Survival Of The Fittest

(Adding more continuity snarl, because I need to get Paulo out to meet his maker.  Feel free to fit all your stuff in in the time from now up until I run the announcement and get Paulo out)

Shit didn't make a lick of sense, but Paulo supposd he couldn't argue with the results.  Rosemary wasn't dead.  She had a gun, and she had food.  Way better than dead.

Paulo stood up, and rested a palm on Rosemary's shoulder.

"I'm uh..."  He said.  His mouth seemed to stumble over the words.  "Happy to see you back, menina."  Not even the faux-Portuguese could hide the honest tinges of warmth in his voice.  He headed back over to his spot in the corner to let Meera express her sentiments and allow Rosemary to chnage.

(Timeskipping so I can catalayze this move.  Ignore/use this at your leisure)

He had been waiting for the announcements when they clicked on, waiting for the latest toll.  There were a couple names he had to listen for.

Alda didn't show up.  Small blessing.

Max did.  Someone had topped him off before Paulo got the chance.  He clenched teeth, bit back the urge to cry out in rage.

He had to see the fucker.  Had to see if it was fucking slow enough, how he got it.

Against his better judgment, Paulo crept off to find Max, leaving Rosemary and Meera behind.

((Paulo Abbate Continued Elsewhere))

((This is just me trying to unravel continuity issues. Feel free to criticize me for this probably-awful post))

Seeing Rosemary, Meera felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She and Paulo had barely been able to keep themselves from immediately running after her, and the past half hour or so had been particularly tense. It had taken so long for Rosemary to return that she'd begun to fear--

No matter. Rosemary was back now, that was all that mattered. And she'd brought a gun with her, and food. All in all, it was the best outcome any of them could have hoped for.

Before Meera or Paulo could say anything, Rosemary spoke.

"Joachim was the only one who showed up... and he said he didn't want to just kill me and take the gun, so we played a game of riddles for it," She lifted a hand to tuck back a damp strand of hair. "And I won, and then he took his share and left. ...I-it sounds crazy, but it's the truth."

Meera was baffled. The killer had simply let Rosemary go? Rosemary was definitely uninjured, and Meera trusted her. The story was definitely an odd one, but it had to be true.

"About time you showed up, I was getting worried," Meera said, smiling. She was bursting with questions about her encounter with Joachim, but held her tongue. Rosemary had just come face-to-face with a murderer, and she didn't want to unsettle her.

"Did you run into anyone else?" she asked. "It doesn't sound like you were there very long."

Rosemary blushed at Paulo and Meera's welcomes, and a hesitant smile came across her lips. She had done well, hell, maybe even better than well. A gun, more food- for the first time since yesterday morning she felt truly happy. She unzipped her hoodie, setting it on a chair and rubbing her bare arms before going to her bag.

"I'm sorry that I made you worry. I got lost on the way back because of the rain." She replied, guilt and annoyance evident in her voice. "I came across the hotel and waited there until it stopped a little."

She took out a dry shirt, along with a new pair of jeans from her bag. By the state of her shoes she also wished she had brought a more substantial pair than the flip flops stuffed into a corner of the duffle. She took a moment to press her nose into the still clean fabric. The clothes weren't warm, but they smelled like the laundry soap her mom used to clean them. They weren't tainted with mud, sweat, blood, or death- only the smell of home.

She swallowed down a lump that was forming in her throat, before standing up. Now was not the time for crying. She checked if Paulo was still there, and seeing that he went outside she stood in a corner a ways from Meera and started to change. They had both seen each other in various stages of undress in the pool lockers, so it was not that big of a deal. It wasn't.

Rosemary tried to ignore the million other sets of eyes that could see her and just focused on the feeling of Meera's presence in the room- someone familiar, someone that would not  say hurtful comments about her body in any way. Just Meera.

"...In the hotel I met Joe Carrasco." She continued as she slipped her dirty jeans off.  "His bag of cookies for a piece of the sausage."

"Not a bad trade," Meera said, eyeing the cookies. "Let's split them three ways, I'm starving."

Hearing Joe Carrasco's name had been interesting, in a detached sort of way. She wasn't a close friend of his, but knew him from school as an acquaintance.

She also knew he was a killer. According to the announcements, he'd shot someone. Or maybe stabbed them. She couldn't remember. There had been so much death, graphically described, in the announcements so far that the details had begun to blur. Still, she knew enough to recall he might be another player.

"Is he playing?" Meera asked. "Carrasco? He shot someone, I think. Was it some kind of accident?"

Joe Carrasco didn't seem like the kind of person who would give in to this game. But then again, neither did Theordore Fletcher or Katarina Konipaski.

For whatever it was worth, though, his cookies looked delicious.

Rosemary finished pulling her new jeans up, making a swift motion and pulling on a purple peasant blouse with the switch over her dirty t-shirt.

"No, I don't think he is. He... judged me when I first came in, but when I told him the truth about... Joey, he told me what happened." Rosemary replied. "Joe... did mean to hurt someone, but not Jason. And he hasn't been on the announcements since the first one, so I believe him."

She finished her changing with a fresh pair of un-soggy socks, bringing the collar of her shirt to her nose to take one last inhale of the clean scent before turning back to face Meera.

"Joachim though, he is. I think so, but it's not the usual kind of playing. He gets... a kind of thrill out of it, as if playing a different game."

Rosemary walked to the food area, calling for Paulo that it was safe to come back in.

"I'm just glad Maximilian wasn't there," she said directly to the other girl, low enough so Paulo would not hear. "If he was, I don't think I would've made it back."

And she knew what she said was right.

"Yeah, I'm glad he wasn't" Meera whispered back, feeling a chill run through her that had nothing to do with the cold. "I guess he has enough food and weapons already, and didn't bother to show."

"Anyway, where to now?" she asked, raising her voice again. "Do we just wait around here for morning, or do you think anyone else might be nearby?"

The school buildings seemed pretty much deserted, but Meera didn't believe in taking chances. If Rosemary thought anyone else was nearby, they needed to leave right away.

(Going to get this all to Day 5 now!)

Rosemary knew it was better to keep moving, and after talking to Joe she knew that they had to find Garrett Wilde. If they did, they could join whatever plan he had up his sleeve, and if not... they could cross that bridge when they got to it.

Right now though, she was too tired to keep moving. All she wanted to do is eat, get comfortable in her dry clothes, fall asleep and hope she was exhausted enough not to have nightmares.

"I didn't see anyone when I came back inside, so I think we're safe here for the night. We can set off in the morning. I think we could maybe look for Garrett, he... he hasn't been on the announcements. We should see if that plan he had in mind is working."

The three of them dug into the goods, and Rosemary almost cried with how good everything tasted, even cold or runny. It was awful, she had gotten these things for doing a terrible thing.

But she kept eating, eating with Meera and Paulo until she was full, not wasting one bite. She would do what Joey said- they would make it.

They would find another way.

In the morning, Rosemary was groggy as the announcements blared on, and it was hard to make out a few of the first names. One of the last came in loud and clear.

Max Sawyer. Maximilian was dead.

And before she could process her feelings about this, Paulo was gone.

"Paulo?" She voiced, now going higher pitched. She scrambled up and ran for the door.

Not again, not again.

"Paulo where are you -? Don't- please don't be-!"

But he wasn't in the hallway. She breath caught in her mouth. "Paulo... Paulo where are you?"

(Thanks for this)

"He's gone," said Meera hollowly, staring out into the hallway in front of them. She walked up to Rosemary, her fist clenched tightly around Joey's Kukri. Her face was pale with fear. Her heart was racing, and fear quickly overcome any other emotion. She hand't realized just how attached she'd grown to Paulo in the short time she'd known him. He was part of their group, their team, or whatever. He was one of them.

How could he have left them like this? Without even a proper goodbye?

Max was dead. Paulo had to have heard, yet he ran off anyway. She wondered if he'd heard another name in the announcements, maybe someone he cared out. She frantically replayed this morning's announcements in her head, but their names wouldn't come to her.

"Do you know where he's going?" she asked Rosemary. "Do you think there's still time to catch up with him?"

"I..." Rosemary tried to get the words to come out of her mouth when all her mind could think about was Paulo's gone which at this point could be synonymous with something very, very bad. She moved back into the room, pacing back and forth while trying to think of something, anything that could pinpoint them to the boy's location.

"The Overpass- the announcement said Max was heading there to the prize." She finally got out. It was the only place she could think of that could work. But if Max's body was not there, where would they go?

"We should get moving. If- if we don't find him there, then we'll try to think of another place. The woods are off limits today, so he'd have to take another road to get there."

Her words were rushed as she slipped her now dry hoodie on, leaving it open as she slung her bag across her shoulders and tossed Meera's to her. Now was not the time to panic, the last time she panicked Joey's head got fucking blown off and that was not going to happen to Paulo.

Not if she could stop it.

She picked up the shotgun, it was loaded, the safety on. She had read and gleaned what little she could from the manual, but it still felt so heavy. It could work as a way to scare off attackers. They needed to go find Paulo.

"We need to find him- before he does something he'll regret."

(Rosemary Michaels continued to Kill All Motherfuckers)

(Okay, just realized this place is a DZ. Gotta get out).

"Yeah, time to go," said Meera, grabbing her bag. She was suddenly very uneasy-- what if Paulo had seen someone else, someone dangerous? The thought of him lying dead somewhere because he'd pissed off the wrong person made her sick with worry.

"He can't have gone far, we'll easily find his trail," she said, refusing to let the fear she felt show. "Let's find him."

((Meera Steele continued in Kill All Motherfuckers)