Writing is the Painting Of the Voice

The other woman shrugged. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

Van hummed thoughtfully. “I bet. You look like a puppy left out in the rain. One of those, uh…those droopy puppies with the dragging ears.”

“A basset hound?”

“Yeah. Those.” 

Now it was Natalie’s turn to force a smile forward, trying to dismiss the concern she could hear beneath the teasing. “Well, shit. You make it sound like the dark circles don’t do it for you.”

Her friend smiled faintly, but otherwise didn’t entertain the humorous approach any further. “Nat…how much longer do you think you can go on like this?”

Natalie could feel her already brittle mask of composure start to break. She hid it by turning her face down at the beer bottle in her hands, slowly peeling at the label on the side. 

“As long as she needs me to,” she answered, surprising herself with the softness of her own sincerity. “Until she gets better.”

Another beat of silence passed.

Then, just as softly, Van pressed, “But what if she doesn’t?”

Natalie’s throat felt tighter at the thought. She rubbed her now half-empty beer bottle between her hands, feeling her palms stick with sweat despite the chill in the glass. 

When she didn’t say anything, her friend continued to push. “What are you going to do if she never gets better? If she really is turning into a—”

“Don’t,” Natalie cut in, voice cracking. “Please, don’t call her that.”

Van took a patient breath. “Nat. What else can you call it?”

The hunter looked at anything other than her friend. Her nails were practically clawing at the label on her beer bottle now. 

“She can’t go out in the sun,” her friend continued. “She doesn’t eat. She can only stomach one thing. And what she did to your arm—”

“She didn’t do that on purpose.”

Natalie was certain that much was true. 

“That’s not my point, Nat,” Van went on. “The point is, human nails don’t do that kind of damage. She almost cut through your arm.”

“I know.” Natalie ran a rough hand through her two-toned hair. “Believe me, I know. I only had that doctor tell me at least a dozen fuckin’ times. And no, I don’t know what else to call whatever the fuck is happening to her. But I know it’s not like that. She’s not some monster. She’s…she’s Lottie. She’s…she still likes wearing floral, girly stuff. She hums songs to herself when she’s bored. She reads magazines about weird animal behaviors. She still makes tea with honey, just because she likes the smell of it. She’s…”

The hunter’s voice dropped, her throat once again going tight. Once again wracked with empathy pain. This time, from an invisible scar. 

“…she doesn’t have anyone else. So…I can’t just give up on her.”

She could see her emotions bleeding over into Van. She could hear it in the way Van’s own words trembled slightly when she spoke next. 

“I’m not saying to give up on her. I’m just saying, there has to be an easier way to deal with this. A way that doesn’t involve you stretching yourself so thin to take care of her. Hell, maybe even a way to get her back into society!”

“Maybe…” Natalie mumbled, unconvinced. At the moment, she couldn’t fathom Lottie going anywhere around other people. Not with how much her episodes had been getting progressively worse. 

Not for the first time, Natalie wondered if she had gone about Lottie’s treatment all wrong. If there had been a way to stabilize Lottie’s symptoms before, a way to help her function in everyday society again, and Natalie just completely missed it by keeping them so isolated. 

But what else was she to do? Lottie had been so sick for the first couple of weeks after her attack. And being around people had only made her more overwhelmed, always stressed, and made her symptoms worse. Even worse than they were now. How was Nat to know if and when that would stop? 

She was pulled from her thoughts by a grounding weight. A hand settling on her knee. 

Van leaned forward, holding Natalie’s gaze with her own. “Nat. You are not alone in this. If there’s anything more Tai and I can do to help, we’re willing to do it. Or if we really need to, we can reach out, too. We can ask…I don’t know—maybe I can ask Tai to talk to Jackie next time they cross paths on campus.”

Natalie couldn't help but scoff. “Jackie wouldn’t do anything for me.”

Van opened and then promptly shut her mouth. Evidently, she didn’t know how to argue with that. Jackie and Natalie always had a rather contentious relationship when they all knew each other in Wiskayok. Mostly, Nat could admit, as a result of her own doing. She had been difficult back then, when there was only herself to think about. She would often contest authority—espeically Jackie’s—and rarely stayed in class or at practice for as long as she was asked to. She only ever did the bare minimum to still qualify for the team. And outside of soccer and a few parties, she and Jackie didn’t cross paths much at all. 

But then Van pointed out, “She would do it for Lottie, though.”

And that, Natalie couldn’t argue with. 

Lottie was always one of the more cordial members of their team. More considerate of others, more responsible, more likeable. Not just with Jackie, but with any of their teammates who took the time to get to know her. 

Which made it all the more unfair, what had happened to her, of all people. 

Natalie took another long swig of beer. 

Van left her to it, angling herself away to pick at the crumbled up chips at the bottom of their food basket.

Natalie also returned her attention to the food, presuming that was the end of the serious side of their conversation for the night. She managed to finish the last mozzarella stick in peaceful silence when Van suddenly dropped the bombshell.

“Tai got into Howard.”

Tai…

Van’s girlfriend, Taissa. She got into Howard University. Her dream school. 

A school that was in Washington DC.

That…that was good news.

At least…it was supposed to be good news.

While the base premise of the fic was inspired by Stephen King's Pet Sematary (i.e., a burial site that brings people/creatures back from the dead), the execution of several scenes and general atmosphere of the story were actually inspired by stories like the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Jurassic Park (the novel), Coraline, and the poem, "Boots," by Rudyard Kipling (particularly the reading by Taylor Holmes); and of course, the show Yellowjackets as well

there are still small references to the actual Pet Sematary novel: the presence of a ghost trying to deter others from using the burial site, the zombie characters being able to impersonate other dead characters (namely Natalie using Crystal's voice to taunt Misty), and the supernatural force behind everything being an "evil spirit"

the overall idea for the fic came from me while listening to the Dead Meat horror podcast talk about the Pet Sematary film remake, hence why the two nurses looking after Shauna in the first chapter were designed to resemble the hosts of that podcast

despite the girls calling It a Wilderness spirit, the host for the hive minded zombie characters was actually conceptualized as a type of parasitic animal; hence, all of the zombies' behaviors are based on animal behaviors, such as constantly doing each other's hair or cleaning their skin (grooming behaviors as a bonding exercise in social animals), head tilts when they're observing something new to them (a sign of curiosity/learning), Jackie using huffs to command the others (technically "chuffing," like tigers and bears do), and even Lottie continuing to sense when something bad is about to happen (based on "early warning behavior," wherein some animals can sense a change in the air/landscape before natural disasters such as hurricanes or earthquakes)

the Wilderness spirit's vocalizations were inspired by simulated dinosaur sounds (specifically a Utahraptor, Spinosaurus, and Allosaurus) to give it both a sense of something animal, but also alien to the average human hearing it out of context

That being said, during Van's death dream in chapter 5, she compares the W spirit's sounds to a bear purring; bears do purr in the wild, usually when they're content or feeding. This was to indicate the spirit was eating her at that moment

the zombie girls' pupils glowing red in some scenes is a result of natural light reflection on human eyes (i.e. "red reflex" in photography), but heightened due to their undead state making their eyes extra sensitive to any source of lighting

Lottie's reoccurring nightmares in the beginning of the fic are premonitions of her death (the image of a puddle of blood snow is her own when Shauna is beating her; the moon getting swallowed up by something black was her body's view of the sky while the others covered her with the black earth of the burial site). This specific imagery was meant to draw attention to 1). why this version of Shauna beating Lottie is more fatal than the scene in canon, and 2). to indicate that part of the soul still lingers in the body immediately after death, able to sense its surroundings (and then get eaten by the W spirit)

Natalie's death dream was originally a lot longer, cycling through a few of the important moments of her life before ultimately ending up on the plane like her death dream in canon, but this was scrapped for pacing purposes

In the initial brainstorming for the fic, there was a subplot idea where Taissa and Natalie plotted to get rid of zombie-Jackie, which would've resulted in the reveal that the zombie characters can't be killed a 2nd time unless killed by one of their own (the latter part still would've been revealed through zombie-Javi) but there was never a good place in the final outline for this

Another dropped plotline was Shauna becoming convinced Natalie had been zombified in secret like Van because Nat's depression had gotten so severe, and she would have stabbed Nat to prove it. This was meant to be a reference to various aspects of zombie lore stemming from historical misunderstandings of depression

While in Javi's POV in chapter 11, he mentions seeing glimpses of Laura Lee, and a younger girl. The latter is a reference to a plotline that was allegedly in the unreleased episode of season 2, which delved into Dead Cabin Guy's backstory, and revealed he had a daughter who also died in the Wilderness

When the girls all sing together in chapter 4, the song was originally going to be "No One Lives Forever" by Oingo Boingo so the lyrics could serve as foreshadowing that none of them will be able to escape death later on in the story. However, it was ultimately changed to "the Chain" because that seemed like a more popular song, and thus more likely known by most of the characters in that particular scene; although I still liked the relevance of Oingo Boingo's lyrics, so it is briefly mentioned after that scene, and then later quoted by zombie-Natalie when she's taunting Misty by using Crystal's voice

When Shauna is talking about her hypothetical dream life, and Taissa names her imaginary love interest "Jason." This was a reference to Melanie Lynskey's real life husband, Jason Ritter

Jackie whistling to summon the research team is a twist on a superstition in several cultures to never whistle at night (especially in the woods) for risk of summoning evil spirits (in this case the inverse, with Jackie herself being the evil spirit summoning humans)

Taissa's brother in the final chapter was named after Mason Gooding Jr, who played the twin brother to Jasmin Savoy Brown's character in the Scream movies (a.k.a. the first franchise I saw Jasmin Savoy Brown in)

Their human rescuers brought them to a bus shuttle station. For such a small, rustic sample of greater civilization that was still miles away, it still felt like a sudden plunge into strange, icy waters. The hair on Shauna’s arms and back of her neck stood up as soon as she entered the small building, her blood flooding with a chill from the artificial air coursing through the structure, and her shoulders hunched with tension. She stumbled her way into the heart of the building, keeping close to her teammates solely to keep herself oriented under the blinding, fluorescent white lights overhead, making her head pulse with an aching inability to determine up from down. 

That disorientation only worsened when the new lights appeared, flashing bright reds and blues over everything as they rolled up to the station. 

From there, pure chaos ensued. 

Suddenly, there was a whole swarm of strangers. They poured into the bus station like ants to a fallen piece of food, crowding Shauna and her teammates, demanding to know information about them, and questioning if they were alright. 

A part of Shauna was too empty inside to care, let alone indulge whatever they wanted from her. Another, larger part of her physically shied away from the attention, overwhelmed by the lights, and the sounds, and the chill of the building. 

At either side of her, her teammates were in a similar state of addled. 

Taissa breathed heavily the whole time, occasionally shaking her head like a wet dog. 

Lottie curled in on herself, visibly shaking. 

Van and Misty turned in their respective places slowly, blinking sluggishly at the various new figures. 

Natalie outright lashed out at someone who tried to touch her. She bared her teeth in an animalistic snarl as she swung her arm towards them, fingers curled in a claw-like manner, as if recreating the way she had scratched Shauna’s face open during their one-on-one fight months ago. 

Jackie, who was seemingly the only one unbothered by the new stimulus, was the only one who acquiesced to the newcomers surrounding them, letting them herd her into one of their emergency vehicles with nothing more than an irritated curl of her lip. 

A begrudging Shauna let herself be escorted into a vehicle next. And after her, the rest followed one-by-one. 

They were carted off to a hospital next. The lights, noises, and general coldness of the previous building was only exacerbated there. Like the difference between plunging into a pool and the ocean. And either way, Shauna felt like someone thrown in when they couldn’t swim. Rendered helpless to do anything but sit there, sinking into nothingness until she was guided elsewhere by the tide of strangers’ hands. 

The only touchstone through the madness was her teammates. Where they were in proximity to her. Granted, it was difficult to keep track of them once the medical testing started, and they were separated into different rooms. Though even then, Shauna could still sense some of them. A clatter of objects and nurses’ startled reactions as Misty grabbed at their equipment with overeager curiosity. Lottie’s high-pitched, wordless shrieks anytime someone touched her when she wasn’t expecting it. Stunned grunts and physical struggling as Natalie shoved away every attempt to stick a needle in her or secure a blood pressure cuff to her arm. 

Even Jackie could be seen wandering down the hallways. She lingered in open doorways to watch the goings on for other patients, staring with the utmost studious attention at anyone interacting with concerned, visiting loved ones. Several times, she had to be ushered back to her own room by the staff, where she diverted her attentive stare to the way they fussed over her. 

Shauna, herself, didn’t care enough to wander. Or resist, or question, or be surprised by anything. She merely let herself be maneuvered like a broken automaton, relying on nurses to move her limbs to examine her muscles or turn her face to get a better look at the smaller injuries she sustained. 

Aside from general malnourishment, the biggest concern for Shauna seemed to be the light scarring on her cheek from Natalie clawing her. 

At one point, Shauna thought maybe she spoke to someone. The main nurse assigned to her, a lanky man with dark hair named James, had asked something about what happened to her in the Wilderness. Shauna couldn’t recall what exactly she said to him. Only that it sent her into a haze of memories, struggling to pick apart what exactly happened, and when, in the past few months. 

She was left alone after that. The hospital quickly became engrossed in a dither of frustration and confusion as seemingly all of its equipment had malfunctioned while running tests on the troop of rescued girls. All but one of them had results that implied they were dead.

But how could that be? They were standing up, moving around, and interacting with the staff just as much as the other patients. 

A second round of bloodwork was ordered in attempts to correct the seemingly faulty readings. 

And yet, those results would never be known. By the time the second round of testing started, news coverage of a troop of girls rescued from a plane crash site had spread across the Canadian border into their homeland of the United States. Specifically, to their hometown of Wiskayok, New Jersey. 

Shauna would find out later that it was Jackie’s parents in particular that made several calls to demand the girls be returned home as soon as possible. Or at the very least, transferred to a hospital in the States. 

When posed with the threat of facing a rich family’s lawyers, as well as embassies from the United States, the Canadian hospital adhered to the demands without further question of the strange symptoms or faulty blood tests on the patients in question. 

The actual process of being transferred back to the States was a fresh layer of Hell for the girls, themselves. Now that their identities had been confirmed as girls from a specific doomed plane flight, from a specific place in the States, the clamor of flashing lights and indiscernible noise that had been tailing them throughout the journey back into civilization increased tenfold. Most notably as they were led towards the privatized plane that would take them back to their hometown. The walkway to board the aircraft was surrounded on either side by a flood of journalists, their rapidly winking cameras and shouted questions barely contained by the federal agents helping the girls on their way. 

Even the seemingly unflappable undead-Jackie was agitated by the level of overwhelm there. That much was evident in the way she glared resentfully down the lens of several cameras, teeth bared in a wolf-like snarl. 

Months later, that snarling stare would be on the cover of hundreds of magazines across the continent. The face of hundreds of articles about seven girls who survived the Canadian wilderness against all odds. A symbol of a story about resilience, and bravery, and survival.  

Natalie was aware her senses weren’t entirely reliable at that moment. Especially considering how no one else seemed to be reacting to the sight. Or perhaps, they simply hadn’t noticed.

But real or not, Natalie couldn’t find it in herself to just leave someone wandering aimlessly at the edge of the property line. She promptly made her way through the back door of the house, probably stumbling a bit herself as she navigated the unfamiliar yard at the darkest time of night, with her senses additionally disoriented due to the MDMA in her system. 

As she drew closer to the surrounding backwoods, she noticed the figure she was seeking starting to retreat away from her, disappearing further into the seclusion of the forestry. However, despite both of them leaving the reach of light from the house party, recognition began to set in for Natalie. Years of playing for the same soccer team together had made all the Yellowjackets attuned to each other’s mannerisms and general build. For Natalie, one of the more easily recognizable figures was Lottie Matthews, their team center-back.

Also known as one of few girls that Natalie could talk to without fearing she would be judged for her reputation as ‘the burnout’ or ‘the slut’ of the team. 

“Lottie?” she said, mostly to ascertain for herself whether that was truly who she had found. Then, more loudly, “Lottie!”

The figure in front of her startled, violent enough to stop their aimless wandering. 

Natalie, in turn, startled at the suddenness of it. Then, she stumbled to a stop altogether when something new overcame her senses, heightened as they were by the MDMA. It was a sharp, distinct smell of iron. It was the smell of blood. 

Hallucinations didn’t bleed. 

This was real. 

“Lottie?” she called again, this time taking a more deliberate step forward. “Are you OK?” 

Her voice trembled slightly as panic washed over her, having realized that her brain was still addled by her high and the darkness around them made it impossible to see more than a foot in front of herself, let alone offer anything of real help if Lottie was seriously hurt. 

In the dark, she couldn’t even see the source of the blood. Couldn’t see the gash on Lottie’s arm that the other girl had clamped her opposite hand over, desperately trying to stem the flow. Desperately trying—in vain—to mask the scent. 

None of this she could convey to Natalie. All that Lottie seemed capable of was tearing sharp gasps from her lungs. Building sobs that only served to alarm Natalie further.

“Lottie, hey,” the other girl said, trying to come off as soothing. Though given her own state, it came out more frantic than intended. It didn’t help that she was still stumbling—more so from the inability to see anything in the darkness than her drug-addled brain—as she tried to get closer. “Hey—it’s OK.”

Natalie wound up stumbling right into Lottie’s side, catching herself with a hand on either of Lottie’s arms. Her fingertips barely brushed the trail of blood that managed to leak past Lottie’s hand before her teammate ripped herself away with a frightened yelp. 

“Don’t…” Lottie whimpered. “Too…too close.”

“OK,” Natalie replied. She held her hands up in a show of harmlessness. “OK—I’m sorry. I was just trying to see…”

She was interrupted by a hitch of breath from Lottie, followed by a mesh of words too overwrought to make out.

Natalie took another step forward, unconsciously moving closer in hopes to hear better. “What?”

“It…” Another hitched breath. “It wanted…me.”

Natalie’s addled brain was slow to process the implications of that. 

Something—or maybe even someone—had tried to go after Lottie. Something had driven her out here. Something that left her bleeding, and sobbing, and scared. 

The realization temporarily sobered Natalie. Realigned her brain to a more steady train of thought, guided by the light of heated rage. She and Lottie might not have been close, but Natalie liked her enough to call them friends. At the very least, Lottie was her teammate, and so, she felt a responsibility to look out for her, both on and off the soccer field. 

Meanwhile, Lottie completely unraveled. It was as though her words were the final seal over the sobs she had been trying to curb thus far. Now, they poured out of her in an uncontrollable torrent, sounding almost painful as each one ripped through her. 

Natalie once again felt herself moving closer to her teammate, instinctively reaching out to touch her shoulder or something to the effect of consoling her the way they usually did. Granted, it was usually after something benign, like a lost soccer game, or even a particularly grueling practice session. 

This time, Lottie didn’t resist the physical comfort. Quite the opposite, actually. She leaned closer to Natalie, partially surrendering her weight. Natalie made an attempt to catch her, bracing a hand on either side of Lottie in an awkward resemblance of a hug. 

Her hold wavered for a moment as she nearly pulled away in surprise, having felt something damp press against her shirt. 

Lottie was bleeding from her chest, too.

“Lottie, what happened?” she demanded urgently, trying to gauge the severity of the wound through touch alone. “Lott—Lottie, what happened?”

The other girl only sobbed harder, gripping onto Natalie’s arms so fiercely that her nails could have punctured through the fabric of Nat’s jacket. Between ragged gasps to catch her breath, Lottie only managed a hysterical response of, “It was…it was s’pposed to…be me. It…it should’ve been me.”

“OK…” Natalie said uselessly, feeling doubly confused by that. And by extension, even more terrified of the situation.

She tried not to let it show for Lottie’s sake. Surely, somebody had to stay level-headed in order to resolve this. Or as level-headed as one’s semi-sober soccer teammate could be. 

Natalie tried to offer what felt like the right thing to say. “It’s OK. It’s OK, I’m here. I’ve got you.”

So far, she hadn’t seen anyone since she left the campsite. And yet, she knew with every step she made further, she knew it was only a brief delay to the inevitable. It was only a matter of time until they caught up to her. After all, Misty wasn’t used to this type of exertion the way the other girls were. She wasn’t part of the Yellowjackets team the same way they were. She was the equipment manager, which meant she barely had to spend any time on the sports field back home. Even in the past few weeks out here in the Wilderness, she had always kept to the rear of the group during hunts, having permanently surrendered herself to the notion that the other girls outmatched her in stamina and athleticism.  

Here and now, she still resigned herself to being outmatched. For the time being, the only thing giving her any sort of advantage was pure, primal adrenaline, concocted by her own brain’s desperation to keep herself alive as long as possible. 

She also tried to take advantage of the environment around her. She made several random, hard turns to the right or left in hopes to confuse her trail, in case anyone did end up right behind her. Her body wove between many lanky trees, with scraggly, claw-like limbs jutting out this way and that. At the speed she was moving, her heart momentarily stalled several times, having mistaken the passing image of the more barren branches for human hands reaching out to grab her. 

Eventually, the inevitable happened. 

She was too tired to keep going. 

Misty came to a stop, stumbling a little as her brain briefly swam with wooziness the very second she slowed down. Her hands braced themselves against her thighs, her spine curling in towards itself as she fought to catch her breath. 

For a moment, nothing else existed. There was just the air scraping rapidly through her throat, and a shrill screeching in her ears. 

As some of the black spots that winked around the edges of her vision fully disappeared, she took stock of where she had ended up. A small clearing that existed seemingly for this specific purpose, a reprieve from the forestry surrounding it. And reprieve from whatever lurked in said denser forest. 

Despite her initial path towards the sun, Misty found herself beneath a purely aegean blue sky, reducing any trace of light out here to a mere suggestion from some indiscernible direction. Still bright enough to see her own hands at the end of her arms, but nothing more detailed than that besides the dark shapes of trees and shrubbery around her. She couldn’t even tell which direction she had originally come from. 

Suddenly, they came.

The sounds of the hunt.

Except…these weren’t like the sounds of any of the hunts that had come before. These were not howls, cheers, or screeches of both the living and the undead working together to bring something back for one of their respective friend groups.

Instead, this was a gravelly, stuttering growl. A growl that gradually rose in pitch, escalating into an equally-gravelly chittering pattern, like squirrels that had been chain-smoking.

At first, the hair on the back of Misty’s neck stood up with a chill at the unfamiliarity of the sound. However, she tried to assuage herself with the thought that such sounds didn’t sound human. 

Perhaps she hadn’t been running from her former teammates after all. That the way she had treated Jackie and the other undead girls with equity, never afraid of them, had paid off. That they had let her go, and now there were only the strange creatures of the Wilderness to contend with. 

Animals she had experience with. She had already escaped a pack of wolves with the help of Taissa, Mari, and Akilah, as well as the torches they had made at the time. If she could evade another group of animals here, she would surely find safety by making it back to camp. Back to the fire that Travis had started. 

The chittering was suddenly interrupted by a throaty barking. A rapid series of barking that, as it went on longer and longer, evolved in Misty’s ears as a laugh-like sound, akin to the laugh-bark of hyenas she had seen in a nature documentary once. 

Except this faux laughter was not coming from animals on an entirely different continent being observed through a television screen. This was very real, and very reminiscent of actual laughter she had heard in muttered passing directed her way by the likes of Van Palmer and Taissa Turner. 

A spasm of pain erupted in the medic’s chest. After all she had done to make herself useful out here, and to treat the undead girls with grace, was that all they would ever see her as? Something to be laughed at?

Belatedly, she remembered there was a more pressing issue at hand. She was promptly reminded of where she was, and why, by the flash of red in her periphery, disappearing somewhere between some of the surrounding trees.  

The sudden movement instantly triggered a second wind in Misty. She threw herself in the opposite direction of where she’d seen Van, gooseflesh rippling along her arms at the sight before her blood quickly went hot from the renewed adrenaline. 

The medic made it fully across the clearing when she caught another flash of movement amidst the very shrubbery she was heading towards. This time, a tall figure with a wave of dark hair. Taissa. Or maybe Lottie. 

Hell, maybe it was Taissa and Lottie. They moved so quickly, it was becoming impossible to tell how many there were or where. 

Misty skidded to a stop for a second, then made another hard lurch to the side, putting the general direction where she had seen Van, Taissa, and or Lottie on either side of her. 

The whole while, that condescending bark-laughter continued. Growing even louder the further Misty tried to run from it, confusing her senses, and even convincing her that she may be running towards the sounds instead. 

They were everywhere. Not just the sounds of the hunt, but the hunters themselves. 

It was only a matter of time now. The end Misty knew was coming. Her teammates would outrun and overpower her easily now that they had found her. 

And yet, actually being faced with that inevitably now, only made Misty more determined to hold out as long as she possibly could. 

She made it as far as another side of the clearing, reaching the embrace of dense forestry once again. She glanced over her shoulder, unintentionally slowing herself down for a second. Just a split second. Just long enough to see Van, Lottie, Taissa, and even Jackie were now permanent fixtures on either side of her frame of sight. 

For now, they were still a few feet behind her. But they were gaining on her. Fast.

In her desperation to push herself to be even faster, Misty forgot to consider the one person who was missing. 

She made another swerve to the side, this time running alongside the crest of a long-running hill that ran parallel to a shallow brook several feet down. 

As she ran down this new path, Misty’s head started to feel lighter. Delirious with relief as she heard the sounds of the hunt gradually vanish behind her, replaced by the gentler rush of water flowing along the bottom of the hill. 

Was she actually doing it? Outlasting her pursuers with her sheer determination and—

Swhish!

The bushes immediately to Misty’s left suddenly collapsed, giving way to the weight of a sudden attacker. The medic only saw flashes—a pale hand reaching out to her, the fingers curled like the claws of an animal pouncing, teeth bared in a furious snarl—before she lurched backwards in fright, only to step onto the nothingness of the other side of the hilltop. 

The very world around her started spinning. Her heart dropped as she was assailed with the feeling of weightlessness. 

She yelped upon the first contact she made with the ground, the impact hard enough to leave her too stunned to make any other sound as she tumbled the rest of the way down the hill, feet swinging over head several times. 

By the time she rolled to a stop against the hard pebbles of the brookside, her vision was still whirling about with dizziness. Her body ached all over, though her knee in particular felt like it was on fire after sustaining a nasty scrape. Her palms were smarting and felt wet with warmth, nicked in multiple places and bleeding. 

Nevertheless, Misty forced herself to move through the pain, propping herself upright on her hands, smearing blood all along the tiny tan stones beneath her. Her heart leapt into her throat, obscuring her very breath as she spotted a body laying against the pebble bed just a few steps away from her, dappled in amber splotches from what little remained of the sunset peeking through the trees along the horizon. 

The medic’s first inclination was to scramble backwards, continuing to put as much distance between herself and her hunter as she could physically manage, despite being hindered by the throbbing pain all along her skull, her shoulders, and her hips.  

Her body managed to drag itself another couple of feet away when her brain finally caught up with her eyes. 

The hunter had fallen with her, and apparently had an even worse landing than Misty had. Two-toned blonde and brown hair was draped over the face, which was turned sharply to the side. Arms were sprawled limply on either side of the body. The hips were canted, accommodating the way one leg had landed awkwardly over the other, braced against a painful looking twisted ankle. 

Natalie…she wasn’t moving. 

Someone with the scent of that place. 

Shauna whirled around, eyes desperately surveying her surroundings once more. She held her tongue from saying Taissa’s name, for fear it was someone other than her previously late teammate. Someone who wasn’t supposed to know where she’d buried Tai. 

The butcher could only look around herself. She turned in her place once again. And once mo—

She startled violently as she was suddenly met with a face hovering a mere foot away from her own. Her heart pounded against the confines of her chest, first from the shock of it. Then, from the sheer flood of relief. Delight, even. 

“Taissa!” Shauna breathed. “Oh, my God…”

As Shauna properly took in her friend’s appearance, she noticed how much Taissa seemed to share all the same symptoms of those who had been revived before her. Her skin was as sickly pale as it had been that morning when she died. Her eyes were unfocused and unblinking. Her stance was unsteady, as though she was dizzy and about to topple over at any moment. 

The longer Taissa stood there, unresponsive to Shauna’s presence, the more the butcher’s glee to see her again sharpened into something colder. The biting dread of waiting to see what had become of Taissa’s mental state since coming back from something as traumatic as literal death. Especially with what happened to Javi still so fresh on everyone’s mind. 

“Tai?” was Shauna’s nervous prompt when the anticipation became too much to bear. “What are y—”

She was interrupted by her own gasp as a hand wrapped around her throat. The movement was faster than a strike of lightning. Too fast for her to even think to raise the heavy, blunt object in her hands to use for a means of defense. 

The butcher found she couldn’t think to do anything. Her brain was elsewhere, quarreling with itself to process that her friend, Taissa—her soccer teammate who she used to confide in when she had secrets too heavy to take to Jackie—was now the one causing her heartbeat to race in fear, uncertain of her intentions as Tai secured her hand around the butcher’s throat. 

However…Taissa didn’t apply any pressure to her grip. She simply held her hand there, as though using Shauna’s body as an anchor to help find her focus amidst unfamiliar surroundings. No different than what Shauna had done when she gripped the heavy tree branch. 

Finally, Taissa’s gaze fixed directly on Shauna’s face. The former midfielder’s chin tipped upward, surveying the other girl’s face as if just then noticing she was there at all. A slow furrow formed between her brows, seemingly confused by whatever she was seeing in Shauna’s own features. 

Sluggishly, Taissa unpeeled part of her hand from around Shauna’s throat. She tilted her palm upwards, raising it just enough to let her thumb touch the apple of the other girl’s cheek. It skimmed over Shauna’s skin in a haphazard arc, back-and-forth, back-and-forth. 

Belatedly, Shauna remembered she had three deep scratches there from when Natalie clawed her during their fight the other day. Two of the marks had already faded to a ghostly pink, but the middle one was still an irate red scab. That was the one that ran along the very center of Shauna’s cheek. The one that Taissa was tracing right now, studying it with the utmost intensity. 

Taissa’s thumb continued its ministrations along the side of Shauna’s face as the former midfielder leaned her face in close to the other girl’s. 

Shauna’s first instinct was to shy away from the close proximity, though she resisted actually moving out from under Taissa’s grip. Nervous as to how Tai would react to that. 

The butcher held her breath as Taissa’s face hovered right by her ear. The other girl uttered a deep breath. Then, tentatively, a quiet hum.

“Ahh…”

Shauna felt a knot constrict in her chest. Taissa was so close to her ear. She could hear her friend’s voice. But she couldn’t feel any warmth of her breath. 

Nothing about her friend seemed warm anymore. 

Taissa hummed again. Her voice was louder this time, more purposeful as she elongated the “ahhh” sound. She then tilted her head back, humming again and letting the sound rise into the open air by her and Shauna’s heads. 

Suddenly, Taissa stopped. 

However, the song continued to comb through the air. It came from elsewhere in the woods. It sounded more certain of itself. Nonetheless, it was the same, simple note of an elongated “ahhh” sound.

It was Jackie. 

Taissa’s entire body straightened at the sound. With an unceremonious shove, she forced Shauna aside, clearing the path back the way the butcher had come. The former midfielder stalked back that way with all the unwavering focus of a hound locked onto the scent of a rabbit. 

Shauna stumbled a bit from the shove, catching her footing at the last second. 

Despite not actually falling over, pain still smarted along the inside of her chest. The impact of being literally cast aside, disregarded without even a glance in her direction was more potent than any impact she could have made with the ground. 

It was the same feeling she’d had when Jackie first came back. The way she had wanted to be happy, to be relieved to see a close friend again. How it had withered into something more hollow, more hurtful as she was met with total apathy from said friend. Like they didn’t care about seeing her again. That they were too changed by whatever they had gone through—whatever Shauna had inadvertently put them through when she buried them in that place—to care about Shauna at all anymore. 

In a way, it was worse this time. This time, there was the added pain of how she had genuinely believed that Taissa would be different. That Taissa would be stronger, somehow, and thus not as severely affected as those before her. Or that maybe Shauna, herself, had been to the burial site enough times now to know how to…well, bury someone there. The right way, with minimal impact to their mental state in the process. 

But so far, it looked like she had only failed her friends. Again. 

This newest mental spiral was promptly cut short by a shrill scream replacing Jackie’s song in the air.  

“Something’s wrong,” Shauna whispered, voice tight with unease. “Lottie’s doing that thing again.”

Taissa looked across the campsite. Sure enough, Lottie was back to her earlier fussing. Pawing at the base of her neck, grimacing as if in pain, and breathing heavily. 

Although, what really got Taissa’s attention this time was how the other undead girls finally seemed to be concerned by it. Van had her hands on the prophet’s shoulders in a manner that, at first, looked like she was soothing her. But the longer Taissa stared, the more she realized there was tension in Van’s body, bracing her arms around the other girl.  

She was holding Lottie down. 

On the other side of Lottie, Jackie stood up. The former captain stepped around the three other undead girls, heading towards the treeline of the forest. She stopped right at the very edge, her head turning left, and then right. Searching for something further in the woods.

After a few heartbeats, Jackie tilted her head to one side. Listening for whatever it was she was looking for. 

Something acidic started eating at the inside of Taissa’s stomach. She wondered what Jackie was looking for.

A deep, heavy-hearted part of her suspected she already knew. 

There was movement at the edge of her vision. Someone stepping out from the group of living girls eating dinner around the fire pit. 

“Jackie?” Misty called fretfully. “Is everything OK?”

The former captain didn’t respond. She only continued to stand at the edge of the treeline with her back to everyone as they stared at her. Waiting with her for…something to happen.

Suddenly, Jackie tilted her head back. A long, throaty bellow poured out of her, thrumming in the open air above her like a wolf’s howl. She held the note for several seconds, maybe even minutes, clearly unencumbered by a need to stop to take a breath. 

Eventually, she did stop, tilting her head forward to continue peering into the woods before her. Submerging the world around her into stunned silence. 

Taissa looked to the girls beside her, affirming that they were just as taken aback as she was. Shauna met her gaze, mouth opening as if to ask something. 

Whatever the butcher wanted to say was cut off by Jackie bellowing into the air again, just as sudden and unexpected as it was before. This time, however, Natalie rose to her feet where she was sitting near Van and Lottie, tilted her head backwards, and added her own call to the noise. 

It wasn’t long before Van joined in, too. She stayed sitting to continue holding Lottie in place, but just like Jackie and Natalie, tilted her head back to bay at the sky overhead. The three sounds came together like a choir’s rehearsed song, though one that consisted of a single, elongated note that vaguely resembled a throaty “ahhh” sound.

Amidst the noise, Misty shifted closer to Tai and Shauna to ask, “Should we, like…join in?”

“For what?” Taissa blurted out. Because, truly, how were they to know what this behavior meant? Much less whether or not they should be a part of it?

Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Jackie suddenly stopped again. And the other two immediately followed suit. 

The former captain tipped her head to the side. Listening. 

Van and Natalie watched her with intense, unblinking stares. The former goalie even unwrapped her arms from around Lottie, dropping her hands to sit idly in her lap. 

Meanwhile, Lottie herself sagged slightly forward. She was no longer breathing heavily or reaching for her neck. Although, her face was still pinched with upset. Coupled with her slouched posture, she looked utterly defeated. Resigned to whatever she had wanted to run away from when Van started holding her down. 

Taissa was getting more anxious by the second. 

She only felt worse when Jackie turned around, visibly agitated too. 

“Le frère,” the former captain said sharply. 

Natalie moved immediately, striding across the camp. She made a beeline towards where Misty, Shauna, and Taissa were. However, she swerved past the three of them to get to the other side of Tai, where Travis was still sitting with a disconnected stare. 

“Gahhh!” He hissed in pain as she roughly grabbed at his shirt and the hair at the nape of his neck, forcing him to his feet. “Fuck, Nat!”

Taissa jumped to her feet, ignoring how black spots winked across her vision for a second. 

“Wha—what’re you doing?” she demanded. 

Natalie didn’t answer, instead proceeding to drag Travis back with her towards where Jackie was. 

Taissa tailed after them, hearing the squelch of shoes in the mud following her, as well. “Hey! Nat! Where are you taking him?”

“What’s going on?” Misty pressed, scurrying forward to keep pace with Tai.

“He’s resisting,” Natalie said stiffly. “We need a base. Something still in the brain’s muscle memory.”

“Resisting?” Taissa echoed incredulously. “No, he’s not! What are you talking about?”

It wasn’t until it was too late that she realized Natalie wasn’t referring to Travis. 

She only caught a glimpse of movement at first. The kind so quick at the corner of one’s eye that it was easy to dismiss it as a shadow or something entirely imagined. 

But when she stopped at the treeline to take a proper look, she saw it again. Some sort of figure moving through the trees. It was bipedal with a long, lean frame. A frame that looked…human. Although, the gait was haphazard, stumbling side-to-side like a drunkard. 

Taissa’s heart was suddenly in her throat. 

“Oh, my gosh!” Misty exclaimed at Tai’s side. “It did work!”

Natalie threw Travis at Jackie’s feet. He groaned tiredly upon impact with the ground, taking a moment to simply rest on his hands and knees.

Apparently, Jackie didn’t have time for that. She grabbed him by the back of his neck and shirt, the same way Natalie had done, and hauled him to his feet, holding him by his shoulders to ensure he would stay standing. 

It was then Travis finally spotted what the rest of them had. His mouth hung open. His shoulders went tense. 

Jackie released him, and she even took a couple of steps backwards to give him space. Natalie stepped back as well, in perfect unison with the former team captain. 

Taissa didn’t miss the way Jackie still looked uneasy, her dull hazel eyes flicking back and forth between Travis and the slowly approaching figure. Still waiting for something. 

“Is it…Javi?” someone asked. 

Taissa whirled around to see Shauna approaching from the other side of them. Behind her, Mari and the rest of the team were tentatively following after. 

From the very moment she woke up that morning, she was immediately bombarded with memories of the night before, draining her of what little energy she had managed to muster up during sleep. Within seconds of being awake, her mind was already spinning with thoughts of Natalie, of the collective horror the whole group had felt in watching her bleed out to death on their front porch, actively watching the life leave her body, of the indecision of what to do with Nat’s body in the aftermath. Her mind spun with thoughts of Shauna, of what to do with her since she had been the one to wound Natalie so badly, of whether or not Tai believed it had been in self-defense. Taissa was even plagued with thoughts of herself, and the worry of whether this kind of stress would prompt her to start sleepwalking again. And if she started sleepwalking again, who knew what that other side of her would do. Especially without Van staying up to watch over her anymore, to bring her back both physically and figuratively.

Well…technically, Van did keep watch over her at night. Just not for that reason anymore. 

She still didn’t entirely know the reason anymore. 

Despite everything, Taissa’s first instinct was to reach out for Van beside her. Just to touch her, as was a force of habit when Van was still alive. Her hand landed on the former goalie’s knee, since Van was sitting up beside her, presumably watching everyone else in the room like she usually did lately. 

Except…today, she wasn’t watching anyone. Her eyes were closed. If Taissa didn’t know any better, she would assume Van had nodded off to sleep while sitting up. 

But Van didn’t ever sleep anymore. None of the undead girls did.

Still…she looked so much like she was resting. Like she was finally at peace after so many days of constantly alternating between hyper-vigilance and dissociation, with no in-between. 

Taissa gently shook the leg underneath her hand to rouse Van from her…pseudo-sleep. 

“Hey,” she whispered, “are you OK?”

Van’s eyelids peeled back, one at a time. She looked down at her girlfriend with an expression that was purely blank for a moment before pinching into something more troubled. Distressed. 

“You’re upset,” the former goalie stated bluntly.

Taissa shifted to sit up beside her. “Yeah,” she replied honestly. “About Nat. What happened to her—”

“About Misty.”

Taissa faltered at the correction. What did Misty have to do with anything?

She began to ask when her eyes unconsciously drifted across the room around them. After losing Natalie, the rest of the team had clung close to each other, falling asleep in a puddle of bodies for comfort. Even Travis stuck close to the group, letting Javi take the cot against the back wall while he slept between his kid brother and the group. Only Shauna had been missing last night, having heeded Taissa’s advice to keep her distance in the attic. 

Now, though, there was a clear space missing. An empty mat sitting just a few feet away from Taissa’s own place along the outskirts of the group. 

Misty…

Misty was gone.

Taissa’s gaze snapped back to Van, sitting at her side opposite the rest of their teammates. “Where the hell did she go?”

Van didn’t meet her eye. She was staring elsewhere instead, at something on the other side of the room. 

At Jackie.

The former team captain was sitting in a plush chair right beside the fireplace. Her head was tipped back against the piece of furniture, eyes closed and hands folded neatly in her lap as if asleep like everyone else.

Taissa could feel her heart pounding with distrust. 

“Van,” she said tersely, no longer caring to keep her voice at a whisper. “Did you see where Misty went?”

Her girlfriend still refused to look at her. “…I couldn’t stop her. After last night…we were so hungry.”

Taissa’s breath stopped. The blood drained from her face.

The former midfielder sprung off the floor, bolting towards the door. It barely occurred to her that she had disturbed some of her teammates with the way her blankets flew off from her form in her haste. Nor did she think of the wave of crisp—though thankfully, not freezing—air she sent over them as she threw open the front door. 

Immediately, her eyes darted to the side of the porch where they had all left Natalie’s body. The last she’d seen of it was Lottie cradling the body in her arms, eerily still as she curled her own body around it, staring ahead at nothing. 

Now, there was only Lottie. 

The former prophet looked up at her like an abandoned pup. Still sat in the same spot as last night, now with a blood-stained blanket draped over her lap and a series of equally bloodied rags scattered around her. 

Natalie’s body was gone.

And Misty was gone.

Shit!

The longer Taissa stared at the scene around her, the more she began to make out a slight divot in the snow. A wide trench that spanned from the bottom of the cabin’s porch steps far past the treeline. The channel had unearthed a lot of mud in its creation. But in the places where snow still stubbornly clung to the earth, there was metallic red smeared against the icy white. 

Oh, fucking shit!

“Misty!” Taissa screamed towards the woods. Of their own accord, her feet carried her down the porch steps and through the trail that had been created in the melting snow-slush. She raced across the ways as fast as her famished body could manage—and then some—as her own calls of panic drowned out the sound of her teammates’ confused calls after her.

“You’re the one who said Jackie would find Crystal!” Mari was shouting. “How do we know you didn’t also tell her to do something to her?”

Misty pressed herself in-between the wall and the edge of the fireplace, fighting not to cry at the humiliation and overwhelm of Mari and the JV girls surrounding her with bitter, accusatory stares. “No…” she argued weakly. “I wanted…she was my best friend! I just wanted Jackie to find her!”

“If she was such a good friend to you, why didn’t you try to find her yourself?” Gen demanded. 

At her side, Melissa added, “You were the one who saw where she last went in the snow.”

Mari answered in Misty’s stead. “Because she’s fucking psychotic! I mean—God, she tried to kill Coach Scott when she was supposedly in love with him! She probably did something to Crystal, too, and told Jackie to hide it.”

“No!” Misty cried. “No! That’s not…why would I…?”

She struggled to find the right words, her thoughts too busy with fighting the tears that were starting to blur the edges of her vision. Busy with fighting the thick ball of grief eclipsed her windpipe, making it all the more difficult to breathe, let alone think. 

What Mari was saying…wasn’t that what she had done, in a sense? 

No…no, what happened to Kristen was an accident. She fell on her own!

All Jackie had said was that she’d ‘fix it.’ Misty didn’t entirely know how, but she’d trusted Jackie anyway.

She had just wanted someone to take care of the problem for her. 

She just wanted someone to take care of her, period. 

“I didn’t want this,” she finally managed to say, feeling her voice tremble with the beginning of a sob. “I…I loved her. I didn’t want this—I didn’t want any of this.”

“Well you have a lousy fuckin’ way of showing it!” Mari returned heatedly, taking a heavy step towards the smaller girl. 

Misty instinctively curled in on herself, bracing herself for some kind of shove or hit in the wake of the angry movement. 

However, Mari didn’t come any closer. In fact, the whole cabin’s attention was stolen by movement in their collective peripheral vision. Two figures crossing the threshold of the front door. 

Jackie. And at her heels, like a nervous stray following her home, Lottie. 

Everyone else in the room instantly fell quiet. Mari and the JV girls surrounding Misty even took a step backward each, putting space between the door and themselves. 

Jackie, in turn, paused in her tracks to stare unblinkingly at each of them. Appraising the way they were standing in a cluster around Misty, with Travis sitting with his brother on the other side of the room, rubbing Javi’s back in silent consolation, and Shauna standing near the two brothers, arms wrapped around herself as if to self-soothe amidst the blanket of anxiety in the air, also watching the others in silence. 

A moment later, Natalie joined them, squeezing through the door just behind Lottie. Her expression looked haunted, too wearied to take stock of the situation herself. She merely stood in place in the entryway just behind Jackie, leaning into Lottie’s side as if needing the other girl’s help to stand. 

It was like Nat wasn’t afraid of their zombified teammates at all. Like she also trusted their undead peers could still be of help to the rest of them, even if it was for something as simple as physical support. 

Misty admired that about the hunter. 

“You’re cross with the little one,” Jackie stated, her intense stare now fixed on Mari in particular. “Why?”

Mari swallowed nervously at the attention from her undead former captain. Her gaze pointed down at the floor, refusing to answer the question. 

Jackie stalked forward, faded hazel irises never once wavering from their fixed stare on Mari. She came to a stop in-between the other girl and Misty. 

The JV girls on either side of Mari shuffled backwards as their former captain drew nearer. Robin and Britt, and Melissa and Gen huddled together in pairs, feigning interest in starting their own unrelated conversations. Akilah stayed near Mari, compulsively stroking something inside her pocket and throwing worried glances at her friend in the corner of her eye. 

“What do you intend to do with your anger?” Jackie asked plainly. “Do you want to strike her? Kill her?”

Misty’s stomach dropped at those suggestions. A shuddery breath fell out of her, betraying just how close she was to breaking down into a fit of sobs. 

Akilah piped up, although her voice was small. “We’re just trying to understand what happened last night.”

Jackie continued to stare at Mari. “What’s there to understand? Quigley made a sacrifice. She let It take her most beloved friend. The body was useless to us, so we made use of it for you. You all were living off scraps. We made a full meal for you out of Small Bite’s sacrifice. She provided that for you.”

The former captain tilted her head with thought. She took a single step closer, crowding into Mari’s space not unlike how Mari was doing to Misty mere moments ago. 

“And you?” she questioned lowly, as though her words were a challenge. “What have you sacrificed for the good of the pack, Mariana?”

Mari flinched at the use of her full name like it was a physical blow. 

Jackie straightened her head, looking enticed by the reaction. 

All of a sudden, she lunged forward, snapping her teeth at Mari’s face.

The other girl instinctively jerked backwards, uttering a small whimper of panic. Even Akilah reacted, darting forward a step and grabbing her shoulders as though to steady her. 

Jackie leaned backwards, no longer in Mari’s personal space. Her eyes flitted up and down Mari’s form, appraising her anew. The tiniest of smiles sprouted on her face as if she was resisting the urge to laugh. 

Misty could feel the corners of her mouth twitch, sharing the same feeling as Jackie. Though it wasn’t from amusement at Mari’s expense (well, not entirely, that is). She was just that relieved that Jackie was defending her, as opposed to continuing to let the other girls throw accusations at her like she’d originally thought. 

Jackie turned away, though it was clear she was still speaking to Mari as she said dismissively, “Your time will come soon enough. Go on. And leave the small bite to be.”

With nothing else, she walked away, giving a low huff as she went. 

A few feet away, Lottie visibly twitched at the sound. She sighed shortly, throwing a conflicted look at the empty-eyed Natalie beside her before begrudgingly following after Jackie. 

Misty quickly scurried after the pair, stopping when they did just past the threshold to the adjacent kitchen area. “Jackie?” she whispered as the girl in question turned to face her. “I…I just wanted to say thank you. No one’s ever stood up for me like that.”

Jackie hummed thoughtfully, tilting her head back slightly as she stared down at Misty. It wasn’t in the same analytical sense she’d done with Mari, but rather a harmless once-over, akin to seeing a familiar acquaintance for the first time in a long while. 

“I only speak the way I do because it’s true,” the former captain stated matter-of-factly. “As I said before, I see you, petit bout. You’ve done well for this lot.” 

Misty felt a fresh set of tears welling up inside of her. However, this time, they came from a place of softness, of overwhelming relief. She was so touched. She had never felt so…well, seen before. 

“I…thank you, Jackie,” was all she could manage to say in response. 

Jackie hummed again. Her lusterless hazel eyes shifted to look up at Lottie at her side.

Lottie hesitated. Something unspoken seemed to pass between them, though it only lasted a second. 

The former prophet stepped closer to Misty. She raised one arm stiffly, pausing for a heartbeat more, as though questioning what her own body was doing. Then, she wrapped both arms around Misty’s shoulders, holding the other girl’s smaller form to her body. 

Misty, on the other hand, didn’t think twice before returning the embrace, curling her own arms snugly around Lottie’s middle. The other girl’s body was cool to the touch, lacking the natural body warmth of the others that were milling about the cabin. But still, the pressure of her embrace was nice. Grounding.

It was a little surreal. Thrilling in its strangeness. Lottie had always been…courteous to Misty. Never mean to her, but never quite this affectionate either. 

It’s like the awkward period of avoiding each other for days on end never happened.

However, Natalie does feel a small, unspoken weight sitting in the room with them anytime she and Lottie interact. Not as pressing as the weight that was there when they didn’t know their almost-hookup was mutually wanted. But still, some of the burden from that night lingers because now they know they both wanted it. And Nat doesn’t know how to broach the topic of maybe trying it again. She certainly liked kissing Lottie the other night (soberly that time). She can’t imagine what it would feel like to go further.

Her only hindrance is finding the right time for it. Lottie tries to hide it, but Nat can tell that she’s still a bit rattled from whatever spooked her that other night. She sees it in the way Lottie is so fitful when they first go to bed at night, and is spaced out for a while the subsequent morning. She feels guilty at the thought of further muddying the waters of whatever’s going through Lottie’s head, and she feels even guiltier when she considers how her own off-behavior around Lottie earlier in the week is what probably triggered the other woman’s paranoia that something was off in general.

Things finally come to a head on Saturday, a full week since this whole debacle started. They’ve just finished dinner, though Lottie is still picking at the veggies on the side of her plate. They’re perched together on the couch to watch the latest episode of Saturday Night Live, though they’re talking over the episode more than actually watching, debating whether or not Christina Ricci actually hit Ana Gasteyer in the face during one of the skits or if it was just part of the bit to make it look so real. The debate is settled by the next break to commercial, and Lottie shifting her attention to Leonard, who sits at her feet with a rather pointed stare at the scraps of food still on her plate.

Nat finds it endearing, the way Lottie asks the big mutt what he wants, as if he can give an answer other than shifting closer with an impatient huff. All three of them know what he wants, and that Lottie will ultimately give it to him. She’s just prolonging the inevitable.

It’s then that Natalie realizes that Lottie’s been doing that a lot the past few days. Stalling for time. Especially at this hour of the evening, when they’re about to go to bed, and she struggles to relax enough to actually fall asleep.

Natalie wonders, for the umpteenth time, if there’s anything she can do to assuage her friend’s duress. She has a work shift tomorrow, so she won’t be around while Lottie is home from her classes for the weekend. Will time by herself be better or worse for whatever’s going on in her head lately? Nat wishes she knew. Alas, she doesn’t even know how to help herself sometimes.

Shit, maybe she should take Lottie up on her offer to introduce Nat to her therapist.

“You wandering off on us?”

Natalie blinks back into the present, unused to hearing that question directed at her. Usually, it’s something she says to Lottie when she first starts spacing out at random.

Ironically, she sounds just like Lottie does as she immediately brushes off the other woman’s concern. “No. No, just…thinking about all the stuff I have to do tomorrow.”

Lottie hums thoughtfully. The way she stares at Nat for the next few heartbeats indicates she knows her roommate isn’t giving the full story behind something.

It’s eerie how well she can read others.

“You worried about me?”

“Always,” is Nat’s answer. And though she means it, she tries to sound entirely nonchalant as she says it. Just to make the matter feel less heavy on the both of them. “I just know you’re only one failed recipe away from burning down the house at all times.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Lottie says without heat. Her intense gaze turns back towards Leonard, pretending to be more concerned with soothing him with loving strokes over his blocky brown head. Natalie doesn’t know if the loss of eye contact is meant to be for her comfort or for Lottie’s own. “I’m OK, Nat, really. I’m not made of glass, you know.”

Nat knows this. She’s seen firsthand just how vicious the other woman can be when the need for survival arises (though numerous days of drinking about it have blurred out some of the specific details). But what she wants Lottie to know is that they’re not in survival mode anymore. They can trust the world around them now.

Lottie finally gives into their dog’s pleading eyes, tossing him a slice of carrot. “We can keep each other entertained while she’s gone, right, bud?” she says to him.

Leonard, of course, can’t answer her. He just looks up at her, eagerly awaiting the next few cuts of carrot she gives him.

Normally, Natalie would gripe about it. Would claim Lottie does it just to ensure she’s the favorite parent. It’s never a genuine complaint, just something she says to egg on her friend, to amuse both of them with playful bickering.

Now, though, she can’t even pretend to be anything other than entranced. It’s the most she’s seen Lottie acting like herself all week, grounded and talkative and unencumbered by anxiety about the late hour. It sends a feeling of relief through Nat’s veins, like finally coming home and getting off her feet from a long day out.

It occurs to her how that’s the second time in recent memory she’s likened Lottie to a feeling of home. She wonders if it means something. If it means…

“I love you.”

Lottie is wholly unfazed by the statement.

“I love you, too,” she replies easily, still paying more attention to Leonard as she sets her now emptied plate on the coffee table, urging him away before he can lather the entire surface with his tongue.

Natalie doesn’t blame her for not thinking twice about those words. After all, they’ve had this exchange several times since moving in together.

However, in all that time, Natalie had never meant it as deeply as she does now. She’d always meant it as a close friend, as someone grateful to have a friend like Lottie around in any capacity. But now…

“No…” she corrects, feeling small all of a sudden. “I mean, like…I love you.”

Lottie finally looks at her. Her composure still doesn’t waver as she smiles fondly at Nat. “I know what you meant. It’s what I meant, too.”

Natalie’s brain short-circuits. She’s pretty sure she’s forgotten how to breathe for a second.

But Lottie is still looking at her. Her eyes are bright by the light of the living room floor lamp, honeyed by the warm yellowish tone. So warm, and genuine.

She really did mean it, too.

Natalie hugs her knees to her chest, as if to physically hold herself together before she melts into a blushing puddle. “OK,” she says timidly, turning her own eyes down to the floor.

At a loss for whatever else to say, she simply adds, “Cool.”

They both laugh good-naturedly at her expense. She really does suck at words. However, she can laugh about it right now, because Lottie knows what she means regardless. It’s OK to laugh because nevertheless, they’re on the same page about the kind of love they have for each other. Just like they’re now on the same page about the hookup they nearly had a week ago.

And damn, if Nat doesn’t still want that now.

“So, um…” she starts to say. “I’d like to kiss you again.”

Lottie’s response is instant. “Cool.”

Her voice is lower as she says it. Sounds more akin to Natalie’s.

She’s fucking mocking her.

Natalie rolls her eyes. Though it’s still in good-humor as she laughs again.

“You fuckin’ bitch,” the former hunter grumbles, exaggerating her offense just to make Lottie giggle with her.