Chapter Thirty-Four:

Look Into the Sun

"Thank you for meeting with me, Sam." Melinda's hands fidgeted, palms cupped around the ceramic mug and her thumbs rubbing against the lip. She looked better than the last time Sam had seen her. Although she still had a crutch to help her, most of the cuts on her visible skin had closed and were healing.

Sam nodded, not trusting herself to speak. What she wanted to say was of course or I've been dying to talk to you or I wish I could have saved him. When all the options were so loaded and dangerous, it was better to just stay silent.

"I'm sorry," Melinda said suddenly, meeting Sam's eyes. "I should have listened to you from the beginning."

She frowned at the woman. "What do you mean? I lied to you. You couldn't have listened to me."

"No, I mean further back. After the trip. When Josh was—" Melinda visibly forced herself to continue. "When Josh was left behind."

It was a relief to have Melinda speak so plainly. Sam was so tired of lies, of dancing around the truth and being afraid to say the wrong thing, to tip her hand and give up the game. Emotion surged in her chest as she remembered the group and their promise. Eventually she would be able to think about it and not want to cry tears of gratitude. At least, she hoped so. "It's okay. I don't think I would have believed it either. Monsters? I would have thought that we were crazy too."

"I saw…" Melinda hesitated again. "I saw pictures of what Josh had done and I just couldn't…"

Leaning across the table, Sam took the woman's uninjured hand, squeezing it tightly. "I understand. Seriously." She laughed, a sound that startled her. "I probably understand better than most. He was sick, Melinda. He was much sicker than any of us thought. It doesn't make it okay, but it's what lay at the root of what he did."

After a moment, Melinda closed her eyes and nodded, her hand tightening in return. "Sam, I'm going back." Before Sam could say anything, Melinda rushed to keep speaking. "I am. And I would like… that is… if you want to, I'd like to have you come with me. I think you're the only one who could—who should—go. I believe… God, it sounds insane to even suggest it, but—"

"They're still there," Sam said softly. She could feel it in her bones. Every time she closed her eyes, she could see the three figures in white, looking up at her as the helicopter pulled away. She'd had dreams about it. Not prophetic dreams, as far as she could tell, but still. They were there, in every dream she could remember having. Just a moment, a snapshot, background figures in a scene: two women and a man, dressed simply in white, watching her without expression.

The woman's eyes sprang open. "You think so?"

"Isn't that what you're saying?" She tried to be gentle, but having it confirmed in this way was almost overwhelming. "Please, Melinda. If you are going back… I do want to go."

Melinda's grip on her hand was almost painfully tight. "Then let's. And this time, we won't mess around with any of that hiking nonsense. This time you have permission."

"Good," Sam said with enough feeling that Melinda chuckled. "I have had enough hiking through the woods to last me for a year."

"Only a year?"

The blonde girl smiled grimly. "We'll see, I guess."

-o-

She didn't tell anyone. No one would understand.

Sam paused, halfway through shoving a spare pair of pants into her bag and sighed. That wasn't fair. It was quite likely that everyone would understand. But understanding or not, they would still want to deter her from going. They would see it as delusion at best or a death wish at worst. Regardless, Sam could still feel it with painful certainty. She had to go back.

It didn't matter that the monster was probably still alive. She couldn't imagine that whatever had happened there at the end had been enough to somehow, miraculously, kill it. It didn't matter that, despite Melinda's confidence, she didn't really know how they were going to get to the lodge besides hiking. After all, Hank's helicopter had been wrecked, the cable car was down, and she highly doubted anyone else would be willing to fly them up.

All that truly mattered was that she still woke up sweating and restless, a dream-sob finding its echo in her chest as she remembered where she was and who she left behind.

They didn't talk much on the ride to the airport, nor on the plane. Melinda was tense and distracted and, while Sam understood and empathized, she didn't think there was anything she could do to comfort the woman. The closer they got to their destination, the more Sam felt doubt gnaw at her gut. It reminded her sharply of one of Beth's favorite myths: Orpheus and Eurydice. Was this Sam's test? If she couldn't keep the confidence that they really were going to find what they were looking for, was she dooming them? Was the monster lurking around the ruined lodge, waiting for them, smiling its obscene smile and feeling her lack of confidence?

Sam chewed on the edge of her thumbnail, watching the clouds below them.

It didn't matter, she told herself fiercely. It didn't matter. She was going to see them again, all of them. She was going to… to do something. She had to.

She had to make it up to them.

-o-

"No."

"Hank, really… I—"

"Absolutely fucking not, Mel. What the hell are you thinking?"

Melinda leaned heavily on her cane and glared at him, free hand firmly on her hip. It was in moments like this that Sam could really see the family resemblance. She'd seen the exact same stubbornness on each of the siblings' faces many times. Sam tried to interject: "I know it sounds crazy, but—"

"Hank, I'm going up there whether you help me do it or not," Melinda snapped, cutting off Sam's attempt to be reasonable. "I don't know what you saw, but I know there's still something up there."

"Yep. A ruined building and unstable ground and whatever the fuck that thing was, most like. And I'll be damned if I'm helping you get yourself killed."

She shook her head. "Stop being stubborn."

A sharp, hoarse laugh burst from him. "Me? I'm being stubborn?"

"You know I'm not talking about whatever that thing was or is. You must have seen them. My girls. They're still there. I can't just leave them. Not after… Not after I…" Melinda's face started to crumple. Not for the first time, Sam wondered how much sleep she'd been getting since they returned. The lines on her face seemed deeper, the bags under her eyes more pronounced.

Sam put her hand on Melinda's shoulder and met Hank's gaze evenly. "I know it's stupid," she said quietly. "But I saw them too. I'm not sure if you did, but do you really think we're crazy?"

He sighed and rubbed his jaw. "No. I don't think you're crazy. Just exhausted and grief-stricken and feeling the weight of more guilt than you should."

Not bothering to argue about the guilt comment, Sam nodded. "Fine. But I know what I saw. And I'm not the only one who saw it—who saw them. So I'm going up there. I don't want to hike, but I will if I have to. We were just hoping you might have a quicker way. If you really think the monster might still be around, I would think you'd want to help us, not make us take the long road."

Hank sighed again and shot her an aggravated look. She bit back the sudden urge to smile. She had him. Logic-ed! she heard Chris crow triumphantly in her mind. The feeling of triumph faded as quickly as it had come.

He looked at Melinda. She had pulled herself together and not fallen to tears, but she was visibly trembling, her grip on the cane white-knuckled with tension. "Fine. Fine. Mel, for what it's worth, I hope you're right about this. I hope this isn't a trip for nothing." He tried to smile. After a moment, it seemed to stick. "I think I can figure out something."

-o-

Mike stared out the window but didn't register anything but light. On his desk, his phone was still lit with the message from Jess. He didn't need to look at it to remember what it said. His entire body felt overly tense. A few years back, he'd been in a car accident. No one had been seriously hurt, though the car he'd been in had been horribly messed up. Just before the impact, he'd seen it coming and known it was going to happen. There had been nothing for him to do, but every single muscle in his body had tightened, bracing for it. That's what it felt like now. It felt a bit odd to even remember the accident as a source of tension or trauma, after everything he'd been through.

Jess's message didn't quite sound like her: no weird abbreviations, no emoji. He wasn't sure if that was good or bad. It didn't really matter. He was focusing on the wrong things, trying to make his body relax, but it wasn't working.

Sam went back. She left a note.

After several long minutes, he messaged her back. Why?

I'm assuming you mean why did she go, not why did she leave a note. It didn't really say. Melinda went with her.

What do we do? He asked, trying to ignore the way his fingers were shaking. His missing arm hurt beyond all reason – not the healing surgical scar, but the arm itself. No amount of painkillers would make it go away.

It took a few minutes for Jess to respond. Nothing we can do. Just wanted to let you know. We can't go after her. None ofus can. Not this time.

He had no response to that. His body felt like it was rebelling against him. His skin itched, his muscles ached with tension and yet somehow felt weak, his mouth felt dry. He wanted a drink, wanted to pop more painkillers, wanted to do something, anything, to get out of his own head. If only he could go to the gym or play football, do something aggressively physical.

And why can't you?

The thought, when it came, spoke in Sam's reasonable, ever-so-slightly irritated voice.

Because he couldn't. He couldn't pretend like he was the same when everything had changed so drastically. Chris was dead. Josh was dead. The girls were dead. He could still remember Hannah's sweet, hopeful smile and felt ill. He couldn't very well go play football with guys who knew nothing about what he'd been through. He didn't want it and didn't deserve it.

He certainly didn't deserve Sam, even the fake Sam encouraging him in his own mind. It was hard to keep from imagining her up on the mountain, alone and at the mercy of the thing. He hadn't even spoken to her since they left Canada, not really. The memories were too much. Every time he thought back, the happiness and peace and pain and guilt were overwhelming.

The little orange pill bottle next to his phone caught the light and he stared at it blankly, then shoved up out of his chair. This was stupid. This was all so fucking stupid. He jammed his feet into trainers and grabbed a hoodie. Whether it was said in Sam's voice or not, whether it was correct or not, he had to do something, even if that meant trying to adapt his weightlifting routine to only having one arm.

For a moment, he let himself lean heavily on the door to his room. She was really back there, back in the snow. If anyone could come back in one piece, it was Sam.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he fished it out. A text from Emily. Actually, more than one.

She's a moron.

A total fucking moron.

But she'll be fine.

It's Sam.

Somehow, it made him feel better.

-o-

It was a good thing Hank had agreed to help him. There's no way anyone would have flown them up to the mountain without his support. He'd been there long enough to be a fixture of the community, a true local, and people were apparently willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, even when he was asking for something that they thought was nuts.

Sam nestled deeper into her coat and snorted. It also helped that the official report just listed wild animals. It was a much more understandable threat and infinitely easier to believe that someone like Hank could handle it.

He had insisted on accompanying them, which was a small price to pay for the benefit of flying. Sam really hadn't been kidding about not wanting to hike for a while. Strange sensory memory kept hitting her and she'd feel freezing water in her boots or cuts on her hands. She watched the forest below them, thankful that the sound of the chopper was too loud to allow for much talk.

Melinda sat across from Sam, her face set and expressionless.

There still had been no butterfly dreams. There was no indication that they were going to find what they were looking for. Sam closed her eyes and focused on breathing.

They touched down in the same area she now knew so well. Some of the hollow flare shells were still visible and the snow was uneven, some sitting in areas tramped down by their group or the rescue team. It was still light out, which set the whole thing into a strange kind of surrealism.

She stepped out, the snow crunching under her feet and looked over at Hank, who was helping Melinda down. "Now what?"

He raised an eyebrow. "You tell me. This was your idea."

"Melinda?"

The woman looked lost. "I thought… I thought they would just be here."

"Let's look around," Sam said quickly. "We only just arrived. And it's still daytime. We don't know how this works."

As she led the way towards the ruins, she swallowed hard. Please, she thought, reaching into her pocket for the necklace she still carried. Please, please, please.