Survival Of The Fittest

((Paloma was very stressed out.))

After some examination of the map, she and Ron had located and then spent the night in the 'capsized yacht', which was exactly what it sounded like. It wasn't that bad, actually, and had been nice an secluded and felt safe. That was the one good thing.

Paloma had opted not to use her goggles. She wanted to try them out, and they'd be good to know how to use, but she didn't want Ron to consider how she'd gotten two weapons. Of course, it was inevitable that he'd find out, but the longer she had to figure out what to say, the better. She had to explain, on her own terms, what had really happened. The terrorists wouldn't give her the benefit of the doubt, so she had to make some herself.

But now it was morning, and there hadn't been anything yet. They'd slept in separate cabins, of course, but now Paloma was in front of Ron's door. She had her bag at her side, her bat hanging from her hand. Quickly pushing the door open, Paloma wasted no time in speaking. "Hey, Ron? I need to talk, before the announcement. Give me a chance to explain before-"

A buzzing. She flinched. Gritted her teeth, tightened her grip at the bat. "They're lying. I swear." She took a step away from the doorframe.

"Lying about what?"

((Bret Carter continued from Glass Shatters))

They had walked at a steady pace. As night fell they had stopped at what the map said was the housing of the village. Occupying one of the houses on the outskirts, they had eaten and slept in shifts. Their lodgings hadn't been comfortable but they had been better than nothing and were certainly better than sleeping outdoors. They had woken early and after having a breakfast of energy bars and water had set off again. They were traveling down the island, heading towards the bay. The idea Bret had meant they could just travel wherever they saw fit.

The plan Bret had come up with required them to wait for the announcement the man at the briefing had spoken about until then they didn't have anything to do. So in the meantime, Bret considering traveling around the island a form of scouting. If they knew their surroundings they would be able to use them to their advantage, just like they had done in the gardens, before that had fallen apart. Bret's ears still rung somewhat from that, and he missed some words Wyatt said here and there, but he felt like they were slowly getting better. He hoped they were getting better. If he had been deafened by Bryan he wasn't going to be happy.

Speaking of Bryan, it seemed his close encounter at the lake with Wyatt had scared some sense into him. They hadn't seen any sign of the other boy during their travels. All the better really, if he hadn't left them alone they would have been forced to do something. Wyatt's idea of breaking his legs seemed like the most efficient way to deal with the problem. It would have severely lowered Bryan's chances of survival though, so he made the right choice in leaving.

The bay had offered a few areas of interest, but Bret had been drawn to the yacht due to how much of an obvious shelter it seemed. He had thought it very likely that someone would have thought to spend the night, and it appeared he had been right.

So there he stood, inside the yacht, rifle in hand, waiting for a response.

((Ron Kiser continued from Gotta Fake it 'till You Make It))

After consulting the map and navigating their way halfway across the island, Ron and Paloma found themselves a good place to hide out for the night. An old wrecked yacht; it had once obviously been very nice, even nicer than anything Ron had been on, but now it was broken and damp and full of mold and... bullet shells. Eugh. Still, it was as good protection as any. The whole time they were going there. Ron had to deal with the pain from his wounds, and he had to constantly look over his shoulder to check if Layla or someone even worse was following them. In the yacht he was finally given his own tiny cabin where he could lie down and recuperate by himself. And, well, he was supposed to sleep, too. But he wasn't so successful. He couldn't sleep in a situation like this. He kept staring at the cabin door, anxious that at any moment Layla could burst in to finish the job. And then there was Paloma; she seemed like a pretty good ally, but he couldn't trust her enough to sleep with her in the next room. Sleep was when he would be most vulnerable. How could he sleep when everyone on this island had motivation to kill him?

Hey lay on his moldy mattress for a good long time, thinking about his plans and fears and his family and friends and video games and whatever other bullshit came to mind. He was broken out of his depressed peace by Paloma pushing open his door. On reflex he jumped up and grabbed for his bag, afraid that his fears had come to pass, but thankfully she only wanted to talk.

"Explain? Lying?" Ron asked, still trying to process the situation. What was she saying? The other voice snapped him right out of his stupor and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He rushed to the doorway. Bret was there, with a gun.

"Br-Bret! Hi! How- how-" While trying to sputter out his greeting, yet another voice filled the air, and Ron realized what Paloma had been referring to. The announcements, where Danya told them all who had died over the last day. Given the current situation, Ron couldn't take some time to celebrate surviving the first twenty-four hours. He had to listen closely to the announcements, though, knowing who was dead and who was killing was vital informat-

Oh. Oh, shit. That was Paloma's name. She had beaten Abel to death- Abel, the big strong popular baseball player. Right at the beginning, right away. Ron's eyes involuntarily moved to the bat Paloma was holding, the bat she'd held the entire time. There wasn't any blood or big dents on it, but examining closely it did look a little... used.

He opened his mouth, but struggled to say anything. She was the very first killer, she'd been a killer since long before he'd run into her. He'd been alone with her, injured and mostly unarmed, for hours and hours, without even knowing. She hadn't tried to kill him. What was going on? Ron's voice eventually found him, and not waiting for the announcement to stop, he let it out.

"What happened? Paloma, what- just- just tell me what happened. Please."

Maybe Danya was lying. Maybe. Ron didn't think so.

((It's yo' boy, Wyatt Carter))

Wyatt was outside the yacht when the announcements began to play.

The overturned vessel looked to be somewhat difficult to navigate, not to mention claustrophobic, and such difficulties primarily arose from it being fuckin' sideways. Wyatt had decided it would be best if Bret, having a gun and all, scouted it first while Wyatt stayed and watched the nearby beach. So, his still-crusted-over eyes combed the beach for activity, and for the moment he was satisfied to have not found much of anything going on. Nobody storming their location, no visible campsites, and no Bryan waltzing up to take a THIRD stab at the tried-and-true tactic of 'hey please stop, pretty please with a cherry on top'. Y'know, liberal foreign policy.

The night he and his brother spent was uncomfortable, but it was not anything they couldn't handle. It reminded Wyatt, vaguely, of going out hunting with their dad at 5 AM. Usually a time of day that's pitch black unless it's the biggest stretch of summer, where the sun is just barely starting to rise. Summer was turkey season. Fuck those birds for making them get up so early, but those turned out to be the good old days when being compared to just spending all night out in the wilderness which, again, turned out to be much more manageable than Wyatt would have guessed. They'd gotten a roof over their head at least, which upgraded it from 'complete wilderness' to 'particularly shitty camping lodge'. Taking turns keeping watch hadn't been welcomed either. The both of them deemed it necessary, yes, but not welcome. He'd just have to get used to it, he supposed; they had many more nights ahead of them while trying to work their way to the edges of this little death game.

He was still stewing in the incomplete sleep from the past night and wishing he had a coffee when he heard his brother speak up (just a little louder than he had to, but that had been par for the course for the last 15 some-odd hours). It didn't sound like Bret was speaking to him, so he had no doubt encountered somebody else on the yacht. Wyatt would have yelled back up to him, but the crackling of loudspeakers had already overtaken them and taken the place of any conversation that may have happened, instead dominating the scene with that tell-tale crackle that wouldn't be out of place in their old elementary school. GHHS's system sounded much nicer than that, so the more rustic system offered a spot of nostalgia before doling out the horror.

The vague idea that some of them were going to die was apparent from the very beginning. This whole time, Wyatt was ready to hurt somebody, finally given that license to do what needed done to like, over half of this overly squishy student body. Taking out his rage on Morgan had felt pretty damn good. Same with Bryan and, up to that point, there was still residual excitement about getting his hands on him again. All of that had them amped up. They had a plan. They were ready.

Then the names sounded off, and to many of them, Wyatt immediately put a name to the face.

Abel, dead so soon? Killed by PALOMA, of all people!? It seemed almost cartoonish in his mind. What, did she climb up on him before pummeling him for a solid ten minutes in order to get the job done? Wyatt shook his head in bemusement and the announcements continued. Names continued to flash by. Tyrell. Tyrell again. Nobody was surprised that the maladjusted limp-dick caveman who was also enough of a spaz to pull a knife after being roughed up a little also happened to be unstable enough to murder his classmates not once, but twice. You'd have to be retarded not to see that coming.

Wyatt heard about Yuko, then Violet. And you know, for a second there, that almost got him. He squinted and shielded his eyes from the morning sun as he tried to focus on watching, listening, and remembering all at the same time, and in order to make it all fit, some of those things just had to suffer. Remembering took priority just for this moment. He spent more time with Violet and Yuko than he ever intended to... like, in an academic setting, anyway. He wouldn't have minded spending more time with either one of them in other circumstances. Or Yuko and her sisters. Like, all three of them at the same time, perhaps. Wyatt grimaced; Yuko was dead, if the magical sky voice was to be believed. It felt strange... like he should have been sadder. He wanted to be sadder, too. Violet and Yuko were cool. Abel was cool-ish. Lots of those names were fairly alright people, and damn it Tyrell hadn't died yet, could he just have one thing today!?

Maybe, he figured, it would be like when their Uncle Eddie died. Wyatt remembered joking around with Bret just minutes before actually arriving at the funeral home for the ceremony, because while on some level they knew Uncle Eddie had died, it didn't become... real, in a sense, until they went through those doors and saw their uncle laying in that coffin, hands folded over his chest. It was the last time he remembered crying. It was the only time, that he could recall, he ever saw Dad cry. Later that day, he would have his first and, so far, only fight with his father. Dad had pulled Bret and him aside at one point and told them about how Eddie had gotten into drugs, how that was what led to his death, and how they had to be careful not to end up like him. Something about how he said it just pushed him, and Wyatt exchanged words, and those words got louder, screamed through blurry eyes. He remembered swinging, because he was sad and stupid and blinded by a funeral that he wished he hadn't gone to and pissed by a conversation that never should have happened. And Dad ducked it, and then fucking clocked him. Mom screamed, Nana screamed, it was a whole ordeal, and he had to apologize in front of the whole family later.

Just the things you think of when your classmates start dying, right? Even if some of them were useless idiots.

Since it sounded like things were starting to kick into gear up there, Wyatt abandoned his post and headed up behind his brother just to see whose party they'd crashed.

((Amber Yates continued from Steady As She Goes))

Amber did a little jig and sung a song to herself as she walked, bobbing her body up and down and kicking dramatically to the music in her head, like she was some kind of upbeat character from a movie that was super confident and didn't care about anything.

"Pop culture does nothing for me,
The American dream mainstream just bores me,"

Her singing was fairly terrible, if she was honest with herself. Still, save for Blue she had been alone ever since she got separated from her previous group, so she wasn't afraid to indulge. It wasn't like anyone else was around, and it was unlikely she could embarrass herself more than she already has.

"'Cause I'm not like you, I'm immune, I'm immune,
Say it over and over until it comes true,"

She had woken up a few hours ago after hiding out in an abandoned building, before getting up and resuming her search for Abel, or any of her friends for that matter. She was glad the temperature had gone down a bit overnight, though she was sure that it was going to get just as hot, if not hotter, later on in the day. The only downsides were that the air was sticky and gross, and it looked like there was some kind of storm on the horizon, but that was a problem for future Amber, not something present Amber had to worry about.

"Pop culture does nothing for me,
The American dream mainstream just bores me,"

The singing also distracted her from the fact that she really, really wanted a smoke. Earlier she had been scratching her neck raw just to try to deal with the constant, internal itch that she felt, and anything that could provide some relief to that feeling was good by her.

"And we all act like we see right through it,
When we all know we're addicted to it,"

Her dance-walking was slowly bringing her closer to some kind of structure on the shore of the bay, what looked to her like some kind of boat from this distance. It looked pretty sturdy, and as a landmark it'd be a pretty sensible place to find people. Maybe she could even find Abel!

"And the beat goes on, drone drone like a metronome,
Day in and day out I know how the story gonna go,"

Still, it was important to consider where Abel would have actually wanted to go. Maybe some kind of crashed boat in a bay wouldn't be his style? She stopped her singing and her dance-walking, staying in place for a bit to really ponder where Abel might've gone. He was a baseball player, he liked really bad action movies, and he really liked playing that guitar that he always looked so cute with...

Also he was kind of an idiot. But he was her idiot, and that's what mattered.

Amber stayed there, thinking, occasionally fumbling with her bag in order to look at her map. Really considering exactly where Abel would've gone, maybe even to find her. There had to be some place that stuck out...

Some place...

...

"Nope!" She shouted emphatically, giving up completely on her train of thought. "No idea!"

That was a lot of build up to nothing in particular. You think you should just search at random?

Like we've been doing? Yeah!

Amber resumed her dance-walking, minus the singing, arriving shortly thereafter at the capsized yacht.

The salty smell of the ocean and soothing sound of waves hitting the shore nearby helped to relax her, despite her itching for nicotine. She had never been to a beach or shore before, so she felt nice, finally able to understand the appeal of a beach vacation. The yacht itself was a fairly dilapidated structure, worn with age and neglect. From the side she was on, it didn't look like there was a way aboard the ship. She was disappointed, as she expected there to be some easy way onto the boat, but she shrugged and began to walk around it, continuing her bizarre adventure.

As Amber was about to reach the other side, she was startled by the sudden crackling of the announcement speakers, stopping her movement and freezing in place.

Right. Those are a thing.

She frowned, her gaze cast downwards as the familiar voice that she had heard so many times over recordings sounded out, the grim spectacle of this game she was trapped in now truly starting to begin.

She didn't want to believe that her classmates could kill each other, but she knew from watching the archived videos that that was almost certainly not going to be the case. They all still tried to kill each other, no matter how pointless and barbaric it was, just for that chance at survival.

She steeled herself, not quite ready to begin hearing the names of classmates that she would never see again-

Wait. Wait... Abel?

Her heart shattered when she heard his name spoken before anyone else's, her eyes already beginning to fill with tears in response. She didn't want to believe it, she couldn't accept it. Abel was dead, and he...

She sunk to the ground, knees hitting the wet sand, hands clutching her face, ignoring all of the other names that were being said as an intense feeling of emptiness filled her chest. Only two names stuck in her head, Abel's and Paloma's.

"Oh my god..."

Amber sobbed violently, hyperventilating between pained noises, her pure sense of grief beating out even the times when she was younger where she had been moments away from committing suicide. Tears were running down her face, snot dripping down her nose as she made what were, to her, the most hideous noises she had ever heard in her life.

She screamed, trying to rid herself of these horrible new feelings, but nothing would make them go away. She had loved Abel with all her heart, and now her heart felt nothing but hurt. She had been hoping to see him again, before either of them died, but it was clear that she was going to get very little of what she wanted out of life, as per usual. He deserved so much better than this. The first to be picked off, out of everyone in the school? That was just...

"...O-Oh my god..."

She couldn't handle it. He was dead and gone and she could never see him again, and he didn't even get to go out in a good way. He was the first person to die, and he was murdered, it wasn't even a suicide, like the first deaths usually were. His death was the death that all those horrible people that watched this stuff for fun would no doubt laugh at and make memes about for the rest of time. That was all her boyfriend would be to so many people, now. They wouldn't see the boy she fell in love with. All they'd see was...

Amber was furious. She was furious at the terrorists, furious at the world, and in a small way that made her feel guilty, furious at Abel. She just couldn't take it anymore. There was something she had to say, that she had to scream to the heavens, and there was no way she would be able to hold it back any longer.

She cried out, her fists clenched, her gaze skywards, shouting for all the world to hear.

"OH MY GOD, I CAN'T BELIEVE HE DIED LIKE A BITCH."

Paloma probably looked like a deer in headlights. That was how she felt, trapped in the face of an incomprehensible horror, a threat beyond mortal fear.

Ron no longer mattered. She glanced at him once or twice, but no more.

The announcement played. It was perfunctory, almost, lazy in it's delivery. Abel was the first person to die on this island, and it was by her hand, her actions, her...no, not her fault. She was just a girl, she couldn't, shouldn't be held accountable for her actions. If she tortured someone, did awful things to them for fun, then sure, but she was just surviving.

And now she was in jeopardy. Bret Carter was pretty well-known, obviously, one of the big, scary twin football players. They were loud, insensitive, and completely outside of Paloma's usual interest in her school's social circle. People hated on them, but why bother, she always thought. But she had no reason to assume they wouldn't do anything to survive right now. She would, after all. And he had a gun.

"It was, an accident." She said slowly, deliberately, breathing, staring down at Bret's gun. "I woke up, and looked at my bag, and he stood up and reached for the baseball bat." The one in her hand right now. "I grabbed it before he could and swung it and hit him in the head." She spoke faster and faster as she continued. "I just didn't want him to attack me-"

A scream outside. She couldn't make out the words. It sounded upset. She flinched nonetheless, but continued. "I just want to survive. You can't tell me you don't feel the same way." She bit her lip, gripping the fabric of the bag on her shoulder. Stared at Bret's gun. "I'll do what I need to do to survive. To walk away from..."

Another pause. From what, exactly? She felt trapped. She was trapped. "From this. So just, I'll do anything. Just let me go." She tried to meet Bret's gaze, and she couldn't.

Oh, there was the answer. Paloma had killed. Bret took stock of the other names that were read out as well. Tirzah, Tyrell, Nick, Tyrell again, Katrina, Quinn, Blaise, and Justin. There were some obvious targets in that group if they so chose. Killers who he and his brother would have easily been able to overpower. An easy and justifiable way of gaining more supplies. But that for the future, in the present Paloma was trying to explain her actions and reason with him. As Paloma spoke Bret imagined the scene she described in his head. Both of them waking up, Paloma grabbing the baseball bat as Abel reached for it and then...obviously she had killed him.

Ron was there as well, he spluttered out a greeting and Bret sent a nod his way. An acknowledgment of his presence but nothing more. Ron was nothing, back at school he would say whatever he could to get what he wanted. Bret had no reason to believe that being on an island of death would change that. If anything he would have put money on it exacerbating his behavior. From outside there came a muffled scream, Bret couldn't tell who it would have belonged to, it didn't pay it any mind. His main focus was the two people in front of him, specifically the killer.

"Strange," He said, eyes glancing over at Ron before moving back to focus on Paloma. "That doesn't sound like an accident to me, what do you think Ron?"

Ron's heart sank as Paloma admitted to the killing. From what she'd described, Abel hadn't done all that much to prompt it. Well, he guess Abel had tried to take her weapon, and she hadn't intended for the hit to be fatal. So it was excusable, right? It wasn't like she was some Bad Girl-esque psycho killer, she was just surprised and she had wanted to survive. Ron could understand that more than anyone. He still couldn't help but wonder, in all their time together, had he ever come close to startling her like that? To maybe provoking the same reaction...

There was a distant scream from outside of the boat. Maybe it was someone who was upset by the announcement. Or maybe it was someone being added to the next one. Ron shivered. Ron's gaze drifted to Bret, and they briefly locked eyes before Ron quickly glanced away. Bret started talking... to him, directly. He was asking for his opinion. Wait, what? Ron's eyes darted between the two, and he could feel the sweat beading on his forehead. Ron was being put right in the middle of the two of them. Did Bret expect him to choose sides? Paloma had been a good ally, she had helped him get away from Layla, but she had killed someone and hadn't told him. Bret was... a friend, and he had a gun. Ron didn't want to choose. But would he have to? What was Bret thinking?

"Er... I... agree." Ron started, slowly backing away from Paloma. "It does sound, uh, strange."

Ron swallowed, and looked Bret in the eye. It took a lot of willpower to hold his gaze.

"I've been with her a while, though, and she's been fine to me. Helped me out, actually. So, uh, I don't think there's any need to get violent. Personally."

"Y'know who else probably felt that?"

Wyatt's booming voice preceded him. Surprise motherfuckers, you got BOTH Carter twins in the same place. And speaking of this place, boy, it was cramped in here. Wyatt found he couldn't even really stretch out all the way without his head knocking against something.

"Abel. And where's Abel now? Besides like, in a ditch or something. Where'd you leave the body, Paloma? Help a guy out." Wyatt sneered as he looked between the two occupants of the yacht that they'd stumbled upon. "Man, Paloma, really surprised at you." It was half mocking, half serious. The both of them had yet to see a dead body, but here they were looking at a killer, according to the powers that be on the radio. And Paloma's own admission only confirmed it.

"Can you imagine our classmates?" Wyatt asked, looking at Paloma but knucklingBret on the shoulderblade when he said it. "You actually managed to get a kill before one of the big, bad Carter brothers. I bet they're all fuckin' waiting to hear us, but they ain't gonna." He looked over to the other pissant in the room. "And then you got Mask here white-knighting for ya. Hey man, it's your neck, not ours."

Wyatt gave himself a short chuckle at that one, and he didn't care if nobody laughed with him. He leaned in closer to his brother's ear, still clutching the monstrosity-that-slightly-resembled-a-sword in his spare, non-Bret-touching hand. "By the way, heard somebody screaming about something outside. Just lettin' ya know, man."

Amber breathed heavily, her face an absolute mess, still staring at the sky.

Screaming helped, a little bit. She didn't feel quite as high strung, but she was still overwhelmed. She knew that all of this was inevitable, that if she continued to live through sheer dumb luck that she would almost certainly hear her loved one's names spoken over the announcements, but even knowing that ahead of time didn't actually prepare her for it. She continued to cry, unable to cope with her emotions, whimpering pathetically all the while. After a few minutes of this, she fished a sleeve of her jacket out of her bag to wipe her face with, paying no mind to how gross it was, before beginning to stand up.

She still couldn't quite process the fact that Abel was gone. Nothing felt real. It didn't feel like she was really standing on a deserted island right now, it felt like she was watching what someone else was doing. What someone else was experiencing. With that, Amber started to move again, her tears having slowed down just a bit, walking around the capsized boat, wanting it out of her way.

Despite what she had just screamed, none of that hostility was directed at Abel. He was a victim, here, and she wasn't about to blame him for what happened. She just hated that this was going to be his legacy, that the wider public would know him as somebody who died like an idiot in the death games that the terrorists kept setting up and nothing else. He was better than that, he deserved better than that.

Also, now that she was thinking about it, she was pretty sure that Abel was a virgin when he died, which was sad too. He had said that he had never had sex before to her, and he had been constantly oblivious to her painfully obvious advances, despite the fact that they had been dating for a while.

Wait, shit, does that mean I'm gonna die a virgin now?

Amber put her hands on her face, suppressing the urge to shout "fuck" at that realization. It was whatever, it didn't matter. Worrying about something that stupid when her boyfriend was dead was profoundly selfish. She needed to focus on what was important. Like the enormous hole that she just noticed in the hull on the other side of the boat.

She did a double take in response to seeing that, since she originally thought that the boat was just there and that there was no real way inside, but there was a actually a surprisingly convenient entryway into it, despite it being on its side. Maybe someone was in there that she could talk to? She could really use a friendly face right now, she thought.

Leaning into the hole in the hull, she glanced into the dimly lit innards of the ship, before shouting, "Hello? Is anyone in here?"

Paloma gritted her teeth. Her face flushed. She wanted to lash out, retort, do something, because how dare they judge her, act like they were better than her. They had no right.

"Would you have done any different?" Her frustration was just barely contained. If only it weren't for that gun. She didn't like it, because who wanted to have a gun near them, in someone else's hands, in this place? "If it's life or death, are you going to just roll over and die? Is that gun just for show?" She tilted her head towards him.

"Don't act so high and mighty." She swallowed, painfully. All of them except one, at best, was going to die soon. She wanted it to be her to live. Simple as that. Not that she was going to point that little limitation out.

A voice outside? Just what she needed. More people. Maybe they help her, if they saw her as in danger and were nice, and if they didn't know her by name, and if none of the other people present said anything. Doubtful. She wanted out.

"He-his body was in the rice paddies. You can go check it out if you really feel like it. And I can go somewhere else. And obviously Ron you can go wherever you like." At least he stood up for her. She didn't attack him, and she didn't want to. "So I'll just leave. Ship's all your's."

She didn't budge. Not yet.

Bret nodded slightly in response to Wyatt. It was good information to know.

After Paloma finished with her little speech Bret merely shrugged and then swung the rifle up, aiming at her.

"You can leave but your bags stay."

Oh, God he was here, too.

Ron cursed his luck as soon as Wyatt's voice hit them. Instantly, he starting looking around for paths to escape, convinced that talking it through was no longer an option. Not with Wyatt. No, he told himself, he had to stay the course. He couldn't revert. Wyatt was... he was okay with Wyatt now. They were fine. Wyatt had reasons for what he did, and he could be reasoned with as much as anyone else. He stood up straight as Wyatt started speaking, calling him "Mask". What... what did he mean by that? Mask? Did he know Ron was just faking it, pretending to be someone he wasn't? But- no. He wasn't faking anything. He was better than he used to be. He was stronger. He could do this.

Ron couldn't let himself be scared off by Wyatt's taunts, or by Bret's gun, or by the unknown voice calling at them. He was going to win this. He could appeal to them. That was what he was good at. He thought of what he could say, and he repeated the words again and again in his head until they sounded right.

"Guys, I don't think any of this is necessary." he finally said, louder than he intended. "You guys have big targets on your backs, obviously. Everyone knows who you are and anyone who wants to take out the biggest threats will be hunting for you. Paloma, now she's a big target as well. There's strength in numbers, and we'll all survive better together, right? We can help you."

"NO! NOBODY HERE AT ALL!"

Wyatt had shouted back at whoever the girl was trying to nose into their business right now. If he was a betting man, smart money said it was the same girl who was screaming her head off after the announcements were done blaring. Probably sad about somebody who died, which meant that in all likelihood, he and Bret weren't liable to be primary targets if she did come in. Come to think of it, that was the jist of Ron's spiel, too. 'Big targets.' 'Big targets.' Seemed like everybody had it in their head that the Carters had the biggest target painted on their back and, in all honesty, that might have been true... back in George Hunter. But not now, 'cause they were playing it smart. The whole point was to NOT be a big target.

So when fuckin' Mr. Potato Head decided it would somehow benefit his brother and him to take them on, Wyatt found himself throwing eyebrows harder than Dwayne Johnson with his neck stuck back, blown away from the stupidity of it all. Yeah, that was gonna take a second to unpack and throw back at him, so where did he start?

Didn't have a lot of time. Paloma was getting antsy, they needed to take her shit and company knocking at their door wasn't making this any easier.

"Okay, thanks but no thanks. Unless you're armed or got a black-belt you're not gonna be of any use to us. And I don't mean the bat, I mean heat," Wyatt clarified, shooting a look Paloma's way. "You got a third-degree in Retard-Fu, chickenshit? That's what I thought. We'll take your food, NOT you, and just be on our way. Hand it over..."

To punctuate the demand, Wyatt snatched up the front of Ron's shirt, wrenching nice and tight, pulling him close.

"And quit wasting our motherfucking time."

"Fine."

She'd weighed her options. Food was really important, water was extremely important, medicine was important, a map and compass, her goggles. But most important was Paloma not angering the guy with a gun pointed at her and no particular reason not to shoot her. It made sense for him not to, at least; he made a point that her name was now known, and, despite their infamy back at school, hadn't actually popped up yet.

She turned and glanced at Ron, briefly. Paloma appreciated his attempt to back her up, at least. Maybe later down the line, it'd come back to help her that she'd made a good impression. But it was pointless now. She held up the bag and dropped it on the floor with a thud. Slowly, deliberately, Paloma moved past Bret and Wyatt, wordlessly edging towards the exit, until she was out of line of sight, and ran, bat in hand.

She had to find a safe place, conserve energy, get more supplies somehow. She had luckily eaten and drank a bottle and a food bar before she'd left. Paloma wasn't a big eater, she could handle a day without eating as long as she took it slow until she could restock. She had no map now, but she could try to remember what was on it last she looked, once she was clear.

A voice shouted to her. Paloma turned her head, slowing down and almost stumbling in the process. Pale, orange hair, kind of strange, Paloma knew of Amber. She looked mad, too. Paloma didn't want to deal with that right now.

She ignored her, and turned back, and took off in full sprint into the jungle.

((Hopefully, to safety.))