D’état, de grâce

[midnight_twelve]

Shapes swam at the edge of Chloé’s vision. Words sounded like static in her ears. There were people, talking. Evie. She said something, a name. Marshall. Marshall was here? Of course he was. Marshall. The only one who ever really believed in their plan. He was always going to be there at the end. Marshall. Evie. Evie was holding something. A gun? She had it pointed at Marshall. Where did Evie get a gun? Chloé had a gun once.

Chloé wanted to say something, but nothing came to mind. No more well-rehearsed speeches. No more passionate debates.

“mhmhm.” The sounds bled from her mouth.

[ViolentMedic]

The sound of a gun being reloaded tore his gaze away from Chloé. Not the shouting, but the click of the gun being reloaded.

Evie. Good swimmer. Good athlete. Good grades in Biology. Sociable and easy-going. Had a gun. Had Chloé’s gun. Had left her on the floor. Had done this to her.

Somewhere under the numbness… a hint of acid that resembled the same bubbling hate he had for Demarcus. Push it down. Push it down push it down pushitdown--

He raised one hand slowly in surrender, bandages tight over the missing fingers, the other hand reaching behind him to try and stop California from getting any closer.

He was here. He could do something. If she just lowered that gun, he could try patching her up, try something, anything--

“Lower the… the… it’s… it’ll be...”

He couldn’t speak. His vision was swimming.

Chloé’s attempt to speak broke his inability to. She couldn’t… she was bleeding, she—he was here, he could do something. If Evie just lowered the gun, he could try patching Chloé up, try something, anything, maybe they never had a chance at escape but they still had a chance for not dying like this--

“She needs help.”

[Dr Adjective]

Evie’s breath quickened as her darting eyes took in the scene. It was, in a word, fucked. Fucked by whom? Perhaps later Evie would attempt to apportion blame, but in the moment, she considered only that it was. Chloé was dying, and what Evie knew of medicine told her that she was beyond the power of some amateurs with first aid kits to save. Her friends were here, putting the lie to Evie’s assumption that the place would be deserted. They seemed more stunned than angry, but one was tough enough that Evie didn’t like her chances in a fistfight with him, whilst the other clutched at something inside a pocket.

A bead of blood swelled on the last clenched knuckle holding the gun, before falling to the floor.

Death was not unfamiliar to Evie. In her volunteering and her work experience, she’d seen sick and injured animals die. She’d never suffered personal loss before awakening on the island, but she’d known death. But no veterinarian had ever asked the cheerful, bright-eyed teen to put an animal down herself yet: she was a child, for heaven’s sake. Worse, Chloé was no stray cat, and the car she’d been hit by was attached to Evie’s wrist, clutching onto a gun for dear life.

“It’s not my fault! She, I, I only…”

But Marshall was right. Chloé needed help. By a great effort of volition, Evie willed her breathing to steady. This was the pitch she’d made herself, after all. It just wasn’t supposed to be now. Wasn’t supposed to be Chloé. But she owed the pitiful girl what little mercy was in her power to give. That was the deal. Evie could live, Evie could kill, as long as Evie was humane.

She bit down on her lip, just shy of hard enough to draw blood. Her breath steadied, her arms stopped shaking. Once more, a drop of Chloé’s blood rolled lazily off of her knuckle.

He says she needs help?

“I know.”

A defeated resolve settled in Evie’s eyes. Her left hand rose to steady the SMG in her right.



and she pulled the trigger.

[midnight_twelve]

Someone stood between Chloé and the window, framed by the swirling white clouds beyond. In their hand they held the power of life and death. They made the choice Chloé never really had.

Chloé Delacroix could finally rest.

((S114 Chloé Delacroix – End))

[Dr Adjective]

She'd meant for it to be a solemn moment. The moment Evie McKown became a killer. Mercy or not, it was murder.

She'd meant to put a bullet into Chloé's head and end her suffering cleanly. The kind of moment you'd see in a movie, a real tear-jerker.

Unfortunately, the MAC-11 in her hands had other ideas, and those ideas consisted entirely of an impractically high rate of fire and the recoil to match it. The gun leapt in her hands, discharging about 20 rounds in the space of a second before her finger had time to unflex. The first few certainly found their mark in Chloé's prone form, anything but clean. Popular media tended not to dwell on how unpleasant a gunshot wound to the head actually looked. The skull was open, and yet, the lifeless eyes still managed to judge. The rest of the bullets travelled up the wall with the recoil, perforating aged wood and shattering a window, scattering splinters, glass shards, and snow across the floor. Light flooded in through the new openings, casting Evie's pale, horrified features in stark relief: her blood had better places to be than her head. It burned in her legs. It told her she should be running.

"Fuck!"

The curse was involuntary, and loud. Evie had imagined herself offering a quiet apology. Hard to manage when an uncooperative firearm is threatening to break your nose.

But her day was hardly over. With her ears ringing and the unfamiliar aroma of gunpowder stinging her nostrils, Evie steadied herself and turned the weapon back towards Marshall and California. The ear-piercing clamour of gunfire had cleared her stupor to an extent, and she at last recognised Marshall's companion.

"Okay, okay, shit, look. I'm going to leave, you're not going to follow me, got it!?"

Evie only realised halfway into the sentence that she was shouting. Her ears had been closest to the gun after all, and she could barely hear herself even at high volume.

"I don't want to shoot you! But I will!"

And the worst part was, she believed it now. Maybe things would change when what she'd done actually sank in, really became real to her, but for the time being, Evie was brutally aware of how easy it was, mechanically, to point and pull a trigger. Edging back towards the door leading to the back exit, the tall girl kicked hers and Chloé's bags through the doorway. She stooped, not once taking her eye or her aim off of Chloé's friends, to pick up her overcoat. Then, backwards through the door, nudging the bags until she could close it. The spoils were hers now, Marshall and Cali didn't get to argue with that. She could've been cruel, could've demanded they turn over their supplies as well. But Evie wasn't cruel, she was a good person, she kept reminding herself of that. She was decent. She didn't let people suffer. She had to believe that.

Chloé, Marshall, California, any of those people fixated on an impossible escape or a doomed moral stand, they weren't better than her. Evie had always stuck by a principle of not doing any harm, not hiding behind it now that she found herself forced to do that harm with her own hands. No. No she was better than them. Fuck them. Fuck their judgement.

The door slammed, and Evie scooped up the two bags, slung them over her shoulder alongside her coat. She'd put everything on properly once she was safe. No time to not be holding a gun. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. God, she was still wearing her stupid Bee Kind shirt, wasn't she? The irony was not lost.

Next the back door slammed, and Evie was out into the snow. And she was running.

[Evie McKown runs. Back across the boundary to familiar ground.]

[ViolentMedic]

The gun didn’t lower. It just switched targets.

Something escaped Marshall’s mouth but it was drowned out by the submachine gun fire. His ears rung. He pulled his outstretched, bandaged hand back and held it close to his chest as his eyes involuntarily closed. Wrapping his other arm around himself like it would be enough to protect himself.

He hadn’t meant that, he hadn’t—she didn’t know, she didn’t know at all—

Evie shouted over the ringing in his ears. Marshall opened his eyes to the gun pointed at him again as she snatched up the supplies and fled, slamming the door behind her. He took one step after her. He didn’t know why, what he thought he could do or what he wanted to do. But…

But Chloé...

He turned back, feet carrying him to Chloé’s prone form. He collapsed to his knees and pressed his hands against two of the bullet wounds. There were so many. And blood leaking out of her head, and her eyes staring at him, not blinking, not--

“I can fix this. I can fix this, I can fix this, I can fix this--”

He didn’t have enough hands--

“I...” He turned back towards California, tears and snot dribbling down his face as he said, “The first-aid kit, the… she needs help, that wasn’t what… I didn’t mean… I can fix this… first-aid kit...” he babbled.

[Deamon]

Evie grabbed Chloé's bag and fled. Meanwhile, Marshall rushed to Chloé's side and tried to stem the bleeding, but it was futile, blood was pouring out of so many holes and tears, it had only taken a few seconds but Marshall's hands were stained red up to the forearm but the red river didn't stop flowing, it was merely diverted. Blood pooled up underneath his hands and whenever he shifted his weight more leaked out. In effect, he was trying to stop a colander from draining water, it was too many holes and too much water. One of Chloé's eyes stared unblinking, unmoving, so still and empty it could have been a glass substitute.

Marshall turned to face her and asked for the first aid kit. California stayed where she was watching the shape that had once been Chloé, knowing it wouldn't move, but giving it the chance too. When there was no movement California swallowed her panic down, there was nothing more they could do and she had to tell Marshall that.

Tentatively she took a step forward and then another and with a shaking hand reached out and gently placed it on his shoulder.

"It won't help."

[ViolentMedic]

His hands stopped when he felt California touch him on the shoulder. They remained where they were, blood flowing through the fingers and staining bandage and glove alike red.

“It wasn’t… it wasn’t even… we barely left...”

His hands slowly loosened over the holes, then inched up and loosely latched onto Chloé’s scarf.

That scarf, bundled up and falling on the frozen lake a few yards from him. A sign of help. The first glimpse of hope he’d seen on this island.

His hands clenched over the red fabric.

“I’m… I’m sorry… I should have been here… I promised to come back...”

After a few moments, his hands let go of the scarf. The hand was still warm on his shoulder. Comforting, but also a reminder. There were still people that lived… and there was no time for the dead.

He reached up without looking at California and briefly put his hand over hers, forgetting that it was smeared with blood.

“We should… we should go,” he said, voice dull. “We should find Kai.”

[Deamon]

California didn't say anything as Marshall came to terms with his loss. She didn't know what else she could have offered him besides her presence. Marshall placed his hand, slick with blood onto hers and California resisted the urge to pull away. He was just doing it for assurance and she didn't want to immediately deny him that.

"Yeah," She said, gently patting the top of his hand with her free one. Then she gently slipped her other hand free and took a step back.

"I'll...wait outside. Take as long as you need." Then she made her way out without another word.

She passed by the barricade and shifted the sofa so she could get through the door. Stepping outside she was caught by how much snow there was, Demeter at work. Her hands were coated with a shining film of Chloé's dried blood, so she picked up a clump of snow and did her best to wash it away.

Then after drying her hands on her jeans, California swung her bag around and with shaking hands dug around until she found her tobacco, filters, and papers. She took a filter out of the packet and held it in her mouth as she placed the tobacco in the paper then put it at the end, licking the paper and rolling it over. Cigarette made she held it in her mouth as she tossed the packets back in the bag and withdrew the lighter from her pocket, shielding it with her hand she lit her cigarette, inhaling and letting the first drag sit in her chest for a moment before breathing out and watching the smoke curl in front of her. Then dumped the bag on the floor to use as a seat.

Then she waited for Marshall to emerge.

[ViolentMedic]

Take as long as he needed…

Marshall stared down at Chloé as California left the house. Words bubbled and died in his throat before he could find the energy to express them. He needed more time. But he needed the time that had already happened, the time when she’d still been alive.

He’d failed Jess. He’d failed Chloé. And he was going to fail Richard and the others, because now there was no help to bring them. He couldn’t face them, and they didn’t need him. But at the very least, he could try not to fail California. That thought held him together like a piece of string tying together a poorly wrapped package.

He went upstairs to grab the supplies that remained there, both his own and Jess’ bags. He grabbed one of the mouldy sheets as well. The only shroud he would be able to find. He returned downstairs and draped the sheet over Chloé, hiding her dead, blank stare from the world and providing her the smallest bit of privacy from the cameras.

He left the barricade open. There’d be no need for it anymore. He stopped outside the door, the tobacco smoke reaching his nose before he saw California.

He turned back towards the message he’d left proclaiming this a safehouse. He reached out, and wiped his blood-smeared fingers over the message, crossing it out in the most crude, but illustrative, way possible.

He turned back to California.

“You shouldn’t smo--” Marshall stopped midway through the rebuke, then said, “Nevermind.”

[Deamon]

California looked up at Marshall and shrugged.

"Who cares right." She said, as she took another long drag before exhaling a plum of smoke.

"Seeing Anubis no matter what anyway." She mumbled as she stood up, keeping the cigarette clenched between her lips as she swung her bag onto her shoulder.

She didn't say anything else as they set off into the snow.

((California Fox and Marshall West continued elsewhere...))