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The certainty of the inescapable death ahead of her settled in Mari’s chest like a stone.
The plan was a mistake from the moment she agreed to it. Helping orchestrate it, making herself visible when she should’ve stayed small and silent. Making herself a possible target. They were fools to think Shauna would be easy to deceive. Desperation wouldn’t make the wilderness be merciful, it never cared.
Sure, it seemed to be working for the time being, with Natalie on her way to the mountains and Hannah successfully in her place at the hunt, but Mari knew how it ended.
It was far too late for their plan to work without consequences. The woods didn’t allow clean escapes, and neither did Shauna. Someone always had to pay. There had to be blood in the snow, a body left behind to balance the scales.
If that someone had to be her… then so be it. Better her than Akilah.
Mari clung to that thought as she tried to escape her peers (by that point, she wasn’t entirely sure what their intentions were). Her own death was acceptable if it meant her sweet Akilah, who wasn’t even supposed to be on the damn plane, got the chance to escape. She should’ve been safe at home or anywhere but the freezing dark, eating people.
Foolishly, again, Mari thought Akilah could handle Lottie, but then Lottie was there in the snow, surging from behind a tree, looking at Mari with those glassy, knowing eyes and speaking riddles that made her skin crawl. Maddening prophecies that bled into threats.
“Do you see where we are? You’ve been here already, Mari. You could let it be different.”
What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Mari wanted to stop and demand answers, to drag the truth out of Lottie’s mouth even if she had to choke on it. But Shauna was still coming for her and Mari knew she didn’t have the time to hesitate.
“Oh, my God! Fuck off!”
What lovely last words.
She ran, but didn’t get very far.
The snow-packed ground beneath her gave way without warning. A hollow, brittle snap of branches, and Mari’s world dropped out from under her. The fall was only a few feet, but it felt endless. The jagged, unsparing spikes met her; piercing through her ribs and spine, her stomach and limbs. Some dozen deadly spears tearing into starved flesh like the forest itself decided to devour her.
Pain bloomed everywhere at once, hot and bright and final.
The dripping... Mari, dreadfully, recognized it. All this time, the sound she kept hearing in the cabin, the steady patter she thought was melting snow slipping through a loose shingle or something mundane...
It was her. Always her own spilt blood waiting, calling her. Pooling beneath her now in thick, warm waves that steamed in the icy air.
Mari exhaled, shaky and wet. She closed her eyes, and Akilah’s face rose in the dark behind her eyelids. She was smiling and shy, crowned with fading flowers, lips stained with berries.
If she had to go, let it be with that image.
Mari opened her eyes.
Felt like she was flying across the sky at a hundred miles an hour, completely weightless. Every nerve in her body was also painfully there. She could feel every twig, every sharp little pebble digging into her back as she laid in the dead grass and leaves. The world dripped around the edges of her vision like a syrupy dessert, but the ground was cold.
She was back there again. During the night where the first glimpses of their future truths started to show.
Akilah was nestled between her thighs, grounding her with every swipe of wet tongue across an even wetter pussy, doing a damn good job of pulling Mari’s mind away from the prickling earth and the terror gnawing at her ribs.
They’d fallen behind Shauna and Lottie, or maybe those two fell behind them; Mari couldn’t quite remember. The chase after the stag—that Mari could finally recognize was never real—dissolved into shouts and growls and pure life in her lungs, and then suddenly it was just the two of them.
It all seemed unimportant compared to Akilah’s hands sliding up her thighs as she made her way to warm Mari from the inside out.
The back of Mari’s mind kept whispering: Winter’s coming fast. The nights by then were colder and the animals harder to find. She remembered hoping one of the two caught that stag—Travis, actually—because her bones told her they were running out of time and Mari knew, vividly, what would happen when they’re stuck in the cabin for three months with no food and the year that would follow.
She’d be shivering if not for Akilah.
Mari thread her fingers through Akilah’s curls, tugging gently. She noticed the crown was gone, lost somewhere in the dirt. The delicate little thing they spent all afternoon crafting, picking out the right sticks and dried petals, weaving them together with their hands brushing more often than necessary. A shame. Mari’s own crown was missing, too.
She licked her lips, tasting the lingering bittersweetness of rotten berries. The taste mixed with a soft gasp when Akilah did wicked moves with her tongue at the same time that her fingers curled into that sweet spot that had Mari’s vision going white at the edges.
“Please…” she breathed. “ ’m close.”
Akilah hummed in response, and the vibration sent Mari arching off the ground. Her thoughts flicked like sparks. She should stop this, she should care about the others nearby, about the cold creeping into their bones, about tomorrow’s starvation, about the hole in the ground waiting for her—
But Mari missed this, and she would never have it again. So, she let herself enjoy what Akilah did with her fingers next.
Electricity surged through Mari’s veins. Her mouth fell open around a breathless sound she couldn’t swallow back, and her whole body trembled beautifully, with no shame in sight, against the forest floor.
The same forest floor that swallowed Mari a year later. Soon, she’ll be inside Akilah forever, her lover will never go hungry again.
In ecstasy, Mari’s eyes slammed shut, head thrown back. When she opened them again, she was in the Wiskayok High’s locker room, in her soccer uniform.
The realization hit her softly. Mari would never admit it out loud, but she missed this place. The way the whole room buzzed with anticipation before a match, and then echoed afterward when the showers were running and laughter bounced off the tiles.
Most of all, she missed the moments with Akilah. After everyone else had gone, when the room felt too small for the two of them to exist without touching.
The room was, somehow, emptied of everyone else and Mari took advantage of that to corner Akilah against the lockers. It felt impossible that they could be alone like this, that Mari could finally give in to all the things she’d been swallowing down while Akilah played beside her. So close and untouchable, all game long.
Before the crash, they never crossed that final line. Hovered just shy of it, convinced that even lingering too long was already dangerous. The locker room groping alone felt risky enough, hearts pounding in their ears. Mari was terrified of taking Akilah home. Of her parents walking in and the fallout, of the weight of their devotion pressing down on her like a verdict already passed. Devout Catholics. Rules carved into stone.
Mari liked to think she didn’t care about any of that. But the guilt still followed her through those high school years, souring even the moments that should’ve felt fearless.
That day, though, there was no hesitation and Mari was glad, because she knew damn well there was no time for second-guessing. When she reached for Akilah, muscle memory kicked in instinctively. Pulling her close and licking inside her mouth felt calming even as everything inside Mari screamed for her to rush.
“You did good today, junior,” she murmured against Akilah’s lips when they finally had to pull apart, breath still uneven, forehead resting briefly against hers.
“Was that my reward, Ibarra?” Akilah tried to sound casual, but her fingers betrayed her, fisting in the fabric of Mari’s jersey.
God. That voice. Mari felt an aching fondness bloom in her chest. Oh, how she’d missed hearing it.
Once more, her eyes closed, not giving her the chance to regret doing so.
No flashes of memories she was placed in rose up to meet her, not even what-ifs. No more winters to fear, either, or plans to fix, or time to beat herself up for wrong choices made until she was pierced to death.
The last thing she got to keep was Akilah’s voice, echoing in a place the cold couldn’t reach. Then, even that faded, not gently, until there was nothing left but the dark, swallowing everything whole.