Chapter Text
They locked the fucking door to the cabin after Jackie and Shauna's fight. They locked the goddamn door, Nat learns later, but no one confesses who did it. Whether it was mere muscle memory, or something more sinister, Nat doesn't know. The girls are silent, automatically in defense of the culprit.
Jackie Taylor, their team captain, died because they locked the cabin door, and no one was awake to open it for her. She died sitting in front of the door, back pressed against it, and hugging herself.
Nat and Travis are the ones that find her, in the morning. For a moment, Nat thinks Jackie is awake, and she calls out a greeting.
“Mornin’,” Nat says as they step into the clearing.
Jackie doesn’t move. Nat and Travis exchange a look before Nat shoves the gun into his hands and then runs forward. Jackie is unnaturally blue, her eyes shut. She looks almost peaceful like this, her head bowed and resting on her knees. Nat’s grabbing onto her shoulders before she knows it, collapsing to her knees.
“Jack?” Nat whispers, “Wake up, wake up!”
Nat shakes her shoulders, but Jackie still doesn’t move. The cabin door bursts open at that, the screams of the others piercing through the air. Nat still doesn’t move from her spot, her eyes locked onto Jackie’s motionless form.
Jackie Taylor is dead. Nat doesn’t know how to cope.
“Fuck everyone else,” Nat had hissed months ago, when the plane had just crashed, “we need to leave. I can take the gun and-”
“And what?” Jackie cut her off, her tone still soft, “Let them starve?”
“Yes,” Nat had grunted.
“You wouldn’t do that, not unless you had to,” Jackie murmured, tugging her into an embrace. Nat struggled but then gave in to the embrace, holding her back.
“We’ll get out of here. We all will,” Jackie told her.
“I don’t care about the others,” Nat snarled, “I only care about you and me. This…I can’t do this without you.”
“You don’t have to,” Jackie promised, “I’ll always be here.”
No one tries to comfort her. No one knows, the truth about her and Jackie, and Nat doesn’t tell them. Tai explains what happened, in pieces, and Nat wants to lie down in the snow and never get up. If she dies, at least she can see Jackie again.
Jackie lies in front of the campfire, for days. The others scatter around her, but no one moves her. It feels disrespectful, like an insult to the girl they loved, and it makes Nat bristle. So, Nat’s the one to carry Jackie to the meat shed a few days later. Shauna looks like she wants to protest when Nat picks up Jackie, but Tai holds her back.
Nat resists the urge to snarl, to bare her teeth, to take the gun and shoot all of them when she feels the weight of Jackie in her hands. Her pace is slow, and careful, holding Jackie in a bridal carry. Jackie is, or was, the best thing that ever happened to a burnout like her.
Nat carries Jackie to the shed, gently sitting her down. None of it feels real, Nat’s almost expecting Jackie to open her eyes because it all feels like one nightmare. Still, Jackie doesn’t move as Nat sits in front of her.
Nat can’t look at her. Can’t look at the love of her life, can’t look at Jackie because then she’ll feel her absence more than she already does. Can’t think too hard about how she left with Travis on a routine hunting trip and came back to find Jackie dead. She never would’ve left, if she knew what was going to happen.
Stupid, Nat chastises herself. She knew the cabin was a ticking time bomb. Knew sooner or later, Jackie and Shauna were going to fight, Nat should’ve stayed.
( Typical, her dad scoffs, when have you ever stayed? )
Days pass. Nat barely recognizes the passage of time, too absorbed in her thoughts. Goes hunting with Travis, but they never find anything. Tries to think of her girlfriend, but can’t stop seeing her corpse. She’s too out of it, and Travis doesn’t pry, but still, he benches her today, telling her to stay by the cabin.
Nat stares down at her hands, unsure of what to do with herself. She’s never thought she’d live in a world without Jackie Taylor in it. She always thought that after high school, Jackie would somehow live to be 100 years old and everyone else would succumb to death long before her.
Nat pushes herself to her feet. Jackie was always present in her normal life. Go to practice and there she was, all peppy and shit. Jackie was an inescapable truth, she was always there. She’s half-convinced that if she turns around, she’ll hear Jackie’s humming in the distance, but she doesn’t want to risk disappointment, so Nat keeps walking.
The imprint of Jackie’s smile is burned into her retinas. The sound of her laugh echoes in her ears. She can feel the phantom pressure of Jackie against her lips, can taste her cherry lip gloss on her tongue, and Nat wants to cry.
She walks deeper into the forest, shoving her hands into her pockets. Her breath comes out in cold clouds, and her cheeks hurt from the chill. She wonders if this was how Jackie felt, if dying was easy for her, like falling asleep, or if it hurt as much as Coach Martinez’s death. Nat huffs out a laugh, feeling insane as she stops in front of a tree, only to see the wilderness symbol carved into it.
Nat frowns, pressing her fingers to the symbol and tracing it. Triangle. Circle, Line. She closes her eyes, and puts her palm against it. She wasn’t sure what to expect, maybe like a heartbeat or some shit, but the symbol doesn’t give her anything. It’s nothing more than marks carved into a tree.
Nat closes her eyes, clinging onto the pieces of Jackie Taylor that are solely hers. She thinks of the feeling of Jackie’s body pressed against hers. She remembers that one night, all those months ago over Christmas break, when they snuck into a bar outside of Rutgers. Jackie, with her bright smile, always knew how to get what she wanted, and Nat was an expert at getting into places she didn’t belong.
“Dance with me?” Jackie yelled.
Nat nodded. Jackie grabbed Nat’s hand, pulling her into the throng of people. It took a few minutes to push past all the bodies until they found a little corner of their own. Nat, admittedly, was very stiff. She kind of swayed along to the music, bobbing her head, and Jackie rolled her eyes at her.
“I thought you knew how to dance,” Jackie leaned up to whisper in her ear.
Nat’s eyes squinted at the challenge, “Fuck you.”
Jackie smiled at that, “In your dreams, baby.”
Then, she turned, so her back is to Nat.
Nat pressed her chest onto Jackie’s back. Jackie wrapped one hand around the back of Nat’s neck, bringing her closer, then began to dance. Nat dug her hips in, eliminating any space between them, as Jackie breathed.
Jackie began to grind, brushing her butt against Nat’s crotch, and any hesitance Nat once had was gone. Nat tilted her head down, her nose brushing Jackie’s neck. Nat could feel the sharp inhales Jackie made, something that she would dream about for the weeks to come. Nat’s fingertips dug into her hips, so hard that Nat’s sure Jackie would have bruises, but Jackie never complained.
“You drive me fuckin’ crazy Jackie,” Nat confessed like it was a sin.
“Do something about it,” Jackie taunted, staring up at her.
There, under the strobing red lights, Jackie was glorious. Her hair seemed to glow, sweat sticking to her clavicle, and Nat wanted to lick it off. Jackie’s eyes were dark, and her smile was wild as Nat bit down right where Jackie’s neck met her jaw. Jackie hissed, instinctually pressing against Nat, and Nat’s grip tightened on her.
A hand tangled in Jackie’s hair, pulling her back before Nat smashed their mouths together. They’ve never kissed, but Nat has thought of it ever since they were 14. It was open-mouthed and filthy, and Nat fucking loved it. She brought Jackie as close as possible, their bodies touching at every possible point.
“Let’s go home, Nat,” Jackie pulled back, her chest heaving.
Nat just nodded, following the other girl out.
They never made it back to Wiskayok, they barely made it into Nat’s beat-up truck, parked on the outskirts of a parking lot. Nat swallows, ripping her eyes open when she thinks about that night. They should’ve stayed gone, should’ve run away to Philly or New York or anywhere else, should’ve never gotten on that fucking death trap of a plane. She squeezes her fists until her knuckles turn white.
Can’t think about Jackie anymore. Can’t. Not when Jackie’s-
Nope. Not thinking about it.
Wants to remember the Jackie she loved, loves. Wants to remember the bright, radiant, Jackie Taylor, her team captain, her girlfriend, not the frozen husk of a girl she found a week ago. Nat clenches her hands until her muscles protest but she keeps squeezing, keeps holding onto nothing, because what is a life without Jackie in it?
The wilderness symbol looms in front of her, silent and judgemental. Nat fucking hates it, hates the bullshit that Lottie’s been spreading to the others, how the others are feeding into the madness. Most of all, Nat hates how deeply she needs something to believe in, now that her teenage god is dead and forever 17.
“Give her back,” Nat begs, her eyes filling with tears against her will, “that’s, that’s my Jack. Please, I’ll do anything you want. Take my life, just give hers back.”
Silence. Nat clenches her teeth so hard she thinks she might crack a tooth. Exhales.
Then, screams. It’s incoherent, just noise, and it’s filled with anguish and rage. Nat screams, slamming her fist against the symbol just to feel something. She opens her eyes, her tears freezing as soon as they slip off her cheeks, and glares up at the sky.
“Take anything you want,” Nat pleads, “just give her back. She’s the best of us.”
The wilderness is silent. Nat doesn’t know why she expected anything different. She smashes her fist against the symbol, again and again, and again until blood seeps through her fingers, her knuckles split open. It’s only when she feels the sharp pain that she pulls back, hissing out a breath.
Blood covers the symbol. Nat flips off the sky, shaking out her fist, then turning back to go home.
“Fuckin’ wilderness gods,” Nat spits, “bullshit. Fuckin’ bullshit.”
Nat stomps home, eyes trained on the ground.
Behind her - the symbol glows, the blood disappearing and seeping into the tree.
“Get into a fight with a tree?” Misty comments, cleaning Nat’s knuckles and bandaging her up.
“Fuck you,” Nat huffs, unable to meet her eyes.
“I’m not judging, for the record,” Misty ties the bandage off, “I was just asking.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Nat’s voice drops down.
Misty hums at that, and Nat lowers her hand, “We’re always here to talk, if you need.”
Nat just stands, getting into her bed and pulling the sheet over her head. We’re always here to talk, bullshit. Where were you when Jack needed you? Nat remarks in her head, blinking away the thin layer of tears that appear in her eyes.
Nat screws her jaw shut. Misty’s not exactly her first choice of confidant, and there’s something…off about the others that she doesn’t understand. She wouldn’t exactly consider any of them sane, not after however long they’ve spent in the middle of nowhere, but she sees the hungry glint in their eyes, sees the way they fall at Lottie’s feet, and doesn’t like it.
Lottie’s, well, Lottie. And Nat gets it, she does, why the others are so quick to believe her bullshit. Lottie’s always been weird, but magnetic. She would smile at you, and make you feel like everything’s alright. Or at least, that’s how Nat felt about Lottie, all those years ago when they were hooking up in sophomore year.
Then, Nat fell for Jackie, and anything Nat once felt for Lottie felt like a grain of sand on a beach.
She and Lottie would never have worked, Lottie needed to be worshipped, and Nat was never capable of the devotion she required. Sometimes, Lottie would take on another form, something inhuman, something primal. She had two sides, the follower and the heretic, Nat preferred the follower. The heretic punished those around her, the follower let her do whatever she wanted.
Nat never really understood it, not until the crash. She sees the two sides of Lottie, clear as day, a medicated Lottie versus an unmedicated one.
Her thoughts make her turn over, apprehension twisting in her stomach. Things were about to get a whole lot worse, Nat just didn’t know when.
The next morning, before the others wake, Nat sneaks out of the cabin. She makes her way into the meat shed, intending to sit beside her girlfriend’s body, but she stops in the doorframe.
Jackie’s hair is braided. There’s a splattering of color on her eyelids and her lips, that definitely wasn’t there before.
Someone’s been dressing her up, Nat realizes, and the thought makes her want to gag. She scrambles inside, desperately trying to wipe off the color with her sleeve, but failing. It smudges the attempt at lipstick more than anything.
“Jesus, Jack,” Nat murmurs, fear gripping her heart, “who the hell is doing this?”
She knows, deep down, a name floating into her mind. Her stomach sinks. Nat swallows, tears springing to her eyes, that she roughly wipes away, even as they fall down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Nat whispers, no words able to capture her guilt, “I’m sorry I left.”
Jackie doesn’t respond. Nat’s not sure why she expected her to. Nat bites her lip, staring at Jackie. She knows Jackie isn’t safe here, not with the others, they were animals disguised in the skin of girls. Nat sees the flames in their eyes and the sharpness of their teeth.
Jackie’s not safe here, and she’s not safe in the wilderness. Nat doesn’t know what animals are out there, but she knows the ones she lives with. The ones who dress up a corpse.
Nat swallows, takes a deep breath, and begins to unbraid Jackie’s hair. She’s as gentle as she can be, but still, a clump of hair comes loose. Nat freezes at that, staring down at her hand, where honey-blonde strands sit.
Nat pauses as if someone will burst in on them at any time, as she puts the clump into her pocket. It’s just hair, but it’s all that she has left of Jackie Taylor. When Jackie’s hair is down, Nat combs through it with her fingers.
“I’m sorry,” Nat says, as she picks up the corpse.
Jackie’s light in her arms, still too light, as Nat leaves the meat shed. She has to be quick, she knows, because she has to come back and cover her tracks. Nat was hoping they could wait until spring, so they could give Jackie a proper burial. She doesn’t trust the others and doesn’t know if she’ll leave one day and come back to a pile of bones instead of a frozen body.
Truthfully, Nat doesn’t have a concrete plan, she just needs to get Jackie away from the others. Can’t bury her, the ground’s too hard. Can’t find a cave and put Jackie in it, who knows what’s in there? There’s only one conclusion she comes to, besides cremating her.
The lake , Nat realizes, and the plan isn’t good, but she doesn’t have much time, and at least Jackie will be safe from the animals. There’s no fish, not here, the darkness will take her, and Jackie will be safe.
Nat runs through the forest, dodging dead trees, and clinging to the dead girl in her arms. When she reaches the lake, her entire chest heaves, her head spinning. Nat pushes through it all, gliding onto the ice and continuing toward the center of the lake. Underneath her feet, she hears a soft crack and she stops, gently placing Jackie down.
There are tiny cracks in the ice, barely visible in the pale light. Nat takes a deep breath, before smashing her good fist into the center. More cracks and pain reverberates through her bones, blood splattering against the ice.
Nat pulls her fist back, sending it straight into the ice. Tears blur her vision, her entire body shaking, as the skin on her knuckles breaks.
“I’m sorry,” Nat frantically murmurs, “I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry.”
The ice splinters, chunks careening toward the bottom of the lake before popping back up. The hole’s not big enough, and Nat breaks off more pieces, making the hole wider. Jackie lies beside her, eyes still closed, still motionless.
Nat’s bleeding onto the ice. She doesn’t care, she cradles Jackie’s body one more time, holding onto her, blood soaking Jackie’s letterman jacket.
“I’m sorry, Jack, I’m so sorry,” There’s snot running down from her nose, her cheeks burn from the cold, but Nat still presses a kiss to Jackie’s forehead.
Then, Nat maneuvers Jackie’s body, dipping her feet into the freezing water. She puts her in, legs first, lowering her down. The whole time, Nat keeps her eyes locked on Jackie’s face, her hands holding onto Jackie’s shoulders.
Jackie’s up to her torso now. Nat loosens her grip. Jackie sinks more.
“Fuck,” Nat chokes out, “Jackie, I-”
Nat cuts herself off. How far does love go? How far can love be stretched before it snaps? How far can love be felt, when life and death separate the both of them?
Nat lets her go in one movement. Jackie Taylor sinks beneath the murky water, and Nat’s hands remain outstretched, clinging to nothing more than the memory of the girl she loves.
Nat makes it back with time to spare. She covers her tracks, shuffling the snow around the meat shed until no footprints remain, cleans her bloodied hand off, and sneaks back into her place, her eyes shut. Eventually, she falls into a half-conscious state, where she’s not dreaming but she’s not really awake.
The screaming, though, is what gets her up. Nat startles awake, sitting up, to see the others around the front door, and Nat scrambles to her feet.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Nat bites out.
“Jackie’s gone,” Misty turns to her wide-eyed, “her body’s gone.”
“What?” Nat pushes past the others.
Shauna’s on her knees, screaming incoherently and sobbing, while Tai holds onto her. The others are exchanging confused looks, which Nat instinctually mimics. Internally, her heart is beating a mile a minute. She’s waiting for them to start throwing daggers, waiting for the first strike, when it happens.
The light travels so fast that Nat’s sure she imagined it, as her entire vision goes white, a razor-sharp crack echoing around the cabin. When she blinks the spots from her eyes, the roof of the meat shed is on fire, thick smoke curling up into the air.
“What the actual fuck,” Van breathes.
“Was that lightning?” Akilah says.
“But, there’s no storm,” Mari adds.
Nat resists the urge to say no shit, Mari, biting down on her tongue. She glances back at the others, to see Lottie smiling.
“It’s the wilderness,” Lottie tells them, “it’s-, wait, no-”
Lottie cuts herself off, falling to her knees, hands clutching her head. Mari’s at her side immediately, followed by Van. Lottie’s head twitches unnaturally fast, as a series of rapid French erupts from her mouth.
The girls look around at each other. Nat just watches, numb in horror.
“It’s not right,” Lottie says, wide-eyed, “it’s not right. It’s not right. Something’s changed.”
Lottie scans the crowd, her eyes pouring into all of them. She freezes on Shauna before her gaze snaps to Nat. The moment is only a second, but it feels like an eternity as Lottie smiles, too many teeth on show, before she moves to look at Tai.
“Blood,” Lottie murmurs, “it’s gotten blood. It-, no, it-, I won’t! I won’t let this go, I can’t-”
Lottie goes stock still. She shoves Van and Mari to the side, effortlessly getting to her feet. She stalks over to Nat, looming above her, dark eyes unreadable.
“It wants you,” Lottie says emotionless, “to be its voice.”
“What? Lottie-” Mari starts, before thunder booms in the distance. Mari shuts up real fast after that.
“You,” Lottie spits, “who rejected every one of its gifts, who-”
Lottie cuts herself off again, looking off into the distance, toward the lake. The girls follow her line of sight, as lightning strikes the lake. Nat stills, when Lottie’s eyes refocus on her.
“You, who have learned,” Lottie almost sounds impressed, “once a nonbeliever and now a true follower.”
Lottie kneels in front of her, taking Nat’s right hand, the fresh cuts on her knuckles evident to the others. At the sight of dried blood, Lottie doesn’t even flinch, kissing her in the center of her hand.
“The new voice,” Lottie says, before standing.
Van is next, one of Nat’s oldest friends, but there’s a frantic devotion in her eyes that Nat hates, “The new voice.”
Van kisses her hand next. Mari follows. The others line up, falling into place, even Travis, and it ends with Shauna and Tai. Shauna’s promise of worship is quieter, and Tai just looks shocked as she repeats the words. Ben is nowhere to be seen.
The others look at her as if she suddenly has all the answers. Nat’s never felt like that before, never felt deserving of worship, deserving of leadership, except from one person. She doesn’t feel any different, doesn’t feel any sense of supernatural power, until-
She looks off into the distance, and there, standing behind Travis’s shoulder is Jackie Taylor. Her hair is curled, her face is free of any bruising, and she has on her letterman. She leans against one of the trees, arms crossed, looking perfectly poised. She’s unnaturally pale, but she’s smiling, as bright as before.
“Hey, Nat,” Jackie grins.
Oh. Oh.
Nat looks around her, at the dead trees, but sees nothing else. The clearing goes quiet, and Nat glances around, to see why, only to see the meat shed roof is still intact. It’s as if lightning never struck it at all. There are no burn marks, no remnants of smoke, nothing.
“Holy shit,” Van breathes.
In the distance, unbeknownst to the others, something begins to glow from underneath the lake. A flash of light, then nothing, as a corpse floats to the top. A head pops above the freezing water, missing some hair and her left ear, as oxygen pumps through her lungs again.
Half-drowned and half-frozen, Jackie Taylor drags herself onto the ice. She chokes on air, trying to get her lungs to work, trying to remember what it was like to breathe. Her heart beats erratically, and she raises her head an inch, in the direction of the cabin she once called home.
Then, her bones begin to break. Her legs snap at unnatural angles, and she tries to scream but finds her voice gone. Her left leg is twisted at the knee, a mangled, unnatural thing, her arms the only thing holding her up. Her torso twists to the side, ribs cracking as they expand, pressing against her skin.
Her organs shift, and Jackie tries to scream but the sound is quieter than a gasp. Nothing loud enough to travel, nothing loud enough to properly capture her pain. Her arms give out, her body smacking against the ice as her bones twist, growing and breaking at the same time.
Hair spreads from her pores, seeping through her skin, her neck elongating as her body moves against her will, like a broken marionette.
Spots fill her vision, the very definition of pain etching itself into her bones and then rewriting itself. Memories flood her all at once, then disappear as fast as they came. Color fades from her vision, becoming nothing more than shades of grey, and her mind goes blank.
Everything hurts. Nothing makes sense. She forgets the girl she once was, the team she once loved, all that’s left is rage and pain. All that’s left is instinct. Feelings are fragments, ebbing and flowing like the water she found herself in.
Her blood boils, and her heart races.
Something in her wants blood. She’ll feed it.