There were pads in the bathroom. They might have abandoned camp, but that doesn’t mean camp’s not still there.
She doesn’t know where she is, though. Jaden well and truly fucked her in so many more ways than he knows. Her sense of direction has never been great, and even though she can tell east because of the rising sun, knowing east does her no good when she has no idea where the camp is relative to her current position.
She stops, catches her breath, tries to figure out where she is. She doesn’t deserve this. Not the betrayal, not the humiliation, and not the ever-increasing sense of wrongness, of dread, of fear pricking at the back of her neck.
A branch snaps somewhere behind her, and Ava takes off like a frightened rabbit, certain that, whatever’s there, she doesn’t want to see.
* * *
—
It’s day now, so Mack’s awake, but it feels like she’s sleeping. She has that floaty sensation she craves, that she sleeps just to find: hovering between conscious and not, weightless and warm and free.
Maybe it’s Ava curled against her on one side and Brandon’s cheerful presence on the other. Maybe it’s the fact that this is a genuinely good hiding spot, and for this day, at least, she thinks they’ll be safe. This day is all she’s thinking about. This hour, this minute, this second, this moment. She can float here, exist here. She’s safe.
A ticking noise filters through the flimsy, dry wood separating them from daylight. It drags her back into reality, back into the passage of time. Tick, tock, time’s almost up.
No. Not a ticking noise. A clicking noise. LeGrand. Ava hears it, too. She tenses, then shifts to crawl to the exterior wall. Mack and Brandon do the same. The nice thing about being in a building that could fall apart at a strong breeze is that there are plenty of cracks and holes they can press their eyes to, seeing outside without being seen themselves.
“What—” Brandon whispers, but Mack jabs him hard in the side, and he cuts off his question.
Mack holds her breath and keeps her eye on the path beneath them. She doesn’t know what she’s waiting for, but it’s going to be bad. She knows it will, because she was happy, and what right did she have to feel that way?
She half-expects screams like with Rebecca, so it puzzles her when it’s only beautiful Ava, stumbling silently past. Then beautiful Ava glances behind her shoulder, revealing a face contorted into a mask of silent horror. Of absolute, devastating fear so complete no sound can hold it, no breath can expand to fill the void of terror ripped into the soul of a person.
Her face is bleeding, dark trails already soaking down to her shirt, and there’s a streak of blood down the inside of one leg, too. She continues past their hiding spot, oblivious to their observation.
“Shit,” Ava breathes.
“Could be a trap,” Brandon whispers, but he doesn’t sound certain. He shouldn’t sound certain.
Ava grabs Mack’s arm, so hard it hurts. Mack puts her own fingers over Ava’s. Not to peel them away, but to increase the pressure. To keep Ava here, to be the one to make her stay this time.
“If it’s a game, win,” Ava says, her voice fierce. “And if it’s not, survive.” Ava turns in their tiny space, her shoulder slamming Mack into Brandon.
“No,” Mack hisses.
“Keep her safe,” Ava commands Brandon, and then she slides out of their spot. Mack is frozen. She wants to follow. Not to help beautiful Ava, but to stay with her own Ava. Whatever happens, to be with Ava, to not be left behind again, hidden and safe and alone.
She’s already survived alone once, and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Mack turns around so she can scoot toward the exit to their wooden womb. It’s harder to maneuver in here with Brandon sprawled out, inadvertently blocking her. He still has his eye pressed against the crack in the wall.
Ava, already outside, shouts, “Stay where you are!” either to LeGrand or to Mack and Brandon, or maybe to all three. Mack reaches for the edge of the platform, but Brandon’s hand grabs her ankle, his grip a vise.
“Let go,” Mack whispers, but his grip is so tight it’s shaking. No. Brandon is shaking, trembling all over, his face still pressed to the wall, his whole body seized up with whatever it is he’s witnessing.
“Don’t move,” he whispers. “Oh god, please, please don’t move, oh god, oh god, oh god.”
The tone of his voice is exactly how she felt when she heard what was happening in the family room, tucked away safely in Maddie’s hiding spot. It sounds like someone who knows death is right there, praying that somehow, some way, it will miss them.