( of all the people nat might expect to wander their way to her door, melissa finds her way to the bottom of the list — not for any reason in particular, besides the obvious them and us mentality that fissures through their group of yellowjackets, where melissa is decidedly them. she expects little from the girls in the wake of last month, moreso settling into the comfortable lull of denial, refusal, and intoxication, all of nat's favorite coping mechanisms. shauna would make more sense — she'd spot something vulnerable like a fox sniffing out a hare and rub her nose in it, the same woman who made her cut up coach to teach her a lesson. i know you like girls. like every other yellowjacket, apparently.
it's not shauna, though. it's melissa. nat answers the door smelling very slightly like pot from rolling a joint, her eyes squinted. she's never been able to outgrow the feeling of the girls all being hers, being their democratic queen, not exactly elected, but sworn allegiance to. so it pangs, to see melissa's eyes all red and teary, her cheeks flushed, her expression obvious: heartbreak, betrayal, two sides of the same bitter coin. frowning, nat nods, opening the door wider. )
No, come on. ( inside, her room is about what you would expect — a wasteland of abandoned travis shirts and drug paraphernalia, cds laid out vulnerably on top of their cases. ) You, uh. You alright, Mel? You kinda look like shit. I mean — no offense, just ... what happened? ( trying not to be angry, ) Did someone hurt you?
[ It's funny seeing all the little personal touches in the room, CDs and clothes and... other stuff, after spending so long in a place where they'd all essentially been forced into adopting the same aesthetic, aside from the limited clothing items they'd been able to keep out of the communal laundry. No music in the Wilderness, no movies other than the ones Van remembers well enough to recount. Mel had held onto her green plaid skirt with a death grip because even if no one else wanted to wear it, it might end up cut into strips for something else.
The other girls used to call Nat a burnout, but that seems so ridiculous now. She'd been the only one keeping them fed for months.
Melissa steps into the room but stops near the door. She hesitates before she answers the question, because that's complicated, but finally, ] No, nobody hurt me.
I just wanted to apologize, for like... all the shit that went down last month. And before that, too. [ She tries to force a self-deprecating laugh, but it comes out as more of a sob. ] I think I really fucked up.
( she feels like a burnout. nat found and lost her purpose inside the wilderness — even now it feels like wearing someone else's (antler crown) shoes, playing pretend in front of a waiting audience, sliding into a role that no longer suits her. why should mel want to associate with her at all? nat, who spends her days smoking and crying and throwing up, paranoid shauna will become so unhinged as to seek vengeance on her for the sole reason of helping their friends to safety. all her demons wear shauna shipman's face. all her demons spit traitor, coward into her mouth.
something isn't adding up, is the point. nat's never been particularly skilled at consoling people, least of all mel who's been seen to by shauna for the most part. heavily, nat takes a seat at a chest by the foot of her bed, hands folded between her knees. her expression is confused. )
"Before that"? ( last month, whatever. it's water under the bridge. nat could give two shits about who she was then, because it was a lie, because it made no sense. before that? she swallows, dryly. ) You remembered something. Didn't you?
[ Melissa just nods. She feels a little bit like her whole life's been cracked open, everything she thought was true spilling out around her, destroyed. She'll never be able to put it back the same. ]
I was asleep for. I don't know. A while, I guess, like four days? [ Five? So disorienting when she'd woken up. She'd been crying. She'd been hungry, but the thought of eating anything when she could remember how it felt to have Mari stuck in her teeth made her want to throw up. ] And when I woke up, I remembered... a lot more. Jackie was there, but apparently Shauna split after I didn't wake up the first day. [ Mel forces a laugh from somewhere deep down and ugly. ] I guess she knew what was about to happen.
[ It's a little bit gratifying, knowing that Shauna made sure not to be there when she woke up. Most likely Shauna just didn't want to have to explain herself in front of Jackie, since it would have ruined the whole fake narrative she'd been selling them. No doubt Shauna's been getting her story straight, trying to figure out a way to spin it that will keep Jackie by her side even if no one else stays.
But maybe there's a little part of her that's scared of Melissa, too. Of being cornered by her again, physically overpowered. Hurt by her. And that makes Melissa kinda happy. It doesn't make up for the lies or the humiliation. But it's a little glimmer of something besides sadness, and Mel's going to hold onto it as hard as she can.
Melissa fidgets, tugging at her fingers, opens her mouth a couple times before she asks: ]
It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, but... are you okay, Nat? Back there, I mean. You were just—gone, after the hunt. [ She hopes that Natalie made a run for it. Even if she didn't make it out, at least she got away from Shauna. Even if Melissa's stupid idea didn't work, at least it would have ended up helping one of them. ]
( even the wilderness couldn't carve out the portions of natalie that are and remain a teenager girl. her reaction once the depth of mel's i want to apologize fully penetrates isn't i forgive you — it's you couldn't have been sorry before you sentenced coach to death?
but she doesn't say it, because coach is dead and butchered and eaten, and that's the long and short of it. shauna wasn't necessarily evil for wanting to stay in the woods given everything that's happened to her, but she is evil to natalie for that — not that there was anything so foul she could show her, that she hadn't already seen on the pale green grass of her trailer park walkway. her dad's brains looked like coach's. she just loved coach significantly more, but love has never been a reason not to commit atrocities — just ask shauna what jackie's spinal fluid looked like melting off the pyre, ask travis where javi used to carve his wooden solace. which of them could say they aren't the host of deep depravity? not nat. not mel. she can't yell at her, because she is her, at the end of it. mel might've raised her hand, but nat was the one who killed him. )
You found out about Hannah, then?
( donning her guise as natalie, if it ever worked in the first place. putting her elbows on her knees, natalie rubs her hands together, chewing on her upper lip. the tears well up without her say so — she never managed to lose her sensitivity either, not when testifying on coach's behalf, not when hannah betrayed her initially, not when misty revealed her deceit. nat's always been a cry baby. )
That frog fucker guy, the one Lottie brained? Van found out he had a communication thing back at their camp — busted up, but ( the lie, because she knows what they'd do if they found out misty fucked up, and she's tired of burying girls in the dirt, tired of tasting meat on her tongue. ) there were some parts with the plane that could fix it. We were working on it, me, Van, Misty, Trav. Needed some high altitude to get it to work, so I offered, since I know the trails. I went during the hunt. ( she still doesn't know how that ended, actually. shauna dangled it in front of her like a carrot, and natalie couldn't let herself bite. ) Mel. I got there. I mean — swear on my fucking life, I got a hit.
I think. I think we're gonna get rescued.
( the most fragile thread of hope. there's still time for shauna to fuck it up. nat still has to come down the mountain. but for right now, this very second? nat believes freedom is coming when they get home. and that's not nothing. )
Not until the next morning. Shauna was too busy pretending to be Jim Jones to notice anyone was missing at the feast.
[ Mel walks over and sits on the chest beside her, not so close their legs are touching but more so that if she shifts over at all her ass is gonna be hanging off the side. This is fine. She can see Nat's crying, or trying not to cry, and stares down at her own shoes instead, trying not to make it obvious. ]
That's... I can't believe you actually pulled that off. [ Even with the random bed checks and Shauna breathing down her neck all the time. Melissa doesn't hold it against Nat for keeping her out of it, either. She's not dumb enough not to realize how much of a liability she would have seemed after everything that happened. (Van is kind of a surprise, though, honestly.)
She's just dumb enough to have gotten one of her friends killed. And now even when rescue comes, Mari's never going to get to eat the cheeseburger she wanted, or go to the movies and layer butter on her popcorn, or hang out at the mall like she talked about. Mel exhales a shaky breath. It doesn't seem real yet. ]
I, um. I think that's really amazing, Nat. That's, like, the bravest shit ever.
( natalie is about as good at accepting praise as you might expect from someone who's been told she's a useless idiot her entire life — immediate, marrow deep confusion as quickly lanced by some brittle understanding. brave? it's not brave if you don't have a choice. she only ever stepped up as queen because the other option was slaughter. you know. natalie has these things foist upon her — she didn't choose to be the one to save them. she wants to believe she lives in a world where anyone would've done the same, where everyone wanted to get home, too.
of course, natalie is also from a world of doing things on her own, for herself. stolen dollar bills from her daddy's wallet for lunch money as a kid, which turned into weed money as a teen, which turned into bright red, slapped cheeks and bloody noses. that, she can handle. this? kindness?
the best she can do is awkwardly bump her knee against mel's. an unmentioned thank you. quietly, ) I just ... you know. I just want to get us all home. That's it.
( she's not amazing. she's not brave. all she is is scared, of the wilderness and the woods, of the demons isolation has made of girls she used to call friends.
[ Melissa laughs. Not because the thing with Shauna is funny but because it's so un-funny that it's almost circled back around. Also because it's a great question that she has no idea how to answer. ]
I mean, she's been fucking lying to me since I got here. Saying everything was fine. [ Is Shauna a great liar? No. Did Melissa not ask any follow up questions because that was easier and more comfortable for her? Yes.
But still, a month (two, if they're counting June) is a long time for Shauna to play house with someone she knows tried to choke her to death with a tree branch. To kiss her and hold her hand and smile and act like she was still Melissa's fucking girlfriend.
So on top of being hurt and humiliated, there's also a deep sense of confusion about what Shauna's motives were for that. And some fear, too, of what Shauna might do now that Melissa knows the truth. It's suddenly occurring to Melissa that, to Shauna, it must seem like everybody was in on the same plan, both to get rid of her and to get Natalie safely away, and that now she'll feel outnumbered again, and she's so fucking paranoid... ]
Fuuuck, [ she whispers, more a deep sigh than a spoken word. ] Has she, like, threatened you or anything since you got here? Because I kind of... I did something during the hunt and she... might think we planned it together.
( she bobs a heavy nod, not exactly like she's empathetic about the potential dissolution of shauna/mel, but because she knows she probably should be, and isn't. melissa isn't the demon here — but is she totally without fault? no, nat doesn't think so. turning coat means something, and coming here to apologize means something too, but there are still sour memories she has of mel trailing after shauna like a duckling, arms draped around her shoulders, vying for the attention of someone who has always been unhinged. at least since her baby died.
the fucking baby. nat rubs a hand over her eyes, shooing away the emotion there — of what that baby felt like in her arms, alive, breathing, beautiful, her son. a lie. not real, not worth thinking about, least of all where natalie is concerned. she twists, folding a leg under herself so she can face melissa, watching her. for what? a flicker of something evil? one thread of something dark, lurking under the surface? it, that unspeakable thing living inside of all of them, driving lottie to her messiah craze, shauna to the queenly murderess, tai to the split sided jackal, gnawing off its own leg in captivity. )
She threatened me about telling Jackie what happened, but that's it. ( seriously, ) What the fuck did you do? Don't lie. If this is all some sort of fucked up manipulation foreplay game for the two of you, just don't. I'm so —
( sick. sick and fucking tired of being the only one with any decency. sick and tired of clawing tooth and nail to get back to her useless, nothing life with her useless, nothing mother, in their useless, nothing trailer. these girls — all of them have something waiting for them. all of them except nat, who already feels the weigh of what becoming completely without meaning has. it's light, airy. null and voided. she's absolutely fucking nothing. )
[ Melissa swallows and stares down at her knees. Her feelings aren't hurt because Nat thinks she'd stay with Shauna after the humiliating scene they all witnessed with the rifle. Slinking back like an abused dog is exactly the kind of pathetic shit the whole team probably believes of her. What stings more than it should is that Nat believes she'd come here just to fuck with her on behest of Shauna, fake crying and apologizing like it's a game.
Whatever. Maybe she deserves that. She probably does. ]
Believe what you want, but I'm not lying. [ Mel picks at a loose string on the seam of her shorts, tugging it until it starts to unravel and winding it around and around her index finger. It hurts and feels good at the same time and somehow makes what comes next easier to say out loud. ]
I tried to kill Shauna during the hunt. [ Quiet, because she knows that whatever animosity Natalie feels for Shauna, this is a step beyond, into something darker. ] I thought... if she was gone, we could leave.
[ Melissa could say that her intentions had been nothing but good, that it was all for the sake of the team, but that would be a lie. It had been that, yeah, but it had also been personal, a score to settle between her and Shauna, and that's where she had fucked up. ]
There was a group of us who agreed. Nobody else was supposed to die.
( it's there again, that evergreen forest of darkness inside all these girls — it's tai breaking allie's leg, these learned, terrible behaviors that just exist in them, festering, some sickness of girlhood. despite what shauna says, natalie doesn't believe herself to be a saint in light of it all. sometimes, she thinks she's the worst one in the bunch — preaching goodness but still letting javi die for her, the youngest of them all, who had a brother who would do anything for him. what does nat have? what right does she have to her own life? you think about jackie, about javi, about coach. fully formed people with lives, not deadbeats chasing one high after the next, drowning in their avoidance.
it does disturb her, but she also gets it. sometimes she wakes up from dreams where she bashes shauna's head in with a rock with a warm, almost contentment burrowed in her chest. it wants feeding. it says yes, natalie. get worse. you know where you're headed. )
What the fuck.
( more murmured under her breath than actually asked. natalie gets up abruptly, gnawing at her thumbnail, eyes a little frantic when she looks back at melissa — there was an implication, once. nat asking shauna how the hunt ended, shauna telling her ask travis. she's been terrified it means he got hunted, that she's in love with a corpse, that she might save all the girls in the world, but there's no hope for her, ultimately. everything lives and breathes with travis. this is the moment she loses it all.
[ Melissa bites down on her lower lip, hard. It's not like she and Mari were ever best friends. Mostly, it was proximity. Mari had always been Gen's friend, and Melissa would be there too. But Mari never complained about her presence. She was fun, and could be surprisingly sweet, and when she wasn't being sweet, her verbal barbs were both sharp and weird enough to make Melissa laugh. She brought candy to every away game so everyone had something to eat on the bus ride home.
She had been one of them, and then she had been a broken body at the bottom of that pit. Melissa had brushed her fingers through a lock of Mari's black hair and then used a bone to pin it to the front of Shauna's robes like it was a fucking prize that she deserved, and then they'd sat around the fire and she'd listened to Gen crying softly while she ate. It's all so fucked. ]
( it ends on a gasp rather than a syllable, nat lifting a hand up to cover her mouth and then quickly turning to face the opposite wall, shoulders shaking. it doesn't take any effort to make the tears spill over. mari was a friend. mari was — she believed in lottie's dumbfuck nonsense, mari was there during the hunts and in the games, mari made gifts at shauna's baby shower, danced with them while the radio died, made fucking — fucking soup for the girls to eat. and worst of all, mari
nat thought she saved her. this whole time. a little victory to pad out the grief, mari fucking died while nat wasn't even in the running. nat got them out, is getting them out, and these dumbass hungry girls couldn't wait — what, another week? a month?
she rubs her palms over her eyes, sniffing loudly, grossly, before crossing back over the room, shaking hands ripping open a bedside table and taking out a bottle of vodka. she chugs a little, and feels no better for it, flopping on her bed and shaking the bottle at mel in offering. she'll have to come over to grab it. when their eyes lock, nat's are bloodshot and watery and sad and vacant, not wholly there. )
How did it — did it happen? ( she tries to be stern. queenly. no, she's not a giant fucking crybaby. she understands tragedy like its always been a friend to her, like it can't hurt her anymore, like there's always been a dark place inside for her to curl up and hide in when life gets too real. ) Tell me.
[ It comes out choked and small. Natalie was climbing through the snow trying to get them rescued at the same moment Mari was dying, and Melissa really is sorry. No, she didn't act alone, but she'd been the first one to suggest a hunt. What happened after that rests on her shoulders.
She crosses the room and takes the bottle from Nat, brings it to her lips and drinks with a grimace. The vodka burns going down and pools in her stomach like acid. She takes another drink before she offers the bottle back. ]
She shouldn't have died. I don't know why— [ Mel swipes a hand across her cheek, frustrated, grieving. ] Nobody was even hunting her besides Shauna and Tai and Lottie, and we planned for that, we split them up and distracted them. [ It should have worked. She keeps going over and over and over everything in her head and coming to the same conclusion every time. It was a stupid plan but it still should have worked. ]
She fell. That hole, the place Coach Scott found her when she fucked up her knee? Someone like—filled it up with fucking spikes and covered it like a pit trap.
[ Mel doesn't know who, or why, but Mari is dead and Shauna ordered them to fill the hole in, and there's nothing she can do to take any of it back. She sits on the edge of Nat's bed and lets the burn of the vodka spread through her, trickling down her arms, her fingertips. It doesn't make her feel better or worse, just... less real. ]
( she's not exactly sorry she asked, but it's worse once she knows, imagining — what? mari's twitching body speared on a hundred sharpened spikes? who had the time? who was planning for a hunt that long? towards the end, natalie was under almost constant surveillance by shauna, but she knows the others weren't as monitored — so? does that mean any of them could've done it, with means and opportunity and a drive towards meat?
easy to blame shauna. except — shauna's their butcher and knows what a pain split stomach acid and bowels and gooey guts torn by imprecise motions can be when it comes to preparing the feast. this is a lesson natalie knows now too, watching her fingers point out the places to cut coach open, where to avoid, how to make it easy for yourself, motions almost maternal in nature. a strange kindness, like she knew and enjoyed what a cruel thing she demanded from natalie, but didn't require an excess of her suffering, a real mother in that way, disciplining her offspring. for pure practicality, nat can't imagine shauna killing someone in a way that makes more work for her. maybe someone else prepared the feast, while queen shauna sat in her throne? but would she pass on the chance to celebrate her idea of worship? what would mari taste like, if shauna had nothing to do with it?
accepting the bottle, nat rolls over, dropping it on the floor. ) No, fuck this. ( she rustles through her bedside table, fetching a grinder, baggy, rolling papers, and sets to the motion poorly with her shaking hands, dumping the green in an almost even line and rolling it as tight as she can, licking the left over paper to seal it shut.
she gestures to the table on the other side next to mel. ) There's a lighter in there.
[ The great thing about the vodka is that it makes her stop feeling as sad about Mari. She's not any happier but the grief and guilt are temporarily dulled to the point where they stop either stop hurting or at least get kind of quiet for a while.
Instead Melissa gets to watch as Nat makes the joint, her long fingers pinching the paper and rolling it tight. Even with shaking hands, the motions are practiced and delicate, and it's riveting in the way watching someone do something they've done a thousand times before is always riveting, and Mel doesn't need to feel bad about the way she's looking. She does feel guilty about making Natalie upset, but there's nothing she can do about that part of it without going back in time.
Then the pink tip of Nat's tongue snakes out, licking the paper. Mel stares for a couple seconds longer, and then she blinks herself out of it and goes digging for the lighter. She briefly imagines Mari rolling her eyes at the whole scene, pissed off. I'm fucking dead and you're already perving on other girls? You should be thinking about me. Yeah, probably, but Mel's only human. ]
I was high basically all of last month. [ She flicks the wheel a couple times with her thumb, making it spark, and then hands the lighter over. ] It was, like, the easiest month I think I've ever had in my life, and it wasn't actually my life. [ She tips her head back, looking up at the ceiling. ] I think that other version of me was kind of a sociopath? But I should definitely smoke a lot more weed.
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it's not shauna, though. it's melissa. nat answers the door smelling very slightly like pot from rolling a joint, her eyes squinted. she's never been able to outgrow the feeling of the girls all being hers, being their democratic queen, not exactly elected, but sworn allegiance to. so it pangs, to see melissa's eyes all red and teary, her cheeks flushed, her expression obvious: heartbreak, betrayal, two sides of the same bitter coin. frowning, nat nods, opening the door wider. )
No, come on. ( inside, her room is about what you would expect — a wasteland of abandoned travis shirts and drug paraphernalia, cds laid out vulnerably on top of their cases. ) You, uh. You alright, Mel? You kinda look like shit. I mean — no offense, just ... what happened? ( trying not to be angry, ) Did someone hurt you?
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The other girls used to call Nat a burnout, but that seems so ridiculous now. She'd been the only one keeping them fed for months.
Melissa steps into the room but stops near the door. She hesitates before she answers the question, because that's complicated, but finally, ] No, nobody hurt me.
I just wanted to apologize, for like... all the shit that went down last month. And before that, too. [ She tries to force a self-deprecating laugh, but it comes out as more of a sob. ] I think I really fucked up.
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something isn't adding up, is the point. nat's never been particularly skilled at consoling people, least of all mel who's been seen to by shauna for the most part. heavily, nat takes a seat at a chest by the foot of her bed, hands folded between her knees. her expression is confused. )
"Before that"? ( last month, whatever. it's water under the bridge. nat could give two shits about who she was then, because it was a lie, because it made no sense. before that? she swallows, dryly. ) You remembered something. Didn't you?
cw brief cannibalism mention
I was asleep for. I don't know. A while, I guess, like four days? [ Five? So disorienting when she'd woken up. She'd been crying. She'd been hungry, but the thought of eating anything when she could remember how it felt to have Mari stuck in her teeth made her want to throw up. ] And when I woke up, I remembered... a lot more. Jackie was there, but apparently Shauna split after I didn't wake up the first day. [ Mel forces a laugh from somewhere deep down and ugly. ] I guess she knew what was about to happen.
[ It's a little bit gratifying, knowing that Shauna made sure not to be there when she woke up. Most likely Shauna just didn't want to have to explain herself in front of Jackie, since it would have ruined the whole fake narrative she'd been selling them. No doubt Shauna's been getting her story straight, trying to figure out a way to spin it that will keep Jackie by her side even if no one else stays.
But maybe there's a little part of her that's scared of Melissa, too. Of being cornered by her again, physically overpowered. Hurt by her. And that makes Melissa kinda happy. It doesn't make up for the lies or the humiliation. But it's a little glimmer of something besides sadness, and Mel's going to hold onto it as hard as she can.
Melissa fidgets, tugging at her fingers, opens her mouth a couple times before she asks: ]
It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, but... are you okay, Nat? Back there, I mean. You were just—gone, after the hunt. [ She hopes that Natalie made a run for it. Even if she didn't make it out, at least she got away from Shauna. Even if Melissa's stupid idea didn't work, at least it would have ended up helping one of them. ]
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but she doesn't say it, because coach is dead and butchered and eaten, and that's the long and short of it. shauna wasn't necessarily evil for wanting to stay in the woods given everything that's happened to her, but she is evil to natalie for that — not that there was anything so foul she could show her, that she hadn't already seen on the pale green grass of her trailer park walkway. her dad's brains looked like coach's. she just loved coach significantly more, but love has never been a reason not to commit atrocities — just ask shauna what jackie's spinal fluid looked like melting off the pyre, ask travis where javi used to carve his wooden solace. which of them could say they aren't the host of deep depravity? not nat. not mel. she can't yell at her, because she is her, at the end of it. mel might've raised her hand, but nat was the one who killed him. )
You found out about Hannah, then?
( donning her guise as natalie, if it ever worked in the first place. putting her elbows on her knees, natalie rubs her hands together, chewing on her upper lip. the tears well up without her say so — she never managed to lose her sensitivity either, not when testifying on coach's behalf, not when hannah betrayed her initially, not when misty revealed her deceit. nat's always been a cry baby. )
That frog fucker guy, the one Lottie brained? Van found out he had a communication thing back at their camp — busted up, but ( the lie, because she knows what they'd do if they found out misty fucked up, and she's tired of burying girls in the dirt, tired of tasting meat on her tongue. ) there were some parts with the plane that could fix it. We were working on it, me, Van, Misty, Trav. Needed some high altitude to get it to work, so I offered, since I know the trails. I went during the hunt. ( she still doesn't know how that ended, actually. shauna dangled it in front of her like a carrot, and natalie couldn't let herself bite. ) Mel. I got there. I mean — swear on my fucking life, I got a hit.
I think. I think we're gonna get rescued.
( the most fragile thread of hope. there's still time for shauna to fuck it up. nat still has to come down the mountain. but for right now, this very second? nat believes freedom is coming when they get home. and that's not nothing. )
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[ Mel walks over and sits on the chest beside her, not so close their legs are touching but more so that if she shifts over at all her ass is gonna be hanging off the side. This is fine. She can see Nat's crying, or trying not to cry, and stares down at her own shoes instead, trying not to make it obvious. ]
That's... I can't believe you actually pulled that off. [ Even with the random bed checks and Shauna breathing down her neck all the time. Melissa doesn't hold it against Nat for keeping her out of it, either. She's not dumb enough not to realize how much of a liability she would have seemed after everything that happened. (Van is kind of a surprise, though, honestly.)
She's just dumb enough to have gotten one of her friends killed. And now even when rescue comes, Mari's never going to get to eat the cheeseburger she wanted, or go to the movies and layer butter on her popcorn, or hang out at the mall like she talked about. Mel exhales a shaky breath. It doesn't seem real yet. ]
I, um. I think that's really amazing, Nat. That's, like, the bravest shit ever.
cw: child abuse
of course, natalie is also from a world of doing things on her own, for herself. stolen dollar bills from her daddy's wallet for lunch money as a kid, which turned into weed money as a teen, which turned into bright red, slapped cheeks and bloody noses. that, she can handle. this? kindness?
the best she can do is awkwardly bump her knee against mel's. an unmentioned thank you. quietly, ) I just ... you know. I just want to get us all home. That's it.
( she's not amazing. she's not brave. all she is is scared, of the wilderness and the woods, of the demons isolation has made of girls she used to call friends.
after a beat, )
Sooo ... you and Shauna?
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I mean, she's been fucking lying to me since I got here. Saying everything was fine. [ Is Shauna a great liar? No. Did Melissa not ask any follow up questions because that was easier and more comfortable for her? Yes.
But still, a month (two, if they're counting June) is a long time for Shauna to play house with someone she knows tried to choke her to death with a tree branch. To kiss her and hold her hand and smile and act like she was still Melissa's fucking girlfriend.
So on top of being hurt and humiliated, there's also a deep sense of confusion about what Shauna's motives were for that. And some fear, too, of what Shauna might do now that Melissa knows the truth. It's suddenly occurring to Melissa that, to Shauna, it must seem like everybody was in on the same plan, both to get rid of her and to get Natalie safely away, and that now she'll feel outnumbered again, and she's so fucking paranoid... ]
Fuuuck, [ she whispers, more a deep sigh than a spoken word. ] Has she, like, threatened you or anything since you got here? Because I kind of... I did something during the hunt and she... might think we planned it together.
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the fucking baby. nat rubs a hand over her eyes, shooing away the emotion there — of what that baby felt like in her arms, alive, breathing, beautiful, her son. a lie. not real, not worth thinking about, least of all where natalie is concerned. she twists, folding a leg under herself so she can face melissa, watching her. for what? a flicker of something evil? one thread of something dark, lurking under the surface? it, that unspeakable thing living inside of all of them, driving lottie to her messiah craze, shauna to the queenly murderess, tai to the split sided jackal, gnawing off its own leg in captivity. )
She threatened me about telling Jackie what happened, but that's it. ( seriously, ) What the fuck did you do? Don't lie. If this is all some sort of fucked up manipulation foreplay game for the two of you, just don't. I'm so —
( sick. sick and fucking tired of being the only one with any decency. sick and tired of clawing tooth and nail to get back to her useless, nothing life with her useless, nothing mother, in their useless, nothing trailer. these girls — all of them have something waiting for them. all of them except nat, who already feels the weigh of what becoming completely without meaning has. it's light, airy. null and voided. she's absolutely fucking nothing. )
Just don't.
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Whatever. Maybe she deserves that. She probably does. ]
Believe what you want, but I'm not lying. [ Mel picks at a loose string on the seam of her shorts, tugging it until it starts to unravel and winding it around and around her index finger. It hurts and feels good at the same time and somehow makes what comes next easier to say out loud. ]
I tried to kill Shauna during the hunt. [ Quiet, because she knows that whatever animosity Natalie feels for Shauna, this is a step beyond, into something darker. ] I thought... if she was gone, we could leave.
[ Melissa could say that her intentions had been nothing but good, that it was all for the sake of the team, but that would be a lie. It had been that, yeah, but it had also been personal, a score to settle between her and Shauna, and that's where she had fucked up. ]
There was a group of us who agreed. Nobody else was supposed to die.
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it does disturb her, but she also gets it. sometimes she wakes up from dreams where she bashes shauna's head in with a rock with a warm, almost contentment burrowed in her chest. it wants feeding. it says yes, natalie. get worse. you know where you're headed. )
What the fuck.
( more murmured under her breath than actually asked. natalie gets up abruptly, gnawing at her thumbnail, eyes a little frantic when she looks back at melissa — there was an implication, once. nat asking shauna how the hunt ended, shauna telling her ask travis. she's been terrified it means he got hunted, that she's in love with a corpse, that she might save all the girls in the world, but there's no hope for her, ultimately. everything lives and breathes with travis. this is the moment she loses it all.
and yet, she can't not ask, quiet and afraid, )
Who?
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[ Melissa bites down on her lower lip, hard. It's not like she and Mari were ever best friends. Mostly, it was proximity. Mari had always been Gen's friend, and Melissa would be there too. But Mari never complained about her presence. She was fun, and could be surprisingly sweet, and when she wasn't being sweet, her verbal barbs were both sharp and weird enough to make Melissa laugh. She brought candy to every away game so everyone had something to eat on the bus ride home.
She had been one of them, and then she had been a broken body at the bottom of that pit. Melissa had brushed her fingers through a lock of Mari's black hair and then used a bone to pin it to the front of Shauna's robes like it was a fucking prize that she deserved, and then they'd sat around the fire and she'd listened to Gen crying softly while she ate. It's all so fucked. ]
I told Jackie. But not how it happened.
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( it ends on a gasp rather than a syllable, nat lifting a hand up to cover her mouth and then quickly turning to face the opposite wall, shoulders shaking. it doesn't take any effort to make the tears spill over. mari was a friend. mari was — she believed in lottie's dumbfuck nonsense, mari was there during the hunts and in the games, mari made gifts at shauna's baby shower, danced with them while the radio died, made fucking — fucking soup for the girls to eat. and worst of all, mari
nat thought she saved her. this whole time. a little victory to pad out the grief, mari fucking died while nat wasn't even in the running. nat got them out, is getting them out, and these dumbass hungry girls couldn't wait — what, another week? a month?
she rubs her palms over her eyes, sniffing loudly, grossly, before crossing back over the room, shaking hands ripping open a bedside table and taking out a bottle of vodka. she chugs a little, and feels no better for it, flopping on her bed and shaking the bottle at mel in offering. she'll have to come over to grab it. when their eyes lock, nat's are bloodshot and watery and sad and vacant, not wholly there. )
How did it — did it happen? ( she tries to be stern. queenly. no, she's not a giant fucking crybaby. she understands tragedy like its always been a friend to her, like it can't hurt her anymore, like there's always been a dark place inside for her to curl up and hide in when life gets too real. ) Tell me.
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[ It comes out choked and small. Natalie was climbing through the snow trying to get them rescued at the same moment Mari was dying, and Melissa really is sorry. No, she didn't act alone, but she'd been the first one to suggest a hunt. What happened after that rests on her shoulders.
She crosses the room and takes the bottle from Nat, brings it to her lips and drinks with a grimace. The vodka burns going down and pools in her stomach like acid. She takes another drink before she offers the bottle back. ]
She shouldn't have died. I don't know why— [ Mel swipes a hand across her cheek, frustrated, grieving. ] Nobody was even hunting her besides Shauna and Tai and Lottie, and we planned for that, we split them up and distracted them. [ It should have worked. She keeps going over and over and over everything in her head and coming to the same conclusion every time. It was a stupid plan but it still should have worked. ]
She fell. That hole, the place Coach Scott found her when she fucked up her knee? Someone like—filled it up with fucking spikes and covered it like a pit trap.
[ Mel doesn't know who, or why, but Mari is dead and Shauna ordered them to fill the hole in, and there's nothing she can do to take any of it back. She sits on the edge of Nat's bed and lets the burn of the vodka spread through her, trickling down her arms, her fingertips. It doesn't make her feel better or worse, just... less real. ]
cw: gore
easy to blame shauna. except — shauna's their butcher and knows what a pain split stomach acid and bowels and gooey guts torn by imprecise motions can be when it comes to preparing the feast. this is a lesson natalie knows now too, watching her fingers point out the places to cut coach open, where to avoid, how to make it easy for yourself, motions almost maternal in nature. a strange kindness, like she knew and enjoyed what a cruel thing she demanded from natalie, but didn't require an excess of her suffering, a real mother in that way, disciplining her offspring. for pure practicality, nat can't imagine shauna killing someone in a way that makes more work for her. maybe someone else prepared the feast, while queen shauna sat in her throne? but would she pass on the chance to celebrate her idea of worship? what would mari taste like, if shauna had nothing to do with it?
accepting the bottle, nat rolls over, dropping it on the floor. ) No, fuck this. ( she rustles through her bedside table, fetching a grinder, baggy, rolling papers, and sets to the motion poorly with her shaking hands, dumping the green in an almost even line and rolling it as tight as she can, licking the left over paper to seal it shut.
she gestures to the table on the other side next to mel. ) There's a lighter in there.
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Instead Melissa gets to watch as Nat makes the joint, her long fingers pinching the paper and rolling it tight. Even with shaking hands, the motions are practiced and delicate, and it's riveting in the way watching someone do something they've done a thousand times before is always riveting, and Mel doesn't need to feel bad about the way she's looking. She does feel guilty about making Natalie upset, but there's nothing she can do about that part of it without going back in time.
Then the pink tip of Nat's tongue snakes out, licking the paper. Mel stares for a couple seconds longer, and then she blinks herself out of it and goes digging for the lighter. She briefly imagines Mari rolling her eyes at the whole scene, pissed off. I'm fucking dead and you're already perving on other girls? You should be thinking about me. Yeah, probably, but Mel's only human. ]
I was high basically all of last month. [ She flicks the wheel a couple times with her thumb, making it spark, and then hands the lighter over. ] It was, like, the easiest month I think I've ever had in my life, and it wasn't actually my life. [ She tips her head back, looking up at the ceiling. ] I think that other version of me was kind of a sociopath? But I should definitely smoke a lot more weed.
[ Nat's gonna share that joint, right? ]