Cast in the Name of God

[Maraoone]

And Olivia just watched it all from her seat, words still stuck, two away from Coleen and one from Georgia Lee. She watched as the gun flashed, as Georgia Lee collapsed, as everything collapsed, as Coleen got her gun. She watched as Blair and then Alba ran, had the fucking gall to run from what they did. She watched, and all that she could think was that if they hadn't gone out to look for some cards, this never would've happened. They'd stayed in the cafeteria for hours, for entire days, and no one so much as even knocked on their door. And then they go out for a few hours for those cards, and they're locked out. Locked out of their sanctuary, in the wilderness, just for a day. And they go here, and now Georgia Lee, she's been shot in the leg, and all because of her cards, all because she couldn't live a few more hours without those cards, and, she had had Georgia Lee, she should have been content with that, but they left for her cards and now she was bleeding and it was her fault and no no no she was tired, she was tired of it being her fault, it was Blair and Alba and Enzo who came in here, Blair who fired the gun, Blair and Alba who just left, they left,

"They left," she answered. "They, uh, they left, they just, they went down there," and she stood up, walked past Coleen's gun towards the exit, "down the hall, they just left, didn't even look back, after what they did, they, they left and they shouldn't have they- they- COME BACK HERE!" and she leaned down the hall and screamed those words, and they bounced off the walls, down the hall, but they were long, long gone, not even in sight, and why had she only gotten the guts to stand up, to do something, anything just when it didn't matter, why did the blood only come back in her veins once they'd left, why did they leave because should've come back, they needed to come back, because Georgia Lee didn't even do anything and now she was lying there and oh god she was lying there.

And she rushed towards her, and her eyes were rolled back, and she was breathing, but she was lying down, not awake, not conscious, and oh god her jeans were so wet, so sticky, so much, and she looked towards Coleen and Enzo and they were just standing, walking around as if Georgia Lee had just gotten a paper cut and she wasn't even awake and she needed help and "help her help her help her."

[Namira]

What a partnership that had been.

'Ally problems!'

'Can we trust you?'

'I am very trustworthy!'

'Good cause we don't like shooting people!'

'Hey look a people!'

*gunshots*

That wasn't funny.

Coleen had appeared out from behind the couch, and for a couple seconds, there was something genuinely scary on her face. Enzo didn't know whether it was anger or adrenaline-soaked fear, just that they'd never seen Coleen with an expression like that. They hadn't really known her as long as the other members of the band, but she was good people and Enzo considered her a friend. Plus, y'know, with everything that was going on Vinny still had that vested interest-

They were trying to distract themselves from the fact that Coleen was standing there with a gun, an assault rifle, which had been up to a couple seconds ago pointed directly at them. She stopped, but that wasn't super reassuring.

Honestly, not-very-frickedy-much was likely to reassure Enzo right now. Blair had given Enzo assurances. Blair was the one who'd told them that her and Alba weren't violent, and look how the hell that had turned out.

Fricking shooting someone and then ditching them.

Shooting... someone.

Shit.

The realisation hit round about the same time the final person in the room—Olivia, her name was—started freaking out about it.  Rainy was still there, still shot, and still bleeding.

They hadn't spoken since shouting at Blair. Cat had their tongue. Cat, or gunshy. One of the two. Enzo sort of just nodded at Olivia, glancing back to Coleen.

"Uh, yeah. What she said. They took off."

Enzo stepped inside the room, 'cause they were assuming that they were off Coleen's hook for the time being. They hoped so. That would be a stupid way to get shot.

Once again, though, they were in a spot where they had no idea what to do. Their experience of medical treatment consisted of trying to hold on to the gaping wound in the stomach of their best friend.

That was a cheery thought. Good job optimism.

Vinny peeled on over to Georgie Lee, crouched down alongsides. Blood. Whoohoo. They were definitely not into this. Especially not Rainy. Turned out, seeing your best friend shot and bleeding out didn't make it any easier when it was someone else.

"Hey, Rainy. Gonna take care of you, all right? Do what we can and... stuff."

[MK Kilmarnock]

"Yeah." Coleen wiped her forehead with her sleeve to clear an itch, the gun falling to her side as she clutched it by the stock in her left hand. "Yeah, let me in, I'm gonna get to work." The adrenaline was trickling out of her and leaving her weary and fatigued, but the truth of the matter was that her heart still pounded and her muscles still wanted to shiver and shake from fear. This was a kind of fear that could never be reproduced by seeing a killer or having a gun pointed at you. She had already lost so many of her friends. Some of them right in front of her. She wasn't about to let Georgia Lee die, too.

Setting down her bag and dropping to her knees beside Georgia Lee's waist, Coleen wasted no time in unzipping her bag and retrieving the first aid kit that had been issued to her. It dawned on her how odd it was to be given a task to kill each other and how they were all expected to die, but were also granted the mercy of having a first aid kit... though, the assholes keeping them there clearly assumed they'd only be used for themselves.

Well, fuck you.

Coleen held up a tourniquet and stared at it pensively; she knew it could stop the bleeding which was the most important thing right now, but she also vaguely remembered some warning about leaving these on, where it could cause... blood clots or something, and Georgia Lee could lose her leg. "We have to remember to take this off," she muttered, ripping open the package and pulling the strip of cloth out. Once it had been fastened around Georgia Lee's leg (which took more cooperation than her ailing friend was ready to give, so it was a bit of a struggle), Coleen rummaged through her kit looking for gauze pads.

"I'm going to need somebody to hold these on," she said, chomping down hard on her lip. "I don't care who. Olivia. Take these and apply pressure. I'm sorry Georgia, it's gonna hurt..." she placed the gauze pads where they needed to go for Olivia, who she hoped could stop panicking in order to help out. Georgia Lee couldn't die. She wasn't ALLOWED to die.

Coleen felt herself draining.

[Maraoone]

Olivia grabbed the gauze pads and placed all her strength into them into stopping the blood, but Georgia Lee was flowing all over her all over the floor and-

oh god her eyes were still rolled back and oh god the moaning Olivia was hurting her hurting her make it stop and god

"Georgia Lee I'm so sorry oh my god please stay with me please please"

and she held on to her, held on to Georgia Lee as if her soul was dangling off a cliff, only kept above by fingertips which it was, nothing but fingertips because she was everywhere. on the floor, she was holding onto nothing but fingertips she was like a house of cards and oh god the cards the book of Ezra Pound she had was this what a life cost these days? a book and a non-existent deck of cards? oh god she didn't know and she was crying now and the tears mixed with her blood and it was dripping into her wounds and tears had salt and Georgia Lee was wincing and stop and oh god oh god maybe if she called upon His name enough He would pay attention and look and save her save her please.

[Namira]

Coleen had the right idea. Tourniquet, right. Why didn't Enzo didn't think of that? That was a great idea.

Whatever, whatever, not important, no time to get wound up about how useful they were or anything like that. GLD was there, and shot, and bleeding. Right now they had to do everything they could to make sure that the word out wasn't added to the descriptor.

Unfortunately, whilst Coleen was keeping a level head, or at least level enough to keep things steady, Olivia was most definitely not.

"Hey! Hey!" Enzo was crouched near Georgia, but was giving a respectable amount of distance. Crowding wasn't gonna help Coleen work. They snapped their fingers in front of Olivia's face. "Be cool! All right? Take some breaths. We're helping her. We are helping her. But you gotta calm down, okay? You gotta stay cool. Steady pressure, right? Steady. Breathe. We're gonna help Rainy through this, but you need to calm down." Enzo kept talking, and some of the shit, hell, they had no idea if it was right or not, but Olivia needed direction, even if that was just vaguely-plausible babbling. "You can do that, right? Keep it cool for Georgia?" they nodded in what they hoped was encouraging fashion. The blood was enough to make them want to freak out. Images of Cameron dying there in front of them flashed in front of their eyes.

Not the time. And not this time.

"We've got you, Rainy. You aren't gonna make a face this cute look sad, right?"

Weak humour, but their hands were on Georgia Lee's shoulders, and they were steady, Vinny was steady.

They didn't have this. But they could fake it.

[MK Kilmarnock]

At some point in time, the wounded girl had lost consciousness. It was the scariest moment since she'd been shot, and it seemed then and there that all of their efforts had gone to waste. Panic settled in, and the failures of the past started to grip Coleen's lungs before Enzo managed to determine that Georgia Lee was still breathing, likely passed out from stress and pain. Shaky hands and quivering breath went back to work, patching up a girl near death only so that she might live one or even two more days.

Coleen collapsed on one of the easy chairs with the spear for company, her fingers stained in Georgia Lee's blood up past the second knuckles. Her gun had since been tucked away in her bag, placed under her feet for safekeeping. Neither Olivia nor Enzo were going to attack her, she was sure. Such an assumption flew in the face of her usual tenants of playing the game as cautiously as possible, prioritizing her own survival first and foremost, but such tenants also assumed she was of sound mind and body... and Coleen was anything but.

She didn't even have energy enough to cry from the tremendous amount of stress she felt weighing down on her neck because everything was just so damned fatiguing instead. With the help of the others, they'd managed to place Georgia on the couch with pillows tucked under her leg; Coleen prayed she remembered correctly when she told the others that you were supposed to elevate the wound higher than the heart to prevent bleeding. She watched her injured friend sleep, hoping and praying that when this was all over, no matter how many hours it took, that the next morning might greet them with a waking Georgia Lee who smiled and said reassuring things and was a good friend. Everything would be back to normal.

Coleen convinced herself of the lie and drifted off, letting sleep place her life in the hands of those around her for the first time since Arthur's passing.

When she awoke, she found she was staring at a vacant sofa.

"... Georgia Lee?"

[Maraoone]

As Coleen stirred, Olivia woke up. She woke up to daylight, and that was the first sign something had gone very, very wrong.

Enzo talking to her had really helped, it did. Georgia Lee needed to stay alive, and so that meant Olivia needed to stay calm, stay above the waves of panic. She could do it, she had to, had to for her. So, she tried. And eventually, she was able to convince herself that she could do more than not panic, that she could stay watch again, stay awake for the four of them. It made sense, she'd gotten a full night's sleep the day before, she could go a few more hours without. She could, she could, she had to.

And now it was daylight.

Oh god, she'd just rested her eyes for a bit, right? Just, her eyes, they felt so heavy, her eyelids, she could barely keep them open and it was dark, and she'd just leaned back against the wall to rest for a few more minutes, and it was daylight.

And the couch was empty.

"Oh my god."

She got up, looked around the room. Coleen. Enzo. Georgia Lee?

She would've been able to tell, if someone had gotten in here, kidnapped Georgia Lee. Or if Georgia Lee walked out. She should have felt it, should have been woken up the same way Coleen woke her up.

She crawled towards the couch. Looked at the coffee table. The TV.

No Georgia Lee.

"No. She was, I was..."

Asleep. And she was gone. No, maybe he knew, maybe Enzo knew. He had to.

She shook Enzo's shoulder. Looked him in the eye. Please, please know something.

"Hey, Enzo, sorry, so sorry but did you see- did you, uh, do you know where Georgia Lee went? Did you see her?"

Please.

[Namira]

Whether by skill or pure and utter fluke—definitely fluke—the three of them were able to just about staunch the bleeding. What wasn't nearly so encouraging was the fact that Georgia Lee was still very much in-and-out, and to call what moments of consciousness she had 'in' was probably being over generous. Rainy wasn't out of the woods yet; she needed proper medical attention, not a desperate patch job on the floor of a condemned building.

When all you had was a hammer...

Slender consolation prize; they'd managed to talk Olivia out of freaking. Momentarily. Sure, she still seemed as if she might crack at any given moment, but the same could be said for all of the rest of them. A relaxing trip to the day spa this was not.

Blood was still everywhere, and Enzo didn't have the first idea where to start on cleaning it up. Moreover, there being so much of it just got them even more worried for Georgia. That was an awful lot of blood to lose. Stemming the flow was all well and good, but it wasn't going to help much if most of it had already evacuated. Even so, giving Rainy the opportunity to rest was the best they could do for her right now.

Enzo hated that. There should have been something. Instead they just had to sit here and hope that it was enough. A thousand and one possibilities went racing through their head. What if this area was made into a dangerzone? What if they had to move? What if someone came along and they needed to run away?

Enzo swallowed it down. Letting a tide of anxiety overwhelm them like that wouldn't help anyone. They had to keep doing what they'd been doing, keep their head in the game. They'd lost Blair and Alba for the time being (unfinished business there) but hey, glass half full, they'd found Coleen. Major bonus there.Sure, she'd then nearly shot them but-

Glass half full. Not spilled on the floor.

Olivia took watch. Kinda novel, kinda nice, to have someone to keep an eye on things again. Enzo tried not to think about what had happened last time they'd been around others and snoozed.

Cams...

'Course, when they woke up to their shoulder being shaken.

Enzo blinked, blurry eyes, had to retrieve their glasses from where they'd gone askew, hanging off their ears sideways.

"You're kidding me," they unfurled themselves from the chair, rapidly shaking their head. "She's hurt, she can't have gone far."

They bit down on criticising Olivia, wouldn't help, but the heck would you offer to stand watch and then ask the sleeping person where someone may have gone?

Crap, Rainy, why would you do that. Enzo went out to the door, looked left and right. No sign. Nothing close.

Damn.
It.

[MK Kilmarnock]

"You're right."

Coleen stood up and turned, pressing a knee onto the chair to support her. Some of her hair had come loose from the tie Cameron 'gave' her and it had bunched up in the back somewhat. The bottom of her skirt was almost entirely drenched in blood. Some of it was Georgia Lee's. Some of it was Arthur's. She felt a strange twinge that none of it was hers, and she decided that feeling was guilt.

When guilt mixed with fear and anxiety in the pit that it formed in her stomach, it proved to be a volatile cocktail that nearly made Coleen wretch. She patched up the dryness in her throat with the last of the water inside the bottle she had pulled out the night before, then discarded it with a lazy toss to the side.

"She couldn't have gone far," Coleen said with the first gasping breath after finishing her drink. She snatched up her bag with the AK-47 still safely tucked inside, using the spear as her primary guardian for the time being. She wasn't alone. She could trust Olivia, and she could definitely trust Enzo.

They were trying to save a life, not end one.

"She didn't go far," Coleen repeated, headed for the door after Enzo. "Let's check this floor first, then head downstairs. Together... no splitting up," she insisted.

Splitting up was for Scooby Doo. An R-rated version of Scooby Doo where Old Man Henderson actually killed people.

((Coleen Reagan, continued in Ye Not))

[Maraoone]

Enzo didn't say yes, and everything collapsed.

Olivia's eyes were wet. Wet like they'd been the entire week. No one knew where Georgia Lee was. All she had to do was stay awake for a couple hours, that was literally the only thing asked of her, to stay conscious, and she couldn't even manage that. She couldn't defend Georgia Lee, couldn't defend herself, couldn't do anything of matter. And now Georgia Lee was off wandering somewhere on the island, bleeding, disoriented, alone.

She'd lost Georgia Lee. She'd been left behind.

Again.

And at this thought, fire surged through her. Because no, she would not be left behind again, she would not stay stuck in a room for hours upon hours, waiting for her to come back, she would not. She would not let that happen, could not, because the alternate was unthinkable.

Olivia blinked away her tears. Pulled herself up, together. Went towards Coleen.

"Right. Let's hurry. We have to, we have to hurry."

And she went out the door and in her mind, she prayed for salvation. For Georgia Lee's and for her own.

((Olivia Fischer continues in Ye Not))

[Namira]

Neither of the others looked especially encouraged. Heck, neither was Enzo. What on earth had possessed GLD to just up and leave during the night? Of all the things that Vinny had been worried about, Rainy wandering off by herself was close to the bottom of the list. It didn't make the slightest bit of sense. Safety in numbers had maybe kind of fallen through, but if you were hurt and bleeding, then surely the last thing you wanted to do was just, y'know, split.

Enzo didn't know if their own assurance really rang anything other than hollow, either. It wasn't a good thing that GLD couldn't get far on her own, cause she couldn't get far because of the whacking great hole in her leg. Georgia did not need to be moving around right now. She needed to be still, resting.

Freaking crap.

Coleen took the lead, and Enzo was fine enough with that; they will still trying to clamp down on their instinctive reaction to something like this. Olivia just looked sad, and they didn't want to bite her head off, but, to borrow a phrase, she had one job. This wasn't exactly low stakes, either.

Enzo shook their head repeatedly. Olivia was human. So were they all. Mistakes happened. Enzo hadn't expected GLD to walk off, and so too did Olivia have zero reason to expect it either. For now, this was the spot they were in; what was the point in playing the blame game?

It wasn't relevant at all, but as Enzo left the room on the tail of the others, they reflected that more than ever, they just really wanted their phone. Stupid vines would cheer them up, gallows humour or no.

Worryingly literal at this point, but you could make a joke out of that too.

((Enzo continued elsewhere)).