Shane did, and he got his neck ripped out for it. I prop my head back and try to keep the tension from my body, but as much as I try to sleep off the effects of my illness, the trembling and the stress swell and compound to where I can't tell if my dizziness and flashes of hot and cold are physical or psychological.

If I had any energy to spare, I'd be pacing, or drumming my fingers, or doing something to get the nerves out of me. All I can manage is scratching at my seventy million bug bites I've somehow accumulated in mass from deciding hey, I'll set up camp next to the water so I don't have to go as far to get it, what an amazing idea! I have to try to forgive myself for knowing fuck-all about wilderness survival, but honestly, it's only proven that when I don't have anyone around to help me, I'm useless. I never would have made it past the first day if it weren't for Madison and Mariana.

And now Mariana's dead and Madison's who knows where. I lie sideways, praying that this feeling will end.

And then there's a shifting in the trees, and I roll over and he's there, not twenty feet away from me. I swear I catch air, that's how high I jump. "Jesus fucking Christ. Ever heard of knocking?"

"Wasn't really sure where to come in," he says. "Couldn't find the door."

Despite my spitfire response, I'm shaking so hard my teeth chatter. As he steps closer, I can all but see the murder in his eyes. Well, fuck. There goes any hope he was just stopping by to give me a Tums and tuck me into bed.

"You want to tell me why you're the only person on my map?" he asks.

"You say that like I'd know," I say. Then, for good measure, and because clearly nothing matters anymore, I continue, "But it's cute, if you think about it."

He chuckles flatly. "Right. Cute. Except it can't be just us."

I awkwardly push myself towards a more upright position, grimacing at every movement. Alex has his gun out—at his side, but still in hand. My knife's loosely notched in my waistband. There's a spot right on my hip where it's stained my trousers with crimson, residue from our last confrontation. Is that all he can think about, now? For some reason it saddens me that after everything, he probably can't even remember the good times anymore; everything's tainted red.

"The others are still out there," I say quietly. "But I think we were supposed to end up here."

He nods, but still doesn't move. There's a certain tension in his shoulders I can read more clearly now that we're slowed down, now that he's not so blinded by rage. The last five days—no, the last week, ever since we left campus—have not been kind to him. It's not his fault we were ripped out of our normal lives and put here in hell, to slaughter each other for sport. And it's not his fault that I had to step out of our prom for a phone call that infuriated me so much I left without so much as a word to him. He's the one who probably ended up getting high and driving himself crazy by making up scenarios in his head, but if I'd known that the fallout was going to be so devastating I never would have put him in that position.

Now we're here, after everything. And as much as I fear him, I can't hate him. It isn't fair.

"You know why I'm here," he says simply. No tiptoeing around it, and his voice is flat, void of the emotion that continues to compel me. "They wanted us together so we'd have to fight again."

"Do you want to?" I ask. My stomach churns again, and I squeeze my eyes against the onslaught of nausea. Not now… please…

"Do I want to?" he repeats. Then he laughs. "What the fuck kind of question is that?"

My head goes cold. "You can't possibly—"

"Can't I? You tried to kill me, Audrey. Right after you refused to help me. You think I'm ready to forgive that?"

"No, of course not—"

"Get up. Get up and we'll pretend this is a fair fight. Come on!" he yells. "Come on!"

My brain can't conceptualize anything beyond the drumming of my pulse, electrifying every inch of my body. I struggle to my feet, swaying with the head rush, and grip towards my waist. "I am… just let me…"

My knife. Where's my knife—it was—oh. On the ground. I stoop to pick it up, keeping my eyes on him. In the darkness his silhouette is hazy, and my hands tremble. I miss the knife on my first reach. As I grasp for it a second time, his foot presses into my side.

I fall so easily, roughly, into the dust. Heart pounding and cheeks burning, I grip at my knife. Come on. I have to have something left… I'm not this weak!

"What the fuck happened to you?" he spits.

My chest tightens as I try to quell my quickening breathing, but it's pointless. "I should ask you the same."

"Oh, you care, now? Little late for that." He steps forward, and I find myself shrinking back, mind and body so comparatively frail. "Because you had your chance and it's over. It's done, I'm past caring, and you're fucking dead to me. All of you. Especially you." There's a flare in his eyes, enough to ignite the night around us.

He shifts, readjusting his grip on his weapon. There's a rushing in my ears as reality strikes, that I'm seconds away from death. All he has to do is point his gun and fire.

I have no plan. I never had a plan. I just have two things to my name, my watch and my stupid knife. And Alex is here, which means only one of these is possibly of any use to me. With that in mind, another stupid idea flashes into my mind—a last-ditch effort to stay alive, even if I know it's hopeless.

I strip my watch from my wrist. "Can you hold onto this for me?"

"What?"

I toss the watch towards him, right at his hands. Not to hurt him, just to distract him. Because as his reflexes go to catch what's coming towards him, my own fuel me backwards—feet scrambling for purchase on the needles below as I try to run, run, get me out of here until he can't find me—

A bullet flies past my right ear. My heart skips about eight beats but this one's missed, I'm lucky enough for that, and I sprint through the trees, hoping even where my speed can't save me, the darkness might. Two more shots miss their mark as adrenaline sends me forward.

But how long can I outrun him, when my head still pounds and my stomach coils? How do I escape him when he refuses to let me go?

Madison Carell.
Coventry, Rhode Island.

I shift as much as I dare, my breathing all but silent.

I'm not sleeping. There's no point. I need to be awake for when they find me—because they will. I've hidden from this as much as I can, but that time is all but up.

I think I'm finally accepting it. I don't have much of an alternative when reality is so evident. I overthought going to camp yesterday so much I just ended up staying hidden, and while it was the safe option short-term, I'm now no better off than I was yesterday. I have no supplies to my name, not since camp burned and took all I had left with it.

When I came to camp last night, carefully, cautiously, I moved towards the lake to see if any materials had been left behind. But there were no supplies. Nothing to eat, nothing to use. Just bodies, savaged and swollen, reeking of neglect.

If I didn't know it before, I knew it then. I'm going to die.

Is it wrong, that I don't have much fight to give? Is it wrong to want to accept it? When it comes down to it, I'm sure I'll give what little I have, but with two of them against me, I'm not likely to last long.

The other option I almost toyed with was going to find Audrey again—but I can't, because I have no idea where she even is. And if her location were on my map, I don't think I'd try to pair up with her again, anyways. Leaving her behind was a thoughtless decision, inspired only by the need to preserve myself, but I have to stand by my choice to look out for myself.

Still, if Alex had ended up killing her, I don't know what I would have done with myself.

Maybe I'm about to get what's coming for that choice. If Chanel and Brandon have teamed up—and based on their locations, it's apparent they have—I'll be dealing with two larger, stronger, and probably better-fed individuals. I have my weapon, though, loaded with four bullets. Theoretically, that's all I need, isn't it?

I know better than to be any more than cautiously optimistic, because I know what that did to me before. Back in Trials, where my drive and, ironically, my size, were factors for my selection, until I choked. Until I froze under the pressure, mind lapsing, leaving me injured and ultimately, saw me retire from competition. Physically, I've recovered, but that sort of failure weighs on you, gnaws in the back of your skull even while you distract yourself with a new school and a new house and new friends, the fresh start that Haversmith was supposed to be for me.

No one here has ever known that side of me—well, until the letters. And even then, I've kept myself hidden, but not for any ulterior motive. Just so I could be me.

And here I am, about to die, largely anonymous. In all actuality, it doesn't sound so bad.

The darkness swirls around me, a light breeze tickling the hairs on the back of my neck, where my collar presses cold into my throat. I pick idly at my pant legs, flicking away dirt and plant matter to keep my hands busy. If it's the two of them, maybe there's a chance they'd turn on each other before they even got here. Right? While I've never been particularly close with either of them, you tend to hear things when you're quiet, when you've established yourself as a trustworthy confidante. Regardless, it isn't exactly private business that Chanel and Brandon both have been through their share of drama, played their hands at manipulation. I could push it, if I wanted to…

But I don't. I'm not going to stoop to that level. I've been competitive, but I'm not the manipulative type.

And so I wait. Twist the gun around in my hands, its cold outer core chilling my skin. I shiver with nerves and chill, my arms bare against the night. I keep my breathing level, inhaling just a hint of smoke with every breath. How quickly that fire faded, how quickly those deaths stopped mattering. How quickly mine will pass, too.

It's not too long as I halfway doze, eyes pressed to the watch face even as they flicker shut, before I can hear them, walking and speaking, and I know my time's almost up.

I clutch at my weapon, willing my hands to still their trembling. It's been a long time since I've had my adrenaline so high, had to forcibly quell my nerves in this way. The once-familiar feeling now only serves to tighten my chest, those old pre-routine nerves now overshadowed by clear, debilitating anxiety. Breathe, I tell myself, trying to put myself back in a focused mindset, and repeat a phrase I used to hear before competitions. Poise, courage, victory.

I hear them whispering—it's hard to stay silent when you're the only ones moving and making a sound. Asking about my whereabouts, that I must be around here somewhere, and then I see them—faceless, shaded silhouettes in the darkness. They know I'm here, just not where, precisely, because my watch is now hidden, brightened screen now dulled against my t-shirt as I grip it to my chest. Chanel whispers to him now, wondering that she's around here, let's just get this over with.

"Why don't we just call for her? See if we hear anything."

"She's not a fucking idiot," Chanel hisses. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

She's right, because if I hadn't known where they were before, Brandon's location is clear to me now. "We'll split," he says simply. "Cover this whole area."

"If you get shot, that's on you," she says simply.

And it's him who breaks towards me, taking steps he doesn't even try to keep careful—he doesn't care enough now that he's being loud. It's arrogance, is what it is—belief that he's the threat here, undeniably safe. My gun is slick in my hand, palms slippery as I point the gun at him, waiting for him to come closer—because this is my only opportunity. Catch him off guard, while he's isolated, and then maybe I can hurt them before they hurt me.

I drop a hand to wipe it at the edge of my shirt. Instead my body shifts and crackles in the leaves.

Brandon freezes. I can see his eyes in the dark now, wide, glowing like the moon. And then he's running right at me, and trembling I put a hand back to stabilize myself, my first instinct to flee. By the time I remember to fire, my aim's been compromised. The bullet goes whizzing past his head as I drop the gun and before I can even twist to avoid him, there's a shot and a pain like a punch in my stomach.

Brandon knocks my body back against the ground and the desperation fades quickly into bleak resignation. My one shot. Missed, again.

Brandon draws his hands back and I flinch as if he's to punch me, but instead drives them down to pin my arms to the ground. I don't thrash. I don't struggle. Because that punch in the gut wasn't solely psychological—that's pain I've felt before—but physical, too. Even as his torso shades the faint moonlight from my body, I watch in ultra-clarity as blood flows freely from the open wound in my stomach.

One look at that injury, coupled with the instant realization that I've missed my shot twice, drains the fight from my body.

I wanted to be poised. I wanted to live. But suddenly my body's gone cold and heavy with a despondence I can't shake.

This feeling… I never wanted to feel it again.

"Just make it quick," I whisper, as the pain swells sharp into my stomach and tears prickle at the edges of my eyelids.

But Brandon doesn't kill me. I open my eyes and he's still above me, still holding me down. Weaponless, helpless, unable and unwilling to fight. But he's thinking. What does he want?

I close my eyes as another wave of pain courses through me. Don't drag this out, I beg mentally, but the thought doesn't reach my tongue; I don't have energy to spare for desperate pleas.

Make this quick. I don't want to think about this anymore.

Alexander Grim.
Los Angeles, California.

Her hair, the back of her shirt, are just visible as she ducks between the trees.

Audrey has tried to run before. She's gotten away before, but not this time. She can't. My hip still singes with pain and I know blood is soaking through those bandages, but that's meaningless. I'm still faster, I'm still stronger. My weapon fires again, a shot in the dark.

This time, it finally hits its mark.

Audrey yells out as red blossoms from her shoulder and she stumbles, allowing me to make up the distance. She turns in time to duck as I swing at her skull and kicks at me, sending me sideways. From close range, my weapon fires, missing her ear by centimeters. I try to fire again. But I'm out.

So be it. That was Jackson's weapon. I've still got a knife.

Audrey clamors to her feet but I shove her down again, grappling for the knife in my belt. My fingers wrap around it and I lurch at her. Her forearm blocks most of the blow but I draw blood anyways, the blade tracing a delicate line across her skin.

"Don't do this, Alex," she gasps, panting for breath. "Don't—please—"

But it's useless. I have to—have to—because there are no options left. Kill or be killed. And even if there were, maybe I don't want to. Maybe Jackson, Mariana, Eimer, maybe they're retribution for the way I've been treated all my life. By bullies, by my parents, by peers who snickered behind their hands or gave me strange looks as I stumbled into class, fatigue impeding my ability to focus. By Audrey.

That's why she's next. God knows she's caused me a world of hurt.

"Alex," she pleads, fear swelling in her face as I draw my knife.

I just laugh. Not because it's funny. Because it's all so fucking pathetic. "And what else do I do, then? Huh? What else do I do?" My knife drives into her shoulder and she screams out, the guttural sound ringing through the darkness. "Stop and wait for someone else to kill me? Just keel over and fucking die?" I draw the blade out and send it down again. As she reaches her hand up to intercept, a reflex to protect her head and vital organs, the knife cuts clean through her palm, its point poking out the other side as gore courses from the wound. "I'm not fucking dying out here. I'm not!"

Whimpering and gasping for breath, cradling her sliced hand to her side, Audrey throws her head up into mine, the motion sending a dull pain through my forehead and nose. I'm stunned for just long enough for her to draw a cut clean across my chest, slicing through my shirt and drawing blood. It's not deep, but it's disorienting. Enough to give me pause, for just a second, as Audrey kicks up as a last-ditch effort to get me off of her.

It doesn't work. Of course, it doesn't work. I'm not so easily beaten, especially now, now that hatred literally seizes through my body, ignites my veins, drives my every electric motion. My vision swells in a shade of crimson and without a thought I drive the blade down into her eye and her howling is so potent, so instant, that I freeze for just a second before I recover, remembering how much I hate her. My knife curled in my fist, I grip at her head and slam it down, twice, three times, into the dust. She cries with the impact, squeezing her good eye shut.

But she's not done. Because there's another movement I'm not quick enough to catch, her good hand surging down to drive the knife deep into my hip. The same side she already hurt. The knife drags down the still-raw edges of the wound. I grit my teeth to keep from screaming, but even so, I yell out with the sharp pain that makes me coil up and pull away just slightly. And as I hiss and heave for breath, she knocks the knife from my grasp, sending it spinning away into the shadows.

Fury isn't a strong enough word for what I feel. But I don't need a weapon to prove it. My hands claw under her collar and grip at her throat, tightening, strangling. Red rushes into her skin, into my vision. I'm blinded by pain and rage and a sense of dizziness I can only assume is sheer hatred for her, for everyone, but she gets to suffer the consequences.

Audrey gasps, choking, gagging, but there's nowhere for air to enter. Tears press out of her good eye while blood and white ooze from the hole where her other eye used to be. She claws at my fingers, but there's no point. She can't stop me as I squeeze my fingers tighter, tighter—make her pay, make her suffer, it's what she deserves—

As her lips turn blue, one eye swelling in her head, her fingers crawl up from mine, tightening around her collar. Trying to pull it off, for air she won't get. I know it won't work, my grip's too tight, and pulling at that collar won't open the airways that I'm plugging. I can smell her desperation as the beeping comes faster, more frantic, a warning… a warning…

Her throat bursts open in a display of red war paint and fire, opening her chest, her neck. And then agony as my face and neck and chest are ripped open, my arms from my body, the skin from my face, nose and lips and eyes torn away, shredded, my lungs aflame, my heart and ribs and intestines exposed and burning. I'm blinded, deafened. My senses know one thing and it is pain.

I'm not a human being. I'm pain. I'm death.

For maybe three seconds my body tries to fight back. There's no point. I won't win. I won't survive this.

My anger dies first, poignant regret rising to take its place, but only for an instant before everything fades.

And as the pain evanesces, all I can feel is relief.

Chanel Agresti.
Scarsdale, New York.

What is he waiting for?

"Brandon," I hazard. I was drawn towards them by the sounds of shots firing, but I don't see why Blake hasn't just finished her off. He doesn't seem to hear me. "Brandon—"

"Why aren't you fighting?" he says finally, accusingly. "Why aren't you fighting back?"

"Because I can't," Madison says, her voice strained. "I don't have a chance."

"Other people would be fighting right now. You've survived longer than almost anyone else and you're not going to fight for it—what the fuck did everyone else do, then, dying so you could lie here and take it?" In a matter of words, the sorrow in his tone gives way to cold fury. Where did that come from? "Why don't you care?"

"Brandon, stop," I finally cut in. "It doesn't matter. All we had to do was kill her. Not any of this—" Bullshit, I want to say, but I don't want to antagonize him. "Just do it. Don't make it worse than it has to be."

"But why?" he repeats. And I'm not even sure what answer he's asking for. "Why is it fair that she just gets to swallow her death when there are people who didn't have the chance—"

"It doesn't matter!"

"Yes, it does!"

Fuck, I'm not doing this. I don't want to be involved in this. Brandon's in charge of this situation and I hate him for it, the way he can't just make it quick and simple, because that means there's more going on behind his eyes that I can't account for. And maybe I wouldn't be so mad if he hadn't brought up Wes, who was supposed to be out of my life and down in the depths of hell as soon as he died.

It's hatred that makes my body burn. I hate Brandon because his mention of Wes sends me back a year, back to the worst of our relationship, something I thought I'd pushed out of my mind but maybe now, I'm too fragile to block out those suppressed emotions. Because now even Wes' very name makes my body freeze up, sends sharp, stinging pains into my inner thighs. Those cuts haven't been drawn in months, but they're there, too many, choppy lines white with time. My doing, but Wes's fault…

I'm sick to my stomach and I try to shake my head to clear it. I can't be here. I can't do this, can't be a bystander. I draw my knife, stepping towards Madison, who Brandon has pinned. His back's to me. His pack has slipped sideways. It would be a near-open shot.

He hears me coming and I quickly shift the grip on my knife, a gentler grasp, as he turns to face towards me. My body trembles, heart thudding in my temples—did he see that? —but before he can speak, I stop him. "Brandon, let me do this."

"Chanel-"

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to subdue my nausea, and push him aside. Make this quick. "Mads, I'm so sorry," I say, dropping to my knees. And before I can think, I've drawn the knife across her throat. It's quicker and quieter than Gabrielle's death. Cleaner.

In a second she's silenced. "Madison Carell is dead, murdered by Chanel Agresti."

"What the fuck was that?"

My lip curls, disgust evident in my voice. "It didn't need to be that hard. You were making a huge fucking deal about her not fighting back."

"I was trying to ask her why she thinks it's okay to just roll over and die while there's other, more deserving people—"

"Wait, you think people deserve this more?"

"Isn't that what we said?" From next to me, his fingers curl into the ground, pushing him back up and off of Madison. "You picked your top five, I picked mine. Those who deserved to be here."

"Oh, my God, it wasn't about who deserved it, it was who I thought-" I shake my head. "It wasn't going to be fair. She knew that. She didn't stand a chance."

"Because she gave up!" Brandon's knuckles are white as he claws at his hair, his exasperation painfully evident. "You know how fucking disrespectful it is when you've watched your best friend in the whole goddamn world die, when he hardly had a chance to fight for his life, and meanwhile she's just okay with letting it happen to her?"

I ought to let this go, but I'm in too deep now. "You're making this way too personal," I say. "You had no right to take it out on her. I'm sorry that happened. But isn't her fault."

"Well, someone had to pay." And he says it so naturally, without even a drop of remorse in his voice, that fear floods into my stomach. Combine that with my frustration at him, lingering from our earlier argument, and I know I was right not to trust him. Right to try putting a knife in his back. But just as I'm about to draw my blade again, while he's not prepared, there's another announcement that gives me pause.

"Audrey Spenser is dead. Manner of death is unknown."

And then, before we can even react: "Alexander Grim is dead, murdered by Audrey Spenser."

Three dead. Two left.

I lock eyes with Brandon. It's just us.

I clamor to my feet but my knee wobbles, flaring up from a quick change in direction. And then Brandon's shoving me back into the ground.

"You thought you were going to get me there, didn't you? With the knife. With Madison."

There's no use denying it now. "Yeah. You know what? I did. I thought about it. Because I didn't like what you were becoming. I didn't know what you were going to do to her. And I was going to step in, one way or another."

I struggle to my feet, my stupid knee screaming with the pain. His eyes are on me, but they flit down to my knee as I grimace. "What did you do?"

"Nothing," I lie. "Bruised it."

"Sure," he says.

His eyes cut through mine—wild, bloodshot, sunken with days of struggle. Neither of us moves. The moment lingers, stretching longer, somehow, than the five days we've been here.

His hand curls around his weapon. My fingers clutch at my own.

Haunting by Halsey.

5th: Madison Carell. Killed by Chanel Agresti.
4th: Audrey Spenser. Suicide.
3rd: Alexander Grim. Killed by Audrey Spenser.

Posted this early just so Z would scream in my DMs. Eat up, queen.

First off, shoutout Joe Biden? I am thoroughly shocked we got some genuine good news out of this election. It doesn't feel real and if I'm being honest I'm still expecting some sort of stupid chaos to happen before he officially takes office. Not to get political, but Alexa, play FDT by YG and Nipsey Hussle.

Also uh... surprise? Originally had this fic at 27 chapters and then decided I could make things way simpler and trim it down two chapters. Just a finale and an epilogue to go!

Z, you got your wish. This death scene was planned for years, but only in the last month did I decide on a double-kill. Ironically you guessed it happening like 3 days ago, but this was in the works before you ever mentioned it. I hope you're satisfied with Audrey's end- she was such a joy to write and discuss, one of the easiest voices to express. I'll shout you out more in my epilogue, but for now... thank you for being such a dedicated reader, live-reacter, meme-sender, and friend for the last 4 years of this fic. Forever grateful for you!

Another self-congratulations is on order, as if I don't have full control over everything that happens here: shoutout Brandon and Chanel, our final two!

As always, thoughts and predictions are much appreciated. Shoot me a PM if reviews ain't your vibe.

Love y'all. See you in a bit for our last Games chapter.