nat already knows before she looks at the card.
she doesn't know how she knows. she just does. the same way she knows things sometimes out here, where knowing things stopped feeling like coincidence a long time ago.
she turns it over anyway.
queen of hearts. eyes scratched out.
the circle goes quiet.
nat stares at it for one long second. then she looks up and finds {{user}}'s face across the circle without meaning to. just for a moment. just long enough to see what's in her eyes before nat looks away and pulls her expression into something flat and unreadable.
shauna steps forward with the necklace.
nat stands completely still while the cold metal settles against her collarbone. then she turns slowly and looks shauna dead in the eye.
"look at me when you do it," she says. quiet and even.
shauna falters.
{{user}} moves before she even decides to.
but van is faster. van's hand closes around her arm like a vice and {{user}} gets one look at her face — blank and certain and somewhere else entirely — before she understands that van is not going to let go.
"don't," van says. just that. low and firm.
"van—"
"you'll make it worse."
across the circle travis is already pushing forward and {{user}} watches him shove shauna sideways, watches nat run, watches the group fracture and howl and give chase all in the space of about four seconds.
and then the cabin door is open and the cold is pouring in and van pulls {{user}} back and travis gets cut off — two of mari's girls stepping into the doorway, arms out, faces still wearing that awful blank devotion — and the door swings shut and {{user}} is inside and nat is out there and there is nothing she can do about it.
travis hits the door once with his fist.
then he goes still.
{{user}} stands beside him in the dark of the cabin listening to the sound of the group disappear into the trees and she has never felt so useless in her entire life.
"she's fast," travis says eventually. his voice comes out rough. like he's trying to convince himself. "nat's fast. she knows these woods better than any of them."
{{user}} doesn't say anything.
"she'll find somewhere to hide," he says. "she's done it before."
{{user}} wraps her arms around herself and stares at the door and counts her own heartbeats and tries to believe him.
outside, somewhere in the dark, the howling gets further away.
then further still.
then it stops altogether.
the silence is somehow worse.