“Look, Zeus is a deadbeat. Don’t rely on him for anything.”

[D/N]

Because as it was, something as simple as an announcement made it real.

Throats getting sliced open and skulls getting stomped.

"Piper's dead?" she muttered to no one. Cross off one of only five other people she'd seen on the island so far. And she ruminated on that in the pause for a moment before the next name went on and she just went blank.

Cause Spike had been one of her best friends.

And he was dead on Day 1.

Trinity chick had spoke up.

"What do I think?"

Fey didn't like either of them. S...

"Fuck it."

It fell out of here, and Fey felt she needed to back it up.

"Just... fuck it," she finished lamely.

She was burning up inside. She was starting to hyperventilate. Couldn't do that. Not in front of these two.

Because she had to do something, and she was way too fucked and way too stupid right now to figure out what it was.

(Fey Zelenka-Morrison continued elsewhere)

[Deamon]

California bit at her lip as the details of the previous day were read out. Kitty appeared twice, her second murder happened after she had run away. California wondered if that was her fault, if she had followed her friend would she have been able to stop a death? California didn't know, she didn't even know if she would have been able to catch up with Kitty. One of her hands went up to her head to slowly, forcefully scratch just above her ear, as if she was trying to peel the skin back.

Trinity asked them about the announcement, what they thought of it. California looked at the girl and then at Fey. She made no outward move to respond. Fey spoke up instead, filling the silence momentarily before departing.

A low groan came from California's throat as the other girl disappeared out the door.

It just left her and Trinity.

She glanced over at Trinity then looked back at the doorway. When Fey didn't reappear she shifted in her position in the corner. The silence extended longer.

"I don't know," She eventually mumbled leaving another gap as she chose her words. "Nothing good."

"What do you think?"

[Pippi]

Fey gave a strange, incoherent non-answer, before she stormed off, out of the listening station and out of their hair.

Trinity watched her leave.

God, but if only it had been that simple.

Because for all that she had seemed so separated and detached from her surroundings while the announcements played, an impassive observer noting down facts rather than feelings, at the instant that Fey spoke up with the tiniest hint of edge to her voice, her attention was wholly undivided towards the other girl. She could feel the hair on the back of her neck prick up, her heartbeat grow in pace and power, her knuckles bleach white as her fingernails dug into her leggings.

Fey hadn’t even been particularly loud. Her voice hadn’t risen above a low muttering, her words hadn’t been directed at either Trinity or Callie. But there was just something about the way that she swore, some gut instinct from years of experience that told Trinity that she was about to make her problems somebody else’s. Trinity’s eyes locked onto her, following her like a hawk as she moved, watching as she stood up, strode towards the exit, and made her leave.

Thank Christ.

Trinity released the breath she’d been holding, tipped her head back, and stared up at the ceiling, pulse still struggling to come down from its racing pace. She could return to her previous focus, now, that of the question she had posed to the room as a whole, and not a moment too soon. Fey’s departure had been somewhat of a blessing in disguise; it meant Trinity didn’t have to conjure up her own reason why she was so desperate to split from the group. This event just now was proof enough; she simply, physically could not remain in the vicinity of that girl any longer. She was treading on eggshells just by existing in the same space as her, waiting on tenterhooks for something to happen.

Sooner or later the penny would have dropped. Instinct told her that it would be best for both of them that this day never ever happened.

“What do I think?”

She blinked, repeating Callie’s question to the roof of the room, trying to ignore the tremor that lingered in her voice, before shaking her head and looking around at the other girl, as if only just noticing her presence.

“Hmm.”

‘Nothing good’ was simultaneously both the most generic, non-committal answer someone could have given to her previous question, and yet also quite easily the most understandable. On the surface, after all, a list of the killers and the killed was exactly what it seemed to be. There was nothing natural or normal about that, particularly when the list contained the names of the people you had grown up and learned alongside. Doubtless hearing your closest companion’s name called out, on either side of the coin, would stir something drastic inside of yourself; that could well have explained Fey’s sudden reaction and hurried exit.

Mmm, no. No, no, no, that definitely didn’t sit right with Trinity. Not one goddamn bit.

“I think there’s much more to it than meets the eye.”

She started to drum her fingers against the floor, right hand tapping out an anxious-sounding rhythm, as she balled her free hand into a fist and pressed it against her cheek.

“Tell me something, Callie, how many of the people on that announcement do you think would have tried something? Tried to kill, I mean?”

She frowned, and locked eyes with the other girl.

“And how many do you know would have refused to get blood on their hands no matter how much duress they were put under?”

[Deamon]

California looked at Trinity as she spoke, and the follow-up question hung in the air for a moment before her gaze dropped to the floor, brow furrowed. Her consideration was focused on her friends. California didn't know that many people, she had purposefully avoided trying to know people. That had been the whole plan for her second attempt at senior year, get in and get out so she could move on with her life. She could have just gone a got a GED. That was what everyone said she should have done.

It looked like they had all been proven right. Although the reason why they were right was different from what they all meant. But the point was California didn't feel like she knew all the names enough to make judgments, although she wanted to think that people wouldn't have immediately started killing as soon as the chance presented itself. They were all being forced to live on the island until the end of the game and there was only one way for the game itself to end. But the truth was Kitty appearing on the list multiple times bothered her.

Eventually, she looked up and met Trinity's gaze.

"I don't know," She said, quietly, forcing herself to hold the eye contact. "I don't know if any of them would have."

[Pippi]

“It sounds wrong, doesn’t it?

There was an uncomfortable glimmer in Trinity’s eyes as Callie gave her response. The gleam of a dark star. The telltale sign that somebody, intentionally or not, had provided support to her theorycrafting, that she had been given the green light to go right ahead with her plan; no matter what that might be.

“That’s because it is.”

It wasn’t quite manic. But it was certainly on the verge of it. She had started, subconsciously, to lean forwards, shifting from sitting up with her legs stretched out in front of her, to resting on her knees, hands on her thighs, maintaining eye contact all the while.

“Back home, did you ever read anything about the broadcasts? Or, god forbid, actually watch them? I read that there was a delay before they were distributed to the public, a way for them to obscure when everything was actually going on and make it harder for anyone to launch a rescue attempt. That’s the whole point of what they’re doing, isn’t it? They’re trying to sow chaos and confusion, and who better to swallow half-truths and lies about their friends getting slaughtered than a group of teenagers with no survival training or experience living rough?”

She had gone over a day, now, without any sort of concrete goal, anything resembling an idea of what she needed to do to survive or what her purpose on the island had to be. She had spent the evening and the night that it had flowed into grasping at straws, and one of them had spun itself into gold. The initial kernel of an idea had fully blossomed into a theory, into conspiracy. She had needed something, anything, any idea to give her a frame of what was going on around herself, how she could manipulate and work with that to survive this, and now that she had it, she had grasped it tightly with both hands. And like hell she was about to let go.

“See, that, that’s the thing, I don’t think… I don’t think they’re lying about who’s died, or the number of people who have. Did you look at the map? This island is covered in cliffs and mountain faces, there’s a lake, the ocean has to be below freezing in this weather. People are going to mess up or wake up in places they’re not prepared for or get overconfident, and they’re going to drown or break their neck or freeze to death.”

Trinity had stood up now, pacing in short, tight circles from one side of the concrete room to the other, her gaze, if not her attention, ripped away from Callie as she spoke.

“But that’s not going to get the terrorists what they want, all that will cause is for people to smarten up and keep safe and warm. So what do they do? They tell us that they were all murders. All of them! Eleven people, all murdered! With nine different killers, nine, within 24 hours of waking up! No, no no no, I don’t buy it, I don’t think even the most intellectually deficient members of our class would be pushed to kill so quickly. But now, now, people are going to hear that their best friend is dead, or their girlfriend, or their brother, and not just dead, somebody they knew killed them, and that’s how the terrorists secure their objective, they feed us names to fear, and loathe, and hunt for. That Janice girl, she was pushy and rude and argumentative, of course she would be a likely culprit, wouldn’t she? Shu kills his girlfriend, Kitty kills her ex - what was going on behind the scenes with them? There must have been arguments, there must have been cracks that finally splintered in the worst possible way, the logic grows itself in people's heads. It’s all planned out, it’s all meticulous.”

She spun on her heels, facing California again, and there it was, there was the flash of mania in her eyes, the telltale sign whenever she had recovered from a death spiral by the skin of her teeth.

“It’s all fake. Everything on that announcement is a sham.”

[Deamon]

Trinity nodded and agreed with her. At least California thought she did. Then Trinity took her turn to respond, to continue explaining her ideas.

California, initially unsure, slowly started to lean back as Trinity got more excited and leaned forwards. As the other girl continued to speak California took a deep breath in as her heart rate picked up. She blinked and looked away as Trinity’s energy continued to increase.

The theory came tumbling out of mouth seemingly unprompted and Trinity seemed to grow more convinced of her own correctness as she continued to speak, the closest comparison was like a boulder rolling down the side of a mountain.

The more Trinity moved the more California froze in place, her eyes the only thing following the girls pacing. The words assembled as they were could have made sense. California could understand that much. They were comforting.

They were also untrue.

She started to bite her lip as Trinity’s performance reached its crescendo. The final point made with an exclamation mark. Delivered with certainty and a force of conviction California wished she could summon. Her teeth pinched a strip of skin and peeled it away. Her knees came up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Then, comfortable with her position she looked up at Trinity.

“Kitty did kill Robin, I saw it.”

[Pippi]

Give Trinity some measure of credit - Callie’s revelation only sent her reeling a few dozen steps back. Normally a bombshell of that magnitude sent her into a full-on unstoppable nosedive.

Oh, it was obvious that the other girl’s words had shaken her up, of course. What little colour remained in her face had drained away, leaving it a deathly pallor. Her eyes had widened dramatically, to the point that you could see the cracks around the edges that her mania had caused. She froze stock still, in an instant, as if one of the terrorists watching her through their shitty little cameras had paused the footage for a moment.

“You… you did?”

And, of course, she didn’t have an answer for that gap in her logic.

“Well…”

But she would.

“Well, that makes… sense…”

She had to.

“Because…”

This was the first and only thing she’d been able to make sense of on this godforsaken wasteland of an island, and if it wasn’t correct, then she was right back at square one, all the way back in that little storage cupboard with her knees pressed up to her chest, screaming her head off at anybody that came near. She couldn’t afford that, she couldn’t possibly become that far behind the curve, not when it mattered more than anything else in the world to her.

“Because, um…”

So think, think, think on your fucking feet for once in your goddamn life, try and find a way for this new piece of information to fit in with what you believe in, because your sanity does depend on it.

“...”

Of course. Of fucking course. No, it made perfect sense, it truly did.

“Because, well… that won’t be the only murder in which multiple people are going to bear witness, is it? If you make up the ‘facts’-”

Trinity made large, exaggerated air quotes with her fingers.

“-for every single death, then of course, of course people are going to start thinking ‘Wait, that isn’t true. My friend didn’t kill that person. I saw how that person died, and it wasn’t in this manner.’ They’ll blow away the smoke and they’ll drag out the mirrors, and the terrorists can’t afford for that to happen.”

It was what separated the amateur habitual liars from the ones who could fabricate so many details of their life that they all weaved neatly together, creating an impenetrable mask that allowed you to hide the parts of yourself you didn’t want the world to glimpse for as long as you desired. You had to slip in pieces of the truth every so often. Spout out a lie whenever you opened your mouth, and soon enough they would all tangle up into one Gordian knot, and expose everything that was supposed to be hidden beneath.

“So they’ll tell the truth with some deaths, deaths that occurred in groups, deaths that left behind survivors, so those, those witnesses, they won’t grow suspicious, they’ve already seen murder occur in front of their eyes, they’re the ones most likely to believe anything that this ‘Danya’ says going forwards, and, and of course, those original murderers, the ones whose crimes were captured in full view, they’re easy scapegoats now, they can be used to pin the blames on accidents or suicides or anything the terrorists think need a little more of the human touch to them.”

She had gotten her enthusiasm back in full force now, the relentless belief in her own words filing the station up once more. She had begun pacing again, heels practically carving a groove in the floor, arms gesturing wildly as she made each point, until suddenly, on a dime, she spun round to face Callie again, leaning forwards, getting as close to the other girl as she could without leaving her spot on the floor.

“How did it happen, by the way? Robin’s death. I know there was bad blood between the two, and I didn’t really care for any of the sordid details back then, but I want to know now; is Kitty someone I need to avoid at all costs or not?”

[Deamon]

California had hoped that her revelation would have helped pull Trinity out of the pit she had fallen into and back to the light of reality. Instead it seemed to have the opposite effect and Trinity only descended deeper.

California could only gape open mouthed at the mixed up torrent of information that flowed out of the other girls mouth. Her index finger picked at the skin around her thumbnail unconsciously as Trinity’s monologue continued unending. She gulped down a breath when Trinity spun around to face her and could feel her shoulders shaking as the words kept coming.

Blindly and frantically her hand scrambled across the floor, grasping for her bag. Meanwhile she leaned back as Trinity encroached forward once again.

“I-I don’t-“ California’s mouth flapped open and closed like a fish suffocating on dry land. All the memories of the cabin and what happened crashing back into her head like a raging tide.

Suddenly she was on her feet, her breathing reduced to heavy pants.

“She-“ A pause, then she lowered her head in defeat, fists clenched.

“Yes.” Came her wet-eyed whimper.

Then she bolted for the door and fled.

((California Fox continued in it takes a lot to make a stew))

[Pippi]

Trinity watched the last of her erstwhile companions leave, and this time, there was no held breath to release, no unconcerned airs to put on. She let Callie go, and as soon as she was out of sight, she truly was out of mind.

Something had clearly spooked the girl, and Trinity could sympathise with paranoia and fear - she was only human, after all, and she wasn’t about to forget about her experiences in that goddamn storage cupboard anytime soon - but only to an extent. Certainly not to a point where she was concerned with finding out the reason why. How had she described Callie previously, in the safety of her own mind? Quiet. Nervous. Unwilling to engage. Difficult to work with. Dare she say, impossible in this situation, regardless of what her long-term plans might be?

“Good luck,” Trinity muttered, long after Callie had left the vicinity of the listening station.

Because, to trot out an incredibly hackneyed turn of phrase, good lord was she going to need it.

She had provided some level of assistance with her parting words, at least - or word singular, being exact. Whatever had happened between Kitty and her shithead of an ex-boyfriend, it sounded as though she hadn’t entirely been the innocent party in their little altercation. The exact details were murky; had she gone into some sort of panic immediately upon waking up? Had it been an argument responded to with unnecessarily lethal force? Had she been keeping her secret bloodlust hidden from the rest of the school for her entire life?

It didn’t really matter, at the end of the day. The bottom line was, she now had one person she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt couldn’t be trusted any longer, who she would need to turn tail and run from at the mere sight of them. So. Who did that leave that she could trust, that she could risk working with?

Certainly not Fey or Callie, they were obviously right out. She wasn’t certain as to how badly Fitz and that lot would consider their bridges burned; lightly scorched or up in smoke? Maybe it would be for the best if she didn’t find out; their previous encounter had an air of finality to it anyway. And while her newfound revelation had been a blessing overall, it did provide her with one little snaggle; she couldn’t trust any of the names listed. She couldn’t trust that any of the killers named had actually killed, nor that anyone off the list was actually innocent in the slightest.

Everybody had to be treated with the exact same level of caution, essentially.

She would have to figure out how that slotted in with all the other thoughts bubbling away inside of her head. Elsewhere, though. This building had long outstayed its welcome, after all. The pitiful fire had sizzled away and was nothing but ash and cinders in the breeze. The room itself was small. It was dark. It was cold. And it didn’t give Trinity anything at all to work with on what her end game had to be.

She had a hunch as to what might, though. And that gave her all the more reason to skedaddle, before somebody walked up to the solidary exit to this concrete box and made everything far more awkward than it needed to be.

Polearm in hand, bag on her back, Trinity took her leave, in search of greener pastures.

((Trinity Ashmore continued in Road Taken))