When There's Nothing Left to Burn, You Have to Set Yourself on Fire.

[Kermit]

In the end, it was Tania stating that Everett was the second person to point a gun at her that made him trust her, even if only a little bit. He just couldn't imagine a murderer saying that.


"I'm scared. I don't wanna die. Please don't kill me."

"Don't, Everett."



He...he was the bad guy right now, wasn't he?



"I-I..." He placed one hand up against his face and lowered the revolver in the other. "Fuck, I-I'm sorry..."

He'd only been here a day and he was broken. Completely and utterly fucking broken.

"Just, we've been having a really bad time and..." He didn't finish the sentence.

Scarlett asked for the identity of Tania's first threatener, but she was cut off by a Wendy.


"Wendy!?"

What!? What the fuck was going on?

She had a cooler with her, presumably/hopefully full of some kind of food or drink. She...she looked off; like maybe she wasn't, well, completely there anymore.

Wendy answered the question for Tania.


...


For fuck's sake...

Everett felt himself lifting the gun back up, but stopped himself before he could. He wasn't gonna let this be Aaron all over again.

"Tania, can yo-" He was interrupted again, this time by a chirping Bunny running around the corner.

He tightened his grip on the gun. "Bunny." He made eye contact. "Why were you hiding, and why did you point a gun at Tania?"

Hopefully she had fairly reasonable answers for both of those.

[Lord_Shadow]

She felt her blood freeze at Wendy's arrival, her statement, Bunny's arrival and Everett's subsequent question. Tania was unsure of what to say, what to do. She had blurted out her stupid nonsense without considering how it would make her and Bunny seem. She didn't want to get her into trouble.

"I can explain." She started, but then fell silent. Could she really explain? Looking back now, none of it made sense. She looked at Bunny, then at Scarlett and the others. They said they didn't want to hurt her.

Bunny never did confirm that for her.

She looked into Bunny's eyes, stared into them before forming her next words.

"It was an accident." Now wasn't the time to be selfish, nor the time of betray a friend. "We were all scared and alone. She never intended to hurt anyone, even Jeanette. It was all accidental." She looked back to Scarlett and made a pleading frown.

"Please, we mean no harm. I know it sounds bad, but you have to believe me."

They weren't going to believe her. She was going to be shot and die and then Bunny would be shot too but she might live because of the vest but then they might just shoot her in the head and they would both be dead and they'd take her stuff and probably be glad they got their one kill out of the way on a useless girl who probably deserved it and definitely was being dumb and should probably stop stressing out but things were just too much and all because she couldn't do anything alone and and and—

Her breathing was becoming more erratic and forced. This was it. Today was the day she died.

Here died Tania Chell, from being stupid.

[Primrosette]

Scarlett was surprised to see Wendy turn up. But then she was one of the people that Everett wanted to find. Scarlett was about to give her a friendly welcome before she announced that Bunny had been the one to point a gun at Tania. Now that was even more surprising to learn. What was wrong with everyone? Why were they all losing it so quickly?

Then she watched as Bunny approached them and she felt herself tensing up. She wasn't going to blindly trust Bunny right away. She would rather trust Everett's friend over her. She was staring at Bunny with uncertainty in her eyes. She really wished that she wasn't paranoid about other people. She wasn't normally this distrustful of others. God, she really, really wished that this wasn't going to be another Aaron scenario.

"....An accident?" She stared at Tania questionably. How do you accidentally point a gun at someone's face? "Tania, I want to believe you. Really, I do. But I think that Bunny needs to explain what happened herself. And without lying to us, I hope. I don't like people who lie to me. So Bunny, can you tell us what happened with Jeanette and Tania?"

[Pippi]

Oh. Hmmm. Well, that answered that question nicely.

Bunny felt a chill trickle down her spine as her smile quickly faltered, although that was probably for the best. The tension was so thick you probably couldn’t cut it with a knife, unless it was, like, one of those super-heated thousand-degree knives. Smiling and giggling like she was delivering the intro to her vlog proooooobably wouldn’t make her seem any less suspicious. Probably do the opposite, honestly. Probably definitely.

This, she was almost certain, was Tania’s fault. There were a lot of questions and fingers and accusations being pointed towards Bunny, all of which required someone at the scene of the crime to have let slip a little factoid or two. And that didn’t seem like a very nice thing to do to your new best friend, in Bunny’s personal opinion!

When Tania had searched Bunny’s eyes, she had given her erstwhile ally a soft, gentle, reassuring smile. Now she was shooting daggers into the girl’s back. It was early days, sure, but Tania was really shaping up to be more of a hindrance than a help. Trying to rescue her from a quagmire didn’t put you in Bunny’s good books when you had dropped her in it in the first place. Especially when your excuse was that she had ‘accidentally’ pointed a gun at someone. Yeah, and the terrorists had accidentally shot Mr. Dolph and kidnapped everyone and put explosives around their necks! That was totally freaking believable!

“Well, this isn’t any way to treat a newcomer, is it?”

A weak smile floated onto Bunny’s face, as she coiled a strand of hair around her left finger and gently tugged at the hem of her hoody with her other hand, inches away from the opening of her pocket. If Tania was going to go back into full on panic mode – what was she saying, of course she was – then she’d have to put on an air of calm. She wanted to show that she had nothing to hide, after all! Give a cute smile, put on an approachable air; that sorta thing did wonders for your PR.

“But, hey, sure thing Red, I can do that!”

Bunny nodded at Scarlett, before moving her hand up to brush aside her fringe, letting the other four get a good look at the wound on her forehead.

“This was all Jeanette’s doing. She attacked me first, threw rocks at me, tried to beat me up, just ‘cause I asked if she could share some food! I didn’t wanna retaliate, but I was just… I was really scared and I just wanted her to stop and Tania turned up at the wrong time and got in the way... A-And…”

Bunny’s voice faltered, as she bit the inside of her lip, hard enough for the pain to cause tears to spring up at the corner of her eyes.

“I-I wasn’t hiding, Evvy… I just needed a rest… It’s been really hard so far…”

Suckers.

[Cake]

"That's funny. What Bunny says isn't what I remember."

Wendy had been quietly listening at the others speak as she finished adjusting her uggs boots from the cooler she sat on, or rather the tiny ballistic knife she had tucked carefully inside her uggs boot. She stood up with a bounce in her step and looked at Scarlett, scratching her cheek and shifting her lips to one side. Then her focus changed from Scarlett, to Bunny, then to Everett but away again as she saw the gun and then finally to the nervous wreck nearby.

"Tania, are you scared of Bunny? Come on, don't backtrack and cover-up, just cause she's here."

Attention back to Scarlett again, spinning her pigtailed braid around her index finger.

"I was at the lake too, you know. Watching while I made my way around, from the bushes. Sophie caught a fish and the water was super pretty." - Kind of like some of The Great Lakes back in her original home state of Michigan, but that wasn't relevant so she continued along.

"Jeanette didn't beat Bunny up and Bunny didn't look very scared neither. I mean, you can't be scared and be smiling at the same time right? She pointed her gun at all the girls, way before Jeanette threw any rocks. I think she wanted the fish. But I definitely heard her yell some bad words at Jeanette and say...."

Wendy lifted her tar covered stick, using it as a prop for a gun then cleared her throat and tried her best angry Bunny impression: "You gonna take me seriously now? You gonna give me what I want?!!"

Well, at least she tried.

"Then she started shooting so I ran away."

[Kermit]

Okay, so Bunny had a fairly reasonable excuse. Sure, she basically confirmed that she was responsible for Jeanette's death, but hey, Everett was a murderer too.

Oh.

Okay. Never mind.

According to Wendy, Bunny was full of shit.

Either of them could've been lying and Everett didn't know who to point the gun at, so he kept it pointed at the ground, hoping he'd be fast enough if anyone tried anything.

"So..." Everett sighed. "Tania, can you tell me what happened?"

[Lord_Shadow]

She was shaking now, trembling with fear every time someone said something. She wasn't sure what to do, what to say, or how to get out of this mess. Someone was sure to start shooting or swinging a weapon and then it would all be over for her. She would get hit by a stray shot or someone would swing wide and then she would die. Her blood would spill on the ground and her life would flash before her eyes and she wouldn't see anything interesting or whatever. Just one big block of her being a dumb stupid idiot.

It seemed everyone was done talking now. That was good, or maybe it wasn't because now it seemed they wanted her to talk.

She started giggling nervously, it was all she knew how to do right now. "I told you what happened already. I don't know what she says she saw, but I know I didn't see her around at the end of it. She doesn't know what went down after it all went chaotic." She tried to stop giggling and slow her breathing, it didn't happen.

"All I know is that Bunny could've hurt me if she wanted to. She didn't because she doesn't. What happened at the lake was an accident, but we're trying to avoid anything like that in the future." She bit her lip and grabbed her left arm with her right, bringing it close to her side and trying to be as small as possible. "She's my friend now. She said she would look out for me and I'm looking out for her. We don't want trouble. Please, you have to believe me."

This was it. They weren't going to believe her. Wendy would sway them to her side and they would take turns beating Tania to death or riddling her body with bullets. She could practically see it happen.

[Primrosette]

Scarlett could only watch as the others were telling their own versions of what had happened. To be honest, she wanted to get away from these three girls before things would turn even worse. She just wanted to drag Everett with her and then they would find Michael together. But she didn't move. She could only stare at everyone in front of her. She never thought that she could feel this distrustful of other people before. But this was what they wanted, right? To see everyone turn on each other and take each other out in a bloodbath.

She couldn't let that happen.

Again.

After Tania finished talking, Scarlett took a few moments to think over what she wanted to say next. What could she really say? She wanted to get away from all of this confrontation and insanity. She wasn't sure how much longer she could handle the situation.

She gazed over at Everett, trying to give him a pleading look. "Everett...." Her voice came out as if it was shaky and that she was afraid of what was to come next. "Let's just leave. We don't have to stay here. We can go and find Michael. Please."

[Pippi]

Bunny was getting a very, very, very unpleasant sense of déjà vu.

She could feel herself shaking as well, but almost certainly not for the same reasons as Tania. She clenched her fists, knuckles turning bone white, right hand slipping closer and closer to her pocket, as she felt the anger and frustration bubbling up inside of her, close to boiling point. She desperately tried to cling to her mask of upset confusion, biting down hard on her lip until she could taste copper in her mouth, forcing tears to roll down her cheeks and splash to the floor.

Wendy had to have been there, at the lake. Her retelling of the events there were far too accurate for her to have just guessed, or made them up. Bunny had no idea where the girl had been hiding, but that hardly mattered. What reason would she even have for making them up, anyway? Wendy was a total airhead, the queen ditz, as little malice for her fellow man as there was grey matter in her skull. Hell, she probably didn’t even realise just how bad she was making Bunny look, just how much she was wrenching control from Bunny. Because, oh man. She could feel that top dog position slipping out of her hands at a terrifying pace. Just like at the lake.

Scarlett wanted to leave with Everett. They could go, and then Tania and Bunny could go elsewhere and leave Wendy behind. Tania had proved she was still loyal and stupid enough to stick with her. They could all leave things at this, go their separate ways, and forget about it.

Bunny found herself realising she didn’t want that.

She wasn’t going to lose control. Not this time. No matter what it took. She wasn’t going to let Wendy’s comments, the contradictions and pointed fingers, be the last word in this gathering. She pawed at her eyes with her fist, turning away from everyone in the pretence of brushing away tears, as her face twisted into a furious scowl.

Everything that happened from this point onwards? This was all Wendy’s fault.

“I don’t… I don’t get why I’m being questioned and… why you don’t trust me?” Bunny let out a fake sob, sniffling, forcing her lip to wobble. “I d-dunno why you all wanna believe Wendy over me and Tania, or why you wanna trust him, Red.”

Bunny looked between Everett and Wendy, before glancing at Scarlett.

“He's killed people. You all heard the announcements. I haven’t even tried to hurt anybody.”

[Cake]

Wendy glanced at the double team of Bunny and Tania, letting her gaze linger, an eyebrow raised. Protecting a friend, was it? Well, she was doing the same thing, only she was telling the truth. They were both a bunch of liar liar pants on fires.

Pants.

Fire.

Wendy blinked a few times and turned her attention to the other two in the room, just in time to see Scarlett nervously try to pull her friend away.

Wait no. She just found him too. Wendy didn't care that he may have shot someone yesterday.

"Everett wait," Wendy called out quickly. "I need - someone needs help - and I'm happy I found you. Please don't leave."

The near eternal smirk disappeared at the thought of a friend abandoning her, of the failure to bring someone with brains like Everett, who must know how to possibly help Kasumi. About two evil lying harlots, being trusted over her simply due to the word of two against one. They couldn't get away with this.

"You don't have to believe me, but why would I lie to you Everett? You're smart, you helped me so much at school with homework and stuff. You're my friend."

[Kermit]

Tania said the same thing she'd already said, which didn't really surprise Everett. Like, okay, yeah, she was obviously freaking the fuck out, but it wasn't like he was pointing the gun at her or anything.


So basically he was still at square one in this whole fucking thing because somebody was a lying piece of shit, but he didn't know who.



Scarlett. She wanted to leave. Everett couldn't. Not yet, not until this was sorted out.

He turned to her and whispered in a quick, hushed voice. "Scarlett, I want to get out of here too, but we can't yet, because somebody here is lying and if we let them leave, anything they do is our fault too. Blaine's out from the barrel now, and he's hurting people, and that's on us. I can't—we can't—let that happen again."


Bunny started talking, and Everett turned his head back towards her. It was at this moment when it became clear to him that Bunny was definitely full of complete and utter bullshit. Bunny was...Bunny was trying to turn Scarlett against him. This was unbelievable. Bunny was an idiot, and Tania was either an idiot too, an amazing actor or both . Everett tightened his grip on the gun even further. He was gonna have to shoot someone again, but this time they actually deserved it.

Wendy was begging and pleading for them not to leave, for them to believe her. She didn't need to, Everett already did.




He swung the gun up, pointing it square at Bunny's head.


"It's okay, Wendy. I believe you. Bunny, I may be a murderer, but I'm not a liar. Aaron was an accident, Scarlett was there. She knows."

He took a step back.

"And Bunny, you just said you didn't hurt anyone, but Jeanette'd beg to differ. So, uh, plus the whole attempted manipulation thing, I'm really not being instilled with confidence in your moral fiber. You're a lying, murdering sack of shit."

He couldn't believe what he was doing.

[Lord_Shadow]

It was happening just like she imagined. The gun went up and it was pointed at her and she was getting shot and bleeding to death and she was screaming and crying and blood was spurting everywhere and the whole area filled with her blood but she couldn't stop screaming and crying nor could she comprehend why they would do this and why they couldn't just talk and not kill her and and and

She snapped back to reality. The gun wasn't pointed at her, but at her friend. She stood there mute in shock, only able to watch and see Bunny's reaction.

All that Tania could think about at the moment it all clicked was 'better her than me.' She felt a twinge of guilt in her stomach, grimaced in response and mouthed 'I'm sorry.'

It was the only thing she could do.

[Primrosette]

Everett wanted to stay and find out who was lying. Scarlett had to admit to herself that she was actually curious in a way. As much as she did want to run away and never look back. Bunny was just somewhat.... off-putting. Scarlett's stomach was getting a gut feeling about Bunny and it wasn't a good feeling at all.

Scarlett couldn't believe that Bunny thought that she could try to turn her against Everett. Did she really think that Scarlett was dumb enough to trust her? How gullible did she think Scarlett was?

And then she felt everything shatter around her as Everett was pointing the gun at Bunny now and Scarlett didn't know what she was supposed to do.

An accident....

"Bunny.... You really messed up there. You are really bad at acting. Also I would believe Wendy over you as she isn't as fake as you are right now." She said, glancing over at Tania and then she shook her head. "It's obvious that you managed to trick Tania as well. How long will it take for you to stab Tania in the back, Bunny?"

Scarlett cautiously looked at Wendy. And then she did something that she was hoping that she would not regret in the future.

"Wendy, come over here. You can stay with us. Because right now, these two are a danger to us."

[Pippi]

“Are you all f-freaking deaf?”

Keep up the act. Keep up the tears and the shaking voice and the image of the hurt little girl who only wanted shelter and help but had been rebuffed at every situation. Keep up the hand slowly snaking its way inside the jacket pocket, fingertips brushing against cool metal, because she was going to have to use this again, and she wasn’t going to let blinding blood or some spiteful cunt stop her name from being on the announcements this time.

“I haven’t tricked anyone, I-I haven’t lied, and I certainly haven’t k-k-killed anyone! Sophie killed Jeanette! Not me!”

Keep up the act, because there were three people you didn’t need to fool anymore, and the one person you did had fallen for a façade so much shallower than this. Keep at least one person on your side and turn them against your foes, because having good PR meant that people could never be certain.

“You’ve only got HER word to go on- “

Spit on the ground, point at her, at the one that she could so easily pretend was the reason behind all of this, as crocodile tears flood your eyes.

“-And it’s that against both of ours! For whatever h-hecked up reason, she’s trying to besmirch our names, and join up with… with…”

Whip the gun out from your pocket. Point it at him. Point it at the killer. Point it at the one person you might be able to justify killing after a few sleepless nights.

“With you. The only person here who’s been on the announcements, the only person who’s a murderer, the jerk who’s trying to convince you he’s something he’s not!”

Flash a narrow, shark like grin at him.

“And I bet you’re a coward, too.”

[Cake]

A big glob of spit landed on the ground right in front of Wendy's Uggs.

Yuck, why did she have to be standing in one side of the ruin, next to such a gross person who almost messed up her boots.

Right there, Wendy wanted to open her mouth and berate Bunny for her disgusting lack of manners, but that all changed as soon as the second lead man-ripper made its existence known. Bunny whipped it out in a quick arching motion, waving it through the air and Wendy froze, eyes wide, breathing rate increasing.

The barrel of the gun set its sights on Everett.

Wendy let out a high-pitched scream at the sight of it, right there, near her face. Another front row seat. She grabbed Mr. Dolph's little blue cooler, whipping it and the tar stick with a 'whoosh' and a thud, striking into Bunny.

She ran as quick as she could with her things in direction toward, then behind Everett and Scarlett's side of the ruin. Invitation accepted.