World gone mad (with Primal Things)

Ilya raises his eyebrows, it was the only energy efficient way he could think to express his doubt. This guy was far from wide awake, but the last thing he wanted to do was start something he couldn't finish. He lets himself nod, notes distantly to himself how he's been doing a lot of that lately and manages a small bite from the package of peanut butter crackers he'd abandoned after Alina had walked away to puke.


Truth be told, he was starting to feel the exhaustion himself. He figured he could hold out for at least three more hours, long enough for Alina to recharge before he'd have to wake her up to take her shift on watch. When he hears Leigh start to make noise and stir, he glances over at her briefly, unsure of what to do if there's even an appropriate response at all.


Mechanically, he brings the cracker to his lips again and takes a bite. His mind starts trying to wander back to his family and he stifles it, crushing it down with old math problems he'd learned in school. That's one thing he liked about numbers. He'd never been a brilliant student or anything, and it wasn't even like he was a math whiz, but there was something about numbers, the way they had no emotional attachment whatsoever, that is comforting to him.


After a while, his own eyes start to drift closed, and he's completely given up on fighting to keep them open any longer.
 
When sees that Ilya too is falling asleep, he relaxes marginally. If he is the last awake, then this means, on some level, that he is safer, though he cannot quite reason why this is so. If Ilya is not awake, he cannot turn on them unexpectedly. Jared did not think this would happen, but then, that was what would make it unexpected. Just because he had agreed to ally with him and Alina, just because he thought he could probably trust that they did not wish him harm, didn't mean that there would be no surprises possible in the future.


He thought it would easier then to stay awake, knowing that everyone else already was asleep. But it seemed no time at all before he could feel the faint dawning light of morning slightly warming his skin, and he realized then that his eyes were closed, had been for likely hours. He had fallen asleep after all.


When he opened his eyes, sitting up straight and popping his back unintentionally as he did so, he saw that Angelina was already awake, sitting up and staring at him with several fingers of her fist in her mouth. Jared's eyes felt hot and gritty, and his neck and shoulders ached, but he tried to smile at her as he stretched, even as he felt his lips stick together briefly in the effort, not quite managing.


"Hey," he whispered to her, looking to make sure that Leigh was still asleep. "Morning."


Angelina just looked at him, not responding. As he watched her, his heart twisted slowly, painfully as he observed the dark, bruised look about her eyes. Her eyes were much too old for a little girl, much too old even for a thirty-year-old woman. Her eyes were an old, world-weary woman's in the face of a child's, and Jared knew as he watched her that it was possible this would never go away.
 
For a fleeting moment, she is able to convince herself that she's in her bed at home. There's something about the earthy smell around her that vaguely reminds her of the incense her sister used to burn when she did her morning yoga routine. Breathing in that smell, Alina curls up tighter as the sleep warmth leaves her body and lets out a small groan when the fullness of her bladder insists upon making itself known.


As she sits up, she realizes that she had been wrong. The earthy smell had actually been, well, earth, and once again she's stuck with the reality that nothing is the way it had been what now felt like an eternity ago. Not yet ready to acknowledge the others, she stands and walks off to find a decent place to relieve herself.


It isn't that difficult, really. Her only real concern is poison oak, and that's easy enough to spot. When she does find a place that's far enough away from the group, with enough cover for her to feel as though she can safely urinate, she does just that. Once finished, she stands and fastens her pants, letting out a yawn large enough to pop her ears and starts back toward the group.


Alina unzips her sleeping bag and sits down near the edge lengthwise so she can pull it around her shoulders to keep warm. It's now that she looks over to Jared and Angelina. "Morning," she says finally, keeping her voice down as best as she can. "Did you guys sleep okay, all things considered?"


She tries to keep her tone semi-upbeat for Angelina's sake, but knows full well how unconvincing it is. It just comes out sounding artificial, and lame, and god she hates it.
 
When Alina awakens, not at first acknowledging them, but instead leaving the direct area, Jared guesses at her reasons for doing so and so does not call out to her or ask her where she is going. He himself is beginning to feel the slight pressure of a full bladder but does not want to leave Angelina to take care of it, instead choosing to wait until Ali returns. Stretching his arms over his head, he pops his back, the resulting cracks not as satisfying as he had hoped for in sound or sensation. Seeing that Angelina is still watching him, he tries again to smile at her.


"Stretching...are you sore?"


She shrugs, which he takes to be a good sign. It was more of a reaction that she had been giving him the day before.


Jared exhaled, then patted the ground closer to him for her to draw near. As Angelina remained motionless, still watching him with her grubby fingers partly in her mouth, he spoke to her again.


"Come here, Angie. Do you need to use the bathroom?"


When she shook her head, Jared doubted it, but didn't press. Whenever Leigh got up, he'd make her take her. She was the older sister, after all.


"Okay then, come here."


It was like trying to tame a wild animal. He had to ask her again, keeping his voice soft, before Angelina finally scooted towards him, sitting close. As Alina returned to them, wrapping herself in her sleeping bag, Jared removed his own blanket and wrapped it around Angelina, looking up at her to acknowledge her greeting.


"Morning...can you watch her for a minute? I just need to...you know." Turning to Angelina, he smoothed a hand briefly over her hair. "Angie, I'll be right back."


He expected her to simply shrug or nod like she had been doing, or to not acknowledge him at all. What he didn't expect was for Angelina's eyes to widen with alarm, her eyebrows knitting together immediately, and for a sharp whining noise to emit from her throat as she seized his arm, gripping him more tightly than he would have expected. She held onto him, her lips pressed together tightly as she continued to make that odd whining sound, clearly an effort to get him to stay.


Startled, Jared's eyes darted between her to Alina, then to the sleeping Leigh and Ilya. Looking down at Angelina again, he tried to explain, "I'm just going to use the bathroom, Angie. I'll be right back, I promise. Alina is right here, and Leigh is over there, I promise-"


But Angie shook her head vehemently, and this time she had words, though they were hoarse, almost choked in tone. "No! No, no, no!"


Beneath her blanket Leigh moved restlessly, then started to sit up, her voice heavy with sleep. "What?"


"No!" Angelina repeated with emphasis, and Leigh shoved back her blanket, her hair rather mussed and affected with static electricity as she blinked at Jared, her expression and tone irritable.


"Let her do it...whatever it is...I'm trying to sleep!"


Jared looked at Alina for help or backup of some kind, already weary before his day had even begun. He didn't know what he expected from her, exactly, but if she could help, he would take it.
 
Alina sat quietly, keeping her sleeping wrapped tightly around her shoulders as she began to shiver lightly. When Jared asked her to watch Angelina, she let her lips curl into a smile and nodded, lifting a hand to wave him off to do his business. She was perfectly fine watching after the little one; she'd done plenty of babysitting before all of this, and she was decent with kids. They didn't all take after her, obviously, but it was good enough, especially if it was just long enough for Jared to pee.


But then Angie was making that noise, and Alina froze. The sound had gone straight through to her bones and she broke out in goosebumps. When Jared looked at her for help, she stared dumbly back at him for a moment and then blinked hard, because Leigh was now awake and Ilya was stirring beside her. Her heart rate skyrocketed and she felt her palms start to go clammy. Completely struck dumb at first, she just clenched and unclenched her fists and swallowed thickly.


“Hey, Angie-” she began, having to stop to swallow again. “Hey, uhm, why don't you hang out over here with me while Jared goes to take care of what he needs to take care of? You can help me fix breakfast for everyone, so when Jared comes back he doesn't have to wait for breakfast?”


She reached her hand out, trying to stress the fact that Jared would return to her, to further enforce what he was telling her. “I've got a bunch of stuff to pick out, it'll be a lot faster so that we can all have our first breakfast together. I'd really appreciate your help.”
 
Despite Alina's efforts, Angelina is having none of it. She continues to hang onto Jared's arm, the strange noises coming from her throat becoming throatier grunting sounds rather than her earlier high pitched whining as she continues to shake her head. She doesn't even look in Alina's direction as she stands up awkwardly, wrapping her arms and her legs around Jared's legs so he can't move without tripping or falling on top of her.


"No! No no no!"


"Angie, I swear, I'll be right back, I'm just using the bathroom!" Jared tried to reason with her, putting his hands on the top of her shoulders in an attempt to gently push her off his legs and simultaneously trying to keep his balance. Angelina only pressed her face further into his knees, adding no further explanation to her protests.


"NO!"


Jared could feel her hot breath against his legs through his jeans, her palms, damp with sweat, as he looked over her head to Alina again. Alina's efforts had come to nothing so far...what did Angie want, for him to drag her with him to watch him use the bathroom? No way!


"Angie-" he started, but it was Leigh who delivered the message he had hoped to get across, albeit in a different manner.


Rolling over with a irritated noise rather resembling a snarl, she grabbed Angelina around the waist and rather forcefully yanked her off of Jared. As Angelina's protests became an outright howl and she began to writhe in Leigh's hold, attempting to kick and elbow her, Leigh shouted at Jared.


"GO, and be FAST already, god!"


Jared took a moment to look back at his sisters, now struggling with each other as Angelina continued to shriek as though she were being scalded or scalped. It was the fastest he took to relieve himself that he could ever recall. As he returned to the others hastily, calling out to Angelina that he was coming back, that it was okay, he could still hear her, but her yelling had now become tears.


To hear her scream like that had shaken him almost more than the events of the night before, than the death he had seen and played a hand in causing. He knows his hands are trembling when he sits down across from her again and hoarsely tells Leigh to let go of her.
 
Alina watched helplessly as Leigh grabbed Angie and pulled her back. Once Jared rushed off and Angie's wailing got louder, Ilya sat up, ready to fight anything that happened to be attacking them. Alina was already throwing her blanket off and rushing over to help Leigh.


“We need to keep her quiet!” Ilya hissed, “What if someone hears us?!”


Alina shot him a brief glare at him, “What do you want us to do, Il, wrap a blanket around her head?” The problem was that she knew that he was right, knew that they would have to find some way to keep her quiet. She looked up at Leigh briefly, “I'm not trying to hurt her.”


That said, she clamped a hand over Angie's mouth, trying to muffle her wailing as much as possible without cutting off her air flow or scaring her any more than she had to. When she saw Jared return and tell Leigh to let go of her, Alina leaned back and away from Angie to give her room to go to her brother. Shaking lightly, she looked over at Ilya whose eyes were just as wide as hers felt and she bit down on her lower lip to keep it from trembling.
 
Angelina is still crying, albeit considerably more quietly than she had been when Leigh lets go of her, rubbing her side where she had been elbowed and swearing, hardly under her breath. Normally Jared would have scolded her for using such language, especially in front of Angie, but the situation seemed appropriate for it if any ever would be. With less grace and empathy than simple weariness, even frustration, he held his arms out to his youngest sister, unsurprised when she climbed back into his lap and pressed her face into his chest, snuffling against his shirt. He combed his fingers through her snarled curls, trying to calm her even as he himself wanted only to push her away, to have even five seconds of peace to himself.


He would never be able to have that now, would he? Not only was it unsafe, even if he could somehow make it safe, his sisters simply would not allow it.


Even as he thought this he knew it was a selfish and ungrateful thought. He should be thankful that he didn't have to be alone, that his sisters had so far survived when so few had. He should be happy that they were here with him, in his sight, relatively safe.


But all he could think was how could he stand not even being able to pee without someone staring at him, standing two inches away?


"It's okay, Angie," he told her, shifting his hand from her hair to her back and patting. "I wasn't leaving. I'm not going to. Calm down."


"I think she's lost her mind," Leigh declared from where she was sitting a few feet away, hugging her knees to her chest, once more drawing her blanket around herself so it covered most of her, only her face and pale hands peeking out. "I think she's gone totally nuts, Jared."


Her eyes widened then, and even beneath the blanket Jared could see her shoulders stiffen as she blurted with actual fear in her tone, "What if she HAS gone crazy? What if she's gone crazy and she's gonna get us now? What if-"


"Leigh, don't be ridiculous," Jared cut her off hurriedly, before she could work herself up, and maybe frighten Alina and Ilya too. When he looked over at them to check he could see that both were shaken, though he couldn't tell if it were simply from Angie or from Leigh's words. "She's six. What could she possibly do? And anyway, she wouldn't. Don't listen to her, Angie."


"She MIGHT...she-"


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"Leigh, ask Ilya and Alina if you can help them with anything, all right?"

 

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Alina looked over to Ilya for any sort of help in coming up with something to give the girl to do, but he looked about as clueless as she felt. The whole situation had escalated so quickly, that, frankly, it knocked the wind out of her. She held her breath, thinking that maybe it would die down, but when it didn't, she tried to exhale as calmly as she could.


“It should be safe to have fires out here, the trees would give us a decent amount of coverage, so they won't see the smoke.” That was Ilya. Alina's gaze snapped over toward her brother. Ilya looked over at Alina, eyebrows raised as though trying to tell her to just go along with it. “Maybe you and Leigh could go get firewood or something? I could probably trap a rabbit or two, I saw some tracks when we were making camp yesterday.”


Alina, without realizing it, began nodding frantically, relieved to just have some sort of possible solution. She looked over at Leigh and tried to smile a little bit, “Would you mind helping me?” Her eyes shifted briefly over toward Jared to gauge his reaction to Ilya's idea, but went back to Leigh, eyebrows raised slightly.
 
"Fire? We're in the middle of the woods. What if there's like wind or something and we burn the whole place down? And then everyone will come to try to put it out and they'll find us and kill us...or else we'll burn up and have nowhere to go...haven't you guys ever watched Smokey the Bear, you aren't even supposed to SMOKE in the woods, let alone start a fire!" Leigh exclaimed, moving her arms emphatically to mark her point.


"Leigh, people have fires in the woods all the time," Jared tried to be patient with her, still slightly rocking Angelina, who had now quieted but nevertheless was still clinging to him, not lifting her face. "They can keep it controlled, it's not like they're going to run with a torch waving it like a baton. We need fire to eat anyway, how can we eat a raw rabbit without getting sick? Go help them."


"I don't want to get us burned-" Leigh starts, but Jared cuts her off. He doesn't raise his voice, but his tone is firm enough for her to know he won't accept no as an answer from her.


"Leigh. Go help Alina. Now."


He continues to eye her as he rocks Angelina until Leigh finally, grumbling to herself inaudibly and crossing her arms, slouches over to Alina. Once at Alina's side, she looks up, only slightly tempering her moody behavior when she looks at Ilya.


"Are you gonna come too?"


Jared doesn't think anything of the request until he glances over at her and sees the way she's looking at Ilya, the difference in her expression...hope? Something about it makes him glance between them, watching more closely. What did she care if he came or not?
 
He almost hadn't heard Leigh, to be perfectly honest. Ilya had already been designing the traps he'd learned in the Russian military camp his parents had sent him and his brothers to, trying to figure out which would be the most effective in snaring a rabbit.


But then Leigh's voice was breaking his concentration, asking if he was coming along and he looked over at her, eyebrows raised, feeling half-oblivious at his train of thought being interrupted. The way she was looking at him was nothing short of unsettling and he cleared his throat, giving her a small shake of the head.


“No, I'm actually going to hang back here and start making and setting up traps. You two should be fine on your own, but I'd still take a weapon or something just to be sure.” He looked over at Alina, “You good with this?”


--------


Alina shrugged, her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, “Sure thing, Il.” She crouched down and rummaged through the duffel bag, pulling out the bat and crowbar she and Ilya had used last night, handing the bat over to Leigh. “We'll stay within screaming distance, just in case.”


She paused for a moment and emptied out the duffel bag, strapping it over her shoulder so that they could carry more wood and turned, leading Leigh off into the woods. “So what we're looking for is wood as dry as we can find it. Preferably dead branches, which are, like, everywhere on the ground. I'd like to gather enough for a few days just to save us some extra work.”


For a while, she was comfortable with the silence between the two of them as they collected fallen branches, Alina even snapping a few off of trees when she could, but soon it started to get kind of dull and awkward. Picking up a few branches at her feet, Alina looked over at Leigh out of the corner of her eye, “So what did you do for fun before all of this?”
 
"You can make traps? Like to get food and stuff? Wow," Leigh said, stepping away from Alina and slightly closer to Ilya as she appeared to be inspecting his work. This Jared observed with even more suspicion; he knew perfectly well that she was not one to be interested in crafts, tools, or making things of any kind, particularly something as rustic as an animal trap, but there she was moving towards him like she was fascinated.


She was supposed to be going with Alina. What the hell was this...and the day after Max took off? Or maybe he should have expected it. Leigh wasn't really the type to be able to go long in between her "loves," especially if she felt like they had wronged her somehow.


"Leigh-" he started, inclining his head pointedly towards Alina, but Leigh was still hanging near Ilya, and spoke over him.


"That's really cool. You must be pretty smart to figure that out, Jared can't do things like that."


"Leigh...I said to go help Alina," Jared repeated, an edge in his voice now, and Leigh huffed, rolling her eyes.


"Fine, you don't have to be so bossy about it, I'm GOING."


And yes, he definitely noticed her brush against Ilya's arm as she turned to go back to Ilya. Damn it...why was it that everywhere they went, regardless of whatever chaos was going on, his sister just had to decide she had a thing for some guy who was practically a generation older?


As Leigh leaves with Alina, and Angelina, having finally settled, slides off his lap, sucking her thumb and watching them go with some renewed anxiety in her eyes, though she does not voice protest this time, Jared's eyes move to Ilya. He watches him even as he speaks to Angelina.


"It's okay, Angie. They'll be back, and I'm not going anywhere."


He waits a few more minutes before saying to Ilya, "Look, I'm not assuming anything, but...she's got some screwy ideas, okay?"


**


Leigh tightens her hands around the bat Alina hands her, her eyes darting nervously at Alina's warning to her as she walks with her, flinching each time she hears leaves crackling beneath their feet. She stays close to the older girl, barely paying attention to the ground as she walks with her. It's not like she WANTED to gather this dumb firewood that would probably burn them all up, she just HAD to. Jared was so weird sometimes.


When Alina spoke to her, Leigh was startled and gasps out loud before she is able to calm, realizing that it was only she who had spoken. She takes in a slow breath, pausing her half-hearted looking as she answers. "Um, go to the mall, I guess. When I could get someone to bring me. No one would usually. And I had a boyfriend."


She went quiet then, looking down at the ground as her hand tightened further around the bat, and she bit the inside of her cheeks. It was easier not to think about Max at all.
 
It wasn't difficult for Ilya to at least partly ignore Leigh as she loomed over him. He was fiddling with the fishing line he'd dug out of his father's tackle box and was working on tying into a snare. He'd already figured that three rabbits should be more than enough. He glanced over at her when he felt her beside him. She was way too close for someone her age to be, especially with the way her voice changed when she spoke to him.


'This is so awkward' he thought to himself, and finally said, “I learned it in camp a while ago.”


He was trying to keep his responses as short and clipped as possible, thanking the heavens when Jared stepped in and told her to put a move on it. He'd almost looked up and told him so, but instead bit his tongue and kept working. When Leigh left, Ilya felt himself relax a little bit, having not even realized that he'd tensed up, and set the first snare aside, eyeballing out another length of fishing line and cutting it with his swiss army knife.


When Jared spoke up, reassuring Angie that their respective sisters would return, Ilya glanced up briefly at the small girl to make sure she wasn't going to go off the rails again. She seemed to be handling it far better than she did Jared's departure earlier. But then Jared was speaking to him about Leigh and looked over at Jared, eyes widening.


“Huh?” It dawned on him what he was saying and shook his head, “Oh, no way man. It's safe to say that you have nothing to worry about in that department. That's just creepy.”


--------


At the mention of a boyfriend, Alina's eyebrows crept up slightly; wasn't she a little young to be dating? But then she picked up on Leigh's sudden silence and knew that a change of subject was in order. He had either died or dumped her, neither of which was easy to handle, and Alina did not know this girl well enough to start asking questions.


Not knowing what else to say, she remembered the girl worrying about buring the forest down and stuffed some more wood into the duffel, “The trick is to dig a small pit and line it with rocks.” She explained, not really caring whether or not the girl was listening, but still needing to fill the silence. “It helps to keep the fire from spreading.”


That was when she really hit a wall in the conversation, and instead of forcing it, she just kept her eyes on the ground for dry wood. After a while, she straightened up and ran a hand through her hair, “I think we should have enough by now.” She tried to offer up a genuine smile, “Thanks for the help.”
 
Jared eyed Ilya for a few moments, his gaze slightly narrowed, assessing him. But the other boy seemed genuinely startled and even repulsed by the thought of his implication, and when Jared thought back, he knew that he had not witnessed Ilya looking at Leigh in more than the casual manner of one person looking in the direction of another, as Jared himself might look at Ilya, without any sexuality in it at all. Not at all like Max, whose eyes had trailed Leigh's every move, who had taken every opportunity to touch her and had hardly discouraged Leigh from initiating touch herself. Ilya himself had a younger sister, and perhaps this was the difference; surely he, like Jared, wouldn't like to think about some older guy all over Alina. But then, maybe he was just different from Max in usual, more of the decent sort of person who wouldn't consider it whether he had a sister or not.


"Good," he said somewhat gruffly, nodding, and turned back to Angelina, who was still watching them, motionlessly. He tried to smile for her, reaching out to pat her head.


"Angie, can you help us out? I think we need to find a good place to make the fire. You know what we have to do for that? We need to move aside all the leaves and sticks and things... "


Angelina hesitated for a long while, and Jared thought at first she would ignore him. When she finally began to move, slowly brushing things aside, Jared is able to focus on speaking to Ilya again, lowering his voice.


"Leigh, she's 12. But before all this...and during...there was a kid, a 16 year old. I don't know what happened with them and don't want to, but...she's got some ideas, okay?"


**


Leigh had become more engaged in selecting wood as they went along, finding that it was easier to focus on this and become absorbed in it than to deal with her thoughts and feelings. As they finish, and Alina thanks her, giving her a smile, she smiles back tentatively. She walks close to the older girl as they start back, still silent, and then the thoughts creeping back into her mind burst out almost without her being aware they were there at all.


"My mom hates us. My mom wants to kill us. She killed my sister and she killed other kids, and she tried to kill me and Jared and my sister. She's going to find us and kills us one day...she doesn't like the woods but she'll figure out where we are and come."


She is biting her lip as she looks over to the other girl, her voice dropping. "Why does everyone hate us now? I know she didn't ever love me but I didn't know she HATED me..."
 
Ilya watched Jared watch him and fought the urge not to squirm uncomfortably under his gaze. With the size of the guy, he was fully aware of the kind of damage Jared could do to Ilya if he wanted to. He let himself relax a little and focus more on his snare when the older boy's attention shifted to his baby sister, and Ilya felt himself smile weakly when she started to clear off space for a fire pit. That could have been a really good idea, maybe if the kid felt like she could help the group, she'd snap out of it faster.


Finished with the final snare, Ilya rose to his feet and stretched, nails raking against the back of his neck. His gaze shifted back to Jared when he started speaking again, nose wrinkling at the thought of a 16 year old with a 12 year old and shook his head.


“Yeah, I get it. And that's... I mean, it's not my place, but that's f-” he stopped himself, remembering that there was a little kid and opted to start over. “That's messed up. Ali's 16, and I can't even really imagine dating girls her age. Partly because she knows most of them, but... I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter much now, does it?”


He met Jared's eyes now, his own probably wider than what he'd intended, “Like I said last night, Leigh and Angie are safe with me. I know it probably doesn't mean much, since you've known me for all of, like, twelve hours, but I'm no creep.”


--------


It was surprising to hear her voice after the stretch of silence between them, but when Leigh did start to speak, Alina stopped where they were to allow her to get it out of her system before they returned to the group. She felt the pit in her stomach knot up even tighter at the girl's words, knowing exactly how she felt and wanting to be able to identify with it, but also knowing that if they were to both get upset, nothing would be accomplished.


Swallowing thickly, she gave herself a moment to compose herself and make sure that when she did speak, her voice was strong. “Leigh...” Not sure if giving her a hug was the right move, she decided to rub the smaller girl's back and was surprised when she seemed to curl into her. Alina took that as a cue to let the duffel drop and wrapped her arms around her, trying to be as comforting as she could.


“Your mom doesn't hate you, she's just... she's sick. All of the adults are, you know? But we'll be okay out here for a while, and Ilya, Jared and me won't let anything happen to you or Angie, okay? We have weapons, and we can set traps or something around the area to make sure we at least get a head start if they DO find us.”


She gave Leigh a light squeeze and brushed at her own stinging eyes quickly before she stepped back and let out a breath, forcing a smile, “I'll tell you what. I have some shampoo and conditioner, what do you say we go back to camp, grab it and Angie and go to the river to clean ourselves off and swim around for a while? The water will be cold, but we'll feel at least a little better if we're clean.” Alina's smile grew a little more mischievous when she added, “Plus, it'll keep us from doing much more work around the site.”
 
Angelina was still slowly, rather listlessly clearing an area for the fire, making piles of just leaves, just rocks, and just sticks, as though she is sorting them and "matching" rather than simply sweeping them aside. Jared knew he could tell her that she didn't have to go to that effort, that it could easily be a quicker job if she didn't do so, but he figured it was better to let her go to it. It was keeping her occupied, and hopefully keeping her from listening too closely to his and Ilya's discussion. She probably wouldn't understand, but she definitely didn't need to start wondering about Leigh and Max and some of the ways they'd acted even around her.


It surprises him to hear that Ilya wouldn't date someone Alina's age, though. He had thought him to be seventeen or eighteen, which he considered reasonably within an acceptable age difference. He supposes this means that Ilya wouldn't be okay with Jared being interested in her...not that he WAS, of course...


"Good," he said instead to Ilya, clearing his throat. "Yeah...good."


Even so, he'd have to watch Leigh, if not Ilya. One thing he knew about his sister was how hard it could be to shake her off ideas she got in her head.


**


When Alina touches her back, Leigh exhales, the noise soft, but shaking, tears rising to her eyes and choking her throat. The gesture reminds her of Rai, the girl that had been sort of nice to her and that Jared had seemed to like back at the school...the girl that had gotten killed, right where Leigh could see. It reminded her of Lydia, her own sister- not so much in actions Lydia had actually done, as they had rarely touched with affection, but in what Leigh had sometimes wanted her to do, but been unable to give voice to or even fully acknowledge to herself. It was rare for anyone to touch her, except for the boys she dated, and this is in part why their attention had been so precious and necessary to her- an understanding she is not mature enough to possess.


All she knows when Alina touches her is that it hurts her heart, and yet feels so good she immediately leans into her, hoping that she won't pull away. And when Alina hugs her Leigh wraps her arms around her with some ferocity, sniffing back more intently threatening tears as she leans her head into Alina's shoulder. She is disappointed when the girl pulls back from her and tries to draw her back, with her words if not touch.


"She does hate me. She does. She never wanted us, she left us with Jared and Lydia all the time. We don't even call her Mom, we call her Vicky. Only Angie calls her Mom. She wishes I was never born and now she wants to make me die."


But even as she says this she sounds calmer, nodding faintly in response to her suggestion of a bath. "We're taking a bath like that together...naked? Isn't that gross?" Then, as another thought occurs to her, she adds, "Is Ilya coming too?"
 
With the Leigh situation cleared up, Ilya crouched down to pick up the snares and muttered something about going to set them up before heading off into the woods toward where he'd seen the tracks and rabbit holes the previous day. Now that he was alone, the quiet seemed a lot more eerie than it had when he was with Ali or the others. There was something hollow about it that made him a little sick to his stomach.


Ilya promptly decided not to take long setting them up, and put the snares in front of the rabbit holes and camouflaged them, making a mental map of where they were so that he could check later on. Hopefully, they'd be eating more than peanut butter crackers and beef jerky that night.


When he returned, he smiled weakly at Angie, seeing her work and shook his head, smiling at her, “Awesome job, kiddo. Want to help me set up rocks so that we can start building the fire pit?”


Without waiting for an answer, he got down on his knees and started building a circle with the rocks, piling some on top of each other to create more of a wall to show Angie how it needed to be done. He wasn't sure if she would even respond to him, really, since she really only seemed to answer to Jared, but there was no telling unless he actually gave it a shot.


“We can use those sticks to get the fire started too.” He tried to give her another smile and looked over at Jared, “The traps are in place. I'll check back in every once in a while to see if we catch anything. Have you ever had rabbit before?”


--------


When Leigh tells Alina about her mother, she started to feel the ache in her heart again. It wasn't fair for those three to go through so much. Her family wasn't exactly happy, while they might not have been rich or gotten along all the time, at least her parents seemed to give a damn about them before this whole thing started. The thought of Alina's family triggered another painful lump in her throat, which she forced down as she bent to pick up the duffel.


Leigh's voice in response to her suggestion of a bath was calmer, and for that, Ali was thankful. She was never really great at comforting people. Being the baby in a big family, she was usually the one being comforted and it felt nice to be on the other side for a change. She can't help but smile at Leigh's suggestion that it might be gross and shook her head, about to answer when she tacked on the question about Ilya joining them.


Oh god. No. No no no no no.


Alina's nostrils flared in disgust at the thought of her brother being naked that close to her and she shuddered briefly before shaking her head, “I seriously doubt Jared would be okay with my brother joining us for a bath.” She began, trying to keep her voice even, “And why would it be gross? I mean, we all have the same parts, and girls have to shower together after gym class sometimes. It doesn't mean anything, it just means that it's not really safe to be alone right now.”
 
Watching Ilya work, Jared feels a little awkward since he isn't helping him, or really doing anything, compared to the rest of them. But then again, Ilya didn't seem to need his help, and he certainly wouldn't be able to leave without Angelina going off on him again. He settles for saying "Let me know if you need help with anything" before turning his head to check on his sister again.


Angelina is still intently focused on her piles, and looks up only briefly when Ilya compliments her. Jared smiles slightly as the boy invites her to help him, knowing that he too is just trying to get her involved. He appreciates his effort with her and encourages her as well.


"Yeah, Angie, looks like he needs help. See, I'm going to help him."


He joins Ilya, and after a few moments Angelina makes her way over to them and begins to imitate them, frequently looking between them as if to make sure she's doing it right. Jared smiles at her again before answering Ilya's question.


"No, never had it, but it has to beat packaged foods, I guess."


When Angelina speaks, her voice is soft, almost a mumble, and it takes a moment for Jared to first realize that she has spoken at all, and then another few for him to interpret to himself what she had said.


"The Easter Bunny is a rabbit."


Jared blinks, trying to determine what she means by this. She is no longer moving, looking up at him with wide eyes, waiting for his reaction. And what was she thinking? That they were about to eat the Easter Bunny or its cousin?


"This one won't be," is all he can manage to come up with.


**


"Are you cold? You did this weird shivering thing," was Leigh's observation upon noticing Alina's shudder. She shrugs, running a hand through her hair as she resumes her slow walk back to the others. "I'm kind of cold too."


She shrugged again, dismissing Alina's comment about Jared with an eye roll. "Jared's dumb. He's always trying to tell us what to do and stuff, he doesn't know what it's like to be a girl or what it's like to be in sixth grade because it was different in his day. He thinks I shouldn't date or wear makeup or short skirts or stuff, he's just old."


Considering that there are only seven years between them, she succeeds in making him sound old enough to be her father. Leigh wrinkles her nose at her further discussion of bathing, shrugging again as she continues to discuss it with some unease.


"I don't know. It just is. Girls aren't supposed to look at other girls and all...people will say you're gay and stuff. And anyway, I don't think we do have the same parts, exactly, because-"


She cuts herself off then, looking down at her chest, which was "enhanced" with tissues down the bra, but which had been considerably flattened almost to nothing in the course of the past day. Her face flushes at the thought of taking off her bra in front of Alina where she could see this...and what about when she would have to remove them and have nothing to replace them with? What would they all think then?
 
Ilya shrugs, “It tastes a lot like chicken. Since they're wild rabbits, they might be a little gamey, but it's essentially the same taste as chicken or other poultry. It's really not that bad.”


He is startled by Angelina's voice and even flinches a little when he first hears it. It takes him a moment to realize what she'd said about the Easter Bunny, and when he did, his stomach dropped. God, why did he have to say anything?! How was he going to cover this so that the poor kid wasn't traumatized by the thought that he'd killed and cooked the Easter Bunny?


Jesus, what an idiot.


Forcing a smile, Ilya looks back at the girl and shakes his head. It takes him a long, awkward minute and a half to come up with a response that would not make Ali cuff him had she been there, “I promise, if I find the Easter Bunny in one of the traps, I'll let him go. If you want, you can even come help me so that he remembers you and gives you extra stuff when Easter comes around. That work?”


--------


“I think Jared just wants what's best for you,” Alina says as they continue walking, deciding to ignore the question of her being cold. “Especially now, I think he wants to do what will keep you and Angie safe.”


Not knowing any other way to defend him, she lets herself fall silent. When Leigh mentions the idea of their sexuality being called into question, she smothers a smile, remembering full well what it was like in the sixth grade.


“Things change when you get older,” she tells the girl, refusing to acknowledge the idea that she may not get older. “Plus it's not like we have to look at each other, and everything will be under the water anyway.” She glances over at the girl at the mention of different parts and notices her observing her own chest, with a shrug, she stuffs the hand that isn't holding the strap of the duffel into her pocket. “It's still the same parts, and trust me, they start to grow more once you hit 14 or so. That's when I really started to get my boobs, anyway. But if you don't want to go, that's fine. I totally get it.”


As they entered the camp, she set the duffel down and smiled weakly, “Got a good looking fire pit going, guys.” She crouched and started emptying out the bag, “We got enough wood to fill this thing, so it should last us a few days at least.”


She paused to note the surprise on Ilya's face and furrowed her eyebrows, switching back to their mother tongue without really realizing it, “What happened? Is everything okay?”


Ilya responded in Russian as well, the usual call and response that came from their home, in which that was the language normally spoken between the family. “It's fine, don't worry about it. The little one just said something, is all.”


Just like that, Alina's eyebrows went from furrowed to nearly reaching her hairline, “Really? Is that good or bad?”


“Good, I think.”


It was then that she realized that they had an audience. Looking between Leigh, Angelina and stopping on Jared, her cheeks burned bright and she shook her head, “Sorry... uhm...” she looks over to her brother to help, but he just shrugs. “That's... that's an old habit. Yeah, sorry. I'm going to clean up my mess now.” Letting out an awkward laugh, she finishes emptying the wood from the bag and starts refilling it with the supplies that had previously inhabited it.
 
Angelina continues to regard Ilya with some solemnity, neither nodding nor shaking her head. Exchanging glances with him, Jared struggles to help him out further. It had honestly not crossed his mind that Angelina would associate rabbits with the Easter Bunny; any Easter celebration she and Leigh had had growing up had been due to Lydia, not him, buying them small amounts of candy and plastic eggs from the dollar store since Vicky, inevitably, would not have remembered. Nor would it have occurred to him that a child who had watched her own mother murder people would still be innocent enough to believe in a giant rabbit hopping around dispensing candy.


"Um...plus, the Easter Bunny is really big, like a person, remember?" he tried. "He walks- I mean, hops- on two legs. He's not like these rabbits, so it's okay."


Angelina neither contradicts or seems to entirely accept this, but she lets it go, perhaps not having the energy to continue worrying. Jared is relieved when he hears, then sees Leigh and Alina rejoining them, hurriedly pointing them out to her.


"Look, Angie, Leigh's back. See, I told you they'd be okay."


**


"He's not doing a very good job," Leigh whispered about Jared and his protection of them, looking down at the ground and deliberately kicking her feet in front of her with her steps. Her tone is not belligerent or angry, but only soft, factual as she sees it. "He didn't save anyone...he didn't stop Vicky."


She sneaks a glance at Alina's breasts as the older girl tries to reassure her about her own body, assessing hers versus her own, and then quickly looks away, blushing again. "I guess...boys like it better if they're already there, though. You know."


She thinks more carefully about the offer of the bath, still embarrassed at the idea of bathing with Alina, but it is true that she is dirty, with dried blood, grime, tears, and sweat streaked about her, and she has not washed her hair recently. Maybe Ilya would think she was pretty if she took a bath.


"I guess we can," she conceded finally.


As they rejoined the others, she observes the changes that have been made to their campsite, correctly figuring that Ilya must have been the one to make the snares. Going to stand close to him again, she smiles.


"Wow, this looks cool...I think I'll take a bath pretty soon. I'm pretty dirty."


"LEIGH!" Jared sputtered, almost choking, and Leigh rolled her eyes.


"WHAT? I am."
 
Ilya nearly chokes on his own spit when he hears Leigh, now right next to him and quickly clears his throat. He looks over to his sister with the very thinly veiled expression of someone begging for help. He doesn't see much support in her face, though. In fact, she almost looks like she was half expecting something like this to happen. “You uh... you probably shouldn't go alone.”


Alina, though slightly amused and also very much grossed out, doesn't quite immediately jump to her brother's aid. She has to admire the gall of Leigh really, for at 12 years old, she's far more assertive than she herself had ever been, and there really is something to be said for that.


“Il, you should probably go check the snares and get the fire pit set up.” She says after several moments, trying not to snigger at the look of total indignation on Jared's face. “C'mon, Leigh, I'll show you the spot we found. Angie, do you want to come with us to get cleaned up?”
 
"I wasn't going to go alone...I was going to have someone come with me," Leigh said, and though she was speaking in a normal tone of voice, without seductiveness to it, she was still standing close enough to Ilya for Jared's ears to burn.


This could not happen. Jared had barely survived, literally, her infatuation with Max...this Ilya guy was even OLDER, and whether or not he was interested, Leigh was definitely acting in a way that Jared totally was not comfortable with.


"Leigh, you don't...talk like that in front of guys..." he managed, as Leigh again rolled her eyes.


"I didn't SAY anything, jeez. It's not like I took off my clothes or something, I'm not a ho."


Jared's face reddens further at the mere mention of her taking off clothes, even though she wasn't actually referring to doing so, exactly, and he gestures with slightly shaky hands, vehemently shaking his head at her. Was she TRYING to make him crazy?


"Well, don't, stop it, already! And where are you learning language like that anyway, don't say that, especially around Angie!"


"What, ho?" Leigh seems genuinely surprised that he disapproves of this. "Everyone says that. It's not any worse than slut or something."


Before Jared can take this thrown off comment in, she turns to Alina, grabbing up one of the spare t-shirts and towels they had carried with them. "I guess I'm ready...you coming, Angie?"


Angelina nodded after a few moments, standing and following them, though not taking Leigh's hand. Once they are out of sight, Jared runs one hand over his face, groaning aloud with continued embarrassment.


"I'm sorry, man. I don't know where the hell she learns that, seriously. She's...just...ignore her."
 
Alina can't help but watch this unfold with vague amusement. Jared's mounting frustration with Leigh's behavior really showing the longer the day went on. Of course, she felt bad for him, but at the same time... it's kind of funny. Whether it's her nerves saying that or the fact that it really is humorous, she has no idea, but she doesn't really have time to think it over, because Leigh's already getting her things around.


Before she turns to dig out the shampoo and conditioner, she shoots Jared a sympathetic look, before leading the girls toward the river, her own clothes and towel tucked under her arm. She tries to stay between and slightly ahead of the two of them. Not because she's afraid they'll bicker, but because the triangle formation seems to be the safest one.


Once she gets to the river, she crouches down at the bank and dips her hand in. The water is still fairly cold. The sun had probably warmed it up quite a bit, but closer to the bottom would be near freezing.


“Our best bet would be to just sort of jump in. The water's kind of chilly.” She carefully places her clothes and towel down away from the water, and the shampoo and conditioner bottles closer to the river without the risk of them rolling into the water and floating away. To Ali, any kind of soap or toiletry was basically gold, and she was sure the others in the group would agree with her to some extent.


Sucking in a deep breath, Alina unfastens her pants and slides them down her legs, keeping her eyes forward so as not to make the girls feel like she was watching them. Her shirt and bra follow suit, and before she can talk herself out of it, she jumps in.


While the water isn't freezing, it's still a huge shock to her lungs, and she feels them compress in her chest, the air whooshing out of them through her nostrils in a flurry of bubbles that race to the surface. It is just deep enough for her feet to reach the bottom and she moves around carefully to find a place shallow enough for Angie to wade in without having to worry about her drowning. Shoving her head to the surface, she lets out a wheeze as she sucks in air, shivering slightly beneath the water.


“Okay, heads up, it'll take some getting used to, but it's not terrible.” Ali looks up at Angie and clears her throat, trying hard not to wheeze again, “Angie, I want you to stay close to the edge where it's not as deep, okay? If you want, Leigh and I can stay close to you, but you shouldn't go very far out.”


That being said, she covers her eyes and turns her back to allow the girls some privacy to undress and get into the water, “Just tell me when it's okay to turn around.”


--------


As Alina leads the girls away, Ilya can't help but feel a little sympathy for Jared. It's obvious that he's had his hands full with them for much longer than Alina has been in Ilya's charge. He watches his face redden and starts to organize the timber in the fire pit.


When Jared apologizes and tells Ilya to ignore her, he just shrugs and smiles weakly, “It's cool, man. I have sisters, I get what it's like when they get crushes. Plus, Ali seems to be just as disturbed by it as you are, so I think she's got our backs on this one.”
 
Jared snorts in disbelief at Ilya's attempt to identify with him through his also having a sister, shaking his head as he reaches for a handful to sticks as well, breaking them to better fit them in the pit.


"Yeah, right. I don't see Alina hanging around me making remarks about hos and sluts and being naked. I bet you never had to tell Alina that she couldn't make herself up like a Lady Marmalade when she was ten years old, or have to pry her off a guy who was four years older than her. Alina looks easy compared to Leigh. Not in THAT way," he added hastily, just in case with all the sex talk, Ilya got the wrong idea. "I mean, she's...your sister...you don't have to worry about her like I do Leigh. She can take care of herself. She's smart and capable and mature...you know, she-"


He stopped himself then, realizing that he was starting to sing Alina's praises in a way that might make him sound like he too had been watching her more closely than needed. He looked down, finishing in almost a mutter, "Just...you know. Leigh. She's sort of...she's not like Alina."


**


Angelina maintains her silence all the way until they reach the river, but when she sees it her eyes widen. She has always liked water and swimming, and she had not really understood or believed what the other girls intended until she saw it with her own eyes. Her lips twitch into a faint, brief smile, until she sees that Alina is stripping off her clothes. She stares at her openly until Leigh, blushing, motions for her to turn around.


"Angie! You don't look at people when they're naked, that's gross!"


Coming from Leigh, who's been embarrassing her brother with her inappropriate behavior all morning, this is a first. Nevertheless Angelina obeys, though she finally speaks, her voice still soft.


"How come she's doing that?"


"We're taking a bath, duh," was Leigh's response, rolling her eyes. "You gotta take off your clothes to do that...don't you look at me, Angie, I mean it!"


She turns her back to her sister, removing her own clothes at lightning speed and quickly making her way towards the water, but when she first puts her feet in, not having tested the temperature first, she gives a little scream with surprise at how cold it is. Angelina turns hurriedly, her eyes huge, fearful at this outburst, and Leigh, gasping, ducks down beneath it, again giving a short shriek at its cold.


"I said not to look, Angie, GOD!"


Angelina still hasn't removed her clothes, and in fact starts heading towards them fully dressed. Leigh, huffing, again instructs her to take them off, but Angelina just looks at her with a puzzled, furrowed brow and doesn't do so. In the end Leigh has to get up anyway, growling under her breath for Angelina not to look at her, and with fiery cheeks undresses her herself and pulls her with her into the water. It's been over five minutes since Alina turned her back before the girls are finally both in the water.


"It's freezing," Leigh announces through slightly chattering teeth. Angelina seems to be barely noticing this, and in fact is very lightly splashing her hand on the water, not smiling, but showing faint signs of playing. "Someone's gonna have to wash her hair, she doesn't know how yet."
 
Ilya watched Jared a little more carefully once he started talking about Alina. He had picked up on a few previous remarks, but didn't think much of it. He let the other guy finish and decided to bite his tongue on the matter for the time being. There was no need to create conflict if there wasn't one, and they had already been talking about the differences between their sisters, so he figured he would just let it slide.


“She's not my only sister, though.” Ilya pauses here, his use of present tense dawning on him and he swallows thickly, finishing up the pit. “Wasn't, I mean.” He corrects himself, clenching his jaw to keep his face a mask while he tries not to remember the way it felt bashing Sonja's head in with a trophy, the way the dull, wet thud of it seemed to travel straight to the center of his spine and somehow stick there like a dart in a target. “She wasn't my only sister. Sonja was a lot like Leigh... middle child syndrome or whatever. But she was older, so it wasn't really my place to deal with it.”


He clears his throat, not daring to continue speaking in case that pesky wave of emotion hit him again and he wasn't able to fight it off. There's no point in crying about it, he assures himself, if he hadn't done it, then Ali would have been suffocated and Ilya probably wouldn't have lived through the night either.


“I'm sorry that she's such a handful, though.” He says, glancing back up at Jared after a long silence.


--------


Alina waited patiently for the girls to get into the water, listening carefully to their small back and forth chatter. When she heard the splash of the both of them jumping into the water, she let herself turn around and smiled weakly when she spotted Angie splashing lightly in the water.


She glanced over at Leigh when she mentioned that someone would need to wash Angie's hair, making sure to not look at her for very long to keep her from getting insecure or creeped out. “I'll wash it if you don't want to, I don't really care.”


Walking back to the edge, she gripped the bottle of shampoo and ducked under the water to better wet her hair. Quickly, she washed it and conditioned her hair, and used a little bit of the shampoo to clean off her body as best she could. At the very least, to get the worst of the grime off of her. The water was starting to feel nice, and even relax her muscles a little, still tight from sleeping on the hard ground through the night.


Hell, maybe Angie had the right idea to take a few minutes to just play a little. Sucking in a deep breath, Alina plunged beneath the water and swam for a few feet along the current. It seemed so peaceful down there, the weight of the water blocking out all of the hell that was going on at the surface. When she was afraid she might have gone too far from the girls, she surfaced and looked over to see that she'd only gone about ten yards or so.


Letting out the breath that she'd been holding and sucking back a fresh one, she swam back over to them, now completely comfortable with the temperature, though the tips of her fingers had begun to turn purple. Perhaps swimming and exerting herself hadn't been the best idea, but the sense of freedom that it had given her, the thought that if she wanted to get away, she could just keep swimming, it was worth the small wheeze her lungs gave every time she exhaled.


Alina smiled at Angie once back with the sisters and swiped some water that had gotten into her eyes out of the way. “Angie, do you want Leigh or me to wash your hair?”
 
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