all i ever asked is keep it 8 more than 92 with me

[Grand Moff Hissa]

At least they had a sense of humor about it.

How did they have a sense of humor about it? Darlene was absolutely mortified and she was the only person here wearing a shirt! At least she was the type of embarrassed that manifested in laughing, so it sounded like she just thought they were funny with their jokes (which, okay, they were but this wasn't the time to be focused on that). But the more Darlene laughed, the more embarrassed she got, because instead of having a cute girlish giggle or a full raucous chortle or anything you'd hear in a movie she tended to make this sort of wheezy throaty sound.

There were still no bugs to look at, and not looking at the girl (who was moving around much closer now) was hard because what if she was doing something dangerous or suspicious? But when Darlene's eyes slid over to the side and caught the faint flashes of flesh color from her peripheral vision she immediately turned her attention right back where it belonged: anywhere else. She wiggled her toes to have something to focus on, but it didn't even really make her shoe bulge in any kind of interesting way. Her fingers played over the zipper again, her nails making faint scraping sounds and catching uncomfortably. She hated that she hadn't gotten to trim them, but she couldn't do much about it because she'd never properly learned how to bite her nails out of fear of developing a habit.

"We don't know each other, I guess," she said finally, after a bit too long to be smooth or polite or even normal. "I, um, I don't... I actually don't know your name?"

As the words came out of her mouth, Darlene realized that they sounded really really bad. They sounded like she was stalking him, hanging around to look at him when he was changing, which was not her intention at all. It just happened! And also she'd been particularly stupid and tipped them off that she was clueless about names and now if they really were killers they could just tell her actually nope, they were George and Mabel, and she wouldn't have a clue anything was wrong until the gun pressed against the back of her head.

"I mean, I mean," Darlene hastily corrected, "we don't, I've, we weren't introduced? But we were at the big party, and, uh, and I found your shirt when you... took it off. And I put it on the coat rack."

In moments like this, Darlene used to think to herself that she wanted to die. She would imagine outrageous things like lightning coming out of nowhere and zapping a tree that would fall on her and squash her like a pancake. It sort of almost helped calm her down, but in this situation longing for death seemed like a bad idea. But it took effort to resist the habit.

[Buko]

“Oh,” he said quietly, “I had wondered who…so you did that?”

The big party could’ve only been #Swiftball. Mikki threw it and it was at Forrest’s big ass house—Mikki and Forrest were both dead. Mikki for over a week now, shit. Beats wasn’t a big party person and Swiftball had been a night for him to cut loose. He remembered doing drugs with Brockman—feeling like he was getting away with the caper of the century for snorting E in a bathroom. He remembered dancing with Meilin, holding her hand, kissing her on the cheek…being innocent. Fun. Simple. As wholesome as you could be when you were full of designer drugs. How long ago was that? How foolish had he been? It had only been a few weeks ago, it might as well have been three planets away.

This girl had put his shirt on the coat rack for him—as good a deed as any. Ace hadn’t paid attention to it or sought much explanation on how his shirt had gotten to the rack at the time. At the time, he had been makin' an exit stage left and Meilin had been lookin' hella right. Who gave a fuck about a tanktop? His eyes shifted from the girl to Saku, sitting there all pretty on the water’s edge. He sighed internally—for all that talk about change, how much had he? Somethings were evidently still the same.

‘Round 1998 (Ricky Williams, Texas), Ace felt his body and spirit deflate. There was a large pang of guilt and the stupid grin on his face turned into a grimace. His gaze turned away from the shore and to the water. It had been ten days and he needed a shave. The wispy beginnings of a mustache stained his upper lip. It bothered him how much he thought he looked like his father. His eyes went back to the two girls.

“Uh, thanks for that, I guess!”

That was a ringing endorsement, huh?

Beat rose up from the water and approached the shore with a casual stroll. Alright—be confident. Keep cool. It’s just a girl, right? Small and mousey and with glasses. Who was evil and had glasses? Ace had saw a twitter post once that said something like defendants in court who wore glasses were like 8 times less likely to get convicted or some shit. Ace had thought at the time that if you could think a murderer was innocent just because he was wearing some specs you were probably a grade A sucker. Here he was though, willfully and willingly ignoring whatever danger this new arrival possessed in part due to a prescription at VisionWorks.

He felt the sun beat down on his back and the skin around his gunshot wound tighten. He’d been so arrogant. For all that talk about change—somethings remained the same.

When he reached the shore, he approached the new girl first and extended his hand and offered a smile. Keep it cool. Keep it calm. Don’t escalate. Act normal. You got what you gave. Stay ready but stay human. Mantra’s and meditations, habits and contradictions—whatever worked worked. He tried not to look at his hat a few yards away. He tried not to think about the .45 it was hiding and what he'd do if he needed to use it. Normal. Casual. Move along, nothing to see.

“Ace, that’s my name and shit,” he said with his hand still extended, “Water’s a little cold but nice. We can move if you’re lookin to clean up,” he spoke to her but really was speaking for himself and Saku, “Nobody tryna get killed over a bath, okay? That ain’t a good look, right? There's a whole lotta lake here, nuthin' to fight over.”

He felt the metal around his neck tighten. It was a pity that was the only collar he could pull. After all, his stance on shirts had already been exposed and expounded upon by the peanut gallery.

[Sunnybunny]

Of all the things to regret on murder island, missing hashtag Swiftball seemed like the dumbest. It hit her all the same. If she'd known it was the last chance to hang out all together, that there would be no graduation or party to celebrate it, would she have gone? Maybe it would have been awful, but at least there would be a memory instead of this bummed out feeling.

Apparently Dar...cy had gone, and no offense or judgement, but it didn't seem so much like her scene. But coolness came in many packages, and her laughter was as endearing as anyone else's.

That, and Ace pulling a full Baewatch... his tall, muscular body had lake water running down it in rivets. His basketball shorts were a little askew and soaked through, and his thighs were looking nice. Good thing he was meeting and greeting, Sakurako wasn't even trying to pretend she wasn't staring. How was it that he made her a whole new type of foolish?

Adele and Aditi probably spared her a glare from smart girl heaven, and Charelle was probably cracking wise behind them.

Maybe Thomas would haunt her, she knew he wasn't opposed to ghost-dom. That would make her day.

"Oh yeah, I'm totally fine letting you lake in peace. I'm Sakurako, by the way." Not even being the first name on the announcements today was going to keep her from possibly finding out mystery girl's actual name. Suck it, Danya.

Scooting back to her clothes, she tore the sleeves off of Cheridene's thankfully thin sweater, dooming herself to a fiery hell for all eternity, probably.

Chief of the Fashion Commandents: Never Deface Anything Someone Let You Borrow- And with those ill-gotten gains, Sakurako started to dry herself off, putting her bra on once it wouldn't end up soaked through.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

"Oh, I'm, I'm Darlene," Darlene said, reaching out and sort of awkwardly shaking his hand because what else could you do? "And it's okay, I'm not, I wasn't going to take a bath."

Too much going on! First thing was the names, which she was inclined to mostly trust for two reasons. The first was that if they were going to make up names on the spot, Darlene expected something more like John and Jane and less like Ace and Sakurako. Then, second, the names sounded kind of familiar from somewhere, like they were unusual names she'd heard before.

Of course, this was not necessarily a good sign. Maybe they'd just permeated her consciousness around school. They were the sorts that could've stuck in her head easily. She thought she remembered their faces from class a bit, but Darlene didn't understand at all how someone could be in a class with thirty other people and know everyone's name and favorite color and all that other stuff they wrote down on an index card on the first day when doing introductions, and then multiply that by five or six other classes. So then, maybe she knew the names for other reasons, especially since "Sakurako" specifically sounded kind of immediately recognizable? And maybe "Ace" was a nickname? It probably was. It sounded like a nickname. Darlene had never had a nickname.

After the names what was distracting next was that upon closer inspection Ace didn't look like he was doing amazingly. He had a round scabbed up spot on his chest, she saw for the brief moment she let herself look at his bare, glistening chest before she turned even more red and forced eye contact even though it was kind of hard. Had he been stabbed or shot? And then, his head, he had an ear all messed up, and that made Darlene instantly like and feel for him more because she did too, except somehow hers was actually not even as bad and was hidden under bandages besides. But she looked put together by comparison, probably, because Jonah had done a good job and even hiding in the prickly bush hadn't unraveled her that much.

That was why she couldn't take a bath, she decided, the actual reason. The immediate emotional reasons had been all tangled up, because she hadn't intended to get in the lake or take anything off and wouldn't have thought of it but then when they offered she suddenly felt filthy and stinky which was probably a pretty accurate assessment. But if she got in the water she'd get the bandages Jonah had done messed up and soaked with swamp water and she'd have to take them off and redo them all on her own and as she'd seen before she wasn't nearly as good at that as he'd been.

She was just kind of standing there, now awkwardly looking at Ace and trying to ignore the movement of Sakurako putting on clothes (okay she'd let her eyes flick over for just one single heartbeat just to make sure that was actually what was happening but that was it!) and wondering if she should be looking at her feet again or moving or something.

"And it was, just, if I lost my shirt at a party I would want someone to put it somewhere too," Darlene said, picking up the one point of connection she had with them, and then her eyes went really wide as she realized what had just come out of her mouth and that seemed like the biggest problem at the moment.

"No," she almost yelped, "I don't, I mean, not that—I wouldn't take off my shirt, but, but it's okay if you want to, there was this Truth or Dare game—I was just watching, I mean, I mean..."

Her hand was back under her own control by now, and darted straight back to interlace with its double, her fingers and knuckles rolling side to side. She was looking at the ground again now but wasn't even seeing anything; she was much too busy trying to extract herself from the hole she'd just dug.

It felt like stopping for even a moment would mean doom but she allowed herself a single deep breath.

"I had a sweater," she said, "and I, it got lost at school, and Jonah took it to the lost and found and I met him here when I woke up and that's why I came back even though I know, Michael, he..."

She trailed off.

[Buko]

She was a babbler, huh? Well, so was he and so it was hard to be bothered by babbling.

She was a little awkward too, wasn’t she? Well, it was impossible to really penalize her on that considering what she had walked in on—Ace and Saku playin’ topless tonsil hockey. Yeah, no doubt, he and Miss Jackson had the awkward division of the misery Olympics on lock. Darlene was going for a silver medal though and Ace definitely respected the hustle.

“Hey,” he said trying his best to be a gentle and calming force, “It’s okay, you don’t gotta explain,” she really didn’t, “Just calm down. Take a breath. Ain’t nobody gonna judge you for bein’ a little quirky out here—people commitin’ worse sins than that erryday.”

And wasn’t that the truth? Himself included.

For what it was worth? Darlene didn’t seem like much of a threat—no matter what, he still found himself headin’ towards where he had placed his hat (and the gun underneath it). He plopped down with the hat by his side. Not too far from his bags, not too far from Saku and Darlene. But close enough to a line of defense that didn’t mean punching a girl with glasses.

Even though that was probably safer it somehow felt meaner! Ace couldn’t get a read on Darlene but it didn’t mean he should be mean or cruel to her. Kick her to the curb. Leave her out to face this struggle on her own. He thought about Angie and Connor—he had stayed with damn near strangers before staying with either of them. Why was that? Why was it easier to be cruel to the people you cared about?

Probably something about the power of asking for forgiveness.

“You lookin’ for somethin’ Darlene?”, it was a simple question, “Someone?”

[dmboogie]

((Hey there little bush mouse.))

Doing well, weren’t ya? The first real murderer Abe ever met? The trendsetter of their generation, getting the party started. Humble enough to do the dirty work without getting her name up in lights, dodging the praising chorus of the speaker static.

Funny how he kept meeting those fateful few first folks every time he came back to the lake. It smelled awfully like fate, which was a fake bullshit concept but, like, the nose knows, y’know. He’d learned from the last time, though, because he wasn’t strolling right up and getting held at gunpoint by a very nice dead boy. No, no, this time he was hiding in the woods, deep enough in the trees to avoid being obvious, just far out enough so that he had a clear line of sight to the shore.

He was laying down on his stomach like a professional, girlfriend murder prize in hand, his SMG safely within reach at his side in case someone came running up at him.

Hard to think of anyone creepier than a voyeur who looked through a sniper scope. That wasn’t what Abe was trying to do, he swore, because he wasn’t a fucking psychopath, he was just taking in the situation, and he didn’t like what he saw, not that Ace and Sakurako were bad-looking, but they weren’t Axel or Forrest so who the fuck cared, and really, there was a more important issue that was grinding against his brain.

Where did they fucking get off thinking that they were going to have a good time together? Having a nice little skinny dipping party? Now, Abe didn’t wanna be fuckin’ heteronormative, but when two cute people were naked together in the lake (he hadn’t been fucking watching them, he’d set up shop around the same time Darlene ruined the mood, calm down) they probably had one thing on their mind, right?

How fucking stupid did you have to be? How oblivious to your surroundings? Were they even thinking about how many corpses were probably around them? Andy was there, in the woods somewhere, judging them with the non-sticked eye, and like, there had to be at least one dead body in the lake itself, right, like that was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? Big ol’ body of water like that, someone’s gonna wind up an Ophelia sooner or later, voluntarily or not. Watch out, Ace, some funky formerly-bloated skeleton is gonna wrap its bony hand around your ankle bones, and that’s a boner-killer, ain’t it?

Good thing the darling mouse was there to drag them out into the open, where someone a lot more malicious and competent than him could've racked up a hat trick.

Still, he had an idea. The idea was that he was going to cause problems on purpose.

It wouldn’t really make him any happier to make their heads explode, three in a row, tap tap tap, not to mention he didn’t think beginner’s luck was a thing in long-distance riflery. The point was ruining their day, and Abe was pretty good at that by this point, he thought.

He aimed high, and then realized that bullets dropped, so he shifted his aim to the side. High and to the side. If the wind and ballistic physics conspired to introduce his party-starter to some flesh, well, at that point it was just meant to be, wasn’t it?

He pulled the trigger, and the gunshot was just as loud as he’d hoped it’d be.

[Sunnybunny]

Darlene, that was it!

She reminded her of... no one in particular, but the awkward fidgeting seemed so familiar. Maybe because it belonged to a life they had all been forced to leave behind. Besides all the horror, being walked in on after kissing one of the Popular Boys could be in someone's sitcom. Humans being human.

That wasn't natural, for this place.

It was inviting the crack of a gunshot to invade.

Sakurako clamped her hands over her mouth, muffling a scream that came from the core of her. Yes, they'd been asking for it, but the fruit was low-hanging. The was no humor in this, but the urge to laugh was so strong it was like a blow. The alarm rang unbidden, and it was time for the lights to go up. Hastily, she looked to make sure neither of the other two had gotten hit.

There weren't too many people with that kind of firepower. She knew at least one, though, thanks to the misadventures of the dearly departed Clout Gang. Erika? Justin? Some other fucker who thought that they didn't have a right to be as cute and stupid as they damn well pleased? She didn't know if her yell would carry all the way to the interloper, but all the same-

"Fuck you! Blow it up your shit-stained ass!"

Ten days of this would make anyone homicidal, even a simple girl. But she was a monster, and she had a gun, and all she wanted was this fuck's attention. Slipping the now-sleeveless sweater on, she grabbed Thomas's pistol and rolled away from the other two. No need to make it easy here.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

"No, I mean, most of the people I was with are, well, a bunch of them died but I guess Ariz—"

That was as far as Darlene got before the gunshot.

Things changed in a hurry. Darlene shrieked and spun around to face the woods, back where she'd come from, even as she sank down to the ground. In an action movie she would've gone into a crouch, but as it was all she could think to do was lower her profile, which took the form of tucking her feet under her butt and kneeling with her legs pressed together, which meant that if someone came charging out of the trees screaming and waving a sword she wasn't going anywhere particularly fast.

She hadn't been shot, at least she was pretty sure. Nothing hurt that much more than it had been hurting for the past few days, she felt sticky with sweat but not really with blood, and all her limbs seemed to be functioning more or less like they always had. She was fairly certain her brain wasn't leaking out of her eyeballs.

A quick glance around showed her that Ace and Sakurako were also seemingly unharmed, though both had produced firearms of their own from hiding places, or maybe the guns had just been lying around this entire time unnoticed because Darlene had been too busy focusing on not seeing anyone's nipples for more than half a second. She'd been stupid and this was what she got for it. Ambushed again!

But Darlene had a little secret too, and since—whatever the overall case—the three of them were now placed by circumstances on the same side, pitted against whoever was out there trying to kill them (Any of them? One of them in specific? Did it matter?), she didn't mind showing her cards.

Her right hand darted straight to the zipper of her bag and tugged it open, quick and smooth. Her fingers were not steady, but they were practiced now. They knew what needed doing, and that was to brush aside empty water bottles, and shove past the first aid kit and get hold of the revolver that had so rarely left their grasp over this past week. In moments, it was in its rightful place, smooth grip familiar against her palms, held in both hands, braced and aiming like Beryl had taught her only back when they were doing target practice her arms hadn't been jittering quite so much.

In a really strange and messed up way, this was actually almost nice so far, in that the world had righted itself and brought priorities back in line and Darlene was no longer all that concerned about what the others did or did not think that she had done at some party. Now all that mattered was not getting shot! That was positively simple by comparison.

Off on one side, Sakurakp was screaming curses that might've made Darlene kind of embarrassed fifteen seconds ago but were now extraneous information. She half considered adding a "Yeah," but her throat was tight.

Instead, she pulled back the hammer, aimed randomly into the woods, and let a bullet signal her assent.

[Buko]

Damn.

He hadn’t been expecting this and it was like, considering the situation? The most expected outcome ever--so what the fuck was he thinking? Not fuckin' much if you had been payin' attention. This was like the fifth time this shit had happened to him on this island, how the fuck could he be surprised? The gunshot hit the scene and a panic hit his heart. Beats wanted to keep calm. Ace wanted to remain cool and collected. There was no such luck. Fear was the only friend readily visible in his mind's eye.

The gunshot forced him to reach towards his hat before he could process what he was doing. There was a pump of adrenaline and a familiar sensation in his head. His heart palpitated and his pupil’s dilated. Saku cursed and sputtered. The gun was in his hand and pointing to the sound where the gunfire came from as quickly as Ace could manage. The safety was off, the gun was already cocked. Always in for a pound, even when a penny would suffice.

Ace gripped the wood grain handle of the big metal .45 with both hands and his green eyes looked towards the green brush. What was he doing? Was there any question? This was the cost of doing business on the island--no consistency. It could all go from honkey dory to bloody and gory in a Memphis minute. So, what was he doing? Was there any question? Beats heard another shot--this time coming from close, from Darlene. Well shit, there was the answer right there! If someone like Darlene was capable of standing up, who was he to be scared? There were rules to this game, wasn't there? Truth's that couldn't be denied.

This is a true fact
Since when has it become cool to get shot and not shoot back?

Rap lyric for everything. So much had changed. And somehow, someway—that remained the same.

Ace aimed into the woods—the big fuck you .45. He didn’t know where the shot came from—he didn’t know who had fired it. Did that change anything? Shit, what you think? He found the trigger and he pulled it. Then he pulled it again. And again and again and again and again. His body shook and his ear rung and the only thing his green eyes saw was red.

[dmboogie]

Well, that got a reaction, and Abe had wanted a fuckin’ reaction, hadn’t he, but maybe he’d underestimated what a reaction really was, ‘cause yeah, it was funny to make them all shriek and swear and dive for cover, but maybe he hadn’t been counting on all three of them having fucking guns.

And like, yeah, Darlene, he knew Darlene had a gun, but the last time he saw Darlene fire her gun, well, that point had been hammered to hell and home, hadn’t it, so he thought maybe she’d be too scared to use it, but she wasn’t, attagirl, that’s the way you did it, and maybe he’d be feeling something adjacent to pride if she wasn’t currently firing at him.

Or at least the concept of him. Through the scope, he saw her firing at a different zip code, so he wasn’t exactly shitting his pants. Ace was picking up the slack, though, and that was a lot of bullets, and even though that dude was also way off, the bullets would probably continue until morale improved, and by the looks of that funky combat roll, Sakurako was probably gonna join in, too, and that was three entire people firing wildly at him.

Realistically speaking there probably wasn’t much of a chance of them hitting him with that blind fire, but the odds weren't zero, right? What a stupid fucking way to go out. If he tried to creep away he’d probably just step on a twig and get blown to pieces by the jumpiest motherfuckers on the island; and just flat out making a break for it would be even riskier. This called for a more subtle, refined approach.

“I was shooting at a bird! Jesus christ it was just a fucking bird, I swear! A bird! You guys aren’t birds, right,” he yelled, keeping his head low in case they decided that wasn’t good enough. He carefully laid the rifle down. One hand on his bag, the other on his better gun; ready to book it if it looked like they were trying to rush him down.

[Sunnybunny]

The adrenaline pumped steady as Darlene and Ace both sprung into action and... damn. Was there anything else to say besides how comforting the sound of gunshots in unison sounded? Her ears were starting to ring a little, but ding dong the witch would be be dead eventually. Her fingers twitched, waiting on an opportunity to crawl closer to whoever this was. Then, of course-

Excuses, excuses. Maybe she would buy the bird thing if the shot hadn't been so low, but Sakurako was-

re-born yesterday, so there was no benefit of the doubt, especially when the simpler explanation was so close she could taste it.

"Oh yeah?"

The voice was one she'd heard around school, but not so familiar she could recognize it without a face to match it to. In any case, she sat up, shook the dirt from her hair and pretended she was going to buy whatever this guy was selling. Yeah, he'd been shooting at the sitting ducks he thought he'd found. Her hands remained at their sides, but the pistol was clicked off its safety.

Always taking kindness for weakness. Always being violent to people who deserved better.

Players were all the same, and it was exhausting.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

Darlene was three shots deep before the voice called out. She barely heard it over the crazy ringing cacophony of gunfire, but when she did it brought her up short. The revolver was ready for another go, hammer clicked and barrel pointed still more or less in the direction of where the gunfire might have come from (she wasn't totally sure since her back had been turned, but also with the dip and waver it had going it didn't make all that much difference). But the voice, the voice, she knew that voice.

She didn't place it immediately. It wasn't a voice she knew well, like some of the people in choir or on the badminton team (poor Tonya; Darlene had kind of always been more than a little weirded out by the girl because having a kid while being only as old as she was seemed like an entirely made-up story but that wasn't how it would feel to that baby out there now without one of its parents [or even both? She'd never asked who the dad was], and why was this coming up right now? Was anyone else from the team even here? She kind of thought maybe Misty had stayed home, and now was not the time). But anyways, the voice she knew more like how she knew, well, not Jonah, but Arizona or Kelly maybe. Something she was kind of familiar with from normal life but had grown more aware of since the abrupt elevation of stakes.

It clicked a second later. The president guy! She didn't actually remember his name which was more than a little embarrassing because she'd definitely forgotten it a few times before when they were still together, and to say the terms of their parting had been strained would be like saying the scene Darlene had walked in on here was slightly awkward, but this wasn't gunfire from nowhere with some anonymous face behind it.

It did indeed take Darlene a couple seconds to pull herself to her feet again from the awkward position she'd taken, but even as she did she was calling out loud, a counterpoint to Sakurako's expression of doubt.

"Wait," Darlene yelled, because it was hard to hear well over the afterimage of gunfire, "wait, it's okay. I, I know this guy. It's okay."

She was going to follow that up with something like "He's telling the truth," except that, come to think of it, she really actually did not want to vouch for that. After all, when he'd left, he'd done so by taking advantage of their distraction with the horrible unavoidable accident that had cost Beryl her life in order to steal an extra pack. But also, it had been Jonah's pack and he'd left the bullets behind not far away, and moreover Darlene knew from target practice that he had a gun that could do a lot more (unless he'd lost it). So maybe he was playing at something, but she was pretty sure, more or less, that he wasn't trying to murder them.

She waved her arms over her head, her left shoulder protesting as she did, her right hand still gripping the gun. She yelled again, advancing her thesis.

"Don't shoot. It's okay."

[Buko]

His hands trembled and his body shook. The only thing Ace could hear was ringing. The only thing he could smell was smoke. The only thing Beats could feel was his heart beating out of his chest.

The clip had been emptied, the .45 would fire no more. People were talking now, Darlene and the assailant. A bird? This was a mistake? A misinterpretation? That was some bullshit! It was day 10! Not of some Bahamian bird watching conference—but of Survival of the Fittest! Who’d this guy think he was? What the fuck did he think would happen? You couldn’t just do something so reckless and not expect consequences!

For the record, Beats did not recognize his hypocrisy in the moment. In the moment, Ace struggled to take the shooter at his word and Darlene had failed to sway him much with her charismatic defense of 'I know him!'. It was a clusterfuck. Ace didn't want to shoot anybody he didn't have to--but he didn't want to be unarmed and unable to if shoves came to push. He didn't want to be violent but he didn't want to be a punk either--he settled for what he always settled on: posturing and flexing. For the record, he didn't recognize his wounded shoulder having a bursting, stinging and burning wave of pain as a sign he should shut up either. So much for self awareness and self restraint.

“What the fuck you mean a bird?! Are you fuckin’ dumb, asshole?! What are we supposed to fuckin’ think?! Use your fuckin’ brain, shit!” he looked at Darlene incredulously and spoke earnestly and without the pretense of politeness, "This your friend?!"

Darlene advocated diplomacy—whatever. The adrenaline was already pumping in Ace’s mind and he couldn’t just lower it in an instant. The goose had been cooked and the cake had been baked. Beats' blood ran hot and this time there was no water to cool him down. He needed a minute. Maybe two. Ace walked towards his bag, he didn’t run, like a power walk: brisk. Beats needed to get to his bag. He needed to get to another gun. There was no question about it—there was no problem on this island that couldn’t be solved by more bullets. And what had he said to Myles? If you were going to shoot at Ace, you best be committed to shooting twice.

How could he be surprised by being caught off guard by gunfire? It was like the fifth time it had happened. It didn’t matter, he was surprised all the same. It never mattered—if a moment presented itself, Ace took the opportunity to become a prisoner in it.

He reached his duffel bag, he knelt down and began to unzip it. Beats closed his eyes, he took a breath, he calmed down. Darlene said it was okay. But who the fuck was Darlene? She was just a mousey girl (who had been hiding a gun). Ace could take on a mousey girl, he wasn't scared of someone like Darlene. Beats didn't know this guy and he couldn't see him. It was a struggle to not be scared and not respond in turn. His fight or flight usually was always set on flight...the last few days he had begun to feel a shift.

"Look man--don't start no shit, won't be no shit--we don't want no problems with you, you don't want no problems with us," he spoke up trying to do his best Connor impression and lead the huddle, "Just step the fuck out or get to steppin', y'know? It freaks me out talkin' to someone I can't fuckin' see!"

[dmboogie]

What the devil, Abe had an advocate.

He’d figured that no one left had anything resembling warm fuzzy feelings towards him, except maybe Hel but the whole Forrest thing was probably a dealbreaker, haha, and Darlene especially didn’t have any fuckin’ reason to like him, but maybe she was the sorta person who thought things meant more than they did, like walking with someone for like two hours, and sure, yeah, Abe hadn’t left that scene in the most graceful way, but between the two of them she was way worse off, y’know?

Anyways he wasn’t gonna complain. The gunshots stopped, and that’s all he could really ask for. In retrospect he coulda picked a better lie, like, ‘watch out Quinn’s coming’ but wait, Quinn was dead, right, so he’d have to pick a different boogieman, like fuckin’ Erika, she’d killed a lot of people, right? He was in no way keeping track but he’d definitely heard her name a bunch. Yeah, would’ve been smart to try and pin the shot on someone else entirely, but oh well, if it worked it worked.

Speaking of smart, Ace was technically offering him a chance to skedaddle bullet-free, but maybe it was a secret test of character, like, if Abe left without showing his face they’d know he’d been up to some bad shit, and that’d probably burn away any ridiculous goodwill Darlene had towards him, and then they’d round up a posse, and bang bang, party-crasher down, and he kinda wanted to avoid that.

“Hi Darlene, long time no see, haha, and yeah man, I’ll come out, just don’t light me the fuck up the moment I crawl outta here, alright,” he called out, rising to his feet, when

Pakoosh.

It wasn’t close but it wasn’t far away, either, closer to the lake than the woods but still close enough for it to be loud as fuck, so he hit the ground again, because that was a fucking explosion, and he didn’t fuck with that.

“Fuck,” he yelled, cowering and covering his head.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

"He's not, not, um, exactly my friend, just we traveled together," Darlene explained, far too quietly for anyone to pay attention to or probably to even hear properly, even herself in fact, ears still ringing as they were from the barrage of unaimed gunfire. That was okay, though. She'd stopped shooting, and Ace had as well, and Sakurako was probably the smartest person here because she hadn't even started to begin with, biding her time and actually figuring out what was happening instead of jumping straight to violence.

What was audible, generally, was the response from the foliage, which confirmed that the mystery shooter was indeed the exact person Darlene had been pretty sure it was. This was a relief because if she'd been wrong and had been vouching for some total stranger, then all of their lives would've been at risk and entirely due to her mistake. She could've gotten someone killed by saying what she did, but also she could've gotten someone killed by not doing so, so the best thing to do was not think about it too much or worry about what might have been. Her mind did this sometimes, took a thing she'd done just fine and then turned it into a whole bunch of things she could've screwed up, a whole bunch of mistakes she hadn't made but would torment herself with as if she had.

This was especially silly because there were actual things to feel bad about!

Now that this was no longer a gunfight with lives on the line, for example, Darlene could start chastising herself about how the boy in the bushes knew her name still when she'd only introduced herself the once, while she'd had to pick his up several times and it still hadn't stuck. She could fret over how Ace and Sakurako were at best kind of almost decently clothed, and could worry what the newcomer might think her role in all of it was. And, and she could second guess herself about whether he was even trustworthy!

"It's okay," she yelled louder now, "I'll come meet you."

What had Jonah said? Being brave was being afraid but trying anyways? That's how Darlene was feeling now. Nobody was totally convinced that things were going to be okay, and there was a lot of tension, even just coming from Ace, but if she went first then the risk would fall on her, and she thought, well, maybe both sides would hesitate just a little instead of shooting her, no matter how they felt about each other? And if they didn't, then, then this would at least be a sort of happy moment to leave on, right? Aside from how they'd tear each other to pieces over her body. But this was a thing Jonah and Max could be proud of for a change. It was the best she'd felt about her choices in over a day now, and she wasn't even thinking about shooting anyone.

Darlene trotted back up the beach towards the treeline, back more or less the way she'd come, shoes dragging a little through the dirt and sand, and she felt her breath speeding up. Was she making a giant mistake? Was this all about to fall apart? What was that faint noise off to the side by the other two?

She'd just started to turn when the explosion hit, a shattering blast that turned all sounds to white noise and blew a wave of grit and sand and scraps of plant life towards her, a flash of light that left her blinking, stunned, as she stumbled and hit the ground, bringing her hands to her face to desperately rub at her eyes as her mouth hung open.

She wanted to be screaming, but could not tell at all if she was.