Survival Of The Fittest

"You said it first," Myles retorted on the subject of just what Garren might have been doing in the bushes over there. Honestly, he and Ivy barely even needed to say anything. Garren was doing a perfectly good job of roasting himself without their help.

He didn't feel the need to follow up Ivy's assertion that they hadn't killed anyone. Obviously, it was true, and double obviously, Garren didn't need to know that they'd considered it. The more important thing was this deal that Garren seemed to be proposing. He must have been pretty dumb or pretty desperate to come begging for handouts from the two of them when they'd never had kind words for each other, much less the spirit of teamwork.

Myles adjusted his position, crossing his legs and leaning forward to prop one elbow on his knee and his chin on his hand. "Does this look like a charity to you? If you want something of ours, what are you offering?"

Fortunately for Garren, being dumb and desperate made him just a little more valuable than other people right now. If he could come up with something good and confirm that he didn't have any psychos hot on his tail, well... someone like Ace seemed like a better prospect in the long run, but Myles would feel a lot more secure if he and Ivy had another person to stand behind when things got rough.

Jesus fuck. At least Aoi had just been infuriating. These two were stupid as fuck on top of being as pleasant as a bucket of cold vomit.

They weren’t dancing around the point, they were staring directly at it and somehow missing it entirely. They were lacking in supplies right now? Cool, so was he. They hadn’t killed anybody? Cool, neither had fucking he! What did that mean? It meant they were on the same goddamn side! They needed to be helping one another, not bickering like fuckin’ babies.

“Cool, cool, are we done? Have we finished with the jokes? The knee-slappers, the fuckin’ insults? Or are we gonna keep on fighting like we’re still back in Chattanooga, pretending this is still just the schoolyard, even with your truckload of injuries and me having eaten nothing but a goddamn apple core since, like, two days back.”

Garren closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, clenching and unclenching his other hand, trying to vent the stress that was brimming inside of him. This was a shitty situation for all three of them, that if they had a choice none of them would have taken it. There was still every chance they’d be able to salvage something from this, maybe even walk out of here together as allies, but he couldn’t just… say “none of us are murderers, lets stop being dicks and fucking work together” and make it happen instantly. There would always, always be baggage from school left over - it was why he was so goddamn jorts-pissingly terrified of Quinn, after all - and he really didn’t need to go over why Ivyles’ vitriol was totally justified again, did he?

He forced himself to look at Ivy’s injuries, really truly absorb them, let them sink in and etch themselves onto his brain. That sort of thing didn’t come about accidentally. That shit would make you mistrust anyone you stumbled upon.

“Look. Whatever you might think about me, I’m not… I don’t wanna be a scumbag. Not out here. It fuckin’ sucks to be me, dudes! In every way! I know how shitty it is to have a single crust of bread to last you through a fucking day! I don’t wanna dump that on people, I don’t want people to do shit for me without me doing anything in return!”

Garren spread his arms out to his sides. There was an odd look on his face, a half-smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Man. Lucky him. His goals lined up with exactly what Myles was asking him.

“If you lend me some food, then I’m open to fuckin’ anything. Anything I can do to help, I wanna do it. You want me to step into every building first to make sure it ain’t booby-trapped, sure. You want me to do my level best to make sure your laundry list of injuries doesn’t get any longer, I’ll do whatever it fucking takes. You want me to fuck off and never show my dumb face around here any more?”

He shrugged.

“That’s pretty much justified, yeah. So, like… name your price, I guess.”

It was cute, how he got worked up so easily. Not cute in any sense that Ivy would speak aloud without drenching the word in venom; he had reached a level of pathetic that she couldn't help but find pitiable. Which wasn't an invalid tactic, heaven knew she'd been using it in a hopefully slightly more dignified way since day one, but she couldn't really praise the effort when she knew it was unintentional. Garren wasn't clever, he was just like that. Pitiable, whiny, socially incompetent, and possessing hair like an oil spill. It was an excellent indication of how far things had fallen that he saw fit to address them at all, and possibly more of one that they weren't sending him away.

Because they weren't going to. Ivy could have discussed it with Myles, she supposed, but why bother? He wasn't stupid. Garren wasn't particularly strong, or intelligent, or possessing of any other positive quality that would benefit him in normal society, but he possessed a technically-functional human body that could stand between them and a bullet. Whatever he might think about how they were suffering the same way or whatever was his own business. He could have been anyone in his position.

It just felt right, that it would be Garren, begging for his betters to save him. He was a fucking weirdo and as gross about girls as any other incel, but he couldn't hurt her. She felt that much in her bones. Even Julien could only stretch her worries so far.

She did pause for a moment, anyway. Just to watch him squirm.

"Fine."

She shrugged, digging into her bag. The other reason she didn't need to discuss it with Myles was that he wouldn't be the one making a sacrifice to accommodate him. Myles was dangerously low on food himself, a situation they would have to deal with sooner rather than later; Ivy, though, had a decent amount left. He'd always made fun of her for eating like a bird. Here he'd looked more worried than amused, every time she refused to eat. It was working out for the best now, though, wasn't it?

One energy bar, one bottle of water. Those at least they had plenty of, having refilled their supply the night before.

"Take these and like. Look around and make sure no one else is here or whatever, okay? Make yourself useful."

Well, that was easy. Myles would have protested Ivy giving up her own stuff, but other than that, they seemed to be falling back in sync. That was good. That was how things were supposed to be.

Telling Garren to make himself actually useful was like... telling something that was useless to be useful. Myles wasn't one for metaphors even when he wasn't dead tired and coming off an experience like dealing with Julien. But while he couldn't actually read Ivy's mind, he knew what she was thinking.

Garren got a chance to prove that he wasn't going to bungle everything up from the word go. Ivy and Myles got someone to shove into the line of fire if things came down to that.

When things came down to that.

Myles pushed that thought away again. Garren could probably fulfill the main function that they needed just by being around and being extremely punchable, was the point.

"That's fine, but I don't actually want to stick around here too long," he said, turning to Ivy. He didn't add anything else to Garren directly; Garren would do what he was told, or they had no deal. His role wasn't to be involved in the planning.

Holy actual fucking shit, it had worked.

He was almost too stunned to actually take the rations from Ivy, which, honestly, would there be anything more Garrencore than that? Talking to a girl, too dazed to take a gift from her, sweating profusely? All he needed was a boner to be desperately trying and failing to hide, and he’d be at peak incel mode.

He had, of course, stepped up a bit from that basement position. Thank god. Surely even these two could recognise that.

He’d been certain that the worst was about to come, when the pause between his words and Ivy’s had stretched on for years and years. And this still wasn’t an ideal position. Garren was many, many things, but he wasn’t a moron. He knew he was disposable, at present. He was an extra pair of hands; useful to have around, good for scouting and carrying things, and being the first person into every room, and being a meatshield.

And all that? It was fine. Really and truly. Sure, he didn’t wanna be a punching bag, or pincushion, or… or tin can filled with bullet holes, or whatever. But if his actions meant somebody else lived a little while longer? Maybe he could be okay with that. Besides, he’d been extraordinarily lucky to have run into someone before this who’d been on the same rung of the ladder, someone else who knew he wouldn’t be able to survive by playing a social game. They’d been able to work together on equal footing because of that. Not every encounter could go the same way and he damn well knew that.

Give it time. Give it time.

“Sure thing,” Garren said, nodding as he put his new supplies into his bag. He didn’t need to say anything more, because Myvy clearly still wanted his presence to be as limited as possible while he was still doing all the grunt work. He hadn’t seen anybody else in the bushes or treeline when he’d snuck up on them, but better safe than sorry, and, again, no need to say anything more than the affirmative.

Well, actully, there was one more thing…

“Hey, Ivy?”

He looked over his shoulder, offering her a smile that he really hoped looked as earnest as it felt.

“Uhh… thanks. A lot.”

He flashed a quick thumbs up, because who was he to do anything without ruining the moment, before hurriedly moving back into the bushes to scout out.

Thanks. A lot.

Ivy just shrugged.

She supposed she was sort of beyond the point now where she could reasonably say she didn't want to deign to speak to him. She already had, hadn't she? Sacrificed resources for him, even. But responding to him still felt like it implied a level of comradery that didn't exist. That level of comradery being "vague civility". She didn't want to be writing checks she couldn't promise her mouth would cash.

She also didn't deserve it.

Thank you. For what? For letting him live a few more hours just so he could die for them later? Because that was the deal on the table, and frankly he'd sounded too serious about it for Ivy to assume he'd cut and run when actual danger arose. Sure, she'd sacrificed resources. A bottle of water she could have refilled whenever and an energy bar she'd never find the stomach to eat anyway. Sure, Garren was a loser with no social skills. And he was lucky they hadn't just chased him off, even if chasing him off would literally be telling him to go die, like she hadn't literally told Garren to go die at least once in their lives, like nothing had changed. Garren was a loser with no social skills, yes, and Julien was a psychopath who had broken her rib and thought about raping her and she hadn't killed him and letting Garren wander back out into the woods wasn't the same as stabbing him in the fucking face but it sort of was, right? Where were they drawing lines, here?

Thank you. Even from Garren, even from fucking Garren who anywhere else would owe her thanks if she bothered to even look at him, it didn't feel right. It sat awkwardly in her stomach and stayed there.

It didn't feel wrong enough that she changed her mind, of course. Or that she let those feelings exist anywhere but pooled in her gut. What would Myles think?

Honestly.

"I need a little while, I think," she said quietly, watching Garren's back as he disappeared into the woods. "I'm sure you'll be shocked to discover I still feel like garbage."

She relinked her arm with his, leaning again against his shoulder.

"Sorry about your ear. We can go in a bit. Okay?"

---

They didn't.

She knew they wouldn't when she said the words. It hadn't been that long at all since she'd had a proper rest but it had felt like a lifetime with just how drained she was, and the few times she actually made an effort to drag herself to her feet the renewed throbbing in her side nearly sent her tumbling back to the ground. She only tried when Garren had been sent off on some errand or another. He'd see how weak she was, eventually, but she would put off that moment for every second she could grab.

The day had been... boring. Dull. Ivy recognized that that was a blessing, that every moment not spent running from literal serial killers was a lucky one, but excuse her if she didn't feel particularly graced by hour on hour of staring into space. She found a series of excuses to get Garren to go off and do whatever, patrol, look for berries or something, because at least with him gone she felt safe filling the previously awkward silence with some very therapeutic complaining, a sport Myles was more than happy to match her enthusiasm for. Occasionally the complaining turned into something a little more serious. Occasionally they remembered everything they'd lost. And then they'd swerve away from that as fast as they possibly could because what was crying over spilled blood worth, anyway? It hurt. It was a waste of time. Mosquitos and bad breath and the constant urge to check a phone that didn't exist were at least a little fun to bitch about.

They had to talk logistics, too, where they could. They had to go somewhere. They had to have some sort of plan. Myles favored laying low, which she could hardly argue with; she didn't think they were at the top of anyone's lists at this point despite their varying types of social notoriety, considering none of them were actual murders, but that wasn't a risk she particularly wanted to take. Garren's presence offered them some degree of protection, slightly more leeway to explore than they would have otherwise, but that still wasn't much. They needed weapons. They needed slightly more reliable allies. Ace came to mind, of course; she'd wait to try to convince Myles of Wyatt's usefulness if the opportunity to do so arose. She knew how he felt about him, of course, but in this case she would argue how she felt about him was rather more important.

They needed supplies, too. Even if they kicked Garren out in the end, they'd still run out of food, soon enough. That wasn't something she quite wanted to consider how they'd resolved. Not yet.

Ivy slept well, better than she had since she'd left the infirmary, tucked under Myles's arm instead of Ace's, fully clothed this time, thank you very much. Having a night guard helped. When Garren himself would sleep was not really her problem.

She slept so well, in fact, that her first moment of consciousness that morning was brought into being by the sudden blast of static through speakers above her head.

They didn't end up leaving the woods, and Myles had kind of expected that from the start. Ivy was in bad shape. He was trying not to think about it too hard, because they could say that they'd just wait around for her to feel better, but realistically, a nagging part of him knew that she wasn't going to. Those kinds of injuries took time and resources that they didn't have to heal properly.

They didn't talk about it except for when Ivy's complaints moved in that direction and when she made her stumbling attempts at getting herself together. Whenever it came up, they moved on to other things soon enough. They talked about who they would be willing to gather up in addition to Garren, if possible. Introducing more people into the equation was going to make it necessary to establish some kind of ranking. They already had a hierarchy that was stable enough for now; any new person would have to be either more useful or more expendable than Garren.

Myles wondered, more than once, how long Garren could last before they had to kill him.

They didn't have enough supplies to split between three people in the long run. If they did manage to scrounge something up, obviously they weren't going to want to let it run out quickly again. If Garren didn't end up fulfilling his main purpose as a meatshield within a certain span of time, he was more of a liability than a help.

Myles didn't say any of that to Ivy. He was sure that she already knew, even if she wasn't saying anything either. Those weren't the kinds of things either of them wanted to talk about.

Myles just wished he could stop himself thinking about them for a while too, but his thoughts never left him alone.

---

Camping out didn't get any better a week in. When the speakers started them awake, Myles just groaned and threw his free arm over his face. Being conscious just made him aware of how uncomfortable he was: sweaty, especially where Ivy was tucked against his side, thirsty because of the sweating, twigs and rocks and who knew what else digging into him where he lay on the ground. His neck was kind of sore from being at an odd angle with the way he'd used his bag as a pillow.

God, he couldn't wait to sleep in a real bed again. Have a shower. Drink something besides warm bottled water. If the speakers had addressed him directly right at that minute and promised that he could have the food and a soda if he just-

What the speaker was actually saying finally caught up with Myles, and he fell still, thoughts finally quiet.

Was Ivy awake?

Did she hear?

Garren woke up with his face half-buried in a pile of leaves and dirt.

It took him a few moments to actually realise where he was, as his eyes slowly blinked open and his senses started slowly switching back on, one by one. He groggily pulled himself back upright, brushing his hand through his hair, leaves and grit falling in a shower down his back. He was sprawled out next to a log, and as his brain kicked back into gear and his memories returned, his eyes narrowed and he scowled at it.

Ah, right. Yeah. That fucker. The log he’d been sitting on for guard duty last night. Y’know, call him fucking crazy, but he was pretty sure keeping watch worked best with multiple shifts, cause of that whole, y’know, falling asleep thing. He’d asked the Hivymynd when he’d get to sleep, last night, and they’d just kinda shrugged in a kinda creepy synchronised way and walked off. So he’d been the only person looking out for ghouls and boogeymen and actual fucking murderers, and he’d done his fucking best to stay awake and alert the whole time. But without a consistent supply of Gamer Fuel (Code Red ONLY, he was a man of taste after all), he’d ended up nodding off, and, well… here he was.

He had absolutely every right to be pissed the hell off with this situation, he thought, but… he really wasn’t. Maybe he was just a whipped little bitch, as D.. as a friend from his past would say. But he’d put himself into this situation, offered to essentially be Myvyles’ brand new butler. Grunt work, bitch work, call it whatever you like. He had people with him. A handful more supplies than yesterday. And no matter how pointless constantly scouting for threats or ‘searching for berries’ was, it was something to do. Something to keep his mind clear. Something that made him feel like he was making a difference and helping out. It wasn’t much, but it was honest work.

Man. He missed memes. Wow, that was absolutely as pathetic as he thought it was gonna be, but hell, it wasn’t as though there was much else from his life to be wistful for. He had been in a whole bunch of Discord groups, and he’d never been particularly close to anyone there, but he couldn’t say he didn’t have fond memories of chat exploding whenever somebody posted a waifu tier list, or everybody spamming the lyrics to All Star or Brain Power in all caps. It was the little things, y’know? The things you never realised you missed until they weren’t at your fingertips anymore.

This was lame, and he knew it was lame, but he couldn’t help but feel a bittersweet twinge at the thought, one that was snuffed out by the loudspeakers crackling to life once more. He listened, brushing dirt off of his arms. He wasn’t expecting anything on the announcements to take him by surprise, but, hell, what was a tragedy without the unexpected occurring?

Wyatt was a big death, one that Garren couldn’t claim to be too thoroughly cut up about. It was a surprise, really, on name basis alone; Wyatt had made a shit-ton of enemies, so it was inevitable that somebody would track him down sooner rather than later. Quinn’s name, on the list of the damned, also wasn’t a huge surprise considering her fuck-off massive kill list, but… that was one he felt more than ennui about. Odd to say such a thing, considering she despised him and had possibly-probably shot at him at the beach. But if there was a single person out here who’d be blameless for using him as target practice, it was her. Some people in life got dealt a bad hand, some people got a whole bunch of useless cards dropped on them without warning. She deserved better than this. At least he thought as much.

He briefly wondered how Katelynne was doing.

Then he realised that, holy fuck, they had more than halved the number of people who’d started this whole thing. That was… uh… wow. It really, really shouldn’t have been something to be celebrated. He didn’t wanna know exactly how many people made up half of his class, how many people were no longer breathing. But, man. Nobody, least of all himself, would have pegged Garren Mortimer to make it past the first day. Somehow, he was still going. Somehow, he was still breathing.

He sat there for a little while longer, a weird sense of warmth within him, before he figured he should get up and check how his royal highnesses were doing. There they were, a few yards away, unhappy and uncomfortable looking, but safe. He wandered closer to them, stretching his arms as he walked.

“Morning.”

Ivy wished she hadn't listened.

Would that have been better? Like, if she'd held her hands over her ears and hummed, if she missed the whole thing, if Myles told her nothing, if she kept thinking, hoping, he could be anywhere, after all, the island was big, they could have just missed each other a hundred times by now but eventually she'd see him again, she would, she had to, she hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye before he'd climbed out that window and how dare he leave without giving her that much, literally, metaphorically, whatever, would it have been better if she held onto the possibility until it was too remote for hope to mean anything? Until she was standing at the end, all alone?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, of course it would be better. It would be better because it wouldn't be happening right now, and she didn't know the Ivy who'd be standing there in a week or a few days or tomorrow, even. Maybe she'd be stronger by then, maybe her skin would be a little thicker, maybe she could hear the thing she was most afraid of hearing without feeling like she might crumble into nothing. Maybe she could kill someone, like she was supposed to, like she had to, Julien, Tirzah, Tirzah, maybe she could face reality, maybe she could face what she needed to sacrifice to go home, maybe she'd stop pressing her ear to Myles's chest desperately willing it to never stop beating.

Maybe. Probably not. It would still be better. The Ivy who'd be standing there in a week or a few days or tomorrow, even, might not exist. She might never know. She might be dead. She might be dead. She might be dead.

She'd been a shitty girlfriend, she should have broken up with Bret as soon as she knew, they might have had time, then, at least, right, she thought they'd have time anyway. The blowup after prom killed their chances of making it clean but it all passed by so fast. They were supposed to have all summer. One last summer, before they all went separate ways. One last summer. They were all supposed to have one last summer. She'd bought plane tickets for her and Myles already, a post-trip surprise. She'd imagined the look on his face a million times.

She hadn't bought anything for Wyatt, yet. It seemed presumptuous. She had ideas, though. She'd brainstormed all alone, not wanting to drag Myles into a conversation he obviously didn't ever want to have. That was okay, though. She'd think of something.

He never seemed like he needed much. He'd always seemed so untouchable. Like nothing could ever hurt him.

Myles was quiet, but she knew he knew. She wasn't crying, or at least, she wasn't crying the way she'd expected to. There were tears, streaming down her face, her body was shaking so hard she felt like Myles would have to hold her together, but there was no sobbing, no wails of anguish, she was too tired. Something vital had drained out of her. Myles's heartbeat kept its rhythm underneath her. It was everything she had.

"I can't do this."

Garren was there, she heard him, she didn't look up. She was supposed to be embarrassed, that he was seeing her like this. She couldn't imagine caring.

"I can't do this anymore, Myles!"

Her voice broke on his name.

"Yeah you can."

You know, this was not the kind of conversation Myles wanted to have while he was lying in the dirt, with Ivy crying against his chest and Garren reminding them that he existed by awkwardly standing over them. It was easier to be annoyed about that.

His voice came out scratchy, because he was still dehydrated and it wasn't like he could soak in some moisture from Ivy crying on him or anything. But it was steady. Detached. The annoyance was a slight undercurrent, nothing more than that, but it was there.

He'd had expected her to be upset, but not to say something like that. Over who? Wyatt? Of course Myles knew that it was over Wyatt, but still- Wyatt? Wyatt was where Ivy was going to decide she had to give up? Obviously Wyatt was going to die. Honestly, Myles was a little surprised he hadn't been the first Carter to go. He still wasn't sure if it was some secret smarts on Wyatt's end or just luck that Bret had gone down first. He'd been more surprised than anything that neither of them had killed anyone.

Myles sat up, bringing Ivy with him. He hugged her, loosely, resting his chin on her shoulder. "You're going to be fine," he said, and it wasn't reassurance so much as- as an order, almost.

She could be upset. He had no reason to take that from her. She deserved her feelings. But she wasn't giving up. Ivy giving up meant that she was leaving Myles alone, and that wasn't happening, and he wasn't thinking about whatever happened to her after she gave up. There was no reason to think about it. It wasn't happening.

Myles closed his eyes and just listened to her unsteady breathing for a minute. There was nothing to look at besides Garren, and honestly, Myles wasn't ready to start having some kind of bonding moment with him over the fact that Ivy was falling apart and they weren't so far.

Oh, Jesus Christ, this was not something he was equipped to deal with first thing in the morning.

Garren took a huge step back, eyes wide in alarm, as Ivy cried out in despair, burying her face into Myles chest. He didn’t need to see her face to know just how badly she was crying. Myles didn’t seem as taken aback as he was, but there was no way this was a normal occurrence. This wasn’t the confident, prideful, attractive-and-fully-aware-of-it Ivy that everybody knew and hated. This was an Ivy who’d been knocked down a peg, and then kicked down several more.

Evidently, something on the announcements had set her off like this, but Garren couldn’t tell what. Her best friend was still alive; she couldn’t be closer to him at this point. Her boyfriend… her boyfriend was already dead. But she hadn’t been in such a hopeless state when she’d first confronted Garren last night. So who, then? Was it the brother? Had she been close with both Carters? One of the other dead? Or maybe he was thinking about it the wrong way. Maybe she was close to one of the killers, utterly devastated that they’d gone towards the goal the terrorists had pushed on them.

He had absolutely no clue who it could be, and good Christ was he curious to find out. But it wasn’t his place to pry. Not now. Maybe not ever, if she wanted to keep her cards held close to her chest. He wasn’t prepared to deal with Ivy’s breakdown, so there was no sense in trying to do so. If he said anything, it’d probably make the situation worse. Why try and fix something when you were missing half the tools, and also you were a high school student expected to do brain surgery?

Garren wavered, raised his hand, then ran it through his hair. He turned, walked back over to the log, sat down, and waited.

"You don't—"

—understand.

But that was her fault, not his. Not as though she'd ever made any real effort to tell Myles how she'd felt, not that she'd ever believe he'd have taken her seriously if she had. It would have been a little melodramatic of her, wouldn't it, to have declared she was in love with a boy she'd basically just started spending time with, what, three months ago? She'd said she was in love with Bret, too, when he'd first asked her out, because it sounded romantic, because she liked rolling the word on her tongue, because it felt like she was supposed to say, because she'd been an idiot. She had never said it to him, in that serious way, because then, suddenly, it would have meant far too much. She kept it to herself. It made it easier to discard when it no longer suited her.

Wyatt was different. And she could hear those words in her own voice, spoken to Myles in another world, she could hear him laugh. Not malicious, just tired. Why should things be different this time? The brothers were basically interchangeable to Myles. What should he care? So she didn't bother him. If things worked out, somehow, if some miracle happened, she could explain then, what she saw in him, why she trusted him the way she couldn't trust almost anyone, why she felt safe in his arms, but nothing ever went right anyway, so she might as well let it be.

Things hadn't worked out. Not for anyone. Too late for that conversation, now. It wasn't like it mattered.

Even if she could make him understand, what right did she have to let that break her? She'd heard Myles's stories. She hadn't watched the boy she'd loved die in front of her. This was better than that, at least, right? Not as good as false hope, but better than having been there? She didn't know. At least she could have said something, at least she could have done something, maybe, but probably she'd be dead too, so. Myles had made a clean break, maybe, or else he'd shoved his feelings so far down he couldn't find them again if he tried, and that was what she was supposed to do, she knew, she could hear it in his voice.

She knew that voice. Blunt and edged in irritation. She didn't know it from Myles, though.

"Sorry," she murmured, cutting herself off, "I'm sorry," she wasn't responding to his words so much as his tone, backtracking, capitulating, she could feel herself instinctively shrinking back from his arms even as she tried to resist the impulse. It wasn't his fault. He didn't want to hurt her.

He was trying to help. She understood. She'd have to bury herself, too. She could figure that out.

But she kept trembling.

Myles's eyes were already closed, but he squeezed them shut even tighter. They always had their give and take, the tug-of-war where one of them went too far and the other pulled them back. This shouldn't be different, but Ivy had never apologized like that. Not to him.

Myles tried not to hate people, because that was just so much work, but sometimes it was impossible to avoid. There were exactly two categories of people that he hated: people who hurt him, and people who hurt Ivy.

Christopher Langley, Ivy's dad, was the first person that Myles could ever remember hating in his life. He'd barely even acknowledged Myles's existence, much less interacted with him directly enough to have insulted him or whatever, and that stung because Myles knew why he was being written off by that jerk, but that wasn't why. It was the way he talked to Ivy. The way the light inside of her went out whenever he was around. The way she apologized, because Ivy wasn't the type of person who apologized for anything.

She was never supposed to talk to Myles in that tone of voice.

"Don't be sorry," he muttered. Garren had revealed that he had at least one working brain cell left and had given them some distance, but Myles lowered his voice anyway. He opened his eyes and pulled back just enough to cup Ivy's face in his hands. "Just don't... say things like that. You're going to be okay. You can keep going."

You're not allowed to leave me like this, he didn't say, because she knew that as essentially as she knew that he couldn't do that to her either.

Myles looked like himself, despite everything. He was himself. Ivy would never see her father again, even if she did make it home. He'd probably written her off as dead the moment the buses disappeared. That was probably for the best.

You're going to be okay.

Sure. She wasn't dead, she guessed. She hadn't even known what she had meant, what this was in I can't do this anymore even was. Living was the most obvious answer, and a stupid one; she wasn't going to go hang herself for anyone, no matter how she felt about them. This game made more sense, like she had a choice that didn't involve dying, like she could opt out with anything short of a bullet through her head, it was an equally stupid impulse but one that resonated with her. She didn't want to die. She wanted to go home, but she didn't want to go home, not really, because outside of her precious Lion there was no one back home who'd want her there. Gyu-ri, maybe. Keisha. They might have platitudes. She couldn't imagine they'd offer much else.

She just wanted this to have not happened. She just wanted to go back, tip off the drivers, call the cops, fuck, just tell the people who mattered to stay home, what did she really care if most of her senior class vanished. What she didn't want to do anymore was be this version of herself, with a bunch of dead friends and a broken rib and a rapidly growing headache from crying, stuck on an island that wanted her dead. Because—

Because she couldn't wrap her head around it, still. Because she'd seen corpses, blood and puke and maggots and the feeling of a knife sinking between bones and she still couldn't comprehend it, it still felt like a nightmare or some kind of sick simulation she'd been trapped in, some hopeless part of her mind still occupied with the summer, with all her plans, all her ideas, travel, Duke, just long nights with Myles drinking wine and laughing, she kept grasping at that future, blindly, the one she'd been promised.

She'd be okay, yeah. She had to keep going. She had to keep going with nothing to walk toward. Myles was the only motivation she had, but she could follow him. She'd think of something else. There had to be something else. Even if all she had in the end was spite, it was still something.

She just had to wake up first.

"Yeah," she murmured. "Yeah, I know."

Please, don't leave me, she didn't say, because she'd left enough of her dignity soaked into his shirt.

Myles wished he had something on hand to wipe her tears away. He'd long since bundled his jacket into his bag because it was way too hot to wander around wearing a leather jacket out here, but it wasn't the right material to go rubbing on someone's face anyway. He wasn't even sure if she'd like him to do that, or if she would prefer to do it herself.

Instead, he hugged her properly. Gently, because she was still beaten and bruised physically, no matter what shape her emotions were in.

"I love you," he whispered, because he didn't know what else to say. Because Ivy needed someone to say it, because she had to know that she was the only person he'd mean it for, and he was the only person who mattered that could actually say it to her. Wyatt hadn't loved her. Bret hadn't loved her. Myles did. He could be sappy for a second if it would get her back on her feet.