XVI: Day One, Evening.

Damas Mancer, 13
Applicant #12

He thinks the bullet is still inside him.

He hasn't told either of them that.

At first he thought, from that far of a distance, that the bullet must have passed through. There had been so much blood he was certain it had. Not enough to kill him, unfortunately for him, but enough for it to be alarming. Enough for him to cling to Verity the second she had found him, because if she left him...

It was hard enough, most days, figuring out if he wanted to be dead or alive. This was the worst of them.

There's an odd sort of pressure up against his ribs, pushing in and making him gasp every time he so much as takes a deep breath. He's been managing to walk thus far, a miracle of some sorts where it doesn't seem like there are going to be any. Verity kept shooting him concerned looks, and occasionally she would start pulling him along, hand pressed over his side.

The bleeding had slowed, and then stopped, which had been a relief. It still didn't change the fact that there was almost certainly a bullet lodged somewhere in his ribs, and he was wandering through the desert like it was fine.

This place had been irradiated in the Dark Days - were they in danger from that, too, and not just the other applicants and Sentinels? He couldn't imagine it having any sort of lasting impact if it was that long ago, but still. What if there was a chance?

"Okay, stop," Percy says, which is the first thing he's said in four or five hours. Damas was beginning to think he'd gone mute which... fair. Damas almost feels mute himself, and he didn't watch anyone die. Didn't see anything of any merit, really, except his own blood in an arc over the burning desert air.

Verity lets go of him and he stumbles, trying to find his footing in the thick sand. He thought this place was supposed to be mostly rocky - apparently not.

"What?" he manages, grasping weakly at his side.

"Just let me carry you, you're what, a hundred pounds soaking wet? It's better than you wheezing with every step you take."

Damas had resigned himself to walking for all of eternity. He was certainly not going to ask, no matter how difficult it became. He couldn't just ask to burden someone else, especially not someone who was already burdened with the trauma behind his eyes. And it's not like Verity could carry him - she was strong for her age, sure, but in the desert strength became eliminated when your feet sunk into the sand every other step.

"C'mon," Percy offers, quieter, and crouches down, offering his back. Verity gives him a weak smile - encouragement, probably. With her help he eases himself onto Percy's back, tightening his arms around his neck as Percy gets back to his feet, holding onto him.

"Not even a hundred pounds," he repeats, under his breath. It does ease the pain his in side quite a bit, he can admit that. But he's burdening him, is all. Percy is going to tire faster because he's carrying him, get dehydrated quicker even as the sun does down.

He's burdening him. But he's also giving him something to do, he thinks. Something to focus on. Verity may not have noticed, distracted with helping him along, but Percy's eyes were still red. Every time he walked a little ahead or behind them Damas suspected he was crying again.

He wants to start crying again, too, but he couldn't very well do that now that he was being carried. There was no reason to.

"Is that better?" Verity asks, and he nods, trying to avoid bumping their heads together.

"Thanks," he murmurs, and Percy nods too, back to his mute self.

Verity goes back to spinning the little roll of tape she found in the shack around her pointer finger now that her hands are free, looking almost thoughtful. "When we find somewhere good to stop for the night, I think if we tore this up a bit we might be able to close up some of the wound? My brother did that, once, instead of telling our mom. He taped his finger shut after he cut himself with a knife."

Percy nods again, although Damas can't imagine anyone is particularly eager to examine the hole in his side. Besides, a knife is a lot different than a bullet, a finger a lot different than his ribs. It's smaller, less, serious. And no doubt Verity's mom found out anyway, eventually, and insisted on it being properly fixed.

Verity is looking to him, though, for... approval? No one ever looks to him for approval.

He nods once again, not wanting to sound ungrateful. She's just trying to help, and it's the only concrete supply they have. Taping his side shut certainly can't do any more damage than what's already been done.

"It'll be okay," she says, voice unnatural bright. Artificial, if he were to guess, but maybe Verity doesn't even notice it. "We'll fix you all up and then we can go look for help, maybe. That's a good idea."

Help that doesn't exist. Damas hasn't yelled in a long while, and if he wasn't so exhausted maybe he would find the energy to. Help isn't out there. No one's going to save them because no one knows they're here except for the Sentinels hunting them, the Sentinels that must have killed Nicator.

Percy hasn't breathed a word of what happened to him. He wants to ask, but doesn't have the courage.

"Help sounds good," he decides, eventually, if only so he doesn't have to see her ground. She smiles and jogs a few paces ahead. They are going a bit faster now that he's not dragging himself through the sand. At least that's one little victory.

Help does sound good, he can't lie. But it's not going to happen.

It's certainly not going to happen so long as they're carrying him along, denying the inevitable. He's not getting out of this alive. Whether it's something else or the bullet lodged in his side that finally gets him he's not sure. But something will.

Something will get them all, if he allows himself to think it. They're not built to survive.

Maybe they don't know that just yet. But he's known that about himself for years.

Trojan Geomantra, 18
Applicant #22

The car is almost too silent.

He never in his life thought he would say that, not after how many words came out of Icarus' mouth in such a short period of time. It had been one thing discovering him in the car in the first place after Soran had pulled up alongside them in the road, Icarus hanging out of the window like a dog, but god, spending all that time with him.

A few hours was a long time.

Now he was gone, and Trojan was grateful for it, don't get him wrong, but the quiet was weird. It made him tired, to boot, and he didn't want to be tired. Kidava had passed out in the backseat not long ago and forced him up into the front, but he had no idea how she was sleeping. He didn't care, really, but he also didn't trust either of the people in this car with him. They'd slit his throat in his sleep.

The only good thing was that Trojan didn't think Soran could do that with just a hammer. He could certainly crack his skull open, though. No waking up then.

"You see that building up there?" he murmurs.

"Yeah."

"We gonna stop there?"

"Not tonight. I'll get close, but we're not going in."

Because his life mission is to listen to Soran, right. "Why not?"

"That's where they'll expect us to go. Looking for cover, supplies."

"They already know where we are. They're tracking us, remember?"

"But they'll be a lot more inclined to leave us alone when they know we're not chickening out, I reckon. We'll check it out in the morning, when we can see. When we're all awake."

"Sounds to me like you're scared of Devereux catching up with us."

"Sounds to me like you are, considering you're the one that brought it up."

The number on the bracelet still says twenty-two, and he loathes it. If only Icarus had just bought it, broke his neck after he landed the wrong way in the dunes. One problem down, the others to go. And like he said, these two people, sitting in the car with him right now. Soran's thinking about this, really thinking. He'll never say it aloud, but it's smart, the path he's going down. Morning probably is better.

It's the same mentality that some of the people in the gang have back home, whereas he just follows whims and does what he wants. If someone ends up in the hospital because of it, so be it.

Icarus reminded him a little bit of that man, now that he thinks about it. Loud-mouthed, didn't know when to quit, pushed his limits to the brink and then right over. It's the reason Trojan nearly caved his head in.

Same old, same old. Here, and in his scrubby little home. Nothing ever changes.

Icarus should be lucky Soran shoved him out when he did. Sooner or later they'd have killed him outright, if he didn't shut up. What happened to him instead was a mercy, even if Icarus himself wouldn't see it that way.

It's not Icarus he's worried about, though. Soran who's focused on what's ahead of them, Kidava asleep in the back seat... these are the two people who beat him out in the simulation. The two that silently paired up and killed him like they were fucking telepathic, like they knew he was the one. He's taller than them both, more intimidating. At least they both look nice enough on a good day. He knows he doesn't.

They'll do it again, he has no doubt. Kidava won't let Soran go, because she won't stand a chance against him on her own.

Soran might let Kidava go, though. He'd probably let anyone go, considering how fast he took matters into his own hands with Icarus.

"Pandora Quinn was the main organizer behind all of this," he says, feeling the tired creep up on him again. "Is that why you're here?"

"I don't know any of them. Don't want to."

"Then why'd you come, if you knew?"

He shrugs, and that's all the answer Trojan gets. Secrets. Too many secrets, and Soran's keeping them all.

"Why are you here?"

He bites down the urge, the I asked you first that crawls to the edge of his tongue. It's childish, and frankly he'll leave that bit of their conversations to Kidava, until they inevitably lose her. "Interested, I guess."

"In what?"

"Like you don't know."

"I'm not sure I want to know, considering you've almost killed someone," Soran says, ignoring him in every other respect.

"A little gruesome fascination and curiosity isn't a bad thing."

"Not to Kidava it isn't," Soran supposes. "But you also sound absolutely fucking insane, which tends to be a little off-putting."

Maybe they all are. He knows Kidava has to be off her rocker, just a little bit, or maybe she is just that interested. Jesse got that way once, when there was someone going around Syracuse cutting people's hands off, leaving them in the street. She had just wanted to know so badly. Murderers and the crimes they commit just attract people. It's human nature.

Besides, when he looks at Soran, he gets that feeling too. That something's not right. Maybe it was just the Quinn thing. Maybe not. The feeling is still there, after all, even now that he knows what type of blood is sitting in this car next to him. Important blood. Presidential blood.

And it still spills all the same. Renatus Quinn still went down with a bullet to the head, easy as pie.

Soran cannot claim to be normal, the same way none of them can. Even the way they're acting in this situation isn't normal. They were four, already down to three. None of them can even raise the energy to care, unless they're mocking it.

Or unless you're Soran, not saying anything at all. Like it never even happened.

Oh, but something is going to happen. Something even bigger than what already has. Bigger than the two people dead in the town behind them, than where Icarus Devereux is still lying.

Something's coming. And he won't have a problem being on the receiving end of it.

At least that's the one thing the people in this car seem to have agreed upon. When push comes to shove, they're going to be the ones shoving.

And when it comes to murder or being murdered... there isn't even a question in his mind.

Noelani Westmoreland, 16
Applicant #11

"I fucking hate this," Jay mutters.

Well, she's not sure she would word it exactly the same way but... yeah. That's about how she feels as well.

At least Topher's spirit hasn't been dampened, although you'd think the threat of being murdered would finally do the trick.

The desert, Death Valley itself, is ominous enough. Death Valley when the sun starts going down is worse. It chases away the worst of the heat, which is a blessing in and of itself, but it makes everything seem like some oddly set horror movie. There has to have been one of those, right? People getting chased down and murdered in a desert by some psycho killer?

She's not a big horror movie fan.

What's happening to them is the equivalent, though. Maybe Tarquin would appreciate it, if there wasn't a legitimate chance of him being murdered. He'd love acting something like this out, love memorizing lines and performing it for someone. It's not Shakespeare, but it's something. It would definitely be better than being here, after all, and she's sure he'd agree.

She stops at the top of the hill, watching as the boys all begin to pick their way down. She could yell at Topher to slow down, no use in keeping her voice down if the Sentinels know where they are anyway. There's no one else near, that she's sure of. The cars went in opposite directions, and there were no other people headed this way, nowhere close.

They're safe, for now. Safe doesn't even feel like a word in her vocabulary at this moment in time.

She's trying to keep calm for their sake, trying not to fidget and jump at any little noise, but two people are dead, and her little brother is here and if she's protecting herself then she might not be able to protect him, but then what would their parents think? And Tarquin and Jay... they don't deserve this anymore than either of them. She certainly can't not look after them too.

She suddenly understands why tributes had such a frantic need for allies in training. You pick the best, the strongest, the smartest.

None of those people are in this little group. It's her sibling, a good friend, someone who definitely still has even a little crush on her. But none of them are particularly big - Tarquin might stand a chance against some of them, but her and Jay's arms are the same size, and Topher still fits under her shoulder. They're screwed.

She almost says it a handful of times and swallows it. No point. There's just no point.

She waits until they're halfway down the hill, past the most dangerous part of the shifting rock, and follows. She heads towards a darker vein of it, a collection of boulders in her path, and hits her sandal against something hard, rusted away. Tugging it away from the rocks she pulls it into the air, examining it in the growing darkness. It's a piece of metal, about the length of her forearm. Besides that she can't tell what it is, or what it used to be. There's flakes of rust scattered all over her hands just from picking it up.

It's not sharp on either end, just blunt. Not good for stabbing, just poking. But it's heavy enough, and she's not that weak. She could swing it.

But for what? Like she's going to kill someone, right? She's not a tribute.

"Hey, what's that?"

She yelps and spins around, nearly striking Tarquin in the head as she flails her arms about. He barely ducks out of the way, letting out a similar yelp of his own as he nearly goes tumbling down the hill in his quest to avoid her swing. She slides as well, and he grabs onto her arm, steadying her before she can get any further away.

"It's me," he insists.

"Got that now," she says, shakily, but clings on tighter to the piece of metal all the same. Tarquin lets go of her arm when he's satisfied at her stability, but now that she can get a good look at him her heart sinks. His eyes are wide, confused. Almost a little terrified, and she knows just of what.

"I wasn't— I wasn't going to hurt you," she says. "You just startled me, sorry."

He laughs. Awkwardly, but she doesn't point it out. Tarquin's the same as her in this respect - they're both jumpy, both yelped just the same, but he's quick to get over it. He smiles, just to make her feel better, laughs again. She forces a smile on her own face, just to keep his up.

"Jesus, Lani!" Topher yells up the hill. "Be careful!"

She nods and waves in acknowledgement. Even Jay looks a little bit freaked out, as weird as it looks on his face. Tarquin nudges her, just enough to urge her back down the hill.

"Next time I'll warn you I'm coming back up like, five or ten feet in advance," Tarquin jokes. "You got a good swing, though."

A good swing to nearly strike him in the head. What would she had done, if Tarquin hadn't ducked? Would her swing have been enough to kill him? Even if she hadn't managed to do that, he certainly would have been injured, or unconscious, and that would have been on her. She would have single-handedly been responsible for hurting someone she calls a friend.

She feels sick just at the thought of it.

"Hey," Tarquin says softly. "It's fine. I know you didn't mean it."

She holds the metal out to him. "You want it?"

"Nah, I'm good. Keep it. I'd trust you to swing it before I would."

Don't, she wants to cry, don't trust me. It's too much pressure on her shoulders. Suddenly she feels a weight there, something she's never felt before. Before it felt like the wind carried her around on its whims, like nothing could hold her down, and now it feels as if she's sunken to the bottom of the ocean down the road from home with stones tied around her ankles.

Tarquin follows her to the bottom of the hill, to the others. At least it's flatter, here. Nothing hiding behind stones or grass.

Regardless of what she thinks, she has to keep going. If not for herself, for them. For her father and Topher's mother, the family they've created. She has to do it because she can't let go of herself, even here. There's still a little bit of hope flickering in her, determination.

It's not much. The candle flame that is her optimism is shrinking, like someone closed the lid on it. Snuffed it out.

But she's not going to be snuffed out. Not yet.

Meris Loucare, 17
Applicant #15

"So, what's in the bag?" she asks finally.

Beside her, Ria doesn't show any indication that she's even heard. She peers up at Meris, finally, through the strands of hair that have curled over the edge of her face.

"Some things from a supply closet."

And that's probably all the information she's going to get. Mel should really work on that, this whole communication thing with her. She only agreed to come with them in the first place because of him - he needs to talk to her about being open, and honest, even if Meris isn't those things herself.

She can't imagine Ria is either. At least they have something in common, because she doesn't think there's much else there.

At least she's smart, like Mel has said. Not that she wants to discredit herself any, but she never spent an appropriate amount of time on school or any of the work associated with it. It just seemed so trivial, so mundane. Maybe it would get her somewhere, but not any of the places she wanted to go. Lyan would criticize her and tell her that she'd end up on the streets, but they were already halfway there most days it seemed.

She almost offers to carry the bag, but it took her long enough to let Mel carry it for a few hours to relieve herself of the burden. She doesn't think they're on that level yet. She wants it, there's no doubt about it. She wants to know what's in it even more. But grabbing it off of her and snooping through it will probably just make things worse, in the long run.

She'll ask Mel about that, too. She'll just make him do everything, apparently.

Speaking of, he's been gone for a while. They've found enough cover for the night, at least, and from the sun during the day if they choose to stay. Mel, like all men, she suspects, went off around the bend of the biggest rock formations to look for water all by his lonesome. If there was water nearby, the drinkable kind, she's sure they'd hear it. But more power to him if he still has the energy to look, to feel like he's doing something.

Ria sits down in the entrance of the little alcove, not venturing any further into the darkness of the cavern. It ends after about twenty feet, but even that little bit of length is completely dark towards the back.

She sees Ria fidgeting long before any words come out, but stays patient. She's thinking about how they're going to transport water anyway, if Mel does happen to find any. They can't stay in this area forever, after all.

"I have water," Ria says eventually. "Just one bottle, but I have two empty ones. If he does find any."

Rule number one, try her hardest not to get even the slightest bit exasperated, or Ria and her one bottle of water are going to run away. She nods.

"Can I take the two empty ones? I'm going to go look for him."

Ria digs them out of the bag and offers them up. They're not very big, not going to last long in the desert, but three full bottles would be better than none. Her throat already feels like sandpaper, like it's bleeding and dripping all the way down her throat.

She heads down through the rocks, bottles in hand, until she can no longer see Ria perched in her spot, steadily picking a path down in the direction Mel disappeared to. She follows his footprints, nothing more than indentations in the loose gravel, hardly markings at all. There's no way there's water anywhere around here, if not anywhere close. She just didn't have the heart to tell him that.

He's trying. God forbid he tries.

The footprints peter out once the ground becomes flat, the earth cracked and hard, full of little veins that look like they should be full of water. They're just not that lucky.

The smear across what little of the rock still lies in front of her is a stark contrast to the rest of the environment, darker. Everything in its muted shades of orange and brown and gray are nothing compared to the red against the surface of the rock. Not quite a hand-print, like someone slammed into it and continued walking on, trying to support themselves.

She almost calls out for him, almost. There's a broken arrow at the foot of the rock, cracked in two. At her feet is just the end of the shaft and the fletching, gray-brown feathers all messed together.

And all the blood, as she creeps closer. It's all over the ground too.

This isn't fucking good.

"Meris?"

She's not like that, she doesn't scream. She's in the process of picking up the arrow when she hears Mel's voice, just around the corner. It sounds too much like a question.

It sounds too much like something's wrong.

The end of the arrow is sharp, pointed, and she's still holding it outwards when she finds him just on the other side of the rock. She finds him, just like that. And she finds the other end of the arrow, buried in his stomach.

She's practically burning. The sun has gone down, but she still feels it. Right then her blood goes ice cold.

"It wasn't," he manages, nearly choking. "It wasn't the Sentinels."

There's a fucking arrow in his stomach, half of one anyway. There's another in his shoulder, and his leg is bleeding too, like another one almost caught him. Her hand goes limp, the arrow bouncing off her shoe and rolling to a stop between their feet, useless.

Useless like she feels. Like she never, ever feels.

"Mel," she says, and her voice shakes, god her voice actually shakes and she curses it, curses the terror that comes out. He's leaning against the rock but just barely, looking as if he's about to collapse. There's so much blood. Too much of it.

It wasn't the Sentinels. There were no weapons, back where they started.

And if it wasn't any of them, then who was it?

Arwen Paoul, 18
Applicant #1

If she was in any other situation, she would think it was pretty.

They've found themselves a nice little lookout, the six of them. All the way up the peak the truck climbed, although the more it chugged onward the more she had convinced herself that it was about to breakdown. It was a piece of shit, looked like one too, but it was resilient. She had to give it that.

She wouldn't be caught dead in a car like this back home, but for now she was the only one in it. Everyone else had ventured outside, and while they were staying close, a loose little circle as they looked over the edge and the drop below, she could sense the uneasiness.

Still, it was pretty. She wasn't going to deny it any longer.

"You look very thoughtful," Emmi says, walking up. She nudges her leg hanging out of the passenger's side door, swiveled around on the seat to catch a glimpse of the view.

"It's nice, is all."

Emmi gives a pointed look towards the horizon. "It's also dark."

"Still nice."

"Pretty desert, pretty view, pretty group of Sentinels threatening to kill us all if we don't kill each other. You know the works."

Her lips crack up, and she swears she tastes blood when they do. She's going to die of dehydration and chapped lips before anyone ever thinks to kill her. They couldn't have handed out some chapstick before they sent them on their merry way? A care package, a bottle of water, anything?

She looks up to the sky. No parachute is ever going to come down and help her.

"You really think we're gonna have to kill each other?" Emmi asks quietly.

She pats the space between her feet, the little exposed bit of floor that she hasn't scuffed up with dirt.

"Well, not me and you, no," she says as Emmi sits down. "Everyone else, maybe. If we're in trouble."

"I'm touched."

"You better be. I wouldn't risk getting blood on my clothes or ruining my nails for just anyone."

Emmi smiles. That's prettier than the sun would be hanging in the sky, if it was still there at all. Even if it came down to the two of them, she's not sure. Anyone else she can't imagine caring about this way, even the four others here. Emmi just makes her feel like she can say whatever she wants, be whoever she so chooses to be. Not the Arwen that exists only in the public eye, the one that has a face carved out of marble and a personality as cold as steel.

Maybe because her and Emmi are the same. Different, but the same. They both used to be different people all the time - now the masks are on.

But here the charade is over. If it ever even began, with how quickly Emmi saw through it.

"I'd protect you too, I hope you know that."

"Aw," she says, just shy of too loud to cover up how warm she goes all over. "How sweet."

It is, is the main issue. When was the last time being sweet got her anywhere? When she was five, maybe, and when her dad wasn't always off managing some campaign or other for the mayor, when her mother wasn't off having brunch with the other resident trophy wives of their neighborhood. Now she was just expected to be what they wanted, not coached to do so. She was old enough to do it on her own.

At least they're not here. She doesn't think they'd approve of their perfect little daughter murdering someone.

Emmi's hair is tickling at her bare legs, and after a moment of hesitation she scoops it up, coming her fingers through it. Her own was pulled back to begin with, on the hovercraft, up in a bun and away from her face.

"Whatcha doing?"

"Pulling your hair back," she explains, starting a braid at the base of her skull. "No offense meant, but it can't be easy to do on your own."

"It's not. My dad was always shit at it, too. He never quite got the gist of braiding hair."

"What about your mom?"

"She died when I was little. Sucks, because she had such nice hair, too. And she always did it so well; could've taken some pointers from her."

She hums instead of answering, no words to say in response, and focuses on the task at hand. It'll be better to have her hair out of her face, for whatever happens. That's her justification behind it. Having another reason right now isn't a good thing, as much as she wants it to be.

She ignores Gideon, who's chosen to stare at them in a very non-subtle way like it's the most interesting thing he's seen all day. She knows for a fact it's not. She finishes up the braid and ties it off with the only elastic she has left on her wrist.

"Now, don't lose that," she insists. "I've only got two."

Only two, and now Emmi has one of them. Emmi, who turns and smiles at her, running her hand over the braid and elastic in question, all the way to the end.

"I won't. Promise."

Yeah, she won't be asking for it back, anyway.

I swear I'll get back to the actual murdering business soon. Like next chapter soon. It's all a work in progress. Apologies for the delay; I was engagement partying it up.

Let me know your thoughts. Hope you're a having a lovely day.

Until next time.