❝ 𝐍𝐎 𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐘 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 ❞

the man below him has spattered blood, and teeth in the dirt, and he was still laughing. he was still sputtering out taunts, wild eyes hateful, unnatural among all the red, ( ' you know your little friend? she cried when i killed her. she begged me to put her out of her misery. ' ) leland doesn't know if he's done anything else but tell him to shut up, just shut the fuck up, knee jammed harder into slaughter's ribcage to punctuate it. above them, the sunflowers are swaying, whispering, and he hopes his friends are far, far away.

it's something distant, at first. a voice calling his name in spite of clapped, tinnitus-pierced hearing. ' leland, leland! that's enough ' suddenly julie is right there; ❝ told you to run — ❞ he says, low and far-away, and not for one second taking his eyes off the man choking out insults below him. her hand is on his shoulder, and he feels like he swallows ice water at once, forced to be present in this moment. her arms around his middle, white-knuckle grip around his arm, trying to pull him back, trying to pull him off the monster that had just terrorized his friends.

❝ he deserves to die — ❞ he snarls between his teeth, fist reeling back again — and this time she catches his wrist, before he can swing again. and this time he stills. could break out of julie's grip easily, if he wanted to. and he can't feel it, how bad he's hurt himself throwing punch after punch at this jackal-smile son-of-a-bitch, the singular object of his wrath. he hadn't noticed how much red soaked the dirt.

but sometimes they lose, and she sees them crumple against the unstoppable force that is nature, that is the sea, as it smacks into them and sends them flying from their flimsy boards.

right now leland rides the edge of flying and failure. she sees his brown eyes and they're on fire, unblinking as he bares his teeth and pounds his fist over and over into the man below him. it's victory, surely: except she still hears noise in the wind behind them, the buzz of the saw, the sharp barks of the unstoppable force that hunts them. if they linger, they'll die. he can't fight them all. and the one weapon she'd had in her hands is gone.

"leland!" her voice is loud, amplified in her buzzing ears as she wraps her arms around his middle, trying to pull him away — he's stronger than her, she knows that, knows he could shrug her off and keep going and he'd be lost to all of them. but there's a moment of clarity and julie takes it and runs with it.

"he does. he should die." her eyes are wild with with conviction of her words, from a girl who had never hated anyone before she had come to this house. she would help him if she could, pull back her leg and kick slaughter's teeth in for maria, for all of them, for the people they'll be now even if they manage to survive the day. but those people, at least the two of them, won't exist if they stay any longer.

"but we gotta go. connie's trying to find us a way out. the others are with her. we're the last ones." her grip around him tightens, and she feels the muscles in her back ache as she tries to pull him towards her, away from death and blood laughing on the ground, because she knows he'll take them both right down with him.

"i'm not leaving you. so either you come with me now or we take our chances here. please, lee. i can't lose you, too." and she feels hot tears on her cheeks: for him, for maria, for what she knows will be a run for their lives: and she's tired, and part of her wants to just remain and surrender, because the fear is so crushing it chokes her like the hands wrapped around her throat. but if she gives up she gives up for both of them. leland's in no shape to drag himself to the gate. so she takes a shaky breath. she takes his wrist in her hand, watches blood drip from black and blue knuckles, and squeezes it.

" what do we want? girl, i ain't part o' this family's nonsense. you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time i guess. or at least that's what i've heard my brother say to some lady before. "

Her mouth can’t seem to form words despite a plea for mercy hanging on her tongue. It wasn’t her blood, she wants to say. She’s not the one Julie should be worried about. But how could Maren possibly admit to what she’s done? Instead, she shakes her head silently as she wills her heart to slow its pace.

"I'm okay, I think."

"do you want to tell me what happened, then?" she asks, softly, as if she's speaking to a frightened, injured animal. maren's face is not unlike one; she's afraid, be it of the gore, or what led up to it.

he's right; julie feels it in her ears, her frightened bird's heart pounding blood and narrowing her vision. it had started gradually, her slow athlete's pulse quickening with each successive moment spent in his company, an unconscious response that she had only grown aware of in the past few moments.

she'd had an instinctive trust in the boy who'd introduced himself as johnny. he was young like her, good-looking and seemingly friendly. after all, who wouldn't be curious about a gaggle of college kids showing up in the middle of nowhere, stomping around in the lonely texas dust?

but there was something off about him. there was something unsettling in his dark eyes, in his sharp smile that reminded her of the sleek shapes she'd occasionally seen in the waters of her old surfing grounds.

julie had thought herself unafraid of sharks.

how sweet is the idea of a HEART beating so, so fast, an intimacy alone with hearing ... NO, FEELING & SENSING ... the organ thrum in hollows of chest. the imagery of blood, of fresh organ, that drips from his very hand, coating it, becomes one of a FANTASY. his head tilts, his eyes looking her over -- following the sense of heartbeat, of FEAR. like a predator with its prey, he watched & observed, all too closely.

innocent is the wolf's smile as it appears -- AWARD WINNING WITH ITS BRUTAL HISTORY & FAUX TENDERNESS -- his shoulders seemingly relaxed & his tongue presses to his cheek briefly, rubbing along the smooth of skin inside his mouth. eyes that widen, only by a little, playing a boyish look that speaks of innocence -- WHY ARE YOU SO CLOSE? WHY ARE YOU TRAPPING ME HERE? WHY ARE YOU CIRCLING ME?

a small click of his tongue as his mouth opens, leaning a bit more comfortably with his weight growing more evenly distributed on both feet. he takes a step back, wavering, watchful eye that keeps its ground. he doesn't blink. he seems unmoving.

❛ why, y' could have just told me, ❜ johnny's voice matches hers -- sweet that it could make him & anyone sick, the type of voice he'd use & manage to get a lovely lady to melt like butter. those ones, the ones that melted by voice alone, were so easy. they were easy to lure back home, to show to ma, to HAVE FOR DINNER. always like a shark. always like a wolf. & MY, THIS WOLF HAS A SHEEPSKIN FITTED JUST RIGHT !

the other instinct is older. it's something deep inside her bones, ancient and fearful, but wise enough to tell her to think twice about this one, charming as he might be.

and yet. . . .

his voice is so sweet, and more importantly, he's a link to this place, and there's a slim chance he might know something — and doesn't she have to take it, having come so far?

"no need to be sorry, babe. i'm sure i'm not the first girl to get nervous around you. i'm julie." she watches his eyes as if she's looking for something in them — but they give her nothing, dark and unblinking as they are.

"i'm looking for my friend, maria. have you seen her? she's a sweetheart, loves to take pictures. maybe she came by here — it definitely would have caught her eye."

she looks around, and she sighs, suddenly heavy.

"she has an eye for beauty. and the flowers here. . . i've never seen so many."

she steps close again, closes the gap between them to show him a picture of the missing poster that still makes her stomach ache to look at. she misses maria. she hates seeing her smiling face on a piece of paper that's so grim.

with staggering steps, the pair all but tumble and collapse together into the sea of golden flowers, a snarl in connie's throat when she's finally able to rest in the among the cool dirt. julie is fretting, and crying―reasonably so, but it takes her a certain sort of patience not to snap at her in that moment, when regret and agonizing pain feels like bile in her throat.

’ i'm okay. i'm okay. ’ she lies through seething teeth; her vision swims, and the pain is white hot, burning. it’s a pain with which she’s familiar, the same jagged edge of a knife cut cruelly into the soft skin of her stomach all those years ago―but rather than the cool, crumbling grey of the slaughter house walls around her, she is presented with a kinder sight, watching the gentle sway of the sunflowers in the evening breeze. she can't help but think to herself, wryly in her delirium, that at least they’ve maintained the garden throughout the years.

she vaguely remembers the older woman―nancy, she believes―and how she described the human body as wonderful for the flowers.

her hand presses to her side, a poor attempt to stop the bleeding, and feels it sticky and warm between her fingers―thinks of the way her blood would nourish these same plants, too. ’ shit, shit― ’ she snaps, a growl low in her throat when she tries to sit up straighter. she peels her hand back from the wound, her palm dressed in blood red as her wildfire hair, and she tries to swallow down the panic that has risen in her throat, between her shallow, sparrow-heart breathing.

’ i ― i need you to go, okay, julie? ’ she pleads, grabbing for the other woman's arm with shaking fingers. in a clearer mind, she might have apologized for getting her blood on her. ’ please, find leland. find th ― the others. we need to leave. ’

she never wanted this.

the same tears streak down her face — they sting less, without the run of black makeup to accompany them. it's so viciously, laughably, the same: as if they'd had any right to expect something different, returning to the wolves' den they'd only narrowly escaped back then.

but something is different in the sameness. perhaps she's a little wiser now, able to think a little clearer in her panic from twenty extra years of living as she sees red spill out of connie onto the dirt of the sunflower field. this time they'd come here willingly, armed with sharp claws and teeth of their own. the hunter who follows the wolf into his den may still be a fool, but at least she is a willing fool and not merely a lamb come to slaughter. it helps her, knowing she's here on her own terms, when she needs to rally her courage.

"i'm not leaving you, con," she says, and grits her teeth and wipes the tears from her cheeks. "not with him running around. he finds you, you're dead. and i'm not losing you today."

she takes her own hands and presses them hard over the wound, wincing at the cry of pain.

"i'm sorry. i know it hurts. just hold on, the others'll be back soon."

there's a slick, desperate sweat on her brow as she looks behind her, waiting to see that telltale rustle of the sunflower stalks. but no predator springs from the flowers. presumably, he's busy with someone else.