Chapter Six: Reconcile

Emily heard a couple of people talking around her, a guy and a girl. She kept her eyes closed, though. Her head was killing her. She sat up, sighing. She heard the people gasp, but didn't particularly care. "Ow, my head."

She felt a pair of hands on her, helping her stand up. "Take it easy, Em. You have a knot on your forehead. It looks like you hit it against something pretty hard." She didn't remember hitting her head. She opened her eyes and she saw Chris standing there, Jessica standing a couple of feet behind him.

"Get away from me!" She pushed Chris off of her, quite pissed off. She didn't know why the hell she had this knot on her head. It was a moment before she looked around, realizing where she was. "Why the fuck are we here?" It was the Washington's guest cabin.

Chris shook his head. "I don't know. I woke up and we were just here." He looked over at Jessica, who was staring at the floor, doing everything in her power to avoid looking at Emily. Emily shook her head.

"Fine then. Where is everyone else?" She was starting to get a grip, not wanting to be trapped here any longer than she had to be. First priority was to get away from here before night came. The next priority was to figure out how they had gotten in this situation. The larger the group, the safer they would all be, statistically. If nothing else, the odds of her getting singled out and eaten became significantly less. She hated to say it, but it was all odds whether she could outlive a wendigo again.

Jessica finally spoke up, talking to Emily. It seemed like the severity of the situation was finally hitting her. "We don't know. We woke up and it was just us in here."

Emily looked at the door. "Well, we should try to get to a better shelter. The lodge, maybe?"

Chris looked at her confused. "Why would we go to the lodge? It blew up."

Emily rolled her eyes. "There was an underground part, remember? That wouldn't have blown up, it was concrete. It will probably be the most safe place we can be."

Chris and Jessica reluctantly agreed to Emily's plan, like they had a choice. If Emily decided something, it wasn't worth going against her. It would just piss her off in the long run. Emily opened the door, not noticing the window had been repaired. She had no reason to take notice. Jessica noticed, though. She shivered as she walked by, not wanting to remember being dragged through. She hadn't realized really how small that window was. She was surprised she was able to get through.

Emily led them down the path, confidently striding down the path. Jessica walked in the middle, while Chris took the rear, being hyper observant, keeping an eye out for any signs of the others, as well as any signs of the wendigos. They had enough time to make it to where the lodge used to be, foreseeing there were no unexpected surprises. "So what if we don't find the others?" Jessica asked.

"Well that means they aren't here. Or they're dead." Emily's words were harsh, causing Jessica to take a step away. She wanted to confront Emily, but any confidence she had was shattered last year. Being here fucked her up more than she liked to admit. She decided she was better off just following. She could start a fight when they got back out of the mountain.

Chris stopped suddenly on the path, holding still as possible, barely breathing. "Guys," he whispered, "I heard something."

Immediately Emily and Jessica stopped walking, following Chris' example, freezing in the face of danger. Chris let out a sigh of relief when he saw it was nothing but a wolf. "Oh thank goodness-"

Emily took this as her cue to get pissed. "What the hell, Chris? You're going to get us worked up over a dog?"

Chris stammered, "I- I just saw something moving. I didn't know if was a wolf!"

She ignored his protests and kept walking. "Whatever. Let's just keep going. We won't get anywhere at this rate."

They were got a bit further down the path before Emily made another snarky comment. "So, why the hell is it following us?"

Jessica was hit with a wave of realization. "What if it's that wolf Mike found? He said he found one in the Sanatorium." Jessica crouched down, but Chris took a protective stance beside Jessica.

"Be careful. Josh told me there were a lot of wolves here." Jessica nodded and held a hand out to the wolf, being careful to not make any sudden movements in case it was a wild wolf. Chris let out a breath he didn't know he was holding when the wolf pressed his nose gently into Jessica's hand. It was tame, well, as take as it could be living in the mountains.

Emily stood to the side, not willing to admit that she was secretly jealous of the way the wolf was showing affection to Jess -Jessica. She wasn't Jess anymore, not since she stabbed her in the back, getting with Mike only weeks after they broke up. Jessica had always been better with animals than Emily. She took out her frustration on the situation. "Who cares? It's a fucking dog. We need to keep moving." She wouldn't admit that having the wolf with them would probably be beneficial.

Jessica turned on Emily, finally done with all her bullshit. "What the hell is your problem, Em? You've had a problem with me ever since I started seeing Mike! You knew I liked him even before you guys even started dating! You shouldn't even be pissed, you know? You have Matt, don't you? Or are you guys on the rocks again? Is he ignoring you? It's your own fucking fault you guys have such a shitty relationship, and you know it too!"

She let it out. "You don't date your best friend's ex! You just don't! Do you know how much it hurt me to see that he chose you over me? It's like we broke up just so he could get with you, and you just keep rubbing it in my fucking face!"

"It's not my fault your such an insensitive bitch!" The girls were about to tear at one another's throats, claws coming out, words that should have been spoken a long time ago were being yelled at one another at possibly the worst possible time.

Chris couldn't sit by and watch this anymore. He stepped in-between them, right before they clawed one another's eyes out. "Okay, I understand you are upset, and, if we're going to be completely honest, this is possibly the worst combination of people to be stuck together, but we need to get out of here. Can you two just wait until after were somewhere safe before you kill each other?" Emily and Jessica reluctantly agreed, stepping away from one another, not without Emily flipping Jessica off, and Jessica rolling her eyes in response. The wolf seemed to notice the tension and went to stand with Chris, who pet the wolf's fur. "I know, boy. We just need to get through this."

They walked in silence down the path, an occasional comment from Chris making an attempt to start an awkward situation, all attempt resulting in failure. He sighed, looking at the snow covered forest. He was lucky he had his coat with him. He noticed they were dumped in the mountain with the clothes they were wearing. Nothing to help the against the cold. He noticed Emily was without a coat and shivering. Reluctantly, he took off his coat and gave it to Emily. "Here. You look like you're going to freeze."

She gave him a death glare. "I don't need your help."

Chris rolled his eyes, but then gave her a small smile. "You need it more than I do. I've got a lot more meat on my bones than you do. You'll freeze way before I do. Come on."

Emily sighed, but took the coat, secretly grateful. Ashley was lucky that such a good guy was looking out for her. Suddenly she remembered Matt doing the same for her, giving her his letterman when they went to go see a movie, and they came outside and it was snowing. Matt had run to his car and told Emily to wait inside so she didn't get cold. She sighed. She guessed she was pretty lucky too. When she found Matt next time, she was going to apologize to him, no matter how hard it was for her to do. Maybe they could start patching things up.

When they got to the end of the path, all three were shocked to see what stood in front of them. The lodge was there, not blown up, in it's complete Washington glory. "What the actual hell?" Emily didn't know what was going on. They slowly walked to the front door. Emily took note of the footsteps leading away from the lodge. "Okay, we're not alone here. That's good to know." Chris and Jessica looked at one another. "The real question is who footprints are those." They opened the door to the lodge, cautiously, checking their surroundings carefully. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. "Let's get to the basement."

Thanks for reading everyone! I especially love having this trio together. One of the things I wanted to do with this story was put characters that don't normally interact into situations together. NExt chapter will be Matt and Sam. I have a new poll up on my page: Who did you kill in your first play-through/who would you kill? I'm genuinely curious. :) Gp vote and leave a review telling me what you want to see and what you would like to improve.