((Darlene Silva continued from
Little By Little))
More than a day had passed since the group came under attack. Darlene still didn't know who had done it.
The retreat had been tense and hurried at first, and then just tense, and finally tense and boring. Every moment, it had seemed inevitable that a second round of fighting would begin, inevitable that gunfire rattle from nowhere or some maniac hop out from behind a tree with the very same baseball bat that had torn Darlene's ear and sent her sprawling. But nothing had happened. There wasn't even much left to happen. There weren't many of them left overall, and once the trio had moved further from the lake they'd found themselves in the vast woodlands, wild and dense and with just about no landmarks. There was no candy trail to follow this time. There was just endless spans of dirt and grass and trees, confusing and hard to see through yet concealing and beautiful in its own way.
Darlene had not sung anymore. The time for songs seemed gone, for now at least. How many times had she thought that and then caught herself humming something or mumbling lyrics to herself? She didn't tell herself it would never happen again, not this time, but the urge just hadn't struck her.
The morning report carried new information along with the typical noise. At first Darlene expected it to be of no consequence beyond possibly revealing whether their blind fire had somehow struck home and felled their attacker, and this matter was indeed cleared up (unsurprisingly, they had accomplished nothing but scaring off their assailant, but that was enough). She had to remind herself to pay attention to that part, though, because of the other revelations.
Sakurako was the very first name listed. The girl apparently ran out of luck and got shot. Had she been lucky to begin with? Was it luck to survive the explosion after taking as much damage as she had, or was luck having moved further from the point of impact and having nothing to show for it but an intermittent tinnitus ring? Darlene had thought that might be all it was when she heard something in the distance, not so long after the girl's departure. Tinnitus, or gunfire. After finding out what happened, she was even less sure which was the truth.
Nick was gone. Darlene didn't really know him but he had put Beryl down, so she was aware of him in a different way than a lot of others might be. Abe knew the truth too. Was anyone else left alive who did?
Arizona had killed some guy named Garren. Darlene had heard the name at school and thought it was weird, and she had this feeling that the boy had been unsavory somehow but couldn't remember why or what he looked like. She was pretty sure he hadn't killed before, but they said he grew a spine so he probably attacked Arizona. And even if he didn't, he had definitely deserved it, Darlene was sure. He had to have. Arizona wouldn't have shot him otherwise.
Three in a row was the longest stretch of information on the announcements mattering that Darlene thought she'd had this entire time.
Number four was a dud, but then five more than made up for it. Arizona had killed again. She'd killed Michael.
If there had been any hint of doubt about the Garren situation, it went away entirely upon that revelation. Darlene knew what Michael was like. She knew what he'd done, and she knew he'd deserved it, and she could've—she should've tried to do it herself, maybe, but probably she wouldn't have managed anything anyways, or maybe she would've just gone and gotten herself killed. Arizona got him because that was what she was like. She was cool and tough and Jonah had loved her a lot and so of course she'd put things right for him.
Another one Darlene didn't care about, and then Stephanie was dead, courtesy of one of the names that turned up so much that no face came to mind for. And then, then another familiar one on the side of the killers. Ace did a "team kill." He'd been into sports, but the framing overall sounded less than great, like he murdered a friend. But then, the people running this tried to make it suspicious, right? So maybe they weren't saying how he had to. Darlene glanced over at his shoes hanging off her bag, and wondered if his feet were hurting.
Was this what caring felt like? Was this what everyone else had been going through every single morning? Darlene did not like it one bit!
Then again, maybe she was just overly edgy. Maybe her emotions were out of whack, or her mindset. Mostly she walked just fine without tripping, but now and then she almost drifted off mid-step and felt like she might pitch face-first into the dirt.
More than a day had passed since the group came under attack. Darlene hadn't slept a wink.
Probably none of them had. She was more used to it than most, she thought, but at a certain point it didn't matter much. There was a big difference between sitting at her desk not sleeping while pulling her head back up every time it drifted towards the keyboard and reading the same wiki page again and again and knowing she was doing that even though she couldn't stop, between that and just spending all night listening to animals and wind rustling leaves and snapping branches as she clutched her gun and bit her lips and pulled little hairs out of her arms so that the pain would keep her conscious just a little longer.
It was easier when it was light out, at least. She'd always gotten a second wind from the day, had been able to somehow sort of parse first period math class when she could barely tie her own shoes, and the return of the horrible rain at least removed any chance of her getting too comfy and passing out. This was another point in favor of the woods, too: the canopy above their heads was nowhere near perfect, but at least it took a couple hours for Darlene's clothes to fully soak through. At least it meant there was some source of water to be found, now that the lake was gone.
At one point, when nothing much was happening, she turned her head up and stood with her mouth open and her tongue out until some drops landed in the right spot instead of going up her nose, and they were better than lake water but still tasted gritty and gross. She wished she had root beer instead. Her glasses were always speckled with water now, little pools obscuring the world in front of her even as they removed some of the need for constant cleaning.
Her bandages were getting soggy, too.
The announcements had played hours ago, it felt like. The rain wasn't letting up, and the three of them had been quiet, and Darlene missed conversation but not really being a part of it herself. And at the same time, she sort of wanted to get a little space, just for a moment. Just to, to check her bandages and maybe to find a bush because it had been a few hours since her last bathroom break, which was just about the only time she was out of sight of the others. Maybe it was time to change her shirt again, too, because the t-shirt was probably now grosser than the stuff she'd taken off days ago for being too gross. She briefly considered putting her sweater back on before she realized it was gone, gone forever now in fact, up by the waterfall serving as Max's pillow. The dog was gone forever now too, and it felt bad realizing she couldn't go back even though she probably never would've.
She hoped they were under some cover. She couldn't remember. Max had been leaning against a tree, and the dog had been watching over him, but was it a tree with big branches and thick leaves, or an old ragged one with dead twigs everywhere and peeling bark? It wouldn't really matter, of course. Max was dead and the dog would do its job in rain or snow as well as in the sun, but she would just feel bad if they were getting super wet. The thought was strong, circling around and around in her head, feeling ever more important, and she wanted it to go away because her throat was tight like she was going to cry, but also she wanted to keep it because remembering Max and the dog let her think about those happier moments before so many things fell apart.
When Christina spoke up, Darlene jolted, her breath catching. She rotated her head quickly, wildly, but then laughed a little, because it was just Christina, it was just... just the same conversation that Darlene hadn't been a big part of the first time.
That was it, then. Just like that, it came to her. This was between Abe and Christina, and Darlene wanted some space anyways, and to change her shirt, and maybe they'd sort stuff out and she'd clear her head and when they came back together in five minutes or ten it would all be much nicer and better, and they could be happy and sing again, or at least laugh from something besides relief that it was still just them and not somebody else coming to get them.
Until, of course, someone did come around and try to murder them all again. How long would it be this time? A minute? An hour? Half a day?
"I, uh, I was," Darlene stammered, cutting directly into the other girl's presumably-heartfelt apology and feeling a little bad but it was for a good reason, right?
"I was, I need to use, um, I'm going to go find a bush and put on a fresh shirt," she managed. "I'll be, I'll be right back. Stay here please. I'll be right back and I'll listen and I'll come if you yell."
She tried to give them a brave smile, like she had last time and the time before, and just like then her lips came up only at the corners and only for a second. Hopefully, hopefully things would get better. She could barely make out the faces of the pair through her water-flecked glasses, so she pulled them off and wiped them on her shirt and put them back. Mostly this just changed where the speckles were.
With a quick wave, Darlene headed towards the underbrush. It was a little sparse here, so she'd need to go a few hundred feet, but she'd walk in a straight line and pay good attention and worst case she'd yell. She wasn't going to lose them. Not after everything they'd faced so far.
((Darlene Silva continued in
Dead Bxdies in the Lake Part II))