It took her a few attempts given the humidity, but eventually Erika was able to coax flame from the end of her lighter. Short puffs in helped evenly scorch the end of the long-overdue joint. A small cloud of smoke emerged from the dilapidated, makeshift shelter she’d helped set up in the woods some days before. The smell of cannabis was an incredible reprieve from the near-constant foul aroma that hung across the island by now. As she took another short drag, Erika stared down at the body lying across from her.
Connor Lorenzen, George Hunter’s star sportsball-player and her hotel rooftop confidant. Shot twice in the chest by his teammate, now lying dead against a tree with eyes wide open. From the look of things, the guy had enough time to know what had happened to him, and why.
Since waking up and finding him here, she’d been unable to fully look away from the body, fixated on it almost. It wasn’t grief at his loss; he was a fixture in their school and their lives before all of this, and she had no more energy left to mourn. It was something else. Decay hadn’t yet warped his expression; it wasn’t easy to place and she couldn’t sort it into the part of her mind that Dead Connor needed to go. She was unable to just take stock of it and move on.
The guy seemed at peace, and that didn’t seem right. Not when she knew how he’d died.
This seems wrong, for you.
What Ace did was no worse than her own string of lethal betrayals. Of all the people still alive on this island, she more than anyone had no right to judge what he’d done. Yet she’d spent so much time hating herself for the same, she couldn’t find it in herself not to look at something like this and feel a hint of rage. Connor should’ve gone down trying to save someone from somebody like her, not killed by his friend and teammate. That would’ve been a better story and for Connor-
-the story that folks were gonna tell meant a lot.
Talking to corpses was becoming a habit. What she said to them seemed to help silence parts of her mind that she couldn’t afford to listen to. Erika spoke at the body, but her words were meant more for the lingering spirit of Connor that still stood with her on that hotel rooftop.
“Your buddy Ace did this, huh? I’ll keep it in mind.”
That didn’t seem right either. The Connor in Erika’s mind shot her a sideways glance. The stiff breeze of the rooftop kept blowing his hair into his eyes, but she could see the frustration in them. Not what he wanted to hear, especially not from her.
She paused for a second, taking a short toke. Trying to remember the last thing he’d said to her back then, when they were still who they were supposed to be. After a second or two the memory came back to her. It felt lucky, like she caught the words as they sailed through the air.
“You got this far and didn't hurt anyone. My guess is, they’re only gonna have good things to say about you, dude. Not the legacy you wanted but like, it’s one you could be proud of.”
Her eyes fell to the bloody cross in Connor’s hand. Erika felt a surge of envy.