Survival Of The Fittest

((Karin Han continued from Independence is a Dead Stick))

After Karin had left the girls behind, the operative question became, where the hell was Josh’s body? Last time she’d seen him, Josh had told her that he’d bring her reward to the research station if he heard that she successfully killed Victor Grail. That meant, she'd figured, that he was probably somewhere up in that direction.

With her compass and map in hand, she'd set out walking. Any time she thought she saw a sign of life, or a recent death, she'd crept closer to look, but hadn't found anything of note. After a lot of meandering and fruitless searching, she'd found herself on the outskirts of the research station itself. Something told her that Josh wasn’t the type to go hunting in the buildings themselves. A sick freak like him would probably enjoy the cat-and-mouse of chasing someone into one and slowly cornering them, but he wouldn’t just lurk around in there. It was too passive.

Then again, Madeleine had killed him, so maybe he’d cornered her somewhere in the station and she’d got him in a last-second burst of self-defense? Ugh. That was a frustratingly valid guess. So she'd come up with a new plan. She’d go search south of the station, in the woods. When it got dark or she lost interest, she'd go back there and find a place to lay low for the night.

Karin lost interest rather quickly, as it turned out. But by the time she'd decided to just give up, get the hell out of the forest back, and go back inside where it was warm, she'd already gone far enough to get lost. She followed her footprints back as best she could, but they weren't easy to follow. The wind had swept snow into most of them, filling them up incrementally until they were little more than shallow depressions in the white. She'd nearly made it back out when she saw another set of dips, not unlike her own. These were just whispers, though, faint impressions. If she hadn't already spent most of the day scanning for those exact shapes, she wouldn't have seen it. Someone had passed by here yesterday. Maybe that someone was Josh.

Ugh. Her feet were tired. Her brain was tired. It was cold. Couldn't she just go warm up? No, screw it. There was a gun out here. Once she had that, she could play it safe for the rest of the game. They'd announced the halfway point a while ago, now there couldn't possibly be more than sixty-odd kids left. She'd hole up somewhere, let the others kill themselves off, strike when the time was right. No more skulking around like a hyena, begging for scraps. She'd be an apex predator, once she had the right weaponry.

The small trail led deeper into the forest. Luckily the wind wasn't as bad here, so they weren't too easy to follow. She made extra sure to tromp down with her boots on every step. She'd want to follow this way out when she came back. It'd be embarrassing as hell to go out here on a gun hunt and then wind up freezing to death before she ever got to use it.

The trail seemed to go on forever, well past the point where Karin expected to find herself staring at a lamp post and a magic faun who'd gripe at her about Tilda Swinton. The prints seemed to constantly be on the verge of disappearing all together, and more than once she thought about turning back and just sodding the whole thing. But she was out here. She'd already come this far. And, screw it. She was never going to make it to the end of this thing with just a stupid power drill. The gun was out here somewhere, and she was going to find it.

In most stage plays, that'd be the point where the main character looks over and sees the dead bodies, which have been onstage and clearly visible behind her the whole time. Stage plays don't have time to waste on pointless faffing about in the woods, you see. Not even Into The Woods, which is essentially a play consisting entirely of scenes about faffing about in the woods. But they faff with intent, you see. So the time isn't wasted. Karin was in the woods but not in Into the Woods, so she faffed. But then, amazingly, she found what she was looking for.

Josh James, the Big Bad Wolf himself, and Madeleine Molliqaj, the Red Riding Hood who'd brought him down, were here. Their bodies were intertwined, in a way that Karin didn't think she wanted to spend much time unpacking. The snow around them was tromped and trampled, as though someone had been here doing a visual inspection of some kind. Her heart sank. Was she not the first? Had someone else scooped the weapons already? Well... crap.

She drew closer to the bodies. Josh had been an abusive asshole. And now that he wasn't waving a gun in her face, she might as do favor to herself, Dani, and all of his other victims by spitting on his corpse.

[S119 - Julia Guercio - continued from The Libertine Punished]

The booming morning announcement had served a breakfast she had been dreading all night. Julia had tossed and turned throughout the night in one of the residential houses in the nearby mining town, her hyperactive brain getting carried away with thoughts about Joshua, the rest of the class still alive, the impending feeling of threat that was lingering constantly over her. It never felt safe, so even when she tried to sleep it was broken by distractions or the slightest of noises. The howling winds outside didn’t help her feel comfortable on what already was a cramped and mouldy bed. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Having stumbled upon their corpses yesterday evening, she had the advantage of already knowing what was coming – that Joshua had been felled by Madeleine. She wasn’t sure yet whether actually finding them had been a positive or negative for her mental state, but the forewarning of what the rest of the class was about to hear was a welcomed relief. The words still stung, like the prick of a needle or a paper cut of unimaginable loitering torment.

“Joshua James shot and killed Madeleine Molliqaj, but she soon got her revenge when Josh bled out from wounds she'd inflicted in the struggle. It wasn’t all bad news, they did end up hugging it out in the end.”

She inhaled a sharp intake of breath in reaction to the callousness of the terrorists. She had been waiting for whatever crass remark they would make and whilst it could’ve admittedly been worse, the insecurity of the hug felt shameful. Given the close quarters Madeleine must’ve been in to inflict that fatal neck wound and the fact Joshua’s coat and scarf had been removed, she didn’t believe the story that Joshua had been the antagonist in the situation. She felt she knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t have done that, he showed her genuine regret for his harsher actions when telling the story of the girls that had attacked him beforehand. No. She refused to believe he would’ve done it of his own admission, Madeleine forced his hand.

Unfortunately the hardship of the announcement didn’t pause there.

“Victor Grail showed excellent customer service skills, when he politely shot Karen Nguyen in the chest. Love to see it.”

This one caught her off guard. Karen had been the closest thing to a friend she had on the island and was a huge part of her journey over the first few days of the Elysium they had found themselves in. Karen was as scared as she was, their hands gripped together as the warmth of their tension carried them to find Ashlee, Karin and the others. But the real stinger was that Victor had shot her in the chest. He had been nothing but bad news. Between the creepy predatory way he was acting around them back at the hunting lodge bar, the escalation he caused when he attacked Karin and resulted in poor Ashlee losing her life, and now this… he was bad news and he needed to pay for his actions. Julia squeezed her hand in to her chest at the thought of how scared Karen must’ve been in those final moments, Victor bearing down on her like the hulking monster he was.

By the time the announcement had finished, Julia’s had completely lost her appetite for bad news. Other lowlights of the overflowing gore that had been unleashed was that Salem – the biggest monster of all – had struck again, this time Greg Craig. Evie, who had always seemed sweet when they had swum together or chatted in the changing rooms, had also apparently gone on a murderous rampage following on from her first victim the day before. Her body count had tripled to three, Lara and DeMarcus her casualties. She knew it was only going to get tougher but this one really winded her.

Julia knew she didn’t want to stay in the festering room of this house, but aside from that she wasn’t really sure where she should go. What direction she should navigate in or where she should get lost next. The town always felt sinister and not the place you want to be hanging around in the daylight, too much exposure between the neighbouring hills with the church or the long and winding roads. A niggle in the back of her mind willed her on to go back to Joshua. Out of respect, to give him the funeral he deserved. It had been the internal struggle playing on her mind for the most of the night. She’ll likely never get to see him again after this, it’s probably not the healthiest thing to do, to return to his broken, frozen body, but Julia knew that she needed to take more time to soak it in. If she had any chance of moving on properly, she needed to spend the time bathing in sentimentality and then maybe just maybe she would be ready to progress with her story.

As the dawn sunshine rose, she had come to a final decision. Conditions had eased overnight and this was probably the nicest day for the weather for half a week. She was going to set out early to give Joshua the last prayer and grace he deserved before the elements took its toll on his body. She would try once again to move him, and Madeleine, out of the open and in to the shade. Ideally she would be able to dig a hole for them, or at least scoop up the snow and bury them under a pile. Something that meant they weren’t exhibits out in the open for her more sadistic classmates, like Salem or Katelyn, to desecrate. To ensure they weren’t lifeless animals in a zoo being watched on by the sociopaths back home for their lecherous sick pleasure.

She gathered her belongings, gripped her assault rifle tightly with both hands, and headed north out of the town to find the spot in the forest again. With nicer conditions she had hoped it would become easier to manoeuvre through the mirror maze of trees, and that’s what she found when she made her way through the thick treeline. She saw what looked like the remnants of her tracks, some more scuppered than others, making their way back in to the town and then a little while later smaller prints that were also fading fast as the breeze filled them in with more snow.

The grip on her rifle tightened as she followed those fresh tracks, their jagged nature suggested the prey she was tracking had become as lost as she had been. The tracks became less obvious at the same time as the trees around her became more familiar. At least, she felt they were getting more familiar. In reality every tree looked the same and she was none-the-wiser as to where she was, now fully reliant on those opposing footprints in the snow to take her back to the bodies.

It was very easy for seconds to become minutes, for minutes to become half an hour, an hour, a day. The repetition of the canopy offered no resolution for her as once again she realised she had gotten lost, but this time she felt calm. The panic from the day before had been relinquished by the inevitability that whatever happens happened. She no longer had somewhere urgently to be, somebody to urgently see, and that was actually strangely alleviating.

Eventually, she arrived at her desired stop. She saw the outline in the distance of the two bodies that looked to still be frozen together in their eternal embrace. A small figure, definitely a girl, seemed to be stood beside the locked pair too. As she drew closer, Julia swivelled to be hidden by the trees until she knew whether this person was friend or foe. Even as a friend, they may be totally creeped out by the bodies and react badly. Perhaps the decision to abandon their weapons and leave them in the snow had been a pretty bad one. The only saving grace was that by this point, she assumed everybody else was as numb to bodies as she was. As a child, a teenager, you never expect to be surrounded by death and dead bodies and yet at what felt like every corner you went there were the remains of people she once would’ve smiled at in the corridor or worked on group projects with in the library.

Drawing closer, Julia identified the assailant that was stood in the exact same position she had been only hours before. She frowned at the outline of the girl who definitely wasn’t somebody she had ever wanted to see again. This silhouette was the reason that Ashlee was dead. It was a full circle moment.

It was Karin Han.

She was crazy at best, dangerous at worst. Julia remembered hearing her name on the report again when Shannon Choi’s name had been called. In a detail that offered absolutely zero reassurance, it sounded like a grisly end too. Karen had snatched her gun back from Karin but who knows what other weapons she had been collecting. Worst case scenario she was already armed with Joshua’s gun that had been discarded in the snow. The closer she got, the grip on her rifle tightened even more, but she didn’t raise it. Not yet. She had things she wanted to say to Karin, an urge to know if she had started to feel any guilt or remorse for what she did to Ashlee and Shannon, Julia just needed to play it cool and wait out when was best to approach her without starting a fight.

Except as she approached from the side, her attention went to the realization that Karin was disrespectfully defiling Joshua’s body. Spitting at him, exclaiming venomous words about his character. She may have not seen it completely right from where she was stood but it even looked like Karin had kicked him. A rush of anger exuded through her muscles, the warm of her blood flooding all of her vessels as her temperature rose. Without thinking she climbed out from her hiding place and confronted the villain stood before her. Maybe she could’ve done some more thinking of the best way to handle it, but the anger and rush of emotion she felt to defend Joshua’s honour was too much of a trigger for her. Her bony fingers curled around her gun but she still chose not to aim it at her adversary. Her priority was getting her away from him.

“Hey!”

Julia barked, “Get away him from him… leave Joshua alone!”

"Bastard!"

She spat in his face. After a second of thought, she reared back and kicked Josh in the ribs. "FUCK you."

Yeah, fuck him. Fucking incel bastard, using his gun and his muscles to prey on Dani, on her, on Madeleine, on Zora, on Cassie. Tugging their strings, trying to get into their heads and their pants and everything in between. Josh had lured her in, preyed on her weaknesses, and then he'd rejected her help and cast her out into the wilderness. He'd seen how lonely she was, how badly she'd been treated by everyone around her, and he'd stuck his fingers into the wound and torn her open as wide as he could. He'd extorted her, chased her, molested her, tried to manipulate her into going off to her death. Hadn't even regarded her as a thing worth killing. Hadn't valued her as much as these other girls. He had cast her out, because she wasn't pretty or pure or whatever the hell else he wanted. The monster on the hill would rather stew in loneliness than be with her, and that shouldn't have stung, but it did. It burned inside her.

Stupid Josh had gone off and died, and it made her feel like absolute shit. Because she hated him. She hated the ever-loving shit out of him, and she hated that his death still managed to hurt her in some way. Like he'd ripped up the last pages in the script before she could read them, ended the play before the end. She had gone through the pain, she'd found support, sympathy. She was stronger now. And she wanted to rub his face in it, to make the bastard see that he hadn't broken her. She'd wanted to see the look in his eyes when he realized that he had underestimated her, and to see that momentary flash of panic when he wondered just what else she might be capable of. And now she wouldn't get that, because that stupid bastard had gone off and gotten himself killed.

Another kick. Another curse. "Asshole!"

"Hey! Get away from him... leave Joshua alone!"

Oh, she recognized that voice. She loathed that voice.

Karin stopped. Her eyes were the only thing that moved, first taking in the gun - nearby, close to hand, but she'd need to be quick to snatch it - then slowly rising to fix the intruder with a baleful stare. "Oh hi, Julia. Fancy meeting you here."

She regarded the other girl warily. "You here to bitch me out again? Because you've kinda lost the moral high ground on the whole murder thing, not gonna lie. But if you're here to get a few kicks in, go nuts. I think he's got a few ribs still intact."

It was a pretty shocking sight to witness. Karin had always been a bit of a wildcard during their days at the hunting lodge bar, the one most likely to start trouble or act unpredictably. But she had always been a fairly mild-natured, timid girl. She gave off the vibe her bark was worse than her bite. So perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised to find her literally spitting at a dead body in disgust. How low could you go? What was her next plan, to urinate on the bodies? The venom in her words was evident, the toxicity she felt towards Joshua seemingly ran deep. Between the kicking, the vulgarity, the expletives; it shouldn’t have been a shock for Julia to learn that Karin was actually just a fucked up, hateful person. But whatever Joshua did to her must’ve really hurt her.

Odd. He hadn’t mentioned her at all when he talked through his first few days of this game. She didn’t know Karin well enough, but some things just didn’t add up. It seemed like a constant case of adding one plus one and getting six hundred with her, and Julia loved mathematics enough to know that could only mean trouble.

She didn’t really mean to take Karin by surprise or to startle her. She just wanted her to stop disrespecting Joshua and end the desecration of his body. Nobody deserved that. She didn’t want to start a fight, there was enough bad blood between them that she didn’t want to add more to the pile, and that is why she kept her gun down by her side. Karin didn’t look armed, at least not on first sight, so she still had the power of the upper hand if she really needed to. Similarly to Matthew and the others, gun power really only needed to be a last resort. She hoped to rely on her humanity and ability to communicate before falling back on that if she really needed to. If things got sticky.

Karin, much like her past experiences with her, continued to surprise. She expected her to back away from the body, to say hello as a gesture of goodwill between the two, hell she even hoped maybe she would respect her enough to want to repair that relationship they once had. But no. Instead her introductory message was greeted by nothing but bile in her words, poisonous stares from her face and vicious attacks on her character. Typical Karin.

“What?” Julia muttered accidentally out loud in response to her accusations, taken aback by Karin’s forthrightness and nasty attitude.

“Przemek was in a really bad way. H-he was already going to die. Blinded by Aracelis and starved by that crazy Shu. I-it was m-mercy.”

The slight tremble in her voice filled with uncertainty over just how merciful her deed was. It wasn’t an outright lie, Przemek was in a really bad state, but to say her murder of him was fully out of mercy was realistically only a half-truth. There was a selfishness that played on her mind, that drove her to want to return home which was the main reason she didn’t ignore Joshua’s shepherding in the murderous direction. She figured that given Joshua was watching on from the grave beneath Karin's feet, it was wise to not add fuel to the fire and say she only killed him because Joshua had cut short what feeble lifespan he still had ahead of him. In a deeper sense, Julia suspected it was going to start becoming a problem though, if every single encounter she has on this god-forsaken island was going to be a vitriolic reminder of her deed. It would be impossible to rely on the good-will and trust of others around her to believe her when it was so easy not to. The two lessons she had learned from her earlier encounter with Matthew and the others is that firstly it is easier to believe the worst in people, to avoid any attempts at being manipulated or lulled into a false sense of security. Hell - she would do the same to others if she stumbled upon them. Secondly, that at this point in the game people are clearly just looking for the smallest of reasons to get their name on the board, to guarantee their safe passage home.

She huffed a heavy exhale of breath as she glared back at the smaller girl.

“Don't turn this on me! You can’t talk anyway… you didn’t waste any time in moving on and going to kill Shannon did you? Did you!?”

It felt like poking the bear, maybe an easy way to rile Karin up even more if she really wanted to play that game. The heat and frustration in her voice had flared up and was past the point of being ready to explode, her voice getting louder with each exclamation. Julia knew from the last week that she wasn’t an angel, no longer the Mona Lisa of innocence, but she was not going to let a two-time murderer and absolute freak like Karin guilt trip her. She wasn’t about to stand for Karin persecuting her from some fictitious moral high ground, a pedestal that the delusions had placed her on.

“What happened? Are you going to try and convince me that was an accident too? Shannon just caught in the middle of you and a bad guy, huh? Maybe you’ve been the bad guy all along.”

Julia enjoyed trying to get a reaction out of her. It felt very out of character but there was something about Karin. Her opening words had really gotten under her skin and what she was doing to poor Joshua was all kinds of messed up. She paused for breath but didn’t relent in her goading, releasing the anger and despair that had been building up all week. She truly had found her voice.

“Tell me… do you feel any remorse for what you did to Ashlee? Do you think she deserved to die at your hands?”

The grief she had felt over Ashlee was flooding back too. She had managed to decompartmentalise that one over the course of the past few days, but the news of Karen’s death had brought all of those emotions coming flooding back. If Karin hadn’t shot Ashlee to death, maybe Karen, Ashlee and her could’ve still been allied up and sticking together as one group – shielding each other from the atrocities that awaited once they had gone their separate ways. Maybe Karen would’ve still been alive, spared from the horrors of Victor’s grasping hands. Her grip on her rifle tightened even more as she provoked herself with her own thoughts. The fingernails of her empty left hand scraping against the palm of her hand as she clenched her first. A sharp pain as her nails breached her dry skin. Despite the slight tremors of pain trickling through the ridges in her palm, Julia felt good. The rush of adrenaline she had acquired from telling Karin exactly what was on her mind gave her sweet moments of catharsis. A volcanic eruption that had already unleashed too much fire and brimstone to return.

Yeah, there it was. The righteous indignation, the pearl-clutching, the laundry list of accusations hurled against her in response. That was how it always was with people like Julia. People like her were do-gooders. Folks who'd spent their lives believing that they were the main character in the play, the hero whose actions, no matter how dark, were always justified in the greater scope of things. There were a thousand Julias at her church, people who refused to wear a mask because God had told them they didn't have to, who didn't get vaccinated because their spirit felt unsettled at the idea. People who'd clutch at any straw, no matter how thin, to tell themselves that their cowardice and selfishness could actually be virtues if they just pretended hard enough.

Yeah, mercy. I'm sure it was a real kind thing you did, Karin thought as her eyes traveled down to the rifle Julia held. I'm sure that's why the terrorists gave you that. They've only been rewarding the nice, merciful kills every day.

Oh, and now she was bitching about Choi Latte, and about Ashlee. Of course, no amount of shameless virtue signaling would be complete without insisting that the person questioning them was the real villain here. Because, yeah, if I've done something bad then I have no right to notice the shitty things you're doing. That attitude was fucking everywhere. You didn't need to be innocent, just needed to pretend the other person had no right to judge you, and you could safely ignore whatever they had to say. A very neat way of avoiding all of those tricky little moral quandaries and the cognitive dissonance that came along with them.

Karin pulled out her sunglasses and slipped them on, muttering the activation phrase all in one clump of syllables: thasnotvercashmneyfyou. Paused for a second, to get brave. Then she spoke.

"You know what, Julia? I am the bad guy."

She jerked her coat away, exposing the bruises on her neck. They were faded by now, but still easily visible from this distance. "But Shannon was a bad guy too. She was strangling me, I hit her to get away, and I killed her. I busted her skull open, and yeah, that makes me the bad guy - but it doesn't make her innocent. And this piece of shit I'm kicking? He's a worse guy. He fucking assaulted me - and Dani Bird. He killed a bunch of girls, probably molested them first like some wannabe Ted Bundy. And, hey, guess what, Julia? Kicking the shit out of his corpse doesn't make me a saint. I'm not pretending to be good, or nice. I'm a bitch. I've always been one. But that doesn't make it okay to do what he did to me."

Karin took a breath. She was trembling from head to toe, her whole body alight with rage and indignation. "People like you think that there are only good guys and bad guys. But you're wrong. He can be shit, and I can be shit, and you can be shit, all at the same time. Being marginally less shitty than the other person doesn't make you the hero. We're all the bad guy."

"Victor was a creepy asshole, and in case you didn't notice, he just killed Karen. Probably thought she was me and couldn't tell the difference. But here's the thing, Julia. I wouldn't have shot at all if you and Karen and Ashlee hadn't watched Victor beat me and rob me and take all of my supplies without doing shit about it. If he'd beaten up Ashlee or Karen, you'd have done something. But you didn't, because it was me. You didn't intervene, you didn't yell at him to stop, you didn't even ask if I was okay. You just fucking stood there. "

A single tear leaked out from beneath the mirrored lenses.

"So, you want to know if I feel remorse about Ashlee? Sure. I'm sorry that I'm a lousy shot. Maybe she didn't deserve to die there. But she wasn't the good guy in that situation. None of you were. And I'm not sorry that I pulled the trigger."

In a world of many eventualities, Julia would’ve waged all of her money and belongings on Karin not being the bigger person. And yet, in perhaps her most startling yet valiant move to date she actually took accountability. Julia’s words had sliced from her tongue toward her rival and she waited patiently in anticipation of the wicked retorts that would come sweeping back. And yet – none came. Scarily, Karin actually came across like the voice of reason. Perhaps Julia did have a habit to see things in a binary black and white manner, and perhaps she did approach the conversation ready to pass judgement, but it takes two to tango. Karin’s song and dance act with her sunglasses and bruises didn’t cover up the viscosity of her spit.

Frustratingly, Julia was left speechless. The whole situation reminded her of the petty arguments she would have with her older sister, Marina, usually over nothing other than wanting to showboat and be superior somehow to the other. Marina would always have her on the back foot regardless of how confident she went into the fight or however much Julia knew that she was the one in the right. As the bout went on, Julia was backed into corners and it would infuriate her. Karin’s ability to waltz around a conversation and throw her accusations and points across the table were masterfully delivered. Given the stress of the ordeal, it was a surprise Julia could splutter anything out at all, but she knew that it was going to be cheap.

“I’m not perfect. I know I’m not perfect, and I don’t try to be. I have my flaws just like you do, but we’re all trying to do what we can to be a better person.”

As Julia lectured Karin, the details of the alleged attacks from Shannon and Joshua stagnated in her brain. Obviously she didn’t have any of the context with Shannon, but her declaration had sparked a reminder that during Joshua's recollection, he had revealed some very unflattering details about his encounter with Karin. That, allegedly, she wanted to find girls to pimp out for him, which bizarrely strayed from Karin's own story of cops and robbers. In unison, what she did know of Shannon, she found it difficult to believe that she would lash out without any warning. Meanwhile, on the other hand you had Karin who seemed to always find a way to dramatize everything. It was always one step forward and three steps back with her. One second she’s taking responsibility for once, admitting she’s the bad guy and that she was in the wrong. Then she swerved any emotional recoil of the situation with Ashlee a week ago, as if she didn’t even matter at all. The icing on the cake? Well that was when Karin decided to go one step further backwards by insinuating it was Karen and Julia’s fault for Ashlee getting killed. Victor was a creep, and he shouldn’t have done what he did, but what did she expect them to do? It was their first proper encounter with violence and they were both meek and small in comparison to Victor’s bouldering frame. She had regrets. Of course she did. She had been trying to live with those regrets for days now. The tears filled her eyes when she told Joshua about it all, when she told Timothy. She would do anything to turn the clock back and find a way out of here for them all, it wasn't fair that none of them were here anymore.

But the real challenge here was Karin’s persistent ability to vilify everybody else. It raised serious doubts about some of her stories. Likening Joshua to Ted Bundy? Well that was just ridiculous. He wasn’t perfect, and he had never admitted or tried to be either. But he was working through some things and had been on much better behaviour since Julia had connected with him. Who was to say that Victor was even doing what Karin had accused him of? It wouldn’t be the first time Karin made a mountain of a molehill and turned the reality of a situation into some budget Lifetime movie retelling.

“How can you blame us for what happened? What did you actually want us to do?”

She had never enjoyed confrontation, the whole engagement was tense and she was finding it tough to get her words out in one go. Her blood was boiling and her face flushing in anger.

“Everything is always a big drama with you. Nothing is ever your fault is it? How do I know what you say about Joshua or Shannon, any of them, is even true? Your retelling of what happened with Victor isn’t exactly accurate and funny how for somebody who seems to sure of herself you happen to end up being the victim in all your stories.”

She paused in anticipation of the sucker punch. No holds barred.

"Beside it's funny... the story you tell about Joshua. Ted Bundy, you say? He told me all about his encounter with you. You say that he is the monster? But from where I'm stood, you telling him that if he kept you safe and gave you food that you would lure other unsuspecting girls to him."

A smirk emerged from the corner of her mouth as she felt she had secure the upper hand. The duelling practice with her sister and all the fails on her side had led right up to this moment, "In my books that makes you an enabler. That makes you even worse."

Of course, despite bravado on the exterior, she was asking herself many questions about Joshua. He was great to her, a really good friend. If not teetering on the edge of something more. She actually really cared about him, and hearing her vile words attacking him and the character assassination she was delivering really upset her. She felt uneasy about it all, a part of her had a feeling she was telling the truth and maybe Joshua hadn't been completely honest about his part of the story, but she wouldn’t let her aspersions manifest themselves into reality. Sorry Karin – maybe this girl had simply cried wolf too many times. Julia took a few steps toward the other girl until she was only about two metres apart, leaning into the confrontation and ready to pounce.

“Joshua was a good guy.” Julia reassured herself, ignoring the allegations and dirt being thrown by Karin, “Sure he made mistakes, who hasn’t? He looked after me, took me in and made me feel safe. He helped me survive the past few days, he shared his truths and admitted his confessions. That isn’t the guy you are describing. Why would he do that to you?”

Julia looked down to Joshua on the ground, the coat she had used to cover his face had blown off and his exposed eyes stared back at her jarringly. Watching on motionlessly as she defended his honour, a strange spiritual war cry but the rally she needed to feel strong again. She bit her lip as she self-righteously prepared herself to rub salt in the wounds. Her eyes turned back toward Karin, a hostility in her scowl.

“How do I know you’re even telling the truth?”

With one last stab at the truth, she twisted the knife.

“Are you a liar, Karin?”

Karin took the full force of Julia's verbal onslaught, her lips set into a grim line as she nodded slowly to herself. Julia made a valid point. What did Karin expect them to do when Victor attacked her? In a perfect world, she'd expect them to defend her, to throw themselves at Victor and demand that he stop, or to, like, not waltz right up to him and ask him flat out if he'd been blasting rope to unconscious girls. But that would require Julia and Karen to have been her friends, to have actually given a shit about her. And that was an unrealistic thing to expect from anybody.

Julia continued, spouting off some bullshit about how dramatic Karin was (Yeah, hi, drama club. It's right in the name) and how nothing was ever Karin's fault (Famously synonymous with publicly admitting "I'm the bad guy," good catch!) before just straight up accusing her of playing the victim all the time (kinda like accusing Ryan Reynolds of always playing hot people. Wasn't like he chose it, it was just the reality of the situation. But sure). It was the same binary idiocy that Karin had already called out. "Other people are bad" was not the same as "I am good." "I hurt you" does not invalidate "you hurt me." But that wasn't how idiots like Julia saw things. Karin was bad, which meant that whoever else was in the scene was good. Karin hurt people, and that meant that she had no right complain when she was hurt.

But then, Julia got the meat of her little tirade. The real reason she was here, bitching up storm. Karin's eyes flicked down to Josh, lying there. Even the sunglasses couldn't prevent her from seeing the satisfied smirk etched into his clouded-over pupils.

Oh, you absolute motherfucker.

There's always a moment in the marionette show when an errant spotlight catches the strings. She could see them now, tied around Julia's wrists and her own, snaking invisibly towards Josh's limp hands. He was still making them dance, even beyond the grave. Hell of a trick.

Julia and Josh had been together. He'd treated her with kindness and compassion, kept her safe and given her food and shelter and companionship. All the things he'd denied to Karin. Not to make her jealous, or anything like that. No, it was just that Karin wasn't the right toy for the game he wanted to play. She was too smart, too wary to fall for his wiles. She'd seen him as he really was, spoiled the grand villain reveal he'd been angling for. So he'd simply broken her and sent her on her way.

But Julia? Julia was naive, stupid, idealistic - a girl who'd unironically spout platitudes about trying to be a better person while holding the prize she won for being Best Murderer. Julia was the kind of naif Charles Manson could only dream about. Josh had pampered her and groomed her, held her in thrall. Put his hooks in her so deep that even seeing him coiled around his final murder victim couldn't break the spell. You almost had to admire the guy for pulling it off. Heck, for all Karin knew, he'd chosen Julia specifically because of what Karin had told him earlier. He'd certainly taken pains to poison the well against Karin specifically, just in case she came back into the picture. Good on him for realizing that Julia was too thick to question what he might possibly have done to make Karin think that offering him fresher meat was a viable option in the first place.

The girl no one will believe. The girl who'd believe anything. Wind both of them up and watch what happens next.

"Why would he do that to you?" Julia asked.

Emphasis on the you. Her subtext screaming, "Why you, specifically? If he wanted sexy thrills, why go to the bratty half-pint with a body like a surfboard? He'd probably have a better time nailing Beefactrice Briggs. At least there'd be something to grab!"

“How do I know you’re even telling the truth?"

"Are you a liar, Karin?”

Josh was probably jerking it raw in the afterlife watching this all unfold.

Karin paused for a second, and took it all in. Julia was done now. Waiting for her response.

Yeah, she was a liar. And yeah, she had technically offered to play the Rose to Josh's Fred, if by "technically" you meant "literally." She had good reasons for those things. But they both knew that it wouldn't matter. And Josh would have known, too.

"You know what, Julia? Fine. Yeah. I'm a liar. But that doesn't mean that what I'm saying is wrong. I did tell Josh that I'd find girls for him if he wanted me to. But I was lying. I would never have done that. But I lied because he was there, and he was scary, and because I was lost and alone and afraid to be by myself. He was strong, and he was safe. I thought if the monster were on my side, I might survive. And he said no. And then he came after me and tried to kill me, and I thought I was going to die. If I lied to a monster, was that a bad thing?

"And believe you me, he was a fucking monster, Julia. He bragged to me about the girls he killed. Told me what he liked about them. And do you know why he chose me? Hmm? Do you? It was because of you, actually. Because he heard about what happened to Ashlee, and how you all abandoned me afterwards. Because he heard that story, and he realized that I was someone that nobody would ever defend. It was fun for him, hurting me where other people could see. He loved the way I trembled in his grip, the look on my face when I realized that nobody was coming to rescue me. He whispered to me about how much fun he'd have taking me apart. Held me close so I could feel his hard-on while he said it. That was all he saw in me. Something it'd be fun to break.

"But I guess that begs the question, Julia... what did he see in you? Where do think the fun was, for him? Not in killing you, surely. But maybe he liked getting you to trust him, to do whatever he told you. Was that it? Did you ever let him change you, twist you into doing something you weren't sure you wanted to be doing?"

Karin's eyes flicked downwards. Julia was getting close. The gun was closer. When Julia rambled into her next monologue, she'd go for it. Time to end this.

Karin knew exactly how to pinpoint her weaknesses to try to topple her entire tower. She choked her with her own insecurities, the rope tightly tugging at her neck throughout her monologue. Julia knew it was best to give Karin her moment, the platitude of her main character syndrome getting a chance to shine bright. And what a glimmering star she was, crossing her T’s and dotting her I’s to make sure every inch of her macabre performance looked believable. Congratulations, you’re a winner, come on down and collect your Academy Award, Karin.

Below the surface, her words showed no mercy.

Concerns around Joshua had already been playing on her mind relentlessly every waking minute of the day, the fact it felt too good to be true. His story was not all happy and positive, he shared the negatives and exposed the blunt reality of his actions, but at the same time he showed her nothing but kindness. It was deeply confusing, was he really this ghoulish monster that Karin painted him as? Was the paintbrush stroking the tale of him boasting about killing those girls true, or was she just exaggerating and blowing things out of proportion as she always did. Joshua had called her clever, had called her sweet, she was desperate for that sensitive, caring Joshua who bared his soul through the intense moments was the real one. There wasn’t any manipulation, he was a little troubled but was genuine. Unfortunately, deep down she couldn’t shake that the home truths that Karin delivered were probably some part of the truth.

That was the twisting of the knife that Karin had impaled her with. Like a demonic cat, claws out and dug deep into her flesh. A stabbing that worsened as her words fell blunt.

"But I guess that begs the question, Julia... what did he see in you? Where do think the fun was, for him? Not in killing you, surely. But maybe he liked getting you to trust him, to do whatever he told you. Was that it? Did you ever let him change you, twist you into doing something you weren't sure you wanted to be doing?"

Like all good movie stars, her delivery peaked with the climax and Julia’s body skulked down in retaliation as she felt Karin excrete her way into the top spot. No matter what direction the two left in, those were the questions that would be stuck hanging over her. Haunting her like a spiteful apparition, a ghost laughing at her expense. Is that what Joshua was doing right now? Had it all been a game? She took in the words, and convinced herself not to rise to her malicious bait. It was clear Karin was a messed up, unhappy young girl and she wouldn’t let her get a rise out of her.

All she cared about now was getting her out of the way. Joshua, and poor Madeleine having to witness this all unfold, were still out in the open, exposed and suffocating on the carbon dioxide festering in their lungs. She took one step further forward, almost within arms reach of Karin. There was no desire to hurt or kill the girl, even if she was a vindictive nightmare. It wasn’t something on the cards, there was only two people she wanted to kill on that island and Karin’s name wasn’t on that list. But her line of thought changed to target how exactly to get rid of her. How could she throw her a bone without getting hurt in the process.

Her words lashed from her tongue like bullets in an attempt to tame the beast, “We abandoned you because you shot Ashlee! And then you immediately went on the defence, turning to Karen and I as if it was our fault that Victor flipped out and pushed you. I stand by it now, he shouldn’t have done it. Maybe if I could go back we’d be having a different conversation but in the moment we froze. I’m sorry it happened to you.

I shouted at you because…. b-because… I thought we were f-friends. I thought we were all friends. You, Karen, Ashlee.

We’d spent three days together!”

Her eyes diverted down at Joshua before rising back up to Karin, one step closer than she was before. Each glance gave her that internal strength he had flowered her with during their time together.

“I don’t know what Joshua saw in me. I didn’t even know him from school. But what I know is that he was a good person, he gave me a chance. He wasn’t perfect, but nobody is. He made mistakes, but who hasn’t. I’m sorry that you feel that way about him but it’s just not true. He never made me do anything I didn’t want to do, we were a partnership and friends.”

Maybe if she said it enough she would actually start to believe it herself. But she didn’t believe it, the glaring reality that he had done exactly what Karin had exclaimed. Forced her hand, time after time, collecting control from every situation, every conversation. Drove her to mutilate poor Przemek, drove her to go collect her prize for appeasing the sickening terrorists and their twisted audience. Maybe she was just a play thing, maybe her naivety had been exactly what Joshua was looking for. An innocent little lamb ready to send to slaughter, an imperfect daisy that he could deflower petal by petal. She couldn’t help but sigh at her own internal conflict.

“But it’s done now. He’s gone. You got your wish. Are you happy?”

The tempo of her words instinctively quickened, radiating the harrowing of the mixed emotions. She longed for the curtains to draw to a close, for the audience to go home. To give her that chance to decompartmentalize what was actually happening and to come to her senses… or try to. The weight of Joshua still pulled down on every fibre of her being like she was wearing a bungee cord that had been thrown off a cliff.

Yet here she was, all alone. There was no longer an overbearing presence to tell her what was right and what was wrong. To yank her moral compass in different directions and retrain her on what lengths she needed to do. That started to become more obvious to her. To put it bluntly – she felt used. Getting into their little alliance, relationship, whatever you wanted to call it, was always a risky move. She knew that. His ability to flip that switch in his mind and go from being mild-mannered and optimistic to the dark shadowed configuration of himself that came to the surface when he wanted to play, when he wanted to push those buttons and test just how far he could push her until she broke. Her gut ached as it finally made sense, that Karin’s very own onslaught of words had dislodged that part of her brain that blocked out the bad memories, that worshipped him and looked past his wrongdoings.

The whole situation reminded her of the movies about toxic lovers, the dramatic Italian soap operas that her grandparents sometimes made her watch to teach her the Italian language. The slighted heroine, hurt by the libertine that played with her emotions and yet could hustle his way out of any wrongdoing and come out smelling of roses. The Casanova who had the audience screaming at the heroine to abandon, to get rid. She’d be better off without him they would remark, and yet his manipulation of her was like an insurmountable gravitational pull working through the friction to pull her back to his control. Julia had never been in a relationship like that, a victim of her own love and affection, but this was the closest encounter she had to that unhealthy power dynamic. The intimidation of rejection, the constant testing and poking that kept her on her toes. Ridiculously, it was Karin Han of all people that helped her to see past her own rose-tinted glasses, but she was fearful of overthinking it. She had said it herself – Joshua was gone now. It wasn’t healthy to go over it again and again, to obsess over what they had between them and whether that was true or false. Afraid of looking a fool or making the same mistake she thought she was clever enough to never make. It was that vulnerability that kept her heart racing.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am just stupid.”

Julia unclenched her first and brushed her hair from her face as she stared down at Karin.

“But I think you should leave now. You’ve made your point, what more do you want?”

She gestured towards the gun on the floor, sure that was what was on Karin’s mind.

“That?” Another gesture to the floor.

“Maybe the knife thing that Madeleine killed him with? Take it as a token of fortune, the knowledge that it delivered the killer blow to your big bad wolf. Take them and get out of here.”

She kicked the gun across to Karin’s feet, gripping her own gun tight enough to be able to respond to any further antagonism from the troubled girl before continuing to bark orders at her. She didn’t want to see Karin’s face anymore or have her vile lies or veiled truths, whatever you wanted to call them, put seeds of doubt and whispers of paranoia in to her ears. She needed more time to think it through, to come to the realisation of what was brutal honesty and what was vicious aspersions built on the foundations of hate she so visibly had for him.

“Take it and go. I don’t want to hurt you. Whatever you think of me, I’m not like that.”

She scoffed a slight smirk, almost in delight that despite the unquenchable tension that was pinning both girls down like glue under their feet, her virtuous goodbye would probably get just as deep into Karin’s skin as her words had done to Julia.

“Get out of here,” Julia snarled as she used her empty hand to push Karin’s shoulder back.

“I won’t let you make me the bad guy in your story.”

A fateful twist of fate, maybe Julia was already starting to be the bad guy in her own.

She'd scored a hit. Even before Julia started desperately flinging invective back at her, as though the and based on the amount of invective Julia was flinging back, it had been a deep one.

She stood still, letting the other girl's words wash over her. Like seaweed, immersed in the tide but bending along with the crashing waves instead of letting them break against her. The more Julia yelled, the angrier she'd get. The longer it'd take her to react when Karin made her move.

“We abandoned you because you shot Ashlee! And then you immediately went on the defence, turning to Karen and I as if it was our fault that Victor flipped out and pushed you."

The response played out in her head, narrated with perfect diction by a cooler, calmer version of herself. But she didn't speak it out loud. Karin had no dialogue in this scene.

- Yeah, of course I was defensive. I killed someone. You, of all people, should know what that's like. But it wasn't the same for you, was it? You had Josh there to coddle you. You had someone there to help, and to wipe away the tears and tell you that you hadn't done anything wrong. To tell you that you were still worth something even though you'd committed an unforgivable sin. He didn't call you a murderer and put it all on you.

"I stand by it now, he shouldn’t have done it. Maybe if I could go back we’d be having a different conversation but in the moment we froze. I’m sorry it happened to you."

- You froze. You ratted me out to Victor, and you just stood there. You're sorry it happened to me, and that... means something. More than you know.
But you're still not saying you'd have done anything, even if you could have. You're not saying you're sorry that you told Victor. Hell, you called bullshit on me for that like two minutes ago. You're sorry, and that's great.

"I shouted at you because…. b-because… I thought we were f-friends. I thought we were all friends. You, Karen, Ashlee. We’d spent three days together!”

- Friends? Bull. Shit. I remember those three days. I remember looks that you and Karen shared every time we talked about getting attacked by Beatrice. All the little things you left unsaid, all the little facial expressions you made when I talked. You and Karen and Ashlee might have been friends by the end of it, but you and I never were.

“I don’t know what Joshua saw in me. I didn’t even know him from school. But what I know is that he was a good person, he gave me a chance. He wasn’t perfect, but nobody is. He made mistakes, but who hasn’t. I’m sorry that you feel that way about him but it’s just not true. He never made me do anything I didn’t want to do, we were a partnership and friends.”

- You know nothing, Julia Snow. "He isn't perfect" is what domestic abuse victims and Republican voters say to give themselves cover. Those murders weren't mistakes. And boy golly, he never made you do anything you didn't want to do? What kind idiot argument is that? "Your Honor, my client has been accused of murdering six people, but as you can see for yourself, he has never murdered me. Can we really believe that he would murder other people?" And there's the F word again. "Friends". What are you, a Sims character? Someone spends a few minutes clicking "Talk about interests" and suddenly your relationship score maxes out and you can Try For WooHoo in Shower?

“But it’s done now. He’s gone. You got your wish."

- Good. Fuck him! No, not literally, Julia.

"Are you happy?”

-...

-...

"...No," Karin said, quietly. It wasn't in the script. But it was true.

Kicking the shit out of Josh didn't feel good. It felt lousy. Because he was beyond pain. He was beyond humiliation. He was beyond anything she knew how to inflict, and that meant that the scoreboard was permanently etched at Josh 2, Karin 0. She'd never get an apology or a resolution. She'd get the hollow satisfaction of outliving him, however briefly, and that was it. Even after death, he was beating her. Even with the murders he'd committed - even with lying him right here, drenched in the blood of an innocent girl he'd shot to death - he was believable. She was standing here, giving voice to her suffering, and her audience was siding with the corpse.

Hot, furious tears seeped down Karin's cheeks. Her teeth clenched, her throat closed up, and everything in her body wanted to compress, to shrink in on itself and become a black hole of pain and anger. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all. It wasn't fair that he could do what he did, and he could get away with it and die with that look on his face, like he'd gone out winning against everyone and everything. Karin didn't know what she wanted. She didn't know how to feel better. But she knew that she wanted better than this. She deserved better than this.

“Maybe you’re right," Julia continued. "Maybe I am just stupid.”

- ...No comment.

“But I think you should leave now. You’ve made your point, what more do you want? That? Maybe the knife thing that Madeleine killed him with? Take it as a token of fortune, the knowledge that it delivered the killer blow to your big bad wolf. Take them and get out of here.”

- ...Okay, one comment. If your response to me calling you a delusional idiot is to give me several deadly weapons I think it's safe to say that there's no "maybe" about you being stupid.

“Take it and go. I don’t want to hurt you. Whatever you think of me, I’m not like that. Get out of here."

- Sure, fine, just give me a sec to make sure it's not booby-trapped or anything. Sounds like the kind of thing Josh would d-OWW!

Julia shoved her, hard.

Something inside Karin cracked, old fault lines flaring with white-hot magma. She'd only felt this way once before. That one day in middle school, when she'd been face to face with the ringleader of the kids who'd been making her life hell for months, and screamed in her face to just leave her the fuck alone, and the bitch had coldly spat in her face and said "Make me, crazy alien girl."

“I won’t let you make me the bad guy in your story.”

Karin cracked a smile. "Bitch, I already told you," she said as she reached down and picked up the gun, grabbing it by the barrel with one hand.

"...I'm the bad guy in my story."

Then she punched Julia in the face, as hard as she could.

Brittle.

That’s how she had been feeling for days now, drowning in emotional turmoil, a fear of being made of glass. Her bones felt wary, a fragile weakness that threatened to overpower her at any point in time. The threat of a Julia Guercio extinction event constantly pulled at her heart, her lungs frequently choking from the cold and her strong swimmer legs feeling more and more fatigued as the days went on. The dredging of the snow in her sneakers, the dampness that she had worn with style since the start of the week, the exhaustion that slowly sunk her as she struggled to sleep.

To wake her from her lurking daydreams came the cold slap of Karin’s fist locking in to the bottom left of her jaw. Having never been physically smacked in such a vicious way, Julia was naïve over how it would feel or how she should be reacting. From video games or movies, she thought that a punch to the face would’ve sent her tumbling to the ground and yet Karin’s questionable strength had only really pushed her neck back a little. If anything, it was the shock of Karin’s retaliation, especially right after Julia so gracefully had given her a get out of jail free card, which hammered the most. A bitter pill to swallow knowing that she had underestimated her opponent. Karin wasn’t stupid, or maybe from her latest swing she was, but Julia had genuinely believed she didn’t actually want confrontation. Hell – given how much she was still complaining about the Victor situation half a week ago, and with the knowledge of just how much has happened in the time, it wasn’t the outcome she had expected. Thankfully, Karin was not built like an MMA fighter. The smack didn’t smash Julia into a million pieces, there were no cracks left in her crystal glass exterior, no shattering of her walking corpse.

Like a moth to a flame, Julia had seemed to always stumble upon trouble. Every place she turned since being abducted she was never just in a pleasant, easy situation. I guess that was in the name of the game – Survival of the Fittest. Worse than the surprise of the blow, and the immediate tenderness of her jaw, was the observation that Karin had in fact taken her up on her offer of the gun and had now picked it up with her stone cold hands. The problem was, Julia wasn’t inviting Karin to turn the gun on her, she must’ve misread the RSVP.

“You bitch!”

She hated that word. The regular use of it to demonize a woman who dared to speak her mind, that a girl braved to defy the expected conformity and do something that didn’t just submit to the will of others. She hated using that word even more. By this point, Julia had descended to the dangers of auto-pilot. The rush of emotions that threatened to conquer her peaceful nature; confusion, frustration, belligerence, it was a lot to balance.

Instinctively she lashed out at Karin. She took Julia’s white flag, her olive branch and spat on it just like she had spluttered over Joshua’s body, ripped it up and set it on fire. With her right arm still gripped around her own heavy assault rifle, Julia slammed her body with all the force she could muster to Karin’s side. Even with her sunglasses gripping her ears the smaller girl clearly wasn’t expecting it, tumbling backwards to the ground and dropping the gun she had just collected from the floor. Her sunglasses had scurried from her face as she landed in the bed of snow, the statement of intent that radiated from her as she wore them immediately vanished. They landed beside the gun.

Part of Julia wanted to drop her own gun and jump on top of Karin. It was her own fault, for giving her a choice instead of just getting her to leave with the force of her rifle. One pull of the trigger and it would be over, and whilst she would never admit it outwardly to anybody, a piece of Julia really wanted to pull the trigger on Karin. Her grip clenched tighter than it had ever been as if she was holding on to the handle for dear life. A crazed scrambled in the snow, with Joshua watching on from the sidelines, would be quite something. Without wanting to entertain the idea with too much thought, she expected he would’ve liked seeing her let out her wild side and being strong enough to teach somebody not to mess with her.

But that wasn’t going to be sensible. She had already underestimated her foe one time and she wouldn’t be thunderstruck with her having more dirty little tricks up her sleeve. She was a dramatic girl, after all, always looking for the perfect shot. Julia had too much to fight for to be bested by odious little Karin, the last day of contemplation had given that her ample time to reflect on her life, to think about her present and to prepare for the future. It would be a long future, she wanted that. To live, to go home, more than anything else she had ever wanted. She would sacrifice anything to be able to get that, and she wasn’t going to let Karin stand in her way in getting what she dreamed of.

Julia raised the gun in her hand, as a devout swimmer she knew she probably had the raw strength to be able to triumph over Karin but she wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of getting a greater physical rise out of her. She had already crossed the line of decorum that she lived by, she had never been in a fist fight and didn’t want to start now. The one punch was enough, thank you very much. She used her bare left hand to grip hold of the barrel, to carry the full weight of the monstrosity. Without hesitation she took a step back to put some distance between her and Karin and stared down as she aimed the rifle at Karin.

Karin was defenseless on the ground, had scrambled back to collect her sunglasses – for some reason the priority over the gun. Not that Julia complained.

“I gave you a chance… and I’ll give you one more.”

She used a wince of her eyes to signal to the distance, one final chance for Karin to finally do the right thing. If she didn’t, there was a good chance they would both end up dead off the back of their conflict, it was a manic game of Russian roulette. Killing Przemek was the most difficult thing she had ever done, he didn’t deserve that fate. Every sweep of the rock was a guillotine raining down upon him, every squelch of blood, brains, everything in between, was lodged permanently in Julia’s mind. She had vowed never again, nobody else needed to die at her hands, and she genuinely did believe that promise she made. There were only two exceptions to that role – Salem Fox and now another boy that had wronged her and those she was closest with over the past week. Karin, whilst unbelievably petty and infuriatingly annoying, was neither of those, and so she didn’t want to actually pull the trigger. Somebody else would do that for her if she left her, and that was fine.

There was a predetermined expectation that killing would be easier the second time, and yet her body froze in fear at the thought that the only thing between her and shooting Karin was likely a few seconds and one wrong move from the ill-tempered Karin. Throughout the argument it had been a futile battle for power, one bout at a time each girl would take, and take, and take once again, until there was no ground left to cover. They were both immature in that way, they could probably have kept going all day if Julia didn’t take the high road and be the bigger person. Ironically, in the end the power dynamic settled in favour of whomever had the biggest gun. The sad reality of it dawning upon both of their stricken faces.

“Go. You can take it if you want, but go.”

Her words were stern, an aura of seriousness that she had not revealed before now.

“If you do anything reckless it’ll be both of us that’ll die. Is that how you want to go?”

Julia knew she shouldn’t tempt fate with her inflammatory remarks, perhaps there was some twisted poetic justice in both of them dying here and now. Caught for eternity, like Madeleine, in Joshua’s grasp. There would be some refuge in that, maybe it would be better to die with him than try to move on without him and die later on, alone and scared. Maybe Karin’s obviously complicated relationship with him was going to lead to her wanting to martyr herself by ending it all right there under that beaming spotlight. It would be quite some final act.

If what Karin had said about Joshua and his alleged misogyny was true, there was a sickening starkness in Joshua dying with the comfort of three young girls around him, engraved in rotting stone for the rest of time. Wildcard or not, this time was for Karin to pull the right card from the deck.

“Take the gun and go.”

Her bottom lip curled with the distaste of the situation, the patience and grace she had to give Karin a chance to walk away instead of repaying her for the punch with a bullet painting her face. The longer the stalemate lasted the more she willed herself on to be that. She couldn’t be sure she had the strength to actually pull the trigger unless Karin did it first. Similarly, to Matthew the day before, if he hadn’t shot at her there was no way she actually would’ve returned fire. In the game of flying bullets, everybody is a loser. In this instance, it didn’t matter if the sinister intent behind her strict threats was empty. That was simply a risk she was going to have to take.

“Don’t make me pull this trigger.”

Krak!

The impact sent a jolt up every bone in Karin's arm.

In most action sequences, the punch would have been the decisive moment. That one righteous, fury-born blow would have ended the fight immediately, sending Julia cartwheeling away until she hit a nearby tree trunk and got a load of snow dumped on her after a perfect comedic beat. Karin would have stood there, unflappable, shaking the aches out of her hand while she deadpanned, "Guess that wasn't very cash money of me."

This wasn't an action sequence, so her little fist just sort of snapped Julia's head back about half an inch and left her knuckles smarting. Then Julia called her a bitch and body-checked her like an NHL player.

"Unkh!"

Karin hit the ground, making a twisted snow angel where she landed. The impact drove all the air out of her lungs, and world became painfully bright as her sunglasses were dislodged. She gasped for breath, and scrambled to find them. They were sticking up out of the snow, next to the gun that'd fallen out of her hands. She jammed the back onto her face, and stared venomously back at Julia.

Oh. Turns out Julia had drawn her gun and was pointing it directly at her. Even with the shades on, Karin could see how white the grip had made her knuckles.

Was Julia pissed off enough to pull the trigger? Yeah, probably. Yeesh, what a way to go. Gunned down by Who?lia Guercio, the girl who'd been absent the day they handed out personality traits. At least if it'd been Josh she could have been included in a montage of serial killer victims or something. Now it'd be a sad two-photo slideshow of her and Premzlekakecoleslaw (or however you spelled it. Whenever she read the guy's name her brain just threw up radio static).

But no, Julia just told her to go. Pick up the gun and go.

She stared dully at Julia, waiting for the other shoe to drop. This felt like a trick. Like maybe the second Karin grabbed for the gun, she'd open up a volley of quote-unquote "self defense."

Julia repeated the demand, which... made it seem a bit more genuine? Karin didn't really understand as a strategic maneuver, but hey, maybe Julia believed in ghosts and thought that Karin would make for a particularly bothersome haunting. And you know what? Fair enough. Karin was already a bitch, stood to reason Julia wouldn't want to deal with her as a ghost and a bitch.

She hesitantly reached for the gun. When Julia didn't mow her down immediately, she pulled it close, keeping it pointed well away from anywhere that'd be considered confrontational.

No bullets pierced her skin. So she scrambled upright and ran off, intent on putting as much distance between them as she could before Julia changed her mind.

((Karin Han continued in It's a Wild, Wild World Out Here))

It was a disgruntling feeling, watching Karin disappear in to the distance as her shadow faded lower and lower into the ground until it met the horizon and vanished completely. Twice they had met, and twice it ended with conflict and shouting, with a rage that had burned brighter this time than last. She dreaded having to meet her again, knowing full well that Karin would be out for blood if she was able to get the upper hand. Part of her was surprised she didn’t take the gun and fire it behind her as she ran. A stray bullet was all you needed to graze, maim or kill in this game of survival. Karin seemed the type that could kill without feeling any remorse, without the need to respect her victim by looking them in their eyes as she stole their last breath.

Who knows if they would ever meet again. The island was getting smaller with the introduction of new danger zones and the remaining classmates, must’ve been around fifty of them left now, were being herded like cattle in to more frequent clashes. However it wasn’t like the school corridors where you could mostly ignore the person you had a fight with or didn’t want to give any attention to, you literally could not avoid them if they came out swinging – or shooting. There was not much of an opportunity for reconciliation, it takes too much time and is too risky to present yourself on a defensive of amicability. Would anybody really trust somebody that they had fallen out with when the stakes were as high as this? It was a deadly game of roulette and Julia saw first hand that even just then when she tried to share that olive branch with Karin and have them go their separate ways without a grudge or any lingering feelings of hate and bitterness. But Karin spat at her, probably coupled with antagonistic thoughts about how weak Julia was and how she didn’t deserve to be here still.

She waited long enough to know that Karin was not circling back round to ambush her once again and then laid her gun down in the snow. It was going to be a tough job pulling the two bodies to the side and give them a peaceful final rest, but hopefully the snowfall overnight had softened the bones and made it easier.

There were a handful of retches as she pulled the two over to the side, beneath a tree that provided a decent amount of shelter from the elements. Her back ached from the muscle and vigour, her stomach acid fizzed at the vulgarity of the crunching bodies and her head spun at the reality dawning upon her of what she was actually enduring. It felt bittersweet, a deep sadness that it ended the way it did without closure, whilst a redemptive gratefulness that she was able to honour both victims of themselves in such a way. She’d likely never know the full truth about what happened, only that whatever did ended with two less classmates. When they were delicately placed beside the trunk of the tree, their bodies still fused together in the abyss, Julia shovelled snow using her hands, raking it across until it sufficiently covered both bodies, only the tips of their shoes hanging out on one side.

On one hand, if the delusions of grandeur that Julia had about Joshua's redemption arc and positive character reference was true then he was buried with the appreciation he deserved, with the final parting message being that somebody did care about him even he believed they did not. On the other hand, if she was completely wrong about Joshua and his intention and pleasure was in controlling Julia and overpowering her then at least the monster was in the ground and not able to hurt anybody ever again. The jury was still out but this wasn't the moment for her to dwindle back and forth on who or what to believe.

Julia had never been religious, despite her Catholic family roots. And yet ever since her time in the church, the faceless gods that watched and judged her struggle against Joshua’s will had offered a strange refuge. She wasn’t about to go full bible basher on anybody, but the silent prayer she gave Joshua and Madeleine felt comforting. It gracefully morphed the anxiety in the pit of her stomach to tranquil calmness. A discerning equilibrium. She gathered her belongings, scooped the rations and supplies from both of their duffel bags in to her own and bid them farewell.

With one last glance back to the mound of snow covering the pair, she embraced the bleak reality with a light swallow and went on her way.

No plans, no people. Julia wanted a break from scary encounters with people, to stop rolling the dice that so easily landed on kill or be killed. The solitary confinement would likely do he well, offer her peace of mind of a break. If a break really existed in hell or whether that was just reserved for people in the afterlife.

[S119 - Julia Guercio - continued Smile At Truth In The Name Of Lies]