Survival Of The Fittest

((Melanie Beckett continued from Electric Dreams))

"Is he dead?"

She was gripping the seat with both hands, white-knuckled. Instinct. When they'd accelerated, when they'd collided, it'd happened in a moment. Seat belts. She was in one piece. She peeled her hands off the seat. They squeezed themselves into fists. One hovered around her chest, as if to jab someone. The other, around her waist.

Even her voice didn't quite sound like her own. Little too fast. Squeezed a little too tight. Cut right through the end of Aiden's yell. She had to know.

Through the window she could see Jerry's fallen form. Not clear. They'd hit him. Hard. Everything had scattered. Still not clear enough. She had to know for sure. There were others, asking things of Serena. The words didn't reach her. They weren't for her yet anyway.

She fumbled with the back door, almost made to get out. She wasn't sure if the engine was still running. If the car would start beeping.

"We hit him. Is he dead?"

The car skidded to a halt as Jerry made his journey over the jeep. Tumbling across it, onto the windshield, for a second all they could see was his body in the process of becoming broken, violently slamming and launching upwards into the back, disappearing from their view with a thud.

Thoughts circled her mind as the realisation hit her, she had killed someone or the very least crippled him. Either or, she ruined another human being. She felt a slump form inside her. Breathing suddenly felt difficult as she closed her eyes and tried to procces what to do.

How did these people kill so many? She barely even saw him as he pirouetted through the air, as impersonal as can be. And yet, none of it made her feel any better.

She had to do this, right? He looked irrational standing there waving something around like it gave him Power, eyes bugging out like he was a damn cartoon character, he was going to kill again, she knew it. He fit all the criteria.

It came to her that everyone around was talking to her, the two boys outside staring at them, uncertain of their intentions, Aiden furious yelling and Mel curious, no. Worried talk about the boy Fury. All their voices blending in to her, a cacaphony of noise that built up. She struggled to answer this noise. She forced the door open as she said the first thing that came to her mind. "I... I had to do it, it was either h-him or them."

As she stepped outside and saw the two up close, she eyed the gun in his hands. Did this mean there was no need for her to have done this? Would he have taken care of it if the Fury had decided to escalate it that far? She ignored those thoughts, ignorance is bliss in this game.

She put her hand on the jeep as she answered him."D-depot, was the only one there working." She looked over to Bart, he looked shaken by all this, much like her a few days ago. "Ar-are you two alright?"

Depot. There was a working car on this fucking island, somehow. Hadn't it been abandoned for.. a while? Fuck, none of this made any sense to him. It figured that Jerry gets plowed by the only car on the god damn island. What a fitting way to go. There were a few people in the car. Three, it looked like, and one of them was screaming her head off. Fighting the urge to tell her to shut the fuck up - fuck knew they'd already made more than enough noise to alert every dipshit within a 2 mile radius - Matt slowly began to put his gun away.

"I'm fine. Uh.. wow, you guys totally just.. killed him." He wouldn't call it amazing. He was still mourning the loss of someone who could easily murder people who attacked him. But, still.. the only car on the island.

That was definitely a thing Jerry fuckin' Fury would do.

Voices were coming from the jeep, voices that didn't particularly sound pleased with what was going on. If Bart's legs hadn't felt like like jello molds of questionable solidity at the moment, he probably would have turned tail and fled into the woods. Instead, he waited and watched as the driver of the jeep stepped out to survey the scene.

For some reason, his idea of what the driver would look like involved a huge, muscular guy with a beard. He wasn't entirely sure where that idea came from, but it was a safe bet that it had something to do with how big and scary the jeep was, especially when it was barreling towards him. To see the driver revealed as a girl much smaller than himself was quite a shock. He wasn't sure how to react, especially when she asked if he was okay. Bart didn't hear Matt's response, mostly because he was too busy trying to form one of his own from his scrambled thoughts.

"I'm, uh..." He held his hand to his chest, feeling every beat of his acing heart. "I'm okay, but, uh..." He redirected his quivering hand to point at the body of Jerry Fury lying behind the Jeep. "Jerry..."

It wasn't dignified, but it was articulate enough to get the point across.

Righty. Right.

Aiden blinked again.

"You're right," he said blankly to Serena, voice flat. But oh that scream that fuckin' Jesus fuck outta nowhere, that had felt...

He stared down at the shotty in is arms.

And he giggled.

Aiden knew how he'd been. The load. The lethargic one who dragged himself around the last few days; well what the fuck you expect when you're taken off your meds like that, huh? You get pissy, you go blank. There were times he didn't know where the fuck he was and didn't give one fuckin' shit if he'd even woke up the next morning.

Over now. Like a shock of lightning through the system, a jolt of snake venom or a Jeep chuckin' Jerry Fury all the way clear to the next county.

The giggles tapered off and he shot a look back at Mel. She was still in the backseat. Serena had gotten outta the car and Aiden wasn't quite sure how wise that was.

"Holy fuck Mel I'm sorry but I didn't.... she actually did it and I didn't think that'd happen, you hear? I didn't think..."

And by not thinking at all for the first time in days he felt whole and focused and truly himself again.

"But yeah girl. I-- I think so. I-- hold it up."

Aiden'd glanced out at Serena and seen Matty and Bart out there. Matt was putting away a gun, which was good at least. So they weren't Jerrys. But still Matt did have a gun and the two of them were callin' out questions. Which Aiden supposed was to be expected.

He scooched over to the driver's side door and leaned out, keeping the shotgun with him but not raised up.

"Jerry, yeah! Jerry Fury! He was... a killer y'know? And a dick! So uh..."

Aiden glanced back and forth between Serena and Mel; outside and in.

So what now, really?

Fuck. Her head hurt.

She didn't know why she'd asked in the first place.

She had to see it for herself, didn't she? So them telling her maybe, probably, pretty sure he was dead - that didn't help. And forget for now them actually putting this whole thing in practice, forget Serena and Aiden apologizing after the fact. It wasn't like they'd dragged her along kicking and screaming, anyway. She was every bit as responsible for this.

The thing was, they'd botched up Alvaro, and that'd seemed like a sure thing. So if they were going to do this, they had to do it right, not leave Jerry the possibility of crawling away, even if he bled out in a ditch afterwards.

"Watch me, will you?"

Mel opened the rear door, got out, and closed it behind her. Once she got a better look at Jerry, she could tell that she hadn't needed to make sure.

Both looked shocked, particularly Bart. Sad to see the last vestige of home disappear from his face as he pointed to where Jerry was. He was one of the unlucky ones, introduced so late to the reality of it all. But what took Serena's attention was Matt's observation about his death.

"N-no, I killed him."  She said forcefully. She was looking him in the eyes as she told him this. Out of the two he seemed more cynical and in control than Bart was "Th-they were just w-with me. For the ri-ride." She was losing composure and that damn stutter. She always got it when she was nervous. And right now her nerves were jumbled as fuck.

Inhale. Calm. That's what they needed now. For all purposes she was in charge, she was the one dragging these two on this silly little quest of hers . Mel more than Aiden. Aiden was more game. More into it. The initial shock of a first view screening of someone get plowed over with a jeep subsiding to justifications, for why she had to do it.  On one hand it meant she had someone close by that would go along with some of the plans floating inside her head, on the other it felt like her murder was being abolished. No matter how you look at it, she ran over another teenager of her own free will, no matter how forced her hand was.

Exhale. Calm down. Take the moment to think, She had to choose her words carefully with this next part, she had to sound more in charge. More in control. "He had already killed twice, and looked like he was about to make you number 3 and 4." She looked right at Bart for this, he had to realise this as a consequence right? You don't just travel with a murderer without realising this. "You must have known this when you travelled with him, you saw it back there. He was ready to do it again til I stopped him."

She heard Mel say she gonna check on him, make sure he was really dead maybe? She turned her head to Aiden, hand in front of her mouth. "Keep an eye with her, and be ready with it." Barely audible beyond a whisper, the boys in front of her didn't need to know about the gun.

Matt just stood there. He was dazed, in a way - the person he'd spent the past, what, four days with, dead. Someone he really, by all means, trusted with his life. Dead. Two time killer Jerry fuckin' Fury, dead.

And he felt relieved, really.

He was getting ready to stab him. He knew that. He could see it. And if Jerry felt like stabbing him, he'd have been dead. Just like that. It didn't matter how long they'd been travelling together. Then a jeep came into his life and ran Jerry right the fuck over. That was something. Matt didn't believe in fate, but he did believe in a two ton vehicle being capable of ending a person's life in about a second.

Very slowly, he came out of it. All his half thought up responses to whatever it is these people were saying, he couldn't remember them. He snapped out of his stupor.

He looked at Serena and he thanked her.

"Hey, uh.. thanks. I mean, for killing him." He glanced over to Jerry's lifeless corpse, which had a few moments ago so gracefully flew through the air while Jerry let out his last words. A sharp, powerful reeeeeeeee. "He was going to kill me." Matt laughed like that was funny. It really wasn't that funny, but he was laughing anyways.

Bringing up Jerry brought about instant reminders that the recently deceased had been a pretty unpleasant person, not to mention a killer in his own right.  Bart knew all of that.  Spending a day with him had made the first detail abundantly clear, and the announcements as well as Jerry's own boasting of his kills meant that the second aspect never left Bart's head for long.

But still, despite those faults, Jerry was a human being.  Bart was a believer in the idea that violence never solved anything, despite everything that had taken place since he woke up on the island.  Jennifer's death at Nancy's hands was something that should never have happened.  It led to the death of one of his friends and, at least in his mind, set the events that led to their alliance break up into motion.

Jerry's death came about suddenly in the middle of a heated confrontation.  Bart couldn't calm things down, and he was scared of what would happen next.  But even so... did it really have to end so suddenly and violently?  It stopped what could have been a brutal fight, yes, but was it the only way?

Bart placed his hand on his head and groaned.  He was getting a headache, probably from stress.  The driver was grilling him about Jerry, reminding him of all the awful things he already knew about the boy.

"Yeah, uh... I knew.  He told me."  He said, taking unsteady breaths as he tried to calm his heart rate.  "But he said that, uh... he said that I'd be safer if I stayed with him and Matt." He moaned briefly as another jolt of pain struck his head.  "So, uh... I just followed them."

He could feel sweat pooling in the spaces between his fingers.  He didn't know what the driver would do next, but the questions she was asking left him very afraid of the consequences.

He didn't have much of anything else to say. He had thanked them. He couldn't really think of them deserving a whole lot more. Unceremoniously, he walked over to Jerry's soon to be rotting corpse and started to go through what he had on him. Switchblade, broken, pipe, bent to all hell.. any food he had in his bag. Quietly, he worked on looting the dead body of his once friend, ignoring everyone else. The pipe felt heavy. A good choice on Jerry's part to take it from Alan - not that it did him any good in the end. Bent but it could still work.

Pocketing the switchblade that had killed Toby - broken but he figured it would be nice to have - Matt turned to look at Bart.

"I'm gonna get going. Bart, ah.." As if he were talking to a dog, Matt went onto a small rant. "Don't you come following me, alright? These people, uh.. they seem real nice. You oughta stay with 'em and.. just keep going, I guess." He smiled. He didn't mean it. He'd have to kill every one of these people, sooner or later, assuming someone else wasn't set on making his job easier.

"Good luck, you guys!" He waved before walking off to who the fuck knows where.

((Matt Moradi continued to Man, Islands Suck.))

Aiden kept an eye. yeah.

And Jerry Fury was definitely dead. He could tell from the way Mel was lookin at him. Hell, Aiden coulda probably told her that beforehand, but he wasn't gonna begrudge her for verifying it.

When Matt Moradi decided to take off, Aiden cast a glance towards the other guy, then eased his way outta the car. So Bart-kid was not gonna be any threat to them, that was for sure. He was even thanking Serena for what they'd done. It seemed about as genuine as two-headed coin.

And was Bart trying to use that to worm his way in with the three of them? Aiden wasn't sure about that. The Three Nothings had been The Three Nothing's for a good long while now, y'know. And they weren't even The Three Nothings anymore. That was for sure.

He felt kinda decent about that.

Like the three of them could take this a long long way.

Aiden left the gun on the seat. Kinda within reach, y'know just in case. He looked over at Serena. And Mel looked like she was on her way back.

"That uh, you good there, Mel?" he asked.

'Cause Aiden didn't think there was some rescue coming. But he was knowing that he had two top chairdes here, and they had something that made em like nigh indestructible for at least a while, eh?

"Well... I guess we say a Hail Mary for Jerry or something and go."

He lowered his voice and took another step to Serena.

"Should probably see if we can grab some of his food. And uh... there's him."

Plus no offence, but Bart was kinda... well maybe not the best kid to invite along. If they were already low on food, Aiden wasn't sure another 250 pounds a Bart was gonna help with that.

"Yeah," Mel said, and felt the tip of her tongue touch the dry roof of her mouth before she forced the next words out. "I'm good."

Guy had just walked past and started looting all of Jerry's stuff before ditching. Felt like kind of a dick move. Not that it didn't make sense. It was practical, more practical than she would likely ever get around to being.

But that wasn't a given anymore. She was already starting to be drawn into this. She'd suddenly felt the need to make sure that they were doing this right, to make sure that they didn't mess up or inflict the same kind of suffering too.

It felt different. It felt like the sort of different that she'd been avoiding. It felt like she was giving in, like she was changing in all the wrong ways.

She wasn't thinking about it real hard, not now, not yet. It'd been too long since she'd been in the right sort of condition for deep thinking. All she knew was that her doubts had crept back in full force.

Anyway, there was nothing she could think of to say to Bart. He looked pretty terrified still; she didn't figure telling him to relax would help. So she just climbed back in the car again. Plopped herself down.

"I'm not really good with prayers" - at least, ever since she'd started ducking out of going to church with her mom on Sundays - "so, uh, you do it. I say we just get going before they take away our driver's licenses."

Once the word came through that Fury was really dead. Serena felt horrified, and yet relieved. Relieved they didn't have to deal with a potential Alvaro situation walking around, but at the same time, he was truly dead by her hand. As these thing ran through her mind. Matt left, taking most of Jerry's stuff with him and told Bart he could crash with them before bailing. She would have to keep him in mind for the future. For some reason she got a sudden bad feeling about him. Wouldn't be suprised if she heard his name in the future.

Mel had come back from checking on Jerry, back in the jeep and the safety of the backseat as she voiced out about praying.

Praying? For Fury? She could do that. She had taken his life and broken his body into pieces. The least she could do is help him pass on to the afterlife.

Might even ease her mind over the whole ordeal.

After dealing with this, of course. She turned her attention to the boy in front of her.

"Sooo..." She pondered how she'd word this to him, it was not like they could take him with them. She could say with full honesty that she trusted Mel and Aiden with her life, maybe even more than she could say for her friends at this point. She knew where these two stood, but Bart? She wasn't impressed so far, walking in company with a murderer for a day, then acting suprised when he'd try again or someone would come for them? Aiden had the same thought regarding this, she could tell by the face he was making.

"...What are you gonna do Bart?" She tried to keep the distrust out of her voice as she phrased her question as neutral as possible. He'd probably come to the same conclusion as them, just had to guide his thoughts to that point and let him decide on his own. Not like they would be at fault then.

Right?

Jerry was dead, and Matt had just left with a specific request not to be followed. Within the span of a few minutes, Bart had lost another group, and now he was alone with a new one that didn't seem to be too happy with his presence. One of them pretty much ignored him, one referred to him dismissively, and the driver, who he assumed was the leader of the group, was the only one to confront him directly. She didn't have too many friendly words for him, though. After her recent lambasting of him for joining with Jerry in the first place, she asked him about his future plans.

"Uh..." He scratched his head as he tried to come up with something, coming away with sweat under his fingernails from his increasingly dampening scalp. "I, uh... don't really know." The words stumbled out of his mouth. "I guess that I'll, uh... try to find my friends again."

At that moment, an idea returned to his head. He hadn't heard Clarice or Kizi's names on the announcements, so they might still be somewhere on the island. He didn't know much about these people, but with their jeep they could probably cover a lot of ground really quickly. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility for them to have seen at least one of the girls.

"Wait!" He said loudly as he reached out, probably a bit startlingly compared to his meekness until that point. "Have you seen Clarice or Kizi anywhere?" He conveyed an expression of strained hope. "It's, uh... kind of important."

Leave it to Aiden make the whole thing even more awkward. He didn't think he was entirely serious about that prayer thing. Just trying to cover a bit. Badly, as usual.

Or maybe he was serious. Not that he'd ever been the prayerful type, but he guessed he was Irish enough to have some of those genes still in him. Kill a guy, say a prayer. Bless his soul, kinda say sorry, y'know. Get some brownie points.

Ah, fuckit. Honestly, if God was scoring it that way him and Mel and Serena had to be pretty far ahead no matter what, even with the Fury thing.

In any case, Bar, no threat that he was, looked like he wasn't coming along. That was good, right. OK, maybe it lost 'em a couple more brownie points, but still. The three of them were still the good guys here overall.

"Right... yeah sorry Bart. I ain't seen them. I uh... either of you two?"

He glanced at the others.

"We've been together a while now though, so not lately at least. Y'know."

Bart'd get the gist of it. He presumed.

(OOC - Might not be around much over the next few days so full permission for you guys to move Aiden out when leaving thread!)