Survival Of The Fittest

...She didn't know why she ran.

As soon as Katelynne made it back to the first tree, the bullet rain returned. She pressed her back so deep into the tree they were one and the same; every shot ran down her spine.

She couldn't move. She couldn't peer around the tree again. She was paralyzed, rooted down.

She shut down. Just like she always did.

This was too much for her. Just like it always was.

Contradict your own resolutions and go back to the sad, scared little girl you always are. Let everyone talk over you. Let everyone keep making decisions for you.

Run along, now, kid. It's the only thing you're ever good at. Can't even finish what you started. Can't take care of yourself, gotta let everyone else give you an escape route. Look at what good Daria bailing you out twice did for her.

...

...No.

She was gonna do it.

She was gonna take care of Erika. For Princess. For Lucas. For Tyrell. For Yuka and her sisters. For Daria.

For herself.

...Resolutions or not, though, this didn't solve her problem of getting shot at. Erika was way too good... who the David and who the Goliath was was clear here. If only Katelynne had been more careful about moving around; seemed like she had so much trouble finding her from her perch before through all the thickets, but now it was too late.

Regardlees, she needed a way to flank Erika. That was the only way she was gonna get any sort of upperhand. If only she was faster... she could move along the flat road or creep through the forest before Erika even realized what hit her. But that was step two and three, when step one was a real pickle.

If only she had another miracle. A real one, this time.

A roar like a lion leaping for her throat. A slash of scarlet agony in her head, feverishly bright. An explosion of pain and mortal terror that blacked out her senses, the final curtain of final dark drawing down upon her.

I don't want to die.

Fucking Christ, Daria, that's all you've got? Shot in the god damn head, that's your last deep interlude? You really gonna leave your fans hanging like that?

I don't want to die I don't want to die I don't want to die

Of course you don't want to die. That's the lever, remember? The whole reason they've got people playing the game. People like Blaise, trying to convince herself that the collar on her neck excuses her actions. People like Quinn, trying to pretend they're an unleashed beast rather than a scared dog snapping at everyone around them. People like...whoever the fuck shot you.

Never even saw them.

You didn't see them, but they saw you. Running pell-mell towards a gunfight with a bat in hand, shouting for them to stop, and they gunned you down without a word, without a warning. This person is a cold soul--maybe even colder than Blaise.

They killed me.

You're awfully chatty for a dead girl.

I'm dying.

You were always dying, Daria. Even before the island. Life's just counting down the seconds 'til you're dead. Maybe it's closer now than it was before, but that was always the deal.

I can't do anything.

You can.

Carrie. Tony. Aliya. Steph.

And Willow?

She doesn't want to live.

She's made it this far. So have you.

It's over.

So what if it is? It was always over, Daria. Over and over, you've been asking yourself the same question. What are you gonna do with the time you got? And if it's finally run out, how do you want to die? Face-down in the dirt? So the people who did this get away with it?

A spasm of fear, of anger, of righteous outrage, of indignation, all surfing on a wave of pure adrenaline so intense it was almost orgasmic, and lightning crashed across the darkness and Daria jerked herself back into reality. She was shaking from head-to-toe, her body shuddering with emotions and chemicals that rocked her like a storm. A throb of red pain crashed with tsunami force against her resurgent consciousness and her hands clutched at the right side of her head, felt her own blood oozing between her fingers, thick and warm and sticky.

A rattle of gunfire, steady and percussive, like an exuberant marching band practicing nearby. Daria flinched in on herself, expecting another rattle of pain. None came. The gunfire wasn't aimed at her.

So who was it aimed at?

Kate.

Kate, who Daria had found unconscious with Quinn murderous above her. Kate, who Daria had tried to help with the first thunder of gunfire in her ears, where Carrie had pulled her trigger. Kate, who had been lost days ago, who Daria had long since given up for dead. Another name to add to the litany of her failures.

But Kate was alive. Daria was alive. And the asshole who had shot her--the asshole who was, even now, raining death down on Kate--must be alive, too.

Her hands snapped down from her throbbing head, pushed down into the dirt beneath her. This time, the throb of pain was also of vertigo, her head swimming drunkenly on her neck, and she almost fell down again. She closed her eyes, locked her knees, brought herself up on hands and knees. Her fumbling hands flinched back from something sharp. When she creaked open tear-strewn eyes, she saw the bat in front of her.

Wasting your seconds, Daria. Kate's, too.

Daria closed her eyes. One deep breath, in and out.

She scrambled to her feet and snatched up her bat again in one mad, staggering heave; her head swayed on her shoulders, her torso on her hips, every joint in her seemed rubbery and weak and barely hanging on, she was nauseous with pain and dizziness and terror but she still had that wave of fire riding from the balls of her feet to the aching skin of her palms to the tingling skin of her scalp and she had the sound of gunfire to guide her, and so she lurched and stumbled and leapt like a newborn dear, every mad motion she could manage to keep her feet and keep her moving-

There. A tall, wild-haired, skinny figure, a mad scare-crow with gun in hand, a Batman villain in the flesh, and the sight of them gave Daria an extra burst of rage, an extra burst of strength. One, two, three more quick steps. On the last, Daria almost fell, over an exposed root, cried out as she stumbled, and then turned her cry of surprise into a battlecry, and her stumble into a leap.

If anyone had time to see her, she would have cut a mad figure herself; her dark hair was thick and stringy with grease, her clothing mucked with dirt from her fall. A curtain of blood fell down the right side of her face from the groove the bullet had cut in an angle just above her right temple, and now she was jumping like a god damn trapeze artist as she swung her bat for all she was worth at her would-be murderer.

"HEY, ASSHOLE!"

The mistake wasn't Katelynne's to make, it seemed. Two in the chest, one in the head was what she told herself she'd do to stop someone. Erika had been so caught up in conserving ammunition she'd taken the other girl falling as sign enough to turn around, and try to finish what she'd started with Katelynne. Her mind was full of numbers; how much ammunition she had left, how much ammunition Katelynne might've had left, how many other people were still out there who might've been drawn to this sudden gunfight on the road. Erika never could just focus on one thing, or solve just one problem at one time. It always had to be everything at once, every little detail.

So when she turned and heard Daria shouting, and saw the baseball bat careening towards her chest, all she found in that moment was time to let out a stunted yelp before the wind was knocked out of her lungs. The impact sent Erika sprawling towards the ground, wheezing, her arms clawing at the mess of deadfall she'd been taking cover behind. The pistol must've slipped out of her grasp, as she found herself scrabbling up from the forest floor with both hands empty.

She wasn't existing in every moment. Only milliseconds of lucidity, broken up by dark spots in her vision and the new, buzzing pain radiating from her shoulder. The sling of the Martini-Henry pulled viciously across her neck as she tried to scramble to her feet, the bulk of the rifle lying uselessly underneath her.

Finally able to take in a breath, she looked up to see her attacker moving again. Blood was pouring down the side of the girl's face, from what looked like a graze across the side of her head. The first hit had been in spite of that. The second was more deliberate, and Erika saw it coming.

Ultimately, that didn't mean much. Raising an arm to try and deflect the bat, she felt several of the nails plunge into her left forearm. The momentum of the bat pulled her arm across her chest, further exacerbating the pain from the first hit. The full breath Erika took was let out as a scream, as much in agony as it was in defiance.

The only numbers on Erika's mind were the seconds she had to buy herself before Katelynne knew what was going on and acted. Wet, bloodshot eyes bored into Daria's own; with one arm still somewhat attached to the bat, Erika reached up with the other and grabbed hold of the weapon.

...That voice!

Katelynne peered around the tree again.

This was-

...Can't get a clear shot from here.

...

The clock was ticking.

And she made her move.

Dizzy with pain, dizzy with rage, careening wildly through the air like a child who'd bounced too enthusiastically upon a bed, already swinging the bat with all her remaining might. The murderous scarecrow whirled around with guns raised-

Smashed off her feet, so she hit the ground with a startled yelp, and Daria stood above her, the bat raised for a second strike-

And recognized the girl lying at her feet.

Erika fucking Stieglitz. Shouldn't have worked. As a person, Daria should have found her inherently ridiculous, and instead she'd just found her inherently cool. Like someone's indie darling had just walked off the movie screen and into George Hunter. Not much overlap, given their interests, but they'd sometimes orbited the same interesting people, and Erika always had the luster that the barely-known and eminently cool had from afar.

Erika fucking Stieglitz, whose name Daria had heard on the Announcements more times than she could count. Erika Stieglitz, who had seen Daria, heard her shout, and shot her down without a thought. Had she killed more people than Blaise?

"You mother FUCKER!" Daria screamed, and smashed her bat down with all the forces in her arms before this unforgivable monster. Erika snapped up her arm, seemed to grab it by (through?) the nails, wrenching her arm away from her chest. With a defiant scream, Erika's other arm snapped to the bat, fighting to pry it from Daria's grasp. Daria's grip was weak, her head spinning, but rage blotted out all of that. This murderous fucking cunt had killed so many people. She had tried to kill her. And she was screaming like she was allowed to be outraged?

"I wasn't your fucking enemy, Erika!" Daria roared, fighting for the bat, eager to crush her skull and put an end to her. "I was begging you to stop and you fucking shot me you fucking MONSTER!"

The nails kept digging into her arm. There was no way to tell how deep, in the confusion, no nuance to the white-hot burning sensation radiating from where the bat had dug in. It just hurt. Every time Daria tugged at it, every time Erika pulled back, it felt like it was burying itself in her flesh anew.

There was no letting go, no allowing herself to falter for even a moment. Erika’s eyes were fixed open, staring down Daria as if she could survive this encounter on strength of feeling alone.

That is, until Daria spoke. Words Erika had heard before, but absent a context that made any sense. The landscape of her own mind was decorated with trauma and vast, empty rifts where her humanity used to be; even still, Erika shot Daria a look of disbelief at the deranged things she was shouting down at her.

wasn’t my enemy?

“You-” Erika sputtered out, cut off as Daria tugged back at the bat.

i am your enemy. So is katelynne. So is anyone left.

“You’re-” She tugged back at the bat, the nails halfway free of her forearm. The pain stole the breath from Erika’s throat.

what did you expect?

“My enemy?” The nails pulled free from Erika’s arm. She twisted the bat towards her; now, the two of them were nearly at eye level.

“You aren’t anything else.” She hissed.

Erika wrenched the bat downwards, dragging Daria to the ground.

Dizziness was electric now, like Erika and Daria were dancing, whirling each other around as they clung desperately to the same bat. Steph's bat. Steph, beaten and shot by a monster who Daria should have killed, whether it was in the bathroom or when they'd first made eye contact in the first bright dawning of Daria's supposed revelation.

Monster. She kept coming back to that word. She didn't want to. She'd wanted Carrie to be wrong. She'd wanted the demons Carrie saw in Quinn's eyes to be mere delusion. She'd wanted Quinn's embrace of those demons to be cowardice. And maybe it still was. Maybe it was the act of a fearful, spiteful child to kill others just to keep your self alive. Blaise, Quinn, Erika, cowards one and all.

But still monsters. Still killers. Worth not a shred of pity.

Erika was confirming that now, madness blazing in her eyes, spitting shrill, hateful denials. She wrenched the bat free of her arm, so blood spattered against Daria's face. Her grip on it firmed up, and she gave an almighty wrench that brought Daria, dizzy and exhausted, to her knees. She'd almost lost her grip.

"You aren't anything else," the monster hissed.

"You're right," Daria panted, fighting for control. "I'm gonna kill you, Erika. Because you."

Her grip tigthened on the bat.

"Shot."

She staggered to her feet, and gave an extra surge of strength.

"Me."

Her eyes locked with Erika, blazing with every ounce of her rage.

"You."

She let go of the bat.

"COWARD!"

And, in the instant of imabalance that must follow the sudden, unexpected end to their lethal game of tug-of-war, Daria tackled her.

That was all it took, it seemed. There was something curiously validating about seeing it happen - someone goes from calling someone a monster to making the same choice said monster made. Killing, because to do so otherwise would’ve been tantamount to suicide. Kill or die, kill or die, the words seemed never far from Erika’s mind, from the very moment she’d seen Ms. Garcia shot dead. It had been close enough that Erika was able to smell the blood and the gunpowder. The way she’d reacted to all of this could be what anyone wanted to call it. To her it was the only thing that made sense.

What Daria was doing now - that made sense to Erika, in a way the girl’s words didn’t.

The path from where Daria pulled Erika upwards back to the ground wasn’t far. Nevertheless, the impact felt like it came at the end of a much longer fall. Someone might’ve said this was a long time coming, that she’d find herself here again. Overextended, burnt out. Worn down. Exhausted, mentally and physically. Beaten.

Someone said all of that to Erika. A voice, one of a few that spoke to her. It wasn’t the voice she wanted to use though. It wasn’t hers. It only cut in between the furious, wild strikes that Daria managed to land on Erika’s face. Some hit their mark squarely, others felt more like the girl was trying to claw her eyes out.

Erika understood. She’d been there before. She’d been in this place before, watching someone try and take pieces of her away. Now there were only so few left to take. Erika raised her left arm to try and block the punches, while her right dug down into a pocket.

A strike landed on the nail wound. Blood was pouring from Erika’s nose, and more of it spattered onto her face from the mess of her forearm. Daria’s hands, her face, they were streaked in red. The look in her eyes was familiar; Erika had worn it before. The girl would tear her to pieces if she had the strength and the time.

As her left hand spasmed in pain, the right seized on a familiar lump of steel. Erika could see it in her mind’s eye better than she could see anything else. Once again raising her injured arm, she grabbed a fistful of Daria’s shirt. The girl’s hands closed around Erika's throat, both slick with blood. She had seconds, only just enough of an opening.

Erika swung her right arm in an arc, putting all she had into burying the butterfly knife between Daria’s ribs.

Still like dancing, dizzy and mad, except it was not bliss or the electric thrill of being young and alive and in motion that made her scalp tingle and her bones sing but rage, rage so hot and bright it obliterated pain and weakness. She smashed into Erika, flailing at her, clawing for her face and smashing aside her feeble, failed defenses.

There would no forgiveness, no pity, no second chances. Erika had shot a defenseless, unaware woman, and was utterly unashamed.

Justice. That was what Daria had promised Steph for Blaise. And Erika was even worse: Blaise hadn't shot her down without so much as a word. Blaise had been willing to talk. Still monstrous. But different.

All this pulsed through Daria in time with the pounding of her aching, clawing hands. There was no plan. There was just Quinn, just Blaise, just Erika, just a need to finally, finally put one of these fucking monsters down.

Erika raised her wounded arm, and Daria drove both fists against it in a wet hot spurt of spraying blood. She fell back and Daria fell upon her, half-blind with blood in her eyes. Her hands found Erika's throat as the girl's hand knotted in her dusty, blood-drenched flannel shirt. Her glaring eyes, tinted scarlet, locked with Erika's. Even as Erika socked a solid blow into her ribs, Daria's grip was tightening. Justice. Just once. Just...

A throb of cold, right where Erika had punched her, sucking the strength from her hands. Daria blinked, shook her head, and the little shake set off a wave of redoubled dizziness, so Daria almost toppled off of Erika. She stumbled backwards, barely keeping her feet.

Why did it hurt like this? Daria, still staggering backwards with spinning steps, reached a confused hand for the throbbing icicle in her side. Then her fingers flinched back from cold metal, wet with blood.

Stabbed her. She'd stabbed her.

(A stab and a wound)

She laughed weakly, her dark-rimmed eyes searching the hazy distance for Erika. There she was, bent over, rising up again with a gun in her hand.

Daria's back slapped against a tree. She almost fell, but locked her knees and braced her back against the trunk. It seemed terribly important that she stay standing.

"You poor, stupid bitch," Daria breathed, as the world lurched in and out of shadow "There's no escape for you. Even...even if you're...the last...every...one at home..." Focus god damn it are you gonna die without letting her know exactly who she is? "Gonna know...what you are." Her legs trembled beneath her; she struggled to stay upright, gritting her teeth in an expression somewhere between a grin and snarl.

Erika didn’t have enough strength to follow up, to draw the knife back out and plunge it in again like she’d done to Demetri. Still, it was enough. She could see the reaction in Daria, the way the wound sapped the strength from her. As Daria stumbled back, Erika watched a dark stain spread through the red flannel where the knife was still embedded.

She took a deep breath in, the taste of blood coating the back of her throat. Tears and blood ran together down the side of her face, and as she wiped them away she saw they’d mixed with the ashen warpaint she’d applied around her eyes. Erika imagined she looked a whole lot like she felt. The blood streaming down her left arm and the numb feeling running up it brought back painful memories, of cradling a broken arm in a dark ravine at night, of how it hurt when he tried to breathe, and how she wondered if anyone was going to find her there. She’d never meant to fall; she just wanted to get a better look at the place. Those woods had been a good place to run to, back home. They felt quiet, even though they were anything but.

From the sounds of things, Daria wasn’t done; Erika could hear her, struggling to stand. Katelynne was out of view, but that didn't mean much lying on the ground. It would’ve been the smart thing to do, but Erika didn't expect Katelynne had just left the two of them to waste each other. She didn't seem the type to.

“Fuck you.”

Erika cursed under her breath as she stumbled to her feet, finding her pistol which had fallen nearby. The act of bending down to pick it up nearly sent Erika back to her knees. All throughout, she kept looking back at Daria. Watched her fall back into a tree, watched her refuse to fall.

The girl kept going just the same as Erika did. As Diego and Kelly had. Daria had just as much strength as any of those who’d killed to get this far, but Erika couldn’t remember ever hearing her name on the announcements.

Turning aside for a moment and spitting blood towards the ground, she looked up to hear Daria, still standing, laughing even. Spitting out condemnation, with a knife in her side. It was okay to hate people who tried to kill you, who were about to kill you. Erika knew the feeling.

Erika shook her head and offered a half-shrug.

“Sure, but whatever comes next-”

She reached with her left hand to pull the slide back slightly on the pistol. The deep red of blood easily filled into grooves in the metal. There was a round in the chamber, though Erika had lost count of how many were waiting underneath it.

“- is mine, and mine alone.”

As she raised the pistol one-handed at Daria, Erika heard the snap of dry brush under foot.

Erika's eyes widened. Her gun was pointed in the wrong direction, and the words she just spoke suddenly took on a meaning she didn't intend or want.

Gotcha.

It took a bullet to the inside of her shoulder to do it, but the bloody, battered Goliath finally came crashing down. Straight back, and right on her left side.

This was the third time she’d been shot. The first was a slow pellet of buckshot, a localized injury. It became so much more over the days that followed. The second felt like it was a direct hit, at least at first. Turned out it didn’t hit dead on, but there was just cold and heat and the sudden feeling like a piece of her was missing and it happened to be the part that held in a whole lot of blood. Yet back then, she remembered the feeling of falling. Erika heard the bullets pass by, the ones that didn’t hit her. The one that did merely landed with a muffled thud.

This time, she didn’t remember falling. One moment there was Katelynne, and her rifle, and the look in her eyes that signaled what was coming. Then Erika heard the shot, the bullet fairly ripped through her shoulder, and she was on the ground.

It was the same feeling as before, and yet so much worse. For the second time in this whole encounter she found herself struggling to breathe, but it wasn’t so much like being winded as it was the feeling of her entire body seizing up.

Blinking back into reality, Erika let out a stifled scream that came out as barely a whimper. Regaining her breath, she cried out again, unable to muster any other reaction at first. Something about it helped, at least a little.

This wasn’t unfamiliar ground to tread, she reminded herself. She’d been here before. Hands had been around her throat, knives had been brandished at her, bullets had passed through the air around her mere inches from her head. Each time she’d found a way out. Each time she was one fatal slip-up away from the abyss.

None of those close calls felt like this. She knew the next one was going to be one too many.

Yet she’d always found a way, before. The only reason she’d die is if she gave up, she told herself. She wasn’t going to give up.

Bullets didn’t care much for how much willpower a person had, or how determined they were not to die. Organs didn’t fail because people gave up on them, they failed when people had too many holes punched in their bodies.

The way out was through, always. There were still options. No matter how much pain, no matter how much she lost, if there was a path that led home it wasn’t even a choice to take it. If there was still time, she had to live it.

Erika had this coming. This was where she should’ve met her death, given all she’d done. Someone was going to get her eventually, or she won. Nothing else made sense. That was what she kept telling herself. It wasn’t like this possibility had been lost on her. Reminding herself over and over that this was something that could happen, it was supposed to prepare her for it. It was supposed to make it make sense. Live and die by the gun. Meet her death with dignity, having fought to the end.

Fight to the end. She still felt alive. Pain, breathlessness, the sight of the overcast sky above, that was all living. Knowing there was twenty feet between her and someone intent on killing her, at most, that was living. It was everything. Any way she could fight back, she knew she had to. Nothing else made sense.

Hubris. It was stubborn, arrogant even to think there was anything left to do. It’s not like everyone she killed had simply been lacking in resolve. Erika had shot and stabbed and poisoned them. Only one of them just let it happen, but it wasn’t like he wanted to die. He just wanted this to be over. Letting it end would’ve been enough. She fought, and she lost. That sounded right, didn’t it?

Erika didn’t want to die staring up at the sky. She wanted to fight until the very last second. Nothing else made sense. She had to. There was no other option. She had to. There was never any option. If she was fighting back, she wasn’t thinking about what she was fighting back against. It wasn’t over if she was still fighting. The end wasn’t an exit, she’d told herself that before. She was right. Nothing else made sense.

Kill or die.

Maybe both. Diego suggested he didn’t want to let the person who killed him leave the island. At the time she wasn’t sure she agreed.

Things looked a bit different from here.

Erika clenched the fist on her right hand. The left wouldn’t close all the way, and moving anything above the elbow on that arm was a special kind of agony.

Looking to her side, she saw the mess where the bullet had punched through her shoulder. Moving her right leg, she felt it brush against the pistol. It was too far to reach, at least quickly enough that Katelynne wouldn’t just shoot her again. The knife was still stuck in Daria, if Daria had the good sense not to pull it out. Wouldn’t have been much of an option anyways. The Martini-Henry...

Wasn’t where Erika expected to find it.

The familiar tension around the back of her neck was missing. The strap on the rifle had slipped over her head when she fell, and it was lying limply over her head. The rifle itself was next to her now, parallel to her right side. Within reach. She’d slung it barrel-side down, to keep dirt and water out of the bore. Just good practice for maintaining her weapon's longevity.

And my own.

Her hand wrapped around the handle of the Martini-Henry, slowly. One shot was all she’d have. Close enough all she didn’t have to aim the gun so much as point it.

It had been maybe less than a minute since she fell. Katelynne wasn’t finishing it. Daria wasn’t finishing it. Maybe they thought she was done. Maybe they didn’t have the resolve to do it, or the willpower.

Neither were enough to survive this.

Watch me, you bastards.

Erika took a moment to picture something she wanted to see, to live in a memory for a moment. There wasn’t much time. The memory would have to be a simple one.

Waking up next to him. Happy that there was nowhere else the two of them had to be. It was still so easy to entertain the thought of all of this as one long, terrible nightmare.

Suddenly, Erika sat up halfway, drawing the rifle off the ground as she did so. She pointed it at Katelynne and fired, the weapon quickly falling from her grasp as the recoil laid her low in agony.

Katelynne watched as Erika fell. She just stood there, frozen in place and frozen in time with the rifle pointed right at her all the way to the ground. Teeth gritted. Hands shaking. Not out of fear, but with pride. Everything was still hazy from the smoke of war and gunfire, but Erika fell. Katelynne knew.

How Erika felt right now, that humiliation, that despair as she crashed down from the sun? Bet that was what Lucas felt. Bet that was what Yuka felt. Bet that was what all of her victims felt.

So Katelynne just stood there. No grins, no sobs, no nothing. Her finger slid on the trigger. The humane thing to do would've probably been to just shoot her again, and again, maybe again. Let her flop around like a fish for a bit first.

More importantly, Daria. With the rifle still pointed at Erika, Katelynne looked towards her instead. So much blood.... you could taste the copper in the air alone. She opened her mouth to speak, only to let out a loud yelp as gunfire rang out again.

Her hands flinched and dropped the rifle as it cracked, banged, and boomed apart with a flash and an intense roar that shook the woods. Shrapnel and bullets tore through the smoke and lashed everything they touched, face, arms, chest, and all.

And she fell.

BANG

It's awfully hard to stare poignantly down the barrel of a gun when you have a knife in your ribs, but Daria had given it the best effort she could, with the world spinning, a handful of wounds, and someone else's blood in her eyes. Erika loomed distantly in the fading world, gun in hand and hateful words upon her lips. Daria heaped all the scorn she could manage into her glare. She would keep to her feet. She would keep her eyes open. She didn't know why those things mattered, but at this moment, they mattered more than anything.

But when the gunshot cracked the air, and Daria's eyes flinched (but did not close, would not close, she would live as long as she was fucking able), there was no new pain. And in the hazy distance, Erika stood no more. Daria blinked, risked looking down at her body, found no new wounds (besides the bullet groove above her temple and the knife whose comical wagging stirred fresh fractures of pain with every jostle). When she managed to look up again, there was another figure. Dimly familiar. Looking at her.

BANG

The thunder knocked her off of her feet, sent her tumbling into the grass with her eyes squinted shut. She hilt of the knife jarred against the tree as she toppled, and it was the fresh crack of pain in her side that jolted her upright again. Acrid smoke and the singing of hot metal filled her nose. The world was dim and shadowy.

"Kate?" Daria cried, fumbling forwards on hands and knees, barely able to see. "Kate!"