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Home. They’re going home.
What a sickening thought.
Shauna sits in the back of the plane, staring out the window. She had wanted to be alone, and had been irritated when Lottie had slid into the seat next to hers without asking. But Lottie’s quiet—Shauna’s pretty sure that she hasn’t said a single word since the rescue party arrived. She also doesn’t shift around in her seat or jostle Shauna at all, so her company isn’t too much of a burden.
The rest of the team sits closer to the front of the plane. There’s not much talking; Misty keeps trying to start conversation with the people around her, but it never catches. Travis’ soft sobs are the biggest disturbance to the silence, and Shauna has to resist yelling at him to shut up.
Out the window, a layer of fog blankets the forests below. It’s a pity; Shauna would have liked to see if she could spot the remains of the cabin or the plane from up here.
She used to be afraid of flying. And for damn good reason, given how they wound up here in the first place.
It would only make sense for her to be utterly terrified right now, clinging onto her seat for dear life like Melissa, or trembling with her head in her hands like Nat.
But Shauna’s not afraid. Not even the least bit panicky or nervous. She’s just… numb. Tired.
Where has that old Shauna gone, the one who used to get dizzy even thinking about heights?
The girl who would have desperately wanted to be held right now, in the same way that Tai and Van are clinging to one another?
The girl who should be relieved that this is all over?
Over. God. Can it really be?
Maybe this plane will crash, too. Shauna almost laughs at the idea.
Lottie had said that the Wilderness didn’t want them to leave. Was It powerful enough to bring down this second plane? Or had It gotten bored of them, finally?
Shauna still doesn’t believe in ‘It’, of course. At least, she mostly doesn’t. But perhaps it would be nice if she could have let herself. To believe that there was this almighty power making them act as they did. That they had been part of something, that it had all served some kind of divine purpose.
She has to admit that it had all felt something close to divine, at times. Closer to a religious experience than she’d ever had when her mother used to drag her to church every Sunday.
Which is probably where she’ll be taken when she gets back. Or maybe a mental home of some kind.
Wilderness, if you’re really out there, please bring this plane down, too.
Shauna is yanked out of her pit of wallowing by the feel of a cool hand touching hers. Body tensing at the contact, her head jerks in the direction of her seatmate.
Lottie is staring straight ahead. Her eyes are entirely blank, deep bags carved underneath them, her hoodie pulled up high over her head. She’s all but a husk, still except for the hand that slips under Shauna’s, fingers weaving between hers and folding over her knuckles.
It takes a moment for Shauna to move. She just looks down at where Lottie clasps her loose hand, and then back up at that gaunt face.
It’s as if her soul is gone. Left behind in that clearing. And Shauna understands.
For nineteen months, they had made the forest their domain. They had ruled together in ruthless glory, the darkest parts of them running free.
Now, each passing moment is another mile between them and that freedom. It hollows Shauna to think of it, and the dead features of the girl next to her speak to the mutuality of that feeling.
Shauna’s fingers inch closed around Lottie’s hand, returning her hold.
Lottie’s mouth twitches—whether in a smile or a frown, Shauna is unsure. But it instantly falls back to vacancy, and so Shauna drops her gaze back down to their joined hands.
What a sight they were. The Butcher Queen and the Prophet Queen, fingers intertwined. A soft gesture between the most brutal of creatures.
But it hadn’t been brutality, had it? It had been nature, instinct. It had been raw and bloody and wild, never holding back. Teeth bared in each smile, feasting on the weak, dancing in time with the flicker of flames as though they were one with them. Nothing else had existed but them, nothing had mattered.
The rest of the world would’ve called them cruel, called them sick. But the world had meant nothing out there. It had been only them, only us.
Outside the window, the Canadian forests are starting to thin from view, a muddle of houses and buildings overtaking the land below.
At their destination, a life of suffocating normalcy awaits each of them. The rest of their lives would be dedicated to destroying any evidence of what they had been and of what they had done. They would all repress every part of themselves that they had come to know, letting it define them in the process.
None of the team would likely ever see each other again—a thought both comforting and unsettling to Shauna. But she knows that none of them would ever truly be able to forget what was born down in the wilderness. How could you ever forget the taste of flesh, the rush of a hunt?
How could Shauna forget the weight of the hand in hers, and the wild, crazed grin of the girl to whom it belonged?
How could she forget firelight dancing over a face streaked in blood, coal-dark eyes set alight?
How could she forget the feeling of blood drying on split knuckles, and how never once did those eyes show her any resentment for what she had spilt?
She must’ve tightened her hold on Lottie in her musings, because she feels Lottie squeeze her hand in equal measure. Both holding on tight, a final act of recognition of what they had built, of what they had been.
They had been the two to feel it more than anybody else. And now they felt it one last time in the press of their palms.
They sit in complete stillness the rest of the journey. The only contact is hands that remain clasped on the armrest between them right up until the landing.
As everyone rises from their seats to depart, Lottie’s hand slips away from Shauna’s; so quickly, like it was easy.
But, when their gazes interlock, Shauna catches some kind of emotion clouding otherwise dull eyes. Something like grief.
They were always meant to die on a plane. It was only a matter of which one.