Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The chilly September air nipped at my cheeks as I stepped on the soggy leaves and mud that squelched under the weight pushed down upon it, wheezing out a pathetic dribble of water. The rhythmic gurgle played in tune with each stride we took. Not even the one with asthma, my breaths were lodged in the back of my throat with every passing moment we kept moving forward. 

"Are you sure that it's around here?" Violet inquired, her question meaning well but in the tension of the moment it made me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon. 

"Yes." The questions ceased after that. 

The three of us shuffled around in the same patch of the forest, pushing aside bushes, illuminating our flashlights on crevices, and looking intensely at the ground hoping something would spawn out of it. 

Taking another step forward, I heard the faintest crackle, and snap. I lifted my foot to see what I had stepped on. Medically impossible, but my heart managed to both drop and speed up at the sight of a pair of crushed glasses. 

I ran through the unfamiliar woods, straying far from the path but wistfully praying to make it out. I saw little to nothing around me as I weaved around trees and fissures in the ground. But I heard, I heard steps encroaching on my heels as I went further and deeper. 

"Are those them?" Alice put a reassuring hand on my shoulder and squeezed it lightly. I managed a nod back and she delicately took the glasses into her hands wary of the broken glass putting them in her pocket. 

Violet came over and shot me a look of commiseration. We all stood around for a minute in a warm hug of silence and dreariness. Even in our solitude, there was an unshakeable feeling of being under watchful eyes, may they be judgeful ones from above or my own vindictive ones, I don't yet know. 

Alice and Violet silently agreed to take the reigns away from me now that we had gathered what we came here for. They stepped forward shining the way back to the path we wandered away from. The walk back to our cars would be long, and even worse than the way we came, with the added factor of it being much darker. There was no way to come back earlier with all our different jobs and duties, so we agreed on the evening and brought flashlights.

"How are your classes going Nance?" Alice tried to make the best of what we had going on and I appreciated her efforts. She always looked on the bright side of things which was a nice contrast to Violet and I, who at times would drone on and complain about anything.

"Pretty good, I enjoy the challenge some of them give, especially composing." I blabbered on hoping to fill some of the empty silence with my words.

Violet let out a chuckle, "You have yet to show me what you've been cooking up."

"I will, I will. I promise Vi." 

We fell into another silence, this one considerably more comforting. A companion to my thoughts were the little creaks and groans of the forest. I'm never letting go of these girls. We have been through too much in this life to just depart one day and leave it all up to our memories to keep our stories alive. 

We continued walking, the path never ending and never coming nearer to our destination. After about 10 or so minutes, the two up ahead halted promptly, and if it wasn't for staying vigilant we would've run into one another. Violet put a finger to her lips as she and Alice looked around. I joined them although I wasn't really sure what they were looking for. 

"I thought I heard footsteps," Alice whispered and Violet nodded along. 

My eyes darted around even faster, heartbeat quickening for the umpteenth time today. "Are you sure they weren't mine?" I whispered back, and they nodded back.

We were in a forest after all, so there was a high chance that it was its own inhabitants. However, I sincerely doubted it was a family of fluffy bunnies wishing us safe travels back home.

We stayed still for a bit before I heard it this time. There was no gust of wind, not even a breath of air moving, but the bushes surrounding us were rustling, and it was not bunnies that stepped out.

Chapter Text

Luckily for Violet who is allergic, it was not a family of bunnies. Unluckily for us, a group of masked men appeared on every side, closing us in. Each one choosing to face off against one of us.

The man in front of me concealed his face with a pale white porcelain mask with dark, feminine, pursed lips. He wore a filthy beige jacket sullied with some unknown fluids. I wasn't not able to see his eyes but I knew they were boring holes into mine.

Captivated by the barrenness of his eyes I failed to see much else and barely registered I was being swung at with a crowbar. Just narrowly missing having my skull bashed in, I ducked down, and launched myself toward his legs hoping to, in any way, catch him off guard. My attack was moderately successful as I was not hit with the crowbar, but I didn’t even move him an inch. 

Scrambling to immobilize the man in any way possible, I hastily tried my best to jump on the back of the towering man. That proved to be harder in reality than it did in concept, as the guy would twist and turn, attempting to shove me off. I desperately wrapped my legs around his torso as the crowbar swung at me once more. However, this time he had less visibility of me, and was sloppier. I managed to grab the empty end of the crowbar as it soared through the air, just barely being able to hold onto it as it made rough impact with my palm. Quickly grabbing the other end he held, I pulled both sides back towards myself, and his neck. 

With this brief tug-of-war we were playing, I had a moment to glance around at what the others were dealing with. 

Violet stood face to face with a looming figure of a man even taller than the one I was facing off with. This man wore a pale yellow hoodie, black face mask, and a pair of blue jeans.

He pulled out his firearm, a plain black pistol, faster than I could blink. But Violet is a fast girl, so she took off running. In a fight or flight situation, she isn’t just a runner, but a fast runner at that. She ran swiftly, zig-zagging from left to right in an attempt to avoid any bullets heading her way. 

 He stayed still, unphased by the rapid movements, he lifted his gun and fired it off without a shred of hesitance and compassion.

The bullet reached Violet and struck her in the leg. She fell to the ground without much resistance as one would getting shot, but as the figure stalked towards her, she tried to stand on her good leg. Stumbling, and taking stops to take deep breaths, the man reached her in no time at all. He pushed her down with ease and drew the gun once more, pointed it down, but she anticipated her imminent face-off with the barrel. She grabbed it with her own hands and pulled with all her remaining strength. The gun flew from the hooded man's hand, and once in Violet's, she hurled it toward the dark, unseen abyss of the forest. 

The man, in an aggravated fit, chose to use his body at his disposal as he vengefully lifted his boot, and stepped on her bullet wound that already had enough time to drench her leg. She let out a sorrowful moan as she rested her head on the ground. In an egotistical reassurance of her gone consciousness, he kicked her head, and she made no sound.

A shrill and goosebumps-inducing laugh pierced through the air. "I c-can't believe you missed Hoodie!" The last man cackled as Alice registered in her mind to get out of here as soon as possible. 

She too took off sprinting, but not to gain distance between her and the man, but instead towards a large tree that cast its deep shadow from above. She started climbing, grabbing the next closest branch, and pulling herself up.

This man pursued Alice at a comfortable pace, uncanny to the hooded one. He had on a darker hoodie, rusted orange goggles that covered his eyes, and a mouth guard. He tilted his head up and to the side in a childish, mocking, manner, reached behind him and unsheathed one of his hatchets. 

"Aww the little c-cat is stuck in a tree, let me h-help you out." he taunted as he stood underneath where Alice climbed higher and higher, pulled his arm back, and let go, flinging the hatchet at her. When it hit her, she let out a scream of pain but did not come down.

His head twitched in the other direction as he took his time pulling out the other hatchet and launching it with just as much precision and force as the first time. It struck her again, and she tumbled down through the branches. Marveling at her descent, the man failed to move out of the way, and she crashed down onto him.

"G-get off me!" he squealed. 

The man he referred to as 'Hoodie' came over to deal with his partner and the situation. All while the man I draped with my body and dared to choke out with his crowbar, flung me every which way he could think of.

After struggling to make any progress, the masked man stopped tossing and turning, and simply fell backward, with me meeting the ground first. As we reached the ground, the back of his head collided with mine. I heard and felt my nose crack as blood started to spew out. My glasses, which were of great importance, no longer served me any purpose as they lay beside me, shattered like the ones we found earlier today.

Who are these men? 

 With the wind knocked out of my lungs, the man turned around and pinned me to the dusty ground. His knees in the empty spaces between my legs, and his rugged hands forced my shoulders down. And the crowbar lay discarded, out of either of our reach. He leaned over me, heaving laboriously, and in his brief moment of serenity, I jerked my head forward, smashing it into his.

He clutched his forehead in agony and grunted as I tackled him much the same as he did a moment prior. My moment of dominance was short-lived as the crowbar that lay beside me was no longer, and instead shattered my skull from behind. 

Chapter Text

The ringing in my ears gradually transformed into recognizable voices. Overwhelming pain in my head demanded my full attention, and so I gingerly opened my eyes. Sunlight brighter than I had ever seen beamed directly into my eyes.

As I hissed and shut my eyes once more, the voices stopped. 

"Hey Nance, are you okay?" Alice asked hastily, the distress in her tone was clear. 

"No, she's got a concussion. Hey, you need to keep your eyes open Nance." Violet urged.

I mumbled something incoherent and crept them open once more. Blurry shapes and outlines cloaked my vision. My glasses were gone, which I tremendously needed. Without them, I was considered legally blind and could not make my way around anywhere. 

In the direction of where I assume I heard Alice and Violet, I saw 2, no maybe 4 vague forms. 

"Whapennn?" I questioned. 

The girls stayed quiet for a moment before Violet spoke up again "Might not be best to talk right now, pretty sure we all have a concussion. We're fine, but Alice got clipped in the shoulder and I think her ribs are broken, and I was shot in the thigh. Also, I think one of those fuckers kicked me in the head." 

"Okay, well my asshole threw axes at me!"

"H-hey this asshole would have h-hit you dead on if it wasn't for the b-branches." More figures appeared, too many for me to count but by the voice, I recognized it as the man with the goggles. 

"Yeah well you missed, maybe get better eyes, dick head."

The man approached me in a few quick strides and pressed his foot up to my chest, pushing me up against the wall. "What? Like this one over here?"

"Mmgsses" I croaked out. 

"Those are long gone, sweetheart." A booming voice barked out a laugh that transformed into a cough.

I felt someone shift slightly beside me, and I quickly realized it was Violet as she tenderly placed her own glasses on my face. They were a step up from having none at all, and now I could at least count the number of people in the room, but I had to squint to see who was who.

"Yea cause your fat ass broke them!" She defended. 

"What did you-"

"How did you untie yourself?" The last to speak was the hooded man. 

She let out a snicker "It was literally a bow, a child could have gotten out of them."

He snapped his head sharply to the one with goggles. 

"I n-never tied knots b-before, they're usually d-dead when I'm done." He shrugged and jerked his head to the side. "They also c-can't really go anywhere in their s-states."

"Speaking of dying and whatnot, why aren't we dead yet?" Alice questioned. 

"Toby, how do you not know how to tie a fucking knot? It's a knot!" The masked man asked exasperated. 

Toby just huffed and walked away. 

In the midst of their discourse, my head began to throb an unbearable amount. "Mmhedd" I squealed out and clutched it. 

Alice on the other side of me carefully rubbed my arm as I cried out. The men stayed still as if they were too scared to even take a breath. My palms were dripping with sweat and I began to cough violently. I caught a cold a couple of days ago and it left me with a nasty cough here and there. Each time I coughed for an extended period of time, I would get hit with a wave of nausea, and with that feeling, more often than not, I ended up puking. The pain, coupled with excessive coughing, brought on the nausea quicker. And with no time to spare, I lunged forward, hurling anything left in my bowels from at least a day ago. 

Alice held my hair back and consoled me with sweet nothings. I leaned back, taking deep breaths, and shutting my eyes for the nausea had partially subsided; however, the pain had yet to. 

I desperately needed to rest my eyes as I craved the sweet release that slumber would bring my brain. But Violet refused to let me rest, "Keep your eyes open!" 

"Shhap." I retorted back and closed my eyes. 

"Enough." The masked man stepped closer, picked me up, and tossed me onto his shoulder, causing me to land with a painful grunt.

"Hey fat ass, where are you taking her!" Violet stood up, ready to take me back; however, Hoodie stood between us. 

"Sit down." He commanded, then turned towards the door. "Toby come back and do your fucking job."

 I heard slow, annoyed footsteps approaching the room as Hoodie, the masked man and I exited.

Fighting my consciousness for Violet and Alice, I heard the men whisper to each other, "Keep her awake, He’s going to come again soon."

Chapter Text

The masked man carried me to a different room as I went in and out of consciousness. Hoodie walked in step beside us before stopping abruptly. 

"Toby, are you in the room?" He checked.

"I'm g-going! Can you g-get off my f-fucking dick Hoodie?" Toby yelled back.

I heard shuffling and scattering in the general direction we came from, accompanied by a quiet "Get up" and more stumbling around.

Hoodie bolted out of the room as he snapped "Masky don't let this one out of your sight." 

Alas, we finally have a name for the elusive masked man.

He tossed me onto a bed, "Sit up." 

I used the remaining strength left in my shaking arms to push myself up. Masky towered over me, standing beside the bed holding an ice pack in his hands.

"Use this for your nose and don't fall asleep." Wordlessly, I snatched the ice pack and put it up to my swollen nose, the emanating cold from the ice providing a momentary sense of relief.

Yelling could be heard coming from the other room.

"Stay here. If you move, I'll kill you." Yeah right I'm staying here, I needed to get out of here. A few short moments after Masky left the room, I got up from the messy bed, leaving the semi-melted ice pack behind. 

Looking around the room, I saw the most guy-like setup. A plain twin bed with sheets strewn about, aged wooden dresser, clothes all over the floor, and sticking out of said dresser. There were two doors, one leading the way he exited out of and the other to a bathroom, and lastly, a single window. 

Softly, I walked towards the window, and noticed it had a latch but no screen. I was running out of time so I hastily unlocked and lifted the window. It let out a loud wail as it was pushed up, and my heart dropped as Masky stormed back into the room. 

"I told you to stay put you braindead bitch!" He roared as he slammed me up against the wall, hand on my neck, depleting my oxygen quicker than I could use.

In an attempt to get him off, I lifted my knee, and just as I was about to knee him in the balls, he clamped his legs between my lifted leg. He did ease his grip on my neck slightly as I was able to take in a gasp of air. 

I began to cough as he let go of my neck completely. For the second time, the nausea came back. There was no food left over for me to emit, but stomach acid came out and splattered all over Masky's shirt.

"Fuck this." He stepped away and I crumbled to the hardwood floor, gasping and coughing simultaneously.

I heard him head to the bathroom to go change into a different shirt. He was grumbling and mumbling something but I was too far away to understand other than when he spoke to me.

"You're fucking nasty." 

"Mmmuckyu". But he did not respond, he just kept shuffling around the bathroom, and I was too scared to attempt escape again.

"Nancy." Someone whispered my name. I looked back into the bathroom, and Masky was still preoccupied. Too absorbed with getting himself "clean" again.

More quietly than I could possibly imagine myself doing, I stood up and looked out the window. My girls were scanning their surroundings as they anxiously waited for me to appear in their line of sight. When I did, they silently motioned for me to come to them. I hurriedly looked around and without a moment's notice, I leaped out the window, landing on the thin layer of leaves draping the forest floor. 

I immediately rose and ran towards them. My feet were sore, but the pain was nothing compared to what was happening in my head. Violet's wounded leg was wrapped tightly with the jacket she wore yesterday to stop the bleeding. It seemed that even getting shot in the leg wouldn’t stop the girl from escaping. Alice had deep gashes in her torso but they bled far less. On the other hand, she likely had pretty bad internal bleeding that needed medical attention, just like all of us. But we can't go to the hospital, there would be too many questions, and not enough of them would be answered. An investigation into this forest cannot happen.

We said nothing to each other as we sprinted. I don't think we even knew which way led to our cars, just that we needed to keep moving. To make it out of here. We kept going, ever so periodically stopping to catch our breaths, and then right back to running.

Violet ran ahead of Alice and me, needing to take fewer breaks than us even though she was the one shot and had asthma. But I suppose adrenaline does something to the girl. And of course, Alice would trip over a rock now and then.

By some miraculous grace of God, the men either couldn't find us again or just did not care enough to go looking. I didn’t know which was worse, but I wasn't going to stick around and find out. 

Daylight was dwindling with each passing moment and none of us wanted to be here in the dark again. We crossed a familiar bridge and knew that we were almost there. There was a steep hill that we had to get up before we could leave the forest and get into our cars and hightail out of here. 

Heaving from dehydration and exhaustion, we pushed forward. Nearly up the steep, sloping hill, I heard a noise.

I froze, the worst thing I could do. I don't have a weapon, I'm so worn out, I can't fight, I just want to lay down and sleep, I don't want to be covered in bile and blood, I want to be safe. This is all because I couldn't keep myself safe. And now I have dragged the only people in my life who care for me into this mess

Alice has a career, and a future, a bright and cheerful woman who deserves to get married and have a family. To raise children and be taken care of by a loving husband. 

Violet is a hardworking woman with bold ideas for her destiny. She deserves to move to Colorado and adopt dogs. To name them Beethoven and Cujo.

And I want to be with them for all of it. I want to go stargazing with them. I want to help raise Alice's children. I want to listen to Violet ramble about all the different historical events she's interested in at the moment. I want to have sleepovers, gossip with them, and share details about crushes. I want to travel the world with them. I want to play them my music. I want to read Violet's works and gaze at Alice's art.

I want to be at home with them.

"Keep moving!" Violet hissed, and I snapped back to reality. There was no one on the path other than us. 

We made it up the mountainous, rocky hillside, and let all let out a sigh of relief. 

Our cars were in view, we ran towards a rock at which Alice and I hid our keys. Violet doesn't drive so she got in the passenger seat of my car.

"Are you sure you're okay enough to drive?" She asked, worried about my state. 

"Yeah, your glasses make it easier, and I just want to get the fuck out of here. You might need to help look out for deer though, it's pretty dark." I was finally able to speak clearly, and my headache eased up significantly.

She nodded as I put the car into drive. Alice was in her car and already speeding away. I followed in pursuit, using the sparse residential development street lights as a guide. I looked into my left rear-view mirror and saw a masked man standing under a streetlight.

Chapter Text

I groaned and rubbed my temples as the alarm clock blared. It's been a few weeks, and my head has not stopped aching. In addition, with fall coming closer, the weather getting colder, and the air becoming dryer, I have started getting nosebleeds again. I used to get them all the time when I was a kid, and they started acting up again around a month or so ago. Might be from that broken nose I received from my adventure in the forest, but who really knows?

"Turn that off!" Violet grumbled from the next room over. I slammed the 'OFF' button and got up to get ready for class. My new glasses came in a few days ago and I could not be more excited to be able to see the notes and time signatures on the sheet music clearly. 

Alice was already awake and getting ready for work. She was a freelance artist, painting and creating art commissions. She's been getting a substantial amount of recognition lately as she has been having a pretty rich man requesting her to make art every few days for him. 

Violet doesn't go to work till later in the day, usually staying up for the majority of the night and then sleeping till noon. We actually both work at an after-school daycare for kids. 

I was excited to commute to campus today as I get to present and perform my original composition for my Music Comp. 100 class. I've practiced so often that I could play nearly the entire piece from memory. I play the saxophone, so I wanted to stray away from the comfortable and conventional jazz route and go for a more complicated ballad.

Alice set down a cup of iced matcha latte on the table for me as she sat down to eat a freshly baked croissant and sip her tea from the bakery across the street. Her ribs healed relatively well and she could move around with little pain. Violet was taking longer to recover but her leg was nearly back to its original state. 

I put my backpack on and grabbed my saxophone case in one hand, and the matcha latte in the other. 

"A little help please?" She laughed at me struggling to open the door and got up to help.

We said our goodbyes as I headed to my car. 

~

The sun shined down on me as I walked across the courtyard to get to the music building. It wasn't necessarily warm out but the sun made it nicer. Daydreaming about how my performance would go, I accidentally bumped into someone. 

"Oh, I'm so sorry." I quickly apologized to the man and he nodded silently back. He was pretty tall, with light brown hair, and glasses. 

When our eyes met, I felt as though I had seen the man somewhere before. His stature and outward appearance reminded me of Micah.

"Where are you heading to so quickly?" He questioned with a teasing smile.

"Oh haha, just class."

"Where is it at?" He probed. For just meeting, this guy was pretty nosy.

"MA 201," I told him. Maybe I was just being judgemental. The guy could just be trying to make friends like the rest of us.

"I'm headed in the same direction! Do you mind if I tag along for a bit?" He chuckled. I didn't really need company on the way, but was I just supposed to say no? He seemed like a decent guy, a little awkward, but aren't we all?

"Sure."

The guy, whose name I learned on our brief walk was Scott, is an engineering major, and dormed on campus. He was on his way to see his friends after class, and a couple of them were waiting for him in the music building. 

Once we reached MA 201, we waved goodbye to each other and I headed inside the massive lecture hall.

I made sure to get to class early because I like to sit in the same seat every time. I once made the mistake of showing up to class only 5 minutes early and some random guy took my seat, and I had to scramble to find another. Completely messed with my mind, and I was uncomfortable for the remainder of the class.

This time it's about 20 minutes before class starts but there's already someone in the room. I know some of my classmates, mostly the people who sit around me, but I don't know this guy, and he was seated behind me.

He had sideburns and wore a plain black shirt, a black leather jacket over it, and blue jeans. He was leaning back in the seat with his boots propped up on the table in front of him. I plopped down in my seat and did not acknowledge the man. To pass the time, I went on my phone, but the man had other plans.

"What do you play?" This man was as eerily chatty as Scott. 

"The saxophone."

"Interesting, alto, bari, or tenor?" 

"Alto." The man nodded his head in approval but said nothing else.

"What do you play?"

He hesitated before he spoke, "Guitar."

That was the end of our conversation as more students began filling the room. Not long after, the professor entered the room and the presentations began. One by one my classmates performed their original compositions and after waiting for over an hour, it was finally my turn.

Hearing so many impressive and intricate pieces my classmates made; I was beginning to feel self-conscious about my work.

I made my way down the steps, sat down in the creaky plastic chair, and placed my sheet music up on the music stand. I took a deep breath and began to cough. Of all times to start my coughing fits, it of course had to be now. 

After a few grueling minutes, I was able to catch my breath. Thoroughly embarrassed, I cleared my throat and tried to calm myself down. 

With a deep breath, I began to play. I was a little shaky at first because the coughing heave weakened my lung strength, but as I kept going, the ballad presented itself in a complicated knot. It felt like that moment when you are facing someone you are so incredibly infatuated with and only desire to encapture their essence in a bottle. To just lean in and immerse yourself in their being. A pure desire, a craving. 

The song only lasted a few minutes per the instructions but the trace it held me in felt like a lifetime. There was polite applause from the class and I went back to my seat. 

I could feel the guy’s eyes on me as I sat and waited for class to be over. And soon enough it did.

I weaved through the swarms of students in the hallway to get back outside to the courtyard, but someone tapped me on the shoulder before I could. It was Scott again.

“Hey, long time no see Nancy!” He joked and I laughed respectfully.

“Hey Scott, weren’t you meeting up with your friends?” I thought I wouldn't see this guy for at least a while longer.

“Yeah we did, but they had exams to study for, so they left after a bit. Do you have exams to study for?” 

“Ah no, not yet.”

“Well, maybe we can study together some other time then.” I agreed and was about to tell him that I needed to get going before someone else put their hand on my shoulder. Instinctively, I shrugged it off and looked up to see who it was.

It was the guy from my class.

“Hi again?” I said to him, he looked at me, then at Scott, and then back at me.

“Wanted to let you know, I think your performance was really good.” Not what I expected from him.

“Thank yo-”

“I need to hear you play sometime!” Scott pleaded. I gave him a thin-lipped smile and nodded.

“Scott.” He reached out his hand to my classmate.

“Thomas.” He shook his hand.

“I’ve got to get going, but it was nice talking to you guys!” I needed out of this conversation. I was having trouble breathing through my nose. I just knew I was about to have a nosebleed. 

How embarrassing would that be? Talking to two cute guys and I start bleeding, nice job Nancy. Today was just full of embarrassing moments, and I wanted to go home. 

I stopped in the bathroom to use toilet paper to plug my nose and made my way to the parking garage. At last, I was in my car and was about to put my car in reverse before I realized something.

I never told Scott my name, and Thomas never played anything for the class.

Chapter Text

Violet’s POV

“If you didn’t hear me, then you need to get hearing aids!” What are they feeding kindergartners nowadays? 

I pinched the bridge of my nose and shot my coworker Blake a look. This guy has been here for only about a month but has assimilated with the daycare well.

“Jonathan, you need to either apologize to Ms.Violet or you can sit up front with Mr.James.” Jonathan apologized to me for his behavior and quietly sat down. 

The kids respected Blake and would listen to him about as well as a group of eager kindergartners and first graders can. And overall, it's a plus having him here because he'll do the jobs that I handled before, with little to no complaints.

He’s also a pretty good friend, covers my shift when I ask him to, and picks me up when Nancy and I are scheduled on different days.

Speaking of Nancy, she was supposed to be here already but texted me around an hour ago telling me she was going to be late, so I had to ask Blake to pick me up on his way. He only slightly laughed at me before letting me know he’d be there in 5 and hung up. Also, whatever cough Nancy got from her cold, she passed it down to me and Alice as well. Now we all sound like a bunch of chainsmokers.

Nancy wasn’t the only one late today, when I came in James, my boss, let me know there was going to be a new guy at work and he’s going to be working in our room. 

Being an hour late on your first day on the job doesn’t look good.

I was in the gym watching the kids play 4 square when I was called over on the radio that all counselors have. 

‘Violet, can you come to the front? The new guy Ben is here.’ Surprised James just didn’t send the guy home, I went up front. 

At the entrance, there stood a tall man with brown hair, similar to Blake, and talking to James. Before I even approached them, I could tell Ben was apologizing. 

“I’ll let you off the hook just this once, if you’re going to be late, at least let me know beforehand.” Ben nodded his head and apologized again. 

“This is Violet, she’ll show you around and tell you everything to know around here. Treat him well Violet!” He laughed and stalked back into his office where he spent most of his time. 

“Hey, I’m Ben.” We reached out and shook hands.

“I’m Violet, let’s go to the gym where the kids are. I can also introduce you to most of the counselors.” 

We made light conversation on the way but I didn’t find out much about him. Although to be fair, he asked me a bunch of questions before I had the chance to. When we entered the gym again Black made his way over to us. 

They shook hands and I introduced them to each other. After some time, they began talking about what high school each came from. I already knew Blake’s answer, he’s from out of state. And from what I briefly heard walking away to make the kids a snack, Ben is too. 

One of the older kids I looked after a couple of years ago stopped me on my way. “Ms.Violet, can you play soccer with us?” 

“Oh sorry Macy, I have to go make snack. Maybe another time.” She pouted and ran off to play with her friends.

I wouldn’t have been able to play even if I wanted to, my leg was still in recovery and since we couldn’t go to the hospital, we had to do a shitty job fixing it up. 

We read somewhere on Google that we had to extract the bullet, clean the wound, and stitch it up. Other than being shot, this was the most terrifying moment of my life. Alice was afraid of even looking at the open trauma. So it was up to Nancy to fix my leg. The pain was excruciating, and the worst I’d ever felt. Nancy was freaking out and holding eyebrow tweezers that were sterilized in one hand. On the other hand, she was holding a scalpel that she had previously used to make wooden figurines. 

When we were trekking through the forest, I had temporarily stopped the bleeding by applying pressure by tying my jacket around it. This miraculously worked until I got in Nancy’s car and the adrenaline I had pumping through my veins began wearing off. The girls had to carry me up to our flat because every step I took, blood would gush out and I would fall over.

Alice sat beside us turned away from the bloody mess that was my leg. She held her tablet and shakily read off instructions to Nancy, who already washed her hands all the way up to her biceps. She also wore latex gloves and a mask.

I was petrified for her to touch me, but the pain wasn’t going to ease off by doing nothing. The worst part was the anesthetic that Alice ran to CVS for was relatively weak. She did research into anesthetics that do not require a prescription and out of the very few local anesthetics, only lidocaine fit best. The others like benzo something and dibucaine are used for itch relief. Lidocaine is used commonly for moderate chronic pain, and could either be used as an ointment or patches. Seeing as the pain I felt was all through my body, the girls chose the patches and stuck a few all over me.

“Okay so first you need to use the tweezers to expose the wound. Then use the pliers to remove the bullet and all bullet fragments.” I tightly held Alice’s hand as Nancy began to comb through my exposed flesh for the shards. 

“It doesn’t seem to have gone in far since you were pretty far away from where he shot from,” Nancy told us. “I don’t have to go in deep.”

I should’ve felt slightly relieved at her words but the pain was so agonizing, I could only grit my teeth and let out restrained screams. Tears poured over my face as I dug my nails into Alice's hand. I likely broke through her skin but she did not move an inch and just continued holding my hand while reading off the steps to Nancy.

“I think I got all the pieces.” But it was not over. Because she now had to suture the wound. The sterile needle and tread stung the open and inflamed tissue, as I wished, prayed, and begged for it to stop. With each tightening of the stitch, my body would twitch involuntarily. 

After what felt like hours it finally stopped. I came to, when Nancy was wiping the excess blood and wrapping it tightly with gauze. The girls picked me up and transferred me over to my bed. 

I now walked with a limp. It was better on some days, and worse on others, but overall I was extremely lucky to be able to recover the way I did. Nancy missed some of her classes to help with the rehabilitation for the first few days and Alice missed a few good-paying jobs for the next few. Now they switch every other day. 

Mindlessly, I heated the frozen breakfast sausages for the kids, thinking about Hoodie. If I was to ever saw him again I’d shoot him in the leg over and over again. Every time I closed my eyes, it’s as if he was burned into my retinas. I already had major sleeping issues, and even sleep paralysis at times. I used to get about 5 to 6 hours of sleep and now I get about 4 on a good night. 

“Vi, you good?” I turned around on my good leg to see Nancy standing there, looking at me with concern, and probably pity. I didn’t notice when she came in, nor did I know how long she stood there for.

“Yeah, just remembering shit you know?” I checked for kids before I swore softly. 

“Yeah, I feel that. Wanna hear about the cute guy in my class?”

Chapter Text

Alice’s POV

“R-ready to go?” Theo held out a helmet towards me. I gave him a warm smile and pushed my long blonde hair behind me before putting it on. 

These past few weeks I had gotten very lucky to be paid so well for my work. They were certainly not cheap either. To paint an entire canvas, I regularly charge around 200 dollars. And yet somehow, this mysterious rich guy would message me every couple of days asking when I was free to work.

Like for you sir, with how often you pay me? I’m free every day.

Not only that but he also rode a motorcycle and brought me along with him.

I remember how nervous I was to meet him on the first day. He sent me a suspicious-sounding message on Instagram late at night. ‘can you paint for me’

I don’t know, are you going to murder me?

Despite his account having only two followers and no profile picture, I replied anyway. Part of me was intrigued by this request. I was expecting to get some sort of absurd plea, like loli or furry smut. Theo, however, surprised me by asking what I liked to paint.

I texted back that I like painting landscapes, especially flowers and other decorative flora. 

‘Are you free tomorrow?’ To be truthful, I cringed at this message hard. 

I should’ve left him on read, and I did want to, but morbid curiosity possessed me and I typed back ‘why’

‘To paint for me’ Could this guy sound any creepier?

Despite my brain cells screaming at me to block the guy, that it could even possibly be one of the men from the forest. But, I needed the money and he was agreeing to my prices. So I said ‘fuck it, we ball’ and we agreed on a local park. 

I arrived at the park on time and sat on a bench waiting for Theo to show up. Acrylics placed beside me and canvas held up to my chest, I looked around only to see only kids on the playground and their parents watching over them.

With every minute that passed by, I got more dejected and nervous that instead of a killer it was just a troll. I don’t know if my priorities are in check, but I wanted to get paid.

I wondered if this is how Nancy felt waiting for Micah.

After about 15 minutes, I stood up, getting ready to leave when a loud, black, motorcycle roared into the parking lot. All the parents and I looked over to see who it was but the guy never took his helmet off. 

He just hopped off the bike and ran over to the spot where I stood frozen in my spot, absolutely bewildered. 

“S-sorry I’m late, something c-came up.” He apologized right away. 

“It’s fine, do you have anywhere in particular you’d like to go?”

He shook his head childishly, “Lead the w-way!” Sometimes I have a hard time believing this is the guy that pays me $200 every time we see each other. 

I directed us toward a cute spot where the girls and I had a picnic before. It has a good view of the foliage in the park and the playground. As I set up the easel and paint, I asked, “What do you want me to paint?”

His head twitched to the side as he thought about it for a moment. “Whatever you see.”

I guess he’s one of those vaguely inspirational philosophy guys.

We didn’t talk all that much the first time we met, but I did ask him why he didn’t take his helmet off. 

“C-cause I’m a cool b-biker guy.” That actually made me laugh a bit, which turned into a slight cough.

“Cool biker guys never call themselves cool biker guys. They also don’t wear their helmets when they’re not on the road.”

He considered what I said for a moment before taking it off. He had messy, semi-long brown hair and deep dark eyes. I was also ashamed to admit I was extremely jealous of his long eyelashes.

Theo had a patch on his left cheek that he explained a couple of meetings ago, he wore it because his cat scratched him pretty badly. I love cats, and at my excited state he laughed and told me that his name was Tim. 

In the parking lot after the first meeting, he told me that from now on he would just pick me up. I had to double-check if he was sure, but I was actually really excited because I love motorcycles. 

He insisted and I folded, so a couple of days later he showed up at my apartment and we went to a greenhouse. We’ve been going to random locations around the city for nearly 2 weeks now and I have to say, I have been enjoying his presence quite a bit. 

However; he’s got a few odd quirks like smashing bugs whenever he sees them. But not in a way that people do when they’re scared. It’s slower and intentional. He also likes to randomly ask crazy questions like ‘If your legs were chopped off, would you try to crawl away or would you give up and bleed out?” It didn’t really matter what I answered, because he’d begin to cackle either way.

In a crazy, backward sort of way though, he was endearing. He didn’t really care what I painted as long as I did, kept me company, and talked about all sorts of things. Not necessarily personal things like family, but more about life and its philosophy. 

As we rode to wherever he chose to go this time, I started to think about past actions and things he did. He reminded me of the man who chased me through the forest except with a lot less craziness and me getting hurt. I did enough of that on my own.

Except, that time he showed up at my home, I don’t recall sending him my address. My heartbeat quickened at this fact, but I tried to calm myself. My memory was never one for the books, so I would check out messages when we got to our destination. 

I had a dreadful feeling as he steered onto a familiar road, that led to a familiar parking lot, that led to a familiar forest. It’s always that damned forest. It was here that everything went to shit a month ago.

When we parked and got off the bike he took a step and closed the gap between us. I obviously didn’t see axes anywhere, but I didn’t want to take any chances. 

I stepped away and tried to turn and run, however; before I had the chance, he pulled a gun out. 

“D-don’t take another s-step.” He smiled enthusiastically and neared me a second time, his head snapped to the side. 

He forcefully grabbed my jaw with his free hand and jerked it up to face him. “It’s my turn to paint now.”

I couldn’t help but ask, “What do you paint with?” 

His eyes darkened. “Blood.”

I tried, I really, honestly did. “That’s fucking stupid.” 

He threw his head back and burst out laughing. 

“You’re f-funny, and I adored you c-cluelessly spending time with me. S-so I’ll let you g-go if you can successfully run away from me. I’ll even g-give you a head start, that’s how m-much I like you.” 

He threw the gun away and I sprinted back into the mouth of the beast. 

As I briefly turned around to see how far away he was, or if he had started chasing me yet. He had not. 

We locked eyes as he lifted his shirt and revealed an impossibly long knife. Its blade razor thin and by the lacerations it made on his abdomen, it was apparent that it cut through skin like butter. I did not want to imagine what he would make of me.

I was completely and utterly screwed. 

Chapter Text

Violet’s POV

‘Gone to my parents, be back soon’ The message illuminated from my phone screen and seared into my mind.

Nancy and I stared at our phones for, God knows how long. There was something wrong with this message. It wasn’t unusual for Alice to randomly go and visit her parents, but she wouldn’t text us about it. If anything, she liked to call. Not only that, but she also had her location off. 

The cell service at her parent's home is minimal at best, so she could just have her phone off because she’s got no internet. But it takes nearly the whole day to get there.

I’m sure similar thoughts were going through Nancy’s mind as we drove in a somber silence back home. 

Upon entering the apartment, we headed straight to Alice’s room. The stillness of the air and perfectly made bed told us she had not been home since this morning. 

“She didn’t pack anything but her art supplies,” Nancy said, looking through her stuff. 

“Yeah, maybe she went to see her parents and paint a bit.” But Nancy shook her head in denial. 

“I saw her this morning, I thought she was headed out to work.” 

“She could’ve forgotten to tell us, you know how forgetful she can be.” I’m not sure I believed the words I spoke. 

I headed to my room as Nancy went to the kitchen to fix us something for dinner. She often liked to try out and experiment with new dishes for me and Alice to try, but today I have a feeling both of us just want to eat our fill and go to bed.

In 5 or so minutes, Nancy called me into the kitchen where she sat stirring sugar into her Earl Grey tea. On the table sat 2 plates of lasagna heated up from the day before. It was still good, but the empty chair between Nancy and I put a sour taste in my mouth. 

“Maybe we could leave Friday after work and go check on her?” I suggested. Nancy thought about it for a moment before nodding along.

“In 3 days then.” 

For now, we don’t have proof that something happened to Alice. After the whole ordeal in the forest, I think we have all been under a lot of stress and it is likely getting to our heads.

“I never got to tell you about Ben, the new guy.” She perked up at that.

“Do tell.”

There wasn’t too much to tell about Ben as I didn’t get to talk to him much, but we did discuss possibilities on why he was over an hour late. 

“I wonder how the dynamic in the room will change.” Nancy pondered out loud.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing.” She giggled. I knew what that was about. She and Alice got it in their little heads that Blake has a thing for me.

I rolled my eyes. “For the last time Nance, he does not have a thing for me.” 

“You’re in denial Vi. That man is glued to you. He squishes all the spiders the kids find, cleans the tables at the end, and lets you pick the movie on Fridays.” She rambles.

“All basic nice things for a guy to do?” She groaned at my response and sipped her tea in protest.

“You can’t say he isn’t ugly though!” She tried again.

A small smile crept onto my face. “He’s not ugly.” And with that, I stood up to do the dishes, and Nancy, in better spirits, went to her room. 

After cleaning up the kitchen, I too retreated into my bedroom. Tonight was largely consistent with the previous nights. The sound of Nancy’s saxophone penetrated through the walls which I used as background music as I read my books. The only thing missing was the contrasting music that Alice would play while she drew. A chaotic cacophony I’ve grown accustomed to, that now without it, the house felt empty. 

When it turned 10, Nancy put her instrument away and settled in for the night. Even though we were only a room away from each other, we spent most of the night sending tiktoks back and forth. 

At around 2 in the morning, Nancy retired for the night, leaving me to rot in my bed, alone with my thoughts. My mind wandered all over the place, but ultimately, it led me back to Alice each time. 

I’m not sure how much time passed, but after some point, I began to doze off. Sleep was an uncommon luxury that I got to experience. And when I did, it was not for long.

When I opened my eyes, it was still dark in my room. I could not do much other than look around, as more often than not, I experienced momentary sleep paralysis. 

From my bed, I saw my dresser at which I kept a small collection of Funko Pops, my desk that had a pile of finished and unfinished books, and… a statue?

No, there was absolutely no way in hell that was a statue. It was a familiar shadowy figure. Locking eyes with the man, I immediately recognized him. 

With no way to take action, I was forced to silently stare at him. With every breath I exhaled, the heaviness of my chest doubled. With every step he took toward me, the more I counted down the seconds for me to be able to get out of here. To warn Nancy to get out of here.

Hoodie stood beside the bed and pulled out the instantly recognizable pistol. The same one I had fought him for. 

He chuckled as he raised it to my face. “Can’t run away now can you?” He tapped my nose with the tip of the barrel. 

The sound of my heartbeat was deafening. I closed my eyes tightly as he pressed the pistol up to my temple. The barrel felt hot as if it was being branded onto my skin. I held my eyes shut, but after a minute, nothing came. 

Cautiously I opened them but when looking around, I saw no one. The feeling in my body came back shortly after and I sprinted out of my room and into Nancy’s. 

“We need to get out of here!” I shook her sleeping figure. 

“What happened?” She immediately rose and put her glasses on. 

“He was here. Hoodie was here!”

“Slow down Violet, all the doors and windows are locked. I double-checked before going to sleep.” 

We walked around the whole apartment 3 times to make sure everything was locked and inaccessible from the outside. I dropped onto the couch in frustrated agony.

“I could’ve sworn he was here Nance. He held his gun up to my face!”

“I’m not saying it didn’t happen. But is it possible that he could’ve been a hallucination as part of your sleep paralysis?” 

That was the best-case scenario. I’d rather be going insane than have that maniac terrorize me and Nancy from inside our own home. 

I rubbed my face and massaged my temples in an attempt to soothe myself. But I felt something weird and grainy.

Looking at my fingertips, I saw they were covered in an ashy, dark-grey substance.

“What’s that?” Nancy questioned as she pushed some of my hair aside. Her eyes widened, as she froze not saying another word.

I ran to the bathroom to get a look in the mirror. Turning to get a better look, I saw that my temple was marked with a smudged circle of gunpowder residue.

Chapter Text

Nancy’s POV

As I brewed a cup of matcha, my eye involuntarily twitched. I only got a couple of hours of sleep after Violet’s run-in with Hoodie. After the revelation that he was really here and with a recently used gun at that, there was no way I was going to go back to bed. 3 hours was going to have to suffice.

After much deliberation with Violet, I finally convinced her to go rest and get at least a little sleep before I had to leave for school. I didn’t feel comfortable having her back in her room, so she’s sleeping in mine in the meantime. 

Sitting down on the couch, I checked for any messages from Alice, but there were none. I tried calling her for the fifth time this morning. Her phone must’ve been dead, as all I kept getting was the message ‘The number you are trying to reach has been turned off or disconnected’.Violet and I agreed to sleep in shifts. We cannot afford another man from the posse to break in.

Usually, one to sleep in late, I rarely got to see the sun go up. Though, I'm not sure I'd like to be up this early again. But the kaleidoscopic glow of the sun made it a tempting offer.

“Wanna go hiking this weekend? The weather is probably the last of the best it’s going to be this month.” I pretended to think about it for a moment before letting a smile escape my lips as I agreed. 

Micah told no lies, as the weather that Saturday was a stark contrast to the gloom I’d grown accustomed to. 

“Nancy!” Violet called out in frantic panic. The door to my room slammed open and frenzied steps made their way to the living room.

She let out a suppressed sigh of relief as soon as she saw me. 

“I’m okay Vi, take a deep breath.” 

“You weren’t in the room.” I nodded, understanding that Hoodie’s encounter was scarring on several levels.

“I’m going to make breakfast, but after that, I need to head out for class. Are you going to be alright?” I didn’t want to patronize her because I knew she was capable, but I needed her to have a plan for the time we were away from each other just in case they came back.

She nodded. “I’m going to stay at a cafe or something till it’s time for work.”

Giving a nod, I headed to the kitchen and placed a couple of bagels into a toaster. When they popped out, I grabbed them, despite how hot they were, and smeared cream cheese onto them. 

Placing the plates on the table, I saw Violet had fallen asleep on the couch. I gently woke her, and we sat down to eat. 

My class was going to start soon, so I inhaled my food, and left, all before Violet could finish half of her breakfast.

With a “See you later!” I jumped into my car and sped off, hoping to make it to class on time. 

~

Going way over what was legally allowed on the freeway, I made it to class with two whole minutes to spare. As I sat in my seat, catching my breath, Thomas began teasing me. 

“And here I thought you were the type to get to class early. What happened, overslept?” 

I didn’t want to talk to that weirdo. He wasn’t even taking this class. What was he still doing here? 

He leaned over his desk and tugged on my hair. What the fuck? This isn’t kindergarten.

I turned around, and he sat in his seat with an innocent smile and not-so-innocent eyes. 

“Did you need something?”

“You weren’t responding.” He said, tilting his head to the side as if examining me. I did not need his scrutinizing eyes on me. 

“Class is starting.” And with that, I turned back around to face the professor. 

The next 50 minutes were excruciating. Thomas would rip pieces of paper, smash them into little clumps, and flick them at me. When that didn’t work for the first 15 minutes, he resorted to kicking the leg of my chair for the next 15.

I had considered myself a decently patient person. Sure I was a hothead sometimes, but when the situation called for it, I could wait it out. Thomas was stretching my patience so thin that one could use it as a jump rope and choke me with it.

For the remainder of the time, he decided to poke me with a pencil. At some point, I tried to reach my hand back and take it, but as soon as I grabbed hold of it, he gripped my hand with his and would not let go. I twisted it every which way, but he had the grip of a giant. After struggling for a minute, he let go, and I did not try again. 

As soon as the teacher reached the end of his PowerPoint, I packed my notebook away and ran out of class. I needed to escape this incessant torment. 

I could hear someone stepping in time with me. Whoever it was, I didn’t care. I just wanted them away from me. They were too close behind me. 

I took a sharp left turn and headed into the girls’ bathroom. I sat in the stall waiting for the racket in the hallway to simmer down. After a couple of minutes, the commotion settled down, and I left the restroom. 

Thankfully, there were little to no people left as I made my way through the building, courtyard, and onto the sidewalk of a street. 

Leaning against a pole, I pulled a cigarette out of my handbag. I didn’t like cigarettes. I always found the smell revolting, but I needed something to ease my nerves. 

This month has been atrocious, and even though the girls would disapprove of my solution, at that moment, I did not care.

As I put the cigarette in my mouth and held a lighter up to it, a hand came out of nowhere and snatched it. I turned and saw Thomas crumpling and tossing it away. 

“The fuck was that for?” He stared down at me menacingly.

“Can’t smoke when you play a wind instrument dipshit.” 

I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. “Why do you care? You smoke too.” 

He huffed and crossed his arms, offended I would even suggest that he cared. 

“And it’s a gross habit to start. Do what you want, I don’t care.” And with that, he stalked off. 

“Why did you start going to a class you’re not enrolled in?” 

He froze in his tracks. “What do you mean?”

“I checked the class roster online. There is no Thomas in our class. You only started showing up this week, and you didn’t present anything.” Caught him. Not sure in what, but none of it added up. Not to mention him following me around campus.

“I’m... auditing the class. Don’t need to be enrolled for that toots.” Damnit. 

“Why are you so curious?” He added. 

“Just something I noticed.”

“Hey guys!” The cheery voice of Scott pierced through the tension between Thomas and me.

I gave him a quick wave and Thomas did nothing.

“What are you doing over here?” Scott questioned and eyed both with a childish grin. 

“I was just leaving.” 

Only being able to take a step before he reached out and grabbed my hand. I jerked it away instantly. 

“Aww, come on, you always leave before we get a chance to talk.”

“I have to get to work, maybe another time.” 

“Bu-” 

“She needs to go,” Thomas interjected. 

“Oh, I wasn’t aware you spoke for her.”

“You might need your ears cleaned then.”

“This one is a little controlling, Nancy. Might want to watch out.” Scott framed it as if he was talking to me, but he stared at Thomas.

“This one is a moron, Nancy. Might want to watch out,” Thomas sneered. 

This was stupid. I don’t even know what they were arguing about, nor did I care. I needed to get home and get at least an hour or two of sleep, otherwise I might collapse at work.

 As I walked off, Scott called out to me one last time.

“Nancy, we should hang out over the weekend or something!”

Chapter Text

Brian’s POV

Who would want to be around kids every day? Certainly not me, and not for the pay that I’m getting. All I could hope was that Toby had taken care of Alice because the other two are taking longer than planned.

Tim complains that “He can’t just kidnap Nancy from college in broad daylight, as she never stays long after her classes”. Apparently, she doesn’t talk to her classmates, and with Trevor clinging onto her, there is no time to gain her trust. 

Violet is in her own category of difficulty. She’s friendly, and yet so distant. What surprised me the most was when I saw her walking. With a limp, sure, but walking nonetheless. I expected a wheelchair, crutches at least, but she used none. A hospital would not have let her without either, so that begs the question; how?

Another reason I’m struggling to gain her trust is all the people she has around her all the time. Whether it be Nancy who hovers around her like one of the little kids or the guy whose name I don’t care to learn. 

I slammed the car door in frustration at the current progress so far. A few of the other counselors looked over my way, but I continued to walk towards the building. Once inside the building, I took a radio and clocked in. 

The lady behind the front desk, Ms. Miriam, greeted me with a warm smile. 

The room needed to be set up every day. Chairs to each table and all sports equipment required to be transferred back to the gym. When I got to the room, Nancy and Violet were already sitting at one of the tables, hastily whispering in hushed tones. They had already set everything up, which meant there was not much else to do other than try to get into their good graces. 

As I sat down beside Violet, Nancy spoke. “You good man? You look a little tired.”

“Yeah, just haven’t gotten too much sleep lately.” Because I was too busy watching you two. But of course, that part wasn’t said out loud.

Violet let out a small chuckle. “Me too! Must be twins or something.”

Before the conversation could continue further, the other guy showed up. We all greeted him, and he sat beside me. 

“Whatcha guys talking about?” He piped up. Nothing that concerns you, fuckwad. Leave. 

“Just about how little sleep we all get.” 

“That’s so me, twins.” Not as funny the second time.

“Are you looking forward to the weekend?” I asked the two, but more so Violet. I needed some way to gauge what steps they were going to take next and plan accordingly. 

“Oh, we might visit a friend and her family out of state,” Violet responded to my question, staring at Nancy as she did so.

What friend? They didn’t have out-of-state friends that they were close enough to visit on a random weekend, let alone the family of that friend that I could recall. Their best friend is missing and they’re going on a trip? No, something isn’t adding up here. If they are serious about leaving, that cannot happen. 

“Anything fun planned?” The other chimed in. At least I’m not the only one asking questions, so they can’t get suspicious. 

“No, the drive might take a while, but maybe once we get there.”

Before I could continue the conversation, the other guy started to talk about hockey with violet. I couldn't care less about sports, so I stayed quiet.

Everything was being thrown off by this trip they planned randomly. Now, not only do Tim and I need to hurry, but we also have to stop them from leaving. Plus, I’m putting too much trust in Toby to do his fucking job. I despised the thought that the plan relied so heavily on him being able to follow instructions when it was his fault in the first place that they could get away. Sure, Tim really laid into him when he had the chance, but not like it even mattered. That cockroach couldn’t feel it, and just spat the blood from his mouth and stalked back into his room. 

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t notice it was time for the kids to hop off the bus and rush into the building until everyone stood up. Not a moment later, a swarm of kids piled into the room in a manic craze.

Violet grabbed the clipboard and began to call off names. It took a while to get them to settle down, as they had some sort of pajama and movie day in school and were all bursting with energy. Once they had quieted down and lined up, we took them to the gym. 

I don’t know how the kids liked going to the gym so much. It was always scorching in there, with no proper ventilation other than a few standing fans. The cold was always the better option. You could always put on more layers, but one could only take off so much. But watching the kids was, unfortunately, part of the job, and being where they were was expected. 

A few of our kids set up a game of baseball on one of the courts and I knew exactly what was about to be asked when Johnathan came running toward me. 

“Can you pleaseeee play baseball with us?” I was about to decline when I saw Violet being pushed and pulled by a hoard of kids to the very same court.

I sighed and nodded as Johnathan cheered and ran yelling, “I got another counselor!”

As I approached the lineup, I heard her lecture the kids. “I’m only pitching, nothing else.” I would pay good money to see her try to run on that leg of hers. 

The kids had us both be constant “non-team players” to make it fair. Violet would pitch for both teams and I would bat for both teams. 

Most of the kindergartners and first-graders in our room weren’t the best batters, but some got the job done well enough. However, this game didn’t only include kids from our room, as in the gym, all kids from different rooms played together. So we also had a few older kids join in. 

The older kids whipped their bats so hard that the plastic ball would whistle as it soared through the air. As one of those kids stepped up to the plate and made solid contact with the ball, it didn’t fly high at all. Instead, it hit Violet directly in the leg that I had shot. 

She tried to stand on her good leg as she resisted crying out, but her attempts were futile and she crumbled to the floor. Kids began to crowd around her, asking if she was okay. 

I pushed through the mob to see her clutching her leg, which was seeping red through her pants. The kids were starting to freak out, so I picked her up and carried her to the “vending machine room” as everyone called it. The room had a few vending machines, tables, chairs, a microwave, utensils, and an ice machine. 

Setting her down on the chair and propping her leg up on the table, she winced at the movement. Grabbing a plastic bag and a roll of paper towels from one table, I filled the bag with ice.

“I’m going to roll your pant leg up,” She groaned in response and coughed as I did just that. Someone had crudely stitched up her bullet wound, which left a nasty-looking scar when it had been removed. From the force the ball hit her leg, it ripped some of the partially healed tissue, causing blood to leak. 

I unrolled a large amount of paper towels and began to wrap her leg in an attempt to hopefully stop the bleeding. The ice was then used to relieve some of the pain, and as soon as I had placed it, Nancy stormed in.

I could tell she was trying her best not to freak out before me as she gathered her composure and squeaked out, “Thank you so much for your help, I’ve got it from here Blake.” 

I nodded and left the room without another word.

Chapter Text

Ben’s POV

Mr. James had Violet and Nancy go home. I was in another room preparing snack when all the exciting commotion happened. Apparently, something happened in the gym with a baseball, and the girls weren’t exactly keen on sharing as they left. 

Blake put on an episode of Goosebumps, one where a kid goes to camp or something. The name ‘Welcome to Camp Nightmare’ flashed on the screen as all the kids quieted down. 

I sat down beside Blake at one of the emptier tables. ‘Man, what a crazy day today, huh?” I whispered, trying to lighten the mood a bit, but he just stared off into space, ignoring me.

Trying to recall if I had accidentally offended the guy in any way, I came up empty-handed. I tried to have good relations with all my coworkers, and so far, I have only gotten along with Violet. She always greets me when I enter the room, and was the one to show me the ropes when I first got here. 

I directed my attention back to the show that was playing. One of the kids on the TV had a baseball hit them in the back of the head and had to be taken to rest. How ironic is it that this shows up today? Usually, we watch something on the TV on Fridays, but after the entire ordeal, we decided to make an exception today.

On the screen, another child falls into a river and needs to be saved from drowning. Is this appropriate for kids to be watching this?

All the kids left before the episode finished, to which Blake turned off prematurely. The silence was suffocating as we got to cleaning the room.

“So, do you think Violet will come back tomorrow?” I struck up a conversation once more. 

“It’s unlikely.” 

“Ah, okay, I might visit her tomorrow before work to check in on her then.” Blake didn’t respond for a few moments. 

“Might be better to do it after, since she’ll probably be resting.” That was probably the most amount words in a row that man has said to me.

“Good idea! I’ll stop by with some pizza too.” I didn’t get a response and he left the room to go clock out. 

I can’t wait to make her day tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Violet’s POV

Never did a day off of work sound so boring. Whenever one of us had a day off, at least another person was home to hang out with. But with Alice gone, and Nancy going to school today, I was going to be extremely bored.

I stayed up all night keeping guard while Nancy slept, as I couldn't sleep without at least one person being awake. I heard Nancy stir as she woke around 6. She’s been going to bed early and waking up early so that when she was up, I could sleep for a few hours before she had to leave for class. 

“Good morning.” She hacked out a cough as she walked into the living room where I stayed the night. 

I nodded sleepily and hopped off the couch, holding my phone in one hand and a knife in the other, just in case.

Wordlessly, I shuffled into her bedroom, careful not to put too much pressure on my aching leg. Placed the knife under a pillow, and passed out nearly immediately. 

Alice and I sat on the couch watching ‘Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ when all of a sudden, she paused it and pulled out her buzzing phone. 

“Hey Nance, how is it going?” She put Nancy on speaker, but there was a lot of static and mumbling.

“We can’t hear anything,” I added.

“I don’t know what to do.” She said coldly, not making any sense. 

“I don’t know what to do. I- I don’t- I don’t kn- I don’t know what to do!” At this point, she had regressed to a screaming and sobbing shamble. We could barely understand her through the glitchiness of the cell service she was getting.

Alice and I looked at each other with worry and confusion.

“Hey love, take a deep breath. Tell us what’s going on,” Alice tried to settle her down enough to get at least some semblance of a story. 

“It’s Micah-

I felt someone touch my shoulder as they rocked me gently. But before I could register who it was, I pulled the knife out from under the pillow. When I looked, I saw Nancy grasping her hand as a few drops of blood dribbled down her arm. 

“I didn’t-”

She just waved me off with a smile.

“Don’t worry about it. It was pretty stupid of me to do that. I made french toast, go have some.” I nodded awkwardly and headed to the kitchen where two steaming plates of french toast were drenched in maple syrup. 

She came in not long after with her hand wrapped with the leftover bandages from when she wrapped my leg, weeks ago now. 

“I’m probably gonna stay a little later after my classes today. Scott has been nagging me every time I step foot on campus that we ‘need to hang out’. ‘Pparently there’s a ‘banger party happening’, not my words. So I’ll stop by for a minute or something.” She dropped all of that while stuffing her face. 

I rolled my eyes at the mention of Scott. There’s just something about the guy that makes me want to stick a hot needle in my eye and squirt it with lemon juice afterward. From what she’s told me, the guy is a class-A clinger. Thomas too. That man somehow is always on her heels wherever she goes, but at least he doesn’t try to take her anywhere. 

“Stay safe, and away from Scott.” She smiled at my distaste for the man and grabbed her bag to leave. 

Today was going to be even more uneventful. I laid on the couch watching YouTube for a couple of hours before mindlessly scrolling TikTok for another. Then there was a knock on the door. 

My breath hitched as the sound of the doorbell rang out. As quietly as I could, I crept towards the door to look out the peephole. Outside the door stood Blake holding a short, flat, white box in one hand and a plastic bag in the other. 

Opening the door to let him in, Blake presented me with the box.

“Open it.” My mouth dropped open.

Inside the box was a large, fresh-baked pizookie. I love cookies, and this was essentially a thick chocolate chip cookie the size of a pizza. 

“What the fuck? Thank you.” He laughed at my response.

“Not a problem, just wanted to check in and make sure you’re doing okay.” He gave a goofy smile as he lifted the other bag. 

“Oh no, what else did you bring?” He took out what looked like a carton of ice cream, but when he turned it around, I saw that it was actually frozen yogurt. That was so considerate of him, seeing as I’m lactose intolerant and can’t have ice cream. 

“What do you think?” He looked down at me with these captivating hazel eyes. 

“This is so sweet, Blake, thank you.” He just nodded back. “Here, sit down. Let me get you a plate.” 

Blake shook his head at my offer. “Let me do that. You need to rest.

Who was I to deny a cute guy doing something for me out of his own volition?

“It doesn’t even hurt that much, but I’ll play along if it makes you feel better.” He let out a snort as he walked into the kitchen to grab plates and silverware. 

Wanting to see him struggle to find anything in our confusing kitchen, I leaned against the fridge. Yet, somehow, he managed to find everything we needed in record speed. 

“How did you-” I couldn’t finish my sentence due to the coughing fit that took over my body.

“Intuition I guess.” He said cheekily, setting down two plates with a pizookie slice and a scoop of frozen yogurt on the side.

We chatted as we ate, our topics ranging from favorite movies to what high school was like. Blake was easy to get along with, and fun to talk to. Reminds me of Micah a bit.

Just then, a realization popped into my mind. 

“Hey, um, how did you know which apartment number I was in?”

He looked surprised for a second before laughing, “Oh, I just asked Nancy. I wanted to surprise you.”

A little after an hour, Blake had to leave due to it being time for him to go to work. I made fun of him having to work, and he made fun of me being stuck at home all day. 

I locked the door as he left and cleaned the kitchen for a bit before grabbing a book from my room and sitting on the couch to hopefully make time pass by faster.

After a few droning hours, there was a knock on the door. For a second I thought that it was Nancy, but that wouldn’t make sense since she said she’ll be home later. I sneaked toward the door and through the hole I saw Ben standing there. He stood awkwardly looking side to side as he held a Marco’s pizza box.

I let him in and he enveloped me in a clumsy hug as I stood stiff. I did not enjoy physical forms of affection but I appreciated his gesture. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay!”

“I am, I am, don’t worry.”

We sat down and took a slice each.

“Man, this feels like my birthday or something.” I joked.

“What do you mean?” Ben looked confused.

“Oh, Blake actually stopped by earlier today and he brought a pizookie and frozen yogurt. And now you're here with pizza.” I could’ve sworn all the color drained from Ben’s face.

“Oh.” Did I say something wrong?

“Are you alright Ben? You look a little pale.” 

He nodded quickly and squeaked out, “Yeah, I’m just glad you’re being taken care of.” Ben can be such a total sweetheart. 

I tried to strike up another conversation, but it seemed he wasn’t really in the mood and left shortly after. 

Feeling as though I had eaten an elephant, I plopped on the couch and checked if I had any messages from Nancy, but there were none. I checked her location and it pinpointed her still being on campus. I hope she’s doing alright. I knew she was capable of taking care of herself but I still had a sinking feeling. A similar one to when I thought about Alice. 

I tried hard to think back on the day she left. Nancy said she thought that Alice was getting ready for work. That probably means she had her art supplies laid out on the table when she made breakfast. From what little information Nancy and I knew of her mysterious client, he insisted he take her places on his bike. This I remembered vividly because she kept gushing about riding around with a cute biker guy. If what Nancy said is true about her going to work, then she did not take her car. If it’s still here, then something happened to her. 

I threw my shoes on and stumbled toward the door and out to the garage. We had a single garage and Alice was the one who kept her car in it as she drove less than Nancy. I put the code into the pin machine and as it opened, the slow reveal of her car sitting in the garage, completely untouched, sunk my heart. 

I immediately called Nancy as I limped upstairs to pack. The longer the phone kept ringing, the more desperate I became to hear her voice. I grabbed a backpack and started filling it with anything sharp, or could be used as a weapon.

‘Hey it’s Nancy, sorry I couldn’t pick up your call, please leave a message after the tone’ beeeeep.

“Nancy, you need to come home as soon as possible. I just checked the garage, and Alice’s car is still in the garage. She has to have been taken, or at the very least, she’s missing. I don’t know if it’s that client of hers or the guys from the forest, but we need to leave!” 

As I hung up, leaving her a voicemail, for the third time today someone knocked on the door. I frantically opened the door to see Blake again.

“Hey, sorry to bother you again, but I think I left my wallet here.”

“Don’t worry, come on in.”

Chapter Text

Nancy’s POV

I’ve never dreaded going to a party more than I have today. Actually, there was that one high school grad party that I only went to as a courtesy but somehow ended up home and hungover. The first and only time I’ve ever been hungover. 

I stayed away from parties at college for the most part, but after I met Micah, he made me go to a few. Total waste of time and energy.

I was dreading today in general. I could just tell that something was going to fuck with the plan Violet and I had intended to go through with. There were just too many moving parts that left too many uncertainties. I just hoped it was the party that sucked, or I bombed a quiz or something insignificant. 

Leaving Violet home alone for the day was also nerve-wracking. After the baseball incident, Blake and Ben both bombarded me with questions and I had to make a story that we all went hunting one day and Violet had forgotten she took the safety off and accidentally shot herself in the leg. I don’t know how believable it was but they both took it at face value. 

I was able to make it to class nice and early. So early in fact, that Thomas was not even in the room yet.

And not a moment later, Thomas walked in. He had a backpack with him that was clearly empty, he looked like he was trying to pass for a college student. I mean, at that point, just don’t carry one at all.

As he sat down behind me which I’ve grown accustomed to. 

He didn’t let the welcomed silence simmer for long.

“Kinda rude of you to leave the way you did yesterday.” Oh, when he started arguing with Scott for no reason? I turned my seat around to face him.

“Kinda rude of you to stick your nose in business that isn’t yours.” He scoffed.

“Damn, who pissed in your cereal this morning, toots?” I rolled my eyes. “Cause they need a medal!” He laughed at his own joke. 

“Do you hear anyone else laughing?” He scowled. “That might be because it was not funny.” 

“Let’s see all the people that would laugh at your jokes, oh wait you don’t have friends.” 

“You talk as if you do, I’ve yet to see anyone willing to talk to you.”

“You’re talking to me.” He winked. I swear this man is a joke, I cannot take him seriously. 

“Not because I want to.”

 Putting a hand to his chest he mocked being hurt. “You hurt me so deeply.” 

“Good.”

A few brief moments of peace passed before Thomas opened his mouth again. “How do you know Scott?”

“I really don’t, I met him the same day I met you.” 

“You did?” He sounded surprised. 

“Yeah, we just kind of bumped into each other in the courtyard. On my way to this class actually.” 

“He just seems so…”

“Clingy? Touchy?”

“Yeah…”

I chuckled a bit as I remembered Violet’s displeasure. “My friend said the same thing.”

“Smart friend.”

“She is.”

People began filling the room, as it was nearly time for class. I turned my seat back to face the front. The lecture flew by pretty quickly, as Thomas didn’t pester me the entire time. 

With quite a bit of time to kill, and after getting some food from the Indian place across the street, I headed to the library. I really needed to catch up on a lot of homework that piled up from some online classes I was taking. 

It was around 5 pm on Friday, and the library was nearly deserted. No one wanted to be here since the weekend had started. I didn't want to be here either, but out of the goodness in my heart, I told Scott I’d attend the party he was begging me to go to. 

He let me know that it started around 9, and instead of driving back and forth, I asked one of my friends on campus, Kiara, if I could get ready in her dorm. She was ecstatic, I hadn’t been to a party in a while, and we used to go together. Me, her, and Micah. Her idea originally, but he jumped on board nearly immediately.

I sat at a little table on the fourth floor, staring out at the courtyard through the large glass walls. The weather was gloomy, but the sun shone through cracks in the dark clouds, creating a metaphorical hope.

I flipped open my laptop, making sure to immediately plug the charger in, as it was so old that it dies after about an hour of usage. 

The assignment I had been struggling with for a few days stared back at me—taunting me.

‘Are you a happy person with sad moments or a sad person with happy moments?’

What a question to ask students in a beginner philosophy class.

“Well? Aren’t you going to answer the question?” I turned to the side and saw Thomas there. How does he always find me? 

“What are you doing here?”

He pulled up a chair and sat beside me. “I come to the library all the time, saw you as I walked by and thought I’d stop by to say hi or something.” I felt a little bad being so rude to the guy all the time. Not to mention, he kind of stood up for me when starting that argument with Scott. 

“How would you answer the question?” He was a bit surprised at the fact I didn’t have a snarky response, but he kept his mouth shut and thought about the question for a while. 

“I guess, I’m more of a sad person with happy moments,” He sounded a bit unsure but continued. “but I think the experiences we go through in life could change the composition of the person we make up. Maybe at one point, I was a happy person with sad moments, but sad moments after sad moments make a sad person.”

During the time I took to digest what he said, I stared out into the courtyard. I knew he was watching– waiting for some sort of response, but I didn’t know what to say. 

“What about you?”

“I think– I think if anything, I’m a happy person with sad moments. I don’t know if I believe a person can be innately sad. We were all kids at some point, we all had childish excitement and wonder about what the next day would bring. As life goes on, we take on all kinds of experiences and moments. Happy, sad, neither, or both, they don’t change your core composition, they guide you toward your next moment. It’s up to you if you follow them. That’s why I think the question is stupid, there is no sad or happy person, it’s just a person.”

“But what ab–

“Hey guys!” Scott’s voice shattered the little bubble Thomas and I surrounded ourselves in. I wanted to continue this conversation, but I suppose that would have to wait till another time.

“Hey, Scott.” 

“Are you excited for tonight or what?” He laughed excitedly. I really wasn’t, but I didn’t want to bring the guy’s mood down. 

“Yeah, are you?” I already knew the answer, but I asked anyway.

“Definitely, but uh are you going to change or…?” I rolled my eyes.

“Yes, I’ve got a change of clothes with me.”

Thomas didn’t interrupt the conversation, but he was visibly very confused. Scott caught on to it as well. 

“There’s a party over at Kappa Sigma tonight, you can come, but you’d definitely need to change.” Scott offered only as a courtesy. Thomas scoffed and looked away.

The buzzing of my phone broke the tense stillness. Checking the caller ID, I saw it said ‘Gru’s minion’, an inside joke between Kiara and me. 

“Girl, where are you?” She instantly said as I picked up. 

“It’s still a few hours away. I’m at the library.”

“Not enough hours away, we need to get ready now.” I laughed at her tenacity. 

“Alright, I’ll be over in a few.” With that, I hung up and noticed both boys looking at me.

“What?”

“Wasn’t aware you had friends here.” Thomas teased, and I was about to make fun of him back until I saw Scott nodding as well. 

“Guys, I have friends here,” I said exasperated. 

Scott said his goodbyes as I packed my stuff into my backpack. I waved bye to Thomas and headed over to Kiara’s dorm. 

Kiara opened the door before I had to even knock. 

“We’re so going to be late!”

“Shouldn’t we be fashionably late or something?” I asked, confused as to why it mattered what time we got there. Although I suppose, the earlier I get there, the earlier I could leave. 

“I would agree if this wasn’t the most anticipated party of the semester. If we don’t get there in time, we will have to wait in line foreverrrrrr.” Yikes, I’m hoping to avoid doing that.

“Alright, what needs to be done?” She threw her hands together excitedly.

“Ooh, you picked my favorite dress on you, good job. I’m going to hop in the shower real quick, You put that dress on and do your makeup. I’ll do your hair and you can do my makeup.” The game plan was solid and brought back nostalgic memories of us getting ready together almost 6 months ago now.

Kiara went to take her shower as I started getting ready. The dress I chose was fun, black, and backless. It definitely has seen some wild nights. 

I sat at the little vanity desk she had in the corner of the room and did my makeup. As I finished and put my glasses back on, I noticed a Polaroid picture on the desk. It was the photo of the 3 of us with the caption ‘Micah Scoates, Nancy Freeces, Kiara Langston, September 18th’. This was from the first party we went to together. 

I set the photo down as Kiara walked out of the restroom. She had on a red dress with a deep v neck.

We caught up a bit as she did my hair and I did her makeup after. Missed having classes with Kiara, I would almost choose to suffer through chemistry again with her.

We made our way to Kappa Sigma right on time, as a line was just starting to form. After a few minutes, we were let into the already crowded building. Music pumping so loud, I regretted not bringing earplugs. It was going to be a nightmare trying to find Scott in this mob. 

“There you are!” Or I guess not. 

He offered me a drink right away which I declined. 

“Awww, what’s the point of a party if you’re not going to drink?” He whined, and I could barely hear him over the music. 

“I’m good, thanks though.” 

“At least let me introduce you to my friends.” I’ll do that, and probably leave after, this place was nauseating.

Scott led me toward a group of guys in one of the rooms. As they noticed him, a few cheered. 

“Let's go Scotty!”

“Hey, Scott!”

“What’s up Trev?”

Who was Trev? I looked around but I couldn’t see anyone else they could be talking to. And Scott wasn’t the one who said it. Just then, someone tapped on my shoulder. Turning around to hopefully see Kiara, who I lost nearly immediately after stepping foot in the house, but it was actually Thomas. 

Maybe from the way the blinding lights and deafening music altered my brain cells, I thought Thomas looked really good. He wore a black, loose button up that he partially tucked into dress pants, but not the tight ones where you can see the guy’s junk. He also did his hair, it’s usually parted to the side with some gel, but now it’s messier, carefree, and matched him a little more. 

“Didn’t expect you to come.” I nearly had to yell, and he sort of half shrugged. 

Scott noticed Thomas and looked annoyed, but said nothing to him. Might be for the best. 

“Let’s go somewhere quieter.” Scott ushered me to a different part of the house, one with significantly fewer people. The music was quieter too, I could hear myself think at least.

We walked around the house, talking about a few things, mostly classes and such before I remembered what I wanted to ask him earlier.

“Hey, Scott?”

“What’s up?”

“So, when you were over by your friends, one of them said the name ‘Trev’, but I couldn’t find who they were talking to.”

Scott laughed. “Oh, my first name is actually Trevor, and Scott is just a nickname my friends gave me based on my last name.”

“That’s sick as fuck. Wait, so what is your last name?”

“Scoates.”

What? He said Scoates. As in, Micah Scoates, as in…

I looked up to face him, his face reveling in the fact it clicked in my mind. I could feel my throat closing up. 

This was Trevor Scoates, as in, Micah Scoates’ brother.

“Where is Micah?” 

I darted off before I could be questioned further. His footsteps were close behind me just like his brother’s were that day. I weaved through the crowds of people like they were trees in a forest. 

I don’t know how, but I managed to outrun him and make my way outside. There was hardly anyone outside, because, at this point, everyone was inside already. I turned my head back to see how far away he was before I ran head-first into someone. It was Thomas. 

I tried to apologize and keep running, but he stopped me. 

“Hey, what’s going on?” As I was about to explain, that I didn’t have the time to explain. Scott ran out of the house. 

Seeing that this man, that he already did not like, was chasing me, Thomas and I took off running.

“My car is nearby!” He called out as we ran down a street. We neared his car and got in right away. I was heaving, trying to catch my breath, and began coughing.

As Thomas turned the car on, there were loud bangs on my window.

“Get the fuck out of the car!” I was terrified and kept looking down.

Thomas backed out of the parking space and as he drove forward he almost hit Scott. 

I stared out the window as Thomas drove on the freeway, far away from him. He who knows.

“Where do you live?” I realized my car was still in the parking garage at school and by now it was too late to go back for it.

I told Thomas my address, and he nodded. I’ll have to Uber back to school tomorrow which would delay the trip by a day.

“Are you– you okay?”

I just nodded and he kept driving. Lost in thought on how to explain it all to Violet when I got home, I didn’t notice we passed my street.

Only when Thomas turned into a familiar road, that led to a familiar parking lot, that I knew very well the familiar forest that lay ahead.

I needed to stay calm and pretend to still be clueless. The doors were not locked, and because the road we were on was a residential street, we weren’t going very fast. But I was wearing heels, and I sincerely doubted my ability to escape with them on.

“Man, my feet hurt so bad,” I whined, taking them off.

Thomas chuckled, “Yeah, I bet.” 

He was still looking at the road, good. I held the shoes and purse with my left and with my right, I opened the door and jumped out.

Chapter Text

Alice’s POV

Around 10 minutes after running into the forest, Toby caught up to me. He had hit me in the back of the head with the blunt end of his hatched and it was lights out for me. 

When I came to, I was in someone's bedroom. It was very messy, with clothes shoved to the corners to be able to see the carpet. 

With my back up against the wall and hands behind me, I pulled my arms, trying to break free. There was no resistance by the yarn tied in a bow. I wonder who managed that one. 

The past 2 days have been kind of boring, but Toby kept me company, at least partially. We’ve been surviving off of ramen and chicken nuggets that he nearly burned once or twice. 

“Exciting d-day today.” He said as he plopped on the couch beside me. 

“Why?” 

“C-can’t say.” He smirked. What was even the point of that?

“Then why bring it up?” 

“Just w-wanted to c-chat.” He shrugged. 

I rolled my eyes and hopped off the couch. I was not in the mood to talk to him. I have yet to see the other two guys and Toby has not told me anything about Nancy or Violet. 

Whenever I asked Toby what I was doing here, where the girls were or even where the other guys were, he would quickly get irritated. After the first few times, I learned to sit still and not ask questions. But me being silent would piss him off too. Somehow, I was always making the wrong decision.

Yesterday was a little different though. After breakfast, which consisted of stale cheerios, I sat on the couch staring out the window as I did most days, hoping my friends would spawn in and save me. Toby came up beside me and dropped a deck of cards on the floor beside me and sat down. 

“S-sit down.” He instructed. 

Obediently, I sat on the ground next to him. 

“L-let's play something, I'm b-bored.” This guy needs to find a hobby.

“Then do what you usually do.”

“I'm n-not usually h-home.” Toby said menacingly, I actually then decided that I didn't want to know what he did as a hobby.

“Do you know how to play Speed?” He shook his head as it jerked to the side.

“T-teach me.”

I laid the cards out and placed his half of the cards facedown.

“Okay, so you can only hold 5 cards in your hand at one time. When you place a card down, you have to pick one up from your set of cards that I just gave you. The two cards that are facedown between us will be flipped over and it does not matter which side you place your cards on. To place a card, it has to be either 1 higher or 1 lower in the card order. First one to get rid of their cards has to hit the 2 stacks with their hands and yell speed.” 

He looked like he was following along in the beginning but definitely got lost somewhere along the way.

“Don't worry about the first game, we'll go slow.”

He picked up his cards as if he was a natural. The first game went pretty slow and I won, but that was to be expected. The next few games, he was like it was nothing at all. I even timed one of the runs we did by looking at the clock they had up in the kitchen. The guy was crazy fast, even when chasing me, this was not the game to teach him. 

“Speed!” He screamed as he slammed his hands down on the card stacks in front of him. “M-man you s-suck!”

“Oh fuck off, I never said I was good, it’s just a game I know. Nancy and Violet are the ones that are actually good.” 

The cheery mood stopped real fast, as Toby got up, and stepped on the cards on his way to his room, whose door he slammed shut so hard the clock in the kitchen shook. What a child.

That brings us to now, after my silent fit, Toby headed to his bedroom and did not come out until it started to get dark outside. He hummed excitedly as he popped another batch of frozen chicken nuggets into the oven. 

Don't get me wrong, I love chicken nuggets, but when it's nearly the only thing you’re eating and half of them are burnt, I want to vomit at the sight of them. I missed Nancy’s cooking. She at least didn't burn food that was heated up for 15 minutes.

I sat at the table and eyed the somehow undercooked and charred nuggets on my plate wishing it was a bowl of soup.

“Aren't y-you going t-to-”

The door was whipped open by a man carrying a girl over his shoulder. As he flipped her onto the couch, I recognized that it was Violet. Her eyes were closed and made little to no noise when making contact with the couch.

“What did you do to her?” I yelled at the man. By his tall frame I assumed that this was Hoodie, but he wore no mask to shield his face and no hood over his head.

“Knocked her out, now be quiet.”

He walked over to the table and stared at the “food” with disgust. 

“Toby, what the fuck is this?” I would've giggled if Hoodie didn't look like he’d kill me instantly. Toby clenched his jaw and was clearly getting agitated, his tics intensified, jerking his head violently. But he said nothing and went to his room, making sure to show it by shutting the door loudly. 

Hoodie let out a long sigh and headed to the kitchen to hopefully make something better. At least one of these guys has to be able to make edible food. He took out a few ingredients from the fridge and got to work.

I tried my best not to look at him because if I pissed him off, the onions were not the only thing the knife would be used on. 

Instead, I got up from the table and sat beside Violet. I couldn’t see any marks on her so I have no idea how Hoodie knocked her out. Her right leg seemed to be thicker than the left and was probably re-wrapped for one reason or another. 

As Hoodie set whatever he made on the table, the front door burst open. And another man, who at this point is the last one so he has to be Masky, dragged a woman into the house. 

It was Nancy. Her arms and legs were badly skinned, as if she was pulled across the pavement by a truck. She was wearing a short black dress, the same one she used to wear to parties with Micah and Kiara. Her wrists were bound and she was bleeding from head to toe. She had no shoes on, but Masky had bruises all over him. 

“Stop fucking screaming, we're here already!” He yelled at her, and she spit at him.

Once she took a look at her surroundings, only then did she stop swearing at him. Something about being a ‘two-faced dickhead’, and a ‘crazy-ass stalker’.  She looked at me and Violet on the couch in shock.

“Hey Nance.”

Chapter Text

Nancy’s POV

“The fuck are you here, Blake?” He stared back at me, unmoving. For some reason, the rest of the conscious and present people stared at me. 

“Nancy, that’s Hoodie.” Alice said, but it just wasn’t computing. Blake had worked with Violet and me before we even went into the forest together. But here he was, standing with Thomas, the traitor, and the girls. 

~

After I had jumped out of the moving car, I didn’t think it through well enough, as other than running, there was not much else to do. But the pain of the rough concrete scraping and tearing away at my skin was overwhelming. It felt like I had gotten a carpet burn all over my exposed flesh. My arms had gotten the worst of it, as I had to cover my head. 

Thomas stopped the car faster than I anticipated he would. 

“Holy shit! How did you think you were going to pull that off?” He angrily ran over before I could crawl away.

“You’re a fucking asshole.” I spat at him, and as he tried to grab my face, I smacked him with the heels that I still held. 

We wrestled for a bit as he tried to grab hold of my hands and restrain me, and I kept whacking him. He overtook me when he pushed me down to the ground and my torn skin grated against the cement.

He hoisted me up and forced me to the side of the car. Bending me over, he pulled my arms back and tied them up with the rope that he got from the trunk.

~

Alice and I stared at one another, not saying a word as I tried to process how she and Violet had gotten here. She wasn’t physically harmed in any way but looked to be tired as the dark lines on her face told me she hadn’t gotten much sleep. What kind of torture has she been put through?

She got up from the couch and tried to approach me but Blake, or Hoodie was probably his name, stopped her. 

“Sit down, and you,” He looked at me. “Go clean up, you’re dripping blood onto the floor. “

Thomas, who had to be Masky, led me through a hallway and into a small half bath. 

“Do what you need to do.” He said as he untied my restraints. He was not like Toby, who had tried us up with bows. I had struggled against the knots the whole way here. He shut the door, but I knew he was waiting outside. 

I stared at myself in the mirror. My makeup was badly smudged, and dried mascara streaks ran along my cheeks. Don’t even get me started on my injuries. I hissed as I began to disinfect the many lesions. 

Today was an absolute nightmare, from running away from one crazy guy right into the car of another, to leaving Violet behind alone. 

I leaned over the sink, trying to process everything. Blake was Hoodie. Violet and I worked with this man for over a month now. How did this man find us before our first confrontation in the woods? In fact, his employment seemed to line up with the day after my incident in the woods.

Like a crowbar to the head, it hit me that I was the reason this was happening. I was the reason Alice and Violet are being hurt and targeted now. I was the reason they’re not safe and at home right now. 

The guilt I felt was intense. My body was hot and cold all at once. It felt as though I was sweating so much, but my hands were dry. I began heaving at this point, trying to catch my breath like I had run a marathon. 

I heard a drip but felt nothing. I looked down and saw a few drops of blood slither down the sink basin. A familiar metallic taste flooded my mouth as I spat and coughed out an overflowing amount of blood. This was a really bad nosebleed. 

I grabbed some toilet paper and shoved it up my nose, but the tear in the vein must’ve been pretty substantial as the blood filled my mouth. Even having to keep it open to let it pour out. Nearly a quarter of the sink had pooled up when Masky knocked on the door. 

“What’s taking so long? Fall asleep in there?” I tried to say something in response, but was only able to gurgle and spray blood everywhere. 

He opened the door and was in shock. “Holy shit, hold on.” 

He ran to the kitchen and came back with ice. The basin was collecting more blood than it could swallow, and I was beginning to feel extremely lightheaded. 

I had already lost enough blood to pass out and it was still going, although it was starting to congeal and clot as a mechanism of homeostasis. Masky pressed the ice to my nose, and the sudden cold made me lose grip around the sink and I knew I was going to fall. 

Instead, however, a pair of guiding arms led me somewhere despite the dripping path. I’d been in this room once before already. It was Masky’s bedroom. 

He helped me lay down on the bed, trying not to get any blood on his bed. The overwhelming cold in combination with the lightheadedness, it felt as though my brain was unraveling itself. Like someone was unspooling a ball of yarn but was doing nothing with it. 

I tried to fight my closing eyes, but in the end, I lost. 

I’ve been losing a lot lately.

~

It was dark in the room, but I could make out a figure on a chair. The ice that was on my face as I passed out was now on the bedside table. 

“You’re finally awake,” Masky said. “Even your other friend woke up before you.” 

I didn’t want to converse with the man. Any retort, response, or even eye-roll gives this man satisfaction. And in the state I currently was, I did not want to try my luck and attempt to piss him off either. 

“Playing the silent game now?” He cooed, nearing the bedside. “And to think I was going to indulge you in answers for questions.”

I didn’t need his answers. I didn’t have questions. I knew what I had done. I knew why this was happening. I knew why I was here. 

“Fuck off Thomas.” I was simply ready to have my head bashed in. The pit in my stomach gnawed on my organs as I waited.

“That’s not even my name!” He laughed. Of course, it wasn’t. Why would I even call‌ him by his obviously fake name?

“It’s Tim, by the way.” He added as I lifted myself from the bed. Only when I stepped on the floor did I notice that my feet and arms were wrapped in bandages. 

I said nothing as I stumbled toward the door. I needed to apologize to Alice and Violet.

Chapter Text

Violet’s POV

I stared at Blake, neither one of us breaking eye contact, when a man burst into the kitchen, frantically grabbed an ice pack from the freezer, and ran immediately, cursing up a storm.

Alice was sitting at the table scarfing down a meal like it was her first in days. Poor thing must’ve been starving. 

“Violet, I-” He broke the mind-numbing silence, but Alice cut him off before he could continue.

“That was so shitty of you, man.” She was playing on thin ice, but after glaring at her for a moment, he turned his gaze back to mine. 

“Come with me.” He exited the kitchen, expecting me to follow, but I stayed put. There was no chance in hell I was going to follow that man anywhere. 

“Don’t make me force you.” He said, after waiting for about a minute. “And I can force you.”

Alice shot me a worried look at his threat, and I knew better than to try my luck. I could only hope that he wasn’t going to hurt me in any way. 

Following Blake through the dimly lit hallway, I saw a few doors, all shut. He led me to one of those doors and we entered. It was a bedroom, mildly clean but not by the standards we had in our apartment. 

He motioned for me to sit down on the bed, and I did. He grabbed a chair and pulled it over to face me as he sat. 

“I just wanted to explain-”

“Why?”

“What do you mean ‘why?’” Blake questioned.

“That’s exactly what I mean. Why do you feel the need to explain yourself? You had every chance to explain the entire time we worked together. But that was not something you wanted to do, because you made it seem like you wanted to get to know me. You knew the extent of my injuries. It would not have been hard to take me at any point. But you, for some reason, waited. I think you did that because you find sadistic pleasure in deceiving and having one over on people.” 

“That’s not it, I-”

“No, that is exactly it. You broke into my home, taunted me with a gun to my head, and then showed up to work the next day asking if I had gotten enough sleep!” I was getting frantic at this point. 

I had spent the last month getting to know this man, laughing at the stupid things the kids did, discussing which childhood movies we’d seen, only to have the same man press a gun up to me when he had already shot me once before. The things he did were unnecessarily cruel. 

There was no reason to bring me cookie cake on my day off. There was no reason to make snack for the kids when I couldn’t. There was no reason when he could’ve taken me at any point. All these men could’ve walked into our home, pointed a gun, and taken us. 

Hell, Blake managed to knock me out in a split second. What was all this for?

“I needed to see if you were a part of this. If you had chosen to partake, or if you were forced to!” What?

Was he referring to what happened in the forest? He started working before I had gone, but after Nancy had gone. Why did he care what happened in the woods that night? It was no one's business but ours. 

“What are you talking about?” I needed to know more. 

“It doesn’t matter. I got my answer.”

“No, what did you mean by that?” I pressed further. He was getting irritated, which was clear by how his face tightened and fist clenched. 

“You weren’t involved, that’s what matters.” With that, he stood up and walked out. 

We came to the kitchen to see the man I assumed was Toby. 

“I’m t-telling you, my c-cooking is not that b-bad!” Alice was terrified of whatever sat on her plate. I swear it was pulsating. 

“Toby, if you don’t get rid of whatever the fuck that is…” 

Toby, horrified at the monstrosity, ran with the plate through the living room and chucked it out the window. Plate included.

“What was it supposed to be?” I wondered out loud to no one in particular. 

“I think that was his take on chicken noodle soup.” Alice theorized.

“It c-came in a can! I didn’t th-think water n-needed to be added.” He wailed. 

“Toby, you also burned it on high for 5 minutes and didn’t stir it.” She added.

I think Nancy would have a heart attack at the scene unfolding.

“B-brian just sh-shoot her!” Covering his ears, he tried to block out the hateful comments made against him.

Blake- no- Brian shook his head and checked out the stove. The pot that once had “soup” in it was now charred at the bottom. He tightened and un-tightened his fist a few times before he spoke.  

“If you don’t get me a new one this week, I’m burning your face on this stove till it’s the same color as the bottom of this pot.” 

Brian's words were calm and deliberate. There was not a doubt in anyone’s mind that he would follow through on his threat. 

“Hey.” A voice croaked, and I jumped at the sound of it behind me. 

It was Nancy, and she looked like hell. Her arms and legs were wrapped. She would look like a mummy if it wasn’t for the familiar dress she wore. Her face had some scratches too, but not many. The blood around her nose looked worse. 

She wrapped me in a hug, and even though I was not a fan, I let it be. She needed a hug. 

“I’m so sorry,” she mumbled into my shoulder.

Did she feel guilty about leaving me at home? 

“It’s okay, we would’ve been caught at one point or another.”

“And you guys needed to be here with me!” Alice added.

“You told us you’re at your parents’.” She said, letting go of me. 

“Well yea, I couldn’t just go ‘yo, I'm in the forest’.” Toby laughed at her statement. 

“W-wouldn’t have helped a-anyway. I c-caught you in 10 m-minutes.” She looked a little embarrassed as she pouted. I don’t know what we expected, though. She didn’t fight that well and couldn’t run fast or far. Must’ve not found a tree in time.  

“You all needed to be here, so we divided you all. Easier to take when it’s just one.” The last man added. He had sideburns and was the last of the bunch. This had to be Masky.

“Is that why it took you so long?” Nancy sneered at him. 

“No, Trevor Scoates was not supposed to be an issue.” Nancy paled at the mention of that name. 

“And besides, I still took less time than Brian over here. I’d go crazy spending a month with any of you.” Masky added. 

“Enough.” Brian cut through their argument. 

“You can bicker tomorrow. It’s 3 am right now, and everyone needs sleep.”

“Where do we sleep?” Alice asked. 

“You can sleep somewhere in Toby’s room. Nancy can sleep somewhere in Tim’s room and Violet in mine.” I wanted to be as far away as I could from that man. 

“Can I sleep in the living room?” 

“No.”

“Can I sleep with Nancy?”

“No.” 

“Can I sleep with Alice?” 

“No.”

“Can I-”

“No.” I gave up. I’ll just sleep in the corner or something. 

With that, we all headed to our respective rooms, with Alice being the only one who didn’t look like she’d rather die. 

Chapter Text

Alice’s POV

Toby’s room is disgusting. There was no way I was going to sleep in a room that smelled like a boys' locker room. 

“Can you leave the room for like 5 minutes?” I pleaded with the man. 

“P-pinky promise not to r-run away?” He teased, knowing full well that I couldn’t if I tried. We shook on it and he left while I got to work. 

The word filthy could not even begin to describe the mess in there. There was a lack of anything personal for the amount of things strewn about. No books, no games, no paper, pencils, anything. His hatchets lay in a corner with other miscellaneous weapons around them. The deck of cards we played with lay neatly on top of the small desk. 

“H-hurry up in th-there, I want to g-go to sleep!” He knocked on the door. 

“Shut the fuck up!” Tim yelled from the room next door. 

I quickly gathered clothes throughout the whole room and dropped them into the abandoned basket that was supposed to be a makeshift hamper. To avoid accidentally stepping on them in the middle of the night, I laid out weapons on the desk. I quickly stole a pillow and chose the least foul-smelling corner. 

“I’m done,” I called out. 

As he entered, he looked genuinely shocked at all that I did in the 5 minutes we agreed on. 

“My r-room has n-never been th-this clean. Th-thank-ks” He stammered out.

“Um, yeah, no problem.” Sitting down in my chosen corner, I began to fluff my pillow.

“W-why are you on th-the ground?”

“To sleep?”

“N-nuh uh.” He said, patting the bed beside him. 

“Yuh huh, I’m not sleeping on the bed with you.” I thought that was the end of that, but Toby was insistent.

“I c-can’t let y-you sleep on the f-floor, you just c-cleaned the room for m-me.” Well, more like I cleaned it for me, but I didn’t see the need to correct him.

“W-what if we put s-something between us th-through the night?” He proposed, and I was willing to listen, only because I was exhausted. 

“Like what?” 

He looked around the room. “I d-don’t know, l-like a knife?” I should not have heard him out.

“Toby, that’s going to stab me in the middle of the night.”

“Oh yeah, I f-forgot.”

“How?”

He looked confused for a second, as if he couldn’t understand why I would question his forgetting that knives stab people.

“F-fuck, forgot to m-mention I can’t feel p-pain.” What a thing to forget. It initially came as a shock to me, but then I remembered when he pulled his shirt up to reveal the knife that had been cutting him on the drive to the forest.

“How about a pillow from the couch or something?” My head was starting to hurt, and I was ready to lie down, at this point, even outside. 

Toby ran out and quickly came back with a pillow and placed it square in the middle. 

“Ladies f-first.” He offered the bed to me. 

I climbed toward the wall and finally got under the covers. Toby has actually been pretty decent to me this whole time. In his own way, he’s provided all the basic living necessities, although some may argue the food was an abomination to mankind. He even gave me some of his ‘pretty clean’ clothes. 

“A-Alice?”

“Hmm?” But whatever Toby asked me, I didn’t hear because I fell asleep immediately.

~

I woke to darkness and shuffling. Toby sat straight up and was twitching sporadically. His hands were scratching at his scalp like he wanted to pull his thoughts out of his head. 

“Hey, are you okay?” I whispered.  Surprised at me being awake he stopped scratching. He wasn’t being very loud, I assume he was trying to be quiet for my sake.

“G-go back to s-sleep.”

His hands dropped to his sides, and he started to pick at the skin around his fingers. Nancy does the same thing at it always grossed me out. I usually have to forcefully stop her, otherwise her fingers begin to bleed. 

“Don’t do that, it’ll hurt,” I said, grabbing his hand away from the other and falling right back into my peaceful slumber. 

~

The second time I woke up, the sun was out, and would have beamed into my eyes if my face wasn’t snuggled into a pillow. 

Pillows don’t usually breathe though, right? And unless this is one of those ‘boyfriend pillows’ that have an arm around you, I don’t think there should be arms wrapped around me right now.

“G-get out!” Toby whisper-yelled, but it was not toward me. 

“Oh, y-you’re awake.” As I stretched, he let go of me, taking the warmth with him. 

“Someone slept well.” Violet’s voice snickered from the doorframe. She and Nancy were looking at each other and grinning. 

“I did, thank you. How was your sleep?” I could tell by the dark eye bags still under their eyes that they likely slept on the floor. 

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Nancy grumbled out, and Violet nodded along. Must suck being stuck with a shitty guy, couldn’t be me.

I’ve mostly gotten over Toby tricking and kidnapping me. He’d paid me nearly a grand to hang out with him for a week. And while being chased was scary, and his mood swings are difficult to predict, he actually hasn’t hurt me. Emotionally or otherwise, just mildly irritates me sometimes. 

“Glad to hear it,” Tim said from behind Nancy. She made sure to glare at him as she walked off. Hopefully it was to the kitchen, because I was starving. 

I got up and followed her to the kitchen, Violet only a few steps behind. 

“Wait,” She whispered looking, to see if any of the guys were nearby.

“Nancy told me that she needs to talk to us alone, as soon as we get a chance.” 

“Do you know what it’s about?”

“No.” That was surprising, considering Violet usually figures things out really quickly.

“Ya’ll think you’re some smart fuckin’ cookies or what? Get to the kitchen.” Tim barked at us. 

As we passed him, Violet made sure to whisper ‘fatass’ just loud enough. Whether he heard her or not, he surprisingly did not react. 

Nancy was busy humming and frying something on a pan. Whatever it was, it smelled better than anything I’ve had lately, even the omelet Brian made yesterday. 

“I don’t know how long you plan on keeping us here, but in the meantime, we’re going to need more food and actual clothes.” She said to the boys, who were all sitting at the table waiting patiently for her to be done. I also noticed she was finally out of her dress and was in sweats and a t-shirt. I bet wearing it for so long was a nightmare.

“Something can be figured out tomorrow?” Brian spoke. 

“Why not today?” Violet asked.

“I have work today.” He’s still going to that?

“But it’s a Saturday.” She pointed out. 

“The fall fest is today and because there are fewer counselors, James is making me come in.” 

“And who’s fault who that be?” Nancy jabbed as she set down 6 plates consisting of cheesy hash browns with bacon bits and a slice of toast. 

“H-holy shit, how d-did you make th-this out of what w-we had?” Toby exclaimed. He was right, though. I didn’t see this anywhere in the fridge or freezer. 

“I just added cheese and chopped up whatever was left of the bacon?” 

The room fell into a welcomed silence as everyone ate their food. Brian was the first to finish and left to go to work shortly after. 

Chapter Text

Tim’s POV

Trevor Scoates is a dead man the next time I see him.

I had to hang around his irritating ass for way longer than planned. Anytime I neared Nancy, he was always there. Although it was because of his crazy antics that she jumped into my car. He made that part easier, just not anything else after it. If she fought any normal guy the same way, they would be out. Unfortunately for her, she’s just not that lucky. 

After Brian left for work, the room fell into hushed silence with the girls gazing at each other occasionally. They were planning something, which meant they could not be left alone together.

We all finished our food up and Alice gathered the plates to wash them. No one said anything. Nancy just kept looking down and picking at her fingers, much like Toby does. 

I was about to say something about it when Toby spoke up.

“L-let’s play a g-game!” 

I was not about to play anything with anyone. In fact, I just wanted to get more sleep. The amount of time my head spent on the pillow last night was not nearly enough. With everything they went through this last week, I doubted any of the girls wanted to play either.

“What game?” Nancy asked. Are you serious?

“W-well we only have a d-deck of cards, b-but Alice showed m-me how to play S-speed?” He offered. 

“How good are you?”

“I b-beat her s-several times.” His smug look did not deter her. Instead, she looked excited.

“Now this I have to see.” Even Violet was joining in on this?

“Get the cards, Toby!” Alice yelled from the kitchen.

That man bolted from the table and came back with the deck before anyone had the chance to say anything else. Alice wiped her hand on a towel and sat across from Toby. 

She handed Nancy the deck of cards so that she could shuffle and set up the game. And shuffle she did—it was pretty fast. The two looked so serious and determined to win as they stared each other down and at the five ready cards in their hands. 

I don’t play games, but whatever was happening, Toby was winning. He was getting rid of his cards at lightning speed and Alice had yet to get rid of her original five cards.

“SPEED!” Toby screamed, slamming the table. I chuckled as Alice covered her face in defeat and shame. 

“There’s no fucking way you’ve gotten slower!” Violet teased her as Nancy marveled at Toby’s win. 

Alice turned to me. “Wanna play?” She asked with a goofy grin.

“Hell yeah.” I have no idea how to play, but I wasn’t about to lose either. 

We tried playing, and I lost. But I know how it works now. The next 3 rounds I won with ease. I honestly felt a little bad for the girl, but she just wasn't that good. 

“P-play me n-now Tim.” 

“Ready to get your ass kicked, kid?” 

“In your f-fucking dreams, I w-wipe the floor with y-your ass any day.”

“Stop bickering, and play already!” Alice interrupted, as during our trash talk the cards had already been set up. 

I threw the cards out into the stack, but Toby was faster. 

“Again.” I said, handing a messy pile of cards to Nancy, and she gave me a cold look. 

Toby was laughing his ass off when I beat him in the second round. We played about 5 rounds, with alternating winners each time. 

“Okay this is getting nowhere, it’s time you guys face them off.” Alice pointed deviously at the girls.

“Are you guys even any good?” Smirking at each other and then at us, they chose a partner to face off. Nancy immediately sat across from Toby, not even sparing me a glance. This did not go unnoticed by anyone in the room, but nothing was said.

Their battle was intense, it was fast, and each placed down cards without hesitation, but Nancy ended up winning. It was close, but it was clear she was better. I assume Violet was good too, and I probably had no chance of winning. Even when playing Toby, I could barely win. 

Looking at the hand I was dealt, I could tell that I was about to lose by a landslide. 

“You’re going down, fatass.” This little bitch. 

“Watch yourself, bitchface.” I warned her. 

It did not help, as within 30 seconds, she was down to her last 5 cards and I still had about 8 or so left. The next 5 cards I was able to place down before her, which was definitely orchestrated by her as after I had “won”, her leftover cards were nearly the same as mine. 

Nancy noticed her too-good-to-be-true blunder and stared at her menacingly. Violet did not care and batted her eyelashes at her innocently. 

Toby and I switched chairs and I nervously rubbed the palms of my hands against my pants in an attempt to get rid of the sweat. She avoided eye contact with me as she silently passed out the cards. 

“Ready?” I asked, but with no reply, we flipped over the center cards and began. She was merciless and called out ‘speed’ when I still had about half of my deck left. 

The tension in the room was obvious and borderline uncomfortable. 

“Toby, I have a question.” Alice started up a conversation. 

“What’s u-up?” 

“So Tim and Brian have their nicknames or whatever, but we’ve only ever heard them call you by your name. Why is that?” I was pretty curious about what kind of answer he’d give as well. How much does he know about Brian and me, if anything at all?

“They p-picked them out b-before I k-knew them. All I k-know is they h-had them for a w-while.” He said, shrugging.

“Oh, I thought you guys have known each other for a while. How did you guys meet?” 

“Enough questions.” I had to stop Toby before he started revealing more than what was necessary. Which was actually anything and everything.

“Why? We deserve to know something,” Nancy was trying to antagonize me. It was working. 

“I offered to answer your questions last night, sweetheart. You declined.”

“I declined answers to what I already know.” She sneered at me as I neared her. 

“You don't know shit.” I leaned in close. Her dark eyebags told a similar story to mine. 

“I know more than you think I do.” She said as she stormed out of the kitchen and presumably into my room. 

Everyone stared at me expectantly. Even Toby stayed quiet but jerked his head forward to insinuate that I needed to follow. 

I could feel them stare at me as I  walked away. Not knowing what to say or do I stood face-to-face with the shut door. 

The whole plan has gone to shit. Out of all of us, Toby was the only one to successfully capture a girl with little resistance. There was no one to stop him or to interfere. And while Alice hadn’t become emotionally attached to him, she trusted him enough to travel with him. The perfect execution. And mine would have been too. 

My original plan was to meet her in class, walk her to her car, and then pull my gun out and force her to come with me. But when she began to cough while in class, my blood ran cold. I didn’t think that the sickness would develop that quickly. That could’ve been dealt with later and I would’ve asked her questions about it once I captured her, but Trevor showed up. And he kept showing up. He was the most obviously shameless fucker I’d seen in a long time. Always asking her to hang out and would appear when I did. 

He was not only fucking up my plan but his own shitty one. But I underestimated her pity for the ‘pathetic loser’ act he put on because when she revealed that she was going to that party, I was shocked. 

Brian laughed at me when he brought me a change of clothes to wear for the party, but quickly stopped when I reminded him that I was further ahead with my plan than he was. 

I had to get dressed in the bathroom of a Marcos and when I was leaving I bumped into a guy. Everything that day was going wrong. Other than getting her alone in the library for a bit. 

That was the most we had gotten to talk uninterrupted and her assignment forced me to look at myself in retrospect. But her response was what really interested me. I honestly wanted to know more about it and would’ve loved to find a flaw in her argument but as always, someone had to show up. 

It had been a few minutes after I had knocked on the door but there was no response. I thought that maybe she’d try to escape through the window or something again, but the dreadful buzzing that circulated through the body told me otherwise. 

I slammed the door open and saw Nancy standing in front of the window. It was closed and no attempts were made to move it. Her body covered the view of the window but I knew what she was seeing. He stood in the tree line, just making himself visible, just making himself known. 

Her hands were trembling and clutching her head but compared to what he could do, she was holding herself well. Too well. 

My shaking hands grabbed her by the shoulders and led her away from the disturbing view that captured her attention.

I sat her down on the bed but her eyes were still transfixed right past me. 

“Nancy.” But it was as if she couldn't hear me. I held her face in my hands and gently turned toward mine. 

“Don't look at Him. He'll leave.” She finally looked at me and the fear in her eyes was not there. It was guilt. 

Maybe she really did know more than what we gave her credit for. But how could that be? There weren't enough pieces to put together nor understand what they meant. 

“What do you know?” I whispered. I don't know why I whispered. Maybe because I thought that if I talked any louder I'd scare her off. 

“How do you know Him?” She finally asked. 

“I'll answer your questions when you answer mine.”

I sat beside her on the bed, hoping that it would maybe make her more open to talking if I'm not towering over her. 

Nancy stared at the wall blankly for a long time before speaking. 

“I don't know when I saw him for the first time, but I was just a kid. From what my parents gathered, I was a sickly child. After I got a cold for the fifth time in 2 months, they took me to get checked out, but the doctors had no idea. In the end, they diagnosed me with CVID, common variable immunodeficiency, basically I had a weak immune system. But it was strange, because they didn't know where it came from. Usually people with CVID have a genetic abnormality that creates a defect in the strength of their immune cells, but I didn't have that abnormality. It also commonly occurs in adults. I was diagnosed when I was 5. I was too scared to tell my parents about the man I saw in my dreams. And after a while, he started to show up when I wasn’t dreaming, but I couldn't tell if I was awake or not from the lack of sleep I’d gotten.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had never considered that The Operator had latched onto another child. 

“How long did it stay like that?” He never lingered on one stage for too long. 

“When I turned 7, after a particularly bad nightmare, I ended up going to my parents and told them everything that happened. They thought I’d gone crazy, already suspecting something for a while because of the hazy shell I'd been in. They took me to a mental institute, but I have no recollection of what happened in the following year. Whatever they did, actually helped, because not only did I not see Him anymore, I was getting sick less frequently and was able to live a normal life for once.”

Her story was so similar to mine it was frightening. 

“Do you take pills?”

“For what?” 

“To help with the symptoms?”

“No, I've only gotten them back recently. It'd been so long that I managed to convince myself I just had a cold.”

I wanted to know more, but I didn't want to pry too hard. Nancy already shared more than I expected and her revelation changed the situation drastically. 

She sniffed quietly and wiped her face. Thinking she got another nosebleed, I grabbed tissues from the desk and handed them to her but when she blew into them, I realized she was actually crying. 

I had no idea what to do, so I just awkwardly put my arms around her shoulder and patted it. It had been so long since I had to comfort anyone, let alone someone crying. 

“Fuck, sorry.” She said standing up and wiping the remaining tears off her face. 

“Don't worry about it. Um, the bathroom is there if you want to take a minute or something.” She nodded and headed there. I wanted to give her some privacy so I headed back to the living room. Toby and the girls were trying out a different game and paid me no mind as I grabbed a drink from the fridge. 

I needed to smoke a fucking pack after all that. 

The door slammed open and a rancid smelling Brian walked through the door. Toby and I hollered in laughter as his vomit-covered ass stormed off to the bathroom. 

Maybe today wasn’t all that bad.

Chapter Text

Ben's POV

The fall fest was finally here. The kids had been excitedly mentioning it every day for a while now. So when Mr. James asked me to work the fall fest, I agreed. 

I also hoped that Violet had recovered well enough to be able to go as well. But Blake was the only one who showed up and when Mr. James let us know that neither of the girls had responded to his messages, I figured they weren't coming. 

There were so many words I wanted to tell Blake but with kids all around us, I would have to wait till later. 

Blake and I were assigned to the same activity stations that we would rotate through every 45 minutes or so. 

The activities we were scheduled for were bobbing for apples, the dunk tank, a petting zoo, a pie-eating competition, a corn maze, and the hayride. It had been a long time since I had done games like that, so I had high expectations. 

Even though the place had just opened, there were already a ton of people here. I recognized many of the kids as they waved to Blake and me on our way to the apple bobbing station.

45 minutes flew by quickly as it was really amusing to see kids attempting to get the apples. Blake went out of his way to ignore me as usual. His attitude was starting to get really annoying. I've done nothing but be courteous to the guy and he acts like a total ass back. 

They only needed one counselor to run the dunk tank, but since there were 2 of us, we had to play rock, paper, scissors for who got to go into the tank. I, of course, had won. A sweet revenge that felt well deserved as when the kids saw Blake in the tank, it was the most popular attraction and everyone wanted to dunk him. I’d lost count of how many times he fell into the cold water. 

The petting zoo was a lot of fun. There were already employees who were taking care of the animals, so all we did was pass out feed to the kids. My favorite was the alpaca, mostly because it tried to bite Blake when he tried to feed it. 

When we neared the stage where the pie-eating competition was being held, he leaned over to me, “You can take care of this one.” And walked off to God knows where. 

I had no issue with it, seeing as all I had to do anyway was just announce who was still competing and who dropped out. It was mostly middle and high schoolers competing, so naturally one of the older kids won, but all the kids were stuffed to the brim, even little Johnathan. 

I was glad that was over, because we got to move onto the corn maze next. This was my favorite when I as a kid. But now, we were in charge of keeping track of everyone that went in and out of the maze, and to make sure that when someone got lost we could lead them out. At some point during our shift, a girl got lost and we had to retrieve her. Poor girl was frightened but we managed to calm her down.

Not long after, we left and made our way over to the hayride truck.

“Be careful, here’s a map of where to go.” A guy handed a pair of keys to Blake. 

He was in charge of driving around throughout the large park, while I sat in the truck bed with the kids, making sure none of them felt like jumping out. 

There was one spot open beside the driver’s spot. And when the first kid Johnathan got on, he immediately sat beside Blake. The truck bed was full and we took off.

Each bump we went over, they let out squeals and giggles. But when Johnathan hunched forward and began puking everywhere, the squeals turned into screams of terror. Blake and I were trying to calm Johnathan and the kids down, but as we drove over another bump, the half-eaten, partly-digested pie chunks splattered all over Blake. It got in his hair, and already wet clothes from the dunk tank. 

He stopped the car and most of the parents ran over to help their kid off the truck bed. Jonathan stayed behind with another counselor as Mr. James came over and took both of us back to the daycare. Since Johnathan's parents weren't there, we had to file an incident report to let them know what happened when they came to pick him up.

I offered to write the report while Blake cleaned up in the restroom. There were no kids in the daycare so he swore up a storm in the bathroom. When he was done, he calmly walked into Mr. James’ office and closed the door. 

I tried to mind my own business but curiosity won and I began to pay attention to what I could through the door. While most of it was muffled, I understood one part clearly.

“I’m putting in my two weeks James.”

Chapter Text

Violet’s POV

Alice and I looked at each other as Brian slammed the door and through the walls, we could hear him yell, “Fuck this shit!”

Toby and Tim were already laughing their asses off, and we joined them. I laughed harder than I’ve had in a while, which could be because my sanity was slipping. 

I was surely becoming delirious because I had only gotten a couple hours of sleep in over 24 hours.

Leaning onto the couch, I let a content smile take over my face. The situation we were in was not ideal, but there were things to be grateful for. Alice was found, and she was safe. We’re here together and as of thus far, not really being hurt either. I had yet to understand what it was we were here for exactly, but judging from Nancy’s previous demeanor, she knew something.  

Even with my eyes shut, I could feel the gazing eyes of the people in the room. 

A door from the hallway opened, and everyone peered over to see if it was Brian. Maybe he’d provide some more entertainment. It was Nancy who walked out, though.

Her eyes had pink rings around them like she had been crying. Makeup from the previous night had been washed off, but all that helped was revealing her deep, dark eyebags. 

I glared at Tim, wondering what could’ve happened in the time they spent together. He put his hands up in defense and shook his head to say that it wasn’t because of him. Which I had a hard time believing that but decided not to push further.

“What’s up with him?” Nancy asked, pressing her lips together in an attempt to not laugh. 

“Covered in puke,” I told her. 

She nodded, seemingly in a slightly better mood hearing of Brian’s state, and walked over to us in the living room to take a seat. 

“Wh-what’s for d-dinner?” Toby said to her, and she rolled her eyes.

“How should I know?” 

When it comes to how Nancy and I act when sleep deprived, we were total opposites. While I become cheerier and touchier, to the point of scaring and unnerving the surrounding people, Nancy becomes overwhelmed with everything, making her irritable. And if she has coffee, it's worse because no matter how desperate she needs to sleep, she can't get any. Which, if I recall correctly, this morning Brian had brewed a large pot.

Everyone is so screwed.

“The f-fuck is your p-problem all of th-the sudden?” Alice shot me a worried look. This could escalate very quickly. 

Being the closest to Nancy, I rubbed her shoulder and gently petted her hair in an attempt to calm her down. That was somewhat successful, as she stared at me in horror.

"Do you really trust them to make edible food?” I tried to reason with her. Toby opened his mouth in protest to what I said, but as soon as he saw Alice's nasty glare, he closed it right back up.

She knew I was buttering her up as she stood up grumbling, walking to the kitchen.

Alice came up beside me. “You need to sleep right now.”

“I’ll sleep when I'm dead.” I giggled. Probably not the best idea to be making a joke like this in front of our captors. 

She gave me a disappointed look and smacked my arm. 

“No, you’ll sleep tonight.”

“Can’t make me.” There was no real reason to bicker about this, other than the fact that I just felt like it. I knew I needed to sleep, and would need to turn my brain off for at least a couple of hours. 

Last night dragged on forever. After everyone had already settled in for the night, and I curled up in a corner of Brian’s room, it was eerily silent. Brian was so quiet that if the moonlight peering from the window hadn’t shined upon his breathing figure, I would’ve assumed he was gone. That man made no sound as he slept, no rustling of the sheets, no snoring, not even the sound of an inhale and exhale. 

Usually, I am a light sleeper, and this perfect silence would have been the ideal condition for me to fall asleep in. But I couldn’t. The betrayal and deception pulled by Brian could not leave my mind. 

I spent the entirety of the night replaying every memory, and moment we shared this past month. His timing made more sense now, but it just added more questions on top of it. 

At some point during the night, I began experiencing a major headache, whether that was due to my exhaustion or something else, I have yet to figure out, but even Brian began to turn and shift in his slumber. When the moon began to dim and the sun started to rise, I felt my eyelids get heavier. As soon as I felt my mind escape my grasp, Nancy stormed in and dragged me out of the room to show me her discovery. There in Toby’s bed, he and Alice were snuggling. Well, more like she was snuggling him. Toby was frozen, almost as if he was trying his hardest to suppress his ticks so as not to wake Alice up. 

What a bunch of dorks. 

“There’s nothing in here!” Nancy shouted, slamming the fridge door. 

Tim and Toby looked at each other, worried, and maybe a little scared too. 

“Stop fucking screaming.” A voice came from down the hall. 

Brian had taken a quick shower as it was desperately needed and apparently had been silently observing us for God knows how long. He changed into some grey seats and a plain black tee. Draped over his shoulder was a small blue towel that he used part of to soak up the droplets of water running down his short, blonde hair. Though the water had drenched part of his shirt as it clung to his chest. Was he in a rush to get here?

Nancy spun on her heels to face Brian.

“Tell your minions-”

“M-minions?!” 

“Who the fuck are you calling a minion?” 

Tim and Toby interrupted, but quickly shut up when she glared at them.

“Tell your minions that if they want me to make food, at least have more than a pack of Bud Light and half a loaf of stale bread.”

“Calm yourself.” He said, taking off his backpack that I hadn’t noticed he had with him previously.

Brian placed the bag on the countertops and zipped it. It had already been bulging out and the sudden release of pressure made the inside spill out everywhere. 

About 15 small pumpkins poured out onto the counter and the floor. Nancy and I looked at each other and then back at the familiar gourds that were clearly stolen from the entrance of the daycare. Each had “scary” faces painted all over. 

“Use this.”

“To do what?” She asked, exasperated. 

“To make dinner. I didn’t think you were this stupid.” He smirked as he saw her bite her cheek in annoyance and as a way to calm herself.

“These are decorative, not used for cooking.”

“And today you will use them for cooking.” He insisted.

I could tell that Nancy was appalled by his audacity. She furrowed her brows in irritation.

“I never agreed to be the appointed cook.” At this rate, no one was going to eat anything, and we were going to die of starvation. Or turn to cannibalism, either was fine by me. 

“We’ll get food tomorrow. Then we can switch out who cooks.” 

“But why don’t you cook these? Since you want them so bad.” Nancy was arguing for the sake of arguing at this point, which was something both of us were prone to when tired. Expecting a calculated response or a snarky comeback from Brian, but instead, red crept up his neck and he looked taken aback. 

“I -uh don’t really know how.” That last part was quieter than the rest, but it was definitely heard.

Wordlessly, Nance picked up the fallen gourds and placed them all in the sink. Brian and I took that as a sign to leave her be.

It was like watching the cooking channel as she precisely used the knife to chop each pumpkin in one swift motion. Once she finished cutting them up, she threw them in the oven and began to work on the leftover pumpkin guts. After she cleaned the seeds, she placed them in the oven too.

The entire time she had been cooking, Tim had slowly but surely made his way over closer to her. He now sat at the kitchen table watching, mesmerized. Toby had brought Alice a crumpled sheet of paper and a Huntington bank pen. And the rest of us watched her doodle as she lay on the ground. 

“I need your crowbar.” I looked up and saw Nance standing in front of Tim. He mumbled something, but I was too far to hear. 

“Do you know how to draw?” Brian tried to make conversation with me.

“Nope, that’s an Alice thing.” He nodded as if he didn’t already know that. 

“What happened at the Fall Fest?” I really wanted to know what led up to him coming home vomit-covered and with a bunch of stolen pumpkins.

He retold the day's events and what happened to him. He tried to hide a fighting smile as the story reached the dramatic climax. I laughed so hard that I smacked his arm when he explained that little Johnathan puked on him while he was driving the hayride. It seemed that he had a really rough day from the time at the dunk tank all the way up to the hayride. But the real kicker of it all was when he revealed he had put in his 2 weeks that same day.

I almost felt bad for him. Keyword, almost.

“That’s karma.” I chucked and pointed my finger at him teasingly. 

Loud hits were heard as Nance beat the counter with Tim’s crowbar. She was using the crowbar to grind the seeds and mash the pumpkins before adding everything into one large pot, along with some other things she must’ve found in the cupboards.

She and Tim were taking turns stirring the large pot when I felt the insatiable urge to annoy her. I skipped over to the two and placed my elbows on their shoulders. 

“How’s it coming along, love birds?”

Both turned around instantly but had vastly different expressions on their faces. Tim looked annoyed more than anything, but Nance was terrified. 

“After dinner, you’re going to sleep. I can tell you didn’t last night.”

“You didn’t get more than I did, so the same goes for you.” We agreed, but that was not needed as we both knew we were acting out of character. 

Not long after, we sat down and had a quiet dinner. Nancy was able to make some sort of porridge. Very homey, and fit right in with the rain that began to pour outside.

I thanked her for the meal and headed to Brian’s room. I set myself up in the corner and closed my eyes. Wishing for sleep to take me away. Alas, Brian had to enter the room.

“Hey, I’ve got stuff to work on for a while. You can sleep on the bed.”

“No thanks. Where would you sleep?”  

“On the couch.”

Not willing to have him change his mind and have me lay on the floor all night again, I took him up on the offer and climbed into his bed. I fell asleep that night to the sounds of gently keyboard typing and the faint smell of citrus and vanilla in his sheets.

Chapter Text

Alice’s POV

Last night, I had placed several pillows between Toby and me to hopefully make more distance between us. But when morning came, the center pillows lay scattered all over the ground, far away from the bed and Toby’s arms wrapped around my torso. His gloved hands played with my hair and if it wasn’t for the sun shining so brightly, I would’ve fallen back asleep. 

I let out an undistinguishable groan as I stretched, causing Toby to take his hands away and pretend they weren’t there to begin with. 

I really hoped we got to go to the store today, as I desperately needed new clothes. As much as I appreciated Toby lending me his wardrobe, albeit limited, I needed my own. Plus, my nails haven’t been done in almost a month and my dyed blonde hair had brown roots peeking through. Overall, I felt like a mess and likely looked like it too. 

Trudging to the kitchen, I noticed there were people already there. A pot of coffee was already half gone as Violet and Brian sipped large mugs at opposite ends of the room. The clock read 11 am. 

Yesterday was unbearable. Between her giving everyone an unneeded attitude and Violet acting clingy and touchy, I thought I would lose my mind. Although the mood switches don’t happen too often, it’s a long day when they do. 

Somehow, of everyone here, Toby has been the least annoying. Tim’s ‘shut the fuck up and leave me alone’ persona pisses me off and I know I’m not the only one that thinks that. The way Violet glares at him tells me everything I need to know. Brian’s attempts at being a nonchalant leader who knows everything and controls everyone does not work for me either. These men need to get their egos checked the fuck out.

Just as I began to wonder where the last unaccounted-for kidnapper was, Tim begrudgingly stumbled through the front door. He held like 20-something plastic bags filled with some of mine and the other girls’ stuff. 

“Where’s the food?” Brian asked, not looking up from the book that he was reading.

“Up your fucking ass. There’s more shit in the car.” Tim managed to say as he lugged our things to the living room. 

“Sounds like a hassle.” 

“I wonder why.” 

As they continued to bicker, Violet and I began to look through the bags. Our faces burned red when we opened the bags with our underwear. Everything was clearly thrown into the bags as fast as possible, as they were still missing much of what we needed. 

“I swear I didn’t look when I uh-” Tim tried to explain but he trailed off, embarrassed.

“P-pervert.” Toby “coughed” into his sleeve.

“Rich coming from you, of all people, Toby.” Brian stepped in. 

Toby accidentally made eye contact with me and quickly looked away. I wondered what they meant by that, and would’ve asked more questions if he hadn’t walked away. 

Violet and I went back to looking through the bags and taking note of what was missing. I had a sinking feeling while doing so. Does this mean that we don’t get to go back home? I mean, they’re not planning on killing us since they got our stuff, but they’re also not planning on letting us go either. So why bring us here? 

Tim and Brian seem to be the least likely to answer my questions. Toby, on the other hand... I don't know if I'm reading him wrong, but he seems pretty detached from the others.

I think he may be my way of gaining information… if I play my cards right.

Pretty lost in thought about my next move, I was surprised when Nancy sat down beside me with a huff.

“Sleep well?” I asked.

“About as good as the floor will let me.”

“You were on the floor again?” Violet asked.

“Were you not?” We shook our heads and Nancy groaned, reclining onto the carpet in disbelief that she was the only one who slept on the floor. 

“Hey, don't make me the bad guy just because you refused my offer.” Tim stood by the doorway with the last of our bags and Brian held a paper bag with a Dunkin' Donuts logo.  

“Let’s get going. We’ve got a lot to do today.” 

They took us through a shortcut in the forest that led to a parking lot that we didn’t know existed, and piled into the small sedan. There were definitely not enough seats in the back, but we somehow managed to fit all the girls and Toby. He has the smallest build of the guys, and also, I don’t think the other two wanted to sit back here. 

We put Nancy on the window side, Violet beside her, with me next to her and Toby, who had the other window. We started driving, but Tim didn’t pull over to any of the local grocery stores, not even in the neighboring cities.

Nancy rested her face on the cool window and moaned. 

“How much longer?” 

“20 minutes,” Brian replied. 

Violet tried to scoot closer to me as Nancy turned pale. She usually was the driver of our group, and not because she particularly liked driving, but because she gets intense motion sickness as a passenger. Especially if it’s in the back of a car when it's crowded. 

Toby outstretched his arm and rested it behind me on the top of the seat. When he felt me moving closer to him as a result of Violet smushing me, he grabbed my shoulder and leaned me closer to his chest. This guy was really handsy, but not really in a concerning way, and I didn’t mind as it made a bit more room in the back. 

Violet gave me a look, the same one when she caught me snuggling up to Toby a few mornings ago. At least she didn’t say anything. She just took note of it and made sure I knew. 

The rest of the drive was quiet, save for the deep breathing coming from the other side of the car. Periodically, Tim and Brian would use the mirror to quickly check what’s happening in the back. On more than one occasion, Violet and I would catch Brian staring. Not at us but only at her. 

I gave her the same look she gave me moments prior, which ended with my foot getting stomped on. 

Finally, we arrived at some dingy Walmart in the middle of nowhere. To make sure the cameras wouldn't capture the car, Tim parked around a weird corner of the store.

As soon as the doors were unlocked, Nancy jumped out and bent over, taking in large, deep breaths of fresh air. Tim watched nervously and gave us a look of concern, as if to ask what to do, I waved him off. She just needed a few minutes of fresh air and then she’ll be mostly okay. 

Walking in, it was immediately apparent that this place was severely understaffed. There was no greeter and as we walked through the aisles, there were maybe two employees. However, there were a decent number of customers, which made blending in easier.

“Do you know what you need to get?” Brian addressed us, and we nodded. 

“Then Brian and Violet can go get the stuff we all need. Toby and Alice can get the stuff the girls need. And Nancy and I will get food or whatever.” Tim tried to nonchalantly pair us off. Violet and Nancy stared at each other, silently communicating their displeasure. 

“Brian does the cooking as well. He should get the food as well.” Nancy challenged Tim. 

“I know what he gets. He can go get other shit.”  

Violet “coughed out” a not-so-subtle ‘fatass’, and with that, Toby took my hand and dragged me away from the still-arguing group. And for the best too, pairing me off with Toby gave me the best opportunity to find something out. 

Despite what most men think of me, I’m not a total airhead. Yes, it was a blunder on my part when Toby tricked me with his looks and motorcycle, but he wasn’t playing fair and caught me off guard. Who was supposed to say no to a hot biker who paid lots of money for me to paint pretty stuff? 

But I digress, I’m pretty certain Toby harbors some sort of feelings towards me, and I would feel bad doing this, but he’s literally a kidnapper. All of them are. That first meeting with them in the forest still circles the back of my mind. Toby was one scary motherfucker, even if he’s been kind to me ever since the kidnapping.

“Hey, Toby?” I asked, flipping my long hair over one shoulder.

“Y-yes?”

“Whatever happened to the bike?” 

“B-brian sold i-it. It w-was just needed f-for the r-ruse.” What a bummer. 

We continued to walk through aisles of women’s clothing as I would throw in something for each of the girls. Black and sporty for Nancy, dark and comfortable for Violet, and lastly bright and cute for me. 

“Toby?” I said once more. This was a delicate process and cannot be rushed. He didn’t say anything, and his head twitched to one side, but he looked at me to let me know he was listening. 

“How long do you think we have to stay with you guys for?” I looked at him nervously, playing with my fingers. 

“U-um, I’m d-don’t really h-have a way to a-answer to th-that.” He looked taken aback and stuttered more than usual. 

“Oh, how come we need to be with you guys, then?” Slow, Alice. Play scared and dumb.

“I- u-um s-so our b-boss of s-sorts needs you g-guys for s-something. And h-he’s w-waiting to s-see if y-you c-can do i-it.”

That was not what I expected. 

“So, is it like an interview or something?” He nodded his head quickly.

“Y-yeah s-something like th-that!”

“So, what’s your boss like?” In my mind, I imagined a scary old man who ran a bunch of shady businesses. 

“I d-don’t want to t-talk about this a-anymore.”

“Aww come on.” I tried to coax him, but I think I pushed my luck too far. 

“You d-don’t think I k-know w-what you’re doing?” He asked slowly, taking a step toward me. “A-ask m-me another question, Alice.”

He reached his hand out toward me and twirled a piece of my hair much like he did this morning.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” 

“Oh, but you d-did. You th-thought you c-could use me to get all th-the information you w-want. Smart g-girl.”

A cold sweat poured down my back, and my breath shallowed. 

“I can be a r-reasonable m-man, though. L-let’s say we f-forget about th-this if you d-don’t try to use m-me again. How d-does that s-sound?”

I nodded my head silently, and we did not talk for the rest of our time here. After about 10 minutes or so, we met up with everyone else by the registers. They were also not talking to each other. Whether it was like that the entire time or something happened, I’d have to ask later. 

Right now, however, I needed to talk to them privately. I know Nancy has been holding onto some information as well, and we’ve all been itching for some alone time together. 

I quickly scanned what was in the cart and was lucky to have an oversight made by everyone.

“We’ll be right back! We forgot to grab pads and stuff.” And before the boys could have a chance to think about why we all needed to go, I grabbed Nancy's and Violet’s hands and dragged them away as fast as possible. 

I led them to an aisle far away from the registers and away from all people. 

“What’s going on Al?” Nancy asked.

“We need to talk, and this seemed to be our only chance to be able to. Also, I found some things out as well.” 

“Go ahead, we don't have much time.” Violet urged, looking around. A guy entered the same aisle, but it was not one of our guys. 

The man stared at our huddle for a long minute till I realized he was actually staring at Nancy. But she was off in her own world thinking about who knows what. I tapped her on the shoulder to point the man out to her, but when their eyes met, a wide smile spread across the man’s face. 

Nancy’s eyes widened, and it took her a moment to realize he was walking towards us. He wore a hoodie and just barely, sticking out from the side pocket, was the tip of a blade. 

Violet and Nancy noticed it too, and we took off running. The guy was fast, but we luckily had a slight head start.

I had no idea who this guy was, but Nancy seemed to recognize him. She also seemed afraid of him and when I offered that we try to find a coworker, she insisted that we hide somewhere instead.

We made our way to the back of the store where the restrooms were, and ran inside, just getting the door shut in time before the man could reach us. The door had no lock, so we resorted to barricading it with trashcans and sitting up against them.

“We never finished our conversation from the other night, Nancy,” the man coaxed. 

Nancy said nothing back, just looked at the door nervously, and we all tensed when he banged on the door loudly. 

“I can wait here as long as I need to, now that I don’t waste my time away on campus.”

Something from the sentence clicked with Violet. 

“Is that Scott?” She whispered to Nancy, who nodded. Scott. I have definitely heard that name somewhere. I racked my brain to remember who that was, but the most I got was some friendly guy from school. What happened in the time I was gone? 

The banging on the door seized, and after a few minutes of complete silence, we thought he might’ve left. But then a large force pushed on the door all at once, as if Scott was using his whole body to open the door. 

He did this over and over. The sound of him crashing against the door was so incredibly loud, and each push dug the edge of the trashcan onto our backs, lurching us forward in a hurling motion. And each time brought me closer and closer to puking.

Like last time, he momentarily stopped, and we knew we had but a few minutes to do something. There was a window above the sinks that looked like it could be opened up.

I motioned to it with my head to the girls. We quickly climbed atop the counters and began fidgeting with the lock system, trying to open it but also staying quiet so as to not alert Scott. 

Violet managed to unlock it, and as we lifted it, the friction let out a nasty moan. She used all the strength left in her good leg to hoist herself into the opening. 

Her eyes darted between mine, Nancy’s, and the distance to the concrete below. 

The door slammed open as she took a plunge. Trashcans and their contents sprayed the floor of the bathroom. 

Three pairs of frantic and desperate eyes scanned the room before setting on me and Nancy, with Violet nowhere to be seen. 

Chapter Text

Violet's POV 

What's worse than being shot in your leg? I'd say rolling your ankle is pretty up there but probably doesn't rank quite as high.

Nevertheless, after jumping out of the Walmart bathroom window and rolling my ankle on impact, I struggled to make no noise. This was my one chance at escape and I couldn't dare fuck it up just because I was in a little pain.

I knew that if the guys saw me jump or suspected I did; I needed to hide quickly. I scooted toward the wall and hoped they didn't look straight down. 

Being below the window, I could hear the conversation, which consisted of a lot of arguing. 

“Where is she?” Brian demanded. 

“Who?” Asked Nancy, playing dumb. There was silence, and I imagined the looks they were being given. 

“Oh, Violet? Yeah, no, she's using one of the stalls. A little privacy for her sake might be nice after all-

“Shut the fuck up.” The fatass spoke. 

Shuffling was heard and then followed by the already familiar slamming of the bathroom door as the girls were presumably dragged out of there. 

Having only a few solid minutes before they would be outside the store, I got my ass moving. 

Surrounding the store was a thick bushel of trees that spanned further than I wished to see. 

On one hand, the forest is my best bet at hiding, getting away, and getting help. On the other hand… how many more times do I have to venture into a forest? 

Pushing aside my feelings of annoyance and maybe a bit of fear, I did my best to run into the forest before I'd been spotted.

There wasn't really an entrance, so I had to push through branches and thorns until I made it to something that resembled a path. 

This was clearly not a well-traveled part of the woods, as it was nearly impossible to get around. Roots poked out of the ground everywhere, and where there were none, pebble-covered mud met my step.

I hoped the girls were managing okay. Seeing as I took the risk of leaving them behind and having to deal with the angry aftermath. 

I wonder if they all went after me or just a few. And if so, who? It's likely they didn't bring the girls because there's a chance they'd break free and run as well. That means they're probably kept in the car or someplace similar. 

Who would go after me, though? Brian would be the best option. Tim and Toby would have to catch up to me before they would be able to do much damage, and if Brian brought his gun… we'll then I can't do shit. 

What about Scott? Something major must have happened at the party, for him to make this huge of a switch up. Not only that, but Nancy still somehow ended up with Tim at the end of the night. 

Even though there is no one here out here, and it’s definitely not the time for this, however I was so right about Scott. I should’ve told Nancy ‘I told you so” in the bathroom, but she was too out of it. Rightfully so, that man is a batshit crazy lunatic. 

My ankle was beginning to hurt much less now, with the trail putting less pressure on my right side. However, each step taken threatened to rip the paper-thin skin that was welded together by hopes and dreams. 

After about 10 minutes or so of hobbling around, I made it to a fork in the road, where the “trail” I had been following split into two. 

A classic choice presented: a more well-traveled and cleared-through path, or the beaten-down with thorns poking through. 

I could almost imagine how each of us would go about choosing which way to go. 

Nancy would go down the harder path, reasoning with us that while hard to do down, the boys would have a much harder time and would either give up or try the easier trail. 

Alice would tease that Nancy is shorter and because she's the tallest, would suffer most on a harder trail, and also that the guys would expect us to go down that path. Therefore, we should go down the easier one.

I would have to be the tiebreaker, opting for the easier pathway. It’s more traveled, meaning people use it to get somewhere, unlike the other trail. Plus, with my leg making it harder to run, let alone maneuver an obstacle course of thorns and mud, I'd be dead before Brian even reaches me.

The sound of distant rustling indicated, I had no time to spare and needed to haul ass.

Nancy’s POV

“Haul your fucking ass,” Tim whispered in my ear as he gave a tight-lipped smile to the greeter that was now in front of the store.

Brian handed him the receipt that reached down to the floor and thoroughly checked the list.

The poor greeter didn’t know it as he waved us goodbye cheerfully, but he then made my and Alice’s life just that much harder. 

Tim gripped my shoulder tighter as we walked to the car. Toby did the same with Alice, making it clear that we are still not to be trusted with being free. The pressure with which I was being lugged around was starting to hurt, but we were nearing the car. 

“They’re add-ding more s-security because of-f the m-mess, we c-can’t come b-cack!” Toby stammered beside the car as he shoved Alice inside. 

“We won’t once we find the other,” Brian said coolly, but it was clear as day that he was mad too. 

Mad at Walmart for increasing their security, mad at us for trying to leave, mad at Violet for running away, and mad at himself for letting Violet escape. But if there is anyone he should be mad at, it should be Scott. Did they not see him? Surely at least Tim would’ve recognized him. Maybe even given a good sock to the face. Unless they are working together…

They stuffed us into the back seats and blocked the doors as they chatted briefly for a minute before Brian left heading directly to the forest. 

Both doors opened as Tim and Toby sat down, shoving Alice and me to each other. Had it been this morning, I wouldn’t have minded potentially leaning back on Tim for comfort, but now the thought made me nauseous. I bet Alice had a similar feeling as we opted to rest awkwardly on each other. 

“You know this wasn’t our fault-”

“I don’t give a shit.” 

“She’s right. We didn’t mean to-”

“I don’t care.” I’m so sick of him interrupting us when we try to explain. 

“This wouldn’t have happened if you guys had been upfront with us about what was going on. Especially with what happened yesterday, and now Scott showed up-”

“What?” I swear I’m going to suffocate this man with a seatbelt. With the way Tim and Toby sat up at the mention of Scott, I’ll assume they’re not in whatever this is together. 

“What do you mean, Trevor was here?” Tim asked worriedly, looking around. 

“I mean, we went to go get pads and talk for a minute before the creep showed up in the same aisle and started chasing us with a knife- wait why are you calling him Trevor?”

Tim paled at my last comment, realizing his mistake. He mumbled some words, still being stubborn.

At that point, I realized that our safety was not a priority to them. Otherwise, they would’ve told us what we needed to know. And we know jack shit about what is actually happening. We were so utterly screwed. I don’t see a situation where we’re making out of this alive and together. We are stuck in a car with dangerous men that kidnapped us and outside somewhere is an even scarier man that wants answers to questions that we won’t give. What will happen then…

Alice grabbed my hand, which I had subconsciously begun to pick and tear apart the dried skin around my already gnawed-off fingernails. She gave me a silent, pleading glance to stop picking because the sight of blood makes her queasy and my picking often leads to that. In a moment that’s easily missed, she briefly looked out into the forest. Clearly worried for Violet, who now has Brian after her in a forest. And we all know how that ended up last time. 

Violet is capable, but not Brian with a gun capable, maybe pre-gunshot wound. But that is not her situation. And if we want to raise the chances of making it out of here, then she can't be the only one that's hustling.

I jerked my hands away from Alice, placing them on my head and running my fingers through my hair. 

So far, only Alice and Tim are paying attention to me. Lurching forward, I slowly began to take deep breaths in. 

“W-what's wr-rong with y-you?” Perfect.

“It's… it's too hot in here.” Wordlessly, both guys rolled their windows down. 

It was cooler in the car now, but that would not be enough for me. I swung my head back, closed my eyes, and continued to breathe with increasing longevity. 

“Don't you even think about puking,” Tim warned, but like most of his efforts, it was too little too late. 

When I was little,I learned to puke on command. It came in handy when I saw the man and needed an excuse to leave school right away. 

It took a little bit more effort since it had been so long since I needed to do it. However, leftover Dunkin' and stomach acid rippled through my throat and into the car. It burned my throat like a motherfucker, but it worked.

Tim and Toby scrambled out of the car, opening the doors but standing beside them. Waiting to see what I would do. 

“Go,” I whispered to Alice, covering it with a groan as I shakily tried to scoot closer to the door.

“No.” Tim tried to block the exit, but I had an angel watching over me. 

“T-tim s-she'll p-puke ag-gain!” My hero. 

He let me through and, as I stood meekly, Alice came out the same way. Toby was the only one on the other side. 

I tried my “best” to reach my arm out to stabilize myself against the car, but tensing my stomach and heaving made the bile rise once more. 

Unlike in the car where I was seated when I threw up, out here, there's nothing to catch my “weak” and “frail” body after I've vomited. But there is someone. 

A pair of “strong” and “capable” arms caught my falling body. 

“Hey, hey, easy there,” Tim said awkwardly, patting my head. He's been doing that a lot recently. 

Alice and I knew that this was it. She spun on her heel and booked it into the forest. Toby was so caught up with watching me nearly topple over that it took Tim yelling at him to go to finally chase after her. Even with her head start, he was hot on her tail as she stumbled into the shrubbery. 

One more left. I just needed the keys to the car. 

“Now what are we to do with you?” Tim grumbled as he tried to pull me up with me “accidentally” stepping on his feet.

Alice’s POV

How many times is Toby going to chase me through a forest? Three times is too many. I thought bitterly as I snapped branches out of my way. 

Unlike the previous times I've been chased, this time I have a plan. What was a common denominator that was present in both times? I always ran. I ran, and Toby got off on the chase. It was hopeless to run, so I needed to hide. Once I disappeared from the treeline, instead of running along the beaten-down path, I stayed hidden in the thick bushes covered with thorns. I prayed, and I prayed that Toby would run past me, giving me enough time to help Nancy somehow get away too. 

God heard my prayers, and He provided. Toby flew past me without a second thought. I waited a minute or two just to be sure he was far enough away before trying to find my way back to Nancy and Tim. 

Somehow, I managed to get lost, even though I was sure I wasn't that far from them.

Only when the distant yells of Tim were heard I could orient more or less where they came from. Hopefully, I was the only one following these sounds. 

As I neared the edge of the forest, the obsessive sounds of struggle were becoming louder. 

Peeking through and breaking the monotonous sight of the same branches over and over again, I saw Nancy and Tim struggling over the car keys that she held in her hands. 

Nancy was sprawled over on the concrete, attempting to crawl away. Tim was holding on by pulling her back by one leg as she repeatedly kicked him with the other.

“Let go of me!” She yelled.

“Yeah fucking right.” He sneered.

Every time he tried to pull her back, Nancy would grip onto a nearby sewer drain, but having scraped her palms pretty badly from sliding across the pavement earlier, her grip on the sewer drain bars weakened with every tug. 

Tim reared his head back and to the side to crack his neck as he prepared to pull again. As he yanked one final time, she used her last remaining strength to propel herself toward him. Combined with the force of the tug and the push she made, she slid toward him. And not expecting the movement toward him, he stumbled back, easing the grip he had on her foot. 

She took the chance to get up on her feet and run toward the driver's side of the car. Luckily it was nearby otherwise, she would’ve been outrun pretty quickly.

Tim was not too far behind, but Nancy managed to get inside the car and lock it before he could get in. He banged on the window and yelled at her but she pulled herself together and started the car. 

My eyes nearly bulged out of my head as I stifled my horror. 

With the car’s back up against the wall of the Walmart, Tim decided, in his everlasting wisdom, that his best course of action would be to stand in front of the car. He likely decided that Nancy wouldn’t do it, but she did. She revved the car as a warning but he stayed firm, cocky. Nancy put the car into drive and pressed on the gas. 

Tim managed to partially jump out of the way, but not fully as he stumbled and fell to the ground. Nancy’s face showed she was terrified as the car rolled over Tim’s legs and toward the forest. 

The crunching and squelching of the broken bones as they were ground into his flesh, protruding from it, rang in my mind. The image of the meat confounding the shape of the space left between the tires and concrete burned my eyes. 

Tim grazed his legs, in an effort to soothe them. A vehement denial as he cradled his remaining sanity. 

The howling that echoed from his throat was animalistic and hoarse. As fast as he screamed in pain and frustration, he soon began to wail in horror. 

“I can’t feel them! I can’t feel my legs!” 

Nancy stopped the car momentarily, tires screeching and the smell of burning rubber invaded my nostrils. Remorse painted her eyes as she contemplated turning back and helping him out. But in the end, she decided that our freedom was worth sacrificing a human life for. She will fight bare-bone knuckles if it means she has to live. It does not matter who stood in her way. 

Micah stood in her way, he no longer stands in her way. Tim stood in her way, and he… well he can’t really. 

He rested his back on the pavement, palms covering his mouth as his torse shook violently. Sobs escaped the hand prison he made, his only comfort being that maybe he would be spared and taken soon. 

Whether he believed in God, an eternal afterlife, or not, the promise of an eventual end to the misery he faced was enough to lull the man. 

I prayed for Tim. I prayed for his strength and for him to be taken care of. 

Nancy faced forward once more and drove toward the forest. I finally took control of my bodily autonomy and lunged my body out of the treeline and into her view. 

It was a relief to see each other, having both witnessed what transpired only a few moments prior. 

She unlocked the car and I climbed in on the passenger side. The stench of her previously projecting her insides was coating the car, but at least we had a car now. 

“I…” She lost her vocabulary, unable to put any thoughts into comprehensible words. But I knew what she meant and wanted to say. It wasn’t needed at the moment, however. We needed to find Violet. 

“If Violet is still somewhere nearby, she’d be on the other side of the forest by now.” I theorized, hoping that the forest is wider than it is longer. 

The car was pretty old and lacked a GPS, so finding our way around would be up to our intuition, and I was glad it was Nancy behind the wheel rather than me. 

We drove out of the Walmart parking lot and followed the local signs that led to the real entrance of the forest. Not long after entering the road that led to where Violet could possibly be, we found a place that led to a path in the direction of the store we came from. 

A faint buzz could be heard from the legs of crickets, or maybe some other insect. And as we parked the car, the buzzing grew louder. It was so loud, in fact, that it felt as though my thoughts were bouncing off each other. Eons passed between each blink of my eyes, slowed down to the point where I could examine everything in my view and remember nothing after the darkness of the closed eyelids overtook my mind. 

Choosing to see what was happening off to the side with Nancy, and if she was experiencing the same phenomena as I was. After waiting a lifetime for the light to flood my vision, I saw not only Nancy, farther away from me and hunched over Violet who moaned in pain, trying to grab ahold of Nancy’s outstretched, shaking hand, but a tall, looming, faceless deity. The humanoid creature divided its attention between us and the two boys that were originally after us.

Brian and Toby lay on the ground, withering in pain, one hand clutching their head and the other digging their fingers into the mud. A diversion for their anguish that did little to help. 

The entity seemed to be taking out its frustration on the two as I felt no pain, only a weakness in my joints and an overwhelming pressure on the lobes of my brain. Nancy seemed to feel similar but with the addition of a nosebleed as the liquid poured out, leaving her with little strength to pull up Violet onto her feet. Violet seemed to have gotten the worst of the effects as each joint cracked when she moved and she winced at any attempts to get up.

It took me forever to reach them and when I had, Nancy and I lifted Violet, despite her screams. We wrapped her arms around each of our necks and began dragging her back to the car. 

The creature noticed we were making our escape, but paid no mind as it focused its energy on Toby and Brian. 

Looking back, I caught both men staring at us, even in their torment. Their emotions were raw, displaying what meant most to them. Brian watched Violet wither and move further away from it. He looked guilty, but most of all, relieved. Toby looked at me similarly, relieved I could get out, but his look made me feel guilty. He felt betrayed. 

My betrayal earlier would happen again as Nancy and I continued moving. Nancy held Violet with one hand and closed her nose with the other. Her arm was covered and dripping with her blood, but it seemed to be slowly working. 

By the time we reached the car, the nosebleed was nearly gone and Violet seemed to be less in pain, but she looked like she might pass out, out of exhaustion, so we gently laid her in the backseat. 

“Are you ok to drive?” I asked Nancy. She lost quite a bit of blood, but I was not confident in my skills to get us out of here and someplace decent. I’d rather take care of Violet if anything.

She nodded back silently, looked around once more, and got in the car. 

We made our way out of the forest and onto a main road, albeit not having much on it. After a few minutes, Violet began to stir.

“It smells like shit in here.” Nancy and I agreed, chuckling a bit.

“That’s my bad,” Nancy added. 

Wanting to avoid talking about our experience with the creature, I settled on retelling Violet our brilliant escape plan. She laughed at the way I was able to escape, but quickly quieted down when I told her what happened to Tim.

I didn’t really want to bring him up around Nancy, especially so soon after it happened. She takes things to heart often and an event like this will affect her greatly. That is unsurprising, of course, we all will. 

A quiet simmered in the car for a moment before Violet spoke again.

“I would’ve done the same thing, Nance, if not for you. Who knows what would have happened to us. To me.” 

At that, Nancy looked a little less on edge, but still didn’t speak. She was too busy trying to figure out where to go, or where we were. And also busy shutting down, but that could be dealt with after we got settled somewhere. Everything would be dealt with soon.

We drove for a while before we came across a building. A lonely Waffle House sat on the side of the road, nearly abandoned but still operating. 

“Maybe we could stop there and figure out where we are and where to go?” Violet offered. 

We agreed, and Nancy pulled into the parking lot. It had only a few cars, most of them probably being the employees’. 

“What if they start questioning why we look the way we do?” I asked.

“It’s Waffle House. They won’t give a shit,” Violet reassured us. 

We entered the barely working business, grateful and hopeful for its hospitality. A couple of servers were running food and simultaneously arguing with the cooks. 

“Hi, table for 3?” A girl around our age asked as we walked in. She looked us up and down but overall paid no mind to our appearances, just as Violet predicted. 

“Uh actually-” Nancy spoke, but was interrupted by Violet.

“Yes, that would be great, thank you.”

Nancy and I looked at her, confused. We had no money, no phones, and I was not in the mood to dine and dash. 

“Yo B, you got a table!” The girl called out, looking around and not finding this “B” she was talking about. 

“Sorry guys, I’ll show you to your table, and your server will be with you shortly” She took us to a booth, and we hesitantly sat down, still eyeing Violet and wondering what she had up her sleeve. 

The hostess handed us some poorly wiped menus and left us be. 

“Relax guy, I found this in the back,” Violet said, pulling out a familiar wallet that we saw the guys use at the checkout.

Brian must have handed it to Tim as he left and Tim left it in the car, as he was in a hurry to get out of it. 

“These guys don’t use cards at all,” she added. “So they have a bunch of…”

As she trailed off, she opened the wallet to reveal a lot of cash. From the amount of 20s in there, I guessed there were hundreds worth in there. My eyes widened at the sum that lay in there. 

“Ok, let’s put that away before we start looking suspicious.” Nancy reminded us.

We began looking at the menus, scanning to find something to ease my stomach and soul. A waffle could probably do both. 

Our server finally came over to our table, a cute, tall guy with light brown hair and hazel eyes. 

“Hi! Sorry for the wait, can I get you guys started with any d…” His voice faltered as his eyes dropped to Violet and Nancy’s. 

“Ben?”

Chapter Text

Ben’s POV 

I nearly dropped my pen and pencil when I recognized two of the three girls sitting at my table. Nancy and Violet turned their heads toward me when they noticed I stopped talking.

Violet called my name out, but the shock of seeing them took me a second to get over. 

“Hey guys, what are you doing all the way out here?” I laughed. They seemed to be just as surprised as I am, which means at least they weren’t stalking me. How crazy would that be?

“We should be asking you that,” Violet said. “You work at the daycare.” 

“Oh yeah, haha, my parents are divorced, and I like visiting my dad on weekends. I do it pretty often, so I got a job here as well. Plus, more money can never hurt.” 

They all nod their heads in agreement. I'm not sure about the third girl, but I knew the pay Nancy, Violet, and I get, and it definitely wasn't enough to cover regular expenses.

“Anyway, what can I get you guys to drink?” They told me their drink orders, all water, and went back to looking at their menus. Faces buried in the menus, they looked to be almost hiding the way they looked.

It did little to help, though. Their clothes were soaked in mud and they smelled putrid. Of course, I would not tell them any of this. They seemed to have a lot going on. And even if they didn’t that would be so rude.

First, Nancy and Violet skipped out on the Fall Festival. Then they stopped responding to James’ texts, and Violet stopped talking to me altogether.

I wondered for too many hours, trying to figure out what I could have done to upset her. Maybe I came on too strong with the pizza from the other day. Or maybe she and Blake were already a thing, and I just made her uncomfortable. That was the last thing I would want to do to a person who treated me kindly and with respect. 

I didn’t necessarily have any grievances with Nancy. We didn’t talk often enough to learn much about each other, but she was decent to me as well. Blake, on the other hand, I was ecstatic when he put in his two weeks. I was sick of his moody ass. 

The more I thought about the way the girls looked and seemed to be acting, the more concerned I grew. Countless crazy scenarios of them being chased by serial killers played in my mind. Despite how absurd they were, I was worried. 

I would respect their wishes if they chose not to tell me what happened, but I’d be kicking myself later if I did not at least ask. 

After taking the order of another table, I brought the girls their drinks. I decided that I would ask them a few questions after they’ve had their meal, just in case I ruin the mood. 

“Are you guys ready to order?” The girl, whose name I learned was Alice, ordered a Belgian Waffle, and Violet got some French toast. Nancy chose to order a hash brown bowl.

I rang their orders up, and on the way to another table of mine, the hostess, Cherry, stopped me on my way.

“Do you know those girls?” She asked.

“Uh yeah, I work with two of them at my other job.” Cherry nodded. 

“So which one do you think is cute?” Oh brother, this again. Cherry's favorite topic of discussion is people's love lives. Even one that's as dull as mine.

“W-what? None of them.” I stammered. If I had a gun, I probably would’ve used it on myself just then. 

“Uhuh, I’m sure. I bet it’s that one.” She said, pointing to Violet. Of course, she had to choose her. 

I shook my head in denial as I walked away. Cherry was just bored in the 4th hour of her shift and needed something to pass the time. 

“Maybe both?” She yelled out even after I’d left. The girl had no shame. 

After their food came out, I grabbed it as soon as I could, to make sure it was still fresh.

They thanked me as I set their meals down. 

“Ben, this is so good. Please thank the chef for us,” Nancy requested as she stuffed her face full of hashbrowns. 

I contemplated just nodding along and not following through, but the way they all so earnestly indulged in their meals, like they hadn’t had a decent meal in forever, made me feel sorry for them. 

“Will do. I hope you enjoy it. If you need anything else, please just let me know.” I said, chuckling, knowing how this interaction would go down. 

“Hey, Chef, Table 20 sent you their compliments. They really enjoyed the food.” Chef Andrews slowly turned around with a disgusted look that I would even bother coming to him with this. 

“Okay? Give me a medal or whatever the fuck, then. What the fuck are you telling me this for? Better tell Terry, maybe I’ll finally get that fucking raise.” He kept going on, but at that point, I’d already left. 

Who knows how long he will complain about his pay for now? I wasn’t going to stick around and find out. 

I made my way back over to the girls' table, just as they were finishing their food up. I wanted to check up on them one last time before I brought them the bill.

“Anything else I can get you guys?” I offered. 

Nancy, already done with her food, waved me off jokingly. “We’re all good here, Ben. Maybe just the check.”

As she waved me off, I noticed the skin on her palms looked as though it was grated off. Most of the dirt seemed to be cleaned off — probably from her washing her hands — but there was still some left under what remained of her skin. They looked red and raw, but blood was not coming out, so I assume it stopped recently. 

I started to feel nauseous overthinking about all of the possible situations they could’ve gotten themselves into. What if they were kidnapped, tortured, and almost sold into slavery and then heroically-

Alright enough. I needed to stop. Thinking like this was not reasonable or healthy. 

I didn’t want to rush or scare them off, but I brought them their check as quickly as possible. And as soon as they handed me the money, I let the manager know I was taking my 30-minute break. 

“For you.” Violet passed me a 20-dollar bill. 

“Thank you so much.” 

They nodded back and began to leave. As they entered the parking lot, I followed in pursuit. I just hoped I wouldn’t scare them off. 

“Wait up!” I said, jogging up to them. 

“What’s up?” Violet asked nervously.

“I was just wondering why you guys are out here.” 

“Oh. Well, remember how at work the other day, we mentioned how we were going to maybe visit our friend from out of state?” I nodded.

“Well, this is her,” she said, pointing a finger at Alice. “On our way back, our phones lost service, and we sort of got lost.” The girls looked at the ground, embarrassed. 

Okay, so they were not kidnapped or chased by a serial killer, awesome. 

“Could you actually help us out?” Alice added. “Our phones are still not really working and we don’t know where we are or how to get home. Can you point us in the direction where we can get gas and a map or something?” 

How did they even get here without knowing where they were?

“Of course, there’s a gas station about 10 minutes from here. They might have maps there. I know that our city is at least a couple of hours away from here, and with the sun setting, it might be best to stay the night somewhere.” I hoped they would take the offer to stay somewhere, as it looked like they all needed a good couple hours of sleep. And maybe a fresh change of clothes, too. 

They considered it for a moment, all looking around at each other before confirming.

“Know any places we could crash?” Nancy asked. 

“There’s a motel not too far from here. It’s in the same direction. And if you head the opposite way, there is a pretty decent Walmart if you want to get some stuff for the road.” 

The girls thanked me once more and got in the car. Violet got in the backseat and just before they drove off, she rolled her window down. 

“Just wanted to thank you one more time for all your help.” This girl, man. 

“Yeah, it’s not a problem at all. See you at work this week?” She looked at Nancy briefly before nodding. 

“Oh, and before I forget, you and Nancy should probably message James. He was a bit pissed off and worried that you guys weren’t answering your messages.”

“Oh, we did. It’s all sorted out. Don’t worry about it, Ben. We’ll see you later.” 

They drove off in the direction that I pointed out the gas station and motel. Guess they didn’t need to go shopping. Strange, I would’ve definitely gone shopping first.

I felt a buzz in my pocket, meaning I received a message. Pulling out my phone, I noted that it was James messaging me. Likely about my schedule or news about the daycare. 

‘Have you heard anything from Nancy or Violet?’

They just told me they spoke with him. Wait, but how could they? They didn't have enough service to know where they were, let alone text people. Not only that, but their story doesn’t explain the state they were in. Not their clothes, or Nancy’s hands. Clearly, something was wrong here. 

Could they be in danger?

I’ll visit them at the motel after my shift and hopefully get some more answers. 

Violet’s POV

Ben’s questions stressed all of us out, to the point where I slipped up and said that we had talked with James even though our phones “weren’t working”. We all silently hoped that Ben didn't pick up on the inconsistencies in our story and just forgot about our meeting. 

I wanted to ask the hostess some questions about where we were and where to go, but after seeing Ben, I became a bit paranoid about looking suspicious. So we held off on the questions and just decided that continuing down the road seemed the best plan of action. 

That was until he caught us outside and started asking us a bunch of questions. Ben is a total sweetheart, and I knew he was only trying to help, but his presence brought simultaneous relief and stress. 

I didn’t have it in my heart to lie to the man that Nancy and I were never returning to the daycare. Brian and the others had access to our lives. And while we now know what they look like, and can’t necessarily be fooled by their disguises, that doesn’t mean that we’d let them just willingly take us. 

Nancy will need to drop out of school, and we will need to change all of our names and switch jobs. Or maybe we can live off the grid. Off in a cabin, in a different state, just us and some mountains. Far, far away from the men. That sounded nice, I won’t lie.

The rest of the road trip was uneventful. We drove in a somber but relieved silence. We soon got to the gas station and filled up the tank. 

Inside, we looked around for some snacks and found a few, along with a map of our state. They were even so kind as to put a nice big star right where we currently were. How informative. 

The person at the register gave us nasty looks for the way we looked and smelled. Damn, can they replace her with the hostess from Waffle House? She was at least courteous enough to pretend she didn’t notice, or maybe she just didn’t care.

With a full tank, bag full of snacks, and moods in a significantly better spirit, we made our way to the motel. 

I didn’t have high hopes, but I wished there were at least no roaches. 

When we arrived, I was pleasantly surprised. It looked similar to an apartment building, just shorter and wider. It was definitely an upgrade from the cabin in the woods. 

“Hi, do you have any rooms available?” Nancy asked the receptionist, who happened to be an older lady. 

“1 bed?” She said, scoffing. Holy shit, what kind of place is this?

“Uh, no. 2 please.” She rolled her eyes and handed Nancy the keys as she handed her money for the night. 

When we entered the room, I noted immediately that there was no bathroom. Peering back out into the hallway, I saw a sign that read ‘restrooms’. And it was all the way at the end of the hallway, college dorm style. Fucking perfect. 

We got settled in our room at last. There were 2 beds and a pullout couch. Alice allowed me and Nancy to take the beds, seeing as she got to sleep in a bed the most out of us.

“Guys, I think it’s time we’ve talked about everything,” Nancy said, plopping on her bed with a huff and a quiver in her voice. 

“Can I at least go take a shower first maybe?” Alice asked. 

Nancy's head snapped towards her. “We can't keep separating. We're finally all together. So let's just get this done. I’m so tired of holding this in. I really need to talk to you guys.”

Alice and I looked at each other, worried and confused. We figured she knew more than we did but she was now acting like she was the whole reason this was happening. 

“Okay Nance, whatever it is, you can tell us. You know we’re going to be with you throughout everything.” I eased her into starting her story. 

“Get ready for a lot of exposition.” She joked, her voice breaking up toward the end. 

“You remember that strange, monster, man-thing from the forest earlier, right?” 

How could any of us forget it? How could I forget it? I could never forget the things I experienced during my time in the woods. 

At first, I thought I was having a hard time breathing because of running for quite some time. And when a strange, buzzing feeling overtook my body, I decided to take a break. I had likely been dehydrated, and if I wanted to continue to push my body forward, I needed a minute to recover. My leg certainly was not used to being exerted this much. And the last thing I wanted to do was to pass out and die from blood loss due to my wound reopening for the umpteenth time. 

After that, my memory had been extremely hazy. All I could remember was a guy’s voice calling out to me. I had no idea how much time had passed, but my next memory was Nancy trying to pick me up. The creature, which I had not recalled seeing previously, terrified me. I wanted to scream and tried to, but I had no autonomy over my body. No voluntary movements were possible, my muscles screamed louder than I could. 

Coming back to reality, Alice and I nodded back.

“This is not the first time I’ve encountered Him. I’ve… seen him a lot. Well, not in a long time, but he started showing up after the whole Micah thing…”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked. 

Nancy avoids our questioning gaze as she attempts to continue her story. 

“I don't know what it is, or what it even wants from me. But I used to see him all the time when I was a kid. Sometimes in my dreams, sometimes in person. I could never actually tell whether I was seeing him in person or not, mostly because the line between being conscious or not was rarely there.”

She took a few deep breaths and kept going. 

“As I've told you guys before, I used to get really sick, and would get nosebleeds all the time. Well, whenever He was near, that is when the symptoms would get particularly bad. I didn't want to tell my parents about Him but they were really concerned about me being sick all the time. One night, I did actually tell them. Only because I had a really bad nightmare, and when I did, they sent me away to a facility. It actually worked, but I don’t remember anything from it. And while I've tried to regain those memories for years, nothing has worked.”

Alice opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. She was speechless. She’s known Nancy since late middle school, and apparently this was something she had hidden from her, as well as me.

“I was finally normal, so I accepted it in the only sane way I could. I had a mental breakdown and had been hallucinating Him for years and the stress of it took a toll on my body making me sick. That was what I thought until he came back recently.” 

“When did he come back?” I asked, but I had a feeling I already knew the answer.

“That day, in the forest, with Micah.” Of course it was. 

“Nancy, you acted in self defense-” Alice tried to make her feel better but there was a loud argument that could be heard from the room next to ours. 

To be honest, I didn’t think that other people would even stay here. But I was proven wrong, I suppose. 

“I told you to fill up on gas earlier! But do you listen? No!” A guy with a thick accent from the other room yelled. 

“Yeah well, how was I supposed to know that this place was like the fucking desert?” A different guy yelled back. 

“By listening to me!”

“You’re not even from this country!”

“Guys, guys, stop it.” A third guy chimed in, also with an accent, but different than the first.

“Fuck off, TJ” The first one groaned.

“How about you fuck off, Sam?” The other one sneered. 

The third guy kept whining for them to stop till they both yelled at him to shut the fuck up. 

And they just kept on going. How were we supposed to talk and then sleep? 

Nancy was pissed off– rightfully so– we were as well. But as she stood, I wished the best for our new neighbors, knowing the storm that was about to hit.

Chapter Text

Nancy’s POV

I winced in pain as I harshly knocked on the door of our new neighbors. The noise between all the men died down to a low hush, and they attempted to quietly discuss who would open the door first. 

What a bunch of pussies. 

Although the noise was now not louder than a whisper, I was so far beyond the point of just walking away and cutting my losses.

I knocked again, even louder this time, ignoring the abuse my hands kept getting today. 

“No one’s home!” 

While I'm not the best with accents, I could make out that the two boys with them had completely different ones. The one who claimed no one was home sounded slightly French, yet not really. And the one that was whisper-yelling ‘for fucks sake’ could be Scottish?

“Open the door.” 

The door slowly creaked open slightly and a guy who seemed to be average height, and had curly brown hair, was pushed out into the hallway. The door behind the guy slammed loudly and I could hear the scuffle of the others' feet back away from it.

At the same time, I backed up from the door as I didn't want to bump into the guy. 

He looked around, a little embarrassed, and noticed Alice and Violet peering around the doorframe of our room. 

“Um, hello?” The boy waved before turning his attention to the other girls and waving, which they cautiously returned. 

“Hi. Can you guys keep it down? There are other people here that don't want to hear you argue about having no gas in your car.” I was going to lay into them, but this guy seemed sweet, and I couldn't help but feel bad that he was left to deal with the consequences of the other’s argument. 

“Sorry, yeah, we’ll keep down!” He seemed to notice my raw hands as he stared at them for longer than necessary. He said nothing about it though and snapped out of it when I hid them behind my back. 

As he tried to head back into his room, he realized the room key was left inside, and could not get in without it.

“Guys? Let me in, please.” The guys in the room stayed quiet. Confused, the one out in the hallway with me, began knocking. 

As he kept knocking and annoying them, I glanced at Violet and Alice, bewildered at the sight unfolding. Our gazes returned to the desperate and pleading man, then back to each other. 

I really didn’t want to invite him into our room, terrified of him turning out to be some crazed man, a part of those who we were running away from. 

“Hey, the person at the front desk probably has a spare key to the room.” I offered. 

Seeing as the thought had not occurred to him, he abruptly stopped knocking. 

“Good idea!” Instead of leaving right away, he just kept looking from one side of the hallway to another.

“You wouldn’t know how to get to the front desk?” He asked sheepishly. 

Oh, brother. 

“Yeah, it’s down the hall, turn left, head down the couple of short stairs, turn right, and it should be right there.”

“Thank you!” He yelled as he sped off. 

The girls and I went back into the room and locked it immediately.

“Well, that was certainly something,” Alice commented. 

Violet and I nodded as we sat down on my bed. It took a few minutes before we got into a similar mood as before and I continued my story to them. I told them about the health problems I had as I child and what I had been officially diagnosed with. 

They were following along, albeit confused about how everything was still connected. I’m not too sure about it all myself, however, I was sure that we had a better chance of figuring it out together, than I did alone. 

“When Micah and I were in the forest,” I began to choke up. Frustrated with me tearing up at even the mention of him, and disgusted with what I had done, I hadn’t noticed I was picking at my fingers until blood trickled out. 

“When I was running, I saw Him. At first, I thought that I was imagining it, like a repressed memory had popped into my mind. But that unmistakable feeling of having insects trying to crawl out of your skin told me this was very much real.”

Violet and Alice nodded. It was reassuring, and absolutely devastating, that they knew exactly what I was talking about. Violet especially seemed to lose herself at the mere thought of the experience. 

“He always had his way of… taking hold of my consciousness.” A trance, but painful, my body could feel every joint moving, every strand of hair pulling on my scalp, the force of every blink as it pushed back up against my cheek to open. 

“Not necessarily controlling my body or anything, but like a heavy-weighted influence. And while I ran for my life, that influence was welcomed by my desperation. I… really hurt Micah.” 

But they already knew I did. They just don’t know how bad. We sat in silence before Alice spoke.

“Yeah, but it was still self-defense.”

The tears could not be held back any longer and I began crying. She tried to comfort me, but I evaded her touch. I was undeserving of her sympathy.

“It wasn’t self-defense after the first hit.” I choked out. “He had a knife, yes, but he didn’t think I would run toward him with my own. He was hot on my tail and had no time to react after I turned around and stabbed him. I kept stabbing him. He had been dead for a long time after I finished.”

I didn’t have the guts to tell them what I really did to his body. It was selfish of me. I wanted them to forgive me, be repulsed by me, redeem me in some way. I mutilated the body of Micah Scoates, and I still wanted my friends to like me. 

Not telling them the full truth manipulates the choice they make after I finish talking. Their reaction will be genuine to the disingenuous information given. 

Micah Scoates is buried in the ground of the forest. Unless they could read his decomposing thoughts, I doubt they would be able to identify him. There was nothing left of him, and time had a way of taking him as the days went on. 

Each stab, each slice, and sliver of flesh the blade of my knife made contact with, eased the ache. By the time I was done, the only pain that resided was the sickening understanding.

The only mistake I made was leaving behind his glasses, ones that fell off when the body initially hit the ground. 

Alice scooted closer to me and placed her head on my shoulder, while Violet extended her hand and tapped mine reassuringly. My unwavering troops. Unworthy of their loyalty, but I welcomed it knowing I would suffocate without it. 

The lingering thought of Tim crawled to the forefront of my mind. He gripped tighter onto my throat as he demanded my attention. To be talked about. To acknowledge what I did to him was no different than what I did to Micah. 

I chose to fight. I chose to hurt. And it led to death. Another one. By my hands. Again. 

How many more will die until the pain goes away? 

I pushed Tim away. I shoved him back into a place that Micah resides in. A place that he’ll have to make home now. 

“I have a question,” Violet asked. “What’s the deal with Scott then?” 

Shit, I forgot about Scott.

“His name is actually Trevor. Trevor Scoates.” The connection in their minds was lagging a bit but once it was made, the shock was unmistakable. 

“What the fuck do you mean.” Violet was dumbfounded. 

“Scoates, as in Micah’s brother. Scott is a nickname for Scoates. He revealed this at the party I went to. He isolated me from everyone and began chasing and interrogating me about where Micah was.” 

“So, what, he’s now stalking us?” Alice questioned. 

“Seeing as he found us in that Walmart and went manic, it’s a definite yes,” Violet answered. 

“And I would just like to point out that I was right about him being weird, and you needing to stay away.” She added, pointing her finger at me which I pretended to bite from several feet away. 

“Yeah, but who knew he would be his brother.” I tried to defend my judgment of character.

“Doesn’t matter, you somehow befriended 3 people who have tried to kill you.” She shot back. 

A good point, one that I could not argue against.

“I’m so sorry for getting you guys into this mess,” I confessed truthfully and shamefully. 

“It’s not an easy thing to go along with,” Violet admitted. “But we made the choice to stick by you when you called us that day.” 

“We’re big girls, our choice to help and stand by you was ours. You didn’t drag us in. We know you better than anybody else, we’re going to help you no matter what.” Alice added.

“And to be honest, I’m not opposed to living off the grid anyway. I was getting sick of James too” Violet joked.

We chuckled lightly before realizing how late it’s gotten. We still had not taken our showers and cleaned up in any meaningful way. 

“Ugh, I need to take a shower.” Violet groaned. 

Alice and I nodded as we needed to as well, but it was clear she needed it more. 

“You go on first,” Alice told her and gave me a look indicating that she wanted to speak to me alone.

As Violet opened the door, we all saw a pair of feet lying beside the door frame. We all froze, our conversation topic still fresh on our minds, and the current predicament we saw ourselves in was not promising. 

Seeing as she was closest to the body, Violet took a couple of steps and disappeared around the corner. Alice and I followed, albeit slower. As we peeked around, we saw a familiar set of blue and white stripes.

“Hi!” He called out, scaring us half to death. 

“What are you still doing here? I thought you went to get a key for your room.” Violet asked, clearly irritated at the scare.

“I did, but the lady already left for the night. And the room is still closed.” By this point, I had begun to feel really bad for the guy.

I marched right up to the neighboring door and began kicking it. Not hard enough to damage it, or even scuff it, but it was certainly loud and persistent.

After a few minutes, I cut my losses and gave up. The poor guy was going to have to sleep in the hallway till morning. 

“Thank you for trying.” He said disappointed, but still attempting to be appreciative. 

“Um, would you like to stay with us till morning?” Alice offered.

Violet and I made eye contact immediately. The guy seems sweet enough, but where would he sleep? Not only that but I was still extremely cautious of him. 

“Only if you do not mind.” He said shyly. But the way he looked at us with his large, brown eyes, I caved.

“Come on in,” I said. 

“Oh man, your room is way bigger than ours!” He exclaimed as he walked in the room.

“What kind of room is yours?” Violet asked, still wary of our new roommate.

“We only have 1 bed and a couch that you can pull a mattress or whatever the fuck out of it.” And seeing as we heard at least 3 different voices, their sleeping arrangements were less than ideal. However, I felt as though we girls would have made it work. 

“Thank you for letting me into your room. I will sleep on the floor.” He thanked us, and I knew what I was going to say next, but was cut off by Alice before I could. 

“No way, you can take the pull-out.” She insisted.

She looked at me hoping I would take her. And I did. Most nights I craved to be alone in bed in my room, but today I continued to take any ounce of affection and attention she gave me. 

“Only if you are sure.” He said making sure it was okay with the rest of us. We nodded back and he plopped on the pullout instantly.

“Do you know what time it is?” Violet asked, looking around and seeing no clock in the room. 

“It is 2 in the morning.” He said with a yawn. 

“Yeah, I definitely need that shower.” I escorted her to the bathrooms down the hall. There were multiple showers but we decided that at least two people needed to stay with the man while the other girl showers. 

As I headed back, I felt really unnerved by the flickering hallway light, so I picked up the pace. And just as I was nearing my room, the neighboring door flew open, smacking me right in the face. 

“Oh, shit are you okay?” The other accented man swore. He was significantly taller than the curly-haired one residing in our room. He had slightly curled, jet-black hair and carried himself with an air of intricacy and complexity. 

I clutched my already bleeding nose, but somehow I could not be mad at the man as for the first time in my life, my bloody nose was caused by another human. 

“For fucks sake, hold on” He exclaimed as he led me to the room he came out of. 

The last guy that we heard through the wall was fast asleep on the pullout. The shorter one, really did not lie about the lack of sleeping space. 

“Here.” The man said, holding out a bunch of tissues. I stopped the bleeding and bowed my head down to make sure none would go down my throat. There was no sink in here and I was not holding blood in my mouth all the way back there. 

“Thank you..”

“Sam.” He answered, and looked away, noticing that the sleeping man was stirring — I think his name was TJ or something if I remembered correctly from the shouting earlier.

“What the fuck is all the noise?” He groaned, sitting up. Oh, so that he could hear, but not my kicking and yelling?

“Who are you?” He asked, finally noticing and squinting at me. 

“I’m from the room next door.” Both men stopped talking and the air felt stiff. 

“You should let your friend back in.” They shot each other a look before the one that woke up, rolled his eyes and spoke up.

“He’s not our friend.” I swear, they had more drama than a sorority house.

“I don’t really care. We don’t have space for him in our room either.” I argued back. 

“Yeah well, we don’t either, so…” Sam guided me out of the room and closed the door once more.

Assholes. 

At that point, I had given up on the neighbors and knocked on the door of my room. Alice opened the door, and I could tell that she was in a better mood than before. 

“Yikes, what happened to you?” She asked, pointing at the tissue soaked in blood. 

Then after thinking for a moment, “Wait, was it…” She was likely referring to the nosebleeds that seemed to hit me when the Creature was around.

“No, our lovely neighbors decided to smash my nose in upon opening their door.” I said, walking into the room. 

The man was seated politely on the edge of the pullout bed. His hands were folded neatly on his legs as he waited patiently for Alice and me to sit across from him on one of the beds.

“What did they say?” He asked as soon as we sat down.

“They, uh, said you’re not their friend.” I winced as I told him, expecting him to be sad or hurt by the news. Instead, he nodded his head matter-of-factly.

“Yes. We are not. They picked me up on the side of the road.” What the fuck?

Thinking I had probably misunderstood the man’s tone as serious instead of joking, I nodded with a tight-lipped smile. I looked over at Alice, who had done the same.

“Oh, forgot to mention, my name is Matt.” He said, reaching his hand out to me. I shook it uncertainly, and he shook Alice’s after.

There was a soft but rapid knock on the door, which I recognized as Violet’s. I let her in, and she lay down on her bed. 

“Feel better?” Alice asked, laughing. 

Violet said nothing as she nodded contently. 

“Do you mind if I go next?” I asked Alice.

“Not at all, go right ahead.” I grabbed one of my bags from the store where we bought a random gas station hoodie and sweatpants for each of us. 

The shower was ethereal. I forced my mind to not think about anything. I soaked in the hot water and relished in it washing away my sins for the day. 

Before I knew it, Alice had come into the bathroom asking if I was alright because over 20 minutes had gone by. 

I apologized and told her that I would be out in a few minutes. 

The motel was kind enough to provide soap and shampoo, which I used to my heart’s content while making sure to leave some for other residents. 

I wrapped my body in an old, scratchy towel and dried myself off as fast as I could, got dressed, and hurried back to the room.

“Took you long enough. Hope you didn’t use all the hot water.” Alice joked as she headed out to take her shower. 

I laid down in my own bed and saw that Violet was engaged in a pleasant conversation with Matt. She’s usually very closed off, especially with new people and strangers, but there she was, quietly talking about whatever and even a hint of a smile showing. 

I figured that this was due to Matt reminding her of Ben, who she was very fond of. 

Whether Violet had said something to me, I was not sure because as soon as my head rested on my pillow, I lost consciousness.

I was woken by Alice, who slid under the sheets beside me. The lights were off, as Violet and Matt had gone to bed too. My brain was barely comprehending, but I could tell a loud storm was happening outside. 

The wind howled loudly, and I could hear the branches of the swaying trees rattle against the windows. Alice snuggled up beside me and I fell asleep once more.

~

Violet dropped a pillow on my face to wake me up. And wake me, she did. I gasped at the impact but settled down when I heard her dry laugh.

“Everyone is up, wakey wakey.” She said sarcastically. I groaned and as I put my glasses on, I saw everyone staring out the window.

It was still raining heavily and as I approached the window, all my hopes and dreams were crushed. Just like our car that was now unsalvageable, the large tree smashed it to the ground. 

The girls and I looked around at each other. We knew what this meant for us. Our only way of transport out of here was gone. Which meant we were stuck here until we could find a way out. We could not afford to stay here for much longer, as the chances of the guy catching up and finding us were high. 

“Maybe the lady at the front desk can call us a cab or something,” Violet offered. 

That didn’t sound like too bad of an idea, so we all headed to the lobby. I recognized our neighbors, Sam and TJ, already sitting on some old sofa chairs looking pissed off. 

“I ain’t calling you no fucking cab, the cables are down!” The old lady barked at us before we could even approach her desk. 

Feeling dejected, we sat in the lobby as well. We needed to figure a plan out, but with no car, in the middle of nowhere, and with crazy people after us, making it out alive seemed less and less like a possibility. 

Matt ran up to the 2 guys and began interrogating them about why they locked him out of the room. 

“Where did you sleep then?” TJ, who now had glasses on, asked. 

“With the lovely ladies who gave me the sofa! Otherwise, I would have slept on the floor of the hallway.” 

“Then you can’t complain, man. You got to sleep in a room with a bunch of girls.” Sam joked but looked away awkwardly when he caught me glaring at him. 

“How’s uh-how’s the nose?” He asked. 

“It’s seen better days.”

“Right, sorry about that.”

“How about for the noise last night?” Alice chimed in. 

“That too,” TJ added.

Matt sped off to the bathroom with the lady yelling at him to not run like a hall monitor.

“So then, why did you kick your friend out of the room?” I asked. This question had been nagging me for a bit and while what’s done is done, I still wanted to know. 

“For fuck’s sake, he’s not our friend,” Sam said, exasperated.

“We found him on the side of the road, and he hitchhiked with us. We just didn’t expect him to stick around. Then, when we found this place, he still didn’t get the hint and followed us into the room” He continued when the other one interrupted. 

“We even thought for a moment he was going to kill us or something.”

“When we’d figured out that he just didn’t have anywhere to go, we felt bad for the guy, but neither one of us wanted to share a bed with him, and the one bed was a twin. So we took our chance when he left the room.” 

“Damn, you guys are dicks.” I blurted out, and I could hear Violet and Alice snicker beside me. 

“Maybe a little.” Sam chucked.

“But we don’t know him. We don’t owe him anything.” TJ spoke up. 

And on one hand, I could understand where they were coming from but they could’ve tried to get to know the guy and work something out. 

“We saw what happened to your car?” TJ brought up our nightmare. 

The conversation seemingly being done; we sat in an awkward silence. I wanted to ask why they were still here when I remembered the argument that broke out in the first place. They were out of gas, and we had no car. What a pair we all were.

“How do you plan on getting out?” TJ asked. 

“How do you plan on getting out?” Violet shot back. 

“Because we heard all about that gas argument last night,” Alice added.

TJ blushed a little out of embarrassment.

“Right, yeah we know, we're all fucked.” Said Sam, yawning. Someone must’ve not gotten a good night’s sleep. 

“Where are you guys headed?” He added. 

I take a look at the girls who are wondering the same. I didn’t really have an answer to anyone’s question, but I tried my best to think up a plan on the spot. 

“We’re traveling around the country for now. I think Alabama might be our next spot.” I rambled.

Alabama? Where in the world did that come from? The girls were a bit surprised but they rolled with it too. 

“I’ve never been,” Sam replied.

“You haven’t been anywhere.” TJ shot back. “You just got here like 2 days ago.” 

“Where are you from?” Alice asked, rarely a shy person to ask people questions.

“Ireland.”

Oops, definitely not Scottish.

“And where are you from?” Violet asked TJ.

“California,” he said with a chuckle. 

“And you’re all the way out here why?” She asked him. 

“Well, funny story actually…”

Before we knew it, hours had gone by as we talked to Sam, TJ, and Matt, who had come back from the bathroom. 

We didn’t expect to talk to them for this long but, their personalities were so fun and were addicting to talk to. TJ and Sam explained how they ended up from California all the way over in the Midwest. They were online friends who decided to meet up but flights to an airport in the middle of nowhere were much cheaper than to LAX. Luckily, they believed our story about exploring the different states and empathized with our car situation. 

Their situation wasn’t much better, but at least it was salvageable. Ours was not. Sam and TJ listened attentively to Violet and I complain about how annoying our situation was. They joked and teased us slightly, and we did the same to them as they could not leave here any sooner than we could. 

Our conversations started off as a jumbled mess with everyone laughing and talking over each other. At some point, however, we all began to separate from one other. 

Alice and Matt engaged in fun conversations about their hobbies and what kind of music they listened to. Their tastes were wildly different with only a few songs and artists in common, but that just made Matt excited to have discovered new genres. He made sure to write down every song and artist that Alice mentioned she liked, as he promised that he would listen to it later when he had cell service. Turns out, Matt was an active blogger back in his home country of Belgium and was even pretty well known. People found his upbeat personality addicting and endearing. 

Sam and I began talking about our different cultures. I was particularly interested in what it was like in Ireland and while he already knew quite a bit of the culture in the States, he was still interested in my Eastern European upbringing. After that, we quickly moved on to philosophy and while we had some opposing views, it was refreshing to talk to someone who knew what they were talking about but still respected my takes. The conversation reminded me of mine and Tim’s in the library, before I shot that thought down and gave Sam the rest of my attention.  

Violet and TJ were a bit shy with each other at first, not really knowing what to talk about other than the occasional jab or joke, but soon realized how similar they were, personality-wise, and family life. Without beating around the bush any longer they told each other their family traumas to see how they could compare it to one another. 

For the first time in a long time, we felt normal. I could feel the worry, at least partially, melt away and I began to enjoy my time in the motel. The girls kept me grounded. But these guys kept me sane. 

However, we found the topic of our conversations all drifting back to the car situation. We figured that maybe since we were all traveling the country, and have the missing pieces to each other's adventure, maybe we could do it together. 

With that thought, we sent the ever-so-brave Matt back to the front desk lady who started yelling immediately, but he stayed strong and asked her if she had a siphon pump. That caught her off-guard enough to give him a normal answer of “Yes, actually,” and came back with a rusty-looking siphon pump. 

After obtaining the pump, Sam and I ran outside in the pouring rain, giggling at the absurdity that it would even work as we placed the siphon tubes in the ends of the fuel tanks. Sam began manually pumping to move the gas over, and to our shock, it actually worked. After several minutes of transferring the gas, we ran back inside with the good news, with Sam nearly slipping in the rain on the way and I hadn’t noticed until he yelled out. 

Delivering the news, we all broke out in cheers, and the Front Desk Lady even cracked a smile as she yelled at us to shut up because we were “disturbing the other guests”. There were no other guests, but whatever made her happy I suppose.

It was freezing inside the lobby, and after noticing Sam and I shivering, Violet sent us to get dried off and change into something warmer. 

I didn’t have another outfit to change into so I had to put on my outfit from the day prior. Not wanting to come off as unhygienic, I layered on so much deodorant that I was radiating Cool Ice. 

After Sam and I met back up with everyone downstairs, we all spent the rest of the night planning our future stops and destinations. 

If Toby and Brian wanted to catch us, they would first need to find us. 

Chapter Text

Nancy’s POV

As the sun cracked over the horizon line, I paced around the room nervously. The pacing made me nauseous, but not pacing made me want to throw up. Violet had woken up already, and was just staring up at the ceiling. Due to the nerves and partial excitement of getting far away from here, we had a hard time falling asleep.

I could tell that something was bothering Violet, but when I asked her, she just said that it was anxiety. 

There was some ‌shuffling and movement in the room next door, and I knew that it was probably Sam, who mentioned he had sleeping problems similar to Violet. 

Alice and Matt slept soundly in their beds. We had Matt over for another night, seeing as the boys actually asked us politely to take him in, and once again apologized for their behavior. 

“You okay?” Violet whispered to me when she noticed that my pacing had gotten faster. 

“Yeah, just nerves, you know?”

“Oh trust me, I do.” We laughed dryly. 

“Remember when I had an allergic reaction from finals freshman year?” I brought up one of the many times my mind affected me physically. 

“I don’t think I will be able to forget how freaked out we all were. Especially considering you don’t have any actual allergies.” She smiled, looking back on the memory.

“And Alice was ready to call me an ambulance.” At the mention of the girl, Violet’s smile faded.

“I understand why you never shared what happened when you were younger, but it did sting a little finding out we know nothing about what you went through. I think Alice was especially hurt seeing as she’s known you so long.” 

She approached the sensitive topic cautiously as she always did, making sure to address everyone's feelings but also making me aware of something I could’ve missed. 

“I know, but how could I bring up something like this without sounding absolutely insane?” I knew she was right, and that I needed to apologize to Alice and her because they deserved to know this information earlier. 

“That’s fair, I mean the reason we’ve taken what you said at face value is because of what we’ve experienced now too.” That much was true, too. 

Soft knocks on the door took our attention away from each other. This conversation would be continued later as I wanted to bring it up to Alice as well. 

We opened the door to Sam standing on the other side with three cups of coffee. 

“I figured you two would be up.” He said, handing us each a cup. 

“Could say the same for you.” I joked back. The coffee was plain, but it was fresh, probably made in the coffee machine that’s in the lobby. 

“Very funny, when do you guys want to get a move on?” He asked, looking around, but not at Alice or Matt, who were still asleep. He seemed to be looking for something, but as soon as he noticed Violet and me watching his odd behavior, he stopped. 

Sam seemed to be unnerved for some reason, and I wanted to ask, but felt as though we weren’t close enough for me to pry into the guy's emotional state at 6 in the morning. 

“We should get going soon, seeing as we need to stop at the store first,” Violet said, approaching Alice to wake her. 

“Alright, I’ll go wake Sleeping Beauty, and we’ll meet down in the lobby in 15.”

I went to wake Matt, and the man slept like a rock. It took Violet and me both yelling at him to wake up. By that point, Alice had already gotten up and watched from the side in amusement. 

Each of the girls grabbed their bags of items and headed to the lobby with Matt following closely behind. TJ and Sam were already there waiting for us. Sam was standing off to the side and TJ engaged in a riveting conversation with our favorite Front Desk Lady about all the places he wanted to go see, and she wrote out a list of places to visit. 

Noticing our presence, they waved us over. 

“Hey, you wanna drive? Don’t need you puking all over my car.” TJ teased as he remembered me complaining about having to suffer during the drive. I nodded my head sheepishly and he tossed me his keys. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” I could hear Sam snicker off to the side, and I shot him a disapproving look to hopefully shut him up. It did not. 

I got behind the wheel and waited for the rest to pile in. Sam walked around on the other side and almost climbed into the passenger seat but was stopped by TJ.

“My car. I should at least sit shotgun. “ Sam rolled his eyes.

“I’m the tallest, I need the space. How the fuck am I supposed to fit back there with 2 girls and another guy?” 

“You can figure it out.” TJ teased but backed up and sat in the back. He and Matt sat on the outside, closest to the windows, and the girls sat in the middle. 

“If you feel squished, you can always sit on my lap,” Alice teased Violet. 

“Same to you.” Violet winked. 

“Oh, for suck’s sake, has the sex fest started already?” Sam groaned.

I shook my head and started the car. Sam took out a similar-looking map. Seems as though the lines were still down. 

“Here.” He said handing the map to someone in the back. “I can’t read this shit.”

I glanced in the mirror and saw Violet was the one with the map, I felt like I was in good hands. 

“Alright, looks to be like we need to head in the direction of the… Walmart.”  She trailed off and looked at me, making sure I was alright. 

“Oh, I’ve always wanted to visit a Walmart,” Matt spoke up, and the boys agreed we’d stop there and go shopping first. Oh, awesome. 

I pulled out of the parking lot of the motel and got started on our journey. It wasn't pouring rain anymore, but there was still a drizzle and fog low to the ground.

There had been some small conversations going, but I kept silent. Partially because I was focusing on the road, but part of me knew that the guilt I kept forcing back down my throat was going to come out at some point. He was crawling his way up. Slowly, but surely. When I pushed him down, he didn’t go all the way down. There was always progress. 

Coming back to the same Walmart was doing wonders for my psyche. The road became more familiar the longer I drove. The closer we got to our destination, the closer my tears were to the surface of my eyes. 

When we passed by the Waffle House, I suddenly wished I was pulling into the parking lot and seeing Ben’s cheery face again. Hell, I’d rather see James and explain why we disappeared than go to this dreaded Walmart. 

After around another 10 minutes or so, we were quickly approaching the forest. The fog had gotten thicker and Sam’s incessant complaining was not helping me see better despite what he believed. 

Further up ahead, I could see a dark mass in the fog. An amorphous shape was in the middle of the road. Violet and Alice leaned forward to hopefully be able to make out what it could be. It didn’t have reflexive tape, so I ruled out some sort of construction. It wasn’t moving toward the car, but the more we neared it, the more it became clear that it was a person standing in the middle of the road. 

I honked my horn, warning them to get out of the way. The car was going too fast for me to stop and there was nowhere for me to move the car out of the way, trees were surrounding us on both sides. The person still did not move, they faced the car and watched as we drew closer. 

The fog lightened as we got closer. And the closer we got, the more I recognized this man. Tim watched me hurl the car toward him a second time.

Tim finally clawed his way out of me, and I yelled at him to move. He stood still with the same mask he wore during our fateful meeting covering his face, and the crowbar used to knock me out, not so many moons ago. 

I swerved the car, and the braking tires slid against the concrete. Everyone was screaming as the car moved involuntarily at the point and tipped over. 

My consciousness faded in and out as my head hit the steering wheel and the side of the car that the car was flipped on. 

I heard the groans of various people as we all tried to climb out of the car. 

Managing to exit the car, I crawled on the dewy grass. My head hung low as I struggled to fill my lungs with air. 

A pair of boots approached my side and helped me to my feet. A familiar pair of hands, whose maker took my remaining breath. The pearly white mask looked down on me with accusatory eyes, but his eyes held the same amount of guilt that mine did. 

No one acknowledged the new presence. Perhaps they were too focused on staying alive, but I couldn’t spare a glance in a direction that didn’t have him in sight. 

Minutes went by, or maybe it had been hours. It all felt like an absolute amount of time. It didn’t matter if we had more of it or less of it, the fact it existed was enough. 

A gloved hand reached for my face, and I had not noticed nor cared for it as he pivoted my head toward another pair, Alice and Toby. Then to another, Violet and Brian. 

I expected the girls to be struggling against their captors, but the injuries from the crash seemed to have pacified their minds and tranquilized their bodies. 

Sam, TJ, and Matt lay around us on the grass, trying to move however they could. 

It was slow, but the force of realization hit when I understood we were not alone. We were far from alone. 

Bugs crawled under my skin, trapping themselves under the tissue and scratching at it to leave. They flew around, and the vibration of the wings made my skin tremble. Tim’s hand slipped away as his body quivered under the pressure of the presence. 

The looming creature was out of direct sight and I had no desire to have my vision be entrapped in his likeness.

Tim had stepped away from me but the action of him picking his foot up, caused an imbalance as the man fell to the ground with the crowbar laying beside. Taking any chance I could, I tried to run, but found myself stuck. Not frozen, I could move, but not away. I could only move closer. 

My hand reached for an opening, and it followed the invisible maze that led to the crowbar. My body did the same as I tried to leave Tim behind, groaning and writhing in pain.

My heart weighed heavier than the crowbar I dragged behind me. No strength left in my body, but there was only one path I could follow. If thoughts circulated in my mind, they didn’t write themselves into my memory. I just kept moving. 

It was only when I stepped on something other than grass that I realized I stood on someone's hand. 

Sam.

I had been led to Sam. 

I understood what He wanted me to do. I didn’t have the guts to do it, but He didn’t care. There was nowhere I could go. Nowhere I could move my hands other than to the crowbar. Once my hands moved forward, they would not move back. 

I tried to claw against the invisible walls of my enclosure but it was useless. There was only one thing for me to do.

I was allowed to reach for the crowbar. 

Then I was allowed to move it above my shoulder. 

And I was allowed to swing it down.

Screams wanted to fill my ears, but the ringing static reached me first. I saw his mouth open as he tried to plead with me, but I had no recollection of what he tried to ask of me. All I knew was that I was only allowed to bring the crowbar up and swing it down. The more I swung, the more he let me move. 

I would like to think that he knew that he was giving me my freedom back. He didn’t take it, nor was he obligated to give it back. But I was greedy. 

The less Sam moved, the more I moved. 

Once Sam moved no more, I took one last step forward and fell to the ground. 

I made it out of the maze.

Alice’s POV

Betrayal, jealousy, hurt. So many emotions swirled around in the eyes of my beholder. Even as he lay there on the ground, his feelings projected onto me. He wasn’t in pain but incapacitated to the point where he couldn’t move. Like a hydraulic press beating him into the ground. 

He groaned as his ribs cracked and the air exited his lungs and less and less entered. 

The slowness in my body came back, and by that measure so did He. But it wasn’t that bad because that was when the itching started. It was gradual. Just uncomfortable at first. But it soon became unbearable to the point I‌ began scratching myself. 

It didn’t help at all. In fact, it made this worse and itched even worse. But I couldn’t stop because the momentary relief of scratching was intoxicating. I soon broke through the skin on my arms and still kept going despite how revolted I was by seeing the blood. 

I cried out but was stuck in a loop. It was like being covered head to toe in mosquito bites. 

I would have kept going if not for the hatchet that was kicked toward me. 

Maybe I could use the blade to scratch myself with instead of my nails. Picking up the hatchet alleviated some of the itching. But was brought back when I brought it toward myself. 

I couldn’t drop it either. 

There was nothing that I was allowed to do. If I went the wrong direction, if I took the wrong step, the insatiable urge to gnaw at my skin was unbearable. 

That was until I took a step toward a large tree. Matt sat propped up against the trunk, in a fetal position, and hands over his ears to block out the nauseating ringing. He shook his head in disbelief and terror.

The closer I got to the trembling man, the less he pleaded with me. Blood dripped from my arms and onto the grass as it trailed behind me like a hatchet. The itching was slowly easing, but only if I followed His directions.

He kept shaking his head and shut his eyes tightly. He whispered things to himself. Things I didn’t understand and for that I was grateful. Because if I knew what last words I caused this man to pray on, any sanctity I regarded myself still having would be gone. 

I told myself that it was better this way.

I didn’t want to know what he was saying. 

I didn’t want the words to register in my mind that this was real. 

I didn’t want to hear him at all. 

He will be missed, he was loved.

The hatched soared above and made a gash in his skull, taking a picture of the last look he gave me while alive. He had opened his eyes to see me one last time. 

The splatter was everywhere. 

I kneeled before the man and apologized. I hoped that he could forgive. And I knew that in the short while that I had gotten to know the sweet boy with a heart of gold, he would forgive me if it meant we got to talk just a little bit more.

Violet’s POV

I felt slow. No quantity of time could express the longevity of taking a single step.

I couldn’t run. Not because I was stuck, but because there was nothing for me to do. 

Brian had already crumbled down to the ground but I could see the pity well in his throat as he swallowed hard, staring up at me. He arched his back in pain and the top of his mask slid off in the process. 

Tears rolled down the stoic man’s face as he struggled against his turmoil. He caught my glance and attempted to roll over on his side, away from me. To be seen in a vulnerable state like this… felt nostalgic. More than I would like to admit. 

It reminded me of my many sleepless nights, making sure to protect my peace just enough so that no one saw my puffy eyes in the morning. 

I nearly joined the man in his misery before something took hold of me. Someone took hold of me. 

He took hold of me. 

He mocked me as the feeling that flowed through my body just a couple days ago, did so once more. My body throbbed with pain as I dropped to my knees. They exploded as thousands of needles stabbed me. 

The misery I felt was worse than the last time I was in the forest with Him, and definitely worse than being shot. 

I would rather be dead than to exist like this for another moment. 

Brian had his gun strapped to his side, and I realized the more I reached for it, the better I felt. I knew that it was because that’s where I was being guided. 

My hands felt hot as I held the gun in my hands once more. This damned gun was the reason I could barely fucking walk anymore. I tried to pivot it toward myself but found the pain returning instantly. Trying to last through the pain and stay strong was found to be useless, and my hands clasped around the searing gun. I could feel the skin from my palms welded together around the grip of the gun. 

I cried out in pain, but was unable to drop the gun. It was only until I pointed it away from myself that there was a slight release in temperature. Looking ahead to see where I was pointing was when I began shaking. 

TJ was resting upon the base of the tree, having slowly moved himself and Matt over after the crash. His glasses cracked, but he could tell without squinting that it was me.

He trembled under my quivering gaze. He begged me silently, and burning tears poured over my face as I shook my head. 

He can see me cry. 

We shared familial stories, good and bad. I had a person who, for once, understood my family dynamic without me needing to explain. A twin flame bond to be severed only mere moments after discovering it. 

My hands shook violently as I desperately tried to point the gun somewhere he wouldn’t need to experience for long. 

The bullet shot out and traveled just slow enough so as to savor the moment. To take in the pleasure of flying through the air and through TJ's forehead.

The fire in my hands lessened, and as soon as it did, I took advantage of the moment. I could not fucking miss. 

I pressed the scalding tip of the gun to my temple exactly where Brian once did, and pressed on the trigger. 

The shot rang out. 

The bullet flew out. 

But it did not hit me. Because I was falling. Brian’s leg had conveniently kicked the back of mine and I fell backward onto the ground. The gun landed somewhere I couldn’t reach as I lay there in my suffocating misery, letting the tears slide down my cheeks. 

I lost my chance. 

I missed my shot.

Chapter Text

Ben’s POV 

Acid traveled from the pit of my stomach and onto the grass that I was hunched over. A cool momentary relief to my throat came when a gasp of air coated the surface, but it was quickly overtaken by a burning sensation.

I wheezed as quietly as I could because even without taking the time to decipher what I saw, I knew how crucial it was to stay quiet.

The sun had gone down at some point, and the darkness illuminated by the trees hid my phone. Even with no way to confirm the time, it was clear that an entire day had gone by. From the morning when I saw the car crash on my way to work to hiding in the forest from whatever that… thing is. 

Originally, I had stopped because I saw the aftermath of a large car crash. There didn’t seem to be any cops nearby, but I definitely heard people groaning in pain. Grabbing the first-aid kit I had stashed away in the glove box compartment, I made my way over to the car. 

It had been tipped over on its side, and the hood was propped open, smoking, and dented severely from the tree it had been rammed into. Glass was shattered and crunched as I walked around the damage, assessing what had happened, but there were no people. 

The groans I had originally heard were now impossibly far away from the treeline, which made no sense why the people had staggered deeper into the forest. Concerned with the well-being of the people, I trailed after them. It was only after I lined myself up with the edge of a small clearing in the forest that I recognized some of the people. 

The girls, along with some unknown men, lay on the dewy grass in the small clearing, perfectly surrounded by a fence of evergreens. I tried to take a step forward, call out to them, but I found myself unable to do either.

Something was holding me back from moving past the treeline, or even making a sound. My body felt frozen in time. The only part that seemed to be alive were my eyes. I don’t remember blinking for hours. 

Watching, no spectating. This was a spectacle, a show… for It. 

That… Thing knew I was there, but was too preoccupied with watching Violet and the girls to care about me. Or maybe it wanted me to see it too. 

I watched them fall to the ground like battered puppets. Each guilt-ridden girl crumbled under the weight of the moral gravitational relief once they killed each man they set out to. But there were others there too. The ones who provided them with the solutions to their misery. All but one, he didn’t only provide Violet with a tool to take out a man, but also inadvertently, herself. 

I watched her lift that gun once more and clawed at the bars of the enclosure that kept me hidden. The shot rang out, and I shut my eyes for the first time since I got there. I couldn’t bear to see the life drain from her eyes again. I saw them when she pointed the gun toward the man; there was no soul within those eyes, no existence beyond presence. 

My own body crumbled to a bed of leaves and grass, the first aid kit tossed to the side on impact, and once I had heard the moans of pain, I opened my eyes. She deserved to have her last living moments be commemorated into at least someone’s eyes. Her cries were not her last though, as there was no blood anywhere near.

The hold on me had been released at some point, but my body was far too exhausted to register that my free will was given back to me. Maybe I slept, maybe I stared up at the sky and wept. Either way, the sun had set and the chill of the forest grazed my body once more. 

Once I emptied whatever was left in my stomach from the night before, I took a look around at my surroundings. The girls were in the same spots I had last seen them, lest for the minor rotations they had done to curl themselves into a self-soothing, fetal position. What held me stiff, however, was the realization that the unknown men were now gone. Both the ones with the weapons and the now-dead ones too. 

Either way, their absence signaled that I needed to get out of there. The weapons were also no longer there and whether they knew I was there too, didn’t particularly matter considering It knew I was there. And that was enough of a threat for me to haul my ass. There was, however, a small problem, one being that I had no idea where to go. I was effectively lost. 

Even so, I knew I had to try something. But before I did that, I couldn’t leave the girls behind. The men were gone, yes, but who knows for how long and what their agenda could be. I could not take the risk of something happening and not try to prevent it beforehand.

I broke past the treeline at last and neared the first of the girls, Alice. I didn’t know her too well, other than what I heard in passing of Nancy and Violet’s stories, but she seemed like a sweet woman regardless. Her shiny blonde hair now muddied with the blood that ran previously down her arms as she scratched at them viciously. 

Bending down to place a hand on her shoulder, she stirred before I even had a chance to. 

“What are you doing here?” She screamed, before realizing where she was and quickly shutting herself up. 

Her outburst alerted the other two girls, who, at the scream, jolted awake. Nancy and Violet stood up, ready to fight the possible intruder. Once it registered in their mind that it was me who was standing in front of them, a special type of guilt and fear covered their faces. 

Nancy avoided eye contact with me and looked on toward Alice, some sort of messages being sent between the two with just their eyes. Violet, however, stared directly into my eyes, even though I knew that she was not usually comfortable doing so. That is why I assumed she was looking for something. She was probably trying to figure out what I knew and if I had seen what had gone down. The shameful, pitying look I gave her was more than enough to explain. 

After her silent conversation with Alice, Nancy looked at Violet, who gave her a depressing nod with a slight nod in my direction. 

“So did you um…” Nancy tried to lead the conversation, and I wanted to respond, but the words died before they even formed in my mind.

A cold, unforgiving breeze surrounded us as everyone stared at the ground and off to the side uncomfortably. It took me a few minutes before I was able to utter a response.

“Yeah, I saw that. Are you guys okay?” A dumb question, but it was a way to divert the conversation in a different direction.

The verbal answer I finally gave confirmed parts of their worries and did little to change the conversation, especially for Violet. As for her, something seemed to click faster than the other two, but she tried to play it off. 

“We’re fine, thank you for asking.” Alice tried to continue the conversation, but looked equally miserable and uncomfortable. 

Looking around, they seemed to come to the same realization as I had. There were no dead bodies, and the men were gone. They glanced at each other to confirm that they all saw the same thing. 

I understood that looking at each other was their way of communicating because they were worried about my presence there. However, for us to make it out of here, that meant we all needed to be on the same team. Perhaps they were not speaking out of fear, shame, or guilt. But it was likely going to be up to me to break that wall down. Gently. 

“When I awoke, they were all gone.” I said in a near whisper. 

“How much did you actually see?” Nancy finally asked what they wanted to know.

“All of it. I saw the aftermath of the car crash and went to check it out, bringing a first aid kit that I had accidentally dropped and left. Then I somehow ended up here.”

“Did anyone see you?” Violet asked. This question, seeming not as drastic, held more weight to it than at first glance. No humans saw me as far as I knew, but It sure did.

I wasn’t sure if they even knew about the Thing and while I didn’t want to come off as crazy, I decided that it was best to mention It anyway.

“I don’t think those guys did… but I think the Thing did.” The fear that dawned on them immediately told me that they knew exactly what I was talking about. That both eased my worries and added on to them exponentially. 

“We need to get out of here.” Violet said, already nearly out of the clearing and we all followed in suit. 

“Do you know where to go?” Nancy called out in a hush. 

“No, but like hell, I’m staying in the same place.” 

Nancy jogged up to her, likely needing to discuss something. And while I’d like to talk to them more in depth, I also understood that they needed some space, not only to physically recover but also at least mentally come to terms with other things. Additionally, I wouldn’t want to leave Alice behind, who seemed to trail behind the group more than expected. 

“A penny for your thoughts?” I joked, instantly regretting it as it replayed in my mind, and I cringed. 

“I can’t form my own thoughts, let alone share them.” She admitted. 

“In all honesty, I haven’t had any either. I just replay the events, trying to make sense of it.” Alice nodded along. 

“If I try to form an opinion, that means I need to admit it happened. I don’t really want to do that yet.” I couldn’t even begin to imagine how I would try to process going through something like that.

“Whether you do come to terms with it, the world will keep spinning. I obviously don't know you as well as I know the other two… although I suppose I can’t really say I knew them that well either… Anyway, your actions won’t change the past, but they do affect the people around you.” I rambled, but she didn’t seem to mind. Maybe my rambling filled her head with enough noise to block out whatever she didn’t want to think about.

We walked in silence for a while. Nancy and Violet kept walking in whatever direction they thought would lead us out of here. I felt better knowing the pressure on trying to lead a group out of this damned forest did not land on my shoulders. They would occasionally lean over and whisper to each other, but otherwise, they kept looking for some sort of path. The forest brush was thick, and the temperature dropped by the hour. 

Alice wore only a t-shirt and leggings. Her arms that once brought her indistinguishable pain as she scratched herself, now brought minor relief as she crossed her arms in an attempt to warm herself up.

I took off my jacket that smelled vaguely of my insides, hoping she didn’t mind it as I offered it to her. She tried to refuse it, saying she wasn’t that cold, but the shiver in the short sentence gave away her lies. 

She reluctantly put it on and a ghost of a smile danced on her lips before it faded away and she walked in silence once more. 

“Do you think I’ll go to hell?” For a moment I thought I had imagined it, but the way she stared at her hands, most of her acrylics torn off, I understood that her question was real.

“Do you think that you should?” She stayed silent, clearly thinking.

“I killed a man.” 

“You saved yourself.” I reminded her. 

“He has a life.”

“So do you. Your life was in just as much danger as his was.”

“Do I really though?” I’m not sure what she meant by that. 

“Never mind.” She added.

I wished to bring her words of comfort, but it was not something I was necessarily good at. As such, I just walked beside her, hoping that my presence was doing more good than harm. 

Nancy looked back at us but said nothing as she pointed at the barely illuminated, beaten-down trail. Alice and I picked up the pace and joined them on the first clear sign of something going right today. 

(Alice’s POV)

I knew my nails had grown out long ago, and that they were going to pop off soon. I just didn’t think that they would come off digging into my skin and scraping up blood. 

My once pristine, looked-after hands, my money-making hands, were now something I could not stand to look at for long. 

The things that these hands have done… are unforgivable. 

I watched Nancy and Violet lead down a path that was finally found. Never in our trio had I felt so isolated. They went through their respective troubles too, but instead of either hanging back, they grouped up and left me with a man that I had barely known. 

Ben was surprisingly pleasant though, albeit cheerful in a way that made me too depressed if I compared him enough. 

His earlier rambles were good filler for not having to focus on any self reflection that loomed over my head. I felt a bit bad throwing such a bleak question, but he would be the only one that would not try to comfort me as a way to make themselves feel better about their own actions. He was just a spectator, unbiased to judge me for my sins. A preview to my future and end.

In a trio, there is always a duo, but we always denied that claim. Nancy and I knew each other first, and after she met Violet, there were some feelings of worry that I might be replaced. However, the insistence of both that we were all best friends, eased them. 

Trios do have an odd person out, though. The guys had Matt, who they even treated like an outsider. Toby was one too, as Tim and Brian also knew each other beforehand and disliked him more than each other. And now there’s me. 

If I’m always connected to the odd one out, what does that say about me?

Ben had an almost optimistic look as he walked alongside me. Considering he met the Thing and saw what went down, he was holding himself together well. I was jealous, but I was also grateful.

We walked for what felt like hours, but in reality was probably an hour, maybe two. In any case, it felt like we were walking around in circles, but I wasn't about to step up and try to lead.

I kept my head down and kept walking, and at some point had gotten so into the motion of placing one foot in front of the other that I didn’t remember when I last stopped hearing the footsteps ahead. Looking aside at Ben, he too seemed to have been keeping his head down. 

“Stop.” I said, and he looked up. 

“Where did they go?” Not wanting to risk drawing unwanted attention, we whisper-yelled for Nancy and Violet. The dim moonlight could only show the path so far ahead.

“I didn’t notice that they went so far ahead.” I felt like a screwup, with today not feeling real. I wanted to close my eyes, and when I opened them, for me to be back in my bed, in my room, in my apartment. 

“Hey, it’s alright. I was so in my own head that I didn't notice them disappearing, either.” Ben tried to comfort me.

We walked along the trail for a while longer, and it soon turned into another clearing. This one had a dark, deep-looking pond in the middle of it. 

“What do we do now?” He mused out loud as we neared the pond. We walked the edge, contemplating our next move.

“What is there even left to do?” I said, exasperated.

“I mean, we could just wait until the sun comes up and try to get out of here, since we'd be able to see more.” He suggested. It wasn’t a bad idea, but the thought of staying in this forest for that long sounded extremely unpleasant.

“Maybe, but I-” 

“Watch out!” Ben yelled out as he tackled me down to the ground. 

A splash came from the pond as something landed, breaking the surface. Ben looked worriedly at me. Although, the concern in his eyes wasn’t from fear of getting potentially hit by the object, it was for my own safety instead. I laid on the ground, my back flush with the dewy grass, as he propped himself above my body. 

“What was that?” He whispered, looking around, while still nearly pinning me down. Due to the proximity, I could feel his hot breath.

“I don’t know.” But I couldn’t make myself look around, any pivot of my face would move mine closer to his.

“What the fuck is-” He cut his words short as he grabbed my shoulders and rolled us away from the spot we had been in.

Luckily, we had done so, as a hatchet pierced the ground where we previously were. A hatchet covered in dried blood. 

Chapter Text

Alice’s POV

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that hatchet. The same one that I used to take the life of an innocent person only hours prior. And now, as I opened them, it was there in front of me. 

Ben and I scrambled to our feet, facing Toby, who was masked amongst the trees. But the rapid steps he took alerted us to move. 

An arm grabbed mine and pulled me behind. Ben’s back shielded me from whatever Toby was trying to pull. Though that just seemed to aggravate him more. 

Looking to the side, I saw the hatchet still buried in the ground. Toby was dashing for it, clearly focusing on it more than us. I was closer to it than he was, so deciding to take some initiative, I took off running for it.

“Alice, don’t!” Ben yelled, and I heard Toby snicker as I tugged the hatchet from the ground. 

"Feeling n-nostalgic? Y-you know, I c-could g-gift you one. Since it s-seems you like using-g them so m-much.

“Fuck you, that wasn’t my choice!” My voice faltered as I swore at him. What kind of person was I becoming? 

The muddy, blood-covered blade would not reflect a person I recognized, and I did not bother. Why waste time on a stranger?

“W-we all have a ch-choice Al, you made yours. Don’t d-deny the consequences of y-your actions.” 

He took several confident steps near my shaking hands that held the hatchet above my shoulder. 

“Those are the consequences of Its actions, not mine.” 

“H-he only gave you an-n opportunity to do w-what you’d always w-wanted to d-do” 

No. I’m a good person. I love my family, my… friends, my… life. It’s all good. A creature like this took control of my body. I wasn’t conscious. This isn’t who I am. It’s not who I want to be. 

“Toby, that's enough.” The voice I recognized as Tim spoke.

“What? It’s t-true. You w-would k-know.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Tim swung, but Toby was quicker and moved out of the way. I had not been as fast and got the result of Tim’s punch. 

“Oh, shit!” He cried out as I fell to the ground. I clutched my hopefully not broken nose as Ben rushed to my side. 

“This i-ssn’t your f-fight to enter T-tim.” Toby said, his head violently snapping to the side.

“It isn't yours to start. Remember what we’re here for.” Tim shot back, gripping his crowbar.

They continued to argue, Toby taunting Tim, and Tim falling for his cheap tactics. Ben helped clean the blood from my face and gripped my hand a little tighter as the fight got louder. 

“Maybe we can slowly back away and then run into the forest?” He whispered, leaning closer in, pretending to wipe the blood away. 

I nodded, my heart pounding as we tried to shuffle away from the men. But before we were able to make much space between us, Toby turned in our direction. 

“Leaving s-so soon?” He laughed maniacally as he dashed towards us, hands empty, leaving behind the other hatchet.

Without the weight bringing him down, he was faster than I had ever seen him. However, Ben was faster. Before I even had a chance to blink, Ben blocked me from Toby. 

I wasn’t Toby's target, though. Ben was.

Toby latched onto Ben’s torso, sending them tumbling to the ground. They rolled around as Ben tried to regain control, but Toby was stronger than he looked. He grabbed a fistful of Ben’s hair and rammed his head deeper into the ground with each blow. 

Before I could take a step forward to help, I was swiftly stopped by the tip of a gun held to the back of my head. It rattled against my skull as I shook uncontrollably. 

Ben wheezed as Toby’s hands made their way over to his neck.

“Ease up, he’s not the target.” Tim dropped Toby’s hatchet beside him. 

In the brief moment of Toby letting go of his neck and not smashing his face in, Ben pushed Toby off him. It was sloppy, and it was clear that there wasn’t much he could do to get away. But he tried.

He attempted to crawl away, but the aching pain was getting to him. Toby calmly stood up and walked over to Ben. With every step he took, the closer Ben got to the pond behind him. Soon, the swampy shore absorbed his hands, but Toby kept approaching him.

Ben trembled as he realized the water was beginning to envelop him. He tried to move closer to shore, but the muck that draped the bed of the pond was dragging him in deep. He slid further into the deep, dark waters, slashing around frantically. 

His feet were cemented to the bottom, and the more he flailed, the grander the waves were that hit him.

He cried to anyone that would listen, begged anyone that could hear, and cried to anyone that was there. Tim was there, Brian watched, Toby heard him, and I listened. 

I wished I couldn’t understand him like I didn’t with Matt, but the grace of God only gave me that gift once. Through his gurgling, I listened to his pleas. My ears rang with clarity. Ben cried out to the people in his life that he cherished. His final goodbye to the people he failed to protect. 

Despite what he may have thought, he let no one down. He protected a stranger, and even in his last moments, he didn’t wish ill on his enemies. 

I collapsed to my knees, covering my ears. The ringing was so sharp, his last breath echoed between my ears till it didn’t sound like a breath anymore. 

I didn’t recognize the voice that yelled out. I didn’t recognize the feet that stormed the ground. And I didn’t recognize the hands that crawled to the released body floating near the sludge. 

Ben’s body coasted along the surface of the water. Why couldn’t he have floated only moments ago? I wished I could say he looked peaceful in the water, but the damage done to his face by Toby, morphed together with the pale blue hue the icy water made, told a different story. 

I helplessly grabbed his soaking shirt and pulled him closer to me, the mud taking me in similarly. Unlike Ben, though, a pair of guilty arms wrapped themselves around my torso, pulling me away from the hungry slush.

Once on the grass again, I checked for Ben’s pulse. There was no pulse, not even a chance, a hint, or a miracle. I wiped the unfamiliar tears that drenched his face. If he were here, he would’ve wiped mine for me. 

How do two people in ‌one day die due to the consequences of my actions? Neither deserved the fate bequeathed to them, but both took their last breath while I’m still here, greedily taking what should’ve been theirs. 

The scars on my arms had begun forming scabs, a healing process. But there was no reason to begin healing. 

Ben was dead.

This was a reset. 

And the scratches on my arms had resurrected. 

If I had spoken to any of the men, no one responded. Not that I would have heard them, as the pleasure of reopening my wounds deafened the world around me. 

Brian’s POV

Alice’s wails consumed the reverberating echoes of the forest. Neither I nor anyone else dared breathe louder than necessary. 

Our goal was to capture Alice, not needlessly kill another person. A person who would go out of his way to protect someone he barely knew. A person who would go above the minimum required effort to cheer up his coworkers and befriend the people around him. Almost to a fault, which resulted in his unwarranted death.

Unsure of when to interfere, we watched in morbid interest as she tore away at the freshly renewed skin, exposing her sins to the sky above. It was only when the dermal layers gave way to the penetrating gnaw of her teeth did Toby take the first step. 

By the time he reached her, a substantial amount of flesh had been consumed. Blood spurted out of her arm and dripped down her neck. She choked down the meat like a starved dog, reaching for another bite before getting muzzled by Toby’s hands. 

Alice struggled against the hands that contained her, but fell limp as Tim hit the back of her head with the crowbar. An eerie silence draped the scene, but a low, ever-present hum reminded us of nearing fate if we didn’t act. 

“W-what now?” Toby whispered, cradling the unconscious body.

I took my mask off, its suffocating chokehold releasing a worry that overtook my mind. Rubbing my eyes, hoping to open them to a different story, disappointed me once more. 

“I don’t know.” I finally admitted. 

We needed to get Alice out of here with us, but the state she was in guaranteed that she would not be alive doing so. 

And there was also the matter of Ben. 

While his death was not an original sacrifice, it will have to be made into one if we want the body to be gone. That, however, takes time. Time that we cannot afford to waste. 

Tim, reading my mind, stepped up to take care of Alice, something that I regretted not choosing to do first, because that meant I needed to take care of Ben. He took his mask off as well, exposing a pair of pitying eyes, but they weren’t for the man that lay dead.

I draped Ben’s cold, sopping arm over my shoulder and dragged him to a tree. But not any tree, to a tree that He, the Operator, especially picked out. Like a predator chasing down prey, I inhaled the stale air and tried not to gag as the smell of blood filled my lungs. And as the smell got stronger, I knew that the special tree was nearby.

Circling tree after tree became harder by the minute, as Ben’s body weighed me down, and not only physically. Once the smell of the blood was so suffocating that it made my head spin, I set him down. 

I took out a small knife from my pocket, rusted and discolored from years of buildup, and slashed it along the base of the tree. The metallic smell nearly knocked me back as I dipped the blade in the blood that oozed out of the trunk.

It dripped onto Ben’s stomach and glided along the surface of the skin as it revealed the contents hiding inside. 

My fingers plunged into the cavity, the liquid coating them like tar. I stood, albeit weakly, and dragged the blood along the tree trunk. The trunk would absorb the blood quicker than I could cover any substantial amount of area, requiring me to re-dip my fingers into Ben’s stomach, over and over until I drew a circle with an “X” in the middle. 

Each time I bent over, my ribs pushed into my stomach, mimicking the forceful feeling of throwing up. No matter how many stomachs were cut and defiled, it never got any easier. At least not for me. 

I choose not to talk about this with Tim or Toby, and I doubt they do it either. 

We understand the circumstances and adapt. What else is there to do? Fighting back is useless. That much is evident by the many attempts the girls keep making. Tim and I did the same, but after a while, there is only so much prisoners can do before they conform. 

Toby was a conformer from the beginning. A teacher's pet, whose turmoil is stunted physically and mentally. And for that, I envy the painless doll, but I would never wish to be him. 

I waited for the body to be lit into flames, but it didn’t, and I wasn’t sure why. It was always instant, but too much time had been used, as the sun was beginning to rise and I needed to get a move on. As such, I left the body near the tree and began making the trip back. 

The extra help was not needed, but I followed Alice's screams of pain. She tightly gripped Toby’s arms as he twitched and gritted her teeth as Tim tried to bandage her gash with a torn piece of cloth from his shirt. 

“Stay still!” He ordered as she wriggled out of his grasp.

“Don’t touch me!” She yelled. Bile lay beside them as she likely vomited upon her belated realization.

“Alice,” my voice snapped her out of her fight. “He needs to bandage the wound, otherwise it’ll get infected.” 

“Fuck you.” She spat at us and hissed as Tim took care of her arm.

“Come with us,” I continued. “Nancy and Violet left you behind.” Lie. She rolled her eyes at me.

“That’s not true.” 

“Why aren’t they here right now? Why does Nancy always know more than she’s letting on?” She went quiet.

“Why does Violet never confide in you? They work together and spend so much more time together. And where are you? Working. Making ends meet.” More lies.

“What do you want from me?” Alice asked with a quiver in her voice. 

“We need your help in tracking them down.” I explained.

“That’s all?” 

“That’s all.” Another lie.

Her nod was microscopic, but we all picked up on it. 

Her unbitted arm was gently wrapped in a part of her shirt that we helped cut off, and Tony helped her stand as her gaze obviously avoided the shore of the pond.

“Let’s get a move on.” Tim said. 

We silently walked along the path as the sun rose higher. Occasionally glancing over at Alice and Toby walking together. Alice tried to walk closer to Tim, but Toby paid no mind as the ghost of a selfish smile plagued his face. 

Taking several hours longer than I would have liked, we finally made it to our car. An old rusty thing we stole from the Walmart parking lot. 

Alice climbed into the passenger seat immediately, possibly to stay further away from Toby. Not that I would blame her for that; he was hot on her tail the entire walk back. Even Tim, who usually throws a fit if he has to sit in the back, wordlessly climbed in. 

“A-Alice, come s-sit back here; there’s m-more room for y-you to lay d-down.” Toby said, climbing in.

“I’m okay here.” She said, without even glancing back at him. 

I climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car. “Okay, if we are operating under the assumption that they are somehow traveling right now, where would they go?” I asked Alice. She contemplated the question for a while before answering.

“Alabama, maybe.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, I froze, only being able to glance at Tim in the rearview mirror. He opened the car door and slammed it shut immediately, swearing up a storm and lighting a cigarette. 

“What’s with him?” She asked.

I stayed silent, but the ever-so-giddy Toby piped up.

“T-tim and B-brian are a-actually from Alabama.” 

“Oh.”

Yeah, oh. 

After a few minutes, Tim got back in the car. Clearly displeased still but managing it.

“Alice, why do you say they’re going to Alabama?” I asked, hoping her reading was weak enough to break apart.

“We planned to go with those other guys.” She said, “And there wouldn’t really be any place for them to go. They don’t speak with their families anymore.”

“Alright, let’s patrol the forest for a bit in case they’re still here.” I said, putting the car in drive. 

After making a couple circles around the forest and not being able to spot them, we decided to stop and make a game plan. 

“We need gas.” I looked over at the others in the back, but they seemed to be focused on Alice to respond. 

She was leaning against the cool window, breathing heavily. Sweat droplets formed around her hairline. It was clear she had a fever. 

“Shit, maybe the wound is infected.” Tim said. 

I grabbed her arm as gently as possible, but that seemed to tell us all we needed. The ripped t-shirt was soaked in a dark pus, but she didn’t flinch or react as I unwrapped her arm.

“The nerves are damaged, and it’s probably infected.” 

“W-what does that mean?” Toby asked, worry rising in his voice. 

“Her arm has no pain, and the infection will spread if we don’t do something.” Tim explained, looking at me to decide what to do next. 

Once I turned the car around, Tim groaned. 

“Can it not be that fucking Walmart again?”

“Not unless you want her to die.” After that, he didn't complain anymore.

I parked as far as I possibly could have from the store and went in. I couldn’t send Tim; his leg wasn’t fully recovered, and Toby can’t be trusted to get what we need.

When I came back, Alice was in an even worse state than before. I handed her some painkillers for the fever and got started on the wound. 

“Holy shit.” Tim whispered, as the skin underneath had begun turning a sickly green. 

I soaked a cotton ball with alcohol and dabbed the dark, scabbed-over wound. The skin, already inflamed, grew larger, darker. Pus broke through the thin veil and sputtered out, bringing along with it a putrid smell. She groaned, slamming the fist of her other hand on the dashboard. 

For a second, she stared at it, confused. "Wait, what?" she mumbled before slamming it harder this time around.

“Ease up!” Tim demanded.

“I’ve lost feeling in this arm.” 

The gases of her rotting flesh filled the car.

Chapter Text

Violet’s POV

“Maybe we should just see if they’re close?” Nancy said, getting up from the concrete on which we sat, up against the side of Ben’s car. 

“Sit your ass back down.” And she immediately sat. “I’m just as worried, but we have no idea where they are and are closer to civilization. We shouldn’t risk going in again, especially knowing who and what may still be there.” 

She nodded, dissatisfied with the conclusion but knowing that ultimately there wasn’t much we could do at this time. 

We go back to our tense silence, desperately avoiding eye contact and the real topic that needed to be addressed. I wanted to talk about what happened and, at the same time, forget everything that happened. 

I needed a lobotomy, and I needed it now.

“So…” Nancy fiddled and picked at her fingers as a way to self-soothe.

“Yeah…” That was about the only thing I felt as though I could reply with.

“Lovely weather we’re having.” She joked, quickly cringing, and I exhaled a chuckle. 

“Just about the only thing that’s lovely right now.”

“That might be the realest thing you’ve ever said.”

We stared into the looming forest. Its energy drew one in irresistibly, and the longer you gazed, the stronger it became. A gentle breeze swept through the forest, swaying the trees and letting out a low hush. And amidst the unsettling rumble, I almost missed the groaning that came uncomfortably close from the treeline. 

“Did you hear that?” I whispered to Nancy, who had her eyes closed, taking in the sunlight. She looked at me, concerned.

“No? What did you hear?” Of course she didn’t hear anything. When does she ever? 

“Listen,” I said, as I made a shushing motion and pointed to where in the treeline I heard the noise.

Groans persisted, loud enough for Nancy to hear them this time. Her eyes widened as we saw an amorphous shape crawl its way out of the forest. Leaves shuffled and twigs snapped as it dragged itself along the forest floor, but before long, we realized who it was.

“Ben!” Nancy exclaimed. We ran toward him as he wordlessly collapsed upon seeing us. 

Nancy wrapped her arms around his torso and gathered his legs to help lift him. He was drenched and concerningly pale, not to mention covered in dirt and grime. We sat him up against his car. 

“What the fuck happened?” I asked, examining him further. 

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t look good.” 

“Yeah, no shit, should we wake him?” Nancy looked conflicted but began attempting to wake him up, regardless. 

“Ben, are you awake?” She asked loudly while tapping his shoulder. Oh wow, a monkey could think of that.

“Don’t judge; there’s a procedure.” She kneels beside Ben and presses two fingers to the base of his neck to check his pulse. 

The longer she kept her fingers there, the more confused she became. I knew she knew how to check for a pulse, seeing as she went to nursing school at least partially and we had CPR training done for work.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, but she raised a finger to have me wait as she pressed her ear to his chest. Uncharacteristically, after a few more moments, my curiosity got the best of me and I spoke again.

“Is there no pulse?” 

“No…there is a pulse. It’s just… out of rhythm?” Well, that’s concerning. 

I went around the other side of Ben and tried it out for myself. Sure enough, his heartbeat sped up at random parts and skipped beats at others. 

“What do we do now then?” A nagging worry plagued my mind. 

“Well, he is breathing at the very least. We need to lay him down and elevate his feet. That will be the most we can do for him to wake up safely.”

She and I got to work, gently repositioning him to be lying down and raising his feet just enough to get more blood flow to the brain. 

After about a minute, there was finally some noise emitting from Ben. Incoherent mumbles, yes, but it was a start. 

"Don't strain yourself to talk," Nancy advised him, patting his shoulder gently. "You need to recover a bit first."

But Ben persisted, straining his vocal cords further despite the obvious pain that he was currently in. 

"A- Al" 

It sounded more and more like a cat hacking up a hairball than any eligible words, but we tried to decipher it anyway. 

"Alice." He finally squeezed out, taking a deep breath in when he finally said what he needed to. 

Panic set in for both Nancy and me, and at that point we decided Ben could recover later; we needed to know what happened to Alice. I noticed that there was no sign of Alice and only Ben made it out of the forest. And seeing as Ben's first choice after gaining consciousness was to call out her name, she was clearly in some sort of trouble. 

"Alice? What happened to Alice?" Nancy berated Ben with questions that he was in no state to answer; his eyes were drooping despite his best efforts. 

"I'm going to go see if I can find her." She stood up frantically. 

"Are you an idiot? You know damn well who and what is in there." I argued. I wanted to help Alice too, but we were awfully ill-equipped. 

"But maybe she's close by and just didn't have the energy to keep going." 

“That may be true, but the Thing in the forest has a way of separating us. Doesn't matter how close we may be to each other. Even if she was just a few yards away, if It got to her, she now could be miles away.” She stayed quiet. 

“It could be a trap.” I reasoned. 

Nancy opened her mouth to speak. Whether she was going to argue or agree, I'd never know, as she stopped talking before a syllable even escaped. She looked down at Ben, who, with his finite amount of energy, reached out to Nancy and gripped the extra fabric of her dirt-stained sweatpants. 

"Don't," he coughed, wincing in pain. 

"We need to get out of here." I took charge, since it was clear Nancy wasn't going to. Not that I blame her, however; we needed to get away from the proximity of this damned forest. 

"Ben, do you have your keys on you?" I asked, patting his pockets after getting a weak confirmation nod. 

After having found them, I tossed them to Nancy, who was still staring wishfully–and simultaneously dreadfully–at the forest. 

"C'mon, Nance, help me get him in the back seat." 

We managed to slide him onto the backseat of his car with minimal trouble, and we climbed into the front after double-checking he was buckled in. 

We then saw the blood that drenched the stomach of his shirt. Lifting it slightly, we noticed a scar that extended the length of his stomach, but it was mostly healed, if not a bit pink from the rawness of being dragged along the forest floor. Deciding that it had likely opened slightly from sticks and whatnot, we closed his door and got in ourselves. 

"Alright, where should we go?" Nance asked with the click of the buckle. 

"Probably not the way we came from, considering the guys likely know we were there earlier."

"How would they know? We only stayed like two nights." She asked.

"Who are we kidding? They are somehow able to track us like dogs."

"That's fair; I guess we could try the other direction. Maybe there is another city in the other direction."  

With a huff and a grunt, something was placed between Nancy and me on the armrest; it was Ben's phone. 

"Ben, you are a godsend," Nancy exclaimed, grabbing excitedly. 

It was wet, but luckily still functioning. After unlocking it and using the map function, she found a motel that was not the one that we stayed at previously and was a fair bit further away from this mess. 

"We have to pass by the Walmart," she added grimly. "It's close by, though; I'll try to hurry along past it." 

I wasn't religious, but I was nearly praying that we would pass ‌this fucking Walmart already. It was like a guard that was keeping us locked in a miserable prison cell. 

On our third car in three days, we set off to leave this city once more. 

I held my breath as we neared and passed the now-ominous Walmart. It was only after we couldn't see it in the rearview mirror that I let out a deep sigh and Nancy loosened her grip on the steering wheel.

Ben promptly fell asleep, and to make sure that it was just a temporary sleep and not a permanent one, I occasionally would grab his wrist and check his pulse. Too many lives have been lost in the past few days. 

Neither I nor Nancy felt like speaking. The simple action now felt like an exorbitant performance, and so we settled into mildly uncomfortable silence. Only the hum of the motor and Ben's light breathing filled the air. 

Ben didn't have a phone stand, so Nancy had to resort to laying the phone on her thigh and occasionally glancing down at it to see where to go. Unsafe, definitely, but no one was in the state to complain, even as a joke.

"How much longer would you say?" I asked. 

We'd been driving on barely paved roads that weaved between cornfields on both sides for nearly an hour, and not an inkling of infrastructure in sight. Other than silos and barns, of course.

"I'd love to know myself, but the service disappeared not long after we entered the corn maze." Fucking perfect. 

"So how do you know where we're going?" 

"I took a look at the written directions before we started, so I have a general idea." 

I sank back into my seat; the same view of the passing cornstalks slowly lulled me into a brief sleep. I was still mostly conscious, and still listening to my surroundings, but closing my eyes helped calm my mind just a little. 

Not long after, a slight groan from the back instantly woke me up.

"How are you feeling?" Nancy asked, taking a look in the rearview mirror so as not to take her eyes off the winding road.

Ben slowly pushed himself to sit up; each grunt and sharp inhale demonstrated how much pain he was really in.

"Where are we going?" He asked once fully upright.

"A motel that's a bit far from that city." I replied, yawning. 

"Ben, do you need to go to a hospital?" Nancy chimed in.

"I don't think so; my muscles are just really sore."

"Well, that would make sense, considering you basically dragged yourself along the forest ground for who knows how long." She replied.

“I did that?” He asked, his voice growing more concerned than before. “I thought that was just a dream?” 

“We watched you crawl out of the forest.” I told him, and he started looking around more frantically. 

“Alone?” 

Neither of us could bear to answer his question. We drove in the still and heavy silence for a minute before he spoke again. 

“Why is there blood on my shirt?” He asked, examining his appearance the best he could.

“The scar on your stomach probably reopened from the dragging.” Nancy spoke. 

“The what?” He lifted his shirt immediately. The scar, which had been a little pinkish before, now healed completely, leaving only ghostly remains.

“How did I get this?” Ben demanded as if we knew. Part of me wished I did, if only to bring him momentary clarity. 

“You already had it by the time you got us.” I explained all that I could.

“Well, I didn’t have it before we got separated from you guys!”

“That doesn’t make much sense–if you got that scar in that time frame and found us by late morning–in no way is that enough time for it to heal.” Nancy chipped in, trying to focus on the conversation, but as we were leaving the corn maze, she needed to pay close attention to directions as well.

Ben clutched his head; the stress and convolution of the situation were definitely getting to him. Not that I blamed him, of course. I had been walking on a tightrope above a canyon, and a light gust of wind was ready to knock me over and kill me at any moment. And I had been seriously doubting that it was such a bad thing. 

“None of this makes any sense!” He exclaimed. 

“We don’t understand that much either, but once we stop somewhere, we’ll tell you what we know.” I told him, and that seemed to ease his worries just a bit. 

“We should probably stop and get you a change of clothes.” Nancy added. 

“That’d be nice, thank you.” He replied bashfully. 

Ben’s phone regained service not long after we made it out of the cornfields. And we soon were led to a quaint-looking town. And best of all, no Walmart. 

We spoke of little else, wanting to save all the explanations for when we're more “alone.” 

Nancy pulled into a bargain outlet store, and Ben told us he’d be back soon. He likely wanted some privacy and space. I could go for some too; it had been a concerningly long time since I’ve been alone. 

To ease the tension a slight bit, Nancy turned the radio on. It played softly as we contemplated where we went wrong in life. 

After about 15 minutes, Ben walked out with a plain outfit; even so, the boy knew how to dress. He had a plain white t-shirt on but layered with an unbuttoned flannel, a brown corduroy jacket and plain jeans.

“Alright, where’s this motel?” He asked, climbing into the backseat once more.

“Just down the road,” Nancy replied, reversing the car. 

This motel seemed to be an upgrade from the last one we stayed in. But a motel, even a nice one, is still a motel–adorning the classic stale smell. 

The man at the front desk was nice enough as well, asking minimal questions and handing the room key with a polite smile. It was probably because, mostly shady people stopped at places like these, that he’d learned to mind his own business if he wanted any. 

As a small token of apology to Ben for the inconveniences we’d caused him, we paid for the room.

“Dinner’s on me then.” He insisted as we entered our room for the night. 

“Whatever you say.” Nancy responded in a teasing tone. 

The room had two beds, a little desk with a notepad, and a sofa. We sat down on the two beds: Nancy and I on one, and Ben on the other. 

“Am I the only one with a sense of Déjà vu right now?” Nancy asked me.

 I reassured her. “No, you’re not; I am too.”

“Great, let’s get started then.” She raised her legs to sit criss-cross. 

“I’m ready.” Ben faced us, more serious than I had ever seen him be. 

“We know you saw us doing… that in the forest.” She started off. “Did you also happen to see It?” 

“Yes, It stopped me from interfering or even coming closer. But I saw everything, from the beginning–” He looked at Nancy. “To the end.” And he looked at me.

“Well, that Thing had us in a weird trance-like prison. I wasn’t allowed to go or do anything that It didn’t want. I didn’t… I…” Her words died, and I picked up the remaining pieces. 

“Just like you couldn't be near us, we were trapped and in pain unless we succumbed to It, even if just temporarily.”

“Why aren’t you guys more freaked out? And who were those other guys? The ones that had the weapons.” Ben began questioning us. 

“That wasn't our first encounter with them, or the Thing. Those guys had been stalking us for a few months now and had even kidnapped us.” Nancy explained. 

The more we told him, the lower his jaw dropped. We told him nearly everything. From our first encounter with the men, to the Scott saga, to the guys each inserting themselves into our lives, to the kidnapping, to our escape (including running over Tim), to the meeting of new guys at the first motel, and lastly the reveal of Blake and Brian. 

“Hold up. I need a minute to process.” Ben stared at the pale yellow wall behind us, trying to cope with everything that was just unloaded onto him. 

“I feel like I can digest most of this, but you’re telling me that Blake–wearing a mask, who’s actually a guy named Brian– had shot you. You didn’t go to the hospital for whatever reason; Nancy performed at-home surgery on you to extract the bullet. And only after about a week of recovery did you go back to work?” He was flabbergasted. 

“Um, yeah. That sounds about right.” I offered him a sad smile. 

“And so that one day when your wound opened up, that was a bullet wound?” His voice reached a higher frequency than ever heard before.. 

We nodded quietly. 

“Wait, wasn’t Blake–I mean Brian–the one who carried you to the break room? When he was the one that did it?!” Yes, Ben, my feelings exactly. 

“We were just as shocked as you are now.” Nancy said. 

“Why didn’t you go to the police or the hospital?” Valid question, but not my part of the story to share. 

“Ben, if I’m going to share with you this next part, you need to be sworn to secrecy.” Nancy warned him.

“You have my word.”

She took a moment to gather herself, taking ‌deep breaths. Not one for physical affection, I still reached for her hand to give her some support. She told him about Micah, which filled in the gaps: Scott’s potential motives, why we were in the forest that night, and why we can’t go to the police or hospital. 

“I’m sorry for everything that’s been happening.” He offered his condolences to us. Even if the words themselves don’t fix much, somehow his support lifted an anvil off my chest. 

“I do have one more question, if you guys don’t mind.” He added. “Why are those three going after you in the first place? Like, I get you maybe stumbled into their territory in the forest, but Brian had been working with us before. Plus kidnapping you guys, but giving you a decent living experience contradicts the killing/revenge motif.” 

“That’s a great question. Unfortunately, we have no answer for that.” I replied, defeated. “We kind of escaped before we were able to find anything substantial.” 

“Damn, that sucks.” Boy, was he right.

“Now it’s your turn for the uncomfortable questions.” Nancy turned the conversation. “Tell us what you remember.”

“I remember getting separated from you guys, not really sure how. It had just been me and Alice for a bit before we stumbled into this clearing. It had a pond in the middle, and it’s at this point that stuff starts getting hazy. The bruises on my body tell me I’d been beaten, probably not by Alice, but I’m not sure. Plus, my wallet and everything in my pockets had been soaked, so I must’ve gotten into the water at some point. Not to mention the scar that is now on my stomach.” He ranted, taking a big breath and continuing. 

“I thought the crawling through the forest had been a dream, but if you two are saying that it actually happened, then where I had woken up must be real too.” He paused, clearly shaken by the memory. 

“Take your time.” I reassured him. 

“I woke up next to the base of a tree. The smell that was surrounding it was unbearable, and if I had eaten the day before, I would have puked. It was overwhelmingly putrid, sweet and metallic. I would say blood, but it was oozing out of the base of the tree where it had been slit. And on the tree trunk there was this cultish symbol: a circle with an X drawn in the same red liquid.” You could see the cogs turning in his head as he tried to make sense of what he went through. Not that I could do any better. 

“My abdomen hurt so bad when I stood even for just a moment. But I knew I had to get out of there;  the smell was making me really dizzy. So I crawled slowly, but it was progress. I guess I made it out since that’s when you guys found me.” Ben concluded. 

“When we found you, you forced yourself to say Alice’s name. Do you remember anything about her after you woke up?” I asked. 

“I might’ve heard a scream, but I really can’t be sure if that really happened or hope that it did.” He admitted, putting his hands in his face to cover it. 

“I’m sorry I can’t be of any more help.” Ben’s voice quivered. 

“No, Ben, we’re sorry for dragging you into this mess. You’ve been such a lifesaver, from letting us use your car, to even just always checking in on us.” Nancy stood up and gave Ben a hug, which he reciprocated. 

“How about we get some food, get some rest, and figure out what to do tomorrow?” I offered. 

“That sounds like a great idea.” Nancy agreed.

We ordered Chinese food from across the street; there wasn't much I liked from there, so I just had some soup and chicken fried rice. Ben beat us to the counter of the restaurant, saying, “No way am I going to let two pretty ladies pay.” 

Was Ben God’s apology for making men? 

We feasted on the meal, and after arguing about sleeping arrangements (we gave Ben his own bed, despite his insistence on sleeping on the couch), we all fell asleep promptly. Even me, which was a testament to how exhausted I was. 

Sleep never came easy to me, so of course, if I had gone to bed early, that didn’t last for long. Something woke me up. 

It was the middle of the night, and the drapes were drawn, letting only a snippet of moonlight sneak into the room. 

I wasn’t even sure what I had heard, maybe a creak or bump. I tried to reason with myself that of course, I had heard a noise–we were in an old motel. But there was something I couldn’t shake off. Maybe it was because last time I had a weird feeling in my room at night, Brian was hiding in the corner with a gun and then proceeded to press it to my head.

I was going to check just in case, just a quick scan around the room. Turning the lamp on with a soft click didn’t wake up Ben or Nancy. 

Luckily, there were no uninvited guests in the room. And I wanted to relax and exhale a deep sigh but something was still holding me back. 

Getting up from the bed that Nancy and I shared, I walked around the pretty small room. 

And then I heard another creak; this time it came from the direction of the door. Making sure not to make a sound, I quietly walked toward it. 

There on the ground was a small note, and it read: ‘Where’s Alice?’

I looked around the room, and noticed the notebook on the desk flipped open. 

I restrained myself from gasping, but the notion of someone having been inside the room repulsed and terrified me.

My heart pounded as I pressed my ear to the crack between the door and the wall, hoping to possibly hear anything else. Maybe this fucked-up intruder was walking in the hallway. 

He was not. 

I could hear him breathing heavily into where my ear was.

And then another note slid under the door. 

‘I know you’re there, Violet.’