Ambrose does not bleed. The congealing liquid which comes out of him is not blood. Audrey scrapes it off the carpet into a plastic cup. She recognizes it as one of the later stages before their blood turns to soil, thick and dark.

Fallon tries not to watch. She sinks into a ball on the floor, curling in to herself. Tucked in the narrow space between the two motel beds, she closes her eyes. Is that what Corrin saw, when she died? Was it that horrible that night?

No one else moves while Ajay assesses Ambrose. When Ajay pulls back his eyelid, there are no pupils which could be dialated. His whole eyes are glossy, inky black. The substance is sticky on Ajay's hands. Ambrose's skin is warm to the touch. Ajay tries to feel for a pulse on his wrist, but something crawls beneath it and he slams it down. Ambrose hovers the back of his hand over Ambrose's lips.

"How did no one say anything?" Nico swallows, quietly whispering. "Nobody saw him and tried to help him?"

"It's Halloween," Clare squeezes Nico's shoulder gently, hoping to pull them back from the scene.

Nico lets Clare take him, leans against their shoulder. It was supposed to be a fun party. Even Clare was drinking. Even Barry seemed to be having a good time. Even Leo was dancing in the crowd.

"He's not breathing," Ajay looks at Ambrose's chest.

Eva bends down to the ground. She grabs Ambrose hand, crawlies and all and puts it up to her face. He smells like a bonfire, like he was out at a busher all night and the firewood clings to his clothes. Eva looks out the open doorway, at the crow on the telephone wire.

"He's dead?" Kaia peers forward, swallowing.

Barry laughs, "of course he's fucking dead. The question is, is he dead again."

There is air on Ajay's hand, hanging over Ambrose's face. He can see it rise from his mouth, a faint whisp of grey hanging in the air. Ajay isn't even a doctor, and he's certainly not a mortician. And Ambrose doesn't seem to be exactly human.

"Ajay," Leo whispers, moving closer.

With one hand up to Leo's chest, Ajay pauses. He can feel the mysterious liquid seeping into the knees of his trousers. He looks up at Este. She is so beautiful, always, even with her eyes wide and her face looking at him. Would Ajay find her ugly if it were her beneath him? Would he be doing what he is doing now? Perhaps it is because Ambrose had always felt as if he were beyond this plane.

"When Kaylee died, she decayed rather quickly," Audrey pokes Ambrose with the back of their pen. His skin squishes in. "He's intact."

"He smells awful," Barry plugs their nose.

"He's bloating like he's decaying," Ajay manages.

"There's no rigor mortis," Audrey counters.

Fallon curls into herself tighter. The room feels like its spinning. Either she needs more drinks or less. Something sweet on her tongue, a different taste than smoke and muck. Suddenly she is aware of the clothes on her skin, how they hang. Everything seems to drag around her.

"Ajay," Leo leans down closer. "We should move him into the bathroom for now. We don't all need to see it."

"I think," Clare cuts in. They squeeze Nico's shoulder tighter, and Nico's hand wraps around theirs. Clare looks at Kaia. She nods. "I think he went to where he died."

Leo freezes. Not just his body, but his blood too. The room feels so quiet.

A crow caws outside.

"I went." Clare swallows. "I went with Kaia, to see if I would remember. I've been having flashbacks, and I thought... well I went, and then suddenly all I felt was flames. Ambrose knew about it. I didn't think he'd..."

Nico grabs Clare and pulls her into a hug. Their embrace is tight, firm, and of course Clare doesn't mind. It feels more secure than the bulletproof vest she died wearing.

"We should get some sleep," Leo cuts her off.

"We don't need to," Kaia points out. "Clare hasn't slept in weeks. She doesn't eat any more either."

Nico pulls back and holds Clare close to them. They wipe the hair out of the front of her face, brushing aside the strands. At that moment, she looks like a thousand friends, co-workers of theirs, from when they modeled.

"She ate..." Ajay trails off.

Because Clare did eat. And then she ate and ate and had to basically be held back from a bottle of beer. It hadn't seemed anything extraordinary, but now her eyes look black just like they did when he stood next to her. He looks at her, expecting to see something crawl beneath her skin too.

Is she dead too? Are they all dead?

This whole time Ajay has been dead, and he has barely thought about his family at all.

"We don't need to eat or drink?" Lydia snorts out a laugh, a hiccup at the same time. She covers her mouth and runs to the bathroom. She's never been drunk before, but she's going to be sick.

Kaia hurries in after her. Lydia hangs over the toilet, not retching, and Kaia holds her hair all the same. At some point, she might be sick. They don't need to eat, but Nico had a stomach ache during their first few days here. Or maybe they needed to eat then, but now they don't. Things are changing. It gets dark out by five o'clock in the evening now. The air is cold and the ground is dry.

"Sleep or not, we should let Ajay work on Ambrose and regroup tomorrow," Leo points out. "I'll stay with him."

"Anyone who wants to can regroup in my room," Nico points out.

They glance over at Fallon, curled on the ground. Fallon cannot see the apologetic look on their face, but Nico hopes they hear it. If Ajay and Leo are attending to the body, it will just be Nico and Fallon in their motel room, and with Fallon curled the way she is, it would really just be Nico. Surrounded and alone.

Eva helps Ajay move the body, mostly because she can see how he squirms. Maybe Eva likes unsettling people, but she doesn't think Ambrose does. It's a natural habit of his he can't seem to shake. She lies his warm body on the cold bathroom floor and sits next to it. He's dead, smoking, and she doesn't have the heart to pull out her lighter and join him. Lydia and Kaia leave the bathroom so that Ajay can fit inside. It shouldn't be a problem to stay with him. Her mother locked her in closets when she was in trouble. The freaks belong out of sight.

Yet she stands up. Her knees crack as she does. She expects her bones to pop out of her skin, sticking out in harsh rotting splinters. Yet, she stands up. And she walks out of the room.

~~~

The scratchy blankets in the motel and the lumpy pillows do not make for a good slumber party. Nico tries their best. On their side are Kaia and Clare, trying their best to tuck blankets behind the bulky headboards and pin them up with desk chairs. Eventually Nico steps back and watches the pair of them moving together.

Fallon watches on, insists that she's fine. When Nico tries to talk to her, she brushes their hand off her shoulder. In the room next door, Ambrose is in a bathroom on a floor. Audrey didn't leave the room. At least Fallon knows people well. She held onto Ambrose as they watched Kaylee die. She felt him alive. Whatever Audrey wants to do to his body, Fallon probably knows best of all. She also knows Leo would never let it happen.

She hears Clare's soft giggle as Kaia throws a pillow at her. Clare's cheeks are warm, flushed with liquor or love, it's hard to tell. Fallon puts the back of her hand to her cheek, pressing her cold skin against her own rising heat.

Fuck. Corrin would've loved them just as much as she does.

The moment is not as special for Lydia. She cannot remember ever having been to a slumber party, which isn't to say she never has attended one. So instead, she slips into the bathroom and shuts the door behind her.

Barry turns around, taking their eyes off themselves in the mirror.

"You should give them a hand," Lydia walks past him.

She sits down on the lip of the bathtub, gazing up at them. She's not Lydia, but if that is Ambrose maybe Barry isn't Barry either. This Lydia has her eyes. The same soft, wet, doe look. Even in death she has maintained her innocence. Maybe even especially. Women who die get to be angels or heathens. Some how, Barry gets to see her as both.

It's a luxury maybe more wonderful than any pearl necklace.

"What are you doing?" Barry whispers the words.

Lydia swallows, sure her throat is far too dry for someone who has drunk this much. The last hour has been sobering. Barry is drunk too, she thinks.

"I'm sure they'd have built the for by now with your help."

Barry steps back from the mirror. It is only two steps between them, but she swears they saunter over, slow. They're calling her from beyond the grave. She has answered Barry's prayers.

"Must you try to kill me again?" Barry asks. "Was holding my life in your hands once not enough?"

She stands up, eye to eye with Barry. He swallows, looking at her. She sees it in Barry's eyes; whatever she is now he wants it. Barry seems to walk towards death wherever it finds him.

Lydia puts a hand on their shoulder. The Barry that they are with anyone else, including the new Lydia, would shrug her off. They'd keep her chasing and wanting, but all Barry has ever been is a hunter. Something desires him, even if it is death.

"Talk to me..." Barry's breath shakes. He blinks, looking away. "Come find me when you are sober, Lydia."

This time, it is Barry that leaves her. Lydia doesn't have to remember him to doubt it has ever happened before.

~~~

With everyone distracted, Nico slips from the room as well. They find Este before they expect to meet her. She stands on the balcony. Without the wind, her hair seems flat.

"You have to tell Leo," Nico says.

Este doesn't look at Nico. She feels static tickling the soft hairs on her cheek. Maybe there is going to be the fourteenth dry thunder storm. It is a foreboding night, Halloween. At this hour, only people drunkingly wandering home from parties and teenagers armed with eggs and toilet paper roam the street. Maybe ghouls, if that is what one would consider Este.

"He's going to find out," Nico says. "Barry and I saw it on the news. Better he finds out from you than Barry."

She exhales. There is a cloud of air in front of her face, steaming from her lips. She hopes it is just the cold and not smoke. It doesn't matter much either way. She came to do as she was supposed to do. Yet somehow, she feels just as vacant. Certainly more than the motel.

"Barry could blackmail you," Nico hisses. Their anger is spilling over, but Leo is standing somewhere on the other side of the closed door.

Este grins.

"Why are you only worried about what Leo's going to think?" she asks. "You're friends with Clare aren't you? They're a pig too."

When Nico doesn't answer, Este pulls herself off the balcony. She stretches her shoulders, and heads back into the room.

~~~

Duty has always been Leo's salvation. He has never been saved, not properly, but there is something secure in saving others. Here, watching over Ajay and keeping him company as he works on Ambrose, Leo's skin feels tight.

Just on the other side of the wall, Nico is doing their duty as well, keeping others just as safe. Here Leo is with a corpse, a medical student, and a would-be journalist.

Leo tries to focus on Audrey and not the body. Certainly not Nico. Nico has a boyfriend. A living one, who is likely only haunted by Nico's ghost.

Of course, Audrey's eyes narrow in on anything they can manage to pick out. They follow Ajay's hands as they use the backend of a toothbrush to dig through Ambrose's mouth. There are small bones inside, thin, that Ajay haphazardly discards. Piles of muck and fur, and ashes flake out onto the ground. Ajay has cleaned it out thrice now, and whenever he goes to check Ambrose's airways again, they are full of the muck once more.

"Lee," Ajay sighs, looking up at him. "I'm not a mortician. Or even a doctor."

Audrey hangs off the edge of the toilet, perched on the lid and waiting for Ajay to pull and poke at Ambrose again.

"He's dead?" Leo asks.

Ajay looks at Ambrose's face. He sees the man who sat next to him in the pew. For Leo and Ajay's peace of mind, the answer should be yes. The simple answer is, his airways are clogged, he reeks of fire, he has no pulse, and Ambrose is supposed to be dead anyway.

The more complicated answer relates to his lack of pulse. Ambrose doesn't have one because something is squirming in his skin. And so wherever Ajay goes, he can feel things pulsing. Not a heartbeat. The more complicated answer is that moving Ambrose into the bathroom has given some colour to his cheeks. His hair is matted, caked in dirt, and so were his cheeks before Ajay wiped his face clean. The more complicated answer is that Ambrose's eyes while closed, are looking back and forth beneath the ribs.

"So he's alive?" Audrey peers in.

They reach a hand down towards Ambrose. Ajay snatches it. His grip is tight, pinching Audrey's knuckles as they wince.

"Nobody touches him," Ajay stares at them. "Not you. Not Leo. Just me. Got it, Deetz?"

They rip their hand back, pulling their fingers close to them and massaging them.

"You're dumber than you look if you think I'm afraid of you," Audrey spits.

"Don't fear me," Ajay shakes his head. "Fear Este."

Leo clears his throat, "only you, Ajay. For now. Right, Audrey."

They grumble, but do not object out loud. To keep out Audrey, Ajay's going to need to make sure he never sleeps again.

~~~

When all is said and done, the fort built and people beginning to curl underneath it, Eva slinks inside. She wraps a blanket tightly around her, the mess of blonde hair on her head sticking to it with static. In seconds, all the bodies and breaths fill the space so it becomes warm. She opens the blanket, lets it blossom around her, and in the middle she pulls out a bottle of red wine, Este's, and several cups. Without explaining, she passes them around to everyone.

It is quiet. There are eight of them pressed tightly in this space. Ajay and Audrey and Leo are not here. Of course, neither is Ambrose. When everyone has a cup she leans forward and pours liquid into their glasses. Only a splash of red wine at the bottom of each cup.

Eva imagines Ambrose at parties in school. He was in law school, after all, and certainly had to have been to a party. Eva can picture him, pressed into a wall, a grip tight around his cup. His knuckles white like the bones of a skeleton. She cannot imagine him at a bar, certainly not the place she died. Unfortunately, she has to imagine herself to where he died.

With a hand outstretched, she holds out her cup. The others bring theirs forward. With such little liquid, nothing spills out. The plastic cups smush rather than clink.

"Pour one out for the dead guy," Eva says, and she pounds back the drink.

~~~~~

Hello! You'll never believe who is done the next chapter! It's ya boy. And, ya boy is almost done the whole book. Which is like, sick as fuck. And I guess my question is, if you had to be dead roommates with one of these people, who are you picking to share a bed with. I think Nico is ideal, but I love Kaia too. Part of me wants to say Barry just for the drama haha.