Hey guys, so sorry for the late update! Thanks to all of you for being so patient, just had school and other fanfic related stuff occupying my time, so hope this chapter can make up for the slightly longer wait!

Disclaimer: I don't own Until Dawn, its plot/story or characters. Those rights go to Supermassive Games and Sony Computer Entertainment.

To say that avoiding the police whilst patrolling the mountain almost every night was difficult was an understatement. Most of the time was dedicated to making sure that both they and the Wendigos were as far away from the authorities as possible and even then, Jack and Beth couldn't seem to drive the Wendigos to the Sanitarium without attracting too much attention.

Beth considered the circumstance as she looked towards the corridor of the cages of Wendigos. "Okay, they are definitely mocking us."

Jack looked up from his food with an oblivious look on his face. "Uh, what?"

She nodded in their direction. "We can't seem to catch them with the police everywhere. And they know that. So they're mocking us."

The older man shook his head. "Keep thinking whatever you want, Beth." She was growing on him, sure, but sometimes she would say things that would perplex him beyond reason. Several weeks had gone by since (as Beth officially dubbed it) the 'Infamous Silencer Steal of Blackwood Mountain' and it seemed that Beth was adjusting well to the new and challenging circumstances. She had taken the situation rather well and the way she infiltrated the lodge and avoided the police's detection left Jack thoroughly impressed. He was beginning to think that she was becoming quite the competent hunter.

Jack didn't say it out loud, but he liked to think he had a lot to do with that.

For those weeks, things seemed to have stayed the same in terms with camping out in the Sanitarium during the day and getting down to business with the serious hunting at night. Though it didn't really count as hunting if they didn't catch any of them.

Every now and again, Jack would see Beth look at her wrist almost expectingly, her face then falling when she didn't seem to find anything. She must've felt Jack's gaze on her because she looked up to meet his eyes. "Sorry. Force of habit, I guess." But he didn't press the matter. He did notice, however, her rocking back on her chair, drumming her hands against it and blowing the hair out of her face.

Okay, whatever you want to say, say it.

"Do you know what time it is?", she asked.

Jack frowned at her. Was she a mind reader? "Uh, not exactly. There's probably a clock 'round here somewhere."

"Eh, I checked.", she replied. "It's busted, like most things here."

"Why the sudden interest?"

Beth instinctively grabbed her wrist and tried to hide her face. "My watch. I probably lost in the fall or sometime afterwards." Jack rose an eyebrow. "It was present from Hannah".

Jack nodded. "And you're thinking about it now, because…?"

The teen threw her hands up into the air. "I don't know. Maybe it's because the whole 'fighting for survival' thing made it one of the last things on my mind. Never thought about it until now." She sighed. "I know I can't just go back for it unless I'm asking for death but…" She cut herself and shook her head. "It's stupid, I know."

Jack shook his head. "It's not stupid to care about something." If Beth had brought that up when she had first joined up with him, Jack would've immediately dismissed her, probably tell her to get over it. But, for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to do it now.

Beth studied his face and considered his response for a moment before sighing back into her chair. "I guess."

A couple of days later, Jack exited his makeshift bedroom and walked down the stairs but was caught slightly off guard when he heard Beth's laugh echoing throughout the room. Once he reached down the stairs, he saw the teenager standing by Wolfie and Snowfall. She was holding a handful of their food above their heads and yelped out in surprise when they jumped for a bite.

Jack expected her to scream and back away, frightened, but instead, she flinched back and quickly recovered, giggling as she did so. She repeated the action and eventually, she knelt down to feed a portion to each wolf. They whined in appreciation and Beth playfully ruffled their furs.

As she stood up, Jack approached her. "Don't tell me you were trying to teach them some trick."

Beth glanced over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. "It was worth a try."

He crossed his arms. "It's a little strange seeing you up so early."

Beth shrugged. "Woke up, couldn't get back to sleep." She petted the wolves again. "And I think it's important we have more bonding time.", she spoke in playful and babyish tone, as if she were talking to her pets.

Wait.

"Ugh, they're not pets.", he stated bluntly.

"Let's just agree to disagree?", Beth asked, her lips curling up slyly.

Jack smirked. "Well, you seem to be a little occupied. Think you'll be okay on your own for a while?"

Beth frowned. Jack was going out, in the daytime, without her? That was new. "Um, why? What're you doing?"

He flippantly waved her off. "Ah, just need to check on something. With the police crawling around, it's not helpful that we can only stealthily roam the mountain at night. I just want to make sure that everything's in order."

"So why can't I come with you?", Beth asked suspiciously.

"With police investigating the whole mountain, it's too risky to have the both of us walking around in broad daylight." He could tell that Beth wasn't thoroughly convinced. "Don't worry, I'll be fine."

Beth studied him again and then nodded, pleased with his answer. "Alright, I trust you."

Jack smiled back. He nodded back to the wolves as he went to leave. "I'll let you get back to your 'training'."

"Hey, we'll make progress! Someday…"

He shook his head in amusement. "Whatever you say, Beth."

For another hour or so, Beth spent her time playing with the wolves. It never failed to amaze her about how easily domesticated the feral animals were and once she had bonded with them, they went from being terrifying to outright precious. Oh, if her friends and family could see her now…

Her friends and family.

She wondered how they were doing now. It felt like an eternity had passed since she had left the safety of the lodge and ventured out into the woods to find her sister. Now look where she was: hunting and captivating cursed monsters. But she couldn't forget why she was there, though. To save her sister. Days had passed and her treks proved to be fruitless. She wondered how Hannah was getting on, where she was now.

Every time, once the search had ended, Beth always went to bed contemplating whether or not she was actually going to find her sister. She always fell asleep silently crying. However, the next morning, she woke up determined that she was going to make progress the next time around. She would stand at the entrance of the corridor of Wendigos, listening to their ravenous cries. She would reiterate her promise that she would find Hannah no matter what.

The cycle continued itself again and again.

When Jack arrived back at the Sanitarium, Beth couldn't help but notice that he looked a little more… on edge than usual. She frowned at him. "Everything go alright?"

His gaze locked onto hers. The silence went on too long for her liking before he responded. "Yeah, nothing too special. Just scouting the area." He went upstairs before she could say anything.

The next day, she offered that she would accompany Jack in scouting the area but Jack harshly rejected her offer. Beth recoiled at his response but he quickly recovered, saying that her efforts would be better spent watching the Sanitarium and hunting at night.

"Besides, it would be too risky, what with the police patrolling the mountains and all.", he reiterated to her.

Beth crossed her arms. "I'm not that good at it.", she muttered absentmindedly.

She looked up when Jack put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't sell yourself so short."

The hand on her shoulder felt comforting and supportive. She chuckled and looked back to the ground shyly. "Thanks."

She felt a light squeeze. "Anytime."

One day, Jack didn't arrive back at the time he normally did. Obviously, since she didn't have her watch, Beth didn't know the exact he left and arrived back but she was able to make an approximate estimate.

It was almost an hour since he was supposed to have arrived back. That was too late for her liking? What if something had happened to him? It was broad daylight so it couldn't have been Wendigos, but what if the police had found him? What if their entire operation had been unveiled?

Other 'what ifs' racked her brain. What if he wasn't coming back?

Beth knew that she was overreacting; this was Jack, if anyone could handle anything the mountain would throw at them, it would be him. However, as a child, Beth and her siblings were accustomed to staying home alone with a sitter, waiting until late at night for their two working parents to arrive back. Once they had reached their teenage years, they were allowed to stay by themselves but, even then, they still felt isolated despite each other's company.

She spent several more minutes contemplating her thoughts, Beth decided to take things into her own hands. Roughly, grabbing her shotgun off of the table and hastily scribbling a note just in case Jack came back, Beth was ready to set out to find him. She paused in her tracks when she realised that this was the first time she was venturing out into the mountain alone.

Well, the first time with the knowledge of Wendigos.

She pushed any doubtful thoughts that were bubbling to the surface. If Jack was out there in need of help, then it would be all up to her. Stepping out of the Sanitarium, snow biting at her face, Beth made her way towards the main gate. Beth wrapped her arms around herself and increased her pace in a desperate attempt to warm up, looking down to the ground to avoid snow stinging her eyes.

Just as she reached the gate, ready to face whatever the mountain had in store…

Jack bumped into her on the way out. His face was covered his googles and cloth but his surprised expression was definitely visible. They stood staring at each other for a moment before Jack gently gripped Beth's arm and led her back into the Sanitarium. She didn't protest.

Once they were in, Jack took his facial protection off and frowned at Beth. Though it wasn't the angry or frustrated kind from many times before. This time, he looked worried and concerned.

"What were you do-?" His words were cut off by Beth unexpectedly throwing her arms around him in a momentary hug. Before he could even question what she doing, she broke apart from him.

Beth wiped her eyes. When was she crying? "Sorry. I was just…" She looked down embarrassingly. "I was worried about you. You were taking so long."

Jack sighed and motioned for Beth to follow him back in. "The snow was slowing me down, lost my way for a while." He caught sight of her frightened expression. "Don't worry. No one saw me and I'm back in one piece. That's a victory these days."

Beth chuckled. "You got that right." She cleared her throat. "Sorry about that. I just got scared that something had happened."

Jack's eyes widened momentarily. "Oh, uh, you were that worried?"

She rolled her eyes. "Don't make a big deal out of it."

"It's kinda hard not to."

They ate dinner in silence that night, the snow melting off their clothes and into a small puddle at their feet. Beth pretended that she didn't catch Jack glaring at her.

After a long while, he spoke. "You wanna tell me what that was about?"

She sighed dramatically. "Excuse me for being concerned for your safety."

"Hey, don't get me wrong, I appreciate your concern. But the way you looked at me back there… you looked terrified. That's not normal, even for you."

Beth stuffed another mouthful of food into her mouth as if trying to avoid conversation. "It's nothing… just another stupid thing…"

"Just spit it out."

She sighed again. "When me and my siblings were younger, we would always stay up late waiting for our parents to come home from work. But we'd always get scared when they didn't come back until the early hours of the morning."

Jack connected the dots himself. He understood what Beth was trying to tell him. The pitying look he was giving her was like one would give to an injured puppy.

When she met his gaze, he didn't look away. Beth shook her head, laughing humourlessly. "I know, it's childish and stupid."

"No.", Jack frantically cut her off. "It's not. Don't ever put yourself down like that." Beth shut her mouth. "It's normal to be scared of things."

She snorted. "Yeah, but you're not scared of anything, right?"

Jack smirked and his head snapped to face where the Wendigos' shrieks were coming from. "You couldn't be more wrong, kid." He sighed. "If I'm being completely honest, those things scare me every night. You'd think I would've gotten used to it after all those years, but every time I hear them scream. Every time they pounce towards me… it always gets me."

That… wasn't what she was expecting. To Beth, Jack always came off as someone who so sure of what he was doing but him telling her that he was just as scared she she was… it reminded her that he was just as human as she was.

"Wow.", she breathed. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

He waved her off. "Ah, it's fine."

"No, it's not.", she stated firmly. "It's not fair that you had to deal with that on your own for all that time. You may have been doing this for a long time, but you're right, it doesn't make it easier."

Jack was at a loss of words when Beth spoke. Maybe it was his years of isolation but it meant a lot to him to hear supportive words like that. With no one else understanding where he was coming from, Jack felt alone in his situation. However, as annoying Beth was from the start and couldn't deny how terrible her situation was, it was somewhat comforting to understand what he was dealing with.

He sighed deeply and gave Beth a grateful look. "Thanks kid, I appreciate it. Really, I do."

Beth smiled back softly. "Anytime, Jack. Anytime."

Jack had made it a thing to not come back late after that and the two of them wordlessly agreed to stick together when they went hunting at night. They never spoke about their conversation the other night; there was nothing else to talk about.

Beth had been more tolerant about Jack going out late as the next couple of days had gone on but she would've been put more at ease if she knew what Jack was doing every night for the past week.

Nightfall was only a while away and, at this point, Jack had trusted Beth to take care of her own preparations for the hunt. She had honed her shooting skills (not using the shot gun for a while left her a little rusty), brushed up on the last-resort rituals and took care of keeping the shot gun cleaned and loaded.

However, that night, she noticed that the gun was looking quite empty compared to when she would normally use it. Jack was nowhere to be found in their usual hang-pit so she opted for carrying out her own little scavenger hunt around the Sanitarium. She had checked her room, Jack's room and even inspected the weathered cupboards and drawers.

Absolutely nothing.

After she was about to give up her search, she noticed that Jack's bag was sitting on the table. He must've arrived back when she was looking around but the man himself was nowhere to be seen. She contemplated it for a while, not wanting to invade his privacy, but Beth decided, after becoming frustrated that she came up with nothing during her search, to see if he had spare bullets lying at the bottom of his bag. He probably wouldn't mind, she thought.

She searched blindly in his bag, trying her best to avoid her gaze from anything that would mean she was invading his privacy, and felt around for anything that felt or sounded like bullets. Her search was finally victorious when she found a handful of something that were definitely bullets.

Smirking, she yanked her hand out of the bag.

Nothing could've prepared her for the shocking revelation that followed afterwards.

After Beth pulled her hand out, smiling at the bullets in her hand, she heard something clatter out of the bag. Absentmindedly, she went to pick it up and place it back but her hand froze halfway when she realised what it was.

There, glinting in the dull light, dried blood smeared all over the front-

NonononononoNO! Anything but that!

-were Hannah's glasses.

Yeah, so, the dreaded cliffhanger is back… did you guys miss it?