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I SEE FIRE

🕊️ A Stranger Things AU Fanfic from Misha’s Masterlist Library. 📚 Full Fanfic Saga & Infodump File here 📕 Book One: all chapters here

BOOK ONE: Chapter 45 (continued) 🕊️ The Capitol -> The Games -> Hawkins 🏹 Day 6 of the Games <- Read previous part (PART I) here

Steve Harrington x OC!fem!reader hometown strangers to friends to lovers. ultra dark, heavy angst and hurt/comfort. alternate universe -> upside down apocalypse. high suspense, dystopian game-of-survival plot with morbidly dry humor sprinkled along the way. eventual plot-driven angsty smut (...but with hella plot). 18+

A fever dream multi-crossover au inspired by The Hunger Games and The Purge universes, merged with Stranger Things. 🏹

🏹 SUMMARY: Hopper feels as though he's balancing three broken worlds at once from his perch inside the lavish Capitol square: one world onscreen, where his tributes are surviving a death arena... one world back home in Hawkins, where his people and his town are barely surviving... and one world he never wanted to step foot in, but is forced to navigate on behalf of two young teens he's sworn to protect.

And he'll be goddamned if he doesn't get you some sort of sponsorship today, before your injured leg can sink you into eternal sleep.

Meanwhile, Powell and Callahan hold down the fort for their chief back in Hawkins. Little did they know, the hardest feat they would have to face wouldn't be any sort of monster or demo-whatever. It would be the mothers of the town, who refuse to just sit and comply.

Especially when your grandfather's life is on the line.

🌿 AUTHOR’S NOTE: 🥹 Steve and Ro have finally started putting their game plan into motion. Yes, I made sure to give them one more full day together before the tragically unthinkable happens. :(( DAMN YOU, SUZANNE COLLINS! (jk ily forever)

Sweet Ren finally gets a little bit of aid from the most unexpected sponsor, and it's absolutely a glimpse into the future because she truly does become such an idol for little girls.

Personally? My favorite part of this next wave of chapters were making Callahan and Powell the center of attention for a bit. They're out here hiding down the line lmfao.

Xx, Misha

🏹 OVERALL SERIES WARNINGS: This is my darkest fanfic series. Strong language, mature themes all around. Explores PTSD and severe trauma, past s*xual and physical abuse, graphic descriptions of violence, dystopian setting. Heavy angst/hurt/comfort (yes, there will be a hard-earned happy ending). General THG series setting + angst, plus grim themes and gore in the vein of The Purge.

Chapter Forty-Five (continued…)

12:03 PM • The Capitol [DAY 6 of the Games]

Powell’s voice had already gone thin with static by the time Hopper pinched the bridge of his nose and turned half away from the crowd.

“Alright,” he muttered into the phone, low and flat and trying like hell not to sound like a man one bad sentence away from losing his shit. “Just keep me posted—okay? I don’t care if you can’t reach me the instant somethin’ over there changes. You call, leave a message, and tell me how the hell to get ahold of you again when you do. Got it?”

Static crackled. Then Powell answered, tired and clipped and doing his best to make certainty out of shit that wasn’t certain at all.

“Got it, Chief.”

Hopper’s jaw flexed.

He stood in the middle of the Capitol square in broad daylight with polished stone under his boots — fountains throwing diamond-bright arcs into the air, and every giant screen in sight broadcasting the Games like the whole place was one big damned casino with blood in the walls. A hundred conversations blurred together around him — wealthy citizens in expensive clothes talking over each other, laughing, gasping, theorizing, drinking things with bright fruit speared onto crystal picks — while halfway across the country, Indiana was getting hauled into emergency protocol under a sky veined red.

Powell only knew so much.

That didn’t piss Hopper off.

It made sense.

The military never told anybody shit unless it absolutely had to… and even then, they couldn’t be trusted. Hopper knew that all too well by now. Powell knew that, too. Everybody who’d lived through even one supernatural breach knew that. So Hopper hadn’t wasted time trying to wring blood from a stone. He’d gotten what mattered.

Steve’s people were evacuated. Eddie, Nancy, the kids — all accounted for and under shelter. Powell had confirmed that much. And Hopper, in the same breath, had made himself real goddamn clear about the rest. Like, get ahold of Karen and Ted at the hospital. Get ahold of Joyce wherever the hell they’d moved her, make sure she and Jonathan know Will is safe with the others. If anybody gives you grief about authorization, they can call me directly, and I will make their fucking afternoon worse.

That had gotten him silence on the line for half a second.

Then Powell, tired but solid: “Already on it.”

“And the Everdeen’s,” Hopper added, low and clipped.

“Already done,” Powell confirmed.

Now Hopper exhaled once through his nose, listening to the wind smearing static across the call one last time, and ended it.

“Talk soon,” he murmured once.

“Yep.”

Click.

Hopper lowered the phone…

And looked back up.

On the nearest screen, Steve and Ro were moving through the woods side by side under a hard white noon, all long limbs and quiet purpose and that strange new rhythm they’d found with each other so fast it hurt to look at. A boy and a boy, one barely more than a child and the other barely more than a man — hauling brush and branches and armfuls of deadwood into another careful pile.

Not lighting it.

Not yet…

Just building.

Preparing.

The first pile had been hours ago. This one sat a good distance away from it, hidden enough from the immediate eye, obvious enough if you knew what the hell you were looking at. Another future flare point. Another lure. Another piece of their plan slotting into place… with an efficiency that made Hopper’s chest tighten with pride and dread at the exact same damn time.

Steve did the heavier work because of course he did. Bigger armfuls. Bigger branches. Bigger strides. Ro kept pace anyway, hauling what he could with that ghost-light quiet of his, slipping in and out of Steve’s shadow like he’d been built to survive in one. Every now and then Steve would say something over his shoulder. Ro would answer. Then both of them would grin — not big, not carefree, but enough.

Enough to make the square around Hopper practically melt with delight.

Caesar Flickerman’s voice boomed out from one of the lower speakers with its usual lacquered enthusiasm. “—and there they are again, Pan and his shadow—absolutely industrious this afternoon, Claudius!”

Claudius Templemith, equally delighted, purred right back, “One cannot deny the ingenuity, Caesar. It’s astonishing. Disturbing, yes—but astonishing. I mean, what a pair. And all in pursuit, one assumes, of the elusive Wendy Bird.”

That got a little chorus of pleased noises from the square around Hopper.

He ignored them.

Or tried to.

The big screens cycled through angles — Steve bending to break a branch across his knee, Ro gathering smaller twigs and tucking them just so, both of them talking low and intent. Somewhere near one of the fountains a child in a tiny pale suit pointed up at the screen and asked something too far away for Hopper to catch. His mother answered with a smile bright enough to cut.

It made Hopper’s chest pinch in a way he didn’t have a word for.

Not anger, exactly. Or not only that.

Because the kids here in the Capitol weren’t the ones he hated.

They all stood there in polished shoes and perfect little clothes eating spun sugar and watching the screens because nobody had raised them to know any better. To them this was spectacle and story and bright moving pictures bigger than life. They weren’t born monstrous. They were taught comfort in a monstrous place.

It was the adults he had a problem with.

The ones sipping champagne while teenagers starved.

The ones cooing over strategy while children bled.

The ones smiling now.

Hopper tore his eyes off the nearest family and made himself move.

Across the elite square stood some gleaming, overbuilt espresso station with a chrome body and a hovering blue touchscreen that looked like it belonged on a goddamn spaceship. Behind the counter moved two faceless service robots shaped just enough like people to be irritating. Sleek hands and blank oval faces. No eyes worth speaking of.

Hopper walked over anyway.

His mentor card hung around his neck on its lanyard, thumping once against his chest as he leaned in and jabbed the touchscreen with one thick finger.

Two bold espressos.

The machine whirred to life.

Even while he waited he kept one eye on the screen above the station now, where Steve and Ro had finished the second pile and were moving off again. Steve glanced around twice before nudging Ro onward with a little motion of his wrist. Ro darted ahead, scouting. Steve followed slower, watchful.

Good.

Smart.

Hopper hated how much he loved it.

The cups arrived in neat little white ceramic things with foam swirled artfully at the top. Of course they did. Capitol bullshit.

He grabbed both by the handles.

“Thanks,” he muttered to the robot out of plain human reflex.

The robot had already turned away.

Hopper stared after it for half a second, rolled his eyes at himself, then went back to the square carrying the drinks. He’d only made it halfway before the screens changed…

Jack.

Hopper slowed.

Then stopped entirely.

The young boy stood just outside the mouth of the cave in full sun, all skinny determination and damp hair half-dried in wild directions from the stream. At his boots sat a gathered pile — roots, berries, edible greens, two speckled eggs strange enough in color to look almost painted. He cupped his hands to his mouth and sent out two brief notes, soft and sharp.

The mockingjays caught them.

Carried them.

Then Jack ducked back inside.

The camera followed.

And Hopper just froze there in the middle of the Capitol square with two hot cups in his hands and everything inside his chest going thick.

The cave looked almost cozy now in the way survival spaces sometimes did when desperation had been lived in long enough. The sleeping bag you’d left them was spread open and rumpled by use, big enough for both kids when they tucked themselves in close. Off in one corner, out of easy scent range, sat the food stash: the cracker sleeve thinned down but not gone, the tin of peanuts and almonds, the gathered plants, the two fresh eggs now added in. Another corner held the practical things. The flashlight. The iodine. Matches. The big canteen. The extra bag of scare supplies. A few odds and ends… all salvaged and sorted so carefully it hurt to watch.

Hannah sat on the sleeping bag waiting for him, all soft blonde hair still damp at the ends, her face small and pale and watching the cave mouth like she expected an answer from it if she stared hard enough.

Jack crouched beside her and set everything down. “I sent it,” he tells her, all breathless but trying to sound normal. “I sent it, and I covered it back up— see?”

He reached over and fussed with the brush disguising part of the entrance, tucking it more firmly into place. Hannah watched his hands the whole time.

“Do you think Miss Ren is close?” she asked at last.

The question was so gentle Hopper nearly shut his eyes.

Jack didn’t.

He kept working. “Yeah,” he said, immediate as anything. “Yeah, definitely.” He shrugged. “Maybe not tonight. But soon. Real soon.”

Hannah’s mouth made a little sad shape. She nodded anyway.

He saw it, of course. So Jack pivoted hard like only a brave thirteen-year-old with terror in his ribcage could for little girls who’d stolen his heart.

“Hey. Look what I found,” he said, holding up one of the eggs with a kind of hard-won triumph. “These are weird, right? Like alien chicken weird.”

That got the tiniest smile out of her.

Hopper’s own mouth twitched before he could stop it.

All around him in the square he could hear people melting.

“Oh, look at them—”

“Poor little things—”

“How darling—”

It made him want to snap at every last one of them to shut the fuck up and let the children breathe.

Instead he stood there, still and glassy-eyed, and watched...

Jack sat down beside Hannah and began laying out all their food like he was presenting a feast instead of rationing scraps. He kept on talking. About the eggs. About which roots were probably better raw and which maybe weren’t. About how the water was still good and he’d checked it. About how they had enough. About how they were okay.

Hannah listened like each word from him was a plank beneath her feet.

There were little moments in it — tiny, weirdly ordinary moments — that hit Hopper hardest. The way Jack brushed a wet lock of hair out of his own face with his wrist because both hands were busy. The way Hannah tucked her knees up under herself and sat on them like she had at school assemblies before the world curdled. The way they kept glancing toward the cave mouth whenever the stream outside surged louder, instinctive and scared and trying not to be.

…and the way Jack lied for her comfort with such raw little courage, Hopper almost laughed and cried at once.

It got him, that did…

It got him because you had done this.

You had gotten them here. You had tucked them away with enough supplies to make hope possible. You had built a whole damn hidden life for them in the dark… and then gone back out into hell, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Stubborn, stupid, impossible girl.

A movement entered the edge of Hopper’s vision.

“Chief.”

Hopper turned.

Seeder now stood beside him with his hands in his pockets and a face gone somber in that quiet, respectful way of his. He didn’t ask anything dumb or force a joke into the wrong moment. Just held Hopper’s gaze once and saw enough there, then tilted his chin at the cup in Hopper’s left hand.

“You hanging in there, Chief?”

Hopper snorted softly. “As much as anybody is.”

He held out the espresso.

Seeder took it with a little nod. “Appreciate it.”

They stood shoulder to shoulder, both men looking up at the screen.

For a moment neither of them said anything.

Jack was handing Hannah one of the nuts from the tin like it was an offering fit for a queen. Hannah accepted it with both hands. Somewhere offscreen the stream rushed on, cold and endless.

Seeder sipped, wincing faintly. “Damn. That’s strong.”

“Thought you could handle it.”

“I can. Doesn’t mean I gotta enjoy the attack.”

That got Hopper the faintest smile. He drank his own and watched Hannah tuck a strand of hair behind her ear while Jack kept talking.

After a beat Seeder murmured, “I gotta give it to you.”

Hopper didn’t look at him. “For what.”

“For both of ’em.”

Now he did glance over.

But Seeder kept his eyes on the big screen. “Your boy was always gonna be something. Anybody with eyes could see that. But her…” He shook his head once, slowly. “Man. I still don’t even know what the hell I’m looking at half the time.”

Hopper stared at him another second, then back at the screen.

“Join the club.”

“No, really.” Seeder’s voice stayed low. Private. “I mean it. That girl looks like she oughta be walking out of a local church choir or some damn storybook painting, not running circles around a pack of killers while keeping half the arena alive behind everybody’s backs.”

Hopper huffed once through his nose because, yeah. Yeah.

“That’s about the size of it.”

Seeder smiled sadly into his cup. “Ro’s worshipping Steve, sure. But… I’ll tell you something. He talks about her like she invented magic.”

Hopper swallowed.

The screen shifted.

And both men went quiet all over again.

You sat by the stream now in hard sun with your clothes spread to dry over a broad pale boulder, washed out and dripping the last of their dampness into light. Your cargo pants. Your shirt. Socks lined beside them. What remained on you now was practical and modest and somehow made the whole thing worse, not better. The sports bra and fitted shorts left no room to ignore what the Games had already started doing to your body.

Cinna, bless him, had made sure to have your undergarments designed in a way that kept your modesty intact for anytime you’d need to wash up or strip down to lesser layers. He’d catered to your purity, your desire to not expose yourself to the entire nation for views and cheap thrills.

But modesty still didn’t hide the way you’ve begun to go frail.

You’d been slight before this.

That much Hopper knew.

Graceful. Slender. Light-boned in that almost birdlike way that made people underestimate just how much grit you could hold in one body.

Now days of near-starvation had sharpened it. You looked pale as skimmed milk beneath the harsh sun. The delicate hollows at your collarbones stood out deeper. Your ribs hinted faintly with each breath. And what softness you might once have carried… had thinned down to almost nothing. Not because you looked boyish — you didn’t. You looked heartbreakingly, unmistakably feminine. Just young. Too goddamn young. Fragile in the visual sense only, because everything else about you screamed otherwise.

The square around them had gone softer now, full of coos and murmurs and dreadful sympathy.

Hopper barely heard any of it.

Because your leg was uncovered.

The cloth strip that you’d been using was now off to the side, dark and wet from rinsing. And your shin…

Seeder’s whole face tightened.

Hopper stopped breathing for a second.

The wound looked vicious in broad daylight. No theater left in it. No flattering shadow. No distance. Just a deep, ugly gash laid open cruelly across your shin where the blade had bitten and kept biting. The skin around it had gone hot and swollen, angry red blooming outward from the cut in a cruel way that made infection feel less like a possibility… and more like something already stalking toward you. Every time the camera zoomed tighter, the damage got meaner. The depth of it. The raggedness. The way that your flesh pulled just enough to hint at something too close to bone.

When you poured water over it and grit your teeth through the sting, Seeder muttered, “Jesus Christ,” under his breath as his gut plummeted.

Hopper didn’t say anything at all.

He couldn’t.

You still never cry for the cameras. Never performed your pain. You winced, yes. Your fingers shook once around the cloth as you slowly peeled it off… and your mouth pressed thin enough to bleach as you assessed the damage of your injury. But still, you kept cleaning it. Kept working the water over and through it as carefully as you could manage with no proper antiseptic… no clean medical wrap… no damn help.

Hopper wanted to punch every polished face in the square.

He wanted somebody—anybody!—to send something useful.

Food. Medicine. Sterile dressings. Anything but another bullshit sentimental token to “buy you time,” before some “highly anticipated reunion.”

Instead Caesar’s syrupy voice flowed over the square.

“Oh, our poor Dove…”

Claudius added, hushed and rapturous: “Such resilience. Such unbelievable composure.”

Hopper’s hand tightened around the espresso cup hard enough that the hot ceramic threatened to complain.

Seeder saw it.

“Easy,” he murmured quietly.

“Easy my ass.”

Seeder took another sip anyway, eyes on the screen. “Plan’s still good.”

Hopper exhaled once… hard and stressed.

“Has to be.”

They both knew it now. Most of the square did, too. Nobody said it outright in blunt language, but the pieces had been visible all morning if you knew how to watch. The three fire points. The spacing. The movement. Steve and Ro setting the board and meaning to set it on fire in three directions at once. Lure the Careers off their hoard while they leave Syl at the Cornucopia by default because somebody had to guard the stockpile. Give Steve a window. One arrow. One shot. One big beautiful kaboom if luck quit screwing around and finally did something useful for once.

Then west…

Back toward the cave.

Back toward you.

…if it worked.

Across the square, over near one of the lounge clusters, the District 2 mentor stood with his giant shaved head shining in the sun… with a look on his face like he wanted to peel somebody alive. He wasn’t even trying to hide it now. Every few seconds? His stare cut toward Hopper and Seeder, all brute-force fury and impotent rage… because his tributes were about to get outsmarted and he couldn’t do one damn thing about it.

Seeder warily followed Hopper’s glance. “Baldie looks like he wants to chew concrete.”

Hopper snorted dryly. “Wouldn’t put it past him.”

“He should be grateful. Maybe it’d improve his personality.”

That got Hopper the briefest bark of a laugh. “Tall order.”

“True.”

They drank in silence for another moment, both watching you try to wrap the leg again with hands that were steadier than they had any right to be.

Then Hopper felt a tug at his pant leg.

He looked down.

A little girl in a pastel, expensive dress stood there staring up at him with one solemn hand still pinching the fabric at his knee. In her hair sat a small white feather clipped into glossy curls. Her shoes probably cost more than Wayne Munson used to make in a week.

Hopper blinked.

Then, because no part of him had ever stopped being a dad where little girls were concerned, he crouched. “Well, hey there.”

She didn’t answer at first. Just stared with huge eyes.

Up close she couldn’t have been more than six. Maybe seven if the Capitol fed its kids growth hormones and lies.

Hopper softened his voice anyway. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

She lifted her chin a little.

“Ophelia,” she said, every syllable careful as a jewel.

Hopper smiled warmly despite himself. “Well, Miss Ophelia, that’s a mighty fine name. What can I do for ya?”

Her innocent gaze flicked over his shoulder to the big screen where you still sat by the stream. Then back to him.

“I want to send the Dove a present.”

For half a second Hopper’s brain just flat-out stalled.

Seeder, beside him, went very still.

Hopper managed, “A present, huh?”

Ophelia nodded. A tiny bratty crease formed between her brows like she was already irritated at the possibility of being denied. The white feather in her hair bobbed.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Well,” Hopper said carefully, “that’s real thoughtful of you.”

Behind her, a man now hurried into view wearing the expression of someone about to apologize for his child… while not actually having much practice at parenting one.

“Ophelia, darling—oh, I am so sorry—” He reached her at last and set both hands on her little shoulders, acknowledging the mentors. “I’m terribly sorry, I hope she hasn’t been bothering you.”

Hopper rose slowly to his feet.

“No,” he said easily. “Not bothering me at all.”

The pompous man gave a laugh too polished to mean anything. “She’s quite determined, I’m afraid.”

“That so.”

Ophelia twisted halfway around in her father’s hold, looked up at him — and announced again, louder this time, “I want to send the Dove a present.”

Her father gave her the kind of exhausted smile that belonged to a bad actor. “Yes, darling, I heard you.”

“I want to now.”

“Yes.”

“Now!”

He pinched his eyes shut for one brief second.

Hopper, beside himself internally, put on the best glum-grateful face he had. “That’s kind of her,” he said. “Every little bit counts… even just the thought.”

It tasted like ash in his mouth.

Seeder went rigid with the effort not to laugh at how much Hopper’d clearly tried not to throw up in his own mouth while delivering the line.

The father now just sighed the sigh of a man tragically burdened by his own daughter’s compassion in public and crouched to her level. “Ophelia—”

“NOW!” she screeched, shrill and angry.

It was enough to startle anyone nearby, plus make her father instantly shush her with unabashedly appalled horror and disapproval. He visibly scrambled, trying to think fast before his child threw an outright tantrum.

“If I send her something,” he said in a tone that could curdle milk, “…will you please behave?”

Ophelia’s mouth fell open in betrayed offense.

Then she pouted so hard it almost circled back around into art.

“I wanna send a present.”

“Will you behave if I do?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

He closed his eyes again. “Ophelia… are you sure you don’t just want some ice cream? Or a new dolly?”

His daughter’s lower lip trembled, real tears now. Hopper could’ve kissed the little menace on the forehead for her outburst and stubborn refusal.

“No, I want to help her,” she whimpered, whiny and hysterical. “Her leg is all gross and bad and she won’t make it ‘til Peter Pan finds her…”

“Okay okay okay—shhhhh…”

And that, finally, did it.

Ophelia’s father straightened with the defeated air of a man surrendering not to goodness but inconvenience. “Fine,” he said. “Fine. We’ll send something right now. Alright?”

Ophelia’s face changed instantly from wet misery to triumphant solemnity.

Hopper had to look away for half a second.

Until her father turned back toward him. “I can arrange a proper compression wrap. Sterile. Reinforced. Something that will at least cover the wound more effectively until…” His eyes flicked to the screen where Steve and Ro’s feed had returned in a corner. “…until circumstances improve.”

Hopper stared. “Sir,” he said slowly, forcing his voice not to crack from sheer fucking relief, “that would help.”

Seeder leaned in just enough to support without overstepping. “Truly would.”

The father glanced at him, then back to Hopper. “It won’t fix it, obviously.”

“No.”

“But it may help her keep the area protected. Reduce friction. Slow down any further contamination. Could even send a few simple pain killers with it. Just to subside it. Proper medication for that is a fortune.”

He says it like he does not have a fortune of his own to spare.

But even so, Hopper just nodded once. “I’ll take any edge she can get.”

Ophelia had already seized her father’s hand and was loudly tugging him in the direction of the sponsorship kiosks. “Come on—!” she insisted, high-pitched. “Now! Now, now now!”

He sighed long-sufferingly. “Yes, darling. I am, in fact, moving.”

Seeder made a small thoughtful noise into his cup.

Hopper looked at him.

“I’m startin’ to like her,” Seeder mumbled, his mouth twitching behind a sip.

“Yeah,” Hopper muttered quietly, watching Ophelia drag her father across the square like a tiny general with expensive taste. “Me too.”

They fell in step beside them.

Around them the Capitol square glittered on in its shameless brightness. The hosts kept talking. The citizens kept watching, entirely hypnotized. Onscreen, somewhere between pain and endurance, you were still alive under the noon sun, still wrapping your own wound with hands that ought never have had to.

Ahead, the kiosk emerged sleek and shining, all chrome and glass and quiet systems ready to turn sympathy into parcels and parachutes.

And Hopper walked toward it with Seeder at one side and a little feather- haired tyrant at the other — knowing damn well a bandage was not enough, not even close… but in a world this rotten, sometimes hope arrived not as a miracle.

Sometimes it arrived in stages.

And sometimes, it arrived all because a spoiled little girl decided she wanted something badly enough to make a grown man spend the money.

12:55 PM • Hawkins [DAY 6 of the Games]

“Ma’am— ma’am, I am telling you your children are safe.”

Officer Callahan had been on the phone for exactly two minutes and forty- one seconds, and already his soul looked evacuated.

Rainfall hissed against the reinforced police station’s windows hard enough to sound like a crowd. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed with that tired, sickly hum that never changed no matter how apocalyptic the world got. The same could be said about the hospital across town. Currently? That’s where his telephone line carried while on this call, connected with the receptionists.

Somewhere down the corridor, a cart rattled past. Somewhere else, a patient coughed like they were trying to bring up a lung. But right here, right now, all of Officer Phil Callahan’s personal hell existed in the form of a cream-colored rotary phone clutched too tightly in one damp hand inside of his office — and Karen Wheeler’s voice coming at him like buckshot through the receiver.

“I heard that part, Phil,” Karen snapped back immediately, not even remotely interested in the fact that he was a sworn officer of the law and technically in the middle of a statewide emergency. “What I’m asking you is where, exactly, are they being held, who is watching them—how long they’ve been there— whether they’ve eaten, whether Michael has his inhaler—”

“Honey,” Ted Wheeler tried weakly somewhere nearby, probably from his cot in their holding wing, trying to calm his wife.

Karen steamrolled right over him.

“—and why in God’s name did it take anyone this long to call me?”

“Ma’am—”

“It’s been twenty-four hours.”

“It has not been that long,” Callahan said, voice cracking on the last word. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his free fingers and glanced helplessly at the station wall clock like it might testify on his behalf. “It hasn’t even been twelve hours, ma’am.”

“Oh, for the love of—”

“It has felt like twelve years,” Sue Sinclair cut in, breathless and furious and very obviously right beside Karen — because of course she was. “Does that count?”

Callahan closed his eyes.

Wonderful.

Now there were two of them.

He could picture it without even seeing it: Karen Wheeler in full mama-bear mode with her lipstick half-worn off and her curls a little frizzed from stress, Sue Sinclair beside her with that same tired, beautiful fury mothers got when the world kept on trying to scare their children. Somewhere around them, the hospital was under hard lockdown — phones limited, hallways swarming with approved staff and security and no one getting to go absolutely anywhere — and somehow, these two women had still managed to take over the personal call made to them from the station and turn it into a hostage situation.

“Ladies,” Callahan tried, already losing ground. “Please. Please let me finish the sentence I’m saying before—”

“No,” Karen said flatly.

He blinked.

“…no?”

“No,” Karen repeated, curt. “Because every time I let a man finish a sentence during a crisis, I lose fifteen valuable minutes—and gain exactly zero useful information.”

Sue made a little sound that was suspiciously close to a laugh but also very close to tears.

Callahan stared at the receiver like it had personally betrayed him before he forced himself to continue. “Your children are secure,” he said again, trying for firm and landing somewhere around an exhausted kindergarten teacher. “Nancy and Mike Wheeler, Lucas and Erica Sinclair, Dustin Henderson, and Will Byers are all currently sheltered safely inside Steve Harrington’s private quarters inside of Building II… along with Eddie Munson. They are alive, they are accounted for, and under police and military watch. There is food, water, bedding, power, and a working television feed.”

That got him maybe half a breath of silence.

Then Karen was right back in, already catching onto something he said. “The Byers… The Byers—Phil, listen to me—get me in touch with the Byers.”

Callahan frowned. “The… Byers?”

“Joyce Byers—” Karen said, voice suddenly sharper with urgency than even panic. “Jonathan too, if he’s with her. Nancy told me they need help for Ren Everdeen’s grandfather—Burdock Everdeen. He’s in bad shape. Real bad— Nancy said Jonathan sounded terrified. They spoke yesterday— and if that boy sounds terrified, then you know. I am not being dramatic.”

Sue immediately piled on.

“Our husbands have unused comps through pharmaceuticals,” she added rapidly. “Karen and I both do too. Ted and Charles can sign off what they’re allowed to sign off, and if they can’t, then I know three nurses downstairs who owe me favors. If the man needs meds, we can move something—but I need to know what he’s on, what dosage, where he is, and whether he’s breathing okay.”

Callahan’s head tipped back toward the ceiling.

He had been given one assignment.

One.

Call the mothers. Reassure the mothers. Get off the phone.

Now he was somehow in charge of cross-referencing family medical aid for a sick old man related to one of the girls currently bleeding her way through the goddamn Hunger Games.

“Ma’am, I can pass along the message—”

“No.”

Karen again.

Somehow louder this time.

“No, absolutely not—no. Do not you dare ‘pass along the message’ me, Phil. Put me through to Joyce.”

“I can’t just patch through—”

“Then patch me through to Powell.”

Sue was right there with her now. “Yes, put us on with Powell.”

“Ladies—” Callahan nearly begging now, “—with all due respect? There is no universe in which Chief— well, Acting Officer Powell can just—”

“Put me on hold then,” Karen demanded. “I do not care if I have to listen to the world’s saddest elevator music for twenty minutes, put me on hold.”

“There’s not gonna be any elevator music, ma’am.”

“Oh, even worse!” Karen shot back. “Then I’ll have to sit here alone with my thoughts.”

For one awful second, Callahan actually almost laughed.

Then immediately didn’t.

He dragged a hand down his face, walkie clipped to his belt digging into his hip, his nerves stretched so thin he felt like cheap tape. All around him the station kept breathing its own exhausted rhythm — boots in the hall, radios crackling, someone somewhere swearing at a jammed printer, deep thunder muttering against the boarded windows like something mean and patient.

“Alright,” he said finally, in the tone of a man throwing himself onto the mercy of a firing squad. “Do not hang up.”

“Trust me. We won’t.”

Something about how quickly Karen said it made him believe she might die before relinquishing that receiver.

He jabbed the side of his walkie with a finger. “Boss?” he said, trying not to sound like he was already halfway to a stress-induced aneurysm. “Boss— you there? We got a pretty urgent situation over here…”

Across town (or… really not that far across town at all, not in Hawkins, where everything important sat too close together and all grief tended to overlap…) Officer Powell was having his own private collapse in real time.

The police station sat only yards from Shelter II now — the concrete bunker looming next door like a giant gray tooth hammered into the earth after the first supernatural earthquakes split Hawkins wide open just a few years back. Everything around both buildings had been reinforced since then — fencing, barriers, floodlights, checkpoint lanes, armed watch. It all looked very official and very sturdy and very much like something designed by men who wanted to convince themselves concrete could out-argue hell.

Inside Powell’s office, the air smelled like stale coffee, wet leather, and paper that had been handled too many times by tired hands.

He had one phone wedged to his ear.

One walkie hissing at his belt.

And one military officer currently knocking on his half-open door like this was in any way a reasonable moment for that.

On the line, Jonathan Byers was talking too fast to breathe.

“No, listen to me, you’re not getting it— he can’t just sit here and wait this all out, alright? He needs medication—needs it now, not when some goddamn form gets signed off or whenever somebody decides that his lungs are worth looking at—”

“Slow down,” Powell said, trying and failing to sound calm. “Jonathan—slow down. What exactly does he take?”

“Would tell you if I could get a whole sentence out,” Jonathan snapped back, raw and strained and nothing like his usual careful self.

That gave Powell pause.

Jonathan Byers was not a kid who raised his voice for sport.

That alone made Powell straighten a little in his chair.

In the background, he could hear Joyce too — could hear Burdock coughing somewhere farther off, deep and awful and wet enough to make something cold slide under Powell’s ribs. He could hear the crowded room around them as well: cots creaking, murmured voices, a child whining somewhere, even the sound of one of those big industrial fans turning useless air over.

On his belt, the walkie crackled again.

“Boss? Boss, you there?”

Powell shut his eyes.

The knock came again at the office door.

Louder.

For one bright, hideous second? Powell genuinely considered diving out the window.

Instead he barked, “WHAT?”

The door awkwardly eased open, hinges creaking… and on the other side, a military officer stood there in full soaked gear, expression flatter than drywall.

Not offended.

Not impressed.

Just standing there with a look that very gently suggested Powell was being kind of a bitch.

Powell stared at him.

The uniform stared right back.

Behind Powell’s eyes, the migraine he’d been outrunning all day finally made a serious bid for power.

Jonathan was still going on in his ear. “—and I’m telling you I don’t know how much longer he can keep doing this if nobody—”

“Jonathan,” Powell cut in, holding up one finger at the military officer like that would somehow stop the entire world for a second. “Hold. Your. Horses.”

Then, because apparently he hated peace and joy — and maybe living long enough to retire, he hit the side of the receiver just enough to muffle it and looked at the man in the doorway.

“What is it now?”

The officer arched one brow. “There’s an issue in Shelter Two.”

“Shocker.”

The man ignored that. “One of Harrington’s family members is now making a scene in the hall outside their private room. She is refusing to cooperate until she speaks to police directly.”

That landed.

Everything inside of Powell that had been all static and overlapping voices… suddenly clicked one ugly notch more into place.

Harrington’s family member.

A “she.”

Not Erica. Too uncharacteristically quiet when scared.

Not one of the boys. Too direct.

Nancy.

Of course it was Nancy Wheeler.

Of course Karen Wheeler had Callahan by the throat over one line, Jonathan Byers was nearly chewing through another — and Nancy Wheeler was out in the hall somewhere raising hell over the exact same thing.

For one second Powell just stood there, watching all the dots connect and deeply, deeply resenting them for it.

Callahan crackled again from the walkie.

“Boss, I’m serious, man, they will not let this go—”

On the phone, Jonathan said, “Are you even listening to me?”

Powell looked at the ceiling.

Then at the military officer.

Then down at his desk.

Then back up again.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, a decision got made.

“Bring me the girl,” he said.

The military officer’s expression shifted by maybe half an inch.

Powell met it head on. “And be nice about it.”

A beat.

Then the officer gave one tiny nod and stepped back out into the hall.

Powell huffed, then lifted the receiver again. “Jonathan—” he said, his voice roughening with resolve. “I am listening. I need you to take one breath, then give me the exact name of the medication.”

At the same time he thumbed his walkie. “Callahan.”

“Jesus, finally.”

“Keep Mrs. Wheeler on the line,” Powell said. “Tell her I’m bringing Nancy in here and we’re gonna sort this all out together.”

There was a static silence on the other end that sounded suspiciously like Callahan blinking.

“…you’re what?”

“You heard me.”

“Boss, are you sure that’s a good—”

“No,” Powell said honestly. “I’m sure it’s a decision.”

And because there was no time left in the day for anything but decisions, he clicked the walkie silent, set Jonathan on hold just long enough to keep him from talking himself hoarse, and finally sagged back in his chair.

For one whole second, the office went quiet.

Not actually quiet, not with the storm muttering outside and boots moving in the hall and radios coughing through static and his own blood thudding in his ears… but quiet enough.

Quiet enough for him to feel how tired he really was.

How much all of this had started to braid itself together.

The girl in the arena with the ruined leg.

The old man in a shelter somewhere coughing himself inside out.

The Wheeler women refusing to sit still for five goddamn minutes if there was something useful to be done.

The oldest Byers boy, finally sounding like his mother.

The little pack of Harrington kids locked up across the way and trying to stay brave.

Powell rubbed at his temples, praying to a god he refused to give up on even at the end of the world. Then — restless and suddenly needing something concrete under his hands… he yanked open the nearest file drawer.

A.

B.

C.

He flipped through the folders faster than he meant to, old papers whispering beneath his fingers.

D.

E.

Everdeen.

He stopped.

The tab sat there plain and neat and harmless looking, which felt like bullshit. Powell drew the file out, set it on the desk… and stared at it a second before opening it.

Inside: forms, identification records, household notes, registration details, old emergency contact information, every dry little official scrap that claimed to explain a family.

None of it looked like the actual truth.

Not really.

Not the truth that mattered.

Not the truth where one granddaughter had become the only thing standing between that old man and total abandonment.

Not the truth where the wrong people kept ending up responsible for love.

Not the truth where a beautiful baker’s daughter, who ought to’ve been home kneading bread dough with flour on her wrists, was instead somewhere else, inside a televised death trap — limping through the woods while the people who loved her (people who weren’t even blood related) tried to keep her sick grandfather breathing from half a dozen separate corners of a town that had already survived too much.

Outside his office, footsteps approached.

Powell lifted his eyes from the file just as they stopped at the door.

And with the Everdeen papers open beneath his hand, he realized the whole damn town had finally done what Hawkins always did best when things got bad enough.

It had started loving somebody out loud all at once.

5:03 PM • The Games [DAY 6 of the Games]

“C’mon, man,” Steve muttered, already halfway through a grin as he hauled another armful of dry branches into place with one hand and used the other to point at the pile. “That one’s gotta be taller than the other two or it’s just embarrassing. We are not half-assing Operation Smooth Criminal this close to showtime.”

Ro, kneeling in the leaves with a fistful of brittle twigs and piney brush tucked against his chest, looked up at him with a face so solemn it nearly ruined the effect of the whisper-sung Michael Jackson noises he’d been making under his breath for the last twenty minutes.

He shook his head gravely.

“No,” he agreed in a tiny, deeply serious voice. “That would be humiliating.”

Steve barked out a quiet laugh through his nose.

“Exactly. You get me.”

It was going on five in the afternoon now, maybe a little after. And the arena had gone golden in that dangerous, pretty way late-day could get when the sun started slanting lower through the trees. Bright all day. Hot all day. But now everything had softened at the edges. The light came in shafts through the branches, thick and honey-colored. Dust motes drifted through it. The bark on trees looked richer. The shadows got longer and longer underfoot, stretching out over the ground like black water.

And in the middle of all that, hidden deep on the western side of the arena with a final bonfire pile nearly complete in front of them, Steve Harrington and a nine-year-old boy were acting like two idiots at summer camp instead of tributes in a death arena.

That was the craziest part.

Not the plan. Not the mines. Not even the fact that Steve, who had spent the better part of the last year and a half with all the joy pressed out of him by force, had somehow managed to find it again up here in the woods with a kid he’d only really known for a day.

No, the craziest part was how easy it felt.

Ro dropped the twigs where Steve indicated — then immediately popped up onto the balls of his feet and did a tiny, sharp little heel-toe shuffle backward that was somewhere between a dance move and a proud retreat.

Steve stared at him for half a second.

Then, without even thinking about it, he mirrored the move.

Ro’s eyes went huge.

Steve pointed at him. “You gonna start us off this round?”

Ro grinned.

Then immediately started.

He made a little sound under his breath — ba-dum, ba-dum, da-da-da-dum — trying to mimic the bassline from Smooth Criminal, then slid one sneaker over the leaves in a shaky moonwalk that should not have worked as well as it did on uneven forest floor.

It was ridiculous.

More than that? It was perfect.

Steve lost his mind a little bit.

“Awh, hell—” he drawled, dropping two more branches onto the bonfire pile before stepping around it and answering the challenge. “Dance break. Go.”

He hooked his thumbs briefly against the belt loops of his cargo pants, gave his shoulders a sharp little roll — then hit the same move back at Ro with a whole lot more swagger and a whole lot less balance than he would’ve liked. The leaves crunched under his boots. His bow knocked lightly against his back. The quiver of arrows shifted with him. And yet, Steve still managed the little slide, the hip hitch, the narrow-eyed look, the mischievous smolder.

Ro clapped both hands over his mouth to keep from laughing too loud.

Steve snapped his fingers at him. “That’s right, I still got it.”

His shadow was already shaking his head, delighted and horrified in equal measure. Then he planted his feet, bent his knees, and did the exaggerated forward lean again.

Steve nearly choked.

“Oh my God,” he snickered. “Alright—hold on, hold on—”

But Ro was already committed, tipping forward with all the faith in the world and absolutely none of the center of gravity required — until he had to catch himself with both palms against a tree trunk.

“Yee-hee!” Ro yeeted in his best MJ impression.

Steve doubled over, one hand on his knee, the other shoved over his mouth. His shadow wheezed laughing too, danger be damned.

For one stupid, impossible second… they were just two boys in the middle of the woods losing their shit.

And somewhere out beyond them — back in the Capitol, back in Hawkins, back in District 11, across every remaining city full of people glued to their televisions — the cameras adored it. They adored the handsome, half-feral boy with the chestnut hair and the bow over his back, hips loose with old rhythm and newer freedom, and they adored the little shadow by his side, all bright eyes and quick feet and too much courage for one body so small.

Neither Steve nor Ro knew that.

They were too busy being alive.

Steve straightened and rubbed the sweat off his upper lip with the back of his hand. “Alright,” he laughed. “Back to work before we get arrogant.”

Ro nodded with saintly seriousness.

Then, quietly, “Shamone.”

Steve squeezed his eyes shut. “Oh, you little shit…”

Ro cackled, then darted off to grab yet another deadfall branch before Steve could get him.

The third bonfire needed to count.

That was the thing.

Everything needed to count now.

The first one — south. The second — north. This one — west, opposite the eastward direction of the cave and the stream’s beginning. Come morning, the plan would finally take full flight. Steve would light Bonfire Two. Ro would light Bonfire One. Then, after enough time had passed and the sun hit the agreed spot in the sky, Ro would make his way to ignite the last one. Three separate fires. Three separate distractions. Enough smoke, enough panic… enough visual chaos to drag the Careers away from the Cornucopia and leave Syl stranded on guard.

Then Steve just needed to get one clean shot.

One arrow.

One chance to hit the mines and blow the whole stockpile of hoarded food and supplies to kingdom come.

It was smart.

It was risky as hell.

And it was also the first time that Steve had felt like he was doing something other than waiting to get his teeth kicked in by fate.

“Incoming,” Ro whispered, dragging over another armful of brush, dumping if with a huff.

Steve crouched beside the pile, adjusting some of the heavier branches into a tepee shape, making sure there was enough tinder tucked low and enough dry fuel stacked high to catch fast tomorrow. His knife stayed clipped within reach. His backpack sat against a tree trunk nearby. His bow and arrows never left his person. Nothing in here got left to chance anymore.

Ro crouched beside him. “Like this?”

Steve glanced over.

The kid held up a handful of dried grass and brittle leaves.

“Yeah,” Steve nodded. “Yeah. Perfect. Stuff it low so it catches first.”

Ro did, careful and efficient.

Steve watched him for a second… It still got him. The way Ro moved. Quiet as a breeze. Light on his feet in a way that made the woods seem to accept him. No wasted motion. No whining. No fear in the places fear would’ve been justified. He just… kept in step. Kept learning. Kept trusting Steve in a way Steve wasn’t sure he deserved.

It made something tight and painful and good pull low in his chest.

Ro looked up, catching him staring.

“What?”

Steve blinked, then shook his head. “Nothing. Just…” He glanced at the pile, then back at him. “You’re good at this.”

Ro’s mouth twitched shyly. “You too.”

Steve smiled. “Eh. I’m older.”

“That means nothing.”

That startled a laugh out of the eldest ally.

“Well damn,” Steve murmured amusedly. “Okay.”

Ro’s shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug. “Not your fault. Growing up’s a sham.”

That, it was... Too true. Age didn’t mean much in here except more names in the sky if things went wrong, or more slips in a fishbowl on Reaping Day.

Steve didn’t say that.

He just reached over and bumped his knuckles softly against Ro’s shoulder before rising to his feet again. “C’mon, partner. Let’s admire our handiwork before we get emotional.”

Together they stepped back.

The bonfire pile stood thick and ugly and solid in the clearing. Big enough to blaze high. Dry enough to catch quick. Hidden well enough, for now, beneath the normal clutter of the woods.

Ro put both hands on his hips.

Steve did too.

They stared at it in silence.

Then Steve held out his hand, nodding at their work. Ro slapped a high five into it so hard his own little palm stung, and he immediately shook it out with a hissed laugh.

Steve grinned. “Worth it?”

Ro nodded. “Worth it.”

“Good.”

Then Steve crouched with a sly look and tapped one shoulder.

Ro’s whole face lit up.

He came over without hesitation and climbed up Steve like they’d been doing this forever, then settled onto his shoulders while Steve reached back for his backpack. He fished out a couple crackers and pieces of jerky with one hand and handed them up without even looking before shouldering the pack.

Ro took them greedily. “Thaaaaankyou.”

“Welllllllllcome.”

Steve shoved one cracker into his own mouth, rose to standing, and got both hands around the kid’s ankles. “Hang on tight.”

“I am.”

“Watch my six.”

“On it.”

Steve started walking.

Ro immediately flopped backward with complete trust, dangling upside down over Steve’s backpack against his spine while still chewing like a little goblin, humming some mangled version of Smooth Criminal through a full mouth.

Steve had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing again.

“Bro...”

Ro pointed the last of his cracker at him from upside down. “Yeah?”

“You get a head rush, that’s your own fault.”

“I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

“I’m excellent. In watchin’ your six!”

Steve shook his head, grinning like a madman as he kept moving through all the trees, one hand occasionally lifting to steady Ro whenever the path got uneven. The late sunlight flashed through the leaves overhead. Somewhere far off, a bird chirped. Somewhere closer, water murmured.

And beneath it all, the beat kept going.

Ba-dum, ba-dum.

Steve took over for a second, whispering the rhythm under his breath.

Ro answered it from upside down.

Then the two of them were doing the sounds together, building the whole song out of nothing but bad percussion and whispered enthusiasm and the occasional sharp little woo! that Steve absolutely should not have been doing but did anyway.

He kept walking.

Kept swaying his shoulders.

Kept giving into the warmth of it all.

By the time they’d reached the first snare, they were both grinning like idiots again. Steve spotted the caught squirrel first and froze mid-step — then, he straightened dramatically and looked out at the invisible audience of nobody.

“Well, well, well…”

Ro lifted himself upright on Steve’s shoulders.

Steve pointed. “Would you look at that. Yahtzee.”

“Bingoooo,” Ro whisper-shouted in fake shock.

Steve carefully crouched to let him climb off. Ro landed light and quick, then immediately padded over to the snare. Sure enough, caught clean and dead, was a fat gray squirrel.

Good. Real good.

Enough for both of them tonight.

Ro crouched by it and went still.

Steve came up behind him slower. For a second neither of them spoke. Then Ro pressed three fingers to his lips, kissed them… and lifted them toward the sky.

Steve frowned, not in disapproval… just curiosity.

He crouched beside him. “What’s that for?”

Ro glanced at him, then back at the animal. “A sign of respect,” he explained quietly. “Back home, we go it.”

Steve stayed still.

Ro’s voice stayed soft. Matter-of-fact, no performance to it. Just solemn truth and grace. “For whoever falls,” he said. “Friend or foe. Human or animal. It’s just… we acknowledge it.”

Steve looked at the squirrel.

Looked at the kid beside him.

Something in him shifted.

He nodded once. Then, after a beat, he copied the gesture himself — three fingers to his lips, then giving them a little lift toward the air.

Ro didn’t smile about it. Didn’t make it a thing.

He just looked down and reached for the snare.

Together they got the squirrel free. Steve guided his hands through the first part of it, talked him through the rest in low, steady instructions — and Ro followed every word. Yesterday he’d watched. Today he helped. Steve didn’t rush him. Didn’t sugarcoat it either. This was gruesome work…but necessary work. Sorrowful work. The kind of survival that never stopped tasting wrong, even when you got good at it.

Ro never flinched away.

His eyes stayed glossy. Solemn. But he didn’t look sick. Didn’t panic.

Steve couldn’t decide if that relieved him or broke his heart worse.

Once the skinning was done, they buried what needed burying. Covered all signs. Scattered the disturbed leaves. Then Steve built them a small, tight little cookfire while Ro struck the match. The squirrel roasted quickly enough over the flames, the smell of hot meat making both of their stomachs twist awake in the worst and best ways.

Steve cut it down. Wrapped it carefully in two giant elephant-ear leaves that they’d found nearby. Tucked it into the smaller pouch of his backpack. Then they stamped out the fire together until not even a live ember remained.

When it was done, Steve rose, dusting off his hands on his cargo pants, and offered Ro a fist.

“Alright, partner,” he said. “You ready?”

Ro grinned up at him.

And then, instead of fist-bumping, he launched himself at Steve’s waist with a delighted little hynnnng noise.

Steve barely had time to catch him before the kid clung there like a koala.

“Well okay then,” he laughed under his breath. “That a yes?”

Ro just squeezed harder, face tipped up at him with total menace and delight sparkling in his eyes… crinkled with pure love and childlike adoration.

Steve hugged him back automatically and gave him one playful little shake. “You’re a nutcase.”

Ro nodded. “Yup.”

“Good, glad we cleared that up.”

For a minute, Steve playfully waddled with Ro wrapped around him like that. One step, two steps, three steps — all shuffled and awkward and scored by the unabashed giggles of a nine-year-old, along with the witty commentary of his noble comrade.

Then Steve scooped him up again, hauled him back onto his shoulders, and set off toward the tree they’d chosen for the night.

The forest had mellowed out into that rich, pre-sunset hush now... Not quiet exactly. Just held. Expectant. The kind of soft light that made everything look briefly kinder than it really was. Steve and Ro kept up the little whispered jam session most of the way there, not even really singing words anymore. Just music sounds. Bad rhythm. Tiny dance breaks whenever Steve had to stop and adjust his grip or check their surroundings. Every now and then… Ro would point out something ahead. Like good footing, low branches, a rabbit trail, a patch of edible greens they should remember later.

And every now and then, Steve would glance up toward the sky… and think of you.

Still out there somewhere.

Still alive, if the earlier birdcall meant anything… which it had.

He held onto that.

Had to hang onto that.

By the time they reached the big tree they’d picked out earlier, the sun was tipping lower in earnest… staining the spaces between branches amber and pink.

“Lead the way, brother,” Steve murmured, setting Ro down and letting him scramble upward first.

The kid went up the trunk like he belonged there.

Steve followed with the backpack over one shoulder, the bow secure against his back, quiver shifting lightly as he climbed. They found the same kind of gift that they’d found before: a sturdy fork of thick branches, high enough to matter, sheltered enough to work.

Ro carefully got settled while Steve hung up the backpack and accepted the little knapsack from him too — securing both within reach. He made sure the bow and arrows had their own easy notch nearby. Then he pulled out the wrapped squirrel meat, their water, and the odds and ends they’d scavenged earlier — roots, greens, a few plants Ro knew were safe.

They settled in to eat.

It wasn’t much.

Nevertheless, it felt like a feast.

Steve cut the squirrel smaller with his knife, handed over the first pieces, and pretended not to notice how carefully he kept giving Ro the better portions. Ro pretended not to notice too, which was its own kind of mercy. For a while they just chewed and drank and watched the sky change.

The colors got strange with evening. Pretty in a way that felt almost mean.

Ro squinted out at it. “Looks like peach.”

Steve followed his gaze, expression turning sly and teasing. “Mm, that’s not peach.”

“It is.”

“That is aggressively not peach.”

Ro pointed. “That part is. Right there--see?”

Steve tilted his head. “Okay, maybe that part.”

“And orange.”

“For sure.”

“And pink—like, sorbet.”

“Mm-hm,” Steve smirked, mouth watering at the mention of sorbet.

“And that weird one,” Ro pointed to another section of the sky, where a cloud swirled off into another cluster of color. “Looks like a kind of funky jam inside of a jar.”

Steve snorted. “Great description.”

“It’s weird.”

“That I agree with.”

Ro leaned a little farther out to see between branches. “Like bruised gold.”

Steve went still for a second. Then looked at him with something like surprise and something fonder. “Bruised gold, huh?”

Ro shrugged with one shoulder, chewing. “Yeah.”

Steve looked back out over the trees. “Yeah,” he murmured after a second. “Okay. Bruised gold.”

They sat with that.

Then Steve cupped his hands and sent out the four-note whistle.

The mockingjays caught it. Carried it. Carried it farther and farther through the woods.

He and Ro waited.

Maybe a minute and a half.

Then your four notes came back.

Not from you directly. From the birds. From the trees. From the whole damn arena, it felt like. The mockingjays confirmed you were still alive. Still safe.

Still out there.

Ro’s whole body eased.

Steve’s did too, even as the saddest smile graced his features.

Then Ro sent the smaller signal back — the one that meant stay put. Do not come looking yet. The plan’s in motion.

The mockingjays carried that too.

And sure enough, your two-note reverse call bounced back to them.

After they knew for certain you’d heard, they leaned back into their branches again and finished the last remnants of supper. Then, Steve pulled out a few honeysuckles from where he’d tucked them into an outer pocket earlier and handed two to Ro, while he kept one for himself.

Ro brightened. “Dessert.”

“Damn right.”

They sucked the tiny sweetness from the flowers and let the day finally begin to wind down around them. No cliff dropped out from under the moment. No beast roared. No cannon sounded. Not yet. Just the two of them up in a tree with sticky fingers and tired limbs and a plan waiting for morning.

Below, the woods darkened.

Above, the sky bruised deeper.

And by the time the last taste of honeysuckle faded off their tongues, all that was left to do was breathe, sit shoulder to shoulder in the branches… and let the night come slow.

END OF CHAPTER

<- previous part

⚕️

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