Survival Of The Fittest

The days only seemed to get longer. The more they walked, the less they had to speak about, and the longer things seemed to go. In essence, that wasn't actually a bad thing. Just the sole fact that they continued to walk meant that they survived, and almost ten days since the day that all of them had awoken, condemned to die in this island hell, that was actually a feat in and of itself. Morgan was sure that somewhere, someone was probably sitting in their chair and marvelling that he wasn't worm-food, rotting in some shallow ditch.

Like Dante.

Like Toby.

Like Andy and Axel and Lucas and the Carters and Bryan and basically everyone else he'd run into since waking up.

Like Lizzie. Goddamn, like Lizzie.

Well, he thought as he crept through the forest towards what he hoped was the lake, I am not at all sorry to fucking disappoint.

((Morgan Dragosavich continued from Shaka, When the Walls Fell))

When he had stormed off, partly to make a point and partly because he needed to decompress at the deception that his friends had played him with, it was only about an hour before he slowed down and let them catch up, understanding exactly why they had done things the way they had. Had he been there, Lizzie would not — maybe even could not — do what she needed to do, and she had spared him the immortal pain of going down in history as the idiot who killed his girlfriend. The announcement not naming him didn't spare him the memory of what had happened, nor did it change the reality of the situation, but somehow it made him feel like he wasn't a complete and total failure.

Of his two companions, he was better friends with Henry, but Aurelien was surprisingly the one who spoke more. At some point in their travels, Henry had come across what seemed to be a discarded walkie-talkie and had gotten really quiet, really quickly. It put a solemn damper on the one guy who to this point, had been as earnest as possible in trying to keep their spirits at least hovering around the middle ground. As soon as Henry clammed up, neither Aurelien or Morgan had chosen to try and pry at what it meant, likely from a combination of understanding and lacking the capacity or the energy to try and empathize with him. All of them had suffered a loss — people they each cared about had perished, some in horrific and unnatural ways. Their murderers wore familiar and sometimes friendly faces, but those people were just as gone as the people they had killed. They were to be mourned as well; it was that rationale that kept Morgan's legs from moving. He had been fatally wrong to try and find Michael. The belief that he might have been able to talk him from the proverbial ledge was unfounded. His buddy had already taken the plunge, and no amount of talking would be able to un-splatter him from the pavement.

All of which meant that if Morgan were to come across Michael again, he would have no particular qualms about pushing him from a high structure if given the opportunity; turning metaphor into reality. Defenestration was the technical term for it, though a window had to be involved for someone to be properly defenestrated. Otherwise, it was just a fall.

"Why is there a word for throwing someone out of a window," he mused to himself, "but not a word for the day after tomorrow? That's fucking weird."

Hearing his own voice was actually a little comforting. The tone had returned to his words, and he no longer felt as hollow as he had at the infirmary. Morgan still felt as though he'd taken the fatal gunshot himself, his stomach still felt heavy, but as he once again had to remind himself, he wasn't dead yet.

((Aurelien Valter continued from Shaka, When the Walls Fell))

Sure, he’d been willing to keep up a stream of communication with Morgan. It was the logical thing to do. Neither of them wanted Morgan to run off by himself again, after all. He could have run so far out of sight that they never saw him again, or run off ahead and broken his neck. Or someone else’s. Talking to him, about whatever small, mundane things might crop up, would go some ways to alleviate that possibility. He’d hoped, at least.

And normally this would be Henry’s area of expertise. But the other boy clearly wasn’t in that frame of mind right now, if his reactions - or lack of them, more accurately - back at the infirmary were anything to go by. He’d fallen back further, speaking in a low, hushed voice, that Aurelien could barely hear and that he didn’t strain himself to try and do so. A lot had happened since the last time he was aware Henry had used the walkie-talkie. Camilla had a lot she needed to catch up on.

So he had talked as he walked. He had been together enough to do that, to mumble out responses to Morgan at the very least. They each had their respective traumas, but he felt as though there was enough left within all of them to put them aside, for the good of the group, and the good of their cause. Hell, if he was able to do that, then he had to imagine the others almost certainly could.

At least, he was able to do that at first.

Because at some point, the announcement had played. And any lingering doubts Aurelien may have had about trusting Michael had been extinguished when Lizzie’s name and her name alone was attached to her passing.

And then, swiftly reignited, when his name appeared on the list of the killers once more.

He had gone to stand by the water’s edge when they’d arrived at the lake. He’d always liked camping close to water, whenever he’d done so. Not too close, of course, there were several safety measures you had to take into consideration when dealing with the great outdoors wilderness. But close enough that he could hear the water lapping during the night, watch the sunset reflect on the lake surface, every now and then hear kayakers as his morning alarm. He’d hoped that standing this close to it, with its familiar boat house, small wooded island, even the dilapidated rowing boat, used once, would help calm him down.

Judging by the shaking in his arms and the hands clenched into fists within his pockets, it wasn’t working.

He’d been so opposed, less than a day ago, to Morgan going after Michael in order to kill him. He’d believed wholeheartedly that Michael would take their words to heart, that he wouldn’t mess up with the second, third, infinite amount of chances they had given him. And yet in the very same day they’d let him run off scot free, he’d killed somebody else, shot someone else, shot Jonah for whatever goddamn reason.

And Aurelien had given the gun back to him, handed the murder weapon right on over.

“Après demain,” Aurelien muttered, not particularly caring if Morgan actually heard him. “You can hyphenate it. If that counts.”

He didn’t want to look down or turn around, into the mirrors of the lake and of Morgan’s eyes. He didn’t want to know what his expression looked like.

They found it walking through the woods; a walkie-talkie, discarded on the ground next to Theo's body. Parts of him were already beginning to be gnawed at by the teeming life of the tropical woodlands. No clear sign of how he died, only the telltale signs of a struggle in the underbrush. Henry had his theories, but kept them to himself in the time before the announcement hit. His reflex was to err on the side of optimism, not assuming anything about Camilla's role aside from the evidence that she'd clearly seen Theo's body and decided to leave the walkie-talkie there. Something about how it happened was too much to take. Even before they found it, he figured as much.

The night before it had sounded like she wanted to be left alone. Whatever she'd seen, she kept to herself; it was some revelation she couldn't share to someone she barely knew, over a radio. That night he pulled out his map, tried to figure out how close they were to the waterfall. Never said that he expected to find Camilla at the bottom of it, or that he was concerned about what might happen to the radio if it ended up with her, or in the wrong hands. Merely offering it as a suggestion, a way they might find some help.

Henry barely slept, less than he was usually able to here. The whole night he second-guessed himself, desperately trying to understand why he didn't just try and find her. All he'd tried to do was encourage her, be some kind of company and eyes on the other end of the island. Covering more ground, they could gather more information, he'd thought. It seemed foolish, now. He wondered if being closer to him would've put her in more danger, or less.

Occasionally he'd bolt upright, still thinking about what had happened that day. Thinking about Lizzie, and wondering what, if anything, he had left to say to Morgan. A few times he reached out to his friend, only to pull back. The last thing Morgan needed was to be saddled with a friend's guilt on top of his own.

So he stayed quiet. They woke the next day, and set out. Found Theo, and the Walkie-Talkie. Henry pulled the map out again, intending to make for the waterfall.

The announcement hit next, and Henry did what he'd done every day and committed names to memory, kept a count.

Erika at twelve, Justin at six, Ivy's first kill, Camilla killed Theo, Blaise at seven, Justin at seven, Erika at thirteen, Michael at four, Willow's first. Fifty-five dead.

After a second spent staring down at his map, he quietly folded it into his pocket and absently followed behind his companions.


At the edge of the Lake, Henry set the hefty sawed-off punt gun to the ground, rolling his shoulder as if that would make the days-long ache subside.

The weapon was gradually becoming more of a burden than anything else; the gun was heavy on its own in the bag, but the giant steel shotgun shells themselves weren't exactly light, either. Throughout the day he'd imagined opening the wax seals and pouring the black powder out, repackaging them into some kind of bomb. With both walkie-talkies, it wasn't exactly outside of the realm of possibility. The problem was making sure it went off like a bomb, and not just a sad fizzle. That meant they needed tape and something resembling pliers, both of which they could only find in their first-aid kits.

Designing things in his mind was just habit, something that kept it occupied and away from thoughts he didn't need to dwell on. Even if it was designing a pipe bomb.

Problem-solving, as practice, felt familiar. Even if the problem was other people being alive when they needed to die.

It didn't help him, now.

Thoughts of gauze tape and tweezers only made him think of Beryl, and Jackson, and Lizzie. He tried to focus on the electronics, on how the battery life was no doubt starting to deplete, and how he'd have to make sure to keep it off until they needed to use it. Thinking of how he'd have to carefully turn on the radio he was planning on using as a detonator, and how he'd tune it to channel seven, the one he and Camilla had made sure to use.

Time wasn't on his side. It would take too long to put something like that together, time they could've spent hunting down the killers. He kept wanting to say it was to buy more time, but Henry wasn't sure he even believed it was a good reason anymore. At least the other two had revenge as a motive, something straightforward, basic, deeply human.

People fantasized about that, all the time. Everyone understood, on some level. Even if they disagreed, they'd say they sympathized at least a little. Knew that human beings had some innate desire to get even.

You took something out of my life, so I'm taking yours.

He was in no place to really understand it. The only person he seemed to want to hold to account for their actions was himself, and he couldn't even begin to plan for that.

Henry picked up a flat rock from the side of the lake, and tried to skip it across the water. The same way he'd done at ponds back home countless times, muscle memory and an understanding of the forces involved working together to craft some simple amusement.

Instead of skipping across the water, the stone immediately sank. Henry seemed to sink into himself with it, his arms falling limp at his side as he quietly watched the ripples expand out across the water, fading. He caught wind of Morgan and Aurelien's exchange only a few yards away.

For the first time in several hours, Henry spoke.

"In Blackfoot it's míístapapinákosi. Poslezavtra is the Russian word for it. If I'm remembering right it's pasado mañana in Spanish, and I think German is übermorgen. I remembered that one because it sounded like a terrible superhero name for you."

There he was — after several hours, Henry had finally found his voice again. Morgan couldn't help but crack a sad smile at the very true-to-form list of definitions that Henry rattled off. It was a sad state of what had become of his group of friends. That Henry still had his mind throughout all of this, including — he couldn't forget — killing someone with that giant gun he was lugging around, it was a near-miracle. Finding that walkie-talkie had done something to him, so he was happy to at least have a glimpse of the old Henry, such as it was.

He could imagine that there would be fewer glimpses to come in whatever time they had left. Days, hours, minutes? It was impossible to say. Nothing was coming with any consistency anymore, only the announcements that listed off those who had died. Each morning, like clockwork. Every announcement brought a name that punched him in the gut, every morning was a nice reminder that he was still alive. While his heart felt as though it had been torn into a million little pieces, it still pumped blood through his veins.

For now, that would have to be enough.

"Man, could you imagine? After all this time, I suddenly grow superpowers or whatever — fear me, I'm the ÜberMorgan! Immune to bullets, invisible to the naked eye!" His enthusiasm was short-lived. "Still wouldn't help us much with these collars, though."

Turning back to Aurelien, he nodded in agreement. "The hyphen definitely would make it count. Compound words definitely only count as one."

Morgan didn't have much else to offer to that particular line of conversation. Normally an extrovert, talking and carrying on exhausted him. All he wanted was to be walking around on his own back home, seeing the sights of the city, even exploring the cave system outside of town.

The caves.

Straightening up, a chill went down his spine. His own little expedition had been mundane, a small project that he'd set up just so he hadn't had to write an essay. The project had probably ended up being more work, but they'd all had a pretty good time. What was pertinent to him now wasn't the work they'd done — it was whom he'd done it with.

"Any other time," he muttered to himself, "doing a group project with Michael, Erika and Jonah wouldn't have stuck in mind."

Jonah; his kindness was the stuff of legend. When Morgan had asked him to help, they'd been waylaid by a quest to find the owner of a lost sweater. He'd driven them out to the caves with no real qualm or expectation of anything in return. That was just the kind of guy he was.

Had been. Jonah had died yesterday. Killed by his former best friend.

Former best friend was a bit of a misnomer; it wasn't as though the two had needed to have a falling out. Michael had just had a bit of a falling out with reality and with his own mind. The person who was traipsing around wearing his friend's face was but a broken and dirty shell of a human. The first time, he had done his best to help.

The second time, he had barely recognized Michael and that had gotten Lizzie killed.

He didn't need to go over that again, so he stuffed that thought deep within himself. At this point, Morgan had been crying so much of the last nine days that he wasn't sure he had many more tears to shed. His best friend — what was left of him — had directly killed four people. That was a lot.

Not as many as Erika, though.

His photographer friend, though acquaintance was probably a better word, it had been an off-hand conversation with Erika that spurred the whole idea. The two of them had been hanging back after class, grousing on their way out about some assignment or other, when he'd seen her camera bag and the rest had been history. She'd been happy to help, happy to have something unique to end the year off on. Erika was good people; he regretted not spending more time with her over the years. Of course, when she'd started dating Tyrell during senior year, that had made hanging out with her less of an appealing prospect.

After killing so many people that Morgan had lost count, he guessed that he'd probably rather hang out with scary Tyrell than even catch a glimpse of Erika right now. Seemed like that was a proposition that had ended poorly for a whole lot of people.

How did that even happen?

Shaking the thought out of his mind, Morgan looked the opposite way to the one that his friends — his true friends, though he barely knew Aurelien — were looking and stared out towards the ocean. Freedom. It was right there, so close for the taking. It would have been really great if he truly was ÜberMorgan. He could just run towards the ocean, take off and fly away. As he scanned the horizon and looked down at the marshy wetlands, his eyes narrowed. Was that—?

"Hey guys," he pointed in the distance, "is that — that looks like someone over there!"

Morgan couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw someone sitting in the distance, looking out towards the water.

He barely acknowledged Morgan’s response. Henry’s appearance and breaking of his own silence got the same treatment; little more than a glance over his shoulder and a brief nod. He was thankful to hear that Henry had found his voice again, glad that Morgan had managed to recapture some of his old self, brief as it might have been, he really was. But there was one pervasive thought that ran through his mind, one that overrode everything else.

They couldn’t just stay here. They couldn’t just wait, standing next to the lake, doing nothing.

Their plan had been to find Blaise. Once they had been dealt with, they would seek out any other killer, anybody else who’d caused undue pain and suffering, and deal with them too. That had been their plan. That had been their plan for the past five or six days. They’d been trying to enact it, he knew they had. But all they had to show for it was Marco’s blood on their hands.

And Jackson’s. And Ariana’s.

And, fuck, every single person that Justin and Michael had killed, after they’d let them both go.

Time was running out. The amount of people left alive was dwindling by the hour, and there was every chance that soon, the only people they’d be saving by killing the killers was more goddamn killers. There was every chance that as soon as they’d managed to enact the justice they had been seeking, they would have to turn on each other as the last three people alive.

There was every chance that Blaise would die without Aurelien even seeing them.

And that last thought was the catalyst, the dynamo that spurred him to lift his head and turn around and look in the direction Morgan was pointing. He squinted, narrowing his vision, giving a short, curt nod as he saw what Morgan had spotted.

“Lemme go check it out,” he said. It wasn’t exactly a command. But he also wasn’t going to take ‘no’ for an answer.

He trudged over, slipping his hand into the pocket of his bomber jacket and wrapping it around his gun. He left the mace with the rest of his supplies, by the side of the lake. Better to have a quick and decisive weapon, when dealing with an unknown force.

It didn’t take too long for him to reach the person, sitting against the rocks, staring out to sea. He didn’t see any point in being stealthy or cautious. The long trail of blood leading up to him told him that whoever it was wouldn’t be in any fit state to try anything hasty. Not, of course, that it mattered in the end, not with the cruel joke the universe was playing. He’d just been thinking about how badly they needed to find the island’s murderers, after all.

Well. Here one was.

“It’s Tyrell,” Aurelien called out to the others. He idly nudged the crowbar with his foot, walked over to peer down at the abandoned crossbow.

”Was Tyrell, I guess.”

Henry could only flash a smirk at Morgan’s response, only able to witness to his friend’s attempt at levity but finding himself unable to participate. Normally he’d have joked with him. Instead, Henry flinched the moment Morgan mentioned the collars. Teeth sheared off the gears turning in his mind as he instinctively reached up towards the device.

His fingers didn’t reach it before Morgan spoke up, drawing their attention to someone in the distance. He and Aurelien were already over there by the time Henry finally looked down from the lake, back to his ad hoc weapon. Retrieving it, he followed the others to yet another scene of carnage and death.

The rocky dirt and gravel had been disturbed in more than a few places, with dried-out bloodstains on both sides of the river that flowed out of the lake. As the others saw to the first body, Henry lingered on the edge of the scene. There was a second, who he only barely recognized as one of the school’s many Lucases. Diaz, if he was seeing things correctly. The dessicated skin that seemed stretched across his face distorted his features, something Henry wasn’t going to bother crossing the river to verify.

There was a gun lying in the dirt, too. Henry nearly bolted to the weapon, reaching down for a moment before stopping himself.

Why was it left here?

Is anyone watching?

Whose gun is this?

His eyes scanned the treeline. Nothing, as far as he could see. Without taking his eyes off of the most likely point of ambush, he slowly picked up the pistol. No reaction from afar, only the other two identifying the body.

Tyrell - who killed Christine, Felix, Lorenzo. Seems like there might've been one more.

There was no sign of another body beneath the rushing water of the river, but the signs of a struggle at its edge were enough for him to trust. Sighing, Henry brushed the dirt off of the pistol and then made a beeline towards the others.

Stepping beside Aurelien, he looked down at the body. Tyrell’s hands lay limp at his side, a bloody crossbow bolt lying next to his hands. Henry winced at the sight, understanding the implication.

Must’ve thought taking it out would’ve helped.

The more he looked, the more he saw. No part of the body seemed untouched by injury, with bruises, cuts, and nasty-looking wounds from head to toe. It was enough for Henry to fill in the gaps between the moments he’d heard Tyrell’s name on the announcements. He understood in looking at him, what they were now mercifully free of having to deal with.

“Looks like it took a lot to bring him down. Still, it would’ve been better if we’d gotten to him first, might’ve gotten a clue what’s going on with his girlfriend.”

Henry didn’t like Tyrell much, though the feeling wasn’t mutual. He was superficially friendly to Henry, but evidently volatile and often somewhat petty. They’d spoken only a handful of times, and each time Henry had found himself looking for an excuse to end the conversation. If they’d stayed home that might’ve been all of it, but this place seemed to have brought the worst in him.

Seeing him dead now, Henry only felt a faint sense of relief. Two of the killers they had to worry about were now gone, having taken each other out. What was more, they’d left behind weapons.

So, are we really going to put them to better use?

“I found this gun a few yards that way. Looks like it’s still loaded.”

Henry held the pistol out in his open palm, noting how frustratingly light it was compared to his own gun.

"Any takers?"

"Yeah," Morgan said a little bit faster than he realized he was truly comfortable with. "I'll take it."

The gun was lighter than he expected holding a firearm would be, and taking it from Henry felt like it had a sense of gravitas attached to it. For the very first time since he'd had his own supplies violently taken from him by the Carter brothers, Morgan found himself with some line of defense. However improbable his odds were from the start, they likely just got a bit better.

What an ugly thought.

He was having worse; the second one he actually verbalized.

"We should check the bodies," he shut his eyes in silent protest at what he was about to suggest, "for supplies. Food, ammunition, anything we can use."

That Tyrell's body lay only feet away from him should have horrified him — perhaps in some way, it did. But there had been so much horror for the lot of them over the last week plus that all of it was starting to blend together. Feeling horrified and scared was the norm now rather than the exception.

Clumsily, Morgan took the pistol and aimed it — away from his friends, just in case — and pushed the small button that he surmised released the magazine. It did with a loud click and he just barely caught it before it hit the ground.

"Still a few bullets in this gun. There's probably a pack around here somewhere, maybe the rest are inside."

Or they could have been on one of the bodies, but he knew both of his friends were thinking that. It didn't need to be said out loud. There were a lot of things that were best left unsaid right now, but the one that continued to echo over and over throughout his mind was the one that was perhaps the most important to him right now.

Morgan Dragosavich was no longer a victim.

For now, anyways.

Yesterday, he might have agreed with Henry and cared about gleaning some information from Tyrell before he passed. Yesterday, he might have felt the same as Morgan, and felt some semblance of guilt at rummaging through the dead boy’s belongings. Yesterday. The yesterday that felt like years ago. Such a long time back.

And such a short time for his feelings to have done a full 180.

His instincts had stopped him from reacting properly to the killers until now. He’d hesitated the first time he’d faced Marco. He’d let Justin leave unharmed. He’d let Michael leave with his gun, even after killing someone right in front of him. Hell, he’d only been able to help take down Marco the second time because he’d launched himself at them in a death-and-glory attack. He couldn’t tell you the precise reason he’d hesitated and second guessed himself. A combination of factors, most likely. The instinctive knowledge that ‘thou shalt not kill’, a statement that had been reinforced in his mind since he’d gotten to know Dante. Some lingering belief that the island’s killers could justify their actions or repent for what they’d done or… or fucking something.

But then Michael had made a promise, and Michael had lied to him, and Michael had broken it less than a day later, and now Aurelien was certain. Now he knew that what made up Blaise also made up everybody who had more than a handful of kills under their belt. They would lie, and they would feign remorse, and they would kill again and again.

So now the only regret he had about them not finding Tyrell sooner was that he hadn’t been the one to shove the crossbow bolt in his chest.

He let Morgan take the gun. He didn’t need it, he had his own, after all. He would be content with taking the crowbar, or the crossbow. And besides that, he still had his mace. He wasn’t lacking in options, although he was of course aware that it was better to be overloaded with choice than starving for it. He just had more to concern him right now.

Aurelien moved back closer to Tyrell’s body, crouching down, running his hands over his clothes and foraging in his pockets, looking for ammo, or tools, or food, or anything that might be useful in some way. It didn’t look likely, which, of course. Yet another reason they needed to find the killers first.

“Once we’ve done looking through these bodies and through the bags, if there are any,” Aurelien muttered, turning one of Ty’s jacket pockets inside out. “We should think about making a move. Unless you think Blaise is gonna stumble upon us all sitting by the side of the lake, but…”

Aurelien looked over his shoulder, through the tangled mess of hair falling over his brow. He could feel dried blood crack as he talked, the ever-present sting in his nose ebbing and flowing at will.

“The net’s tightening.”

Henry felt the weight of the gun leave his palm, and a confusing mixture of relief and dread as Morgan took it and practiced aiming it. Knowing Morgan had no business pointing a gun at anyone or anybody. Understanding that in this situation that was absolutely what he should’ve been doing.

Aurelien spoke about making a move as Henry walked away towards another bag that was left on the ground near to the river. Disturbances in the soil spattered in blood indicated how it had ended up here. Unzipping the bag, he rifled through the scant personal items before finding what he was looking for - crossbow bolts, and several magazines for the handgun. He collected them in his hands, walking the pile of ammunition over to his friends.

“Here.”

Henry set the arrangement down on the ground next to Aurelien, then dusted off his hands. He hung on Aurelien’s words, shooting him an uncertain glare before turning and looking back out at the Lake. Looking for Blaise or Michael and actually finding them were two different things. Guessing where either of them would’ve been headed meant knowing more about their mental states than Henry imagined any of them really understood.

While the increasing number of danger zones narrowed the potential places for them to hide, it also dramatically increased their chances of running into someone like Erika or Justin. Secondary targets, who were only further down the list by virtue of the fact that none of them had a personal grudge against those two.

Maybe he could force one. Convince himself their actions had personally affronted him and his efforts to delay their inevitable doom, to buy their rescuers more time. Dehumanize them, make it easier to bring down one of those two freshly-minted sociopaths without giving any quarter. Would it be worth the few moments of feeling like some kind of hero, before reality set in?

Henry looked back at his companions. It seemed worth it enough to them. Even if he couldn’t feel it himself, he wanted to look out for them. If that moment was all they had, and they were all he had, there didn’t seem to be much of a choice.

“A move? Seems like we all know what we have to do. Head into the village, if we run into anyone we ask if they’ve seen them. Kite around the danger zones, if we see Blaise or Michael or any of the other killers, we pursue them and we put them down. They’re going to keep pushing us into a smaller and smaller space, from here on out. These people have no allies, so that’s not a situation they want to end up in. It works for us, though. We can do this.”

At the very least, he had some confidence about that part. It was what happened afterwards that continued to distress him. As they gathered their things and left the lakeside, the mantra he’d held onto continued to repeat over and over again in his mind.

Work the problem.

It wasn’t encouraging anymore.

Those words taunted him.

((Henry Sparks concluded in Silent Key))

Henry's plan — such as it was — seemed like a good idea. Morgan accepted the additional ammunition and tucked it away. For the first time in a week, he no longer felt like the cannon fodder that he was certain everyone had guessed he'd be. Between the three of them, they were loaded up and armed to the teeth, so any player groups that came upon them would have a hard time escaping unscathed.

It was easy to justify, after all. He just didn't think about it. Newton's Third Law stated that every reaction had to have an equal and opposite reaction. Some of his classmates had decided that murder was the way to go. Justin, Blaise, Erika, even Michael — they were no longer classmates, they were no longer peers. They were rabid dogs that needed to be put down before they could hurt anyone else. Aurelien had vengeance within his mind; Morgan wasn't entirely sure his own quest was more simply motivated. Did he want to find Michael once more for revenge, or for some twisted sense of friendship?

He had been a fool — he knew that now, thinking that he could save his friend's soul from this place, from lowering himself to the depths of depravity time after time. It had been a cocky thing to think and after all that had happened, somehow he still wished that there was some way; a way to escape, a way to find salvation that didn't come from the barrel of a gun. Those were nice ideas but in practice, they were impossible. The number of people who'd walked away from Survival of the Fittest wasn't large by either percentage or by gross numbers. He was sure that of those who did, the net was an even smaller number.

The three of them standing here would never know a future in which they didn't wear these collars, where they weren't fighting for their lives. Maybe one of them might, if they were lucky.

"Sounds good," he acknowledged Henry's plan with a nod.

Lucky. Morgan had been a lot of things over the last week. He'd been in love, he'd been hurt, he'd been someone's prey. He'd been the attacker, the victim, the bereaved.

Luck didn't seem to factor in there at all.

Morgan checked the pistol. The safety was off, and if he even stood a chance of hitting anyone that wasn't himself, he would have to be very careful where he aimed it. Clicking the safety back on, he followed after his friend.

If given the chance, hopefully he wouldn't miss.

((Morgan Dragosavich continued in Silent Key))

It seemed like they were all on the same page. That was good, that was definitely good. And Henry seemed to have gotten his head back into the game as well, that was even better. They all knew what they had to do, it was just a matter of acting upon it. Where would they go if they backed out now? What would they even have left but bitter regret and a long wait for their demise?

Henry’s plan was a good one, and the one benefit of the circle closing in on them was that that applied to the killers as well. The chances of this little group of three running into one of their targets grew higher as they were all corralled together.

But if they wanted to up the percentage of them finding Blaise from a likelihood into a certainty, they needed to get a move on, now.

Aurelien nodded as he loaded the crossbow with one of the bolts, slipping the others into the deep pockets of his bomber jacket. He didn’t need to say anything, Morgan had taken the only words that needed to be said from him already. He was glad that neither of the other two boys had floated the idea of burying Tyrell, or sinking him into the lake, or whatever. As far as Aurelien cared, he didn’t deserve any form of respect like that. He doubted Felix or Chris would be too pleased if they read him his last rites, or anything similar.

No more second chances. That had always been the case with Blaise, now it applied to anybody with too much blood on their hands to be accidental. If Aurelien could have things go his way, they wouldn’t even get a chance to speak, or plead, or lie to his face again, before they found a bolt or a bullet in their heart.

Well. Perhaps Blaise was still a unique case. With all the other killers, Aurelien just wanted them eliminated. A single shot to the back of the head would do.

With Blaise?

Maybe that wouldn’t be enough.

((Aurelien Valter continued in Silent Key))