Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The cabin burns.

And it burns, and burns, and burns.

All through the night, well into the morning. None of the remaining survivors dare move from their spot in the snow and ice, unwilling onlookers of a fiery play they didn’t ask to attend. 

It must have been midday by the time the last of the embers have molted from red to charred black. Nat releases a breath that felt as if she’d been holding since she was first awoken from her slumber to the smell of burning wood, burning her eyes, licking at her skin-

She lurches forward towards the disintegrated ash that was once their home.

“C’mon,” she croaks, voice wavering from disuse and the smoke’s damage. “We gotta see if there’s anything we can salvage.” 

Tai, Misty, and Mari come to at her words. Nat turns around and makes for the cabin, too scared to see if the others hold her orders to any weight yet. This whole leadership thing was fucking terrifing, and it’s just her goddamn luck that not even a day after Lottie anointed her their queen that it would all go up in flames. 

Literally. 

She’s kicking rubble in what she thinks might have been the pantry when she hears Van.

“ Jesus, Lottie, c’mon!” she pleads, and Nat pivots to face the source of the commotion. 

Van has her hands gripped on Lottie’s shoulders, shaking the other girl frantically. Nat doesn’t have to see her face to know that she’s crying, but she can see that Lottie is wholly and entirely unaffected, eyes glazed over, seeing but very much… not. If Nat didn’t know any better, she’d think that Lottie wasn’t aware that their home had been reduced to shambles at all. 

“You’ve gotta be fucking with me,” Nat mutters under her breath, navigating her way through the tumultuous remains of the cabin to where the two girls are standing. 

“Lot. Hey, Lot,” Nat says as she approaches, snapping her fingers in front of the brunette’s face. 

Nothing. 

Fantastic. Just fucking fantastic. Not only is she the newly anointed leader of their fucked-up, boderline-cannibalistic, definitely-not-entirely-mentally-sound group, but the only person that said group generally tended to listen to has suddenly gone catatonic. 

Van and Nat exchange a look, and the blonde is taken aback by the sheer amount of fear in the other’s eyes. She knew the redhead had been participating in Lottie’s little prayer circles for a while now, but she’s starting to think she’d underestimated the nature of their friendship.

But honestly, she gets it. For the past… however many months they’d been stuck out here, she and Lottie hadn’t exactly seen eye to eye. But before their lives became actual living hell? 

She’d considered Lottie her friend, to be honest. 

And while nearly everyone’s pre-crash relationships had gone up in flames right alongside the plane, Nat sometimes felt the teeniest tug on her heartstrings, bringing her back for a moment to a simpler time. 

To Lottie, joining her in silence in an empty classroom during their lunch period, mindlessly asking Nat for song recommendations and going on and on about the latest episode of ER. 

Lottie, who Nat had stumbled across alone in Jackie’s backyard during the last team slumber party before States, staring up into the sky before asking Nat if she “thought the stars could read their minds”.

Lottie. Sweet, delicate, far-too-caring Lottie. The only member of the team who’d shown up at Nat’s house the day after her dad died. Sure, Nat had slammed the door in her face, but she’d secretly regretted it every day since.

Nat sighs, raking her fingers through her hair. 

“Alright. Um… okay, let’s just sit her down here for now,” Nat mutters, brushing the snow coating a log. “D’you mind keeping an eye on her? Just to make sure she doesn’t…” she trails off, but Van knows what she’s thinking. 

“F’course. Let me know if you need anything, okay?” Nat flashes her a grateful smile, and returns to the lost cause of a cabin.

***

Their search only lasts another hour. It’s a fruitless one, and they all know it. In the end, they manage to scrounge a couple of cast iron skillets, the slightly-melted remains of their second hunting knife, and a miraculously intact suitcase.

Lottie still hasn’t so much as twitched, and the others are staring at Nat expectantly. She clears her throat, trying to buy herself a few seconds to figure out what the hell she’s supposed to do here. It doesn’t help. 

No amount of time could get them out of this shitshow. 

“Uh, I guess we should, um… we need a place to sleep tonight. It doesn’t need to be pretty, just needs to keep us from freezing to death.” She winces at her last words, intentionally not looking at Shauna. The others stare back blankly. After an uncomfortable few seconds of silence, Tai speaks up.

“We could use the meat shed, for tonight at least. Not like there’s anything in there anyways.” Nat nods slowly.

“Yeah, that’ll work. How many blankets did we manage to save?” The group haphazardly raises theirs in the air (sans Lottie, still sitting down, unseeing). Between the eleven of them, they have a blanket each, plus a couple extra. Nat lets out a minute sigh of relief.

“Good. Good. And in the morning-” she hesitates, trying to keep her next words as neutral as possible, “Javi had told me about… about a place. Where I would be safe from…” she trails off, shaking her head. A brief flash of white and blue, of her friends lunging at her with axes and knives and their fists, of Javi flailing beneath the ice comes to mind. She shoves it away as quickly as it came.

“Anyways, it’s worth a shot. To find whatever place he survived in for months.” She’s met with nods and murmurs of agreement.

Her ragtag team begins making their way to the once-pathetic shed that they’d managed to convert to a semi-functioning meat storage unit. And then Mari speaks.

“What about Coach?”

Nat freezes, whirling around.

“What about him?”

“He tried to kill us, Nat,” Tai bites out. From the corner of her eye, the blonde can see Misty furiously shaking her head.

“We have no way to know that it was him-”

“For God’s sake, Misty, who else would’ve done it?” snarls Akilah.

“Enough,” Nat whispers, fists clenched at her side.

“Shauna was pretty upset when Lottie named Nat queen.”

“Oh you cannot seriously be accusing me of doing this-”

“ENOUGH!” The word practically roars out of her this time, effectively freezing the warring girls in their place. She locks eyes with Van who sends her a reassuring nod, an unsteady Lottie glued to her side.

“Pointing fingers isn’t gonna miraculously resurrect the cabin,” she breathes in, stilling herself for her next words. “But Mari’s right. Ben’s made it clear he doesn’t want anything to do with us. And if he’s the one who did this…” she trails off, but Shauna immediately picks up where she left off.

“He needs to be punished.”

***

They make it through the night. Huddled together for warmth, with the world’s most pathetic fire burning low in the center of the shed. Nat had been against lighting one initially, worried that the smoke would suffocate them in their sleep, but Tai and Shauna had managed to create a makeshift chimney, allowing it to have an escape. 

Nat had slept uneasily, jerking awake every half hour or so to double-check that the team (Lottie) was still breathing. 

The taller girl was awake most of the night, too, Nat noticed, though she was sure she was caught in some sort of nightmare regardless. She was relieved when Lottie finally passed out, an hour or so before dawn. The blonde traced the outline of her face with the shadows from her fingers, taking note of the still-healing cuts and bruises marring her face.

In the faint morning light, she’d never looked so young.

They all were, really. Girls, uprooted from their lives and forced to become so, so much more than that.

Or in Lottie’s case, a girl forced to become a God. 

Nat sighed as she sat up and rubbed the remaining sleep from her eyes. She quickly laced up her boots and stood, nudging Travis awake with her foot.

“Get up. We need to get moving,” she whispered. Travis groaned, rolling over and opening his eyes.

“ We? Shouldn’t you, y’know… stay back here?”

Nat scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“Why the fuck would I do that? I’m one of the two people in this room capable of using a gun.” 

Travis hesitated, clearly debating his next words.

“Nat. You’re in charge here. Don’t you think you should stay where it’s safe?”

“I think,” she hisses out, “that as leader, I can do whatever the fuck I want.” 

At that, Travis relents, and they head out in search of a miracle place that very well may not even exist.

***

She hangs her head low when she and Travis return to their makeshift home that night. Hours and hours of searching, only to come up empty. Their only consolation prize is a lone winter hare, caught in one of the snares she’d reset on their way out that morning. 

In their absence, Tai, Shauna, and Akilah managed to patch up some of the holes in the structure and cleared out their firepit area so they had somewhere to cook. That, at least, had survived the fire.

Nat shudders as she enters the meat shed, met with the sight of a barely-conscious Lottie laying with her head in Van’s lap, breaths coming out as shallow puffs. 

“Any change?” Nat asks. Van shakes her head.

“Got her to take a couple sips of water, but besides that… it’s like she’s just gone, Nat.” 

The hunter nods solemnly, blinking hard as she looks at Lottie’s lifeless eyes, staring at some unseeing thing just past Nat’s left shoulder. 

If the blonde thinks about it too much, it almost resembles the state her mother was in after her dad shot himself. The blank stares, the barely functioning, not doing enough to keep herself alive, please mom please just get the fuck up we’re out of food and they’re gonna turn our goddamn electricity off if you don’t mail this bill-

“If you want a break, I can sit with her for a while,” Nat says suddenly, doing everything in her power to make her brain shut the fuck up. Van nods, smiling slightly.

“That’d be good, I wanna check in with Tai about. Well. You know. Plus, my legs were seriously starting to fall asleep,” the redhead deadpans, and Nat has to restrain herself from grinning and the tiny glimpse of the old Van that she just saw. 

They do a quick dance of sorts to switch spots without jostling Lottie too much, not that the brunette noticed either way. Nat tucked the blanket under her chin and brushed some wayward hairs from her face.

“Call me if anything changes?” Van requests as she heads outdoors, and Nat nods. Left alone in the tiny little shed, she lets out a sigh, unconsciously rubbing her hand up and down Lottie’s back.

“Just you and me now, huh?”

Lottie doesn’t respond.

***

For the next two days, nothing changes.

Nat and Travis head out as the sun rises, and return just before the last light with no good news. The others are growing desperate and skeptical. It makes Nat wary. 

Shauna and Tai have managed to fix up the shed to the best of their abilities, but it isn’t enough. They all know it.

And Lottie? She still hasn’t said a word. Hasn’t so much as breathed too deeply.

Until the third night. 

For the first time since the cabin went up in flames, Nat was actually managing to get a few hours of solid and uninterrupted sleep. In hindsight, she really should have realized that of course Lottie would choose that exact fucking moment to show some semblence of life. 

It starts with a kick to her shin. The unexpected force has Nat sitting up with a gasp, immediately searching for the perpetrator that woke her from her slumber. She simultaneously slumps in relief and tenses in horror as she realizes it’s Lottie. 

For the first time in days, the brunette is stirring, and it’s a horrid and painful sight. She twitches in her sleep, limbs jerking in every direction, fighting some unseen battle that Nat cannot save her from. The blonde can make out active teartracks cascading down her hollow cheeks as she lets out a pained moan, and she thinks she can physically feel her heart clenching.

“Lottie. Lot, wake up, please,” she all but begs, shaking the taller girl. The others begin to stir at the commotion, and Nat notices Van at her side, watching the scene unfold in horror.

“Shhh, shhhh Lot, it’s alright,” the redhead coos, taking a softer response than Nat. And apparently that was the way to go, because Lottie wakes up with a pained gasp and a sob half-escaping from her throat. Natalie is pretty sure the brunette hasn’t taken more than ten sips of water since she fell into catatonia, so how she has this many tears to cry is a wonder. She wants to gather the girl in her arms and take her far, far, far away. They all know that isn’t an option.

“You’re alright. You’re safe,” Van attempts to reassure her, but the girl keeps on sobbing with all that she has left.

“What happened, Lottie? What did you see?” Tai whispers, kneeling in closer from her spot next to Van. Lottie shakes her head violently, trying to catch her breath. Mari appears from somewhere with a tin of water in hand. Nat takes it without a second thought and attempts to coax some into the distressed girl’s mouth. 

Lottie gulps it down with a fervor. She regains some kind of control over the wails racking her body, though she’s still breathing far too heavy for Nat’s liking. 

“Moss,” she gasps out. The girls look at one another, puzzled.

“What do you mean, Lot?” Van prods gently. Lottie simply shakes her head, pushing herself into a sitting position and slightly rocking back and forth.

“Moss. Where Coach is. I-I think I know where he is.” She looks up at Nat, eyes locking. Through the muttered nonsense, and the borderline delusions, the blonde can see the glimpse of something strong and steady and true. And suddenly, it hits her.

“Travis. The weird tree. The one we used to use as a meeting spot.” She sees his eyes widen in realization.

“That’s where we’re supposed to go.” 

***

In the end, they go alone. Lottie had put up quite the protest, a stark contrast from the lifeless state she’d been in just hours before. Nat supposes it’s a good sign, but the absolute last thing she needs is the brunette taking up any more of her thoughts while she’s on her way to potentially kill the closest thing she’s ever had to a father figure. 

Lottie relents in the end when Van reminds her that she hasn’t moved more than five feet in three days and it’s unlikely her body would be able to withhold on a hike that far. Still, as the sun shines its first rays and Nat and Travis suit up, she can see the apprehension and anxiety in her eyes. 

She turns away and refuses to let herself linger on it too much. She’s got a job to do. No time to worry about Lottie Matthews’ feelings. 

Nat squints against the sun’s reflection in the freshly-fallen snow, creating a glittering sort of illusion. Beautiful. Deadly.

It’s a couple hour long trek through the foot-deep fresh powder. Travis is uncharacteristically quiet, but she supposes that’s to be expected after the events of this shithold of a week. The blonde doesn’t bother to fill the silence. Small talk has never been her thing, and she’s not about to start now. 

When they finally make it to the base of the hill that the tree sits atop, her cheeks are tinged pink and she can hardly feel her toes. She can feel it, though. This is right. This is where they’re supposed to be.

They make their way up slowly, trudging through patches of ice. By the time she reaches the mossy trunk, she’s breathing heavily. From anxiety, or exertion, or the cold-hard feeling of reality sinking into place. She isn’t quite sure, but she uses all the willpower she has left to shut that part of her mind off. Her team needs her. And if there’s one thing about Nat, it’s that she’ll take care of the people that she loves, no matter how messy or complicated things have gotten.

 It has to be done. 

She and Travis begin feeling around the rough bark, searching for some fairytale secret entrance. Nat pauses as her hands brush over something smooth, thin, and familiar. Something carved, hand-made. The symbol.

“We’re definitely in the right place,” she whispers to Travis, gesturing to it. He blinks hard, drifting off somewhere unknown for a moment, before nodding and continuing the search. He pulls back what look like fern leaves (why the fuck was there a fern growing in the middle of the frozen Canadian wilderness?) and there it is. 

They lock eyes and simultaneously take a deep breath before descending down into the unknown (although Nat has a feeling that she knows exactly how this is going to end up). 

She steadies herself against the wall of what appears to be a cave, blinking rapidly in an attempt to adjust her eyes to the darkness. She feels Travis stumble down behind her, and blindly reaches for something steady to hold on to. Coming up empty, she takes a deep breath and trudges forward.

Nat tries to be light on her feet, not wanting to alert the likely inhabitant of this place, and flinches as something crunches beneath her feet. She doesn’t have to look down to know. She’d recognize that sound anywhere.

Allie’s shin the day before they left for Nationals, Coach’s leg as Misty brought the axe down, Lottie’s nose shattering as Shauna battered her face with fists-

There’s a flickering sort of light coming from around the bend. She looks back to Travis, for peace of mind that she’s not hallucinating more than anything (any day now, she thinks, is when she’ll really start to lose it, start to see things that aren’t true). But his eyes widen in recognition, so as quietly as she can, positions the rifle in front of her and switches the safety off. 

As she rounds the corner and takes in the sight in front of her, time has never moved so slow. There he is, crouched down in front of her, by the world’s most meager-looking fire. Nat doesn’t need to interrogate him, ask for an alibi for where he was three nights ago. The scorch marks on his sweater and burn marks licking his crutches are answer enough. 

“Natalie,” he whispers, practically begging. She shuts her eyes, tight.

“Don’t. Don’t even start,” she hisses.

“I didn’t have a choice, Natalie, you know that. You have to.”

“You could’ve just left us! Gone off on your own instead of trying to murder us in our sleep like a goddamn coward. How could you?”

“How could I? ” Coach exclaims, bracing himself on his crutches as he meets her at eye level. “You chose them, Nat. You went with them, you’re their leader. I couldn’t just leave you all there. Because on the off chance help comes…” he trails off, looking regretful.

“What?” Nat challenges. This is easy, familiar. Picking a fight. She wishes it didn’t come so naturally, but here they were. 

“Well, I’m not so sure you all deserve to go back to your lives. To fool society into thinking you’re all just poor, innocent little girls. I know the truth, Nat. You’re all monsters. ”

Nat can feel Travis flinch back at his words, but she’s in too deep to let those words affect her (yet. That’s a problem for another day.) 

“Yeah? Well, maybe we are. But we’re also alive. We did what we needed to do to survive. And that-” she pauses, allowing herself a moment, to feel it all. To feel what she’s about to do. “If that makes us monsters, then I’m okay with being one.”

The shot rings out. Coach drops to the ground. Nat gags, emptying her stomach at the metaphorical blood, crimson as it coats her hands. 

***

She doesn’t remember the trek back to the camp. Vaguely, Nat wonders if this is what Lottie felt like for the past few days. Here, but not. Trapped, unable to do anything, just hoping and praying that it’s all some sort of twisted and fucked up dream. 

For once in his life, Travis doesn’t give her any shit about not helping to carry their kill back. He lets her lead the way, trance-like, and pretends he doesn’t see the tears pouring their way down her face. 

Nobody says a word to them as they make it back to the shed at the brink of dusk. Nobody says anything to anybody, actually, and Nat thinks she is grateful. It feels right, like a moment of silence for someone they all used to consider a friend, a mentor, a confidant. 

She stumbles into their temporary home, practically collapsing onto the thin blanket she’s claimed as her bed. She stares, and stares, and stares. As the sun sets, as the moon’s gentle light illuminates the shadows hiding. At some point, somebody brings her dinner, and practically force-feeds it to her. She tries not to think too much about what exactly it is that she’s eating.

And then suddenly, instead of staring at a wall, she’s staring at Lottie Matthews’ face. Her big, brown, doe-like eyes stare into Nat’s grey ones, and she’s relieved to find them absent of pity and sympathy. It’s more like softness, she thinks. 

“Don’t blame yourself, Natalie. It was always going to happen, one way or another.”

She doesn’t let herself dwell on that statement as she falls into a deep and miraculously dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

The gun is in her hands. The gun is IN HER HANDS, and he’s screaming at her and droplets of spit are landing on her face, and her mom is crouching down in the corner of the hall just fucking looking and not doing a single fucking thing to protect her one and only child from the monster that she married, and he’s grabbing at her, reaching at her, oh god she’s gonna die isn’t she, this is going to be it this is the time he kills her, he yanks the gun out of her hand and she’s frozen, she can’t move, can’t breathe, watches as he waves it at her, clicks the safety off-

And then suddenly, it’s not her dad. It’s Ben, wild-eyed, standing in the dimly-lit hall of her shitty trailer, forcing the gun back into her hands, and before she even has a moment to think it goes off and his face is gone and it’s her fucking fault she killed him and she can’t BREATHE and-

Natalie sits up with a gasp, clutching her hands to her chest, taking in her surroundings.

She’s not back there. She’s in the cave that they’ve miraculously managed to turn into a makeshift home, firelight bouncing off the walls. It had been hard work, is hard work, making the space liveable for eleven. Nat doesn’t remember most of it. She’s been living outside of her body for the better part of the last three weeks. Working on autopilot, doing her goddamn best to keep them alive. 

For better or for worse, their routine from the cabin has been able to transfer over. Mari cooks, Tai chops wood, Shauna prepares the meat. She and Travis have made their silent hunting trips, bringing very little back. They’ve managed to make him last for a while, but they’re down to the last of their rations now. She doesn’t want to think about what this means. 

The team is finally starting to listen to her, she thinks, finally starting to accept that she’s their leader now. Though secretly she admits to herself that it’s probably due to the fact that Lottie disappears into her own mind about half of the time now, totally unaware of what’s happening around her. As pissed as Nat is that the brunette shoved her into this position, she half wonders if Lottie knew that she was going to get lost in herself, knew that she wouldn’t be in any state to lead.

But in those moments where she is there, fully and presently, she’s become… an ally. Almost a friend, sometimes. 

And speaking of her teammate turned friend turned enemy turned whatever the fuck they were right now, Lottie was peering up at her from her spot a few feet away, eyes clouded with worry. Nat takes in a shaky inhale, grasping her blanket like her life depends on it. It grounds her enough that she shoots Lottie a nod, hopefully reassuring the girl so she’ll go back to sleep. 

No such luck. 

The brunette army-crawls her way over to Nat, doing her best not to wake the others, before lying down on the blonde’s blanket and patting the space next to her. Natalie sighs and rolls her eyes before complying, laying face-to-face with Lottie. 

She’s brought back suddenly to a night that must have been… Jesus, nearly three years ago now. The summer after Freshman year, when she and Lottie and the rest of the team were only on JV. Despite spending an entire soccer season together, Nat had barely talked to the other girl. The rumors surrounding her were endless- that she lived in the biggest mansion in all of New Jersey, that she had a waitstaff to take care of her every need, that before highschool she’d lived in Paris and London and Moscow because her dad was some sort of fancy important business person. 

Nat had lived in the same two-bedroom, falling-apart trailer for the entirety of her life and her closet existed entirely of thrift store finds- and not in the cool, trendy way. In the I-can’t-afford-anything-else way. So yeah, she steered clear of Lottie Matthews.

Until that night.

They’d been the only two left awake at Jackie Taylor’s inaugural team sleepover. For whatever reason, their sleeping bags had migrated towards each other, and the rest of the night was spent bent over in silent fits of laughter and bouts of tears, sharing parts of her soul she’d never dared speak aloud with this borderline-stranger ‘till the first hints of sunlight peered through the windows.

As dawn broke, 14-year-old Natalie fell asleep with her head next to 14-year-old Lottie’s, their fingers intertwined. 

The dejá-vù is so bad that Nat almost laughs.

Almost.

“Hi,” Lottie whispers.

“Hello, Lot,” Nat whispers back, only the tiniest bit of malice present in her voice. Either Lottie doesn’t notice, or she doesn’t care. Probably the latter. “Why’re you up so late?”

She’s praying she didn’t wake her.

“Bad dream. You?”

“Same.” 

Lottie nods solemnly. 

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Not at all. ” 

Nat wishes so badly that they were back in Jackie Taylor’s massive finished basement, movies playing on repeat in the background, the soft sound of a dozen or so girls snoring concealing their laughter. 

And if she falls asleep with her cheek resting on Lottie’s hand that night? Well, it’s nobody’s business but her own. 

When she wakes up, Lottie is gone again, vacant eyes in her own little world. It was good while it lasted, Nat supposes. 

***

With spring comes the resurgence of game, and Nat is so, so, so relieved. It had been touch and go in the last two seemingly-endless weeks of what she guesses was late March. They ate nothing but boiled leaves for days, and for a moment, the fervor and hunger in the other girl’s eyes scared her so badly and she was convinced she’d have to make the decision to reinstate the hunt.

She’s already sent four people to their deaths she can’t have a fifth on her hands please God please she sees the blood in her dreams and it drips and it drips and drips till she thinks she’ll be sick and she can’t scrub it off no matter how hard she tries and she’s gonna have to do it all over again and it’s all her fault it’ll always be her fault-

It feels like fucking Christmas when a deer waltzes right past her and Travis during their weekly hunt. And with how small their little party has become, it’ll feed them for weeks.

They’re met with cheers from the others as they finally make their way to camp. Nat’s muscles are sore and cramping from carrying the creature, but she’s never felt so good. She likes to feel like this. Useful. 

Shauna runs up to meet them, a smile on her face in what Nat thinks may be the first time in weeks. She helps them drag their catch over to their makeshift butcher shop, and the brunette gets to work, tuning out everything around her.

It’s one of the many improvements they’ve made to the outside of their little camp in the past few weeks. Natalie’s impressed, honestly, with what they’ve done. They used the other plane door and some salvaged wood from the cabin to build another makeshift meat shed. Tai and Akilah had managed to create little benches for their firepit area. Now that the days were becoming warmer and longer, it was much appreciated. There was even a little kitchen setup for Mari, a thin board designated for food prep and some sponges for cleaning the pots fashioned from round circles of wood and moss.

For being a group of teenagers with no prior construction or survival experience before almost a year ago (were they really coming up on a year already? Jesus,) Nat was impressed to say the least. 

As she joined some of the others sitting around the fire, the blonde felt herself relax for the first time in a hot minute. Ignoring the less-than-ideal circumstances they were all in, the evening had an almost peaceful feel to it. There was a light breeze brushing up against her face, some sort of bird was singing a sweet melody, and best of all, they were eating good food for once. As Mari served the venison stew she’d managed to concoct, Nat murmured her thanks, the others following suit before digging in.

Naturally, it all went to shit.

Lottie had been having a good day, a present one, from what Nat could gather. She’d seen her and Van, hand and hand, leading the morning prayer group as she set out for her hunt. Van had taken to leading the group on the mornings where Lottie couldn’t. Those days were becoming more frequent, and Nat didn’t want to think about what that meant. 

But the brunette had been so happy when Nat and Travis returned with food in hand, and she’d honest-to-god laughed as they ate dinner, helping Tai tell the story of the time Shauna accidentally ate a pot brownie. 

She can’t figure out where it all went wrong. Because one minute Lottie is emphatically acting out Shauna falling off of the bus and onto her ass, and the next she’s on the ground rocking back and forth and seeing something that nobody else can.

Van is the first to reach her, calling her name and rubbing her arms. The redhead had kind of taken over as Lottie’s protector of sorts, coaxing her into drinking water and eating food when she wasn’t aware enough to do it herself. But even Van’s familiarity couldn’t pull Lottie back from whatever place she had entered.

As Nat crouches down next to her, she’s shocked to see lucidity behind her eyes. This is new. Typically when something like this happens, it’s like she’s gone comatose. But Nat’s almost positive that Lottie knows exactly what’s going on right now. 

That might be the issue.

“Lottie?” Nat asks cautiously, suddenly worried at how rapidly the other girl was breathing. She puts a hand on her chest, just as she’d seen her do a billion times at this point. 

“Breathe with me, Lot. What’s going on? What’s wrong?” 

Lottie opens her mouth as if to answer, but instead of words, all that comes out is a pathetic-sounding whine. She grasps her head and pulls it towards her knees, shaking. Van shakes her head and pulls the brunette into her arms, shushing her in an attempt to quell her panic. Nat is suddenly all-too aware of the ten or so pairs of eyes on them, boring into her skull. She’s sure Lottie is, too. 

“Let’s get her inside. Away from everyone else,” she whispers to Van, who nods and murmurs something in Lottie’s ear. By some miracle she seems to register it, and the three of them unceremoniously stumble into the cavern.

Once they’re sitting on their bedspreads, Nat brings a cup of water to the girl’s lips, prompting her to drink. It seems to help calm her down as the shaking subsides.

“Lottie, talk to us. What did you see?” Van prompts. Once again Lottie opens her mouth in an attempt to speak, but for whatever reason it’s futile and Natalie is getting seriously worried. She’s used to Lottie spouting out crazy bullshit. But a not-speaking Lottie? This is entirely new territory, and she doesn’t want to know what it might mean. 

She and Van reach a nonverbal agreement to coax the other girl into sleeping. Natalie lays down facing Lottie, heart clenching at the residual fear resting in her eyes.

“Sleep, Lot. It’ll be better in the morning.” 

A lie. They both know it. 

But Lottie is as obedient as ever and shuts her eyes. Against better judgment, Nat does the same. 

She doesn’t dream that night but wakes up feeling unsettled anyways. Although, she thinks as she opens her eyes, maybe that’s due to the fact that Lottie is staring at her in a soul-penetrating kind of way.

“Uh,” Nat whispers, croaked out from residual sleep. “Good morning? You feeling better?”

Lottie just shrugs, tucking her hands under her chin.

“D’you wanna talk about it now?” 

Radio silence for the next thirty seconds. Nat almost thinks Lottie’s lost again, until she opens her mouth, actually producing sound this time.

“It was winter. Someone took the gun. There was a shot and there was screaming. And the blood…” she stares past Nat vacantly, as if trying to distance herself from the words she was saying. “The blood fell down the mouth of the cave in these perfect little rivulets. Almost like a waterfall.” 

A single tear drips down her face. Nat wipes it away with her thumb. 

“Well,” Nat reasons, “we’ve got months ‘till it’s winter again. No use worrying about it now, right?”

They both know damn well that it’s the only thing they’ll be thinking about until then.

***

Nat can see Lottie’s face pale as she pulls her chore card from Mari for the day.

(She can’t help but scoff at the fact that out of all of the things Mari could have saved, she chose the damned cards. She’d claimed it had been so that they’d be able to maintain some sense of normalcy in their daily routines, but Nat will never be able to unsee the game of death roulette that they’d played that horrible, frigid winter night.)

“What’d you get?” Nat nudged her, unsure what kind of day it was.

“Water collection,” Lottie whispered. So we’re speaking today, Nat thought to herself. Good. 

Although this had the potential to screw it all up, because water collection meant going to the lake, and the lake wasn’t somewhere Lottie went.

Not anymore. 

“I can get Mari to give you something else, y’know. Being that you gave me all the power here,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows in a half-joke. 

“No, it’s alright, just…” the brunette hesitated, looking quickly at Nat and then away. “Can you come with me?”

“‘Course,” Nat replied, mouth slightly open in surprise. “Let me grab another layer and then we can head out, okay?”

Lottie gave her a grateful smile before nodding and heading to grab the buckets. 

As their feet sloshed through the mud created by the snow melt, Nat took a moment to absorb her surroundings into memory. When she was out hunting, she only took note of the way different branches broke, or if disruptions in the snow could be attributed to animal disturbances or just the harsh wind. Sure, she had at least five miles of their surrounding wilderness engrained in her mind, but she hadn’t ever taken the time to really see it. 

While the ground was soft and wet, still icy in parts from late-night freezes, the trees had begun to bud. Little yellow flowers started peeking through the frost, the first burst of color that Nat had seen besides the purple bruises that had blossomed on Lottie’s skin and the fiery flames that consumed their cabin. 

Lottie didn’t seem to be paying much attention to anything besides where her feet were landing, and even that seemed to be wavering as she slipped at some points. It made sense, Natalie supposed, especially considering where they were headed. After Laura Lee died, it had just become an unwritten rule that Lottie didn’t go to the lake. Nobody asked, and she had never voiced otherwise. 

Natalie didn’t think she’d ever forget the last time she saw the brunette there, sinking to her knees in anguish despite the freezing cold water. How it had taken Nat, Shauna, and Travis working together to drag her back to shore and up to the cabin, deadweight under their sinewy arms. In the aftermath, Shauna went to Jackie and Travis went to Javi and Nat and Lottie were left all alone. And what the fuck do you even say to someone who just watched their best friend die in the most violent of manners? Someone whose eyes are as lifeless as the girl they just lost?

It was in moments like these where Nat got the sudden impulse to wrap the taller girl in her arms and never ever let her go. She didn’t understand why. Where Lottie was soft around the edges, Natalie was harsh and sharp. She didn’t lead the group in the forgiving manner that the brunette had. But Nat liked to think that she provided more clarity, more direction. 

It had taken a while to get over the imposter syndrome that had rooted deep inside of her bones, narrating her every movement and thought. But as time progressed, Nat figured out that she wasn’t too awful at this whole leading thing. Sure, Mari still rolled her eyes every time she opened her mouth and Shauna held herself with such resentment that she feared it would never leave her, but they had a good little thing going. As good as it could be, really.

At least for now, in this lovely little honeymoon period where there was plenty of food and the days were warm and the hunger hadn’t wormed its way into their brains, affecting their every single thought and movement and decision, causing them to turn to the horrible, the unthinkable, the sickening.

“Nat?” The soft timbre of Lottie’s voice jolts the blonde from her barrage of thoughts. She looks up as her feet connect with the rough and sandy beach of the lake. Lottie’s biting her lip and wringing her hands, and the sight makes Nat’s heart ache.

Jesus. When did she become so attached to this girl?

“I can go grab the water if you, uh… if you need a minute,” she weakly offers. It looks like it takes a moment for Lottie to process her words, but she nods, hugging herself as she walks over to the log they’d used as a bench in their first summer.

Nat watched her for a moment before sighing and trudging forward, metal buckets in hand. Blue sky had begun to peek out from behind the clouds, causing the mountains to shimmer in reflection on the water. 

She would never say she was glad that their plane had crashed. Never ever ever. Not when the result had been losing themselves, their morality, their humanity. 

But god damn was it beautiful out here.

The water’s chill stung her hands, but it felt good to interact with something so real, so steady. There wasn’t much of that nowadays. 

Once the weather turned for good and the water warmed, they’d be able to take actual baths again, wash their clothing. A luxury long forgotten. 

Nat rolled her shoulders back as she lifted the now-waterlogged buckets, pivoting to look at Lottie. The other girl was sitting stock-still, chin lifted towards the sky. As she approached, she could see the silent tears falling down her face. Oddly enough, though, she looked at peace. Almost in prayer. The blonde took a seat next to her, knocking their knees together.

“Whatcha thinkin’?” she asked, doing her best to analyze the microexpressions flittering across the other’s face. Lottie shrugged, lowering her head but doing nothing to stop the barrage of tears rolling into her lap. 

She found herself next to Lottie a lot, nowadays. The brunette frequently migrated next to her in her sleep (or at least that’s what Nat let herself believe), and she sat next to her at meals, whispering words of advice on how to keep them all alive. 

Yet even with all of this, Natalie had never been more aware of the brunette’s presence than she was right now. She could feel Lottie’s thighs pressed against hers, the clenching and unclenching of her anxious hands, the tangled mess of her hair brushing against her neck. 

They were too alike for their own good, her and Lottie.

One queen, two crowns.

One coin, two sides. 

Maybe it’s why they’d butted heads so frequently in winter. At their core, they’d wanted the exact same thing- to do absolutely everything in their power (and more) to keep their people safe, to keep them alive.

They just had two very, very different methods of doing it.

“I think she’d be proud of you, you know,” Nat said suddenly. She didn’t need to clarify who she was talking about. Lottie scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“Proud my ass. She’d probably be horrified and would have thought I was listening to the voice of Satan,” she muttered, chuckling breathily.

“No, I’m serious, Lot. All she ever wanted was for us to believe. Believe in something greater than ourselves. You did that. You helped all of them do that.”

Her gaze went distant. For a moment, Natalie worried she’d said the wrong thing, sent the girl back into her mind’s endless cavern.

“I just… did what I thought was best.” Nat nodded.

“You did, Lottie.” 

The brunette seems placated at this. She sighed, wiping at her tears before dropping her head to Nat’s shoulder. The blonde momentarily stiffened before accepting it, leaning her weight against Lottie, grasping onto her hands as if they were the only things keeping her tethered to earth.

For a moment, they weren’t gods, weren’t queens, weren’t rulers of their inhumane and beyond fucked up little kindgom.

They were just Nat and Lottie. The two people they hadn’t been allowed to be in months.

Nat never wanted it to end.

Chapter Text

“I need to show you something after dinner,” Lottie whispered, grinning. Nat eyed her suspiciously.

“Am I gonna get any more context, or…” the brunette shook her head, still smiling from ear to ear. It made Nat feel warm inside. Which was nice, compared to the ice-cold guilt that normally sat deep inside her chest.

More and more, Nat found Lottie having this effect on her. The summer months had been an absolute godsend for all of them, but Lottie in particular. She still had her moments where she’d go distant on them and she still woke up screaming on occasion, mumbling about blood and death and rot, but Nat could tell that she’d grown more present, more grounded.

Like now. From her position at the head of the “table” they’d fashioned (metal from the plane propped against wooden logs), she watched as Lottie took the seat to her right and immediately joined in on Van, Tai, and Shauna’s conversation about who they thought won the presidential election (that’s how creative they had to get with their discussions, now, because nearly every topic had been broached. They were now resulting to politics of all things, but Nat supposed it was better than nothing.)  

The switch from one meager meal every other day (if they were lucky) to two, sometimes even three hearty, meaty meals that even had some flavor not only improved their physical states, but also morale. Elk, moose, and deer were aplenty. They were down to the last of their bullets, so Nat had tasked Lottie and Van with fashioning spears and traps. It had definitely been a learning curve, especially considering the serious lack of resources they had, but the two had gladly accepted the challenge and had actually come up with some pretty solid prototypes. Melissa and Gen were starting to figure out how to turn the leftover pelts into blankets and bed mats, which had greatly improved the rocky, dusty floor of the cave. And Shauna had even begun attempting to make homemade jerky, hoping to amass enough to maybe- just maybe- get them through the winter. 

Natalie passed her dish off to Misty, today’s dish cleaner. Doing dishes had become an unfortunately cumbersome event since the cabin burnt, involving lugging eleven partially melted and mismatched plates and bowls down to the lake since they’d yet to figure out a reliable water system in their cave. Taissa had suggested digging a well, but Natalie wasn’t sure how practical that was, considering their lack of tools. 

She pivoted, headed to the cave to get ready for bed, when a slender hand grabbed at her wrist. She didn’t have to look to know who it was. She’d known the feeling of Lottie’s hands since she’d placed them on her shoulders freshman year and used her as a headrest in the locker room, since she’d held her waist last year as they slow danced at homecoming (‘just as friends’, of course, only because neither of them had dates anyways), since she’d linked their fingers together that day in the bathtub, when they’d both almost died of hypothermia.

“Don’t you wanna see what I have to show you?” Lottie whispered teasingly, breath against her neck. Nat chuckled.

“Sure, princess. Let’s see it.” 

Lottie beamed, eyes shimmering, and Nat couldn’t help but return the smile as she was pulled away from camp and through the woods. The brunette led with such a fervor that Natalie worried she’d fall at a few points. The taller girl had always had more nimble, precise footwork, uncharacteristically graceful on the soccer field in contrast to her clumsiness in her everyday life. Muscle memory appeared to be taking over for her as she lept over tree roots and brush, leaving Natalie tripping in her wake.

“ Jesus, Lot. Slow down, will you?” she huffed out. Lottie only responded with a laugh. 

Finally, Lottie’s sprint slowed to a jog as they rounded a bend. 

“Do I finally get to find out what your big mystery is?” Nat asked, the ghost of a smile on her lips. The brunette nodded, eyes narrowed in concentration.

“I’m pretty sure it’s just past…. Here!” Nat was about to refute with something witty when she stopped in her tracks, mouth hanging wide.

Lottie had led them into one of the wide, grassy meadows nestled into a valley where deer and coyotes frequented. Surrounded by greening trees, soft white flowers, and rocky outcrops, it was one of Natalie’s favorite spots in the surrounding wilderness. But tonight, as the last remaining streams of sunlight allowed them to just barely see its features, something captured Nat’s attention besides the picturesque landscape.

Tiny, glowing, yellow pinpricks of light stretch out in all directions, from one edge of the prairie to the next. Fireflies, and thousands of them at that. 

“What the fuck, Lottie. How did you find this place?” 

“Can’t tell you all my secrets, can I?” The brunette teased, eyes crinkling as she watched Natalie’s expression. The blonde gave her a pointed look and she sighed.

“Fine. I kinda, uh… ended up here the other day? On accident. And I sat here until the sun started to go down, and there they were.” 

“You taking up hiking now, Matthews?” Nat teased. Lottie rolled her eyes.

“Not like there’s much else to do around here,” she quipped back.

“Maybe I just need to put your lazy ass to work, hm?” Lottie looked away, a smile still plastered to her face, but a faint pink tint on her cheeks had now been added to her features. 

“C’mon, let’s sit down.” 

Natalie complied as the other girl led her over to a spot on the outskirts of an aspen grove with a particularly soft patch of grass. She pulled her knees up to her chest, sighing contentedly.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this relaxed. Every moment, every second out here was life or death and high-pressure. One wrong word or move or breath and everything could come toppling down. Not only was her own life on the line, but the lives of the ten other survivors. For almost an entire-

Shit.

“Lottie. Have you talked to Shauna recently?” Nat asked slowly, turning to face her. She watched as Lottie bit her lip, averting her eyes.

“Uh… yeah, a couple days ago.” Natalie nodded, looking out at nature’s homemade light show while choosing her next words.

“You know the date, don’t you?” 

Radio silence for a few moments. Then:

“A year and five days.” 

A year.

A whole fucking year. 

A year of scavenging and starving and losing their morality and their very essence that made them human beings. A year where they were supposed to be packing up and shipping out all across the country and figuring out who they were, learning how to be semi-functioning human beings who lived independently.

Nat was supposed to go to fucking Rutgers on a soccer scholarship. For the longest time, she thought college was out of the cards for her. Neither of her parents had gone, and it’s not like they could afford it, anyways. Most days, it was a goddamn miracle that their lights stayed on and their water stayed running in that dingy little trailer. But junior year, she got approached by a couple of coaches from some different northeastern schools, and Lottie helped her figure out the application and scouting process. By some miracle, she’d managed to get into most of the schools she applied to despite her shit test scores (she swore it was all guilt over the sob story of an essay she’d wrote about how she’d literally had to raise herself but hey, a win is a win) and Rutgers ended up offering her a decent amount of money to play on their team. She’d been planning on going into music production. 

Miracle of all miracles, Natalie Scatorccio was supposed to go to college. Of course the universe had to go and upend the one good thing she’d had going in her life. Naturally. 

She’d have been finishing up her freshman year if the plane hadn’t gone down. Probably would have made mostly C’s, but hey, C’s get degrees, or whatever her high school guidance counselor told her. She probably would have been a bench warmer during the soccer season, seeing as she was fresh meat. But maybe she’d have gotten a few good plays in, gotten to prove her worth. She and Van would have been roommates. The redhead was supposed to go to Rutgers with her and study filmmaking. 

And Lottie? She’d have been at UCLA, majoring in fucking business, because of course her dad wouldn’t pay her tuition if she didn’t agree to go and become the next Malcolm Matthews and prepare to take over the family dynasty. Nat had leant an ear to many a bitching sessions about it during long bus rides to away games. 

I just don’t understand why he suddenly seems to care about my life, she’d complained. He’s been absent for seventeen years, what’s another four?

Seventeen. Because Lottie was supposed to turn eighteen on the last day of the Nationals tournament. Which was five days after the crash. Which meant-

“Happy birthday, Lot,” she whispered, leaning her head against her shoulder. The taller girl reciprocated the action.

“Thank you, Nat,” she replied softly.

They sat there, for a while, hands clasped together, bodies leaning against each other as they basked in the bioluminescent light of the fireflies. Nat felt a shiver wrack through Lottie’s frame, nighttime chill setting in with the lack of sun. 

“You ready to head back?” Nat asked. She felt Lottie nod against her shoulder. She stood up, stretching her back before offering a hand to Natalie who took it gratefully.

“Sure do hope you know your way,” Nat muttered. Lottie pushed her teasingly.

“Don’t you worry. I have my ways.” 

The two walked in comfortable silence as Lottie retraced their steps through the woods and back to their little cavern, fingers intertwined with Natalie’s. 

As they made their final approach to their home base, Lottie stopped suddenly, face illuminated by the last of the glowing embers from that night’s fire. Nat turned to face her, brows furrowed.

“What is it?” she asked, grabbing the girl’s other hand in concern. She watched as Lottie opened her mouth and then shut it just as quickly, shaking her head. 

“Is something wrong?” Natalie questioned, rubbing her thumbs in a circular pattern on the backsides of her hands. These sort of moments certainly weren’t an unusual occurrence with Lottie, but they still worried Nat nonetheless. 

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong, I just, um…” her deep brown eyes met Nat’s blues before flickering down to her lips. 

Oh.

Natalie took a tentative step forward, praying to whatever god was out there with them that she wasn’t misreading the situation, before gently stepping up on her tiptoes and pressing her lips to Lottie’s. 

It was gentle and soft and sweet, nothing like what Nat was used to with the douchebag guys and occasional girls of Wiskayok. Nothing like what it had been with Travis. She felt as Lottie leaned in, their bodies melting against each other.

As quickly as it began, it was over as Lottie stepped back. Nat froze momentarily, worrying that she fucked it all up and this wasn’t what the other girl had wanted at all because of course every good thing in her life couldn’t last.

But the other girl was beaming, practically floating, and Nat couldn’t help but grin back.

“Best birthday ever,” she whispered. Natalie rolled her eyes, laughing.

“Even though we’re stranded in the middle of nowhere and are more than likely never gonna see modern society ever again?” Nat teased.

“Yeah,” she responded, not wasting a second. The blonde tipped her head back laughing.

“Come on, you dork. Let’s go to bed,” she said as she retook Lottie’s hand, leading her back to the cave.

“Not even gonna ask me on a date first? How provocative, Natalie.” 

“Oh, for the love of God- ”

***

As summer crept along, it kinda became an unspoken reality, this thing between them. They slept next to each other, ate together, and went on nightly “walks” when Lottie was feeling present enough for it. Nat was sure the rest of the group could sense their shift in dynamic- Travis had been particularly sulky and silent during their hunts, and Van had not-so-subtly informed her on her and Tai’s favorite hidden makeout spots (“Shut the fuck up, you perv,” she’d jokingly responded). 

Today was no exception. But as Nat grabbed Lottie’s hand and led her away from camp, the pair giggling like a couple of schoolgirls, the two were met with a roadblock in the form of Shauna Shipman. 

“Nat? Can I, uh, talk to you for a second?”

It took everything in Natalie to not respond back with some witty, harsh remark. But she didn’t have the luxury to do that anymore. The team’s problems were her problems. So she bit her tongue back, nodding.

“Yeah, of course. I’ll be right back, Lot,” she promised, and the brunette gave her a nod, walking away. “Do we need to go somewhere more private, or is this okay?” 

“I wanna bury her,” Shauna bit out instead of responding to the question, in a way that made Natalie think that if she’d waited any longer to say them, they never would’ve come out.

The her went unspoken. Natalie nodded slowly.

“Alright. You got a spot in mind?” Shauna shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself.

“It’s not like anywhere out here was special to her, or whatever. She hated it, all of it. I just, uh, don’t want the others there. If that’s alright.” 

“Of course. We can go right now if you think you’re ready, Travis and I weren’t planning on hunting today. We can bury her with the others.” 

Shauna shrugged, eyes slightly glassy. 

“Now. I wanna get it over with.”

“Okay. I’m gonna see if I can borrow some tools from Tai and then we can head out.” Nat shot her what she hoped was a reassuring smile before walking into the cavern to grab their makeshift shovel.

“What was that about?” Lottie asked as Natalie approached her. The blonde shook her head.

“We’re heading up to the plane. She wants to… y’know.” Luckily, Lottie seemed to catch her drift.

“Alright. Let me know if you need any help, okay?” 

“I will. Thank you, Lot,” she murmured as the brunette gave her a quick peck on the cheek. With the shovel (large stick that had been carved in a way that made it somewhat function) in hand, she made her way back to where Shauna was standing awkwardly at the edge of the clearing. 

The walk to the plane was a silent affair, but Natalie didn’t expect anything less. It wasn’t like Shauna had been overly talkative even before the plane went down, and they were on their way to bury her lifelong, co-dependent, arguably homoerotic (she, Van, and Lottie had spent many late nights at team sleepovers debating the nature of their relationship) best friend. So really, Nat was alright with the quiet. 

At this point, she knew the way to the plane like the back of her hand. She and Travis had estimated it was a little under a mile from their homestead. Light work, especially considering the glorious mid-summer weather.

In an almost perfect contrast to the mood of the two girls, the sun’s beams shined bright, nearly blinding at some angles, but it wasn’t overly hot. If they were just out for a hike, it would’ve been perfect weather.

Too bad that they were headed to do something much more gut-wrenching and dire. 

As Nat began the descent down the slope that overlooked the crash site, she heard Shauna’s footsteps come to a stop. 

“You good, Shipman?” Natalie questioned, turning around to face a nauseous-looking Shauna. The other girl nodded viciously, shutting her eyes tightly before brushing past Nat and making a beeline for the plane. She trailed behind, sighing.

Out of all of the girls, she and Shauna had interacted the least. Sure, she and Tai butted heads frequently and she and Jackie had two very, very different ideas of a good time, they’d still had their moments. Taissa was loyal to a fault and had helped Nat out of a couple of dodgy situations in highschool, and Jackie had gone out of her way time and time again to make sure Natalie was eating three meals a day, had a ride to and from school, and could make it to all their away games. 

She just wished she’d actually had a chance to express her gratitude. 

Well. No use dwelling on it now. 

“Where is she?” Shauna asked, wiping sweat from her brow.

“This way,” Nat said, leading her into the plane.

The metal deathtrap had certainly seen better days. All of the doors had been hacked off at one point or another. They served more purpose reinforcing their shelter than sitting out here, abandoned and rusting anyways. Nat rustled around underneath the seats until her hands felt the familiar rough texture of the fabric she’d wrapped the bones in. She took in a deep breath before gently extracting it and presenting it to Shauna.

The girl stared at the sloppily-packaged remains of her best friend as if it were a bomb set to explode at any moment. For a fleeting second, Nat wondered if this was a horrible idea, if Shauna wasn’t ready yet. But then again, were any of them ever ready for the shit they’d had to resort to out here?

Hesitantly, Shauna extended her arms, and Natalie gently handed it ( her ) over before retreating outside to the spot where they’d made a makeshift grave site during their first week out there.

“This good?” She asked solemnly. Shauna nodded, eyes vacant and disconnected. Nat stiffly nodded before grabbing the shovel and getting to work.

Luckily, the ground was wet from a brief monsoon the other night, making the digging fairly light work. She estimated it took her about twenty minutes to carve out the makeshift grave, which was pretty decent timing, she thought, especially considering the fact that Shauna had been crouched down at the edge, boring a hole into the ground while Nat heaved away.

She refused to let herself be annoyed by this. If anything, that was one of the main takeaways she’d gotten from her role at the head of their fucked-up band of brothers- she couldn’t let her emotions take ahold of her anymore if she wanted the others to take her seriously. So instead of formulating a snarky remark about the brunette’s uselessness, she thought about how she was covered in head to toe in dirt, and would definitely need to bathe in the nearby spring Van had showed her, and how she should definitely try and coin Lottie into taking a trip down there with her. 

She pushed down the smile curling up her lips at the thought as she remembered what exactly she was doing at the moment. 

“Alright,” she groaned, hoisting herself from the hole. “I think it’s ready.”

Shauna’s eyes flickered up to her as she gave a minute nod, standing.

“Do you wanna do this alone or do you want me here?” the blonde questioned.

“You can stay. I don’t wanna… say anything. I already did that,” she murmured, and Natalie nodded as Shauna gently placed Jackie’s remains in the earth. 

The two stood in silence for a few moments. Nat hesitantly placed a hand on her shoulder as Shauna’s lip gently quivered.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “It was months ago, I don’t know why I’m…” she trailed off, but Nat filled in the blanks.

“Don’t apologize,” she retorted. “Take all the time you need. Seriously.” 

Shauna nodded, bowing her head and squeezing her eyes tight before bending down and placing a handful of dirt in the open grave. Nat followed suit, and the two girls worked in silence, digging their fingers into the earth and pouring it over Jackie. The bright afternoon sun bit at their skin, but neither paid it much attention, hyper-focused at the task at hand.

It had to have been well past noon by the time the ground was flat once again, mirroring the five other plots that had become one with the woods in the year since they’d been dug. Nat stood up straight, rolling back her sore shoulders as Shauna extracted a small, smooth stone from her pocket and gently placed it at the head of the grave.

“Wanna head back or stay here for a bit?” she questioned as the brunette stepped back, admiring their handiwork with a faint look of disgust.

“Let’s go,” Shauna responded, setting off for the cave and leaving Natalie slightly stunned in her wake. Oh, well. She certainly wasn’t one to judge a person based on their methods of grieving. 

Not when she’d spent the better half of junior year drunk or high (or both) off her ass. 

Lottie had shot her a questioning look when they’d made their way back into camp, but she’d brushed her off with a quick shake of her head. The taller girl nodded in understanding as she took a look at Shauna and then back at Nat’s dirt-covered form.

The two pretended they didn’t hear Shauna crying herself to sleep that night. 

Some things were better left unsaid.

***

She had just returned from the day’s hunt when it happened.

It started as a low hum, hardly discernible against that of the insects and singing of the birds. She didn’t recognize the sound, at first- a true testament to just how long they’d been stuck out here. Her eyes flitted over to Travis in panic as she watched him register the foreign sound, and then as his face dawned in realization as it grew in volume.

The two took off in a sprint for camp, abandoning the rabbits they’d caught that morning. They were suddenly operating on the same exact wavelength, with the same goal in mind.

“GET THE FIRE GOING! THERE’S A FUCKING PLANE!” Natalie roared as the two thundered into camp. Tai shot up immediately, frantically grasping at the piles of timber laying astray. Van ran to her aid, gently coaxing oxygen into the flame in an attempt to coax it higher.

“We need to go to the lake,” Misty shouted. “They won’t be able to see us well through all the trees, it’s the clearest spot we have.”

Natalie nodded in agreement, and all at once, eleven bodies took off in the same direction, running with fervent and desperate, practically animalistic energy. 

They thundered through the brush, garnering scratches up and down their bodies from wayward sticks and thorns as they made their own path, but none of them noticed, too pumped on adrenaline to feel the pain. 

What would have normally been a twenty minute trip was done in half of that. Natalie couldn’t hear anything outside of the droning of the aircraft’s engine and the pounding of her own blood in her ears. Nothing else mattered in that moment. This was it. This was their chance.

She should have known better than to allow herself to hope. 

Nat felt like she was floating outside of her own body as they pounded onto the rocks of the beach, watching the chaos unfurl from a birds-eye view at the altitude that the plane was flying. What a sight it must have been, if the pilots saw them at all. Looking back, it was almost certain that they didn’t.

Eleven kids, screaming, waving, jumping up and down in agony, begging for someone, anyone to hear them. 

The plane vanished over the far edge of the lake, and yet the cacophony continued. 

Maybe it’ll come back, they collectively, unspokenly prayed. Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

The sun set, and they stayed there.

The moon’s reflection waned on the surface of the lake, and they still stayed there.

Nobody wanted to be the first to get up, to head back, to tuck their tail between their legs. It felt like defeat. Worse than any loss they’d suffered so many lifetimes ago, back when they were still just girls playing soccer, back when it was the most important thing in their worlds. 

At some point, Lottie rested her head on Nat’s shoulder, and she felt a warm spot form on her raggedy t-shirt. She gently wiped the tears away with her thumb before grasping the girl’s hands and tugging her up.

They faced each other, no words exchanged, but a silent understanding broached between the two. 

“C’mon,” Nat croaks, eyes still locked with Lottie’s. “No point waiting out here any longer.”

Because as leader, she has to be the bearer of bad news.

Has to be the one to squash any semblance of wicked, evil, twisted hope that had rooted its way into their bodies in those four, maybe five minutes while the engine roared. 

She bears it so they do not have to. 

Lottie squeezes her hand, gesturing back towards the path they’d left in their wake.

It feels like the beginning of the end.

Chapter Text

Their first autumn in the Wilderness seemed to stretch on forever. Remnants of summer clung to the edge of their little world. The nights were cold, but the days were warm and sunkissed, the leaves on the trees remaining green for an unseasonably long time. 

Their second autumn couldn’t have been more different.

The first snowfall came in August. Fucking August. It was eerily similar to the conditions of their inaugural Wilderness snowfall. They’d gone to bed, and it had been on the chilly side that night, sure, but when they woke the next morning, the entire world had been polished over with inches of freezing, white powder. 

Nat had thought they’d been pretty well prepared, all things considered. They’d reinforced the cave, repurposed metal from the plane for doors, stocked up on berries and jerky and nuts, sewn holes in their deteriorating clothing. It wasn’t enough. 

It was mid-October now as Natalie trudged her way back to camp, empty-handed. She and Travis had begrudgingly returned to their routine of leaving before dawn and returning as the sun set. Van had painted the ash over their palms and burned sage over their frames and concocted the godawful blood tea and the three of them had squeezed their eyes tight and prayed that this would be the time they found something, anything. Their last catch had been a ground squirrel barely the size of her boot that they’d somehow managed to stretch out between three meals. Even the sudden warm spell that’d come over their neck of the woods hadn't been enough to coax game back over. Nat had found evidence of the nearby creeks and rivers flooding with the sudden onslaught of snow melt, which was just another game deterrent to worry about. 

Summer had been a luxury. Warm days and cool nights, but the nice kind with a gentle breeze instead of the bitter-cold gusts they were now fighting against. Full bellies, smiles that weren’t a rarity. Exchanging playful, flirty banter with Lottie. Kissing her goodnight. Doing more than that, if they were able to sneak away from camp for a night.

Lottie. God, Nat’s heart physically hurt if she thought too hard about how they’d spent those few months. Summer Lottie had been joyful and exuded light and filled Natalie with love every single second. Winter Lottie looked like she’d had all the life drained out of her, and then some. She was losing lucidity by the day, Nat could tell. When she laid down next to her at night, running her fingers through her long, dirty, tangled hair and looked into her eyes, it was like Lottie was just looking straight through her. 

On the days where she did speak, it was nonsense, at least to Natalie’s ears. Spurting out jumbled words and phrases about symbols and fire and rivulets of blood. Van sat with her patiently during the day, trying to decipher the nonsensical riddles. The redhead had been a sworn and solemn believer in Lottie’s connection to the Wilderness from day one.

Even now, Nat found herself skeptical, but she no longer complained about the rituals and prayers and belief. But despite the lack of bounty from their hunts, Lottie’d had a point that previous winter, they always came back safe. It wasn’t like it was doing any harm.

As she and Travis got closer to camp, two figures appeared in the corner of her eye. She tensed momentarily before quickly registering that it was just Tai and Van. And if Van was up and about, that meant-

“Lottie’s having a good day?” Nat questioned once they were within speaking distance. Van nodded in affirmation.

“Up and moving, even talking a bit.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Tai murmured under her breath. Natalie knew what she meant. When Lottie was feeling okay, the whole group felt okay. It was as if her emotions, her lucidity, had some otherworldly tether on their groupmind. 

“Where are you guys coming from?” Travis asked.

“Van came up with the idea to build some pit traps. Might be more effective than the rope ones, so we decided to get going on it before the ground freezes again.” 

“Good, that’s good. Might wanna mark it, though, so that none of us accidentally falls in,” Nat remarked as they walked over to the firepit where most of the girls were enjoying the temporary sunshine, with one notable absence. 

“Is Lottie inside?” Nat asked Shauna, who was sitting closest to the cave door. The brunette nodded in affirmation, barely looking up at Natalie from where she was crouched over her journal. The blonde didn’t waste a second in heading into their dimly-lit refuge, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness. 

“Lot?” she called out.

“Here,” her hoarse voice called out from the far wall, around the bend. The brunette was sitting with her knees pulled to her chest near the fire, wide and doe-like eyes looking up at Nat as she walked in. Lottie patted the space next to her, and Natalie wasted no time in settling down next to the girl, back resting comfortably against the cool cavern stone. Lottie eagerly laid down, resting her head in Nat’s lap. The blonde pushed her hair out of her face, rubbing her fingers against her scalp. Lottie sighed in pleasure. 

“How’re you feeling?” Natalie asked softly. Lottie shrugged. 

“Clearer. Less…” she trailed off, instead waving her hand in the air to convey her words. 

“What’s it like?” the blonde questioned. “When you’re… gone, or whatever.” 

The cave fell silent, and Nat wondered if she’d said something wrong, sent Lottie back into the depths of her mind.

“It’s like I’m watching everything happen but from somewhere else. Like I’m there, but not really, and nothing feels… solid, I guess. And my brain just doesn’t let me move or speak. It fucking sucks, honestly,” she breathed out. Natalie nodded, bringing one of her hands underneath the fabric of Lottie’s shirt to rub circles on her back.

“Do you, like, see shit when it happens? Stuff that isn’t there?”

Lottie’s breath hitched suddenly, muscles stiffening. Nat could physically feel the reaction from where her palms rested. 

Natalie internally cursed herself for her words. She’d pushed too hard, and now Lottie wasn’t gonna speak for days again, she’d go back to being her lifeless shell of a person, vacant eyes and pallid skin-

“I’m sick, Nat,” Lottie whispers from her place in the blonde’s lap. Natalie stills. Fingers that had just been careening through the other’s long, tangled hair came to a stop. Her voice was so quiet, Nat almost thinks she imagined it.

“What do you mean, Lot?” she whispers back. Nobody else is in the cave with them, but regardless, she feels that this is a conversation that should occur in near-silence. 

“Before we left. I took pills. Once a day since I was really, really young. Nine or ten, I think. I don’t really remember, but something happened that freaked my parents out. They took me to a bunch of different doctors, and they all said I’m schizophrenic.” 

Natalie’s not an idiot, she’d seen the pills that Lottie had tried to sneakily take the morning after every team sleepover. They’d shared a hotel room once, at an away game. Lottie wasn’t that good of a secret-keeper. But she’d assumed they were for anxiety, or depression, or some shit. Not fucking psychosis. 

“Lottie,” Nat begins, doing her best to keep her voice as even as possible, “are you saying what I think you’re saying? Has this- has it all been in your head, this entire fucking time?”

“I don’t know, Nat!” the brunette practically whined. “I have no idea what the hell is going on right now. Like- like right now, I swear to god the walls are moving. I swear it, Nat, even though I know it isn’t real.” 

Nat looks up, anyways. She can feel a tear drop onto her hand, wet and warm. She isn’t sure which one of them it’s from.

“I know that things like that ? They’re all in my mind. I’ve been dealing with this shit for almost a decade. But there’s other things… since we got out here, I guess, that just feel so real. Like, I literally saw Laura Lee explode days before she went up in that airplane. And when I was sick, and they were hunting you, I swear to God Nat I could see what was happening. I watched Javi fall in the lake. I watched you try to pull him up, I watched Misty stop you. That happened, right? And nobody told me about that. So some of this has to be real. ” 

Sobs begin racking the taller girl’s body, and against all better judgement, Nat rubs a hand up and down her back, shushing her. Half to give an attempt to comfort her, half to buy herself time, because Lottie hasn’t spoken this much in weeks- no, months, honestly- and of fucking course the first multi-sentence statement out of her mouth is some life-changing revelation of a statement that has Nat completely and totally questioning what is real and what is not. She took a deep, steadying breath, refusing to let her emotions seep into her words.

“Does anybody else know?”

“No. Never,” she choked out. “Just my parents and the housekeeper.”

Nat shook her head. All of these years and she’d never noticed. Although looking back, there were certainly little things that she’d chalked up to Lottie just being a bit weird. Like how she’d suddenly go spacey in the middle of a conversation, like she’d forgotten where she was and what she was talking about. How she’d never take more than one drink at a party, if she drank at all. The way she’d squeeze her hands together and pinch her skin when she thought nobody was looking, almost as if reassuring herself that she was actually there in that moment. 

“Okay,” Nat murmured, trying her absolute best to keep her voice steady. “It’s gonna be okay, Lot.”

“No, it’s not, ” she whimpered. “Something bad is gonna happen. I can feel it.” 

“Bad as in slowly starving to death again bad, or are we talking like… queen card bad?” 

“Worse. Worse than anything we’ve seen out here.” 

Natalie wasn’t sure she could imagine anything worse than hunting her friends and cannibalizing them, but in the year and a half they’d been out there, Lottie had yet to say something that didn’t hold true at least in some capacity.

Before she could say anything, the two were interrupted by footsteps. Nat looked up to see Van making her way towards the two. 

“Figured you wouldn’t wanna sit with the crowd for dinner,” the redhead whispered, taking a seat next to Nat as she passed her two bowls. 

“Thanks,” Natalie murmured. “Can you sit up, Lot?”

The brunette groaned indiscernibly before propping herself up against the wall and taking her serving. 

“How’s the mood out there?” Nat asked the redhead.

“Better, I guess. Nobody’s thrilled that we’re back to leaf soup, though.” 

“Leaves are safer than meat,” Lottie whispered cryptically. Van and Nat locked eyes.

Maybe Nat should have dwelled on her words for a bit longer.

Maybe then things wouldn’t have gone to shit. 

***

If they were a little less hungry, a little less on the brink of madness, a little less traumatized from what had happened the last time they’d nearly starved, they probably would have been more careful. But logic kinda goes out the window when you’re trying to keep eleven people from resorting to russian roulette and a hunt to the death. 

So when the bony, unsteady deer waltzed right into one of the rope traps they’d set, Nat and Travis wasted no time in hauling it back to camp. 

Shauna had dressed it, and it had looked okay, but that was probably because anything even remotely edible looked okay when you were on death’s door.

It was all Mari could do to sear the cuts of meat before they dug their stubby little emaciated fingers in, eating with such ferocity that Nat worried they wouldn’t be able to restrain themselves and save some for later. Sitting around the firelight of the cave, juices dripping down their faces and food filling their stomachs, Nat thought for a fleeting moment that they might just be okay. 

Maybe they’d get lucky this time around. Their traps might work. An unfortunate deer or elk or maybe even moose might wander through every few weeks, and it wouldn’t be ideal, but it might just be enough. 

She went to bed content, holding Lottie tight. Their breaths synced as they fell asleep, fingers linked together, faces so close their foreheads were practically touching. 

Nat got up the next morning, and everyone was still sleeping except for her and Travis and Lottie, who was present enough to do the morning rituals, and everything was fine. They got back that night, and everything was fine. She didn’t catch anything but they came home to an actual meal and she fell asleep next to Lottie and all was alright in their small little world. 

And she woke up to burning.

In those few seconds where she was teetering in between sleep and wake, she thought she was back in the cabin for a moment, waking up engulfed in flames and with a lung full of smoke and ash, acting on pure instinct and adrenaline as she did her best to keep herself and everyone else alive, as she tried to salvage whatever she could, as she watched their last piece of civilization dissolve into embers. 

But when she finally opened her eyes, she realized that they were in the cave, not the cabin, and she wasn’t the one burning. It was Lottie.

The brunette moaned and writhed in pain from her spot next to Natalie, and she could physically feel the fever heat radiating off of her. 

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, ” she murmured, scrambling to her feet before turning her head back and forth, looking for Misty. Thankfully, she didn’t have to look far, because their resident doctor was already up, kneeling besides Gen and an anxious-looking Melissa. 

“What’s wrong, Natalie?” she asked, adjusting her glasses.

“It’s Lottie, she’s got a fever I think, she’s really warm Misty,” Nat responded, forcing her eyes shut as she took in a mouthful of air. Misty’s slight swear under her breath didn’t do anything to help the anxiety coursing through her veins.

“I was hoping it was just a fluke… this isn’t good. This really, really isn’t good.”

“Yeah, no shit . What do we do?” 

Misty tiptoed over to where Lottie lay, now curled in a fetal position with her face scrunched up. The shorter girl laid her hand on her forehead and winced.

“She’s too hot. Grab a shirt or a scrap of fabric or something and put some snow in it, then put it on her forehead. See if it’ll cool her down,” she commanded, before turning back to where Gen and Melissa were. Nat nodded.

“Is it just the two of them?” she asked, rustling through her meager belongings to find something that would work for their homemade ice pack. Misty sighed.

“Yes. For now.” 

***

By mid-morning, Akilah and Van fell victim to whatever fucking illness was plaguing them, bodies wracking with chills, muscles aching so bad they couldn’t think straight. 

The survivors that were still feeling well alternated between icing feverish foreheads and coaxing water into mouths. Nobody dared eat anything, unsure what exactly had caused this sudden outbreak. 

Natalie spent practically every waking moment at Lottie’s side. Any and all semblance of lucidity was gone. The brunette spent the day alternating between a restless, nightmare-filled sleep which even Nat’s gentle humming and soft touches couldn’t quell, and incoherent, fever-addled delusions that left her sobbing painfully while Natalie watched, helpless. 

Misty did her absolute best, making her rounds and working herself to the bone, but there’s only so much that can be done when you’re stranded in the middle of nowhere with no medical treatment in sight. 

For two days, their routine stays the same. They run on fumes as they do their absolute best to keep everyone alive. Van’s fever lowers, but Travis is suddenly hit with the virus like a truck. Lottie’s no worse, but no better either. Gen is circling the drain, and Melissa is practically inconsolable. 

At first, Nat thought it was just the exhaustion catching up to her as she flexed her aching muscles. She squinted against the impounding migraine, took a few sips of water, and against better judgment, laid her head down next to Lottie’s and fell asleep. 

She wasn’t sure how long she was out. 

It could have been minutes, it could have been days. At some moments, she half-mused that she’d died there, laying on that stone-cold pathetic little cave floor. 

At least I died laying next to Lottie. 

Everything was cold, but her insides felt like they were burning, melting, writhing and twisting. Her head pounded, but no matter how hard she tried to open her eyes, all she could see were vague, half-lit shadows hovering above her face. 

She wasn’t sure if it was real or not. 

At one point, her father entered her fever-induced nightmares. He tucked her into bed, caressing her cheek gently. He stood above her as she crouched down against the kitchen cabinets, wielding a knife wildly and unsteadily. He stared up at her from an open grave, face half-decomposed, half-intact.

There were moments, though, where her dreams were pleasant. Where for a blissful few seconds she couldn’t feel the heat and the cold and the aches wracking her body. Where instead, she and Lottie were splayed out in a field at sunset on a warm summer day, and Lottie tucks a strand of hair behind Natalie’s ear, and she gives her that smile where her canines show. 

And then at one point, the hands caressing her forehead and rubbing through her hair felt tangible, solid. Lifting her arm felt like she was lifting a 50-pound weight, and she groaned as she brought her hand up and grasped the wrist touching her. 

“Nat?” a soft voice whispered. “Nat, can you hear me?”

She wrenched open her eyelids, groaning against the onslaught of light entering her delirious world of darkness. Her pupils slowly adjusted, and the blurry blob in front of her materialized into Lottie’s pallid, worried face. 

“Lot?” she breathed, wincing against her sandpaper-like throat. The brunette nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me. Jesus, Nat, you fucking scared the shit out of me.” Natalie was too tired to think of a witty response, instead wincing as she opened her mouth and tried to speak.

“Water,” she ended up choking out, and Lottie nodded, grasping for a metal cup laying just above her head. 

“Take slow sips,” she instructed, lifting the rim to Natalie’s mouth. The blonde savored her few sips, letting the tepid water wash the sick-taste from her mouth and soothe her raw throat. After she was done, she laid back down, exhausted from the small action.

“The fuck happened?” she asked Lottie, steadier this time. 

“I’m not entirely sure, honestly, I only really woke up a day ago. From what Misty said, though, most of us have been having crazy high fevers. She’s pretty sure it’s from the deer. And don’t even think about blaming yourself, Nat, I can read your mind from over here.” 

“Too tired to blame myself,” she groaned. “I’ll do that in the morning.” Lottie nodded, pressing her lips to her forehead. 

“Sleep. Okay? I’ll be here when you wake up.” Natalie nodded, grasping on to Lottie’s hands as she felt her eyelids flutter shut.

***

Unfortunately, her dreamless and feverless sleep was interrupted by the most pitiful, mournful cries she’d ever heard in her whole life. Natalie sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she looked around to find the source. 

She first saw Lottie, sitting in a corner and rocking back and forth, hands covering her ears as she muttered to herself. Van, Tai, and Akilah were crouched down in front of Melissa, who was sobbing and shaking uncontrollably, while Misty stood over a body, gently shutting its eyes before wrapping it in a pelt.

No, not it. Her. 

Gen.

“Wha’ happened?” Nat whispered frantically, scrambling to her feet and walking over to the group. Lottie shook her head frantically.

“It was too late. It was always gonna happen, Nat. There was nothing we could do to stop it.” 

All Nat could do was gape, tears pooling in her eyes.

“Her fever got too high. She started seizing, and we don’t have anything here… we just weren’t equipped to handle it,” Misty reported monotone, not allowing her mask to waver. Natalie knew she was just waiting for a moment alone to break down. 

To her left, Akilah’s arms were wrapped around Melissa, shushing her and trying to calm her tears, but it was no use. 

“Can you look at me, Nat? Please?” Van’s voice flitted back into her ears, and she forced her blue eyes to meet Van’s. 

“There was nothing anybody could have done. This isn’t on you. This isn’t on any of us. Understand?” Nat stared at her, unblinking.

“Natalie. Say it.” 

“I… nobody could have done anything, there was nothing we could do,” she stuttered out. Van nodded, pleased. 

“That’s good. Thank you. D’you think you can help me get Lottie to lay back down?” Nat nodded blankly, letting Van lead her to where the brunette was sitting. Natalie watched distantly as she crouched down, gently removing Lottie’s hands from her ears and whispering something to her, coaxing her to stand. Her distant eyes scanned the room, landing on Nat.

“You’re okay,” she sighed out. Natalie nodded as the taller girl collapsed into her.

“We’re okay, Lot,” she whispered, and Van led the both of them down to their bedrolls. The blonde wrinkled her nose as they sat down, blankets reeking of sweat and vomit and urine. 

“I know. We’ll deal with it when we’re feeling steadier,” Van murmured. “How’re you feeling, Nat?”

“Exhausted. Like, to my bones. But okay besides that, I guess. You?”

“Same, pretty much.” Natalie nodded, hesitating before she asked her question.

“Did anyone else…” she trailed off, praying to god that Van understood what she was trying to ask.

“No. And from what I’ve heard from Misty, it’s pretty much a miracle that nobody else did. Apparently Lottie wasn’t looking too good for a while there, and… well, there were a couple times that you stopped breathing. Misty, Melissa, and Tai managed to avoid getting whatever the hell this was altogether, they somehow managed to keep this place from burning down.”

Nat sighed, massaging her temples and squeezing her eyes shut. Lottie adjusted in her position next to her, putting her head on her shoulder. The blonde mindlessly kissed her hairline, wrapping her arms around her. Van gave her a half-smile, rubbing her shoulder before standing up.

“I’m gonna go help them. You two rest.” 

Nat opened her mouth to protest, but Van gave her a look and shot her down. Sighing, Nat laid down, coaxing Lottie down beside her.

“Think you can sleep, princess?” Nat whispered, tucking the blanket under their chins.

“You’ll stay?” she asked anxiously. Natalie smiled.

“Always.”

She watched contentedly as Lottie shut her eyes and let out a breath. She watched her for a few blissful moments, memorizing the way the light hit her face and how her eyelids fluttered as her chest rose and fell, before falling into the grasps of sleep herself. 

***

The next few days were hell, to put it lightly. It started with Nat being shaken awake by Taissa, telling her they needed her to make an executive decision about what to do with Gen’s body.

Nat sat there listlessly as two warring sides debated whether or not to… use her resources. It made Nat nauseous. She was able to shut down the conversation swiftly, pointing out that they didn’t know how this disease spread, and eating infected meat may very well cause them to get sick all over again. Misty, who had been the primary perpetrator for re-entering their cannibalism era, looked slightly hurt that Natalie hadn’t backed her up, but she wasn’t willing to take that risk (not to mention how she felt about it morally). 

They’d ended up cremating her anyway, though they made sure to be careful about it this time around. Van led them in prayer as Nat lit the flame. Melissa watched dead-eyed in between Mari and Akilah. Natalie couldn’t stand to look at her. 

They disposed of the deer meat similarly. Nat was half tempted to leave it out and see if it would tempt a bear nearby, but ultimately decided they were all too weak to attempt to take down a predator of that size at the moment. 

And with that led to the undeniable fact that they were desperately low on food. 

Their bodies were already weak from lack of sustenance before they’d been hit with the fucking plague. But after spending multiple days wasting away, delirious in bed, their muscles had practically atrophied. Nat felt winded after just walking to the cave door and back. If they didn’t eat, and eat soon, they were screwed. 

Natalie and Lottie spent the better part of a day holed up in their corner of the cave, weighing their options. Natalie felt bad for putting part of this burden on the other girl. She could see Lottie’s eyes fighting to stay present for Nat, to give her advice and keep her grounded. They talked through every possible option for sustaining themselves, but anything else they tried risked too many lives. Even the girls that hadn’t been sick were weak from malnourishment and were in no state to actively search for food.

They had to reconvene the hunt.

“If we’re doing this,” Lottie whispered to her the night before they announced it to the group, “we’ve got to do it right. We have to pay our respects, do it in the name of the Wilderness.”

“Okay,” Natalie whispered back.

Six months ago, she would’ve argued with the girl. Probably would’ve scoffed at her woo-woo Wilderness hippie bullshit, and picked a fight over it. She knew how to choose her battles now.

And besides. If Lottie was this insistent that the Wilderness was really out there, guiding their movements and deciding who to put harm’s way, then maybe there was something to it.

Nobody looked surprised when Natalie beckoned the team around the fire the next day. Their faces remained passive as she informed them that they’d be drawing cards again that evening.

It was when Natalie revealed the twist of the game that their true emotions leaked through- the only people that would be drawing cards were those who didn’t get sick. 

“No. Absolutely not,” Van said immediately, unconsciously bringing an arm in front of Taissa. Misty took a reflexive step backwards, shaking her head.

“We have no idea if the virus, or bacteria, or whatever the fuck it was is still in us. This is the safest way,” Natalie relayed calmly.

“Bullshit,” the redhead retorted. “If Lottie hadn’t gotten sick, you wouldn’t have this rule.” 

Nat faltered at that, looking back at Lottie. The brunette made a move to stand, to say some wise and reflective statement that may or may not be pulled from an actual source, but Melissa beat her to it.

“I’ll do it.” 

You could have heard a pin drop as the nine other survivors pivoted to look at the blonde. She hadn’t said a word since Gen’s death, spending her days curled up on her girlfriend’s blanket, looking nearly as lifeless as she now was. 

“No. No, no, no,” Akilah said, rounding on the other girl and forcing eye contact. Natalie wanted to look away, every single neuron in her brain begged her to, but her eyes were glued to the scene. 

Melissa uttered something that sounded somewhat along the lines of “I wanna be with her,” and Akilah dropped to her knees, bringing the blonde down with her.

“But what about me? ” she wailed. Melissa just shook her head, as if she’d resigned herself to her fate long ago.

“Okay,” Nat whispered. “Let’s get ready.” 

***

They chose a clearing in between the cave and the crash site and used the last of their energy to prepare it for the evening’s events. Van and Tai worked on building the bonfire while Travis and Nat fashioned torches out of long sticks and dried grass, placing them methodically in a circle. Misty worked on making their animal pelt blankets into makeshift cloaks. Lottie safeguarded the necklace.

Natalie couldn’t quite remember when or why the necklace gained such a spiritual importance. She knew it wasn’t Lottie’s influence, because the girl had been on her deathbed in the attic on the evening of the first hunt. But it was tradition now, and Natalie wasn’t going to be the one to break it. 

At the cavern, Melissa was dressed in white. Laura Lee’s old, tattered nightgown looked worse for wear, but Lottie insisted that it felt right, and nobody felt like arguing with her. 

Dusk dimmed the lights over the mountains. Silently, single-filed, they made their way to their sacrifice spot, dressed head to toe in animal furs. 

Natalie led the front of the pack, a crown of antlers adorned on her head. Lottie was behind her, breathing erratically yet walking steadily. Van held up the back, lit torch in hand that was used to light the others in a circular fashion.

It was eerie, the way they fell into place so naturally. Natalie stood in the center, and the other girls weaved in and out beside her. Even Akilah, who had been practically inconsolable the whole day, stood calmly as Shauna took Melissa by the hand and led her out in front of the audience. Lottie passed off the golden heart charm, and they all stared in horror as the chain was fastened around the blonde’s neck. 

Slowly and with precision, the butcher placed the hunting blade to Melissa’s neck. One, two, three seconds passed.

If it weren’t for the blood that stained the snow maroon, there would have been no sign of the life that was lost. Melissa didn’t make a noise as she took her final breath. She didn’t so much as blink. Her body collapsed to the ground, soundless. 

Natalie refused to let herself look away as Shauna exsanguinated the sacrifice. Methodically. Ritualistically.

She did this. She chose this. She couldn’t distance herself from her decision. It had been done. They would live for a few more weeks, at least. It was the least she could do to let herself feel the harsh, throbbing pulsation of guilt in her chest.

The sun sets as Shauna finishes cutting the meat. Mari steps out of line, performing her duties as cook. Nobody wavers. They wait patiently for their gift. Time moves both agonizingly slow and breathtakingly fast. Natalie is presented with a plate first. The survivors wait motionless for her to take the first bite.

All sense of decorum is thrown out the door after she does. 

Juices drip down faces. Fingers rip into greasy, tough flesh. Their teeth are barred, eyes are rabid. Feral. Nat really, truly thinks that if anybody tried to take her food from her at that moment, she would have ripped their throat out, then and there. 

Nobody allowed themselves to think about what they were doing. All that mattered was that it was food . Fuel, sustenance. Nothing else mattered in that moment. They could deal with the repercussions later.

If they survived long enough to do so, that is. 

Nat somehow managed to come back to her senses long enough to convince the survivors to save some of the meat, to ration. It did them no good if they gorged themselves on all their resources in one night. They’d be back to the same circle of starvation in less than a week in that case. 

If they were smart, they could make the remains last for eight, maybe nine days. Nine days to figure out an alternate food source. Nine days to try not to kill herself over the weight of her actions crushing on her soul. 

They returned to camp in the same order they’d left. Natalie at the front, shouldering the weight. Lottie behind her, ready to grab her when she inevitably collapsed from the pressure of it all. 

Natalie shed her furs immediately after entering the cave, not wasting a second before falling into her bedroll and closing her eyes. All she wanted to do was forget. Forget this night, forget all of it. She’d known this moment was inevitable from the moment Lottie appointed her queen, but even her darkest nightmares hadn’t predicted the raw, all-encompassing pain that she was now experiencing. 

She wished it was her. It should’ve been her all the way back last winter. It should have been her, when her dad had wielded the shotgun in front of her face years ago. 

“Stop it.”

Lottie’s voice suddenly intercepted her self-annihilation spiral, doe eyes coming into view. 

“I know what you’re thinking. Stop it. You did what you needed to do. Nine of us are alive right now because of you. That’s all that matters. Focus on that.” 

She didn’t have the energy to reply, shutting her eyes to the feeling of Lottie’s thumbs gently stroking her temples, lulling her to sleep. 

***

“Stop. Stop, stop, stop. Put it down, now. ” 

Van’s harsh, worried words woke her up from her (mercifully) dreamless sleep. At once, Natalie was on her feet, with Lottie following shortly behind. 

Dawn was just beginning to shine its pale light through the mouth of the cave as she searched for the source of the commotion, habitually pausing at the little ledge they’d designated for the rifle and five remaining bullets. 

Natalie knew exactly how many were left. She checked every morning and every evening, as if sheer willpower alone could magically will more ammunition. In one sick, harrowing moment, she realized she should have used the last of it during her last hunting expedition.

Because there were only four bullets in the jar, and the gun was missing. 

She felt like she was moving in slow motion as she rounded the corner, heart dropping to her feet as she took in the sight before her. Akilah stood just outside the entrance of the cave, rifle in hand, positioned just below her chin. Van stood in front of her, arms outstretched, like she was trying to placate a skittish street cat. 

“Please, just give me the-”

The shot rang out before any of them had a moment to think. At once, Akilah’s small, malnourished frame collapsed, brain matter painting the walls of the cave in a horrific, nightmare-fueled mural. 

All was silent for a grand total of about three seconds. Nat, Van, and Lottie stared in shock and disbelief. The reality of the situation didn’t set in until five pairs of feet thundered into the space all at once, awoken by the noise.

“No,” Tai whispered, immediately rushing to Akilah’s side. Natalie watched as Van kneeled beside her, hands on her shoulders, murmuring sweet nothings into her ear. Mari choked on a sob, hands clasped to her mouth in disbelief. Blood rushed to Nat’s ears, deafening her to the commotion surrounding. 

She wasn’t in control of her body as she stepped forward, stepped closer. Everything in her was screaming to stay put, stay right where she was. It was almost as if an invisible force was dragging her towards the carnage, forcing her to her knees.

Lottie’s sudden apparition at her side brought her back to reality.

“Little rivulets,” the brunette whispered. Natalie looked up from where her eyes had been glued to Akilah’s young, pure, innocent face, eyes glassily fixated on the ceiling. Her other half had collapsed down next to her, staring at the blood splatter that now adorned the mouth of the cave. 

“What?” Nat croaked, confused. Shakily, Lottie turned her head, looking Natalie dead in the eyes. 

“It’s like a waterfall,” she whispered distantly. “Little rivulets, down the cave wall.”

Oh. Oh, fuck.

Summer. Dinner. Lottie, screaming, screaming, screaming. Shaking and desperate and terrified and unable to say a single word about it. Staring up at her, murmuring about disconnected words, words with no meaning, words of blood and death and gunshots and waterfalls. 

Nat sat there, blood soaking into her pants and staining them crimson, gripping onto Lottie’s hands and repeating her words in her head like a lifeline.

The last words Lottie would speak for months.

Chapter Text

Part of her thinks her last remaining shred of girlhood died that day.

And it’s not just her, either. Shauna lost the ability to hold a conversation without biting someone’s head off. Van has become completely and totally hardened. Nobody can remember the last time she made a joke, hell, the last time she smiled, even. Tai’s sleepwalking is relentless. There are moments in the daytime where Nat swears she’s gone, been replaced with the Other. Lottie is still and silent, spending her days and nights unmoving from the cavern floor, only performing basic tasks and bodily functions when Natalie literally forces her to. Mari is empty and mean, not saying a word but communicating all she needs to with her eyes. Travis was like a ghost, wandering around outside after dark in the frigid conditions. Misty was inconsolable, pacing the perimeter of the cave and mumbling to herself about whatever random topics her brain could conjure.

Natalie is lost.

It’s December now. The snowfall is constant, and the cold seeps into their bones no matter how close they are to the fire.

They’d managed to make Melissa and Akilah last for over a month. According to Shauna, the remainder of October and for over half of December. 

They’d starved for another week, living off of snowmelt and sheer will. An unlucky rabbit wandered into a wire trap, keeping them alive for another. It wasn’t enough though, and once again, desperation was taking over.

The others knew before Nat said a single word. They operated on the same wavelength now, a result of spending well over 500 consecutive days with one another. For better or for worse.

She grabbed their meager pile of knives and spears, letting them clatter to the floor in front of the fire. Mari wordlessly handed Natalie the card deck. Travis forced Misty over, Tai gave Shauna her best do not argue with me right now shit is about to go down look, and Van coaxed Lottie to her feet, supporting the brunette and letting her head fall onto her shoulder. Natalie sighed, taking her place as the others sat down, looking up at her. 

“It’s time,” she spoke, an odd tone of strength seeping through. “There’s been no sign of game for weeks. The Wilderness knows what we need to do.” 

She internally cringed at herself as the words left her mouth. How she’d ended up here– preaching about the mythical, disembodied spirit of the Wilderness in a very Lottie Matthews-esque fashion– would forever be a mystery to her. But there was no going back now. 

Her team needed her. 

She presented Van with the cards, who pulled out the Queen, presenting her to the group. A collective moment of silence fell upon the crowd. The next time they saw that figure, it would be in the hands of a martyr. 

Van meticulously shuffled the cards with time and care, treating them as though they were something precious and not the promise of imminent death. Finally, she presented the deck to Tai, and Natalie felt her breath still. 

Three of clubs.

Then, to Travis– Ace of spades. 

Five of diamonds. King of hearts. Nine of clubs. Seven of clubs. Jack of spades. Three of hearts. Two of clubs. Eight of diamonds. King of diamonds. Four of clubs. Nine of spades. Three of diamonds. Two of spades. King of clubs.

Queen of hearts. 

Mari.

Natalie watched as reality set in for the younger girl, color rapidly draining from her face. She stumbled backwards, breaths quickening. 

“What’s your choice, Mari?” Nat asked calmly, eyeing where Shauna stood, knife and necklace in hand. Mari simply shook her head, looking around frantically like a wild animal.

Nat wished so badly that she was a wild animal. That would make this whole thing so much easier. 

Van slowly approached her, holding the white gown in a placating manner. Mari’s eyes glossed over and as she slid the dress over her head and allowed Tai to clasp the golden charm necklace around her neck. For one sickeningly glorious moment, Nat thought Mari was going to submit, was going to allow Shauna to delicately and precisely glide the knife over her jugulars. 

The girls gathered ‘round, eyes wide, attention rapt at the moment at hand. Shauna got in position. And before any of them had time to even blink, Mari took off and was out the cavern entrance. 

“ Fuck, ” Nat hissed, acting on impulse as she grasped for a weapon and a pelt.

Years from now, looking back, Nat was still unable to recall the details of the day. It was all hazy, fuzzy, glazed over as if somebody had tinted out her memories, distorted the saturation, fucked with the focus. It was adrenaline. It was impulse. It was her brain doing its very best to protect her from the animalistic, primal, gut-wrenching and dehumanizing feeling of hunting another living and breathing human being.

She remembers the pit, and she remembers feeling relief. It was the trap Van and Tai had fashioned months ago. Her death was swift, and most importantly, the blood wasn’t directly on their hands.

But years from now, when her exhausted and abused body finally collapsed into sleep out of sheer exhaustion, flashes and scenes of the hunt would play in her head over and over and over like a film roll. The screams, the shouts, the calls and howls. The weapons raised in the air. Nat and Van sliding into the pit, prying Mari’s already-stiff corpse off of the spears of wood. Her mouth involuntarily watering at the smell of cooking meat, the first good meal they’d had in weeks.

She came back into her body that evening, lying down facing Lottie, staring into her absent eyes. She vaguely registered the others laying down around her. She and Lottie were centered, and the other’s bodies curled inwards towards them as if to shield them from harm.

Natalie found herself subconsciously reaching for Lottie, hand curling around her back as she tucked herself into the taller girl. She knew that it was selfish, searching for comfort in a time like this, immediately after she ate someone, especially considering Lottie probably wasn’t even aware of what was happening. But the most rational part of Nat had died with the leaves on the trees, with the souls of her friends. 

Lottie’s heavy breaths lulled her to sleep.

***

The plane came the very next day.

It felt like one big, giant slap in the face. Like, hey, I know you just had to resort to hunting and eating a literal human being to stay alive, but guess what! It was all pointless! All you needed to do was hold out one more fucking day, you impatient, homicidal piece of shit! 

Anyways.

If she hadn’t been out in the field with Travis and seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed it.

With their newfound energy and full bellies, they went out to reset the traps and scavenge for anything that looked remotely edible. She’d left Lottie with a gentle kiss on the forehead after force-feeding her bits of meat. She considered it a blessing that the other girl had managed to swallow down some bites.

It hadn’t snowed in a few days, either. The sky was clear and blue, sun reflecting blindingly off of the white-capped peaks. She despised how beautiful it was.

Nothing about this place was beautiful. It was sickening, and cold, and embedded deep into their blood and bones. She wanted out. She needed out.

It was like the universe had finally heard their collective prayers and the worst possible moment. 

The plane’s roar coincided with their descent into the prairie. She flinched away from the sound instinctually, grasping for Travis. She screwed her eyes shut as a gust of artificial wind blew flecks of ice into her face, turning away from the commotion. 

“No fucking way,” Travis yelled, though Nat could hardly hear him over the engines. She turned around, using her hand to shield her face from the onslaught of debris. 

And there it was. An honest-to-god airplane, with honest-to-god people inside of it. 

The noise died down, but she felt rooted in place. Maybe it was shock, maybe it was fear. But it took Travis physically dragging her by the hand to get her to move. 

“HEY!” he screamed. “HEY, WE NEED HELP! HELP US!”

Two men hopped out of the aircraft, looking up in alarm. Travis continued to charge forward, taking Natalie with him.

“What the fuck?” Nat heard one of the men say. They were both tall, dressed in thick and durable clothing made for the weather. They looked like they were supposed to be out here.

What a sight it must have been, she thought. Two emaciated, dirty teens dressed head-to-toe in animal pelts. 

“You’ve gotta help us,” Travis gasped out. “We crashed. Our plane, I mean, it crashed. We’ve been here for months. Not just us, there’s more, too, ah- Nat, how many of us?”

She blinked, head cloudy with shock.

“Uh… five others,” she managed to spit out. Travis nodded vigorously.

“Please, please just get us out of here, my mom… I need to see my mom, she has no idea, she thinks we all died but I didn’t, I’m still alive and she has no fucking clue-” he was gasping now, heaving for air. 

“Kid, slow down. Who the hell are you?” The taller of the two asked.

“We’re the Yellowjackets,” Nat whispered, somehow managing to find her voice. “Our plane crashed on the way to a soccer tournament. May 1996. What- what’s the date?” 

The two men exchanged a look, and the silence fell heavy.

“December 27th, 1997.” 

It felt like a gut punch. Logically, she knew they’d been out there for well over a year, but the days and months had started to blur together sometime after the first snowfall. But this confirmation hit hard, for some reason.

Nineteen months.

Holy fuck.

“What are your names?” The other man asked, fidgeting in his backpack and extracting two granola bars. Nat and Travis lunged for them ravenously, a force of horrible habit.

“Travis,” he responded in between bites of oat and fruit. “And that’s Natalie.”

“Alright, Travis and Natalie, nice to meet you. I’m Jim, this is Don.” Natalie simply nodded, hardly able to pay attention as the first bits of sugar marinated on her tongue for the first time in… well, 19 months.

“Listen, we’ve only got room for one of you in here,” Don said. “We’re just out here on a research trip, looking at the wolf population. We didn’t expect to be bringing back any extra cargo with us.”

Nat’s gaze drifted to the little passenger plane. It bore a deeply uncanny resemblance to the one Laura Lee had attempted to fly all those months ago, and she felt her heart plummet.

“We’re about seventy miles northwest of Calgary. We’ll radio in to search and rescue, and they’ll send a bigger aircraft. We know the exact coordinates, we’ll relay them over and they’ll pick you up right here.”

Natalie eyed the man– Jim– cautiously.

“Why should we trust you?”

She meant to have more bite in the sentence, but apparently she must have sounded pretty pathetic because Jim’s eyes softened and he crouched down to her level. 

“I know you have no reason to trust us, Natalie. But I promise you, we’re gonna do everything we can to get you guys out of here.”

“What if one of you came with us?” Don suggested. “That way you can keep an eye on us, make sure we’re living up to our promise. Does that sound okay?”

If Nat was in any other state, she would have felt patronized, but it was oddly comforting in the moment.

“I’ll go,” Travis volunteered. “You stay here, go grab the others and bring them here.” Natalie nodded, taking in a shuddering inhale. 

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. I’ll go get them,” she said, stepping back. Travis nodded, giving one last squeeze to her shoulder before turning to the men.

Nat backed away slowly, watching as Travis climbed into the plane. The engine roared to life as she crossed the threshold back into the forest. As soon as it disappeared into the sky, she took off in a dead sprint. 

She thrashed through the brush, stumbling through the thick snow drifts but still managing to make it back to the cave in record time. She was red-faced and panting by the time she stumbled through the mouth, effectively startling its inhabitants as her adrenaline depleted. 

“Plane,” she heaved out, hands on her knees in an effort to catch her breath. “There’s a plane. Travis left with them, they’re coming back for us.”

A beat. Silence.

And then pandemonium.

“Fuck, we’ve gotta go-”

“What do you mean, a plane?”

“No way, no fucking way…”

But all Natalie could focus on was Lottie, curled up in the exact spot she’d left her in this morning, looking impossibly small.

She crouched down, rubbing her hands along the other girl’s spine.

“Lot, can you hear me? We’ve gotta go, there’s a plane. We’re getting out of here.”

Lottie’s brow furrowed, but she made no effort to move.

“C’mon,” Nat urged, sitting her up. “Van, can you help me?”

The redhead turned at the sound of Natalie’s voice, stopping her frantic gathering of supplies. 

“Lottie, can you stand with us?” Van gently whispered. Lottie’s head bobbed up and down slowly, eyes somewhat re-focusing. Nat’s hand searched the ground for a pair of shoes to shove on her feet.

“Alright… okay. Uh, leave everything here, we won’t need it,” Nat commanded after Lottie’s shoes were tied. “Shauna, where’s the rest of the meat?”

The brunette’s head snapped up. 

“Outside. Why?”

“Burn it. If people come looking for this place, investigating or whatever, they cannot know. ” 

Shauna nodded in understanding, immediately scrambling to her feet and making a beeline for the makeshift meat shed. 

Once the meat was taken care of, the girls suited up for the trek back out to the prairie, Taissa in the lead with Nat and Van in the back, Lottie in between the two. The chaos of the morning had seemed to breathe some life back into her, though she still stumbled every other step. Nat half wondered if that was due to her lack of sense of reality, or the fact that she had barely moved from her spot on the cave floor in weeks.

Save for the directions Nat occasionally shouted up the line at Tai, the girls were silent as they trekked across the tundra. It couldn’t have taken more than an hour total, but to Nat, it was like eternity. Hope bloomed in her chest against her will, and she did her best to stamp it down.

Nothing good had ever come of hope. But this, now, felt so real and so tangible. 

They broke out of the treeline and into the vast openness that was the valley meadow. The plane still hadn’t returned, but Nat could see the lines marring the snow from where it had landed. 

It hadn’t been all in her head. Thank god. 

“Did they give a timeframe?” Misty asked, ever the planner.

“They said it was, like… seventy miles to Calgary, I think? But they had to get a bigger plane, something about search and rescue, so it could be awhile.”

Shauna sighed, and Nat wished she’d had the foresight to bring their blankets with them. The sun was strong, but it was still frigid, and the wind didn’t help. She huddled against Lottie, wrapping her arms around the other girl’s torso. Van followed suit, and soon enough, the six remaining were one entity, clinging to one another in warmth and prayer. At some point, someone started humming some lost melody and Nat felt the edges of her mouth twitch up into a smile.

What would be the first song she heard once they got back? How many bands had been formed, films had been released in their absence?

Van would have a field day, she knew. Practically two years’ worth of movies had been out. She wondered how long it would take her to get through them all.

She wondered if she would watch them with her. 

Shauna’s flinch came before Nat could register the sound of the engine. Natalie lifted her head from where it had been nestled under Lottie’s chin, squinting against the sudden brightness.

There, just over the horizon, was the plane.

They’d come back for them.

They were going home. 

Van rose to her right, Taissa next to her.

Natalie could only stare in awe as the plane made its descent, gliding across the ground before braking to a stop just at the edge of the far treeline. Van broke her from her trance in a move oddly reminiscent to what Travis had done just that morning, grabbing her by the hand and forcing her to take off running. Lottie trailed behind Nat, nails digging into palm flesh. 

The survivors rushed the plane in a desperate state. Natalie was pretty certain they scared the shit out of the rescuers as they dropped into the prairie, looking them down like they were a pack of wild animals.

That wasn’t too far off from the truth, but they couldn’t know that. Nobody could know that. Ever.

Even Nat herself was going to do her damn best to forget. 

“Girls?” The first pilot called out as they slowed to a stop in front of the plane. “Is this all of you?”

The six exchanged glances, mentally warring about what to disclose.

“All that’s left,” Nat finally said. The pilot nodded solemnly, and her partner walked over to their side, opening the door to the aircraft.

“Are any of you hurt? Sick?” 

The girls shook their heads in unison.

“Alright, then, hop aboard. We’ve got some bottles of water and some protein bars for you, I’m sure you’re hungry.” The woman gestured for them to climb aboard, but nobody dared move. 

Nat wasn’t sure that her brain had entirely managed to put together that in order to get back home, they’d have to board a plane. And the last time she’d boarded a plane, all hell had broken loose. 

The pilots must have caught on to their fear pretty quick, because she was fast to placate them.

“Look, it’s perfectly safe, I promise. I know this must be scary for you. But this is the only way to get you back. Okay?”

Natalie took a steadying breath, looking back at her girls.

For this last time, she’d be their leader. She’d be brave for them.

She took a step forward, then climbed up the stairs to the cabin. Once she settled into a seat, Tai climbed aboard, followed by Van and Lottie, then Misty and finally Shauna. Van guided Lottie into the seat next to Nat, and the brunette’s hand immediately found hers. 

Natalie looked up, finding her eyes. 

“You with me, Princess?” Lottie nodded tiredly, rubbing her fingers across Natalie’s palm. The blonde relaxed into the touch, relishing it, especially as the plane rumbled to life and her heart rate skyrocketed in panic.

Misty full-on screamed, and from the corner of her eye, Nat could see Tai and Van grasping on to each other like a lifeline. Shauna sat perfectly still, eyes boring a hole into the ground.

Natalie focused on Lottie, on how the pressure of the other girl’s hands felt on her own calloused palms. She refused to let herself think of anything else. She couldn’t– not if she wanted to make it off of this plane without having a mental breakdown. 

The flight itself wasn’t terribly long. The pilots– Jenny and Cat– told them it would be about half an hour total. Natalie was sure she would have enjoyed the view, if it weren’t for the fact that she was intentionally making sure her gaze didn’t move from Lottie’s hands in her lap. The brunette’s head had found her shoulder, and Natalie relished in the little puffs of breath hitting her neck. 

Breath meant alive.

The turbulence of the final descent shook her more than she was willing to admit, but before she knew it, they were safe and on the ground, and Jenny turned around to face them.

“We’re at Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary. The doctors are gonna make sure nobody has any substantial injuries, and once you’re cleared, you’ll get medevaced to a bigger hospital in New York. In just a few moments, you guys are gonna be surrounded by a bunch of different people, and it’s probably going to be pretty overwhelming. Just remember that everyone here wants to help you. Okay?” 

The six girls nodded mechanically as the plane doors were yanked open. They were greeted by an onslaught of doctors, some with stretchers, some with wheelchairs.

Shauna was off first, followed by Misty. Van had to be practically ripped off of Tai. Natalie could hear her screams all the way into the hallway, and the look on Tai’s face was one of pure agony. There were now two chairs left– one for her, and one for Lottie. Natalie squeezed her hand, tight.

“They’re gonna separate us, I think. But I’ll meet you in there. Are you gonna be okay?”

Lottie nodded, biting her lip as she looked hesitantly at the doctors awaiting them. She pressed her lips to Nat’s forehead for a quick moment before allowing a nurse to help her out of the plane and into the hands of the medical professionals. 

Before she could chicken herself out, Natalie let the same happen to her. A nurse’s soft, gentle hand braced her arm, allowing her a bit of dignity in hopping off the plane herself. She scoffed at the sight of the wheelchair– she’d survived on her own two feet for the last nineteen months, chances were she could make it a few more feet into the building– but complied regardless. 

Wind steeled against her face as she was wheeled across the tarmac, but as soon as the door was opened, she practically moaned against the warm blast of the heater. 

Heated buildings– something she had certainly taken for granted before the crash. Even her shitty ass trailer was at least somewhat heated most days. 

The hall was white, stark, and sterile. Nat’s nostrils were assaulted by the smell of bleach and peroxide, so strong that she physically grimaced. The fluorescent lights burned her unadjusted eyes. She was brought into an exam room the size of a broom closet

“Where are the others?” she asked as a nurse helped her onto the bed. 

“We have a team of trauma doctors working on each of you to make sure you’re well enough to make the flight over to New York. They’re more equipt for this type of thing, plus that way it’ll be easier for your families to get to you.” 

Nat froze at the mention of parents. 

She wasn’t proud of it, but she’d hardly thought of her mother during their time out in the wild. She half-wondered if her mom would have even realized she’d gone missing if it wasn’t for the media ruckus the plane crash caused. 

Would her mom even be there to pick her up? Was she even functioning? Natalie had been left to bear the brunt of buying groceries and cooking dinners for her mother after her father died. She wouldn’t be surprised if she’d rotted away in that small metal death trap they’d called home. 

“Little pinch in three, two, one-” Nat was brought back to reality by a rather large needle that was stabbed into her inner arm. Immediately, blood flowed out of it and into a bag and Nat gagged.

“Sorry, sweetie, it’ll just be a couple of minutes, I promise.” 

She swallowed down bile and looked away, focusing intently on the white and green tile. The crimson was too soon a reminder of the horrors she had perpetrated, that had been done by her own hand. 

It felt like an eternity before the needle was extracted, though it was swiftly replaced by an IV. 

“We’re gonna run some quick tests and try to get you hydrated. In the meantime, I have a few questions I need to ask you. Is that alright?” The nurse– Joan, her badge read– asked. 

“Yeah. Fine,” Nat murmured, adjusting herself on the rock-hard hospital bed and pulling the thin, scratchy blanket over her malnourished frame. 

“Alrighty. First of all, when was your last period?”

Natalie sighed. It was going to be a long day.

***

Thirty extremely invasive questions later, a middle-aged man in a white coat walked into the room.

“Good news, Miss Scatorccio. Your bloodwork came back clean, though you are severely iron-deficient and your hemoglobin is pretty low. With a few days of IV fluids and nutrition, you should be good to go.” 

“When can I see the others?” she asked, hardly focused on the words coming out of his mouth. She hadn’t been away for this long from her girls in well over a year, and she could feel the anxiety rising in her chest with each passing moment.

“As soon as everyone is cleared as stable. We’re going to keep you all here overnight for observation, and in the morning a charter plane will fly you out to the finest medical facility the northern U.S. has to offer. We have some clean clothes for you to change into, if you’d like.”

Nat nodded eagerly as a matching hoodie and sweatpants were handed towards her, along with a black baseball cap. She couldn’t even remember whose clothes she was currently wearing– she was pretty sure her jeans were her own, but the shirt had definitely been worn by Shauna at one point, and the jacket had been passed through so many people that she wasn’t sure it even had an official owner anymore. 

“Can you change yourself, or do you need some help?” another nurse asked. She was sure she meant well, but Nat felt smothered by all of the people in the room. 

“I’ve got it, thanks,” she murmured. Once everyone was out of the room, she wasted no time in changing into the soft, sturdy fabrics. Her skin still felt grimey and tight, but the new clothes made her feel somewhat more human. She chucked the torn and thin rags she’d been wearing into the furthest corner of the room and curled back up in bed, exhausted.

What a day it had been.

She was unsettled by the silence, by the lack of human presence. Despite her bone-deep tiredness, she knew she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep if she tried– not after she’d grown accustomed to sleeping in a pile of bodies on a rock-hard floor, as opposed to the mattress she currently laid atop. 

Luckily– or unluckily, depending on how you looked at it– the quiet didn’t last for long, because a gut-wrenching scream rang out from the hallway.

Nat bolted up on instinct and ran over to the door. She was greeted by half a dozen doctors surrounding a feral-looking Van and Taissa.

“You can’t take her. You can’t, ” Van hissed tearily.

Overlapping voices attempted to placate the redhead, but Natalie could tell she was only growing more agitated.

“Hey! What the fuck are you doing?” She shouted, stepping out into the hallway.

“Miss Scatorccio, please, go back into your room-” one of the nurses practically begged, but Nat shook her head violently.

“Not until I know what’s going on.” 

The adults seemed slightly stunned at her hardened response, but recovered quickly.

“We just need to finish running some tests, that’s all.” 

“Well, why can’t they be together for that?” 

“It would just be a lot easier-”

“Fuck easier ,” Nat retorted. “If they’re more comfortable being by each other, shouldn’t that be your first priority?”

The hallway fell silent, save for Van’s labored breaths and Tai’s whimpers. 

“... I suppose that’s a reasonable request,” one of the doctors finally responded. “As long as we’re still able to do our work.” 

“Fantastic. Now while we’re on the subject, can somebody please tell me where Lottie Matthews’ room is?”

***

The sun was beginning to set by the time Natalie finally stepped foot into Lottie’s room. A nurse was sitting by her bedside, monitoring her vitals, while Lottie laid in the fetal position on the bed, eyes distant.

“Is she okay?” Nat asked, stepping closer.

“Physically, she’s fine– or, as fine as anybody could be in your, ah, situation. But we’re concerned about her mental state. She hasn’t said a word,” she nurse replied, eyeing Natalie with caution as the blonde approached the bed and grabbed Lottie’s hand. 

“Lot?” Nat whispered, crouching down to the other girl’s eye level. Lottie’s brows furrowed for a second before realization dawned over her expression.

“Nat?” she croaked. Natalie nodded. 

“Yeah, it’s me. You doing okay? How are you feeling?” 

Lottie completely ignored the question, instead reaching up to stroke Natalie’s face.

“Stay with me?” she whispered, so quiet that Nat almost didn’t hear.

“Of course,” she murmured back, not even bothering to look at the nurse for confirmation. She stood up and maneuvered herself to the other side of the bed, wrapping her arms around the other girl’s shoulders and linking their fingers. 

Natalie immediately felt her eyes flutter shut as she leaned into Lottie’s warm embrace. For the first time in months, she fell asleep truly comfortable.

***

Morning came in a hazy blur. She was pretty sure the nurses had snuck some kind of drugs into her IV, because she slept far past the sunrise and only awoke to the sound of the doctors chattering incessantly in her presence. 

She opened her eyes blearily, happy to see that nobody had attempted to remove her from Lottie in the night. The brunette was still sound asleep next to her. 

“Good morning, Miss Scatorccio. The plane just landed, we’re going to get you girls going pretty soon here. Okay?”

Nat nodded, sighing as she turned to Lottie.

“Hey, Lot, wake up,” she murmured into her ear. “We’re getting outta here.”

It took some gentle prodding, but Lottie finally sat up with a yawn, leaning into Nat.

“Do you feel steady enough to move on your own?” one of the nurses asked, and Nat nodded. “Alright, wonderful. We’re going to run over some stuff with all of you for a few moments, and then we’ll get you going on your way. Follow me.”

Natalie stood up and prompted Lottie to do the same, squinting against the black dots that spotted her vision. Malnourished was an understatement.

Once Lottie’s hand was firmly planted in hers, the two followed the nurse down the hall and into a conference room, where the five others were sitting. Lottie made a beeline for Van, immediately leaning her head against her shoulder. Nat took the seat next to her.

“Okay. Before we walk over to the plane, there’s something we have to prep you all for,” a man in a suit said. Nat had no clue who he was, but he gave the air of importance. “There’s, ah… a number of reporters out on the tarmac. I’m so sorry, legally there is nothing we can do about it. But I can tell you that legally, you are under no obligation to respond to any of them. There’s a barricade that’s been put up and we have a number of police officers outside to escort you, but it will likely be quite… overwhelming.”

Nobody said anything for a few moments, though Nat did hear a very explicit groan from Taissa.

“Okay, but say we did want to speak with the reporters-”

“ Misty, ” Shauna hissed, cutting her off. 

Misty at least had the decency to look ashamed, but Nat rolled her eyes regardless.

“Is everyone ready?” the man asked. Nat took a look around. None of them looked ready, that was for sure. But they might as well rip the bandaid off.

Tai stood first, much to Nat’s surprise. Naturally, Van followed, then Nat, and Lottie behind her. The girls (and Travis) shuffled down the hallway, down a flight of stairs, down another hallway, and finally to a door. The suit man that had been directing them paused for a moment, turning to face the survivors.

“I suggest putting your hats on if they aren’t already and pulling your hoods up. This isn’t going to be pleasant.” 

Nat complied immediately.

As soon as all of the others had sufficiently shielded their faces, the man opened the door, and they were released to the wolves.

At once, Nat was bombarded by shouting and flashing lights. She ducked her head down and refused to look up– she only knew where she was going based off of Lottie’s feet in front of her. She could feel the presence of hundreds of bodies swarming the tarmac, flocking over them like birds of prey. Nat felt her chest tighten. The steps of the airplane came into view, and for a moment, she was relieved.

Then Lottie stilled, turned, and screamed.

Nat was a creature of instinct. It was how she’d survived her home, and then the woods. And her instinct jolted her up the stairs, encompassed Lottie in her arms, and led her into the plane cabin.

“Shhhh, Lot, it’s okay, we’re okay,” she murmured. The shrill, animalistic noises had ceased, but they were instead replaced with quiet whimpers and fast-paced tears. Natalie led them over to the seats across from Tai and Van, doing her best to not think about the fact that the interior looked eerily similar to the one they’d crashed in. 

Nat buckled them both in before readjusting her hold on Lottie, bringing one arm behind her back so that the brunette could lay her head on her chest. Natalie barely listened to the words their flight attendant was saying.

She didn’t loosen her hold on Lottie once for the entire flight.

***

The first thing Nat did when they were settled in their hospital rooms in New York was take a hot shower.

With Lottie, of course. 

Nat stood on her tiptoes, rubbing shampoo through Lottie’s hair, embracing her against the warm spray. She tucked herself under Lottie’s chin, and the two stayed under the water for far longer than they should have, until their skin was red and pruned. 

Upon exiting, they dressed in soft, cotton pajamas and laid in a single bed. Lottie had point-blank refused to go into her own room upon arrival, forcing the nurses to adjust. IVs were inserted into their arms, and they were given bowls of plain broth. They had been informed that they’d be only given bland, simple foods for the time being, to give their stomachs time to adjust. Nat called bullshit. But whatever. 

She fell asleep wrapped in Lottie’s arms, with gentle fingers carding through her hair and soft lips pressing on her forehead. 

***

She woke up alone.

Natalie frantically patted Lottie’s side of the bed, grasping at nothing. Panic set in quickly.

“Lottie?” she yelled. “Lottie! Where the fuck-” 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Lottie stepped out of the bathroom, rushing over to Nat at the sound of her panic. “I’m right here. I just had to use the bathroom. But I’m here, it’s all okay,” she cooed, wrapping her arms around Natalie. Nat nodded, burrowing herself against Lottie’s warm frame. 

Suddenly, Lottie sat up.

“Lot? What’s wrong?”

Lottie said nothing. She stared into the hallway intently, as if she was seeing a ghost. She stood up suddenly, walking in an unnatural, rhythmic manor out the door. Nat followed without hesitation.

By the time she made it out the door, Lottie was already down the hall and turning a corner.

“Lot? Wait up!” she called, but it made no difference. 

Natalie turned the corner, and immediately froze at what she saw.

At the end of the hallway stood a woman. No, not just a woman– it was Lottie. 

But she was different. She was dressed in Laura Lee’s white gown, the one they’d used for the hunts. A layer of fishnet shrouded her face, and locks of hair dangled down from the cloth. Atop her head was a pair of antlers, framing her in a regal manner. 

It was her. It was the same exact getup that Natalie had been draped in on those terrible, desperate days. All she could do was stare in horror, in awe. The figure– Lottie– walked closer, and closer, and closer, until–

Natalie sat up with a gasp, coated in a cold sweat. Instinctually, she reached for Lottie, a habit of comfort. But just like in her dream, she came up empty.

“What the fuck…” she murmured, switching on a light and looking towards the bathroom.

Unlike her dream, the door was ajar, and Lottie was nowhere to be seen.

She immediately bolted into the hallway, effectively startling the nurse on duty.

“Everything alright, dear?” she asked, putting her hands on Natalie’s shoulders.

“Lottie. Matthews. Where is she?” Nat asked in a panicked haze, breaths fast and shallow. The nurse’s eyes softened, and her face twisted in pity. Natalie felt her heart drop into her stomach.

“I’m so sorry, dear. Her parents came for her late last night, they’re transferring her to a hospital more suitable for her, ah… needs.”

No. No. There was no way this was happening.

“What? What do you mean?” 

The nurse led her back to her room, much to Nat’s chagrin. 

“Are you aware of her situation?” she asked softly. Nat’s brows furrowed.

“I mean… I know she’s schizophrenic, if that’s what you mean. But I don’t understand what that has to do with anything.” Her hands were shaking now. 

“Her parents were just concerned about the effects of being without her medication for so long. They thought it was for the best.”

“Do you know how long she’ll be there for?” 

The nurse gave her that same pity look again. Nat despised it. “No, I don’t. But it’s all going to be alright. You’ll see.”

Natalie shook her head, standing up and pacing around the hospital room. No the fuck it would not be alright, actually. 

Natalie had tried her best for her whole life to not be dependent on people. People let you down. Even her parents, whose whole entire purpose was to protect her and keep her safe, had failed her. But Natalie had to admit it to herself at this point.

She needed Lottie in the same way that she needed water, that she needed oxygen to breathe. Lottie had been the only steady presence in her life for years at this point, and certainly during their nineteen months of hell. How the fuck was Nat supposed to function if she was just… gone?

At some point during her mental spiral, she must have descended into a full-blown panic attack, because she vaguely registered more nurses entering her room and pushing her back into bed while she screamed and thrashed. They must have drugged her, because against her will, she felt herself drifting off into nothing.

***

One by one, they were picked up by their families.

Shauna went first. After Lottie, that is. They were all together playing a card game when it happened. Nat watched as Deb Shipman practically ran into the room, lifting Shauna off of her feet and wrapping her in an all-encompassing embrace. The woman weeped into her daughter’s shoulder, murmuring prayers and thanks.

Then it was Travis, escorted out by his less-than-present mother, although Nat figured that was to be expected, considering she had probably just learned of the loss of her husband and youngest son.

Misty was whisked away in the arms of two loving, doting, overly-concerned parents. Tai’s parents cupped her face and kissed her head, watching tearfully as she held Van tight and said goodbye.

It was just the two of them left, now.

Nat and Van.

Pretty typical, if you asked Nat.Vicky and Vera were two birds of a feather– mothers, wives, left as a shadow of themselves in the wake of their shitbag abusive husbands. Unable to care for themselves, let alone their equally-traumatized children. 

The nurses, with their fake cheer and poorly-hidden sympathy, spoke to them about looking on the bright side– at least this way, they’d have a few more days to acclimate back to normal life, their bodies more adjusted with the help of extra fluids and IV nutrition. 

“It’s a miracle, really,” one of the doctors murmured after looking over Nat’s vitals. “After a year and a half in the wild like you were, you all should have been in significantly worse shape.”

Nat simply rolled her eyes at that. There was no silver lining to their situation.

Eventually, three days after Taissa left, Vicky Palmer pulled up outside of the hospital, all desperate tears and half-assed lies about how her phone wasn’t working. Nat knew the woman was probably just too cooked off of her ass to even register it ringing. She could smell the wine on her breath from across the room.

Upon learning that Nat was the only girl left, Vicky took it upon herself to bring her back with them.

“I know Vera well, we live in the same neighborhood. I’ll make sure she gets home, safe and sound.”

The staff had been skeptical, but technically speaking, Natalie was a legal adult and didn’t need her parent’s permission to leave. 

And so on New Year’s Eve, Nat and Van clambered into the backseat of the Palmer’s shitty old sedan and headed south to Wiskayok. 

Nat hazily watched as the New York City skyline faded out of view as they crossed the New Jersey border. 

“Nat, sweetie, we’ll check on Vera once we get there. I’m sure you’re missing home a lot, aren’t you?”

Home. 

What a foreign word. 

The drafty trailer filled with haunted memories and empty beer bottles certainly wasn’t home. It hadn’t been in years. 

Nat had never had a home, not really. Come to think of it, the closest she ever got was shut away in that small, damp cavern, Lottie curled up into her side. 

Thinking of Lottie was painful. It felt like somebody had ripped her in two, left her without half of her heart. She didn’t know how to function without her, not anymore. And if what that nurse had said was right– that the Matthews’ were sending her to some fancy medical facility– then Nat probably wouldn’t see her for a long time.

Maybe ever again.

In the end, all she was left with were the memories.

That would have to be enough for now.