You Never Said Goodbye

[Melusine]

"Yeah, I'm," Shauna had finished the sentence. Her had turned into a frown. "Yeah, Angie."

Angie shook her head. This was super fucking awkward. What was there to say about it? It was a terrible first impression.

And first impressions here could easily be your last.

Angie tensed up her knuckles whitening as she gripped the straps of her bag. She was trying to breath slowly, but she quickly lose control over the self-imposed rhythm. She wished she was on her own tonight.

Invisible and hidden between layers and filters, safe from a distance.

"I'll go check if..." she looked where Faith had left, "you know, if she comes back for seconds."

Angie slipped away. Heading down the same path of Faith. If she wanted to leave, she could do it. Shauna couldn't really stop her. Neither could the boy on the floor. If she wanted to run, she would.

[Super Weegee]

She's Angie, huh? Didn't the announcements the other day say something about her killing...someone? The victim's name was something that Matthew didn't remember, since he unconsciously tuned out some of what Danya said. Kind of what Faith was doing, but this was just a one-time case. Maybe.

Well, since he's here with Angie, he might as well try to get on good terms with her. Wouldn't really hurt.

"Nice to meet you." he said, letting out a small smile.

That smile faded away, however, when she decided to check the area to see if Faith would come back. Is that really necessary? Yeah, they're referring to Mrs. 'I have a temper,' but he doubted that she would suddenly remember to do something to him. It would be more to see if they were gone so she can pay her respects to Wyatt, or something along those lines.

"She's not going to come back, you don't need to..." he began to speak, but he trailed off when she seemingly ignored him and began to head down the same way Faith went.

Way to give a first impression, bimbo.

Looking back over towards Shauna, he figured that he should answer the unspoken question.

"As for what the fuck happened, me and Faith were walking to the lighthouse and saw dickbag's body when we decided to rest here." He pointed towards the body and continued. "I said something about him that she didn't like, so she asked me what the hell I meant. I answered her by being honest about how I felt about him, she really didn't like it, and she kneed me in the balls. Then you arrived and...well, you both saw the rest."

He moved towards the body and crouched down, remembering what he originally came here to do. Now that he was closer towards the corpse, the blood...the hole in the front of Wyatt's head...

...Is that part of his brain...?

"Oh, christ..." Matthew said mostly to himself as he stood back up, fighting the urge to throw up. He saw Regina and Caroline's corpses, so how the hell didn't he react like this earlier? Was it the shock? Was it that he was actually focusing on the disgusting parts now?

Quickly, he tried his best to think of something else, like how he wasn't going to find anything with Wyatt being positioned the way he is. Just don't think of the blood and he should be good...just don't use his hands to move him and he should be good...

With his foot and with some effort, Matthew began to push Wyatt on his back, while also looking away to try to stop himself from gagging. God, this sucks.

[Namira]

"She's had a tough time."

Shauna wasn't sure why she felt the need to explain on Angie's behalf and honestly 'tough time' was probably the most underwhelming descriptor in recorded human history for what she'd gone through. She still deserved all the slack Shauna could cut and then some.

Luckily, it seemed like Matt either didn't know or was showing an awful lot of tact about what had happened with Ramsey. Maybe he wasn't paying that close attention to the announcements? Shauna was trying not to, but it made her feel awful and the feelings stuck around and she tried to pay attention until she realised she'd missed half the context already. And... well, knowing what they'd done already hadn't stopped Quinn or Erika.

He started speaking about what had gone down between him and Faith. Just an argument, kind you had every day. 'cept for the part where it was about someone being dead. That didn't happen every day at all.

Shauna looked down at Wyatt's body. She hadn't liked him, but only in the general purpose sense of disliking loud bigots. They'd never spoken in any substantial way. He hadn't victimised her, though she'd shrank away from him any time he passed her in the hallway, just on the chance she might show up as a blip on his radar and he'd go all hulk smash and crush her for daring to show her face in his presence. Now that huge, literally, presence was gone, snuffed out for good.

Like, he was awful. Objectively he was awful. If he'd moved schools she would have probably fist pumped, done a little dance where nobody could see. But he was dead. That was him there. Dead. Like... she hadn't wished that on anyone.

This time she did succeed in pushing the feelings aside. There were people she cared much more about that were dead and still in danger. That hurt far worse than a bully ever could.

Her brow wrinkled as Matt started poking and shoving Wyatt with his foot.

"What... um, what are you doing?"

[Melusine]

Angie's head peeked out, seeing the girl running away.

She could give her a chase, but she had already reached the treeline. Faith was gone and Angie remained, standing guard. She remembered to take cover since the likes of Erika probably had more sniper rifles hidden somewhere.

As she turned around to truly examine the location, she was struck by the feeling people had died here.

A lot of people had died here, and there would only be more and yet, she felt safe. Comforted by the fact there was a roof on top of her and some type of insulation, Angie shook her head. She knew this was fake, that the feelings she had were just chemical con jobs her brain did when she felt things. But she wanted this, she wanted to feel safe.

She walked back to the pair, her eyes trailing on the bullets holes, the shells and blood stain. Angie felt good.

"I want to sleep here." Angie shook her head. The boy was kicking a body. Angelina reminded herself to do that when she meant Erika's body. "I slept outside one too many times."

[Super Weegee]

"Seeing if he has anything." Matthew answered as the back of Wyatt's head hit the grass below him, looking up towards the sky.

Crouching down, his eyes searched around for anything that immediately stood out, aside from Wyatt's clothing, which turned up nothing. Like that was any surprise. Angie came back to them in the meantime and said something about how she wanted to sleep inside, no doubt referring to the lighthouse in the distance.

"Suit yourself." he said, looking at her for a second before focusing his attention on the body again. Where she and Shauna wanted to sleep was their business, and they're at least friendly to him...

...for right now, at least. That can change in a milisecond. Might as well ask them some questions while he still has the chance. It'll be a nice little distaction from this. anyhow.

"So, Shauna and...Angie, is it? Name's Matthew. What's your story?" A basic and safe icebreaker, nothing special, but better than standing around not saying anything.

Now where was he? Oh yeah, Wyatt's pockets. Matthew moved his hand towards the pocket closest to him and paused, grimacing. God, he can practically taste his dinner in his throat!

The games make it seem so damn easy! Ok, just take deep breaths and you'll be fine...

Inhale...hold it in...exhale...

...inhale......hold it in......exhale.

After he managed to surpress the urge to gag, his hand went inside of the pocket and began to dig around for anything worthwhile, continuing to take deep breaths all the while. He touched a couple of things after a couple of seconds pass and, grasping as much of it as he could, pulled out to see what he was holding.

Only to find worthless goddamn plastic food wrappers when he uncurled his fist. "Why the fuck do you still have that?" he muttered to himself. What, did somebody enact a law against littering on an island in the middle of nowhere? He mindlessly poked at some of them and noticed something not like the others at the bottom of the junk pile. Swiping the wrappers off with his other hand, he sees...

...a magnum-sized condom. Matthew sighed in exasperation as he stood back up. Wyatt couldn't resist the urge to fuck somebody during the D.C. trip, could he? Figures, people like him just always get the ladies.

At least it's unused, thankfully. Looking towards the pair of girls, he grabbed the condom's wrapper by the corner and showed it to them.

"Take it. I don't need it."

[Namira]

Shauna made a face where Matt couldn't see. She supposed he was just being pragmatic, but what did he expect to find in Wyatt's pockets? If there was anything of real note then it'd be visible at a glance, and being that there wasn't, she didn't see that this accomplished very much. It felt vaguely disrespectful to go through someone's personal effects with no evidence that they'd turn up anything useful.

Of course, maybe she was the one who shouldn't throw stones in a glass house. She didn't exactly have the moral high ground when it came to looting. She flinched at her own hypocrisy.

The shotgun felt much heavier all of a sudden.

Angie returning was a welcome distraction. Shauna raised her hand in acknowledgement and then nodded. Staying in relativeness dryness and warmth, she could get behind that. Get their collective backs to a wall. Yeah, nice.

"I'd like that," she said.

Matthew asked what they'd been doing and... wow. That just became more and more of a doozy as time went on, didn't it? Shauna wasn't sure she had it in her to relive it all over again.

"Well... you saw a bit of it. Um, after that there was a couple of—" she was spared stumbling through her story any further as Matthew...

Um.

She stared at him. Blinked. Blinked.

Um.

Blinked.

"No... thanks...?"

[Melusine]

Angie looked at Shauna.

Then looked at Matthew.

Then looked at the condom.

And then, finally, she looked at Shauna again. Which was when she started laughing. It made Angie feel tingly to laugh for the first time in days. It made her feel good to see herself do something normal for once.

Yeah. It felt good to be normal.

"You should see your face!"

She pulled her hand up to her mouth to hide her smile as she giggled to herself. If Angie ignored the body, the blood, the smell, it almost felt normal. It almost felt like everything was fine and that nobody was dying. It was a strange feeling on par with denial but just below refusal. It made her feel good without any of the usual guilt attached to her.

"I'll take it though," she said with a straight face.

[Super Weegee]

Wait, what was she laughing at? The answer came to Matthew when he looked at the condom again and realized what he was implying.

It's usually funny when he intended to make that kind of joke, but the fact that he wasn't trying to be, that he said it one hundred percent seriously...

"You can use it for a bunch of stuff," he said, doing his best to hide his embarassment, "not just the way it's...intended."

"I'll take it though."

"Alright, here you go, catch," he spoke quickly. Grabbing the center of the wrapper, he quickly tossed it over towards Angie before he crouched back down to search through Wyatt's other pocket. Reaching over, he puts his hand inside, digging around for more items of interest. After a few seconds, he figured that there was nothing, feeling nothing but fabric. Wyatt either had nothing when he was murdered or whatever he did have on him was looted by his killer.

A look of disappointment is written all over Matthew's face as he stood back up. Looks like it's still going to be just his fists or his scissors when it came down to business.

In other words: he's still fucked against somebody with an actual weapon. Just great.

Looking over at Shauna, he spoke, hoping to get back on track and distract him from that depressing thought.

"Sorry, you never finished your story. What happened?"

[Namira]

Angie started to laugh and though Shauna warred for a moment between breaking out into a blush, she managed a slim smile. Even though, really, she was allowed to get confused! What the heck was Matt even doing that for? She could just about understand searching through Wyatt's pockets, even if she didn't like it, but that was...

Oh and Angie wanted it. For like Tony Stark purposes, if Matthew's comment was to be believed.

Rubber Man.

Shauna did blush.

Matthew talking again was a much more welcome distracted this time. Slowly, she resumed what she'd been cut off from by... that.

"I met a couple of people. Tanisha. Nikki. Tanisha and me stayed together and met Angie, then..."

She broke away, clenching her jaw. Thinking back to the smoke and gunfire, the shouting. Tanisha's dead body. The kick of the weapon that had left an ugly mass of bruising in her shoulder, sire each time she shifted her arm.

"Erika found us and killed Tanisha. We couldn't help her. Me and Angie have stuck together since then."

[Melusine]

Back to reality.

The one that actually hurts.

"I-"

Angelina shook her head. Her story was just like anyone else. There were the ups and the downs and the abysses she had fell into but-

But.

She still was there. Angelina was still alive. She was still breathing she was still smiling, she was still there. That was better than half of her classmates that had already passed. Ramsey was part of them and it-

Angie shook her head again without answering the question. There wasn't any points on putting words on it. Angie was already damaged. There wasn't any recovery or redemption for her at this point. She would only keep rolling into the abyss again and again until one day she would be trapped there for eternity.

And everytime she got near one of those bodies, twisted in pain and in blood and in guts, Angie felt a tiny part of go away to never come back.

"I-"

She wondered how dumb she looked. Angie knew how foolish it was, but her smile didn't leave her lips. She couldn't afford fall back into the darkness again. Angie was limited. Her boundaries were flaring up and she would soon step through them without even noticing. Wyatt was right there. He was gone. He was in pieces. He was right there, gone and he wouldn't come back.

"I don't want to talk about it."

[Super Weegee]

Geez, Angie, you could at least frown.

"It's fine," Matthew said, raising his hands, "I'll assume it's about what Shauna is saying."

He paused for a second and spoke only one word in a sullen tone.

"Erika."

If he somehow still had some semblence of doubt about Erika, then what Shauna said proved that she's definitely someone to avoid. Why he thought she was sane, he didn't know. For fucks sake, she killed three people yesterday! Even if she had the flimsiest excuse of self-defense for some of her kills, she has no excuse now. From what she's saying, Erika just walked right up to them and immediately shot Tanisha.

Once he finds a gun, it will be aimed right for her. If Regina is still alive, she probably would have agreed.

Crossing his arms, he spoke again.

"So, we're all in agreement that she deserves to die, right? I mean, how long will it be before she goes on her next killing spree? A couple of days at most?"

[Namira]

Angie had already spoken once about what happened with her brother. Shauna couldn't imagine how hard it had to have been without having to contemplate raking over it again just a few minutes afterwards. Tanisha's death twisted her up inside, sent a litany of regrets marching through her mind. How much worse would it be for a sibling?

She had no answer.

"Yeah," Shauna said quietly. "Somebody has to. If there's any chance of us--" Shauna broke off without completing the thought. Of what, Shauna? Surviving? All of what was left? Who the hell was she trying to kid? She hadn't had the first idea about how to get all of them out of this alive. It was all just day to day, and look at how well that was going. Nobody who'd helped her back at the beginning was alive. Danny, Phillip, Nikki. Tanisha was gone too. Seeing Matt twice and him not being dead for the second go around was exceptional. She took a breath, resumed. "She's not going to stop unless she's stopped."

And Shauna, of course, was just the gangly, anxious mess of a nerd for the job.

[Melusine]

"Yep," she said, emphasizing the 'p', "she deserves to die."

Angie's smile finally left her lips.

"So does Quinn."

Angie nodded at her own statement. She would have to thank whoever that would do her in. There was some type of noble meaning that was lost on her, but it reminded her of something of the past. She sighed. Her fingers tugged at the condom wrapper, her thumb pushing through the coating.

"Erika..." she paused again, "someone will kill her soon, I think."

Angie shrugged, stuffing the condom in her bag.

"She's running out of time," Angie turned her heels toward the lighthouse, "she has a big target on her back and it's only getting bigger."

She flicked her index up.

"Plus, she probably racked up a bunch of injuries so there's a good chance she might just get necrotic flesh and die."

[Super Weegee]

"Quinn..." Matthew said as he looked away, grimacing, "...yeah."

The mere mention of her name brought up memories of one of her victims, Ned. Events that Matthew otherwise would've forgotten was brought up to the forefront. The first time they met, normal conversations in the lunch room back at school, practically anything about him became ten times more meaningful.

That could apply to almost everyone at this point, really. At the end of all of this, there can only be one winner.

A position that he's unlikely to get. The fact that he even made it this far was an accomplishment in of itself.

Looking over at the pair as he walked a short distance behind them, he broke his silence.

"With how many people she killed, I doubt she has that many allies left, but we can't just pray that her injuries will do her in."

He chuckled.

"Besides," Matthew said, pulling out the scissors and showing it to them, "it's not like I'll be the one to do it, especially with just this thing. I don't recall scissors being able to withstand bullets."

[Namira]

As the conversation ebbed, Shauna thought back to shelter. Yeah. That sounded okay, actually.

She put herself to bed. For brief glimmers, she could even imagine it was something like real sleep.

((continued elsewhere))