Chapter Text
They were here. A rescue team. A rescue team for Nat's family. Nat's family which did not currently include Lottie. Lottie, who Nat threw away. Everyone followed suit and were getting rescued. But not Charlotte Matthews.
Nat had last seen Lottie out of the corner of her eye, still, face down in the snow, her hair weakly moving in thin wind, and probably awaiting death. They had all left her, all went to huddle for warmth since their cabin was gone and the only thing they could make during the days of raging wind with occasional snow was a crappy lean-to. And Nat wanted to leave so badly without her now. After everything she'd done—to Travis, to Tai, to Shauna, to Nat herself, to Van. Everything she'd done with that thing that lived out here. . .
Nat's blurry eyes were taking their last look at the gray skies and praying to whatever God she thought she stopped believing in that she could just let Lottie go.
But Lottie wasn't a monster, and Natalie was a good person. Coach Ben had told her that. Even if she didn't believe it, Nat had to honor his memory, to keep up the facade for him as long as she was still out here. Because if she left without so much as a whisper about their last live teammate, she could never even think about forgiving herself.
“One. . . more. . .” Nat rasped out through dry throat and frostbitten lips.
“Hey, hey! She's speaking!” A male voice shouted above her.
Meanwhile, Nat could hear Shauna fighting off a rescuer a few feet away, screaming bloody murder. Shauna's trauma is like, three fucking times worse than Nat felt right now. Which is saying something, because Natalie's pretty sure she's dying. It was taking everything out of her to just say Lottie's name. Right. The man's stubbled face and acid yellow coat blurred above her.
“Lot. . .tie. . .” She weakly pointed to her left.
“I think she's saying there's one more not here!” He said to the others. “Fan out!” He motioned for them to go. Nat focused just long enough to distinguish the color of his eyes: a blue-gray that matched the sky above them. “It's okay, we're gonna get all of you out of here.”
The last thing Nat saw as her head lolled to the side was the Queen. Her antlers poked out of the mesh net like devil horns, her silhouette like a black hole in the white abyss of snow, the evergreens framing her like an eerie postcard. She raised her arms, covered in animal furs and leaves, in the gesture of a welcoming hug.
The Queen stood there with a delicate grace, haunting like a ghost but for once, Natalie knew some nightmares were worse than others. She wasn't five and scared of the dark, wasn't twelve and scared of the man who stared at her at the pool. Nat wasn't even fifteen and scared of her father anymore. She was eighteen and savage and enraged.
Fuck you. She tried to spit out. Not the most original, but she hoped the twitching anger on her face would make that bitch regret ever trapping them all out here. Fuck you for ruining senior year, fuck you for ruining our lives. Fuck you. If I ever get the chance, I will hunt you down, and fucking END you!
Natalie wasn't fully awake, but she swore she could hear laughter echoing off the mountains.
***
Vanessa Palmer swears she will never ride on a plane ever again. That is what prompts the forty-two hour drive from Vancouver to New Jersey with her mom while the rest of the team actually do take a plane. Van and her mom stop at attractions on the way—museums mostly, a zoo, a wacky fast food place—as if it were a vacation. It's all so surreal after the past year and a half that Van wonders if she died and is just dreaming it all up.
She briefly wants to believe that the horrors out there were the dream—some sick nightmare God forced her to live through for being gay. Well, joke's on Him, He gave her even more of Tai in all that time.
If this trip was a dream though, they probably wouldn't be sleeping in the car, and it wouldn't be December. She's not complaining, she won't get her face torn up by wolves. Again. They don't have money for a hotel, not for any night of the way back home. Maybe when the Yellowjackets have their court case, Van thinks, she could buy a hotel.
Even if all Van really wants is to be home with some hot food and a nice warm bed, it's still nice to spend time with her mom. They take pictures together at every location and pretend like she won't need therapy for the rest of her life.
Van's mom has taken on an insane amount of guilt since she's been gone, and at least that's lead to something good because she told Van she would try to be a better mom—probably another good reason for the road trip, if Van didn't have her own. “The plan” was loosely to stop the drinking, stop lazing around, and stop regretting.
“Okay, just, take it slow, alright? I'm not going anywhere.” Van said to her in a bone-breaking hug when she was picked up. What pushed her tears over the edge was when her mother's thumb traced over her scar. Van felt the sorrow mix with her own relief and joy in the suffocating ache of her chest, and she sobbed upon hearing, “You're coming home.”
“The plan” was all her mom could talk about for a whole day of the ride home. It was fun though, Van admits. She got to hear all about the jobs her mom's been looking into, got to watch her smash a bottle of vodka on the pavement at a Walmart. “Like when you get a new boat, right? We're getting a new life. This is for good luck.”
Sure, Vicky's been fucked up for years, but on the trip, among the hugs and the pictures, Van thinks they're finally getting somewhere. They're bonding and crying and singing to Neil Diamond together, letting out everything the recent years have bottled up in them. Vanessa knows she can never tell her mom the truth about out there; it would break her heart even more than the world has. But she does tell her about her scar.
“How did—where. . . Who stitched you back up?”
“Akilah King.” Van left out the part about the bonfire. Along with the fear of planes, she's coming back with a fear of fire, but she doesn't want her mother to stop hosting bonfires with marshmallows for her birthday.
“Ah, I remember her. You and Akilah used to fight over the animal crackers for post-game snacks.”
“That was years ago, Mom.” Van laughs. “All the way back on junior soccer. I can't believe you remember that.”
“I didn't until just now.” Vicky holds a self-satisfied smile.
Van hums. The content memory is washed over by the memory of eating Akilah. Of Shauna bloodletting the girl and the Queen watching her like an overbearing mother—Yes, slice there. Keep these organs, they can be cooked. The little lamb's skull is hard to crack, here, let me—Van couldn't help but watch whenever Shauna did her ritual. Blood made her squeamish, but the scene reminded her that she was alive. That this was real. The supernatural exists. The options were to either submit, or to run and die.
Van shifts in her seat. Nothing was actually finished out there. Nat was almost done for, almost the victim of starvation, would have saved them from another hunt, and she was rescued. Lottie had been. . . possessed, on and off, the last week out there, and now she's separated from the wilderness. Van hopes she'll be okay. The others were slowly losing their minds, and now they're going home.
Van hasn't seen the Queen when She's lost Her pawns.
The thought is sickening to the point that she asks her mom to pull the car over.
They were all running now.
***
The ride back home was shit.
The helicopter was shit, the bus was shit, the hospital was shit, the plane was shit, the car was shit, but at least they all had heating and that was the only saving grace to all the prying eyes, the cameras, the newsflashes. Everything went by in such a blur that Taissa doesn't know when her family got there, or when she got separated from Van and the rest of them.
Tai's parents greeted her with hugs and “Ohmygodyou'rehere”s and her brother gave her the longest hug she'd ever received. From anyone. Tai tried to act as normal as she could, but what was normal? What was normal after a year and a half eating dirt and each other and—
That was all in the past, so Tai summoned a tight smile.
Maybe that was the wrong thing to do, because then her family's relief turned immediately to “Are you okay? Do you need anything?” Her mother thankfully stopped the questions. “I'll make you a nice walnut cake when we get home, your favorite.”
Tai nodded curtly. “That sounds good, thanks.”
They give Taissa as much space as she needs, which, stupidly, is simultaneously enough and too much. She's been afraid of her mind, hasn't had true alone time in so long that every room she occupies feels empty; like she's a ghost. It's been two days since coming home from the hospital, and two weeks since getting found. She's braiding her hair after a long hot shower when she hears the TV on, her family watching the news in the living room.
Her mother's voice snaps to turn it off when the national and all the local channels are on the only thing Jersey has cared about recently. Heck, the only thing the western hemisphere has cared about recently. It changes to Scooby Doo. Then Tai startles her family by emerging from the bathroom and saying, “Wait. Go back.”
Her brother hesitates with the remote as they all stare at her, and she can't stand it. Tai has always hated pity, being coddled and lied to. She can handle the news, and it's probably good for her. She wants to see what they captured, what people thought so that she can know how to talk about it when the questions inevitable come from school or work. (She talked to her boss at the cafe as soon as she was able and despite his concern, she knows she'll need something to occupy her weekends.)
She swipes the remote from her brother's hand and perches on the back of the couch.
Taissa takes in the sight of herself getting off the helicopter. She looks better than she thought she would. The snow washed out a lot of dirt from her hair, but she's so skinny. She's thankful her fluffy robe covers her body now, so her family can't really tell that rehab didn't get all of it back yet.
Natalie's always been thin, but on the TV, she shoves her hood on which covers sunken cheeks, and Travis no longer supports his sporty build, just has the outline of it. It's much easier to see against the healthy reporters than out in the wilderness when the changes were gradual. She catches Misty almost smiling, the freak. Shauna looks like she's still having a nightmare as she skitters from anyone who tries to get too close to her, and Van shockingly looks like she came out slightly better. Visually, at least. Maybe being through hell together made her love Van even more. Or maybe it's that Taissa can't get past that Van's hair is a brighter amber from all the sun and she's gained more freckles. She seems to glow next to the rest of them. Taissa wonders if that's terrible to think while she tunes back in to the reporter's voice.
“. . .The cause of the accident is still an ongoing investigation. The flight recorder was found damaged, but not beyond repair with modern technology. Authorities have evidence to suggest there were mechanical issues with the plane before takeoff and that the pilots got off course during a storm system in the early morning. After that, they believe the pilots failed to make a proper landing due to a bird strike or engine failure. This second half of the theory needs more evidence in order to be confirmed. The crash site was over 600 miles north of the designated flight path, yet the team was rescued approximately twenty miles south of this spot as you can see on the map we have marked here. The rescue mission consisted of two trips out to the location. The girls' families were all contacted earlier in the day, so they could bring any comfort items to their children when they reunited at a family assistance center—located in Canada for convenience to the rescue team. The victims have now completed rehabilitation and will be getting back to their lives at home. . . .”
Taissa flinches at the word “victim.” That's just another way they throw pity onto you. But something distracts her from the rest of the story. She turns to her mom, a face that used to look just like her own staring back at her. “Did they tell you on which mission they found me? Or, I guess, who I was found with? I don't remember.”
Tai's father says, “The first.” Her mother says, “With six other girls.” They share a look and Tai shares a furrowed brow with her brother. That was all that was left of the team. Six plus her. Seven total.
“Then who was the second mission for?” They all look at her as if she would know.
She doesn't.
“Well, I didn't think Canada kept any more secrets than America, but here we are,” Tai says and follows the scent of cinnamon walnut coffee cake to the kitchen.
It doesn't occur to her until she climbs into bed later.
Including her, she only counted six survivors in all the footage.
***
No. Nope. Nuh-uh. Natalie was not doing another year of high school just to get her diploma. Her mom said she could think it over, another semester, or the GED, but unless Travis or Van were doing another few months, she was fucking out of there. And who was she kidding, Travis didn't want anything to do with her out there in the end. He would never be seen with her in school. Or any of them.
Even if Natalie did go back for another semester, she was not walking in front of everyone to receive a fucking piece of paper. Well, she could have it mailed to her, but still. Not worth all the days her classmates would be staring and whispering, or god forbid someone like Kenzie Stallman tries to befriend her for the fame. So she plopped down to study in her beanbag corner, a desk lamp leaned over the dresser above to light her books. It was going fine—she'd always been good at reading comprehension, algebra, science. She even skipped a grade for being gifted. Shit, she needed to re-memorize the damn trig and geometry formulas. Who needs to figure the area of a hexagon when she's been in literal hell for the past year and a half? She skipped to social studies, glimpsed, “disaster of the Titanic,” and she was up and out the door with a death metal hoodie on, hood pulled over her head.
Her mom told her to grab some smokes when she was done studying anyway—something ironic about fresh air, as if she didn't get enough of that recently—so Nat swiped an extra twenty from the spot where her dad used to keep money, just to get a little extra. And maybe a drink.
Her flip phone rings on the brisk walk. Dad was always against giving her one because it made her “more accessible,” but Tai saved up from her job and got her one as a birthday gift. Nat smiled at the little mocha sticker on the front before opening it, recognizing the number.
“What's up, Shauna?” The cold of December isn't as bad on her hands now. Doesn't seep into her bones as deeply and burn her fingers.
“Not much. My parents said I should talk to someone.” Even when she wasn't in much of a mood Nat could still hear irritation in Shauna's voice.
Natalie snorts.
“What are you doing?”
“Was studying. Now? Getting pot.”
“Studying? Are you getting your GED?”
Natalie heard blankets shift and rustle on the other end. It was five and dark out because it was the start of winter, and daylight never lasts long in cloudy Jersey anyway, but of course Shauna's been sleeping all day. “Yeah. Fucking sucks none of us can get pity diplomas.”
“Tai is going back.”
Natalie can't say she's surprised. Taissa is the most persistent person she knows. She still remembers when Tai failed to get her driving license and waited outside the MVC a half hour before it opened the very first day she was allowed to retake the test. Nat has no idea how her mother puts up with her stubbornness.
“Misty too, I bet,” Natalie said. “She's the only one who'd actually want the attention.”
It's Shauna's turn to exhale something of a laugh.
“Any news about Lottie? The others?”
Shauna murmurs a no, but she thinks Van would go back just for Tai, to make sure she's alright. Natalie agrees.
“Do you miss it?”
That gives Natalie pause.
“The fuck do you mean by it? The cold, the hunger or the fucking thing?” She throws her arm up even if Shauna can't see her.
“She means being free.” The Queen's rasping voice feels like screeching nails on chalkboard or a murder of crows in Nat's ear. She's never had huge concerns about being out alone at night as a girl, but now the voice and that thought petrify her in place and she has to force her eyes to flick between lampposts and the hedge and the head shop drifting into sight. She wants to check behind her but then in front of her would be exposed and—
“Natalie?”
“Shauna?” She chokes out through a knot in her throat.
“I asked if you missed us. Being together so often. You know, minus all the . . . stuff.”
“Yeah . . . yeah,” Nat breathes a sigh of relief, but she swears, she heard that voice come from Shauna. And as much as it pisses her off, it still scares her. She takes the last steps to the store and the entrance bell dings above her.
She looks through the shelves, finds the kind her mom likes, grabs two packs, and then checks energy drinks. Shauna scribbles in her journal in her ear, so Nat lowers the phone. When Nat is ready to check out, the cashier gives her a once over and she can tell there's recognition in his eyes, but he doesn't say anything then. He sips his own drink when he rings up her stuff, and when she says thanks in preparation to leave, he gets her a bag anyway. Since she's forced to look at him more, she counts three piercings on his right ear, two on his left. She rolls her eyes just a little. Asymmetry.
He's quite attractive—dark hair, dark eyes, imperfect nose a bit like Travis's. And he has the decency not to mention the news when he talks to her.
“Nice hoodie.” Fuck, and his voice is hot. He hands the bag to her. “Though I thought their first album was the only quality thing they put out.”
Natalie feels a genuine smile break across her face, probably the first one since she got back. “No way, really? Come on, everyone likes Heaven Down, and that one's new.”
“Nope, can't listen to it. Cymbals are too grating, and the lyrics are literally just chorus.” He meets her eye, a bait to play.
“Alright, well what taste can a guy who drinks Java Monster have anyway? Get a real coffee.” Nat smirks, challenge sent right back.
They banter enough that Natalie feels comfortable enough to give her name, which he doesn't ask for, probably doesn't need to. His is Jack, which she also could have known just from glancing at his name tag, but she doesn't care. They've both perceived this as even ground, and that's all that matters to her.
“I should get going,” she finally says, and heads to the door.
“Come back anytime, and be careful out there,” Jack says, already pulling a book out from under the counter.
She resists the urge to continue conversation, to call back that this is the only place her family gets weed and that she will be back. Travis enters her mind when the doorbell dings. Maybe she should ask Van or Tai if he'll talk to her.
“Who was that?” Shauna asks outside, clearly having heard the conversation.
“Ah, just the cashier. Thanks for not hanging up.”
Shauna doesn't answer, and Nat wonders if she's thinking about Jackie in that moment. Or maybe that neither of them want to be alone right now. “Hey, Shauna I know I'm like, fifteen minutes from home but . . . still don't hang up.”
“Yeah, sure.”
It's not the most comforting. Then again, Shauna never is. It used to be if you wanted comfort you'd go to Jackie. Now, you go to Van. But Shauna is leagues better than walking home alone.
Five minutes from home, Nat encounters a mother deer and her fawn crossing the road. They freeze in a staring contest for a minute before the mother ushers the young one forward. Something about it pushes her to mention the last day.
“Shauna, this might sound crazy, but I uh. . . think I made a promise.”
“That doesn't sound crazy, it sounds like you're bad at remembering shit.”
Nat doesn't laugh at her joke. “It was back there, during the rescue. And I think She heard me.”
The air goes colder when Shauna takes a moment. “Natalie don't fucking say that.”
“Look, Shauna, I'm just saying I don't think it's over. We might be back, but it's not . . . over.” Her voice is suddenly hoarse and she realizes she's about to cry. Twenty feet away from home and yet she still feels trapped in an evergreen forest with no light. Surrounded by hoots and howls and the phone is a rock she picked up to defend herself with. The Queen stops her, puts a finger to Her lips, hides Natalie with a bear pelt off its back, and hunts in her place, while she lies safe in the snow.
That was the second time they did the ritual, when there was suddenly a new player. Natalie always felt like it was her fault the Queen joined them, her fault that Lottie's side became more believable by the day, the hour, the minute. Maybe the Queen just wanted to watch Nat's logic and protests dissolve, and that's why she appeared when she did.
“. . . You've always been the voice of reason, haven't you.”
“Shit, Shauna, that's why I'm scared. If there's any one of us She wants dead, it's fucking me. I'm the first one to go.” Nat leans against the side of the trailer to pull out a cigarette.
“That or you're Her plaything.”
Yeah, or that. Maybe She'd want to take out the others first just to watch Natalie try to stop her. She exhales a cloud of smoke. Was that her purpose in the end? To watch helplessly as all her promises fall on deaf, terrified ears? She keeps whittling down the cigarette until it's gone, and she flicks it away. No, she swore to protect her family out there; Natalie has to do whatever it takes to make sure She doesn't interfere with their lives or drag them back.
Before Shauna hangs up, Nat speaks again.
“I need to kill it.”
Shauna is on the verge of something like delight when she asks, “Do you really think we can?”
Nat didn't say anything about “we,” but she supposes she's glad Shauna's in no matter what. She does not want to be her enemy again. “I don't know. But I'll be damned if we don't try.”
Shauna hangs up with a simple “Bye,” but she's clearly in a better mood.
Natalie is so glad she's not going back to school.
If she were, she couldn't start a hunt.