Chapter Four:

Someone Chooses You

Why in ever-loving fuck hadn't he thought to put more cameras in the old hotel? Josh was sure that was where she was. It was the only possibility. He leaned forward, gaze jumping from monitor to monitor as he searched for her.

Despite himself, he laughed in satisfaction. "Good girl, Sammy. Good girl." His head ached from where she'd hit him with the bat. He'd thought about that when she'd found it earlier; he'd considered putting it away and locking the cabinet. But there was so much already down in the basement. If she made it that far, surely there were other options anyway. He couldn't possibly lock away all potential weapons without arousing some suspicion.

The mask itched the side of his jaw and made it hard to breathe. He shoved it back on his head. Ashley and Chris were making their way through the portion of the old hotel he had thought to set up. At least that part was going to plan.

He grinned. He should have expected more from Sam. Somehow he'd thought that wet and cold, in only a towel, pulled straight from the comfort of a bath and good music, she'd be vulnerable. She'd looked so peaceful with her eyes closed, surrounded by candles. What would she have done if he'd taken off the mask and joined her?

Instantly his stomach started to roil and he swallowed back his nausea. He wanted it – god, he wanted it more than anything – and that made him disgusting. In the faint, distorted reflection on the monitors, he could see them behind him. Beth and Hannah, standing to either side. If he turned, they would be watching him. They were always watching him. "Go away," he hissed. "I'm doing what you wanted."

"It's not enough." Hannah's voice was cold from behind his left.

"Find her, Josh," Beth whispered in his ear. He flinched, yanking the mask back down. "Go find our Sammy. Make her pay. Make them all pay. Show them how we felt. No one here is innocent."

He'd made a bed.

That could be taken many ways. He had made his metaphorical bed and now he had to lie in it.

But putting aside the karmic justice of being stuck in this hellhole, he had, in fact, made a bed. It wasn't too hard to do. Here and there, he found caches left by that old guy with the flamethrower and he scavenged shreds of sacking, the odd miner's coat, and even an emergency blanket that only had seven holes in it. The fabric was shoved into a narrow nook behind a capsized mine cart; it was like the rat's nest he'd found in the lodge basement.

No one was coming for him. He'd seen to that himself. After what he'd done… He smiled grimly. None of them would come for him now.

If he had the courage, he would let himself die.

Josh huddled into a smaller ball, staring out into the dark. He had thought it was quiet when he first ended up alone and Hannah had scrambled off to who-knew-where. Every sound had seemed loud and invasive. Now, after days he'd lost count of, he'd found that the mine had its own soundtrack: a quiet chorus of drips and scuffles and clanks. There was even the occasional breeze, which taunted him. If he could only pinpoint where it was coming from, he would have a chance to get out of here. But he never could.

On a fold of burlap near his hand, a small shape landed. He watched it, unmoving. A butterfly.

Another fluttered down to rest near where his knee was tucked to his chest. And another. More and more landed, their shades of white, yellow, red, brown, black barely discernable to his adjusted vision. Were they real? He couldn't tell anymore. Ultimately it didn't matter.

Josh's eyes closed and he slept, blanketed in butterflies.

"I'm dating Sam." Beth's words came out in a rush, as if she'd been holding her breath.

Josh blinked. "You're… what?"

"Sam. And me. We're… together?" She shifted from foot to foot, looking anywhere but him. "I thought you should know."

"I didn't realize that you, well, liked—" He shook himself and threw his arms around her in a hug. "It doesn't matter. That's great, Beth. You couldn't've picked better. Sam's pretty awesome."

She laughed and nodded against his shoulder. "Yeah she is. She's great."

He pressed his lips to her hair. She smelled like home, like her vanilla soap and green tea. Beth and Hannah sometimes liked to pretend to be each other, to try to mess with their parents or teachers. It never worked on him. They never thought to switch their soaps. Perfume, sure, and Beth would put on glasses while Hannah wore contacts, but the soap was a dead giveaway. Beth was vanilla. Hannah was lavender.

Beth told the story of how they got together, although he had a feeling she was leaving out a few details here and there. Now that it had been pointed out to him, it seemed so obvious: all the physical contact and glances between the two. He'd just never put it all together. Sam had always been fond of physical contact; she was so comfortable in her own skin. She'd clap him on the shoulder, hug him, jump on his back. Once or twice he'd thought maybe there was something more to it, something deeper in the way she looked at him and touched him. But she was a friendly person.

He ruffled Beth's hair and she shoved away from him, laughing. "I'm happy for you, Beth. Really."

He was. Beth deserved it. And so, when they reemerged from the kitchen and saw Sam in the living room, he'd just smiled. She had grinned and tackled him with a hug. He pulled her tight to him. "That's so great, Sammy. Congratulations," he murmured, ignoring the way his chest tightened painfully.

It was hard to distinguish between day and night down in the mines. Josh slept and woke and slept again, an endless cycle that distorted time even further. He had the nagging sense that if he could just get his focus together, he could find his way out. It couldn't possibly be that difficult. He knew from experience that the mine had countless entrances. But he just couldn't.

The butterflies were gone. Then they weren't. Then they were. He wondered if he could eat them. Were butterflies edible? He was hungry. He was always hungry, and the raw gnawing ache of starvation that lived deep in his gut was starting to feel like a friend.

He went to senior prom with Sam. It hadn't been the original plan – she was supposed to go with Beth and, at the last moment, Beth had gotten sick. Sam wanted to cancel entirely and stay with her, but Beth wouldn't hear of it. So instead Josh, also at Beth's insistence, had been forced to take her ticket.

"I don't have a suit. This is all stupid anyway. No one cares about prom."

"You'll fit into one of Dad's," Hannah commented with a sly smile.

Josh made a face at her and scrambled for another excuse. "I can't dance."

"It doesn't matter." Beth coughed into a tissue. "You don't really dance at prom anyway. Just kind of jump around. Or people rub up against each other."

He blanched. "I'm not going to 'rub up against' anyone."

Beth's laugh turned into another nasty-sounding cough. "You don't have to. I just don't want Sam to be alone. Plus the tickets were expensive. Someone should use them."

"Someone else." Josh folded his arms over his chest and glared at them both, mutinously.

"Please, Josh?"

He could never say no to Beth when she looked so pathetic. When she was eight she had broken her arm and used it so effectively that he'd practically been her slave. Finally he shrugged. "Okay, fine. Go find me a suit that won't make me look like a penguin." Hannah had yelped with glee and raced off to raid Bob Washington's award ceremony wardrobe.

Josh was willing to admit, later, that the suit wasn't half bad. Charcoal grey with a dark blue tie that Beth said would match Sam's dress. He'd rejected the idea of wearing a cummerbund. "Just a normal suit, Han. That's it."

And then he'd gone to pick up Sam.

She'd come down the stairs slowly, looking a little awkward. Her dress was dark blue silk that dropped from two narrow straps to gather under her breasts and fall in voluminous folds around her legs. The color made her pale skin gleam and strands of her gold hair escaped its elaborate coif to fall around her face. "I—um… You look nice, Sammy."

The tension broke and she skipped down the last few stairs. "Nice? I look nice? That's horrible!"

He rubbed his shoulder awkwardly and forced a laugh. "You know you look beautiful. Shut up."

"I'm going to count that as a compliment." She grabbed his lapels and made him stand straight so she could look at him. "You don't look half-bad yourself, Washington. Did Beth dress you?"

"Hannah. It's one of Dad's old suits. I wasn't really planning on 'prom'."

"Well I appreciate it. Since Beth wouldn't let me not go, this is the next best thing!"

"Thanks. I'm so glad I'm your second choice."

"Well, third choice. First would be going with Beth, second would be staying home completely…" Sam grinned cheekily at him and he looked away quickly, cheeks hot.

"Wow. We should go before you destroy my ego completely."

Sam laughed and took his arm, her slender hand resting lightly on his bicep. "No one could do that. Your ego is a beast of its own."

It was perfect. So of course it wasn't meant for him.

"Liar!"

Josh opened his eyes blearily and pulled himself to his feet. The edge of the mine cart bit into his hand, but he only registered it as cold. "Shut up."

"You're a liar and you always were. A piece of trash, picked up at the wayside by parents that didn't think things through. They were so desperate they didn't care what they got as long as they got something."

He didn't look at the elevator shaft. She would be there. That's where Beth liked to hang, long, rotting fingers clinging to the metal grate as she chattered at him. "Then they finally got what they wanted. Us. Two perfect girls and you were extra. Superfluous. So you had to let us die, didn't you? Jealousy does not become you, Joshy-Joshy-Josh."

"You can't ignore us, brother-mine." Hannah was behind him. Of course she was. She always was. Not the monstrous thing she had become, but his old, beloved Hannah. "You keep trying, but you know you're going crazy. Just lean into it."

He tried not to think about what he was eating. It didn't matter, really. Just what would keep him alive.

One of the girls was crying. They'd left the bedroom door open a crack and Josh approached carefully, peering through the gap.

"I know it hurts. But Mom said we have to do this when something breaks the skin. Shh, Beth. It's okay." Hannah, a mirror image of her gangly 10-year-old twin, pressed a cotton ball to a cut on Beth's hand. Beth whimpered softly, tears rolling down her face.

He knocked. Both of his sisters jumped at the sound. Not bothering to wait for them to answer, he slipped inside and shut the door behind him. "Hey. What happened?"

"Nothing," Beth said fiercely, glaring at him. "I fell."

"Yeah right."

"I fell."

Hannah shook her head. "She fell because Brian Johnson shoved her."

He sat on the bed next to Beth and looked down at her hands. They were torn up with gravel and a long cut ran along the edge of one palm. It looked like she'd fallen and then slid, using her hands to shield herself. "Why did he shove you?"

Beth mumbled something inaudible. Hannah nudged her gently and answered for her. "He was being mean to me and so she called him an asshole and then he shoved her."

He laughed. "That's awesome!" The rest of Hannah's sentence hit home. "Wait, he was being mean to you?"

She looked embarrassed. "It's not a big deal. It happens all the time."

"What? It happens all the time?"

Shrugging, Hannah went back to cleaning Beth's hands. "It's not a big deal. And whenever it gets too much, we just go to the other part of the yard."

"And today?"

Beth sniffled. "He wouldn't leave her alone. He tried to push her off of the playset. We were sitting up by the slide. No one uses it anyway. It's for babies. So we were just sitting there talking and he came up behind us and tried to push her off."

"He wouldn't have. He's a chicken. He doesn't want to get in trouble. He never does anything really bad." Hannah wet another cotton ball with iodine and moved to Beth's other hand. The chemical stink of it filled the room.

"He did today," Josh pointed out. "He pushed Beth, right?" His fingers tingled. He wanted to do something. Brian Johnson. He was in his year, but a different class. "Don't worry, Beth. You did the right thing. And I'll take care of Brian."

Both girls looked at him, Beth's face red and blotchy with tears, Hannah's pinched with worry. "You will?" Beth asked.

He slung his arm around her shoulders. "No one messes with my sisters."

A few days later, Beth's good set of pens went missing. So did several other items from students in the fourth and fifth grade. After some investigation, they were found in Brian Johnson's desk. The boy may not have wanted to get in trouble, but at a certain point, teachers agreed, actions had to have consequences.

That was the rule of the universe, after all. Actions had consequences. And people always had to face their just desserts.