Chapter Twenty-Six:
Brother, Let Me Tell You
"Okay, well… what now?" Ashley looked at Matt expectantly.
He shrugged. "No idea. I guess we could go back to the original plan and try to get back to the lodge."
"This mountain is way too fucking big," she muttered, shivering. "But, yeah, I guess that works. Better than just hanging out here while we wait to get eaten. The way we came in is locked though, right? So how do we get back down?"
"I bet there's another way. There's got to be."
Ash groaned, rubbing both hands over her face in frustration. Why was this mountain so huge? What other horrible shit were they going to find up here—an abandoned doll head factory or something? She ticked off things on mental fingers. So far there was an asylum, a probably-haunted hotel, a cemetery, a mine, and countless ruined buildings. Plus some bona fide monsters and ghosts just to finish it all off. Any respectable horror movie would stop at one insane setting, but the Washingtons, true to form, had to one-up the average horror.
She forced herself to breathe and swallowed hard. Back to her to-do list. That helped a little. They needed to find the others. They needed to find Josh. They needed to find some way to get monster blood. They needed to get Melinda.
Oh, and they also needed to deal with Hannah. No big deal there.
"Let's go try that door again," she said finally.
Matt stared at her. "Really?"
"They said it didn't stay locked, right?"
"Yeah, but I don't think we can predict it. Why don't we just head down the above-ground path? We're in a totally different spot from before. It's way less likely that we'll run into the thing up here."
She zipped her coat up fully. The temperature was dropping rapidly, and it hadn't been particularly high to begin with. "I guess it just depends what we're more scared of, huh."
He laughed. "At least we know one potential way of escaping the thing. I have no idea what to do about a Hannah ghost."
They headed towards the far end of the fenced-in walkway. Ashley's mind raced as they walked. It wasn't much, sure, and the guardian ghost-thing hadn't been very optimistic, but the implication in its words was clear. There might be someone who could reach Hannah and bring her back from the brink. Ash shuddered. She hadn't even thought about the monster part of the whole thing. Hannah had been one of those beats for almost a full year. God, she couldn't even imagine the sense of utter desperation that would lead someone to eating another person, let alone their own sibling. But then, she'd never been trapped in a frozen cave with a broken leg for over a month, so her frame of reference was a little narrow.
No wonder Hannah was so unhinged. Not only would she hate them for what they did to her, but she also had to live with what she'd done—not just to Beth's body, but to her brother and her friends. And she really did consider Hannah a friend, Ash realized. That prank had been awful. It was so obvious in hindsight, but in the moment, it had just seemed funny.
"Not funny at all," she muttered as she trudged along.
Matt glanced back over his shoulder. "What was that?"
Shrugging, she shook her head. "Nothing. Just thinking about Hannah. And that stupid, stupid prank."
He stopped so abruptly that she bumped into him. "Hannah…" His voice was so soft she barely heard it over the wind.
"Well, yeah. It's kind of impossible not to think about Hannah right—"
His hand clapped over her mouth and he shook his head warningly, eyes fixed on something in the distance. She followed his gaze and her blood ran cold. It would have been easy to believe it was another of Josh's tricks. In the building ahead, a pale, dark haired figure paced slowly, visible through the row of windows. Every time Hannah's form passed out of view, Ashley's heard seemed to stop. What if she just vanished and reappeared out here with them, as Em had described? But then Hannah would appear in the next window, her face fixed and almost bored, walking steadily along.
"Uh, okay," she whispered to Matt. "I now officially agree with the 'find an outside path' plan. I do not want to go in there."
"Are you sure? What if we tried to—"
"Holy shit, Matt, no. Absolutely not. You heard the guardian, right? She'll just kill us. Unless you had some deep, secret relationship with Hannah that you have literally never mentioned before now." She knew he was stronger than she was, but she would drag him out of there before she let him try to reason with Hannah. No matter how nice Matt was, there was no way that was going to work. Not a single chance in hell.
They skirted back towards the other building, climbing awkwardly through another tear in the chain link to reemerge into the woods. It was getting darker and darker, which made her nervous. Admittedly, it hadn't seemed like daylight was much of a deterrent when it came to that monster that had attacked them, but being able to easily see where you were walking was nice.
Matt led the way, for which Ash was grateful. They moved as quickly as they dared, following the occasional path left by the wildlife, and twitching at every unusual noise or motion.
As they rounded a downed tree, Ashley spotted another opening into the mine. Ugh. It was like an anthill. Maybe it would make more sense to her if she knew more about mining, but it just seemed like an insane layout of tunnels. She hesitated, then grabbed Matt's arm and pointed. "Best of both worlds, right? Out of the woods and also away from Hannah?"
"As far as we know," he said unthinkingly and she glared at him.
"Thanks. Super helpful thing to remind me of."
They headed into the cave. She wondered if it would be better to try to keep the beam of her flashlight steady, but that hadn't seemed to matter before. It was movement, not light itself that drew the creatures to them. So she supposed that, while waving the flashlight in the air was a bad idea, letting her beam move around the tunnel to reassure herself that she wasn't about to be eaten was probably okay.
It took longer than she liked to find another set of arrows, but eventually they did. This set belonged to Mike and Sam, which also seemed helpful. From what Sam had said, they'd gotten to the lodge first and then gone into the mine, which meant they should follow them back the way they came.
Maybe she was becoming numb to the mountain and the reality of the mine. Or maybe she was just getting increasingly exhausted. Things weren't making her jump the way they had before. It was nice to not be constantly feeling on edge, but it was also rather unsettling. What if she now no longer reacted as quickly as before? She shook her head, hard, trying to drive away that line of thoughts. She was going crazy up here and it was intensely annoying.
She giggled under her breath. It was a measure of how far things had gone that she no longer felt fear at the idea of insanity, but just irritation.
"What's that?" Matt asked, shining the beam of his light over to the side of the tunnel.
Ashley turned to look. A chest with a broken lock and splintered edges sat awkwardly, pulled away from the wall. She trotted over to it, curious. That was her curse. Always her curse. It had taken every ounce of willpower she had not to try to find Jess when she'd heard her before, even though it would have left her all alone.
The lid was heavy and she wedged her flashlight under her jaw as she heaved it upwards. It came up with a squealing, pained creak and she peered inside. There was a small stack of scraped-up containers on one side and two jars on the other, plus one of those hollow animal carvings. She held it up for Matt to see and he shrank back, shaking his head.
"Nope. Hell no. I don't want to see whatever it has inside."
"It might be important, though," she said, shaking it at him.
"So you look. Sorry, but I don't really want to watch myself or any of my friends die right now."
Her curiosity just wouldn't let her put it down. The vision flashed over her and she slumped down, dropping the totem back into the trunk. She bit her lip, shuddering. Then she tried to keep her voice calm. "It doesn't matter. It's an old one."
"Really?" Now Matt's curiosity was piqued. "What was it? And why was it locked up?"
"It was Fiddler's."
"The flamethrower guy you all keep talking about? What was it?"
She picked up one of the jars. "He knew he was going to die. Probably, at least. Helping us." The stopper in the jar was incredibly tight. Ashley wedged the edge of it on the trunk and wiggled it, trying to work the cork loose. It crumbled and she tried to be more careful, easing it slowly out of the jar's wide mouth.
"Jeez."
"Yeah." The cork abruptly broke in half and she pulled each piece out. A smell something like rotting meat washed over her and she gagged. "Oh my shit that is so gross."
Matt crouched down next to her and took the jar, holding his nose shut with his free hand. "What is it?"
She looked inside it. A liquid moved sluggishly, like a thick syrup or mud. Shining her light on it, she could see it was nearly black. Under the scent of decay, she could make out a metallic, copper tang. "Blood?"
"Is blood normally black?"
"When it's really, really old. Of course, it's normally also dry by that point, so I don't really know. But I think it's blood."
They looked at each other. Her heart started to pound. If this was what she thought, it was more valuable than gold. "Is it… is it wendigo blood?" Matt asked carefully.
I have the monster blood, Fiddler had written. Ashley hadn't paid much mind to that bit before; she'd assumed it was regarding his access to actual, captive wendigos. But no, he was a practical guy, right? And she knew what she would have done in his shoes—she would have bled them and stored it, against the eventuality that you might have to kill them or they escaped. "…and I broke the cork. Oh my god. I'm the worst."
"There's another jar. Do you think they're the same thing?"
She picked up the other jar and shone the light through it. It was hard to tell the color, since the glass was brown, but it moved the same. "I think so. Yeah."
"Okay, so we'll try to plug this one up but we'll leave it here. We can always come back and get it if we have to. We know where it is and so do Sam and Mike. We'll take the sealed one."
They moved quickly, wrapping the remaining sealed jar in a spare shirt and shoving it deep in Ashley's bag. The other, broken cork was jammed awkwardly into the jar and they placed it carefully back in the trunk. "Matt, this means…"
"It means we might be able to save Josh," he said with a grin. "First good news I've heard up here."
-o-
"See, I told you we'd find them if we looked." Mike pointed to the screen that showed the shed. "…wait."
"Chris is here?!" Sam grabbed the edges of the screen that showed the shed, as if she intended to pull it closer to her. "Chris. Chris is here. Chris is here."
Mike laughed. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure we can safely say that Chris is, in fact, here."
The blonde studied the screen closely. They were talking about something—maybe even arguing. Chris was waving his hands in the air animatedly, while Josh leaned against the wall, just as he had when they'd found him before. Seeing Josh's tiny figure set off another wave of anger, curdling in her gut. Knowing that he hadn't actually killed Mike was something, she supposed, but it didn't take away what he'd done and everything he'd said to her.
'Sloppy seconds'. Ugh. But, though the insults had hurt, the deadpan, disconnected ramble about her forgiveness was even harder to remember. She wanted to sit and sort through what he'd said, especially now that she knew Mike was safe, but another part of her wanted her to stop caring and just accept that Josh was a terrible person who did and said terrible things all the time. What had he even meant by that? About betrayal and Beth?
They didn't have time for this shit. Dammit, Josh.
"We should go meet up with them," Mike suggested quietly.
"Why?" The glib comment came out before she could stop it. He looked at her earnestly and she waved a hand. "Yeah, yeah. I know. I know."
"Sam, if you—"
"I get it." Her voice was sharper than she had intended. "I want to kill him right now, but I'm not leaving him up here. It's fine. Well, no. It's not fine. It's the opposite of fine. But I get it. We should go find them. And Chris is here. So, you know, maybe he can make Josh stop acting like… like this."
He didn't look satisfied with that answer, but he nodded.
-o-
Matt followed Ashley up the tunnel. They were getting close to the lodge. They had to be, given how long they'd been walking and the fact that they were still finding the chalk arrows. That was good. He wanted to see the others and he wanted to sit, even if only for a few minutes.
Something caught his eye and he shone the light over to the side. Tucked behind a rock, he saw an edge of worn, splintered wood. Ash didn't notice as he paused and pulled it out. Another totem, bleached to the point where he could hardly tell the color. There were faint traces of brown and black and yellow decorating the carved shape of it. It looked like some kind of fish. Trout, maybe. The hole in it seemed too dark to be real: a kind of void blackness that he felt like he might fall into.
He didn't want to look in it. Maybe he should get Ash to check it out, like she had with the one in the trunk. But this was probably an old one too. The worst he'd see would be something happening to a stranger. He could handle that.
The snow was blazingly white under the shining moon, standing out in sharp contrast to the shadowed trees.
There's a shrieking noise and a more human shout, then a burst of bright arterial blood and the sound of someone falling.
Another shriek.
Then silence.
Matt stumbled and dropped the totem.
The girl ahead looked back, concerned. "Are you okay?"
He nodded wordlessly and she continued to walk. Matt looked down at the totem at his feet. What was that? Who was that? If he picked it up, he could look again, but it was cut so sharply into his mind that he didn't need to. The shout had sounded familiar, like someone he knew. One of them. There were no other details, though. It could be any one of them. Or maybe it was old and he was just imagining it sounding familiar.
That was probably it.
That had to be it.
-o-
"So much for your amazing, magical, air-tight plan," Emily said, going back into the hallway. There was no one in the saferoom. In fact, they hadn't seen anyone anywhere. She put her hands on her hips and mimicked Jess, her voice as high pitched as she could make it. "'They'll, like, totally go back to the lodge. That's what makes the most sense!'"
"Okay, why does everyone always do a valley girl impression when they're pretending to be me?"
Ticking off on her fingers, Emily tipped her head to the side thoughtfully. "Blonde, silly, popular, reads garbage, takes too many selfies…"
"Never too many selfies."
"Hey, if the Ugg fits…"
Jess stuck her tongue out at the other girl. "I do not own Uggs. Gross." She looked around. It was hard to tell when someone had even last been here, although there were signs of humans around. Someone had started to eat beans and given up part-way through and there was a heap of blankets in the center of the floor that hadn't been there when they'd left with Melinda. "So now what?"
"Smart people would stay here, where they're safe and have food."
"Since when are we smart people?"
The black-haired woman waved off the comment. "Excuse you. Some of us didn't have to rely on our personal essays alone to get into college."
"How is that a bad thing? Just means I'm kickass at writing those stupid things and that grades aren't important."
"Grades are important."
Putting on a haughty voice, she mimicked Emily. "'4.0. Honor roll.'" Em laughed and rolled her eyes.
There was a clatter from down the hallway and both their smiles dropped away. Emily looked at Jess worriedly. "What was that?"
It was obviously rhetorical, but Jessica shrugged and shook her head all the same. She had no idea what it was. It could be anything from Wolfie to the others to the monster itself. The only thing it couldn't be was Hannah, since she was incorporeal. Although, a very rude thought pointed out, Hannah had been able to move the bench in the sanatorium. Jess would be lying if she claimed she didn't expect Hannah around every corner, come to finish what she'd started.
Warm fingers intertwined with hers and her head jerked up. Em was glaring at her, cheeks flushed. "If you say anything, I swear to god I—" She couldn't seem to come up with a suitable threat and fell silent, still trying to look fierce.
Jessica bit her lip to hide her smile. What a dork. She squeezed Emily's hand and pulled the nozzle of the flamethrower down with the other, holding it pointing in front of her. Maybe it was stupid, but she was still riding on the fumes of her giddiness and… "What is that noise?" she mumbled.
It wasn't the clank from before. No, this was louder and more present. It seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Like the sound of a highway or a washing machine running, it had a kind of constancy and mechanical rumble that felt familiar. It was muffled, though, and clearly not right where they were. Without debating it, both women headed for the stairs, winding through the now-familiar hallways and towards the lodge. The noise only got louder as they walked. Emily sped up, pulling Jess behind her as they rushed up the basement stairs.
"Em, what is—"
"A helicopter," Emily said excitedly. "That's why it sounds so familiar to me. It's a helicopter."
Jess paused, blinking at her, dumbfounded. "Uh… wow."
She was reaching for the door handle just as the sound died out. Hesitating, she dropped her hand and glanced to Em. "Do we—"
"Might as well, right?" Yet Emily didn't reach for the door either. Both girls yelped and jumped down several stairs as the door swung aggressively inward. Jess swung the nozzle up and was about to pull the trigger when Emily shoved her arm down. "No! It's—"
Melinda Washington stared at them, looking just as shocked as Jess felt. "Girls?"
The urge to hug her was overwhelming and made no sense to Jessica. She didn't know the woman. She didn't even really like the woman. But seeing her alive and well, if bandaged and leaning on a crutch, and knowing she had come in a helicopter that was likely still there somewhere made her feel more hopeful than she had in a while. "Mrs. Washington!" Jess grinned at her. "You're back!"
"I'm back," the woman sighed, glancing over her shoulder. "Were you coming up?"
"We heard the helicopter," Emily explained. "It's… it's still here, right? Please tell me you didn't send it away."
"Of course not. I didn't hurt my head that badly. I just hopped out while Hank was fiddling with some stuff and came to see who I could find. I didn't expect it to be you girls. Last I saw, you were way down the mountain."
Emily shrugged. "It's not really that far, once you know where you're going. And we've been up and down this mountain so many fucking times, I swear…" She shook her head. "Anyway. You have a helicopter. That's awesome. Can we use it and get out of here?"
"Where are the others? Where's Sam? Where's Josh?"
"I don't know," Jess said, frowning. "We're not sure exactly. We all got separated—I mean, I haven't seen Sam since before we left you. Mike too. And Josh I haven't seen since the cable car station collapsed. We got… um…" She wasn't sure how much to say. It was hard to believe that Melinda was suddenly on their team and would believe them about the monster.
But as usual, Em didn't seem to be worried and took the direct approach. "We were attacked. One of the big wendigo monster things attacked us and it also set off a stampede of deer that got us separated. Jess and I came back here to check the safe room and Chris decided to follow the footprints and probably die."
"I'm sorry… Chris?"
"Oh. Yeah. Chris showed up. Fucking finally."
An unfamiliar male voice called from behind Melinda and she turned, backing out of the doorway to let Jess and Emily up. "Mel?"
"Over here, Hank. I found two of the girls."
"We found you," Emily muttered and Jess suppressed a laugh at the indignation in her voice. Em spared a glance at the blonde and her lips quirked in a slight smirk. They crested the stairs and stepped out into the hallway. Outside it was nearly sunset, with the snow shaded blue from the fading light.
A tall, older man in a heavy canvas coat stepped over a beam and gave them a quick wave. "Which two?"
"I'm Jessica," she said, sticking out her hand. He shook it firmly. "This is Emily."
Em didn't extend her hand; she nodded to him and he nodded back. "I'm Hank." He grinned and it lit up his previously serious face, crinkling the corners of his eyes. "Obviously."
"So is it your helicopter?" Emily asked bluntly, jumping straight to it. "Can you get us out of here."
"Absolutely. But I understand from Melinda that we need to find your friends first. And do something about Josh."
"Why? He got himself into this."
Melinda's eyes narrowed, but Hank just smiled grimly. "That's as may be. But we still have to get him out of here. Isn't that why you came up here in the first place?"
Folding her arms over her chest mutinously, Emily raised a scornful eyebrow. "No. I came up here to keep this one from getting herself, or any of our other friends, killed." Jess shot her an exasperated look and Emily sighed. "I don't mean you would get them killed. I mean—ugh. Okay, fine. I guess we can save Washington too."
"So where are the others?" Melinda asked again, rubbing her forehead as if she was getting a headache. Given the injuries she'd sustained, Jess wouldn't be surprised if she had a permanent headache at this point.
"No idea," Emily said, voice flat. "Not here."
"Great." Hank's cheerfulness was obviously forced, but Jess was grateful for it all the same. "I love a good scavenger hunt."
-o-
"So can you smell it or something?" Chris glanced uneasily around the shed. It was so rundown and broken that it was easy to imagine the huge wendigo bursting through a window or wall. For the fourteenth time, he checked to see that the gun was loaded and ready. He hoped he would be able to see it when—if—it attacked. It was getting dark so quickly.
Josh's cheek twitched. "Sort of. Not smell, exactly, but I know when it's nearby. We're good right now."
The movement drew Chris's attention once more to Josh's messed up mouth and eye. "That means we have time for you tell me about your face," he said with a thin smile. "So, what, someone gave you half a Glasgow smile and then got bored? You decided you really wanted to be a shark, so you started to file your teeth into points?" The lame jokes kept coming and he couldn't stop them. "You kept trying to take your contact out and forgot you don't wear contacts at all?"
"I'm turning into a wendigo, dude."
Chris froze, then slowly shook his head. "No, you're not."
"Don't play dumb, Cochise. It isn't cute." Josh's face split into a wide grin. "Actually, it is kind of cute. But now's probably not the time."
Ignoring that comment, he told himself pointedly, returning to the topic at hand. "You're not turning into a wendigo. You're not."
"There's the denial. Let's get you through all seven stages quickly."
"There are five stages to grief and I'm not grieving, because you're wrong."
"That's, like, textbook denial."
Chris scowled at him. "You are such a dick. Why are you fucking with me?"
"I'm not fucking with you!" Josh's sudden shout made Chris jump. Then the other man took a deep breath and said, more quietly, "I wish I was. I wish this was a prank. But I'm not screwing around. This is real and pretending it isn't won't make it go away. So I'm just telling you straight. Maybe then you'll just put a bullet in my head and save us both some hassle."
"But what would you have—" Chris swallowed hard, fighting back a surge of queasiness. "You didn't."
"Guess I did."
He had heard through the grapevine about Sam and Mike finding the flamethrower guy's body and head. The way he'd been hung on a hook, like a slaughtered cow. It didn't mesh with what the guy had actually told him about being skinned alive, but maybe the wendigos had been in a hurry that night and were going to come back for him later. Then Sam and Mike blew up the lodge and didn't give them a 'later.' He cleared his throat, but his voice still sounded weak and hoarse. "Why?"
Josh looked down at his feet, uncomfortable. "I don't know. I really don't." He caught Chris's disbelieving look and raised both hands. "I really don't, dude. I'd tell you. I was just starving and… and lost. And I don't have a good reason. Or any real reason. I barely remember it. I just remember wandering in the darkness and bumping into something and then I wasn't hungry for a while."
Though they were practically outside, given the state of the barn, it still felt like the air was too close, closing in around him. Chris put a hand on the wall to steady himself, and tried to keep breathing. It was much harder than it should have been. "You… you ate a person, though. You ate the man who tried to save us."
"I didn't know that," Josh insisted shoving himself away from the wall he was leaning on.
"It doesn't matter. You ate a person. You literally ate a dude. What the fuck." The other man paced across the room and back, growling under his breath. It set a large part of Chris on edge, his instincts urging him to run. But that was dumb, right? Unnecessary. It was Josh, after all. Josh, his best friend. Josh, who tortured Ash and Sam and him. Josh, who needed help. Josh, who ate a person and was turning into a monster. He let his head fall back to rest on the splintered wood and stared up at the rafters. "God dammit, Josh. Why do you keep making shit more complicated than it needs to be?" An exasperate laugh burst from him and he closed his eyes.
"Why are you laughing?"
Chris cracked an eye open and let out another laugh at the sight of Josh's perplexed frown. "You. You just… everything always gets so fucking complicated with you. Always."
"Not always," Josh muttered.
"Yeah always. Do you remember the time you convinced me that we should both play sick so we could stay home and play video games all day?"
Josh grunted in affirmation, still eyeing him suspiciously.
"And she called home and heard me in the background so you overcompensated by doing an hour's worth of research into smallpox and drawing pox marks all over yourself and pretending that the disease somehow twisted your vocal cords and made you sound like me?"
He grunted again.
"This is like that. Only, like, four million times worse. Shit's just never simple with you. I don't know. Like, you can't just be angry about your sisters. You have to turn it into some overcomplicated prank that probably cost your parents thousands and thousands of dollars. You can't just be lost on a mountain. You have to eat a corpse and turn into a monster. Oh my god."
Chris really wasn't sure why he was laughing. It wasn't funny. And yet, at this point, it made a fucked-up kind of sense. It almost felt inevitable. It was like there was a list of the possible scenarios and he should have expected that Josh would pick the most entirely terrible, extreme option.
"Wow," Josh said slowly. "Kind of rude. You know that? Kind of a dick comment."
"Cry me the fucking Nile, okay? You can take it. You ate a person. You deserve at least some mild harassment. If not a can of lighter fluid and a lighter."
The other man winced.
"Is there a cure?" The question was phrased so plainly that it almost sounded rude to Chris's ear, but it had to be asked.
"Sam says there is."
"Sam says what is?" Sam's voice cut sharply through the air as she came around the corner. Behind her, Mike looked uncomfortable and beat up, several marks on his forehead red and angry-looking.
It was cold already, but if it was possible for the mood of his companions to make it even colder... Chris groaned internally. He was just starting to figure out how to interact with Josh, but one glance at him told Chris that things had already changed. His eyes were fixed on Sam's face, wary and nervous, although if Chris didn't know Josh so well, he might not have noticed his anxiety.
Time for him to defuse the situation. Humor, he thought. That was what he was good at, right? Something funny. Say something witty, Chris. "Sam says 'stop being a monster.'" He looked between the three tense faces and tried to smile. "Get it? Like Simon Says? But with Sam instead? Uh… never mind."
Josh cocked his head back and smiled. Fuck. Chris knew that smile. It was a lazy one, calculated to look casual, but Chris knew from long experience that it was anything but. "Hey Monroe. Good to see you."
"Shut the fuck up, Josh," Sam snapped and turned to Chris. "Hi Chris. Welcome to hell. Glad you could make it."
He laughed nervously. Sam looked ready to murder someone and he very much hoped it wasn't going to be him. "Yeah. Sorry about that."
She seemed to realize how her previous statement had sounded and flashed him a small, embarrassed smile, then darted forward to hug him. "Sorry," she said softly. "I am glad to see you. I promise. It's just been… it's been hard."
"I get it," Chris reassured her. "It's okay."
"It's not. But I'm still glad you're here."
"Are… um… are we going to have a problem?" He heard Mike ask Josh and Sam turned back to the others, stepping in front of Mike carefully. Chris frowned. What the hell was going on?
Josh shrugged. "Probably. But who the fuck knows anymore."
"Do you want to murder me right now?"
"Not any more than usual."
"And before?"
"Different."
It was like he was listening to a conversation being conducted entirely in a language in which he was only vaguely fluent. "Uh… hey guys? What the heck is going on?"
Mike ignored Chris. "How is it different? Nothing has changed."
"I don't know. Your face looks better now."
"What, now that I'm bleeding?"
Josh smirked and gave him two thumbs up. "Ten out of ten. Good look for you. "
The blonde stepped forward and cuffed Josh hard on the shoulder. "Stop it. Okay? Seriously. Just fucking stop already."
The look that passed between Sam and Josh was impossible for Chris to decipher. He wasn't sure if they were trying to stare each other down or size each other up or simply kill the other solely through the power of their eyes. Clearing his throat, he raised his hand. "Hi. I'm Chris. Also new to whatever is happening here. Someone want to explain?"
"Nose out, Cochise," Josh muttered, still glaring at Sam. "Nunya business. Nacho business. Etcetera."
"Are you going to stop?" Sam's voice was practically a hiss. "Are you? Because I will leave you up here and let you hang if you try shit like that again."
Alarm bells clanged wildly in Chris's head. This was way more than Josh had led him to believe. This wasn't just some fight. He could hear it in Sam's voice; she was entirely serious about abandoning him. And it was Sam. Sam didn't do shit like that. Sam never, ever gave up. Even when she probably should. He wanted to shove between them, to do something to break up whatever was happening, but he couldn't make himself move.
Mike put his hand on her arm. "Sam…"
With an audible inhale, Josh's eyes fixed on the point of contact. Chris's frown deepened. Why did Josh care that Mike was touching Sam? Sam was always a touch-happy person and Mike wasn't really shy or reserved. He could think of at least a handful of times he'd seen them hug without even straining his memory. Sam seemed to notice Josh's attention too and her eyes narrowed. She grabbed Josh's chin and forced him to look at her. "Can you control yourself? Because if you can't, that is a different conversation."
"Stop acting like you're my fucking mother."
"Since you were being a dick about Melinda too, I don't think that really means much. I don't give a shit if you feel like this is condescending or whatever. Then I'll be condescending. Can—you—control—yourself?" She spoke overly slowly, her gaze fierce.
After a long, tense moment, Josh nodded. Sam let go of his face and all the breath went out of her in a rush. She shot Chris and apologetic look. "So…"
"What now?" Chris asked, feeling more than a little flummoxed. Then everything from before the weird pseudo-fight came rushing back. "So there's a cure? What is it? How do we do it?"
"Well, Ash found this part in the flamethrower guy's book about a cure. I guess the monster blood wants to—" A low, rolling chuckle drifted through the room and she broke off.
All of them looked around, but Chris didn't see anything. Then he noticed Josh. If he had been a dog, his hackles would have been raised. He was stock still, his lips pulled back slightly from his teeth. "I didn't notice," he breathed, his eyes darting over to Chris, then to Sam. "I was too distracted and I didn't notice."
"Notice what?" Chris asked, already knowing the answer, deep in his bones.
"It's here."