Chapter Text
“Here they come.” Shauna nudges her.
Jackie turns her head just as Nat and Van return, looking positively giddy about the small fortune in their arms. Seven large, buttery pretzels, freckled with bits of salt. Pizza slices so massive the paper plate visibly wobbles, already stained a strange, artificial orange. A wide assortment of candy bars, stuffed into Van’s bloated pockets. Hershey’s, Reese’s Pieces, Snickers, Butterfingers, Crunch. And to wash it all down, the classic: four jumbo slushies with several sharing straws. Blue raspberry slush for her and Shauna, watermelon for Lottie and Nat, piña colada for Tai and Van, and lime for the rest of them.
They set the drinks down and pull snacks out of pockets, overflowing their little booth. Jackie frowns unconsciously. She could almost taste the sugar, feel the weight in her stomach, see the ugly bulk of her thighs.
”Problem, princess?” Nat asks around a bite of pizza, chewing unashamedly.
“We have a game on Tuesday.”
”Last I checked, this is a victory party.” Van points out, less combatively. Her grin is wide, all teeth. “We’re having a feast.”
As the girls laugh and chitter, diving back into their conversations, Jackie manages a small smile. Beneath the table, Shauna’s leg presses into hers. The touch is purposeful, deliberate. Warmth rolls up her body, enveloping her like a shell, and she tucks into it without realizing it—the rough denim, the brush of skin, that honeyed, familiar scent. She could bathe in just the details. Shauna has been so distant lately, so secretive, always pulling away. But now, she looks over and finds the opposite. Now, she finds Shauna is already watching her. “Hungry yet, Jackie?”
Shauna’s lips are blue—dyed raspberry, bloodless cold, all the steely shades of winter.
”Hungry yet—“
”—Jackie.”
She jerks awake.
The body next to her startles but only for a moment. Shauna rests a hand on her shoulder, and Jackie remembers where she is, taking in the long shadows of the attic. It’s still nighttime. The sky hangs solid black outside, and the cabin is swept up in cold, a chill trickling through the air. She can’t have gotten more than an hour of sleep.
Still groggy, she crawls sleepily toward Shauna, burrowing into the warmth of her side. “Mmm. Why’d you wake me up?”
”I—“
“What the fuck?!”
The voice is unmistakable, even from afar. The acid tone, the sheer volume of it. Curses and shouts and…
”Is that Nat?” Jackie sits up once again, fully awake now. What is Nat doing out so late? She presses her face to the window, rubbing vigorously at the frost on the glass until it clears. Two figures are staggering through the snow in a zigzagging pattern, stopping only to yell at each other. “And Lottie?”
”Think so.” Shauna answers from behind her. “They started up a minute ago.”
”We should go check on them.”
”Sure. Just give me a second.” Shauna mutters with a tiny huff, sounding winded and slightly put-out as she struggles to stand.
”Shit, sorry.” Jackie hastens to help pull her upright, annoyed that she hadn’t thought of it sooner. She gives Shauna’s arms a reassuring pat.
”It’s fine. You’re not my keeper…”
No, she thinks, but she’s certainly become something else. Not a keeper, not a best friend. She couldn’t be called her girlfriend, and the thought of being called a father makes her flush (though the urge to kiss Shauna’s belly at any given moment has swelled). Just—something else. Something tangible, something that seems to leak into them both, especially when Shauna stands close, starts looking at her like that.
Her cheeks warm, and she pulls away rather abruptly at the clatter of a door downstairs. “Well, someone needs to get you down the ladder.”
Stupid, stupid idiot.
Jackie festers with juvenile embarrassment the entire way down. Until her feet touch the floor, and she finds herself in a completely different world.
The door has been flung open, and the girls are crammed out on the porch, shouldering each other aside to see the spectacle. Jackie takes Shauna’s hand as they step outside, both of them shivering at the immediate bite of cold. A gush of wind hits her face, strong as a slap of ice, but she grits her teeth against it, determined to absorb the scene in front of her. Nat’s shirt is buttoned oddly, pulled askew, as if thrown on blind. Her skin is smeared red down her chest, flushed in a way Jackie has come to associate solely with sex. And Lottie, while fully dressed, has the unruly, wired look of a caged animal. Stage nine crazy. They clearly got into some sort of argument… unless they’re still in one.
Suddenly, Nat whips around, her face a mask of utter venom. “Go back inside! It’s not a free peep show!”
A ripple of unease rumbles through the group. Several girls trade glances, uncomfortable but defiant, reluctant to move.
”You heard her.” Lottie says. Her voice is flat and steady. “Go inside.”
Jackie feels the sway of the group instantly. It’s a physical momentum, a wave cresting, something she’s picked up on in numerous crowds. It doesn’t matter if it’s homecoming queen or a feral, little girl in the woods. Power is power. Influence is influence.
They go inside.
She casts one last glance over her shoulder, catching Nat’s pained face right before the door shuts.
”Okay, what the hell?” Tai demands within the space of a single breath. Her question sparks a spur of panic, competing voices all rising in a frantic crescendo.
“Did you hear them?”
”We’re eating Travis—“
”We’re not eating anybody, oh my god—“
”It’s Flex—“
“We’ll starve—“
”What if—I mean, what if Lottie wants us to?” Mari asks. Unlike the others, her voice is edging closer to curiosity than panic. “What if the wilderness told her?”
Which, okay.
Upgrade stage nine crazy to stage ten.
Jackie can barely swallow her thoughts. Travis is dead. Travis is dead, and they want to eat him. Six months ago, her biggest problem was deciding which lipstick shade suited her best, and now they’re going to eat someone. They’re going to eat a person, and oh god, oh god.
Instinctively, she looks over at Shauna, following the tips of their joined fingers right up to her eyes. But Shauna’s gaze twitches away, almost flinching from her. Quick and flitting, moving like they would very much not like to be caught. Guilty. And suddenly, it’s as if they aren’t touching, as if they aren’t holding hands, as if they’re totally disconnected. As if they don’t even know each other at all.
You knew, Jackie thinks, realizing it at once. You knew, and you didn’t tell me.
Of course, Shauna would know. Of course, Lottie would tell her. That’s how it works, isn’t it? Jackie and Nat deal with killing the animals, but Shauna’s the butcher. She gets the dead meat.
”The wilderness did not tell her anything.” Tai is saying with poorly contained fury.
Mari is bearing her teeth in response. “Well, it told her everything else.”
It’s all white noise to Jackie. Betrayal courses through her veins, but more so there’s a fuzzy sort of hurt—the same floaty, untethered feeling she’d gotten upon finding out about Shauna and Jeff. The idea of secrets existing between them feels unnatural, like seeing a dog without its collar. If she had it her way, there would be no secrets between them ever again. She would crack open Shauna’s skull, just to live inside her head. As best friends are supposed to do.
”Sure it ‘told’ her—“
”Excuse me? What’s with the air quotes?”
Why are you always pulling away? Jackie tightens her grip desperately, almost to the point of drawing a wince. Look at me, Shauna. Look at me.
“I’m just saying—“
Look at me! Look at me, look at me, look at me. Damn it, Shipman.
”What’s there to say, Tai?” Van interrupts. Tai shrinks for the first time since the fight began, stumbling in her argument.
”I just think,” She says, slow and measured, looking carefully at Van, “that we should stop and consider what we’re doing before we—eat someone. Sorry if you think that’s too drastic.”
Oh, screw the lover’s quarrel. Screw their lover’s quarrel, anyway, Jackie’s got one of her own brewing.
She digs her nails into the meat of Shauna’s palm until Shauna, startled, jerks to face her. Whatever mounting panic Jackie had felt slackens instantly at the look in Shauna’s eyes. She had expected to be met with a wall, with that impenetrable darkness that sometimes consumed her best friend’s gaze. Closed off, cold, a little scary. But Shauna’s expression is cut right open, gushing guilt. It stops Jackie in her tracks.
When did Lottie tell her? How long has she been walking around with this secret? What did Shauna think when she heard? How did she react? What did she choose? Or did she feel that tiny kick in her womb and know she had no choice at all?
Well.
If Shauna has no choice, then Jackie has no choice either. If one of them is trapped, then they’ll be trapped together.
It can be that easy.
Jackie inspects Shauna’s stomach, bulging and hungry, seeking sustenance. Boy or girl, it’ll have to be fed. They’ll have to feed it.
She holds tight to Shauna’s hand, takes a breath. She can… do it. Eat a person. If it means Shauna’s baby lives. It can all be easy.
”It’s disrespectful.” Mari says viciously. “Lottie’s blessed us, and you’re rejecting it.”
Tai seemed high-strung, yet somehow soft, addressing Van, like she had a tentative hold on her temper. Now, she turns to Mari with the ferocity of a wild animal, coiled and tight. Frankly, looking ready to slap a bitch.
”I think we should do it.” Jackie blurts out quickly, before a real fight can begin. She fidgets underneath the stares this gets her. “Cannibalism, that is. We’re voting… aren’t we?”
Silence.
”Great.” Tai breathes a long-suffering sigh. “Jackie thinks we should do cannibalism.”
A wooden thud interrupts them.
Lottie sweeps into the room, collapsing back against the door as soon as it shuts. She looks jittery, manic. Her breaths are coming quick and hard, and her eyes are damp, swiveling rapidly from person to person.
Jackie watches the girls swarm her, seeming to forget her vote. She’s old news. And for once, she’s glad. For once, she feels none of the old insecurity, clawing for attention. It’s easier to think without a spotlight clouding her vision.
Tonight, her thoughts feel clear and succinct. Rarity after rarity. Probably it’s the lack of sleep that has her glazing over the great, big word. Cannibalism. It almost makes her want to laugh. Isn’t that what they’ve all been doing out here? Eating each other? And now they’re going to do it for real, ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. They’re going to eat Travis. Travis, a boy she’s spoken to, held, let inside of her, and—and if she thinks about it like that, she’ll break. So, instead she thinks, they are going to feed Shauna’s baby, we are going to save it. Over and over again, until the idea melds into something manageable. It all feels less whacky, when she puts it like that. This baby will never know hunger, not the way she does. It won’t know what it means to lie at dinner tables, to chase beauty in frail limbs, jutting ribs, sickness. It won’t know how nourishment can turn its back on you in winter.
It will know only love.
Jackie will make sure if it. She’ll kill for it. She’ll live for it. And when it grows older, she’ll do far less dramatic things with it, too. Maybe watch a movie?
Yes, that would be nice. Shauna. Baby. A movie.
Jesus, when did she last eat?
“Jackie?” Shauna prompts, ducking her head to catch her eye. Her expression’s a bit wary. “What are you thinking?”
So much, so much. Everything and nothing. Her head is singing. Yet, when she opens her mouth, there’s only one thought in her head.
”I want to go check on Nat.”
Shauna falters, frowns. “Nat?”
”Yeah.” Shauna sounded unconvinced, if a little hostile, but hearing the thought repeated aloud only strengthens Jackie’s resolve. She nods. “Someone should.”
She remembers the image of Nat, minutes ago, standing stark and lonely against the cold. Did Lottie just leave her there? Is anyone bothering to check where she is? What happened to keeping her on semi suicide watch? Jackie’s concern grows thick enough to chew on.
Meanwhile, a mixture of emotions stomps their way across Shauna’s face, none of them particularly pleasant. Finally, she sighs: “Why?”
”She’s all alone.” Jackie explains.
Shauna’s mouth twitches unhappily. She doesn’t understand. To her, being alone is a luxury. She wouldn’t consider the danger.
But look at what happened to Travis when they let him wander in the cold.
No, not Nat.
”Look, I’ll be back.” Jackie presses, but Shauna only stares back, borderline moody in her silence. So, she shuffles closer, gliding one hand up to Shauna’s neck and the other much lower, placing it delicately on her stomach. For a second, there’s a vague pleasure—she is wife, husband, spouse. My Shauna, my baby. She won’t lie and say there haven’t been fantasies over the years… dreams of a house, a ring, pasta to cook in their underwear. She rolls her thumb gently over Shauna’s pulse, catching the minute widening of her eyes.
Maybe that’s what prompts it. Seeing the effect she can have, feeling their intimacy, even in a crowded room. It’s as if they’ve entered their own little bubble.
Jackie drops a soft kiss on her forehead, then both of her cold, sullen cheeks. “Right back, okay? No brooding.”
“Okay.” Shauna murmurs, breath warm on Jackie’s skin. She returns a kiss to the tip of her nose. “I’ll wait.”
So, Jackie goes.
*
It’s almost forty minutes later when she finds her. A tiny pinprick of a girl, curled at the edge of a frozen riverbank. All alone against the buckets of black sky. Her shoulders are hunched, and they only rise higher as Jackie approaches.
”Go away.” Nat says, so strongly that Jackie actually pauses, feet slowing to an unsteady stop.
”I just wanted to check on you.”
At that, Nat turns. She considers her for a moment, mouth a flat line. “I thought you were Lottie.”
Is that disappointment in her tone? Relief? Jackie can’t tell. She spends too long trying to figure it out. Her arms hang limp at her sides.
”Oh.” She replies, finally. “I’m not.”
Nat’s scathing glance only emphasizes the stupidity of that comment. She turns back away stiffly, as if deeming Jackie useless. ”All the same. I don’t need a babysitter.”
Jackie knows brooding when she sees it. Except this is a little more than that, isn’t it? Nat looks… awful, honestly. Hollow, lost, desolate. Her body sits so small against the wind, her tears dry streaks on her face. Jackie wants to cradle her, though she doubts Nat would let her. And she’s not sure it will help. She’s not sure what will help—if anything at all—but she does know what to do in the face of a loss: get up and try, try again.
”Okay. A friend, then.”
Nat scowls. “I don’t want that either.”
”Too bad.” Jackie continues firmly. “I already walked all this way.”
And she plops her ass right down in the snow.
Nat seems entirely unamused. “Go away.”
”Nope.”
Jackie sits back on her elbows with faux nonchalance, determined to see this through. She inspects the curl of Nat’s body in the corner of her eye, weighing her.
“We can just sit here. I don’t mind.” Jackie pauses, searching. “If that’s what you want…?”
”I—” Nat begins, then stops. She clenches her jaw, quietly shaking her head. “No… no.”
“Okay. Want to yell at me?”
“No.”
”Hit me?”
An incredulous look. “No.”
”Kick me?”
”No.”
”…how about a quickie?”
”Jesus, Jackie, no.” Nat huffs out in exasperation. Some of the frost in her voice has thawed. There’s almost humor, there, at the suggestion, but it’s yanked away abruptly, as though Nat reminds herself that she’s not allowed laughter. Whatever brief levity she found drifts, coasting out over the lake in time with their eyes.
They gaze ahead dispassionately at the mile of endless white, neither of them really focusing.
Beside her, Nat stirs suddenly.
”They’re going to eat him.” She whispers. Then, louder, delivering the news. “They’re going to eat him, Jackie. Lottie has this fucked plan—“
”I know.”
Nat stops. ”You know?”
Jackie nods.
“Lottie told us—or, well, we heard.” She cringes a bit at the mention of their earlier argument, but Nat doesn’t seem to care. “I think they’re putting it to a vote. Like, now.”
She expects Nat to spring to action, to charge back to the cabin at full speed. But instead she’s strangely still, absorbing the information. “Now? And you’re just, what, not voting?”
Jackie senses the danger in that question, the tipping accusation. She gnaws her lip.
”Well, no. I’ve—I’ve already voted.”
”And?” Nat sharpens, wildly. The whites of her eyes seem to bulge. “And? Spit it out, Jackie.”
”I voted yes.”
”Yes? Yes, you voted to eat a person. Yes, you want to eat Travis.” Nat states flatly.
Jackie flinches at her phrasing. “That’s not it—“
”Then, what’s it like, Jackie? What are you, bowing to Lottie now? Cutting yourself open? Worshiping the trees?” Her voice rises in volume. “You can eat a person, as long as the wilderness says it’s okay?”
”No. No. Shauna—“
”Oh, Shauna! Good. Great. Of course. Love-fucking-ly. As long as Shauna’s crazy ass says it’s okay, then you’ll go right along.”
”She’s pregnant!” Jackie bursts out with startling vehemence. She chastises herself immediately for the way Nat shrinks. “And she’s starving. If you haven’t noticed, we all are. I get that you’re grieving, but it’s not—it’s not all about you. No one’s trying to hurt you. Lottie isn’t…”
She takes a steadying breath, licking her lips. A flash of memory: Lottie, ground against the wall by a looming crowd. Their leader. Their scapegoat.
“…she’s just trying to help, Nat. I’m just trying to help.”
Nat’s eyes flicker back and forth, skeptical. She hugs her knees. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“You didn’t have to.” Jackie sighs, fondness unfurling within her. She reaches out and squeezes Nat’s hand, holding it, even as it sits a little unsurely in her own. “This is what people do when they love each other. Now would you stop being an asshole?”
Nat draws herself up, and it seems they might have another go, but slowly, she deflates, looking away.
”Sorry.”
Jackie sinks. Relief floods her. ”Don’t be.”
”You’re different out here, you know.” Nat murmurs. Her voice and hand and body goes pliant against Jackie’s side. “Wise.”
”Thank you. I was thinking of growing a beard.”
Against all odds, Nat lets out a small snort of amusement.
So, they’re quiet for a while. Sitting, breathing, with Jackie’s thumb tracing a pattern up and down her knuckles. Their noses are stuffy and red-tipped by the time Nat speaks again.
“I wanted to bury him with his dad.” She says, and Jackie inhales, the innocence of the admission sliding into her chest like a knife.
“That would’ve been nice.” Jackie whispers—feeling, inexplicably, like crying.
All at once, Nat stands, purpose in the brisk twist of her movements. She straightens, wiping her eyes discreetly with the back of her hand.
“Yeah, it would have.”
“What else do you suggest? We’re eating belts. What’s next? Licking the dust off the floor?”
”It’s different! We knew him.”
“Barely. He was an asshole to us. He wasn’t even on the team.”
”So? He’s still a person.”
”He’s dead! And you heard Lottie, the wilderness wants us to do this. It’s a blessing. If it wants us to live, then why not?”
Lottie, for her part, hasn’t said a single word in the last half hour. She won’t. Can’t.
All the planning, all the care she’d taken to solidify each thought in her head, gone. Lost in the single second it took for the door to close. They’d heard her, at least. They’d gotten the message, even if she felt too weak to deliver it properly. They’re all circling each other—have been circling each other for the better part of an hour, scrapping and chewing at the topic like a particularly desirable piece of meat. Tai seems the most defiant, though with Jackie having voted so quickly (and unexpectedly), her argument is one against many. Most of the girls are hovering, hugging their elbows, biting their nails, bouncing their knees. Waiting. Waiting, for Lottie to tell them what to do, to fill their stomachs.
It’s going to happen, she knows.
When they all finally vote, they’ll say yes.
She’s just stalling. Because when they do vote, then that’s it, then—I’ll never forgive you. Never forgive you. Never, never, never. Never.
Nat says a lot of shit. Mean, sarcastic, sometimes cruel shit, often without meaning it.
But this… this she means.
A strong shove at Lottie’s back interrupts her dreary thoughts. She stumbles forward a few steps, catching herself just as the door opens. Jackie and Nat shuffle in, windswept and battered by the snowy night. All conversation ceases at once, silence enveloping them in one awkward sweep. No one seems too keen on discussing the possibility of eating Nat’s ex-boyfriend right in front of her.
(Lottie, apparently, lacks that same tact.)
They look to their feet, uncomfortable, but Nat stares at them dead on, with a calmness that’s almost unsettling. “Don’t stop on my account.”
”Natalie.” Misty says, fidgety, apologetic. Not so much guilty as itchy for validation. “We were just…”
“Voting?”
Averted eyes, a pulse of discomfort.
”Not like I can stop you.” Nat shrugs. She’s good at it—rolling her shoulders in that careless way, forcing nonchalance, acting as if she doesn’t care. If Lottie didn’t know any better…
I’ll never forgive you. Never forgive you. Never, never, never. Never.
…but she does.
And she knows exactly what it means when Nat walks away.
The voting is long and laborious and leaves them all ragged from lack of sleep.
In the end, the yeses win.
They plan to eat Travis tomorrow night, as soon as the moon rises in the sky.
Jackie doesn’t know what to do with herself after, other than to retreat upstairs. It seems the best bet. Following Shauna is what she’s done her whole life.
So, they creep up to the attic together, moving lazily, drained from the bulk of the night. It’s all stretched on so long that the sky outside has lightened to grey in preparation for the sunrise. They gather the blankets silently in the dusky light, not needing to speak. The quiet is reminiscent of sleepovers, long car rides, summer days spent floating on a lake far, far from here. Hours and hours lingering in each other’s space. That was their childhood. Jackie figures that’s over now, isn’t it? The childhood bit, at least.
”Shaun?”
”Yeah?” Shauna slows in her pursuit of swatting the dust off a pillow. She looks vaguely anxious about being addressed, as if expecting another problem to arise. Jackie can’t exactly blame her.
”Wanna cuddle?” She offers, smiling as the unease falls from Shauna face, replaced by soft relief.
“Yeah. Sure, Jax. C’mere.”
Shauna holds out her arms, and Jackie scoots closer, fitting herself into the empty space with a tired sigh. Sleepy and indulgent, she lets her nose nudge along the ridge of Shauna’s collarbone. She thinks there’s no better place than here, no better pastime than holding and being held. She spends a few long minutes engulfed in drowsy warmth, hoping for sleep, but it evades her. Sleep’s a spotty bitch, apparently.
She thought they’d both be out the second their heads hit the pillow, but instead the silence acts as a blank canvas for their thoughts to blotch.
And right now, Jackie’s not too chummy with her own thoughts.
She suspects it’s weighing on all of them. Tomorrow. Travis, the drain around which all nightmares swirl.
Wriggling, she presses even closer to Shauna, feeling the outline of her stomach. “You’re gonna make a good mom.”
“I don’t know.” Shauna muses quietly, picking at a spare thread on Jackie’s pajama pants. “I break things.”
”So, put them back together.”
”It’s not that simple.”
”Could be.”
There’s a weighty pause, in which Shauna’s chest tightens against her cheek.
”Lottie told me about everything. Before everyone else, we… talked.” Shauna says, quite out of the blue, but then, it occurs to Jackie that she must’ve been waiting to voice this confession for hours. “I guess I should’ve said something.”
Yeah, you should have, Jackie thinks, briefly. The pettiness seems tiring in a time like this. She lets it go.
”It’s okay. I knew.”
”You knew?” Shauna asks, surprised.
Jackie smiles. ”Yeah. You get this broody little look in your eye when you’re trying to keep a secret. I put the pieces together.”
”My eyes don’t brood.”
“They do.” Jackie almost rises to the teasing, feeling a flicker of amusement, but it fades just as quickly as it came. “How are you feeling about tomorrow?”
It’s different, she figures, for Shauna. She’s the butcher, after all.
”Grand. Social event of the year, really.”
”Shauna.”
She sighs. “I don’t know, Jackie. It’s like I said. I break things. Is this any different?”
“I don’t know.” Jackie says. Three words that are being passed around a lot in this cabin. She bites the inside of her cheek, considering. “Do you think we’ll be any different?”
”No.” Shauna raises a hand to her face, as if attempting to stroke away her wandering thoughts. “We’ll still just be Jackie and Shauna.”
But how could they guarantee that? Were they Jackie and Shauna, that first night Shauna kissed Jeff? Were they Jackie and Shauna, when Jackie was left to sleep in the cold?
A sudden desperation overtakes her. She grips the hand cradling her cheek, squeezing it with all the strength in her fingers. “Promise me that. Promise we’ll be best friends—really best friends, tomorrow and after. Forever.”
She surprises even herself with the fervor behind her words. Blatant distress pours out of her. Sharp, wondrous need.
“Okay, Jackie. Okay.” Shauna murmurs, carving a path along her face with her thumb—and then, with her lips. Her knitted eyebrows, the apples of her cheeks, the arch of her nose. Lovely, pillow-soft kisses, peppered across her skin like a smattering of freckles. “Jackie and Shauna. Forever.”
”Forever.” Jackie echoes.
”Forever.” Shauna repeats, confirming it.
”Forever.”
Jackie says it again and again, a whispered litany that gets sealed between them in a tentative press of lips.
“Forever, forever, forever…”
They mold into each other, the words melting slowly between their two mouths. There is a pulling in Jackie’s gut, an immense gravity that draws her closer. She feels it at the first touch of tongues, the warm pulse of a living thing—hunger, made flesh and blood. She laps into Shauna’s mouth, sucking her tongue, swallowing her spit, intending on eating her. Forever, forever, forever, she thinks, ravenous. Out of her mind. Wanting for something she’s just now realized is hers.
Her heart is fluttering. All the joy of childhood, condensed into one organ.
They are seven, on a long forgotten playground. Fourteen, at a party. Eighteen in the wilderness. Stretched across time. Infinite.
”Shauna.” She whimpers into her mouth.
”I know.” Shauna answers, dragging her in tight, so that no space exists between them at all.
And, yes, Shauna must know how badly she wants this, how fire-hot she’s burning beneath the layers. Blood is roaring in her ears. She writhes, moaning, as those destructive hands slide down and give her ass a rough squeeze.
Shauna grips her hard, like she’s an object on a shelf, to be plucked and toyed with as she pleases.
”I’m not good at being gentle.” She mutters, serious, as if it’s a deterrent, but Jackie just nods, gasping.
”You don’t need to be.”
Gentle isn’t what Jackie wants. Gentle won’t keep the nightmares away. Gentle won’t stop tomorrow.
And frankly, gentle doesn’t make her cunt pulse quite as hard.
”Uh,” A voice says, and it’s not her, and it’s not Shauna.
It’s Nat, looking a little affronted, a little awkward. A lot weary.
Shauna reaches over and tugs Jackie’s clothing back into place, which seems ridiculous, given all Nat’s seen of her.
Nat glances between them. Any other night, she might’ve made some quip about finding them indecent, but tonight she just asks: “Can I sleep up here? Lottie’s downstairs, and I don’t really want…”
Jackie pictures Lottie and her thousand yard stare. Big, dark, shards of obsidian.
”Yeah, of course.” Jackie replies, already shuffling some blankets around her. Shauna shifts unhappily beside her, but otherwise doesn’t say anything.
Nat climbs the rest of the way up the ladder, still giving them a wide berth. “Thanks. Sorry for interrupting.”
”It’s okay.” Jackie says quickly, suddenly ashamed of the lewd blush marring her skin. They might as well have started dry-humping on his grave.
Nat takes the offered blankets and slinks off into the corner, throwing them over her head.
It’s colder with her in the room and not because they’ve just lost a layer. It seems too awkward to continue, given the circumstances. Her body’s coming down from the fever pitch, and her mind’s right there with it, spiraling around unseeing eyes, blue-crusted lips.
Hungry yet, Jackie?
*
When she wakes up, Nat is gone. She rolls over and so is Shauna.
She sighs.
Downstairs, the girls are already milling about. Where is Shauna? In the meat shed? Where is Nat? Off drowning herself in the lake?
It’s a double-edged sword, thinking of them both at the same time. Remembering the bright, spot of warmth of the kiss, and then the cold plunge of everything else. Like night and day.
Like life and death.
*
Thankfully, no one has done anything drastic by the time Jackie stomps down. In fact, the energy is distinctly hushed. She finds the girls freckled around the cabin—some of them immersed in chores, some of them trawling spoons through broth.
There’s still some left in the pot when she looks. A thin, murky liquid, pooling in a little puddle. Jackie stares into it, watching the swirl, the ripples, the inevitable storm.
”Oh—!”
She startles at the feel of probing fingers sliding down her hips, pulling her back against a warm front. A claiming kiss is pressed to the nape of her neck.
”Morning, Jax.” Shauna whispers into her ear.
I’m not good at being gentle.
What a lie.
Shauna slinks up from behind Jackie, immediately wrapping arms around her, lavishing her with attention. Her hands skid over Jackie’s waist, arms, and shoulders, terribly possessive.
Lottie understands. She likes to claim her things, too.
A pang of longing rolls through her as she watches them. She’s always been a little jealous of their intimacy, even since before the crash.
Growing up in Wiskayok was lonely, and meeting Jackie and Shauna only made it lonelier. She had very little friends. Very little family, for that matter. Too rich, too weird, too brown. That was the litany that plagued her, all throughout childhood. And then, without warning: Jackie and Shauna. Best friends. Linking hands, sharing utensils, napping on top of each other. She didn’t know that kind of familiarity even existed. Even then, she was sure it wouldn’t extend to her. What sort of care could she hope for, when even her parents flinched away?
But… Nat.
A closeness she’s still not sure was real. It would be more likely that she spent the last few months daydreaming, wandering the woods with her own shadow.
Lottie lifts her fingers to the hickeys on her throat, every now and again, just to test the validity of them.
They sting. Real.
Though, that’s the only evidence of Nat that’s left. She’d gone up to the attic before Lottie fell asleep and disappeared from the cabin when Lottie woke up. She could be anywhere, now. Where did she go? And is she coming back?
”Lottie.” She’s snapped out of her reverie by the arrival of three girls. Akilah, Mari, and Gen. “We got what you asked for.”
In their hands are long, leafy fronds, sallow and dead in color, but still suitable for what she wants.
”Thank you. Add it to the pile.”
She follows the girls outside, where she’d swept the chosen spot clean of debris. Tai and Van are already out there, collecting dry sticks, while Misty and Crystal fuss over the lanterns. Misty seems a little strange and shifty, being poked awake every few seconds, but when is Misty ever not strange and shifty?
Besides that, everyone is concentrated. Heads down, hands busy. Despite being ripped from sleep, they’re throwing themselves into their work wholeheartedly, needy for distraction. The fronds are added to the sticks, which they pillow around a broad tree stump. Lanterns are crafted out of glass jars and candles, then hung from the branches with string. Snow is shoveled, leaves are cleared. The girls move quick, like buzzing bees, setting out each element in the manner Lottie had described. She can see it happening, bit by bit, the barest bones of her vision coming together.
It’s exactly what she wanted.
An altar.
It seemed only right. They’d set the bear heart on a stump and kneeled before it—but this is more than just a bear. It’s a full person. This altar has to be bigger, grander.
Lottie attempts to help arrange the sticks, but she’s shooed off by wide-eyed, reverent looks, as if her hands are too pure for splinters.
She winds up slumped on the creaky porch, alone. What a throne.
Part of her hoped that she’d be able to find some distraction from today (whether it be the altar, Nat, or something else), but now, she supposes that hope was selfish. Wanting to shy away from the weight of her own decisions. It’s only fitting that she’s forced to face them, to sit quietly with her mind while the hours slouch by. So, she sits and thinks while they get done with the lanterns, the fronds, and the sticks. She sits, and she thinks. And she sits, and she thinks, thinks, thinks.
I’ll never forgive you…
A couple of the girls give her admiring glances in passing, as if there’s anymore thought in her head than a lovesick teenager with a crush.
I’ll never forgive you. Never, never, never.
On a loop.
Lottie watches the sky. The hazy, grey-white sun of winter trudges into steadying darkness. When it reaches near black, she stands with a sigh, dusting off her pants.
”Is it time?” A voice asks from behind her.
She nearly flinches. Shauna, bear-like as her movements often are, has the uncanny ability to sneak up on people. She stands there quietly, arms crossed, wearing Jackie’s presence at her back like an accessory.
”Yes.” Lottie nods.
Shauna frowns and turns to murmur something soothing to a wary-looking Jackie. Her hands rub reassuring patterns up and down Jackie’s arms.
Meanwhile, Lottie scans the trees a final time. Where is Nat? It’s been too long, and it’s getting too dark.
“Is he still in the shed?” Shauna asks, and Lottie looks back to see that Jackie has gone. It’s just the two of them.
“Yeah.”
It’s a stalling question. Where else would he be?
They walk there together, and they find him together. Slumped into the corner, pale as marble, accusing them with his dead eyes.
Girls are fucking freaks, he’d said once, scowling away from the blood of them.
Maybe he’d been right.
“You can go.” Shauna says, not unkindly.
Lottie hesitates, thinks about staying, watching it all as a punishment to herself. Seeing the hard line of Shauna’s mouth makes her decide otherwise.
”Okay.”
She touches Shauna’s shoulder and gives it a brief squeeze. A gesture of comfort, trust, familiarity. Two only children, thumbing at sisterhood.
“Thank you.” She murmurs.
Shauna nods.
*
Lottie steps outside, and there she is.
Bright shock of artificial blonde, blue-green eyes, willowy body, grumpy mouth.
Nat.
At the sight of her, Lottie shrinks, burying her hands in her pockets to hide the blood on them. Nat’s stare has a physical weight to it, a force sharp enough to peel the skin off her bones. She stands there, exposed, wearing her shame like an ugly scar.
Nat looks from Lottie to the shed and then back to Lottie again. She turns sharply on her heel and goes.
”Nat. Hey, Nat!”
Lottie isn’t sure why she does it. Why she calls out or why she starts charging into the forest after her. You said you’d let her go, so let her go.
But she’s not letting her go.
She’s almost running, actually, walking so briskly that it puts a stitch in her chest.
”Nat! Come back!”
Bark catches and scrapes her skin. Branches claw at her face and hair.
”Nat!”
Finally, Nat whirls around, facing her with the force of a slap. “What? What is it, Lottie?”
Lottie wants to open her mouth but settles for closing it dumbly. What did she want? She’d seen Nat, and she’d just—she’d wanted—
Nat continues. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
”I do.” Lottie admits, breathing slow around a solution. She takes in the dreary lines around Nat’s face, the hollows of her cheeks. She needs Nat to just survive properly, for once. “And so do you.”
”No thanks.”
”Nat…”
“What are you going to do? Force me?” Nat lifts her chin about half an inch. It’s the exact kind of belligerent sharpness she’d wanted to cut herself on all of high school.
Now, it’s a bit tiring.
”No, but we voted and…” And what is the alternative? Death? Starvation? “What else are you going to do?”
”I don’t know. Catch some actual fucking food.”
The wind whistles airily through the trees, as if to punctuate the ridiculousness of this statement. Nat swears under her breath. There’s nothing out here except them.
Lottie rolls her tongue over her lip in consideration, searching for an answer above throwing Nat over her shoulder and carrying her back herself. She’s coming up pretty empty.
”Okay. If not Travis, then Akilah, Gen, Jackie—me?” Asks the little girl who once used to stumble around, clutching desperately at her father’s pant leg. Charlotte, dear, not now. She could take it, if it was her. If Nat wanted her dead instead of Travis.
She would let Nat eat her, too. She would make herself the sacrifice, if that was what would mend them. She would lay herself on the table, split herself from head to toe, and offer her guts as sustenance.
(Isn’t that love in a way? Sustenance? Nourishment?)
But Nat just looks at her steadily. “No.”
”Then…” It clicks. “Did you want it to be you?”
She’s not sure how she expects Nat to respond, what she wants her to say. Make a joke, laugh it off, yell, slip back into nonchalance. Anything but say she wishes she’d died in Travis’ place.
”Nat—“
The smell smacks her suddenly. It’s dizzying. Smoke. Cooked meat. Food, food, food, foodfoodfood.
Both of them turn in the same motion, facing the rising smoke in the distance. It curls a thin, entrancing finger, beckoning them close.
There’s no more argument, once they see that shining beacon. No more words between them, no more thought. Their humanity peels away from them the more they inhale, and a decision is made with just a step.
One step forward.
Their stomachs are rumbling in unison. A low, animal growl.
Another step.
Her blood is pumping a funeral march in her ears.
Another step.
And now they’re with the girls, now they’re at the burning shrine, now they’re circling a body of meat that’s black and crisp and hardly recognizable.
The girls close in slowly, an air of trepidation about them. They share skittish glances under the cloak of a hopeless, heavy night. Are we really going to do this? Is this what we are? Is this what we’ve become?
Still—when Lottie kneels, they kneel with her.
She looks at each of their faces, absorbing their fear and their anticipation. When she catches Nat’s gaze, she inhales. Her eyes are bloodshot and dead.
It must be a trick of the light, what happens next.
Lottie takes a second look, only to see the unruly, blonde-brown mop on Nat’s head transformed into a mane of braided gold. Any hint of dirt or grime in the strands are gone, all imperfections vanished. Her skin, too, is changed, turned pink with the warm glow of health. Her eyes are luminous, her mouth a soft, glistening cherry. She sits like a goddess, untouched by human hands.
A gift. A glorious gift from the wilderness.
And it’s not just Nat. No, not at all. Lottie watches, frozen in awe, as the same fortune unfurls over the rest of her girls, encompassing them in magnificent light. Fat returns to their hollow faces; bruises clear their skin. The gloom sheds, and instead there is laughter—bright laughter, girlish shrieks and giggles, smiles as they begin to fill their stomachs with the feast. A wild turkey dominates the spread, plucked and brushed with a dark, maple glaze. Scattered around it are heaps and mounds of roasted potatoes, asparagus, and rice, all set on a bone-white plate. To the left, there is caviar, quail eggs, and salmon, and to the right, a smorgasbord of crackers and cubed cheese. A massive platter of stacked lobster teems at the other end of the table, hemorrhaging out butter in dying gurgles. And to add to the wealth: blood red apples, bundles of grapes, pears, watermelon. Fruit and meat and excess, finally, an excess for them to gorge themselves on. And gorge they do. There is no guilt or concern. There is emptiness, and then abruptly, there is fullness, a frenzy of tearing hands, dripping mouths, greasy fingers. Rabid gluttony.
Eat, she thinks, as they descend. Meat pulls apart from bone. Eat and taste nourishment, sustenance.
Taste love.