While the rest of the other group was quiet, Marshall was about as loud and obnoxious as DeMarcus remembered and his earlier yelling would suggest. He stiffened when he was addressed. If his finger had been inside the trigger guard he may well have fired a round into the path. Or into Fred's heel. H...

DeMarcus trailed Fred at a leisurely pace. He positioned himself so that the other boy's body blocked group's line of sight to the gun. He didn't know how much it mattered anyway; everyone heard the announcements and if they knew him them they'd know what he'd done. Know what he'd done and get the w...

"Dumb motherfucker can't keep his mouth closed." DeMarcus muttered. Marshall was popping off with a list of complaints this time instead of a plan. Sounded like he had lost his mind or something, was unloading himself to Dani and the whole world. It set DeMarcus on edge. People that were c...

DeMarcus raised his eyes up toward where Marshall's voice had come from, where presumably Dani was too. "Oh, that ho." He said, almost offhandedly. He had seen some some of the pics the girl had online. Another one of those people for which engagement was the goal. Even if that was by thir...

((DeMarcus Miller continued from Floyd's Tomb)) Ostensibly, DeMarcus had chosen the more punishing and difficult path up the mountain because it seemed to be the best place to get a vantage point of the island and scope out the map, so to speak. That was the surface of it, the reason he told himself...

With Fred's trajectory decided, DeMarcus gave a little nod. He resumed walking, eyes settled on the horizon of the direction he had selected. He had control. He had the ability to make it make sense. That's all this was. That's what Dominiqua dropping was. That's what Fred following him was. It was ...

DeMarcus turned on his heels, shifting away from the mouth of the cave and toward a new direction. He'd look at the map later. "She'll get her rest and catch up." He said. He took a few steps. "Come on." He took a few steps and glanced back at the other boy. His shoulder hid how ...

DeMarcus watched Kai carry the girl into the cave, and for a cold second he saw it as a gaping maw swallowing them, as if it was the mouth of some jagged-tooth creature that had just been waiting for prey. Maybe that was why he didn't move to follow the pair, or even fire another shot, for fear of e...

He pulled the trigger before he even realized it. Dominiqua was shouting, berating DeMarcus, then Kai was grabbing for her. DeMarcus would never be sure if he fired the shot because he was not about to be rebuked for being the only one thinking here, or because Kai's lunge for Dominiqua startled him...

Dominiqua was really just gonna take the kid at his word. Soon as he said something, oop, off she went. DeMarcus wondered how fucking long she thought she was gonna live, thinking like that. She gave DeMarcus a signal but he dropped the weapon maybe an inch as she sidled over. He took a few steps cl...

No one had any responses to DeMarcus's declarations of the truth. Not that they would have mattered. The guy coming out from the cave dragging a body provided more than enough foundation for new discourse. DeMarcus snapped the gun up in both hands, leveling it at the cave-dweller. The hardness from ...

DeMarcus had been brooding since the announcement. Whether it was the new names, the cold, or just the trickling confirmations of everything he believed and had come to know about the world and the psychotics that ran it, he was not in the mood to talk. He had even been too weary to growl curses or ...

DeMarcus nodded. Now it felt like they were getting down to it. Now it felt like they were actually going to accomplish something. At least something other than waiting to get popped.

"I been ready." He said, and stoof.

(DeMarcus Miller, continued elsewhere...)

DeMarcus nodded, pleased that the two were listening to him now. It was a small deference, but it was enough to appease him. He finished another bite of his food and replaced it in his bag. Fred asked the real question, the one DeMarcus had really wanted to get to. DeMarcus looked from Fred, then to...

"Killers could be fuckin' anywhere, you want the possibility you might run into one be the reason you don't hunt for something like a better weapon or a better vantage point?" DeMarcus said. "Can't go through life not taking risks." It sounded convincing enough, to his ears anywa...