Survival Of The Fittest

For a minute, Katelyn didn't respond to what Ash said, frowning and looking away.

There was a lot that she could say, but all it would amount to was excuses and denial, because Ashlyn was right. She had killed so many people because she was a natural at it, and because she didn't want to die. If she kept going, then the end result of that would either be that her luck would finally run out, or everyone else that she loved would be dead. Any alternatives, rescue, escape, the terrorists inexplicably all dying at once, were nothing more than unrealistic fantasies.

Yet, she didn't want to acknowledge that, because acknowledging the reality of her situation felt like cursing herself those around her to a terrible fate. If she thought about it, and gave it power, then it would inevitably come true. Ignoring it, trying not to think about it, and taking everything day by blood-soaked day was better, because at least then she wouldn't have to worry herself into a pit of despair.

Above all else, she needed hope that there was anything other than tragedy waiting for her at the end of all this.

"I'm not going to win," she finally said, curt and pointed. "C-Can we talk about our problems? There's s-some- some shit we have to work out."

This was likely to be their last chance.

Ash noted the dodge, the way that Kitty tried to immediately pivot to something more controversial. I'm not going to try to survive. Let's have an argument instead of unpacking that.

Her eyes roamed Kitty's face, evaluating the set of her jaw, the rigidity of her body. Kitty wasn't going to give ground on this one. She didn't want to talk about the game, about the road that lay ahead of her whether she wanted to acknowledge it or not. She wanted to pull down the ears on her cat hoodie and curl up into a ball and shut out the world.

Another time, another place, Ash would have been fine with that. Leave her sister sitting there in her protective bubble. Let her cope and seethe and sort herself out some way or another. Not her circus, not her monkeys. But not today. Because today was probably all Ash had left. Which meant that she'd need to find a way of getting through to Kitty. It wasn't gonna be pretty.

"Fine," she said, exasperated. "Fine, you want to have it out? Fine. Gimme some bread and some water first. I'm starving."

When had she last eaten? Hard to say. Time had gotten fuzzy after the gunshot. Her fingers brushed the bandages again, and she winced. "And some pain meds."

The food and drink were gonna be a waste in short term, but in the long term, maybe it'd pay off. They'd give her the energy she'd need for what came next. The meds were just to shut her body up long enough to hear herself think.

Good.

Katelyn took a deep breath, goosebumps traveling up her spine. She never enjoyed confrontation, least of all with Ashlyn, but this had to be done. Every time she tried to do this in the past, Ash always balked, and then Katelyn always ended up backing down. Too scared of shattering the tense, fragile peace they managed to establish. This time was different. She was strong, and she wasn't scared anymore.

She set about getting Ash what she requested quickly and mechanically. A ration bar, a full bottle of water, a bottle of ibuprofen, and the uneaten half of the loaf Katelyn had snacked on just a little bit ago. She laid them all out next to her sister, and waited until she started eating before she spoke.

When she had found Ash out in the snow, when she had decided to save her instead of finishing the job, she had done so for a variety of reasons. They were sisters, and they had a trauma bond that Katelyn couldn't let go, and because it was the moral thing to do. All were perfectly valid reasons, but emotionally, there was still something Katelyn needed from Ash that she had never gotten.

"S-So, um," she started to say, already feeling herself sweating in spite of how cold it was. "W-When we were younger, after the- after the crash. You blamed me. F-For it. For what h-happened. You told me, o-over, and over, and over, a-and over again, that it was my f-fault. That it- it would've been b-better if I hadn't been born. And I believed you."

Some days, she couldn't help but still believe it.

"A-And you- you were w-wrong," she continued, volume rising as her voice broke, and she began to cry again for the first time in days. "What y-you said was, so, so f-fucking cr- cruel. It was an a-accident, I had no c-control over it. Do you know- do you know how wr-wrong that was? How m-much that messed m-me up? For years! I tried to k- kill myself, b-because of the things y-you said to me!"

Her throat was closing up. She sniffled, and wiped her face, trying desperately to hold onto any shred of composure she had left.

"And then you j-just... stopped," she mewled. "You n-never acknowledged it. Never apologized. If we're- if we're gonna be together from n-now on, then..."

She swallowed the lump in her throat, choking down all the pain and anger that threatened to bubble up from underneath.

"S-So," she choked, struggling to get the rest of the words out. "So I- I want you to- to say you're s-sorry. And- And I want you to m-mean it."

With a bit of effort, Ash managed to prop herself up on one elbow. She tore into the bread. It tasted stale and dry, and it turned the inside of her mouth into a desert. She took a swig of water, turned the bread to a pulp. Popped two of the ibuprofen into her mouth, pressed them into the lumpy, gooey wad. It was always easier to swallow pills that way. Another swig of water, to wash them down.

She chewed and sipped, forcing the rest of the bread down her throat. It'd probably come oozing out the holes in her abdomen, give her sepsis or something. Didn't really matter. She just needed the energy boost. Trick her guts into feeling healthy for a minute or two.

She didn't look at Kitty while she spoke. Took all the verbal jabs without comment, letting every blow register a hit. All the while, she chewed. Partway through the tirade, she ran out of bread. So she chewed the ration bar instead, champed it to a paste and felt it squish between her teeth and up into her gums.

A passive observer might have mistaken Ash's posture for disinterest, but they'd be dead wrong about that. Ash was listening attentively, taking careful notice of every syllable, jotting down every word. For every one of Kitty's complaints, Ash was carefully preparing rebuttals and counterarguments, like she was thumbing bullets into a revolver.

She waited calmly until Kitty had finished speaking. Took another gulp of water, draining the last of the bottle with a calculated, glacial slowness. What she had to say next wasn't going to be nice. In fact, it was probably going to be the cruelest thing she had ever said to her sister.

"I'm tired."

She rolled over, and turned her back. In cat body language, this was the biggest snub imaginable. Posture that said I don't consider you enough of a threat to bother watching what you do next.

Ash let out an exaggerated yawn.

"Let me just... you know... pass out for a bit, and then I'll respond."

Unbelievable.

Even now?

Katelyn somehow wasn't surprised. It wasn't the first time that Ash had disrespected her wishes. Maybe the guilt was too much for Ash to face. Or, more likely, she didn't care. Accepting that was a hard pill for Katelyn to swallow.

Ash had always been the worst person in her life. Yet, their relationship had been getting better. They had little points of commonality, like their mutual love of horror, that they seemed to connect on. Ash had been there for her when she had no-one else to turn to, like when Teddie had been spreading rumors about her. Ash took her side in the breakup with Robin. Ash was the only one who hadn't judged her for the violence left in her wake. Katelyn had started to believe that, that in her own messed up way, Ash really did care for her.

She had wanted this time to be different, hoped that maybe Ash would finally listen. Her sister's promise to talk about it later rung hollow, and Katelyn wasn't expecting an apology now. If this was what her sister was going to be like to her in these last days they had left, then she'd be better off finally leaving this toxic element of her life behind. Let Ash sleep, let her keep what she's been given, find Kai, and go somewhere else.

That would've been the better path to take.

In spite of that, she curled up on the floor, sniffling and crying into her sleeves as she waited for her sister to wake up.

Ash heard the tears.

A different person might have lost their resolve. A different person would probably have rolled back over, wiped away the tears, told Kitty they were sorry and that everything would be okay. Cringe, normie behavior. But it would have stopped the crying, would have made Kitty feel better. That person would have been a liar, though. Because things weren't going to be okay. Optimism has a shelf life, and when it's overstayed its welcome it rots into something worse than cruelty. Tell a kid her parents are gonna be okay after their car accident when you know they won't be. Tell her they're in Heaven and they're much happier than they would be down here with you. Tell a girl with autism that her disorder won't hold her back in life and she should try to do anything and everything that neurotypicals can do.

Ash was a bitch. Maybe even a cruel one. But she tried to draw the line somewhere. Cruelty for its own sake, that was right out. Cruelty of pointless optimism? Never. That's why she hadn't said anything to Kitty like, "I'm gonna be all right," or "It doesn't hurt," or "It's good that you brought me here."

Cruelty because you're at the end of your rope? Cruelty because you're just a fucking kid trying to do the job that two parents couldn't do, and you never asked for any of this and you're just so sick of meltdowns and blowups and crocodile tears over trivial things? Yeah, that was over the line too. Well... now it was. The line had been further out, for a long time. Then one day, she'd punched Kitty hard enough to break her nose. After that - not immediately after, but sometime after - Ash had stuck a heel in the dirt and dragged it, carving a new line. Redrawing the boundaries. And she'd said "Never again."

Cruelty for a purpose, though? Cruelty to make someone stronger? That was well outside the boundary. But Survival of the Fittest had shifted the earth beneath them, redrawn all the lines. That kind of cruelty wasn't over the line anymore. But it hugged it, tightly enough to unsettle passers-by.

So she laid there and shut out the sound of her sister's tears. Let them roll off her back, like water off a duck. Not soaking in. Not touching her. And she told herself that when she woke up, that when she went sprinting back across the boundaries she'd set up, vaulting over them and continuing to go deeper and deeper as she sped towards the point of no return, that she'd be doing something good. She'd be cruel to be kind, because cruelty was the only language that Kitty would understand.

She didn't need to sleep long. Just long enough to let Kitty stew in her feelings; let her tears dissolve her rationality, bit by bit. By the time Ash woke up, Kitty would have time to get properly angry, to move past sad and into anger. Yeah, she'd need Kitty angry for this next bit.

It took a while, but eventually, she slept.

Katelyn didn't do anything as Ash slept, crying into her sleeves and staring into the sparsely lit walls of cardboard that surrounded them.

There was nothing to do, because she wasn't strong enough to leave her sister behind. She knew that remaining was foolish, she could feel it in her bones, but she didn't have the strength to get up and leave.

As she laid there, cold seeped up from the floor and into her, chilling all her indignation into nothing but a void of numbness and apathy.

Maybe if Kai came back, she could find the courage to finally write Ash off. She could whisper what had happened into his ear, and he'd nod, and calmly help her pack up their belongings and leave. That would be better than whatever misery was waiting for her when Ash awoke.

Eventually, Katelyn remembered the heft of the grenade launcher, still slung over her neck, and began to hug it as though it were a stuffed bear. The knife in her boot itched, baying for another anointment of blood, but she ignored it. There was no blood to be drawn here. Only disappointment and pain.

Some time later, she began to lightly nap on her own, already too exhausted to keep herself awake.



Kai never made it back before Ash woke up.

Ash blinked. The room came into focus, sharper than it had before. Hard to say how long she'd been out, but it felt long enough. The combination of food, water, and medication had done its work. She felt rested, ready.

She paused for a moment. Though about Salem, about her parents - both the ones who'd birthed her and the ones who'd stepped up to the plate afterwards. Friends at school - the ones who hadn't fallen to the chaos, the ones who were still back in Salem somewhere. Would've been nice to say a small thank you to everything that they'd been to her, everything they'd done or tried to do. But she'd never been that soppy. They'd know what they meant to her, with or without a tearful dramatic speech to the camera.

She looked over at Kitty. She appeared to be sleeping. Cried herself out. No punches thrown, no insults traded. Funnily enough, this was as peaceful a resolution as they'd ever had. Too bad she was about to ruin it.

She got to her feet. Swayed slightly, then found her balance. Yeah, come on, body. You're down but not out. Gonna need you to just power through for this next bit, all right? This is the big game, the boss fight. Yeah, yeah, you don't like it. You'll get to sleep when it's done, so suck it up.

She took a step towards Kitty. Loomed over her. Then she reached out a foot and prodded her in the ribs.

"Hey. Wake up. You wanted to talk, so let's talk."

She looked down at her sister, scrutinizing her. Spinning the chamber of the mental revolver she'd loaded earlier, sifting through arguments and insults, until she landed on the right one.

"You want me to apologize? Fine. I'll give you an apology. But I wanna know something first. You said you're not playing. You said you're not gonna do what it takes to win. Which means you're gonna die. Is that really what you want? Is that what you think Mom and Dad would want?"

Yeah, she went there. Dropped the names. Sprayed a firehose filled with gasoline all over the fire. Might as well start this off in a high gear.

Katelyn stirred awake at Ash's command, staring up at her sister, illuminated in all her glory by one of the flashlights. The surprise at seeing Ash standing almost took her aback, but then it passed just as quickly as it came. Quickly, Katelyn scanned their surroundings for Kai. He still wasn't back. How long had they been asleep?

She sat up, listening to what her sister had to say. Dread rose up her throat like bile as she pondered her answers. Tried to keep her anger in check at the mention of mom and dad, as if Ash had any right to invoke them. What game was she playing, here?

"I- um, wh-" Katelyn stuttered, then took a deep breath to steady herself. "Of course I don't want to d-die, Ash. Didn't I j-just say that? It's- I don't have a ch-choice. My luck will r-run out eventually."

Something was wrong, but she couldn't place exactly what. There was a darkness in Ash's aura that she could almost taste. Yet, she ignored the alarm rising in her gut, instead biting back at the accusation as she always did.

"A-And, you don't get to bring th-them up," she hissed, scowling. "They're d-dead, they don't want a-anything. Even if they did, I d-don't think they'd have wanted me to k-kill seven people, either."

Briefly, her mind went back to the encounter with Taylor on the mountain.

"I'm n-not gonna let their memory chain me down anymore," she mumbled, looking away from Ash.

Well, so much for that trump card. Fine.

"Bullshit," Ash snapped, her eyes drilling into Kitty. Daring her to look back at her. "You don't believe that. Because if what they want doesn't matter, why does it matter what you want? You're just gonna be dead anyway. You think it makes any difference if we have a little kumbaya moment before that happens? You're gonna be dead, whether I'm sorry or not, and that means that what I say doesn't matter for shit."

She clenched her fist.

"So stop fucking around. Tell me you're gonna win. Tell me you're gonna do whatever it takes. Tell me you're gonna do whatever you have to do to win and get out of here. The only way an apology from me is gonna mean shit is if you're around to remember it. So, if you want it, tell me you're gonna win."

Her foot came back. Hung in the air for a second. Then, with a grunt, she kicked Kitty in the ribs as hard as she possibly could.

"TELL ME!"

Katelyn had nowhere to dodge out of the way when Ash's foot came forward, crashing into her chest. The blow sent her reeling, the back of her head colliding with the hard ground, white-hot bolts of pain shooting through her ribs and skull as stars filled her vision. Everything almost went black, but Katelyn did not succumb.

Clutching the back of her head and her chest, she flailed in pain, unable to even take a breath, let alone respond to what Ash was saying. Eventually, starved for oxygen, she managed a few ragged gasps for air. Ash was hardly in the best shape, but she had never hit Katelyn that hard before. Had her sister really been holding back that much their whole lives?

Katelyn's thoughts went back to every other fight they had ever had, memories rushing past like a speeding train. From within the recesses of her mind, an ancient rage, one that she had long buried and almost forgotten, began to rise from the depths.

"I- I- y-you, you hit me!" Katelyn choked out, too confused to form any other words as she started to push herself off the ground. "Wh- why? What's wrong with you?"

Fuck. Fuck, that hurt. Like kicking a bowling ball. But she couldn't afford to show the pain. Had to be strong, see this to the end.

"Even with those extra cat ears of yours, you didn't hear me?"

Kitty was starting to get up, so Ash aimed another kicked at her, punting her to knock her back to the ground. FUCK. That one hurt too. Hard to imagine how bad it hurt Kitty. But she needed this. Exactly this. No sportsmanship. No holds barred.

"I said, 'Tell me that you're going to win.'"

The second kick hit Katelyn in the arm, almost wrenching it out of the socket as she was sent reeling back to the floor. She could hear the beating of her heart in her ears as adrenaline started to kick in, dulling the otherwise overwhelming pain to something she could almost bear.

It had been such a long, long time since Ash had actually hit her, and since they had fought with fists and tooth and claw. Despite Katelyn's best efforts, Ash had always won those fights, always left her broken and crying in the end, helpless to stop it as her sister barrelled through her like a runaway train. The thought caused that old anger she had tried to tamp down to hit the surface, and begin to smolder.

"Fine! F-Fine!" she screeched, tears clouding her vision. "I'll win! Just- just stop!"

Ash took a step forward, her eye shutting involuntarily as the pain in her toes spiked up through her calf. Damn, that hurt. Had to keep going, though. Had to make the point.

"No, no," she said, shaking her head. Torqued her leg to one side, like she was drawing it back for another kick. "Not like that. You have to say it like you mean it."

Katelyn was never one to pass up a vulnerability. Her foot shot out, aimed at the lone leg keeping Ash standing, using the momentum to force herself off the ground and away from her sister. She panted, trying to power through the pain that made her want to buckle under its weight and give up, staring daggers into Ash.

"I mean it," she lied. "S-So, stop!"

Ash was doing it again, trying to force her way of seeing the world onto Katelyn, in spite of the latter's protest. The friction of their conflicting viewpoints grinding against one another created a spark, and Katelyn's smoldering rage built into a small flame.

"I don't want to fight," she pleaded, tears running down her face. "Please."