#the devils engine

Alex’s head rattles against the dirty glass of the bus window, nauseous with nerves and motion sickness as he is towed down this cobbled country road. Sun glaring through the back screens and baking in the musty scent of dirt and oil, sandwiched between three armed, suited guards, the sweat on his brow is not from the heat nor the gun-barrel gaze of being the object of Blacksuits’ crosshairs. Hands beneath his thighs, tacky with sweat and stuck against the leather seats, his stomach churns at the hum of the radio.

“Still today, on the 19th anniversary of the Summer of Slaughter,” a faceless news anchor rehearses through the tinny radio, the somber voice a crackling whine “the riots that terrorized our nation, we begin our first annual attempt at the rehabilitation of our nation’s youth -”

The voice on the radio gets louder, Alex watching as a hand reaches out to twist the knob. He dares a glance up at the rearview mirror and immediately regrets it - he bets the poor sucker stuck driving this bus probably wasn’t expecting to drive a murderer to his grave today, but the vitriol Alex sees in the eyes that stare back at him before flicking back to the road is enough to make him shrink back in his seat. Shame roils in his gut. He stares down at his feet, swallowing back tears. 

“Right now, as our country watches fifty of its troubled youth prepare for the ultimate redemption, let us join together in reflection and hope.” Alex keeps his eyeline down, the shadow of trees flickering past in his periphery through the windows. He is too focused on the radio, on hiding from the glares and his guilt, to notice the roar of voices approaching on the road ahead. “We give thanks to the King and his politicians, our correctional forces, and to the mercy they bestow, the order they provide, and their inspiration to our next generations. Let this inaugural Long Walk inspire us, as it guides these troubled souls back to the prosperity and social good -”

Alex is lurched forward as the bus comes to a harsh stop, wheels crunching on the broken concrete. The voice on the radio is cut off as the engine rumbles to a halt and he is hoisted by his armpits to the front. 

“We’re here,” a Suit jeers, his voice booming over the hush that now blankets the bus. Alex knows he has no choice but to follow the pull of his insistent captor, one foot in front of the other as he leaves the relative peace of this sanctuary and into the chaos beyond. 

One foot in front of the other, he thinks, as he watches his feet leave the steps. He drops down from the shade into the light, the rustle of chatter and chains washing over him. It’s just one step in front of the other from here on out.

“Hands,” the guards growl at the clearing, the shackles around his wrists released as he is shoved into a clearing. He has to blink through the sun’s rays, adjusting to the ever dawning light as he is passed through a gate, trembling and sick to his stomach. He misses his mother, his father - wishes he could’ve slept in his bed last night, instead of the hard metal bench at the municipal jail. It was a halfway point, he knew, between his hearing and the prison cell that he knew awaited him if he had not applied here in his desperate rush to blink into the sun like this again, and yet -

Another cage shuts behind him, the clang of a gavel screaming guilty in his head as he sits among the other convicts in this clearing. There are no fences to his sides, but the Suits and their dogs, restless on their chains as their muscles ripple, are enough of a deterrent to keep anyone from running. Ahead, the concrete strip stretches endlessly into the horizon. 

A cursory glance at the people milling around him does nothing to soothe his nerves. All clad in the same grey jumpsuits, teenagers of all heights and weights sit or stand, either dejected or empty-eyed as they stare at the ground beneath their feet. Some of them make Alex’s heart hurt - a fat kid wiping his eyes silently; a nervous girl with her hair tied back and her knee bouncing; one looks no more than twelve years old, her braids hanging around her face as she holds her knees to her chest, picking at the flakes of skin on her arms - but the others…

He’s glad to be sitting, or his legs would give out. Many of the people around him are the people he expected - or should have expected - to be participating in the walk. Many are taller than him, most of them burly or wiry, their legs strong and their faces twisted in perverted determination. He sees tattoos and scars and bandanas with different patterns tucked into pockets and wrapped around biceps. These are the people jeering at each other silently, a dare in their eyes - these are the ones who would never see the light of another free day if they didn’t dare the Walk. 

You mean like you? He thinks with an awful lurch. He tears his eyes away from the centre of the clearing, blinking away tears until - 

He meets the eyes of another boy that stops him in his tracks, something curious in the dark brown stare that have trained themselves on him. They belong to a handsome face, stern and discerning as they appraise Alex with a quiet dignity. He does not see the fear or anger that shines in the eyes of the other kids in that gaze, but something deeper, something distant and undiscoverable.

“Wha’ch you here for?” the boy says, nodding to Alex. There are bags under his eyes, a subtle bruise of grey-blue that taints the otherwise rich warmth of the boy’s dark brown skin. He’s handsome, Alex muses, a strong jawline and round cheeks. As his face moves, three lines along his right cheek ripple in parallel to each other, three thin, ragged scars that mar his otherwise smooth skin.

“I’ll tell if you tell,” Alex says, because he doesn’t think either petty theft or murder would make the best impression with the lot here - but for completely different reasons. “Or would I just earn a scar like you?”

Alex wants to claw the words back in his mouth before he watches the boy’s lips curl into a half smile. A glint of teeth shine as they crack open in a smirk, white against the rich darkness. “What’s your name?”

“Sawyer,” Alex says, reaching out a hand. “Alex Sawyer.”

“Donovan,” the other boy’s hand - Donovan’s - is warm in his own. He can’t help but be embarrassed by the sweat on his palms. 

“Is that your first name or your last name?” someone pipes up from Alex’s left, and when they both turn in tandem -

Alex recognizes the bright, lively blue staring at him, the curve of the nose, the shock of black hair on brown skin. He had spent his criminal trial in and out of transfer cells with this kid, sharing passing glances as they were hauled to and from court. Once, he had seen him try to bolt before being knocked out by the butt of a carbine that had left a sprawling, ugly bruise; it doesn’t mottle the boy’s face now, but in his own mirrored smile of recognition, Alex can see where a tooth had been knocked out.

“Don’t you worry about that,” Donovan sucks on his teeth, turning away as he watches Alex lean into the other boy. 

“You’re Hatcher, right?” Alex guesses - carjacking, stunt driving, vehicular manslaughter, the list rings from memory, though he hears their twin echoes of it wasn’t me, I’m not guilty along with it, the end of their free lives as they knew it announces together on the same day. 

“Yeah, man,” he says. “Name’s Zee. Guess you also didn’t want a life in prison?.”

“Who the fuck names their son Zee?” laughs another kid. Auburn curls bounce with his breathless laughter. Alex had noticed him staring wistfully at the only girl taller than him here - she sat silent and stoic, broad shouldered and wiry and paying him no attention whatsoever - but now those eyes told only of mischief as they sparkled. He was surrounded by chalk drawings of dicks. 

“I like your rocketships,” a third boy nods. “You compensating for something?”

That gets them all smiling. It feels good - his cheeks are sore, unused to the gesture after the miserable weeks spent on trial, but seeing Donovan’s half smile reach full bloom makes the ache all the better. Still, Zee shakes his head, body tense and trembling like a live wire.

“Nah man,” he continues. “Last of five siblings - mom insisted that I be the last one, so she named me Zee, since it’s the last letter of the alphabet.” Alex watches him, smiling and laughing at the road ahead - there’s a lilt to his accent that isn’t quite American, almost mimicking the West Indies, rolling languidly over soft n’s and silent t’s. “And I’m planning to still be the last one.”

“Man’s really proud he’s the last evidence of his mom being a whore,” someone sneers from the side of the group. All their hackles raise as they watch him, twitchy-eyed and anxious in his cruel laughter. It subsides awkwardly, an angry blush immediately forming on his face knowing he had overstepped a line - everyone knew it wasn’t cool to talk about each other’s mothers like that - but none of them dared speak against him. They had all caught the skull-emblazoned bandana in his pocket, shrinking back. 

“Fuckin’ Arnold,” Donovan mutters under his breath. Alex assumes they must’ve been from the same prison; he suddenly feels very lucky to be beside someone who could so casually curse a gang member under his breath. 

The awkward silence is interrupted by the rumbling of an engine, the turning of spiked wheels. The entire crowd of teenagers turn their heads as one. Some of them stand, staring in awe, while others curl into themselves, but all of them fall into a hush as they watch the armored car approach, flanked by a squad of Suits and drooling canines.

“Holy shit,” someone stutters. A girl, her tight face slackened with awe at the power approaching her, interrupts her own heated, almost frantic conversation with another boy.  “It’s the Warden”

Alex looks up at the towering figure, standing statue-still in the cab of the truck. The Warden watches them from his mobile perch like a dictator over his feared subjects, the abyss of his sunglasses reflecting the fearful faces of the children staring up at him for salvation and mercy. The creases of his face, leathery and brown-spotted by the sun, twist eerily as his lips curl into a wicked, bloodthirsty grin. He barely jolts as the truck stops, only raising his hands to the group in front of him. 

“Ladies and Gentleman,” his voice is a booming growl, the husk of a human’s joy overpowered by the evil enthusiasm creeping over the deathmask of his face. “I am so happy to have the privilege of being your charge for this inaugural moment.”

“Like Satan over his demons,” someone whispers; Donovan turns to the tall girl smirking, but she doesn’t notice him, doesn’t notice the lewd artist of her admirer shrink back either, only stares down the fiend with a coldness that would make hell freeze over. 

“I presume you’ve all read the rule book, those of you cretins who can read,” the Warden announces. He scans the crowd, and Alex shivers as his gaze passes over him. “Please,” he continues, and two Suits with clipboards flank him as he leans forward, a bundle of dogtags in hand, “come forward as they call your name.”

The Suits begin to shout names and numbers, and one by one, a teenager in the crowd rises to meet them. Alex watches closely, eyes darting back and forth like a tennis match as each kid walks up, preps their gear, accepts their speedometer. 

“It takes a heavy sack for you boys and girls to own up for the crimes you committed,” the Warden continues, “to make the ultimate sacrifice in your penance.”

Number 5: Owens, Gary - tall and wide and eyes wild. A teardrop etched into his cheek. 

Number 6: Hatcher, Zee - he pounces up, startled, almost like a cat. 

“It was misguided children like you once were,” the Warden sneers, “that instigated the crime sprees that brought our nation into turmoil. That started the Summer of Slaughter, that painted our streets in blood and filled our prison cells.”

Number 7: Earl, Montgomery - the big kid, a birthmark shaped like a heart on his arm. 

Number 18: Soledad, Catalina “Night” - the girl who had been bouncing her knee; petite with a runner’s build. A strong contender. 

“But you’re not children, not anymore. When you signed up for the Long Walk - this very first Long Walk, you chose not to endure our epidemic of delinquency.”

Number 19: Arnold, Kevin - the gang punk who called Zee’s mother a whore.

Number 23: Donovan, Carl Eugene - someone laughs at the name.

Number 25: Rojo-Flores, Simon - “And who's laughing now?” Donovan gripes, as the kid who smirked at the rocketships walks up for his dogtag.

“You chose to be adults committed to our nation’s rehabilitation!”

Number 38: Green, Marlow - the Warden nods, smiles at him as the rocketship artist walks slowly, dazedly confused back to his spot on the ground. 

Number 46: Brien, Daisy - the trembling little girl with the braids, who goes to stand by two bigger boys, Numbers 13 and 42. 

“You are not only walking for your freedom, you are an inspiration for this country, a chance to restore both your innocence, and the national image of our once great empire!”

Number 47: Sawyer, Alex - his legs shake as he snatches the tag from the Suit. 

Number 48: Twardowski, Amelia “Pan” - the girl, all lean muscle and mean snarl, who called the Warden a devil. 

“I look at you, and don’t just see criminals,” the Warden smirks. Alex scoffs at what he says next, cruel and bitter in its libellous irony. “I see hope.”

Number 49: Bastion, Schiller - shy, fearful, running from the girl who had been whisper-yelling at him  -

Number 50: Bastion, Rilke - siblings, Alex realizes, maybe twins? The awed girl follows behind the boy before linking arms with him, their faces mirrored masks of comedy and tragedy. 

“Warning: Number 38, first warning.”

Pan can hear the shuffle of feet quicken behind her in response to the warning call, belonging to the pair of eyes glued to her back since the start of the walk. Green had glommed to her since the starting gun, either smiling dopily at her side or trailing behind her like a lost puppy, silent and smiling and still annoying despite it - toeing the line of her patience but never crossing it, and irritating all the more for it.

It’s an admirable strategy, at least, she resigns - she’s doing the same, eyes front at the girl leading just ahead of her, the swish of her ponytail in time with the short, quick strides of her gait. It’s a focal point that isn’t the distant horizon, a cruel tease that inches farther away with every step. That’s an impossible thing, and striving for impossible things was how people got themselves killed, or at least in deep shit - thousands in debt, scammed into stupid contracts, stuck in a creep’s apartment because someone promised you a big, impossible thing, an escape hatch from your shitty life that was too good to be true. Pan had fallen for that shit, and had been a fool to fall for it more than once. So she narrows her focus; she could reach the girl in front of her if she wanted to, stand where she stood, watch the lines of the road pass. Small, determined goals - each step a testament to her endurance. This is what will get her far enough for a chance. So how can she blame Marlow for doing the same?

She’s still stupidly bothered by the fact that he’s probably staring at her ass. 

“You breathe heavily,” she says. She doesn’t look back to him, knows he heard her. “You sound like a creep call on a landline.”

“That’s probably because he’s shoving his face full of food,” Donovan says two rows back. “You sure you should be doing that shit?”

“Shut up, Carl,” Marlow says. His breathing is labored, words muffled through a mouthful of sandwich. “I’m getting my protein up.” 

“That shit’s gonna clog your fucking gut,” Donovan says. He’s too talkative for his own good, she thinks - especially for someone who wanted to come into the Walk with the air of experience, of tough-guy coolness. It wasn’t just an act, either; she had watched him disembark at the starting line, his eyes downcast and his lips set firm, the impassivity of someone who had fought too many fights to know starting another one was ever a good idea. He had done his time, a good few years at least if she had to guess. All the more reason for him to know better than to buddy up so quickly, and not just walk by himself.

Still, he seemed sensible. She liked him, if only for his presence. 

“Shut the fuck up, Donovan!” Marlow cries out. His voice breaks with a pubescent squeak. “I’ll shit protein bricks if I want to!”

Can’t be said about everyone here, she gristles - or tries to, her lip twitching despite herself. She says nothing and walks on, the footsteps behind her a reassuring harmony to her own. 

#

Daisy tucks herself into one of the shadows of the tanks herding them along, the bulk of clanging machinery towering over her, blotting out the glare of the sun as it creeps up to its noonday height. The machinations she sees behind the treads are mesmerizing as they are terrifying, a hint at the organs of the metal monster underneath its hot steel shell - a beast that smells of oil and gunpowder, slick and stinking as the gears grind and the engine huffs its hot breath behind it in puffs of shimmering air. She stays close to it, even though the swinging guns make her legs tremble every time they swing over her. She’s grateful for the shade it provides, her shirt already stuck under her armpits with the effort of keeping up with the other kids’ longer strides. Watching the slow turn of the wheels, she can just pretend that their pace was languid. 

“Getting your close-up?” Cal asks - he’s barely broken a sweat, his number 42 bouncing buoyant on his chest with each step. He smiles his cheesy grin, nodding to the tank and its whirling towers. On one, a lens glints, twisting as it trains on them.

“Messi wannabe over here thinking he’s a fucking celebrity,” Brick growls. His strides are long and easy, but his freckled face is already burnt tomato red under the sun. She would think he was squinting against the glare of the concrete, if he hadn’t walked off the bus with that same, permanent scowl. “Not a bloody convict.”

“You got some real nerve, y’know, for someone so incredibly fucking pleasant,” Cal says to him, spitting that last word with all the sarcasm he can muster. They had barely started the walk, and these two were already on a mean streak of bickering, she weasels her way in between them, mediating with her body even as they argue over the top of her head. “Besides, it’s not like the camera wants to get a look at your ugly mug.”

“Be nice,” Daisy pants, but her voice is smothered by the chorus of laughter and jeers that ring out. At least people are laughing, Daisy muses as she walks. At least they’re entertained.

And so is everyone watching, she remembers, as she looks away from the cyclops eye of the camera. You finally got an audience, she commiserates, thinking of her dress hanging up backstage at her old school and feeling a lump in her throat; a cheap bunching of shiny craftstore polyester and bargain bin lace from the thrift that scratched like chicken wire against her eczema, but it was beautiful and it was hers. Her mother had hemmed the edges of that dress so carefully, so lovingly. She wished she could feel it swish around her ankles again, see her mother’s hands, moving and alive - 

“Hey, c’mon,” Cal says, and Daisy is quick to wipe the tears from her face - she didn’t even realize they were there - “we didn’t mean it, right Brick? No drama here.”

“Yeah,” Brick scoffs, trying to be cruel but only sounding miserable. He’s even sheepish, darting his gaze away from Daisy in embarrassment as he mutters, “we’ll be real chummy while we’re all dead on the pavement together.”

“Brick-” 

“He is dead and gone, lady,” Daisy chimes. It’s not the right play, not the one she was cast in - Juliet had been her joy - but the cameras are on her, so she might as well make a good performance. “He is dead and gone; at his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone.”

“How do you do, pretty lady?!” Zee yells backwards at her, a gap-toothed grin lighting a flutter in her chest at his recognition. The weight of everyone’s intimidation lifts from her shoulders, just a little, at his acknowledgement.

“Trite bullshit,” and it’s the sour curl of a girl’s voice - one of the twins, Daisy sees, marching with her brother on the other half of the road. “Wasted on these buffoons anyways. Can’t see why you’re hanging with them.”

“What, you want an elegy?” Brick snaps back. “Some all angels are terrifying bullshit, huh Rilke?” Zee nods back, him and Daisy equally surprised and impressed at his knowledge, even as Night yells what the fuck language are you guys speaking?! “‘Cuz you’re sure no angel, and Daisy sure isn’t terrified of you.”

Oh, but she is - scared of her piercing gaze, the way her brother cowers behind her as he pulls her away, arm in arm, the two in precarious balance. She’s scared of everything, scared of the guns, scared of the bigger kids, scared of a twist of the ankle, scared to go back to the cell she shared with girls that were all older, stronger, meaner than her. Only brave enough to face death because she was more scared of a lifetime of torture. 

Only brave enough to take one more step, and leave another mile behind her. 

Mile 5

“So, what’cha gonna do with the money?”

The question breaks Alex out of his inattention, mind briefly oblivious to the world in the trance of the monotone landscape crawling past. He’s brought back to the swaying branches; they’ve  begun to thin out slowly, the smell of burning and sea salt a suggestion on the air as they approach the coast. 

Donovan scoffs. “You better keep your mind on getting out of here alive,” he scolds, with a dismayed shake of the head. Still, his eyes are curious, and he doesn’t tell Zee to shut up as he daydreams out loud. 

“Oh, c’mon,” he says. “You can’t seriously have thought about it even a little bit.” He’s smiling wide enough to show the gap in his teeth again. “Unless you were living in the lap of luxury before this.” 

“I highly doubt many of us were making a comfortable living,” Donovan replies. “Some of us actually were in prison, you know.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to be free just to be living dirt poor again,” Zee starts. He nods to himself, his eyes dreamy. “I think I’ll get my mom and dad a mansion. One of those ugly McMansion things on Spadina - the bougie Spadina, y’know? Where all the doctors and lawyers live in the Six.” 

“The Six?!” Simon laughs, and the accent clicks in Alex’s mind - not a Yank, like Arnold and Owens had spat in contempt, when they had earned second warnings shouting at each other before two of the older girls had even earned their first, but a Canuck, huh. “Trying to live it up like Drizzy.”

“Hey, don’t lump me in with that freak,” Zee warns, “giving the rest of us a bad name. I’m a cultured individual, I listen to Kendrick.”

“Must be so hard for you,” Donovan pants, “being a Kendrick fan in Tchron’o. Real pariah over here.”

“Hey, you try finding an apartment in that city for a family of seven that doesn’t send you right back to the shelter,” Zee says. The rest of the boys have to concede. “Mom and pop deserve their big ol’ plasma screen TV - no, a full home theatre, custom popcorn machine and everything -”

“How much money do you think they’ll actually give you if you win?” Alex snarks, at the same time Simon mutters so cultured beneath his laughter. The financial incentive, pathetic as it was, meant nothing compared to the prospect of freedom, though Alex felt his stomach churn at the thought of trading a prison cell for poverty. “You’d be lucky for a mattress on the pavement.”

“Yeah, well, what about you?” Zee says. “What are you gonna spend your money on, once you’re free?”

“Rich men don’t enter the kingdom of heaven,” Alex quotes. A groan sounds around him. 

“Oh, we have a religious man, do we?” Donovan teases. Some quips sound from around the rest of the group - the twins sneer and cower in turn, someone cheers about all of them deserving to go to hell.

Alex brings his eyes to the concrete, watching his already dirty shoes and aching feet as they march, on and on and on. He had never been raised religiously, though he sure didn’t need it to convince him of his guilt the way the miles of road unravelling ahead of him were right now. He wasn’t the one who’d held the gun, sure, he knows that - but that was never going to be enough to reach absolution, not when Toby’s brains still stain a stranger’s floor -

“No, not really,” Alex answers. Thou shalt not steal, he reminds himself bitterly, wondering if a few days sitting in a stiff church pew could have saved him from life that brought him here. “It’s just that wanting money never brought me anywhere good.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not even Christian, so that shit doesn’t bother me,” Zee says. He fingers one of the chains around his neck - a Star of David glints under the collar of his shirt, tarnished and old but pristine. “Not even really Jewish, honestly, more just a cultural thing.” 

Something permeates the funk of growing body odor, like skunk and woodfire and tobacco, and Alex thinks who the f- 

“-uck brought a joint with them?!” Marlow finishes his thought from the other side of the road. One hand digs in his pants pocket as the other lifts his shirt collar to cover his mouth and nose, his eyebrows screwed in incredulous fury and jealousy. “Fucking up your lungs when you’re going to be walking for days?”

“Let people enjoy things, Green,” Alex says. The scent wafts over him in a stream of smoke as Zee reaches back to take the joint. 

“Yeah, I can tell you’re not religious,” Donovan says, as Zee takes a pull, coughs. 

“Weed’s kosher, idiot,” Zee chokes, his eyes watering. He offers it to Marlow, as a joke, who rolls his eyes but is cool enough to pass it on to Pan, at least. Instead, something rattles in his hands as he shakes it, puts it to his mouth, and inhales deeply. “Dude, you’re fucking asthmatic?”  

“Mind your own business, Hatcher!” he says in a stream of vapor. Pan says nothing from her spot beside him, but she still watches, exasperated, the barest hint of concern glinting in her steel-blue eyes. “Judging me when I was born with shit lungs, while you all -”

Someone cries out behind them. 

“Warning: Number 7, first warning,” rings out on the air. There is a hush around them as everyone, including Alex, turns to hear the source of the agony behind them. 

“Oh, here we go,” Marlow begins, morbidly amused as they watch one of the boys begin to struggle. It’s Monty - the bigger kid glistens with sweat, his face red with the heat and the exhaustion, and still his determination had brought him successfully through the starting miles. Now, though, he begins to limp, wincing and crying out as prisoners and guards alike surpass him

“Shit, shit - fuck - !” He’s half hopping now, growling out a scream every time his left foot hits the ground. “I got a fucking Charlie horse - shit -!”

Some of the kids jeer, hurling insults; Arnold’s face splits into a wicked grin. Still, others encourage, and Alex finds him among that chorus. 

“C’mon Monty!” Alex turns around to walk backwards and watch - his cheers not that of encouragement but a begging warning. His heart races as he watches the inches, the feet extend between the two of them as Monty continues to slow and fall behind. “C’mon man, you can do it!”

“Shut up, Sawyer!” He sobs. His body shakes, trembles with sobs every time he puts his cramping leg to the floor. “Just shut up -!”

“Warning: Number 7, second warning,” rings out above their heads, and everyone’s bodies wind up, tense with a sick anticipation. Carbine’s begin to click as Suits lock their sights on the flailing boy. Voices ring out, the cacophonous chorus of pleas and sneers and snarls growing louder in their urgency. It’s not enough, Alex realizes, soul sinking into his stomach, it won’t be enough - 

“What the fuck are you doing-?!” Alex hears Donovan seethe, his rising temper lost under the blare of Alex’s own warning as he retreats. He grabs Monty by both arms, keeping his eyes on the speedometer as he pulls Monty forward at the slowest pace possible. “Alex-!”

“C’mon, look at me, look at me,” Alex says, coaxing Monty back up to speed even as he sobs, his face twisting and neck tight with the rhythmic pain. “C’mon, stick with me, just stick with me and don’t slow down-”

“What are you doing -?” Monty cries. His tearful eyes grab Alex’s own, and Alex - he almost trips, seeing the vitriol twist the soft face in front of him into a hardened, resentful mask. “Leave me alone -!” 

“I’m just-”

“Alex,” and it’s Donovan by his side again, his eyes severe as he watches the two boys “Alex, turn the fuck around -”

“I’m trying to help -!” he grits out between his teeth, but even as he says so Monty twists out of his grasp, shoving him back to the walk. 

“I didn’t ask for your help!” Monty screams, teeth gritted, his chest heaving with pain and anger. “I don’t need you - leave -!”

“Warning: Number 7, final warning,” and mechanical whirrs haunt the air as every gun barrel trains on Monty in a practiced, automated choreography. He falls to his knees, despondent, and Alex lets the distance between them grow as Donovan hauls him off, cursing. He’s trembling, watching the poor kid whimper as the guards advance and just thinks, I wanted to help, I just wanted to help -

How, he thinks to himself hatefully, is someone like you supposed to help in a situation like this?

“I didn’t… I.. it’s not fair…” Monty wails. He is still, his face pained but his body almost relaxed as he succumbs to his fate, a Suit advancing to bring the barrel of his carbine flush to Monty’s head. Alex wants to run for him - could run for him, but it would mean breaking out of Donovan’s vice grip, and he doesn’t want to earn any more of his ire - because he knew this would happen, he knew what it meant to earn your ticket, but this, this can’t happen, they can’t let this happen -

The gunshot is a screeching ricochet that leaves Alex’s ears ringing, a tinnitus whine that drowns out the screams and laughter and curses around him, narrows his world to the splatter of blood on the concrete. The back of Monty’s head explodes into a shrapnel knot of brain and bone, some of it shooting through his nose and eyes. His chubby cheek is ripped to shreds as the bullet completes its millisecond trajectory, exiting through flaps of skin that hang off his jaw and expose his teeth in a gaping hole rimmed with ragged flesh. His body wobbles, his stunned eyes growing dim as he totters, unseeing, before his corpse flops onto the road. It lasts less than a second.

Alex does not wheel himself around of his own accord - it’s Donovan and Zee that whip him around as his hands cradle his face in a numb shock, holding the sick back from rising in his throat. When the ringing in his ears eases, when the images of Monty’s life draining from him as he falls flash against the inside of his skull like a projector, a photo negative on the back of his eyelids when he blinks -

Marlow Green had signed up for this walk, as he did with many things, on an impulsive whim. He wasn’t unprepared, though - he wasn’t that stupid. He had reviewed the terms of the contract presented to him, filed his exception with the medical officer, and managed to smuggle a stock of full, clattering inhalers into his allotted ration pack. He had accepted he would be brought overseas and relished in the adventure, had used his phone call to give Charlie the heads up - both to curse him out but also give his love, convey his friendship even to a traitorous bastard. He hadn’t called his mom, he thinks with a fleeting pang in his chest, but God knew if she would have been sober enough to pick up her phone. He’d looked over the proposed path, the alternate routes, memorized the names and faces of the few other inmates that had been chained down to the floor on the flight over between vomiting bouts of motion sickness. 

He expected the bodily strain. He knew the physical and mental toll would be immense. He knew that if he didn’t overcome it, he would die - and maybe it’s his bruised pride, the impish urge for chaos that sounded like Charlie’s voice in the back of his head telling him to grow some cajones that had deluded himself into thinking he had to, to prove… something. Most of all, he knew who the Warden was. 

What he didn’t expect was the politics - the violent jeers and crude remarks. Sure, he’s jumped fist-first into some streetside brawls, or gotten arrested, or earned himself some misdemeanors before the felony charges hit. He’s had some passing threats and innuendos hurled at him as he was dragged between holding cells, when he was really fucked for good. But the vitriol abounds, the utter stupidity - something that even someone as dumb as him can be proud to never stoop to - was a phenomenon he doesn’t think he could’ve anticipated properly. He was always too obnoxious to make friends with the people who mattered, too friendly with those that encouraged him to do the things that found him here, and too dense to know when someone was ready to make him eat his teeth.

Gary was a threat, a very real threat, one that a Marlow a continent ago would’ve been too much of a dumbass to keep from instigating. Now, though, he even tries to keep his inhaler puffs quiet to keep the new de facto Skull from rounding on him. 

“Little bastard shoulda known what was coming,” Gary keeps muttering to himself, eyes bulging and unseeing, inches from Marlow and Pan. The way his face twitches as he weaves from inmate to inmate, his mania either a threat or a plea for understanding but instilling enough fear to keep the majority of them from doing anything but nodding curtly and averting their gaze. He takes a half step forward, leaning towards Pan. “You saw that motherfucker, right? Little bitch fucking posturing, kinda shit you gotta snuff out, I know you know it -”

“You shut your fucking mouth,” Pan snarls - it’s so quiet, but everyone hears it, so deep and resonant the cold confidence in her voice that Marlow feels it in his chest. “Don’t act like you know me.”

“The fuck,” Gary grunts, his eyes flashing with fury that makes Marlow want to give into the stupid urge to step between them. He’s inexplicably desperate to defend her, even though he can tell from her wiry frame and the bump in that once-broken nose that she was more than capable of holding her own and winning. But he flinches, too, daunted under her stony, unwavering stare, her steady loping gait. 

“Back off.” She says it effortlessly, and Gary obeys without a second thought. So effortless, Marlow muses. Dignified. 

His chest squeezes, a fluttering breathlessness that had nothing to do with his asthma. Unexpected. 

“Get his ass,” Night schmoozes from the front. 

“Real nice,” Marlow agrees, nodding. “Piece of shit knows better than to try and intimidate someone like you, right?” He’s being obnoxious, again, he knows, but still he speeds up a half-step in order to catch up to Pan’s side. He flashes her a smile and waits for her usual groan, the roll of her eyes -

He almost earns himself a warning when she turns to him, eyebrows pinched and her blue eyes icy. She’s frowning tightly, grimacing with a simmering anger that Marlow thinks might be directed at him. But then he notices the quickening rise and fall of her chest, the tension in her twitching face that was something adjacent to panic, something close to fear or sadness that he can’t quite place, and he can’t be so sure anymore.

He lets her walk faster than him, leaving him behind to retreat from the setting sun at their backs before he finally recognizes the expression as shame.

Mile 35

“I’m proud of you, ladies and gentleman!” the Warden’s gruff baritone cheers from his truck. “It takes real spirit to keep going as long as you have. 

“We’ve lost some of you, yes,” he continues, without a hint of dismay in his voice. His driver has parked him at the side of the road so that he can watch each weary participant march by, tracing their dejected trajectories one by one from his pedestal on the tailgate. Alex can’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but he can feel their hate as they follow each and every one of them. A thin, devious smile curls his thin, chapped lips, pleating the wrinkles of his leathery face - a lust for their suffering, a hunger for the amusement of their deaths. “But those that remain, who have stayed determined through these miles, prove to me there is some humanity left in you delinquents.

“Our first night is upon us,” the Warden announces, leaning against the metal bars penning him in, a Suit on each side of him for protection. More mingle on the road shoulders, unfolding panels of mobile floodlights that illuminate in a deafening flash of ugly yellow incandescence, dimming the pink-orange sunset at their backs. “For some of you, it will be the last. But if you continue, you may just prove your commitment to earning your forgiveness.

“None of you foul miscreants are innocent,” he growls with a sick glee, “but see the dawn, and you will be one day closer to atonement.”

#

There is no one in the house before them to hear their footsteps as they stalk the property. Well trimmed bushes line the yard, fencing in the path to the front door; they glisten under the faraway glow of golden streetlights reflected off puddles and rivulets, the rustling within them silenced by the torrent of rainfall rushing against the flagstones.

Alex is an exposed nerve, jumpy with adrenaline when his friend creeps up beside him and slaps him on the back, jovial. Twin-hearted in their greed, only giving pause to see if the coast is clear, all Alex needs is a final push to cross the line and pursue his mark.

“Come on, Alex,” Toby says beside him. He smiles through the downpour, droplets in his hair and running down his smiling, mischievous face. “It’s emptier than Elvis’ coffin in there!” 

#

“Wakey wakey, compadre!” Alex startles from his dream, dragged up from the rain and the laughter and the nerves into the dark night in front of him. The pounding precipitation fades into the rhythmic pounding of footfalls; though the air is damp and chilled, the night sky is clear of clouds.

“Oh, Jesus -” Alex blinks awake, his heart pounding. His feet ache like a bruise, but they still walk, keeping him upright even as he had slowed in his sleepwalking. He turns towards Simon’s voice, leaning into the firm arm around his shoulder as the tail end of a second warning peters out. 

“That’s you, buddy,” Donovan says, his tone even but his gaze chagrined as he helps Simon jostle him from sleep. “You better watch your step now. Keep up with the rest of the crowd.” It begins to irk Alex, that consistent disappointment that Donovan keeps giving off - in his tone, in his scolding thinly-veiled as advice, the way he looks at Alex down his nose. Like the goodwill from that very first half-smile had drained away, just because he struggled. Just because he was him and not someone more experienced. More principled, disciplined. 

What principles does he expect? Alex thinks to himself. He’s walking amongst a bunch of criminals, just like I am.

“What time is it?” Alex asks instead, yawning. A gibbous moon glows above him, nothing but pitch black trimming every edge of horizon that makes up the upside-down basin of the sky. 

“About, uh, 3:45 in the morning?” Zee says, squinting at his watch - he speeds up a half-step, probably noting a lacking speed at the same time. “Everyone here is flagging a little bit. I mean, I think I also fell asleep.” Zee smiles, a candle in the darkness, something simple Alex can follow after another one of Donovan’s rebuffs. “Isn’t that so weird?”

The reassurance is welcome, if not gut-wrenching in its consequences, that Alex isn’t the only one. The group is further spread out now, each clique growing in distance from each other as they maintain a bare minimum speed, the strain and the exhaustion blanketing them all. Smaller, sweatier, nervous kids linger at the back - except for Night, miraculously fresh and taking the lead several metres ahead - the bulkier, older teenagers strewn apart closer to the front but still showing their fatigue. The Suits shout out their warnings in shorter intervals, too, like someone was failing to meet speed every few minutes as they snooze on their feet. 

“Doesn’t make any sense, does it? The fact that we can do that,” Alex says. “Hell, I was even dreaming.”

“That’s the escape hatch in your mind,” Donovan nods. “Lets you sleep, imagine other things even as everyone is shouting around you. Takes even the toughest guys some time to learn how to do that back in prison.” His eyes grow soft, wary - despite the energy in his voice, Alex can see the dark circles sagging under his eyes - or had they always been there? “Gotta be careful, though. You didn't want to be dreaming too much when there’s no one around you. That’s how solitary confinement breaks you.”

“Well, lucky for us, we’re on the open road,” Zee says, even as Donovan scoffs lucky?! at him. “What were you dreaming about?” 

“I was, uh,” Alex starts, and it comes rushing back in a surge, a stone in his throat, the burning of tears in his eyes he refuses to let fall. Get it together. “I dreamt about my last job.”

“You had a job?!” Zee laughs.

“Nah, man, like, my last theft,” Alex clarifies. “Or what we - me and Toby - tried, I guess. Before it became our last. His last.” 

“You never plan for it to be your last,” Simon nods. Alex tries to hide the waver in his voice, a clarity in Simon’s glance making him feel vulnerable, like he knew, like his mind was bare to him. “Toby is-?”

“An old friend, I guess,” Alex says. “I mean, not really a good one, since all our stupid shit is what got me here, and got him -” a breath - “got him where he is. Guess I can’t help but miss him, though.”

“Well, if you wanna see the bastard again, you better keep on walking,” Donovan says.

“If I wanted to see him again, I’d just have to stop,” and that’s what gets Donovan to start, turning his head away in embarrassment. An awkward hush falls over their quartet. Simon and Zee fall a half-step behind, staring pointedly at everyone but Alex and Donovan.

“Shit,” Donovan interrupts the silence, the lull of crickets and warnings. “Sorry, Alex, I didn’t mean -”

“Don’t worry about it,” Alex says. “You’re right though - probably better to think of who we are gonna meet at the end of this, instead of who we’re going to be missing forever.”

“Well, I know I’m not making it to the end of this,” Donovan says. Alex opens his mouth to protest, but his smile is so weary as he says it, peaceful in its resignation. “And I’ve got no one left to miss - unless they’re on the other side of a bullet. So I guess I don’t have it too bad.” 

“You got your own people then, in your own escape hatch?”

“Oh yeah,” he says. “I was dreaming too, y’know, for a bit.” He smiles sheepishly. “Dreaming of my mom.”

Alex’ chest grows tight, thinking of his own mother, the last time he saw her. He doesn't linger on it, though; this is the kindest Donovan has ever spoken to him, the softest he’s seen his brown eyes and the gentlest he’s heard his voice. Listening to Donovan speak, now, is imperative - it feels like accepting a priceless gift. 

“What was her name?” he asks.

“Mom.”

“Fuck off.”

Donovan laughs. “God, fine - her name was, uh, Frances.” His smile is wistful as he looks off into the night, the rustling leaves on the trees a song to soothe him, the crash of waves a whisper from another place. “She was an English teacher, loved to read. Loved music - fucking loved Christmas carols, played them all the time until her piece of shit boyfriend beat it out of her - always sang to me, though, when she could.”

“Sounds like a MILF!” Night yells from the front, and there’s a sudden rush of voices and warnings and threats and laughter - Donovan cursing her out with a playful guffaw, an argument on the looks of Donovan’s mom before someone yells to keep their mommas out of this shit, Gary calling her a dyke only for her to respond with I get more pussy than you! 

“Everybody acting like dogs,” Donovan smirks, shaking his head. “No respect for women. You got a girl back home, Alex?”

“Nah,” Alex huffs, breathless from the laughter. “I mean, there were a couple girls in school, but none of them I could’ve made anything serious with, especially after - y’know.” He looks to Donovan. “You?”

It takes a moment for him to respond, nothing but the bobbing of his head, the sway of his shoulders as he looks at Alex. “Nah,” he answers, the gentle gaze and soft smile there giving Alex pause. “Never have.”

“Warning: number 47, third and final warning,” and Alex curses, almost tripping as he picks up the pace and his heart jackhammers, beating fiercely against his burning lungs and rattling against his ribs. A surge of urgency takes him now, pushing against every aching muscle and cracking joint - he’s running on fumes, but now they burn hot. 

“Shit, Alex,” and that’s Zee, he and Simon closing rank behind him, like they could be the wind at his back. “You good?”

“You fucking hear that, Sawyer?” Gary calls from across the road. “Too busy sucking off your boyfriend to keep up!”

“Fuck off, Owens!” Alex calls, even as Donovan places a hand on his shoulder, uses his body to block their line of sight.

“Hey, calm down,” Donovan soothes. Or, he tries to, but the measured calm in his voice, so similar to that cadence he’d been given Alex all day - like a father chiding his misbehaving kid - makes the nervous energy in Alex’s bones flare into white-hot fury. “Just keep walking, you only need three hours -”

“Shut the fuck up, Donovan!” Alex shouts. He’s spiraling, now, he knows, railing against everything in his panic, the knowledge that he is one misstep away from his brains painting the road. “Just shut up - stop acting like you fucking care, like you actually give a shit how far I go! Like you weren’t just bitching about my bleeding heart bullshit, because you don’t actually give a fuck about anyone else, and wouldn’t care if all of us got a bullet in our heads right now!”

There’s a moment of silence - from Donovan, at least; he hears at least one person whisper damn somewhere along the ranks. Zee is talking, as well, but Alex shrugs off his hand when he reaches for his shoulder, marching on ahead of all of them. 

“Shit, man,” Donovan says finally. “I was just trying to help.”

“Yeah, like you helped Monty?” Alex spits back over his shoulder. It feels so good to watch Donovan flinch, to finally see something like shame twist his handsome, impassive face. Alex lets him wallow in it, his own heartlessness, just for a little bit, to feel that bitter pleasure that comes with wounding another.

It doesn’t last long, though. He sees Night up in front adjusting her pack, the furrow in her brow the first evidence of concern since the morning. Her next warning is ice water on Alex’s frenzied fire of rage, leaving nothing behind but the cold, sinking soot of pure panic.

#

“Hijo de puta,” Night curses from her spot in front. It draws Marlow’s bowed head up, just in time for him to see the fluorescent red triangle of the caution sign. Black text blots out the reflective surface of bright bile white, and in his sleepless haze he has nothing but the wherewithal to get himself to Pan’s side and rustle preemptively for the inhaler in his pocket. 

Steep Incline. The ominous silhouette of a truck on a hill. Keep In Low Gear.

“Come on, step into it, compañeros!” Night cries out. “Put some hustle into it!” She receives a chorus of curses and groans in response, their misery reaching up into the air like hands grasping for help, a rescue they won’t receive. Marlow does not waste his breath to speak with them - he takes a preemptive puff of albuterol as he feels the terrain under him begin to slope upwards, the ever present burn in his calves growing stronger as he quickens his stride, knees marching high and arms pumping by his sides. He watches the two girls in front of him bend their heads down, feels himself join the rest of the group as they all tilt their bodies forward as one. An increasing momentum, a collective show of force he knows not all of them will be able to endure. 

“Shut the fuck up -!” calls a gruff voice from the back. It is quickly cut off by the Suits’ megaphones, blasting off numbers and warnings in an overlapping symphony of panicked screams and insults. He grows stiff as he hears the magazines click into place and knows they’re taking aim, can hear their captors’ sadistic laughter as they ready their guns on the begging masses behind him, and despite himself he needs to see as he begins to hear people fall to the ground, their cries of agony -

He earns himself a warning when he turns around to look at the carnage, a sea of flailing limbs and spatters of blood, shining in and out of focus in the spark of deafening bullets and flailing torchlight. He’s nauseated, the world spinning. He can’t do anything - he can’t do anything, fuck they’re all being killed behind him and he can’t do anything, who would do this, who could think to do this - but turn forward and prove himself, prove he can make it this next mile.

He turns to Pan instead, watching the sharp angles of her profile. Sweat drips down her nose, her heaving breath puffing from pursed lips as she stares down the rising ground with a hatred - a determination to defeat it and anything that stands in her way.

“C’mon, Green.” She doesn’t look at him, not physically, but he can tell she knows he’s trying to keep up with her. The strength in that deep, strained voice, spat like blood between clenched teeth, makes his heart beat faster, and that pumps enough adrenaline through his bloodstream to know he’ll meet her at the top. “Don’t let this hill be the one you die on.” 

#

“Fuck, fuck, fuck -!”

Brick’s voice cracks on a muffled scream as a kid crumples in front of him in a small explosion of blood and viscera, limbs twisted under the dead weight of their torso as their body crashes across his path. His sneaker catches the edge of a hand, grasping desperately as blood gurgles from the ragged wound of an open throat before a deafening hail of bullets finishes the job. 

“No no no no no - Schiller no, please NO -!” the howl of desperation, shrill and shrieking and reaching a fevered crescendo that reverberates even above the staccato thunder of gunshots - wailing, agonizing sobs that he can only think of as pure insanity. He is grateful to see nothing but the lunatic whites of Rilke’s eyes in her clamor to grab her brother, even after he’s hit the pavement, before they fall from his view. 

Daisy is crying beside him, her face a mask of panic as she scrunches her eyes closed and curls into herself with her hands clasped over her ears. Cal leaps over bodies, almost threatening to twist his ankle, desperate to keep his zigzagging on the road. Brick’s heart stutters as he hyperventilates. Thought escapes him now, animal panic making his mind freeze and the body take over. Decision is beyond his grasp; his eyes dart in every direction for a solution - he has to get out of here he has to get out get out get out - before he finally grabs both of them by the scruff of their necks and just settles on forward. 

He almost breaks into a sprint, even as voices call his name to stay on the pavement, to slow down so they can keep up. All around him is an evolving chaos, an apocalypse of screaming and metal machinery, hellbound souls he is desperate to outrun, manic to keep from being dragged into. Anything to escape this absolute nightmare. 

#

He’s going to die tonight. 

The world is ending around him, a refrain of screaming children and raining bullets and his lungs are burning and his legs are turning to cramping, cinder-block heavy jelly and sound is nothing but a muffled whine in his ears as the world narrows, grows dark. The top of the hill seems to get farther and farther as his field of vision tunnels, as unreachable as the eggdrop orb of the moon hanging over its apex no matter how fast Alex goes, no matter how hard he breathes or how hard his heart jackhammers.

“You’re going to die tonight, Sawyer,” Gary growls. His small grin is sinister as he jeers, face contorted in sharp shadows under the bright halo of a truck’s lamp. “I can fucking feel it - I’m gonna fucking licking your brains off the fucking pavement, you sack of worthless shit. Can’t wait to see you fucking dead.”

Alex tries to curse him out, at the very least demands his feet to move faster so he can leave the other boy behind, but they don’t listen - there is no air left in his lungs, no more oxygen or energy to spare beyond keeping his body moving.  

Even turning to glare at Gary is too much - just beyond him, just over his hulking shoulder, is the silver glint of a Suit’s bloodthirsty stare, the corner of a cheshire cat’s grin poking out from behind the barrel of a truck mounted gatling. Alex’s stomach turns to liquid, his bladder tight and running down his leg under the trained, unfeeling sights of the deadly artillery, never straying, keeping perfect pace with him. Everything begins to narrow to that pinprick, that lengthy black abyss where a bullet is nestled, just waiting to make a home in his brain, and his is body is giving out, an old car sputtering out on the highway, and his bones will be nothing but pulp under the rest of their feet the minute he trips or slows down and he’s not going to make it, he’s going to die tonight, he’s going to die tonight and it was all for nothing and he will always be a coward -

“Don’t look at them,” a voice at his right shoulder, the firm grip of a hand on his left urging him on. Donovan’s face glows golden, his dark skin a sweet midnight blue under the thin film of sweat and dew misting his face. “Don’t pay them any mind - just keep walking -”

“I can’t,” Alex wheezes. Donovan’s words draw him from his panicked stupor like a lifeline, but the reel of it leads him back to the ugly present, the chaos around him. Warnings overlap with each other, people are yelling and crying loud enough to make up for the empty gaps in their once full chorus. “I can’t, I think I’m gonna be sick -”

“Be sick if you want,” Donovan says, louder. His eyes keep to the top of the hill, resolute. “You’re just gonna keep going anyways-” 

“Warning: number 25, first warning,” and Alex can hear a muffled curse, the scuffle of rubber on concrete before someone thuds against the ground with the sickening, wet crack of shattered bone. Simon, Alex realizes with a twist in his gut, hearing the boy’s pained whine and Zee’s panicked begging -

“Oh god, Zee?!” Alex cries out, another warning for the number six sounding out in turn. He tries to crane his head over his neck, catching sight of the Suit just waiting for the perfect moment to snipe his prey. But he isn’t able to get a proper glimpse of the other boys, not in the mayhem of limbs, even as he hears Zee’s desperate cries to get up, come on, get up! “Simon? Zee? Zee -!”

“Do not turn around,” Donovan barks, and his hand pushes, urging Alex forward and up, as if he could hoist him to the top with just the gentle lifting of his palm. Gary keeps taunting, the people around him keep howling, the guns keep firing, but it’s Donovan that has his sole focus, now. “Come on, they’re coming, keep going - you gotta keep going if you want to meet them at the top.”

“Donovan, please -”

“Keep going, Alex, you can do this,” and that’s enough. It has to be enough, just enough to escape, to lift his feet just high and fast enough to wade through the pain that holds him down like the ocean up to his waist - to crawl through the valley of sparkling casings on the black cement, a mirror to the stars and sky above, to pass the last body and then see Marlow and Pan, then Night as she staggers down the decline -

And he’s there, at the top of the hill, watching the dark valley plateau ahead on blessed, even ground as they turn back into the forest, deeper into the cool shadow of foliage and night. He’s ready to collapse in a sigh of relief and fall to his knees. 

“Don’t slow down,” Donovan reminds him. His hand is at Alex’ lower back, keeping him steady and upright as the rush drains from him, his bounding heart slowing. “You did it. You’ll catch your breath, just don’t stop now.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Donovan says.

“No, I’m sorry -” Alex says, his throat tight. The group is quiet now, the warnings dissipated and the rest of the walkers whispering, whimpering as they take stock of the toll around them. With the hill behind him, reality begins to sink in - how he had teetered on the tightrope between life and death, a single misstep meaning imminent death, and his last words having been an insult, an injury to the one person who had just kept him alive. He can’t get the words out, his breath hitching. “I’m sorry, I - I -”

“It’s behind us,” Donovan insists, pulling Alex tighter to him. The pressure of that soft squeeze keeps him from spiralling, the firm contour of Donovan’s waist grounding Alex in his body. “The hill, everything before it. It’s okay.”

“Zee, Simon -” Alex sobs. He can’t twist his neck far enough to see behind him. “Please, are they -”

“They’re fine,” Donovan interrupts. “Just keeping going -”

“Please,” Alex whines - he can’t hear them, their laughter gone, they’re not in step anymore. “Don’t lie to me, please -”

Donovan’s brow furrows at Alex before he sighs, shaking his head. Alex feels his heart sink, at first, assuming the worst, before Donovan rolls his eyes and turns his head over his shoulder to look behind him. It’s the first time since the start of the walk he had looked anywhere but ahead.

“All for one?” he calls out. A small smile stretches his lips, warping the parallel scars on his cheek.

“And one for all,” sounds two voices behind them. One is reedy with frantic, breathless exhaustion, the other thick and tight with pain, but they’re there and loud and alive, and that makes the tight dam of pressure in Alex’ chest burst, washing over him in a wave of relieved sobs. 

“Thank god,” he sobs. “Oh thank god.”

There’s a nervous energy about the group now, a hush that falls every time someone trips, or a warning is blared over their heads. Still, there’s been chatter around him the whole time as they recovered from the shock, settling into their new reality. But Donovan’s words are like a sledgehammer to the chest - whether it’s from the severity, or the dark eyes boring into him to get the message across - and they’re the first that Alex can truly process since he watched Monty get his ticket.

“He was just trying to help,” Zee says from Alex’s other side. He is too hot under his cheeks, from exertion and adrenaline and shame, to answer himself.

“Did he ask for it?” Donovan asks rhetorically, pointed. “Did he say he wanted you, knight in shining armor that you are, to make a fool out of him before he died?” It makes Alex bow his head a little deeper. The image of Monty replays in his mind, like a tattered film reel rewinding and spooling out and out like ribbons of flesh, blood, gore - the anger there, at his own vulnerability, the hint of ignominity as he fell to his knees, cursing Alex out as warnings for the both of them rang out overhead. “And look where that got you. Look where that got both of you.” 

“Take it easy, man,” Zee says. “No one wants to see that shit.”

“Yeah, well, what did you expect to see?!” Donovan exclaims, eyes bouncing between the two of them as they cower like scolded children. “I know you two first-time offenders want to think you’re different, all brave enough to take the Walk before you got your asses thrown in jail for good, but I’ve actually done my time. I’ve seen the way these freaks act - the guards, too, don’t you think they’re any less goons than the rest of them - and when you’ve actually experienced this shit, you know better than to risk your own sanity, your own life, for someone else.”

“Yeah, well, not everyone is jaded and heartless like you,” Alex grumbles. Donovan whips his head at him, and the scowl that sits on his face, the hurt in his eyes -

“Listen, you can do whatever the fuck you want,” he seethes, “but if you’re going to have even the slightest chance of getting to the last mile, I’d suggest you cut out that bleeding heart bullshit. No one brings their heart into prison with them,” he says, turning his eyes back to the road, “and I sure as hell ain’t bringing mine to the Long Walk.”

“Whatever,” Zee rolls his eyes. Alex is jostled by Zee’s gentle shove, his crooked mischief smile when he turns to look at him a reward he is undeserving of. “Don’t listen to him, Alex. He’s just got a stick up his ass.”

“I’m trying to make sure you survive.”

“Only one of us is going to survive,” Simon retorts. “If I were you, I’d be encouraging their idiocy. Increases your chances.”

“Oh trust me,” Donovan says cruelly, “I won’t be turning around to pick up this fool if he falls.”

“Thanks, guys,” Alex groans.

“Hey, it’s not like I wanna see you die, either,” Simon says, raising his hands in a show of mercy. “I like you three. You got steady heads on your shoulders, for a bunch of criminals.”

“Thank you, Simon,” Zee says cheesily - a genuine gratitude as he trots forward. “Y’know, I’m feeling pretty good right now, hanging out with y’all. I know I shouldn’t make friends on the Long Walk -” and his smile widens, a second sun to the bright day ahead “- but I like you three.” 

“You’re way too happy to be on a death march,” Alex says. 

“Insane,” Donovan shakes his head - but there’s a twitch in his lip that makes Alex think he’s hiding a smile. “Happily going about his day as if his life isn’t ending as he knows it. You would’ve done a fine job, being a prisoner.”

“Well, they can’t lock me up,” Zee continues. He wraps both his arms around the boys - Alex on his right, Simon on his left. “Can’t bring down these musketeers.”

“There’s four of us,” Alex says. Donovan raises an eyebrow, at that, looking down the line of them with an expression he can’t quite read - incredulity, definitely, an impatience at their antics, but something softens in his jaw and cheeks that Alex wonders, later, to be a surprised but welcome gratitude. “How can we be the musketeers if there’s four of us?”

“Who says we can’t?” Zee says, his head bobbing contently with each joyful stride. It invigorates Alex. In the far distance, between the centimeter gap on the horizon where road splits the trees, he can see the blue of the ocean. “All for one!”

“And one for all,” Alex and Simon groan in unison.

“Pathetic!” Zee says. “One for all!”

“And one for all!” they say louder.

“Donovan, now!” Zee laughs. “All for one?”

Donovan rolls his eyes, shaking his head. His monotone is ironic when he finally chimes in, “and let’s get the fuck outta here.”

“Warning: Number one, first warning.”

A second person hits the ground, and Pan passes by unbothered, veering around the fallen kid with a practiced nonchalance. A gasp of alarm rises, all of them turning like onlookers driving by a car crash, but she refuses to follow the eyeline of the rest of the crowd. She won’t let herself get distracted

“Oh, shit,” Marlow says under his breath, that resigned mix of interest and dismay. He turns to walk backwards, looking away from Pan for the first time - a stupid move, easy to trip - to watch the kid twitch on the pavement, vomit frothing from the corners of his mouth. “Kid’s fucking seizing. Probably had a health issue he didn’t report.”

“Like asthma?” Pan asks. Marlow laughs, awkwardly.

“Hey, they let me bring my inhaler.” He shakes his head, but Pan can’t be bothered to watch the show like everyone else. Let him get his ticket, the poor soul, with his muscles contracted in epileptic tetanus. Lucky fucker - better he not be aware of it, when it happens.

“Shit, who was that?” Alex asks, turning around with big, wide eyes. 

“Does it matter,” she answers, matter-of-fact, quiet enough to be hidden underneath the blare of the boy’s second warning. 

“Why don’t they just end it?” Simon groans to himself, but his anger and dismay makes it loud enough for everyone to hear. His face twists even as he maintains speed, and Pan is - surprised, shocked to see someone so determined to win still exhibit such sympathy. 

“That was Forrest, I think,” Marlow chimes in, returning to walk forward-facing again. His face is expectant when he looks at her. “Or, that was his nickname - Pan, do you remember -?”

She snaps her head forward, shutting him out - trying to shut herself out as she quickens her pace, just a little bit. Why should she remember his name, she thinks to herself, when he’s just one more doomed soul the world will forget? She repeats the mantra to herself even as the people around her murmur, frown and shake their heads - the little girl cries - and tries to push down the roiling shame in her gut -

Baranowski, something small whispers in the back of her head, and as meek as that tiny voice is, it makes the rest of her soul wince, ache like a wound she wouldn’t let heal. Too humiliated to tend to it, to let the world see her injured, and now she’s all the worse for it, broken forever. His name was Cody Baranowski.

“Fuckin’ dumbasses,” someone mutters beside her. He’s burly and tall, the little blonde hairs on his upper lips plastered down in spit and sweat as his wild, empty eyes twitch back and forth. Number 6. She forgot his name, too. “Fuckin’ pussies crying like bitches. All our chances just went up.”

Her heart twists. She hates that she agrees. 

Mile 25

Spindled, salt-bleached branches begin to break away into short, dusty brush, sand scratching in their socks as they slowly turn north to walk up the coast. Tall, grey bluffs tower to her left, a shelf of shadow and boulder hosting a panopticon of people that cluster along their ledges, peeking from the wreckage of dilapidated houses on the cliffside to watch the procession. There were no spectators allowed - not this early into the walk, she was told - but it didn’t stop the seething locals from gathering along the boardwalk. Some of them taunt or hurl their boos and beer cans, others cheering for their favourites - none of them shut up when she flips the bird up towards their rotting fences, the pathetic, poor masses and their sallow, starving faces making her want to spit. 

To her right, the ocean stretches on and on to the east and south, curving north with the road. There is no powdery, postcard-worthy white sand to trim shimmering tropical blue, only grey and white foam crashing against sharp rocks littered with cigarette butts and broken bottles, the detritus of the worst of the human race. She hates it, always did, the scream of crashing waves spraying the air with brine that burns her eyes and turns the world into a blur of glaring flame. It threatens to swallow them - it would take so little for the beast of it to rise up and crash on them, shatter their bones against the eroding earth.

Maybe that’s a good thing, Rilke thinks. Something to swallow this goddamn country up once and for all, its disgusting coast and garbage and prisons and people, criminals and pedophiles and crazies that tainted this godforsaken island until no one could find beauty in it. 

Daisy does, though. Rilke scoffs at her, watching the soft-hearted little thing make pspsps sounds at a mongrel cat, its bones rolling under its skin and its stomach shrunk to its spine. She looks at everything here with those watery, wide eyes, like the world will just rain forgiveness down on her as if it hasn’t thrown her to the wolves already. 

The mangy thing follows her, too, weaving around her ankles as she flicks the tab on a can of spam, dropping chunks along behind her like a crumb trail. Stupid, Rilke scoffs, wasting her rations when she actually has a chance at this thing. She’s small, yes, walking double the steps in order to keep the same distance as the majority of them, but also lithe and energetic. A sweet talker, too, making allies with older boys that grab her arms and encourage her when she threatens to cramp or tire. 

And yet here she is, Rilke thinks; she wants to be happy knowing that Daisy would go down and give herself a greater chance at the winnings, but something about her genuine smile, her lack of pretense or motive - it only makes her angrier. Wasting her energy, throwing her lot in with the fools stacking up their warnings -

“Warning: Number 49, second warning.”

“What the hell, Schiller?!” she hisses quietly over her shoulder, hearing his shoes slap against the boardwalk as he tries to catch up. He emerges from her periphery, head already bowed and shoulders slumped in a gesture of repentance.

“Sorry,” Schiller breathes, licking away the sweat pooling down his cheeks and rolling to the corner of his lips. 

“You can’t keep falling behind me,” she rails under her breath - the rest of the group doesn’t need to be gossiping about them, searching for a weak link, trying to find a way to make her vulnerable. She has to keep her eyes front, her head aloft and the sweat off her brow. She has to keep her dignity. “How the fuck do you think you’re going to make it if you keep falling behind me?”

“What about you?” he wavers, looking up at her through his eyelashes, and the question is a slap to the face, a ragged sandpaper against the brittle edge of her frayed nerves. “Don’t - don’t you want to win?” She wants to hit him, the same feral instinct that overtook her when she saw him step off the bus opposite her, the need to grab him by the collar and shake him until his neck broke. She had been delicate - like Daisy, and she broils under the skin at the reminder, watching her pathetic pout as the cat trots off the pavement, only having taken advantage of what it could gain and leaving, stupid girl, stupid girl. She had never been away from Schiller for so long, after his indictment, her institutionalization, and she had done the hard task of hardening her smile, her laugh, her soul against the other girls on her ward, only to shatter like fine china when she saw him at the starting line, to find out they had pulled from the lottery together.

“Rilke?”

“Just keep moving,” she snaps, watching as two boys begin brawling at the front of the pack. She can’t think of herself pitted against her brother, even in their doomed competition. She won’t be brought as low as that.  If she isn’t here to win, she at least needs to prove herself, be able to know herself higher than the plodding masses around her or the plebs that ogle her from above. And she can’t do that if she and her brother don’t make a united front. 

#

“You wanna tell me why you’re so fucking close, huh?!”

It’s Kevin, screaming, again - Alex is barely frazzled when he hears that scratchy, high pitched voice whining for what must be the fourth time since the start of the walk. It’s becoming an unfortunate routine with him, a cycle of him reacting to any slight, real or imagined, and immediately railing of his rank and importance and I’ll kill you you fucking asshole until everyone either shouts over him in a cacophony to shut up, someone starts swinging, or Kevin tires himself out, all while warnings blare over the speakers. Alex had joined that chorus, at first, annoyed and scared of the potential retaliation from the Suits until Donovan’s own reprimands had annoyed and scared him even better. He’s the leader of the Skulls, Donovan had whispered harshly, explaining the gang politics in his former prison, murdered too many people in cold blood to count. Not someone you want to notice you, so shut your mouth.

The current ritual is so exhausting now that Alex can only roll his eyes and watch the madness play out again. No one had the motivation to intervene in this tired charade, even as the Suits braced themselves with their guns and the Warden watched impassively from the front of the pack, smirking. From what he can gather, someone behind him had gotten too close, clipped the heel of his shoe with their toe and earned him a warning as he slowed down to bitch about it, and now -

“You tryin’ to fuck with me?” Kevin says, wheeling towards Gary Owens, even swatting at the number 6 dangling around his neck. Spittle flies from his mouth as he rails, the skull-emblazoned bandana wrapped around his hair stained with sweat at the ears. “Tryna trip me? Tryna fuck with me, you fucking piece of shit?!”

“Why’d I want to fuck with a little bitch like you?” Gary responds, his voice quiet but pointed. A threat. Bait under a trap. 

“The fuck did you just call me?!” Kevin yells, his voice straining, growing loud enough to be heard by everyone. “You know who the fuck you’re talking to, you fucking inbred cunt?!” 

“I called you a little cocksucker bitch!” Gary spits. His clipped voice, at that volume, was enough to startle most of the people around them into silence, the Suits in their armored cars sitting up, their fingers poised to pull a trigger at a moment's notice. Kevin was a stupid man, yes but predictable - less than a day in and his pattern of behaviour was well known, even to the people who didn’t share a cell block with him - only recouping his reputation amongst them with his bloodthirsty energy. For Gary to match it, to act as a wildcard, made him a very stupid man.

Or a very dangerous one. 

“The goddamn fuck is wrong with you two?” Brick calls from the back. “You trying to get the two of yourselves killed?”

“Shut your fucking mouth you fucking chav!” someone laughs just a little bit at that - Rilke, she’s clever enough to keep it quiet, barely noticeable - but everyone, including Brick, retreats to give Kevin and Gary an even wider berth. “Unless you and Gary want your brains splattered on the pavement together!”

“Is that a threat?” Gary screams, picking up his pace to charge into Kevin, bumping him from behind. “You threatening me, punk?”

“I’ll fucking kill you, Owens!” 

“Fucking prove it!”

He takes the bait. 

“Warning: number 19, second warning,” a Suit hollers out; there is thick, deep laughter from some of the other guards on the speaker’s feedback. Kevin’s fist swings wide, the momentum of his misaimed punch making him spin on his heels as Gary dukes with a simple sidestep. A sick and twisted waltz, their orientation changing with every failed punch - Gary taunts from in front of Kevin now, walking backwards to sustain his threatening glare.

“Get your ass over here, you fucking coward!”

“Make me,” Gary taunts. Alex sees his face twist from his usual blank, middle-distance stare for the first time and feels his stomach clench. The smile spreading on Gary’s face radiates a gleeful, feral kind of hate, a pure relishing in the suffering he was causing. 

Kevin yells as he turns back for another swing, Gary poised to meet him by the time he’s finished winding up the force of it. Kevin charges backwards, trying to fling his knuckles into the other boy’s face, but Gary doesn’t dodge this time, instead grabbing Kevin by the wrist just before he makes contact with his jaw. Alex turns to watch the blur of motion, but Gary strikes too quickly for him to parse, his hand by his side and then around Kevin’s arm and then Kevin is in a backwards headlock. Still, they all hear the sickening snap that accompanies Kevin yelping like a kicked dog, the procession synchronized in a collective grimace at its gruesome resonation. 

“Oh fuck -!” Simon breathes, his face dusky with nausea. Even Donovan turns to listen when Alex and Zee crane their necks to watch the morbid performance. Kevin is flailing, now, still upright and walking but his path zigzagging, his face contorted with pain.  “He’s gonna get himself killed -”

“Give up, Arnold?” Gary sneers, lobbing a wad of spit in his direction. His smirk is vile as he waves his hand in front of him. Alex notices that Kevin’s head is naked, now - the Skull bandana dangles from Gary’s grip, the bigger boy a matador goading an angry, exhausted bull. “You gonna take back what’s yours? Or you gonna show us what a bitch you really are?”

Kevin shrieks as he charges at him, fist still wound up to strike - Alex’ stomach lurches again when he sees the crooked angle of his forearm, a jagged bend in the bone between his wrist and elbow that shouldn’t be there. The firecracker anger of him veers as Gary dukes again, his fist flying past by inches through the air -

“Number 19: third and final warning,” a speaker calls out as he goes flying to the back of the group, a full-body thud shaking the ground under Alex’ feet as Kevin hits the road hard on his bad arm, his face skidding against the ground. He leaves a slick path of dark blood in his wake, the skin of his cheek and forehead torn to shreds and riddled with pebbles and splinters that pierce the red sinew beneath. 

“Shit, get the fuck up, Arnold!” another Skull with a deep scar running across his nose calls out. He’s accompanied by a chorus medley of fucking idiot and oh shit and dude get up, but he can’t brace himself on his broken arm, has barely managed to turn over before a Suit is stepping down from his Jeep with a sick glint in his eye and his gun cocked -

Alex turns away before the shot rings out. 

“You’re a fucking murderer, Owens,” the Skull yells out, sucking his teeth in Gary’s direction. He doesn’t even look behind him as the smile slips from his face, sinking back into the comfort of that same empty glare. He ties the bandana around his neck, eyes scanning the group in a challenge that no one dares take him up on. 

“Fucking hell,” Zee chokes out. He tilts his head down, squeezing closer to Alex and Donovan. 

“That’s our prison politics for you,” Donovan says, unfrazzled, but Alex can see the lines in his forehead, the furrow in his brow. “That’s the shit you have to get used to.”