Survival Of The Fittest

Not a single person was escaping this island before the end.

The words echoed in the broken girl's mind as she waded through the thick mud, clutching at the red wine stain that was slowly blossoming from the jagged hole in her sweater. It had been a coward's crusade. Her plan had always been to disrupt the escape plans so that she could never become their unwilling martyr. She chose disruption over death, though killing may have been the more honest approach. Especially after the fucking blunder on the beach. It was a miracle Danya hadn't killed them all as recompense from those idiots' stupidity.

After that mess, something broke inside her. She no longer cared who she hurt. She convinced herself that since no one had even attempted to try and stop them, no one else on the island deserved to live anymore, least of all herself. After that mess, any group was fair game, any means appropriate for dealing with them. She doubled over and coughed flecks of blood onto the wet ground. Everything felt heavy and the world was blurring at the edges. The taste of copper filled her mouth. Beneath the dirty bandages wrapped around her head and draped over her left eye, her cheek was swollen and numb from a blowout fracture and her sclera had been dyed red by the resultant burst blood vessel; a relic of a failed alliance. When she looked down at her stomach with her one good eye, her hands were covered in her own blood.

The girl swore under her breath and tried to keep going. If she could just get out of the open, she could tend to the wound. Ditching her dead weight, the girl threw her tattered day pack into a nearby pond and slumped down on the rotting wooden jetty, breathing her shallow breaths as she watched it sink. The pond was the color of weak piss and smelled foul.

Zoe Leverett gasped her last anxious breaths clutching the bloody mess that used to be her abdomen, fearing the approaching end with every fibre of her being.

But that's not for a while yet.

---

[font=timesnewroman][Zoe Leverett, continued from I believe people can change, but only for the worse.][/font]

Zoe held her breath as she crept down the dusty corridor, nervously shining her flashlight into every crevice that looked large enough to fit a person. Even in the day, the school buildings were far too dark for her liking- Zoe could barely see six feet in front of her without the help of a flashlight- and it was too open for ambush. It was far too warm as well. After four days in the forest, Zoe had become accustomed to the shade and the cold. Inside the school she found herself gasping the humid air. The closed windows of the classrooms had heated the school like a greenhouse. Zoe perspired under her sweater; when she tried to brush her fringe out of the way of her eyes, she found that it was damp clumps that clung to her forehead.

It was largely out of opportunity that Zoe stumbled upon the humid building. The schools had been built around the outskirts of the forest, which meant they were amongst the first things Zoe saw once Joachim had, against all odds, kept his word and safely delivered her out of the forest. After explaining her motives- a pack of contradictory lies, for the record- she confirmed with her stained, heavily annotated map that the buildings had been safe to enter and scoured the surrounding area for traces of recent activity. Zoe had entered through a small fire exit around the back of the building.

Zoe was running low on supplies, especially food and water. It soon became clear that the school was not an ideal place to scavenge for either. Most of the plastic lunchboxes Zoe found scattered around classrooms had snacks of some kind of them, but they were all at least ten years out of date or, in the case of one blue plastic Buzz Lightyear lunchbox, contained a bag full of disgusting mould that Zoe was not convinced had ever been a sandwich. The healthy eating posters on the walls of the corridor were ironic, to say the least. Disgusted, Zoe put the lunchbox down on a nearby desk and ventured over to a window. As she opened it and let the cool outside air wash over her face, she noticed a group of people hanging around by the buses. Zoe cautiously closed the window again and ducked down as she made her way back into the hallway, unwilling to attract unwanted attention. Zoe would keep an eye on them. If they looked like they were planning to escape, she would shout for Joachim.

Zoe crossed the hallway, having noticed a nearby supply closet and deciding that she would have better luck rummaging through that. Heaving the door open, she hacked and coughed as a wave of dust hit her face and tried to enter her lungs. After her coughing fit, Zoe examined the cobweb-covered contents of the closet. It was mostly mundane things that held no real significance to her situation; cleaning supplies and boxes labelled as being spare parts for the school boiler. Zoe eyed a crate of bottled water at the back. It was still covered in plastic wrapping. Stale, but likely safe to drink.

"Hey-- Hey Joachim!" She shouted through cupped hands, her voice reverberating down the corridor. "I found something!"

[Joachim Lovelace, continued from I believe people can change, but only for the worse]

To be blunt, the fact that Joachim got out of the woods without Zoe stabbing him in the back - or even the front - was surprising. He had some very major doubts regarding her sanity, which made the whole concept of 'mutual assured destruction' a bit less credible to describe what kept these two people from killing each other.

Maybe it was this uncertainity that kept Joachim, though. This meta-stable mind of Zoe, which was hiding something from Joachim, piked his curiousity. She told him her motives, and he told her his. Her's felt... odd, which only intensified Joachim's curiousity. An aura of mystery and danger emitted from Zoe, so to say, and Joachim was drawn to this aura like a cat is drawn to catnip.

Whether he would remember that curiousity tends to kill cats with relative ease was another matter.

At some point, they reached school buildings. Like Zoe, Joachim looked out for any danger before entering the school via a fire exit, though not the one Zoe took.

It became obvious that he entered an elementary school. As much as time nagged at the objects like a dark animal slowly devouring it's unconcious victim, Joachim could muster up some posters instructing the reader on how to eat healthy. There seemed to be at least one in every class room. Addtionally, he found some lunch boxes - less by actually seeing them in the dark and more because he smelled rotten food. Someone opened these recently, maybe Zoe, maybe somebody else.

The dark silence engulfing Joachim was disturbed once he heard somebody have a coughing fit somewhere. Joachim was annoyed for a second. Not because it signaled the presence of another person - hopefully Zoe? - but because it destroyed the eerie atmosphere which Joachim enjoyed. His annoyance was gone when Zoe announced herself, stating that she had found something.

"I'm coming."

It wasn't difficult for Joachim to find Zoe. He felt he was a rather auditive person, who was good at using his ears. He seemed to be correct, as he soon stood before a door, which he slowly opened to find Zoe in a closet.

"You found something?"

Zoe knelt on the gungy floor of the storage closet with her knees apart, gracelessly cutting into the vacuum-sealed polythene wrapping with her machete. With no idea whether Joachim was still in the building- for all intents and purposes their alliance had ended once she had left the forest- she wasted no time in tearing the crate open and scavenging what she could from the closet. Her threadbare canvas day pack sat on the ground beside her, still splattered with flecks of dried blood and gore but no longer carrying the trophies of her kills. It was darker in the closet than it was in the hallways, and the hallways were already dark and gloomy. Luckily, Zoe could see well enough in the dark that she had no problem cutting the box open. When Zoe inhaled, the air smelled of bleach and damp.

With an exhausted grunt, Zoe stabbed downwards into the dusty plastic a final time. She pulled the knife out with some effort, placing a period on the end of her jagged incision. Zoe let her machete clatter to the ground, cursing under her breath as the dull clink reverberated down the corridor. If nothing else, it would give Joachim an idea of where to find her. Still unable to remove the bottles through the tear in the plastic, Zoe pulled the sides apart with her fingers- with some effort- until there was enough space to pull out a single clear bottle. She opened the sports cap with her teeth and gulped down the stale contents. Convinced that the water was as clean and safe to drink as any she would find on the island, Zoe threw the empty bottle away and pulled several more bottles out, stuffing them in her pack.

Zoe flinched involuntarily as the door opened behind her. She held her breath and groped blindly for her machete. Joachim asked what she had found. She rose to her feet clumsily  and dusted herself off, exhaling her trapped breath in a sigh of relief.

"I found a crate of water bottles," Zoe said, pointing at the box on the ground. More than half of the bottles were still in the crate, Zoe had only taken four. She shouldered her bag and picked up her machete. "I mean, it's not a weapon or anything, but-- I was down to my last bottle."

Zoe paused, considering the terms of their tenuous alliance. Joachim was a known quantity by this point; a blunt instrument looking for direction. He was unlikely to kill her as long as she kept his momentum going. Zoe had kept her own motivations quiet for the most part. Silence was her greatest tool. Words travelled quickly on the island, and Zoe was placing her faith in her ability to seem quiet and unassuming to any potential escapists they encountered. While there had been no civilian reprise for the actions of the escapists yet, Zoe knew each martyr inspired another selfish idiot to endanger the lives of everyone else on the island for their helpless cause. Now that she was back in the world, Zoe found it difficult to take their immediate threat seriously. As an active participant, she was no longer in danger of reprisal from the terrorists. If she disrupted an escape attempt now, it would be out of the threat they posted to everyone else on the island.

"Let's find whatever we can and leave." Zoe said, finally. She had no intentions of staying in one place for too long. "Food, water, anything useful."

Joachim slowly blinked his eyes a few times. The darkness in the closet was even more powerful and he saw nearly nothing at first. Zoe explained that she found water. Water she needed as her own supply was as good as empty. Joachim himself slowly began to run out of water. On day one, when he was at the living site, he figured that the water bottles would be enough for a week at least.

Of course, back then, he did not expect the amount of physical activity he would do.

Just the tiniest ray of the outside light fell through one of the full water bottles, creating a momentary, small and short-lived, almost insignificant reflection that allowed Joachim to see the crate at the floor, opened violently with Zoe's machete.

He took five bottles and stored them in his bag as Zoe explained that she'd rather move on as quickly as possible.

"Well, we got water here. And food? We can find some lone student and rob him. Or even a little group, if the situation is right.

...and what about shelter?"

((Paris Ardennes continued from The Farmer and the Viper))

Hand in hand, Paris and Cho made their way to the school. He walked slightly in front of her, carrying the shield and with his revolver tucked into the waist of his pants, under his loose shirt. He left Cho with Sven's larger, more intimidating gun.

His grip on her was gentle, but firm. This was the first time they'd ventured out of the forrest since just prior to the unfortunate demise of Katy Warren. The couple had taken refuge in the brush of the woods to keep them concealed, but the announcement had advised they leave the area under pains of explosion. Day 5.

Paris didn't care about the killers and had accepted everyone would die eventually. The order wasn't terribly important to him.

He'd taken great care to make sure Cho felt safe. He always let her eat first, take more of the sleep, insisted on keeping watch. He sang to her when she was drifting off to sleep and was scouted ahead. He was a gentleman and thus far, they'd had the good fortune not to see anyone else. That might change now that they were out of the wilds.

The school was innocuous from the outside. He looked at her, shrugged, and they continued into the building. He let go of her once they were indoors and began looking around. From elsewhere in the building there was a noise. He put a finger up to his lips and with the other hand he curled one long finger towards the sound.

The source was an open closet door with some vague, humanish figures in the dark of the room.

"Hello? I hope we're not interrupting anything."

((Sunny continue from  The Farmer and the Viper))

Cho was more than happy to have had the revolver taken away from her, still shaken to the core from what had happened. Didn't matter that Paris had checked and rechecked the cylinder - he'd said it wasn't loaded the first time either. Sunny was trying to tell herself over and over that Katy had tried to kill Paris, that there hadn't been any other option, and besides, she hadn't even known in the first place. Justifications...It all rang terribly hollow, Sunny couldn't help but think of that one sketch - 'Are we the baddies?'

She didn't feel like a good guy.

Paris was a constant reassuring presence. She knew that he was coddling her and treating her with kid gloves, but she could deal with that whilst she was feeling so emotionally fragile. However, Cho was aware that she was going to have to face up to all this sooner rather than later, regardless of how fucked up. Christ. Losing her best friend and becoming a killer in the space of five days? It felt unreal.

Cho still keenly felt the loss of Gabby whenever a passing thought brushed against her friend. She hadn't even had the chance to say... anything to her. They'd been next to one another on the plane, talking about the first things they'd do once they arrived at Disney, discussing what their next set might be. Nothing more than that, no opportunity for Cho to say 'hey, you mean a lot to me' or... or... dammit that was a stupid train of thought. Gabby knew that, she HAD to have known that. It didn't need to be said, Cho couldn't beat herself up over it.

She did so anyway.

Cho stuck close beside Paris as they ventured into the building. A sign of civilisation was a nice change from the trees, nevertheless that didn't stop a rising feeling of apprehension in the pit of Cho's stomach. She'd barely seen another person since this all began. Just the group not long after waking up that she'd split from, then Paris, then Katy. Paris had asserted that he'd back her up when it came to her name being on the announcements, but what if they weren't in the mood to talk with a killer?

Sunny wanted to cling to and toss away the gun she'd been given all at once.

"Good idea," Zoe hastily replied as she glanced over the decrepit shelves for anything else they could use. "Everyone will scatter once the danger zones hit. We can follow the tracks they leave and pick off any stragglers. Some of them should still have good gear."

The lies are piling up, Zoe thought as she pried open a damp cardboard box. She could hardly keep track of them all.

In truth, Zoe considered theft an unsustainable and impractical strategy at best and blind stupidity at worst. Most of the stragglers or small groups the island had left alive had blown through their supplies quickly, or been robbed of their gear days ago. The only people- bear in mind this was only Zoe's rough estimation of the situation- with things worth stealing would be large groups and the more prolific killers. Zoe reminded herself that she would never be afraid of the killers, but she was still afraid of death, of dying unfulfilled.

She was not yet ready to put ink to her death sentence.

But she said Good idea because, if nothing else, it would provide a useful cover for her interest in the escape attempts. In the narrative of the ruthless bandits, large groups of melancholy pacifist with aspirations towards martyrdom were excellent targets for robberies.

"As far as shelter goes, though," Zoe continued her stream of lies, opening a cardboard box only to find it similarly devoid of anything useful to their situation. "I'm not exactly picky. Honestly, I'd prefer it if we kept moving as much as we can but... If we have to, I suggest we find a base of some kind and--"

Zoe stopped dead in her tracks and fell silent as she listened to the voice echo down the corridors.

Someone else was in the building.

It was impossible for Zoe to determine whether they were from the group she had seen entering the other building, but what Zoe could determine was that there was more than one of them and they were armed. Only the most arrogant player would announce their presence without backup, which suggested that the voice had a friend, and the fact that they had the confidence to announce their presence to Zoe and Joachim at all suggested that they had weapons. With nowhere to run, they had very few options.

So Zoe stayed exactly where she was, shrouded in the relative darkness of the closet, and repeated her mantra in the back of her mind as her fingers curled tightly around the grip of her machete. Never afraid of the killers.

"Who's out there?" Zoe asked, ostensibly calm and collected. Physically, she was nervously shaking. "Tell us who you are and what you're here for!"

Zoe responded by calling Joachim's proposal a good idea. She then explained herself a bit more, but Joachim did not really listen. He could swear he just heard something, somewhere. Perhaps just a dusty old object hitting the floor in a not very distant distance. Or perhaps people moving into the school.

Then Zoe cut short her words as a voice rang out.

A familar one.

Joachim first looked at Zoe asking for the names of the intruders, and then at where the voice came from.

"Paris, no?"

Joachim swiftly licked his mischievously smiling, yet dry lips.

Paris pushed his wavy, dark hair back towards the side and smiled. He let go of Cho's hand and lowered the riot shield. If they were going to shoot them, they'd have done it already.

First seeing Joachim caused a slight bit of suspicion. He was almost certain he'd heard him announced as a killer. However, Joachim greeted them happily. Even if he was up to something, Paris didn't feel like there would be a problem.

"Hey Joachim!" he said cheerfully and put a hand on the boy's shoulder.


"It's just me and Cho. I'm sure glad to see a couple of people acting normally. A day or two ago a girl attacked us out of the blue and that's the last person we saw. I can't believe someone would get so wildly over emotional that they'd just attack people who are minding their own business. I'll never understand it," he said, shaking his head sadly.

The girl who was deeper inside the closet sounded fairly unwelcoming, asking them who they were and what they wanted.

"We don't want anything, really. Just a place to stay safely for awhile, maybe some company."

Paris moved his head from side to side and squinted to get a better look inside the closet.

"Your companion is lovely, but seems a little hostile."

There was no verbal response from the figure in the hallway, but Zoe could hear a rhythmic crescendo of footsteps as someone approached. Her hands balled themselves into fists around the grip of her machete as she sunk into the corner, exhaling sharply as she waited for the violent reprise. They were cornered, the only exit from the closet was almost certain death in the hallway. The figure, whoever he was, was on his way to meet them.

Still nervously shaking but trying her best to hide it, Zoe looked over to Joachim and saw from the twisted smirk on his face that he recognized the voice. Joachim called out to the figure from the closet and named him Paris. The name rang no bells in Zoe's mind. Zoe knew comparatively few people in her class by name. The rest of the students were mostly half-forgotten greetings, faces and hearsay. Her social group only extended as far as friends of Max.

"Paris?" Zoe whispered harshly in response. "Who the fuck is Paris?"

The figure answered for her, revealing himself by approaching and placing a hand on Joachim's shoulder. It was too dark for Zoe to get a good look at his face, but she could see that Paris- whoever he was- was shorter and slimmer than Joachim. If it came down to a fight, they had the upper hand in tight quarters. From her spot in the corner, Zoe looked for any signs of weapons on his person. In the dim light, she could see nothing but the vague silhouette of the riot shield Paris was openly carrying in his other hand.

How Paris explained his situation, to Joachim, was that he and Cho- Sunny Lee, Zoe thought to herself. A name that she was reasonably more familiar with- had encountered some girl who attacked them out of nowhere. The circumstances were hardly surprising; a day ago Zoe could have been that girl. He said nothing about how they dealt with her, but Zoe could guess that the girl was probably dead.

The question of who killed her was a little hazier. Zoe suspected from Paris' demeanour that he had not personally pulled the trigger, but she was willing to wait until the announcement for confirmation on that. He said they were looking for allies and supplies, but Zoe hardly bought it. The subject of Zoe came up in the conversation and Paris called Zoe a little hostile and Zoe smirked incredulously.

More than a little, Zoe thought. But we'll see how this plays out.

Zoe questioned the motives of anyone who wasn't actively trying to kill her. She could make a reasonable guess that Joachim already trusted him and it wouldn't be long before she would know whether that was implicitly or explicitly. But Zoe saw that this situation could be useful, and decided that more people on board with her own personal crusade could only improve her chances of success.

Paris had an angle. No one who survived this long on the island without killing wasn't manipulating someone to some extent. Zoe just needed to find out what his angle was and how he was doing it so she could exploit it.

"If you think this building is safe, you're out of luck." Zoe said, emerging from the shadows. "We're getting out of here as soon as we can."

She paused briefly before adding an addendum.

"You and your friend can tag along, provided you won't make trouble."

The reply came, and it wasn't in the form of a hail of bullets. That was at least something. One demand and one hail. Someone stepped out of the shadows and Cho's eyes narrowed. She'd never been a fan of Joachim, even by her standards, and with that he'd been on the announcements... She wanted to tug Paris away, but he was already walking over to the other boy and greeting him like an old friend. The protest died on her lips. No voicing those misgivings now. Perhaps there was an explanation for it? She supposed she'd hope that anybody else she ran into would give her a chance to elaborate on what had led to her being announced a killer.

Sunny squinted past the pair, trying to figure out who it was that was behind them... a faintly familiar voice for definite, just one that she couldn't place without seeing a face. Uncertainly, she shifted from foot to foot. The apprehension still clung tightly to her, hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. Something felt off and Cho couldn't place what it was.

Dammit. She felt like an extra in a horror movie. Shadows and silhouettes and 'I've got a bad feeling about this'. How long until the monster came around the corner and popped someone's head off?

The owner of the voice moved out of the gloom. Zoe. That was her name, Zoe. Artist right? Yeah, that struck a chord. Not a friend though sadly, always seemed all shy and wall-flowery... or well, no, maybe not quite like that. Awkward. Which was a shame cause most of the time Cho could do awkward. She was awkward.

"No trouble here," Sunny spoke up at length. "Not unless you feel threatened by a dashing rogue such as myself," the irony was heavy in her tone, almost a little overstated. Some swashbuckler.

Joachim flinched just a little bit as Paris put his hand on Joachim. It was a gesture Joachim was not directly familar with, although he understood the meaning behind it. Just, body contact was something that already equaled to 'violence' in his head.

Paris then stated his motivation, and Zoe replied in a somewhat cold manner. Nonetheless she invited them to stay with Zoe and Joachim, which, frankly, surprised Joachim quite a bit. But in a way, the unexpected was what he had to expect with Zoe, no? A young woman full of mysteries.

Then there was also Paris' statement that caught Joachim's attention. They met someone hostile, but Paris did not specify what happened afterwards. Joachim knew what he would have to, or, could guess.

The person with Paris, Cho... Joachim heard that name before, though he could not place a finger on it. He'd know who she was sooner or later, though, if they were to stay with them.

"I guess I'm okay with them coming with us, Zoe."

He eyed Zoe, pondered shortly whether to ask her something, then decided to postpone it.

Zoe wasn't convinced the building was safe. Paris' disposition was unchanged.

"I think this is a pretty good place to camp out for a little. It's got some supplies and it's more protection than we've recently had camping in the woods. If you want, Joachim and I can search the building and make sure there's no one with bad intentions lurking around. Not including myself of course," he said laughing a bit.

"Sunny can stay here with you and keep looking through the supplies while us guys search this building at least."

Paris moved in swiftly and hugged Cho tightly. "If you hear or see anything you don't like and need us back just scream and I'll come running, okay?"


With that he zipped away from Cho's side to Joachim's, grabbing him by the sleeve and pulling him towards the door.

"Let's go, bud. We'll have male bonding."

Et voila, echoed the dark reprise. Zoe had lost her control of the situation.

For all her bluster, for all her self-righteous posturing and the self-justification of survival and her internal unwillingness to die for anyone else's crusade, it had taken less than a minute for the first smooth-talking misogynist they had bumped into to knock down Zoe's house of cards. Her strategy- such as it was- had been discarded in favour of Paris' own, unsustainable, plan. There was no point to trying to hold the building. It had too many entrances and blind spots for them to possibly anticipate the direction an attack could come from and they had too few people and too few weapons to be able to defend it in the event of a siege. It contained, as far as Zoe had ascertained in her sweep of the building, nothing worth stealing or fighting over, and held no tactical significance whatsoever. Staying there was a mistake, and not one that Zoe wished to repeat.

After all, the definition of insanity was repeating the same actions and expecting a different response.

Zoe had been shunted off to the sidelines to sift through garbage with Cho the possibly-killer whilst Paris whisked Joachim away for a male bonding exercise. When the realization dawned upon her that she had been outplayed in a matter of seconds, Zoe almost felt disappointed in herself. Her best option, she decided, was to pack her bags and leave before Paris could turn Joachim against her. If push came to shove, she was willing to cut and run and leave Joachim to die. For all intents and purposes their partnership had ended as soon as they got out of the forest.

She scratched at the back of her head, attempting to conjure up vague reasons for her continued presence in the group. Zoe let her am drop to her side and winced. Over four days on the island, her hair had clumped together in thick, greasy strawberry blonde tendrils that clung to the sweat on her brow and felt incredibly unpleasant to carry around on top of her head. She made a mental note to wash it, or cut it, whenever she got a spare moment. If nothing else, it might make her look less like her sister.

What kept Zoe from fleeing, she finally decided, was her belief that she could still beat Paris at his own game, whatever that game was. Whilst she was aware that she still had no idea what his goals were or why he was so keen on disregarding her plans, Zoe was now aware of the fact that Paris considered her harmless. Harmless enough to leave out of his sight, anyway.

I can use this, she thought.

If Paris had a pressure point, Zoe figured it was probably Cho. He was keeping her around for some reason and though Zoe- again- had no idea why, she guessed that it would be easier to get information from her than from Paris. Zoe felt genuine concern for the girl. If he was using her to keep the blood of his hands, she was in a whole heap of the kind of trouble that Zoe wouldn't wish on anyone. So Zoe walked over with an awkward smile on her face, deciding that she could pretend, for at least five minutes, that everything was back to normal.

"So," Zoe began with an awkward stammer. The island had conditioned her to only talk when she wanted something from someone. Remembering how small-talk sounded was difficult. "How did you two-- you and Paris-- end up meeting? On the island, I mean."

Cho was surprised to feel some of the tension ebbing away, now that it seemed they were safe from these other two. Relatively so. Safe was very, very relative right now. Still, after several days with barely a snatch of another human being who wasn't Paris or someone Cho had shot, it was a relief just to see - there was that word again -  relatively friendly faces. Back on the first day Sunny had been willing to split off from the others just because she didn't know them that well. Company felt more valuable than familiarity.

Felt like the basis for a skit. Two last men on earth, both complete douchebags, both desperate for the presence of someone else. Black humour, but it was a reach for Sunny to find any alternate material. Gabby would ha-

She felt a lump in her throat. Christ. Cho kept forgetting, or at least compartmentalising it. Gabriella had been dead for what felt like forever, yet unreal at the same time. She'd never seen it happen, never got a chance to... god-fucking-dammit.

Paris was speaking up, talking about scouting the area. Cho was in two minds about that suggestion. On the one hand, the idea of sleeping indoors after multiple nights in a row out in the cold, sometimes damp woods was certainly appealing, on the other, this was a large building. How secure was it, really? Even if they could sweep the whole place, there was no guarantee that nobody else would waltz right in. Still... maybe just for a few hours, or the night.

Seeing Paris just take charge like that was impressive. Just being assertive and there you had a course of action. One that happened to stick Cho out of any - or at least, most, danger. Gallant, but who'd had to save who, again?

Sunny paused, chided herself for that thought as Paris came over and hugged her. He'd kept her propped up after they'd first ran into each other, and kept her going after she'd killed Katy. If it wasn't for him, she might have fallen apart. Paris didn't owe her anything, and Cho would need to be pretty scummy to demand a favour for murdering someone on his behalf.

That didn't stop her brow from raising briefly though. "Sure. I'll practice my damsel in distress routine. You be careful."

And then Paris was tugging Joachim away and they were out of sight. Cho rubbed her chin, looking vaguely back to the nearby open cupboard. Supplies seemed both a generous and optimistic description for what they were likely to find here.

Zoe spoke, and Cho glanced to her, almost as much out of surprise as anything else. "Oh. You know. Our eyes met from opposite sides of a deserted room, smiles were exchanged and orchestral cues galore played. Ours is a star-crossed tale of finding love in strange places and the true meaning of friendship."

Cho shrugged. "Or, y'know, he found me being a hobo and sleeping under a bench. I prefer the other version."