Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

i.

Ziggy Berman is twelve when she first meets a thirteen-year-old Nick Goode. It’s the summer of 1974, her dad has been gone for nearly two years now, leaving her mother the sole provider of the family, which meant taking more shifts which meant she was stuck at summer camp with her older sister.

Really, she thinks maybe she would’ve loved it if she had someone to talk to, Cindy would always just run off with all the older campers. She hadn’t hung out with Alice in a long time, which was too bad because Alice was cool and always invited her to tag along to the movies with Cindy.

The fact that all the campers her age can’t stand her doesn’t help make her Camp Nightwing’s biggest fan either. And it’s not just the kids from Shadyside, it’s the kids from Sunnyvale, too. Sheila, more specifically, and the other kids that follow her around everywhere, the rest of the Sunnyvalers don’t even look her way.

That’s why she finds herself hiding away in the arts and crafts cabin instead of the mess hall during lunch. In the chaos of loud-mouthed kids and counselors too caught up in themselves, no one really notices it. She tells herself it’s better that way, that she doesn’t care. She knows she’s lying.

It doesn’t matter though, because some boy is opening the doors and walking over to her now. She’s seen him around, she thinks, he’s definitely from Sunnyvale. His ears stick out, but he’s still pretty cute in her opinion. He has a hesitant smile on his face, a dimple making an appearance as he says, “Hey! Christine, right?”

Curiosity and confusion are laced in her voice as she sets down her half-eaten apple and responds, “Hi?”

He seems to take this as an invitation and sits down next to her, holding his hand out. “Nick Goode.”

Right. Will’s brother. The sheriff’s son, she thinks bitterly.

The redhead knows Cindy would scold her for being impolite so she accepts his hand, shaking it stiffly. “Ziggy Berman.”

There’s a calculating look on his face as he nods in response, like he’s taking that information and keeping it safe somewhere, like if it’s something worth remembering. It makes her feel something she can’t quite place, but it’s there. 

She pulls her hand away and tucks a stray hair behind her ear, unsure what to do with herself. Nick notices the awkwardness and it seems to remind him what he was there for in the first place. “Sorry,” a nervous laugh escapes his mouth before he continues, “I just wanted to apologize. Y’know for Will. Well...and Sheila. They’re just being idiots, I’m sorry.” 

Ziggy doesn’t quite know what to do with that. She knows they’re idiots, all they’ve done all summer is constantly single her out during activities and attempt to hide their laughs behind their hands whenever her art projects were “mysteriously” ruined.

So she just nods and tries to look anywhere but him as a silence fills the room. She can feel him staring at her expectantly, but also soft. It’s the same look she’ll come to know four years from now, only less intense, but the yearning is still present, even now. 

Realizing he’s waiting for some sort of acknowledgement, she finally locks eyes with him and shrugs. “Is that all?”

Nick blinks slowly and then lets out a light chuckle, it sounds fond for reasons Ziggy can’t even begin to comprehend. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s all,” and then he’s getting up and walking towards the door backwards, eyes still on her as he adds a, “See you around, Berman,” before leaving her alone, just the way he had found her.

Ziggy doesn’t see him much again that summer, or maybe she does but she doesn’t care enough about Nick Goode to notice. 

He’s noticed her, though. He notices the vacant spot at the table she’d occupy in the mess hall on days where Sheila, Will, and the rest of her goons would actually give her a break. He notices the fact that she’s the only person who’d hang around Nurse Lane’s office solely because she enjoyed her company. He notices the way she tends to hide out in her cabin when Sheila’s being especially mean. He notices the sad expression on her face when she so much as looks at Cindy Berman.

That summer ends before he has any time to process why she tended to stick out to him so much and suddenly he’s thrown back into his normal life at home, and school work occupies the time he normally spent thinking about Ziggy.

ii.

Ziggy Berman is thirteen when she develops her fear of snakes. It’s another summer at Camp Nightwing and she’s in the science and nature cabin. Which, normally, she loved. Her sister hated all things related to bugs and insects which just made them all that cooler to her. 

Except nothing is cool about fucking Sheila locking her in here with a snake she set loose. The door is lodged by a piece of wood and banging on said door for the past fifteen minutes has done nothing. Her yells are drowned out by the sound of other campers splashing around the lake and music playing over the loudspeaker.

It was a perfectly calculated prank, she’ll give her that.

She should’ve known something was up when the raven-haired girl hadn’t struck back after she had filled her shoes with glue. Surprisingly, she was met with two days of peace and hadn’t run into her once. Ziggy scolds herself for thinking Sheila could have possibly gotten tired of spending entire summers messing with her and had moved past their “rivalry”.

She yells out one more, “Hello! I’m in here! Help,” before she groans and kicks the door, knowing her attempt to get anyone’s attention was useless.

From the corner of her eye, she can see the snake slithering on the floor only ten feet from her. Shakily, she pushes herself onto a table and folds her legs into her chest, hoping eventually someone will realize she was gone by dinner time.

Deep down, she wishes Cindy would be the one to find her, that she would notice she was missing from her table for once, that she would scour the entire camp looking for her until she opened the Science and Nature cabin, that she would pull her into a hug and apologize for not having heard her. 

That’s not what happens though.

Instead, she hears Sheila on the other side of the door, except she’s not alone, there’s another voice demanding an answer. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything! Tell him, Will!”

And Will’s about to, hesitantly, back her up, but is interrupted by Ziggy calling out, “Let me out, assholes!”

Faintly, she swears she hears someone say her name, and it kinda sounds like- Oh god. Please, anyone but him. There’s some shuffling outside, and a thump against the door when the wood restraint is removed, then Ziggy is greeted by the sight of none other than a very worried Nick Goode in front of an ashamed Sheila and Will.

Honestly, Ziggy’s both humiliated and disappointed, but the relief of no longer being trapped with the reptile overpowers it. She’s about to get off the table when Nick yells out, “Don’t!” Her eyes snap towards him and he gestures towards the snake on the floor right beneath her.

He turns back to Sheila and Will, “Go find a counselor.”

Sheila rolls her eyes but complies, albeit reluctantly, tugging Will along with her, he struggles to keep up with her.

Then his attention is back on her, “Hey, Berman, everything’s going to be fine, I promise.”

Despite being very aware of the situation at hand, she can’t help but respond to his calming assurances sarcastically, “Thank god you’re here! Nick Goode, my hero.”

It surprises her when she hears him laugh, he looks almost glad for some reason. She doesn’t know he’s just grateful she’s even acknowledging him at all, grateful that she’s still the same as he remembered her from last summer, even when she’s at risk of getting bitten by a poisonous reptile.

Nick sobers up when he hears a hiss and before Ziggy can react, he reaches out, pulls her out of the way and off the table, away from the creature now slithering across it. She struggles to get off the ground, so he wraps his arm around her and helps her up, stumbling a bit before she steadies them and rushes out, still holding onto him.

She slams the door behind them and leans against it, panting. He removes his arm and she instantly, for some reason she doesn’t completely understand, feels cold. The warmth returns in the form of his hand moving stray hairs out of her face and grasping onto her shoulders, his eyes searching her face as he asks, “Are you okay?”

Ziggy opens her mouth, ready to snap at him, ready to roll her eyes and march off, ready to act as if this was nothing. 

She can’t bring herself to do it, not when he’s looking at her like that, so instead she purses her lips before nodding. “Yeah.”

He visibly relaxes and looks like he wants to say something else but stops himself when Sheila and Will come back with some Sunnyvale counselor, a net in hand. 

Nick sits beside her on the grass while the counselor sets the snake back into its glass terrarium. She can feel him glancing over at her every so often, as if he took his eyes off her for too long, she’d be facing some new and bigger danger. She doesn’t really know what to make of it, but she also doesn’t want to think about it too hard, scared of what answer she might find.

Shocking to absolutely no one, Sheila and Will only get off with a warning, Ziggy’s entire body fills with rage and she rises to her feet. “Are you kidding me?”

She turns to Nick, not necessarily expecting him to defend her, maybe he could just say something, anything. He knows how they singled her out, how it just got worse every day, he had apologized for it just last year. It doesn’t make it hurt any less when he looks everywhere but her. 

Ziggy chuckles humorlessly and shakes her head, muttering, “Sunnyvale prick,” before she turns and begins to walk off. 

She hears him call out her name but ignores it. Fuck Sheila. Fuck Will. And fuck Nick Goode.

Later, Cindy comes knocking on her cabin door, Gary had mentioned seeing her marching away from the Science and Nature cabin and she had mentally prepared a whole speech about the importance of listening to their counselors and being polite to other campers. 

When she’s answered by a shaky, “Go away,” Cindy goes to open the door, instinctively ready to comfort her sister, but falters, her mind blanking. Her hand hovers over the knob for a minute before she sighs and walks away from the cabin.

Ziggy wishes she had come in.

The next day, while spending yet another lunch in the arts and crafts cabin, Nick walks in and looks just as nervous as he had a year ago. Only now, he also looks apologetic. She makes a show of not seeing him and continues reading, trying to get lost in the world of Montagues vs Capulets. 

He seems to take her not kicking him out as an opening. “Didn’t peg you for a Shakespeare fan.”

It takes everything in her to restrain herself from lunging at him right then and there and turns to the next page. “Yeah, well, you don’t know me.”

For a while, he doesn’t say anything at all, he just stands there, speechless. Unable to take it any longer, she sets her book down and looks up at him. “Did you need anything?”

Embarrassed, he rubs the back of his neck. “I wanted to apologize.”

“Oh, for what this time? Your brother’s behavior or yours?”

Nick looks as if she’d struck him, and honestly, she wishes she had. She picks her book back up and starts reading again, hoping he’d take a hint. The older boy quietly and honestly says, “I’m sorry, Ziggy. I wanted to say something, I really did.”

This makes Ziggy stop and consider his words for a moment, then she gets out of her seat and stands right in front of him, holding his forlorn gaze as she venomously spits out, “But you didn’t.”

The weight of her words feel heavy to them both and for different reasons. 

She finds a new spot to eat lunch in and avoids Nick like the plague. He keeps an eye out, looking for flashes of red for the rest of the summer. Camp’s over before they know it and they don’t cross paths again that year.

iii.

Ziggy Berman is fourteen when she first reads Carrie. For her birthday, February 14th, she wakes up to find a second hand copy on her nightstand. There was a note beside it that read:

Thought of you. Happy Birthday!

Love, Mom

She knew well enough that it wasn’t from her mom, handwriting aside, she could never keep track of summer days enough to remember her birthday, too busy downing another drink. For a moment, she lets herself believe it, holding the book to her chest. 

Later that day, when Cindy places a cake in front of her, she ignores the flour she forgot to clean off her chin, and pretends to believe her when she claims mom made it before having to slip out of the house to run errands. 

Five months fly by and it’s the first day of camp. She’d already reread the book twice, which was visible to anyone, it had dog eared pages, her thoughts and comments scrawled beside paragraphs, and her favorite quotes highlighted. She manages to convince Cindy to allow her to pack it for camp, along with a couple of other books, some of which she hadn’t had the time to read yet.

There’s a ringing echoing through the air, the bell indicating that it’s time for lunch, and Ziggy feels her stomach grumble. In the back of her head, she can hear Cindy scolding her for skipping a meal. Groaning, she marks her place in the book and closes it, stepping out of the cabin and making her way towards the mess hall. 

Originally, the plan had been to sneak back into her cabin with her food, not wanting to risk running into Sheila (or Nick Goode), but she was nowhere to be found. Ziggy looks over at the table occupying Sheila’s minions, an empty space where she should be. Will has guilt written all over his face and it makes her pause. Suddenly, someone nudges her aside, smelling of citrus and wood. “Shadyside trash.” Sheila.

Ziggy whips her head around to find Sheila smirking right at her. Seeing red, she crowds her space. “What did you do?”

The raven-haired girl tilts her head, a mischievous glint in her eyes as she says, “You know, that’s a real nice library you’ve got, freak.”

It’s all the confirmation she needs. Ziggy turns on her heel and rushes out of the mess hall, shoving the Sunnyvaler out of the way in the process.

The first thing she sees when she reaches her cabin is the door ajar. Unprepared to find what she knows is waiting for her, she hovers near the entrance for a beat, shutting her eyes, taking a deep breath, and stopping her hands from balling into a fist, trying to get herself to calm down.

It doesn’t do much in the end.

All five books she had brought along, covers ripped off, pages torn out, and most of the pages left are written over with marker. The sight of her recently gifted Carrie copy completely ruined makes her eyes water, in both frustration and sadness. She thinks of Cindy’s devastated eyes, of her using money from her own paycheck to buy her something she knew their mom wouldn’t.

She can’t stand looking at them for another second.

When it’s time for the bonfire, Ziggy offers the counselors her books, or whatever’s left of them. They eye her weirdly when they take in the state they’re in but don’t say anything, feeding it to the pit when the fire starts dwindling. Across from where she’s sitting, Nick Goode looks like he’s contemplating something before he gets up and goes off somewhere, determined. He doesn’t come back. Ziggy can’t really bring herself to care, but she notices.

Throughout the night, she can sense Cindy’s attention on her, who’s sitting beside her new boyfriend, Tommy Slater, the star of Shadyside High’s track team. She sneaks back into her cabin before she can pull her aside to interrogate her, missing the dejected look on her sister’s face.

There’s a book waiting for Ziggy on her bed when she comes back, Carrie to be exact. It’s not beat up like hers had been, clearly a first-hand copy, the only sign it had ever been touched being the slight bent on the front cover. Frowning, she picks it up, checking to see if there was a note attached to it, except there’s nothing. She thumbs through a couple of pages and finds some writings in the margins, penciled in neatly, and True sorrow is as rare as true love underlined.

Ziggy closes the book and hides it under her bed. In the distance, she can still hear the sound of campers gathered around the crackling fire and laughter. A wave of loneliness hits her. Ignoring the stinging in her eyes, she gets ready for bed and tries to will herself to sleep.

She tosses and turns for a while before exhaustion seeps in and her breathing evens out, finally allowing herself to rest.

The pieces of the puzzle don’t come together for her, that the reason Nick had left the bonfire so suddenly was to grab his own copy he, too, had brought  and leave it sitting on her bed. It’s his own little secret, one he holds close to his heart, one he has no problem keeping to himself when he sees her nose buried in the book the very next day at breakfast.

━━━━━━━

Nick’s heading back to his own cabin when someone tugs on his shoulder. When he turns, he’s met with Cindy’s concerned face. “What was that about?”

Shoving his hands into his front pockets, he shrugs. “What was what about?”

The older girl huffs, clearly unimpressed. “I mean why did I just see you leaving my sister’s cabin?”

His eyes widen, like a deer caught in headlights, his face heating up. “It’s not- I wasn’t-,” he cuts himself off before composing himself and continuing, “I heard Sheila and my brother talking about what they did to her books at lunch. Then I saw how upset she looked and I just, I don’t know, figured she’d want at least one to get her through the summer.”

Sparing a glance in the direction towards Ziggy’s cabin, Cindy’s eyes soften, losing her intensity, the protectiveness still present. She sighs and nods, more to herself than to him, as if she had come to some sort of decision. “I’ll make sure she gives it back before camp ends.”

Quickly, Nick protests, “No, no, it’s fine. Honestly, I think she’d appreciate it more than me,” he pauses before adding, “Not really a huge fan of the book,” it’s a lie but she doesn’t have to know that.

Cindy looks like she wants to say something else but decides against it. She goes to walk away, but before she can, Nick’s speaking up again, “Can we keep this between us?”

He looks nervous and a little unsure of himself. It startles her, he looks nothing like the persona he’s forced to put on as the future King of Sunnyvale, always walking around like some mini-adult when really he was a fifteen year old kid, just a couple months younger than she was.

A kid who, now that she thought about it, she never really saw hanging out with other campers, unless you count Kurt or his brother, but those were because he had to. She thinks maybe he needs a real friend, one who wasn’t associating themselves with him solely because of his name. Her mind flickers back to Ziggy.

She nods, smiling assuringly, “Don’t worry, my lips are sealed.”

When she leaves, Nick realizes that was the first time they’ve ever really talked, despite going to the same camp together for years. He doesn’t really know much about her, just that she was Ziggy’s older sister, and that she’s someone the younger campers all went to for help, someone he knows would make a great counselor eventually, someone he respects.

At breakfast the next morning, she catches him gazing at Ziggy, only snapping out of it when Kurt claps him on the shoulder. She can see him smiling into his cup of orange juice and she knows it had nothing to do with whatever horrible joke Kurt was retelling for the hundredth time.

━━━━━━━

A couple weeks later, on the bus ride home from camp, Ziggy and Cindy are crammed together in a seat near the front. Ziggy’s leaning her head against the window, Carrie held in her hand firmly. Under different circumstances, she would’ve teased her sister about it, maybe made a joke about her and Nick Goode, but she remembers she can’t do things like that anymore. 

Not since she’d started wearing polos and started pushing Ziggy away. Not since she realized her heart wasn’t supposed to skip a beat anytime Alice’s hand brushed up against hers. Not since she realized she wasn’t like everyone in Shadyside.

They sit beside each other in silence, both wishing the other would break it the whole way home.

iv.

Ziggy Berman is fifteen when Cindy becomes a counselor. It’s because of that she finds herself at Camp Nightwing at the ass crack of dawn, hours before any campers were supposed to arrive. 

She shouldn’t be here, they both know that, but she had no other options for a ride, not when their mom was too busy drinking at whatever bar was open this early. Which resulted in her being forced to tag along with Cindy and Tommy, who had offered to drive them. 

Over the past year, Ziggy’s realized he’s not that bad, he’s actually really kind and lets her play whatever music she wants, but he’s not Alice. She thinks Cindy knows that, too.

When they arrive at camp, Cindy looks over at Tommy and he nods, a silent conversation between them. He pecks her lips and then tosses a small smile at Ziggy before getting off the car, leaving them alone. Her sister turns around in the passenger seat to face her. “This is my first year being a counselor, I need to make a good first impression. You get that, right?”

Annoyed with the conversation already, she rolls her eyes. “Of course not, you’ve only mentioned this about fifty times.”

Cindy squints at her. “This is serious, Ziggy. I know it doesn’t matter to you, nothing does.” 

Not true, she thinks. It hurts knowing that’s what she thinks of her.

“But this is important to me. Just–Just behave for once, please.”

Had this been the old Cindy asking, the one who would lay down with her in their backyard to look at the stars, pointing at constellations and making up names for them to make her laugh, she would’ve. But she isn’t, she’s a ghost of who she used to be.

She wants to scream in Cindy’s face, want to shake her by the shoulders and force her to look her in the eye, to ask her why she disappeared when she needed her most, to ask her why she didn’t want anything to do with her.

Fingers crossed, Ziggy smiles. “You got it.”

Ziggy winds up hanging out in her cabin for a while, trying to conjure up some plan. No one bothers her, Cindy doesn’t even come in to check on her, probably too busy scrubbing the Mess Hall floor squeaky clean. Briefly, she considers taking a nap to make up for the hours of sleep her sister had stolen from her, but decides against it. 

She can feel Cindy’s key in her front pocket, the one that worked for just about every lock at camp, the one that she had snagged from her before they had left the house. Her sister had grilled her about it, trying to get her to admit she had taken it. In a twisted way, it made Ziggy smile, because at least Cindy was showing some sort of emotion towards her, even if it was anger.

Huffing, she picks herself up off her bed and marches out of her cabin, making a beeline for the Arts and Crafts cabin.

It’d been some time since she’d step foot in there. After the summer of 1975, she had started hiding out in Nurse Lane’s office during meals. She never seemed to mind, in fact, she seemed to really like Ziggy. There were multiple occasions where she’d catch her staring with this feeling of loss, her lip quivering, before she’d wipe her eyes and apologize, saying she reminded her of her daughter. 

Everyone knew her daughter was the infamous Ruby Lane. Ziggy always made a point to never bring her up unless Nurse Lane did, she hated seeing how upset it made her, hated the whispers she heard about “Crazy Lane” around camp. It’s led to her walking over to the infirmary, knuckles bruised, and Nurse Lane scolding her softly as she patched her up, like a worried mother. 

Ruby had sliced up all of her friends and that didn’t make Nurse Lane’s love for her waver, not even a smidge. There’s this ugly pain in her chest just thinking about it, the unconditional love of a mother.

She snaps herself out of her thoughts, swinging the cabin door open. Except, it’s not empty the way she thought it’d be. Hunched over a table, Nick Goode wipes it down, tongue sticking out in concentration. He hasn’t noticed she’s there yet.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

His head whips up, his eyes wide until he realizes it’s her and his expression softens. She ignores the heat in her cheeks, folding her arms, and looking at him accusingly. 

He sets down the towel in his hand and leans his hands on the table, amused but also confused. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but neither are you.”

“You can take that up with Counselor Cindy if it bothers you. Now what are you doing here, Nick? Seriously.”

He snorts, like she had asked a question with an obvious answer. “Goode’s have to show out, remember? Lending a hand around here when I’m not even a counselor is kinda part of that.”

“Right.”

Done with the conversation, Ziggy strides over to the cabinet containing all the art supplies. She pulls Cindy’s key out of her pocket and unlocks it, beaming at the sight of spray paint on the top shelf. 

“What are you doing?”

She takes out a white can and shakes it. “Art project.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to have access to those.”

With an annoyed sigh, she turns to face him, “Go snitch on me then. I’m sure Kurt will jump at the chance to kick me out before camp even starts.”

He just stares at her, like he’s trying to figure her out. “Something tells me you want to get caught.”

“And tell me, genius, why that is?”

He shrugs. “I dunno, maybe you just want to piss off your sister, get her attention or something without having to sit down and actually talk about what you’re feeling.”

Ziggy can feel the smugness in her face fall, not at all expecting those words to leave his mouth. The way he said it wasn’t spiteful or unkind, it was almost empathetic. But she’s not interested in Nick Goode of all people trying to act like he knew her, as if she was the only person guilty of putting up a front. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I didn’t mean to–”

“No, let’s see: Nick Goode, dedicating all his free time to shit he couldn’t care less about.” She slams the can of spray-paint on the table and walks over to him, a predator inching towards its prey, nose flaring. “Who can’t even call a fucking camp counselor out on their shit because that’d mean having his own thoughts and opinions and actually being his own person.”

Nick’s jaw clenches, hurt evident on his face. It seems to be a common occurrence, leaving him speechless.

“You’re a coward.” She marches out, the can of spray-paint forgotten on the table.

(The thing is, Nick knows this, knows what a coward he is. He’s nothing like Ziggy, no one is. When she spoke, it was for herself, it was never to prove anything to anyone. Nick can’t do that. So, yeah, he’s a coward. 

He picks up the can of spray-paint, pondering it. He could go after her right now, hand it to her, and keep a look-out for counselors while they stifle their giggles. With a disheartened sigh, he puts it back in the cabinet. He’s not brave like Ziggy is. Maybe next year he’ll find the strength to be.)

She catches only glimpses of him for the rest of the summer. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say he was avoiding her, or maybe he couldn’t face her. Whatever it was, it was for the best. At least that’s what she tries to tell herself.

There is one instance where he comes into the infirmary during lunch one day, rubbing his temple, interrupting her conversation with Nurse Lane, who immediately eyes him with concern. “Nick, are you alright?”

Ziggy excuses herself, she can feel his eyes follow her as she walks out. Before the door closes behind her, she hears him mumble something about a headache and a ringing in his ears.

v.

Ziggy Berman is sixteen when she dies.

It was July 19th, the summer of 1978, her arms were bound and Sheila was holding a lighter over her arm, her stupid henchmen holding her leg as to keep her from squirming away. They’re hesitant about the whole plan but make no attempt to voice this to the brains of the operation aside from a Are we really doing this? Sheila pays no mind to Ziggy’s pleading, and for a brief moment, the flame makes contact with her pale skin and she yelps in pain.

Then a whistle blows in the distance and Sheila quickly moves away from her (like if Ziggy had been the one who burned her) as someone yells out, “What the hell is this? Let her down!”

Huffing, Ziggy’s hair moves out of her face and she sees Nick running over with Kurt. Of course. Will tries to explain himself but Nick cuts him off, “Let her down now, Will! I swear to God I’ll tell dad!” 

Listening to his older brother, Will releases the rope and the redhead falls to the ground. She tries to free herself of them but fails, and then Nick is pulling her tied hands towards him and untying them, his thick brows furrowing in concentration. The second she’s able to, Ziggy snatches her hands away and stumbles to her feet, pointedly ignoring Nick’s stare.

Kurt is pacing, listening to whatever bullshit Sheila is spewing (Nick cuts in once, wanting to find some sort of hole in her story, trying to get Ziggy off the hook of punishments now that he was a counselor.) and once again, to the surprise of quite literally no one, Sheila faces no real consequences, never mind the fact that she burned her arm and had planned on doing worse. Instead, it’s Ziggy who is in trouble.

“ I’m out? They just tried to murder me!” 

“Yeah, and I’ll deal with them. But first, head back to camp, call mommy, because you’re done at Nightwing.”

In her attempt to defend herself, Kurt throws everything she’d done the past week back into her face. Then Sheila makes a comment about her being possessed by Sarah Fier and Ziggy lunges at her without a second thought.

Before she can do anything more than shove her, Nick is pulling her back and restraining her, whispering, “Hey, hey, hey,” trying to get her to calm down. She continues to struggle in his arms and for the first time, he sticks up for her, “We kick her out, someone’s going to ask about the burn on her arm. Then who’s in trouble, huh?” 

Without realizing it, Ziggy relaxes as he continues, “Why don’t we just let this one slide? Just this once, yeah?”

Kurt seems to contemplate this for a second before nodding and focusing back on her. “Alright. One more strike and you’re out. You hear me, Berman? One more.”

Ziggy raises her eyebrow and laughs bitterly, finally freeing herself of Nick’s hold, elbowing him in the process. “Being bossed around by a Goode?” She turns to Nick to find his gaze already being held on her. “Wow. Some things never change.”

The younger girl marches off back towards camp, aware of the footsteps following her. She knows exactly who it is without having to look back.

When they’ve made it towards the end of the woods and the entrance of camp, Nick finally catches up with her. “Hey! You should probably have Nurse Lane check that burn out.”

He gently grabs her arm, inspecting it. Ziggy ignores the funny feeling in her stomach and the concern in his voice. “No, I’m just gonna let it get infected and die.”

She snatches her arm away, his touch lingering on her skin, about the walk away from him completely. Desperate to have her say something else again, anything at all, he blurts out the first thing he can think of, “What, I don’t even get a thank you?” 

This makes her falter and whip her head to face him, the first time she’s looked at him all summer. It’s not the way he wishes, she’s clearly annoyed and more than ready to chew him out. Nick puts his hands on his hips, trying to appear nonchalant, he knows Ziggy can see right through him and it terrifies him.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot! Thank you, Sunnyvale royalty, future police chief, Nick Goode, for rescuing poor, helpless Shadysider me! It only took you three years! How could I ever repay you?” 

He’s at a loss for words, but lucky for him, Ziggy isn’t done, “Oh, I know, I’ll just bat my eyes at you like all the other dumbass girls,” she has a stoic look in her eye before she walks away backwards, throwing a middle finger up, and then turning around back to camp.

Something in him aches, and distantly, he swears he can hear two voices, one’s soft but determined, the other is angry and demanding. He feels something tugging on him, trying to get him to listen, trying to warn him. 

Nick spares one last glance towards the woods, there’s a faint sound of twigs and leaves crumbling beneath someone’s shoes as they walk, but there’s no else there. He can’t quite make sense of it and chalks it up to the summer heat making him a little delirious, deciding it’d be best to ignore it. That’s what Goodes do, right?

As he marches back to camp, he tries not to think about the feeling of being watched, a stare eerily similar to the judgemental and empty gaze of his father.

━━━━━━━

Walking alongside Cindy, who’s rambling on about something she couldn’t care less about, Ziggy replays Nurse Lane’s words in her head over and over again. No matter what she does, she can’t make sense of them. “Did someone do something to Nurse Lane? Like make fun of her daughter or something?”

Cindy looks like the vein on her forehead is about to pop. “Ziggy, are you even listening to me?”

“She was upset.”

“I don’t care! I,” She pauses to regain her composure, “Do you hear what I’m saying to you?”

And because it’s fun to mess with her older sister, especially when she’s brushing off what she has to say, “Loud and clear ma’am.”

“Well clearly you don’t, we had this conversation last week and the week before that.”

Ah, yes, when they had gotten into a screaming match over her not wanting to come to camp this year and when she had set the camp flag on fire during their first night. “Yeah, and again, I’m not gonna get kicked out.”

“That’s not what Kurt thinks.”

“Yeah, well, Kurt can suck it.”

“No!” Cindy clutches onto Ziggy’s arm, forcing her to look at her and stop, “Ziggy, no! If you get kicked out, I do too. Mom can’t work and take care of you. Then how will I pay for college, huh?”

Ziggy scoffs bitterly at her reasoning, which makes Cindy’s face pinch up. A part of her feels bad, but she can’t stand listening to her talking about leaving Shadyside anymore. About leaving her. 

“Oh, that’s funny to you?”

“Yeah, kinda.” She rolls her eyes and steps forward, aware that Cindy’s still trailing behind her.

“Explain to me what’s so funny.”

“How dumb you are? No one gets out of this town, not even Miss Perfect. Bet on your way out you get run over by a bus.” And Ziggy knows it’s a horrible thing to say, she knows, but being nice to Cindy got difficult pretty quickly after their dad left, after she started slamming her bedroom door in her face and only spoke to her when necessary. 

“God, for once in your life, could you not be so…so mean?” Her voice wavers a bit. Ziggy wonders if she’s holding back tears.

Whipping around to stare right at her, Ziggy bites back, “Could once in your life you just stop pretending?” She sees a pile of Color War shirts Joan left behind and snatches up a blue one, throwing it at Cindy, “You’re Shadyside, in case you forgot.”

She walks away before she can take in the torn look on her sister’s face. 

━━━━━━━

The redhead can feel his eyes gravitate towards her when she storms off to her cabin. It’s the last thing on her mind, which is currently occupied by predictions of what she’s going to find ruined and Nurse Lane being wheeled away.

Nick only averted his gaze when he noticed his father strutting up to him. “Hello, Nicholas.”

He physically tenses, as if a bucket of cold water had been dumped over him. But he nods in acknowledgment, “Sir.”

When his father leans in closer, the smell of goat and smoke hits him, it reminds him of a couple of other nights over the years where he came home smelling of the same thing. His mom never mentioned it so neither did he.

“You keeping things in check around here? Y’know, there’s a lot of eyes on you, son.”

Forgetting who he’s talking to for a second, “It’s summer camp. I’m just here to make sure no one has an allergic reaction or drowns in the lake.”

“Are you talking back?”

“No, sir.”

His father squints at him, his sheriff badge shining, “This is a huge responsibility, Nicky. If you don’t already know that you’ll realize it eventually. I need to know I can trust you with this. This is our legacy we’re talking about here.”

Something about the way he says it sounds like he’s talking about more than summer camp. Officer Kapinski walks up, a smile on his face, clapping Nick on the shoulder, before telling his father that they needed to get going.

“We’ll continue this conversation when you come home.”

That won’t be for another three weeks. A genuine smile tugs on his lips as he waves goodbye. He feels like he can finally breathe when he watches the sheriff car drive off.

Nick can’t help but think about what his father said. I need to know I can trust you with this. This is our legacy we’re talking about here. He’s a counselor at Camp Nightwing for crying out loud, what does that have to do with his family’s legacy? There’s no cameras or reporters around to capture him being some hero, and it’s not like he wants that exactly, he’s just looking after these campers.

Too focused on his father and their conversation, he doesn’t hear the same screams from earlier, a woman warning him.

━━━━━━━

There’s this determined look on Ziggy’s face as she poured red paint into a bucket, her mind was set, and once it was set it was hard to change it. Her last conversation with Cindy is still plaguing her thoughts, so this is a nice distraction. 

“Then who am I?”

“A monster.” 

If she thinks about it for too long, she might start crying. Suddenly, she hears a knock on the cabin door and rolls her eyes without faltering in her actions. “Go away, Cindy!”

“It’s me. It’s Nick.”

Ziggy’s brows furrow but she doesn’t hesitate to brush him off. “Go away, Nick!”

Of course, he does the exact opposite of that and waltzes right into her cabin, eyes scanning all over the graffiti tattooing the walls. He looks both impressed and slightly alarmed. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

“It wasn’t me.”

He makes his way towards the bunk beside her, “I’m shocked,” and reads the sentence sprayed above her bed aloud, “ Ziggy is a witch bitch. Ziggy sucks cocks in hell . Jeez. Sheila?”

A humorless laugh slips out of her lips and she finally faces him to quip back, “Colonel Mustard,” before turning back to mix the paint in her bucket. 

For a moment, Ziggy thinks maybe he might walk out and end the exchange right there, but instead he’s leaning over and inspecting her bucket. “Huh, looks like blood,” he points out.

She shrugs nonchalantly. “Yeah, well, I didn’t have a pig, so.”

The younger girl doesn’t catch it, too focused on staying on task, but a fond smile spreads across his lips. He waters down his expression before replying, “ Carrie. Cool.”

This makes her freeze, momentarily forgetting about the paint and camp and the fact that this was Nick Goode of all people. “You’ve read Carrie ?” Her mind flashes to two years ago, a gift left with no hint as to who the sender was.

He can feel his heart in his chest, in all the years he’s known Ziggy, she’s never looked so thrown off by him, almost excited. He thinks he’d do anything if it meant she’d keep staring at him like that, like she actually wanted to hear what he had to say. Quickly, he attempts to say something else regarding their shared love of King. “Yeah, second favorite after Salem’s Lot .”

She glances away from him and then back at him, before turning back to continue mixing the paint, trying to restrain herself from continuing the conversation. It was there though, the lingering look.

“Still, I dunno, paint seems a little,” he pauses, attempting to find the right word, “pedestrian.”

Undermining her idea only pisses Ziggy off. “Oh, I’m sorry, did you have a better idea?”

And Nick knows she’s asking this rhetorically but he can’t keep from smiling and answering, “Maybe.”

It throws her off guard, how quick he was to offer an alternative, almost as if he was trying to impress her. For the past four years, he’s always just kind of been there, butting into her life in subtle ways, but she could never figure out why. Why does what she thinks matter so much to him? Curious, she asks, “Shouldn’t you be, like, turning me in or something?”

He looks a little embarrassed, not facing her as he admits, “Well, I’m supposed to be supervising Color War, uh-,” his dimple makes an appearance when he lets out a sheepish laugh, “but, noticed you were MIA and-”

“So you decided to stalk me?”

Nick isn’t defensive about her teasing like she expected, in fact, she can see the faint smile on his lips as he softly corrects, “Check in on you.”

Four little words and he’s managed to make her face heat up, she looks away before he can notice. She feels like scolding herself for letting Nick Goode of all people make her feel this way for simply wanting to make sure she was okay. Maybe it’s because no ones done that in awhile, maybe it’s because he’s been doing that all these years and it was finally being voiced, making it real, something she couldn’t just brush off anymore.

“Clearly you don’t need my assistance, all good. Go ahead,” he pauses and before adding, “ Carrie on.”

She watches as a proud smile spreads across his face, of course he thinks his own jokes are hilarious. There’s a feeling she can’t identify as he walks away, it’s fondness. Oh god.

Before she can talk herself out of it, she blurts out, “What’s your idea?”

He whips around with a small grin (he’s trying to play it cool, but she doesn’t need to know that), pulling keys out of his pocket and holding them up, “Science and nature.”

Ziggy’s brows furrowed, glancing at the keys and then back at him. He jerks his head towards the empty bucket beside her bed, dangling the keys a bit. Holy shit. It all clicks in her head, and she can’t help but smile right back at him, mischievously.

━━━━━━━

They worked quietly as they set up the prank, an occasional stifled laugh or Nick having to shoo away some camper who needed to use the restroom, claiming it was in need of a deep cleaning and unsanitary to use. He steps out of the outhouse to pull aside the first Sunnyvaler he sees, handing him a slip of paper to give to Sheila, claiming it’s from Will. The camper just nods and says, “You got it, Counselor Goode,” and walks away to go find her.

No one ever seems to second guess him, they all trust him blindly. Something about it feels wrong, it makes his skin crawl.

Ziggy’s pulling him back inside before he can think about it any longer, tugging him into a stall. “God, I can’t believe you thought of this and I didn’t.”

Nick chuckles and puts the toilet seat down, sitting down and scooting over to make room for her. “I’m full of surprises, Berman.”

She squeezes in bedside him and it’s quiet between the two of them for a moment, the song on the radio fading out before a new one starts. Ziggy hums and turns to lock eyes with Nick. “We’ll see.”

He feels like he’s burning with their sides pressed together and her face so close that he can see every freckle. Her gaze doesn’t waver, not for a second, it feels like she’s seeing him for the first time, like she’s really looking at him. Thelma Houston is playing and they hear the stairs that lead to the outhouse creak and then the moment is over.

The door opens and Ziggy has to bite her lip to stop the laugh threatening to escape when she hears Sheila call out to Will. As if it was the most natural thing in the world, the redhead holds onto Nick’s knee, tapping on it excitedly. He feels that burning sensation again, it’s both grounding and overwhelming at the same time.

He can practically feel her buzzing in anticipation as he mouths, “Now?”

She nods, smiling teeth and all. “Now.”

Reaching forward, they both pull on the rope, the sound of Sheila screaming following right after. Ziggy’s never looked so delighted in her life, Nick has to push her to her feet to remind her they need to leave, “Go, go, go!”

She rushes out, him trailing after her, slamming the door shut behind them and jamming a screwdriver on the handle. The summer of 1975 is on both of their minds when they hear her banging on the door, adrenaline rushing through her veins as she leads them back towards the science and nature cabin. 

Nick reaches the cabin first and holds the door for her, ushering her inside and shutting it once they’re both inside. They’re both panting, trying to catch their breath, “Did you hear her?”

“She sounded like a frog,” Ziggy imitates Sheila’s shriek, cutting herself off with a breathy laugh, it makes Nick’s smile widen.

“What’d I tell ya?”

Surprisingly, Ziggy doesn’t scoff at him or call him a know-it-all, instead she enthusiastically exclaims, “Fuck paint!”

Nick proudly responds back with a, “Fuck paint,” as they both reach the end of one the tables in the middle of the room sepearting them.

Under the yellow-orange glow of the cabin lights, Ziggy’s smile is radiant, and when Nick realizes it’s him that she’s smiling at, the noise around them seems to disappear, she’s the only thing that matters. She gives him a once-over, taking him in, unashamed as she does so. Usually, he hates having eyes on him, which comes with being a Goode, but Ziggy’s aren’t scathful, they’re curious.

Ziggy, who’s used to observing people, who’s clever, and who scrutinizes every person she comes across, can’t seem to read him. Of all people, Nick Goode, the boy she believed she had all figured out the day they met and hadn’t thought for a second he’d turn out being any different, is who stumps her. “Who are you?”

His mouth quirks up and the way he’s looking at her assures her that he knows exactly what she means. Still, he answers, “Nick Goode,” and holds his hand out, offering it to her, “Nice to meet ya.”

Going along with him, she takes his hand, clasping onto it and shaking it firmly. She looks up at him, a teasing smile plastered on her face. The way he’s beaming at her makes her feel warm all over, the intensity of it making her dizzy. She lets herself hold onto his hand for another second, before letting go and folding her arms over her chest. 

Still flustered, she attempts to school her expression and walks over to look at the lizards on the table in front of them. That snaps him out of whatever trance he was in, and he clears his throat. “So, how does a game of 20 Questions sound?”

The tone in his voice gives away how nervous he is, but she doesn’t mention it. Instead, she ponders his question for a moment before smiling softly. “Sounds perfect.”

They lose track of time going back and forth, getting sidetracked every so often and forgetting about the questions, before one of them remembers and sets them back on track. It could’ve been an hour or two, Ziggy doesn’t know, but she does know his favorite subject is science, because of course it is, he’s in the baseball team and has been playing since he was nine, he likes to mix chocolate with his popcorn, his favorite place is the extravagant Sunnyvale Public Library (despite having a large selection of books in his own home), and he had never learned to ride a bike.

(She tells him how her least favorite subject is math, how she used to want to play soccer, how she knows what entrance is always left unattended at the only movie theater in Shadyside, making it easy for her to sneak in, how she broke her wrist trying to climb a tree when she was seven, and how she’s read more Judy Blume than she’d like to admit. At one point he mentions Carrie and she goes on about it for a good fifteen minutes, he doesn’t interrupt her once, grasping onto every word she says.)

When he confesses this, Ziggy, who’s only human, snorts. “You’re kidding, right?”

Nick laughs in spite of himself and shakes his head. “Nope, I could never get the hang of it. First time I disappointed my dad.”

She purses her lips and watches him from across the table. “It’s not all that hard. Maybe you just needed a better teacher.”

He hums but doesn’t look like he wants to say anything else about it, so she tries to lighten the mood. “I mean, I’m no King of Sunnyvale but,” there’s a hint of a smile on his lips so she continues, “you could always come over to Shadyside and get a lesson or two from me.”

The teasing seems to do the trick because he doesn’t look tense anymore, his eyes are bright as he says, “I actually might have to take you up on that.”

It’s nice, this little bubble they’ve formed around themselves tonight. There’s no one eyeing them weirdly, no one leaning over to their friends and whispering What the hell is Nick Goode doing with Shadyside trash? 

“Okay, next question, uh,” he thinks briefly of Cindy, never quite understanding what her and Ziggy’s relationship was like, only that it was a sensitive topic. “What about you and your sister, you two ever get along?”

“Thought these were supposed to be easy questions?”

“Says who? There are no rules to this game.”

Ziggy starts to wander around until she reaches the snake’s terrarium. “God, I hate snakes.”

As if he, of all people, didn’t know that already. They both know she’s trying to derail the conversation. “Why are you dodging my questions?”

She redirects her attention to him, her face pinched up as she fires back, “Why do you care?”

Honestly and genuinely, he replies, “I’m curious.”

There’s a brief second where she thinks about answering, thinks maybe she can talk about the way Cindy and her used to be inseparable without tearing up, and then– “I’ve hated her since I was a baby. Next question.”

He moves closer to her. “Come on.”

“Why are you so full of shit?”

He lets out a confused laugh, amused at her ability to find ways to get the focus off of herself, “What?”

“Nick Goode, heir apparent,” the words taste funny to her, “Daddy’s the police chief, the King of Sunnyvale, and you’re going to end up being the exact same. Except it’s all make-belief. The truth is you like Stephen King, and spiders, and the weird girl from Shadyside.”

It’s blunt, but if tonight’s proved anything to her, it’s that him seeking her out all these years wasn’t because he was being a good samaritan or because he liked being a pain in the ass. He felt something, he felt the pull towards her. She knows because it’s the same feeling she pretended she didn’t have, too.

(The push, too.)

“Alright, first of all, Stephen King is, like, super popular,” she rolls her eyes teasingly, “And second, I can’t like the weird girl.”

“Why not?”

(He can’t tell her the real reason, that his father would lose his absolute shit if he caught him with her, or any girl from Shadyside. From the moment he’d learned about how babies were made, his father cemented into him the idea of finding a nice girl from Sunnyvale, and only when he was certain she was the one , he should waste no time in starting a family. But he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want any of that.)

She’s leaning on the table, watching him shamelessly. He circles around the edge, “Cause I’m a counselor and she’s a camper.”

Without missing a beat, “Last year for me, first year for you.”

“Plus,” He leans in, face only inches away, as if he was letting her in on some secret. “How will I ever get to know her if she keeps dodging my questions?”

Smug of the point he made, he sits down on a bench placed in front of them, making sure to leave room for her. She huffs, crossing her arms over her chest before plotting down beside him. 

“There was a time when things were good between us. When my dad was around and my mom was happy. And my sister and me, we would- we’d throw toilet paper in Mr Corkle’s trees and then go jump in the lake in all our clothes.” Ziggy can’t help the smile that spreads across her face at the memory, “And now, now it’s just gone and everything’s shit. Because that’s what happens when you live in Shadyside, everything turns to shit eventually.”

She’s aware that she just dumped a shit load of her issues on him, so in hopes of lightening it, she adds, “But I wouldn’t expect a Sunnyvaler to understand, so.”

He nods, agreeing with her, “No, maybe you’re right. But, uh, being the heir apparent isn’t always easy either. I mean, my dad had my entire life planned out for me before I was even born. It feels like if I so much as think of doing anything that sets me off that path…I don’t know what he’d do.”

Something about that statement sends shivers down her spine. It’s unnerving to think about, what it could possibly mean, what she thinks Nick is implying.

“He just looks so disappointed all the time, like if I’m not the son he had in mind or wanted,” Nick licks his lips before continuing, “And lately he’s been telling me all this You’re my legacy and The future of this family depends on you shit. I know what he’s expecting me to become, it’s what everyone else expects. Becoming sheriff…What if that’s not who I want to be? What if I want to be the kid who likes spiders and Stephen King and-”

Finishing his thought for him, Ziggy raises her eyebrows and asks, “And the weird girl from Shadyside?”

Nick smiles fondly at her, “Yeah,” his pinkie brushes against the top of her bandaged arm, her pulse quickening, “the weird girl from Shadyside.”

They take each other in, inspecting every inch of each other’s face, trying to remember this exact moment. Ziggy thinks he might lean in, but he snaps his head away, “What I want doesn’t really matter, though.”

“Of course what you want matters. It’s your life, not anyone else’s. Not your father’s. Why wouldn’t it?”

There’s no malice to her words, no prying, no ill-intent. In fact, she’s never wanted to understand another human being more than she does at this moment, to scratch beyond the surface of the show he puts on for everyone else.

Now, it’s his turn to avoid explaining himself, pushing himself off the bench and opting to stand instead, distancing himself, “Yeah, you’re right. Can we go back to the easy questions?”

The sudden change catches her off guard, “Okay. Uh,” She rises to her feet, inching closer to him until they’re less than a foot apart, “How about…would you ever kiss the weird girl?”

And of course it’s Ziggy making the first move. Ziggy, who’s unapologetically herself, who basically told him to fuck off just a couple hours ago, who’s now looking up at him from under her eyelashes. She tries not to show it, but there’s a hint of nervousness in her face, the fear of being rejected, of being pushed away, of being treated like she was an inconvenience. It’s the first time in a long time that she’s ever felt this bare in front of someone.

Flashes of a boy apologizing for something he hadn’t done, of him pulling her to safety, asking if she was okay, giving her something she now knows he treasured, covering for her, pulling a prank with her. 

She trusts him. She wants him.

He leans, dazed, reaching out to hold onto her waist as she cups his face with her left hand. She thinks he looks even more beautiful up close. When their lips first press together, it’s a little hesitant and soft. Then she’s pulling him closer and deepening it, more urgent. She can feel him melt into it, the taste of her peach chapstick, and the warmth of her hand that was now grasping onto his shoulder. 

Their blissful kiss is interrupted by a scream piercing through the air.

Alarmed, they both pull away, heads snapping in the direction of the source. More screams follow. Without a second thought, Nick’s rushing out of the cabin, Ziggy hot on his heels. She thinks of all the possibilities: a broken arm, a broken leg, maybe someone accidentally got too close to the fire pit and burned themselves, or maybe Sarah Fier had chosen yet another Shadysider to possess.

There’s a crowd of distraught kids at the entrance to a cabin used for woodshop, most of them are yelling or crying. Nick tries to politely move around some of the campers, while Ziggy shoves her way through them, reaching the front first.

“He’s dead! Jeremy’s dead!”

Nothing could prepare her for the sight of ten-year-old Jeremy Taylor’s disfigured body, his face nearly unrecognizable due to being bashed in, leaving a pool of blood. His glasses, now broken, lying a couple steps away from him. Ziggy lets out a breath like she’d been punched, eyes wide. 

Beside her, Nick’s on the verge of emptying his stomach onto the grass, but he remembers he has to keep it together, he’s responsible for these kids. Oh, God. It’s my fault. It’s my fault. It’s my fault. I should’ve been watching them.

Ziggy pushes her way through the crowd, trying to get away from the metallic scent of blood, she hears Nick speaking up, him and Gary trying to move the campers away from the sight of the corpse. They start ushering them to the Mess Hall, all of them flocking in that direction when they hear Gary ringing the bell. 

She notices that there’s a cluster of campers coming out of the woods, unaware of what had happened. She latches onto Nick’s arm, when he turns to look at her, his face is scrunched up, like he’s willing himself to not cry. 

He straightens up when he sees them walking over, quick to block them before they see anything. One of them, maybe seven or eight-years-old, gapes up at him, looking at him for an answer he couldn’t give, “Counselor Goode, what’s going on?”

Sensing how stiff he was, Ziggy’s hold on him tightens, a reminder that she was there, that she was okay. She leans over, close enough so only he can hear. “We need to get them to the Mess Hall, okay?” 

He nods and then, in the most assuring tone he can muster, “Color War’s over. I need you guys to follow us, no stopping or wandering off, you got it?”

Like everyone else, they’re more than happy to follow what he says, and the same feeling from earlier, the icky feeling that it was wrong, is back. Ziggy squeezes his arm before letting go and leading them away. 

Gary’s still ringing the bell and calling out to anyone who can hear him when they reach their destination. The kids rush over to any friends they see sitting on the benches. They’re quickly filled in on what happened by those who saw Jeremy’s body, and the room goes from hushed whispers to distressed cries. She can see a kid rocking himself back and forth in the corner. 

Looking around, she can tell this isn’t even half of the campers at Nightwing, there’s still more out there, not even including the lack of other counselors. 

Counselors. Cindy.

Cindy wasn’t here, neither was Alice, or Tommy, or Arnie, or Joan. They’re all from Shadyside, she can’t help but notice. 

The door swings open, a couple of more campers swarming in, Nick counting them as they pour in, “Five, seven, eight, ten, fifteen, eighteen-”

It’s as if Sarah Fier hasn’t had enough fun yet, so she decides for the lights to go out at this exact moment, the room dims and kids start screaming, terrified. 

“Stay calm! Everything’s alright!”

Gary rushes in, Ziggy’s heart dropping when Cindy doesn’t appear after him, or any other counselors for that matter. “How many?”

“Twenty-three.”

“That’s thirty missing at least.”

Almost like he could read Ziggy’s mind, “Where’s Cindy, Kurt, Joan, Tommy?”

Nick goes to the phone, dialing for help, when Gary answers, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen them. Or anyone,” then, as an afterthought, “Shit, maybe they’re looking for us.”

A random kid calls out, “The lights are coming on!”

That tiny beacon of hope doesn’t even last a second, because then Nick’s slamming the phone back and telling them, “It’s fucking dead.”

She can’t sit here for another second, not when there’s other people still out there. Her sister is still out there, with no idea that there was a murderer on the loose. “We have to go. We have to warn people.”

“I’m sure they heard the bell. Hey!” Nick catches her before she can head towards the door, pushing her back.

There’s desperation in her voice, but she doesn’t care, “My sister, she’s still out there!”

“The same sister you said you’ve hated since you were a baby?”

Of fucking course he’s her own words against her, words she didn’t even mean and he knew that. Ziggy can feel annoyance creeping in. She sneers at him, rolling her eyes, attempting to leave again. He stops her, gently but firmly holding onto her shoulders, sincerity in his eyes, ashamed of himself. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I just–Me and Gary will go.”

Beside them, “What?”

His eyes are only locked on hers, “Just please stay here.”

The annoyance from earlier is gone, but still, “I can’t just sit here-”

“I’m not letting you get hurt!”

Everyone’s head snaps to them, taking in the way he was holding onto her desperately. There’s whispers of confusion and Ziggy thinks she hears someone saying What the fuck?

“Ok? Please,” Nick tugs a stray hair behind her ear, cupping her face. “Let me do my job. I’m gonna find your sister, I promise. Just stay here. Ok?”

It’s the pleading in his voice, the way he’s practically begging her, not wanting her in harms way, that makes her resolve crumble, reluctantly. She leans into his touch, her face in anguish. Then he’s stroking her one last time, his hand soft on her skin, before pulling away and heading to Gary, “You.”

“Hey, you realize that’s a camper, right?”

“Look, you make for cabin one. I’ll head to nine.”

“What if the killer’s still out there?” Gary questions, while following Nick to the door.

“That’s the whole point, Gary. Making sure the killer’s nowhere near here and away from them.”

Ziggy watches them exit the mess hall, a horrible feeling in her stomach. The thought of Cindy being out there, and the thought of Nick being out there, makes it hard to not go after them herself.

All of a sudden, she’s being shoved into the wall and she groans in pain. Standing right in front of her are the two girls who follow Sheila around everywhere, the ones who held her down as a lighter was held to her skin just this morning, only it feels like a lifetime ago. Will’s hovering behind them.

“Where is she, witch?”

“You kill her like you killed Jeremy?”

She’s thrown off by this accusation, but focuses on trying to make sense of who they’re talking about, “What?”

“Sheila!”

“Where the fuck is Sheila?”

It doesn’t register at first, her brows furrowing. And then it hits her. “Shit!”

She elbows them away from her, paying no mind to the profanities they’re throwing at her, racing out of the mess hall and into the darkness. “Nick! Nick, we forgot Sheila!”

Eyes flitting in every direction, nothing. She’s met with silence and Nick nowhere in sight. The possibility of crossing paths with the killer is very likely, but she can’t just leave someone out here like a sitting duck, even if it is the girl who’s tormented her for years. Sighing, she’s made her choice. “Oh, shit.”

━━━━━━━

Finding Sheila doesn’t go as planned. It ends with said girl knocked out, discovering her sister and Alice were stuck below the outhouse,–not exactly okay , but alive– Gary assisting her in a failed attempt to get them out of there before his head was sliced off with an axe being wielded by her sister’s boyfriend. 

So, yeah, that was a lot to take in. 

She doesn’t have time to comprehend what she witnessed before Tommy’s swinging his axe again and she’s sprinting away, hearing the pain in her sister’s voice as she calls out her name.

There’s an ache in her feet, but she keeps running. Over the sound of her own heaving breathing, she doesn’t realize someone else is nearby until she collides into them and they’re holding onto her forearms. 

“What the hell are you doing out here?”

Nick.

Ziggy grabs onto him, trying to ground herself. “Nick, he’s here! He’s here!”

His eyes widen and he intertwines their fingers. “Come on!” 

They keep running until they reach the Science and Nature cabin. Nick yanks the door open and he ushers her inside, locking the door behind them. Ziggy surges to the back of the room and hides behind the last table, Nick is quick to join her. “Did we lose him?”

He’s peeking his head out, keeping an eye on the door, “Yeah, I think so.” His attention is back on her and his vision locks onto her shirt. “Ziggy, you’re bleeding. Are you ok? Are you hurt?”

Ziggy looks down. In the chaos of being chased with an axe, she hadn’t gotten the chance to notice the blood on her shirt. “It’s not my blood. It’s Gary’s.” It doesn’t reassure him, though, moving her hair out of her face to inspect her for any possible injuries. His right hand settles on her leg as his left hand clutches onto her arm, his concern never wavering. She grips onto his knee when she takes in the state of his own shirt. “And yours?”

He closes his eyes and shakes his head, like he’s trying to get an image out of his head, before he lists off, “Sean, Jesse, Rod, Stacey.” 

Of course.

“Shadysiders. It’s the curse.”

Nick recalls the mangled corpses in the Arts and Crafts cabin. The ones that belonged to young campers. The ones whose biggest worry a couple hours ago was winning a stupid game, not fearing for their lives, listening to their friends die right next to them and waiting for them to be next. “No, it’s just some psycho.”

“No, no, it’s not some psycho. It’s Tommy. My sister’s perfect, virgin, boring boyfriend Tommy”

Ziggy thinks of the boy who offered to help with her math homework while he waited for Cindy to finish getting ready for the date, of the boy who ruffled her hair as a greeting every time, of the boy who convinced Cindy to let her third-wheel when they went out to browse at the only record store in Shadyside one time, of the boy who always apologized before being forced to turn her in for a prank.

“Tommy? What–”

“She did this.”

Nick looks puzzled. “Cindy?”

Fiercely, she corrects, “The witch!”

“That’s not real, Ziggy.” His hold tightens as he tries to reason with her.

She’s staring at him, cold and disbelieving, the walls she’d torn down building up again around her, locking him out. It hurts her just as much as it hurts him. “Exactly what a Sunnyvaler would say. I thought you were different.”

(He thinks of Ziggy, full of venom, seething. “You’re a coward.” )

The Mess Hall bell ringing interrupts whatever response he thought about giving. He looks over at the door, “They’re getting on the bus. We have to go, come on!” 

He reaches back to cling onto Ziggy’s hand, who’s beginning to protest, “I can’t! My sister is still out there-”

“Please! Ziggy,” There’s a frenzied look in Nick’s face as he holds onto her face desperately, his voice rough and pleading. “I know I’ve let a lot people die tonight–”

(Puddles of blood come to mind. Deaths he could’ve prevented. He should’ve been out there. He should’ve been supervising them. This is all his fault. It should’ve been him. All he can smell is copper, the scent he’ll never be able to wipe out of his shirt or off his hands. It’s my fault. It’s my fault. It’s my fault.)

“Nick, this isn’t your fault.”

“–But not you!” He finishes. And then more softly, “I’m not letting you die. I can’t lose you.”

Ziggy’s face contorts, the admission feels heavy, the weight of it makes her stomach feel like it’s in knots. If they make it out alive, she thinks it’ll eventually evolve into three words. 

“Because, uh…Yeah! I do like the weirdo from Shadyside,” The corners of her mouth quirked, giving him the courage to continue, almost like he’s afraid this might be the only time he’ll get to say this. “I think I liked you way before I even realized it, maybe since we first met. And I was thinking that maybe once we get out of this, we could, uh…we could start a book club or something. I dunno, Stephen King’s new one is supposed to be good, I hear.”

He’s rambling, and if it had been any other time she would’ve cut him off with a laugh, but instead, “I’m done with King. Judy Blume for me from now on.”

That seems to do the trick, because his eyes aren’t so clouded anymore and his smile is a little less nervous. “Yeah, Judy Blume sounds, uh,” he blinks like he can’t believe she’s still there, “sounds perfect.

It’s a promise she wants him to keep, something she wants to look forward to. Meetings at each other’s houses, talking for hours and hours, challenging each other, just being in each other’s presence. She wants that. But that can’t happen if he doesn’t believe her, if he doesn’t understand that Sarah Fier isn’t just some fairytale Shadysiders use to shift the blame. If he doesn’t understand that she’s cursed, too. “You believe me, right? About the curse?”

His hold on her face loosens and his eyes search hers, battling with himself for a moment. 

Then his touch is firm again and he’s nodding, sure of his answer. “Yeah, of course. I am different. Now, come on. We gotta get out of here.” Shifting up to his knees, he pulls the hand he’s clasping onto near his chest, tugging her closer to assure her. “As soon as we do, we’ll call the cops. Your sister’s gonna be alright. But first, we gotta get on that bus.”

And Ziggy’s about to let him lead them away to the bus, about to latch onto his side the whole ride, about to ask him to stay while she waits for Cindy to be rescued and brought back home. The sound of banging on the door ruins all of that. She sees his eyes bulge, not letting go of her hand as they both look over the table, through the snake terrarium, at the door.

It’s him. He found them. Tommy found them.

She flinches when he breaks the window beside the door. Sticking his hand through the window where glass once was, not at all affected by the sharp remnants that make contact with his skin, he unlocks the door, letting himself in. At the sight of a very bloody Tommy Slater, they crouch behind the table again.

His footsteps are slow and menacing, sending a shiver down Ziggy’s spine. All she can focus on is the sound of his heavy breathing, getting closer and closer. It’s over. She’s going to die. 

Nick pulls her back to reality, like she had done for him earlier, he’s grasping onto her arm like a vice. He looks at her meaningfully, then nods in the direction of the desk all the way in the corner of the cabin. She nods and they quietly crawl over to their new hiding spot, trying not to breathe too loud.

The footsteps stop. 

Ziggy can’t see him from where they’re huddled together. She leans in closer to Nick, who presses a quick kiss to her crown, and closes her eyes. She thinks he might leave, that he might accept defeat and barge out. But it seems, even while possessed by a witch, Tommy’s determined.

An angry grunt fills the air, followed by more shards of glass hitting the floor. 

The footsteps start again.

She bites the inside of her cheek, trying to get herself to calm down. Next to her, Nick is peering over the desk discreetly as he can, his chest moving up and down. He’s breathing. She latches onto that.

Her plan of focusing on Nick’s breathing doesn’t help when she hears a snake hissing. Whipping her head to the left, she sees it, the snake is slithering over to them. Trying to get his attention, she squeezes Nick’s knee, her breath quickening as panic threatens to take over. 

The snake’s at her feet now and she can still hear the footsteps, neither are stopping. Nick laces their fingers together tightly, and mouths as reassuring as he can, “It’s okay.” 

She shuts her eyes and tries not to think about the reptile now making its way into her lap.

It pauses, making Ziggy’s snap her eyes open. She glances down and realizes it’s staring right at Nick, who’s holding onto her hand for dear life. The snake’s head shifts side to side, as if taunting him, daring him to do something, anything. She looks to Nick for some sort of explanation, but she finds none, he’s just as confused as she is. 

Too busy with the snake, they don’t realize the footsteps have ceased.

There’s a sharp tug on her hair and then she’s being pulled up, shrieking. Tommy slams her down onto the desk and drags her across it, knocking everything off of it in the process. Her back is throbbing and over her screams, she thinks she hears Nick yelling her name. 

Tommy’s clutch on her hair tightens and he throws her off the table and onto the floor, she can feel the bruises forming on her back when she hits the ground. As he towers over her, he looks nothing like the sweet guy who would always make sure to play a Bowie song whenever he drove her and Cindy home from school, he doesn’t look like himself at all. He’s looking at her like she’s just another target he needs to hit, like he didn’t even see her . 

Ziggy scrambles back, trying to get away as he raises his axe at her for the second time that day. Then someone’s throwing themselves over her and nudging her out of the way. She doesn’t register that it’s Nick until she hears the sound of the axe meeting skin and he’s groaning in pain. 

The redhead gapes at the deep wound near his ankle, open-mouthed and horrified. She freezes. She can’t move. Not when Nick’s bleeding, because he’s an idiot and took an axe to the leg for her, Ziggy Berman, of all people. As if it was nothing. As if she was worth it.

(She doesn’t know that he’d do it all over again a million times if it meant she’d get to live.)

“Run!” Nick grits out. Tommy pulls the axe out and he lets out a wince. When he sees that she’s not moving, he yells again, “Run!”

It takes all the strength she possesses to hold onto the table next to her and push herself to her feet. Her entire body hurts but she ignores it in favor of making a beeline to the back door of the cabin, yanking it open and sprinting out. Her leg is cramping but she can’t stop, she can’t afford to. 

“Kurt! Will! Anybody!”

The dirt road where the bus was waiting comes into sight and she comes to a halt. She realizes a second too late that it’s already driving away. Her only chance at getting out of here, gone. She lets out a choked sob as she watches the bus get smaller and smaller, the distance between it and camp increasing.

She was trapped here.

And if things couldn’t get any worse, she could hear someone in the distance. Her eyes snap towards the woods near the entrance to camp, and she sees a figure. Tommy.

Ziggy rushes into the Mess Hall, locking the doors behind her. Paranoia welcomes her, making her head whip in every direction, certain she’d find him waiting for her if she let her guard down for even a split second. It’s when she’s looking in the direction of the kitchen that she notices the stereo sitting on a table.

The gears in her head start turning and she gasps.

Stumbling over to the stereo, she hastily turns it on, along with the PA system, before heading to the kitchen. Kansas blares through the speakers as she pulls the knife drawer open, grabbing one for herself and holds onto it tightly. Unceasing, she goes into the pantry and locks it behind her. 

All that’s standing between her and Tommy is a thin door, it feels like nothing. 

She notices the supply closet and thanks anyone who might be listening. Quickly, she opens one of the doors and forces herself inside, panting. There’s little space to move, but there’s a crack in between the doors, allowing her to see out, which is more important, really. The knife feels heavy in her hand.

Over the music, she can hear Tommy banging on the door, she can see the hinges shaking.

I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this.

Noticing she’s spiraling, Ziggy tries to even her breathing, tries to think of things that soothe her, tries to not think about the fact that Tommy was currently creating a hole in the door. She thinks of the nights when Cindy and her would stay up for hours, way past either of their bedtimes, giggling about God knows what. She thinks of her parents taking them to the diner at the edge of town, the one where you can see the “You Are Now Leaving Shadyside” sign through the windows, way before her dad had left. She thinks of Nick’s lips on hers, warm and gentle.

Through the crack, she can see him unlocking the door through his self-made hole, swinging the door wide open. His footsteps are loud, even as a song plays over the loudspeaker. He walks deeper into the pantry and stops, as if he was waiting for her to pop out. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and quietly squeezes out of the supply closet. 

Be brave , she repeats like a mantra in her head. She edges closer to Tommy, her grip on the knife so firm, her knuckles white. Narrowing her eyes, she thinks she can do this. The music stops and the floorboard beneath her creaks. 

Fuck.

Dread washes over her, her eyes wide as Tommy turns around. They share a look and before Ziggy can lose her nerve, she yelps and plunges the knife into his stomach. 

He grabs ahold of her hand, which is still grasping onto the handle of the knife, and pulls it out roughly, knocking her into the shelves. For a bit, he lets her hit and kick any part of him she can reach, unrelenting and stubborn. Then, he slams her into the shelves again, hands around her neck. Her eyes begin to water as she struggles to breathe.

The next minute is a blur. 

Tommy, now wearing a burlap sack over his head, stands over her tired body. For the third time today, he raises his axe. Ziggy tries to crawl away, pleading for him to stop. She closes her eyes and waits for the axe to slice through her body. Except, it doesn’t.

It doesn’t because Cindy’s currently stabbing him over and over again, “Fuck! You!” . His blood splatters across Ziggy’s face and then he’s falling to the ground, his body limp.

Blinking her tears away, she stares up at her sister. She looks like she’s been through absolute hell, not at all like the pristine Sunnyvale-lookalike that she saw just this afternoon. In the midst of the most traumatizing night of her life, she can’t help but point out, “You swore!”

“It’s becoming a habit.”

Ziggy laughs, though it fades into a choked sob, relieved that her sister was here, that she was alive. Cindy drops her knife and throws herself to the ground, flinging her arms around Ziggy, who is more than happy with doing the same. 

This. This is what she’s been deprived of for so many years. She can’t remember the last time her sister had held her, she squeezes her eyes shut and relishes in the once familiar touch. 

“You were my monster.”

It’s the last time she gets to hold onto Cindy. Because she bleeds on the hand. She fucking bleeds on the hand.

Tommy slices Alice’s chest, and Cindy—after beheading her boyfriend and killing him again— holds onto her, begging her to stay. The sound of Cindy’s heart-wrenching cries are going to haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life, however long that ends up being. She’s trying to look everywhere but them, the melancholic moment is private, just for them, she figures they deserve at least that if Cindy won’t ever get closure. 

Then a girl’s singing—Ruby Lane—and they’re running out of the Mess Hall, racing to the Hanging Tree. Alice should’ve been here with us to end it, Ziggy thinks bitterly. Only they don’t end it, because the witch’s body isn’t there, everything was utter and complete bullshit and there’s dead killers heading towards them.

The witch forever lives.

“Cindy, what does it mean?” Because if there’s anyone who can find a solution, it’s her big sister, except she’s not answering her. “Cindy?”

Quietly, “I don’t know.”

“Where is she? Where’s the body?”

There’s tears streaming down Cindy’s face. “I don’t know.”

There’s no ending it and she was foolish to think there was, that Shadysiders would ever be anything other than a shithole where kids killed their parents and lovers murdered one another. 

Determined, Cindy tries to pull herself together and tugs Ziggy’s arm, lifting them to their feet. “This way. Come on!”

They ready themselves to go back the path they came from, but freeze when they see Tommy sprinting at them, axe in hand. In every direction, a killer is strutting closer and closer, Harry Rooker, Ruby Lane, and Billy Barker. Ziggy stares in shock, they’re surrounded.

“What do you want, Sarah Fier?” Her sister cries out, voice hoarse and raw. She picks up the witch’s hand and waves it around. “You want this? You can have it! Just let my sister live! Just let my sister live!”

Ziggy’s blinded by terror, her breaths coming out ragged and harsh, cowering behind Cindy. She’s too fixated on Billy Barker, who’s hitting the ground with his bat as he edges closer menacingly, to know what decision her sister’s just made, to notice her picking up the shovel.

“You bled on the bone.” Ziggy’s attention snaps back to Cindy, her collected tone unable to mask her panic, face drained of color. “They’re after you. Get ready to run.”

Her eyes widened in alarm, glancing down at the shovel in the older girl’s hands, finally understanding. Quick to protest, she attempts to pull Cindy back, nails sure to leave indents on her arm. “No, Cindy, no!”

Without looking at her, Cindy forces her arms off, pushing her out of the way. Ziggy watches in horror as she strikes Tommy over the head with the shovel. He lets out a furious growl and knocks her down, whacking her in the face with the handle of his weapon. She wails when Cindy’s body falls, the mask-clad killer looming over her. 

A sharp pain pierces her body. In front of her, the milkman, Harry Rooker, holds his knife to her stomach, grinning, animalistic. He pulls the knife, turning her around roughly, she thrashes against him before he’s stabbing her again. Open-mouthed, she struggles to catch her breath. She loses whatever fight in her is left, the heat of the blade is all she can feel.

Like she was nothing, he shoves her to the ground, knocking the air out of her briefly, and then she’s heaving. 

The Milkman continues his assault, his body covering her as he plunges his knife all over the expanse of her stomach, over and over again. Ziggy’s body twitches with every impalement, coughing up blood, which splashes onto her face, some of it nearly getting in her eye. She doesn’t want the last thing she sees to be his predatory smirk, his tongue licking his lips, desiring more of her blood to spill out.

Lulling her head, she watches Tommy slam his axe down into her sister’s chest, her entire frame jerking. Cindy’s polo is drenched in blood. She spent the entire week secretly wishing her it would be ruined, she hadn’t meant like this, never like this. 

Ziggy reaches for Cindy, her fingers outstretched as far as possible, desperate to hold her one last time, to feel the comfort of her hand in hers. 

She feels like she’s five years old all over again, scared to walk into school for the first day of kindergarten, until she feels a hand slide into her own and looks up to find her sister smiling at her, giving her the courage to keep walking. Now, Cindy extends her arm out, but she can’t quite reach her. 

It’s fitting, really.

And Cindy, dull-eyed and a mouthful of blood, uses her last words to console her, “Nothing will pull us apart.”

With the last bit of strength she has left, Ziggy spits out, “Never again.”

She sees the exact moment Cindy’s body goes still and unmoving, the muscles on her face—for the first time in years—relaxing. It’s the last thing she sees before her eyelids grow heavy, a feeling of peace washing over her as she welcomes death.

━━━━━━━

Nick limps around camp, his leg throbbing under the makeshift tourniquet wrapped around his wound. Every step he takes is excruciating, but he can’t stop, not when there could still be other kids left behind, not when Cindy’s still trapped somewhere below camp and he promised Ziggy he’d get her out of there.

Every once in a while, he stumbles across another body, who showed no sign of having tried to run away, because they trusted Tommy completely, even bloodied and wild-eyed. On the verge of throwing up again, Nick thinks of Ziggy, safe on the bus and away from camp, to help swallow the bile back. 

A twig in the woods snaps.

Wasting no time, thinking of Tommy creeping up behind his next victim, of campers bleeding out, waiting for help, he sprints through the woods, looking for the source of the sound. “Hello! Is anyone out there?”

He makes it near the edge of the woods. Nothing, just a suffocating silence. His chest leaves, the pain shooting up his leg unbearable. He rubs his hand over his exhausted face, trying to let himself catch his breath.

Suddenly, a whisper, the same woman he’d been hearing all day. “Nick.”

His head snaps up. The voice calls his name again, dragging out the syllable, urging him forward. There’s something else too, this feeling that someone’s watching him, desperate to pull him back. But he can’t ignore this anymore. Cautiously, he follows, the voice leads him past a couple of trees, until the grassy field where the Hanging Tree stood is in sight. 

Red. 

There’s red contrasting against the green.

Heart in his throat, he inches a couple steps closer. It’s Ziggy, left arm stretched out to another figure beside her—Cindy’s.

On wobbly knees, he rushes over, his head pounding. “No, no, no. Ziggy!”

His legs give out the second he reaches her. Her shirt is soaked in blood, the places where it’s torn revealing deep wounds. He drags a gentle hand across her unmoving chest, her blood coats his hand. “Ziggy.”

God, Cindy. From where he’s kneeling beside, he can see her mangled body, hole in her chest and all. He swallows the lump in his throat.

Tears well in his eyes as he cradles Ziggy’s face, brushing her hair out of her face, desperate for her to open them and stare right back at him, full of fire. But her skin’s cold under his warm hands. “Oh God” He gasps out, his voice wavering as he pleads. “Hey, hey, hey, don’t die on me. Don’t die on me, okay?”

Frantically, Nick begins to do compressions on her lifeless form. He knows it’s useless, knows it won’t have its desired outcome, she’s lost too much blood. Odds against him and all, he still tries, because it’s Ziggy, and Ziggy Berman couldn’t possibly be dead.

With a firm grip on her cheek, he covers her mouth with his, breathing air into her lungs. Her lips are chapped and icy, tasting of copper. 

“Please, just breathe. Please. ”

He goes back to pressing down on her chest, his tears blurring his vision and falling onto her. He hears a rib break beneath his hands, but he doesn’t stop, he can’t.

“Come on, Ziggy. Come on, breathe!”

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She wasn’t supposed to be bleeding out, she was supposed to be safe, she was supposed to be back in Shadyside waiting to reunite with her sister, she was supposed to live. 

Earlier when Tommy had hoisted his axe, ready to strike, ready to kill her, he hadn’t thought twice before shoving her out of the way. To him, protecting Ziggy was like breathing. It was pure instinct, really, something he knew he’d do again without hesitation, because he’d do anything for her.

Nick needs her, needs her to live. He’s never needed anything more in his life. 

As he continues administering compressions, he feels something cloud his mind. It feels sinister. In a moment, distracted, he’ll forget all about the fleeting image of a red hand reaching out to him. 

The sound of Ziggy gasping for air follows right after. 

He lets out a choked sob, both startled and relieved, “That’s it.” He shifts so he can support her head, caressing her face. She blinks repeatedly and continues to huff sharply. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”

Sensing she’s about to doze off, he blindly reaches for her hand, squeezing it, eyes still trained on her face. “Hey, hey, you gotta stay awake. Help’s on the way.” Faintly, Nick can hear the sound of sirens approaching camp. “You hear that? Just hold on a little longer, ok? Just hold on.”

The flashing red and blue lights isn’t what he registers first, it’s the chills down his spine that notifies him that his father has arrived. He squeezes Ziggy’s hand again, trying to keep her awake until the paramedics come, his father and Officer Kapinski guiding him away. He attempts to protest, but his father silences him with one glare. “Let’s go get that leg looked at, Nicky.”

Biting his tongue, he lets the medics fret over him, his mind on Ziggy the whole time.

vi.

Ziggy Berman is sixteen when she comes back from the dead. Her day ends the same place it started; underneath the Hanging Tree.

Everything’s a little hazy, the voices around her are too loud, her shirt is clinging to her body too much, and the early-morning tint in the sky combined with the flashing lights of the cop cars are too bright. Disturbingly, it feels like she’s not really there. She thinks she feels herself being lifted and propped down onto a stretcher before she’s wheeled out of the field.

She wonders if Cindy’s senses are going haywire right now, too. Where is Cindy?

“–name? Look at me. What’s your name?”

Squinting, she struggles to keep her focus on the medic in front of her. Voice hoarse, she answers, “Ziggy.”

“It’s Christine.”

Her head turns, blue eyes meeting hazel. “Her real name, it’s Christine Berman.”

Nick.

The way he’s looking at her, it’s not at all the way he had been mere hours ago. This look was pained and solemn. Letting out a shallow breath, she asks him the only question running through her mind, “Where’s my–” She pauses for a moment, grimacing in pain, her body tender and sore, before continuing, “Where’s my sister?”

Nick glances away, face twisting. When he finally holds her inquisitive gaze again, she detects how wet his cheeks are, detects the regret written across his face. He holds onto her hand, rubbing his thumb across her palm, as if to assuage whatever blow she was about to take. A movement behind him draws her attention away from him, looking over his shoulder.

It’s Cindy, Ziggy realizes. She catches sight of her bloodstained face right as a medic covers her corpse with a sheet. 

Oh.

Ziggy doesn’t cry right then, in fact, she doesn’t cry for a while, she won’t for a couple of months. For now though, she feels numb, like none of this was real. That couldn’t possibly be her sister being wheeled away. Her sister, who was months away from getting away, from escaping this fucking town. Her sister, who had killed her boyfriend twice to protect her, to avenge Alice. Her sister, who had begged Sarah Fier to let her live. 

Her sister, who had sacrificed herself for her. All for nothing.

The medic looking over her pats her leg, with what Ziggy thinks was meant to be sympathy, before stalking off. She knows Nick knows exactly what she’s thinking, the question she doesn’t want to voice aloud.

Why her? Why did she have to die? Why didn’t I?

She thinks of her blood falling on the hand, thinks of what she saw, a woman screaming in anger.

“It was her,” Ziggy insists. Nick’s caressing her face, his focus locked on her, holding onto every word she has to say. “Sarah Fier, the witch. The curse it’s...It’s real.”

He stares at her, bags under his eyes, expression exhausted. “Ziggy–”

“What the hell happened here, Nicky?” They’re interrupted by Sheriff Goode saddling up to them, his presence beyond intimidating to anyone in the vicinity. But not to Ziggy. 

“It was the–”

Nick’s nails dig into her palm, not enough to leave a mark, but enough to know he’s warning her. “Dad, I think she needs some rest. The investigation can wait, don’t you think?”

Something flashes across Sheriff Goode’s face, a look Ziggy can’t quite pinpoint. It vanishes and then he’s grinning down at her, it makes her skin crawl. There’s an edge in his voice as he says, “I’ll be seeing you then.”

He gives her a once over, judgment clear as day. He waves someone over to them, then he’s walking back to Officer Kapinski.

While they’re loading her into the ambulance, Ziggy tries to catch Nick’s eye, but he’s too busy convincing the EMT to let him tag along. Of course, being a Goode, he’s allowed to climb in beside her, clutching onto her hand.

She struggles to fight sleep, it feels like she’s aged ten years in a day. Nick brings their entangled hands to his lips, leaving a chaste kiss. “I’ll be here when you wake up, okay? I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

Much later, she’ll laugh bitterly to herself, because it’s not the first time he’s made a promise that he couldn’t keep.

Chapter Text

The sound of children laughing and wallops of joy echo across Camp Nightwing. Kids clad in blue and red chase each other around, beaming, not a care in the world for stupid rivalries.

Nick stands at the entrance of camp, startled by the sight. In all his summers spent here, he’d yet to see anything like this. Sunnyvalers being anything other than unfriendly towards Shadysiders was practically unheard of.

Something was wrong.

An anguished cry cuts through the air. He whips his head in the direction of the source, it was coming from the woods. The smell of rust hits Nick, sudden and strong. Swallowing his nerves, he looks down at his hands, drenched in dark red. Beneath his feet, a bloodied path appears, leading into the woods.

It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real.

The camp has gone quiet, he realizes.

He can feel his breath getting shakier, more frantic. Tearing his eyes away from his hands, he looks back at camp. His stomach lurches.

Campers in red are lined-up beside one another at the “Welcome to Camp Nightwing” sign, sickeningly sweet smiles on their faces. Nick realizes they’re looking at him. In front of them, there’s a pile of mutilated corpses, faces bashed in and limbs missing. They’re all wearing blue shirts.

At the center of the chunks of Shadysiders, Cindy is squeezed in next to Alice, whose chest is sliced open. He thinks he might see Gary, recognizing his shoes, but he’s not entirely sure, that body has no head.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he tries to get the display out of his head. It’s not real. That’s over. It’s not real. That’s over. But when he opens his eyes, they’re still there.

“Nick!”

Ziggy.

Nick sprints into the woods, following the path, nearly slipping along the way. He doesn’t notice the fact that he’s not limping, too focused on Ziggy’s yells. He’s not going to lose her, too. He can’t. He won’t.

The trail of blood comes to a stop just before the field, he’s met with the sight of the Hanging Tree in all its glory. It’s not the first thing he notices. The first thing he notices is the familiar sight of Ziggy on the ground, bleeding. Except this time, her attacker is present, plunging a knife into her repeatedly.

Without a second of hesitation, Nick rushes over. When he reaches them, the assailant stares right at him, making him freeze and sending a shiver down his spine. Because it’s not Tommy or Sarah Fier grinning at him, it’s his father.

His father picks himself up, leaving Ziggy to choke on her own blood. He holds onto Nick’s shoulder, shaking it enthusiastically before placing something in his left hand. He looks down and finds himself holding a knife, the very same one his father was just using. It feels so incredibly wrong.

“It’s your turn, Nicky.”

Around them, a circle forms, consisting of faces he’d only ever seen in portraits hanging around their home, with the exception of his grandfather. They start chanting encouragements, urging him to get on with it. His father roughly shoves him to his knees, beside Ziggy.

Her eyes are wide, blood pooling around her twitching form. Nick throws the knife aside, free from it weighing him down. He places his hands over the gaping wound across her torso, applying pressure as tears pour down his face. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”

Ziggy’s chest is heaving and her blinking begins to slow. She places a shaky hand over Nick’s own, the blood on his hands mixing with hers, coating both of them as he continues his fruitless attempt to stop the bleeding. He won’t ever rid himself of the stench of copper.

Seeing someone who’d always been so full of life, someone who had a spark that continued to brighten the longer he knew her, now so cold and helpless, it made his entire being ache.

There’s a figure hovering over him, a woman with dark curly hair and a solemn face. She looks so fucking exhausted, but determined. When she speaks, Nick recognizes it’s the voice he’d been hearing all this time. “Body and hand must reunite.”

Frantically, Nick tries to wrack his brain for any sort of knowledge to make sense of what she was saying. He comes up empty. “What does that–I don’t know what that means!”

“The truth, that shall be your atonement.”

“What–”

Nick wakes up, shooting up out of his bed, drenched in sweat. Realizing it was just a nightmare, he lets out a deep breath and rubs a hand over his tired face. It doesn’t do anything to ease the pounding in his head or erase the image of his dad on top of Ziggy’s nearly-lifeless body.

Half an hour away, Ziggy wakes up in her hospital room with a jolt, the vision of a woman still very much fresh in her mind.

They both wake up with bloody noses.

━━━━━━━

Nick comes by to see her every day, or at least he tries to. Six days after she’d been admitted into the hospital and was finally not dozing in and out of sleep every ten minutes, she woke up to him sitting in the chair beside her bed. He shut the book he was reading when he realized she was awake.

Nervously, he smiles, shifting his seat closer. “Hey–”

“What are you doing here?”

She sees the way his face falls, before he collects himself and softly says, “I needed to see you. We need to talk.”

The thing is, she wants to. She’d want nothing more than to have him curl up beside her, listen to his heartbeat and voice as he drones on and on about God knows what, a way to remind herself that he was alive. But what she wants doesn’t matter, not when he’d made it clear he didn’t believe her.

She had watched Tommy, who had died twice, murder Alice and Cindy right in front of her, had felt Harry Rooker’s hot breath on her face as he impaled her. The only other person who has the slightest understanding of what happened that night thinks it’s all some ghost story.

He was exactly like all the other Sunnyvalers. She’d made that realization on the ride to the hospital, as he whispered false assurances only she could hear. Assurances that meant nothing when just yesterday, Officer Kapinski merely sneered at her when she tried to tell him what happened at camp.

“Trauma does funny things to people, I get that, kid. Come down to the station when you’re ready to give us a real report,” he had said.

(She had been too busy muttering insults at Kapinski to notice the way Sheriff Goode’s eyes had darkened, before he promptly excused himself and left the hospital room.)

She sits up, trying not to wince in front of him. He notices, because of course he does, but is smart enough not to comment on it. “You don’t think the curse is real and you think I imagined the whole thing. What else is there to say?”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

There’s a beat of silence. Ziggy hates every second of it.

Briefly, she thinks he might get up, that maybe he’d yell at her and call her a traumatized piece of Shadyside trash, call her ungrateful for not thanking him when he saved her life, or maybe just leave without saying another word. That would’ve made this so much easier if he was anything like that, but he isn’t.

Instead, Nick reaches for her hand, slow enough that she’d be able to move away if she wanted. When she doesn’t, he gently tangles their fingers together, his thumb rubbing against the back of her hand. She lets herself have this, just this one last time. “I believe you, I really do, Ziggy. But you have to understand what you’re asking of me.” He pauses before breaking her heart. “Everyone’s going to think I’m crazy. My dad–”

“I can’t believe I let myself think you were different.”

“Ziggy–”

She wrenches his hand off as if he’d burned her. “Get out.”

Nick lets out a noise that sounds like he’d been punched in the stomach. He looked at her, yearningly, trying to convey the words he couldn’t bring himself to say. She held her chin up, schooling her expression. He turned away and bit his lip, like he was holding back tears.

“If you try to come see me again I’ll scream until the nurses kick you out.”

He sat there for a moment before standing up and heading towards the door. Sparing her one last pained look, he walks out, the sound of the door shutting behind him sending a tremor through her body, leaving her alone.

She doesn’t see him for the rest of the time she’s in the hospital, but the day she’s discharged, there’s a Judy Blume book waiting for her on her porch. There’s no note, not like there needed to be, she knows who it’s from. And if she keeps the book, well, no one has to know but her.

━━━━━━━

That night, in the Goode mansion, the heir apparent wakes up from the same nightmare a certain redhead was having, too. They both stare up at the same sky, struggling to fall back to sleep, blood drying on their philtrum.

━━━━━━━

It’s been sixteen days since That Night, ten days since she’d seen Nick, and three days since she’d come home. Cindy’s funeral is today, funded by the Goode family. Apparently, they had helped pay for the funerals of the other victims. All of them had been closed caskets, bodies too dismembered to look at without bile threatening to come up.

Her family had never really been big on attending church, so it feels wrong sitting in the front pew beside her mother, who looks like absolute hell. Despite it being noon, she reeks of alcohol, and for once, Ziggy doesn’t find it in herself to be mad about it.

(This was the first time her mother had been in the same room with her for longer than five minutes since she drove her home from the hospital. The car ride had been silent, other than the occasional sputter of the engine. When they had arrived home, her mother had gotten off the second she parked, leaving Ziggy alone in the passenger seat.

The same seat Cindy and her would fight over when they were younger and their mother was still picking them up from school. Cindy would start rambling on about how unsafe it was for her to sit up front, how she was older and taller, how Ziggy didn’t even know what stations to turn to that actually played “good music”. There were also times when they’d give Alice a ride and Cindy didn’t argue about seating arrangements at all, opting to sit in the back with the short-haired girl.

In her peripheral view, she thinks she might’ve seen their pinkies interlocked. She never asks Cindy about it though, she’ll never get to either.

There’s an ache in the pit of her stomach as she gets out of the car, shutting the door with such force, her sister surely would’ve scolded her for it. She stands at the foot of the porch, wringing her fingers. Taking a deep breath, she walks in, but not before grabbing the book laying beside the door.)

Unsurprisingly, the church is filled with tons of kids in Cindy’s grade, most of them she had never even spoken to before today. They all come over to her and her mother, offering their condolences and saying She’s so missed, with a gentle squeeze on her shoulder.

More than anything, Ziggy wants to take a shower, scrub at every inch of her skin until it’s red, ridding herself of those pitiful touches. Because they didn’t know Cindy, the real Cindy, and they never would.

The service starts but Ziggy tuned it out the second she heard the words, “Everything happens for a reason, even tragedies. We must trust in God’s plan.”

Ziggy balls her fists up on her lap, restraining herself. It could’ve been half an hour or maybe even longer, she’s not quite sure, when the church quiets and all eyes fall on her. She can feel her pulse quicken, and someone nudging her to the podium at the front of the room. She hadn’t prepared anything.

Mouth dry and chest tight, she begins. “Cindy–”

She could go on about how smart her sister was, how beautiful she was, or how much she missed her, but Cindy deserves more than that. She deserves to be remembered for how selfless she was, how her perfect polo had been ripped and covered in shit and dirt and blood, how she held Sarah Fier’s lost hand in the air and cursed at her.

Her dress rubs against one of the stitches on her torso.

Closing her eyes, she takes a deep breath, and opens them again. It doesn’t do anything to ease her rage at how unfair this all was, how she should’ve been the one in a casket, not Cindy. She grips onto the podium, knuckles white. “This is fucking bullshit.”

People’s eyes bug out, judgmental murmurs coming from all over the room. “Twelve kids dying, Cindy dying wasn’t–that’s not part of God’s plan or whatever the fuck everyone else is saying. Their entire lives were stolen from them! It’s because of Sarah Fier, it was her curse that did this! She possessed Tommy–”

Rough hands grab hold of her shoulders and drag her away from the podium. They reek of cigarettes and something else, something unmistakably rotten. It’s Sheriff Goode, she realizes. She hadn’t even noticed he had shown up, didn’t think there would be any reason for him to.

After all, does a king mourn the death of a peasant?

(In the last pew, Nick moves to stand up, only for his mother to tug him back down, fixing him with a look that let him know it wasn’t up for argument.)

He whispers, low enough that only she can hear as she thrashes in his arms, still muttering about the curse, “You’re making a scene. Stop being selfish, this is about your sister. It’s not the time or place to start yelling about some stupid fairytale.”

Her mind flickers to the sequence that played on a loop in her nightmares. Him pinning her to the ground, sheriff badge shining as he stabbed her over and over again, dragging the knife out slowly, grinning wickedly every time she cried out.

Disoriented and all, she shoves his hands off of her. Everyone looks repulsed by her behavior, unashamed as they gossip to the people sitting near them. Distantly, she hears someone say, “She’s fucking crazy!”

Suddenly her vision feels blurry and the room feels too small. She feels like she’s suffocating, drowning in her grief and fury.

Stumbling down the aisle, she makes her way to the church doors. When she nears the last pew, she catches Nick’s worried gaze. He’s sitting next to his mom, who’s gripping his arm, holding him back from getting up. Will sits beside her, looking bored.

She pushes the doors open and walks out as Sheriff Goode gives his own speech, not wanting to hear a single word that man has to say.

━━━━━━━

The car ride back to the Goode mansion is quiet and tense. Will has his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the car door, head resting on the window. Mrs Goode keeps her eyes trained forward, on the road before them, clutching onto the purse on her lap. Joseph Goode’s hands grip onto the steering wheel so tightly, they could be glued.

And Nick, his gaze is stuck on his father, or more the back of his head. The way he grabbed Ziggy keeps replaying in his head over and over, mixing in with the scene that haunted him in his sleep, him slicing her body open, his ancestors encouraging him to take the knife himself.

She looked nothing like the girl she was just three weeks ago. The passionate fire in her, the one that was beautiful, had been put out, replaced by only bitterness and anger to fuel her. Sooner or later, she would burn herself, no one around to help her clean her wounds now that Cindy was gone. The knowledge breaks his heart.

Before they pull into their street, his father lets out a dry and dark laugh. “Fucking Shadysiders.”

“Honey–”

He cuts off his wife. “Shouting that witch nonsense for the entire town to hear at her sister’s funeral? That Berman girl has no dignity.”

Something in Nick snaps.

“Don’t say that.”

The car comes to a sudden screeching halt. His father turns in his seat to squint at him, daring him to continue. Nick’s mouth feels dry. “I just mean she’s obviously grieving. Grief makes people do questionable things. It doesn’t seem right to judge her for it.”

“Honey, maybe he’s right,” his mom pipes out from the passenger seat.

His father’s head snaps to her, emotionless and closed off. Nick knows they’re going to argue about it later. Well, them arguing actually just means his father would yell while his mom sat there and listened, until Nick would knock on their door and claim he needed his mom’s help with homework, dragging her away to hide out in his room until his father had calmed down. It’s a routine, really.

When they pull into the driveway, everyone gets off but his father. He doesn’t offer an explanation before he drives off, doesn’t even look at any of them.

A whisper tickles his ear, just as urgent as it had been that day at camp.

Much later, when he wanders downstairs to get a glass of water, his mom is sitting in the living room watching the news, stiff.

“Tragedy strikes once again in Shadyside. Seventeen-year-old Michelle Walters murders boyfriend and the young eight-year-old she was babysitting. The child’s parents found them–”

Nick drowns out the rest of the report, his body going cold. He barely makes it to the bathroom to empty his stomach into the toilet.

When his father comes home that night, he smells just as he had that day at Camp Nightwing, a strong stench of goat surrounding him. No one mentions it.

He spends the whole night tossing and turning, head throbbing, unable to think of anything else.

━━━━━━━

Joseph Goode sits in his study, Will having just left. Their conversation plays over in his head, the information his youngest son had revealed to him about the nature of Nick’s relationship with none other than that Berman girl. Nick had told him he had gotten his injury trying to stop Tommy from attacking a camper, but he had oddly never specified who. Now, he knows why.

━━━━━━━

“–after coming home from a night out. Walters was known around the community for her volunteer work, most recently the Summer Read-A-Thon at Shadyside Public Library. People who knew her say she was always patient with kids, she even planned on studying to become a teacher. But something in her just snapped–”

Ziggy turns off the TV before it cuts to the images of Shadyside’s most recent killer. She pads into the kitchen and opens the cabinet where her mom hid all her booze. She pulls a bottle of gin out and unscrews the lid.

And she’s about to do it, about to take a drink and let it burn her throat, about to keep taking swigs until she gets used to the bitter taste and her mind feels all foggy.

But from where she’s standing, a picture frame hanging on the wall is in view. It’s from the Christmas of 1972, the last one they had celebrated all together as a family, right before her dad had ran off with some barely-legal-girl. In it, Cindy’s standing behind her, arms placed on top of her head, posing confidently. Ziggy’s looking up at her, caught mid-laugh, eyes filled with utter admiration.

She thinks of Cindy. Of her sad eyes boring into her skull if she knew what Ziggy was tempted to do. She wouldn’t want this for her, wouldn’t want her to end up like their mom, attached to a bottle, barely even present.

Deep down, Ziggy knows she doesn’t want that for herself either.

She puts the gin back and storms off to her room, passing Cindy’s. It might be her mind playing tricks on her, but she swears she can feel the weight of a hand holding onto her, soothing her to sleep.

The nightmares still come, but there’s another familiar presence there with her the whole night, fiercely protective.

━━━━━━━

When she doesn’t dream of Sarah Fier and Sheriff Goode, Ziggy relives what happened That Night. She sees Jeremy’s bloodied glasses, sees Gary’s head falling with a thud right next to her, sees Nick’s gaping leg wound, sees Alice struggling to breathe. The image that haunts her the most, that plagues her mind, is Cindy, her body shaking every time the axe made contact with skin.

She can still feel Tommy’s hands around her throat, eyes filled with nothingness as she tried to shove him off.

And you see, she tries so hard not to feel any hatred for him, because she knows it wasn’t really him, she knows. Tommy really loved her sister, and he never treated her like she was some stupid kid. He was genuine and kind, always engaged in anything she had to say, even when she was shitting on some song he was playing.

It doesn’t make it any easier when school starts up again and she gets her physics textbook, opening it to find his name scribbled in along with all the other past owners.

Tommy Slater | Issued: 1976 | Returned: 1977

She ends up knocking it off her desk, falling open in between her seat and the kid next to her. He catches a glimpse of the name and wordlessly picks it up, handing her his instead.

He doesn’t make a big deal out of it, just gives her a small smile and turns to face forward. She figures out his name is Martin Franklin.

They pair up for assignments sometimes, he’s the only person who doesn’t talk about her as she walks past, at least she doesn’t think he does.

Plus, he has a car, which is useful when taking the bus is too draining for her. He chats away about everything and anything, but he never brings up Camp Nightwing or Cindy, which she’s thankful for. In return, she doesn’t bring up Michelle Walters, who apparently had been his neighbor his entire life, he had practically grown up with her. And yeah, sometimes she makes sure to get ketchup at lunch on Wednesdays and Fridays,—when he sits with her—despite not liking it, because he always forgets to grab a packet.

He’d take his seat on the bench across from her and grin, taking the packet and drizzling it over his fries. Before that though, he’d jokingly tell her, “See, this is why I appreciate you, Berman.”

Then she’d automatically reply with a, “Fuck off,” without looking up from the book she was reading. Him chuckling follows right after. He does most of the talking between them, which Ziggy doesn’t mind, she didn’t seem to have the energy for speaking as much as she used to. There’s even some days where they both sit in silence and it’s not awkward, it’s comforting.

She wouldn’t go as far as to say they’re close friends exactly, but it’s nice to know there’s someone in Shadyside who doesn’t see her as some freak who came back to life.

━━━━━━━

September is coming to an end and Ziggy’s walking towards her room, having just gotten home from school, when she notices Cindy’s door is ajar.

In the days since she’d returned home, she had yet to step foot into it, not wanting to find it empty. Not wanting to see the pink walls and floral sheets without her sister sitting there, flipping through some magazine or studying for an exam. She doesn’t want to see the college brochures she knows are still littered across her desk.

There had been no car in the driveway, which is why it shocks her to find her mother standing in the middle of Cindy’s room, staring off. Her hair is greasy and she’s still wearing the clothes she’d been in the last time Ziggy had seen her. That was four days ago.

“Mom, what are you doing in here?”

She doesn’t respond, just keeps her eyes locked on the wall in front of her, as if Ziggy wasn’t there, as if she were invisible. The redhead clears her throat. “Mom?”

Elizabeth Berman lets out a deep exhale before slowly turning to face her. Her skin looks impossibly paler than usual, there’s a clench in her jaw as she drags her feet over to her, and she’s glaring at her with so much hatred, Ziggy nearly flinches.

Stupidly, she’s about to ask her what’s wrong, ask if something happened with the bills, ask if something had happened at a bar, because despite how shitty of a mother she was, Ziggy knows she’s all she has left. Because she’s still a kid who wants—

Her mother, who is eyeing her with disgust. “Cindy was going to go to college, she was a good kid.”

Oh. She hadn’t been expecting that.

“It’s not fair that she’s the daughter I had to bury and you’re the one I’m stuck with.” When Ziggy thinks she’s done, she just keeps going. And she listens, agreeing with every word she says, words she’d repeated to herself over and over like a mantra since the moment she’d caught sight of Cindy’s corpse covered by a white sheet.

Before she walks out of Cindy’s bedroom, with breath reeking of alcohol, she spits out, “It should’ve been you.”

And well, Ziggy can’t argue with that, but it doesn’t make the pain of her mother’s words any less real, doesn’t make her numb to them. She barely registers the fact that she’s actually in Cindy’s bedroom until the front door slams shut, leaving her the sole inhabitant of the otherwise lifeless house.

The air still smells faintly of her sister’s sweet perfume, the one she’d often told her made her want to gag just to get a reaction out of her. She can see it clearly: Cindy’s brows furrowed and her lips pouting unintentionally, ready to tell Ziggy to stop acting so—

No, she can’t do this. She’s not ready for this. Not yet.

She rushes to the bathroom, not before softly closing Cindy’s door. As she throws up her school lunch, she feels the same comforting touch she had weeks ago, rubbing gentle circles on her back.

━━━━━━━

School’s been in session for a little over a month now, and Nick doesn’t understand how everyone around him can act like nothing happened. It makes his blood boil. All his peers that were at Camp Nightwing talk about it like it’s some sort of joke. They talk about seeing Jeremy’s body like it was some gory scene from the latest slasher film in theaters.

But Jeremy wasn’t part of some fictional story, he was real.

He was just a kid.

God, he was about half of Nick’s age. He had barely even lived, his entire future had been stolen from him with a swing of an axe.

They all get to go back to their normal lives, like if twelve people dying was just the latest gossip. Like it was normal. Meanwhile, everyone ignores the fact that he had seen all those bodies. Everyone seems to like him as a hero until he tries to open up about the horrors he’d seen. He’s so angry at everyone.

Most of all, he’s angry at himself, for putting up with these people when he should be with Ziggy.

He’s about to take a seat at a lunch table with Kurt and some of the other boys on his baseball team, when he hears Kurt make some sick joke about Joan.

“At least I got to fuck her before Tommy sliced the bitch up.”

And Nick, he sees red. His lunch tray falls to the ground with a clatter, making everyone at the table turn to look at him. Kurt smiles up at him, teeth shining. “There you are, Goode. Come on, we saved you–”

Nick doesn’t realize he’s swinging until his fist connects with Kurt’s jaw. The sound echoes throughout the cafeteria, everyone’s staring now. Because Sunnyvale royalty just punched the son of his family’s oldest friends. And he doesn’t regret it, not one bit.

Kurt groans in pain, clutching onto his face, wide-eyed, “Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

He can hear everyone whispering. Hands shaking and knuckles bruised, he gains enough clarity to grab Kurt by the collar of his shirt. His eyes darken as he venomously spits out, “Don’t ever talk about Joan like that again, you hear me?”

Kurt scoffs, even as blood dribbles out the side of his mouth. “What do you care? She was just some Shadyside tramp. All she was good for was a quick fuck.”

The next minute is a blur. It ends with Kurt on the floor, holding his broken nose, while some teacher restrains him and drags him to the Principal’s Office.

The disappointment is evident on his face, but he’s not suspended or expelled. Mr Mills expressed his concern, stated it wasn’t anything like Nick, that since it was his first offense and he was a model student, he’d get off with a warning. He’s not sure why he expected any differently.

He’s a Goode, after all.

His father on the other hand—well, he doesn’t like to think about what he’d done when he was called about what happened.

That night, goes to bed with a throbbing cheek to match the pain in his head. And he dreams of Tommy’s axe sinking into his leg, only this time, Tommy flips him over to face him. Face bloodied, some of it drips onto him, as he leans over him and says, “Go.”

Somehow, Nick knows exactly what it means. He doesn’t go to school the next day. Instead, he drives over to Shadyside.

━━━━━━━

It’s the last week of October, the 30th to be exact, when a knock on her front door snaps her out of her thoughts. With a sigh, she gets up from the dining table, setting her spoon back in the bowl where her soup was untouched and cold.

The whole point of her skipping school today was to avoid people.

No one ever visited the Berman residence. Even in her newfound friendship with Martin,—which she’d finally admitted to herself they were—she’d never invited him over and he never pushed.

Sometimes Cindy’s old “friends” would leave lasagnas or pastries on their doorstep, ringing the doorbell and sprinting off before they had to see Ziggy. She wasn’t exactly upset about the arrangement, it just meant less pitying stares and being eyed like they were waiting for her to explode. Or maybe they were waiting for her to snap just like Tommy.

There was another common occurrence, one that she tried not to think about for too long or else she’d feel a tug on her heart. Every Friday since Cindy’s funeral, another Judy Blume book is left on her doorstep. A stack of them was piling up under her bed.

The pounding on the door starts again and Ziggy, filled with frustration, works hastily to unlock all three locks.

She had installed them herself just a couple days ago, having put off grocery shopping for as long as possible, refrigerator and cabinets bare, forcing her to finally give in to going to the store. It had been when she had looked over her shoulder for the fifth time that she bumped into the shelves stocked up with them. She hadn’t thought twice before adding them to her cart.

(Honestly, she’s confused as to why she still even has any electricity and gas. She knows for a fact her mother hadn’t paid it—Hell, she hadn’t even come home for two days straight, no doubt loitering around O'Connells—and neither had she, not exactly ready to start working just yet. She chalks it up to being some sort of sympathy thing from the company.)

Once she’s unlocked them all, she yanks the door open. “What!”

Standing there with his fist still hovering in the air, is Nick Goode.

They both just stare at each other for a while, Nick’s eyes dart all over her, trying to remember every inch of her. He looks a little breathless at the sight of her, the corners of his mouth quirk up as he says, “Hi.”

Caught off guard, Ziggy can’t find anything else to say but– “Hey.” Once the initial shock wears off, the annoyance and disdain seep in. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Teachers tend to look the other day for absences if you recently came back from the dead.” He winces, like he’s seeing her body under the Hanging Tree all over again. She squints at him. “What are you doing here, Nick?”

He shifts and that’s when she notices the bag he’s holding. More specifically, she realizes it’s Cindy’s.

“It didn’t feel right, leaving it on your doorstep.”

He holds it out to her, eyes sincere and warm.

Slightly hesitant, she takes it. It’s still covered in dirt and a little bit of blood. Whether it’s hers, or Cindy’s, or Alice’s, she has no clue. She dusts some of the dirt off, not caring about it falling to the floor. Her eyes sting. She can feel the tears threatening to fall.

Taking a sharp inhale, she looks back at Nick. He’s not looking at her like she’s about to break, he’s looking at her with something she can’t quite name. Like he had at Camp Nightwing when she shook his hand.

Behind him, she can see a car parked in the driveway. It’s certainly not her mom’s, so she knows it’s his.

“How did you get it?”

“Kapinski was going to toss it out that night but I told him it was yours and that I’d give it to you.” He says it casually but there’s a solemn look on his face. “I remembered Alice teasing her about it at a counselor meeting and Cindy looked about ready to pop a vein.”

Despite herself, Ziggy laughs. “Yeah, that sounds like them.”

“I meant to give it to you before, but I–you needed space. You deserved space. I didn’t want to disrespect that.”

Something in Ziggy breaks.

“So you were just respecting my needs?”

Nick tenses, almost as if he’s expecting her to start scolding him. Hesitantly, “Yeah.”

Her fingers flex around the door knob, overwhelmed by the wave of emotions she’s drowning in. “What I needed was for you to tell everyone what happened that night, but you didn’t. You expect me to believe you care about me at all?”

He takes a step closer, his hand twitches, like he’s tempted to reach out to her. “I do care about you, Ziggy. You have to know that.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with that when you’re still a coward who cares more about what everyone else thinks than telling the truth?”

In her frustration, the bag falls to the ground, the latch opening and spilling its contents out. “Shit.”

Nick’s quick to bend down and pick it up for her. He freezes when his fingers graze the journal, having landed open. The page is turned to the witch’s mark, the same way she had found it, the same way Cindy and Tommy had found it, too. Something flashes across his face. He looks like he’s seen a ghost.

Slowly picking himself up, he stares at her wide-eyed. “Where did you find this?”

She squints at him, scoffing in disbelief. “You’re seriously asking me questions right now?”

“Ziggy, I’m serious, where did you find this?”

Desperation leaks into his voice, like it had back at camp, when he’d all but begged her to get on that goddamn bus. Maybe it’s because of that she finds herself answering, “It was Nurse Lane’s. It’s all her Sarah Fier research.”

And Nick, well he looks just about on the verge of fainting.

“Scared, Goode? Thought you didn’t believe in all this shit.”

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even try to defend himself. Instead, his breaths start coming out more ragged and he squeezes his eyes shut. Her anger dissipates the second she sees his hands shaking.

“Nick? What’s–”

“I’ve seen this before.” He spits it out, like he had been keeping this information for so long and was jumping at the chance to finally tell her. “I don’t know how I–God, I fucking forgot about it and it’s like my brain was clouded over but now it’s not? Like things are falling into place–”

“I’m not following.”

He looks over his shoulder, out onto the street, and gently shoves Ziggy inside, following right behind her. She’s about to protest when she hears him locking the door behind them, but when she looks up at him, his expression is panic-stricken.

“I couldn’t figure out why I felt like I couldn’t be in my dad’s study. He has any book I could possibly want to read, so why wouldn’t I ever go in there? And it was driving me fucking insane because I knew something was missing. Like someone erased something from my memory to make me forget all about it–” Ziggy stares at him incredulously. “–Trust me, I know how it sounds. But right now when I saw this, it’s like that memory was unlocked.”

He nearly collapses onto her couch, knees giving out and face drained of color. She plops herself down next to him, eyeing him cautiously, waiting to hear where he was going with this.

“So, what? You think Sarah Fier made you forget about whatever you saw?”

His leg starts to shake and Ziggy unconsciously puts her hand on his knee, leaving it to rest there.

“I don’t know, it sounds crazy. I sound crazy.”

“You’re right.”

Nick finally turns to look at her, ready for the other shoe to drop, for her to throw him out right now. He knows he deserves it, and she knows it, too. For three months he got to act none the wiser in Sunnyvale, never having to live with everyone whispering insults as he walked past, all while grieving a sibling. She did.

All while he got pats on the shoulder and called a hero, no matter how much he hated it.

(She doesn’t know about the nights he woke up, face wet from tears, body trembling, and red staining his nose. That anytime his dad was near, for some reason he can’t figure out, he’d get the most painful headaches. That he has the same visions that creep into her mind, too.)

But this isn’t about whatever betrayal she felt. It’s not about her, and it’s certainly not about him. It’s about Cindy, and Alice, and Gary, and Joan, and all those campers. It’s about Nurse Lane, who had dedicated the past decade of her life to Sarah Fier, who tried to stop the massacre before it was too late. It’s about Shadyside.

And so she nods to herself, mind made-up. “It’s crazy, but I believe you.”

He visibly relaxes.

“You do?”

Prompt to make it clear where they’re standing, she removes her hand and sits up, knees leaning away from him. “This doesn’t mean we’re okay, I hope you know that.”

He shakes his head. “Yeah–no, I know.”

It’s quiet for a moment, neither knowing what to say. She can see him eyeing her pathetic excuse of a dinner, worried.

In an attempt to draw his attention away back onto the task at hand, she grabs the journal, and deadpan, “What was that you said about a book club?”

They wind up huddled together on the floor, crowded in each other’s space as they read every note, every clipped newspaper, and inspect every picture crammed in the journal.

It’s a little after six now. The street lights are on, though most of them flicker on and off, so it’s the jack-o-lanterns on everyone’s porches that illuminate the street.

Halloween was, unsurprisingly, a big deal in Shadyside. It usually was Ziggy’s favorite night, but she can’t bring herself to care about it all that much this year. Not when she might see people dressed as past killers, ones that had surrounded her, ones that wanted her dead.

She can smell Nick’s breath as their sides press against each other, sweet cinnamon. She’s so exhausted it almost makes her smile. The last thing Ziggy remembers seeing before her shoulders sag and her eyes shut is a map of Union, the places where highways now were, circled in red ink.

━━━━━━━

She dreams in flashes.

Red.

The Hanging Tree.

An agonizing scream.

A dark road near the woods.

Dark tunnels, illuminated only by a fire, revealing a hooded figure.

She’s back on that field with Cindy, whose cheeks are coated with tears, no matter how much she tries to hide it. Because Cindy would never let Ziggy worry about her, never wanted anyone to worry about her, even as she’s about to use herself as bait.

A bloodied hand struggling to reach her, fingers wiggling as if that would bring them any closer.

Then, it’s like she’s not in her body, staring down at her lifeless form. No matter how many times she’s had the moment play over in her head, it still makes her sick, she has to look away.

She’s not alone. Not really, anyway. The same angry woman, the witch, stares at her, eyes sad. She does something she’d never done before, she grips onto Ziggy’s hand, desperate. “You have to go back. You have to find it again.”

Shaking her head, Ziggy struggles to pull away. “No. No, I’m–I can’t. I can’t.”

Cindy appears beside her, face grim but determined. She doesn’t have any of her wounds, Ziggy realizes. Her polo shirt is still torn up from the front, the only thing still staining it is the red moss, and her hair is falling free onto her shoulders. There’s two other figures behind her. She doesn’t see them entirely, but she sees red pigtails and a pair of eyes that are just as strikingly blue as her sister’s.

It throws her off, but she doesn’t have time to question it before Cindy grips onto her other hand and says, “Go.”

The other figures come into view, and reach towards her. Eight hands yank her forward.

━━━━━━━

Ziggy wakes up with a gasp, eyes shooting open. Blinking slowly a couple times, she tries to remember where she is, feeling like she just ran a mile. Something against her cheek feels cold and she gets a whiff of copper.

God, her head is pounding.

Faintly, she can hear someone speaking, calling out to her, but it sounds muffled. Like she’s drowning and they’re above the surface. Still too dazed, she doesn’t take in the fact that she’s being pulled up, a pair of hands gently guiding her into a sitting position.

“–Ziggy!”

Her chest heaves and she lets out a cough. Everything comes back into focus slowly. The cold beneath her is her living room floor, the metallic scent is the blood dripping out of her nose, and the person grounding her is Nick.

Nick, who looks so incredibly distraught. He laughs wetly, relief written on his face, when she finally looks at him. He pushes the stray hairs out of her face and tucks a lock behind her ear. “There you go. Just copy my breathing, okay?”

He inhales slowly, gesturing for her to do the same. He exhaled and so does she. They keep doing this until the room doesn’t seem so small anymore.

A drop of blood falls onto her upper lip, she darts her tongue out to clean it off, not missing the way Nick tracked the movement. He nearly hesitates but he wraps the sleeve of his jacket over his hand and wipes the rest of the blood off with his thumb, quick, like he was trying not to lose his nerve.

His hands linger, cupping her jaw. Ziggy lets him.

“I’m so fucking tired of all this shit. I’m tired of seeing her.”

Nick’s brows furrowed. “Who?”

She squints up at him, scoffing when she sees the genuine confusion written all over him. There’s a hint of something else, like he’s waiting for her to utter a specific name. “Who do you think?”

Realization dawns on his face. “I see her, too.”

Ziggy shakes her head, rubbing at her temple. “It’s not just her, though. It’s–”

“My dad.”

Her posture stiffens and she whips her head up, locking eyes with him. “How did you know that?”

“Because I think we’re having the same dreams, it’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Briefly, her mind flickers back to that day in the hospital, when the visions were a fresh presence in her dreams. A part of her feels guilty for turning him away. She brushes those thoughts aside, fixating back on the topic.

“She wants me to go back.”

Nick frowns. “What?”

“I think she wants her hand,” She explains. “I don’t even have it, it’s probably still underneath the Hanging Tree.”

“The riddle.” Then, whispering to himself, Nick recites, “The curse will last until body and hand unite.”

Ziggy can see the cogs in his head turning, what Sarah said to them in their visions finally sinking in.

“I tried that already and it didn’t work. We found the hand, but that’s all. It’s the reason why Cindy–” She pauses. “Look, no one knows where the body is.”

“It has to be somewhere in Shadyside, it has to be.” He snatches the journal off the ground, flipping to the page with the map of Union. “Here. I can go get the hand and then look for the body at the places Nurse Lane marked.”

“I bled on the hand. I saw her. She wants me.”

“Which is exactly why you’re not doing this. I am.”

She steps closer to him, forcing him to look up from the journal and at her. “What makes you think you make any decisions for me? Are you trying to make me more pissed?”

But Nick Goode is just as stubborn as she is, as it turns out. 

“I don’t want you getting hurt, Ziggy. Ever.” It’s the most determined she’s ever heard him, a hint of fear mingled in as well. Like just the thought of her in pain is too much for him to bear. “So if that means you being pissed, then fine. I’d rather have you pissed off at me and alive than liking me and dead.”

Ziggy’s heart clenches when he desperately clings onto her shoulders. It’s reminiscent of three months ago, when he hadn’t cared that he shouted for the entire Mess Hall to hear about wanting her safe. All he cared about was making sure she kept breathing.

That’s why she almost doesn’t do what she does next. Almost.

Eyes shining with unshed tears, she leans in and presses their lips together. He melts into it just like he had at camp.

For a moment, she allows herself to imagine a world where there was no curse, where she and him spent the entire summer clinging to each other. Where Cindy teases her about him every time he comes over. Where her parents are still together and they cry as they take prom pictures, Nick’s arms wrapped around her waist as he stares down at her lovingly and rolls her eyes but her cheeks are red.

But that’s not ever going to be a possibility for them. She knows it.

So she deepens the kiss one last time, lets herself remember the feeling of his lips on hers. His hands are tangled in her hair. She moves her hands from his shoulders down his sides, then reaches for his pockets.

His hand circles around her wrist before she can grab his keys.

Nick pulls away, leaning their foreheads together. His eyes are still closed, and she can see the fresh tears staining his cheeks. “I know you, Zig.”

“Nick–”

“It could just be some trap she’s trying to lure you into. I don’t know what she wants from me, I think it might have something to do with my dad. But whatever it is, I’m safe because I’m a Sunnyvaler. You’re not.”

Ziggy shakes her head. “I’m going.”

He opens his eyes and holds her face in the palms of his hands. “You called me a coward once and all I’ve wanted since then was to be as brave as you. Not just for me but for you.” He brushes his lips against her forehead and distangles them from each other.

She feels frozen.

“I’m sorry,” he says, then he’s striding over to the front door and rushing out, slamming it shut behind him. It snaps Ziggy out of whatever trance she was in.

“Nick!”

She yanks the door open and sprints out after him. But he’s already pulling out of the driveway. They lock eyes as he turns onto the street, a thousand apologies etched upon his face. By the time she makes it to the sidewalk, he’s already gone.

That fucking asshole, she thinks angrily as s she walks back inside.

Ziggy paces back and forth in her living room, trying to think of what to do. Distracted, she bumps into the corner of her couch, stubbing her toe. Groaning, “Fuck!”

Her face is all pinched up and she’s hunched over. It’s when she’s at eye level with the coffee table that her eyes catch onto the mixtape she’d made. Scribbled across it: Drives with Martin. She sobers up immediately.

Martin.

Shaking off the pain, she rushes over to the phone and dials his number. It was easy to remember, she didn’t really have anyone else’s to punch in after all. She flexes her fingers around the phone when it rings twice and there’s still no answer. “Pick up. Pick up. Pick–”

“Franklin residence.”

She lets out a deep breath, laughing slightly. “Oh, thank god. Martin, it’s Ziggy.”

“Berman? Hey! Not that I mind, but why exactly are you calling me right now?” Confusion is laced in his voice.

“Do you think you can give me a ride?”

When he doesn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, Ziggy thinks he might’ve hung up, but then he’s sighing dramatically and answering, “Let me get my coat. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Chapter Text

Nick’s head is pounding just as hard as his heart as he pulls up to Camp Nightwing, he can feel the thumping in his ears.  The scene is eerily similar to the visions that had been haunting his and Ziggy’s sleep since That Night, just as quiet and just as bone-chilling. His hold on the steering wheel tightens as he takes in the welcome sign. On it, spray-painted, big and red: 

BEFORE THE WITCH’S FINAL BREATH

SHE FOUND A WAY TO CHEAT HER DEATH.

Mere months ago, the camp had been filled with life, kids buzzing with excitement.

If he’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready to step foot in the place again. But this isn’t about him, it never was.

He closes his eyes, taking a deep breath, thinking about that camper looking up at him, looking to him for an answer. The mutilated-beyond-recognition corpses of Jeremy, Jesse, Rod, and Stacey. The sound of Ziggy’s cries, her face pale and full of terror as she waited for Tommy’s axe to strike her.

The moment playing out in his head morphs into the scene that had played out only thirty minutes ago. It’s Ziggy chasing after him, calling out to him, trying to stop him from leaving without her. But he had ignored her, ignored the tears obscuring his vision, ignored the fact that he had forgotten Nurse Lane’s Journal in his rush, because he couldn’t go back. There was a blazing look on her face when they had locked eyes as he pulled out of her driveway, so angry and so incredibly hurt. 

He couldn’t let the curse hurt her. Or anyone else. Ever. He had failed to protect all those campers, Cindy, their blood was on his hands, not just the witch’s.

There’s this feeling in his gut, that maybe his father fits into the picture more than he realizes. Or maybe—mind flickering back to that memory, finding a book in his study when he was eight, phrases he didn’t quite understand, the witch’s mark at the center of a page, his father grabbing him by the arm and shoving him out, all these events wiped from his memory only minutes later—Nick had found something that didn’t belong to Joseph Goode.

Yeah, he can’t quite make sense of the little he knows.

With shaky hands, he grabs the shovel and flashlight on the passenger seat and opens his door, stepping out of his car, pulse quickening as he takes in the dark and deserted site. His mind flickers back to limping around camp, trying to find anybody, anybody at all, only to be led into the woods by a voice—one he now knows belonged to Sarah Fier—and straight to the Hanging Tree. Where Ziggy had been. Where Ziggy and Cindy had died. Where Ziggy had resurrected under his hands while Cindy’s body remained lifeless.

A whisper in his ear reminds him, Be brave, Nick.

He shakes the memories away, turning on his flashlight and heading toward the woods. He knows the route like the back of his hand by now, which, unfortunately, gives him less time to prepare for seeing the grassy open field again.

His headache worsens with every step he takes, but he continues forward, grass crunching beneath his shoes as he walks, neglected. It takes everything in him not to empty his stomach when he reaches the patch of grass he can still see covered in dried blood. 

When Nick reaches the Hanging Tree, he drops to his knees near where he remembers the hole being That Night, ready to begin digging. He just wants this all to be over already.

As he readies the shovel, he notices the gunk that had been beginning to grow along the area, coating the dirt and grass. If he had stopped for a second, he might have realized it was the same gunk that was placed upon Sarah’s head in his visions, crown-like. But he didn’t. Instead he throws the shovel aside and digs with his hands, tossing the excess moss aside.

It doesn’t take very long for his fingers to grasp onto something hard, yet dainty. Carefully, but quick, he grabs hold of it and pulls it out. 

It’s a hand.

Sarah Fier’s hand.

A watery laugh escapes Nick’s throat, relishing in victory. “Holy fuck.”

Then, he feels the blood dripping out of his nose, a drop landing onto his lips. He tastes the metallic-scented liquid and with an, “Oh shit,” wipes the blood away. Remembering what Ziggy had said, he holds the hand away from his face and continues to cover his nose with the sleeve of his jacket, red staining the denim material. Some of it covers Ziggy’s from earlier.

Something strange occurs in his mind, the same thing he’d felt when he saw the witch’s mark in the journal. It was as if something had strengthened, a force attempting to guide him somewhere. And Nick knew exactly what it was. Or who it was.

He rises to his feet and begins to make his way opposite of where he’d come from, the part of the woods that had been marked up on Nurse Lane’s map. Before he disappears into the tree-coated area, he glances back at the Hanging Tree one last time, a wave of emotions hitting him.

Blinking his tears away, he marches into the woods, determined and furious. He follows the sound of his name being whispered by a voice he’s become familiar with, the voice that belongs to someone he’s come to hate. It doesn’t matter to him that this could be a trap, an elaborate scheme she’d been pulling the strings to, some act of revenge for whatever his family could have done to the angry witch. 

He has to try. He owes it to all those innocent Shadysiders who had their entire futures stolen from them. He owes that to Ziggy. He owes it to himself.

And so, he walks, a limp in his step, venturing deeper and deeper into the dark woods, with only a flashlight and that goddamn voice to guide the way.

━━━━━━━

“So, let me get this straight, you’re making me drive you to Camp Nightwing?” Martin spares a quick glance at Ziggy before focusing back on the road.

Camp Nightwing. If she lets herself truly think about it for another second, she’s afraid the ache in her chest will return. 

“Yes.”

“So you can help the Sheriff’s son end the three century long curse Sarah Fier put on Shadyside?”

Ziggy nods nonchalantly. “Yup.”

“Cool, cool, cool, just making sure I heard you correctly.” He lets out a breathy laugh. “Jesus Christ, is this what white people do in their free time?”

Despite the issue at hand, it makes Ziggy smile. Leave it to Martin to make the shittiest situations just a little less shitty. Still, she sobers up and earnestly says, “Look, I just need you to drop me off. The second you do, drive the hell away.”

For years, Cindy always kept herself out of arms reach, a stranger in her own home, a stranger she was familiar with, one she had once called her “bestest friend” while she read to her in funny voices or helped her with homework. When she’d finally latched onto Ziggy, finally had torn the walls she’d put up when their dad left, it’d only resulted in her pointless sacrifice. The curse was still around, and she wasn’t. 

Ziggy never wants another person to get hurt because of her. Ever. 

Asking Martin for a ride was already putting him at risk, she realizes that now. She has no idea what the witch could possibly be luring her into, what she could’ve done to Nick already— Oh god, Nick— all because she hadn’t stopped him. 

It turns out, she’s not the only stubborn person in Shadyside. First Cindy, then Nick, and now—

Martin hits the brakes abruptly, not before putting his arm out in front of Ziggy to soften the impact. “I’m not leaving you alone at night, especially there of all places,” then, teasingly, he adds, “My parents raised me better than that, y’know.”

The redhead’s about to protest, when she realizes there’s more to it than he’s saying. She can see the hint of regret in his eyes, and it confuses her until it doesn’t and the stinging reminder of Michelle Walters appearing on the news just hours after Cindy’s funeral comes with such a force, she flinches.

It’s not the first time someone’s mind can’t help but be reminded of someone they’ve lost when they look at her.

She bites the inside of her cheek, mulling it over before exhaling and turning to face him. “You can stay, but do not get out of this car. Deal?”

His brows furrow, creases appearing on his forehead, obviously not okay with that plan at all. But he seems to understand they both feel the weight of a loss, the loss of someone you’d grown up with, that’s about as close to someone you could possibly be. They shared something else too, the desire to prevent having to ever feel that pain all over again. 

So, Martin purses his lips and nods, directing his attention back to the road, beginning to drive again. “Alright, guess I’ll have to settle for being your own personal getaway driver then.”

Comfortable with the shift away from the seriousness, she’s about to quip back, when she tastes blood on her lips and hears a voice whispering, “Ziggy…”

“Stop the car.”

Martin whips his head over at her. “What? Why?”

Frustrated, Ziggy yells, “Stop the car!”

“We have like another ten minutes before we even reach–”

“Martin, just stop the fucking car!”

The car comes to a screeching halt and Ziggy scrambles to unbuckle her seatbelt. She reaches in between her legs and grabs Cindy’s bag, pulling out the journal. That fucking idiot forgot it, she thinks to herself. Frantically, she thumbs through the pages until she lands on the one she’s looking for. Her eyes scan over the map, before glancing up at the sign a few feet ahead of them. “Highway 5.”

“What?”

Ziggy holds the journal up for Martin, presenting the map to him. Circled in red ink; Highway 5.

The boy beside her only looks even more confused than he had been when he had picked her up. She’d explain it to him later, but right now, she has no time. She has a curse to end.

“I’ll be right back,” She shoves the journal into the bag and slings it over her arm. Ignoring Martin’s questions, she opens the passenger door and climbs out of the car. Before she walks away, she leans back into the car, looking him in the eye as she reminds him, “Stay in the car, okay?”

He opens his mouth, as if readying himself to make one last final argument, but the expression on her face must render him speechless, because instead, he sighs and nods, accepting defeat.

She smiles at him. “I appreciate you, Franklin.” It feels heavy, like a goodbye of sorts. But she won’t tell him that, won’t burden him with it. Slamming the door shut, she turns on her heel and trudges towards the woods. 

Leaves and twigs crunch and snap beneath her. She nearly bumps into a tree, nothing illuminating her path, when she hears another whisper. Only this time, it felt as if it were closer than it’d been before, and it’s followed by a chill settling over her body.

She feels like she’s back in the Science and Nature cabin, waiting for Tommy to find her. Like she’s back in the Mess Hall, clutching onto that goddamn knife for dear life. Like she’s back on that field, welcoming death after watching Cindy take her final breath.

“Ziggy…”

It was Sarah. 

Her hands ball into fists at her sides after she wipes the blood off her face.

“Ziggy…”

Entranced, Ziggy follows the voice. She doesn’t take in the fresh blood continuing to flow out of her nose. 

She walked for what felt like hours, but was really a minute, when she saw a flash of light and a figure a couple feet away from her. When the figure directs their light onto her face, making her eyes shut to shield herself from the blinding light, footsteps getting closer, she feels something unsettling in the pit of her stomach and her palms begin to clam up, until she hears them call out, “Ziggy?”

Eyes snapping open, she finds Nick standing right in front of her, flashlight in one hand, Sarah Fier’s in the other. Without thinking about it, without planning it, she rushes forward and wraps her arms around him, but not before breathing out, “Nick”. Instinctively, his arms curl around her waist, the items in his possession digging into her back just the slightest. Now that she knows he’s safe—

She shoves him off of her and pushes his chest. “You fucking prick!”

“I’m so sor–”

“No. We’re not doing this right now. You can save your bullshit apologies about trying to take my decisions away from me after all of this is over, okay?”

Nick inches closer, face apologetic and sincere. “I really am—Zig, you’re bleeding.”

He reaches his arm out and cleans the blood off with his sleeve, some of it smearing across her lips. It’s only when he’s this close that she notices—“So are you.”

His eyes widen and he brings his sleeve to his nose, which is already drenched in it. That’s a sight she’d never thought she’d see, Nick Goode all bloodied. She’s about to make some stupid joke about it, when she realizes the red liquid is still gushing out of his nose.

And hers, too.

The pounding in her head is back, and it must be for him, too, because she hears him groan out in pain. He drops to the ground, body writhing as it engulfs him. 

Unceasing, the pain only expands. She can feel it traveling from the top of her head to her toes. It’s blinding, it’s all she can feel, all she can think about. Ziggy’s about to let herself fall to her knees, let the pain take control. Until, as she’s crying out in anguish, she feels that same presence that’s always following her, watching over her. A voice echoes in her head, repeating what she’d heard right before everything went to shit all over again.

“For Shadyside.”

Her feet begin to guide her forward, closer to the edge of the woods. She has no idea where she’s going, but something’s pulling her, urging her to continue on until she can see the highway. 

Exhausted, her legs give out, falling to the ground, but not before sticking her hands out to break the fall. Only, the ground beneath her hands isn’t covered in dirt. It’s covered in moss. Over her heavy breathing, she can hear the witch clear as day.

“Keep going.”

Behind her, she hears a grunt. She looks over her shoulder, and in the dark, a flicker of light makes its way towards her. It’s Nick, shakily walking over to her, feet dragging and an uncomfortable look on his face. The pain he’s clearly experiencing doesn’t seem to matter to him, getting to Ziggy, making sure she’s okay and unharmed, that overpowers any agony he’s in.

When he reaches her, he’s instantly crowding her space. The faint smell of cinnamon that had been surrounding him earlier is gone, instead smelling of wood and dirt. She can see the blood still dripping out of his nose, relentless. Without needing to check, she knows hers is still oozing too.

There’s this awful, ugly feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“Are you okay?” Nick asks frantically, then he’s smoothing the hair out of her face and the familiarity of the movement aches. 

It’s only then as he’s checking her for any damage that she feels the stinging in her hands, having taken the brunt of her fall. His eyes flicker down to them as she flexes her fingers around the clumpy ground, staining her fingers. Recognition flashes across his face.

“The moss.”

“What?” 

Nick gets this look in his eyes, as if he were both delighted and terrified of the revelation he’d uncovered. “The hole you dug That Night, it was covered in this shit. It’s growing all around the Hanging Tree. And now–”

“It’s growing here,” Ziggy finishes.

Quickly, she begins to dig, Nick following suit. It doesn’t take long until her fingers brush up against something cold and hard. She lets out a winded gasp and tugs on it, hearing the distinct sound of chains rattling. She continues to pull and pull until she finds the lock attached to the chains. Except, that’s not all that has been buried.

Glancing over at Nick, she gestures for him to shine the light over her. In scratchy, bold letters, Fier is engraved at the heart on the lock. Ziggy’s so stuck on processing the name until the boy beside her says, “Oh fuck.”

Her brows furrow until she looks away from the metal in her hands and back down at the ground. 

They’d done it. They’d fucking done it. They’d found what had prevented Shadyside from being free of the curse, of death, of tragedy for centuries. They’d found what Nurse Lane had spent over a decade looking for, what Cindy had desperately dug for as death loomed upon them.

Surrounded by moss, the remains of Shadyside’s resident witch lies right before them. 

It doesn’t matter to Ziggy that there’s still blood dripping out of her nose or that her ears are still ringing, it’s the farthest thing from her mind. 

Momentarily, she forgets Nick is even there with her, until his hand is gently covering one of her own, bits of moss and dirt coating their skin. He squeezes her hand, a subtle reminder that she wasn’t alone. She squeezes right back.

She turns to lock eyes with him, certain he’d be met with the sight of a hundred emotions she’d bottled up these past couple months coming to the surface, out in the open now, there for him to see. She doesn’t expect to see the vulnerability and determination in his. 

“Nick,” she says, voice thick. “The hand.”

Without tearing his gaze away, he grabs Sarah Fier’s hand from where he’d dropped it beside him. His eyes flicker away from her and back down to the hand. And Ziggy knows him. She knows what he’s about to do, but she also knows this has a possibility of all being an elaborate trap, one that she had walked both of them into.

One that she had walked Cindy and Alice into, even if she hadn’t meant to.

And so, when Nick attempts to unite the hand with the body, Ziggy grasps it out of his hold, placing them together on her own. Fresh blood runs down onto her lips, before falling onto the bones beneath her hands. A shiver travels through her body, stiffening her posture and leaving her cross-eyed. 

The last thing she feels is Nick’s hand clutching onto her shoulder, tensing at the same time she does. She doesn’t see a drop of his own blood falling onto the hand, either.

Then, red.

━━━━━━━

They see it all unfold, from the beginning to the end.

Innocent stolen glances and invitations to the woods under the night sky. A visit to a place just outside of Union, the first time Sarah Fier hears of The Book. A warning. Dancing with only the campfire as their source of light. A passionate kiss at the edge of woods, followed by twigs snapping and paranoia. 

A rot in Union, a contamination. The first possession, and a pastor at that. Two Berman sisters suffering the same tragic fate that would follow them three centuries later, one having to live without the other. A bloodbath in the church. A meeting where false accusations lead to a witch hunt. 

Sarah desperately kissing a chained up Hannah Miller in the dark Meeting Hall, ready to become what everyone had believed she was, whispering a promise she’d never get to keep. Because it hadn’t been her that had summoned the devil, no. 

It was Solomon Goode. It had always been Solomon fucking Goode.

A betrayal in the tunnels, followed by a chase and a hand being severed while he disgustingly proclaims his love for her. All of Union cheering as he reveals he’d found the witch, tears streaming down her bloodied face. 

Then, a sacrifice, one that had nothing to do with witchcraft or the devil. One that allows Hannah Miller to live. Nothing compares to the ache they felt in their own chest as Sarah locked eyes with her love one last time before she uttered the words, “I confess.”

In her final moments, as a traitor binds her in chains and assists in tying the rope around her neck, she’s tethered to him, to the land, so deeply and so fiercely. The truth would always be the Goode’s curse, Sarah made sure of that, had willed it with every fiber of her being until she had stopped breathing. For Henry, for Constance and all those other children, for The Widow, for Pastor Miller, for Merryboy, for all those who’d fall victim to the pact. 

For Hannah, who she’d never get to feel pressing her soft lips against her own or twirl around in her arms in broad daylight.

They watch Sarah get a proper burial, a crown made of something that they can’t quite pinpoint where they’d seen it before placed upon her head. A symbol of their love, of that night they had shared their first kiss.

A flash of red before scenes flicker in and out, generations of Goodes passing down their secret to prosperity as Shadyside worsens day by day. It seems never ending, until a familiar figure is the one muttering in disgust, “Ruby Lane.” But not before an image of the teenage girl shoving the man off of her after a choir performance hosted in City Hall appears briefly.

Sunnyvale High School was named one of the top ten schools in the country a couple days later.

The next moment fades in, a slightly older Joseph Goode with goat blood splattered across his robe. He offers Tommy’s name like it was nothing. As if it held no meaning.

They’re met with the all too familiar sight of the Hanging Tree. But that’s not all that’s there. Nick watches as he pleads and pleads to anyone who might be listening, none the wiser. Ziggy watches as he brings her back to life.

The two don’t get to process the sinking in their stomach before the scene shifts again and there’s that same emotionless look across Joseph Goode’s face as he spits out Michelle Walters’ name not even a month later.

A new park is built, and well, the Sheriff is more popular with Sunnyvale mothers than ever before, just in time for campaigning season coming up.

Everything goes black, something pushing them forward until—

━━━━━━━

Ziggy opens her eyes with a loud gasp.

Heavy pants fill the air as she struggles to catch her breath, overwhelmed and angry. So incredibly fucking angry.

Rising to her feet, she leans against the tree closest to her, attempting to ground herself. To let her mind know this was real.

She can hear Nick a couple feet away from her, hunched over, gagging before he throws up on the dirt beside him. She can’t even bring herself to be bothered by the smell. It doesn’t phase her. Not when she’s still processing what had just been unveiled right before her very own eyes.

Their body count seemed endless. All those people—

Her sister, god, Cindy.

It was all a lie. The witch’s curse was never real. All along, it’d been the Goodes. Cindy’s blood was on their hands.

Sarah’s life was stolen from her, and not even in death had she been able to rest, her name being tarnished, blamed for the massacres and the evil that plagued the town. A town she attempted to reach out to, in hopes of helping its inhabitants, desperately seeking to reveal the truth to them. A town that had turned on her.

She can feel the rage coursing through her veins, the tug on her stomach. The bitterness as she thinks about how that man had attended those funerals. Cindy’s funeral. He had given a fucking speech and made her feel like she was crazy, as if the memories that followed her around in the dark were nothing more than delusions caused by her trauma.

Something in her grows, the desire to get her hands on fucking Joseph—

“Ziggy.”

She whips her head around, staring down at the boy. Nick Goode, heir apparent, Sunnyvale royalty, is at his knees for her, the weirdo from Shadyside who had fought death and won. He looks absolutely wrecked, the shock and misery etched upon his face.

Nick looks her in the eyes and chokes out, “My family, my whole fucking family. All this time– God, my dad.” He pushes himself to his feet before continuing, his words coming out rushed and raw. “I didn’t know, I had no–I didn’t, fuck, I’m so fucking sorry. I promise you, I didn’t know.”

And she knows he’s telling the truth. If tonight’s proven anything, it’s that she can trust him. It doesn’t make it any easier. It won’t matter if he won’t do what she knows needs to be done to make this all right. 

(She ponders over one of the moments Sarah had shown them. A moment she’d never get used to seeing, as the world had faded to black for her a minute before Nick had even found her lifeless body. It was terrifying, watching her unmoving form, seeing the panic in his movements, hearing her first shaky breath.

Unbeknownst to her, Nick mulls over the same questions. Why had she shown them what had occurred under the Hanging Tree on That Night? What did it have to do with his family’s deal?)

“I know.” 

Even now, his eyes soften at that.

“Whatever we have to do, whatever you need, I’ll do it. I’ll help you fix this,” His tone is serious in a way it had never been, not even on That Night. “It’s why Sarah connected us. We’re meant to end this together.”

She purses her lips, willing her emotions down. “You know, we can’t kill the devil, Nick.”

Ziggy knows from the determined look on his face that he understands exactly what she means, because of course he does.

“So we’ll have to kill him.” His gaze is unwavering as he says, “We have to kill my dad.”

Behind her, she hears leaves crunching and someone murmur shit under their breath. She instantly recognizes the voice. Nick’s hand instinctively latches onto her own, pulling her back so he’s standing in front of her. He has that concerned and protective look in his eyes, the one he always seems to be carrying around.

The one she doesn’t know is reserved for her, and always has been. 

“Relax, I know him.” She moves around him, and he doesn’t protest. He trusts her.

Looking like a deer caught in headlights, Martin freezes his movements. “Hey, Berman.”

Relieved it was only him, but also annoyed because she clearly asked him to stay out of harm’s way, she sighs and walks over to him, Nick following close behind. She can feel the warmth of his body against her back.

“I thought I told you–”

“Yeah, yeah, stay in the car, I know. You forgot your flashlight,” Martin cuts her off. He lifts his hand up, revealing what he’d been carrying, holding it out for her. Then, more earnestly, “I didn’t want you walking around in the dark, okay?”

Ziggy softens, accepting the flashlight from him. “Thanks.”

It still makes her mind foggy, being cared about, even in such subtle and small ways. 

Remembering how Cindy always scolded her for never introducing herself, and how she mentioned a handful of times it was impolite to not introduce your guests to one another, she turns to Nick, “This is my friend, Martin. He gave me a ride.”

She doesn’t bother giving Nick an introduction.

Nick steps closer, his eyes scanning Martin. She can see the exact moment something clicks in his mind. “I know you.”

Martin questions at the same time as her, “You do?”

“The day after Michelle Walters–'' Nick pauses, his face pained. “My dad, he made me tag along to the station. He brought you in for questioning that day. Someone had tagged the family’s garage.”

The taller boy scoffs at the memory. “Sheriff Goode said they found spray cans in my car. Which was fucking bullshit but no one believed me because of course they didn’t.”

She remembers Martin mentioning it offhandedly at lunch one day, he tried to make it seem like it was nothing. Like it didn’t upset him. But it did. 

There was a time when Michelle Walters had been determined and caring and intelligent and giving and breathing. When she had been his best friend. The idea that he’d ever disrespect her home, dishonor her memory, it made his stomach churn and she knew it.

“So, did you guys do it?” Martin swiftly changes the topic.

Ziggy shares a look with Nick. He nods at her, a small encouragement.

“Y’know that whole Sarah Fier cursing Shadyside thing?”

Something in Martin’s face twitches, like he’s amused that she would even ask him something so obvious. “I’m familiar with it, yes.”

“It was all bullshit.” She can feel the anger coursing through her veins again. His forehead creases in confusion. “Sarah was innocent. This whole time.”

“What are you–”

Thump.

The color on Ziggy’s face drains at the familiar clanking of a metal bat hitting the ground, a sound that had been burned into her memories, contaminating her dreams. She clutches onto the flashlight in her hand as if it were a lifeline, trying to feel something other than the utter terror gnawing at her insides. 

She had bled on the bone. Again. If they had wanted her dead prior to Goode's deal being revealed, they definitely wanted her head now. 

“Ziggy—hear me?”

“…she okay?”

“…don’t—”

She can hear Nick voicing his concern and Martin asking what’s wrong, but her brain won’t let her focus on that.

Thump.

Suddenly, a much more forceful and feminine voice, “Ziggy!”

The redhead stumbles back slightly, ignoring their distressed faces in favor of frantically looking around in every direction. Every nerve in her body feels like it’s been set ablaze.

Thump.

Finally, they both seem to notice the recurring noise. Nick steps closer to her, while Martin asks, “What the hell was that?”

“Billy Barker,” she chokes out. 

Nick stiffens, his jaw tensing before he says, “We need to go. Now.”

━━━━━━━

“You two realize this is a lot of information to dump on someone right?”

Wind breezes through her hair, it’s nearing midnight now, and instead of tossing and turning in her bed until she gives in to the nightmares, she’s watching Nick rummage through the backseat of his car, aware of the impending doom they would soon face. 

She huffs at Martin, who’s anxiously looking around. “Yeah, we found out about all this like five minutes before you.”

Discreetly, she wrings her fingers, trying to hide the way she just can’t seem to stop them from shaking.

They’d managed to evade the bat-wielding child before he could find them, but it wouldn’t be long before he’d reach them. Or, even worse, before the other names on the wall would begin bleeding and make their way towards them. 

Nick had led them through the woods, until they’d reached the dirt road that greeted them at Camp Nightwing. He conveniently had kept them away from the grassy field where the Hanging Tree stood. Ziggy had encircled her hand around his wrist, gently squeezing it as a subtle thank you once they had reached his car. 

Before Martin can fire a retort back at her, Nick takes out a duffel bag, dropping it onto the hood of the car and unzipping it. 

Sensing their questioning looks, he explains, “I took it from my dad’s car, thought it might have something useful. Every cop has one for emergencies, or if you’re Sheriff Goode, two.”

There’s a beat of silence before Martin speaks up. “So, like, a goody bag?”

Nick, who had been reaching into it, halts, looking over at the taller boy as his lips formed into a small smile. “Yeah, like a goody bag.”

The three of them circle around the hood of the car, peering into the bag. Inside, there’s a first aid kit, a lighter, a pocket knife, two wrenches, a couple towels, a pair of handcuffs, a screwdriver, and—

“Fucking spray-paint?”

Martin yanks the can out, his eyes darkening as he studies the object in his hand. Ziggy watches him glance over at the Camp Nightwing sign, then back down at the can, his face twisting. Her lips part in a silent gasp as the pieces begin to come together, thinking of the words tagged on the Walters’ home.

Joseph fucking Goode.

Ziggy’s about to say something, anything to let Martin know he wouldn’t ever be alone in his anger, when she hears the pounding of a bat hitting the ground and a girl singing in the distance.

“You always hurt the one you love.”

Fresh terror pulses through her body.

The first time Ziggy had ever heard Ruby Lane’s voice, it had been as she and Cindy hovered over Alice’s body in the Mess Hall. They’d watched as her arm, which was morphing back into its full form and ridding itself of the black goo-like matter, crept out of the hole Cindy had just appeared from minutes before. 

The Mess Hall, which was about 100 feet away from them. The only other exit the killers would have had, from the alleged witch’s house, was blocked off by rubble. They were sitting ducks.

“Nick–”

Quickly, Nick shoves a wrench into her hand, tosses the lighter to Martin (who has never looked more lost), and grabs the pocketknife for himself. He turns them both towards the opposite direction they had come from, where she knew the tunnels would be waiting for them. But she also knew, could feel it in her bones, so would Sheriff Goode.

And by the look on Nick’s face, he could sense it, too.

“The one you shouldn’t hurt at all.”

Martin stumbles, nearly tripping when he catches a glimpse of the possessed teenage girl emerging from the Mess Hall. “Holy shit!”

Leaving the car behind, the three of them stride through the woods, their pace quickening as their paranoia worsens. She missteps at one point, her ankles buckle, but she doesn’t fall, catching herself. If Ziggy stops for just one second, she knows she’ll succumb to the fear trying to overpower her. She can’t. She won’t allow herself to. Not when she’s so close to ending all of this. 

Not until she watches the light go out of Joseph Goode’s eyes.

Ignoring the way her calves throb and the twinge of pain that she feels in her ankle with every step she takes, she keeps surging forward. 

It reminds her of the time she had broken her wrist trying to climb the big, ugly tree that resided in Shadyside Elementary School’s playground. She’d spent the entirety of recess scrambling up its branches, giggling to herself at the anxious look on her teacher’s face. 

For one split second, she had focused on something other than where to place her foot and the next thing she knew, she was slipping. 

In an attempt to save herself, Ziggy’s left wrist had taken the brunt of the fall. Her classmates gathered around her, waiting for a reaction. The slightest tremble of a lip, the twitch of a nose, anything. But it never came. Instead, she pushed herself to her feet and walked herself to the Nurse’s Office. 

(Cindy rushed in only five minutes later, a kid in her grade had mentioned seeing some girl fall out of a tree and apparently her older sister instincts told her she knew exactly who it was. She scolded her a bit, calling her reckless and irresponsible. 

But she also held onto Ziggy’s right hand until their mom came to pick them up.)

As they sprint around trees, Ziggy realizes how her and Nick seem to know the route to the tunnels like the back of their hand. After all, Sarah had shown them the way.

She’s not sure how long they’re running for, but eventually, something inside of her makes her stop. Beside her, Nick pauses. Martin nearly bumps into the two of them, but he catches himself at the last second.

“Guys?”

Ziggy inches forward. Her flashlight, which is illuminating the path for them, reveals a beat-down cottage, vines growing all over, windows covered by planks of wood, concealing anything that might’ve been inside. She can tell by its appearance that it clearly hasn’t been properly cared for in a very long time. Underneath the centuries of neglect, she sees it for exactly what it was. The birthplace of Union’s very own witch.

“Solomon’s house.”

“I think we should keep–”

Martin doesn’t get to finish his sentence. 

A loud metal clink echoes and when their heads snap in the direction the sound came from, they come face to face with the possessed eight-year-old. He firmly grasps onto his bat, wasting no time before swinging right at Ziggy. And he nearly succeeds, until she dives out of the way, the weapon inches away from making contact with the side of her skull. 

Billy doesn’t glance at Nick or Martin, it’s as if he doesn’t even notice they’re there. All he sees is Ziggy.

The young boy only gets to take one step towards her before Nick comes up behind him and slits his throat in one jagged motion, bits of black blood splattering across Ziggy’s face. Some of it stains Nick’s hands. Martin shrieks as Billy’s body falls, twitching ever so lightly before going limp.

There’s a haunted look on Nick’s face. His eyes widen as he stares at the bloodied knife in his hand, like he can’t quite wrap his head around what he had done. It’s one thing to know you’d have to be ready to kill someone, it’s another thing to actually do it. Even if the person he just killed was already dead.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, “That was really gross.”

His troubled expression subsides when he locks eyes with her, replaced with relief. He wipes his hands and the knife on his jacket before extending a hand out and helping her up.

Once she’s standing, she stares beyond Nick’s shoulder. A couple yards away, there’s a descending staircase, obscured by the darkness of the night sky. Instantly, she recognizes it, but before she can point it out to them, Martin cautiously steps towards Billy’s form. She’s about to ask him what he’s looking at when he tells them, “It’s moving.” 

“But I–”

“They come back,” Ziggy explains, interrupting Nick. “Tommy, he–after Cindy killed him, he came back.”

Black goo surrounds the upper part of Billy’s body, gushing out of his neck. It moves as if it were breathing, in and out, increasing in size each time. Almost like it was readying itself.

They needed to leave now. 

Ziggy tugs on Martin’s arm, pulling him back. “We have to get to the tunnels.”

In the midst of Billy Barker distracting them, Ziggy has no time to react to Ruby Lane appearing. Her eyes widen as the girl lunges at her.  All she can think of is that field, of Mary losing her daughter, of an innocent girl’s mind and body being beyond her own control. 

“Ziggy!”

Suddenly, a gust of heat erupts.

Martin.

The taller boy holds the lighter in front of the can of spray paint, yelling as a large and furious flame emits out of it. Ziggy stumbles back, in shock, watching as Ruby is engulfed in tints of yellows and oranges. Her arms flail, knife still in hand, looking for her. She manages to slice shallowly at Martin’s arm, causing him to groan out in pain, before she loses her grip on her weapon.

Eventually, she stops moving. Martin hesitantly puts down his makeshift flamethrower and sighs in relief when he sees her burned, twitching, black goo pouring out of it just as Billy’s had. “What the actual fuck.”

He cringes when he glances down at his arm, Ruby’s knife having torn through the material of his hoodie to make contact with skin, blood soaking down to the tips of his finger. Ziggy marches over and unties the bandana around his forehead, ignoring his protests. 

It turns out all her time in the infirmary with Nurse Lane was quite useful. Carefully, she drags his sleeve up, wincing slightly when he does. She wraps the material tightly around the wound. “This is just to stop the bleeding. We can worry about cleaning it later when we’re not running away from dead killers .”

Something snaps in the distance.

“That was only two,” Nick says, his voice strained. “More are going to keep showing up. Ziggy’s right, we need to get to the–”

“How do you know he’s even going to be there?” Martin interrupts, looking over at him wide-eyed.

“We can feel it.”

“What does that even–”

With a huff, Ziggy starts walking away. She only gets a couple steps forward before they both quiet down. Without glancing back, “Let’s go.”

She guides them in the direction of the stone stairs, leaving the sound of squelching behind. 

The walk over is quiet, all three of them too paranoid to say or do anything that could prevent them from hearing any nearby threats. When they reach the descending steps, she looks over at Nick, only to find him already staring back at her. There’s a question in his eyes, Are you ready to do this? 

Ziggy scans his face, wondering the same thing. It’s only when she nods that he does too. It hits her at that exact moment that he had meant what he said, regardless if he was truly prepared or not, he would’ve gone through with it for her. 

Flashlight in hand, she leads them down into near-darkness. 

The first thing Ziggy notices is the smell of smoke filling the cellar. She walks over to the wooden counter closest to the end of the stairs. There’s all kinds of creepy junk sprawled over it, but she focuses on the candles, eyes hardening as she watches the fresh wax dripping down their sides. 

Feeling Martin tug on her arm, Ziggy turns to face him, the taller boy staring at her with wide eyes, pointing over at an opening behind her. From where they’re standing, they can’t see much of the room, but that’s not what Martin was trying to show her. 

It was the way the room was illuminated by what she could only assume were freshly-lit candles. And it’s then that she realizes she knows exactly where that crawl-space leads to. Where Sarah had discovered the truth. Where Solomon and every first born Goode had extended their hand. Where Tommy’s name had been given, and Cindy’s death was fated.

In quiet moments like this, can still hear the sound of her sister choking on her own blood.

Ziggy straightens and walks deeper into the cellar before red can consume her thoughts. She finds Nick standing right in front of one of the walls, his body stiff. When she reaches him, she shines the flashlight over the wall, getting a better view of what he had been staring at.

A rack filled with what should’ve been gardening and wood chopping supplies, but looked more like weapons. There’s an empty slot and something inside of Ziggy churns. She doesn’t have to look at Nick to know he’s remembering the same part of the vision she is, when Tommy’s eyes had gone dark and unseeing as he reached for the axe closest to him.

The axe that–

“Come on.”

Nick secures an arm around her waist, guiding her and Martin against the wall where the opening was. Ziggy’s about to question him when she notices him pulling out the knife he had used earlier, nodding to himself as if he’d thought it might’ve disappeared in the past couple minutes, and then securing it back into the pocket of his jacket.

She knows exactly what he’s planning on doing, and she won’t let him.

“Are you serious?”

When Nick locks eyes with her, there’s no defensiveness in them, no signs of him readying himself to play hero. Instead, he smiles at her, fondness all over his face. As if he had expected her to protest. A sacrificial asshole is on the verge of her tongue, when he cups her face. “Before you say anything, I know I’m not doing this alone. We’re a team. But he doesn’t know that.”

“What–”

“I’ll go first. If he thinks it’s just me we have an advantage.”

Frustration bubbles inside of her. A glance over at Martin, and she knows he agrees with Nick’s plan. It makes sense, and she hates it.

Nick’s hands slip into her own, a sudden seriousness in his expression. “Just wait here until–”

“The second I see an opening, I’m killing him.” 

Ziggy watches Nick’s eyes flicker behind her, at Martin who’s leaning against the wall. It’s almost like they’re having their own conversation, a mutual understanding. Then, Nick’s attention is back on her and he’s scanning her face, as if he were committing it to his memory. 

He holds his index finger up to his lips and switches off her flashlight.

━━━━━━━

Before moving forward, Nick squeezes Ziggy’s hand, and she squeezes right back. It helps ease some of the tension in his body, though not all of it. 

Using his free hand, he feels for the knife in his pocket, needing some reassurance and sure enough, it’s there. With a shaky exhale, he goes on all fours, crawling through the opening.

His stomach sinks when he takes in the sight before him. There’s shelves filled with books, just looking at them makes him feel dirty, he has the sudden urge to scrub his skin clean until it's red. Surrounding the room, hundreds of names are engraved in stone, dried blood pouring out of them. As he rises to his feet, his eyes lock onto the one that sticks out the most, the one that belonged to the person he knew the best; Thomas Slater. 

And at the center of the room, carved into the ground, a symbol he’s become familiar with. A symbol from a memory that had been stolen from him. Dark, red blood filled every crevice of the Devil’s Mark, nearly filled to the brim. There’s a distinct smell to it, unmistakably fresh, but there’s also the pungent odor of rotting flesh clinging to the air. 

It’s a stench he’s become acquainted with.

Most notably, the passageway on the wall across from him isn’t blocked off like Ziggy had mentioned it had been after Cindy and Alice had escaped from Tommy. No, not at all. It was now a clear opening into the dark tunnels, and out of.

Which is why he’s not shocked to see his father emerge from the entry.

“Took you long enough, Nicky.” His father smiles at him, a sinister glint in his eyes. He’s still dressed in his uniform.

Nick’s hands ball into fists. He wants to yell at him, he wants to punch, he wants to shake him by the shoulders and ask him why? But he can’t do that, not yet. Instead, he nods his head swiftly and says, “Sir.”

Eyes rake over his body, observing him the way they always have. They narrow before his father hums, seeming to have found the answer he was looking for. 

“You found the body.”

“What body?”

It’s quick, too quick, they both know it.

His father steps closer, and Nick, he freezes. He towers over him, staring down at him, like he could see right through him. “I know that you know. Don’t lie to me, Nicholas. You were never good at it.”

Nick purses his lips, glancing over at the names that coated the walls. A fire erupts inside him when he reads the last three, the names he knew his father was responsible for. Unable to contain himself, he spits out, “How could you do this?”

The Goode patriarch simply blinks at him, as if the answer was obvious. When he realizes Nick’s question is genuine, he shakes his head and turns his back to him, beginning to pace around the space. He crosses over to one of the bookshelves, picking up a stack of papers that lay atop it.

He holds one of them up, revealing a newspaper clipping. Nick falters when he reads the heading:

GOODE SAVES THE DAY!

NIGHTWING MASSACRE’S SAVIOR IS SUNNYVALE’S VERY OWN GOLDEN BOY

“You were supposed to play hero, like I knew you would,” then, he mutters, “I underestimated how much.”

Another newspaper clipping is thrust into view, titled Survivor, C. Berman Saw the Witch. Nick doesn’t get the chance to scan the writing, his father reads it aloud for him, reciting it from memory. “ C. Berman was found in the woods. Her heart had stopped but,” He yanks the newspaper back, crumpling it up and tossing it aside, before gritting out, “ local boy performed CPR.”

Mind flashing back to That Night, to Ziggy lying on that field, motionless , his stomach sinks. He squeezes his fists, allowing himself to imagine it’s her hand enveloped in his. She’s alive, she’s breathing, and she’s a few feet away, most likely doing her best to refrain from jumping out right then and there.

His father studies him, his eyes twitching for a moment.

“When I first saw you clinging to that girl’s side like some leach, I thought it was shared trauma or some bullshit. Thought by the time you were back in school you’d forget all about her.” He laughs bitterly before continuing, “Then Will comes to tell me how you’ve been following her like a lost puppy for years.”

“Sir–”

“And I started thinking about that day. How odd it was that she survived. The way she kept going on and on about seeing the witch. Everyone called it a miracle, some sort of gift from God.”

Joseph stalks over to the Name Wall, his fingers grazing over Tommy’s. “I thought my sacrifice hadn’t worked, maybe one wasn’t enough anymore. Then it hit me.”

Nick, for the life of him, can’t figure out where his father is leading with this.

“I have no i–”

“My ungrateful son wasted my sacrifice to save Shadyside trash.”

He sees red, nothing but blind rage at the disgust in his father’s words. He can’t even think about the fact that his father had revealed it hadn’t been a shit ton of luck that had brought Ziggy back, but the Devil extending its hand towards him.

 “Don’t talk about her like that!”

The sound of skin meeting skin echoes in the room. Nick holds onto his stinging cheek, heat blooming. “Don’t ever raise your fucking voice at me! You are a child, I am your father. Everything you have is because of me , don’t you forget that.”

“At what cost?” Nick asks incredulously. “Innocent people being murdered? Kids being murdered?” 

“The world doesn’t care if we rid it of a couple of Shadysiders!”

Nick stumbles back, gaping at the man in front of him. “What is wrong with you?”

“Oh, spare the moral high ground bullshit. This is your legacy, Nicky, it always has been.”

“Not anymore. I don’t want any part of it.”

“You think you have any say in this?” His father chuckles darkly, shaking his head, as if Nick was naive to think otherwise. “The time will come for you to pay your due and give a name.”

The King of one of the most religious small towns in the country, a sacrificial Satanist. He‘d find it ironically hilarious if he wasn’t so terrified. “You’re insane.”

“If it’s insane to ensure this family’s prosperity then I proudly welcome that title.”

“Do you hear yourself? Sacrificing lives to give us success we didn’t earn or deserve?”

“God, you’re so weak. I’ve always known it, but I still hoped you’d man-up when the time came,” His father runs a hand through his graying-hair. “Maybe that’s on me.”

Nick lets out a disbelieving laugh, devoid of any humor. “Weak?”

“Yes. Strength is measured by the lengths you’ll go to in order to protect what is yours and the people you love. I’ve done all of this for our family, yet you can’t find it in yourself to do the same.”

“This isn’t love, or strength, or whatever bullshit you’ve been telling yourself. This is nothing but weakness and greed,” Nick looks up at his father, chin up, as he grits out, “You’re pathetic.”

The older man’s face twists, something sinister clouding his eyes for a flicker of a second, then it’s gone, as if it was never there. He edges closer to Nick, towering over him. Then, in a frighteningly calm tone, “What’s pathetic is the way that bitch will be begging for me to spare her meaningless life.”

Letting out a furious yell, Nick lunges at his father, ready to plunge the knife into his chest. Joseph dodges the blade, grabbing hold of Nick, twisting his wrist until it falls to the ground with a clatter. The younger Goode pushes at his father, going to reach for the fallen weapon, only to be shoved against the wall, names pressed against his back.

Joseph snarls at him, seething in anger. 

He always thought he had seen the extent of father’s rage. There’d been so many times he was on the receiving end of it. 

Nights where he’d get sent to his room with a stinging cheek or a swollen eye, tears only pouring down his cheeks once he had locked the door behind himself. His father’s booming voice playing on a loop in his head, telling him he needed to learn his lesson. That he needed some sense knocked into him, to be reminded of what Goode family values were.

The memory that had been unlocked, the one his father had attempted to get rid of, Nick can remember it so clearly now. The fog had cleared, and in its place was the moment he had walked into his father’s study. He couldn’t have been there any longer than two minutes when the book he had been skimming was slammed shut and he was shoved against a shelf.

After all these years, he can now remember the outrage and utter resentment in the eyes of the man who was supposed to protect him. He can also remember the dread that settled in his belly, the way he had feared for his life in that moment. 

The way he thought maybe he had done something that made him deserving of the punishment he knew was coming.

(He can still feel the pain that shot up his spine, before his father had yanked him by the arm and thrown him out. Minutes later, as he cried into his sheets, he would not be able to recall why he had been so upset. He would forget all about the marking he had seen in the book and why a bruise was forming across his backside.)

He believed the worst had already come. Of course, he was wrong.

A fist swings at his face, once then twice. The bitter taste of blood encompasses his mouth, some of it dribbling out of his mouth. Nick attempts to shrink away, to escape his father’s hold, but he doesn’t let up. Joseph growls in anger as he connects his knuckles to his jaw with a pop.

“Dad–”

Calloused hands roughly wrap around his throat, slamming his head into the wall. His father’s nostrils flare, his eyes dark and filled with utter hatred. His nails dig into his father’s hands as he attempts to pry them off of his neck.

“Don’t call me that! You made me do this, Nicky. This was your fault! I wasn’t planning on killing you, just her, but I will.”

Nick tries to say something, say anything, but all that comes out are ragged gasps as the grip around his neck tightens. His vision blurs, beginning to lose consciousness. 

Before the world can go dark, the pressure vanishes and he slides down the wall to keep from falling. He lets out shallow, deep breaths, air finally entering his lungs.

━━━━━━━

Despite Martin’s attempts to hold her back, Ziggy manages to wrench herself out of his arms. All she can hear is Nick struggling to breathe, and the indifference in his father’s voice as he unashamedly confessed to what he’s done.

Hastily, she crawls through the opening. For a moment, all she can see is Joseph Goode, his back turned to her, then she catches sight of Nick, his father’s hands around his neck and for the first time, looking so incredibly small. 

Rage twists inside of her. 

A couple feet in front of her, Ziggy recognizes Nick’s knife, discarded. Quickly, she reaches forward and grasps onto it, before rising to her feet. Her knuckles whiten around the handle of the knife, as she thrusts it into the man’s shoulder. She doesn’t hesitate. It’s almost second-nature, really. 

Something inside of her lightens.

She watches as Joseph’s grip loosens and he stumbles, groaning out in pain. Nick collapses against the wall, heaving, but alive. Her relief is short-lived. 

As Ziggy attempts to plunge the knife into him again, Joseph whips around and backhands her, as if it were nothing. She falls to the ground, the knife clattering beside her, and the air momentarily knocking out of her as she lands roughly on her side. 

The anger, the rage, the fury, every emotion she possessed, swirled inside of her, growing harder and harder to contain.

Ziggy ignores the pain blooming along her body, gripping onto the knife, and pushing herself to her feet. She nearly misses the glimpse of Joseph vanishing into the tunnels. Just as she’s about to trudge over–

“Ziggy!”

Martin scrambles out of the cellar and to his feet. His eyes are wide as he scans the room, before landing on the carved names. He lingers on Michelle’s name.

The redhead clenches her jaw, tightening her hold on the knife. She glances over at Nick, who sounds a little less in pain with every breath he takes. “Stay here. Don’t let him fall asleep.”

Nick moves to push himself up. “Wait, Ziggy–”

Before either of them can get another word out, Ziggy rushes over to the cavern entrance, crawling in. She pushes herself up and turns her flashlight on, descending into the still darkness. It’s eerily quiet, with the exception of the faint rhythmic sound of something she can’t quite place, and a buzzing. There’s a smell to match it, much stronger than the one that accompanied any of the possessed killers, but still similar.

As she walks deeper into the tunnels, Martin and Nick’s voices are drowned out, and the sound grows louder with every step — as does the smell. A pulse. 

It feels as if someone is pointing her in the right direction, telling her which turn to take, what turns will just lead her right back to where she was. A part of her knows it’s just Sarah, but the other part of her is hoping it’s Cindy, guiding her even in death.

“Joseph!”

She continues to follow the sound of flies until she reaches the end of a pathway, branching off into a wider space. Instantly, the stench of rotting flesh hits her.

Tentatively, Ziggy steps into the cavern, resisting the urge to gag. The stone floor beneath her is covered in black goo, some of it latching onto her shoes. She flashes her light towards the center of the room, and low and behold, a beating lump of flesh, flies swarming all around it.

Satan’s very own beating heart, residing in Shadyside’s soil.

“Solomon forged this place with nothing but words and stone!” Joseph calls out in the distance. “Awakening this power from the depths of the Earth.”

Ziggy clutches onto the knife, still stained with his blood.

The man lets out a sinister laugh, closer than he had been before. “He extended his hand to the darkness for my family, for me! Three hundred years it’s lived, grown. We cultivated it. We’ve sacrificed for it! 

At her feet, Ziggy notices the beginning of a trail of blood. It stretches on beyond her, stopping at one of the tunnel paths. Her pulse quickens as Joseph slowly steps out from the darkness, disgust in his eyes, and a menacing scowl on his face.

“And you think you can stop it?”

With a yell, Ziggy lunges at him. She swings the blade at him, managing to slash at a piece of his forearm. He lets out a hiss and grabs a fistful of her hair, yanking on her red locks, before shoving her to the ground, right next to the heart.

White-hot pain pierces through her spine, a breathless whine escaping her lips. She goes to grasp onto the knife in her hand once more, only to find it had escaped her hold, along with her flashlight. 

A looming presence hovers above her, grinning down at her as he holds the knife up. “Looking for this?”

Joseph forces her back down when she attempts to lift herself up, straddling her. She thrashes beneath him, desperately trying to push him off to no avail. He pins his arm forcefully onto her chest, holding the knife inches from her throat. 

“You know, I didn’t think you’d put up this much of a fight. I can see why Nicky liked you so much, the challenging ones are always worth remembering. You all just need to be tamed.” He tuts, eyes wild.

Ziggy grits her teeth, groaning. 

“You’re gonna be famous.” He drawls. “Shadyside’s local nut-job makes the front page! Poor Christine Berman, the sole survivor of the Nightwing Massacre, so overridden by guilt and the grief of losing her sister, she just snaps .” 

At the mention of Cindy, she snorts back her saliva before spitting it out, landing right on his cheek. His face twitches with anger, pressing down on her chest harder. 

“Kills her friend, and the Goode heir responsible for saving her worthless life. I arrive at the scene too late for them, but I get there right on time to stop you. I can see all the headlines,” He continues, her spit dripping onto his chin.

The redhead lets out a feral shout, swatting at his arm, flailing her body. Joseph holds the knife closer to her throat. His expression shifts, darkening, resembling something almost demonic. 

“And they’re going to give me a fucking medal.”

Ziggy closes her eyes, willing her tears away. She had one chance, one chance to end all of this. To clear Sarah’s name. To avenge Cindy. To ensure that no Shadysider would ever have to carry around more losses than anyone should ever suffer through again.

And she fucking blew it.

She wasn’t brave enough or strong enough, not like they were.

“Ziggy…”

Her eyes snap open. 

Joseph is still snarling at her, his lips moving, but she can’t hear what he’s saying. All she can hear is the frantic buzzing, the thumping, and the whispers of a feminine voice. No. Voices.

The first one Ziggy recognizes isn’t Sarah’s, it’s Cindy’s stubborn, yet gentle, tone. If she closes her eyes, she can pretend it’s the day before Camp, when she was ushering Ziggy to finish packing. A tear streams down her cheek. 

“The truth shall be his curse…”

The whispers grow louder, more insistent. Cindy, Sarah, the two other unfamiliar voices, and the buzzing, they don’t overpower the thumping of–

She twists, narrowly avoiding the blade hovering an inch above her skin. She locks her eyes onto the beating heart. 

The thumping.

Ziggy cries out, using all her strength to grab hold of his arm, slamming his hand onto the rotting flesh.

Almost instantly, the weight on her lessens. 

Joseph’s eyes go dull and wide, staring off, and the knife in his hand falls with a clatter. Suddenly, he yanks his hand away, jolting off of her. He rises to his feet, a haunted expression on his face. He paces frantically through the cavern, his body twitching as he whips his head in every direction.

Grabbing onto the fallen knife, Ziggy pushes herself up. In front of her, Joseph continues to pace around, as if trying to outrun something she can’t see. He stumbles over his feet, nearly bumping into her. 

She’s never seen him look so horrified. 

It turns out, stabbing him the second time is even easier than the first. 

She pulls the knife out of the side of Joseph’s cheek, watching as he loses his balance and attempts to regain it by leaning against one of the stone walls, until he eventually falls with a loud moan. Blood continues to pour out of his face.

Flames of satisfaction and anger licked through her. 

Ziggy straddles him, just as he had been moments before. She plunges the knife into his chest. Then his stomach. His arm. His side. Any piece of flesh she could reach, over and over again.

Distantly, she can hear footsteps and two voices calling out for her, getting closer. 

But Ziggy doesn’t stop, she doesn’t want to..

She thinks of the way he held her down at Cindy’s funeral, how he scolded her for being emotional. How he played mediator and gave a fucking speech.

She thinks of the way his eyes bore into her as he stared down at her in the early morning hours as paramedics wheeled her away. No remorse, no sympathy, just indignation. As if all the children who would never come back home were nothing more than another Shadyside tragedy. As if her surviving that night was a burden.

For the past three months, Ziggy would often lie awake at night, usually after her nightmares, and imagine she was back in that field. That she was still reaching out to Cindy, and the second she closed her eyes again, she would join her. Be at peace with her.

Now, as Joseph Goode’s blood spills out, splatters across her face, stains her hands red, she thinks it's the closest to peace she’ll ever get.

The footsteps come to a halt, someone shouting Oh shit! The man beneath her sputters. He opens his mouth to say something, but she doesn’t let him.

Ziggy yanks his head forward by his hair, leaning in close to him. She holds the knife against his Adam’s apple, then mutters, “I have a different headline in mind.”

Slowly, she presses the knife down, breaking into his skin, and slices across his throat, before letting his head fall back down with a thump . The King of Sunnyvale goes lifeless, eyes still open and unseeing. 

At the center of the chamber, the pulsing mass of flesh dissolves into the cracks beneath the surface.

Ziggy climbs off of him, tossing the knife aside. When she turns around, Nick and Martin are standing there, the latter helping support the other’s weight. 

Nick untangles himself from Martin, staggering a bit. She expects him to look at her differently, to care about the red spilled all over her. Instead, he sinks to the ground and pushes the stray hairs away from her face, blood smearing onto his hands in the process.

“Are you okay?” He asks, eyes raking all over her body, with the same look he always has. The one she knows now has always been reserved for her only.

She exhaled shakily. “Ask me again tomorrow.”

Nick lets out a watery laugh and tugs her into his chest. Ziggy melts into his embrace, the last couple of hours, everything they had just done, finally catching up on her. 

“You did it.”

She pulls away from Nick, looking up at Martin, who’s staring at her with a gleam in his eyes. 

“We did it.” She corrects.

Nick interlaces his fingers with Ziggy’s, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

They lift themselves off of the ground. Then, almost in sync, all three of them glance back. Ziggy glares at Joseph Goode’s motionless body. Something swells in her chest. Pride, hatred . When she looks over at Nick, she finds the same emotions written all over his face. 

But there’s something else too. Relief.

The trio walk through the tunnels, crawling back through the opening they had gone through. When they reach the candle-lit cavern, the names etched upon the walls slowly disappear. The Witch's Mark on the floor, that had once been filled with blood, fades away, as if it had never been there.

Still residing at the center of the chamber, Ziggy sees the Widow’s battered book. She bends down to grab it. At their confused faces, she explains, “We need to destroy it. Make sure no one’s tempted by it ever again.”

“We could burn it,” Martin offers.

Ziggy nods, agreeing.

“Do you still have the lighter?” Nick asks. “We could burn it down here.”

“No, wait–”

The two boys stare at her, waiting for her to finish. 

Ziggy looks at Cindy’s bag, strapped over Martin’s shoulder. A sad smile forms on her lips. “We’re missing someone.”

Nick’s brows furrow for a moment, before his eyes fill with understanding. 

He squeezes her hand and she squeezes back, before guiding them towards another opening. When she reaches it, she notices it’s different then the one they had originally gone through. It leads to a dark, long hallway with a stone staircase at the end of it. They clamber up the stairs, much more stable than the ones from the cellar.

As she nears the top of the staircase, she finally catches sight of the exit, a low door, with a silver doorknob. She reaches forward, turning the knob, and opening the door.

Ziggy crawls through the space, taking in the room standing before her. Bookshelves surround the walls, curtains are drawn over a window on the wall opposite them, goat heads are plastered here and there, and a couple feet away from her, there’s a desk.

She hears a small intake of breath behind her. Nick climbs out, Martin right behind him. 

“Where the fuck are we?” Martin asks, the same question on the tip of her tongue.

Somehow, she knows. At that moment, she’s not sure how she does, but the reason becomes clear much later, with startling clarity. Her and Nick, their souls were bonded. They always had been.

“It’s his office.”

She gazes at Nick, whose eyes are burning holes into the low door. “It was here the entire time.”

Briefly, Nick closes his eyes, taking a deep breath to collect himself, before opening them and leading them out of his father’s study. 

They reach the hallway, leaving muddied and bloody footsteps behind on the white carpet. When they round the corner, they enter the living room. Nearly all the furniture it white, the only life being in the goats decorating the walls. Ziggy halts, looking at the Goode family tree framed above the fireplace.

“Jesus Christ,” Martin scoffs.

She snorts, catching Nick’s attention. “You know, at least we get to skip the whole introducing me to the family thing.”

He lets out a small laugh, eyes brightening up a little, then continues forward. Right as they make it towards the front door, she hears someone shriek. Their heads all snap towards the source of the sound. Will stands at the top of the staircase, staring down at them all in shock. Then, he glares directly at Ziggy and Martin. “What the hell are they doing here, Nick?”

Nick lets out a tired sigh and turns around, ignoring his brother’s questions, opening the door for her and Martin. 

Ziggy raises two fingers up to her temple and salutes Will goodbye, grinning when he continues staring at her bewildered, and walks out into the early morning. She hadn’t realized how much time must have passed while they were down in the tunnels. It’s October 31st, she realizes, Halloween. 

As they walk across Nick’s front yard, she looks across the street at the Sunnyvaler in his driveway, about to drive off to work. He’s gawking at them, clearly bewildered. They must make quite the sight, Nick Goode walking out with two Shadysider’s, drenched in grime and blood.

She considers flipping him the bird, when, suddenly, as he’s backing out, a truck slams right into the side of his car. 

━━━━━━━

“All is no longer good in Sunnyvale. New evidence continues to surface implicating Union County Sheriff Joseph Goode, the Sunnyvale serial killer. The latest being his failed attempt to murder sixteen-year-old Shadysiders, Christine Berman and Martin Franklin, as well as his eldest son.

His wife has since then publicly denounced him, claiming that their family had no knowledge of Sheriff Goode’s horrifying secret prior to Halloween morning.

Nicholas Goode, who is the heir to the Goode family fortune, has recently announced his plans of donating the fortune to welfare programs in Shadyside. A source tells us he is currently working to create a local scholarship for Shadyside High School seniors, in honor of a Nightwing Massacre victim, Cindy Berman.”

━━━━━━━

Ziggy knocks on the wooden door in front of her, Nick and Martin standing behind her. 

For a couple of seconds, there’s silence. She clutches the Widow’s book and the journal against her chest, nervously biting on the insides of her cheek. She feels Nick grab a hold of her free hand, squeezing it. A silent reminder that he was there, whenever she wanted him to be, whenever she needed him to be.

Then, the door opens.

Nurse Lane peeks out, a guarded look on her face, until she locks eyes with the redhead. She opens the door wider, stepping aside for them to come in. “Ziggy? Is everything alright?”

Ziggy smiles softly at her, holding out the two books for her. Nurse Lane looks down at them and, though confused, accepts them. Before she can bombard them with any questions, Ziggy wraps her arms around the tired woman.

Her eyes water as she says, “It’s over.”

Chapter Text

It’s easy to camouflage in the summer night, the only source of light this late being the moon and stars above. The sound of a foot crashing into a  large metal watering can echoes loudly as it hits the concrete. She halts her in her tracks, panic seizing through her.

We’re dead, she thinks.

She’s already thinking of all the ways Mr Corkle is going to tear them a new one, when her sister holds a steady hand on her shoulder. “You have to be quiet or you’ll blow our cover,” Cindy whispers. “Can you do that for me, Ziggy?”

Beside her, Alice smiles at her reassuringly. Looking up at the both of them, Ziggy nods and mimes locking her lips.

Cindy leads the way around the back of the house. While Alice had joked about sneaking into his garden to catch a glimpse of those daffodils Cindy loved so much, Cindy was the one who convinced them it was worth a try so she could steal one to press into her flower book. Always so headstrong, so stubborn.

(She had admitted through fits of laughter her dream wedding. An elegant affair right next to the ocean, arrangements of those yellow beauties at every table. There were no beaches near Shadyside, Ziggy had made sure to remind her. Cindy only scoffed before Alice had turned their attention back to the flowers.)

When they reach their destination, Cindy squeals quietly, pulling her accomplices down to kneel with her. Right in front of them, a beautiful garden filled with all sorts of flowers in different states of growing. Ziggy had only ever seen most of them in library books and now they were mere inches away from her.

“They’re so beautiful,” Cindy whispers, too focused on the cluster of daffodils to notice Alice’s gaze on her.

Ziggy leans closer to inspect the white flower nearest to her. “It’s a moonflower!”

Cindy shushes her, grin still in place. 

A light inside the house turns on. The excitement on her sister’s face vanishes, replaced by fear. Immediately, Cindy begins to lead them away before Mr Corkle can find them with their noses in his garden.

As they run down the street, giggling all the way home, Ziggy realizes that Cindy never got the daffodil she’d wanted so desperately.

She is eight and Cindy is ten, and she believes they have all the time in the world, not yet aware of the rot on the soil they call home.

━━━━━━━

Ziggy Berman is eighteen when she leaves Shadyside.

The Union County Cemetery is cleaner than the last time Ziggy had been here — more cared for. Beneath her, the grass doesn’t crunch and there’s no stray trash surrounding the graves. More importantly, the spray paint on certain graves has been washed off.

Nick had made sure of that personally.

It’s nearing the end of spring now, the sun glaring down on her, but she pays it no mind. Not when her attention is solely on the plot she hovers near. There’s fresh flowers laying near the headstone, more than the last time she was here, the only time she had ever been here. A teddy bear stares up at her, its paws holding a heart. She doesn’t know why, but it gives her the courage she needs to speak.

“I’m sorry for not visiting sooner” Ziggy shifts on her feet, trying her hardest to not fracture into pieces, not when she’s spent the past year and half trying to put herself back together again. “It’s still hard for me, I guess.

She’s met with silence.

“I asked Nurse Lane if this whole thing ever gets easier. She said it becomes this sort of numbing feeling, that the pain’s still there but it doesn’t feel like you’re going to be crushed by it.”

Ziggy glances at the words in front of her:

CINDY BERMAN

Beloved daughter, sister, and friend.

July 23, 1960 - July 19, 1978

Blinking away her tears, “I think it’s gonna take me a while to get there.”

Even with him gone, even knowing that he’s currently experiencing the Devil’s wrath, he still lingers. Her sister’s resting place was contaminated by his touch, the money for the plot and headstone donated by him. It was over, but Joseph Goode’s hold on her would never let up.

Her and Nick have the scars to prove it.

Refocusing on why she was here, Ziggy clears her throat. “I’ve thought about it a lot and I think maybe leaving Shadyside is what I need. What Nick and I need.”

The first time the idea popped into her head, when graduation seemed to be sneaking up closer and closer, she was overcome with a wave of self-hatred. How could I be so selfish, she thought. She hadn’t been able to get out of bed for two days, wanting nothing more than to punish herself for even considering leaving.

Shadyside had never been kind to her, she had never truly belonged, not really. Ridding the town of its curse was bigger than her own personal feelings. It had always been bigger than her. She hadn’t ever really thought about sticking around long enough to watch the town begin to heal.

She wouldn’t be leaving Shadyside.

(It would be just fine without her, twenty years from now, the lingering fear would have dissolved. They had saved the town from any potential tragedies and Mrs Goode had given Nick her word that she would take care of overseeing the funding of Shadyside’s welfare programs once he decided it was time to transfer from the local community college.)

No, in her mind, she was leaving more than just Shadyside— or even her mom, who, although was sober and had been attending a support group for alcoholics for several months now, still looked at Ziggy with the same disdain she had the moment she laid eyes on her in that hospital after Nightwing.

She would be leaving Cindy, whose body rotting six feet under with every passing day. Cindy, her big sister who she was now older than.

Who never got cheer her on from the audience as she threw her graduation cap into the air.

Martin and Nick had eventually dragged her out of her room, not even flinching at the stench of her breath. Nick had shown up with groceries, claiming he had been wanting to try cooking a new recipe for quite some time. 

“Nick, he–” An involuntary smile twitches on her lips when she says his name, the way it has for quite some time. “He made me talk about whatever the hell was going on up here. I’ve gotten better at it — talking, opening up — at least that’s what the school counselor says.”

She still has bad days, where her words come out a bit too harshly and those walls she had torn down since that Halloween night seem all too appealing. Safe. Deep down, she knows they’ll never truly cease. Selfishly, it makes her feel a little less alone knowing that both Nick and Martin have them too. 

Ziggy can feel the tears threatening to fall. She sniffs, knowing that if she didn’t get this out now, she never would. “He helped me realize that you wouldn’t have wanted me to stay here. That you wouldn’t hold it against me.”

She stares down at the bouquet in her hands. 

“That maybe getting out of here would be the best way to honor you.” 

Shakily, Ziggy leans down and carefully places the yellow daffodils against the headstone. That all too familiar presence, the one she feels more strongly in moments where her grief feels too heavy, surrounds her. Oftentimes, it’s reminiscent of Cindy’s hugs during a night of loud, booming thunder.

Familiar footsteps sound behind her, but Ziggy does not flinch.

Never from him.

Nick intertwines their fingers, giving her a comforting squeeze when he saddles up beside her. “You ready?”

Blinking away her tears, she turns to look at him. He’s let his hair grow out a bit more since that fall. It’s not long, not at all, but it’s not as short as it used to be, either. Sometimes, she runs her hands through it, her fingers lingering on the curls near his neck. Without his comb over, he looks less like that anxious, repressed boy she knew at Nightwing.

Most importantly, Ziggy thinks he looks more sure of himself.

(More brave.)

Which makes it easier to squeeze his hand right back, those butterflies in her belly that have never gone away making themselves known when he gives her a comforting smile. “Ready.”