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As chaos breaks out in the courtroom Ingrid is shocked into silence, staring at the screen revealing their votes. Four votes for Ingrid Grimwall, and five for Toshiko Kayura.
Beside Toshiko, Ulysses gingerly attempts to place a hand on her shoulder, but she slaps his hand away, her screams becoming sobs as she yells at Ulysses for voting for her. She cries for someone to save her, anyone to rescue her. Kai begs Tozu for them to vote again, that they can make the right decision instead of executing a little kid, but Tozu's not listening. No, he's setting up the execution, ignoring their tears, Toshiko's tears as she runs towards Ingrid, grabbing her arm, and despite all the harm she's caused Ingrid holds onto her tight, promising she won't let go-
-and the chain shoots towards Toshiko's neck, pulling her away. When Ingrid tries to hold onto Toshiko's arm an electric shock paralyses her, knocking her to the ground. When she's able to get up again Toshiko's vanished, reappearing in the execution room.
Ingrid prays the execution will be merciful. As Toshiko lands in the execution, stuck in a Valentine's Day themed room, Ingrid thinks it will be less severe - that Tozu will be lenient towards her, because of her age, or the supposed ambiguity of the situation.
Tozu is not lenient.
No matter how much they shout at Tozu to get Toshiko out he stands unflinchingly, ignoring them completely, and when Grace tries to climb over the railing he electrocutes her and when she tries again Mara grazes her with an bullet and Desmond drags her away before a third attempt can be made. After a certain point Ingrid gives up on yelling and just clamps her hands over her ears, squeezing her eyes shut to block it all out because it's too much to look at but she can still hear everything - Toshiko dying and Kai yelling at Mark for voting for her and Wenona muttering something under her breath to Ulysses and the execution goes on.
Grace bleeds from the bullet grazing her arm, and as she's pulling Ingrid up from the position she's sunk down into on the floor Desmond stops her. Insisting she herself needs assistance, leading Grace away. In front of them, the execution has reached its end. Toshiko's punishment brought to its end - Toshiko Kayura, small and frail, who should never have suffered such a brutal death.
Ingrid's no psychic, but she knows what they're thinking. It's the same thought that consumes her mind, as she rides down the cold, silent elevator alone: it should have been her instead.
She was right. They don't see her the same anymore.
Ingrid enters the dining room to conversation that cuts off a little too sharply. She walks past, and Desmond tenses up. Kai avoids her eyes, looking over at Damon, who pretends she isn't there. Grace acknowledges her, at least, with a look in her red-rimmed eyes that isn't quite contempt but not quite sympathy. She gets that now's not the time for hope speeches, not that she could have mustered up the courage for one anyway, so Ingrid disappears into the kitchen without a word and sits alone with her breakfast.
When Mark enters a few minutes later, he wordlessly joins her, ignoring Ingrid's fledgeling attempts of conversation and gluing his eyes to his cereal. But he doesn't leave until they've finished eating and Desmond announces there's a new floor that's opened up. A new floor because of Toshiko's death. And running away and hiding isn't an option when even Damon's choosing to go along, so Ingrid goes along, finding herself paired up with a reluctant Desmond. And when Damon walks past her, he doesn't even acknowledge her presence.
It's fine. She's fine, and she'll make it work.
Ingrid awakens the next morning to a tablet on the floor of her room. Confused, she picks it up, and the moment it turns on, the video plays straight away - and it grabs her attention, because she recognises the bruised faces in that video, recognises the brown, curly hair and the peach-coloured pigtails and the freckles on the youngest one, recognises their tremulous voices as they cry out for help:
Get us out of here! Help, somebody help us, the youngest screams, and as Ingrid's sucked into the video, it cuts off abruptly...and the video is replaced with text. The only way to save them, it reads, is for her to escape the killing game.
She doesn't have time to play it again, because somebody's banging on her door with urgency, and Desmond is on the other side, holding a tablet in her hands, telling her she has to come to the dining hall immediately, and not to watch the video on the tablet. And he's too late for that, but Ingrid keeps her mouth shut as she follows him.
It turns out, they've all received some video or another threatening something dear to them. And they've all received the same offer: win the killing game, and they'll be saved. But as she hears them talking about the videos they received Ingrid grows more and more uneasy.
Because they've all received someone else's video. And they're careful not to speak of whoever they received, saying the best course of action is to keep their video away from its owner so they don't get pushed to murder, but Ingrid's already seen hers, heard the voices of her siblings crying out for help...
She's at a loss whether or not to say a word. Tozu's trying to single her out here, she's not dim enough to miss that, but the problem is that singling Ingrid out might work. The trust they had put in her has already been eroded in an instant - what will happen to her, if she reveals this information now? But what will happen if she hides it and then her dishonesty is revealed?
And thinking about it, there was something odd about what she saw - something about their faces, about how they spoke...how real was what she saw? Before she can dwell on that too much, Desmond's announcing they continue their search from yesterday - with the same groups as before. Ingrid still paired with Desmond. The two had barely spoken since the trial. Ingrid had a sinking feeling he was one of the four who voted for her to be executed. The way he was speaking in the trial, blaming her for Jean's death, not fully buying Ulysses's hypothesis that Toshiko had fooled them all...
Desmond was already acting funny around her, but now he's even on edge from the motive. Ingrid tries hard to remain calm. Trying to ignore the cries of somebody, help us playing in her mind - focus on escape, the same way she'd been focused on it the day she woke up here. She doesn't utter the usual words she says to calm herself down, no. Ingrid can't speak those aloud without hearing another voice, high and tremulous, talking alongside her.
It's fine. She's fine, and she'll make it work.
Except it doesn't work and they're not fine, because Desmond is tight-lipped and stoic, a far cry from his usual relaxed self. And when she bites the bullet and tells the truth that she received her own video, it doesn't go down well. Not that she should have expected it to, but somewhere during the discussion where she's trying to defend herself the topic shifts to the trial. And Toshiko.
Ingrid knows she should be patient and accommodating, understanding his grief while still admonishing his behaviour. She should see that he's lashing out because he's afraid and hurt, and talk him down while still not being a complete doormat. And when he brings up the trial, the first time anyone's dared speak of it to her face, Ingrid knows she should echo the same rhetoric Ulysses was using before - that despite her culpability of not watching Toshiko as she should, Ingrid is not the one who killed him.
Ingrid does not do this.
"Where were you when he died?" she finds herself shouting. "You spent all your time bickering with Mark, but now Jean's dead you want to pin the blame on everybody else?!"
Rage had crept up on her in a flash, anger she didn't even know she felt until now - violent fury she struggles to suppress. Desmond tries to backtrack, but she doesn't give him a chance to take back his words. "When you were too busy arguing with Mark I was the one cooking for Jean and making sure nobody snuck in and slit his throat - how am I meant to watch Toshiko when I'm meant to be everywhere at once?!"
She realises how loud she's yelling when Desmond is silent and her voice echoes through the hallway. Kai emerges from a side room, Damon close behind him.
"H-Hey, you guys should calm down...!" Kai tries to walk towards them, although he's nervous. "Let's be reasonable, y-you guys don't have to-"
"I'm not the one being unreasonable." she spits, and Kai takes a full two steps backwards in response. Looking scared of her. Which finally breaks her out of whatever spell her anger's cast her under, and turning back at Desmond she sees that same fear in his face.
Fear of her? she thinks, and, standing behind her, she's got a little audience of people watching the whole debacle going on. Mark hiding under his beanie, and Wenona folding her arms, and Damon pulling Kai backwards. And Grace appears, followed by Ulysses, drawn by the noise. And Kai says something about Ingrid picking fights and she has to correct him, but when she starts speaking everyone's suddenly hushing her down. Telling her not to get worked up, that they could continue their discussion another time. Desmond still looks a little sick, even after the two of them mumble out their apologies, and he calls off the search for now. They take a break to get lunch, and Mark this time chooses to sit with Ulysses instead.
Ingrid knows whatever hasty apology she'd said back then didn't cut it, and that it's on her to make up with him - apologise first, take back everything she said, be the bigger person. But in the dining hall the next morning, Ingrid takes one look at him and acts like he wasn't there. She can barely look at him without their previous conversation coming to mind - Ingrid being the one to blame for Jean's death. And it's either she framed Toshiko or she was working with Toshiko or she let Toshiko poison him - Ingrid's fault, in every possibility.
Today, she investigates with Wenona, who is silent, observing Ingrid with cryptic looks she can't decipher. She doesn't talk, and Ingrid doesn't exactly want conversation, but her thoughts are distracting her. The video she had received - the obligation to make up with Desmond and be the bigger person - the trial. Finding Jean dead, having Toshiko lie to her face and everybody believe her over Ingrid. Suddenly, she feels the beginning of tears welling in her eyes, and trying to calm herself, Ingrid slips.
"I'm here," she mutters under her breath, barely audible, "and I'm okay."
And she freezes - because Toshiko would always repeat it after her, holding onto her arm with one hand, and Ingrid would smile down and pat her head and Toshiko would brush her hand off, feeling embarrassed, and she would use her long words and fancy sayings to tell her off and Ingrid would relent jokingly. And she would be safe, next to her, not mangled during an execution, trying to escape her death, crying out for help with nobody to save her-
"Ingrid?"
Wenona is blurry, and Ingrid's confused by that until she feels tears sliding down her cheeks. She steps backwards, opening her mouth to explain it all away but she finds she can't talk. Wenona tries to get closer to her but Ingrid backs up until she's at the doorway of the room - and then she runs. Fast, before anyone can stop her.
In the quiet chill of the boiler room, Ingrid finds herself alone. She doubts anybody would look down here for her - they'd all avoided the place since the first trial...Wolfgang's death, Diana forced to watch him die. What would Wolfgang think of her now? Picking fights, running away like a little girl? Allowing so many of her friends die under her watch? If he was still here, how many more of them would still be alive?
She hears quiet footsteps down the corridor. The door opens. Ingrid turns away from the railing to see Damon Maitsu looking back at her.
Ingrid remembers a time before the trial when they were closer. Where he was beginning to shed his sense of superiority and starting to trust others - trust her, believe that her kindness was no snare laid out to kill him. That Damon had effectively disappeared in the trial. The look on his face now mirrors the look on everybody else's - guarded. Cautious. Distrusting.
"...Wenona's been looking for you." Damon says.
"I know."
"They need you back upstairs." he continues, not quite meeting her eye. "The investigation isn't done yet."
He's cold, and distant, and Ingrid suddenly can't bear this whole charade of dancing around what really happened in the trial, exchanging surface-level niceties and overly-polite words. So she skips the whole meaningless, unnecessary conversation and asks the question that's been eating away at her mind.
"Do you think I poisoned Jean?"
He avoids the question. "...There's no point in discussing that. The trial is over, and we have to-"
"Do you believe I poisoned Jean?" Ingrid re-words her question, trying to see any shift in behaviour. Trying to see...anything at all. "Do you think I would do that to him? Bake a whole pie and poison his slice and frame Toshiko? Or watch Toshiko poison him and not do anything to stop it?"
Seeing that she is persistent, and therefore this discussion can't be avoided, he pauses for longer this time before responding. "There's no way I can say that-"
"Yes you can," she insists, "because when Diana was accused of murder, you spoke out for her! You saw through Eva's lies, and told us Diana wasn't the culprit - that she wasn't the kind of person who would murder somebody!"
"That was a faulty argument. I never should have let myself-"
"So if you could see Diana was innocent, that she never even touched a hair on Wolfie's head, then what about me?" she asks, begs even, walking towards him as he steps back, still not properly looking her in the eye, still not acknowledging her at all. "I'm innocent, Damon, I never hurt him-"
"Toshiko couldn't have-"
"-so why can't you see that? Why can't anybody see that?!" she asks. "Why - Why is it that they can't trust me this one time - be there for me, when I've been there for them again and again, proven myself trustworthy-"
"I didn't realise you had such a transactional viewpoint of your relationships with the other Ultimates." He finally looks at her, but the look on his face is one of disapproval.
"It's not transactional-" Ingrid pauses. Cutting herself off before her already too loud voice becomes a scream. She breathes deeply in an attempt to control her emotions. "Damon."
"...What?" He's more than a little apprehensive, and Ingrid quietly backs away a little. They're in a room alone, after all.
Trying to find words to say, to express the palpable hurt she's feeling, is near impossible. All she can say is: "Do you trust me?"
Ingrid knows herself the words are unsatisfactory, and all Damon does is shake his head. "How are any of us meant to believe you missed Toshiko stealing cyanide from the pharmacy?"
"I didn't think she would-"
"Because you trusted her. And that got Jean killed." he responds. "...That's if what you're saying is even true."
"I am telling the truth! Can't you see that?"
"This is what I warned you about." Damon says wearily, going to leave. "This belief that you hold that we're all friends, that nobody's going to murder anyone - it's a delusion that only hurts everybody else here. And I won't be deluded and endanger myself in the process."
He looks back at her, and Ingrid thinks she sees the beginnings of hesitation, but he turns away before she can fully decipher the look on her face.
"If you were ever as genuine as you showed yourself to be, then you should know this: there is no such thing as trust in a killing game."
Damon leaves.
Get us out of here! Help, somebody help us - Get us out of here! Help, somebody help us - Get us out of here! Help, somebody help us - Get us out of here! Help, somebody help us...
Ingrid desperately searches their expressions. Their tired eyes, the faded scar on her sister's cheek, the tattered clothes they're wearing. She tries and tries to find whatever it is that's prodding at her mind - the discrepancy that justifies her suspicions that the video isn't real. But rewinding and rewatching the video again and again only messes with her head - the video is shaky, fine details not shown. It's intentionally ambiguous, made to trick them. But she can't tear her eyes away from the screen. The text at the end, promising that if she escapes, she'll know what happened, burned into her memory.
The morning announcement goes off. It's time for breakfast. As much as she doesn't want to drag herself out of bed, not showing up will only make her look worse. So she hides the tablet out of sight, and goes to the dining hall.
Kai avoids her completely, and Ingrid knows Damon said something from that cautious look in his eye. The next time they investigate, Desmond makes sure Damon is as far away from her as possible - it's Grace, instead, next to her. Forced to tolerate her.
Ingrid feels like she's drowning. The other Ultimates, above the water, speak to each other in quiet voices, and at the bottom of the sea she's looking up alone.
Her clothes start to stink up a storm, so Ingrid guesses it's time she stops avoiding the laundry room. She's muddled on the arrangement - the last day she was meant to do laundry had been a few days after the trial...she wasn't feeling up to it. And it's without question that the usual group of Damon, Kai and Grace won't be meeting up with her this time around...nor will she be doing anyone else's loads but her own. So she leaves her room early next morning.
The laundry room's empty when she goes inside. There's odd bits and bobs in there she hadn't put in there - rope, and nails, and packs of plasters, lying around. Filling the washer, Ingrid opts to stay in her room a little while until her clothes are done.
When she wakes up to Tozu's voice talking to her, at first Ingrid thinks he's somehow in her dorm room. That is, until she sits up in her bed and listens to the words he's saying.
A body has been discovered! All students must make their way to the laundry room immediately!
And her confused sleepiness is replaced with a cold feeling of dread. As she runs to the laundry room, passing the other Ultimates, the dread multiplies as there's one person she hasn't seen yet - one person, who hasn't appeared, when they would be the first to appear in such a situation. She finds that person inside the laundry room. Lying on their back on the floor. Rope burn around their neck. Their body already cold.
Damon Maitsu is dead.
"It's in the laundry room...come on, it has to be her..."
Grace elbows Kai, cutting off his words. Ulysses nears the corpse, beginning his investigation with no fanfare, and the others follow suit. Only, when Ingrid leaves the room, she spots Desmond following her. Making sure she isn't up to no good.
They were suspicious of her from the beginning, even more so when they ask for her alibi and she tells them she doesn't have one. Ingrid had been completely alone all morning. And when they ask why her clothes are in the dryer she tells them she left them there, but fell asleep. And Grace was with Wenona all morning...and Ulysses was with Desmond right as the announcement went off...
They start the class trial with most of the students already prepared to vote. Ingrid doesn't waste her words trying to defend herself - she has no evidence, and she had no opportunity to investigate with Desmond guarding her, reluctant to let her touch any of the crime scene.
"We can't vote now." Ulysses speaks up. "While I am aware Ingrid is the prime suspect...I do not think it is wise to immediately assume she is the blackened."
"Ulysses, who else could it be?!" Kai asks. "We all have alibis apart from her, and you know after everything-"
"But where's your alibi, Kai?"
Kai scoffs, but Ulysses's stern expression doesn't shift. "You're not being serious." he says, a confused smile on his face. "Dude, you can't really think-"
"You didn't show up for breakfast this morning." Ulysses consults his notebook. "Every day, without fail, immediately after the morning announcement you enter the room with Damon to get cereal-"
"I was waiting for Damon to show up - Ulysses, you can't really believe that! You can't believe that I killed him-"
"Mark discovered Damon's body at eleven am, Kai. Did you not think something was amiss when you were waiting for three hours?" Ulysses questions.
"He doesn't even room with me anymore, dude! H-He just shows up outside my door when he's getting breakfast - and I just wasn't that hungry, okay? With this whole motive, and the videos, and - and Ingrid acting weird! It's obviously her, why are we even having this discussion?!"
Ulysses glances at Ingrid, who avoids his gaze. He pauses, pensive.
"We cannot allow the events of previous cases affect our judgement." he finally decides. "Not when our lives are at risk."
By the end of the trial, everyone's preparing to vote Kai Monteago - he fights it every step of the way, but Ulysses slowly convinces everyone of Ingrid's innocence - or, more accurately, of Kai's guilt. They finalise their votes, and Ingrid can't believe her eyes when she's seeing the majority of the students choosing not to vote for her. Tozu looks down at them, oddly excited, as their voting period comes to an end, most of the students swayed against Kai.
And he announces that their vote is incorrect.
As chaos breaks out in the courtroom Ingrid is silent, staring at the screen revealing their votes. Four votes for Kai Monteago, and three votes for Ingrid Grimwall.
"I told you it wasn't me! How many times do I have to say I would never kill him-"
"Can we try again? T-Tozu, can't you let us pick someone else?"
"We're dead....we're dead..."
"Shut it, we're not dead! I won't die here!"
The truth doesn't sink in until Tozu reveals the real culprit, showing everyone the person who betrayed them - and Ingrid does not stay for their admonitions. Ignoring their condemnations and their insults, Ingrid quietly leaves and walks towards Tozu's podium, and Mara walks past her as she does so. Tozu helps her up towards his podium, and brings Ingrid to stand beside him as the victorious blackened.
Now in front of the remaining spotless, Mara aims her rifle, and bullets fly through the air.
Damon struggles - clawing at her hands, feet kicking against her, but Ingrid's grip on the rope does not falter. She wraps it around his neck, grabs each end tightly and pulls with all of her strength. Tears scald her eyes, but she doesn't let go, even when his kicking weakens, the strength leaking out of his body.
When it is over, Ingrid looks down at him, letting the rope in her shaking hands fall to the floor. Wide, lifeless, green eyes stare into hers.
There was no such thing as trust, after all.