They Didn't Make It

[MK Kilmarnock]

((Justin Continued from Dance Yrself Clean))

He asked himself why he'd come back here. He did so more than once actually, laughing ruefully at himself when the best answer he could think up was because it 'felt like home'. It had four walls and a roof, and that's probably where the actual similarities ended. Plus, it looked like somebody had been busy... redecorating. Seeing a body outside where it hadn't been before gave Justin some pause. A body, of course, meant a kill and a kill meant a killer. Whoever the killer was, they could still very well be nearby.

Inching toward the body to inspect it closer, Justin was greeted to the sight of one of the Japanese triplets in their class. He couldn't rightly paint which one it was, nor could he remember which ones were supposed to be alive... if any. He thought he remembered 'Haberdasher' or 'Hashiburro' come up on the announcements at least once, maybe twice. He was no coroner, so he couldn't tell how long she'd been dead. His expertise began and ended at 'well, she's not alive', so Justin didn't bother pressing the matter further. He did, however, raise his guard and exercise caution around the front doors of the building, cracking the entrance and peeking through before opening the door more.

Nobody was home. Nobody living, that was, because there was a body on the desk that wasn't there before. Justin hastened his steps through the lobby and to the door, throwing them open. He didn't mean to shriek when yet another girl slumped at his legs, but shriek he did while jumping back, swinging the tire iron out in front of him with both hands in short bobbing movements as if somebody was following her through the doorway.

Silence. The corpses around him offered no company to his own pounding heart and panicked breathing. What had happened here!?

Justin carefully stepped around the body of the girl he belatedly recognized as Violet, initially unable to tell because her body looked a little worse than the others he'd seen. She had been dead longer then, he supposed, though that did little to account for the trail of blood leading from a bed (so that's who that corpse belonged to earlier) to her body, as he assumed people who were already dead didn't bleed. But the blood had to go somewhere... "Not a coroner," he whispered, then winced in case breaking the silence for himself caused the entire world to collapse around him.

It was a mess. This was all a mess and the visceral reality of not just the intensity of the killing, but the scale, was starting to catch up to him. The chances of making it out... fighting the odds against people who must have found killing to be so easy when he found nothing but a ceaseless struggle fraught with failure. And when he did die, he imagined that would just be the wet fart on the cake of failing efforts. People wouldn't respect that he'd try to live, only that he seemed pathetic the entire time doing it, the worst of both worlds as he had killed the helpless or unaware while being too cowardly to take on anybody else. It wasn't survival, for anybody who ever bothered to watch this when they were all gone. It was a goddamn freakshow.

That was enough of his own thoughts, he decided. Justin scooted back to his favorite corner, which seemed to remain corpse-free at least for the time being, and took shelter from the wind and the night and prayed the next person he found might be unarmed and sleepy. Or maybe sleepy, but packing a gun. Then something would have gone right today.

He buried his face in his knees, trying to see the bright side in at least making it this far.

[Buko]

Ace wanted many things at the moment…

But the thing he wanted the most was his cellphone and by proxy his GPS.

[Ace Beats Continued From: my own worst enemy, so fuck it, either way i can't lose ]

The reason why? To the surprise of no one who had been paying attention, he was abso-fucking-lutely lost. What? You thought he wanted his cellphone so he could call for help or broadcast his coordinates or say some last words to his family? Get the fuck outta here! It wasn’t that deep and neither was he.

So he was lost. And the sky was still blue—what else was new?

He didn’t mind the practicality of being lost, being lost meant it was harder for you to get found. There was a silver lining in being hard to place. The reality and logistics of not knowing where the fuck you were or where you were going, however, was different. It did shit to a person. It weighed on the psyche.

So did he feel relief when something familiar showed up on the horizon? Wanna take a guess?

“What the fuck happened…?”

Guessed yet? Did he feel relief when he saw the looming figure of the infirmary? I mean, have you been reading? Of course he didn’t.

His duffle bag slammed against his side, strap across his chest diagonally as his hands gripped and held the BR-18 tightly. He barely knew how to use a gun—paintball and squirrel hunting with his father. The assault rifle was not a .22 or a paintball gun. He was a boy playing soldier and he knew what to do about as much as he knew where he was going.

The Infirmary hadn’t been a safe place when he had holed up in it nearly two days ago—but something had happened here. Two bodies outside, the two he remembered inside…

The gun felt heavy in his hand.

He could’ve walked away.

He should’ve walked away.

He opened the door to the infirmary and walked through the threshold instead.

“Anyone here…?”

[MK Kilmarnock]

Justin lifted his head and stared into the darkened space of the room with the surprise of somebody's arrival. He didn't recognize the voice right away... not Meka's, not Lorenzo's and not Diego's, and those were the important ones- Michael's, it wasn't Michael's either, he was important too. Just because he couldn't put a name to it right away didn't necessarily mean he wouldn't know the person, but he hadn't heard a voice like this one recently. That was his best case scenario, in what little he could ask for.

All the major killers he could think of were girls (what did girls have against this class anyway?), so score another point for whoever it was being a guy, Justin thought to himself.

He also realized that his safety wasn't guaranteed by whoever it was not specifically being out for his blood, as others had likely cottoned on to the terrible truth that they, too, would need to do as the terrorists asked if they wanted to live. Justin's base instincts told him to leap out and strike. Experience told him that wasn't going to work, because it seldom ever had. It never did after Benedict, and he was probably still hopped up on the cocktail all of them were given. That didn't count.

An idea came, an idea Justin thought to be so solid he figured his brain might have just finally turned on for the first time since waking up in a cold sweat all those days back. He braced himself against the wall to his side, crossing a hand over his chest to aid his shoulder in supporting his weight while he got his feet under him. His visitor had seen the same horror show he was privy to. There was no telling what kind of bloodbath either of them had come across. Justin didn't find any still-living victims struggling to take their last breaths, but...

"H-Help..." he moaned with a false gasp. He kept his right arm, the arm against the wall, straight up-and down. The tire iron was held the same way, running vertically with his body, sandwiched between him and the wall and, he hoped, kept out of view. He shivered in anticipation of the moments to come - the moments of truth.

"It h- anh, hap... ha-ha-happened so fast." His nervous stutter may have come in handy here, so Justin hoped as he continued his attempts to make his presence known as a meek and feeble one.

[Buko]

He didn’t know what he had expected to feel when he entered the Infirmary—it’s not like he had good memories there.

Except, like, he did.

Him and Ivy. Seeing Wyatt again. Reuniting with Meilin—poor Meilin.

Every time he thought of her a pang of guilt went through his heart and he silenced it with his mind. If you ain’t strong, just pretend like you are. Fake it till you make it. Life don’t come with no instruction manual. He had thought his Dad was full of shit. Fake it till you make it? So just lie to yourself until you believe it? Life don’t come with no instruction manual? Fucking duh. But SOTF had come with an instruction manual, hadn’t it?

He knew the rules—kill or be killed. He knew the cost of failure or shrinking in the moment—it was burned into his mind’s eye.

A weak voice, a meek voice—poison to a sucker’s mind like his.

He approached cautiously, mostly out of the atmosphere than due to any fear in his mind. One step, two step, one foot in front of the other—you get the idea it was Ace who needed reminding.

He was close now, bout a yard, maybe yard and a half away from the figure leaning against the wall. Short and stuttering and pudgy and weak looking. It was dark now, he couldn’t make out but the simplest of features—but his green eyes recognized a few things in the darkness within the blue staring back at him.

Fear, apprehension, nervousness…maybe he was just projecting? It had nearly been a week out here. He couldn’t trust nobody, least of all himself.

He knew he could’ve walked away.

He knew he probably should’ve walked away.

He lowered the black barrel of the BR-18 instead.

“What the fuck happened here bro…?”

[Tonyksin]

[Jackson Sullivan Continued From Tragedy Of The Commons]


Almost two days gone by without the trio encountering another single person on the island.

Jackson, Henry and Aurelien left the shoe tree with resolve in their hearts, but their journey was one of relative solitude for the remainder of their fourth day on the island. The trio made camp the night of day four in the woods, doing their best to keep their spirits up, in spite of their empty day. All three were quiet as the day passed, all keeping to themselves as they traversed the terrain. Jackson was still conflicted, even after everything with Ariana. Yes, he’d agreed to continue to hunt after players alongside his allies, but the thought of actually taking a life still plagued him with doubts.

His sleep the night of day four was restless.

The morning came with more names dead listed as if they were items on a shopping list. Jackson felt the full brunt of every name weigh him down as he heard them. Mackenzie Baker was dead. He recalled how she tried to help him at #Swiftball, which seemed to be a lifetime ago. Her death made him wish he’d been kinder to her while she was alive. Bill Dover, who he’d encountered a few days prior, had also met his end. Jackson couldn't help but feel he should have stayed with him. Perhaps his fate wouldn’t have been so gruesome. Perhaps Jackson would have simply shared that fate. It hurt because deep down, Jackson was mostly glad to still be alive. It was a selfish and awful thought.

Hearing Ariana’s name hurt the most. Jackson felt sick, listening to them talk about her like she meant nothing. Like there was no one to mourn her. Like her death was pointless. He felt his temper flare listening to the man speak about their pain with such nonchalance. They were nothing but awns to him. Cogs in the machine of his sick and twisted game. It could be anyone on the island. If it hadn't been their school, it would have been another. To the monsters behind this, the students mattered little. Their lives, hopes, futures and dreams were nothing but a game to these people. Jackson wanted to know why. Why were they doing this? Why were they causing such tragedy and sadness?

Honestly, even if he heard the reason, he knew it wouldn’t make it better.

The trio continued on their way for another empty day spent with just the three of them. As day turned to night, they looked for a place to hole up for the night, all three sick of sleeping in the open area of the woods. It was too nerve-racking. Some sort of shelter would possibly help them all sleep better. Jackson was very on board with this. His back was stiff from all the nights sleeping on the first wet, and then hard ground. Any kind of cot, or bed, or even a chair would be a lifesaver. He cringed at his own word-choice there. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure if any lives could be saved here.

The boys found themselves exiting the sea of trees and approaching a small building. It looked about as good to him as anything else. Jackson turned to look at his companions.

“Should we stop here? It’s probably about as good as anything else.”

[MK Kilmarnock]

A question was put out there. Justin briefly considered answering it, spinning a story that could be woven in and out of the truth of his exploits here and also of events that happened while he was away, and clearly there was a lot to put down and flesh out. The opportunity presented itself to present a name and the image of a face as Michael had done, be all tricky like.

The barrel of the gun lowered, though, and that was really all Justin needed. He continued to catch his breath through anxiety quarter-manufactured while mostly real, stuttering the beginning of a response.

"There... there was..."

The next word was a tire iron set on a collision course with the boy's temple.

[Buko]

As a running back what Ace prized himself on was his versatility, speed and vision.

He could see holes in a defense, he could predict what people would do and his muscles were quick-twitch and explosive. It all started with vision though. If you could see what side a big linebacker was favoring than you could know which way to hit the shimmy and break his ankles before leaving him in the dust. If you could see ‘em comin’, you could see how you needed to avoid ‘em and if you were just as quick in the eyes as you were in the feet? Well, that was a tough combination to beat any day of the week and twice on Fridays.

This is all to say that in most situations Ace was capable of both anticipation and quick reaction and amongst his classmates his speed and quickness was second to none.

How much good did it do him here? Now?

THWACK!!!

Justin knocked Ace's hat clear off his head. But you'd be foolish to think he just hit hat.

Ace backed up and stumbled quickly, several steps, far too soon—he saw stars and felt his knees shake and buckle. His heart was beating quickly and his mind was racing quicker. The world turned to darkness and his ears rang—but these were not new sensations. He had been hit before, in the head, helmet to helmet. It didn’t feel unfamiliar, getting shellacked in the skull. Except it was different. This wasn't a game and that wasn't a helmet? Jesus Christ! What the fuck had this kid hit him with? He was really being attacked right now--and spoilers, getting attacked hurt.

He should’ve fired the gun.

He could’ve fired the gun.

That was a lie. He could barely maintain balance.

He stumbled backwards—one foot, two foot, you get the idea, it was him who needed reminding.

He could barely see in the darkness and his brain was shaken, not stirred. This was bad! This was real bad!

He thought of Meilin--how quickly Quinn had dispatched her.

That was a lie. He couldn't think at all.

He felt a chill down his spine and an incredible nausea in his stomach.

And down went Ace Beats.

Down to one knee, gun held limply to his side in one hand as the other fumbled to where Justin had bonk'd him.

He tried not to gasp as he felt blood on his fingertips.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Yes... yes, FUCK yes! Yesyesyesgoodyesgood, everything was turning up Justin!

That was a solid blow. Elation ran through Justin's veins causing his muscles to shake. His feet nearly lost foundation with the floor. Balance proved to be fleeting as the adrenaline steadily pumped into his body washed from side to side, giving his stance a noticeable sway. Only his fingertips remained firm and tight-gripped. A success. A real weapon. It was all about to be his. He was going to have a chance to go home after all.

Home. Justin thought the word and the image over and over to drive every muscle in his body to step forward. His friend had fallen to his knees, so he'd need to be closer to hit him again, to strike downward this time and finish the job, a real clean one-two and done.

Justin raised the iron, and he swung it down, adjusting his grip to add a second hand at the cusp of the swing.

[Buko]

Yo…he really fuckin’ hit me…

Shit! My fuckin’ head! My ears bout to explode! And is that three of the dude…?

Yo…they ain’t stoppin’…

Yo…they gonna hit me a fuckin’ gain…

Yo…like…so what do I do…?

He had heard about this sensation but with the world as foggy as it was and with him dazed and barely conscious, it was hard to really articulate experiencing it for himself. The world seemed to slow down and even in his confusion, even within the fog and the daze, he was aware of the moment. Shit was in slow motion, he could swear that he could see himself in the third person--shit, it didn't even feel real! It felt like a movie! Bullet time or some shit!

It was all a dream...I used to ready Word-Up magazine...

But, if the world slowed down, did Justin Greene? Nah, for him, obviously and by Ace's estimation, the world kept spinning like normal. The kid pressed forward quickly and he swung his weapon down at Ace with the force of both hands behind him—hard.

He should’ve fired the gun, maybe the sound alone would’ve stopped him. Scared him off.

He could’ve fired the gun, even if it was murder, it would’ve been self-defense. Even off of murder island, that was straight, you don’t go to jail and you get to heaven no problem. There was no moralizing it: you just got whacked in the head by a dude, you gotta a gun, you can shoot that guy and kill him dead—he was from Tennessee. That was damn near the first rule in the state constitution.

He didn’t fire the gun.

Yo…so that it then…?

It ends right here...? Now...?

Not quite.

Justin swung and Ace ducked, raising the BR-18 up and by some grace, by some ancestor looking out for him or Karma or Jesus or something—the tire iron met the BR-18 instead of Ace himself.

Metal met metal and clashed amongst the bodies and the shadows in the infirmary.

The gun clanged to the floor with a force and even in his daze and confusion, his for certainly concussed state—he knew what that meant.

Fumble!!!

[Shiola]

((Henry Sparks continued from Tragedy of the Commons))

Their stated intention had been to hunt down those who’d participated in this farce. Players, if one really saw it as a game. Proxies was the way Henry had begun to refer to them, though only to himself. Saying it out loud would’ve made it feel more trite than it already had. Killers was perhaps the most intuitive, though it seemed to give them too much credit for something they’d only been forced into.

Anything but friends, peers, acquaintances. Nameless, if not faceless.

They had to call them something that kept them apart from the rest, but didn’t entirely dehumanize them. At least, Henry felt he had to. Otherwise, he was party to any ideological victory the terrorists could claim at the end of all of this. An idea that still didn’t sit right with him. On their end, all they could fight was an ideological battle. Scoring moral victories, not for themselves but for whoever was left. Giving the rest of the world as much time as they needed to find them. This entire process was one drawn out final stand, without any of the so-called glory that accompanied that sort of thing.

What Henry really wanted was some kind of actual victory against these people. The more he thought about it, the more the prospect of having to kill one of his classmates continued to sicken him. What surprised him was how easily he could imagine erasing Danya’s head with a blast from his ad hoc weapon.

If only.

So far, they’d seen basically no one. Henry couldn’t honestly say he found it disappointing or frustrating. The other two were kept busy fixating on revenge, on the principle of what they were doing. That kept them away from self-harm, from focusing inward. It kept them going. Anger was a poor foundation on which to act, but it was at least something. As long as they chased down the proxies, they weren’t spending time winding themselves up on how hopeless this all seemed.

“Let’s have a look. I doubt we’re the only ones who want to get indoors.”

He swung his weapon forward, having carried it across his back on most of their trek. To pass the time the night before, he’d used a sharp stone to etch markings on the barrel. Letters now haphazardly inscribed next to the date stamp caused the gun to read BFG1899. It made him smile at first, before he remembered what he’d probably have to do with it.

Henry whispered to the others as he took the lead heading towards the infirmary.

“I’ll go up front. Jackson, you take the rear, keep your eyes open for anyone trying to flank us. Aurelien, stay between us and watch the sides. Guns facing out - you handle anyone who tries to rush us if we miss.”

He searched the faces of the other two for approval. His words weren’t orders by any means, but he hoped that they’d see the logic in what he was proposing. As much as he didn’t want to be the first person in, the nature of his weapon and the nature of Henry made that a priority. He didn’t like admitting it, but he wasn’t sure he could trust them to not attack the moment the opportunity presented itself.

They seemed to agree. Looking back towards the building, his eyes immediately honed in on the body lying outside. He swallowed the bile rising in his throat, and cocked the hammer halfway on the BFG.

“There’s a body there. We have to clear the building, before anything else. If we see others, take note of who it is and move on. We can’t help them.”

He said it as much for his comrades as he did for himself. Problem solving came easily to Henry, but disregarding the remains of people he knew absolutely did not. Though it visibly disturbed him, pain quickly gave way to resolve as he began to walk towards the doors of the Infirmary.

[Pippi]

((Aurelien Valter continued from Tragedy of the Commons))

It was cliche to compare oneself, or to compare anybody really, to some form of explosive. A stick of dynamite with the fuse lit, a ticking timebomb, that sorta thing. You could grab a basket of books from the library and flick through them all and, no doubt, you’d find something along those lines. But even though Aurelien wasn’t the literary sort - Dante had always called him the smart one, which was charming and lovely and oh so very wrong - he knew that the reason cliches became cliches was because they were so goddamned effective. Nothing else described his current state better. The spark had lit the fuse long, long ago.

Soon, very soon, it’d all come to a head, and there wasn’t a thing on earth that could stop it.

A day without bumping into anybody had been peaceful and calm on the surface, but inside it had just made Aurelien more and more tense and volatile. They’d spotted people every now and then, but never in a manner where they could meet up; they’d see people off in the distance, people leaving places with no indication they had plans to return. People they’d been too late to save from the killers on the island.

He knew they were doing something, here, the road to success was a long walk indeed, it just… didn’t feel like it. He couldn’t help but feel as though he was just kicking his heels and walking in circles. He’d already hesitated once in the face of danger. He needed, verging on desperately, to prove that he wouldn’t do so again. Every hour spent trudging in silence, every rest break spent resting his mace in his lap and staring off into the distance just made him more antsy, more on edge, more eager to do something to try and get the vengeance that was driving him forwards.

He’d tried not to listen out for Ariana’s name on the announcements. He didn’t need such a vivid reminder of what he’d seen with his own two goddamn eyes, not just yet. It ended up being easy, given Blaise had decided to strike again. He couldn’t say it came as a huge surprise. Maybe the others would be concerned by them striking again, but when you were forced to know Blaise closely, you knew what they were capable of. You knew how much of a malignant stain they could be.

He had to kill them. That was all he wanted. Needed. All they deserved.

The least he could do for Dante.

Looking up at the infirmary was enough to break him out of that thought cycle for a while. His knuckles whitened on the mace’s handle and his brow furrowed. There were other people, too, weren’t there? This was where Violet had been killed. He’d met Jeremiah and Ned here as well, and both of them were dead now too. There were other people to fight for, to get some form of closure for. More for him to focus on.

It was a tiny blessing, he supposed, that they’d ended up here, rather than the house a few yards away. Any sense of reason would be dust in the wind there.

Aurelien nodded at Henry, still wordless, and fell into position.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Gun.

Gun gun gun gun gun gun gun.

The weapon was dislodged from Ace's grasp and it became the singular point of focus for Justin. The gun probably hadn't incurred any serious damage from getting whacked like that, otherwise you could break it by dropping it on pavement and that hardly seemed reasonable for an instrument of death. That meant the gun was fine, still capable of firing, and causing more damage than a simpler weapon... say, a tire iron. Justin had a choice, and he had approximately zero seconds to make it: go for the gun, or bean Ace while he tried to go for it. No time to play out the scenarios, no time to consider. He needed to move NOW.

Justin thought on it one second. One second was too much time, and he dove for the gun without another thought. He reached for it with his left hand, diving to his knees. His right hand, for whatever reason, refused to let go of the iron.

[Tonyksin]

Henry took control of the situation almost immediately. Jackson was impressed by how calm and collected the other boy could still be after being here for so long. He still had his mind working strategically and logically. Jackson had to admit, he was a bit jealous. After Ariana’s death, Henry had assumed leadership of their group almost naturally. He didn’t even seem to have to try to be able to make decisions that benefited the group as a whole. Ariana was much the same. Able to wrangle a bunch of scared and angry kids into a somewhat respectable group with a mission in mind. Jackson didn’t understand how they were able to do it so effortlessly. Jackson wanted to be like them. Strong like them.

Someone people could look to to when the going got tough.

But Jackson wasn’t that kind of person. Sure, he was strong, physically at least, but that didn’t translate here. He didn’t have the mental or emotional fortitude to be impactful here. Under all the muscle he was just a scared little kid who needed someone else to tell him which way was up. He really was more pathetic than he’d ever realized before this. What kind of man couldn’t stand up for themselves in a situation like this. Even Aurelien, who’d lost more than Jackson could ever understand, had the resolve to keep moving forward. Jackson just kept faltering with every step.

Needing others to pick him up and keep him going.

He wanted to be better than that.

If he couldn’t do it for himself, then at least maybe he could do it for the people who were risking their lives relying on him. He couldn’t let what happened to Ariana happen again. He couldn’t freeze up. He had to force himself to do something. Otherwise, he’d just be even more of a disappointment to himself than he ever thought.

Jackson obeyed Henry’s orders, taking up the back-end of their three man chain. He held up Ariana’s pistol at the ready. He hadn’t said anything to the others, but when he’d taken a look at the ammo situation, he realized that Ariana had only left him two bullets after her attempt to take down Marco. The little skeezeball had made off with Ariana’s bag as well, so those were the only two bullets Jackson was going to get. If he was honest, he was almost glad. Two bullets was two more than he’d ever thought he’d have to fire in his lifetime. Secretly, he hoped neither of them would ever shoot from the barrel.

But, that was probably naive.

More dead bodies on the ground as they moved in. Jackson had never imagined he’d become so familiar with the smell of death. It hardly even fazed him at this point. Seeing it was worse than anything. The body had been there for a while, it seemed. He couldn’t even make out who’s corpse it was. How sad. This poor person was reduced to just a faceless body littering the island. Whoever it was, he hoped they found peace in the end.

A sound burst forth from the bowls of the infirmary. Like something clattering to the floor. Jackson felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up straight.

“What was that?!” He harshly whispered.

[Buko]

In football, the fumble was the precursor to one thing: the pile on.

A menagerie of limbs, a living and churning thing with its own laws and ecosystem. Get the ball if you can but if you can't? Get up and get out...or get crushed. There was no rule at the bottom of the pile, the refs couldn’t see you. It was a dog eat dog world, a scramble and a scrap. He had seen dudes gouge eyeballs and punch and spit and scratch. The pile on was a war. Chaos in a game. It demanded physicality. It required fearlessness, tenacity, guts and grit.

But, more importantly than all of those, it required a focus and singlemindedness: get the fuckin’ ball back!

But it wasn’t a pile-on and this wasn’t a football.

It was a game though.

He reached out towards the BR-18 with both hands—trembling and dazed. Still seeing stars. Still sick to his stomach. Still wanting to throw up.

There was no rule at the bottom of the pile, the ref couldn’t see you.

It was a dog eat dog world.

A scramble and a scrap.

All he saw was the gun.

He had a focus and a singlemindedness as he grasped at it and tried to yank it back.

In the heat of the moment, he had forgotten why the gun wasn’t in his hands in the first place.

[MK Kilmarnock]

Justin grunted and squeaked panicked vocalizations that generally resembled and accompanied his thoughts of 'No!' and 'Give it to me!', but they weren't exactly coherent and intelligible speech. It was Ace's two hands against his one, because he refused to get go of the iron. He was going to blow it. The other kid was going to get the gun back, click the safety off or whatever you needed to do to get one of those things primed - Justin had never fired one but he'd seen enough movies - and he was going to be turned into Swiss cheese. Or some other food with lots of big holes in it. He couldn't think of any off the top of his head.

The iron in his hand.

He still had the tire iron, his only friend who had gotten him out of many a sticky situation, even if those situations saw him humiliated. Humiliated was alive, living was the only way to feel those awful emotions but it was still living. Speaking of living, it had made at least one other person do not that.

Why not two?

If Ace was going to go for the gun, then Justin was going to swing for the fences, bringing the tire iron down in the general vicinity of the boy's upper back and shoulders.