This time when Nico screams, Clare hears the sound. They jolt up out of the bed, arms shaking. A gunshot echoes through the room. Their stomach feels warm. Radio static matches the electricity in the air, even with the door closed before then.

Nico scrambles back in the doorway from Ambrose, who stands towering over them.

His eyes are open, arguably. Ambrose doesn't have them. Dirt oozes from the sockets, melting down his face in streams of mud. Visibly, something moves beneath his skin. The flesh shifts like ripples in a pond. It's wet as well, slick with morning dew. Ambrose spits diet from his mouth, the stuff stuck between his teeth, and in that second, his teeth seem to shimmer. The reflection is starlight in a cool pond.

Ambrose bolts to the door. He brushes past Clare, a shiver of cold shooting up her spine just from his proximity. Clare follows him, and he stops in the doorway.

His fingers tap his leg, head tilted forward at something.

"We need to get everyone here," Ambrose turns his head to look at her. "Now. We still have time, but only before someone else dies."

"I don't know where everyone is," Clare manages. "They are supposed to kill the pastor."

This thing has the voice of Ambrose, but it doesn't have his slumped shoulders. It doesn't have his eyes. It goes rigid at Clare's words.

Nico can't breathe. Is this how Fallon feels, day in and out. They grip their legs with tight fists, letting their nails dig into the jeans. The floor is beneath them. The sky is above them. They might not be of earth, but they are touching it. Actually, they might be too much of earth.

"Get the ones you can," Ambrose turns his head to address Clare. Not his body. The angle is just south of normal. They are just north of civilization anyway. "Is the phone here? And the money?"

That question, one so simple, forces Nico to move. They dart across the room, snatching the phone off the desk. They pull out Kaia's tips from a drawer.

"Call a cab," Ambrose tells them. "I don't have much time to save Leo."

~~~

They could have ordered two cabs, or perhaps Clare could have gone with Ambrose to get Leo. The cab was five minutes away, and it is fifteen to get to the factories.

A third of an hour. As they run, Clare tries to count the seconds. It's hard, since their feet move quicker as they jog and sprint and jog in turns as fast as they can to get to the church. It gives Clare something to think about other than Leo, and wherever he is, and what is putting him in danger and how Ambrose could even know such a thing. Any other distraction would not work, because Clare isn't even sure this is where Kaia is. The others as well. They might have decided to visit the pastor in his home, shoot him dead in his bed, next to his sleeping wife, and Clare refuses to acknowledge that truth.

Ambrose is back from the dead again. And this Ambrose will be their salvation. Clare's specifically, hopefully.

The church tower comes to view and Clare picks up pace. Their footsteps echo through the street. Something shifts a bit, in a bush.

Kaia sees Clare sprinting ahead. She pulls herself out, not minding the noise her body makes twisting the leaves around her. The wind rustles them worse than she does, and it is the middle of the night now. She might be closer to sunrise than sunset. Kaia knows time zones. There is always a sunrise happening, and Kaia has been chasing them for years now. And as Clare gets closer, Kaia thinks maybe she's finally found it.

Home. Unapologetically home. Eight weeks after she came back to life, in the middle of the street, in the middle of a conspiracy to commit murder. There it is.

Kaia sprints to Clare, smashing her body into Clare's to tackle her.

"They haven't," Kaia whispers, gripping Clare's body and holding her in close. "They are still waiting for him."

"We have to..." Clare can barely breathe. Coughs rip through their body. Kaia braces them, holding them up. Running with such speed is possible, no more tiring than lying still in bed for Clare, but their lungs seize in their chest from the deep cold inhales. The air is stale and hard. "They can't do it."

"Clare," Kaia pulls Clare off her. She cups Clare's cheeks, her hands entangled in their hair.

Clare inhales deeply. They breathe Kaia in, swallowing her. The air feels warmer, mixed in with Kaia. The beach girl, with beautiful wild wonderful hair, whipping in the wind around them. Clare, grounded, buried deeper than Kaia, if only by a little.

Fuck it.

"I never thought it was fair that you were doomed to Hell along with me," Clare exhales. "But this isn't Hell. It could never be with you in it."

Kaia pulls Clare in. She kisses Clare, whose wide eyes melt shut. Clare kisses back.

"Wait," Clare pulls away. "Wait, I had a point. Shit."

Clare kisses Kaia again, wrapping their bodies in together. The wind is so violent that without Kaia's added weight, Clare is sure they'd fly away.

"No," Clare stops, shaking their head. "Este and Ajay. Ambrose said-"

"Ambrose?" Kaia asks, furrowing her brow.

"Ambrose said that if we didn't get everyone together, without killing anyone, we had time," Clare explains. "I don't know what he means, but something bad is happening. Something bad very soon."

"Okay," Kaia mentions, brushing her hair out of her face. Some of the strands stick to her wet lips. "Fuck, okay."

Kaia grabs Clare's hand and drags her to the basement window. She's about to climb in, but Clare puts a hand on her shoulder.

"I've got it," Clare whispers. "Keep watch."

Kaia's hands hold on until Clare slips through her fingers. She holds on to the air where she once was, unsure if she can feel Clare on the wind.

~~~

The only hint Nico had about anyone's whereabouts was Audrey's who wanted to investigate the pastor's body when they returned. Nico has a fucking terrible sense of direction, but his mission was less urgent than Clare's, so it was Nico who was sent away. They never found Kaia that first night, but Nico remembers where the forest is. Only thanks to the busher they spent together in the forest does Nico even know which direction it is from their.

Nothing about the place feels familiar. Nico walks through, tripping on roots, bracing their fall on bark and tearing the skin on their hands. No blood comes, thankfully, but the feeling fucking burns. After too long, Nico spins around, unsure if this is even the right section of the boreal forest. Maybe they've been lost. Maybe Nico has somehow stumbled out of the town bounds without knowing, and the place they would be when they disappear is a dark forest in the evening. Far away, Nico can music, muffled by the trees. Another fucking busher.

"Help!" Nico shouts, spinning around. "Audrey?"

No one answers. Certainly not the trees.

"Help!" Nico screeches, looking around. "Please! It's Ambrose. He's back!"

A hand clamps over Nico's mouth from behind. They scream.

"Shh," Eva spins Nico around to face them. "You're going to attracted the living."

Nico's heart races. They nod their head, eyes unblinking. Slowly, Eva lowers her hand.

"Ambrose is-"

"I heard you," Audrey interrupts Ambrose's rasping.

They cross their arms over their chest, leaning against a tree and staring at Ambrose. They shake their head. Now, Audrey won't be able to dissect him. Maybe there will be new research opportunities, but one is already slipped away.

"Ambrose said... well, I'm not sure what, but it's an emergency. Everyone's going back to the hotel," Nico manages.

Audrey stabs their knife into the trunk of a tree behind Eva. Nico flinches.

Eva doesn't, "if this is a ruse."

"It's not," Nico promises. "He's back. He's back again."

"Is he still rotting?" Audrey looks over at Nico.

Nico's chest tightens, "even worse."

While Audrey's lips curl into a smile, Eva scowls. The wind blows against them, pushing Nico's rigid body.

"It's too windy," Nico pulls the phone out of their pocket. Clare was given money for a payphone, in case of an emergency. "I'm calling a cab back. If we can get out."

Audrey rolls their eyes. If Nico is lying, all evidence of the pastor, all his ashes, will blow away in this weather. It's not even cold out tonight.

"Fine," Eva pulls out money from her pocket. "I don't mind riding in style."

~~~

The basement door is open at the top.

"It's Clare," they whisper yell up the stairs, hoping to avoid the end of whatever weapon Este is sure to have in their hands.

They reach the surface. Este sits in a pew, her legs in the aisle and her head turned to Clare's. She doesn't speak, or even smirk. Ajay stands in the aisle facing the doors. He has a gun in his hands, tight fist.

"You're not going to stop us," he says.

"Ambrose is awake," Clare offers.

Ajay drops the gun, turning to face Clare. Maybe they'd lie to him. Certainly, Ajay has lied to Leo more times than he'd care to admit. He hasn't even tested Clare, pressed on their judgements.

"Are you telling the truth?" Ajay asks.

Este doesn't move in her chair.

"He says Leo's in danger," Clare looks at Ajay. "I wouldn't ever lie about that."

"He's awake?" Este asks, looking over at Clare. "Ambrose just happened to wake up now, of all times?"

There's no sign on Clare's face explaining it. Her skin is red, burned from the wind whipping outside. Her shoulder shudder with heavy breaths.

"What's happening to Leo?" Ajay asks.

"I don't know," Clare manages, switching her gaze from Este to Ajay and then back to Este. "We booked him a cab, and I ran here to get you all. There wasn't a lot of time."

They've borrowed too much of it, and now the rest of the time they have is slipping through their fingers. Este expects the clock tower to strike midnight, even though it never has as long as they have been here.

"Are Audrey and Eva in the forest?" Clare huffs. "We sent Nico after them. I gave Nico the phone, but they get lost so easily."

Clare doesn't know where Nico is. They don't know where Ambrose or Leo are, or Fallon for that matter. Did something happen to Fallon already? Is that why only Leo is in danger? And Clare left Kaia outside, alone. Beside a building late at night. Clare knows how churches deflate Kaia, but it is so windy, and so dark.

Their shoulders start to shake.

"I don't..." the words slip through their grasp. "I'm not trying to stop you, Este. Your choice isn't the one I would make, but I can't say I don't understand it. If I'm lying, believe me, I'll come back and help you all. I'm a cop, after all. I know investigation procedure. You have to trust me. I don't want any of us to die tonight because you can't trust me. Please."

Tears slip on their face.

The gun clatters to the floor. Ajay moves over to Clare, grabs her and hugs her. She grips his shoulders, shaking. The gun is on the ground in front of Este. They could take it and run. At least they could hide out the night and return. Este could even kill the pastor in the middle of service, staring him down.

But then, over Clare's shoulder, Ajay twists his head to look at her.

He's not ugly. Este really does like the way he looks, whether it's Ajay's reflection in moonlit waters or the grey-wash of his skin in the morning, staring up at a gunmetal sky that cracks with bolts of lightning. All of it. Fucking embarrassing, even more so than Barry, maybe.

"Okay," Este manages. "Let's get this over with."

~~~

They shoved a big coat and sunglasses on Ambrose so he wouldn't terrify the driver. It's decently dark outside, so Ambrose doesn't bother dabbing away the dirt that leaks from his ears. The driver might be stiff from the stench, or maybe he's looked at Ambrose too closely through the rearview mirror. Either way, he drops Ambrose off too quickly, rolling through nearly every stop sign on the empty streets and taking the money from Ambrose with a shaky hand.

Ambrose ducks out of the car, staring up at the factory. Leo is inside still, but Ambrose feels the warmth in the tips of his fingers.

Inside the factory, Leo and Fallon have come to an impasse.

"Just let me-"

"No," Fallon cuts him off. They are at the end of the hallway, inches from his death. They've wandered through each the entrance Leo entered and retraced each of his steps. Fallon tends to ramble, but at least her memory is fine enough. She has recorded everything already.

"Please, Fallon."

"Leo, I love you. And Nico. Don't make me say your last words to them, if things go poorly," she manages.

It's been five minutes, and the longer Leo waits the more he won't do this. Last time he was here, Ambrose asked him not what it is, but what it feels like. Leo could never articulate the experience. It was déjà vu. It was something he didn't want to talk about. This is what it is.

This place feels like a condensed realization that took him hours, maybe days. It feels like all five stages of grief rolled into one. It feels like hovering his hand over a frying pan to see if the thing is hot, leaning in just a bit too close. It feels like breaking a promise and it also feels like a promise that Leo already broke.

"Okay," Leo manages. "We shouldn't have to worry about it anyway. Just pull me out."

Leo walks down the hallway.

The emergency lights buzz overhead even though they aren't on, even though no electricity has pumped through them in a decade. Leo smells smoke in the air, thick. He ducks his head, and Fallon does too. So does Miku beside him.

The world is dark and then not dark. He can feel himself screaming, his skin burning. His thick RCMP boots squeaking on the ground.

Leo's fits usually last no more than thirty seconds. His RAS that night. The episode that came on. He woke up. He wasn't unconscious when he died.

The world is dark and then bright. He felt agoraphobic in the rest of the open warehouse, but the tunnels are tight. Smoke is in his lungs. It's dark and it's bright and it's dark. He smells his skin cooking.

He hears footsteps echoing. The killers getting away,

"Leo!" Fallon shouts.

He screams, collapsing to the ground. Leo claws at his arms, screeching in pain. His skin goes pink, the burns on his face screeching red. Fallon's heart races.

The footsteps far away are getting closer. Someone is here, and Leo doesn't want her to pull him out. It could be the police, knowing the pair are trespassing in an abandoned factory. Fallon counts the footsteps. Something like a hundred and twenty beats per minute. So she needs to count sixty for Leo. How many has it been? His clothes are steaming on his body. Blood leaks from Leo's nose, crackling on his skin. Fallon counts and counts.

Then the footsteps get too close. A figure in a coat bolts towards her down the hallway, in sunglasses. Fallon screams and grabs Leo's hand to drag him. She screeches, pulling back her red hand. It's going to blister. The skin might break.

Ambrose throws off his coat. The sunglasses dip down his nose, revealing his eyeball-less sockets. He only grabs on to Leo using the coat and drags him. Fallon grabs the coat to help, screaming in pain as the heat radiates through the coat. They aren't designed to repel heat but to keep it in. Leo groans on the ground, festering in his burns.

"What..." Fallon looks over at Ambrose then back at Leo. "What's going on?"

"There's no time," Ambrose tells her. He shoves change toward her. "Go find a payphone. Call a cab."

Fallon takes the coins and hesitates, staring at Leo on the ground. Then, she forces herself to sprint back down the hallway to a telephone booth.

She calls Nico when they are halfway home, squished between Eva and Audrey in the backseat. Nico presses a hand to their temples, skipping over the anger to arrive at acceptance. The taxi pulls away. Maybe it's the one going to collect Fallon and Ambrose and Leo. Nico cannot imagine any of them are in any state to get into a taxi at this point.

Nico's interrupted by another phone call, so they hang up. On the other end, Clare asks if everything is fine. Of course it isn't, but Nico doesn't elaborate on that point.

"We're pulling into the motel now," Nico whispers into the line, to Clare. "We just need to get there quickly."

"We still haven't found Barry or Lydia," Clare whispers into the line.

Nico sighs. Eva pulls out money to pay the cab driver while Nico heads upstairs, "yeah, I know."

"You've heard from Ambrose? We might have a while, depending on how long it takes for him to walk back."

"He's calling a cab," Nico manages. The drawer barely had enough money for their rides up to this hour. The group is going to lose a motel room. Now a dozen and only four beds between them all.

"Okay," Clare hasn't asked about Leo. They still don't want to know, since Nico hasn't offered up the information. "Okay. See you soon."

When Nico hangs up the phone, they curl a fist and bite it. Fucking Leo. Fucking Fallon. Why must Nico love such fools?

Nico beats the others up to the motel door. They didn't lock it before leaving, a nasty habit but they only had two keys and three groups of people at least. More, realistically. Nico swings the door open.

On the bed, Lydia straddles Barry. Her hair blocks the view of their lips, intertwined. Nico looks away quickly, so they don't notice much. Certainly, they don't want to see Barry's hands, wandering up the back of Lydia's shirt, feeling her cold skin. Their fingers are just as cold, pads pressing like icicles, just as sharp, just as fragile.

Lydia presses her hands into Barry's chest, pulling away and staring at the shadow of Nico in the doorway.

"This is my room," Barry rolls their eyes, "before you tell me to get a room, I mean."

~~~~~

At this point, the lack of editing is a spiteful choice. I am done! Not this chapter obviously. There are a few more tricks and sleeves, as they say. Any predictions?