Survival Of The Fittest

Though she couldn’t say she disagreed with Juliette in principle, she still bristled at how easy it was for her to condemn Ivy. Much as she’d tried her very best to dehumanize her classmates - she couldn’t readily say that any of them really deserved violence, let alone all of this. Just because she understood what she had to do, didn’t mean she was going to revel in it.

It felt bizarrely comforting to hear Juliette speak with such certainty about their chances of escape. Much as she’d quietly nursed fantasies of the collars all getting disarmed, seeing helicopters overhead and an aircraft carrier on the horizon, for once looking on an American flag with some measure of relief, she knew it wasn’t meant to be. As horrifying as it was, it at least reassured her that she was on the right path.

She’d stay only for as long as it would take.

If there’s anything left of me by the end of this.

The rain kept falling, and they kept talking. Small stuff, little tidbits of information from different parts of the island. Pondering what might’ve happened to various classmates or the people still left at home. There was a quiet tension in their conversation, but it seemed to take a backseat to the mutual desire to pass the time, and think of anything other than how little they all seemed to trust one another.

She didn’t get much sleep that night, but it was enough. Erika would’ve hated to admit it, but the feeling of what it was like to sleep in her own bed was turning into an increasingly distant and faint memory.

---

When the morning came and the worst of the rain seemed to have passed, Erika wasted no time in getting her shit together. She didn’t want Juliette or Connor to be party to her actions, nor did she want to have to be the one to kill them. Just as she was finishing up carefully putting on a dry pair of socks, the announcements hit.

Please. Please let it be over for him.

A litany of violence and depravity. Lacing up her boots as quickly as she could, she flinched at the mention of her own name. Danya characteristically left out most of the important details, letting the cause of death speak for itself. Quinn killed three more people, Blaise, Violet, and Lorenzo each one more. Those four wouldn’t get anything from Erika but a bullet.

Still, the one name she was hoping to hear wasn’t announced.

He shouldn’t have made it this far.

To her surprise, hers came up once again. Supposedly the terrorists thought the murders she and Michael Froese committed were worthy of being rewarded. Michael wasn’t exactly the most threatening person she could think of. Always seemed like the type of dude who might get carried off by the wind if he wasn’t careful, and as far as she could remember he’d never been a very aggressive or hostile presence. If she made it there first, it would be almost trivial to lay a trap for him; the only wild card was his gun, and whether or not he really knew how to use it.

Erika shared an uneasy look with the other two as she stood up, and checked the breech of her rifle. Juliette offered a quip, which she supposed was the friendliest possible thing she really could’ve done given the circumstances. Her conspicuously cold demeanor continued to unnerve Erika, and she momentarily wondered if she might’ve been better off approaching her differently.

That would have to wait. She had a weapon to retrieve, and precious little time to do so. She shrugged, offering a sarcastic smile.

“Thanks, I guess? I don’t plan on lettin’ him try.”

Connor’s sudden interjection caught Erika off guard, and she took a step back. Once again she felt the rain fall on her shoulders, Connor’s incredulity and judgement feeling way more intolerable.

How can you be so delusional?

Erika snapped back at Connor, anguish evident in her voice.

"‘Cause I don’t want to die, Connor! Blake had stupid, fucked up idea of right and wrong, and it got him killed!"

Erika closed the breech on her rifle sharply, a round still in the chamber. She hoped it was a clear enough signal for Connor to back off.

"You told me back on that roof that it was easy to not do bad things to people, you just have to have a conscience. You want to live? You gotta find a way to do the hard thing, and ignore it. Half-measures won’t save you here, dude."

Rifle still aimed generally towards the ground, she shot Juliette a sideways glance. It was hard to imagine what she might’ve been taking away from all of this. With someone like her, Erika had a few ideas. None of them good.

Backing off, Erika looked out towards the jungle. She was pretty sure she knew how to get to the Temple, but not quickly. There wasn’t time to justify herself to Connor, and it was perhaps better for everyone else that he didn’t entirely pick up on just how fucked they all were.

Grimly, she said farewell to her bad-weather friends.

"If the Jesus freaks are right, I’ll see ya on the other side. If not, it was nice knowing you two. Good luck."

"That went pretty well, I think," Juliette said, as the echoes of Erika's outburst subsided just like the girl herself vanished into the woods. Truthfully, it would take a few minutes more to say that with any certainty, but if a bullet flew out of the foliage and splattered someone's consciousness against the tarp that kept the rain out, Juliette was pretty sure it would be Connor taking the fall.

He'd slipped. She was a little disappointed by that. She'd considered them kindred spirits of a sort, both the type to navigate the social challenges so prevalent in their class without falling prey to them to any major extent, both a notch or two more aware than anyone else ever quite suspected. And yet, here, she had noticed from the start that Connor wasn't adjusting properly. He was playing the old games, and she'd thought that perhaps there was some meaning to that, but maybe not. Maybe he was just too slow to adapt, because his little meltdown there—and yes, she was considering it such; she expected impeccable self control from Connor Lorenzen and that was far from what she'd seen—had born all the hallmarks of improperly-managed emotions.

Juliette had realized all the way back on the first day that it didn't matter one bit anymore what anyone else thought of her unless they were directly interacting with her, in which case their opinions were paramount. More than that, being liked and trusted was no longer the goal, even in those moments in which she did care. She needed to not be a target. Sometimes that was about playing it nice, offering comfort or understanding. Other times, it might be about leverage, or menace. She knew her class, knew they worked in different ways and that different tactics were required in each encounter. In that one way, it was just like campaigning for votes. With a small enough constituency, you really could tailor your message.

What Juliette did not know was Erika Stieglitz, or at least not as much as Connor obviously knew her. So how had she managed the threat the girl represented so much more cleanly? It was worrying, to some extent, because Juliette truly did like Connor. He was like her in many ways, which meant he should have had a better chance than most, should have been smart enough to understand. She wanted to help him, perhaps, but to do so might be pointless, risky, or both.

The rain seemed to be lightening, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. It was still fairly well sheltered here, with the combination of trees and tarp shielding them from most of the moisture that made its way down, leaving only the brutal humidity to grapple with. The ground beneath them was damp, but not full on muddy. Juliette wondered where she might find enough privacy to truly freshen up; her legs were getting prickly and a shower or bath really would help her feel better. It was a psychological thing; while a dip in a lake might leave her no cleaner objectively, the ritual of cleansing would help her feel lighter and more composed, she was sure. Then again, the odds were most of her peers looked like they'd been rolled through a dirty puddle by this point. She should stack up nicely even in her current state.

Juliette rolled her shoulders, looking Connor over in appraisal. He seemed not overly the worse for wear either. It was something. She wondered if there was a future to their unspoken partnership, or at least more of one than she'd found with Julien or Erika. She wondered which of them would benefit more if there was.

"I do hope she's careful," Juliette added, a bit less blithely than the other thoughts she'd voiced.

There was, of course, one other thing on her mind, though a bit quieter and further away and likely of no interest to the quarterback. One other name had stood out to her particularly on the announcements: Dolly. There was a bit of guilt that came with it, as if Juliette could've done something, or should've. She hadn't met the girl. She had met Blaise, could have perhaps killed them if she'd felt like it, though there had been no reason to. But it was easy to imagine Marceline now, somewhere out there losing it. What had the girl said? Something about how she didn't know what she'd do without Dolly, about how Dolly was her everything, how their love was real and pure and true and not the normal high school thing. Juliette expected to hear Marceline's name on the next announcement, but if she didn't?

Well, she had to kill at least one person, and if there was an opportunity, perhaps it would be a mercy. A favor, even, something else mutually beneficial. And her prospective employers would never need to know the real reason why.

Ask, and ye shall receive. Just don't be surprised if you don't like the answer that you seek. Connor had certainly asked, and as Erika violently snapped out at him, he quickly realized that maybe — just maybe, his position for which he was so used to operating from was no longer the norm. Connor Lorenzen was no longer perched upon his throne at the top of the food chain. That was never how he'd seen it, of course. He'd never assumed an air of superiority, he'd always just... known. He was more athletic, more capable, more fortunate than many of his peers.

He was destined for greatness.

None of this should have been happening to him. This was the kind of thing that happened to other people. It was as though he'd gotten on the wrong train, and hadn't realized it until it had pulled up to its final destination. Now, he was stuck in a strange town filled with unpleasant individuals who didn't play by the same rules as he. He'd shown up to a hockey game ready to play football. Wrong train?

More like wrong bus.

Erika chambered a round within her weapon, which only made him stand up straighter, skin crawling at the obnoxious sound which rattled through the dull patter of raindrops on the tarp above them. His eyes stayed, transfixed upon the weapon in her hands. She said something — took his own words and threw them back at him. Throw away his conscience? She said it as though it were so simple. She talked about Blake as though he'd misused an appliance and ended up dead. It was so impersonal, so sterile.

Connor Lorenzen couldn't throw his conscience away any less than he could throw a football game away. It wasn't something he was capable of. Perhaps Erika hadn't been the kind of person he'd gathered her to be. She had seemed so outraged by the knowledge of what Lorenzo had done to one of their classmates, and had seemed to be so just in what she believed was right. Yet here she stood, basically telling him that they were doomed if they didn't give in to — what, to murderous thoughts and feelings?

He didn't say a word as Erika packed up her things and left. He only kept staring, shocked and trying to put the pieces together in his head. He was still here, on this island four days in. The announcements had come and gone yet again, and there was nothing. No word from anyone regarding an extraction. There had to be something, right? He was worth more than all of these worthless clowns put together.

"Pretty well?" Connor echoed Juliette, looking at her as though he were truly seeing her for the very first time. In a manner of speaking, he was. She looked at him expectantly, with a hint of — was that really; it was, wasn't it — disappointment.

Dear Lord.

He needed to get out of here. Good God, he needed to be anywhere else in the world except for right here. Connor's mind repeated the same phrase over and over again. He needed to run. Take the rock and bring it to the house.

Running had never been his strong suit, unfortunately. They knew what was coming, but they couldn't stop it; everyone knew the scouting report. QB Lorenzen, pocket passer. Let him stay in the pocket and he's unstoppable, he'll make mincemeat of your defense.

It was pretty clear to him now that the pocket had collapsed, and if he didn't figure out how to run, then, well...

He was fucked.

"Careful ain't exactly," he started carefully, "the word I'd use to describe it. Thinkin' the rest of us might need to be the ones who're careful."

Connor had chosen a face that was calm and collected, serious without being overly emotional. It could not have been further from the turmoil brewing within his stomach, but he clamped down and put a handle on it. Showing weakness in front of Juliette was a terrible idea. Whatever Erika had become over the past four days, Juliette had obviously gone through a change as well — though it was simpler to believe that whatever had come upon the erstwhile presidential candidate had been there from the very beginning.

Oh God, he was fucked.

No one was coming, were they?

Swallowing, Connor took a second, closing his eyes and exhaling loudly. If she asked, he could blame it on Erika's aggressive attitude.

"So y'all agree with her? Time to just up and put the conscience away, do what needs to be done, play some madman's game — just like that?"

Just like that. Sounded easy, when put that way. What scared Connor the most wasn't what Juliette said next, nor was it what Erika had said prior to leaving. It was the fact that some of his classmates did find it easy. They adjusted.

Could he?

Juliette considered, gazing down at the ground as she did. She had a sudden realization that she hadn't seen very many insects since the rain began. Given the climate, however, she was certain they were all around, merely temporarily out of sight. She would have bet that there were mosquitoes in abundance, and simply would have to hope that the other mammals she'd loosely caught wind of—the monkeys and the goats and whatever else might be lurking unseen—were enough to draw their attention away when they resurfaced. She was pretty good at controlling herself in the face of undesirable physical impulses, but that did not mean she wanted to spend the rest of her life covered in itchy bumps.

She frowned. That thought had slipped in unwanted. That would require some consideration, but later.

"Certainly not," she responded to Connor instead. "Even if survival is your only goal, to 'play,' as you say, is idiotic. Survival is about resources and avoiding harm. Actively killing people is just how they pretend they have some sort of control, but really they're making life much harder for themselves."

Misinterpreted again, of course. Why oh why did everyone take one glance at Juliette and assume she was seconds away from meltdown? It wasn't even their current predicament. She'd caught the glances at school, the whispers. And for all that, every time she truly had broken, every time she had screamed and thrashed and forced herself to the edge and barely managed to pull herself back, she'd been alone. Could people smell that on her somehow? Had someone seen something and somehow kept it from her?

"Plus," she added, "it's totally reprehensible, naturally."

Deadpan, there. Let Connor interpret it as he would.

There was one thing he'd said that piqued her interest a little more strongly, and that was that they would have to be careful around Erika. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps Juliette was flattering herself to think that, through her attempts at understanding and empathy, she would maybe buy herself some hesitation, a warning to turn around and walk away instead of a bullet between the eyes. Then again, maybe it was just that Connor was belatedly realizing that he had made an enemy, or at least weakened a previously-positive relationship, and that such an occurrence might now have consequences far greater than what he'd faced back home.

Had he ever faced consequences for anything? He was the king of having it both ways, of keeping the cake he ate. This all had to be pretty scary for him, wrenching in a way Juliette could understand but didn't suffer quite as strongly. From that point of view, she could even be considered lucky to have faced more disappointment and hardship in her life.

Her tone softened a little, turned reflective and more emotive than the casually bland delivery she'd used before.

"I am sorry you're here, you know," she said. "At school, you were always one of the good ones. Somehow, you made it work. I respected that."

One of the good ones, the words echoed in his mind as he sussed out the situation at hand. As always, Juliette's words were measured, each one selected specifically for a purpose. This was someone who never wasted a breath, whose machinations and purpose rivalled his at times around the hallways of George Hunter. In another lifetime, perhaps they'd have been kindred spirits, having a similar outlook upon what high school had been for them and having navigated it likewise.

In another life, perhaps they wouldn't be doomed to die in some tropical island before any of them had lived two decades on this planet.

Opening his eyes and trying to regain some semblance of decorum, he placed a neutral expression upon his face and visibly thought about her words. Whatever Erika had decided to do was on her, and however she justified that to herself to sleep at night — whatever nights they had left — was also completely upon her. But as Connor started to recognize that what was happening was going to irrevocably change them all before it was all said and done, he found himself having to fight off an unfamiliar companion.

Fear.

For days, he'd been sitting and assuming that because of his status or his family name that inevitably, the terrorists would deem him too valuable to kill, and he had zero doubt in his mind that someone like Steven Lorenzen would allow his son to die without expending every resource he could to find him. That was a fact. But it was a fact that the terrorists likely knew, and here they stood, four days into this nightmare, and Connor remained alive, unscathed, but unrescued. They were terrorists. Fearmongering was their game, it was their whole reason for being. Survival of the Fittest had never had a reason outlined for its existence, it just was, and that was enough for the evil men and women behind it. If they wanted to spread fear, what better way than to abandon the idea of discriminating between the rich and the poor, the valued and the discarded?

That, more than anything, struck fear into his core.

His breathing quickened, just a little, but his tone remained steady.

"Thanks," he dismissed her platitude, as unusual as he found it, injecting a bit of sincerity to cover the quiver he was shocked to notice slipped in near the end. "I know what y'all think; of me, of the football team. I know the reputation, it just... never was no need to be a jerk, y'know?"

You never knew where someone would end up. The high school nerd was tomorrow's tech billionaire. The bullied kid who never fit in ended up being a rock star with millions of followers. Having allies and connections anywhere you go was something he'd always been taught. In the future, it'd be useful.

In the here and now, it would be even more useful.

"So what now? We keep on tryin' to live, I take it?" It wasn't so much a question as it was a statement. He wasn't searching for guidance as much as he pondered what Juliette's next move would be. Erika had made her choice, so what was Juliette going to do next? He wasn't sure he bought the wistful, innocent girl act. Connor knew better; he just wasn't certain he wanted to know what was truly underneath the surface.

"I assume so," Juliette said. "If someone was going to give up, why wait so long?"

Answering Connor's rhetorical question was, of course, not precisely what the situation called for. Juliette knew that as well as he surely did. She was distracted, however, by something else he'd said. He knew what was thought of the football team, of him. By "y'all." In this moment, Juliette hated the ambiguity of the dialect; was that y'all general, referring to the student body at large, or singular, reserved just for her?

What did Connor think she thought of him and his teammates?

What did she actually think of them?

The truth, she decided after a moment of consideration, was that the answer was too tangled and nuanced to be simplified into any sort of easy soundbite. She liked Connor well enough. She viewed the Carters with a combination of mistrust and pity. Ace seemed alright but hopelessly naive in a rather odd way. Kayden provoked exasperated scorn masking a hint of jealousy. Beau faded into the background, lacked presence in a team that normally had no such concerns; she might not have remembered his name had he not shared it with their senator. Jeff stuck out for more than his terrible mustache; he didn't seem to want to be associated with the others. Though, come of think of it, that was the defining trait of the team for Juliette: all of them, except perhaps the Carters, didn't fit in with the "norm," but none of them seemed to realize that this meant that norm did not actually exist.

Maybe she was wrong. She wasn't on the cheer squad, wasn't even an enthusiastic participant when it came to mandatory gym class. She showed up to games often enough because everyone did and she was a student representative. It was her job to involved in and supportive of what mattered to her peers, which in many cases was football, but she didn't understand the game and she in no way cared about it. She forgot whether her team had won or not almost before she left the stands, and spent most of the games whispering to friends or watching others or surreptitiously doing homework on her phone.

She could easily be as incorrect in her assessment of Connor as he was when it came to her.

The water dribbled down from the edges of the tarp, turning the pine needles and leaves sticky. Juliette scanned the woods around them, watching for movement that didn't fit—shaking amidst the branches, birds startled into flight, a gleam of light on plastic—but there was nothing. The only change she could discern was a slight lightening of the downpour, and even that could be wishful thinking. She wanted something to distract her from these musings on the past, from how easy they were to slip back into. She almost wanted to catch sight of the barrel of Erika's rifle, not to come under fire, but to have something to truly focus her.

She wondered whether Erika would survive her meeting with Michael. She wondered whose names she would hear a day from now.

"It's..." she started, and then fell silent for a moment. It was uncharacteristic of her to struggle for words, but then, if that was the most surprising thing about this interaction for Connor, he was more clueless than she could've ever imagined. Juliette looked him over again. She almost wanted to ask about his hair. It was the one thing that had never quite fit his image, and she'd never felt comfortable enough to broach the subject. That concern was gone now, but so too were any stakes to her knowing.

Juliette sighed.

"Look," she said, "I won't pretend I'm going to roll over and die. I'm not really sure what you mean beyond that. Everything we face, every situation, is unique. There's no universal solution. There's no way to know until it happens."

What did he mean? Connor knew that he was talking himself in circles, trying to make sense of events and actions that had none. The fact was, he'd never considered a reality in which this was the crucial moment of his life. Everything had been meticulously planned out from the start. Everything from the training he underwent for the football field to the training he sought out away from it, all of Connor's life had been mostly decided. There were changes and variables that would shift the way that everything played out, but all of his decisions had been in pursuit of that one goal, that one dream.

So now what?

All of the self-doubt that flooded into his mind was pushed as far away as he could, though only half-successfully. Uncomfortably, Connor shifted in place, balancing his weight from one leg to the other. For the first time — possibly ever — Connor Lorenzen didn't know what to do next. There was still a chance. This was the fourth day, and perhaps there had been difficulty getting people together, or liquidating the assets, or, or, or—

"This certainly is a situation, all right."

It was the best he could do. Connor was trying his best to keep his safeguards up, to keep the image of leadership and power up for as long as he could. The problem was, those shields were beginning to flicker, and whatever Juliette Sargeant had beneath the surface of her own exterior, Connor wasn't entirely certain that he wanted to see. She seemed to be having a difficult time organizing her own thoughts into something more polished, an oddity for her.

Seemed as though the both of them weren't overly sure about much of anything, anymore.

"So do you," he started, choosing his words slowly and carefully; unconsciously cleaning up his drawl, "know what you're capable of?"

There it was. The million-dollar question.

"Every situation is different, sure. Not a damn soul prepared for this." I sure didn't, he wanted to add, but stopped himself.

"At what point do we decide that our lives are more important than everyone else's? When does it suddenly become tenable to look over at your pal, your teammate, your," he swallowed uncomfortably, "your girlfriend or boyfriend, and say 'sorry y'all, it's nothin' personal'?"

Unconsciously, he shivered. His mind was starting to go places that he'd never fathomed before, and he wasn't entirely sure he liked what he was starting to find in this particular bastion of his imagination. The rain was an eerie backdrop to the idea that ordinary people could actually rationalize murder, if they thought hard enough about it. Was Juliette the kind of person that had made that transition? Erika obviously had. She'd been about as ordinary as possible, but there was a new kind of ferocity to her that unsettled him. Erika had been dangerous; that had been clear as day to both Juliette and Connor, but only days before, when they'd sat and talked on the roof, there had been none of that. What had pushed her over the edge? What had forced any of them over it?

Where was his edge?

His smile had fallen, all that remained was a pensive frown.

For just a second, Connor's speech provoked a real flash of irritation in Juliette. It was cluelessness again, but a different sort, a sort that was exactly what she should've expected from him but somehow hadn't. Connor was a pretty good guy, navigated the social minefield of school with ease, but he was so slick that it was easy to forget sometimes that part of establishing such a position was faking it. In this case, Connor was slipping just a little, showing the cracks where his empathy and understanding towards those less fortunate had all along been feigned.

But upon further consideration, she couldn't really fault him for it. Of all the affluenza-addled monsters of their class, Connor was relatively benign. He used what he had for something approximating good, or at least rarely for ill, and if he didn't quite comprehend what life had handed him, how could he be blamed? He'd never known it any other way.

Of course, that did not mean Juliette was going to let it slide without comment or correction.

"It isn't personal, though," she said. "It never has been. This isn't new, Connor. The stakes are just higher."

Juliette had been doing a decent job maintaining eye contact throughout the conversation, but had allowed her attention at various points to drift. There was, after all, a lot to be on the lookout for, plus the constant distraction of droplets of water flashing irregular motion in her peripheral vision. Now, though, she fixed Connor with an unwavering gaze. He was very handsome, good jawline, deep green eyes, perfect teeth. He was also tall and strong, a physical presence that could have made Juliette wary indeed if he were utilizing it more aggressively. Now, though, he seemed the one on the back foot. How often, she wondered, had he been afraid? How often had he wanted something and been told no?

When Connor had won Prom King, Juliette hadn't been sad, but she also hadn't voted for him. She'd tossed her support behind Nathan, partially in the genuine spirit of the event but largely as a quiet little personal commentary on where their school's priorities lay. Now, however, she thought perhaps if she'd campaigned a little harder she might have done Connor a favor.

"You weren't the only one who wanted to be the quarterback, you know," she said. "I know at least one other person wanted it very badly."

Word got around. He'd probably know who she was talking about. If he didn't, she'd underestimated him beyond what she thought possible, and both of them were blowing smoke.

"You got it because you were better, bigger, worked harder, I don't know. But it wasn't personal. Wherever you were going to school next year, you got in and lots of other people didn't."

She didn't know that for sure, granted, but it was a very safe bet—Connor Lorenzen did not seem the sort bound for community college. Had he bought his way? Worked as hard as he could? Likely, some combination thereof.

"That wasn't personal either. Prom king? Not personal. And, you know, I know that if you could've had those things and also given them to other people at the same time, you would have in a heartbeat. But opportunities were limited so you seized what you could get, used your advantages, same as everyone does. You were lucky or good enough that mostly it worked out."

She shrugged, then glanced to the side for a moment. Her voice was flatter as she finished speaking.

"This is just the same. That's life. I'm capable of a lot, or I think and hope I am. I hope you are too."

She turned back and grinned at him, wide but almost sheepish.

"You'd be a better winner than most of the rest."

Of course it was never personal. Nothing he'd ever done that had ended up with a negative impact upon someone else had been something that was personal. Was he a selfish person? At times, sure. He knew that as well as anyone. But in order to accomplish goals that you've set for oneself, at times you had to act with a degree of selfishness. Connor had always taken success as something to be worked for, to be achieved, but in the end, he knew that there was always a path to be taken that would send him through the way he was meant to go. Juliette had a point; the stakes were absolutely higher than any ridiculous high school vote or sports team positional battle. If you didn't get elected Prom King, you shrugged and moved on. If you lost your starting spot to someone else on the football team, you worked twice as hard to get it back, while supporting whomever it was that had supplanted you. That was called 'being a good teammate', that was called 'rolling with the punches'.

Those things could hurt, but in the end, nobody died.

In the end, they weren't important enough to die for.

Connor had always desired — no, demanded success from himself, but he had also always known that if the route forward were fraught with turmoil, then a successful man made his way through his issues with head held high, facing everything head-on.

But even then, at the end of that — nobody died.

"Notre Dame," he murmured, looking at Juliette out of the corner of his eye, still trying to understand just how he felt about her opinion on his suitability as a winner. That was a dirty thought and he didn't want to have it; not yet.

"I was going to Notre Dame," he clarified, his voice distant. "You're right. I could have gone anywhere. Y'all know football was my focus, but," he turned his head to make eye contact, but trailed off, shaking his head as his mental train ran away from him.

"My pop wanted me at UT. He's a donor there. Strong football program, it's a place," his voice took on a deeper lilt, an obvious imitation of his father, "where the Lorenzen name carries weight, where I wouldn't want for nothin'."

Connor sighed, throwing his hands up in the air. "I know how lucky I've been. I'm no fool. Ain't ever had to worry about money, about things beyond me. I got to focus on one path and pick up how to get there. I may be a lot of things, but I ain't one for handouts. I always wanted my name to mean something on its own merit."

Taking the multi-tool from his pocket, Connor examined it, his eyes further away as he studied the instrument than his college of choice was at that very moment. He was keenly aware of the irony of what he was saying; his mental barriers were slowly starting to come apart, brick by brick. His name would be known on its own merit; this week had seen to that. Problem was — he grimaced and looked back up at Juliette.

"I knew how badly Jeff Greene wanted to play under centre. I never held that against him. It was never personal; until it was. For him. Wasn't anything I could do about that. So is that what it's gonna come down to? Someone like that is gonna come after me because I was better than him at throwing a football around?"

The words barely made sense as they came out of his mouth. His brain was still piecing it all together. It had been four days since they'd been within this hell; the terrorists had said nary a word about him, only editorializing the deaths of his classmates — some familiar, a disturbing number not. Had the terrorists decided to make a deal for his release, Connor had very little doubt that it would not be made easy for him. Which left him with one conclusion.

"A better winner," he echoed Juliette, staring off into the woods. He imagined himself, covered in blood, looking down the barrel of a gun at someone familiar — Wyatt, Bret, Jeff, Madison, even Juliette herself, and he tried to imagine what it would look like or how that would feel. Could he really pull the trigger on someone that he had any kind of feelings for — even someone reprehensible like Ivy or Lorenzo? Someone who had already made that choice like Erika?

Connor knew his own capabilities, but the more he imagined it, the more it blurred the line between horrific fantasy and grim reality. He tried to put on a smile for Juliette, but he opened the box and came up empty. He was fresh out of smiles.

"Thanks. You too," he almost phrased it as a question but backed off at the last minute. How was he supposed to respond to that? "Suppose we'll see how it all shakes out. I have a feelin' that whomever's left standing at the end ain't gonna be the best of us, any way you slice it."

As the thought settled into his mind, Connor felt as though he'd been punched in the stomach. Above all else he'd said in the last week, he knew that on the winner, he was probably right.

There now, that was more like it. Connor rallied somewhat, worked through a thing or two out loud, defended himself—though there was this little lingering suspicion that he might not quite understand that even choosing not to invoke the full measure of his privilege was evidence for it, but what did that matter here?—and finally returned Juliette's sentiments, with a little caveat.

"I think," Juliette said, "the 'best of us' have probably been dead for days by now."

Who counted? Dante, maybe. Wasn't that part of why she'd done what she had, when she met him? She had charted a course in that moment, had escalated from shoving Kelly overboard, even if nobody else had known. But, come to think of it, what had happened since then? What had she done? Had she hit a peak and decided it was good enough?

The thought, abrupt and unbidden as it was, was frightening. Was that not just what she'd condemned Faith for? Settling? How easy it had been to fall into the old patterns, to harden her heart passively instead of through active measures. Did she look, at a glance, like Connor had to her at first?

Juliette wasn't someone who had trouble sitting still usually. Fidgeting was undignified and unbecoming, but from time to time she was prone to pacing. Motion could help her thoughts flow, disrupt stagnation and let her take different angles of attack. Right now, her only choice if she wanted notable movement was to pace straight into the lightening rain, and improvised gear or no she didn't relish that option. Instead, she straightened her legs, wiggling her toes a little within her shoes, feeling the prickling tingling brought on by remaining motionless too long.

That wasn't the only way things were bogging down. The rain and the surrounding woods were largely unchanging, and try as she might it was hard to remain properly alert. Rustling in the bushes was by now familiar, wind and water and perhaps unseen animals. The human mind tuned out constant information beyond a certain point, to better search for changes suggesting threat. Juliette remembered this very well; in seventh grade a teacher had had them all test various sources of stimuli to track how long it took for them to be filtered. She'd held some foul-smelling chemical under her nose, and it was fuzzy now but she thought it had taken roughly forty-five seconds until she could no longer detect the odor. Usually, this was an advantageous adaptation, removing useless information in favor of suspect developments. When it came to potential ambushes or surveillance, however, it felt very risky.

She thought about Julien's questions, briefly, and about her own musings on Marceline, on Kelly. Wait—there was another thing that'd been lurking at the back of her mind. Arjen was dead now, killed by Marco. The immediate situation with Erika had been taking up Juliette's focus, so she hadn't fully processed it, hadn't retained the hows of the killing, but when it clicked she was surprised. Had they traveled together all this time? What was the story?

It made her feel just a little lonely.

Everyone she had met on the boat was now dead or a murderer. Everyone but her. Would anyone have predicted that on that first day?

Maybe it was time to look into slitting a throat or two after all. She'd have to build her resume sometime. There were enough large, overt threats to draw attention otherwise by now, even setting aside her increased name recognition due to her school campaign. There were too many names to track properly, far too many. Juliette thought she was likely in much better shape than most in that regard, because she'd put a lot of time and effort into knowing her classmates. She had them there in her head, laid out in little imaginary rows, like some people memorized video game characters or mathematical formulae. As deaths were announced she crossed names off her list, did her best to attach impressions to the faces of the killers. It was spotty. She couldn't rattle off the deaths at the drop of a hat, but if she saw someone? She thought she had a decent chance of pegging them as a killer. Hopefully. Maybe even what they'd used if it had been exceptional in some way (isn't that right, Kelly, with your poison?).

"I appreciate you saying that, by the way," she added to Connor. It had been a few seconds, but she could frame that as rumination rather than awkwardness. She was good at timing. "I'm afraid I might disappoint, but it's nice of you to say."

She stretched her arms, now, tugged one set of fingers with the other.

"I suppose," she continued, "the real question is, what comes now? What's the play?"

The play in another situation or scenario would have been simple. Keep on pressing forward, keep on trying to be the best kind of person that one could in a horrible situation. From the outside looking in, that would have been a simple thing to say. For all of the atrocities that happened in the world throughout his lifetime, Connor Lorenzen had always been able to look at them from afar, and sadly think about what could have been done to prevent such tragedy. Each time, he had given things a moment of consideration, and then moved on to the next thing in his life — working on something in the playbook, or doing homework; hitting the gym. Something like that.

Today, he was no longer able to have that separation. Today, he was experiencing an atrocity first-hand. It didn't seem like it, oddly enough. For four days now, Connor had managed to float from frightened group to frightened group, hearing about his classmates who had died and in some cases, mourning the loss of life — or innocence — that came along with that. Each day's announcement brought more names, some even familiar, even friends of his. Yet for all of the horror that was going on, Connor had somehow managed to steel himself within a small bubble. This was an inconvenience still, nothing that he couldn't take care of.

Perhaps he could still manage to lay low, await rescue. These things took time, after all.

Shoulders slumping, he sighed. "The play is," he stopped. Every time his team surrounded him, looking for guidance, he had at least two or three ideas in the forefront of his mind, ready to get back out there, particularly if things weren't going their way.

It was time to accept the fact that this particular football field was different from the ones he was used to.

"I'm not sure."

He had no speech, no fancy display to rally the troops. He was much too far in denial for that. At least he recognized it. The first step to dealing with one's own denial was recognizing it.

He'd pay for that later, to be sure. But later wasn't now, and maybe, just maybe, there was still a chance. A chance for him to find his way out of this thing.

"Keeping my head down seems to have worked out okay for me so far. Can't imagine I'll stop doin' anything else. Y'all have a — an idea?"

He wondered what his friends were doing. He'd made a point to try and avoid most of them. He'd run into Ace and Ivy, of course. That had been awkward, unusual. Ace had left with Ivy, which made not thinking about them easier. Was Ace still alive? The day was still young. Neither Bret nor Wyatt's names had been mentioned, which meant that they were being smart. Plenty of people would want to hold a grudge against the Carters simply for being themselves. After that...

Madison.

His girlfriend was still out there. Hopefully uninjured, with capable companions and people who would keep her safe for as long as possible. That was a pipe dream, he knew. Madison didn't engender trust amongst the student body on a good day; who would stick with her in this hellhole?

Connor himself hadn't wanted to find her; after four days, he was wondering just how smart a decision that had been.

Juliette had not been expecting Connor to be quite so open on being directionless. It was mildly disconcerting, a look at what it was to be on the other side of a sudden display of candor from somebody who typically measured their words carefully. She had particularly not predicted the deferral she was met with. It was not, strictly speaking, unpleasant to have Connor Lorenzen asking her what to do, but it was unanticipated enough that for a moment she was lost herself. There was a residual nervousness and desire to impress that she felt stirring within her, and quickly tried to set aside.

"An idea?" Juliette said, then paused. This was a stalling tactic, a way to appear deliberate and thoughtful instead of slow and clueless or sloppy and haphazard; she clarified her contemplation of the problem and took a moment to build herself up rhetorically rather than stammering her way through a thought half-cocked or sitting in total silence like she was blindsided. Fortunately, as she stared at the murky forest and the falling droplets of rain, ideas came fairly quickly.

"I agree on keeping a low profile," she said. "Eventually, we'll probably want decent weapons—not to go looking for trouble, but to dissuade it from looking for us."

On this front, at least, it was a shame that Erika had taken off. She would've been a valuable asset for a number of reasons, discouraging others from hassling them by virtue of her armament and her status as killer, and becoming the primary threat and focus of attention (and presumably fire) if they did fall under attack for those same reasons. And, as a multiple-murderer, it would feel slightly less noxious to abandon her to her fate if and when the time to do so arrived.

But there were other guns out there, and there would come other opportunities. Offhand, Juliette figured the best bet would be nighttime wanderings leaving the potential to stumble upon and lift gear from someone sleeping on their own, or else to make a quick run for a Danger Zone as soon as it cleared, hoping to snatch up anything held by unfortunates who met their ends within its confines. This latter plan in particular was good because the Danger Zones were clearly announced and held for a whole day before clearing; it would be fairly simple to set up camp on one's outskirts and then be the first in come morning. With any luck, they'd be gone before the next wave of vultures descended.

Juliette hoped those running the show might appreciate the speed with which she was grasping its intricacies and nuances.

"Right now, we should do something about the water situation," she continued, unzipping and reaching into her bag. "The rainwater should be fairly clean, but who knows how long it'll hold. Best to top off now, if we can."

She drew out her can of shaving cream, popped the lid off, flipped it upside down, and set it on the ground outside their improvised shelter. The tarp, too, was wet, bowing inward in a few places where water had pooled. Now that she was in problem-solving mode, Juliette saw that as another resource. It would be smart to do what they could to refill all their bottles (she'd kept her empties and sincerely hoped Connor had too; if not, well, that was a shame but her magnanimity extended only so far and sharing went well beyond that point), and then drink as much as they could stomach.

Of course, all of this was built on one key, unspoken assumption. It was probably best to clear that up right now.

"Assuming, of course, that you want to stick together for a while," Juliette said, shrugging. "I think it's smart. I'm not planning to murder you—" She gave the can of shaving cream a cheerful little shake; how convenient that she'd been given a perfect decoy weapon. Nobody needed to know about the paired razor just yet. "—and I trust you're on the same page. I'm not sure we'll get that anywhere else. But it's really your call."

Juliette wasn't planning to murder him; if it weren't so obviously a joke, Connor might have actually looked twice at her. It was an obvious crack, wasn't it? Yet a part of him wondered just what was entirely off the table anymore. It was a reality that Connor was starting to realize had arrived fashionably late. Like a guest of honour at a party for the ages, his understanding of the current predicament and what that meant for his own future was finally edging towards the front door.

Were these jokes even really jokes any more? Connor always looked at things with an impartial beat, didn't tell any tales that were too far offside in fear of losing his carefully crafted image, but even the loosest of phrasing — 'I'm going to kill him if he drops that pass' — were no longer necessarily so innocuous. People were dying. That was just a fact. It still seemed like an insane fact, but if the announcements were to be believed, it was true. His classmates, familiar faces and familiar names were being erased from existence, one by one. All he could see as he stared at Juliette — watching her fill her used-up water bottles with rain water — was confusion. He made no move to join her. He hadn't kept his bottles; why would he? This was to be a temporary situation for him, it was supposed to be something that he would make do with. Connor had rationed — he wasn't an idiot, but at this point, he only had one water bottle left, still full.

"Good idea," he opined out loud, and turned away from her, presumably to do the same. Yet all he could do was stare off into the forest, the rain pattering against the tarp. The rest of the day would be more of the same. They would lay low, look out for any fellow students, and endeavour not to get themselves killed.

Get themselves killed. That still didn't sound like a real problem. Those were problems beneath Connor Lorenzen. Those were issues that people like him didn't have to concern themselves with. Right?

He didn't sleep very well that night.

---

In a manner of speaking, he had been standing guard. It had been at least an hour since Juliette had drifted off to sleep, and it had been probably close to an hour that he had been silently staring at her. His classmate went about her business with a sense of self-assuredness, and while he had put up a good front, he had done a devastatingly poor job emulating that he was at all comfortable in this situation. She acted with a clear conscience, aware of what she needed to do and not letting even a small possibility seem to show through that she was scared or even bothered by their circumstances. In reality, he had acted mostly the same as he usually would, but he felt deflated — lacking his usual pomp and good humour. He felt quiet, as though he didn't know what to say. They had made conversation throughout the afternoon, creating a makeshift shelter around the tarped off area, obscured enough that it wasn't visible to casual passers-by, but it was base, mostly surface-level stuff.

Talk of a future they would never see.

Discussions of those now departed.

None of it felt real, none of it was actually happening.

Rescue would come for him, he kept repeating that mantra within his head, but he no longer believed it. Something would have happened by now. Something would have been done, his father would have organized any and all resources to bring him home, and if nothing had happened by now...

This was going to look awful, he knew as he stared down at Juliette. People wouldn't understand, they would accuse him of all sorts of terrible things. Maybe he could deny them in the future, perhaps he wouldn't. Yet he didn't know what else to do. There was only one option that made sense to him, one name that repeated to him over and over again in his mind.

He couldn't get her out of his head, and he prayed to whatever Gods there were that she was still okay. Connor needed to find her, he needed to try and make sense of this. He needed to be the captain, to lead the charge against... something. Against anything. Standing guard here was helpful, but he could hear nothing but the wind through the trees.

Perhaps Juliette would understand. Likely not.

Oh well.

"Good luck," he whispered to the darkness, and quietly walked into the woods.

((Connor Lorenzen continued in The Man Comes Around))

Juliette woke in the morning to the sound of the announcements, alone.

It took only a few moments for her to figure out the score. She'd been ditched.

Had her attention not been split by the vital information, she would've laughed. As it was, she exhaled sharply, one part amusement to one part irritation. She'd gotten too comfortable, assumed Connor too logical, or maybe just too docile. He'd always been good at being everyone's friend, putting those around him at ease. She'd been confident enough to sleep near him, sure he wouldn't hurt her. Despite her miscalculation as to his reliability, she took some solace in her assessment of his threat level. She was, after all, still alive.

A quick inventory added to both Juliette's aggravation and her satisfaction. Her bottles of water, by now all capped again and stashed in her bags (split between them, just in case she got robbed or had to cut ballast) were still present. All her food remained. Connor hadn't dug through her things at all, best she could tell; the razor remained stashed among her undergarments in a bread bag. That was polite of the boy, but also intensely foolish. He should've explored, if nothing else.

There were other irritations too, which Juliette mulled as she set about her morning routine. She fished out her toothbrush, wet it with the faintest dash of water, then added a small bead of toothpaste, scrubbing at her teeth and then her tongue, letting the mint flavor take her somewhere else, for just a moment. If she closed her eyes, it wasn't like being in her bathroom (her clothes were too rumpled, her skin too sticky), but could have perhaps passed for a camping trip. Juliette had been camping a couple times. She'd hated it. It was both undignified and pretentious, in its way. Humanity had spent so much of its development removing the need to shiver while barely protected from the elements, so why go back in the name of recreation? She had to fight the urge to stick the nozzle of the travel-sized tube of toothpaste in her mouth and squeeze it all in, had to keep herself from straight up eating the toothpaste. It would be among the tastiest things she had all day. Her provisions from home were extremely limited, and they were unfortunately all the same flavor—a tin of Altoids and a handful of Starlight Mints.

She took as small a sip of water as she reasonably could, swished it around her mouth, and spat it to the ground. The splatter scattered pine needles, and it foamed in the dirt: saliva, water, and paste. She wondered if ants would eat her spit. Then, a larger, longer sip, which she again swished but now swallowed.

Julien had killed Ashlynn. After all that suspicion about what she might do, all his veiled judgment, he'd gone and struck first. It was more of a surprise than it should've been. Juliette was getting sloppy, buying into the stories people told about themselves. Of all people, she should have known there was more to anybody than what they chose to present. Ashlynn's status as the victim was also mildly disconcerting. Ashlynn and Juliette had very little in common, but the majority of the class struggled to understand that, instead lumping them together under the reductive umbrella of politically-ambitious women. Ashlynn was—had been—a dubiously-competent true believer, full of half-baked proposals and a burning desire to change the world coupled with a lack of proper respect for the art of the possible. She was bad at compromise, bad at coming off as truly convincing. She cared too much. But, as had become so eminently clear, many of Juliette's peers didn't pay enough attention to know that she was any different.

Erika was on a tear. Erika knew more or less where this hideout was. The woods were vast, and their generally inconspicuous location had allowed Juliette and Connor to pass a remarkable amount of time without encountering a soul. Staying here was a potentially highly rewarding strategy. The area was too large, too key to transit, to be turned into a Danger Zone before the late stages. At the same time, it was so dense and discordant as to become simple to lose oneself in. But whatever had passed between Erika and Michael at the temple, the girl had tripled her body count over the course of the day, and to Juliette's recollection all of her victims had been innocent of announced violence of their own. Would Erika come back to check up? Maybe, maybe not. Would she hesitate to shoot Juliette, even for a moment? Hopefully yes, but that would be foolish to gamble on at this stage. The rain had let off some time ago. It was probably past time to get moving.

And of course, there was the daily annoyance that the man reading out their fates just wasn't getting as much mileage from the material as he could've been. While his delivery was never short of confident and wry, he stumbled over his words at times—"we finish off as always by announcing with one of you impressed us enough with your murder skills?"—and often fell to stock phrases and vague insinuations. It made her feel nothing. If—when—they spoke, she'd have to offer a little workshop about speech structure and smooth transitions. Carefully, of course, or did that go without saying when considering discussions with infamous murderers? Would he even take constructive criticism? So few people knew how to give a good speech.

She thought about changing her clothes, but decided to hold off a little longer. She really, truly intended to visit the lake or a well or a stream or something today, to take a bath, take care of any little hygienic functions that had fallen by the wayside, and compose herself for what came next. A third of the class was dead now. That was in many ways incredible. This was the fifth day, and she remembered that almost every version had fallen between one and a half and two weeks. She'd barely seen anyone in days. It was, she had to admit, a little lonely. It was a shame Connor had taken off. She hadn't been planning to cut his throat. She wondered if he would believe that.

After a scant breakfast and some time spent packing, Juliette set out. She left the ramshackle shelter of tarp and wood and sticks and leaves as it was. Maybe she'd have to come back here, or maybe Connor or Erika would return and need it. Maybe somebody else would stumble upon it and be puzzled. There was something to be said for ruining anything she didn't expect to use, but the simple math of it was that the woodlands were tremendous and not a single other student had passed this way since Erika's departure. The strategic play here wasn't about hindering others' chances. Quinn, Erika, and their ilk were busily doing that, and turning themselves into targets in the process. No, it was about staying alive, gathering what she needed, and keeping her options open. Potentially helping someone she would likely never meet wasn't a big enough deal to risk finding herself in a spot where she needed a place to lick her wounds and yet going without.

So, as she walked away, Juliette did her best to take stock of notable elements of her surroundings, the better to find her way back. Of course, within ten minutes, the trees and animal trails looked like they did anywhere else, and she had to admit it would take a major stroke of luck for her to ever retrace her steps.

((Juliette Sargent continued in Fly Back To School Now, Little Starling))