Red Cat, White Fox

[Deamon]

((California Fox continued from Me & Cinderella))

She had started on her way, as requested. Kai had wanted her to go and wait for him and Marshall and despite her own misgivings California intended to listen and follow instructions. If she had decided not to wait at one of the agreed meeting points everything would have been wasted and they would have returned back to the beginning of the process. She had managed to find Kai, she couldn't go and lose him straight away.

In a way, she was glad Marshall had insisted on accompanying him, even though Kai had been reluctant to allow it. Marshall was reliable, he would ensure they kept to the timeline. So at least she had that. As she walked California fished out her tobacco pack and dug her fingers inside it, she pulled as face as she felt nothing but the smooth plastic interior of the bag. There were no soft, light-feeling strands of tobacco between her fingers and none of the smell she had grown so accustomed to. Instead, she just had an empty plastic bag.

With a disappointed grunt, California tossed the bag aside and continued walking. She had been hoping to smoke to pass the time on the walk and take her mind off the pain in her back. There were multiple points that were giving her issues. Her lower back constantly throbbed and every uneven step sent an angry spike through her sides. Then just below the nape of her neck the ache of carrying the bag was taking its toll, it was her traps. She knew because it had been a constant issue ever since the crash. Her back had been charitably described as damaged, but California had always preferred the term destroyed. It had been fixed—eventually—but the doctor had explained that there would be the potential for nerve damage and her full strength never returning. So, she had done the physiotherapy they had advised her to do, up to a point. Because the medical bills and the physiotherapy all cost money and there came a point where her parents needed to make a decision, they could have sent her to further physiotherapy, something that she could have potentially required for the rest of her life, or they could accept the results and progress she'd made. The physio was happy with her progress and gave the all clear for her to stop, but had of course advised further sessions. But she had said that California would benefit from looking into yoga or at the very least make sure she was doing stretches every day.

And for a little while she had. She had stuck to what had been asked of her. She hadn't signed up to yoga, but she did stretches at home. Up until she returned to John Endecott and then she stopped. It fell by the wayside as studying was added to her routine of working on GODSTOMPER and seeing friends, then when she met Kitty, Kai and Ren she forgot entirely. She replaced it with walking, the thing that jostled her back around.

So she was forced to pull up and take a break. Stopping where she was on the road, she looked around until she saw a log from an old broken down tree lying off the road, on the outskirts of the forest. After another quick glance at her surroundings to make sure she was alone California stepped down off the road. One of the vertebrae in her back giving a small crack as her left foot hit the dirt. The icy leaves crunched beneath her boots and she made her way over to the trunk. She looked it over, leaving from her left to her right to see how sturdy it seemed, and satisfied with it, lifted her left foot up and placed it onto the bark. With a grunt of exertion, she rolled the trunk slightly further down the hill, letting gravity do most of the work and exposing a non-snowy, non-dirt covered side to the sun.

Then she took a seat and removed a water bottle from her bag. Both so she could drink, and her hands had something to hold onto.

[VoltTurtle]

((Katelyn was almost out of breath, her sprint having turned into a brisk jog some time ago.))

She was gasping for air, her lungs and legs burning in equal measure, feeling over-exerted. She had run far longer and faster than she had been anticipating, with her bag being so much lighter than before, but the trek through the snow had still been a little too much for her body to handle. She was beginning to lose hope that she would ever catch up with Kai, and if she couldn't find him, what then?

She didn't have an answer.

Luckily for her, she didn't need one, yet. To her surprise, in the distance, she was able to make out the hazy impression of someone sitting on a log. She had found the source of the footprints! Yet, as much as she had been hoping to catch up with Kai, she hadn't known for sure who she had actually been following. With all her luck, it could've been someone like Matthew, or Lily, or...

She slowed down, her jog turning into a cautious forward walk, as she heaved and gripped the grenade launcher. Squinting, she tried to make out who it was as she approached. Despair started to creep in as she realized they couldn't be Kai, as they weren't tall enough, but who had she been following? It was... it was..?

California?

Just as quickly as it had come, her despair disappeared, twisting into relief. California hadn't been who Katelyn had been looking for, but she was a very welcome surprise nonetheless. Katelyn still needed to apologize for leaving her behind back on day one, after all. Plus, with Cali's help, she was certain they'd be able to find Kai together. And, even if they didn't manage it, as much as she didn't like the possibility, at least she'd have someone by her side again.

Despite her exhaustion, she raced forward, letting go of the grenade launcher as she waved enthusiastically at her friend.

"Cali, Cali!" she called out.

Once she was close enough to be within conversation distance, she stopped, panting, resting her hands on her knees. She was no-doubt an even more sorry sight than when she had last left Cali, covered head-to-toe in blood in varying stages of dryness as she was, and also nursing a black eye with a bandaged cheek. Cali would be understanding, though, even if Kai wasn't. All the niggling doubt telling her otherwise had to be wrong.

"Hi, I'm," she panted. "So... so glad... I f-found you..."

[Deamon]

A figure appeared through the snow and California tensed up, they were jogging towards and as they came closer it began to dawn on California just who it was. It was at that point she began to have what felt like a panic attack. Her hands began to shake as she placed her water and food back into her pack and checked to make sure her ice pick was still in her jacket pocket. She didn't know if Kai had managed to retrieve the weapons or if Kitty had caught him. But she was being approached by her former friend who had become a multi-time murderer and she was all alone.

As Kitty called out to her California squeezed her eyes shut and tried to tamp down on her panic, she jammed her hands into her jacket pockets so Kitty wouldn't be able to see them shaking and took a pair of long deep breaths. Then she turned to look at other girl.

Kitty was a mess, her clothes were painted in various shades of red from dying and dried blood, and her face showed the wounds of battle, with a large puffy purple and blue eye and bandages on one of her cheeks. But California didn't feel sorry for her. After all, Kitty was still alive, which was more than could be said for most of the people she seemed to have met. At the very least California could only see one weapon on Kitty's person, it was a grenade launcher, which gave her pause but perhaps it meant that Kai had managed to get everything else away from her. That meant there was a chance he and Marshall were on their way to the meeting points. It was then that California realized she couldn't give anything away to Kitty. Otherwise, she would put Kai and Marshall in danger. It also meant she needed to find a way to get away from Kitty.

When Kitty reached her California heard what she said, and she tried to force a smile, but it wouldn't come, it felt wrong.

"Yeah," She managed, looking away from Kitty.

"I am too."

[VoltTurtle]

Now that she was at a standstill, Katelyn slowly caught her breath from all her exertion, and the cold once more nipped at her skin. If there was one benefit of running as much as she had, it was that she hadn't been feeling the cold nearly as much, until she stopped. Warmth was something that was easy to take for granted when one had it, and even easier to miss once it was gone.

Katelyn had noticed that California hadn't returned her warmth. She saw the briefest flicker of a forced smile, and how Cali couldn't look her in the eyes. She frowned, and looked down at the snow beneath them. Of course it wouldn't be the same between them, now that Katelyn had gorged herself on a tidal wave of blood. But... it was okay! It would be okay. It had to be.

"H-Hey, um, I'm," she started to say, fumbling over her words. "I'm sorry for l-leaving, on the first day. If I hadn't panicked, m-maybe I wouldn't have gotten into so much tr-trouble."

Regrets, she had a few, but then again, too many to mention.

"Have you, um, s-seen Kai, anywhere?"

She glanced back up at Cali.

"W-We were together, but I- I think he... um... took my stuff, a-and left. I wanna know w-why."

Even if she already knew that he hated her, she still needed to hear it from his mouth.

[Deamon]

Kitty said how she was sorry and regretted running away on the first day and California didn't respond. It would have been easy to forgive her. To say it was fine, she was panicking and it made sense that she wouldn't have been thinking straight. But then you had to take into account the fact Kitty had run away and killed multiple people over the course of a week and to what end? All she had gained from her murders were more weapons so she could perpetuate the cycle of violence. Something they were trying to prevent by having Kai take as many as he could. But even as Kitty spoke, and brought up Kai, and the missing weapons and sounded so sad about it California couldn't bring herself to feel sorry for her.

So mentally she gave Kitty one more chance. California knew she had to lie about seeing Kai, there was no other way around the question. As she considered the fact she had to do it, California found, that to her surprise, she didn't feel bad about it. As she thought about it she realized that any meeting or conversation with Kai would only lead to more deaths, maybe not his own. But of others, as California wasn't sure if, when faced with Kitty, his nerve would hold out. She wanted to fully believe in him and that he would have been able to stay strong, but if he had been with her as long as he'd implied then his prior attempts to stop her killing had all failed miserably.

"No," She began, looking down as she kicked at a pile of snow that had fallen off the log she was sitting on. "I want to see him, but I haven't."

[VoltTurtle]

"Oh..."

Well, that wasn't a surprise. Katelyn should've anticipated that California hadn't seen Kai. It had taken her location being broadcasted to the whole island for her friends to find her the first time, and California hadn't killed anyone to facilitate a meeting like that. Her and Kai had come startlingly close to running into each other, going by the path her footprints had left behind, but it was probably for the best for Katelyn not to mention that. No need to rub salt in the wound.

"Well, um, that's o-okay," she said, only a little defeated. "At l-least we can stick together, now. Pl-Plus, um, two heads are better than one, y'know, and maybe teamwork can help us f-find him!"

Her prospects of actually succeeding at that task before either of them died might be bleak, but at least she and Cali had a common goal.

[Deamon]

California had given Kitty a chance, a final chance to actually care about her. But Kitty had remained focused on finding Kai, in doing so she acted as it California would go along with the plan. It was only for her benefit though. Kitty didn’t care about California, not anymore. She hadn’t cared ever since she had run away on the first day.

California knew because Kitty had yet to ask her anything about herself. Her first question had been about whether or not California had seen Kai. Despite being apart for a week on an island of killers Kitty didn’t seem to have any interest in what things had been like for California after she had abandoned her. It hurt. Of course California hadn’t asked either, but she didn’t need to, every bloody milestone Kitty had achieved was announced every morning. As such California knew exactly what her former friend had been doing. She knew every bloodstained step she had made.

California turned her head to look at Kitty, staring into the girls eyes. Her own eyes had hardened as she’d steeled herself and reflected the falling snow.

“I don’t want to help you.” She said, voice quiet but her tone level. “I’m not going to help a murderer.”

[VoltTurtle]

Katelyn was immediately shaken by California's response, her body trembling as that old familiar panic took its place in her heart. She took a step back, as though she had come across an aggressive animal. Where had this venom come from? Cali had never been so accusatory to her before, and none of her other friends had acted this way after seeing her again. Did Cali hate her too? No, no she- she couldn't handle that. She couldn't.

Her instincts told her to turn tail and run, that nothing good could possibly come of this. Cali had made up her mind already, and so if she stayed, she'd only be hurting herself. Despite that voice in her head pleading with her to cut her losses, she resisted the urge, swallowing her fear as best she could. She couldn't keep running from all of her problems, because if she did, nothing would get better. Maybe Cali didn't hate her as much as she thought.

"I- I-" she stammered, trying to come to her own defense. Yet, her mind was blank. She had killed her own sister that morning. There was nothing she could say to defend that, and everything else.

Katelyn's shoulders slumped, crestfallen.

"Y-You're right, that's f-fair," she admitted. "I can't d-defend everything I've done. I've f-fucked up."

But what had she done here and now to mess up so badly? It wasn't like Cali had opened up their conversation with guns blazing. There had to be something she had said, or didn't say, that had prompted this. Maybe it was... oh, right.

When she was very young, before the crash that had killed her parents, she didn't have any friends, only a few acquaintances that weren't in her life very long. They had gotten along well enough, but eventually they always started avoiding her. Katelyn didn't understand why, until she finally managed to get one of them on their own and ask. She was told that it had been because Katelyn was selfish, only ever talking about what she liked and what she wanted, and never asking how anyone else felt. They never talked again after that. Katelyn was too ashamed of herself to try.

Being self-centered was still a frequent problem of hers. She was often too wrapped up in her own little world to consider anyone else. It was something she had talked to her therapist about somewhat frequently, and she had thought she was getting better about it. But, in this time of never-ending crisis, she was doing it again. Had been doing it again. She hadn't considered California's own feelings, and that made her a bad friend. Maybe that was also the reason why Kai had left her, too.

There was still time to salvage their friendship, or at least whatever tattered remnants were left.

"S-Sorry," she nervously continued, her voice trembling as much as her body. "I was being s-selfish, again. I didn't even ask if you w-were alright. You d-don’t have to help me if you don’t w-want to. We don’t need to f-find Kai."

Katelyn took a deep breath, trying to steady herself.

"C-Could I help you, i-instead? I have lots of supplies, a-and you can t-tell me about what’s happened since we got s-separated, and what you’re d-doing now, and- and I can h-help. Please."

She started to choke up, desperate tears forming at the corner of her eye.

"I- I know I'm b-begging, but-"

Her voice broke, and her trembling grew more intense.

"I'm sc-scared. Of being alone a-again. I want things to g-get better. I want to b-be better. Please."

Don't abandon me too.

[Deamon]

Kitty took a step back from her, hurt by the words she had shot her way and California didn't feel any guilt. Kitty shook, and not from the cold and California could feel the urge to say something, anything to comfort her begin to rise but she pushed it down. Kai had given Kitty multiple chances, he had tried to stop her with his presence, words and then direct action and none of it had worked. He had told California so himself. So California didn't let herself feel sorry for her former friend. The girl that had killed multiple of their classmates at the rate of nearly one per day. Anything she said or did that gave Kitty any reinforcement for her actions would have been dishonest and would have just allowed the girl to continue with her murders.

When Kitty apologized and offered her supplies California grimaced, disgusted by the suggestion. She shook her head.

"Where have those supplies come from Kitty?" She asked, her voice taking on a sharp edge as she glared at the more petite girl. California's eyes narrowed as she saw tears beginning to form in Kitty's eyes and the sharp, hot pang in her gut made her look away, a momentary flush of shame rushing over her face. Despite being a multiple murderer Kitty was still a scared girl, but, they were all scared. All of them were basically children, trapped on an island with only objective and limitless options of how to go about fulfilling it. So Kitty was scared, but everyone she killed had been scared as well. None of them wanted to die, none of them wanted to be on the island.

Kitty said she was scared of being alone. It was ironic, or it just showed how little Kitty actually cared about her despite her claims to the contrary. Kitty claimed to be scared of being alone, but she had abandoned California to strike out on her own from the start and seemed to kill everyone she met besides Kai.

California sighed, fighting against the urge to snap at the girl.

"Did they come from the people you killed?" She asked, voice softer. "The ones who died scared and alone out in the snow?"

[VoltTurtle]

Katelyn flinched at California's sharp glare and accusation, her trembling still going strong. Tears obscured her vision in her good eye, and she tried to blink them away.

There was a lot she wanted to say in response to Cali's question, defenses she could muster to protect herself. Some of her kills had been legitimate self-defense. Very few of her victims even had time to be scared, before their end came. Most hadn't even died out in the snow. Yet, she knew those arguments would fall flat in the face of her friend's conviction. It wasn't about the specifics, it was about her blood-drinking, and the sea of corpses left behind in her wake. There was no defense strong enough to keep all the accusations at bay.

"...yes," was all she murmured in response, as she looked straight at the ground, her expression and posture slumping further into a look of utter defeat.

At this point, it was abundantly clear to Katelyn that Cali wasn't going to be so forgiving like Kai had been, or Ren, or even Kelsey. Everything she had done, even the very act of existing in the first place, had only made life worse for everyone around her. Cali had to see that now, just as clearly as Katelyn herself did. Everything had gone sour so fast, and now there was no hope of salvaging this situation. Maybe there had never been any hope. She was in far, far, far too deep, and now Cali hated her too. Cali didn't want her help.

Still, Katelyn needed to hear the words, from her friend's own mouth.

"D- Do you want me to g-go away?" she asked, so quiet she wasn't sure she had been heard.

[Deamon]

“Then I don’t want them,” California said quietly. The former supplies of other dead children wasn’t something California wanted to stain her hands with, not when they were being handed out directly by their murderer. The weapons Kai had stolen, while also taken from Kitty’s victims were for a different purpose. They were to try and prevent Kitty from committing more acts of violence, or at least slow her down.

There was no time for a silence to settle, as after a brief moment Kitty asked her another question, and at first California could only squeeze her eyes shut. She buried her hands in her pockets as they shook and balled into fists. She exhaled a long, slow breath. There was no good answer she could give, her heartbeat had sped up to the degree that it felt like someone was kicking her in the chest and waves of heat washed over her body. But California tried to keep her breathing level, she tried not to prevent her body shaking.

The question hurt, because California didn’t want to send Kitty off alone into the snow, but she also couldn’t tolerate the bloodshed that had been committed. Kai had said himself that he didn’t believe Kitty would ever stop killing, but California had seen how Marshall had continued moving forward, even when his hopes had been destroyed by Evie it still felt like he had hope. He still volunteered to help Kai to try and slow the tide of death, and had refused any of Kai’s attempts to make him stay behind.

So despite every sign and piece of information to the contrary California felt like she had to try something.

“What I want is for you to stop killing.”

[VoltTurtle]

For a long while, Katelyn didn't reply. Instead, she silently stared at the ground, unable to meet her friend's gaze, guilty for what was about to come out of her mouth. When she did speak, she did so just as quietly as before, as though the world around her would be torn asunder should she say it any louder.

"I- I really wish I could," she finally said, rebuffing peace one last time. "I don't th-think I can. Everyone's convinced I'm a- a monster. Heck, I e-even think so, after all of it."

She got a little louder, a little bolder, and she looked up. Everything around them, the snow, the trees, the road, seemed to fall away, except for her and California.

"And- they're after me, b-because I'm in too d-deep. One of them... one of them k-killed- he killed-"

Her voice broke, a brief flash of anguish and regret passing over her face as she tore open the wound that Ren's death had left behind all over again, and let all the grief bleed out. It took her a moment to compose herself, hunching over slightly and covering her mouth with her hand, before she recovered and continued.

"He killed Ren, just for being w-with me. Then he tried to kill me a-and Kai, too."

She swallowed, trying to keep her throat from closing up all the way. California wouldn't understand, as nobody else had, but she needed to say her peace anyway. She needed all of them to at least be on the same page, to understand why she was the way she was before they judged her for it.

"I s-still tried to stop, in spite of that. Kai and I tr-tried to hide, but that didn't work. W-We were still found."

Katelyn shook her head, sniffled, and blinked the tears out of her vision again.

"I d-don't know what e-else to do. I think the o-only way it stops is if I- if I die."

Ash's final word to her echoed through her mind again and again and again. Win. Win. Win. Her next, and possibly last, question to her friend was entirely sincere. It was one she still kept coming back to herself, over and over again, just like she had before she arrived in this place.

"D-Do you think I should die?"

[Deamon]

California had doubts about the descriptions Kitty, of how she presented the events that had occurred, but the description of Matthew matched up with the story he told. He had been so proud of his actions when she’d questioned him about them. Matthew had seen killing Ren as killing an accomplice, and maybe he had been wrong about that, California still doubted Ren would have been assisting Kitty. But maybe Ren and Kai had been enabling her, allowing her to exist without any true accounting of her actions.

Kitty and Matthew were alike in that way. Both had decided how they were going to proceed and set about warping their realities around. Matthew couldn’t be dissuaded from his belief that the only reasonable response to people killing was to kill them himself. Meanwhile, Kitty seemed to have decided that everyone she met wanted to kill her.

With a pang of sadness California realised that Kai had been right. Kitty wasn’t going to stop. The option to not kill had vanished from her perception, she had made herself blind to it, either consciously or unconsciously.

When Kitty confided in her that she believed the only way her murders would stop was if she died and then asked if California believed she needed to die there was a silence.

California looked straight ahead and found her hands going strangely still. Surprisingly her main feeling was one of anger, anger at the gall of Kitty to ask her the question as if the only two options that existed were to kill or to die.

“You could stop,” California said, her voice eerily calm. “You’re just finding excuses not to, like being a monster.”

California turned her head and looked into Kitty’s eyes, trying to find the girl she thought she knew. Perhaps that just California trying to deceive herself, trying to put distance between her words and the person she was saying them to. It was the same Kitty, she hadn’t changed that much. That was why it was so disappointing.

When California, spoke again her voice was still calm, almost assured.

“Monsters always die at the end of the story.”

[VoltTurtle]

Not always. Darker stories and horror stories both frequently ended with the monster still alive and still at-large. Katelyn's own stories often had the monsters as unassailable forces of nature, part of the universe that couldn't be changed. The real world didn't work like that either, some of history's greatest monsters lived long and happy lives. Most important of all, Survival of the Fittest didn't work that way.

So California was wrong, but that wasn't the important part. She hadn't answered Katelyn's question, not directly anyway. Her answer was easy enough for Katelyn to get through implication. California just couldn't say it out-loud. Not that Katelyn could blame her for it, it had been unfair for her to ask, only coming out by virtue of heat-of-the-moment despair.

Now, Katelyn was more frustrated at once again not being understood, not that she was surprised.

"O-Okay. So I stop," she replied, her frustration leaking into how she spoke. "Wh-What then? What happens a-after that?"

She sniffled, and wiped her face. Talking was becoming more and more difficult.

"K-Kai... he's not g-gonna take me back," a fact that hurt for her to admit. "It d-doesn't seem to me like y-you want to, either. I'll be a-alone no matter what I choose, and th-then Matthew will come along and b-blow my brains out."

Was that really her only path forward? Ash had offered another, one Katelyn was hesitant to take, for all it implied about the future of her friends.

"Tell me h-how that doesn't end with me d-dying. I need to know."

She wasn't expecting California to have an answer, because she didn't have one, either. If California was going to give her an impossible situation, then Katelyn would give her an impossible question. She hoped that it would at least prompt some sympathy, but she knew it wouldn't. Her friends all hated her too much for that, now.

"B-Because to me, it s-sounds like you think I'm going to d-die, either way."

Maybe she should just give up and die. Everyone else would be better off for it, as she had known for a long time, but refused to internalize until now.

[Deamon]

California merely shrugged.

"Everybody dies."