Survival Of The Fittest

[Evie McKown turned her back on her shadow and walked towards the Sun.]

"Hey Claire? Listen, I've got to take a detour real quick. Don't wait up for me. I'll call back when I'm on the move again afterwards, okay? Evie out."

Leaving behind the Research Station, Evie at last ventured outside of the familiar corner of the map she'd been confined to thus far. He injury felt better than ever, and with renewed purpose chasing the wintery chill out of her bones, she herself felt rejuvenated. For the first time since Alex had attempted to skewer her, hell, since she'd awoken in the auditorium before that, she actually felt halfway positive. Her interaction with Karin had been a slightly weird one, but in the end the two of them had managed to talk and come to a deal like regular people. Like things used to be, before they all had to consider the odds of anyone they spoke to deciding they felt particularly murderous that day.

Yes, Evie had felt good when she stepped out onto the lengthy road running along the south side of the island. It was good to be out in the open air again, good to be stretching her legs. Sure, she was cautious too, but overall it was a pleasant experience. A few times along the way she spotted people in the distance, and made herself scarce, quickly recognising that none of them were Kelsey each time. Evie wasn't sure whether to take that as good or bad news, but she tried to convince herself that it was good. That it simply meant Kelsey was still safely at the cabin that Karin had spoken of. Karin cabin. The small joy of the silly little rhyme made Evie smile.

When she arrived though, she had no cause to smile.

Worse than abandoned, the place was lousy with signs of conflict. She'd expected it to be in a rough state, abandoned as it had been for God alone knows how many years before the terrorists came to town, but what Evie found was far worse than she'd anticipated. Even before entering, skulking around the building being careful not to alert anyone hostile who might be lurking within, she spotted a bullet hole in one of the windows. That was a poor omen. After approaching said window, she peered inside, even in the dim light she could make out lurid splashes of shed blood around the interior. Then came the back of the cabin, home to some freshly disturbed earth in two patches roughly the height of the average person - presumably graves - and then two unburied human bodies, alongside several well-frozen wolves, among some flowers nearby.

On the plus side, there was no sign of whomever had been responsible for the various signs of battle.

Then again, there was no sign of anyone at all. Which was rather what Evie had been hoping for. Some neutral rest area with just people chatting, thanks Karin.

Feeling confident that she was alone, Evie allowed herself the incaution of wondering aloud: "What the fuck happened here?"

Moreover, she felt confident heading inside. The false warmth of her confidence from the beginning of the journey would have faded by that point even if she hadn't been sorely disappointed, and getting back out of the elements felt wise. Casting her flashlight beam around the interior revealed a lack of remaining bodies. That seemed to imply two fights, one of which involved people with the time, inclination, and tools to bury the dead, and one which... didn't. But that realisation was mostly at the back of Evie's mind: her main concern was that it was early enough in the day that it was surely impossible for Kelsey to be one of the two buried, and she recognised the unburied as Micah and Joan. So where did that leave her? She'd gone on a wild goose chase. Either Karin had sent her here at random knowing nothing about it, or worse, she'd sent her here knowing damn well it was dangerous. Both were enough to light a fire under the pent up frustration in Evie's chest, bringing violent anger to an unsteady simmer.

Evie had, despite everything, approached their conversation in good faith. She'd given the best information available to her, to someone who seemed to sincerely have a good cause for wanting it. Was Victor even the skeevy monster Karin had claimed, or did she just invent an excuse to chase down someone who had some dirt on her or something?

"Bitch!"

The word erupted from Evie's subconscious mind before she really had a chance to consider not saying it. It was what she felt. And besides, why filter herself any more? Why be anyone but the authentic Evie McKown, in these her last few days on Earth? Why be the toned down version that always used to go over best with her peers, her teachers, her parents? Fuck all of that. Being her actual self was the one way she still had left to be anything approaching free. What was it her mother had said way back when, that line from a musical or something? We can't predict what comes to pass, all we control is how we react, and how we recover? It had always come off as some high-minded pseudo-profound line, but she sort of understood it now. Evie couldn't decide not to be on the island, but at least she could at least decide who she was while she was stuck being there.

Much like when she'd heard that STEVE had died, Evie stopped holding that simmering anger back.

"FUCK YOU!"

Was that directed at Karin? Danya? Alex? Jezzie? Kitty? All of them at once? Evie didn't even know, nor did she much care. Fuck the lot of them, fuck the island for ruining their innocence, fuck the school and the feds for not preventing it all and fuck God for making a world where this sort of shit happened.

Acting without thinking, Evie systematically took out her frustration on the interior of the cabin, hurling things against walls, smashing a chair against the floor until it was splinters and debris, overturning tables, scattering anything that wasn't nailed down. By the time she was done, the place looked far more like it deserved the ugly brown splashes of blood that coloured its surfaces, and Evie's chest heaved with exertion, her face red with anger, her eyes red with tears. Finally, she turned her head toward the ceiling and let out a wordless, atonal scream, stopping only when her lungs could release no more air.

Alone with her rage and the disarray she'd created, she resigned herself to the fact that she'd wasted her time, and now she'd wasted precious energy too. She'd have to eat to replace it, and then eventually she'd starve, and she'd die here without Kelsey, without Claire, without Mitch or Steve or anyone else who had the misfortune to love her.

In the eye of the proverbial storm, the centre of the cabin away from which all the throwing and tipping and shoving and scattering had been directed, where nothing would make the floor uncomfortable, Evie sat first. Then she lay down on her back, and she fumed, her will to lash out spent at least temporarily. What did she even have left to break, but herself? No, she wasn't quite ready to put her head through a fucking wall yet, though she might've been close. No, Evie just lay there, letting her breathing and her heartbeat slow to normal.

At least it had warmed her up a bit.

(Wendy Kennedy, continued from Disavowed Anger in the Face of Evil)

Wendy had found herself wandering the wilderness again. It felt like a strange pattern. She started at the research station, wandered the wilderness for a couple days, then found her way back to the research station, and back into the wilderness. She was starting to feel hopeless. It seemed like she'd been going in circles. She was glad to be alive, but she didn't want to be out here for much longer.

She consulted her map. She could try and travel to the mine, or the town nearby. Maybe in town, there would be somewhere with a bed to sleep in. She'd prefer it over another night sleeping in the woods.

"Bitch!"

That sudden obscenity startled Wendy. She looked around, wondering where that voice came from.

FUCK YOU!

Wendy jumped out of her skin. She wasn't alone out here, that's for sure. Wendy rushed over to the cabin. From outside, she could hear the sounds of thrashing and smashing, as if a wild animal had gotten inside and was making a mess. Wendy nervously peeked inside and found someone laying on their back.

"H-Hello?," she said softly.

A timid voice broke the restored silence, and Evie reacted quickly, rolling over onto her hands and knees, then through that into the sort of crouch a sprinter might adopt before a race. Then she caught sight of the voice’s owner, and relaxed somewhat. Wendy, one of the anime club nerds. Sweet, a bit shy, she reminded Evie a lot of herself, who she might’ve been if she were less confident… or less of a social chameleon.

But perhaps more importantly, the other girl was distinctly unthreatening, shorter, unfit, looking a slight bit terrified, and Evie was fairly sure she hadn’t heard the name Wendy announced as a killer yet. Or was it short for something? But definitely more importantly, she was one of the names Karin had given: perhaps she hadn’t been entirely full of shit?

“Hey, uh,”

Yeah. How did one explain the scene here? Evie decided to simply not do that, and finished riding to a more normal standing posture.

“Sorry about the mess.”

Evie tried to flash her classic sheepish smile, between that and the awkward chuckle it only occurred to her afterwards that maybe she came off as a tad unhinged amidst all the destruction. Oh well, entrenched now, may as well shoot her shot.

“Say, have you seen Kelsey Brewer around anywhere?”

"Er, no," Wendy responded, "I haven't."

Wendy hesitantly lingered by the door, wondering if she should step into the cabin, or just wait on the porch. Maybe this girl needed more time to sort things out. And if she started throwing more stuff around, Wendy didn't want to end up with a head injury.

Then again, Wendy felt like they both needed someone to talk to. Wendy stepped inside.

"I just came from the snowfield," Wendy explained, "And I need a place to rest. So, what was this all about?"

Wendy gestured to the wreckage, nervously. She felt as if she was stepping on a mine asking her that.

Well, of course she hadn’t seen Kelsey. No surprise, but the disappointment was still a minor gut punch. Then Wendy asked The Question.

Evie laughed again, the low, awkward kind of laugh of a person caught out, who didn’t really want to explain themselves. She was rarely embarrassed, not outwardly at least: Evie had always taken great pains to keep things that might embarrass her bottled up inside. But there was no playing off of pretending away from what she’d done here, having uncorked the bottle at long last.

“Oh, you know,”

God, she wanted to cry. She could feel the threat of tears putting pressure on her eyes. Evie hadn’t planned on anyone turning up in the middle of her breakdown-tantrum combo.

“It’s been a long week, and uh,”

She pushed those nascent tears back down. Her brain worked double time to come up with a satisfactory explanation. It came up blank.

Fuck it, the truth then. So help her God.

“Someone told me she’d seen her here, and all I found was this beaten up cabin, and all the bodies outside, and the, and the fucking wolves,”

Uh oh. Here it all came. Ironic, where Evie had been the last time she let it all out like this. Not that she intended to. It just happened whether she liked it or not, spilling out with all the pressure she’d stored it under.

“And that prick Alex tried to skewer me on day fucking one right after we met and then I lost Claire and Fitz got mad at me because of his gun and, and,”

At least she wasn’t crying yet.

“I came here on her word and she fucking lied to me and I don’t wanna fucking die here without seeing Kelsey again and…”

Fuck that was a lot of ‘ands’. The telltale glisten of tears had begun appearing in the corners of Evie’s eyes - acknowledging that she was afraid of her or her girlfriend dying before they saw each other again seemed to have loosened the floodgates there, if not truly opened them.

“And…”

A hand came up to clear her eyes. Evie took a deep breath.

“And I’m sorry, that was a lot, wasn’t it? Um… just, forget all that, I don’t mind if you stay here too.”

“It’s okay,” said Wendy, “This whole thing has been rough for everyone.”

Wendy could empathize. She’d seen some horrible things. People she came across had come and gone. Some never to be seen again. Some she had considered friends had been announced as dead.

“One of my friends died a day or so ago,” said Wendy, “I didn’t even get to see them.”

Someone had lied to Evie. Said that her friend was here.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” said Wendy, “Who told you your friend was here?”

Losing friends, fuck, she hadn’t even brought up Mitch or Steve yet, they’d been a side note to the active through-line of her week, passively contributing to the misery she was offloading now. Did she need to bring them up now? Would that help, or just feel like a cheap attempt to one-up Wendy’s single loss? Later. She could talk about them later.

Either way, it was pretty much Kelsey and Claire she had left. Teddie and Lara, maybe? Either way, she knew who was most important on that list.

Then Wendy had a question. Heh. Evie had to smile a little. Her friend. Did she have to tell her? Probably not. That could be later too.

Evie took a deep breath.

“It was Karin. Karin Han. The alien abduction girl? We were both looking for someone, I… actually tried to help her, guess I was naïve.”

“Karin!?,” Wendy shouted, “She’s the one who killed my friend!”

Figures. Karin was a no good liar and murderer. You can’t trust someone like that. When Karin’s name was mentioned, Wendy’s blood boiled.

“If I see her again,” said Wendy, “I’m gonna… gonna…”

She stopped herself before she said the K word.

The outburst very nearly set Evie off herself. But with valiant effort, she held back the urge to let the tears flow. Yet again, a deep breath. Being kind, being helpful, being a pretty strong shoulder to cry on: this was something Evie was good at, and something Wendy seemed to need in the moment.

"I know."

The taller girl moved a little closer, offering a weak smile.

"Kitty Graves and Jezzie Stark killed my two best friends. I know exactly what you mean."

And she spread her arms, just enough to give the wordless signal of c'mere, to offer a friendly hug.

She was actually offering a hug. After everything Wendy had witnessed, knowing this could be her last day alive, knowing she'd never see her family again, Wendy needed a hug. Wendy embraced Evie, letting out a sigh of relief.

"Thank you," said Wendy, tearing up, "I needed this."

____

The next day, the announcements came on, right on schedule. Wendy had slept against the wall, her emergency blanket wrapped around her body. The announcements of course mentioned that Daniel had pushed Aion to his death, but the surprising, and sad part was hearing that Amos had taken his own life. Where was Daniel now? Wendy hoped he was still okay. What he did was terrible, but it wasn't like he meant to kill Aion.

Wendy accepted the offer, and stepped into Evie’s embrace.

It was nice, of course. Sharing warmth, both literal and emotional, was a welcome reprieve from the cold and the loneliness. Only… there was something niggling at Evie’s conscious mind, an intrusive thought that wouldn’t go away.

I could kill her.

What was that scene? The Incredibles, Mr. Incredible had the normal woman in his grasp, tried to threaten that it’ll be easy, like breaking a toothpick. He had relented, obviously. He was a hero, he didn’t just murder people, and the villain called his bluff. Naturally it wouldn’t be so easy for Evie either, mentally or physically, but it would be a fight she’d almost certainly win, right? She had a much smaller person already in her grasp, how hard could it possibly be to break a neck, or strangle a person until they stopped struggling?

She could. She could kill her.

But Evie didn’t. She simply scowled, out of view for Wendy, wishing she could enjoy some simple human comfort without the will of their captors appearing in her mind unbidden. But after almost a week of ruminating on her chances for survival, that was too much to ask. The mindset refused to simply be discarded, the armour would take much longer than that to take off.

If she even lived to attempt it.

But Wendy was thanking her. Sighing in relief, sinking comfortably into her arms, truly grateful for the gesture. That was something, right? Evie wasn’t evil, she was still a good person, a kind and caring person, who wouldn’t hurt someone that wasn’t a threat to her? And even then, if it came to it, she wouldn’t make them suffer. She wasn’t a monster. She had to keep believing that.

“Me too.”

At length, they broke the embrace. Evie dried her eyes again, just to be safe. The catharsis was certainly better than what smashing the room’s furniture had offered her.

“I’m gonna take a little walk, maybe see if I can get that fire going outside.”

-

Evie had not succeeded at getting the fire going. At least that meant it hadn’t served as a beacon to summon danger, either, she consoled herself. The next day, Evie awoke opposite Wendy. She had a meagre breakfast from her dwindling supplies, once again suppressed the intrusive thoughts telling her to add Wendy’s provisions to her own by force, and awaited the latest news from the smug voice on the speakers.

The names didn’t mean a lot to her. By this point, she’d narrowed her concerns to a very short list of names. Kelsey and Claire weren’t dead, priorities one and two. Priority four Jezzie Stark had killed two more, further reinforcing Evie’s claim to a moral right to kill her right back, and as for priority three, Kitty hadn’t struck again that day. Maybe she was injured? Hopefully. Finally she considered her idle curiosities: Karin, Fitz, and Victor all went unmentioned. So Karin probably hadn’t managed to find them, or somehow had met up without starting a shootout. Probably the former. Oh, and the entire coastline was now off-limits. Not that Evie had a mind to go swimming in the frigid seawater, but good to know. Perhaps she’d try visiting the hot spring marked on her map before that was taken away too?

Speaking of…

“So… what now for you? I’m gonna go look for,”

Evie paused. Fuck it. She decided to be sincere.

“my girlfriend. Lot of places I didn’t check at the Research Station.”

She didn’t say it outright, but her tone and her rhetorical distancing of what now for Wendy and her own plans carried the implication that Evie would be going alone. She didn't wait long for an answer; Evie was already slinging her bag back over her shoulder and approaching the door.

[Evie McKown has a coup to grace with her presence.]

“I think I’ll stay here,” said Wendy, “Good luck out there. I hope you find your girlfriend.”

Wendy didn’t feel like backtracking to the research station. She felt she needed to find somewhere new to explore. She wasn’t sure where yet.

So after Evie left, Wendy was left to have her breakfast of bread and an energy bar. She looked over her map, carefully choosing her next destination.

(Wendy Kennedy, continued elsewhere…)