XIV: Bloodbath.

PART I: THE RECKONING

We've gone way too fast for far too long,
And we were never supposed to make it half this far.
And I lived so much life, lived so much life,
I think that God is gonna have to kill me twice.
Kill me twice like my name was Nikki Sixx.

I woke up in my shoes again but somewhere you exist, singing.

Oops I did it again, I,
Forgot what I was losing my mind about.
I only wrote this down to make you press rewind,
And send a message, "I was young and a menace."

Young, young, young and a menace.

Soran Faerber, 18
Applicant #8

"God, I hate today," Trojan says flatly.

Yeah, he wants to say. Join the fucking club.

It seems odd that Trojan of all people is against this. He's not sure why. Beating someone within an inch of their life is a lot different than killing them, and he's sure if Trojan had killed someone in the past Carnelia would have brought that up first. She definitely would have brought that up before she brought up everything she did about him.

He knew. He knew the second she started spilling everyone else's secrets that it was going to come out.

Carnelia and the others leave, and they all sit there like statues while they file out, one by one, after her. The second the door closes behind them an eerie hush settles over their heads, eyes roaming as everyone tries to figure out what's happening. It's pretty clear, at least to him, what's happening.

He's the first one to move, getting up out of the chair and heading for the door on the other side of the room. There's the scrape of a chair behind him as he gets up, but it's not until he's out the door that Kidava finally catches up to him. He looks around when she stops at his side; it's a long hallway, ending in an open-air arch that leads outside. There's a few doors. A few more branching hallways.

"What's the plan?" Kidava asks.

"I don't recall inviting you."

"You know, top two and all that," she says casually. "We'd do better together than against each other."

Most likely cause she doesn't want to end up dead again at his hands, this time for real.

"Top three," Trojan interrupts. "No way I'm staying with anyone else."

"I didn't invite you either."

"Wasn't asking, dick."

He curls and uncurls his hands, letting them go loose. No need to lose it yet. Everyone's doing enough of that back in the room.

"Take fifteen, twenty minutes tops. We need to find a way to get out of here."

"Door's right there."

"You planning on walking around in Death Valley?" he asks. "Be my fucking guest. Don't come crawling to me when you're dying of heatstroke. They told us to look around, so look around. Find whatever you think is going to be useful. And then we need to look for a car."

They don't want this to be a slaughter, a proper bloodbath. If they wanted that they would have just killed them all in the room, or when they hijacked the hovercraft. They want the thrill of the chase like all the worst sort of soldiers, the thrill of hunting down prey and forcing them to do the worst imaginable things.

"Meet out front by then," he says. "If I find a car and you're not there, I'm leaving you here."

"Ditto," Trojan mutters, but he miraculously listens and heads off down one of the halls. Kidava chooses her own and disappears as well.

He heads for the exit.

He's serious. Very, deadly serious. There has to be a way out of here. Several ways, really, but the three of them only need to find one in order to make it work. If they didn't give them a way out of here then everyone might as well resign themselves to dying in this shabby, burned out hole of a town, wherever the hell it really is. It doesn't look like much. Just a collection of buildings sprawling down the cracked road, the weeds reaching up to his knees. The heat is like a wall, the sun at it's peak in the sky. He can't even imagine how hot it really is; he's torn between being grateful for the clothes that are saving him from the worst of it, and the heat that's already gathering and pooling underneath them.

But a road at least means there were cars here once upon a time, even if there's heat shimmering over them like a mirage, casting a wet glow across the pavement. Or at least it would, if there wasn't so much dust.

"Hey!"

He hears the voice, actively ignores it. He knows exactly who it is.

"Listen," Icarus says, grabbing at his elbow. He pulls away from it. "Listen, you are not leaving me here."

"What, Mel didn't want to put up with you either?"

"He's already gone, I didn't see what way he went."

Well, there's no sign of him on the road, so presumably the other way but he doesn't think Icarus cares. He himself probably should have at least picked someone he vaguely liked, because Trojan and Kidava weren't even on the top of it.

Hell, he doesn't even know who is. He knows Icarus shouldn't even be on it.

And yet he's here, for some reason. Of course he is.

"If you find a car—"

"I can't drive, what am I going to do with a car?"

"Jesus Christ," he mutters. "If you find a car, tell me."

He continues on between the next set of buildings; it's too fucking hot to wander around down the middle of the road looking for things that may not even exist. Icarus is close behind him, looking every which way. At least he looks determined to find something, even if he's standing five feet too close and not doing anything of actual importance.

It doesn't take long to find a building resembling a garage, the side door wedged open with a stack of rust-red bricks. It's dark inside, a relief from the glaring sun, and there's a hard scrape as Icarus hefts one of the bricks up, brandishing it like he's going to do something with it.

As if.

And sure enough, there's a car tucked into the back corner, half covered by a sheet that looks more yellow than white.

"What makes you think it's going to work?" Icarus asks.

He ignores that one. He doesn't have the time to explain that to someone who's just going to argue with him. He wedges his arm through the gap in the window and reaches for the lock. It sticks for a moment before it pops free and he wrenches open the door.

There are cobwebs stuck to the corners, a fine layer of dust settled over the exposed space, but he can see the faintest bits where it's not as heavy, where there are fingerprints indented into the dust sticking to the steering wheel.

Someone's been in here, moving through the stale air that faintly reeks of fresh gas.

Soran pulls open the visor and a set of keys come tumbling into his lap. They look old, older than anything that should be usable, but coincidences aren't set up perfectly here. Things won't just happen to happen.

"That's good," Icarus manages.

"Whatever else you can find, grab it. Something other than a brick, water, food, gas—"

"Why the hell are they doing this?" he mutters, although he sets off to the closest wall, rummaging through whatever's on the bench. He waves a rather small wrench over his head - Soran waits for it to come down and strike him in the temple.

"Like killing us, okay, kinda get that as offensive as it is, but giving us supplies and shit—"

"And I thought you talked a lot at the facility," Soran says. "Hurry up, we need to go get the others."

Icarus opens his mouth, so Soran throws the first thing in his reach at him, a handful of bolts that he fumbles for off the table. They ping rhythmically off his back as he turns around to avoid the worst of them, the ones that miss tinkering to the ground around him.

He shuts up after that. Soran grabs a few more and shoves them in his pockets for later.

He can still smell the gas, the scent only getting stronger as he heads for the back wall, and sure enough tucked away in the shadows he finds two full gas cans, capped and ready to go. He dumps them in the back of the car along with a hammer and a length of pipe, the latter of which he tucks into the empty cavern where the spare tire should be. You never know. He doesn't really want to know with Kidava and Trojan.

Icarus has collected three water bottles, and if the color is a little off he's going to keep his mouth shut. Three already isn't enough; he'll take what he can get.

"Hide those," he instructs.

"I never said they were yours."

"Fine, then stay here. You're not getting in the car."

Icarus levels him with a look as he climbs back in the car. He nearly reaches over to push the lock down but Icarus doesn't pay any mind, letting him lock the passenger side only to clamber in the back. He shoves all three bottles under the seat, tucking them away.

Soran turns the key and prays for what has to be the first time in his life. The whole car groans, shaking furiously underneath him. He presses his foot down on the gas inch by inch and for a long moment it only creaks, a wheeze that grows louder and louder the more he pushes it. Finally it starts with a particularly ugly rumble, but it starts.

He'll take it.

"So," Icarus says, leaning forward. He's really going to get it doing this all the time. "A Quinn, huh?"

He sighs. "Shut up."

Jupiter Valens, 14
Applicant #16

His brain is just kind of... wailing.

It's a very odd sort of sound. Not one his brain has ever made before. He's sure he's made it out-loud before, like when Colin Delacourt kneed him in the stomach during football tryouts, but never quite like this.

That time he ended up on the field like his guts were hanging out of his stomach. Now he's just sort of sitting here.

To be clear, it's not like he still wants to be uselessly sitting here. That's just what his body has chosen to do, a coping method for what surely can't actually be happening. They're not all going to die. That's just silly, the silliest thing he's ever heard. They would have just killed them, right? Not forced them into this.

But very few people are left in the room. Most of them have taken off. If he doesn't move soon he's going to be the last one here, and then what?

And then what?

He just needs to calm down and think of something. First things first he needs to get out of the room. That sounds like a good idea. See what his surroundings are, figure out the best direction to go. As soon as he does that he can take a long around, see if he has the time to look around, maybe grab a thing or two.

Right, he can do this. He can do this, definitely.

First things first - he tugs at the bracelet around his wrist, trying to wriggle free. It's more like a cuff. Feels like it too. There are odd metal bits digging into his skin, poking painfully into the spaces where his bones just out. If only he was a bit bigger, more muscular. No one else seemed to be having this problem.

The screen is flashing a very high number, nearly into the 120's. If that's supposed to go along with the line that's monitoring his pulse, he's screwed.

Is this what dying is like? Is he having a heart attack?

"What are you doing? Jay!"

He hears it, boy does he hear it, but the way everyone else left in the room turns to look at him confuses him to no end. They're all looking like the words just came out of his mouth, like he's calling for himself.

"Jay!"

It's muffled, like underwater. Not quite. There's a sharp knock and then a thump, and when he turns around to the source of it Noelani is slamming her open fist on the window, shouting at him.

He makes his way to the window, robotic, and cracks it open. Noelani pushes it the rest of the way up and grabs his arm. His brain is still wailing, different reason now. She tugs him forward so his gut slams into the sill and then she grabs the sleeve of his shirt and pulls him through the window. He lands with a thud in the dusty ground at her feet, half on top of her shoes, trying to turn over without rolling headfirst into the thorny brush creeping up the side of the building.

"Ow," he mumbles, but she pays him little mind, if any at all. She hooks her arms under his and yanks him back to is feet.

"Toph, where are we going?"

"That way!"

He tries to turn with Noelani still with a vice grip on his arm. It's really not concern, just fear. Confused fear. She only yelled for him but that's just because he's spent so much time wrongfully pestering her.

Topher is pointing off down the road, towards the distant hills, repeatedly jabbing his figure down the road like that's going to get the point across to Tarquin, who looks just as confused as Noelani. He can't say he's surprised on that front.

"C'mon, c'mon, let's go," Noelani urges, and tugs him onto the road alongside the others. "Who knows how much longer we have left."

Hills are good, he's trying to rationalize. They can hide better than traveling along open ground. Not very good to climb in the baking sun and skin that's not nearly dark enough to handle it properly, but he'll live.

He hopes. Will he?

"Hills are good," he says aloud, like an idiot, but Noelani nods along with him like it makes sense, and it makes him feel better when she does.

"What were you going to do? Sit there until the hour was done?" she asks incredulously. She finally lets go of his arm and he stumbles after her, sneakers catching on the pavement. He can feel how hot it is through the bottom of his shoes. That's going to be a problem.

"Probably." He shrugs, and she whacks him on the arm, although her hand is still light. Feather light.

God, they're screwed. He's got her, which is admittedly nice, but not in a fight to death, Topher who even he could sling over his shoulder in a pinch, and Tarquin, who has already almost tripped face-first into the dirt over a particularly large pothole.

But this is the four of them, like old time's sake.

He can only hope it doesn't go the same way the simulation does.

Isperia Martorell, 16
Applicant #17

She's trying to think of this very methodically.

If she thinks of it anyway she knows, deep down, that she'll meltdown. A full scale meltdown is not the type of computer operation she's trying to emulate.

Really, she's trying to think of this like a code. Like keying it in and watching the computer understand it. Scanning through, picking out the bits that don't work, highlighting them so that she can delete them and start over. Make something that works.

So that's what she does. She walks out of the room alone, like there was another option. No one was ever going to willingly look her way and ask her to come along; she wouldn't expect them to. She's not even sure if she would want them to.

People with no allies won the Games, way back when. Not as often as people with allies, but they did.

She gets the feeling this is more than just a simple game. To think, what they had back then was simple compared to this.

It's clear that most of the obvious things in the hallway have been ransacked by the first few groups that went tearing out like the devil was on their heels, a blonde one, maybe. Maybe the devil isn't real and it's just been Carnelia Trevall all along.

But Carnelia Trevall and her gang left supplies lying around, useful things. And like she knew, most of the obvious things are gone.

There's a closed door half-blocked by two wooden chairs pointed towards the windows. Clearly untouched, or someone would have shoved the chairs out of the way. She edges it out of the way and slips in unseen, shutting the door behind her.

The first thing she sees is a bag, like the kind her mother takes for her trip down to the market. It still fits well enough over her shoulder, and looks like it can hold quite a bit. The supply closet, if it ever was that before today, is filled to the brim with things. Bottles and bottles of things, some rope, packages of dehydrated foods.

She tucks the food away at the bottom, followed by a lone bottle of water. She scoops up two other bottles well, rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. She's trying not to think of worst case scenario, but she is. If she's bleeding, God forbid if she's bleeding... it should help.

There's no bandages but there is a packet of matches. Good for fires, good for cauterizing. Burns aren't so bad. She can deal with those.

And she will be, judging by the sun and the heat. Even the closet is sweltering.

She grabs a spare bag of nails too, for no reason at all. There's nothing else sharp in here, no real weapons. Not that she needs a weapon, not that she'll ever be capable of using one.

She doesn't think. She wouldn't, not ever. Her parents wouldn't think her capable of that.

Even through the closed door voices are floating down the hall. She pokes her head into the hall but no one's appeared. Just the voices coming back from the room they all woke up in. There had hardly been anyone in there when she had finally left, just after Noelani had dragged Jay out the window. A part of her had almost hoped, expected...

Noelani hadn't even looked her way, hunched over in the corner like always. And it had stung, almost, until she reminded herself that it was better this way.

There would be less bloodshed this way, surely.

Against her better judgement, irrelevant as it may be in this moment, she slinks back down the wall. It's only Sabre and Caiman, now - Sabre is speaking in a voice louder than she thought him capable of. Not angry, never angry. Trying to reason with her?

That's what it sounds like, but she can't make much sense of it.

"Sabre," she says quietly. Quietly or not he whirls around to look at her all the same. He, much like her, is uncertain. She can see it in his eyes, all that painful confusion about what the right thing to do is, if there's a right option at all.

"Go with her," Caiman says. "I'm serious, just go, I'll be fine. I'll just until the time's up, and then—"

"They'll kill you," he says. "Nothing good is going to come of you staying."

Ria would say that, too, but what impact is her voice going to have on Caiman, who doesn't even know her. If she won't listen to Sabre, will she listen to anyone?

She taps the screen of the bracelet. Her pulse is climbing higher, steadily. It hurts to breathe, like she has to take a deep breath just to stay standing. Now isn't the time for the anxiety to come crawling up her throat, but it's appropriate in the very least. At least it knows when it's appearance is warranted.

For her, definitely, and for these two people that are still standing here. They can't have a ton of time left. Maybe half of what Carnelia said. There's not even enough time left to get out of the town, not unless they all sprint.

She's never been a sprinter. Not much of anything, really.

But she could be something, right now. The difference between Sabre's life and death, and Caiman's too. If either will listen.

Issue is, she has no idea how. She's never been someone's voice of reason, someone's logic. She's only that for herself; even her parents don't often listen to her nonsensical talks on things they will never have a hope of understanding. No one does, because she doesn't tell anyone else.

She has no idea how.

It's life or death, and she still doesn't know.

Caiman Mangle, 15
Applicant #21

Caiman takes a firm seat in a chair, one that didn't belong to her.

Sabre's eyes only widen.

"You can't stay."

"I have to." She takes a deep breath and folds her hands over her stomach. "I knew something was up. But this late... I don't believe this is really happening. They can't do something like this. It's a test, just a test. None of us have to die."

A test like the simulation, like the ranking list. She was pretty high up. Sabre and Isperia weren't, if she remembers correctly. People liked her. Not so much them.

Or maybe they just didn't bother. She didn't, with some people.

But she has an opportunity now to save them. Her suspicions have always been there, her fears. But it was too abrupt, all of it. They wouldn't do something like this. It's a mind game, that's all. She's not going to let everyone fail it, fall victim to it.

She can do this, if no one else will. She has no problems with it. She said she was suspicious, not intelligent.

"Sabre, you can go," she tells him. "It's fine. Don't worry about me."

It's not fine, but hopefully it will be soon. His eyes haven't changed, bigger than normal, widening almost comically. If he could see himself in the mirror right now she thinks he'd be angry with himself, but there's no reflections to be found in here. There's nothing to show them exactly what's going on. They just have to rely on their own intuition, a gut feeling that this can be fixed.

Someone yells for Isperia, off down the hall, and all three of them blink in surprise. Isperia most of all, even as she turns around to figure out who it is, someone Caiman can't yet see. Meliodas is the one that finally appears, giving them all a look that screams come if you want, or I'm leaving. He doesn't give this choice to Isperia, wise enough, but grabs her around the elbow and pulls her off, after who she must assume is Meris.

That's one person gone. Just one left to deal with.

"Sabre, I promise, I'll be fine," she insists. "Let me handle it. Stay close by, if you want. But you don't need to be here."

Sabre's eyes are flicking between her and the windows, a clear getaway. She nods, watching as something finally wins over in his brain. His feet carry him to the window in even, measured paces and he crawls out of it so quickly she almost misses him, blinks and he's gone entirely as the window clatters back into frame.

And then its just her. She takes another deep breath.

She doesn't know how long she sits there, silent except for the soft rasp of her breath and the occasional click as her bracelet hits the edge of the desk. There's a car, far off in the distance. Something louder close by. A bike, maybe. Sabre could be leaving if he found something.

Good for him, if it makes her feel better.

It's much to her shock and awe when she hears footsteps approaching, quiet footfalls that hardly echo off the floor. She waits for someone else to come storming in, an incredulous look, questions ready to pour out...

A hand reaches in, an arm. That's all she sees. The hand grabs the edge of the door and pulls it, and the shadow of whoever it was disappears as the doors slam shut, trapping her inside.

She stands up, painfully slow. "Hello?"

She doesn't hear anything, anyone. No one responds, not even an answering set of footsteps as whoever just closed the door leaves again.

No, she does hear something, actually. The soft, gentle splash of liquid hitting the floor and the harsh, awkward glugs of a bottle being emptied, struggling against the pace of the pour. Something comes leaking under the door and she edges towards it until her sandals hit the perimeter of it. It seeps over the brim, sticks to her toes.

She can smell it. Gasoline.

"Hello?" she repeats.

The whole door erupts into flames.

She squeaks, even against her better judgement, and leaps away. The fire is only just starting to seep through the cracks in the door but already there's smoke pouring through every inch of space, crawling up her nose and down her throat. She reaches for the door handle, already hot to the touch, and hisses in pain, retracting her hand. Not that way, not that way.

Caiman turns. The other door is open. There's a woman standing five feet back from it, one of the ones from before. White-blonde, smirk curled nearly up to her ears. Like a mask. That can't really be her face.

She opens the bottle in her own hands and sends it flying into the room. Caiman watches it spin over and over, more gasoline pouring out, and doesn't leap away in time to avoid the bottle as it bounces of her shin before it lands off the floor, leaving a trail of gasoline down her bare leg.

She kicks the bottle away, back towards the door, but the damage is done. She looks up in time to see why woman wave, of all things, an elegant and dainty arch to her fingers as she curls them back and forth.

And then she tosses a match in.

Caiman doesn't even get time to move.

The match bounces across the floor, awkward little hops before it finally submerges, and for one long second she actually thinks nothing's going to happen. It's against all better judgement, against everything she knows about fire and matches and what causes the worst of it. A child would know what's about to happen, even though that's exactly what she feels like right now. That's exactly what she is.

It spreads across the floor like a wave, like the sun set the ocean on fire. Worse, like a tidal wave, something nobody could tackle without falling into the deep.

She jumps away, first back into the door, growing hotter by the second, and then back towards the desk, but it moves after her. Catches on her gasoline-wet footprints and stalks after her like a person would. Her leg catches one of the table legs and that goes up too, like kindling, like the biggest fire you could imagine.

Like the one she had last summer with her parents in the backyard, fingers sticky with marshmallows, graham crackers crumbling into her lap. She could hear her mother's laugh, see her father's content smile as the bonfire reflected back off his lenses, right into her eyes.

The fire spreads over the flat of her shoe, up the straps around her ankle, and she screams. It seeps into the skin there, takes a hold. She feels every second of her skin crackling and burning before she collapses, trying to slap it out, fan it away. Trying to do anything that will make it stop.

Her back hits the ground - she feels gasoline seep into the back of her shorts, her shirt.

She sees the wave coming for her, and for a second it almost looks beautiful.

Almost.

Gideon Mallory, 16
Applicant #20

All he can hear is screaming.

He had blocked out the sounds of the fire. There had been a fire in Seven, once, at one of the paper mills. He remembered the screaming from that, too, even far away. His father had gone running for it, his mother yelling after him. You're a pediatrician, not a first responder. This isn't your thing to fix.

It was. Everything was his father's to fix, especially kids that weren't him.

Fire always seemed too big. Too terrifying. And the screaming had been so small, for some reason. Shrill like a little flock of birds, but all the birds had flown off away from the smoke, leaving the people to burn.

He's not sure when the screaming finally stops, but the smoke pouring from their starting position doesn't. It climbs higher, higher, billowing off into the too-bright sky. It's seeping from the windows, from the holes it must be scorching in the ceiling. Jupiter's grip on his sleeve is about to rip holes in it too, nails pricking into his skin even through the fabric.

His brain is telling him to move. He looks down at the bracelet instead, watching. Waiting.

Jupiter's hand tightens even more. The little number in the top corner flicks from a bold, yet sort-of hopeful twenty-four, to a very stark twenty-three.

"This isn't happening," Jupiter breathes. "It's not, it's—"

It is, he wants to yell, but yelling's not going to get either of them anywhere, and he doesn't think they'll respond well to getting yelled at. It's not at them, anyway. Just the whole situation, and how much it sucks.

There's no way they're just being screwed with, now. Someone's dead.

"Just keep your eye out for something useful," he instructs. "Anything, I don't care what it is. If it's a weapon tell me, I'll take it."

Anyone else would be offended, suspicious at his intentions. Jupiter just nods their head frantically and accepts their fate as he pulls them further down the side of the road. There's nothing, not that he can see. So many people got out further than them first, all because they stopped to watch. Why did he let them stop to watch when he knew what was going to happen before it did?

He's more than strong enough to pull Jupiter after him, too, but he didn't force them to start walking when they looked for the source of the fire, the screaming.

He had watched, like it was a movie. Like they all used to watch the Games.

Turns out the Games were much easier to watch when they were through a screen, not standing here with the desert dust stinging his eyes, the sun setting fire to his scalp. Of course it would be easier that way, easier to be back then. Easier for Jupiter to be back in the hospital, as awful as it sounds. At least there was only one thing actively trying to kill them then, and it was inside them all along.

He hears the car coming from at least a mile off and drags Jupiter further away from the road, towards the first building he sees, but they fight him. He's almost convinced the person he's holding onto has been charading as Jupiter this whole time at the first sign of resistance, as they pull their arm out of his group and go running back to the road.

The car nearly hits them. They stumble backwards, further into the scrubby grass, and he grabs them between the shoulders and pulls them further back once again.

It's a lucky break, if you could call it that. Myra leans out of the driver's side window, frowning as they come to a stop.

"Vehicular manslaughter, nice," Myra says flatly. "Not interested in that yet."

Yet. It's like Jupiter saw this coming, knew who it would be. Myra and Jahaira, Emmi and Arwen. He should've seen it coming too, an obvious grouping like some of the others.

Arwen leans out of the back, dangling a baseball bat between her fingers. "Want this?"

He almost leaps forward to grab it. Almost. He stops himself, digging his feet further into the dirt, a blatant refusal. He doesn't need it. There are other options than groveling to these people. It's Jupiter that starts forward, pulling it out of Arwen's hands and then forcing it back against his chest when he stays standing still, his own pride keeping him from moving.

"Mal, c'mon," they plead. Arwen's popped the door open - an invitation. Safety in numbers, except he didn't want that. Numbers are bad, too, and he doesn't need anyone else to protect him, let alone these five people who have very little allegiance to him. Jupiter's the only one who would think twice about hurting him. Think multiple times about that, really.

"Mal," they repeat, practically begging. He plants a hand between their shoulder places and forces them into the car, watching them clamber up and over the seat's edge before he does so himself, slamming the door shut behind them. It's cramped in here with four of them in the back, and Jupiter is practically sitting half on top of them, but they're small. Fragile.

Breakable, but he hopes not.

"Alright, family, we're out of here," Myra says, edging the car back onto the road. He wedges the baseball bat between his knees, forcing it still.

They drive past all the smoke, down the road. The fire is spreading through the building, down the hall they ran out of in the first place. He holds his breath, letting the smoke sting his nose like the sun is already doing to his skin.

Someone's dead already in there, whatever's left of them, if anything at all.

But not them. Not now. Not yet.

Percius Marigold, 17
Applicant #2

Listen, he's perfectly aware that now isn't the perfect time to be on the verge of a panic attack.

Sue him, alright? He'll be shocked if he's the only one.

"Calm down, it's alright," Nic says, for at least the sixth time now. It'd be so much easier to believe if Nic himself didn't sound like he was about to keel over and die on the road in front of Percy, killed or not.

"This is not alright," he repeats for the sixth time.

Not that he ever thought about being in a situation like this, but it doesn't make much sense that he's the one panicking whereas Nicator isn't. He's so kind, worries about everyone and everything, and Percy would expect him to break down sobbing right now, but he isn't.

Maybe that's because if he breaks down crying, Percy is going to break down crying. Neither of them get anywhere that way. They certainly don't survive, like the person who created the first dent in that picture-perfect twenty-four out of twenty-four. Twenty-three now.

"I think I'm gonna throw up," he informs him, but doesn't. He can taste bile at the back of his throat but nothing will come up; why won't anything come up?

It might feel a tad more human if he threw up, if something would happen that seemed slightly more realistic.

Nic's holding his hand and not helping at all. He'd be freaking out normally if Nic was holding his hand, like always, and this situation isn't making any better. Now he's holding his hand and probably about to die, for christ's sake. He did not sign up for this. He signed up for getting home and going on a first date like every other normal teenager in the world.

He hears something in the distance, tires against sand and concrete. Nic stops so suddenly he bumps into his back, clutching onto his shoulders.

"Where the hell are we going?" he asks. Besides in circles.

"Okay, listen," Nic says slowly. "Clearly there are vehicles... or an ATV, or something. We can get out of here faster if we find one. The time's probably almost up."

"The time probably is up," he hisses. "We've been wandering around for-fucking-ever, doing nothing of any actual importance. Jesus Christ, we're going to die."

Nic whirls around. Suddenly there are hands framing his face, forcing his mouth shut. "Percy, listen to me."

He almost shakes his head. Almost, but doesn't. Nic doesn't deserve that.

"Listen," he repeats. "We're going to be fine. We just need to find a way to get out of here. See these buildings, right here? Go through them. Slowly. I'm gonna go right across the road, just right there, see? Whoever finds something first comes and gets the other. Alright?"

There's three buildings right behind them, a couple more clustered across the road. It's thirty, maybe forty feet. He's not even sure he wants Nic that far.

He blinks. "We're gonna die."

He's not sure what he expects. More chastising, for one. Maybe a slightly kind word to get him to shut his mouth and do what he's told, before one of them really does die. That's not Nic's style. Really, he's not sure what is. He's just too nice for his own good, that's what Percy's always said about him.

Maybe that's what makes Nic lean forward and kiss him, kiss a babbling, stupid idiot that's going to get them both killed. Because he's just too nice.

It does the job, though. Nic kisses him and he just shuts up, goes quiet and lets it happen. It does nothing for his heart-rate, already skyrocketing through the roof. He's not sure if anything could make it calm down, least of all this. Nic pulls back, rests their foreheads together. He can see his pulse jumping in his throat and folds a hand over it, feels it thumping under his skin.

"We're fine," Nic says, though his voice is a little nervous. "Go."

They let go - it feels like a greater loss than he knows it really is. It's just five minutes, until one of them finds something and they get out of here.

He nearly trips when he turns around, legs turned to mush, but the buildings aren't far away. He hears Nic start across the road, feet catching against the cracked and brittle pavement. Little chunks of rocks are rolling away into the dirt, chasing Percy closer to the buildings.

There was no noise at all except for his own pulse in his ears, and maybe that was why the thud from behind him sounded so loud. Louder than it could possibly be. He hears the thud, a sharp intake of breath. More pebbles roll into the dirt and knock into his feet, a little stream of them.

When he turns, Nic is falling.

He hears the distant crack before Nic hits the ground, before his knees make contact with the pavement. Like a swell, over and over, echoing over the hills and all the way down the road.

Gunshot, his brain is telling him. It sounds just like the movies.

But what they never described in the movies was the after. That second as the silence returns. The second as he sees all the blood, the figure all the way up the road, hundreds of yards away, something slim and dark in their hands. Gunshot, his brain says again, but it doesn't register. Nothing does except the body in the road ten feet away from him, leaking blood out the mouth and ears, through the hole in its head.

It's a body. It's not Nic. Nic doesn't have a hole in his head.

Nic... Nic doesn't have a hole in his head.

But he does now.

He hears it in Nic's voice, this time. Gunshot. And then, the time's probably almost up.

The figure in the distance raises the gun again. Gunshot, gunshot, gunshot. There's no noise this time. He dives away, in time for something to whistle over his head. Nearly falls into the blood leaking over the side of the road into the dirt. Nic's blood, hole in Nic's head, hole in Nic's head because he just got murdered in the road. His brain is singing it, almost hysterically.

Something breaks, then. He's not sure what. Something in his chest. It hurts not unlike a bone breaking. His fingers just catch in the blood spilling into the dirt, so he pulls them away.

He sees the gun raise against, distantly. No gunshot this time.

He gets to his feet and takes off.

I'll stop making Fall Out Boy relevant when I'm dead and in hell.

Blog is back up, updated with rankings, kills, alliances... you know, the gist. There's also some new friends to take a look at, if you're so inclined.

If someone/something wasn't mentioned in this chap, nothing to fear. It's all covered in the next. Let me know what you thought of this, as always. It would be appreciated as my reviews are woefully sad at the moment.

Until next time.