Survival Of The Fittest

Donovan frowned. He wasn't wrong, then. And, man, what an unlucky bunch to wake up around. Janice, two-time killer; Dave, bible basher turned Judas; Crystal, the robber. Then again, he supposed, Derek wasn't much luckier.

"Shit, that sucks," he said. His words belied the sympathy in his voice. "I wouldn't have bailed on you—that's fucked." Maybe not, but he'd done so much worse already. Who was he to judge?

"Still, I'm glad she missed," he said, a bitter swallow. "You're still in the game—down, but you aren't out yet." The underdog sometimes pulled out an unexpected victory; that was the first and most important lesson in the Terrier handbook.

Janice. Her name just kept coming up, huh? He guessed that sort of thing happened when you became a spree killer. Multiple homicides usually got the local news buzzing back home in Salem. That sort of thing wasn't all that common, even in the worst neighborhoods.

Still, that begged the question: what came first? Was the robbery the start of it all, the spark that lit the fuse? Or was it just another domino she pushed over? Did it even matter? He'd always hated the question of the chicken or the egg. Who cared?

"And, yeah, hard to say," he shrugged, a false show of apathy. "People started moving pretty quick. Folks are playing for keeps."

And so was he.

Jenny nodded silently.

"Yeah. I'm still in the game. So are you."

She wondered if this was a chance to come back. Maybe it was the way Donovan framed it, but she and him were still 'back in the game', so to speak. And she knew what to do when she wasn't out.

"Y'know what, Don. You're right." she finished up the rations. "We gotta keep going. We gotta outlive the actual killers, and we gotta find people capable enough to defend us."

Jenny looked up into his eyes, determination erasing her exhaustion, maybe it was the combination of food and her Don's pep talk (whether he meant it or not), but she was ready again.

"We gotta make a plan."

Donovan's eyes darted to the gun in his pocket. His hand went to the grip and pulled it out a little; not a threat, but a display. Like he was showing it off. Those two words emblazoned on the side, 'IWI Masada,' meant something: power.

He shot a look in her direction, their eyes meeting. It was the recognition between those who plotted in the dark; the conspirators, the collaborators, and the criminals. He was picking up on her hints. Understanding.

"Yeah, we're in the game, alright," he repeated. "Nobody's going to fuck with us. I'll make sure of that." A tap on the grip, a reminder of why. "I don't like this shit, but, like, we gotta expect the worst."

Donovan knew that some of them would fall to their worst instincts. So had he. Everyone looked out for themselves. Everything else was secondary. In a game like this, you had to play hard—one wrong move, one slip, and you could lose everything.

"If we wanna stay in the game, we've gotta stay focused. That means we make some hard choices." It was a compromise Donovan had already been willing to make. He leaned in and made his case: "We might have to do some bad shit to survive out here."

A pause.

"Are you okay with that?"

Jenny froze again, for just a moment. Donovan was practically showing her the gun, and he was telling her that he was willing to kill.

Jenny didn't want to kill, but nobody did, and they had to. She was given that spear thing, after all, but a spear was so ancient, so medieval, that it seemed silly that she'd kill anyone with it. A gun... a gun has killed so many people, so effortlessly. Anyone could do it.

...even Jenny.

And Donovan wasn't trying to trick her. That's the worst part. He was asking if she'd be okay, knowing that they both knew it was inevitable.

Jenny took a deep breath.

"Okay, but only after we decide they're dangerous. We're not just... shooting people the first chance we get, okay? We both wanna get out, right, Don? I'm sure there's a lot of people who wanna get out too."

Jenny hesitated. "But I guess if... if something like Crystal happened again..."

She had to say it.

"...Yeah. Okay."

She didn't feel good about it. She thought saying it out loud would make her feel better, but no. She still didn't want to do it.

"When we know we have to, okay?" she looks him in the eye as she adds this.

Their eyes locked. Donovan wasn't trying to scare her; really, he wasn't. He didn't like the idea any more than she did; the expression on his face betrayed that secret. As she said, he wanted to get out, so did she, and so did everybody.

"Yeah," he responded. "I don't like the sound of it either. You've gotta believe me when I say that, Jen," he implored. "I don't want it to happen. I'm not Janice."

He took a breath. Shorter than the one before.

"But, like," he continued, "when someone like Crystal, like Janice, like Kitty, when they come knocking, we might not get a choice." To him, it was a matter of 'when,' not 'if.'

Another pause. Unease.

"It's life or death, Jenny. And I want us to live."

Donovan sighed. This shit was stressful as fuck. What had Dick said all that time ago? "Try making your teammates better." That was it. That was what he wanted to do here. He just wanted to make sure she knew someone had her back.

"I'm not trying to make you do anything. That's why I asked, right?" a rhetorical question, "We're a team, and we've gotta be on the same page. That's all."

One last pause.

"Trust me, Jen," he pleaded. "I just want you to know you can trust me."

The one thing Jenny needed more than anything was a teammate, and Donovan was offering that. He was offering to be there, and needed her to be there for him too.

"Okay. Alright." she couldn't help but eye her Voulge. "I've got the spear, you've got the gun."

With another deep breath, Jenny nodded.

"I'll trust you. And we're going to win, together."

"Together," Donovan nodded as the lie slipped through his teeth. It was just impossible—this wasn't like basketball, where you won as a team. Here, there was only one victor, a sole survivor. She knew that. He knew that. Everyone knew that already.

But why would he break the illusion? For now, they were living in a dream world, castles in the sky. The same delusion that made them think they'd ever had a chance in the real world—that deceptive bravado they brought to the court. If you believed hard enough, maybe you'd make it real.

He didn't. There was no such thing as magic. The real world was bleak and cold and ugly—Donovan knew that. All that awaited them was cold gray skies and warm red blood. And, with luck, one of them would win. The selfish part of Donovan's brain desperately wanted it to be him.

"You should take these, Jenny," he said, drawing a handful of energy bars from the bag. He couldn't distinguish his supplies from Derek's or Spike's. "I've got enough—keep some of your own in case something happens." It took some of the weight off his shoulders—literally and figuratively.

"We should hit the hay, get some rest, all that," he murmured. "Get back our energy—this is a game of endurance. If we burn out so early, we'll be easy pickings." He rubbed his eyes, tracing the bags with his hands. Then, he stood up and walked towards the table, sliding his rucksack under it.

"You can take the bed," he said with a nod. "You were here first—finders keepers. I'll sleep on the floor or something." Donovan was unphased. He'd done it before—back when they'd first moved to Salem and half the times he stayed over at a friend's place. Just like home.

Rest. Jenny technically slept the entire time, but she didn't even feel refreshed. So it didn't count as resting. With Donovan here, with a chance—no, probably just a hope—of surviving, Jenny could probably get some much-needed rest.

"Yeah. Alright, I'll see you when I wake up, Don. Don't push yourself," Jenny added at the end, feeling bad if he took the floor. Though, she admitted, she liked the softness of the bed. Maybe they could switch nightly. She could handle that.

As she laid down, she wondered what tomorrow would bring, and tried to push away the thought that she might not live to see next month.

((Jennifer Farrow continued elsewhere))

Donovan sat down on the ground, back to the wall. He'd painted himself into a corner here, huh? Eventually, the time would come to decide: him or Jenny. He told himself a dozen times that he cared about her—really, truly, deeply cared.

But did he care about himself more? A part of him said 'yes' in response. After all, Donovan always did everything for himself. From the bullets he fired to the baskets he shot, from the relays to the laundry cycles, from the cradle to the grave, he'd done it all for him.

The keyword was 'eventually.' He didn't have to decide now—couldn't decide now. For now, all Donovan wanted to do was sleep. His eyes hurt, his chest hurt, and he was fucking tired from all the running he'd done. He'd worked himself to the bone.

Time for some shut-eye, then. In normal circumstances, he'd balk at sleeping so late; none of these circumstances were normal. Donovan was more than willing to forgive himself for screwing up his sleep schedule. Gun at his side, he was safe and sound.

So he shut his eyes and then waited. He started to count in his head, "One, two, three..." and so on. Eventually, somewhere around the count of one hundred, he drifted into the darkness—a dreamless, silent sleep. For a guilty man, that was better than the alternative.

S043: DONOVAN LAUER — CONTINUED IN "Morning Pyre"