saltburnt groupchat.

[doped]

YELLOWJACKETS

SHAUNA, MELISSA, MISTY, NATALIE, LOTTIE, VAN, JACKIE the wilderness, it hears us

Guys

Cute!!!

did you catch that??

dinner

shauna gross

You know, rabbits are very social creatures that live in groups!

what's up doc? 🥕

CODING

Comments

[doped]

i'd rather be dead than fuck with someone who doesn't deserve it

( frankly, i'd rather be dead than a lot of things. )

[diarists]

good to know you'd rather us all be dead than compromise your morals.
i mean, i sorta figured, but great to have confirmation.

[doped]

go fuck yourself shauna

[diarists]

i won't have to, you're gonna do it for me.

[doped]

( deep breaths, shaking. shauna still has a power of them that's like a blanket, like a curse. like she's it and it's here, demanding, treating every tragedy like an exchange, like tender owed. shed blood, my beautiful friends. )

i don't like it when you yell at me

[diarists]

[i'm typing, you big baby -- thought, but not said, because shauna's ten toes to the line that's been drawn and she knows in her soul: nobody else would understand. if she loses the yellowjackets, she's alone in the woods again, burying bones nobody else will remember to grieve.

instead:] i get it, she was nice to you. okay, great.
but it's still too late. it's all of us or none of us, nat.
i already made my choice.

[doped]

all of us or none of us

you're not gonna intimidate me? maybe you wanna go through my stuff to make sure i'm not hiding anything? maybe you wanna read my texts so you know i'm not working against you?
shocker. shauna shipman turned nice

[diarists]

no. i'm not.
it's not NICE, it's PRACTICAL.
i know what the fuck i am, and i know now nobody else is gonna get it.

you're like my fucking rib now, nat.
i can't get away from any of you, and you can't get away from me.

[and it's a tragedy and it's fucking unfair, and this place made them think differently for a while, but it lied.]

[transponders]

@ african.grey reacted: 💕

[doped]

( fuck you, shauna. don't fucking act like we're friends. don't act like you love me. don't act like i'm anything but another vote in your tirade. )

you'd cut me out the first chance you'd get

[diarists]

then why didn't i?

[half to herself; there was an opportunity, saber going after misty. shauna could've ignored them. could've texted him later and smoothed things over. but she hadn't.

rib or cancer or marrow, cutting nat out would leave shauna empty and bleeding where something should be. even if the bone set wrong and calcification has her aching whenever it moves, she's there, she's there, they're all there.]

[doped]

( i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know why everyone leaves me and you refuse to i don't know why i'm still here having this conversation i don't know why it chose me and took javi i don't know why i care about what happens to you i don't know why it means something that you can't get rid of me and maybe that you don't want to i don't know i don't know i don't know )

because
you're not hungry

[diarists]

nat.

[if it were aloud, it'd be soft, it'd be her putting the knife in nat's hand and begging without words be me, be me for a little, be in my skin, be who i've had to become and maybe you'll see. it wouldn't be the searches, the paranoia, the fear, the madness. it'd be two women with knives over a bathtub, a world away, -- i'll help -- okay, slicing up someone who tried to step inside the closed-off, healed-over, scarred-up wound that was them. someday shauna will think about handing natalie scatorccio something that isn't a knife.

but not today.]

we'll always be hungry.

[doped]

( when she claps a hand over her eyes and sobs, it's not because she's hurt by it, and it's not because she's sad, and it's not because there's some squirmy thing in her eye trying to wriggle its way out.

it's because shauna shipman is, and has always been, right. )

[transponders]

NO YOU DO NOT

[doped]

( ???????????? )

misty chill

[transponders]

Don't say that again! You're the one who gets us all out, you have to live.