⠀⊹ ♪ ྀི 𓈒 ๋ Yellowjackets Dr.
Lucious kept his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets, fingers curled tight enough to ache. The cold barely registered anymore. Everything out here felt numb — his face, his thoughts, even the fear that used to sit loud in his chest.
He watched the others move through the distance, like they already understood something he didn’t. Like they belonged here.
“I’m not doing it,” he said, mostly to the ground. “I’m not supposed to be here anyway.”
Natalie stopped a few steps in front of him. The rifle hung loosely in her hands, familiar in a way that still felt wrong to look at. Her hair clung damply to her face, and there were dark circles under her eyes that hadn’t been there before the crash.
She studied him for a moment, like she was deciding whether arguing was even worth the energy.
“Yeah,” she said finally, voice rough. “None of us are supposed to be here.”
Lucious shook his head. “That’s different. You’re the team. I was just—” he laughed under his breath, bitter and embarrassed. “The water boy. Soon as we get rescued, I go back to being nobody. This isn’t my job.”
Natalie let out a slow breath through her nose, the kind people did when they were trying not to lose patience.
“You know why you’re here,” she said.
“They kicked you off the basketball team,” she continued. “You trashed the school, remember? Broke windows, spray painted lockers. Principal didn’t want you representing them anymore.”
“I know what I did,” Lucious muttered.
“Then stop acting like you got dragged here by accident.”
Lucious felt heat crawl up his neck despite the cold.
“Normal’s gone,” she said quietly. “You think I wanted this?” She lifted the rifle slightly. “You think I wake up excited to go shoot something so we don’t starve?”
He didn’t respond. He couldn’t.
Her voice softened, but it didn’t lose its edge.
“We’re all scared,” she said. “Every single one of us. But being scared doesn’t mean you get to sit out while everyone else does the hard part.”
Lucious swallowed, staring at his boots half-buried in snow.
She held the rifle out toward him.
For a long moment, he didn’t move. The gun looked impossibly heavy, like taking it meant accepting something he wasn’t ready to face — that this wasn’t temporary, that surviving meant changing.
Natalie pushed it gently into his hands anyway.
“Use it,” she said, her voice low and steady. “Or we starve.”