what’s the joy in giving, if you’re never pleased?

The night air is damp with the promise of spring, thick with the scent of wet earth and pine, the last dying breaths of winter clinging stubbornly to the trees. 

The ground is still cold beneath their feet, the mud soft in places where the frost has finally loosened its grip. Somewhere in the distance, water drips from melting snowbanks, the quiet rhythm of a world thawing back to life. It’s a sound they’ve almost forgotten.

The shelters stand just beyond the treeline, half-hidden in the shadows of the forest. It’s nothing like the cabin—smaller, rougher, built from whatever they could scavenge. 

Planks stripped from the ruins of their old home, fallen logs dragged in from the woods, lashings of twine and rope and anything that could hold wood to wood. The walls are uneven, the gaps stuffed with layers of dried grass and scraps of cloth, insulation against the nights that still sink into bone-deep cold. The roof is angled steeply, sloping down toward the back where the wind can’t reach as easily. It’s ugly. Barely functional.

But it’s standing. That’s enough.

Shauna lingers just outside the entrance, arms crossed, fingers curled into the sleeves of her coat. She doesn’t know why she hesitates. It’s not as if stepping inside will change anything. Not as if she hasn’t already spent days helping build the damn thing, her hands rubbed raw from tying knots too tightly, from stripping bark, from lifting and hammering until she was too exhausted to think. 

But standing here now, looking at it, she feels something she can’t quite name pressing against the inside of her ribs.

They couldn’t stay in the wreckage of the cabin. They all know that. Even after the fire, even after the bones had been picked clean, it still holds too much of them, the air still thick with the weight of what happened there. This place, at least, is theirs. It belongs to no one but the ones who built it.

Van steps past her first, ducking through the entrance with a muttered, “Jesus, finally,” and collapsing into the first available space. The others follow, moving slower, shifting uneasily in the unfamiliar walls. 

The first night in the cabin had felt like this, too, Shauna remembers. The same uncertain quiet. The same restless glances.

Natalie runs a hand over the floor, testing the strength of the planks. They creak under her weight, but they hold. “Not bad,” she murmurs, mostly to herself. She leans back against the wall, stretching her legs out in front of her. “Could use a rug. Maybe some furniture. Something for the aesthetic.”

Van snorts. “Yeah, I’ll add that to our next Crate & Barrel trip.”

“No, but really,” Natalie says, tilting her head toward the ceiling. “We’re gonna have to do something about the drafts. If we don’t freeze to death first, the bugs’ll get us when it warms up.”

“Nice to have options,” Taissa mutters.

They settle in slowly, each staking out their own corners, shifting and adjusting in search of the least uncomfortable position. No one wants to be the first to admit it feels strange. That it’s too open. That the cabin, for all its ghosts, had at least been familiar.

Lottie is sitting near the entrance, running her fingers along the wood, eyes half-lidded as if she’s listening for something beneath the grain. When she speaks, her voice is low, thoughtful. “It’s different,” she says. “But it’s good.”

Shauna exhales, slow and measured. Misty is the last to enter, closing the curtain carefully behind her. The silence that follows is thick, pressing against the narrow walls.

Shauna lies on her side, staring at the ceiling, listening to the wind outside rattling the shelter’s walls. The air inside is thick with the scent of damp wood and the faint trace of smoke from the fire they’d built earlier. It should be comforting, the soft crackle of the embers still warming the room, the steady rhythm of the others breathing around her. But it isn’t.

The silence between them is a quiet tension, something unspoken hanging in the air, something that hasn’t been put to rest. It settles into her chest, squeezing at her ribs, and she can’t shake it.

She rolls over, eyes scanning the dim shapes of the others curled up in their corners. Van’s already asleep, her body twisted in an awkward position, her breathing even. Taissa’s back is turned, her face shadowed in sleep. Natalie’s hair spills out from under her makeshift blanket, dark against the pale floorboards.

Shauna shifts again, pulling her knees to her chest, her fingers curling tightly into the fabric of her jacket. The sound of her own breath fills the room, soft and uneven. But then—

A faint whisper.

Just out of reach. A sound she can’t quite place. Shauna’s heart skips, her muscles tensing, but when she opens her eyes, everything is still. The others sleep on, unaware. It could be the wind, she thinks. The trees shifting, bending under the pressure of the storm, their branches scraping against the roof. But it feels… wrong.

She closes her eyes, tight this time, forcing herself to ignore the unsettling feeling creeping along her spine. It’s nothing. She’s tired. They all are. But the whisper comes again, low, almost a murmur, a faint rustling sound, like something dragging across the floor.

Shauna sits up abruptly, her breath quickening. Her eyes dart around the room, but there’s nothing there. Just the shadows and the shapes of her friends, still sleeping. Nothing out of place. She presses her hands to her ears, but the whisper remains, an echo that seems to burrow deeper into her skull.

The voice is clearer now, and it pulls her out of her bedroll with a sharp tug. She feels cold all of a sudden, the warmth of the fire a distant memory, like it never existed. She stands, trembling, her feet cold against the floor. The voice is calling to her, urgent, insistent, as if it’s waiting for her to answer. It’s coming from somewhere in the woods. She knows it.

Without thinking, she pulls on her coat and steps toward the door. The night is still thick with the fog of sleep, but she doesn’t care. She has to answer. The voice is hers. It knows her. And she needs to know what it wants.

The world outside the shelter is unnervingly quiet, as if everything is holding its breath. Shauna stumbles a few steps forward, her heart pounding in her chest. She feels drawn in a direction she can’t explain. The trees loom over her, their gnarled branches reaching out like twisted fingers. The whisper is louder now, beckoning her deeper into the woods.

It’s wrong. She knows it’s wrong. But she keeps moving, her legs carrying her further, her feet sinking into the soft, wet earth. The trees part, revealing a clearing. Shauna blinks, trying to make sense of what she’s seeing. There, in the center, is a small figure crouched low to the ground. A woman.

Her face is obscured by the hood of a cloak, but Shauna knows it’s her. She feels the pull, the connection, the strange need to get closer. The woman turns her head slowly, eyes gleaming from the shadows. And then—

Shauna wakes.

The transition is sharp, like she’s been dragged from one world and thrown into another. Her breath is ragged, her body drenched in sweat. The room is dark again, the fire long since burned out. She blinks rapidly, trying to shake off the lingering feeling of being somewhere else. Of being other.

She can’t breathe. Her chest feels tight, constricted, and she realizes she’s been holding her breath without realizing it. The nightmare lingers at the edge of her mind, the fog of it clinging to her thoughts, making everything feel… wrong.

She’s still trembling.

Without thinking, she swings her legs off the side of the bed and stands up. Her legs are shaky, and she stumbles slightly as she makes her way toward the corner where her knife is. A small comfort. A solid thing she can hold onto.

The moonlight filters through the gaps in the shelter, casting long shadows across the floor. As she picks up the knife, her hand brushes against something soft. She looks down and stares, blinking rapidly to make sense of the vision before her.

A rabbit. Skinned. Its fur, stripped away, laid out in a crumpled heap on the floor. Shauna’s hands shake as she crouches down beside it, her mind racing, trying to make sense of what’s happening. She remembers the feeling of the rabbit’s skin in her hands, how it stretched, how it fit. How she wore it like a second skin.

And then—

She’s inside it. The fur, cold against her bare skin, sticking to her as she pulls it tight. She feels the weight of it, the power of it, the hunger that pulses through her veins. It feels good. It feels right. Too right. But she doesn’t stop. She can’t stop. The skin fits her perfectly.

And then she’s standing in the clearing again. The woman is there, watching her with those gleaming eyes. Shauna knows what she’s supposed to do. She knows what’s coming. And she’s ready. She raises her hand, but instead of the knife, she feels something else—a claw, an edge, something savage and primal—and she doesn’t question it.

She doesn’t want to question it.

The scream rips through her, and Shauna wakes again, her eyes snapping open, chest heaving with a desperate breath. The shadows are still there. The air is still thick. But this time, she knows the nightmare hasn’t finished. It’s only just begun.

Shauna pulls her coat tighter around her shoulders as she steps outside, the cold night air biting at her damp skin. Her breath curls in front of her in thin, pale wisps, vanishing into the stillness. It’s not as cold as it was in winter, but it’s cold enough. The ground is damp beneath her bare feet, softened by the melting frost, the mud sinking slightly under her weight.

The trees stand motionless in the distance, their branches bare, skeletal against the dark sky. It’s wrong. They should be moving. Even in the dead of night, the wind should stir them, make them whisper, rustle, groan. But they are silent.

A deep, unsettling quiet blankets the woods. The usual sounds—crickets, distant owls, the sighing of the trees—are absent. It’s as if the whole forest is holding its breath.

Shauna’s stomach tightens.

She swallows hard, glancing back toward the shelter. The others are still inside, wrapped in uneasy sleep, their bodies curled against the cold. For a moment, she considers turning back, crawling under her thin blanket, pretending she never woke. But something pulls at her. A weight in her chest, an invisible thread winding tighter and tighter, tugging her forward.

She steps toward the dying fire, its embers faintly glowing in the dark. The logs are half-burnt, brittle and blackened, surrounded by the scattered remains of last night’s meal. Shauna’s arms are still wrapped tightly around herself when she notices the figure standing just beyond the fire, half-hidden in the dark.

Her breath catches in her throat.

She freezes, the warmth of the embers barely touching her skin. The figure doesn’t move.

For a long moment, she just stares.

She doesn’t want to move closer. Every instinct in her body screams at her to stay where she is, to turn around, to pretend she doesn’t see it. But her legs betray her. Slowly, step by step, she crosses the space between them, her heartbeat thudding against her ribs.

The fire’s glow flickers across pale, frozen skin.

Jackie.

Shauna stops breathing.

Jackie stands just behind the fire, her arms hanging loosely at her sides, her face cast in shadows. Her hair is loose, tangled over her shoulders, her lips just slightly parted. She looks exactly as she did the last time Shauna saw her, curled up in the snow, her skin cold and stiff, her eyes glassy and lifeless.

But she’s not lying in the snow now. She’s standing. Watching.

Shauna’s chest tightens, something clawing its way up her throat.

She wants to run until her legs give out underneath her, she wants to scream until her voice is gone and her throat is sore, but she doesn’t. Instead, she steps closer.

Jackie tilts her head slightly, her expression unreadable. Her breath doesn’t fog in the cold air. She doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, doesn’t even sway like a living person would. She just is.

Shauna’s hands are shaking. She doesn’t know if it’s fear, or something else entirely.

Jackie is dead. It sounds stupid as soon as she thinks it. Of course she’s dead. Shauna held her with her own hands, saw the frost creeping over her skin, saw the way the snow swallowed her up, the way her body had turned stiff and strange in the morning light.

Jackie doesn’t answer. A terrible, sinking feeling creeps into Shauna’s gut, heavier than fear, and yet, she can’t seem to stop herself from running towards 

She collides into Jackie with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs, arms wrapping tight around her waist, fingers clawing into damp fabric as if afraid she might disappear. Jackie stumbles back a step, but Shauna holds on, anchoring them both in place, her face buried in the curve of Jackie’s neck.

The sobs start before she can stop them. Sharp, ragged things tearing their way out of her chest, shaking her to the bone. She grips Jackie harder, her fingers tangling in soaked curls, the strands slipping between her shaking hands. The cold is biting, the air thick with damp earth and woodsmoke, but Jackie is warm—warmer than she should be. Warmer than Shauna remembers.

She sways them without meaning to, back and forth, the motion instinctive, desperate. Her heartbeat is pounding, erratic, like a trapped animal trying to break free, but Jackie doesn’t pull away. She’s solid, real, pressed against Shauna like she’s always been there, like she never left.

Shauna’s gasping now, breath catching, shuddering, fingers pressing hard against the curve of Jackie’s skull as she cradles her head. “Jackie—Jackie,” she chokes out, voice cracking over the name, over the impossible truth of it. She’s here. After everything—after the cold, after the snow, after the blood—Jackie is here.

Her hands move without thinking, running through golden curls, damp and tangled. She remembers these strands stiff with frost, remembers breaking ice off them with shaking fingers, remembers brushing the hair from Jackie’s lifeless face. But this isn’t that. Jackie’s hair is wet with rain, not snow. Her skin isn’t cold, her breath isn’t still.

Shauna clings tighter, nails biting into Jackie’s shoulder blades, body curled in on itself, pressing closer as if she could crawl inside her, as if she could make up for every second they’ve spent apart by never letting go again.

She doesn’t dare lift her head. Doesn’t dare look. If this is a dream, she doesn’t want to wake up. If this is a trick, she doesn’t want to know.

The moment splits apart at the seams when a sick, churning wave of nausea crashes over Shauna so fast, so violently, that she barely has time to react. One second, she’s staring, breathless, stunned, at Jackie’s face—her face, still pink-cheeked and sun-kissed in the firelight, her lashes dusted with frost, like she’s only resting, only waiting to wake up. 

The next, the world is tilting, and Shauna’s stomach is twisting itself into knots, bile climbing the back of her throat with sharp, acidic urgency.

She stumbles backward, tripping over her own feet, her limbs clumsy and unsteady, the bile thick in her mouth. She clamps a hand over her lips, but it’s useless, pointless, the pressure only making it worse. It rises up, hot and sour and wrong.

Then she’s falling to her knees in the snow, the cold biting through the thin fabric of her pants, her hands sinking into the ice. The first heave tears through her like a sob, violent and raw, her stomach lurching, rejecting everything inside it.

She coughs, chokes, spits into the snow.

The taste lingers on her tongue.

Shauna retches again. Harder. Desperate.

She can still feel it—her, the weight of her, the texture of her flesh against her teeth, between her molars, muscle pulling away from the bone with sickening ease. She remembers the way her stomach thanked her for it, the warmth that spread through her veins, the way her body welcomed it, welcomed Jackie, like she was something Shauna was always meant to consume.

Shauna wretches until her stomach is empty, until she’s gasping for breath, until her throat is raw and aching. But it doesn’t leave her. She doesn’t leave her.

She doesn’t know how long she stays there, doubled over in the snow, shaking, breath coming in ragged, uneven gasps. Her hands are trembling. Her whole body is trembling.

The fire crackles behind her. The wind howls through the trees. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she knows she should move. She should get up, should wipe her mouth, should go back inside before someone sees her like this, before someone realizes—

Realizes what?

They all sat around that fire, tearing Jackie apart, hands slick with grease, mouths full, desperate, starving, laughing, moaning, thanking her.

But none of them—none of them—had known her like Shauna had.

None of them had loved her.

Her stomach clenches again, but there’s nothing left inside her to bring up. Just dry heaves and the phantom taste of Jackie still clinging to the roof of her mouth.

She squeezes her eyes shut, presses her forehead against the grass, lets the cold seep into her skin. It doesn’t help. Nothing helps. She shakes her head, squeezes her hands into fists, digs her nails into the ground, into her own skin, tries to push the voice away, but it only grows louder.

It’s violent, relentless, like her body is trying to purge something far deeper than just the rot in her stomach. For a moment, there’s nothing—nothing but the wet sound of her own retching, the sting in her throat, the cold creeping up her arms. It feels endless, like she could stay like this forever, shaking and emptying herself out onto the snow, and maybe she would if not for the sound of movement behind her.

Footsteps. Soft, hesitant. Crunching against the grass.

Shauna stiffens. She swipes the back of her hand across her mouth, still trembling, still dizzy, and when she forces herself to lift her head, she sees Nat standing just outside the shelter, arms wrapped around herself against the cold, brows furrowed in sleepy confusion. She’s squinting, blinking hard, like she’s barely awake, like she hasn’t registered what’s happening yet.

Shauna exhales shakily and turns, her body moving before her mind can catch up, her breath still coming in uneven gulps as she lifts a trembling hand and points.

Nat follows the motion with her eyes, slow, sluggish, like she’s about to roll them at whatever bullshit Shauna is on about—until she sees it.

Shauna watches as the confusion flickers away, replaced by something else, something deeper. Nat’s breath catches in her throat. Her hands drop to her sides, fingers twitching slightly, like she might reach for a weapon, like she might need to. 

Shauna can see the exact second it clicks—the sharp, sudden wideness of Nat’s eyes, the way her lips part just slightly, as if she wants to say something but can’t seem to make a sound. Because Jackie is standing there.

She can hear Nat’s breath now, too sharp, too quick. The way it hitches, the way it stutters against the cold.

Nat takes a slow, unsteady step forward. Then another. Her breath is shallow, her movements cautious, like she’s approaching a wounded animal—like Jackie might bolt, like she might disappear if Nat gets too close. Her boots crunch against the snow, her fingers twitch slightly at her sides, like she doesn’t know what to do with them. 

Shauna can hear the hesitation in the way Nat exhales, sharp and uncertain, but she doesn’t stop moving. She just keeps walking, drawn forward by something neither of them can name.

Jackie stands there, perfectly still, her expression unreadable in the dim morning light. There’s no anger in her face, no accusation, no fear. Just… something vacant. Something distant. Her lips are slightly parted, her breath barely visible in the cold. Her hair is loose and tangled around her shoulders, her clothes—God, her clothes—are stiff with frost, but her skin isn’t blue anymore. Her eyes aren’t lifeless. They follow Nat, clear and aware and wrong.

Nat swallows hard. She stops just short of Jackie, close enough to touch, close enough to see every detail—the way her lashes are dusted with frost, the way the hem of her jacket is stiff with ice. The way she looks so much like herself and nothing like herself all at once.

“What happened?” Nat asks, voice barely more than a whisper. It comes out hoarse, like it’s scraping against something raw in her throat.

Jackie’s lips press together. She blinks once, slow. Then again. A furrow forms between her brows, like she’s searching for an answer, like she’s trying to remember something she should know, something just out of reach.

“I…” Jackie starts, but nothing follows. Just silence. Just the slight tremor in her breath, her hands curling into loose fists at her sides, her gaze flickering—not to Nat, not to Shauna, but to the space between them, to the shelter, to the vast, endless stretch of white beyond.

Shauna moves before she even realizes it. Her body is still shaky, her stomach still twisting with nausea, but she forces herself up, forces herself forward, closing the space between them. She reaches for Jackie, hands finding her arms, gripping tight, solid, real.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Shauna says, too quickly, too desperate to believe it’s true. Her hands move up to Jackie’s shoulders, holding onto her like she might vanish if she lets go. “Jackie, it’s—” Her breath stutters, her voice cracks. She doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. It’s okay? It’s real? You’re here?

Jackie looks at her then, finally, and for one awful, fleeting second, Shauna swears there’s something in her eyes—something lost, something shattered, something hungry.

Then it’s gone. And Jackie just nods.

Shauna and Nat guide Jackie toward the fireplace, their movements hesitant, careful, like they’re afraid to touch her too much, like they don’t quite believe she’s real. Shauna keeps one hand wrapped around Jackie’s wrist, her grip firm but trembling, as if she’s anchoring Jackie to the ground, making sure she doesn’t slip away into nothingness. 

Jackie doesn’t resist. She follows, quiet, slow, like she’s still finding her footing. Her boots drag slightly in the snow, and the thought of that—boots, when she should be barefoot, frozen, dead—makes Shauna’s stomach turn all over again.

They settle her down beside the fire, but it feels wrong. The flames flicker, casting long, restless shadows across Jackie’s face, across her stiff clothes and the strange paleness of her skin. Shauna kneels beside her, too scared to pull the wet fabric from Jackie’s body, too scared to do anything but stare. 

Jackie sits with her arms wrapped around herself, like she’s cold, but she doesn’t shiver. She just exists, still and silent, watching the fire like it’s a thing she’s never seen before.

Nat crouches on Jackie’s other side, rubbing her hands together for warmth before reaching toward Jackie’s. Her fingers graze over Jackie’s skin, then flinch away. Nat’s breath catches, but she doesn’t say anything—just wipes her palm against her thigh like she’s trying to shake something off. Shauna notices, but she doesn’t ask. She doesn’t want to know.

The cabin is still dark, the fire’s glow stretching only so far, but the others are beginning to stir. A low murmur from one of the beds. The creak of someone rolling over. A groggy breath, an irritated sigh. The night has been long, full of wind and empty hunger, and the girls are restless, caught in that uneasy space between sleep and waking.

Then someone shifts, lifting her head from her makeshift pillow, blinking sluggishly at the figures gathered by the fire. Another stirs beside her. Then another. The first girl frowns, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, blinking hard, like she’s not sure she’s seeing right.

And then, in a voice thick with sleep, with confusion, with something teetering on the edge of horror, she asks, “Who—who is that?”

The moment the words spill from the first girl’s mouth, the tension in the room snaps like a taut rope. The air shifts, crackling with the uncertainty of it all. The fire’s light dances off the girls’ faces as they slowly, hesitantly, begin to process the impossible.

“Who is that?” The question lingers in the cabin like smoke, suffocating the space between them. One by one, the girls stir, their eyes flicking between Jackie and the rest of the group, their confusion deepening into panic.

One of them—Misty, Shauna thinks, but she can barely focus—jumps to her feet. “What’s going on? What—why is she here? How is she—why is she—” Misty’s voice rises, frantic, each word a jagged edge. “Isn’t she—dead?” The word seems to hang in the air, sharp and accusing.

“Jesus Christ, we don’t know! We don’t know what happened!” Shauna snaps back, her voice tight, cracking on the edge of desperation. She doesn’t know how to explain this, how to make sense of the impossible. How can she, when she herself is still reeling from the fact that Jackie is sitting here at all? Alive, breathing, like it never happened. Like she was never—gone.

“I saw her—” Van’s voice trembles as she stands, stepping back from Jackie, eyes wide. “How is she even here? How is she alive?”

Shauna’s heart pounds, and her breath comes in ragged gasps as she looks from one girl to the next, their faces all twisted in disbelief, panic creeping into every corner of the cabin. No one knows what to say. No one knows what to do. It’s too much. It’s too much to take in.

“Maybe it’s not her,” Mari, but the words are weak, a feeble attempt to make sense of it all. “Maybe it’s someone else, someone—look at her! She looks like Jackie, but—”

“No!” Shauna bursts, her voice a jagged, raw thing that shatters the air between them. She stands abruptly, her legs shaky under the weight of everything. She can feel her hands trembling as she points toward Jackie, as though the mere act of doing so might change everything. “It’s her. It’s Jackie. I—” her voice cracks, and she has to swallow hard against the rising tide of nausea, the same bile that’s been threatening to rise since the moment Jackie appeared.

“She was dead,” Misty says again, her voice sharp, edged with hysteria. “She was dead, Shauna. We all saw it! We all—we all watched her die!”

Shauna closes her eyes, a wave of dizziness washing over her. The memory of it is so vivid, so fresh. The blood, the way Jackie’s body—her beautiful, broken body—was so still, so lifeless. How could she have let this happen? How could she have let herself get swept up in something that could bring her back?

Nat is still standing beside Jackie, her hands shaking, her mouth slightly open in disbelief. She turns to Shauna, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and confusion. “What do we do now?” she asks, her voice small, fragile.

Shauna doesn’t have an answer. She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know how to make sense of the fact that Jackie is alive, sitting there beside her, breathing as if nothing happened. But she’s not the only one freaking out now. The rest of the girls are getting louder, arguing, questioning, each one trying to process what’s happening in their own way.

“Maybe it’s some kind of—” one girl starts, but she falters when another cuts her off.

“Stop! Just stop talking,” the other snaps, her face contorted in panic. “This isn’t normal! Nothing about this is normal!”

There’s no space left to think. The chaos is swallowing them whole, their panic infecting everything around them. The questions fly, the accusations fly, and Shauna is drowning in it all. The weight of it, the confusion, the fear—it’s all too much. She wants to scream, to make them all stop. To make herself stop shaking. To make this make sense.

“I can’t—I can’t deal with this right now,” Shauna finally snaps, her chest tight, her voice ragged. She feels as though she’s suffocating in the tension, the frantic energy of the room making her feel small, helpless. She’s never felt so out of control, so lost in this nightmare. But Jackie is here. Jackie is here.

“We have to figure this out,” one of the girls says, her voice shaky with anger, “because we can’t just pretend this isn’t happening.”

Shauna’s voice trembles, but she forces herself to stand tall, to command the room, even though she feels like everything is falling apart. “I’m taking her with me,” she says, each word deliberate, steadying herself in the chaos. 

Her gaze sweeps over the girls, finding them all in varying degrees of shock, confusion, and fear. She feels that fear too, deep in her bones, but she can’t let them see it. Not now. Not when Jackie—alive—is sitting there, pale and trembling like a ghost she thought she’d buried.

“What?” Tai’s voice cuts through the air, loud and incredulous. “Shauna, are you insane? She—she’s not right. How can you just—” Her voice falters, her eyes darting between Jackie and Shauna as if she’s waiting for the world to stop spinning long enough for her to catch up.

“She’s not fucking dead,” Shauna snaps, and the sharpness of her own words surprises her. “She’s not. And I’m not leaving her out here to freeze again. She needs warmth. She needs—I don’t know what she needs, but I’m taking her to inside.”

The words come out harsher than she means, but there’s no time to explain. No time for anything but action. The girls are still murmuring behind her, voices rising, panic settling deeper into their chests, but Shauna pushes through it. She’s not about to let them stop her, not now, not when Jackie is still here, still—alive—in front of her.

Slowly, Jackie looks up at her, her eyes unfocused, distant, like she’s not fully present in her own body. Shauna’s heart tightens, the old grief threatening to rise up and choke her, but she swallows it down. 

“Jackie,” she says softly, stepping closer to her. “We’re going inside. You need to warm up.”

There’s no response, just a weak nod from Jackie, like she’s not sure where she is or what’s happening. But she lets Shauna help her stand, her legs shaky and unsure, as if they’ve forgotten how to carry her. Shauna wraps an arm around her waist, steadying her, trying to keep her upright. She glances back at the girls, who are still caught in the whirlwind of their panic.

“I’ll be back,” she tells them, though it’s not really a promise. She’s not sure when or if she’ll be able to come back. “Stay here. Keep the fire going.”

But the girls don’t hear her. They’re still arguing among themselves, and Shauna’s not sure if anyone’s even listening at all. Her eyes are only on Jackie now, on the fragile form leaning against her for support. She can feel the heat of her body, still cold, still shivering, but not lifeless.

She starts to walk, her footsteps slow and deliberate, the cold of the forest biting at her skin as she leads Jackie away from the fire. Every step is a battle against the storm of emotions inside her—anger, confusion, fear—but she forces herself to focus on one thing: Jackie needs her.

Shauna doesn’t look back. She can’t. The weight of what she’s doing, what this could mean, is too much to handle right now. She just needs to get to the shelter. Just needs to warm Jackie up, make sure she’s not going to slip away again. That thought claws at her chest, squeezing tight.

“You’re here,” Shauna whispers under her breath, as if saying it aloud will make it real. “You’re really here, Jackie.” She presses her shoulder against Jackie’s, feeling the warmth from her body seep into her own, a stark contrast to the cold that’s settling deeper into her bones.

She takes a deep breath and pushes forward, praying that Jackie’s going to be okay. That somehow, this moment—this impossible moment—will make sense. But she knows deep down that it’s not going to be easy. That there’s no easy explanation for what’s happening.

All she can do is get Jackie to the shelter, keep her warm, and hope against everything that maybe, just maybe, things will start to make sense again.

———

She doesn’t sleep that night. She lies still in the dark, curled around herself in her shelter, listening to the sounds of the cabin beyond. The rustle of bodies shifting under blankets. The distant crackle of the dying fire. The occasional, quiet murmur of someone talking in their sleep. And beneath it all, a heavy, suffocating tension, thick as the frost that creeps through the cracks in the walls.

She knows the others are awake, too. Knows they’re lying in their beds, staring up at the ceiling, straining their ears for anything out of place. They’re waiting. Waiting for Jackie to do something. Waiting for some kind of confirmation that she doesn’t belong here, that she shouldn’t be here.

Jackie is asleep beside her, her breathing soft and even. She sleeps like none of it touches her, like she doesn’t realize the kind of danger she’s in. Or maybe she does, and she just doesn’t care. Shauna isn’t sure which possibility scares her more.

She shifts onto her side, careful not to wake her, and stares at the faint outline of her face in the dark. Jackie’s lips are parted slightly, her expression slack with sleep, and Shauna feels a dull ache curl around her ribs, something sharp and awful pressing into her lungs. She still looks the same. Still looks like the Jackie Shauna has known since childhood, the one she has followed and envied and loved for as long as she can remember.

Shauna swallows hard, pressing her fingertips against her stomach like she can hold herself together, like she can stop herself from unraveling. 

Jackie died. She died, and Shauna—Shauna ate her. She can still taste her if she thinks about it too hard, can still feel the raw, animal hunger in the pit of her stomach when she remembers what it was like, crouched over her frozen body, tearing into her flesh with her bare hands.

She clenches her jaw, forcing the thoughts away. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that she’s here, and Shauna has to keep her safe.

She turns onto her back, staring at the ceiling. She can’t keep pretending that everything is fine. The others are scared, and their fear is turning ugly. Shauna hears the way they talk about Jackie when they think she isn’t listening. The hushed, frantic whispers. The sharp, clipped sentences that never quite say what they mean but still say everything.

Then morning comes, but it still doesn’t feel like morning. The air inside Shauna’s shelter is thick, heavy, pressing down on her chest as she blinks awake. Jackie is still curled beside her, tucked under the blankets, her breathing soft but steady. She’s warm now—alive—but the unnatural silence outside tells Shauna that nothing is okay.

She shifts carefully, peeling herself away from Jackie’s side without waking her, and listens. The usual morning sounds—the rustling of bodies stirring in the cabin, quiet murmurs, the occasional cough—are different today. There’s something off, something wrong in the way the silence lingers between the voices. Shauna pulls her coat tighter around her and moves toward the entrance, pressing her fingers against the wood before stepping outside.

The warmth bites at her immediately, but it isn’t the gentle wind that makes her shiver. It’s the voices—Tai and Nat.

She hears them before she sees them, their low voices carrying just enough for her to catch the edges of their conversation. They’re just outside the cabin, their backs turned, speaking in hushed, urgent tones. Shauna hesitates, then leans in, barely breathing.

“—not normal, Tai,” Nat says, her voice sharp, strained. “You know that’s not Jackie.”

Tai exhales, long and slow. “I know.” Her voice is careful, measured in a way that makes Shauna’s stomach twist. “But Shauna—she’s not letting go. She won’t. You saw the way she was last night. She’s acting like everything’s fine, like Jackie didn’t—” She stops herself. The word die lingers in the air between them even though neither of them says it.

Shauna’s pulse pounds in her ears.

“She was in the snow for months,” Nat continues, her voice lowering like she doesn’t even want to say it out loud. “That’s not—people don’t just come back from that.”

Tai doesn’t answer right away. Shauna can almost feel the tension in her silence. And then—

“I don’t think we have a choice.”

Shauna freezes. The weight of the words slams into her all at once, knocks the breath from her lungs.

Nat lets out a shaky breath. “So what? We just—?” She doesn’t finish. She doesn’t have to.

Shauna steps back, barely aware of the way her hands shake. She doesn’t want to hear any more. She can’t hear any more.

She knew—she knew—they were afraid. She felt it last night in the way the girls wouldn’t look at Jackie for too long, in the way Misty flinched when she spoke, in the way Van whispered to Tai when she thought no one was listening. She knew their fear was growing, feeding off of itself like fire, turning into something uglier.

But hearing it laid out so plainly, hearing them talk about Jackie like she’s wrong, like she’s something to be dealt with—it sends something sharp and panicked curling in Shauna’s chest.

She swallows hard and turns back toward the shelter. Jackie is still sleeping when she steps inside, still soft and quiet, completely unaware of the way the others are turning against her.

It’s strange, seeing her like this. Real. Tangible in a way she hadn’t been for so long. Shauna watches the rise and fall of her breathing and lets herself have one more second before she pushes to her feet and slips outside.

She doesn’t know how much time they have before things spiral, but she knows the others are afraid, and fear turns ugly out here. She’s seen it before. She knows what happens when people let fear take hold—how quickly it curdles into something violent, something desperate. And she’s not going to let that happen. Not to Jackie. Not again.

But she has to be smart about it. If she does anything too obvious, if she tries to fight them, she’ll lose. There are too many of them. She has to be careful. She has to plan.

So she gets up like everything is normal. She forces herself to move slowly, deliberately, like she’s not thinking a hundred miles ahead, like she’s not already working through the details in her mind. 

She grits her teeth and turns away, about to head toward the woods, just to clear her head, when—

“You okay?”

Shauna stops. The voice is familiar, careful. She turns to see Nat standing a few feet away, arms crossed, watching her. There’s no outright hostility on her face—she doesn’t look like Tai did last night, all sharp-edged and wary—but there’s something else. Something guarded.

Shauna forces a small smile. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

Nat doesn’t react right away. She studies her, searching for something, before she nods slightly. “And Jackie?”

Shauna stiffens, but only for a second. “She’s fine too.”

There’s a pause, a hesitation. Then Nat sighs, dragging a hand through her hair. “Look, Shauna… I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know how she’s here, or why. But Tai—she’s scared. And the others are too.”

Shauna’s jaw clenches. “So what?” she says, voice tight. “You think I should just give her up?”

Nat exhales, shaking her head. “I think you should be careful. That’s all.”

Shauna doesn’t respond. There’s nothing to say.

Nat hesitates for a second longer, like she wants to argue, but then she just nods and turns, walking away toward the cabin.

Shauna watches her go, chest tight. She wants to believe that Nat is different. That maybe she won’t turn against her. But out here, it doesn’t matter what people want—it matters what they do. And right now, Shauna doesn’t trust anyone.

She takes a breath, steadies herself, and slips back inside the shelter.

Jackie is undisturbed, curled up against the blankets. The sight of her does something to Shauna’s chest—something sharp, something unbearable.

She sits beside Jackie for a long time, her mind racing. The others will turn on them soon—she can feel it in the way they look at her, the way their voices drop when she steps into the cabin, the way Tai barely even hides her suspicion anymore. It’s not a matter of if things get worse. It’s when.

She’s not going to wait around for that to happen.

Jackie stirs, shifting slightly under the blankets, and Shauna watches her face, memorizing every detail. The soft curve of her cheek, the way her lips part slightly as she breathes. It’s real. She’s real. Shauna’s fingers tighten against her coat. They have to leave.

The cold isn’t as brutal as it was a few weeks ago—spring is creeping in, slow but certain. It won’t be comfortable, but they won’t freeze to death overnight. If they can get far enough, if they can put enough distance between themselves and the others before anyone realizes they’re gone, they might actually have a chance.

But they’ll need supplies.

Shauna presses her fingers against her temples, thinking fast. They can’t take too much, or someone will notice, but they need enough to survive. Food, obviously. Blankets. Maybe one of the knives, if she can get her hands on one without attracting attention.

She glances toward the entrance of the shelter, listening. The camp is quiet—morning routines still settling in. They’ll need to wait until nightfall. It’s the only way.

She turns back to Jackie, reaching out to brush a strand of hair from her face. Jackie stirs again, blinking up at her, eyes still hazy with sleep.

Shauna forces a small smile. “Hey,” she whispers.

Jackie frowns slightly. “What is it?”

Shauna hesitates, then shakes her head. “Nothing. Just—get some rest, okay?”

Jackie watches her for a second, like she can tell something’s wrong, but then she nods, closing her eyes again.

Shauna exhales slowly, pressing her hand against her chest to steady herself.

Tonight. They’ll leave tonight.

She just has to make sure they survive long enough to get there.

———

That evening, as the sun dipped below the trees and cast long shadows over the snow-damp earth, the girls gathered around the fire for dinner. It isn’t often they had something close to a proper meal—just whatever scraps of meat or broth they could stretch between them—but tonight feels different. It’s tense, strange, unreal in a way that none of them could quite name, but they are all trying to act normal. Or as normal as they could.

Jackie sits close to the fire, wrapped in blankets, her face still pale but her eyes alert, watchful. She has barely spoken all day, barely moved unless Shauna was by her side, but now, surrounded by the others, something about her seems more alive.

Shauna stays close, sitting just a little too near, her body angled protectively toward Jackie, but she keeps her expression neutral. She had to. She can feel the girls watching, their wariness like a blade hanging between them, but for now, they are pretending. They are trying.

Van is the first to speak. “So…” she says, leaning forward with a half-smile, though her voice is edged with something sharp. “What’s it like being a ghost?”

Lottie shoots her a look, but Jackie just blinks, her brow furrowing. “I don’t know,” she admits, voice quiet but steady. “I don’t remember anything.” She looks down at her hands, turning them over like she expected them to look different. “One minute I was outside, and then I was here.” She lifts her head, gaze sweeping over them all. “Did I—?”

She doesn’t finish the question. No one answers.

Shauna’s grip on her own hands tightens, her nails pressing into her skin.

Mari clears her throat, shifting awkwardly. “Well. At least you’re here now, right?”

Jackie gives her a small, unsure nod.

“I mean, you look good,” Akilah says, though she sounds like she doesn’t entirely believe it. “Really good. Better than we do, anyway.” She gestures vaguely at the rest of them, their hollow cheeks, the bruises under their eyes.

Jackie gives a small laugh, though there was no real humor in it. “That’s something.”

Nat has been silent until now, watching with narrowed eyes, her fingers tapping idly against her knee. Now, she leans forward slightly. “Do you remember anything? Like, anything at all? What it felt like, what you—?”

“She just said she doesn’t,” Shauna cuts in sharply before she could stop herself.

Nat glances at her, expression unreadable, but she doesn't push.

The fire crackles between them, filling the silence.

Lottie smiles softly. “Maybe it’s not important,” she says. “What matters is that she’s here. Maybe she’s meant to be here.”

Tai’s head snaps toward her. “You can’t be serious.”

Lottie tilts her head slightly. “Why not?”

Tai lets out a sharp breath, running a hand down her face. “Jesus Christ, Lottie—”

“I think it’s nice,” Misty cuts in, her usual bright tone slightly strained. “Like a miracle! Don’t you think, Shauna?”

Shauna looks up at the sound of her name, the weight of all their stares pressing against her like hands around her throat. She forces herself to nod, to smile, even as her pulse pounds. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, it is.”

Jackie turns to look at her, and for a second, it’s just the two of them, the firelight flickering in Jackie’s eyes, something unreadable in her expression. Shauna feels her breath hitch.

Jackie smiles, small and tentative, and Shauna’s heart clenches so hard it hurts.

Across the fire, the others watch.

They eat in relative quiet after that, the conversation stilted, cautious. The tension never really leaves, humming under the surface of every word, every glance.

By the time the fire burns low, the night settling heavy around them, Shauna knows—really knows—that the moment wouldn’t last. This fragile thing, this careful act of pretending everything is fine, would break soon.

———

It takes a few more hours for the others to fall asleep. Usually one stays awake to stand guard, but lately that hasn’t been necessary, given that all wildlife is still remotely quiet.

Her hands shake slightly as she folds the blankets, stacking them neatly in a corner. The familiarity of the task makes it feel more real. She’s been through this before. Packing, moving, leaving behind the places that become too dangerous, too suffocating. She’s had to do it so many times. 

She moves to the small pile of supplies they’ve gathered over the days, checking it again. A small knife, half a loaf of stale bread, a few dried herbs, the last of their water. There isn’t much, but it’ll have to be enough. 

The night air will be cold, but it won’t be as brutal as it was before, and that gives Shauna a small thread of hope. They won’t freeze. 

She moves around the shelter with a sense of urgency, even as she forces herself to breathe deeply, to steady her nerves. There’s no room for hesitation now. No room for doubt. The weight of what she’s about to do hangs over her, but it’s a burden she’s already decided to bear. 

Shauna glances over at Jackie, still sleeping on the ground, curled up in a way that makes Shauna’s heart tighten. Jackie looks so fragile, so broken. Shauna knows that, no matter how much fear the others feel, she’s not going to let anything happen to her. Not again.

She takes a deep breath and kneels beside Jackie, gently brushing a strand of hair away from her face. Jackie stirs but doesn’t wake, her breathing slow and steady. Shauna’s fingers brush her skin, a soft contact that makes something in her chest tighten. She’s here. She’s alive. And Shauna can still protect her.

Shauna sits back on her heels, just watching Jackie for a moment longer, her eyes tracing the lines of her face. The faint bruising from the cold, the dirt smudged on her skin, it all feels so wrong. But she’s here. Alive. And Shauna has to keep her that way.

She grabs the worn leather bag from the corner of the shelter, slinging it over her shoulder as she stands. The movement is deliberate, slow, calculated. She’s done this too many times to rush it now. Everything has to be perfect. Everything has to be ready.

She moves back to Jackie, crouching down beside her once more. This time, she places a hand gently on Jackie’s shoulder, shaking her lightly. “Jackie,” she whispers, her voice soft but firm. “Jackie, wake up.”

Jackie stirs again, a low groan escaping her lips as she blinks against the dim light. Her eyes flutter open slowly, confused, disoriented. Shauna doesn’t let go, doesn’t pull back. “We have to leave.”

Jackie’s gaze sharpens for a moment, the fog of sleep clearing as she focuses on Shauna. Her brow furrows slightly, still not fully awake, but the urgency in Shauna’s tone cuts through the haze. “Leave?” she croaks, her voice hoarse from sleep.

Shauna nods, her fingers tightening on Jackie’s shoulder just enough to make her attention shift fully to her. “Yes. We can’t stay. We have to go now.”

Jackie sits up slowly, confusion still evident in her movements. She looks around, as if searching for something, anything, to anchor her in the present. Shauna watches her closely, reading the fear in her eyes, the hesitation. She doesn’t want to leave. She’s scared. And Shauna can’t blame her.

But they have no choice.

“Grab your things,” Shauna says, standing up, taking a step back. She keeps her voice calm, level, even though everything in her feels like it’s about to break. “We’ll leave together.”

Jackie doesn’t respond immediately, but after a long pause, she starts to move. Slowly at first, her movements stiff, unsure. She reaches for the blanket that Shauna had folded earlier, pulling it close as she stands up. There’s a look in her eyes, something that Shauna can’t quite place. Fear, yes, but also something else. Something darker.

As Jackie gathers herself, Shauna takes one last look around the shelter, making sure they haven’t left anything behind. She checks the small bundle of supplies once more, her fingers brushing over the rough fabric of the bag. It’s enough. It has to be enough.

With a final glance at Jackie, Shauna steps outside, pulling her hood up against the cool air. The wind bites at her skin, but she doesn’t mind it. The night is their only chance, and they can’t afford to waste it. She looks at Jackie, who steps out behind her, her eyes wide as she takes in the night around them.

They start walking, moving silently through the trees, careful to avoid the path they’d been following earlier. She keeps the steps quick, but she’s not running yet. Not yet. She can feel Jackie’s presence behind her, the sound of her breathing in the cold air, but it’s not enough. Not enough to drown out the fear in her own chest.

Every crunch of the earth beneath their feet feels too loud, a reminder of how exposed they are, how fragile their situation has become. But they move, step after step, the rustle of the wind in the branches above the only sound between them.

Shauna glances over at Jackie, her pace slowing just slightly as she tries to gauge the other girl’s mood. Jackie’s face is a pale ghost in the darkness, her eyes wide, still a little unfocused, as though she hasn’t fully caught up with what’s happening. Her hands are wrapped tightly around the blanket she clutches to her chest, and Shauna can see how her fingers tremble.

“So,” Shauna begins, her voice breaking through the silence like a tentative thread. She knows the effort it takes to speak when you’re this exhausted, when every word feels like it could fall apart if you don’t hold it together. She pushes through it anyway. “How’re you feeling?”

Jackie doesn’t answer right away, and Shauna wonders if she heard her, if she even has the energy to reply. But then, after a long moment, Jackie exhales, a soft, shaky sound. “I don’t know. I feel…” She pauses, her words faltering as she searches for something to say. “I feel cold, mostly”

The confession hits Shauna harder than she expects. She knows exactly what Jackie means. It’s not just the cold. It’s the feeling of being so out of place, so out of time. A place where nothing makes sense anymore, where nothing is familiar. A place where everything that was supposed to keep them safe has turned into something else, something dangerous.

Shauna presses her lips together, trying to think of something reassuring to say. But she knows that nothing she says will make it better. Jackie’s fear is valid. Their fear is valid. “It’s okay,” Shauna finally says, the words coming out more as a promise to herself than to Jackie. “We’ll make it through this. We just need to keep moving.”

Jackie looks at her then, her eyes wide in the dim light. “Do you really think that? Do you really think we can get out of here?”

Shauna feels the weight of the question settle over her, heavy and cold. She doesn’t have an answer. She can’t make promises like that anymore. The reality of their situation is too hard to ignore. But she doesn’t want to break Jackie’s already fragile hope. So she nods, even though she’s not sure if she believes the words.

“I don’t know,” Shauna admits. “But we have to try.”

They keep walking, the pace slowing as they settle into the rhythm of moving together, side by side. The tension is still there, thick between them, but it’s different now. It’s more bearable. There’s something comforting in the quiet that’s settled over them, even as the fear looms large. Maybe it’s just that, for once, they’re not alone in it.

Shauna tries again, her voice low. “Do you remember anything from before? Before… all of this?”

Jackie seems to consider the question for a moment. “I remember,” She trails off, as if she’s searching her memory, pulling fragments together from a place she’s not sure she wants to go. “I remember us. I remember that we used to be friends.”

Shauna feels a pang in her chest, something sharp and painful, but she keeps her focus on the path ahead, her gaze fixed on the shadowed trees. “We still are, Jackie. We’re still friends.”

Jackie doesn’t respond right away. She doesn’t need to. The words are there, hanging in the space between them. A promise, fragile and tentative, but real all the same. They’re still together, even now, even in this strange, fractured place they find themselves in.

The path is quieter now, the forest so dense that the air feels almost thick, like it’s holding its breath. Shauna leads Jackie through the woods, each step carefully measured, her eyes flicking between the trees and the ground, watching for any sign of danger. Her heart is still racing from the earlier conversation, but she can feel the tension ebbing slightly now. It’s just them, the cold, and the vast, unyielding dark around them.

They walk in silence for a while longer, the air still sharp but carrying a hint of spring’s promise. The leaves rustle faintly overhead, an almost soothing sound, but it’s quickly drowned out by the deepening crunch of their boots against the frozen ground.

And then they see it.

The river is a strange sight, and Shauna stops dead in her tracks, her breath catching in her throat. It’s not the same river they know. This one is wider, its surface a smooth expanse of ice that glints under the pale light. It’s not frozen like the lakes they’ve seen before — more delicate, more brittle, as if it’s still holding onto the remnants of winter, not quite ready to give in to spring. 

The ice is thick in places, but there are cracks, long lines of weakness that slice across the surface in jagged patterns.

Shauna squints at it, confused. They’ve been walking for hours, and the temperature has definitely warmed up over the past couple of weeks. The snow had melted, the trees had budded, and the air had softened. She knows the weather well enough to know that rivers should be thawing by now, flowing freely, but this one—this one isn’t. The ice shouldn’t still be here.

She feels Jackie step up beside her, her presence quieter than usual, almost as if she’s waiting for Shauna to make the call, to tell her what to do. 

“What do you think?” She asks, her voice low, barely more than a whisper, though there’s a hint of unease threading through the words.

Shauna glances down at the river again, her mind working quickly. The ice is strange, unsettling even, but she doesn’t want to stop. They can’t afford to stop. They have to keep moving.

“I think we cross,” Shauna says, her tone more confident than she feels. She’s not sure why she says it so quickly. Maybe it’s the desperation to get farther away from everything. From the shelter, from the girls, from the fear. Maybe it’s just instinct. “It’s still solid enough, and we can’t go back.”

Jackie hesitates for a moment, then nods, though Shauna can see the uncertainty in her eyes. She doesn’t blame her. There’s no guarantee that the ice will hold, no telling how deep the water is if it breaks, but they don’t have a choice. Staying here isn’t an option.

Shauna carefully steps closer to the edge, testing the ice with her boot. It creaks slightly under the pressure, but it doesn’t crack. The surface is smoother than she expected, the kind of icy sheen that almost looks like glass, making it hard to judge its true strength. She glances back at Jackie. “Stay close. And watch your step.”

Jackie nods again, pulling the blanket tighter around herself as she follows Shauna onto the ice. They move slowly, step by step, Shauna’s boots digging into the ice with a faint scraping sound. The cold radiates up through the soles of her shoes, biting into her skin, but she doesn’t stop. Not now.

The further they go, the more tense Shauna feels, like the river itself is holding its breath. The cracking beneath their feet is faint, but it’s there — a warning, a promise that things might not be as stable as they appear. Every step seems to echo louder than the last, a drumbeat that matches the frantic thud of her heart.

And then, just as they’re nearing the middle of the river, the ice beneath Shauna’s boot gives a little too much. A sharp crack runs across the surface, and she freezes, her breath caught in her throat. The sound lingers, vibrating through the still night air. For a long moment, there’s only the ice, the air, and the pounding of her pulse. Then, she slowly lifts her foot, afraid to look down, afraid of what she might see.

The crack doesn’t deepen, though. It doesn’t break apart. But the tension is there, the silent threat of the fragile ice below them, and Shauna forces herself to breathe, to move, to ignore the terrifying urge to turn around and run.

“Stay close,” she whispers to Jackie, her voice shaking more than she intended.

Jackie doesn’t say anything, but Shauna can see her grip tightening on the blanket, her knuckles white against the fabric. Jackie’s eyes flicker down to the crack in the ice, but she keeps moving, her steps careful, measured.

They don’t speak as they cross the rest of the way, the sound of their boots on ice the only noise, louder than the wind in the trees, louder than the quiet that surrounds them. Shauna’s gaze stays focused on the other side, on the ground she knows she has to reach, even if every part of her body is screaming at her to turn back.

The ice creaks beneath their feet, and Shauna feels it — the sharp, tremoring warning that jolts through the soles of her boots, right up her legs. Her heart skips a beat, but she ignores it. She tells herself it’s fine. The ice will hold. They can make it across. She has to believe that, or everything they’ve fought for so far will be for nothing.

But Jackie’s gaze flicks to the crack, and then to Shauna, her face going pale. Her breath comes faster, eyes wide, a panic setting in that Shauna can feel spreading between them like a cold wind. Jackie stops dead in her tracks, her boots grinding against the ice, a sound that cuts through the air with a jagged edge.

“This isn’t a good idea,” Jackie says, her voice shaking as she looks down at the ice again. Her hands grip the blanket tighter around her shoulders, her knuckles pale with the strain. “We should go back. We can find another way. It’s too dangerous—”

“Jackie, don’t,” Shauna says, trying to keep her voice even, calm, but it’s harder than it should be. “We can’t go back. There’s nothing behind us but the girls, and I don’t want to go back to that.”

Jackie opens her mouth to argue again, but the words catch in her throat. Shauna can see it— the fear in Jackie’s eyes, the way her chest rises and falls with each shallow breath. It’s too much. Too much to bear.

Shauna reaches out, trying to steady Jackie, her hand gripping her arm firmly, pulling her to keep walking. “Come on. Just a few more steps. You’re okay. We’re okay.”

But then there’s another crack. This one is louder, sharper, and the ice under Jackie’s feet suddenly gives way with a sickening, hollow sound. Shauna’s eyes widen in horror, but it’s too late. Jackie screams, the sound piercing the cold night air as the ice splinters and collapses beneath her. The shock of it makes Shauna’s stomach twist, but she can’t even register what’s happening before Jackie is plunging through the ice, disappearing below the surface with a violent splash.

Shauna’s heart stops in her chest. For a moment, everything is still. The world is frozen. Time has stopped, and all Shauna can hear is the frantic beating of her own pulse.

“Jackie!” Shauna screams, her voice cracking, the words tasting like bile in her throat. She steps forward instinctively, but her feet slide on the ice, her breath coming in short, panicked bursts. She can see Jackie’s legs kicking in the water, but there’s nothing beneath her. The ice is too thin, and the water is too deep— deep enough to swallow her whole.

“Jackie!” Shauna calls again, her voice desperate, as she scrambles to the edge of the hole, but she doesn’t dare get any closer. The ice is shuddering beneath her own weight, and she knows— she knows if she goes any farther, it’ll break beneath her too.

Jackie’s head emerges from the water, gasping for air, her face pale, eyes wide with terror. Her body shakes violently as she claws at the ice around her, but it’s no use. There’s nothing to hold onto. Shauna can see the way the water is pulling at her, dragging her down, freezing her skin, numbing her bones. Jackie’s teeth are chattering uncontrollably, her lips turning blue, but she doesn’t stop trying to reach for the ice. She doesn’t stop fighting.

“No!” Shauna cries, her heart breaking in two as she looks at Jackie’s trembling body. “Jackie, come on, you have to—!”

Jackie’s voice is barely audible, strained through chattering teeth. 

Shauna’s mind is racing, every thought a blur. She has to do something. She can’t just let her drown. The cold is seeping into Jackie’s limbs, freezing her in place, and the depth of the water isn’t the worst part. The worst part is the cold. It’s the way the water sinks into your bones, pulls the heat from you until there’s nothing left, nothing but a numb, frozen shell.

Shauna’s hands shake as she reaches for Jackie, leaning over the edge, but it’s a dangerous angle. She can’t risk falling in too. She takes a deep breath, steeling herself. “You have to pull yourself out, Jackie! I can’t do it for you!”

Jackie’s eyes are frantic, pleading, and Shauna feels her heart squeeze in her chest. She’s not going to make it if she stays in that water for much longer. She’s not going to survive.

Shauna pulls back, her mind screaming at her to think. She scans the area quickly, her eyes darting to the trees around them. There has to be something — a branch, a rope, something she can use to pull Jackie out. But the forest is too quiet, too still. There’s nothing.

“Jackie,” Shauna says, her voice tight, trying to steady herself, trying to steady Jackie, “you have to hold on. You have to trust me, okay? I’m not leaving you.”

Jackie’s eyes flutter, her body going slack for a moment, and Shauna’s stomach drops. No. No, she can’t lose her like this. Not like this. The cold is taking her, and if Shauna doesn’t act now, she’ll never get the chance to try again.

“Jackie, please!” Shauna’s voice cracks, a sob caught in her throat as she reaches for her again, her fingers desperately outstretched.

And then, just as her mind begins to spiral, she sees it — a small, jagged rock lodged in the ice, close enough to reach if she stretches. She grabs for it, her fingers slipping slightly, but she holds on, her arm shaking with the effort. She can do this. She has to.

“Grab my arm! Now!”

Jackie’s fingers twitch weakly, but she doesn’t respond. The cold is too much. She’s barely able to stay conscious, her body going numb, slipping into shock.

Shauna takes a deep breath, tightening her grip on the rock, and pulls herself closer, forcing herself to inch out onto the ice. Her body protests with every movement, but she can’t stop. Not now. Not when Jackie is so close to slipping away.

“Jackie, you have to hold on to me!” Shauna calls again, her voice raw, her breath coming in desperate gasps.

Slowly, Jackie’s fingers stretch, and Shauna watches, her heart hammering, as they finally, finally latch onto her arm. And with that fragile connection, Shauna pulls, pulling Jackie out of the cold, pulling her back from the edge of freezing to death.

The ice cracks once more under their combined weight, but they don’t stop. Shauna pulls her, dragging her to solid ground, away from the hole, away from the water that could have claimed her.

She wraps her trembling body with the blanket, but the cold continues to settle deeper into Jackie’s body, seeping into her veins and turning her movements slower, more sluggish. 

Each step she takes seems heavier than the last, like her limbs are made of lead. Shauna can feel the tension in her chest, the growing sense of urgency that tightens around her throat with every labored breath Jackie takes. She’s shivering violently now, her body trembling in Shauna’s grip, but it’s not enough. The frost still clings to her skin, her lips a pale shade of blue, her movements more erratic, less sure.

“Fuck, we can’t keep walking like this,” Shauna says softly, her voice trembling as she glances down at the girl beside her. The urgency is rising inside her, a heat building, but it’s not coming from her own body. It’s a need, a pull to protect, to save, to do something—anything. But everything feels wrong, too slow. “Let’s stop.”

Jackie doesn’t respond. Her eyes flicker, unfocused, her steps dragging more, until Shauna has to practically hold her up to keep her from collapsing. She grits her teeth, refusing to let the panic take over, but it’s hard. The ice is in her too now. She can feel it creeping through her, numbing her as much as it’s numbing Jackie.

They stop in a small clearing, surrounded by dark trees that seem to close in around them, blocking out the light, wrapping them in a suffocating silence. Shauna looks around quickly, her heart pounding in her ears. She doesn’t know how far they’ve come or how much further they’d have to go, but she knows they can’t go any farther right now. Not with Jackie like this. She can barely keep her eyes open. Her breathing is shallow and too fast, like she’s fighting to stay awake, but there’s nothing she can do to make it stop.

Shauna drops to her knees, her fingers fumbling as she pulls the small pack from her back, trying to get to the fire-starting supplies. It’s a struggle. The cold has gripped her too, slowing her down, making everything feel like it takes ten times longer. She can hear Jackie’s breathing in the quiet, ragged and broken, but it’s the only sound in the forest.

“Hang on, Jackie,” Shauna murmurs under her breath, though she knows Jackie can’t hear her. She can’t afford to be gentle. She has to move fast.

Shauna works quickly, pulling out the tinder, the flint, trying to get the fire going as fast as possible. Her hands are shaking, and she can feel her own breath coming in bursts, the cold creeping deeper. The flames don’t come easily. She scratches at the tinder, striking the flint, but it takes a few tries before the first spark catches. When it finally does, it’s a small, fragile flame, but it’s enough to hold on to. Enough to build the fire.

She pulls Jackie closer to the warmth, trying to shield her from the wind as much as she can, but Jackie’s shivering is worsening. She can barely stay upright now, her whole body a tremor. Shauna can feel her own panic rising, thick and heavy in her chest, but she can’t let it show. She has to stay focused.

When the fire is finally burning hot enough, Shauna gently starts to undress Jackie, her movements careful but urgent. She knows how dangerous this is — undressing Jackie, exposing her to the elements again, but she can’t afford to hesitate. The warmth from the fire is their only chance.

Shauna strips away Jackie’s damp, frozen clothes, her heart pounding with each layer she removes, revealing the girl’s pale skin underneath, the shiver that wracks her body in the dim light of the fire. Jackie’s eyes are half-lidded now, glazed over, her lips barely moving when she speaks, her voice slurred and slow.

“Guess we’re really getting close, huh?” Jackie mumbles, her voice still slow, the words laced with confusion as she blinks up at Shauna, clearly not fully understanding what’s happening. Her eyes are glazed, the edges of her vision hazy and unfocused, but she seems to grasp the awkwardness of their current position. “Didn’t think you’d be this… handsy.”

Shauna pauses for a moment, the faintest smirk tugging at the corner of her lips despite the weight of the situation. Jackie’s joking, trying to break the tension even if it’s a bit offbeat. It’s like she’s grasping at normalcy, at humor, as if trying to remind herself of who she is before the cold completely consumes her.

Shauna tilts her head slightly, gazing at her. “I’ve seen it before,” she says quietly, trying to keep her voice steady, though it’s clear that there’s more to her words than just the casual tone she’s adopting. 

They’ve shared moments like this before, back in the past, when things felt less desperate, when they still had some semblance of normal.

“I’m… I’m really cold,” Jackie mumbles, her words indistinct, as if she’s forgotten how to string them together.

Shauna forces herself to take steady breaths, her hands trembling as she presses her skin against Jackie’s. She knows it’s the only way to warm her up. The cold is too deep in her bones now; the fire alone won’t be enough.

Shauna undresses herself quickly, peeling off her layers to expose her skin. She pulls Jackie closer, pressing her body against the trembling girl’s, skin to skin, desperate for the heat to transfer between them. Jackie’s body is almost painfully cold, like a dead weight against her. Shauna feels it, feels the way the cold seems to seep into her too, the way it makes her breath catch in her chest, but she forces herself to focus. She wraps her arms tightly around Jackie’s waist, pulling her as close as she can.

She whispers softly into Jackie’s ear, “Stay with me, okay?”

Jackie doesn’t respond. Her eyes flutter closed, her body sinking into the warmth of Shauna’s skin, but it’s still not enough. Shauna presses her forehead against Jackie’s, trying to focus on the heat, on the fire, on anything that can keep them from spiraling into the darkness.

Jackie’s breath is coming in shallow gasps, barely audible, like a distant echo of something real. Shauna feels her pulse race in her own veins, but she doesn’t move. She can’t move. The cold is still there, creeping up her spine, but she holds on, wrapping Jackie in her warmth, letting their bodies press together as tightly as possible.

Jackie stirs slightly, her body jerking as a fresh tremor hits, but it’s not enough. Shauna can see it now— the way the color in Jackie’s face is slipping away, how the warmth in her body is draining, leaving her hollow and vacant. The fire may not be enough to undo the damage the ice has done.

Shauna’s hand moves to Jackie’s chest, feeling for her heartbeat, her fingers trembling against her skin, praying to feel something—anything. But for a long moment, there’s nothing. A long, aching stretch of silence where it feels like time has stopped.

And then, just as Shauna begins to doubt herself, she feels it. A weak, uneven pulse beneath her fingers. It’s faint, but it’s there.

Relief floods through her chest, a tight, desperate breath escaping her lips as she holds Jackie tighter, not letting go. She whispers again, her voice almost breaking, “you’re okay, you’re okay.”

Jackie’s brow furrows, and for a moment, she looks like she might say something, but she only exhales in another shiver, her body still trembling violently against Shauna’s. Her joke dies away as quickly as it came, the warmth of her breath fogging in the cool air between them.

Shauna feels the silence stretch between them, but it’s different now. It’s not awkward; it’s comfortable. It’s necessary. It’s warmth.

She pulls Jackie closer, wrapping her arms around her tighter, her bare skin pressed against Jackie’s in an attempt to share as much warmth as she can. They settle in that fragile, close embrace, Jackie’s head resting against Shauna’s chest. 

The fire crackles nearby, but it feels like the warmth between their bodies is the only thing that truly matters. It’s just them now, huddled together, the forest stretching on around them, but for now, the world feels smaller, contained in that moment, in that shared heat.

Jackie’s breath comes more steadily now, though it’s still slow, still tinged with the lingering tremors from the cold. Shauna feels her eyelids growing heavy, exhaustion pulling at her, but she stays awake, keeping her focus on Jackie, on the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest.

She holds Jackie close, the firelight casting flickering shadows over them, wrapping them both in the warmth they need so desperately. The air is cold, but it’s nothing compared to the coldness that had gripped Jackie moments before. Now, wrapped in this fragile cocoon of heat, everything outside of their little space feels distant, muffled.

Jackie lets out a sigh, this one more content than anything. Her body still shivers, but there’s something softer about it now, as if she’s starting to relax into the warmth, into the security of Shauna’s embrace.

Shauna presses her cheek gently to Jackie’s hair, her breath warm against her forehead. She doesn’t say anything at first. What could she say? There’s nothing left to explain, no more words needed. They’ve both been through too much to speak about it now.

And for that moment, that one small fragment of time, it’s just them, huddled close, sharing warmth and comfort, even as the night stretches on around them. There’s no more talk of the past, no more mention of what might come next. Just the quiet, steady rhythm of their breathing as they cling to each other, trying to hold on to the small piece of safety they’ve found in each other’s arms.

———

The sound wakes her first—an unmistakable rustling, the snap of twigs underfoot, the low murmur of voices. Shauna’s heart leaps in her chest, the panic setting in before her brain even fully registers the noise. It’s them—the girls. She knows the sound of their footsteps by now, knows the way the forest shifts under their weight. They’re getting closer, and they’re not far off.

Her breath catches in her throat, and instinctively, she shifts, her body tensing as her eyes dart over to Jackie. The girl is still asleep, her chest rising and falling slowly in the quiet of the night, blissfully unaware of the impending danger. Shauna’s heart races—she can’t let them catch them like this, not in their bare skin, exposed and vulnerable.

“Jackie,” Shauna hisses urgently, shaking her shoulder with a panicked desperation. Jackie groans, a small sound of confusion slipping from her lips as she blinks, her eyes struggling to focus.

“What—what’s wrong?” Jackie murmurs, her voice slurred with sleep, still caught in the haze of exhaustion.

“They’re coming,” Shauna whispers sharply, glancing over her shoulder. The sound is unmistakable now—footsteps crunching through the underbrush, voices growing louder. “We need to move. Now.”

Jackie’s eyes widen, panic setting in as she sits up, her body stiff with the sudden rush of adrenaline. She glances down at their exposed skin, realizing the situation too late. She looks back at Shauna, her breath coming in short, shallow bursts.

“What do we do?” Jackie breathes, her voice frantic. “We’re—”

“We need to get dressed,” Shauna interrupts quickly, yanking at the pile of clothes they had hastily discarded earlier. She scrambles to pull something—anything—on as quickly as she can, her hands shaking with the urgency of the moment. They can’t be caught like this. Not now. Not when things are already so fragile.

The rustling is louder now, growing closer, and Shauna doesn’t waste a second. She grabs a shirt, pulls it over her head, and reaches for the pants next, her mind racing. “Hurry, Jackie. Please.”

Jackie fumbles with her clothes, her fingers clumsy as she struggles to get dressed, but it’s clear she’s not as fast as Shauna. She’s still half asleep, still disoriented, and every second feels like an eternity.

Shauna’s eyes flicker back to the forest’s edge, her breath coming faster. They don’t have time. They don’t have time to fully get dressed, not if they want to make it out of here undetected.

“Fuck!” Shauna mutters under her breath, grabbing what she can. She pulls on a pair of pants but leaves a sweater behind, knowing it won’t matter. Jackie’s still struggling to pull her jacket on, her fingers trembling, her breath ragged.

“We can’t stay here,” Shauna says sharply, grabbing Jackie’s arm. “Come on. We’re leaving.”

With one last look back at the pile of discarded clothes, Shauna pulls Jackie to her feet, their movements frantic and disjointed as they stumble toward the trees, away from the direction of the noise. 

The girls are close now—too close. Shauna hears their voices clearly now, the sounds of their frantic search cutting through the dark, and it sends a jolt of fear down her spine.

They push through the underbrush, the trees bending under their weight, the thick forest brushing past them. Shauna barely notices the sharp branches that scrape against her arms, the cold wind that bites at their exposed skin. Her focus is entirely on getting away, on moving faster, harder, away from the danger.

They hear voices now—too close, too loud. Shauna looks over at Jackie, her face pale with fear, her eyes wide with panic. 

“Run,” Shauna whispers urgently, and Jackie nods, her legs already pumping faster as they push ahead through the forest, dodging trees, scrambling over rocks, the sounds of the girls’ voices growing distant but not yet gone.

Behind them, they can hear the snap of a branch, the quickened pace of footsteps, and then the sound of more voices shouting. 

Shauna grits her teeth, focusing on nothing but the path ahead. She can’t afford to stop, not for anything. Her heart is racing, blood pumping through her veins, urging her to run faster, to push harder, to get as far away as possible.

She doesn’t know how long they’ve been running, but the sound of pursuit is still there, faint but persistent. Jackie stumbles beside her, her breath ragged, her steps uneven, but she doesn’t slow down, not even when she can barely catch her breath.

“Are they still—” Jackie starts to ask, her voice breathless, but Shauna shakes her head quickly, not giving her the chance to finish.

“Don’t stop,” Shauna says, her voice tight with fear and desperation. 

They keep going, weaving through the trees, moving faster and faster, until Shauna feels the weight of the world pressing down on her chest, the exhaustion pulling at her limbs. But still, they run, driven by the need to escape, by the need to get as far from the girls as possible, to find a place where they can finally breathe.

And as they push forward, through the night, through the cold, through the growing sense of dread that weighs on them, Shauna can’t shake the feeling that this—this run, this flight from everything—is the only thing that’s keeping them alive.

———

After what feels like hours of running—hours of their feet pounding against the earth, their breath ragged, and their hearts racing—Shauna and Jackie finally come to a halt. They slow, their legs aching, bodies worn from the effort, as they both search the forest for any sign of danger, any sounds of pursuit. 

The forest around them is dense, heavy with the stillness of the night, but there’s no noise, no sign that the girls are close.

Shauna glances over at Jackie, her face flushed from the cold and the adrenaline, eyes wide with fear, but there’s something else there too—something like relief, like she’s starting to believe that maybe, just maybe, they’ve outrun the danger.

Shauna’s breath is shallow as she scans the surroundings, her eyes darting through the trees, looking for any shelter. Her instincts are sharp, always alert for the smallest clue, anything that could give them a moment of respite.

Then, through the trees, she sees it—a faint glow in the distance, flickering against the dark expanse of the woods. A cabin.

It’s small, hunched between the trees, its rough-hewn wooden frame barely visible in the dim light of the moon. The firelight from within casts a faint orange glow against the surrounding trees, a flicker of warmth and safety in the otherwise oppressive cold. 

For a second, Shauna freezes, her heart skipping in her chest as she assesses the situation. Could it be empty? Could they find safety there?

Without saying a word, she tugs Jackie toward the cabin, her pulse quickening with the hope that they might be able to find shelter, to finally stop running. Jackie follows, quieter now, but the same need for safety in her eyes.

They approach slowly, keeping their footsteps light, careful not to make too much noise as they draw closer to the door. Shauna presses her ear to the weathered wood of the cabin, listening for any signs of life inside, but the silence that greets her only heightens her anxiety.

She reaches for the door handle, her hand trembling as she turns it, expecting resistance, but to her surprise, the door creaks open with a soft groan, as if inviting them in. She hesitates for a moment, then looks back at Jackie, giving her a small, uncertain nod. The fear in Jackie’s eyes is palpable, but she nods back, the weight of their exhaustion clear on her face.

Together, they step into the cabin.

The inside is dim, lit only by the faint glow of a small fire in the corner of the room, crackling weakly in the hearth. The air smells of damp wood and smoke, but the warmth is a relief—a stark contrast to the biting cold they’d been fighting in the forest. 

It’s sparsely furnished, with a small wooden table and a couple of chairs, a bed tucked in one corner with thick, faded blankets piled high. There’s a shelf filled with jars of what might be food—vegetables, herbs, and other preserved goods—and a small stove that looks like it could be used to cook or boil water. 

Shauna steps further into the room, her body heavy with exhaustion, her mind still racing with fear and worry, but the sense of relief at finding a safe space is undeniable. She turns to Jackie, who’s standing just inside the door, still tense, her gaze flicking to the corners of the room, scanning for any signs of danger.

“I think we can rest here for the night,” Shauna says, her voice low and cautious. She’s not sure if it’s a question or a statement, but the words fall from her lips, and Jackie nods without hesitation.

“Yeah,” Jackie replies, her voice raw, tired. “We really need to.”

They move toward the bed, and as they sit down, the weight of everything that’s happened starts to hit them—finally, the panic, the fear, the rawness of the escape, all of it crashing in waves. Shauna sits with her back against the wall, her hands trembling as she looks around the cabin, her mind struggling to find peace in the chaos.

Jackie leans against the bedpost, pulling her knees up to her chest as she watches Shauna, her expression unreadable. She’s quiet for a long moment, and then she speaks, her voice barely above a whisper.

“What if they find us?” she asks, the fear creeping back into her voice. “What if they come here?”

Shauna’s gaze hardens, and she looks at Jackie with a mixture of exhaustion and determination. “We’ll be ready,” she says, though she doesn’t entirely believe the words herself. She’s too tired, too worn out to make any promises, but she won’t let Jackie see that weakness. 

Jackie nods slowly, her eyes flickering to the fire as she wraps her arms tighter around herself. There’s a long silence between them, and then Shauna stands up, moving to the stove and pulling some of the jars down from the shelf. She doesn’t know what’s inside, but she’ll take whatever she can get. 

She opens one jar, and the faint smell of vegetables rises from it, making her stomach growl. She sets the jar on the stove and starts heating it up, her hands moving mechanically, but her mind still trapped in the frenzy of escape.

When the food is warm enough, she hands Jackie a bowl, and the two of them sit together on the bed, eating in silence. Shauna feels the weight of everything pressing down on her. The exhaustion that’s been hanging over her all day—hell, all week—seems to finally catch up. But there’s a small flicker of calm in the air as they eat, the warm food grounding them in a way nothing else can.

Jackie is still curled up against the bedpost, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around her. Shauna takes a deep breath, the tension in her shoulders starting to release as she chews slowly, the warmth from the food spreading through her. It’s a strange comfort in the middle of everything—this small, fleeting moment of normalcy in the midst of chaos.

“You know,” Shauna says, breaking the silence, her voice a little rough, but she can’t keep the words in. “I kissed Melissa.”

Jackie looks at her over the rim of her bowl, her face impassive for a moment. Then, a slight curve of her lips, as if she’s trying to fight back a smile, or maybe it’s just the faintest hint of amusement.

“Melissa?” Jackie repeats, her tone dry but not unkind. ”I guess she was kind of eyeing you back there.”

Shauna snorts, shaking her head, and the movement sends a burst of warmth through her. “Yeah, something like that. But I don’t know. She’s been really good to me. I don’t know if that’s enough for me to—” she trails off, shrugging, not sure how to finish the sentence. Not sure how to explain the mess of emotions tangled inside her.

Jackie, in the way she always does, doesn’t seem to need any further explanation. Her gaze shifts to the fire for a moment, the flickering light casting shadows across her face, and then she shrugs too, her voice softer than before. 

“I’m not surprised,” she says, and there’s no judgment in her tone, just a certain understanding. “You’ve always had that energy. People gravitate to you.”

Shauna blinks at her, surprised at the calmness in Jackie’s voice. She expected some kind of reaction—shock, maybe teasing, or even a comment about how she’d never pictured Shauna kissing anyone, especially Melissa—but instead, Jackie seems unfazed. 

It’s almost as if this conversation is just another one of those random, meaningless exchanges that pass between old friends, and for a moment, Shauna almost lets herself feel like everything is normal.

“I guess you’d know, huh?” Shauna says, leaning back a little and glancing sideways at Jackie, a smirk pulling at the corner of her lips. It’s a little teasing, a little playful, but the tension that had been clinging to her all day feels a little lighter now.

Jackie meets her gaze with a look that’s almost too steady, and the faintest shadow of something—maybe guilt, maybe regret—passes over her face. But then she shrugs again, her expression softening into something more like amusement.

“Yeah, I guess I do,” Jackie says, her voice steady, even though Shauna can hear the quiet bitterness beneath the words. But it doesn’t linger. Instead, Jackie turns her gaze back to the fire, her face illuminated in the orange glow. “I’m not surprised. You’re… you’re different. People like you, Shauna. You’ve always been that way. You know that, right?”

Shauna is taken aback by her words, but before she can process them, Jackie shifts her weight, scooting closer to the fire, the warmth reaching her skin as she seems to lose herself in the flickering light. The fire crackles and snaps, the only sound in the room for a long while.

“Yeah, maybe,” Shauna says, more to herself than anything. She doesn’t know why she said it. Doesn’t know why she felt the need to mention it, or why it felt important. 

Maybe it’s because she’s craving normalcy in the midst of everything. Maybe it’s because Jackie—someone who’s been a part of her life in ways that most people haven’t—doesn’t seem as judgmental as she expected. And that… that means more than she wants to admit.

They’re both quiet for the next few moments, the fire keeping them company as the night presses in around them. Shauna glances at Jackie again, noticing the way her shoulders are tense, the way her face seems almost too calm for everything that’s happened, for everything they’ve been through. 

But she knows better than to pry. Jackie’s always been good at hiding behind the mask of indifference. Shauna wonders, though, what’s really going on behind it.

“Do you ever think about it?” Shauna asks suddenly, her voice quieter this time, more thoughtful. “About what happens next?”

Jackie’s head tilts slightly, as if she’s considering the question carefully. She looks at Shauna for a long moment, as though trying to read her, trying to figure out exactly what she means.

“About us?” Jackie asks finally, her voice steady, but there’s a hint of uncertainty there. “Or about this?”

Shauna nods, biting her lip as she waits for Jackie’s answer. There’s a tension between them now, unspoken, like the weight of everything they’ve been through is finally coming to a head, pressing down on them both. But Jackie doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, she shifts her position, pulling her knees closer to her chest, as if she needs to close herself off for a moment.

“I don’t know,” Jackie says after a long pause. “We’ve been through so much that it’s hard to think about anything else.” She shrugs slightly, not quite meeting Shauna’s gaze. “I don’t know if that’s enough.”

Shauna can’t help but let out a small sigh, a mix of relief and sadness settling over her. She nods slowly, as if accepting the words, though part of her knows it’s not really about the words. It’s about what happens when they stop running, when they stop surviving.

She’s not sure why it feels different this time—different from the other conversations they’ve had, the ones that danced around the truth, the ones that never really went anywhere. Maybe it’s because of everything they’ve been through, or maybe it’s because Jackie has always known how to cut through the layers, how to get to the heart of things when no one else could.

Finally, Jackie speaks, her voice a little more tentative than usual, as if she’s testing the waters.

“So… are you gay, or what?” Jackie asks, her gaze steady, though there’s a softness to her expression, like she’s trying to keep the question from sounding too invasive.

Shauna freezes, her body tense at the suddenness of the question. It’s not that she hasn’t thought about it, or that she doesn’t have an answer. It’s just… the way Jackie asks, so matter-of-fact, like it’s just another thing to talk about, like they’re sitting in some normal, comfortable place where everything is easy and unspoken.

But they’re not. They’re sitting in a cabin in the middle of the woods, on the run from a group of girls who are starting to see Jackie as a threat. It’s anything but normal.

She shifts uncomfortably, her mind racing for a way to answer that won’t make the moment feel heavier than it already is. But Jackie isn’t looking at her like she’s judging. There’s no pity in her eyes, no expectation. It’s just curiosity, plain and simple.

Shauna opens her mouth, then closes it again, unsure how to start. The answer feels too big, too complicated, and she can’t quite put it into words. She’s always known, always felt different, but she’s never had to say it out loud, not like this.

“I’m not sure,” Shauna says quietly, shrugging slightly, her gaze flickering to the fire. The warmth of it almost feels comforting, but the question feels like it’s burning through her. “I mean… yeah. I guess I’m gay. Or, I don’t know. I don’t really think about it that way. It’s just who I am.”

Jackie watches her for a long moment, her expression unreadable, but there’s no judgment in her eyes. Shauna can feel her heart thudding in her chest, the way the weight of the question lingers even after the words have been spoken. 

It’s strange, having to admit something that’s always been a part of her, but Jackie’s presence here makes it feel a little easier, somehow. Like she doesn’t have to explain it, or justify it.

“I get that,” Jackie says after a pause, her voice low and thoughtful. “You just love who you love, right?” She shifts slightly, glancing away for a moment before meeting Shauna’s gaze again. “But yeah, I get it. I know what it’s like to feel like you don’t fit in, or like you’re always trying to figure out who you’re supposed to be.”

Shauna nods slowly, feeling a strange sense of relief wash over her. She didn’t expect Jackie to understand—not in the way that she does. But there’s something in her words, in the way she says them, that feels familiar, like they’re not so different after all. Like maybe, just maybe, they’ve both been carrying their own burdens, their own secrets, for far too long.

“Yeah,” Shauna says quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s a lot easier when you’re not trying to explain it to everyone else.”

Jackie doesn’t say anything right away, but there’s something in her gaze that softens, something in the way she leans back against the bedpost, her arms crossed loosely over her chest. 

For a moment, there’s an understanding between them, an unspoken connection that neither of them needs to put into words. They both know what it’s like to live with things that other people can’t understand, and in some strange way, it makes the distance between them feel a little smaller.

“You’re not alone in this, you know,” Jackie says after a long pause, her voice quieter now, almost like a secret between them. 

Shauna’s breath catches in her throat at the unexpected words. She’s not used to hearing something like that from anyone, especially not from Jackie. It’s one of those moments where she doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to respond without making it sound like she’s pretending to be stronger than she is. 

“Thanks,” she says softly, the words slipping out before she can stop them. She doesn’t know why she feels so vulnerable in this moment, why Jackie’s simple statement seems to cut through her defenses so easily. 

Jackie nods, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “Anytime,” she says, and it’s not just the words. It’s the way she says them, like she truly means it.

She shifts, her shoulders relaxing as the tension in her body seems to melt away, and she looks at Shauna through the dim light, as if weighing her next words carefully. There’s something in her eyes—an openness that wasn’t there before, like she’s finally allowing herself to admit things she’s kept hidden.

“I’ve been thinking about kissing girls for a while,” she says quietly, her voice low, almost shy, as though she’s not entirely sure how the admission will land. The words hang in the air for a moment, but Jackie doesn’t seem to regret saying them. Instead, she glances down, picking at the edge of the blanket beneath her, a slight flush creeping up her neck.

Shauna tilts her head slightly, processing the words. She can feel her pulse quicken, her curiosity piqued. This is the kind of conversation she’s never expected to have, and yet, here they are, in a place far from everything familiar. 

“Really?” She asks, her tone gentle, though there’s a hint of surprise. Jackie doesn’t strike her as the type to admit something like that easily, but in the privacy of this moment, it feels like Jackie is finally letting down the walls she’s built around herself.

Jackie shrugs, a small, almost embarrassed smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “I just never acted on it. I didn’t want to be the weird one or make anyone uncomfortable. But it’s something I’ve been thinking about.”

Shauna nods slowly, taking in Jackie’s words. She can’t help but wonder if there’s more that Jackie hasn’t said, more that she’s kept locked away. The feeling lingers, but Shauna doesn’t push. She doesn’t need to.

“Did you ever have a crush?” She asks after a beat, her voice soft but probing, like she’s testing the waters, wanting to know more. 

Jackie hesitates, the playful air she usually carries suddenly fading, replaced by a vulnerability Shauna’s not used to seeing. She looks away, her gaze drifting toward the fire, lost in thought for a long moment. Shauna waits, giving her the space she needs to gather her thoughts.

Finally, Jackie speaks again, her voice quieter, almost regretful. “Yeah,” she says, and there’s a heaviness to the word. “I had a crush when I first joined the soccer team. It was Nat.”

Shauna’s breath catches in her throat, her heart skipping a beat as she processes Jackie’s admission.

Nat? She hadn’t seen that coming. She knows Nat well enough to know how reserved she is about her own feelings, and the idea that Jackie—so much older, so much more experienced—would have felt that way about her is a revelation.

“You liked Nat?” Shauna asks, her voice steady despite the surprise. The thought of Nat, the girl who seems to carry so many unspoken layers, having someone like Jackie attracted to her, suddenly makes so much sense. They’re both complicated, both holding onto things they don’t talk about. 

It was only a matter of time, she guesses, before their paths crossed in a way neither of them had anticipated.

Jackie nods slowly, a slight smile pulling at the corner of her lips. “She’s different, and I guess I kind of liked that. She's so strong and confident. And I was a mess. I couldn’t help it. I was a little obsessed with her, I guess.” She lets out a short, bitter laugh, the sound hollow in the quiet of the cabin. “But I never told her. Never even came close. It was just this stupid little crush that I never acted on.”

Shauna feels a strange sympathy for Jackie in that moment. She knows what it’s like to feel that way—caught in the quiet torment of unspoken feelings, of something unacknowledged, something left to fester in silence. It’s a feeling she knows too well, even if her own experiences have been different.

“Did you ever think about telling her?” Shauna asks, her voice quieter now, more contemplative. There’s no judgment in her words, just a quiet curiosity. She’s trying to understand, trying to piece together the story Jackie’s been holding onto for all this time.

Jackie shakes her head slowly, the smile on her lips gone now, replaced by something darker, something almost wistful. “No. I don’t think I could’ve. Nat… she’s not someone you can just tell something like that to. It felt… wrong, like I’d be crossing some line. Like it wouldn’t make sense, you know?”

Shauna nods, understanding more than Jackie could know. There’s a quiet truth in Jackie’s words, an understanding of how complicated things can get when it comes to feelings, when it comes to wanting someone who might not even know you exist in that way. She’s lived it, too. The hesitation, the fear of rejection, the way it eats at you without you even realizing it.

“Well,” she says softly after a moment, her gaze meeting Jackie’s. “Maybe it wouldn’t have been as complicated as you thought.” She shrugs slightly, not sure where this conversation is leading but feeling a strange sense of connection with Jackie that she hadn’t expected. 

Jackie’s lips twitch, a half-smile returning to her face, but there’s something different in it this time. It’s lighter, less burdened, as though the weight of all those unspoken feelings has lifted just a little. “Yeah,” she says quietly, her voice softer now. “It’s just… funny, right?”

Shauna doesn’t answer, and the fire crackles quietly between them, casting flickering shadows across the walls of the cabin. She can feel the weight of the conversation settling around them, each word carrying more significance than the last. The silence that had followed Jackie’s last confession feels thick with anticipation, but Shauna doesn’t want to let the moment slip away. 

She knows that there are things they need to say, things that have been unsaid for far too long.

“Jackie,” Shauna begins, her voice hesitant at first, but firm as she pushes past the uncertainty. “I need to apologize. For what happened with Jeff.” 

The words feel heavy on her tongue, and as soon as she says them, she regrets it. She hates that she even has to say them, but she knows she has to. She can’t move forward without getting this off her chest.

Jackie looks at her, her expression unreadable for a moment. There’s a stillness in her gaze, a quiet judgment that makes Shauna’s skin prickle, but then Jackie just shrugs, as if it doesn’t matter. 

“Don’t apologize,” she says with a half-smile, one that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I don’t care about that. I really don’t.”

Shauna frowns, confusion flickering in her expression. “But it wasn’t right! I hooked up with him behind your back, and I knew it would hurt you.” 

Her voice falters a little as she says the words. She’s never been good at talking about this kind of thing—never been good at owning up to her mistakes. But she knows she has to, especially with Jackie, especially now, when they’re both so vulnerable, so raw in this moment.

Jackie leans back against the wall of the cabin, staring into the fire as she processes Shauna’s words. The faint glow from the flames catches the edge of her face, making her look distant and untouchable, like she’s a million miles away from Shauna’s apology. Shauna watches her, waiting for her to respond, unsure of what to expect.

Finally, after a long pause, Jackie speaks, her voice low but surprisingly calm. “I wasn’t even mad about it, Shauna,” she says. The words hit Shauna like a wave, and she blinks, not sure if she heard right. “Sure, I was pissed for a second, but it wasn’t about that. It was more that you didn’t tell me.”

Shauna’s heart stutters at the honesty in Jackie’s words. She hadn’t expected that—hadn’t expected Jackie to say it like that. She opens her mouth, but the words don’t come out right away. It feels like everything has shifted suddenly, like she’s looking at Jackie through a new lens, one she’s never seen before.

“You were mad because I didn’t tell you?” Shauna asks, her voice tentative, almost searching for understanding. 

Jackie nods, her gaze flickering back to Shauna, but her expression softens as she speaks again. “Yeah,” she says. “I mean, I can’t be mad at you for doing whatever you want, Shauna. You do you. But it’s the hiding it from me that stung.” 

Shauna shifts uncomfortably, guilt rising in her chest. She hadn’t understood at the time, hadn’t seen it from Jackie’s perspective. She had kept it a secret because she didn’t want to make things more complicated, didn’t want to make Jackie feel… less than. But in doing so, she had betrayed Jackie’s trust in a way she hadn’t even realized.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, her voice thick with regret. “I should’ve told you. I shouldn’t have kept it from you.”

Jackie exhales, the tension in her body finally easing a little as she meets Shauna’s gaze. “I get it,” she says softly, the edge of anger gone from her voice now, replaced by a tired understanding. “But you can’t hide things from me. Not if we’re gonna make this work—whatever this is, I mean. I need to know, okay?”

Shauna nods, her chest tight as she processes Jackie’s words. She realizes that Jackie is right. In order for anything between them to work, there can’t be any more secrets, no more hiding things under the surface. She can’t keep pushing Jackie away with her silence and her lies. Not anymore.

“I won’t hide anything from you again,” Shauna promises, the words coming out more easily now, as if saying them aloud somehow makes them more real.

Jackie gives a small, almost imperceptible smile. “Good,” she says, her voice still soft but steady. “I trust you, Shauna. No more walls, no more pretending.”

The air between them feels lighter now, as though the weight of unspoken things has finally been lifted, even if just for a moment. Shauna feels a sense of relief she hadn’t expected, a quiet release that comes with the understanding that Jackie isn’t angry at her anymore—at least, not in the way she thought. 

There’s still something there, something to be worked through, but for now, it feels like they’re on the same page again, like they’ve found some kind of understanding in the middle of their mess.

Shauna chuckles quietly, the tension in the air dissolving a little as the weight of their conversation starts to lift. “I…” she starts, her voice a little lighter now, “I really thought Jeff was gonna be better at it. All that talk, all the hype, and well, it was definitely not worth it.”

Jackie lets out a dry laugh, her face twisting into a smirk. “Seriously. He acted like he was some kind of expert, but when it came down to it, pretty mediocre.” She shakes her head, her shoulders relaxing. “Honestly, I thought it was gonna be like… wow, but it was more like… meh.”

Shauna grins, the familiar comfort of their old banter easing the last of the tension in the room. “Exactly. I mean, I get it. He was trying, but I don’t know, maybe he thought he could pull off some moves from those dumb porno videos. It was awkward. Like, he’s too focused on doing things, but forgets to actually, you know, feel it.”

Jackie rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “He had no rhythm!” She scoffs, then her face softens a little, a kind of nostalgic amusement in her eyes. “Guess that was just him trying to compensate.”

Shauna laughs, her voice warm with a sense of camaraderie. “We learned the hard way, huh?”

“Definitely,” Jackie agrees, the corner of her lips tugging upward. “But hey, at least now we know. Mediocre Jeff is definitely not the one for either of us.”

Shauna lets out a sigh, her shoulders relaxing as they both share the brief moment of laughter, something light and unburdened, a little reminder of the comfort they used to share. “It wasn’t even about him. It was just the whole thing, I think? I wasn’t even into it. Just trying to make up for something else.” She trails off, her smile faltering slightly before she looks back at Jackie.

Jackie nods, the playful grin still lingering, but her eyes are softer now. “No harm done.” She lets out a soft, breathy laugh. “He couldn’t even get us both off. How sad is that?”

Shauna shakes her head, but there’s something genuine in her smile, something more tender now that they’re talking about it so freely. “Not sad, just a little disappointing.” She nudges Jackie lightly with her shoulder, their eyes meeting in a quiet understanding.

Jackie tilts her head slightly, her expression thoughtful. “Very disappointing.”

“Yeah,” Shauna looks over at her, her expression turning a little more serious, and she chuckles softly. “At some point, after… that, I had to, uh, get myself off alone. Just to fix things,” She rubs the back of her neck awkwardly, the words coming out with an almost embarrassed laugh, but there’s an honesty to it.

”Oh,” Jackie glances at her, surprised, her brow furrowing as she processes what Shauna said. After a beat, she bites her lip and shrugs a little. “I’ve never tried it. Not like that.”

Shauna blinks, the surprise crossing her face before she masks it with a light chuckle. “Wait, really? You’ve never… you never, like, touched yourself?” She raises an eyebrow, half-expecting Jackie to crack some kind of joke, but Jackie just shakes her head, a little sheepish, almost reluctant to admit it.

“No,” Jackie admits quietly, her voice softer than usual, “I just— I don’t know. I never felt the need, or… I was too scared to figure it out. I don’t know.” She looks away, fiddling with a piece of fabric from her shirt, clearly a little uncomfortable with the subject.

Shauna watches her for a second, her expression softening as she takes in the vulnerability in Jackie’s voice. She leans back slightly, her posture more relaxed now, trying to make Jackie feel a little less on the spot. “Hey, there’s no shame in it,” she says, her voice gentle, reassuring. “Everyone figures it out in their own time. You don’t have to rush it.”

Jackie nods, her lips pressing together in a tight line as she tries to digest Shauna’s words. “I guess. I just never really thought about it. I mean, if I’m being honest, it’s kind of intimidating. The whole idea of it. Like, what if it’s not as great as people say it is? Or, worse, what if it’s just… weird?” 

She laughs nervously, her voice shaky like she’s trying to lighten the mood, but the vulnerability is still there.

Shauna gives a small, understanding nod. “It can be really fucking intimidating. The first time I did it, it was definitely messy as hell. But it’s not weird, Jackie. It’s just you figuring yourself out.” She pauses for a second, her mind working as she tries to find the right words. “And you don’t have to do it if you’re not ready. There’s no rush.”

Jackie hesitates, glancing at her out of the corner of her eye. “You really think it’s not weird?” she asks, a little incredulously. Doesn't it feel… like it’s something you should be doing? Like everyone else is doing it, and you’re just… behind or something?”

Shauna leans forward, her voice calm but firm. “Trust me, it’s not weird. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. Yeah, it feels so awkward at first, but that’s part of it.” She smirks a little. “And honestly, the whole awkwardness? That’s the fun part for me.”

Jackie finally laughs, a little breathless, her nerves seeming to ease just slightly. “Okay, okay. Maybe I’ll give it a shot sometime,” she says, a teasing tone creeping back into her voice, but there’s a softness behind it now. “I mean, if you can do it, I can too, right?”

Shauna shrugs casually, trying to hide the hint of amusement in her smile. “Exactly. And who knows, maybe you’ll really like it. I know I do.”

Jackie shifts a little, looking at her with a mix of curiosity and hesitation. Her voice is soft, as if testing the waters. “So, how do you… you know, do it? What, uh, what do you do?”

Shauna blinks, caught a little off guard by the question, but she doesn’t shy away. She takes a deep breath and shifts slightly, feeling the weight of the conversation settle between them. 

She’s never been one to shy away from tough talks, especially with Jackie, but still, this feels a bit different. There’s something in the air, a kind of raw openness between them that makes Shauna want to be honest, to guide Jackie through something she’s never experienced.

“Well,” she begins slowly, her tone thoughtful, “it’s kind of different for everyone. But, for me, I just take care of myself. I start slow, kind of get the feel for it. Maybe I… rub my neck or my shoulders first. I like to ease into it, let my body relax. And then, I just focus on what feels good.” She shrugs slightly, almost like she’s unsure of how to explain something so intimate without making it sound too clinical.

Jackie listens intently, her gaze focused on Shauna as she speaks, absorbing every word. “Okay, but like… how do you know when you’re doing it right?” She bites her lip, trying not to sound too self-conscious, but the question comes out anyway, and she can’t help the curiosity in her voice.

Shauna thinks for a moment, her fingers tracing the rim of her mug absentmindedly. “When it feels good. That’s the best part. You don’t have to follow any rules. You just listen to your body. And trust me, you’ll know when you’re doing it right.” She glances at Jackie, trying to reassure her with a smile. “But yeah, I normally just use my vibe.”

Jackie nods, her expression thoughtful, though she still looks a little unsure. “Not your fingers? Isn’t that what everyone does?” She says the last part as though testing it out, like she’s not sure how to reconcile the idea of doing something for herself rather than for someone else.

Shauna chuckles softly. “That’s what I mean, though. I tried my fingers at first, but it would leave me sore as fuck. So I went to this store on the other side of town and bought a vibe.”

The words settle in the air between them for a moment, both of them quiet as Jackie processes it all. There’s a strange kind of vulnerability in the silence, a sense of understanding that passes between them, though unspoken. Jackie glances down at her hands, a faint flush coloring her cheeks.

“Okay, I think I get it,” Jackie says, her voice quieter now, but with an air of determination. “I just don’t know why it’s so hard to think about doing it.”

Shauna smiles softly, her expression gentle. “That's okay, Jackie.”

Jackie meets her gaze, and there’s a new kind of understanding in her eyes. She nods slowly, almost to herself, as if the weight of the conversation has shifted something inside of her. “I think I want to try it now with how you talked about it.”

Shauna nods back, the weight of the conversation settling into something lighter, something more comfortable. “It really is fun,” she agrees with a soft smile. 

They sit there for a while, letting the conversation hang in the air between them, unspoken but understood. Both of them feel a little lighter, a little more connected, in ways that words can’t always express.