Survival Of The Fittest

((Makatala continued from One Way to Win))

Kammy's pace was reasonable. She'd never been fit, but that meant she knew how to carry her weight, or near enough. It was a chore to continually tell herself to keep calm and not go haring off into the distance. That would just result in her burning herself out and getting too tired, too quickly; there was an awful lot of ground to cover, slow and steady won the race, right?

Right...

As she walked, Kam ran ideas and plans through her mind. It was almost in itself a calming exercise. Who did she know that she could trust? Who could she be sure would have the right idea? Kammy liked to think she knew the rest of the student council pretty well, it was true... Then again, that included under the umbrella people like Benjamin and Mara, who would argue and bull their way through into the cows came home. Not that Kam herself didn't, just... maybe not the kind of guys you wanted to try and get onside. Maybe someone like a Summer or a Kelly would be more trustworthy, tough to tell. They were both nice enough, and she got along with them, yet...

Maybe she needed to look to her closer friends. Between council members it was kind've a 'working relationship' more than a friendly one. Kam could already see Naomi attempting to assume control of a group's direction, and there was no way she could accept something like that, not right now. But that left... christ. It was hard, so hard, trying to sift through relationships, weigh up people and think 'gee, could I trust this person with my life?'

Kammy paused in her thoughts to step over a section of collapsed fence, and then stopped, eyeing the barn ahead of her. Just beyond was a farmhouse, which would surely be a tempting prospect. To Michelle? Kam wasn't as sure. Given the choice... Kammy figured her girlfriend would take the barn. That would be a Michelle kind've thing to do.

Makatala resumed thinking as she moved forward again, although more slowly now. The way she was viewing things now... wasn't that how the terrorists wanted them to be thinking? To be looking around paranoid, wondering who may be out to get them, seeing enemies around every corner? Perhaps what was needed was to flip the perspective around. Instead of 'who can I trust not to kill me?', the question had to be 'who can I NOT trust, NOT to start playing?' At least so early, before people started panicking and getting desperate and... and so on, the pool of potential allies was a lot larger. She hoped.

Approaching the barn from the back, Kammy palmed her gun - a winner's gun - and stepped out, around the side. Nothing... Inside next then.

Stepping around to the front, slowly and cautiously, she looked either way. Nobody, again. Silent as the grave. Either there was noone around or they were just doing a damn good job of hiding themselves from view.

Kammy took a deep breath, mentally counted one, two-

Inside and...


Empty. The place was empty.

Kam let out a breath equal parts relief and disappointment.

((Eliza Patton continued from Hit the Pavement)

Just put one foot in front of the other. That was Eliza's mantra as she continued walking. She had stopped to rest a couple of times, but the majority of her time since her awakening had been spent walking. Why? It wasn't like she had a destination in mind. Step after step, she trudged forward, ignoring the pain in her legs. She had to keep moving.

After what seemed like hours, she reached the homestead. Finally, a place where she could rest. The only question was, should she choose the house or the barn? She imagined walking up the stairs of the house and lying down on a nice, comfortable bed. As she got closer, however, she spotted movement inside one of the windows. Screw it. After what she'd been through, she did not feel like dealing with another person for the foreseeable future. Sighing, she turned around and headed for the barn.

With each step, the rifle in her hands felt heavier and heavier. Eliza wiped some sweat off of her face, pausing before she continued. All things considered, that barn was looking like a pretty good resting place, as long as she could keep watch for unwelcome guests. Now, all she needed was an ice pack for her head. Too bad that wasn't an option here.

As she reached the barn doors, she stopped. Fuck. She could swear that she heard someone moving inside. Tightening her grip on her gun, she slowly walked inside. Unfortunately, her suspicious were correct. The person inside was one of the drama kids. Eliza raised her gun and pointed it toward the other student. Just as she was about to yell for her to freeze, the memory of Tyler's fist colliding with her face flashed through her mind. Taken aback, her order was cut short.

"H-hey you!"

A cursory glance was enough to let Kammy know that nobody was present in the barn. It wasn't large, and the stalls were open and visible after a few steps forward into the room proper. A second look led her to note the presence of a ladder, and she was contemplating heading up for a quick look when she heard movement from behind.

Kam jumped so hard it felt like she left her skin behind as someone called out, swinging around and ducking behind the nearest available cover, a stall door. It was an awkward, hastily assumed position, half of Kammy's body obscured, the rest visible. Kam could've crouched, but she wanted to be able to see whoever it was that had snuck up on her. The first thing she saw upon looking was the presence of a gun - some kind of rifle - in the other's hands; Kammy's own weapon was up at her side, not pointing directly towards the intruder, but certainly held readied.

She tilted her head slightly. Now that Kam had time to look, the figure standing in the entrance was immediately recognisable. Someone like Eliza Patton tended to stand out in a crowd, and even if it weren't for the eclectic hair and distinctive piercings, there was the troublemaking reputation to consider. That alone would've earned Eliza a place in Kammy's memory. Even so, she couldn't claim to know the other girl. Not good. On the other hand, Kammy's back had been turned when Eliza had entered the barn; she hadn't had to call out and make her presence known.

So she... probably wasn't going to shoot.

Kammy stayed where she was.

"Yes? What?"

Eliza stood for a moment, stunned. Fuck. She hadn't really planned this far. Things were going downhill very fast. She ducked behind the other side of the entrance to the barn. It wasn't great cover, but better than nothing.

She swallowed, hard. All she wanted was an empty place to rest, not a shootout. She wasn't very keen on repeating the earlier incident in the offices. She had to disarm the situation.

"Whoa, easy there princess. I'm just looking for a place to rest. I won't shoot if you won't."

Her heart pounded in her chest as she waited for the other girls reply. She didn't know Kammy personally, but she guessed that the other girl didn't want a fight either. She scratched her head. Her whole body body felt like lead. She just wanted a place to lie down for a couple hours. Now it seemed like even that would be denied her.

God, this sucked. Eliza just wished that everyone would just leave her the fuck alone. Was that too much to ask?

Kam's posture relaxed. Slightly. Very slightly. Still on alert though, and that was depressing, wasn't it? Three, four hours out here and her paranoia was on a razor's edge. It was hard, now that someone was actually here, to wrap herself back around to the way that she'd been thinking earlier - that it was more about who you couldn't trust. A nice thought to have, a tough one to execute in practice.

She tipped her head to the side. Was it worth trying though? It was all well and good having ideas, but if you never actually followed them through, then the thinking was wasted; Kammy's mom had told her that, once. Something like it, anyway. Kam had held to the idea that if you didn't at least try you were giving up. It'd kept her going through a lot of acting rejections, and on the flipside, a couple of roles that at first she'd thought that she wouldn't have a chance of landing. There wasn't anything saying that she had to long term ask anyone to watch her back, just... there was a lot of ground for Kam to cover in this search of hers. Any help would be good, even if it was only momentary.

Kammy eyed Eliza for a few seconds, and then nodded. "All right. Make yourself at home. We have hay," Kam took half a step out from the stall, eyes still regarding the other girl. She wasn't precisely nimble, maybe it was sensible to keep a healthy amount of caution even if not immediately accusing everyone to be out to killing her.

There was a moment's pause. Kam's normal repertoire of small talk rose in her mind and then quietly rolled over and died. There didn't really seem anything appropriate to bring up, not in this place. 'How's graduation been?' seemed asinine at best, whilst 'So, I see you're alive' did not have a friendly ring to it.

Instead...

"You okay so far? You're the first person I've ran into - I'm, well, I'm trying to find my girlfriend."

Eliza groaned inwardly. She really didn't feel like engaging in small talk right now. Well, to be honest, not many people would be at this point. They were probably more interested in trying to kill each other. At least this kid wasn't, or at least so it seemed.

Eliza sighed, her head pounding. Hopefully this conversation would be over quickly. She closed her eyes for a moment before turning to face the girl in front of her.

"Well, I suppose I'm pretty okay, considering I just got beaten up by a 200 pound football player." She shuffled her feet in discomfort at the memory. "No offence to you, but you and your girlfriend are going to have to be pretty lucky if you want to find each other before one of you gets yourself killed."

As she finished speaking, Eliza became aware of the uncomfortable layer of sweat forming on her palms. Her headache was getting worse, and she was beginning to feel a little nauseous. Weird. It was like she was having a hangover, but without  getting the fun of drinking beforehand. Hopefully the other kid would get the hint and let her lie down for a bit.

Eliza wasn't looking entirely enthusiastic about her question. Kammy wasn't really sure she could blame the other girl for that, only, now that she thought about it, she kind of did. It wasn't just and it wasn't entirely fair, however, if you weren't at least a little optimistic, then where did that leave you? Kam had experienced the cruel side of some of her classmates in the past, for a myriad of reasons. There was cruel though, and then there was outright murderous. Kammy wasn't naive enough to suggest that absolutely no-one in Aurora was going to contemplate killing anyone, tough as that was, but... it would probably be fewer than anyone thought, right?

Eliza was still talking, and with a wince, Kam was all set to offer sympathy, ask who had gone after the other girl, what had happened... and then the sentence was finished. Immediately, Kammy's face closed off. Those with experience with her would know that she tended to go one of two ways with her anger - hot and cold. Hot was for people talking over her, not listening, rejecting her views out of hand. Cold tended to be for when something had truly and personally got under her skin, piercing through the bubble exterior.

This was cold.

"Didn't ask for your opinion," Kam snapped. "I tell you that your brother's getting killed? No? Then stow it. I'm doing this, screw the odds."

She was tempted to storm right on past - and actually took a step forward before realising that maybe it'd look like an aggressive attack. Kam stopped. She wanted out, either way. Fuck Eliza. Kammy wasn't going to let anyone hurt Michelle, and by extension that meant she sure as hell wasn't letting anyone hurt her, either.

Well, that girl was definitely pissed off. Well, what else could Eliza have expected? She couldn't help it if people were too self-absorbed to listen to her ideas. And bringing up her brother too, that was just low. The thought of her brother brought a queasy feeling to her stomach. However much she hated Cody, she certainly didn't want him dead. Eliza sighed as she scratched her head. No matter what she did, there wasn't likely to be a way for this to end well.

Eliza stepped out of Kammy's way, motioning for her to continue on her way out. She clearly didn't want to stay here anymore, and, honestly, Eliza was pretty glad about it. All she wanted in the first place was to be left alone, and looked like she was about to get her wish. She tried to sound sarcastic as she spoke, but she unfortunately came out as sounding more tired that anything else.

"Alright kid, take it easy. If you want to go out and look for her anyway, it's your funeral."

Eliza pressed her hand to her head, as if to somehow shove back the massive headache that had developed. She was beginning to feel really nauseous too, and the pressure was building by the second. If only she could just get to lie down for a bit. If only...

Eliza made Kammy's concern moot by moving to the side, offering a departure. Amicable enough as the circumstances could permit... Kammy was probably lucky that the other girl hadn't reacted worse. - or... was she?

Kam hadn't flipped out beyond harsh words, and Eliza had said more or less the same thing to her in the first place, right? Perspective perspective perspective... not 'who can I trust' - 'who can I NOT trust'... because even if you weren't joining up with someone, people misjudging the first question was what was going to lead to them dying. Kam thought back, briefly, to that video they'd been shown during the briefing... the two best friends - but that was wrong, that wasn't a matter of trust, that was a matter of losing hope. Perhaps that was the wrong thing to take from it, but that hadn't been a calculated and violent murder from somebody plotting to win, that'd been... something else.

She wasn't going to lose hope. Not now, not ever. Kammy didn't know if she could trust Eliza, but she felt sure enough that she didn't expect a shot in the back. Call it faith, instinct, whatever.

"Sooner me than her," Kam said as she stepped out and past Eliza, momentarily glancing around, watching that gun, but trusting, trusting, trying to put that thought into practice...

Kam's hand stayed wrapped around the grip of her gun until she was out far beyond the barn.


((Kammy continued in Setting up Base Camp))

Eliza watched the other girl leave the barn. She felt a slight pang of regret at the other girl's departure. She didn't seem to great to be around, but maybe it would've been nice to have not alienated the first person she met who didn't try to beat her up.

Eh, fuck that. If she couldn't deal with Eliza's observations, then their time together wouldn't have been too good anyway. She turned and walked to the back of the barn, her muscles protesting every step of the way. After a quick glance around, she settled down on a pile of hay behind the stalls.

A warm breeze blew in through the open barn door, gently lifting some of the hay off of the ground. Combined with the gently setting sun, the scene was almost peaceful. Almost enough to make you forget about being kidnapped by terrorists.

Eliza stared up at the ceiling as she waited to fall asleep. Fuck them. Nobody told Eliza Patton what to do. Not her brother, not her teachers, not the government and definitely not these sick fucks. She pulled her weapon closer to her body. At least she had some form of protection, which was better than most kids had.

She'd figure out what to do next in the morning.

((Eliza Patton continued elsewhere))