Chapter Text
There had always been something about Taissa Turner that Shauna respected. Long before the crash, long before everything that followed. Something about her presence demanded it. Taissa didn’t ask for attention—she commanded it, without trying.
Shauna, so used to Jackie’s constant effort to be liked, found that kind of quiet certainty refreshing. Maybe even a little disarming.
She never knew that respect went both ways. That Taissa respected her, too—especially when Jackie wasn’t around and she didn’t act like a dog on a leash. That would come later, slowly, like frost thawing.
That being said, they weren’t friends before the crash.
There were flickers. A shared glance, a snapped comment, the occasional moment that felt heavier than it should’ve. Like there was something waiting there, just under the surface. But those moments only ever came when things were going to hell.
Murphy’s Law made them allies. Everything else kept them distant.
Their focus was so attuned to their counterparts that everybody else was just background noise. The only times they really noticed each other were when everything fell apart.
Some might say that this never really changed. Even after the crash, this was always the nature of their connection: strongest when everything was bloody and chaotic. Two magnets drawn together by destruction.
Shauna didn’t recognize it at the time. Didn’t see her.
How could she, with Jackie always in the way?
When Jackie was in the frame, everything else faded.
But yes ask Shauna now, a few years ago, or a few years from now, and she’d say she respected Taissa. Always had. Taissa always seemed so certain—not just confident, but like she could see how it would all end. Like she had no time for those still fumbling their pieces.
She wasn’t one for hesitation. Once Taissa believed she was right, she moved—fast, and if needed, with brutal precision. Not impulsive, never that. Her choices had weight behind them, a quiet calculus. She didn’t act without drawing a line in her head first—but once it was drawn, she crossed it without flinching.
Shauna respected that. Jackie always bristled at it, called it cold or reckless. But Shauna saw something else: clarity. Strength. A refusal to waste time pretending. Part of her knew she had it too—that sharp edge, that certainty—for when things really mattered.
What she didn’t realize—what took her far too long to see—was that in some of those defining moments, the ones that made her notice Taissa, and Taissa notice her, she hadn’t really been looking at Taissa at all.
.
The party was loud. Jackie was busy making a show of her tongue down Jeff’s throat, and Van had been sidequested—Shauna didn’t know where. So somehow—honestly she didn’t remember how—she and Taissa had ended up tucked behind the garage, passing a blunt between them.
They weren’t talking much. Just watching the chaos unfold. Who was going to fuck who, who had already puked their guts out, who was going to pretend this never happened in the morning.
They were both good at that—watching. Being quiet. They didn’t need to fill the silences like their counterparts needed to. They were comfortable with them.
Then the voices started.
Two guys, drunk off cheap beer and entitlement, leaned on the corner of the house like they owned it. Loud enough to be heard, not loud enough to be challenged. Not yet.
At first, it was the usual bullshit.
“I swear to God, that faggot on the swim team keeps checking out my ass in the locker room,” one of them slurred.
“That shit should be illegal. Two dudes doing that? That’s just sick.”
Shauna rolled her eyes so hard her head spun. Idiots. She exhaled a long plume of smoke and glanced at Taissa.
Taissa’s jaw was tight. Her shoulders tense.
Then came the next line.
“Damn right man. Two chicks though…”
They both laughed, the kind of laugh that made Shauna’s skin crawl. A laugh with no humor in it—just ownership. God she wanted to leave this shitty place. She hoped college had brighter people to offer than Randy and...this.
“You’ve seen those dykes on the soccer team, right?”
That was when Taissa’s face changed. The color drained. She went still, statue-still. Shauna’s stomach dropped as she turned toward her. Taissa wasn’t angry. She was panicked. She knew that kind of panic whenever people looked too much into her relationship with Jackie. When people talked about her. Never Jackie. Jackie was perfect. She the girly looks and a jock boyfriend. Shauna never fit into that. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to.
But the fear still came. Not because of the rumors themselves—but because of what they might do to Jackie. How Jackie would precieve her after.
It was always Jackie, Jackie, Jackie.
Even her panic belonged to her.
“The redhead, right? You think she’s fucking Turner?”
“Nah, Turner’s just a bitch. Uptight. No way she’s actually into that. She is too girly.”
Shauna could hear her own pulse now. She could hear the blood pumping in her ears. Shauna always had anger issues. It wasn’t a coincidence she’d racked up the most red cards on the team. When things went sideways, when the pressure spiked, she didn’t freeze—she struck. Hard. Sometimes too hard.
Those moments didn’t feel like losing control. They felt like the only times she had it.
She watched Taissa freeze beside her, watched her fists curl inward like she was holding herself together by the thinnest thread.
“I mean... the redhead’s not bad-looking,” one of them continued, with a crooked, predatory grin. “She just needs a good dicking.”
That word hit the air like a slap.
Shauna’s gaze snapped from the boys to Taissa. Her friend—or maybe not a friend, not yet—looked like she was about to break apart. Not from anger. From fear. The kind that sat deep in the chest. Fear of being seen. Fear of being right about what they might do. About what they'd do if they got the chance—and no one stopped them.
“Maybe we fix her at prom,” the guy added, casual, like he was talking about borrowing someone’s truck. “Bring a couple other guys, make it a party.”
That was the moment.
Shauna didn’t remember deciding. She didn’t remember stepping forward. All she knew was that her hand was already flying, her fist colliding with bone and lip, and one of them was suddenly bleeding.
She didn’t even flinch when the guy’s friend shouted something—maybe her name, maybe just a warning. His fist came fast and sloppy, a wide arc that caught her cheekbone hard enough to make the world tilt.
She stumbled back, dazed. Her face stung. Heat bloomed under her skin, metallic and immediate. Blood was already in her mouth—her lip, maybe her nose, she couldn’t tell.
Then Taissa moved.
Not like someone jumping to defend a friend. Not like someone scared.
She moved like she’d already been waiting for this.
With terrifying precision, she closed the distance between her and the guy who’d just hit Shauna. No shouting. No posturing. No warning. Just a flat expression and mechanical grace.
She grabbed him by the collar with one hand, the back of his neck with the other—and slammed his face into the edge of the brick siding.
There was a sound.
A crack. Sharp. Wet. Indisputable.
His body collapsed instantly, legs giving out like he’d been unplugged. He crumpled to the ground, limp. Dead weight.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
The second guy looked down, his face white, mouth twitching like he wanted to scream but couldn’t find air. Taissa didn’t even glance at him. She stared down at the boy she’d just dropped, her chest rising slowly. Too slowly.
Shauna, still holding her cheek, was breathing harder. Her hands were shaking. Not from the pain—from the stillness in Taissa’s eyes.
“Is he—” Shauna started, but then he groaned. Just a whisper of sound, low and broken, like the air was trying to leak out of him.
He wasn’t dead.
Taissa didn’t look relieved.
She turned sharply to Shauna, grabbing her wrist. Not too hard. Just enough to say we’re leaving. And then, still calm—too calm—she turned her gaze back on the second boy, who hadn’t moved an inch.
“If you ever speak about this,” she said, voice low and razor-sharp, “or try anything like what you were planning—”
She stepped forward. The boy flinched.
“—I’ll make sure no one ever finds you.”
She didn’t yell. She didn’t growl. But it hit. Because there was nothing performative in it. She meant it.
And the boy knew it.
He nodded too fast, eyes blown wide.
Taissa dragged her away from the garage. Shauna felt too numb to resist. Thank god everyone was too shitfaced to notice them.
A thousand thoughts slammed into Shauna all at once. Some loud, some quiet, none of them clear. Her mind did this sometimes—spiraled out in a hundred directions, thoughts stacking and splintering faster than she could hold them.
That’s why she wrote. Always had. To get them down. To trap them in neat lines where they couldn’t chase her. Where she could make sense of what she felt. But right now, they were spilling loose, flooding over her like a dam cracked wide.
“Are you okay?” Taissa asked, eyes fixed on the blood trickling from Shauna’s mouth—as if it were something worth studying, not worrying about.
Shauna didn’t notice the way she was being watched. She was too far inside her own head. Everything had happened too fast. Her pulse was still catching up with her breath, her knuckles still tingling from the hit.
“Yeah,” she said finally, voice low. “You?”
The question came out automatically, more reflex than concern.
“I’m good,” Taissa said. Too calm. Like they hadn’t just left someone bleeding and groaning behind a garage.
There was a pause. Not awkward. Just heavy.
Then Taissa tilted her head slightly, her voice light—too light. “You’re not... gonna tell anyone, are you?”
Shauna blinked. “Tell them what?”
A beat.
Taissa shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I don’t know. That I overreacted. That I—did something bad.”
Shauna let out a breath, half a laugh, half a wince from the pain in her cheek. “I threw the first punch, remember?”
“That’s not really the same thing.”
“They were talking about—” She stopped herself. She didn’t need to say it out loud. The words still echoed in her ears. Fix her.
Shauna turned to look at her.
They held each other’s gaze, and something in Shauna’s gut twisted.
She hadn’t studied Taissa the way she studied Jackie—hadn’t spent hours remembering the flickers of expression, the moods, the silent judgments. But still… she knew something was off.
It was in the eyes.
Taissa’s eyes were sharp, but not in the way Shauna was used to. Not determined. Not angry. Not even shaken. They looked like they were trying to take her apart, piece by piece—dissect her like a problem, a riddle she wasn’t solving fast enough.
Shauna had seen Jackie look at her like that before. But this was different. It was dangerous. And worse maybe—it was curious, interested.
Shauna’s spine stiffened. She wasn’t going to flinch. She wasn’t going to look away.
“They deserved worse,” she muttered, voice flat. She believed it. But also seemed the right answer. Maybe it was the wrong one.
Taissa didn’t blink. She nodded slowly, still watching her like she was calculating something. Testing the limits. Looking for cracks.
“Yeah,” Taissa said. “They did.”
But she didn’t stop looking.
And Shauna couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being studied not for who she was—but for what she was capable of.
After that they left.
On Monday, the news broke.
The guy had a fractured skull. Thirty stitches. A concussion. He was off the swim team for the rest of the season—maybe for good.
Shauna wasn’t surprised.
She’d heard the crack when Taissa slammed him into the bricks. It hadn’t left her mind.
Taissa, though... Taissa seemed surprised.
Shauna thought back then she was watching an Oscar-worthy liar.
Little did she know Taissa was indeed surprised.
.
The next time it happened it happened fast but not so fast that Shauna didn’t see it coming.
They’d all seen Allie struggling. Fumbling passes, huffing for breath, barely able to keep up with warm-ups. The whole team was tense. Jackie kept trying to cover for her, throwing her these sympathetic glances like that could fix what everyone already knew.
Shauna was standing near the midfield line, lungs burning from running, when it happened. A blur of blue and yellow—Taissa, tearing down the field like she had something to prove. Her face didn’t look angry. It didn’t look like anything.
There was something in her eyes. Blank, flat. Not like she was playing a game. Like she was hunting.
And then Allie was screaming.
The sound snapped everything around it into silence, like a rubber band pulled too tight. Shauna flinched.
Everyone rushed over, but Shauna hung back. Froze.
She didn’t look at Allie. She looked at Taissa.
She was still standing over her, jaw clenched, eyes dark like she was waiting for something. Her shoulders were stiff, her whole body locked up like she was bracing for recoil.
And then, just as Coach started shouting—Taissa blinked. Her face twitched. Confusion crept in, like she was waking up.
Shauna didn’t say anything. But something stuck in her chest and stayed there. A weird, wrong pressure.
She told herself Taissa had just gone too hard. Wanted to win too badly.
But part of her knew.
.
In the wilderness things changed fast. People shifted like sand under pressure. Some of them hardened, others cracked and others broke open. The same went for relationships.
Shauna hardened. She had to. It was bizarre. She tried to be strong for something that had been cracking long before the crash. She loved Jackie with everything she had. And hated her just as much. She held herself together for her… and broke apart because of her.
Jackie refused to change. She didn’t want to adapt. And for all the fierce love Shauna felt, staying the same out here was a kind of weakness. Shauna told herself she could be strong enough for both of them. That she’d keep them alive, keep them going. Because her love and her hate for Jackie were everything. So all-consuming it was eating her alive.
What made it worse was the quiet, gnawing truth; for Jackie , Shauna probably wasn’t any of that. Not love, not hate, not anything in between. Not the way she was for Shauna. For Jackie she was just her sidekick. Someone she loved, maybe, but the way you love your dog. Safe. Convenient. Always there.
More importantly, when it mattered—when Shauna needed her—Jackie couldn’t be strong. Not even when she found out about the baby. Nevermind that the baby was the result of both Shauna and Jeff cheating on Jackie—She didn’t know that.
But Taissa… Taissa was all of it.
There was something steady about her. Even when her jaw was clenched and her hands trembled, she kept moving. She gathered firewood. She made decisions. She didn’t let anyone lie down and die—not even Shauna. Especially not Shauna. She sat with her in the quiet, held her when she cried, and never once made her feel weak for it.
With Taissa, she felt stronger.
That quiet certainty Shauna had always respected? It was still there. Even when Taissa was hanging on by a thread.
And then Taissa left. She left to find rescue. To save them from this hell. They looked at each other and Shauna knew that part of the reason she was doing this was her. Her pregnancy.
Taissa stepped up to save her. Jackie could never.
Shauna had glanced at Jackie then. She looked brittle, all sharp collarbones and hollow cheeks—just like the rest of them, wasting away.
A part of Shauna had wished Jackie would volunteer to go too. Be strong enough. For her.
But another part wanted to keep Jackie close—so close she could feel her breathing—so she could protect her.
And another part… another part wanted distance. A canyon between them.
God, she felt insane these days.
When Taissa came back, she wasn't the same.
Van was slumped and broken beside her. Her eyes looked cracked open from the inside—too wide, too empty. And Shauna was glad Jackie hadn’t gone. Glad she’d stayed curled by the fire instead of coming back half-dead or worse. Shauna would’ve let the wolves take her before letting that happen to Jackie.
The cold bit deep that night. The kind of cold that felt like it was burrowing under skin, not just air but weight. And Taissa looked like it was crushing her.
Shauna sat beside her on the log behind the cabin. Taissa wasn’t shaking from the cold. Not exactly. She was too tense for that. Her spine was too straight, like she’d forgotten how to soften.
Her jaw clenched so tight it was shaking. But her eyes—they were full of panic. Like she was barely keeping something down.
That was the night Taissa told her. About the sleepwalking. The blank spaces. It should have rang a bell back then, but with all the things happening Shauna couldn’t piece it together.
She said it was her fault Van got hurt. Said she couldn’t be trusted. Asked Shauna if she’d start sleeping in the attic again.
Shauna didn’t offer empty comfort. She just nodded and shifted closer, their shoulders brushing in the dark. And they sat like that, until the air hurt less and Taissa’s breathing leveled out.
That night, and the nights after, Shauna stayed awake. At first she told herself it was to keep watch over Tai. But really, it was because sleep felt too far away anyway. Her body might’ve begged for it, but her mind kept spinning: the pregnancy, Jackie’s distance, the creeping terror that nothing would ever feel normal again.
She kept her eyes on Taissa’s sleeping form. Watched her twitch and mumble. Once she even whimpered. Shauna never said anything. Just kept vigil. Taissa always looked at her gratefully every morning, as if she hadn’t kept Shauna’s biggest secret too.
Then Jackie died.
Jackie’s death left her hollow. Not shattered. Emptied. Like everything inside her went quiet. She wished she’d slept with her more often. Wished she cherished those moments more. Wished she’d done something. Anything.
The baby kicked and it felt cruel. Life pushing inside her while Jackie froze beside her.
Taissa didn’t leave. She brought food. Sat nearby. Said nothing. Just stayed. Shauna wanted her gone, wanted silence, but Taissa kept showing up—stubborn, steady, warm. Holding her up without asking. And Shauna let her. Because she didn’t know how to keep standing on her own.
Shauna started sleeping where her best friend laid and Van returned to the attic. Staying up beside Taissa, keeping her close so she could keep her safe.
Shauna let her. She was tired. She couldn’t care.
Besides Van and Taissa looked at each other like they were the only thing that made sense in this madness. Van cared for Taissa in ways Shauna could only imagine feeling for Jackie. And even that felt like a fantasy—something she clung to, not something that had ever really been there.
It didn’t matter anyways, Jackie wasn’t around anymore, and the only reason Shauna hadn’t followed her was the baby inside her. She knew, from Jackie, what it meant to love and hate someone so much it tore you apart. That’s how she felt about the baby—only now, most days, the love was overpowering everything else.
Even when Jackie’s voice crept into the corners of her mind, whispering for her to come, to follow the life inside of her made her want to fight.
So Shauna pulled away, she didn’t need anyone’s pity. She only ever needed Jackie’s love. She sure as hell didn’t need Lottie, with her glassy eyes and her whispers about the wilderness like it was some god to be obeyed.
And when Taissa started showing up at those meetings too—quiet, watching, nodding along—that was it. Shauna withdrew even further, like a knife pulled back before the strike.
But deep into winter—long after Jackie had frozen to death, after the cabin grew quiet in a way that felt permanent, after Lottie and her small cult started making a symbol out of her pregnancy, after she almost beat Lottie to death—Taissa came to her again.
She didn’t say anything at first. Just stood outside the cabin, snow in her hair, arms hanging like they didn’t belong to her. When she spoke, it sounded like someone else using her voice. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Eyes red, panicked.
Taissa needed sleep.
Shauna hadn’t spoken to her in weeks. She was angry. She only knew rage and Lottie’s broken bones, and the blood of their preys—if they had any.
She didn’t need anything else, but somebody else needed her. Taissa stood there unraveling, and however furious Shauna was, however much the cold and death had carved everything soft out of her, she couldn’t turn away.
She guided Taissa in the atti. Nobody would dare approach them when Shauna was there.
Shauna closed the hatch behind them, sat against the far wall, and watched as the other girl finally fell into sleep.
Taissa stirred after an hour—too suddenly, too smoothly. Not groggy, not dazed. Her eyes opened sharp and wide in the dark, and for a second Shauna thought she was still dreaming. But Taissa sat up without a sound, spine too straight, hands too still.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Shauna muttered, voice raw from disuse. She didn’t expect an answer.
Taissa turned her head slowly. “I slept fine,” she said. But it wasn’t quite right. Her tone was low, almost amused. Watching Shauna like she was something curious under glass. “You stayed.”
Shauna narrowed her eyes. “You needed it.” She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to explain herself to this... version.
“You always stayed. I know. I’ve been watching” Taissa said and Shauna wasn’t sure what she meant, so she kept silent.
They stared at each other for a few seconds. The look in her eyes sent chills to Shauna’s spine. She knew that look. Shauna felt like she was having a déjà vu.
“You nearly killed her,” Taissa said finally, tilting her head like she was trying to get a better look inside Shauna. “Lottie.”
Shauna stiffened. “She should fucking stop messing with my baby.”
“She’s dangerous,” Taissa said, and there was something odd in her voice now—clinical. Intrigued. “You saw it first. The others worship her, but you… you almost ended it.”
Shauna shifted, suddenly on alert. “You sound like you wanted me to.”
A pause. A small smile flickered across Taissa’s face—off-kilter, wrong. “Maybe you should’ve finished the job.”
Shauna stared. “You’re one of them.” Her voice dropped. Accusatory. “Following her. Just quieter about it.”
“Am I?” Taissa asked, eyes glinting with something unreadable. “You don’t know what I’m following.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Shauna snapped. “Still playing like you’re separate from it all? Like watching from the shadows makes you clean?” Her voice was acid. “All you do is lurk while she chants about the trees.”
That made Taissa move. She stood slowly, and Shauna’s pulse spiked. There was something too smooth in the way she approached—like she wasn’t walking but stalking. And something about it tugged at a memory: the party, blood, that same intense stare that made her feel hunted.
But Shauna didn’t flinch. Didn’t now, didn’t then. She scowled and dragged her knife across her shirt, cleaning dried blood from the blade with more flair than necessity.
“Oh, I know you’re not afraid to use it,” Taissa said, smiling wider now. “I’ve seen it. The way you didn’t stop with Lottie. The way you tore into that guy. The animals. Skinning. Ripping.”
Shauna blinked. Her hand tightened. Taissa had never brought up that guy before—not once.
Then Taissa knelt. Close. Too close. Their breaths mingled in the cold air, sharp and shallow. It dragged Shauna back to those rare, awkward moments when Jackie would ask her to shotgun, saying it was what best friends did.
The act never felt friendly. Not then with Jackie. Definitely not now, with Taissa hovering like that. It was different though. Something darker, something charged, something intense.
She took Shauna’s bruised hand, turned it over delicately, like she was reading something written on her skin.
Shauna didn’t pull away. Just watched her. Jaw locked.
“You know what I realized?” Taissa asked, voice dropping into something lower, smoother.
Shauna didn’t answer. She knew the rhythm of a performance.
“That you do what needs to be done,” Taissa said, thumb brushing over torn knuckles. “That you’re strong. And—” she leaned in, breath warm against her skin, inspecting her hand like it was art “—that blood suits you a little too well.”
Then she scratched her. A sharp flick of a nail. Skin broke. Shauna hissed.
“What the fuck,” she snapped, jerking her hand back.
Blood already clung to Taissa’s fingertips. She reached up, slow and deliberate, like she meant to smear it across Shauna’s cheek.
Shauna grabbed her wrist mid-air. Tight. “I don’t care if you’re tripping from sleep-deprivation, Turner—get a fucking grip or I’ll gut you.”
She wasn’t sure if she meant it. These days, her first response to anything was rage. Right now, she was mostly confused—and, annoyingly, slightly turned on. She blamed the hormones.
Taissa didn’t flinch. Her eyes stayed cold, but her lips curled like she approved. “See you soon, then,” she said—and licked some blood from her fingers.
Then, as if nothing happened, she lay down and closed her eyes.
Shauna watched her sleep like one might watch a predator at rest—still, but vigil. Her own pulse thudded too fast in her ears, thoughts racing too fast to hold.
Something was wrong. Taissa had been gone in that moment—present and focused, but not herself. The precision, the attention, the way she touched her, like she was made of something more than flesh.
Could this be Lottie’s doing? It couldn’t. She’d called Lottie dangerous. She’d seemed pleased that Shauna had almost killed her. That didn’t make sense. None of it did.
Hours passed with Shauna struggling to find an explanation. When Taissa stirred again, it was with a slow, sluggish breath, her face slack with confusion. She blinked down at her hands. Her brows furrowed.
“…my hand?” Her voice was rough, uncertain. She held it up, studying the faint streaks of dried blood like they didn’t belong to her.
Shauna didn’t say anything at first. She just turned her own palm over, revealing the shallow red mark across the back.
“You scratched me,” she said, voice flat.
Taissa stared. “Did I…? I don’t remember that.”
She looked like she’d been punched. Her face crumpled, not from pain—something worse. Recognition. Shauna just stared at her, waiting for an explanation.
“I—I swear I don’t remember. I sleepwalk and just back out. I—I told you, I did the same to Van and I—”
Taissa swallowed hard. She didn’t know how to continue so she ended up saying. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
It wasn't even a deep scratch. Not something to be that remorseful. Shauna knew that Taissa wasn't apologetic for the wound, but for the lack of control. The potential to hurt more.
But Shauna wasn’t thinking about that at all. Not anymore. She was thinking about the way Taissa’s eyes had glinted in the dark—how her voice had shifted into something low and strange, how she’d moved like a stranger in her own skin. That smile. The calm. Like she’d been replaced. Like someone else was wearing her friend’s face.
Shauna didn’t like it.
This thing—this other—was taking over her only friend. It had hurt her. It had left her confused. Vulnerable. And still...
Tears began slipping silently down Taissa’s cheeks, like she didn’t even notice they were there. Her hands hung limp in her lap, ashamed. Scared.
Shauna moved before she could think too hard about it.
She sat beside her and pulled her close—awkwardly at first, but steady. Her arms wrapped around Taissa's shaking frame, anchoring her.
She hadn't hugged someone for so long. The feeling was almost forgein. She was suprised to realize how much she missed the warmth.
“We’ll figure it out,” Shauna murmured, her voice low but certain. “You’re not alone in this.”
Taissa didn’t answer, but she leaned into her. She let herself be held.
“Don’t tell Van” Taissa murmured.
Shauna snorted “I don’t talk to anyone long enough to gossip about you Turner”
The joke landed and earned her a chuckle.
“And if it ever feels like… like you’re slipping again,” Shauna continued, her mouth close to her ear, “if you feel like fading away, I’ll keep watch. I’ll stay. You can keep what’s left of yourself with me. I can handle it.”
It wasn’t a plan. It wasn’t a fix. But it was a promise.
Taissa relaxed even more in the embrace. Her hands gripped Shauna's forearms tighter, as if to make sure the other girl wasn't planning on leaving. Shauna was't.
Not when Tai needed her.
Especially not then.