Survival Of The Fittest

[Evie McKown knows no easy way to begin.]

Not long after leaving Wendy, Evie had changed her mind.

If Kelsey had been at the Research Station, it stood to reason that Evie would’ve seen her already, she’d spent damn near six whole days in that area. Sure, she hadn’t entered every building, inspected every nook and cranny, but it seemed much more reasonable to imagine that Kelsey was simply somewhere else than that they’d coincidentally never crossed paths whilst occupying the same few square feet for almost a week. So she’d looked to her memories, and what she remembered was Chloé and Lara, and their pie-in-the-sky talk of grouping up someplace safe, as if they could just play house while the rest of the island killed each other. She and Claire hadn’t bought it, and even Lara had pretty rapidly abandoned the idea too once Chloé was actually put on the spot to sell it to them all. But it was a place to start at least, maybe Kelsey would be at the safe house, or someone else would be there that had actually seen her this time. By now, Evie didn’t exactly expect strong odds of finding her girlfriend alive, but hope ran deep, it wasn’t something she was able to give up just because it was logically unlikely. She needed a proverbial north star, something to follow and give herself some purpose.

Because what else was there? The fruitless search for an actual weapon? No, that line of reasoning went to dark places. Better to focus on something brighter for now.

So at long last, into town stalked Evie McKown. Given the amount of violence announced each morning, much of it between people she’d yet to see, she assumed that much of it must be concentrated in the town. It made sense, people would be fighting over access to shelter, actual beds, fortifiable positions. She half expected to find every building barricaded, blood running in the streets. Instead, the mid-morning gloom was oppressively quiet for the time being.

Even keeping a low profile however, it didn’t take too long to find what she was looking for. The town wasn’t especially large. First Evie happened upon signs of a struggle, bloodstains evident on parts of the ground where snow hadn’t settled. No bullet holes, nothing broken, just blood splatter. She was no detective, but supposed it was probably the work of some bladed weapon or other, with the way the blood resembled how her own had been spilled six days prior. Maybe it was even where Alex had died. He’d been killed by Kitty, but the voice never had specified exactly how. More importantly, the scene drawing her eye likewise drew her attention to the conspicuously scratched-up door nearby.

Safehouse. Wait here for help.

Presumably not outside in the cold, so Evie tried the door as she continued to read, finding it blocked from behind. Outside in the cold after all, apparently. She eased off on the door, nervous about making too much sound.

Underneath, an addendum. Probably. Could’ve been done at the same time, but intuition said otherwise. Evie couldn’t really say why. Just vibes. Telling Chloé that they’d found three others at the Research Station. Three others that Evie had, again, yet to run into. So much for her theory about Kelsey’s location. She could be fucking anywhere. Anyway, the message was initialled MW. Matthew? No, that was Bell, MB. Micah? Mildred? Mariya? Could be Mariya White. Or Marshall West. Yeah. Evie recalled that Chloé had mentioned Marshall way back then. Must be him.

Did that matter? Possibly. Evie knew Marshall. Short guy, but a regular at the weights, could be dangerous. She waited by the door, listening. The place sounded dead. Didn’t mean there weren’t people skulking around, whispering, waiting in ambush. She hadn’t really noticed it consciously until now, but at some point during the week, Evie had internalised a sort of caution that never would’ve occurred to her back home. She’d always just blundered into stuff, trusting in her easy charm to carry her through. But she’d thought of that already, hadn’t she? The very first night, agonising over the logic and the morals of actually making it home, could she really “go home” if the journey changed her along the way? Evidently it already had, in its way.

Time passed. Maybe a minute, maybe more. The house was silent. Only the wind and unidentified sounds from the distance greeted Evie’s focused senses.

Eventually, Evie decided it was safe enough, or at least worth a slight risk, and put her shoulder to the door. Once, twice, then it gave, assorted furniture scraping across the floor to clear a path. Once inside, she regarded it briefly, before deciding to simply close the door without barricading it again. Better to be able to leave in a hurry than corner herself inside - with that in mind, she drifted through empty rooms, displaced furniture suggesting a fight or a commotion of some kind, towards the back of the house, where she disassembled another makeshift barricade at the rear entrance. Two ways out. With that done, the girl headed upstairs in search of a bed to rest on. Her feet hurt, and she hadn’t known proper comfort in days.

Ascending the stairs, it became clear that the house truly was abandoned. Some safe little commune, huh?

In the relative warmth of the enclosed space, Evie took off her coat for the first time in days, tossing it and her bag onto a nearby chair. Some habits died hard. She settled down on the bed that dominated the room, looking down with distaste at the crusty brown stain and jagged rip that marred the charming purple of her custom-printed hoodie. She unzipped it and set it to her side on the bed, leaving just her bright yellow t-shirt, likewise torn up by Alex’s spear and further ruined by dried blood. Underneath that, old bandages. Evie prodded at the pad tentatively, finding it only mildly painful, and elected to remove them. A gruesome scar lay underneath, but most likely thanks to Claire’s diligence and her own guidance, it didn’t seem to be cause for future concern, no discolouration to warn of infection, no signs of it re-opening without significant force, just a war story tattooed on her flesh, forever.

All that done, she lowered her shirt again, and finally lay back to rest, draping herself in the worn blanket for a more cosy warmth than her heavy clothing could offer. A comfort so nice, it was of course, much too good to be true.

Because before long, Evie heard sounds of life outside.

She retrieved her coat and bag, putting both over her shoulder. Ready to leave with them, ready to drop them and fight. Quiet as she could, working against the creaking carcass that was once a house, Evie skulked back to the top of the stairs, and peeked down.

((Chloé Delacroix concluded from Faire et Refaire))

The snow was falling heavily by the time Chloé arrived back at the house. She had followed the same route she had with Lara four days prior, the old road skirting the south end of the island, and had managed to avoid getting lost like she had with Valentin to the north despite the reduced visibility. The street was deserted, her defences left largely untouched. The fire she had built had long since burnt out, the bowls of water she had thawed long since frozen back over. She looked at them almost wistfully. Nothing but more wasted time.

Her eyes were stinging, raw and dry. She leaned her forearm on the door and pressed her face into the pit of her elbow to warm them up. With her other hand she removed the gun from her pocket. There were no signs of life inside from out here. Even so, it took a while to muster the confidence to open the door. Chloé didn’t know if she’d have found it without the gun at her side. Some safehouse.

“Marshall?”

The house was dark inside; the windows were almost whited-out and little sunlight was getting through. She poked her head into the living room, where Marshall and her had stared out those same windows waiting for the first announcement. The world outside had been pitch-black then where now it was stark white, but it hadn’t gotten any easier to see.

There was no Marshall in there now.

She turned back into the hallway, and movement from above caught her eye. She stared up at the figure at the top of the stairs. The figure at the top of the stairs stared down at her. It only took a second to recognise the face, but a while longer to believe it.

“Evie…?”

The door creaked shut. The newcomer’s footsteps were quiet, cautious. The sound reminded Evie of every tense moment on the silver screen, minus the rising tension in the soundtrack. Our hero, or a hapless goon perhaps, taking careful steps while their nemesis lies in ambush in the rafters, the camera giving us their high perspective, making the target down below look small.

But that wasn’t Evie, she was just a face at the top of the stairs. Simmering with moderate anger at all manner of things, perhaps, but not a danger to herself or others, certainly not Batman about to swoop down on some mobster. The not-some-mobster, conversely, turned out to be a familiar face too. She called Evie by name.

She poked her head out further, offered a weak smile. Evie’s eyes confirmed then what her ears had suggested: by all appearances Chloé Delacroix was here alone. So, her safe house was deserted, and she’d returned with nobody. Hadn’t even gotten Lara back.

The taller girl gave a little derisive snort at the realisation, as she stepped out and descended the stairs.

“Great safe house, Chloé. Love what you’ve done with the place, wish I’d come with you four days ago,”

It was only then that her eyes settled on Chloé’s gun. Of course. She’d had that four days ago two, and now Evie had had four days to really start coveting a weapon of her own. She worried then, for a moment, if her words were too harsh, even if she was in a less-than-perfect mood, her feet hurt, and all she had to show for the long walk was five minutes of comfort in a beaten up bed. Because, well, Chloé had a fucking gun.

But she wouldn’t shoot Evie, she didn’t believe that for a second.

“Haven’t seen Kelsey Brewer lately either, I’m guessing?”

Chloé’s expression darkened when Evie poked fun at the safehouse. She could see its shortcomings just fine herself; it hurt having them mocked by someone who hadn’t lifted a finger to help. It must be so easy for Evie to criticize. So easy to think ‘I could have done better’ if you never tried to find out. Everyone was always putting her down, picking apart her plans and offering nothing in their place. She almost pointed to the door and told Evie to leave if she was so unimpressed, but stopped herself. This was supposed to be a refuge for everyone. She was supposed to be helping everyone. ‘I’m going to get everyone off this island’. She couldn’t turn Evie away over something as petty as wounded pride.

She forced a neutral expression, added one last supressed emotion to the pile. If Evie was here in good faith, she could stay.

“Kelsey Brewer? Cheer team? Haven’t seen her.”

Was that really why Evie had come all this way? On the off chance Chloé’s erstwhile teammate was here too? She doubted that. What for, then? Had she come alone? Chloé peered into the gloom behind Evie; it offered no answers.

“Why are you here? Is Claire with you?”

Part of Evie recognised that what she’d said had bothered Chloé. She did a good job of holding it in, but the emotion was definitely there. Annoyed by the levity? Wounded pride? Angry that Evie was critical instead of helpful? All of the above? As if it was reasonable to expect her, or anyone else, to have any other response to a doomed moral vanity project than to politely decline. Could’ve been worse, could’ve aggressively picked holes in the whole thing and then dramatically exited like Lara had. What, did Chloé think she was above a little sarcastic banter?

Anyway. She wanted to know if Claire had tagged along.

In retrospect, there absolutely had to be a reason why Evie hadn’t made more effort to link back up after the Fitz Incident. An unexamined one. Evie let it stay unexamined.

“Just me. You still alone too? Didn’t talk Lara around?”

Evie reached the bottom of the stairs. She still stood a fair few inches taller; she was still looking down at Chloé just as physically as she was judgementally. Something about the whole situation was making Chloé uncomfortable. Maybe she'd just gotten paranoid over the last week, but she took a step back just in case, keeping some distance. Evie offered no explaination for her presence, but she did claim to have come alone. That didn't do much to assuage Chloé's doubts. Why had she ditched Claire? Or had Claire ditched her?

With that same sarcastic tone, Evie turned Chloé's question back on her. At the mention of Lara, Chloé tensed up. Was Evie trying to get a reaction out of her? It was looking less and less likely that Evie was here to be diplomatic, to join forces. Chloé glared at her, saying nothing. Something instinctual warned her not to admit to coming here alone, but she knew her silence spoke louder than words.

"What do you want, Evie?"

“What do I want?”

Evie ran a hand through her hair, a gesture at once casual and just a touch exasperated. What did Chloé think she wanted? She’d already asked the question.

“I wanna see Kelsey again before I fucking die, Chloé. Is that okay?”

But there was more to it that that. Obviously. Otherwise she’d be able to keep her eyes off of the other girl’s gun. She wouldn’t still be edging closer even as Chloé carefully back-pedalled.

“And, y’know. The small stuff. Friends. A real bed for the first time in a week. The means of survival.”

Maybe that was too much? Screw it though. Cat was out of the proverbial bag by that point.

“I mean, look. I get it. You’re not gonna play their game.”

But I will. I have to.

Evie let out a deep breath she hadn’t quite realised she’d been holding. It came unsteady, ragged. Emotional?

Her eyes fixed on the gun.

She hadn’t confirmed it, but… Evie was pretty sure the two of them were alone.

And Chloé wasn’t gonna shoot her.

“I wanna fucking go home, Chloé.”

Chloé gestured to the door.

"Kelsie's not in here."

She took a step aside to give Evie a clear path to the exit. Evie closed the gap, and Chloé realised too late she'd only cut off her own escape. She started running through her options in her head, creeping back towards the living room, not taking her eyes off the other girl. For every backwards step Chloé took, Evie took a step forward, swapping shadow as they stalked past furniture and the faint glow of the windows.

"I get it. You're not gonna play their game." said Evie, face bathed in pale white light.

"I wanna fucking go home, Chloé." said Evie, face cloaked in darkness.

Chloé had already tried to explain it to her, back at the infirmary, that escape was the best chance any of them had of survival. But she hadn't gotten through then and she wouldn't get through now. Evie had a different kind of survival in mind. Chloe's eyes followed her gaze down to the gun. Shaky fingers found the trigger, rested weightlessly on it. Her arm crooked slightly, raising the barrel by a hair's breadth. The metal glinted gently in the snowy light.

She looked back up at Evie, eyes wide.

"N-no. No."

She looked so vulnerable there, backing away into the stark winter light of the living room. Evie could see the misplaced chair in the background, a relic of an outburst neither had seen. Evie assumed a fight. Assumed it was yet more evidence that Chloé’s approach was doomed. Not that Evie liked it, she’d spent the week wrestling with that, but the fuckers had done this seven times already. No getting out of it when they’d already had so much practice.

But then Chloé found some chutzpah. Evie’s eyes widened at the gleaming metal levelled her way, yet she didn’t retreat.

Ok the other side of the door, her arms came up, palms clearly empty, a gesture of peace… but at only chest height, rather than above her head, it certainly wasn’t one of surrender.

“Jesus, Chloé! I don’t mean I wanna kill you.”

The offender was only partially exaggerated: she really didn’t. Didn’t mean that she wouldn’t, but she didn’t want to. There were less morally complicated people she could target, could live with herself better if she killed them. Just like how everyone else could enjoy the meat on their plates if they never saw its face, Evie could convince herself it was okay to let the real monsters out there kill everyone else on her behalf… she could sleep at night just finishing the job at the very end, right?

“But be honest, you’re not going to shoot me, that’s what this whole safe house thing is, isn’t it?”

Evie’s hands extended forwards, just a touch. Her feet followed, crossing the threshold, onto the room with Chloé. The early morning light illuminated her face, strangely friendly despite it all.

God, Chloé looked so vulnerable like that. Small, scared, hands trembling.

She wasn’t going to shoot Evie.

“I just want the gun. You’re not going to use it, you would’ve by now if you were. You think you’re better than that, don’t you?”

One more step forwards, into the cold light, hand outstretched with purpose.

“Come on.”

Chloé's back brushed up against the wall. No more ground to give.

The gun was all she had. It was her courage. It was her power, her only control over the island. When Evie went to grab it, it jerked upwards, out of her reach. In a split second, Chloé relived a whole week. Then, every pent-up emotion- every tear and every fear- exploded within her.

She pulled the trigger.

For an instant, Evie’s heart might’ve stopped. It almost occurred to her in slow motion; she’d heard about that somewhere in biology, tachyphysia? Something like that. Fear or awe or psychedelic drugs affecting the individual’s perception of time. None of that was actually going through her mind of course, she was more concerned with lead perforating her flesh than with chronos or kairos.

As Chloé’s hand jerked up, instinct told Evie to jerk away.

Her shoulder grazed the doorframe, the obstruction kept her from moving quickly enough to be out of the way as the smaller girl’s finger curled around the trigger of her force-equaliser. She’d taken her gamble and lost: Chloé was going to shoot her.

Evie’s eyes closed, involuntary. It was all she could do, just make the danger be not there, not real.

Except, when a dull click was all that greeted her ears, rather than the roar of 1200 rounds of 9x19mm Parabellum per minute, her eyes opened again.

She was still alive. Despite Chloé’s best efforts.

Some small part of Evie wanted to laugh, incredulous at the absurdity of her own luck. First Alex had failed to fatally wound her, now guns failed to fire when aimed at her? Was she blessed? But no. A much larger part was incensed at a very real attempt on her life. That mixture of incredulity and fury came through in her voice,

“You could’ve fucking killed me!”

right as her right fist flew towards Chloé’s nose.

Evie’s punch broke straight through Chloé’s nose and her head snapped backwards into the wall behind. She swayed on her feet, eyes swimming, and lurched to one side. Someone had thrown a chair against the wall. Weakened timber gave way and she fell through it, landed in a broken ball on the floor. Somewhere along the way, she had dropped the gun. It sat at the edge of her vision, just out of reach. Not that she could move her arms much anyway.

One mistake. That was all it came down to. One brief loss of control.

But she’d never had control, had she? It had all been an illusion. The gun didn’t work, of course it didn’t. Jess had taken it through the ice with her. Chloé never once stopped to think what an impromptu ice bath must have done to the thing. She was so convinced of her own authority that it never occurred to her. She was so hung up on whether she should, she never stopped to think if she even could. All that time she spent wondering if she would ever really do it, really pull the trigger. It had never mattered. She laughed. Blood dribbled down her chin.

She tried to crane her neck to look up at Evie. It wouldn’t move. The pain was overwhelming.

So this was God’s great plan for her.

Chloé had always tried so hard. Given everything her all. Student council president. 4.0 GPA. Thriving social life. People sometimes joked she was overdue a breakdown, or gifted kid burnout, or whatever. But she always kept on going. Thinking of the future. Genuinely convinced if she put her mind to it, she could accomplish anything. Right up until now. Maybe back home, in that other life, she could have been someone. She could have saved the world. But here on the island, she was never in control. She had snapped, and she had failed, and she was giving up. Breakdown, burnout.

“Evie… end… please.”

((Marshall West continued from "Man, this SOTF thing sucks."))

He’d spent over a day of waiting at this safehouse for anyone to turn up. No-one had.

But a brief departure to scout the neighbourhood for anyone else in this area of housing and he came back to the sounds of wood collapsing under a falling body, echoing through the house as he’d pushed his way through the barricade at the front door. It’d been too loose, it should have been his first clue. He’d come back to broken furniture, a gun lying on the floor, and the friend that he’d been waiting for, her blood leaking out onto the ground.

Murphy’s Law. They called that Murphy’s Law. That was the only distant thought in his head. He’d never believed it to be anything other than patterns found in coincidence, the way that humanity always liked to do.

Nothing real.

Nothing that resulted in Chloé lying on the floor, grievously injured.

Marshall stood in the doorway, holding his backpack in one hand and halfway through moving to put it down when he’d appeared in the doorway, aiming for a chair that wasn’t there any more. Eyes fixed on Chloé. Not even flickering to Evie.

“...What?” was all he could choke out, not fully processing, not understanding.

((California Fox continued from "Man, this SOTF thing sucks."))

Kai hadn’t been nearby, which she expected. It would have been childish to seriously believe that they would have discovered him within the range of a few snowy streets. But California still felt a palpable disappointment when Marshall called an end to their search. He wanted to get back to the safe house, to chase his own fantasy. California had reluctantly obliged, relinquishing her grip on a front door handle to begin following him back.

She had realised that there was an endpoint on her and Marshall’s time together. They had incompatible goals. She wanted to go out back into the wilderness of the island, brave the snow and predators of her class while he wanted to stay in place, and wait like a loyal puppy for a girl they’d heard nothing of.

Maybe it was a harsh perception, but she had been growing more and more restless as the days had dragged on. Time was running out to find Kai and meanwhile Marshall seemed more interested in trying to pry information about Salem out of her and waiting for Cholé.

But then they heard the sounds of fighting when they returned. The door ajar, barricade pushed aside. Marshall had rushed in but she’d delayed, waiting, scared to pass the threshold and once again witness the aftermath of a murder. Her hands shook as she reached one into her jacket pocket to grip the icepick.

Then she followed behind, hood still pulled up over her head as she took in the scene.

One girl stood over another who was on the floor, blood slowly leaking out onto the floor. She saw Kitty and Robin again. Her knuckles turned white inside her jacket pocket.

Her mouth opened. But whatever command she was going to issue withered on her lips.

Faced with the same situation again California’s mouth went dry and she froze in place.

Oh God, oh fuck…

For but a moment in that half light, filled to bursting with possibilities, there had been no Evie McKown. Approximately 150 pounds of human flesh, bone, and fluids were present there, a physical instrument empty of thoughts, full of the instinct to preserve itself. That assemblage had elected to do so through direct action: electrical signals had directed the muscles to work in concert, shoulder and hip turned forwards, arm extended, fingers curled tight.

The end result was the painful recoil of knuckles impacting with the hard bone of another human’s cranium, softened only by the quickly-yielding cartilage of the unfortunate nose that had been in the way.

“Fuck, I, I didn’t, I just, J-Jesus, Chloé!”

Clarity returned to Evie quite abruptly. Her first thought was of the pain in her hand. She’d never punched anyone before, her knuckles and her wrist hurt quite a lot. The next was to mentally note the location of the gun she’d thrown the punch over. Third and finally was to fully acknowledge the result of her vicious blow.

It would be entirely truthful to say that Evie McKown did not know her own strength. But she knew it now, it was warm, and splattered in red across her white knuckles, it was in a wretched heap on the floor before her, struggling to move. It was asking her for mercy.

Evie had never even thrown a punch in anger before.

“I didn’t mean…”

She had to acquiesce though, didn’t she? That was the deal. She would consent to survival’s demand that she fight for her life, and in return, she got to be merciful about it. She wouldn’t let her victims suffer, she wouldn’t be cruel, wouldn’t turn into a monster over it. Evie just hadn’t expected it to come at her so fast. She wasn’t ready.

“I’m sorry!”

Breath came fast and ragged. Where moments ago time had slowed to a crawl, now seconds seemed to race by so fast, too many of them wasted. Evie’s hands were shaking, cold and afraid, as she struggled to take firm hold of Chloé’s gun. Why hadn’t it worked? The bullet in it? It took several seconds to work out how to eject the magazine, several more for the bullet in the chamber. Seconds in which Chloé was suffering, suffering because of her, persisting in it because of her. Chloé needed her to not not be ready.

Evie was almost hyperventilating when she heard a third party approach. Her hands were blindly fumbling through Chloé’s bag, knelt on the floor, vulnerable. But the boy on the doorway seemed transfixed on Chloé. Loading the MAC-11 was certainly faster than unloading it. Evie had heard that satisfying click of a magazine sliding into place a million times, but for the first time the gun was real, not on screen before her. It was at once comfortingly familiar, and horrifyingly new.

“Stop!”

Her usual charisma failed her at first. Evie couldn’t even articulate a complete sentence, just a simple order. Her left hand reached blindly for something to support her in standing, her right trembling as it aimed Chloé’s gun - her gun - at the newcomer. She staggered to her feet, tried again.

“Don’t come any closer!”

Her breathing refused to calm. In, out, fast and shallow. Evie’s chest rose and fell, her arms struggled to stay steady. She finally recognised the boy: Chloé had mentioned him, and she herself knew him from real life. The girl? In that moment, she could’ve been almost anyone. Shaking, visibly pallid even in the dim light of that fateful little room, Evie desperately tried and failed to plead her case.

“I didn’t wan— she’s in pain, Marshall! I didn’t mean, I mean, I wasn’t trying t-to…”

She couldn’t even say the words. To kill her.