SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

Sudden silence. Not unexpected.

Arizona reached out from her position by the side of the door and knocked twice.

"Garren, you in there?" She knew he was, but she wanted to give him a chance.

She took slow breaths in and out, focusing on her breathing as she waited for a response.

He breathed slowly, almost agonisingly so, trying to keep himself as silent as he could, bracing himself for the rancid smell of blood and bodies to fill his nostrils as he switched to nose-breathing. He could hear clearly which room Michael was in, now, the muffled sound of shuffling and scraping, so similar to when he’d been hiding under the bed, creating the pathway of sound towards him.

His mind was whirling, but he forced himself to focus, biting the inside of his lip and digging his dirty fingernails into his palm. He needed to think. He needed to put a plan of action down himself, for himself, because Michael sure wasn’t gonna be doing it for him anymore. And so he thought. And he thought back, to what Michael had told him, to who exactly it was outside, to all the things he’d been grappling with and trying to untangle as he’d lived, as he’d existed on this island.

And he was still. And for once, his hands weren’t shaking, and his knees weren’t knocking. He swiveled around, and let the collar of his shirt drop, letting his voice be clear as he called out.

“Yeah-”

His voice broke. Cool. Fucking fantastic start, thanks second puberty. He coughed, and tried again.

“Yeah, I’m… I’m still here.”

This had the potential to go horribly, horribly wrong. But then, so did every other outcome of this situation. Might as well be the one he’d decided upon.

"Alright," Arizona replied, nodding to herself. It could have seemed unnecessary to confirm whether or not Garren was inside the manor. But Arizona also had a good idea who the unknown voice had belonged to. That meant she needed to be careful. She wasn't going to get many chances to avenge Jonah.

She took another breath to steady herself. The energy that had been present when she'd confronted Quinn was building again. She embraced it, let it wash over her. The situation wasn't the same as when she and Jonah had faced off with Quinn. Arizona wasn't the same person she had been back then. It had only been a few days but the feeling was the same. She had grown and she had learned. So Arizona knew she needed to focus. Michael had survived as long as he had, that wasn't an accident. He deserved a level of respect.

Despite what he had done she couldn't let herself get emotional. As soon as she did it'd be over. It left her at a crossroads, to a degree she had always been an emotional player on the court. She channeled a lot of her doubts and feelings into the game. It fueled her. She walked into every match with something to prove. But she didn't have anything to prove, she only had one goal.

Reaching out with her free hand, Arizona pushed the door open and slid inside, taking cover behind the nearest wall.

"Who else is in here Garren?"

Garren closed his eyes and looked up at the ceiling, taking a long, long breath. It tasted of stale air and dust and rot, so, like, not exactly fucking optimal, not what he would have chosen for possibly his final few breaths. Woulda been cool if this had all happened outside, but, hey. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

He thought Arizona probably already knew the answer to what she was asking. Wasn’t much reason she’d come back here otherwise, it wasn’t like she’d need anything out of him other than information. Maybe this was just like being back at school, where the teachers held all the answers, and he was just making vague stabs in the dark because he hadn’t done shit all for studying in the past week. Maybe if Arizona got the answer she was looking for, she’d realise he was on her side.

“It’s…”

One more breath to steady himself. One tiny shake of the head. Then he opened his eyes, slipped his finger over the trigger, stood tall and ready and waiting.

“It’s Michael. He’s in here.”

Mmm. And there it was.

Okay.

He bit his lip. Inhaled through his nose. Didn't exhale. Tried his best not to start crying again. Felt like he was watching himself through a screen.

He only started things he couldn't finish.

There was a long silence. Arizona bottled down her initial anger. It was too late to be angry. Plus, she couldn't blame Garren. He had been scared for his life. That made sense.

The pancor was raised and braced against her shoulder.

She had a chance. She had to make the most of it.

From where she was Arizona spoke up again, voice shaking slightly despite her best efforts.

"Where is he?"

Silence descended upon the manor, and for a moment, as it began to stretch out to uncomfortable territories, Garren wondered whether Arizona had just turned around and left, abandoning him to deal with Michael by himself. Maybe she figured it was what he deserved, stabbing the guy he’d just been protecting in the back like that. Maybe this, maybe that. He was thinking of a hell of a lot of ‘maybes’ now. But everything on this island was built on ‘maybes’. It was just deciding which maybe you believed in.

She spoke eventually. One single question, one final question. Garren could feel his heart revving up again, the tension and the adrenaline too much for the poor bastard to bear. His mouth was dry. His throat drier. He spoke anyway.

“Ground floor. In the living room, down one of the corridors, just…”

He closed his eyes, shook his head. Reopened them.

“Just past where I am.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of one of Nathan Coleman's toy cars.

He tried not to think about it.

She took one final breath.

It was time.

Arizona stepped out from her hiding place and started to walk towards where Michael was.

It was going to end and she was going to end it.

Garren was in the corridor, just outside of where he said Michael was.

She gave him a slight nod, then checked the pancor one last time.

After she was satisfied with everything she turned her attention back to Garren.

"I'm going to kill him," She said, gaze hard. "You can either help or wait outside."

Everyone on the island had to make a decision.

Well. It was, obviously, a little more complicated than that. None of them had witnessed some, like, omnipresent being speak to them as soon as they woke up, asking them ‘Do you wanna be a good dude or a bad guy?’ and forcing them to answer. It was more like… they had to make a decision, the same decision, over and over again, every day, with every encounter they had.

Do I kill the person in front of me?

There were plenty of reasons, plenty of justifiable reasons, for saying ‘yes’ that Garren could see. Self-defence, a mercy killing. The stopping of an even larger threat. But if your initial instinct, your first thought upon seeing someone else struggling alongside you, was to go ‘I should kill this person, I don’t have another choice’... then Garren didn’t think you really had a case.

Because yes, they were all in an impossible situation, asked to do impossible things. He’d acknowledged as much, over and over. But they did have a choice. Plenty of them had been broken and betrayed and trodden all over, and they hadn’t resorted to taking lives.

He’d thought at first that killers = bad, and innocents = good. Then he’d talked to Nia, and stumbled upon Myles and Ivy, and ran into Ace. And so he’d started to think that everyone = good. The truth, of course, was never that simple. He couldn’t fit everybody into neat little categories, put everyone into a box labeled ‘Good Dudes’. Everyone was their own category. Arizona was not Ace was not Ivy was not Myles was not Declyn was not Nia was not Justin, Blaise, Erika, Quinn, Lorenzo. Michael.

Michael had killed, and killed, and killed, and killed. And no matter the regrets he might have, no matter the sorrow he might be feeling… he had still killed without being able to justify why. And he had tried to kill people who, as far as Garren could tell, had done nothing to deserve it. He had killed simply because he could.

And Garren truly didn’t believe Michael was evil, he still believed that they were all just kids in a situation they never should have been in. But good people in bad situations still did evil shit, and evil shit still hurt and harmed and killed people around them. He remembered that someone, once upon a time, he couldn’t remember who and didn’t particularly give a shit, had said something like ‘All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing’.

So.

Here he was, a mediocre person, doing something.

He steadied himself, nodding at Arizona, trying not to turn to stone as her gaze caught his eyes. He still didn’t think, even with his newfound conviction, that he could pull the trigger to kill, that he could be the one to deal a final blow to anybody. Call it weakness, call it strength, as far as Garren was concerned it really wasn’t either of them. Arizona could do that. Arizona could kill Michael. But if Garren left now, if he turned and ran, and heard on the announcement the next day that he’d led her to her death, he’d never be able to live with himself.

So he nodded again, gripping the shotgun tighter.

“I’m with you.”

Michael had run out of amphetamines.

Arizona nodded at Garren's response. He had decided to stick around and she could respect that.

She raised the pancor up and braced it against her shoulder.

"Okay, follow me."

They only had one way into the room. So Michael would have the advantage unless they did something unexpected.

It didn't take Arizona long to come up with the plan. It was simple although not exactly elegant. She didn't have the same time to come up with an entire gameplan like she had done before facing off with Quinn. The fight she was about to have was going to be more instinctual. She didn't mind that, but she didn't feel good about it. There were better ways.

But instead of any better way, Arizona rushed into the room and put a shell through the couch.

The fuse was lit. Arizona rushed into the room, flanked by cannon fire, and Garren winced at the loud crack that pierced his skull, still not used to the sound at such close range. He hesitated for a moment, ears ringing, trying desperately not to think of The Charge of the Light Brigade - of fucking course it was coming to mind now, rather than when he had a history test on it - then ran in after her.

He took a moment to process the layout of the room, a split-second that he hoped wouldn’t be enough for Michael to put a bullet between his eyes. There was little cover to speak of. A couple chairs, a coffee table. A large, hideously purple couch that would have been perfect to hide behind, if the mass of rough holes in it didn’t suggest Michael had already stolen that away from them. Of course.

Garren ran to the left, behind one of the chairs, trying to curl his body up as small as possible. His heart was pounding again, his brain a mass of static, his whole body trembling. His finger tapped the trigger of the shotgun repeatedly, and he hurriedly slipped it off, just in case he blew up his fucking kneecap or something. He took a deep breath. Then several shuddering, shallow ones.

He didn’t move. Not yet.

oh fuck oh jesus fucking what the couch exploded and it was really loud and Michael fell backwards and his mouth wasn't screaming but his brain was screaming and he was pretty sure he was dead but -

He blinked away some errant couch stuffing.

- but he wasn't dead. Nearly dead. If he'd been two feet further down the couch, he was pretty sure there wouldn't have been enough of him left to bury. But he was okay. No he wasn't. But physically, in the short-term, he was mostly okay.

He sent three wild shots through the back of the couch, and pushed himself along the ground, away from the bullet holes and where he presumed Arizona thought he would be.

There was return fire. That wasn't a surprise. The surprise for Arizona was how close she had been to hitting Michael with her first shot. It hadn't been intended to do more than scare the boy and put him on the back foot. But judging from where his shots came back from she had been inches away from killing him.

As Michael sent bullets back her way Arizona dove to the side. As she landed she felt a searing pain below her knee, glancing down she saw a line cut out of the side of her leg. Pushing it from her mind she pulled herself behind cover. She hadn't managed to see where Michael had scuttled off too.

She could see Garren off to one side, he was curled up behind a chair. She could hardly blame him. A gunfight was a different kind of animal to the fight she'd had with Quinn.

Popping her head up from where she crouched she couldn't see any sign of Michael.

In lieu of any better idea, she fired off another shell into the couch, aiming for where he'd fired back from. Then yelled over to Garren.

"Can you see him?"