XVII: Day Two, Morning.
Tarquin Vierra, 16
Applicant #4
The sun rises with painstaking slowness.
He's not a baby. He's not afraid of the dark, doesn't need a night light to fall asleep once his parents tuck him in. He definitely doesn't need to cuddle with either of said parents to close his eyes comfortably.
He's not afraid of the dark, but the night was terrifying.
The stars were their only source of slight, the moon a mere sliver hanging above their heads. The sky was more blue than black, a color he would appreciate normally had he been able to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time under it.
Topher had fallen asleep almost instantly when they settled down, and he was beyond envious of that. Jay had followed not long after after some fitful glancing around, flopping over in the dirt with an arm cast over his eyes like that helped, somehow. Noelani hadn't talked about keeping watch; he hadn't wanted to think of it like that, as if they had to. As if there was something out there worth watching for.
He had laid down, but the earth was still hot to the touch, remained that way all through the night. It was still hot as hell, anyway. The sun going down hadn't changed that. They couldn't get that lucky.
It was with painstaking slowness that Noelani had fallen asleep as well, although it was restless, and he watched her eyelids twitch back and forth almost every other minute, like she would never be able to rest well. Every time he closed his eyes something would bring him back out of it. A noise, the rustle of a bush in the wind, the dirt blowing past his ears. A shadow in the distance, something that almost looked like help coming to save them, if he was delusional enough...
Right now, he wished he was.
By the time the sun pokes over the horizon he's been wide awake for an hour, flopped over on his stomach. He sits up, his back and legs and everything protesting at the moment, made painful by the hard-packed ground. His friends made him watch the sunrise, sometimes, when they had their sleepovers. Arden never slept past the dawn anyway, and she would ensure to drag them all up as well, to cram themselves around her bedroom window to watch it.
He didn't have the heart to wake anyone now.
It was one of the prettiest sunrises he had ever seen. Purple and pink and bright orange, setting the earth on fire, scattering in wisps all across the sky. He could already feel the heat returning, feel it settling back over his skin like a shawl in the dead of summer.
If the sudden light is bothering anyone's closed eyes, they show no indication. Noelani and Topher live under the sun almost the full year around. He doesn't have that luxury.
It reminds him of Ria, almost, but she had chosen to stay away from everyone, and he had always chosen the stage. It was dark, cooped up inside all the time, but at least then the darkness was good. Not like out there. And even the lights above the stage hadn't been as sweltering at the rising sun.
He's got a lot of layers on, always does. He shrugs off the first one and lays it out in front of him. All that matters is that his arms and shoulders are still covered, this he can use for something else. His socks are a no-go, he won't risk the blisters, and he preferably like to keep his pants on.
The shirt he can use though. They have no knife, no scissors, but it's not all that thick. He never liked to be burdened by something that was.
He starts at the bottom, pulling experimentally at the seam until it comes free with a rip, separating the bottom layer from the rest. He does it until he can pull the two apart. It's too bad he doesn't have a hat, won't be able to, either, with just this shirt for cover, but it's good use for other things. He wraps some of the fabric between his fingers and around his wrist, tying the ends together. Not quite a glove, and his palms will sweat like they never have before, but it's better than them being covered in sun-burnt blisters.
The shirt tears into more and more strips. He ties another round his other hand and ties it around the bracelet. He doesn't want to see it, anyway, doesn't want to know what happens today, if anything does at all.
Someone else will tell him. He doesn't want to see the truth with his own two eyes.
"What're you doing?" Topher mumbles, sleep still heavy in his voice. He rolls over to face him, although his eyes are still closed. Tarquin doesn't bother waving the torn-up strips of his shirt around.
"Making gloves."
"It's not cold."
No, that it's not. Topher mumbles something else again and then face-plants back into the dirt. It's as if he's forgotten what's going on, the sort of danger they're all in.
Maybe he'll let Jay use the other two. He's fair enough, will probably need them in the future, if they last that long.
He doesn't want to be thinking that way. It makes him sick, and he's already starving as is. He doesn't need to throw up what little he has left in his stomach at the thought of any of them dying, of any of them getting hurt.
He wouldn't have been so paranoid in the night if that wasn't the case, though. There's a reason his eyes kept opening, against his will. They knew something could be coming, even when his brain wanted to deny it. Everything he thinks he sees, every noise he hears, it could be something coming for them. It could be inevitable death, right on their heels.
It sounds dramatic. Maybe it is. That's what he's always been best at - playing things up, making them seem more than they are, putting on a show.
He likes putting on another face, playing a role.
Right now he can be no one other than himself, and that's the worst part of all.
Icarus Devereux, 17
Applicant #10
He expected to be dead.
When the last thing you could remember was falling out of a speeding car, shoved, more like, death was to be expected. He had hit the ground. He didn't remember hitting the ground, of course, because that would have made things much simpler.
He wakes up in the sand, blood in his eyes, wobbling alarmingly when he stands, and starts walking anyway.
The head wound isn't not that bad. He's not even sure he has one because he can't see, so maybe he's just delusional from the heat. It may have just been his nose, because it hurts, and he can't tell if he landed on it or not. It would have produced enough blood to get in his eyes, at the angle he was laying at when he woke.
His skin has been on fire since he woke, what little of it was left exposed to the sun while he was out. His scalp is raw, he's sure, and every time his hands brush against his sides as he walks he wants to scream, or start crying. It fucking hurts.
Crying would be appropriate. He doesn't think, for once in his life, that anyone would fault him for it.
If anyone was around to see it.
In hindsight, maybe that's why he starts following what's left of the car's tracks through the sand. They've half-blown away by the time he gathers the courage to follow them, but they're there. He couldn't have been out for that long. They didn't get that far.
So he walks, from mid-day to night. Sits there in the darkness with his arms wrapped around his knees in the middle of nowhere, exposed to the wind. Eventually he gets up and keeps on walking, because he's not sleeping anyway. It's easier to walk at night, too. His throat isn't so parched. The sun can't hurt him.
The sun hasn't quite risen yet when he hears the car and nearly throws himself to the ground in his haste to avoid being seen, even though he can't see it. If he can't see it, they can't see him. If it even really is them.
He contemplates just lying in the sand forever, until heatstroke takes him. If it isn't already.
But no, he gets up, even though he feels like collapsing the second his feet are back under him, and spots the car not far in the distance at all. Their car. The one he was in just yesterday.
It's really not far at all, and now it's stopped just at the edge of a long, low-roofed building in the middle of nowhere. He watches all three of them file out, still just the three, into the building.
His first thought is to take the car, driving skills be damned.
When he finally skirts over and across the dunes, getting closer and closer to the car, he doesn't even consider jumping into the front seat and driving away. It would be funny, sure, but they'd probably all come after him and murder him, regardless of how much faster he was. He also doesn't think that he'd get far on his own, if he's being honest.
So why is he here, then? He should be trying to find other people, not these three. Trojan and Kidava who wanted him out of the car in the first place, Soran who shoved him out in the end.
These three are just the easiest.
He's not sure in which way he's referring to, there.
He inches around the car, pressing himself to the sun-warmed metal. The wrench he had shoved in the seat's pocket is gone, and whoever took it is going to get it. The hammer is, too, but at least he knows that it's Soran who probably has that. The glove-box isn't open - would Soran have told the other two about the water by now, or would he have kept it to himself?
Hopefully it's still there, or he might die of thirst.
If he opens the car door they're going to hear him, bastards. Some sort of sixth sense, no doubt. Which means he had to go inside and... what, exactly?
He has no idea. He didn't come all this way for nothing.
Closer to the building there are piles of rubbish, and he inches his way over until he's practically standing in one of the heaps, nudging his foot through it. There's not much of use, besides a few glass bottles. He picks one up. Good for water, if he ever finds any. Maybe he should risk emptying out there bottles and filling his own - now that would be funny. They go to have a drink, finally, and all of the bottles are empty. Now that would create chaos, a game of who done it.
He grips the muted green bottle around the neck, twisting his hand around it. It feels good to have something in his hand, even if it's meaningless.
"Oh, fuck's sake."
He flinches and nearly trips over the garbage, turning to where Trojan has emerged from the building behind him. This is exactly what he meant about a sixth sense. Why are they all so fucking creepy?
He swallows, throat like sandpaper. He really did not think this through well enough. What does he do, say hello? Forgive them?
He's not forgiving them, not for this.
"You've got a funny look in your eyes," he says, instead, and Trojan smirks.
"What do you think that means?"
"I'm hoping it's not what I think it means."
Trojan looks like the cat who just caught the goddamn canary. Thanks, Estella, he wants to say, thanks for getting me into this big fat fucking mess in the first place.
"Guys!" Trojan yells, still with that look on his face. Trojan is going to kill him, he has no doubt. "We've got—"
Trojan is absolutely going to kill him, so he tunes him out.
He lunges forward, catching the glass bottle against the stone wall. It shatters clean in half; bits of the bottle cut into his hand, fresh wounds in a situation where he doesn't need them. Trojan has the wrench in his hand, bastard, just had to take what wasn't his, that's how he is.
Icarus' life, or lack thereof, doesn't belong to him either.
Trojan's still in motion, voice still going. Doesn't even lunge out of the way. Probably doesn't think anything of it, because Icarus didn't either, up until two seconds ago. This wasn't how this was supposed to go.
How was it supposed to go, then?
He doesn't figure it out, burying the cracked end of the bottle into the soft side of Trojan's neck.
There's an immediate spurt of blood over his hands, down his arm. Trojan chokes and pulls away. The bottle tears through more skin, more veins, into his jugular. He sees it happen, the slick of blood that gushes down over his neck, still all over his hands. He rips the bottle out and so much of it splatters all over his shoes, his pants, the front of his shirt. So much for all white, for all the elegance in the world.
Trojan hits the ground at his feet, blood out the mouth, seeping into the sand. Both of his hands are at the edge of the wound torn into his throat, as if he's trying to coax the blood back in, his jugular back together into one cohesive piece.
Not going to happen, he wants to say.
His throat is worse than sandpaper, now.
"What the fuck?" Kidava shouts. The bracelet flicks from twenty-two to twenty-one, but he's too busy staring at the two of them, ten feet behind Trojan's body. Soran honest to God laughs but even that sounds shocked, incredulous. Not horrified. He can't imagine Soran looking horrified, or even feeling it.
"Well, I can safely say I wasn't expecting that," Soran says, wide-eyed. Why does he look amused? Is this fucking amusing?
He's still got the bottle, Soran the hammer. Before this moment neither of those things looked all that intimidating.
"Give me the keys," he instructs, voice somehow steady. It shouldn't be, with blood inching towards his shoes. He should probably just leave. Getting away would be best right now.
"No?" Soran says. "Fuck you."
"Give me the fucking hammer, then," Kidava interrupts, voice edging towards darker territory. "Give me something to use."
"No," Soran repeats.
"You don't think I'll kill you?" he asks. His voice won't last much longer. "I will, clearly. Give me the keys."
"I don't think you will."
"I should," he snaps. "The three of you fucking what, telepathically communicated to get me out of the car? Clearly I can't trust multiples."
"Two, now," Soran points out. "So what, you only want one of us dead, then? It's much easier to only have to keep an eye on one person. Let's make a deal, then. Whichever one of us is alive at the end of the next minute, you don't kill. Sound good?"
"What?" Kidava asks incredulously, at the same time Icarus thinks it.
Yeah. What?
Soran takes a step back from both of them. His fingers are so slippery it's hard to hold onto the bottle. He sees the hammer raise, just a few inches, thinks oh no, oh shit and then Soran cracks the hammer into Kidava's skull.
It really does crack. There's no other way to describe it. Like your knees when you sit for too long, like stepping on a whole minefield of broken glass. He hears it, the vicious sound of the bone crunching. Her scream is cut off almost instantly, only half out of her throat. He doesn't even see where the face of the hammer lands because it happens so quick, just the swing of the momentum as Soran carries it out, and then brings it back.
No, not more blood.
The claw hits her in the throat on the back-swing, just above the breastbone. Sinks in. Not as much blood as what he did to Trojan, but God, it's still there. She hits the ground with a thud and he holds her there, forcing the claw in further. More blood. There it is.
"What the fuck?" he chokes, barely-formed words. Soran pulls the claw back out.
Twenty-one to twenty.
"We had a deal, remember?"
"I didn't agree to that!" he insists. "Are you fucking insane?"
"You did it first," Soran points out. Fuck, there's blood on his shoes. There's blood on Soran's shoes too.
He slips backwards when Soran approaches, but he skirts around him and heads for the car instead. He nearly drops the bottle as he watches him go, torn between how casually and easily he walks away and the two corpses on the ground in front of him. Alive one minute, dead the next.
He killed one of them. And like Soran said, he did it first.
One of the doors slams behind him. The car starts.
"What, are you coming, or not?" Soran asks. He stares, more and more, on and on. Is that all he can do, now?
"What?" he croaks.
"Are you coming?" Soran repeats, slower. "Or are you going to stand here until the sun sets you on fire?"
He feels so dizzy, like he's the one losing blood. His head is pounding in the temples, like he got hit with the hammer. His head would be pounding worse if that was the case. Is Soran allowing him in the car? Is that really what's happening?
He stumbles forward for the passenger door and pulls it open, clambering inside. He doesn't know what he expects. To get shoved out again, because Soran seems like the type to repeat history.
It's cooler in the car. Not by much, but it is. He takes a deep breath and swears he tastes blood in his throat.
He pops open the glove-box, and all three water bottles roll out into his lap, one to his feet. They're all still full. When he picks one up, the one rolling back and forth on the floor, he leaves behind a sticky hand-print.
He looks at Soran. "You didn't tell them."
Soran smiles. It's unnerving, but not as unnerving as it was yesterday.
He's not sure why. He's not sure he wants to know, either.
"It's like you said," he explains. "Can't trust multiples."
Jahaira Aurelion, 16
Applicant #23
She was always a good sleeper.
Raelle wasn't, was the thing. Her mother always lamented the fact that her little sister didn't sleep as well as she did, as many times as she could. That was parenthood for you.
She's talking about her sister in the past tense, like she doesn't exist in the future.
Maybe for Jahaira she doesn't. Maybe the only people that know her sister now are the ones that exist back in Plainview, the ones she'll meet one day. Not her, who's almost certainly dead. There's no optimism in that sentence, a stark contrast to how she usually is. Getting her to see the gloom and doom back home was almost impossible, even for the people that knew her best.
But she wakes, quicker than usual, and that all fades away. Someone's rambling, a slightly hysterical uplift to their voice. She rolls over, nearly into Myra's crossed legs, who's staring off into nothing at all. Arwen's head is buried in her hands and she's ever so slowly shaking it back and forth. It's Jupiter and Emmi who are talking, although Jupiter's doing all the rambling. Gideon's off fifty feet away, doing God knows what. Every once in a while he'll lean down to pick something up. Is he off picking flowers right now?
"What's up?" she asks, because she can't make any sense of whatever is coming out of Jupiter's mouth. It definitely sounds pretty hysterical. All of their words are blending together into one.
Myra doesn't say anything, but she reaches over and taps the face of Jahaira's bracelet, instead. She squints, blinking the sleep out of her eyes.
It said twenty-two last night.
It definitely doesn't say that anymore.
"What," she says flatly. "Wait is that... is that right?"
Myra shrugs and looks back at Jupiter. Well, that certainly explains the hysteria. It looks like they might be crying, or at least on the quick to decent to that path. She doesn't feel any sort of immediate emotion besides alarm, until she really gets to thinking about it. Two more people are dead, unless the bracelet has taken to lying to them overnight. Would the Sentinels really do that, fake them out in order to freak them out, in order to spur them on?
She gets the feeling they would, certain ones. But Carnelia Trevall? She's already playing enough mind games.
What if it was someone she talked to, spent a little bit of time with? Sure, the people she's closest to are sitting right here in front of her, but they weren't the only ones. What if it was one of the younger kids, the ones who deserve it even less than the rest of them?
What if it was someone she ate breakfast with just two days ago, someone she sparred with?
"Hey," Myra says. "Don't cry."
She blinks, and wipes away tears she hadn't realized were appearing before they begin to fall. She shakes her head, almost viciously. No need to cry. It's not her that's dead. No need.
"I'm not trying to sound like an asshole," Myra says. "I just— we need to figure something out."
Try telling that to Jupiter, who's clearly worse off than Jahaira is in their current moment. She could almost see herself snapping that, if the situation was different. She hated when people cried for no good reason at all.
Was this not a good reason, though?
"I just can't believe we're actually fucking killing each other," Arwen mutters. "Like, we're really doing this? It took what, a whole day? Good job, guys."
"You don't know that it wasn't the Sentinels," Myra says. "It probably was."
"If it was really them that killed the people in the bloodbath, then I doubt it," Emmi interrupts. "They don't want to kill us themselves. If that opportunity arises they will, and I'm sure they'll gladly take it, but it would be a hell of a lot more entertaining to make us kill each other. They threatened our families. Someone probably thought about that."
Even when she thinks about her mother and father, Raelle, she's not sure her mind immediately jumps to killing someone to protect them. Maybe if they were coming after her, first, but only then.
Would she really have it in her?
Myra looks annoyed, now. She's not sure if it's at the general state of things or at Emmi, who looks torn between yelling and shaking her first at the sky and trying to calm Jupiter down.
Gideon returns, finally, holding a handful of weedy-looking flowers by the stems. He's got one poking out of his mouth, too, munching on it.
"Are you eating weeds?" Arwen asks flatly. He drops one in her lap.
"It's sand verbena. Edible."
Arwen mutters something under her breath and then tucks the weedy looking thing behind her ear instead of putting it in her mouth. He offers a few of them to Jupiter, who wipes away their tears before taking the offer from his hands.
"Great," Myra says. "Eating weeds and murdering each other. Great summer vacation."
"You really think it was the Sentinels?"
Myra draws a pattern in the dusty ground with the tip of her finger. She's noticed her doing that a lot, moving her hands. It's how she keeps checking her pocket for her camera. They took all their phones, but they left the camera where it was.
Probably because it won't do anything to save her.
"No."
"Then why'd you say that?"
"Because I wanted to trust in the fact that we wouldn't resort to this."
"Not we," she says quietly. "We haven't done anything."
Myra finishes whatever it is she was drawing, or writing, and wipes it away with the palm of her hand before Jahaira can make it out. "Not yet."
Sabre Hennedige, 15
Applicant #6
He would never say he's avoiding talking to Faye out-loud.
It's not the right thing to do. Certainly not the polite, one. Someone would give him a reprimanding back in Two for saying that, so he doesn't. She hasn't intentionally woken him up, he thinks, but she's also not being quite either. She's kicking rocks around under the little bit of cover they have, a half-caved in roof of a shed with only two free-standing walls.
The rocks keep hitting him. He keeps his mouth shut.
"We need to move," she says under her breath, although he still hears it. "Head north? North sounds good. Away from everyone else, and some places that won't have been rummaged through yet. Maybe we could find a map..."
Faye's trying to make a plan. Enviable, in a situation like this. He has to give her some credit for keeping such a firm head on her shoulders for her age. Even yesterday, the way she approached him, she knew what she was doing.
It's unnerving, almost. Like she knows how to do everything. In his experience the ones that know how to do everything are typically the most dangerous, the ones to watch out.
"Not an ideal situation," she continues. "Not really. Maybe you should try and find some other people? Someone—"
Better, his brain finishes, so he misses the word she really says. Faye can't take the bike without him, not unless she walks it until she finds someone else to drive it. He'd catch up with her.
Would he really, though? Would he want to? If he's being honest, he'd probably just let her go.
He rolls over, feigning a perfect example of someone waking from sleep, rubbing his hand over his eyes. Faye goes quiet, and the rocks stop bumping into his legs as she stops her pacing back and forth.
"Sorry for waking you up," she says. For once, she looks genuinely apologetic.
"You didn't," he responds. She did, but what good is that information going to do? Faye would feel bad, he would feel awkward for bringing it up. Better to just keep that information to himself, where it's safest.
"I think we should head out," she decides, and he nods, like he hadn't heard her all along. "We need to find some food, and some more water."
It's not a bad idea. People can go a long time without food, that he knows, but it'd be easier with. Faye will grow hungry long before he does, too, and he doesn't want to see her starve. That's not something anyone deserves.
If only he thought that about himself.
She takes a minuscule sip from one of their water bottles and then offers it to him. He almost refuses, almost caps it and tucks it away again until he notices her staring. He does the same, although he's sure the amount he takes is even less. Water is important. Water is going to keep him alive. He needs to keep reminding himself of that, that there's no reason to withhold it from his body.
Faye finally ventures outside, a generous term for when they're already there, barely sheltered at all. He occupies himself with tucking everything away in the bag, pulling the bottles back out when he's not satisfied to find them a better spot. Holding gas and their drinking water in the same space probably isn't their safest option, but it's the only one they have.
He pats at his pocket while Faye is gone. She could be back any second, now. Maybe she's just headed off for a bathroom break, which means he has maybe a minute.
He doesn't need that long, though. Through the fabric of his pocket he can feel the little tool still nestled carefully inside. He's not even sure what it is, really. All he knows is that it has a small handle that fits perfectly into his palm with a long, silvery spike that emerges from one end. The end is sharp, enough to draw blood if he pressed hard enough. He thinks he's seen the woman at Cortague with one before, the one that made all of their dancing costumes. So it's some sort of sewing thing, although it looks more dangerous. Like it could do more damage.
He could ask Faye what it is. She'd probably know.
She returns, though, and he does nothing more than offer her the bag, watching her adjust it only her back once again. All he can do is hope that his pockets are deep enough to hide it for good.
For some reason he feels like hiding something from her, a weapon as small as his hand, is asking for it. He already senses an explosion from her end if she were to ever find out about it, a level of distrust made worse by this secret.
They already don't trust each other. That much is clear.
Is he just making it worse?
"You ready to go?" Faye asks. He gets up, brushing his hands against the legs of his pants. He's covered in dust, his clothes stained with it. Now would be the time to so desperately wish for a shower, or something to comb his hair back.
He no longer has the luxury of those things. They don't even have food.
He is ready, though. More ready than he feels as if he has any right to be.
Maybe it's the dancer training bred so deeply into him that he has no idea how not to feel it, the ability to get up and keep going even when it hurts, even when you know it's not safe.
Even when you may fail.
"Good to go," he says, forcing a smile up. His teeth could use a good brushing, too.
No luxuries. No safety.
No guarantee at life or death, either.
Percius Marigold, 17
Applicant #2
He's come to discover that he's not a gigantic fan of blood.
Not for any great, overwhelming reason other than the fact that it's messy, gets everywhere, sticks to things and refuses to leave. Damas side has stopped bleeding, that's for certain, but it's hard to even tell what's wrong with it when there's crusted over blood everywhere, dried to every inch of his skin. He can hardly make out where the wound begins and ends. The only good thing is that it's probably smaller than it looks. The blood just makes everything worse.
He didn't think it bugged him. He could watch horror movies, watch the gore. If you couldn't do that in the Capitol, then who were you, really?
Maybe if he hadn't seen Nic's blood all over the street, a spray like rain. Maybe if he hadn't seen that...
There's no maybe. He saw it. He can't get it out of his head.
He's only doing this because of Nic, who wouldn't have left either of these two kids behind to die on their own. He would have carried Damas out of there, made sure Verity was close to him at all times.
He's not doing it out of the goodness of his own heart, which is terrifying. To think if he still had Nic he wouldn't have even had the thought to protect these two kids, get them to safety.
Like this is safety.
"How bad does it hurt?" he asks. Damas stretches a bit on his side, wincing.
"It's sort of numb, now. Not as bad."
"It looks like it hurts," Verity observes. No shit, it looks like it hurts. He can't imagine getting shot feels very good.
At least Nic went quick, bullet right to the brain. At least it didn't hurt. He really hopes it didn't. He hopes he wasn't scared, that he didn't feel anything, that he wasn't worried. Nic didn't deserve that.
"It's okay," Damas murmurs. Percy pulls off another strip of duct tape, tearing it into smaller piece.
"I don't think those are small enough," Verity chimes in. "You need to make them smaller, like butterfly stitches. You know?"
"No, I don't," he mutters, but tears them smaller all the same. It's not like he's ever had butterfly stitches. When he got his surgery there were sutures in his chest for a week, not anything less. Butterfly stitches wouldn't have been good enough.
And Verity's talking like she knows best, like she's a certified doctor teaching her intern the ins and outs of stitching.
He kind of wants to yell. At her, or the general world.
He just wants Nic back.
"Tell me if it hurts too bad," he instructs, sealing a strip over the edge of the wound. There's no way this is sanitary. His hands aren't even clean, and they have no way to clean off all the blood and grime from his wound. If he doesn't end up infected it'll be a miracle. He's already hot to the touch - maybe that's the sun, but Percy's not so optimistic about that one.
He forces the torn skin together at the left edge, layering another strip of tape over it. It might be the ugliest thing he's ever seen.
"Yeah, that's better!" Verity says, looking way too delighted about this whole thing. "Does that feel better?"
Damas nods tersely. Percy gets the feeling he's lying, just for her sake.
"I'm serious," he repeats under his breath, so that Verity can't hear. "If it hurts too bad, I'll stop."
"No, it's fine," Damas whispers. "I'd rather you do it."
And Percy would rather not do it, but who gives a fuck about that, right? Certainly not Verity, who's doing a lot of criticizing for someone who isn't willingly participating. No, she's just hovering over him like a watchful parent who's kid sucks at his homework.
He hears off more strips, sticking them to the least dirty part of his hand. It's all pretty dirty.
"Some sponsors would be nice right about now," Verity sighs, shielding her eyes against the rising sun. "I wish someone would send us something."
He grinds his teeth together, forces his mouth shut before he snaps. No one's going to be sending them anything except a nice, helpful serving of death, forced right down their throats. She just doesn't get it. She didn't see anyone die. She doesn't know what happened to Nic.
Because he hasn't told her, but that's beyond the point.
He continues on with his taping in silence, letting Verity ramble to herself above them. She's scared, probably. He shouldn't be angry at her for that.
He's not really angry at her. He just wants something to be angry at, to let everything out.
Finally he finishes sealing what he thinks is the entirety of the wound, trying to flake away some of the blood with his fingers. It's still a mess, but at least there's no gaping hole in Damas' side now. Tape won't hold long, probably, not with all the sweating they're doing and how messy it is, but they've got a whole roll of it, provided Verity ever gives it back.
"All done," he says. Damas reaches a careful hand up to feel at his side, and Percy guides his fingers to the edge of it, away from the worst bits.
"That feels better," he says quietly. "Thanks."
This time he can't tell if it's a lie, so maybe that's a good thing. Maybe he really did help this time, instead of letting something awful happen just before him.
It's for Nic, he reminds himself. Nic who was too good for this world to begin with.
Hopefully he's somewhere better, now. He's never been particularly religious, was never raised that way, but he hopes that place exists.
That's what Nic deserved.
Special shout-out to anyone who got to read this chap last week as a by-product of me accidentally uploading it instead of the correct one. You're the real heroes for not telling me how undeniably stupid I am.
Until next time.