Survival Of The Fittest

((Kaede Tsurumi continued from Breakdown in the Meantime))

Kaede was well rested. Of course, that only meant that she was alert in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Well, there were houses and all that, but she was essentially camping with the state of them. At least according to the map she was given, if she was correct, she was in a place where she was supposed to the camping.

So she was just walking around, alone. Looking for someone who had more than a box of condoms and some mace as she found the cabin, and someone entering. She only had one choice.

She took a few steps forward and she called out.

"EEEYYYYYYYY!"

Huh. That sounded ... crankier than she normally was.

“I was,” said Wendy, “But…”

She paused, thinking back to the last time she was with Daniel.

“We met up with Aion and Amos, and…”

She trailed off. The horrible event that transpired rushing back to her all at once.

“It didn’t end well,” she said, “I haven’t seen him since.”

Just then, she heard a voice from outside the cabin. Wendy turned around to see there was another girl in the distance. She turned back to look at Dani and Karin, unsure whether to answer the newcomer. She didn’t really care what Karin thought, but Dani probably didn’t want anyone else to bother her.

“Excuse me,” said Wendy, as she exited the cabin.

Wendy wanted to get a good look at the new girl. The snowfall made it a bit difficult to identify them. It looked like…

“Kaede! Is that you!?,” Wendy shouted.

Karin and Wendy talked, and Dani watched and listened. Apparently Wendy had been palling around with Daniel Ozanne, who had also killed someone. Though given Wendy was here and alone and still not killing anybody with a buddy, Dani suspected that she was probably okay. Especially since it sounded like she split ways with him after he killed someone. If Karin’s goal was to try and make her weary of Wendy, she wasn’t exactly doing a spectacular job at it.

Then someone called from outside the cabin.

Dani grumbled in irritation. Of course there would be yet another person who had to wander up here.

Wendy excused herself, exiting the cabin to see who it was…

Dani heard a familiar name and instantly perked up. She straightened up, positioning herself to get up if need be.

“Kaede?” She said. “Kaede is here?”

Oh good. Kaede Tsurumi was here. And look at that, Dani couldn't care less when one of the little people tries to talk to her about being attacked and nearly murdered a few times, but she perks up like Teddie Boyd at a Victoria's Secret when one of her fellow Plastics shows up.

"Yeah, that sounded like her," Karin said. "She didn't try to feed me to a serial killer like Wendy did, so go ahead and bring her in."

She didn't elaborate further. Dani clearly wouldn't give a shit, so what was the point?

Kaede Tsurumi. Dancer chick. Used to reflexively bitchslap people in elementary school. Better known as Kae-dakimakura, so called because she was effectively a living, breathing body pillow for Dani Bird. Her own little Dress-Up Darling. You know, like that anime that was supposed to be coming out next year. Shame Dani wasn't gonna live long enough to see it, the main character looked slutty enough to be up her alley.

There were a lot of gross relationships at Endecott, but Karin considered theirs among the worst. Kae-dakimakura was kind of a drip personality-wise, and it was obvious to anyone on the outside that Dani basically kept her around for weeb cred. Having your own pet Japanese girl to deck out in anime costumes was the Holy Grail for the sweaty neckbeard types that Dani's hobbies catered to, and Kaede managed to convince people at school that she had actual personality traits. It was a pairing that somehow managed to be symmetrically parasocial, with each of them leeching off the other shamelessly. If Robin Valenti cloned himself and the clones dated each other, that would be a healthier pairing than Kaede and Dani.

So, to sum up, Karin's cabin had now been invaded by the queen bitch, the queen bitch's favorite minion, and a soppy annoying whiner who'd "damn, that's crazy. good luck tho"-ed at her getting chased down by a serial killer. The only way this situation could feasibly be worse was if Josh James showed up with Karen+, Victor Grail, and Wholia in tow. None of these girls gave a shit about her, and now she was outnumbered three to one.

Outside there were freezing temperatures, harsh snow, darkness, and a ton of aspiring spree killers. Inside, the prospect of sitting here listening to the popular girls sob about how their ruined manicures were the worst thing that had happened to anybody in school this week.

It was genuinely hard to say which sounded worse.

Someone actually referred to her as Kaede. Of course, a lot of people knew who she was, if only because of Dani. It still meant nothing, as she hadn't really talked to many people other than Dani, but either way, she had to choose between being with someone who could stab her in the back or fuck things up, or go it alone with nobody to help her.

She approached the cabin, watching at the chubby girl came into focus ... Wendy. Wendy seemed nonthreatening enough. She hadn't been on any announcements, so she hadn't killed anyone

Successfully.

She nodded to Wendy as she entered, noticing Karin ... Han? Dani talked about her sometimes, and

"Thank fuck you're here."

Kaede entered the cabin, and Wendy followed in afterward. Wendy could take solace knowing she didn't have to be alone with Karin.

Wendy decided to drop her bag near the front entrance of the cabin, and stood by the door.

"I'll keep watch, just in case anyone else comes by," she said to the girls, "If that's okay with you all."

Wendy may have said that, but what she was really keeping her eye on was Karin. She didn't trust her in particular.

As Kaede entered the cabin, Dani sat frozen in place staring up at her. A mixture of feelings rolling through her all at once at seeing her friend. Relief, frustration, melancholy, happiness, regret, shame… If Dani had to try and describe what she was feeling, she would fall short to properly compartmentalize it. It had been several days since she last saw her best friend, and Kaede had been at the site of a shootout. But here she was, alive and (relatively) okay.

Dani started to get up, shakily as her aching legs protested to the movement. She ignored their cries and stood, turning to Kaede. Quickly Dani cleared the distance, the sound of her rapid footfalls echoing through the cabin interior. Once within arms reach, Dani pulled Kaede into a hug, her arms tightening around her best friend like a vice grip.

“Kaede, I- I’m glad you’re okay…” She muttered, her voice having a slight quiver to it.

Karin shot the nearest camera a blank look, like she was Jim from The Office.

Yeah, yeah. Cute reunion of the cute girls, and Wendy. Hide all your paper, fellas, cause it's about to get scissor-y up in hurr.

"Oh hey, Kaede," she deadpanned as the hug continued for a frankly uncomfortable amount of time. "Been keeping warm?"

Windy piped up and offered to watch for intruders, which would probably have been more convincing if she hadn't been facing into the cabin and looking directly at Karin while she said it.

You know what? Screw it. This was her cabin. If anybody should be made to feel awkward and uncomfortable, it should be Windy. Karin pulled out her sunglasses and flipped them open. She licked her lips, steeling herself. H'okay. She had to say the thing. Had to say it, every time. Her therapist called it something fancy, a calming keyword to trigger latent mindsets, or some intellectual gibberish like that. Karin always privately thought of it as chanting the magic incantation to activate The Power of Therapy. Whatever. Point was, if you made a ritual out of your coping mechanisms, they'd become automatic. You'd feel better by putting on the glasses just because you heard yourself say the thing. Sounded like Pavlov's Dog with extra steps, but whatever. It worked most of the time. Say the thing, feel brave and strong when have to face a room full of the same kinds of bitches that made your life Hell in middle school. Easy-peasy.

To everybody else, of course, this deep psychological process looked like Karin just slipped on a pair of dollar-store aviators in an already shadowy room while muttering, "That's not very cash money of you."

Why that phrase, she never knew. She didn't even know what it meant or where it even came from. She'd originally tried, "You've got it made with the gal in shades, oh no," but it didn't work, in the same way that Pavlov's dog only responded to bells and not pan flutes. Then someone had suggested it and she'd tried it just for the lolz, and, well, that stupid, silly little phrase seemed to do something that several thousand dollars' worth of therapy couldn't. Go figure.

She looked over at Windy, whose features were hard to make out through the tinted lenses. This was a dramatic improvement. She cleared her throat. "Actually, girls, I have something to say. The snow's coming down hard, and nobody wants to go back out there. It looks like we're gonna be stuck here for a while, so I wanna address the elephant in the room. Wendy," she said, nodding in Windy's direction, "You don't like me because of what happened with Ashlee. And that's fine. It was an accident, and it was self-defense. But I get it. It'd be dumb to expect you to just take my word for something like that."

She arched an eyebrow. "But guess what, Wendy? I don't like you either. I got molested, while you stood there and did nothing. You and Daniel just stood there and watched Josh James touch me, and then I broke free and ran away, and you two didn't do anything to stop him from following me. I nearly died, because you let it happen. So if you wanna stay here, fine. I'm not gonna turn you away because it's getting dark and you'd freeze to death. If you wanna keep watch for intruders, that's also fine. But if you see any, maybe try... you know... actually stopping them this time."

Dani tried to crush her with a hug, and Kaede couldn't really help but pat her awkwardly on the back. Maybe it was because the idea that she was getting positive contact for the first time in quite a while was strange, but either way, she stiffened for a moment and patted Dani on the back. Wendy offered to keep watch, which was nice, until Karin opened her mouth.

First it was the utterance of the phrase "cash money." Okay, weird, but, okay.

It was the mention of Josh James committing sexual assault that was the big one. Apparently, Wendy let it happen, but given how Josh had been on the announcement, Kaede was wondering if there was something in Wendy's favor.

"Uh, right ..." Kaede looked at the three others. Just what exactly had happened?

"What are you talking about?" said Wendy to Karin.

Wendy was initially stunned by Karin's accusations of watching Josh James molest her and letting it happen. Wendy thought back to when she came across Daniel, Josh, and Karin at the trapping camp. From what she could remember, it didn't look like Josh had done anything to Karin.

“When I met you and Josh at the other camp, nothing like that happened!”, Wendy said, frustrated.

Karin was trying to lie. Figures. Make Wendy look like a bad guy, sew distrust, and build tension between the girls here. Wendy needed to stay calm, she couldn’t let Karin gaslight her like this. Wendy took a deep breath and exhaled.

“At least, that’s what I could tell,” she continued, “I was more focused on talking with Daniel. If you were in trouble, he would have told me.”

Kaede was kind of ridged. Dani frowned as her friend stiffened and patted her on the back in an awkward manner. Something was clearly off. She figured Kaede, her best friend, would have put a little more genuine affection into it. Dani soon broke off the hug, looking over Kaede for a moment with a puzzled expression. She would have to sit Kaede down for a talk later. If nothing else than to give Kaede an ear to talk to.

Shaking it off, she turned her attention to Karin and Wendy, as the former accused the latter of letting the former get molested.

That was certainly a revelation, but one that didn’t really surprise Dani. After all, if people are going to go around killing each other, why not sexual assault? Punch your V Card while you still can. It was certainly a worry Dani had. Hell, on the first day she expected Joey Gun Guy to rape her when he kidnapped her. She turned out to be lucky in that wasn’t his intention at the time, but who knows how long that would have lasted. She still lamented not being able to grab his gun, even if she had to pretend she wanted to fuck him. Just thinking about it made her skin crawl.

Wendy acted indigent about the accusation, not believing it. Dani wasn’t sure why, it wasn’t like the guy didn’t commit several murders. Was SA really out of the realm of possibility for Wendy to believe?

Sill, Josh James… She heard the name on the announcements, but a face wasn’t popping in her brain.

“Who the fuck is Josh James?” She muttered to herself.

She furrowed her brow in thought as she tried to scour her memory to remember who that person was. It was like the opposite of Joey Gun Guy, in which she had a face but the name… wasn’t…

“Oh my God.”

She looked back and forth to Karin and Wendy, raising her voice to grab their attention. “Hey, uh, this Josh guy… He wouldn’t happen to be a guy from the lacrosse team, would he? Blonde, kinda tall, kinda good looking but rather bland? ‘Cause, like, if he is the guy I’m thinking of then he goddamn kidnapped me at gunpoint.”

Fuck you, Wendy. Fuck. You. Oh, it "didn't look like" I was getting molested? Yeah, sure. I was only standing there, shaking, frozen with fear, while a guy bigger than me put his hands on my body. But, hey, unwanted intimate touching only looks like one thing, and being grabbed and held tight by a guy who won't let go while he whispers creepily in your ear doesn't count. As long as he didn't start grabbing my ass or put his hand up my bra then it's no big deal, right? Durr hurr, not like he'd find anything in there anyway, right? Well, fuck you, Wendy. Your lard ass wouldn't know shit about being touched; the only physical contact you ever have with a guy is when the pizza delivery boy hands you the change for your nightly order of two extra-large stuffed crust meat supremes with extra grease, you stupid fat FUCK, Karin screamed internally, fuming behind the safety of her sunglasses.

She opened her mouth to say a more sanitized version of those sentiments when Dani hijacked the conversation in an entirely unexpected way.

'Hey, uh, this Josh guy… He wouldn’t happen to be a guy from the lacrosse team, would he? Blonde, kinda tall, kinda good looking but rather bland? ‘Cause, like, if he is the guy I’m thinking of then he goddamn kidnapped me at gunpoint."

Behind her sunglasses, Karin blinked. Was Dani... backing her up? Seriously? Dani Bird, of all people, was taking Karin's side in this conflict? Dress it up in any psychological mumbo-jumbo you liked, these sunglasses were freakin' magic.

Actually... yeah. Yeah, that checked out. A lot more things made more sense now. That was why Dani had come alone, why she'd been crying when she'd run in. Josh James had taken her at gunpoint, and then... well, it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened next. Josh had demanded that Karin entertain him if she wanted to live, gotten his kicks out of forcing her to lay her trauma bare for his approval. Somehow she doubted that Josh would have gone the metaphorical route with a girl like Dani.

"Yeah," Karin said quietly, her earlier defiance defiance sputtering out of her like a deflating balloon. "Yeah, that was him. After I patched him up, he started threatening me, and told me that he could do whatever he wanted to me and nobody would stop him. So I just... ran off. But he chased after me and he caught me, and then... He pulled a gun and told me to 'entertain' him, or else he'd shoot me."

Both Dani and Karin had been threatened by Joshua James. He'd been on the announcements a few times, but while she was aware that Joshua James was a threat, she still had one major question about him.

"Wait, who the heck is Joshua James? What does he look like? Is he even part of our class? I don't think I've ever met the guy."

Wendy was still doubtful about Karin's claims. She knew Karin was a liar. She was in theater club if Wendy remembered correctly. But, if what Karin said is true, Wendy would a huge bitch for doubting her.

"If that's true," said Wendy, "I'm sorry that happened to you. Daniel and I went off somewhere else to find a place to rest. Had we known, we would have come to help."

Wendy wasn't 100% certain Karin was being honest, or was lying. She leaned towards the former, but Wendy didn't want to rock the boat too much. She wanted to stay at the cabin and rest. She didn't to come off as callous and get kicked out by the other girls.

Hearing Karin’s explanation of what her experience with Josh was, Dani couldn’t help but grimace. The experience sounded similar enough to her own — held at gunpoint, made to patch him up — but the real difference was that Josh actually used his leverage of holding a gun at Karin to molest her. She wondered if Josh would have done the same to her during their encounter? It was still the first day and it was possible that he didn’t have the nerve yet to cross that particular line. Or perhaps her attempt to seduce him to distract him long enough so she could try to grab his gun had put him off trying anything. Either way, Karin’s account was way too similar to be dismissed by Dani as being fabricated.

Kaed seemed confused and unsure who Josh even was, which Dani couldn’t blame her because she literally didn’t even know his name until literally moments ago. Though Dani did feel somewhat annoyed at her friend’s questioning about Josh.

“I mean, I just said he was on the lacrosse team, Kaede.” Dani remarked, dryly. “Would be kinda weird if the jackasses who set this all up grabbed everyone on the trip and also some guy.”

She turned her attention back to Wendy and Karin.

“‘If that’s true?’” Dani scoffed, folding her arms. “I can say for certain that Karin’s story checks out. Cause everything about it happened to me, up to including being forced to patch him up.”

Well, almost everything as she wasn’t actually molested. But they didn’t need to know that part.