Survival Of The Fittest

((Claire Lambert continued from This Will Eat You Alive))

Things had not improved in the aftermath of Claire's meeting with the other girl, who she had eventually managed, upon recollection, to tentatively identify as Rhory Anne Broderick, winner of the Best Kill Award a few days in the past. The deceit had been clear, the danger present, but, for some reason, the hammer had not fallen. They had both gone their separate ways, unharmed, but Claire wasn't about to give the other girl the benefit of the doubt a second time. She hoped there was no second time, that Rhory found her trouble somewhere else.

As if that hadn't been bad enough, her plans of hiding out at the cell tower had been laid to rest by the danger zones. She had chosen a less than typical route to safety, heading for the swamp because it seemed less likely to be inhabited. It was also fairly probable that it would be made into a danger zone soon, so she would have to move again, but, with any luck, things would be better by then. There weren't many students left on the island. She had lasted a long time. All she had to do was lay low for a little more, and she would have a real chance of going home, of sparing her parents the pain of losing another child.

Of course, things became more dangerous with each passing day, and more people she knew died. Julian Avery was gone, now. The fact that several major killers had died as well was not as reassuring as it perhaps could have been; it only meant that a new batch was rising to take their place, that unknowns were finally finding it within themselves to murder for freedom. They were, if anything, less predictable.

Claire was staying near enough to the eastern edge of the swamp, but far enough in so as to be under cover. She thought she'd heard the sounds of other people nearby a few times, but it could have simply been animals making their way through the underbrush, and it had all faded away in short order. At present, she stood on a patch of dry ground, leaning against a tree, working hard to avoid falling asleep. It was close to the end, now. All she had to do was stay lucky and careful a bit longer.

Somewhere, a bird was calling out, not a pretty song, but an ugly kind of squawking. Claire could also hear the humming of bugs, the splash of something moving. She tried to focus on the noises, to keep alert. Her gun was in her hand. It was always in her hand these days.

"Stay awake. Stay strong. You can still do this."

((Ilario Fiametta III continued from This Will Eat You Alive))

Ilario was lost.

He stumbled through trees and puddles of sucking mud with his head cocked to one side and eyes wide open, uneven pupils searching the dim and crowded world around him. His heart beat too fast, fluttering like a trapped and frantic bird inside his throat. Familiar anxiety tightened bands across his chest and made his breath come too quickly even though his mouth was bitter with the taste of the pills he'd dry-swallowed minutes ago. They didn't seem to be working properly anymore. Nothing seemed to be working properly anymore. The world spun gently around him in a nightmare of skewed perspective.

Ilario was lost but he couldn't remember where he had been going, what he had been trying to accomplish. Rhory was still behind him -- he thought, couldn't be sure, couldn't quite hear her footsteps over the roaring in his ears -- and he had been leading her away. Away from the girl who had been a threat outlined in red against his greyscaled world. He thought he had been leading her away, anyway. Maybe they'd just been going in circles. It was hard to tell. His mind was starting to give up.

Somewhere a bird squawked, cutting through the soft haze of bugs. He angled his footsteps towards where he thought it was and readjusted his clumsy grip on the AK. Animals meant no people, right? Funny. He would have thought the birds would all be long gone. His breath caught in what might have been laughter except that he didn't know why he was laughing. His feet pulled him forwards. He made it perhaps five steps before a root rose up to tangle in his legs and he splashed knee-down in the stagnant water.

He stayed down. It seemed easier. One hand in the water and one hand gripping the gun, propped against a tree, he knelt and breathed in the earthy stench of swamp. Gradually the tightness eased. The world settled from a spin to a gently tilting slide, staying almost solid around the edges. His blood calmed. The ringing in his ears faded, was replaced with the sound of insects. And the bird. He glanced up, half-expecting to see it.

Instead, he saw her.

Just a few feet away. Standing under a tree. His vision narrowed. She was there. In front of him. Rhory was behind him. He was between them. Good. Good. That was how it should be. Had she noticed him? He couldn't tell. His vision blurred, sharpened, blurred again. He didn't know how fast he could move.

He'd have to take a chance on it.

He pushed himself hard upright and rode out the ensuing vertigo, used it like a springboard to shove his tired and abused body forwards. The AK came to bear, safety still on but she didn't know that, couldn't know that, and he swept out of the cover of mossy trees like some filthy avenging angel, stopping just short of her with his stance wide to accommodate the swaying ground underneath him.

Gritted out in slurred, hoarse syllables with barely a trace of the cultured accent he used to pride himself on;

"Don't. Move."

The voice jolted Claire. She looked over, and, for just a moment, she couldn't even come close to recognizing the boy before her, pointing his rifle in her direction. She knew of him, of course, but the context was all wrong, and the speech didn't match. Then, of course, it clicked: Ilario. Ilario Fiametta, Rosa's brother. He'd been on the announcements a good deal, killing people even before he lost his sisters. Claire knew he was trouble. She knew this was just as bad as what had happened with Rhory, maybe even worse.

The key was to prevent it from devolving into violence. Claire already had her gun in her hand. It wasn't aimed, but Ilario looked fairly unsteady. She figured she had a good enough chance of getting her weapon up before he let loose, if it came to that. In the meantime, though, she could try to neutralize things. It was pretty hard to figure out how to mollify a bereaved killer, tough. The first thing that came to mind was Rosa, and whatever she had been doing with Jimmy, and that was absolutely not the right direction to take this interaction. Neither was referencing Frankie, who was also dead.

She decided to keep things simple.

"That's fine," she said. "I don't want any trouble, Ilario."

This was a bad time. She wasn't terrified, not like she had been when confronted by JJ or Dan, but there was definitely some fear here. It would be so simple for things to go wrong, and also so pointless, this late in the game. She had made it so far. She wasn't about to fail now, not if she could help it. It all hinged on someone else, though, and that, that wasn't good at all.

No trouble. Hah. That was almost funny. Except she meant it, he thought, and his stomach did one slow lazy flip over which made him swallow hard. The gun wavered in his hands, slid away from her. Came to rest muzzle-down in the dirt. No trouble, she said, and sure she had a gun but it was just resting in her hands, not pointing. And everything he felt, the detachment in his limbs and the gnawing nausea in his stomach and the way nothing was quite in focus - she looked like she was feeling that too. She looked like Rhory.

She looked like Rhory.

He blinked hard. The world sharpened. Deep breaths, he thought, in some intellectual corner of his mind still immune from the screams and the blood and the recoil of bullets, some part of himself that was calm and collected and knew panic attacks when it saw them; deep breaths. Steady. Steady.

The paranoia didn't quite recede. She was a woman. But she'd survived this far. She had a gun. Had he heard her name? He couldn't be sure, couldn't recall anymore. He watched her hard. Threat/no threat. He couldn't be sure. But he couldn't kill an innocent. He hadn't so far (he hadn't) and he couldn't take a chance that he could be wrong.

He'd been silent too long. He shook himself slightly, stayed where he was. The gun was still down. Non-threatening. Right? Right. "No trouble." His own voice shocked him. Sounded like cigarettes and screaming. "That's -- that's okay. No trouble. I don't mean -- I haven't. It's okay. I won't. Hurt you."

Words were difficult. Thick in his mouth. The head injury? The lack of food, sleep, water? Hard to tell. His lips were cracked and split anyway. And he was missing something. Something important, he knew. Someone. Who. Rhory? Yes. Rhory. Had to make sure she was safe.

"Rhory," he said. "She was. She's following me. I saw -- before. You two. But you can't. She's with me. No trouble. Okay? It'll all be okay. I can. I'm protecting her." Had to. Had to had to had to. No more sisters to protect, and that was it. Just Rhory now. Trial by gunfire.

Hah.

Ilario had lost cogency, it seemed. He was having trouble articulating himself, but what he was sharing was enough to give Claire a good picture. She had been right. Rhory hadn't been operating alone during their last meeting. Ilario was her partner. Two winners of the Best Kill Award, working together to take out the competition, it seemed. Two killers carving their way through the island. She wondered what they had planned for the end. In all likelihood, each intended to double cross the other long before that came into play.

The problem was, this meant that Claire's position had just become far more tenuous. No longer was she dealing with one possibly-deranged killer. Now, she was faced with a barely-coherent player with plenty of reason to have a grudge against her, one who she already knew worked in tandem with someone else dangerous, through deceit and ambush. She couldn't begin to imagine what had gone wrong for them last time. Perhaps she had been too alert. Perhaps Ilario had hoped she would deal with Rhory for him. It didn't matter. For all she knew, Rhory could be sneaking around right now, getting ready to kill her from behind. It would fit with what she knew of the girl. This encounter had to end, right now. Another stalemate would just result in Claire getting killed.

It seemed this wasn't going to end well, no matter what she did. Best, then, to get it over with, to make Ilario think twice about giving her trouble, to cut this off before it exploded in her face. Luckily, he had given her an opening. His gun was pointed at the ground. She didn't know why, and didn't particularly care.

She snapped her pistol up to point at him and said, "I know Rhory, and I doubt she needs protection. I don't want to see her again, though, so you should keep your weapon down and let me leave. Now."

She hoped he would do it. Her pulse was racing. This was getting bad. If Ilario decided to get aggressive, if he tried to stall her, well, her own safety was her first concern. She felt bad for the boy, for his loss of his sisters, for everything he and they had been through, but she wasn't about to let that sort of feeling get her killed. She'd do what she had to to survive this, and if that ended poorly for Ilario, well, he had plenty of opportunity to avoid it.

And now there was a gun in his face. Pointing straight him. Was her finger on the trigger? He wasn't sure, his eyes were locked onto her face and trying frantically to remember. Names, faces, the two didn't seem to want to match in his mind. But they had to. Because she was pointing the gun at him and he had to know if she was going to pull the trigger.

She told him to leave. He couldn't, knew he couldn't, because what if he left and she killed someone? Names, faces, names, announcements, and who was she? Who? He blinked dry eyes, licked his lips with a tongue that tasted like snow on metal or salted pennies in his mouth. The face was so familiar. He'd heard the name. He remained stock still, hand loose on the automatic weapon by his side. It was coming. Something was fighting its way through the tangled recesses of his broken brain.

A name.

Claire.

Claire Lambert.

Daniel Kensrue. Danya's voice, almost laughing. Daniel Kensrue taking a shot to the face from Claire, welcome to the club, lots of company. The same announcement as Jackson Ockley when he'd knelt on the ground and tried and tried and tried to bring his shattered body back with the same air Jackson had given him, tasting of seawater and blood and vomit and the sour tang of fear. Claire Lambert, killer of Daniel Kensrue. Right in the face.

The gun swung back up. His purpose thrummed through his veins, alive once more. Pushing back the shock and pain and exhaustion just a little further; time for that later. For now there was Claire in front of him. He was glad he hadn't run. Would probably have put a bullet in his back. Killers were like that. Betrayal. She probably meant to kill Rhory before. Not now. She couldn't kill Rhory now. He wouldn't let her.

He took a step forwards, ignoring the undulations of the ground beneath his feet. His fingers were unsteady. He breathed deep, and they calmed. The gun pointed at her chest. Torso. Best chance to kill or fatally wound. Let her die quick. Like dogs. Put her down easy. The game had twisted her beyond anything and it was up to him to ensure she'd never hurt anyone.

Was his voice steadier? He wasn't sure. It felt better. Everything felt better. A cushioning blanket of serenity. He was still okay. He was still doing the right thing.

Yes.

"You shot Dan Kensrue." The safety clicked off. He took another step. "You shot him in the face."

His finger wrapped around the trigger almost lovingly.

"I'm sorry."

Claire knew everything was going to go badly as soon as Ilario brought his gun back up. This wasn't going to calm down. It was going to escalate. The boy still looked unsteady and unsure, but that meant very little in the long run. Claire was still hoping to get out of this without violence. A gunfight now, at this range, would not mean good things for her odds of surviving. As Ilario spoke, as he clicked the safety off, Claire steadied herself and prepared to move if necessary. First priority was staying unharmed, with retaliation second place. If she could get some distance, she could probably outlast Ilario. She had two guns, and he seemed armed only with the rifle. He'd killed several people already, so he had to be running low on ammunition.

She did feel bad about what she was going to do to Rosa's brother. The Fiametta family didn't deserve all it had suffered, but neither did the Lamberts, and Claire wasn't the one starting this fight. She wasn't going to let herself be killed out of pity.

She was a bit scared, though. She'd been in tough situations, in fights, but never in a place quite this bad. It was going to take more than skill to make it out of this with any chance of lasting the game out. It was also going to take an exceptional amount of luck. This had all gone so wrong. She had been suspicious or Ilario, but she had underestimated the degree to which someone could delude themselves. Perhaps, if she had more time, she would have been able to talk him down. It wasn't going to be that way, though. There was no point wasting any more time with words.

Ilario apologized. This was it.

"I'm sorry too."

Claire moved quickly, firing three wild shots at Ilario while at the same time lunging to the side, trying to confound his aim.

Bullets whined through the air. He wasn't sure how many, only knew that one of them whipped past his arm close enough to open a shallow gash. Not bad. Not his dominant arm. Still okay. And she was diving, diving, moving quickly, trying to evade. Shooting and running. Escaping? He didn't think so. Just ducking long enough to get a better shot in and this next one would take off his head, would open him up to the earth and the sky and he would (rest) have failed.

No. Not an option. The AK, ammunition so lovingly conserved up until now, opened up. Three shots. Three bullets. Miniature sonic booms (or was that an urban legend) cracking through the air towards her, to where she'd hesitated for a split-second. Three from her, three from him. Poetic. Good. No more. He didn't want to waste them.

The recoil bit deep into his abused shoulder, but he took it with teeth clenched and feet spread apart, not bothering to duck. Didn't think he could. Not now. Not with any kind of accuracy. Wouldn't be able to fire if he was running, too, and that wasn't okay. He had to take her out. It was right. He smote her as a sinner, as a murderer, as a dark-eyed teenager who'd woken up with a gun in her hands and fallen headlong into the game of kill or be killed and wasn't a teenager now, was a thing. Just a thing. Just a killer, like in a thousand morning papers. Gunfire was quicker than the electric chair. He was justice. God had chosen.

Had he hit her? He thought so. He crouched low, fired one more time. One more bullet. His breath came easy in his throat. Strange. He hadn't taken his pills recently. Or had he? He couldn't remember. It didn't matter. The sweet song of the semiautomatic was better than any bitter pill. It cooled his blood. Gave him purpose. Helped him. Another sign, like the antlers. The right thing.

Yes.

Today was not her lucky day. As Claire moved, she stepped on a loose patch of dirt. It didn't trip her, didn't twist her ankle or pitch her into the tepid waters, but it made her pause to regain her balance for just an instant, for just long enough.

Only one of Ilario's bullets hit. It was plenty, slamming into her chest, the force knocking her breath out of her. For a second, she paused, unsure what had happened, how bad it was. Then, she dropped to her knees, feeling the pain surging through her, the blood flowing down her chest. Whatever Ilario had hit, it was serious. She wasn't breathing right. A half cough spattered some blood down the front of her shirt. Lung, then. That meant this was done. She wasn't leaving this place.

It was unfair. That was all she could think, in those half moments. Ilario had mentioned Dan. That was, on some level, what this was about. Of course she knew Ilario was playing, knew he was only finding opportunities to justify murder to himself, but it still was so wrong. Claire had killed Dan out of self defense, to save her own life and the life of someone else. Now, that was being turned against her, used as a crime to justify her execution. Ilario was twisting one of the good things she had done. He was trying to take everything away from her. He was turning something he could never have hoped to understand into a weapon in his arsenal.

That wasn't the worst of it, though. For all that Claire feared dying, it was secondary to her worries for her parents, the people who had raised her, who she loved so much. They were losing another child, losing her to something sick and twisted and pointless. They were losing her and she didn't know what it would do to them. Ryan and Kelly Lambert were strong people, but everyone had limits. She just had to hope and pray that this wasn't theirs. She wanted to say something to them, but the pain was too great. She wanted to look into a camera, to wave goodbye, but she didn't know where any were.

This was wrong. She couldn't give up. She couldn't lose like this. Not after all her time here. She couldn't just let her parents down. She was hurt badly, probably fatally, but as long as there was the slightest chance, she would keep fighting. She would keep trying. Giving up was simply not in her nature.

She forced herself to her feet once more, remembering as she did JJ and Jimmy Brennan, the desperate last actions of the boy she'd never even figured out how she felt towards. She could understand, now. It was doing what was right, even if it was probably impossible, even if she couldn't hope to last through this all. It was giving her all, showing her parents, if they ever saw this, that she had never given up on herself or on them. Her vision was blurred, blackening, but she pointed the pistol, hands shaking. She lined up the sights, aimed straight at Ilario.

The gunshot was not caused by her, coming as it did a moment before she was ready to pull the trigger. Another bullet slammed into her torso, toppling her to the ground. She fired once more as she fell, but the shot went wide, off into the swamp in a direction nowhere near her target. The pain was worse now, everything completely black. Something important had been damaged. She wasn't getting back up from this one.

"Mom, Daddy, I'm... I'm sorry. Stay tough for me."

The world was fading. Ilario was no longer in her sight. She didn't care what happened to him, not anymore. She'd tried her best. She was scared and hurting, but she'd tried her best, and, as even the blackness vanished, she realized that was the best she could have hoped for.

And that was that.

She fell.

She landed sprawled awkwardly with eyes still open. They blinked once, twice, three times. Her body twitched. Blood ran from her body and from her mouth and mingled in great crimson splashes with the opaque swampwater. Her breathing came hoarse and ragged and sucking once, twice, three times. Stopped. She wasn't blinking anymore either. Dead. That was okay. That was good. It had taken four bullets, that was less good. But she was down. And he had more, he thought. He'd been safe. He was safe. Ilario Fiametta III was safe, okay, because he had Rhory and he knew how this story was supposed to end and--

--and Rhory,he had Rhory but where was she? She wasn't talking. She loved to talk, to snipe and to bitch until he had to close his eyes and remember his purpose here. He turned slowly, ignoring the way the world dragged along the edges, and tried to spot her in the darkened overhangs of tree and moss. Nothing. No pale skin, no angry eyes, no antlers glowing in the light of a sign just trees just fucking trees and creeping vines and water and a bird called, and animals meant no people and his legs just plain weren't there anymore and he was splashing hard to the ground in the mud and shit, curling forwards to rest his body on a tree, and tears were coming like a dam had broken pouring hot and wet down his cheeks.

He didn't know why he was crying. It felt good though, in some twisted way, sobbing the poison out of his body. He wasn't crying for Claire -- for the body on the ground, just dead meat now, whatever it was that was Claire gone to meet her judgement -- or for Rhory or for Rosa or Frankie or anyone, not even himself, he was just crying and the harsh sobs that tore their way out of his throat felt good in the most painful way he could imagine.

He'd cried a lot, since being on the island. Never cried at home. That was weak. Stupid. Girly.

Maybe here, it wasn't so bad.

When he was finally spent, he could barely find the energy to move. Half-crawling and half-dragging himself along, he managed to get to a patch of slightly dryer ground under a huge and spreading willow. He sat, and breathed, and took stock.

He still had the gun. He had his pack, albeit wet and muddy and disgusting. There was some food inside, some water. His pills. Physically he was hurt, but not badly. He would live. Of course he would live -- he still had his purpose. He wasn't done yet.

Rhory. He had to find Rhory. But he couldn't. His eyes slipped shut, snapped open, drifted closed again. Shock, or exhaustion, or any one of a number of things. He needed sleep. He needed it so badly. His mind had been a soup of fatigue poisons and desperation for so long now. Sleep would bring perspective. Sleep would bring clarity.

Ilario wrapped himself around the AK-47 (no longer hot, still smelling of cordite and blood and swampwater) and closed his eyes for good. Clutching the semiautomatic weapon like a child with a favorite teddy bear, he allowed himself to finally sink into the comforting blanket of real, actual sleep.

He would deal with the world later. For now, he lived in dreams, and his sisters lived with him.

(Ilario Fiametta III continued in from the chasm to the core)