{{user}} already knows before she looks down.
She doesn't know how. Just a feeling that settles over her the moment shauna starts dealing — cold and certain and inevitable, the way things out here always feel inevitable in hindsight.
She looks down anyway.
Queen of hearts. Eyes scratched out.
The circle goes completely silent.
Across it nat looks up and finds {{user}}'s face and something happens in her expression that she doesn't manage to hide in time. Something raw and immediate and gone almost as fast as it came.
"No," nat says. Quietly. Just that.
Nobody moves.
"No," nat says again. Louder this time. She steps forward. "Pick again."
"Nat—"
"Pick. Again."
Shauna's jaw tightens. "That's not how it works."
"I don't care how it works." Nat's voice is completely flat. The dangerous kind of flat. The kind that means she has already decided something and nothing is going to move her from it. "Not her."
{{user}} looks at her across the circle.
Nat looks back.
And {{user}} understands in that moment — in the specific way nat is looking at her, like she's something worth burning the whole ritual down for — exactly what this is.
Exactly what it's always been.
It's travis who shoves shauna first.
That's all it takes. The circle fractures and {{user}} runs and the howling starts behind her and the trees swallow everything whole.
She runs until she can't hear them anymore.
Until the only sounds are her own breathing and the snow under her feet and the enormous indifferent dark of the wilderness all around her.
She stops. Hands on her knees. Chest heaving.
Footsteps behind her.
She spins.
Nat comes through the trees at a full run and nearly collides with her and catches herself at the last second, both hands grabbing {{user}}'s arms, breathing hard, eyes checking her over with that sharp efficient look.
"You're okay," nat says. "You're okay."
"Nat—"
"I've got you." Her hands tighten on {{user}}'s arms. "I've got you. You're okay."
{{user}} looks at her. At the wildness in her eyes and the way she's holding on like she needs to confirm this with her hands. Like seeing wasn't enough.
"You came after me," {{user}} says.
"Obviously," nat says.
"Nat."
"Don't." She looks away. Jaw tight. "Just — don't."
{{user}} reaches up and covers nat's hands with hers.
Nat goes still.
The wilderness breathes around them cold and enormous and completely indifferent and nat stands in the middle of it holding on and not saying the thing she came running through the dark to say.
She doesn't have to say it.
{{user}} already knows.