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It makes her skin prickle to be standing this close to a boogeyman. Cleo hunches her shoulders, shakes a little as if to shake it away like a dog shakes water from its fur. It’s uncomfortable, not a feeling she’s used to--undead don’t get those types of physical sensations very often, and when they do, it means the feelings are very strong.
She notices everyone else is keeping away from Scott--even Pearl is working on the wall on the opposite side of the Shadow Fort, occasionally darting quick glances over to them. Ren and Martyn and Etho outright avoid Scott, their eyes suspicious even though she could also see their sorrow.
For his part, Scott just keeps his head down, working quickly--almost feverishly--on stacking blocks, building the wall thicker and higher, almost as if he wants to give them as much protection as he can before…
Cleo shakes the thought from her head. There’s still time, there has to still be time…
And then the air around her shifts. It’s palpable, a tension that knots around her throat and digs into her ribs. Scott lets out a quiet whimper and drops the block he was holding, backing away.
She doesn’t want to look, she doesn’t, but she feels like she owes it to him somehow.
Cleo looks up and she could swear she saw a shadowy figure looming beside Scott, triple-jointed fingers reaching out and digging into his arm, ripping the final yellow life-gem from him. Scott hisses and snatches his arm away, clutching at his wrist, but it’s too late, Cleo can see the red gem begin to pulse in time with his heartbeat...along with the faint trickle of blood that snakes between his fingers and down his arm.
She doesn’t want to watch, but she does, because she owes him, as Scott’s fingernails elongate and grow pointed, as a gray ashen color bleeds from his fingers down his arms, and finally, at the very last, his eyes and the halo around his head go bright blood-red.
Scott meets her eyes, and for a brief second Cleo’s scared, she thinks he’s going to do it, he’s gonna go for me but then he crouches and backs away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry it ended this way.”
“What--” Ren gasps. “Oh no. Scottie…”
“We all knew it would happen,” Scott says. He glances over at Pearl.
Pearl stands stiffly, one hand on the hilt of her sword, her face grim. “You--you know what you’ve got to do now, Scott.”
He nods. “Yeah, I know. I’ll--be careful, guys, okay?”
“You did a good job. Thanks for helping, Smajor,” Ren says.
“Yeah, GG, man,” Martyn adds.
Before Scott can drop down from the wall, Cleo suddenly catches him in a tight hug. “Thank you, Scott,” she says quietly. And she means for everything--for his friendship in this mad world, and taking her in after she was betrayed by BigB...everything.
Scott hugs her back, and for a second his fingers tighten on the back of her shirt, and she realizes he doesn’t want to let go anymore than she does. But he does, backing away to the edge of the wall, because they’re in a world where saying goodbye is inevitable, and it’s not like they haven’t been steeling themselves for this moment.
It doesn’t make it any better, really, in the end.
“Anything for you, Cleo.” He sends her and Pearl a grin, confident and self-assured once more. “You guys keep gaslighting and girlbossing for me, okay?”
Then he’s gone, dropping down off the wall and sprinting across the bridge, and Cleo recognizes that nervous, pent-up energy in his movements. He’s already feeling the effects of red-life bloodlust.
She clenches her hands into fists and thinks I will not cry, I will not , and turns to face the others. The five of them, the only non-reds left. Ren and Martyn and Etho have already gone back to work, but Pearl catches her gaze, and Cleo thinks there might be a shimmer of tears in Pearl’s gray eyes.
Pearl nods, and Cleo nods back.
Scott had kept his word. Scott had been honorable in a world that only punished him for it.
Come what happened--however the world burned--they would never forget him.