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It's been nearly a week since Mathias has seen anything and it's because of this -- this weird sense of relief that has surrounded him lately -- that he walks straight into the tumbled piles of vines without a second thought. He's too busy talking to Lucy to really notice and it isn't until his feet tangle, until he feels a vine sliding around his ankle that he stops and looks down at what they've both walked into.

"No," he says softly. There's a dull thrum of fear at the base of his skull, but that's been there almost all waking moments for the past several months. He tries to remember how they've disappeared before, how it's all proven to be nothing, but even when he closes his eyes and opens them again, the vines are still there. One has circled Lucy's leg, but when he looks at it, it stops moving.

Turning, Mathias intends on heading straight to the boardwalk and toward the Compound, but the beach doesn't look like his beach anymore and he can't see where the boardwalk comes through the trees. Instead there's a hill. A path winds through the vines that cover it, bright green leaves shaped like hands and brilliant, blood red flowers. He turns away from the hill, reaching for Lucy's hand without thinking and it isn't until he's facing the water again that the arrow whistles through the air and lands only inches from his left foot.

It isn't real. That's what he keeps trying to tell himself. None of this is real.

Another arrow arches through the air toward them and Mathias closes his eyes.

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"Right. I'll just pull an arrow out of you. Jesus," I mutter. I do try, but I can't. I don't know if my hands are too small and too slick with blood already or if I'm just not strong enough, but when I pull on the arrow it scarcely budges. That I know I'm hurting him even more doesn't help.

I grab Mathias' hand when I take his shirt from him. "Please. I can't." Help him the vines say in my voice, and I let out a babyish sob of frustration and fear.

All I can think about is the air raid the day Maddie and I became friends, and that gunner who bled to death right under my hands.

"They're saying he's dead," I say, and I'm getting angry again. I suppose it's better than abject terror, but neither is really very helpful when you get right down to it. "They need to shut up before somebody comes up here with a lawn mower. Because he isn't, and he's not going to be. Not today."

I swear the vines are laughing at me.

She pulls at the arrow and it jars, making him cry out, though he bites down over it, not wanting to make this any worse for her His head swims. The vines keep whispering, insidious. He reaches out for Julie with his hand.

"I'm not dead," he says. "And I'm not going to be. It's okay."

He looks up. "Mathias, you need to help her. You need to get it out of me and then you need to tie it up."

And his eyes keep straying to the vines.

As before, when he's told what to do, he can do it. He reaches for Lucy, careful not to touch her skin where the sap has already bled onto his fingers. His palms are burning, but he hardly notices this time around, just another familiar sensation in a far too familiar situation.

"Lucy, Julie, be prepared to put pressure on the wound as soon as it's out," he says, handing his t-shirt to Lucy. His hands hurt, but he thinks he can do this anyway, he's sure he can separate himself enough and so he leans over John, wrapping both hands around the shaft of the arrow.

There are three arrows just like this in his hut somewhere. The three that arrived in Henrich's chest.

He pulls, knowing it's going to hurt, but he pulls until he feels the arrow give, then come free of John's shoulder altogether. "Now," he says. "Put pressure on it now."

Though the circumstances of it aren't at all, it's still a relief when John speaks, especially after having just been told by the vines that he's dead. Holding on to the hope that he won't be is more difficult than Lucy wants to admit, even more so for the fact that none of them being doctors and having no medical equipment, but then, she has no intention of just giving up. They'll keep him alive. They'll get out of here, a little worse for wear but in one piece. All of it will be okay, because it has to be, because after five fucking years, she's not going to let this place win this soon or this easily.

Holding her breath, fingers curled tight around Mathias' shirt, she does as she's told, pressing down on John's shoulder where the arrow was, silently grateful that she's never been too squeamish.

Having a specific task helps, even if watching the blood pouring out of a person I care so much about makes me feel sick. I wrap my slip around his shoulder, under his arm, and tie it tight to hold the shirt in place. I remember learning about bandages. I can do this much, at least.

Once it's done, I allow myself a look at John's face. He's so pale that it scares me, but I don't say so. I just hold his hand and manage a trembling ghost of a smile. "See? We're all going to be just fine."

That there is blood dripping down my own arm, from where the arrow got me on its way to John, I hardly notice and that we're all at least a little bit burned by contact with the vines I ignore.

I have to ignore everything about the bloody vines, because I can still hear them laughing and it makes me feel like I might just start screaming and not be able to stop.

It hurts like bloody hell, both pulling the arrow and the pressing on of bandages afterwards. He grits his teeth and tries to stay focused on being awake, on staying awake, as much for Julie as for anyone. Because she's scared enough, without him slipping anywhere.

He squeezes her hand to make sure that she knows that he's still there.
"So," he says, trying to sound cheerful, though he doesn't think he succeeds. "What do we do now?"

Mathias throws the arrow down, then lays his hand on Lucy's shoulders, only vaguely aware of the fact that there's blood on it. Whether it's from John or his own burns that have begun to crack, he doesn't know, but he's getting it on Lucy, on her shirt and he pulls back suddenly, as if she's burning him, too. He doesn't want to see blood on her.

Turning away, he looks across the hill again. He can already feel the sun beating down on his shoulders and he licks his lips, wondering what they're going to do for water. They won't be stuck up here for more than a day, they can't be, but that's still a long time to go without anything to drink.

Across the hill, down in the mineshaft, the sound of the cellphone starts up.

"Don't listen to it," he says. "It's nothing. Now we keep watch until someone else comes and then we send them for help. The IPD won't let these men keep us here." That they're probably occupied elsewhere only now occurs to him.

In spite of what Mathias says about it, the sudden sound makes Lucy jump, a startled reaction she's already too uneasy to hold back. To her, it's as eerie as the rest of it, the sound coming from all the way down the mineshaft, with no discernible source. With the way it cuts through the relative quiet, ignoring it is easier said than done, and she finds herself looking in its direction anyway. At this rate, she thinks, they'll be lucky if they don't go crazy before someone else can get to them.

"Something like this has got to be pretty noticeable, right?" she asks, a halfhearted attempt at finding something reassuring about this whole mess. "Even with whatever else is going on, they can't take too long." Even so, she thinks, they ought to be ready in the event that it does, which would be a lot easier if she knew what to be ready for at all.

"What is that?" I ask. "Telephone" doesn't even enter my mind as a possibility, as it doesn't sound like any telephone I've ever heard before. I have no intention of investigating, however. I'm not letting go of John this time. Not for a second, when I'm so afraid he might slip away if I do. It's my fault he's hurt, but I won't let him down again.

Not that I have so much faith in anyone else. I can't help but feel a little bit like I'm back in my cell in le Chateau des Bourreaux, waiting for RAF bombs that never landed. I don't think anyone is going to save me this time, either, but I don't share that at all. Lying seems like a much better idea.

"Right. Help ought to be along soon." I squeeze John's hand and hope he believes me. I might be a good liar, but he's equally good at seeing right through me.

He does his best to focus on Julie's hand in his, he really does, but it's hard, with the pain and the blood loss. His vision swims and his head throbs and he can feel himself slipping into darkness.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I can't-."
And, just like that, he's gone.

"It's a cell phone," Mathias says. "It's the vines mimicking the sound of a cell phone they must have heard once. It's how they lured us down there last time, it's-"

He cuts himself off abruptly when John passes out and he crouches down, concerned. With the shirts pressed to his shoulder, the blood seems to be slowly at least and his pulse is still strong enough and steady. That reassures Mathias slightly, but he isn't sure what to do next.

The men are patrolling the hill, watching them, and he knows they expect them to try something.

"Oh, shit," Lucy says on an exhale, far more concerned with John going unconscious than the sound of the ringing phone. She's learned a little about the portable ones in the time she's spent here, but as far as she knows, there isn't service on the island anyway. If there were a chance of it being real, she's still not sure she would be inclined to believe it. Besides, with no one to call, it wouldn't do them any good. "What do we -- he's alright, right? I mean, he's going to be okay."

The vines are laughing and saying that John s dead, and for just a second I believe them. It stops my heart, and I burst into hopeless, helpless tears. It isn't until I feel his pulse, strong and steady still for all that he's unconscious, that I can breathe again at all.

None of us know what to do, not really, and I can't even see how it matters. We're trapped and at the mercy of plants and armed men who seemed determined to kill us for no reason at all.

I want to say that John's going to be fine, but I can't even get out a lie. I just cling to his hand and weep.

"He's fine," Mathias says to them both. "He'll be fine. The bleeding has almost stopped and his pulse is strong, he's just unconscious." But he remembers Pablo too clearly, the way Jeff had blindly insisted he'd be fine, too, all they had to do was cut off his legs and stop the bleeding and then he'd be fine.

"Let's bring him back up the hill," he says. "We can find some shelter, keep him out of the sun and make sure we stay out of it, too." There aren't any trees at the top of the hill, but there's the tent, orange fabric flapping in the breeze.

"That's a good idea," Lucy says, though she doesn't sound fully convinced. It's not as if she disagrees. It's just that, right now, nothing seems like it will do them much good. At least it will be something, though, better than just standing around here waiting to see what happens next and leaving her feeling like she's crawling out of her skin for it. "Come on. I can help."

"If you're scared, do something," I mutter. How many times have I said those words to Maddie and to myself, and had them thrown back to me? Buck up, lassie, I order myself in my brother Jamie's voice. Ridiculous as it is, it helps.

I manage to stop sniveling, and wipe my face on my sleeve.

"Yes. All right. Get him out of the sun." It's easier if I focus on keeping John safe, rather than myself. I feel like I'll be all right as long as he is. I just really wish he'd wake up and tell me so himself.

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