Devin makes it to the water as the rain begins to clear. Punches of sherbet peek between storm clouds, coating the trees in rosy light. This lake is bigger than the mountaintop lake she and Sheridan found days ago. Along the shore, rugged cliffs peter out to make room for scraggy alcoves that lap up the slow waves. Low-hanging tree branches bow, soundlessly submerging their leaves in gemstone water. The murky clouds are tight to the mountains here, sitting like a mist on the horizon. In another forest—in another lifetime—Devin imagines spending the long hours of a summer night at this lake, watching the sun sink until it’s gone. Sheridan sits alone at the lake shore.
No, not at the shore.
She sits in the water, facing the setting sun with her knees bundled to her chest. The slow ebb of the water pulses against her thighs, but the water soaking through her shorts doesn’t seem to bother her. Devin’s mouth feels dry. Her chest is tighter than it has any right to be. The group’s water bladders sit in the gravel behind Sheridan, full and forgotten. Devin half expects her to be reading the journal again, but it sits untouched in the dirt beside her.
For a moment, Devin does nothing but watch the wind flick bits of Sheridan’s hair at her neck. Finally, she drops her firewood sling and crunches her way down the gravelly shore. Sheridan doesn’t turn to face her, but a quick glance over her shoulder apparently tells her all she needs to know.
She sighs. “Was I taking too long?”
“I started to think the water was fighting back.” Devin stands at the water’s edge, just far enough to keep the slight waves from touching her boots. She swallows. “You feeling okay?”
“Oh yeah.” Sheridan scoffs. “Fantastic.”
Devin finally rolls her eyes and peels off her boots and socks, letting the crisp air skim the blisters aching on the soles of her feet. She steps into the water until she’s standing in front of Sheridan, then sinks to a seat, facing away from the sun so she can look into Sheridan’s face. Her shadow covers Sheridan like a mask, blocking the sun from her glassy eyes, and Devin has half a mind to lean away just to see the gold reflection in them again.
Something is wrong with her.
“When we first started this whole thing,” Devin says, “you said I was always being dramatic. But I’m not the one sulking in the water by herself.”
Sheridan’s eyes flit away from the sunlight. She scans Devin from head to toe and arches a brow. “You are now.”
“Pfft,” Devin says. “I’m not sulking.”
“I’m not, either.”
“And I’m not alone.”
“Neither am I.”
“Okay.”
Sheridan narrows her eyes. Devin’s gaze snags on her lips, a cut from their altercation with Hannah almost entirely healed. Sheridan doesn’t move, but her posture is rigid. Something has her on edge.
“Is there anything else?” Sheridan asks. “Or is this just a reminder to hurry up?”
Devin looks over her shoulder into the sun. As it sinks, her eyes adjust to the brightness, and she understands why Sheridan paused here. “Maybe I just wanted to see what was so interesting. You want to be alone?”
It’s clear Sheridan considers saying yes.
And Devin’s heart flutters with a brief, crushing sadness at the idea that Sheridan might send her away. What a strange, upside-down world they’ve ended up in, she realizes. Only a month ago, she would’ve done anything to avoid sitting here, looking into the face of a girl she hated. She’s spent weeks trying to find that feeling again, but like a candle snuffed out in the dark, she can’t even see the smoke anymore.
“You can stay,” Sheridan says. With a smirk, she adds, “I guess.”
Briefly, Devin closes her eyes and lets the breeze float gently through her hair. Soon, she’ll need to go back and help Ollie lay his trap. She’ll have to look not-Hannah in the face and decide what they’ll do with her. She’ll need to go back to being the one in charge and it’ll weigh so heavy on her it aches. When they leave this lake, she’ll have to prepare to cross the river in the morning. She’ll have to reckon with what the world looks like outside these woods. She’ll be alone, just like she wanted the first day they hiked into the trees. No one left to care about her. Just freedom.
It doesn’t feel like it should.
“When everyone thought I was a mimic…” Sheridan says, eyes glassy and trained on the horizon. “How were you so sure I wasn’t?”
Devin considers her. The answer should come easily, but it’s like the words are lodged in her throat, waiting for a single coherent thought to form. She could say it was the maps or the flare gun or the night she jumped into the fray with Liv. She could give one of thousands of rational answers, but none of them would be the horrible, humiliating truth. When she thinks back on her life before these woods, it’s like everyone she knew in the real world is a smudge. A faint memory, only real to her in flashes. She knew Sheridan was real because she knows Sheridan better than anyone she’s ever known. Even then, even when it hurt, even when no one else did.
Instead of saying any of it, Devin shrugs. “I feel like a mimic would’ve tried to be nicer to me.”
“Oh, wow,” Sheridan says, knocking her knee against Devin’s in gentle protest. “You’re such an asshole.”
Devin wipes her nose with her wrist. “I don’t know. I just … felt it.”
“Lucky guess.” Sheridan hugs her knees tighter to her chest. The quiet is heavy with something unspoken. Her eyes are watery, brow softened in something that almost looks like sadness. Finally, she manages, “Why do you think it picked her?”
“Hannah?”
Sheridan nods.
Devin shrugs. “It said all the mimics are looking for people who they can convince to give up. She was just … closer than the rest of us, I guess.”
“Yeah…” Sheridan’s mouth does something funny at that, lips pressed tight together like she might cry. “And a few days before she decided to give up, I told her she was an idiot and her family would never love her.”
Devin’s stomach sinks. “Oh.”
“If she was already close to giving up, I’m sure that helped scoot her a little closer to the edge. Pretty monstrous, don’t you think?”
Maybe she should say it isn’t Sheridan’s fault, that she didn’t cause this, that what she said wasn’t that bad. But it doesn’t matter what Devin says now because the person she needs forgiveness from isn’t here anymore. So instead, she places her hand tenderly on Sheridan’s knee.
“If they wanted someone close to giving up, they picked wrong, anyway,” Sheridan says, voice gravelly like it might crack. “I’m the one who had nothing going for her. I’m the one who’d already tried to … yeah. Maybe they knew my life was too miserable, even for them.”
“Hey,” Devin warns.
“I’m not fishing for sympathy,” Sheridan says, fixing Devin with a hard look. “If these things are trying to replace us, maybe they should’ve chosen differently. If they can do it better than me, maybe they should’ve—”
“Sheridan,” Devin snaps, more urgent than she means. She leans in, forcing Sheridan to meet her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Almost too quiet to hear, Sheridan says, “I can’t go back.”
Devin blinks.
“I can’t do it,” Sheridan says. “I can’t go back and look at them again.”
“Your parents?”
Sheridan nods.
“Who cares what they think?”
“I do,” Sheridan says. “I care.”
Devin narrows her eyes. “Since when?”
“My parents are…” Sheridan pauses, lips parted, the ghost of a thought dead in her mouth. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “I’ve been thinking about them a lot. I don’t know if they know we’re missing yet. I don’t know if they’re looking for us. I know they’re worried, but … I wonder if this would be convenient for them. If this is how it ended.”
Devin runs her hand through the water between them as she waits for Sheridan to find the right words. Of all the things Sheridan has spoken about from home, it occurs to Devin that she’s never really talked about her parents. Not in detail.
Sheridan’s eyes leave Devin’s face again, sliding up to the sun as it sets. “Even when Theda was around, I was leftovers. Theda had friends and cared about school and wanted to do family stuff. She helped my mom cook dinner when she finished her homework. She went to the golf course with my dad just so she could spend all day talking to him. They won’t say it to my face, but … I think even then, they had one and a half of us. If there was one they thought would go like that, it was me.”
Devin expels a breath. “And they lost her instead.”
Sheridan’s smile is bittersweet.
“It was easier when there were two of us. I could just hide behind her. And then, when she was gone, it’s like my mom and dad realized I was all they had left. All the stuff I was hiding from them—bad grades, letters home, sneaking out—was suddenly all they cared about. They wanted me to get better so fast.”
Suddenly, Devin can picture it perfectly. Sheridan a few years ago, lurking in shadows, grateful for the dark. Sheridan pulled by her neck into the light with all the worst pieces of her under a microscope. It’s a feeling Devin knows well, and she supposes she and Sheridan have spent all these years craving the same thing. A window open just enough to slip back into the night. There’s something comforting about living unseen, knowing your wounds are yours to nurse alone.
“The more they wanted me to get better, the more stressed I got. And then I’d end up using more, which made things worse with them.” Sheridan swallows and now Devin is sure she’s fighting tears. “I wanted to stop, but I’d look at their faces and it made me so sad I wanted to disappear. So I’d just … use again, I guess. I figured eventually it would just take care of things for me. If I got lost out here, they wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore.”
“You think they don’t want you to come home?”
“They’d never say that,” Sheridan muses. “I don’t think they think that’s how they feel. But they’ve tried a hundred times to help. They’ve put me in every program that’ll take me. The worst part is always coming home knowing it didn’t stick. Knowing it’ll get bad for me again and they’ll be that much closer to giving up.”
“Sher—” Devin starts.
“I think I might be a really selfish person,” Sheridan says.
Devin’s grip on Sheridan’s knee tightens, and god, she can’t believe she’s about to give a pep talk to the girl who threw her letter from home in the fire a few weeks ago. “But you’re different now. Maybe you can’t tell, but you’re a totally different person than you were when we got here.”
“Oh, am I?” Sheridan says, a hint of her smile returning. She presses the heel of her hand to her eyes, swiping away a tear. “Please, tell me more.”
“This is not me complimenting you.”
“I should’ve guessed.”
“I’m also not saying this program was what did it. I think we all … I don’t know, changed together?”
Devin hardly knows what she means to say. But when she imagines the fabric she’s sewn from, there are bits and pieces of the others stitched into her now. Ollie’s calm patience and observant eyes. Aidan’s big feelings and his unrelenting optimism. Hannah’s kindness and her willingness to see the good in others. But so much of her is made of Sheridan now she can hardly tell them apart. She wishes she could reach into Sheridan, pull the fabric of her into the light and see how much of it is the same.
“All it took was some monsters and a forest of unrelenting psychological torture, right?” Sheridan muses. “Seems like a good method.”
Devin shakes her head. “I think it was us. Together. I think we all made each other want to change.”
Sheridan doesn’t have a snappy comeback to that. She laughs a little under her breath, reaching into the water with her unwrapped hand. And Devin knows she’s right—the woods didn’t give them these new hearts. If anything, the woods spent the last month whittling bits and pieces of them away. It forced them to look at all their worst, most rotten parts, stealing away what good there was left. She can’t say it out loud, can’t find the words for it, but she knows already that, what the woods took from her, Sheridan gave back.
“Well,” Sheridan says, clearing her throat. She wipes her eyes again. “You haven’t gotten any better. You were supposed to come check on me and you made me cry. Pretty horrific.”
“That’s me.” Devin chuckles. “Can’t even get water without causing a mental breakdown.”
“What will the people of Portland do when you’re back to terrorizing the public?”
“I could ask the same thing about Seattle.”
Sheridan rolls her eyes, splashing Devin with her free hand. Devin splashes her back and the sun is the color of grapefruit bleeding down the horizon. Sheridan’s eyes are wide open, cheeks flushed, lips just slightly parted. And that squeeze in Devin’s chest tugs harder than she’s ever felt. Even in the cold, it sets her on fire. Her heart beats so fast she can feel it punctuate her breath.
“When I saw you came here alone, I hoped…” Sheridan’s voice is quiet as a confession. “I thought it was something else.”
Devin holds her breath.
“There’s stuff out here that makes me happier than I’ve felt in years. I don’t know what to do with that.”
“You’ll find things that make you happy at home, too.”
“I don’t do a good job with stuff that makes me happy,” Sheridan says. With a small laugh, she adds, “Historically.”
Her fingers skim the surface of the water, swimming dangerously close to Devin’s legs. But they don’t touch, and that’s almost worse. A ripple in the lake pushes a layer of water over Devin’s knuckles, silt tickling the skin between her fingers. There’s an electricity in the air. Devin can taste it when she breathes.
“For a long time, there was one thing that made me happy,” Sheridan says. “I almost killed myself with it.”
Despite everything, there’s a pathetic piece of Devin that wants to be the thing that makes Sheridan happy now. She wants to say things that make her laugh, she wants to take Sheridan into her arms when things get bad and hold her until they’re better, she wants to look up in every room and meet Sheridan’s eyes. She wants and wants and wants and it’s a bottomless pit. She’s tried to avoid looking at it but now, knees touching in the cool water, sunset blanketing them, it’s all she can feel.
Sheridan’s eyes flutter to Devin’s lips.
She says nothing, and her quiet says everything. Devin’s chest tightens around her tenderly thundering heart. She’s spent more time than she’d like to admit thinking of the night in the ranger station. If you aren’t a mimic, why do I feel …
She never finished that sentence.
“Devin—” Sheridan starts.
Devin moves without thinking. She takes Sheridan’s face in her hands, drawing their lips together. The water ripples under her, falling in sheets from her hips as she leans in. Briefly, Sheridan goes still, and Devin half expects her to pull away.
She doesn’t.
Sheridan sits up, too, easing into Devin’s mouth. Her lips part, inviting, and her kiss is different from last time. She still kisses like she’s starving, but this time she’s starving without anger.
“You make me happy,” Sheridan mumbles into Devin’s mouth. Her fingers cradle the hard line of Devin’s jaw. “How messed up is that?”
When Devin leans away, she searches Sheridan’s face for the cruel, vindictive girl she met the first day in the woods. She didn’t spend every hour of the day wanting that girl, but she wants this Sheridan, soft as clay in her hands, more than she’s ever dared to want anything. For weeks, she’s wondered where her anger went. She’s wondered what replaced it. Looking into Sheridan’s face now—eyes half-lidded, expression soft in a way Devin’s never seen—she understands perfectly.
She plunges her fingers into Sheridan’s hair, kissing her again, deeper, until it feels like she’s drowning. Sheridan balls her fists in the fabric of Devin’s shirt, pulling Devin on top of her. Devin kisses the narrow point of her chin, the soft line of her jaw, the inch of space under her ear, tasting the salt on her skin. Sheridan’s breath is weighty and ragged, her hand snaking around the small of Devin’s back to creep below her shirt. Devin’s pulse stutters, the base of her stomach tightening. She’s hungry in a way she’s never felt before, starving for the heat of Sheridan’s breath against her ear and her fingers in her hair. She pushes Sheridan to the gravel, a gush of water rippling under her.
A bolt of pain shoots through her nose.
She pulls back, breath heavy, untangling a hand from Sheridan’s hair to touch the bridge of her nose. “Sorry…”
Water pulses at Sheridan’s shoulders, twilight vibrant across her reddened cheeks. Her pupils are so wide they nearly swallow the blue. She touches Devin’s knuckles, her fingers, then the straight ridge of her nose. Devin lets out a nervous laugh and Sheridan’s expression softens. She trails her fingers along Devin’s brow. Her breath is hot and Devin wants to kiss her again and again and again.
“Don’t be sorry.” A breathy laugh spills from Sheridan’s lips. “It makes you look tough.”
And then Sheridan strains to sit up, angling their mouths together, tender and careful not to hurt. Devin doesn’t bother coming up for air, sinking into Sheridan until the world spins.
She can’t say it in words. She doesn’t know how, yet.
But she can say it like this.
If the breeze whistles over them, if the water chills her to the bone, if the sky is the color of fire, Devin doesn’t notice. It all dulls until the only thing sharp enough to cut is the wanting. Devin doesn’t linger on what their life will look like when they make it out of these woods or even when they get back to camp. Instead, she spends a few moments in a dizzying fever dream, kissing a girl she cares about more than she thought she could care about anyone.
She kisses Sheridan until the sun dives below the horizon and the dark swallows them whole.
They make it back to camp later than anticipated and Devin prepares for the questions. Why did it take so long? Why are you both drenched? What are you smiling about? But when she and Sheridan get back from the lake, Ollie doesn’t say a word. He’s been hard at work laying his trap, it seems. The campsite is rearranged and laid bare, bordered with rope that’s been drenched in gasoline from the fire watch.
Devin doesn’t say anything to Sheridan, but she doesn’t need to. There’s an electricity in the space between them, even when they’re quiet. As miserable as they are and as tired and exhausted as the woods have made them, there’s an exit. Not another few weeks of this. Just one day. Tomorrow they’ll find help and this nightmare will finally be over.
Ollie catches sight of Devin and flashes a quick, somber smile. “Oh, there you are. Sorry I did most of it without you, I just … needed to get my mind on something.”
Devin looks briefly at Hannah, whose lips curl into an almost genuine smile. Whatever residual happiness she felt from the lake sours. Ollie walks her through his setup, showing her the lengths of rope that lead to the center of camp. Lure the mimics in, wait until they’re holding still, light it up. He points to a spot in the middle of the clearing without rope.
“So, let me get this out of the way now,” Ollie says. “Aidan already said he agrees with this plan. If we hear someone coming, we’ll have Aidan sit—”
Devin stops. “No.”
“They’re not gonna come if they think we’re all just waiting for them, but they’re not gonna come if they think the clearing is empty, either. They like to focus on one person at a time,” Ollie says. “I know it’s risky, but we need someone for them to target.”
“Okay,” Devin says, eyeing the patch of exposed dirt. “Then have it be me.”
“No,” Aidan whines, slumped against a nearby tree. He shifts a little, wincing when his ankle moves. “Ollie said I get to be the bait.”
“What are you gonna do if it attacks?” Devin asks.
“How is he supposed to help if you get attacked?” Ollie asks, pointedly. “He can’t protect you. We’d just be down a person. This is how he can help us.”
Devin bites her tongue, half because of Ollie’s explanation and half because of the excitement on Aidan’s face. He hasn’t looked this optimistic in days, and as dangerous as this might be, if it gives him a purpose, Devin can’t stomach taking it from him. She walks to the center of camp, eyes trained on the trees.
“How many do we think we’ll get?” Devin asks. “One? Two? I don’t think they travel in packs.”
Ollie and Devin both eye Hannah at the same time. She just sits and listens, a pleasant smile soft on her lips. Ollie won’t ask her for help—that much is clear—but without insight, there’s no way this trap will work. Devin sticks her hands in her pockets and stands a few inches in front of Hannah.
“I know you’re listening,” Devin says, nudging Hannah’s foot with the side of her boot. “Any input?”
“It sounds like you have it all figured out,” Hannah says. “What could you possibly need from me?”
Behind her, Sheridan scoffs.
“You won’t get all of them,” Hannah continues. “Usually, you wouldn’t get more than one. We work best one-on-one. We don’t like competition.”
“Great.” Devin groans.
“Ollie is right about hiding. If they know you’re all here, they won’t come. They’re running out of time to get a body. If they think Aidan is alone, more than one will come. They’ll want an easy ticket out.”
The casual way she talks about it makes Devin sick.
“Will the trap work?” Devin asks.
Hannah shrugs. “I’ve never seen anyone try.”
Devin casts a quick glance at Ollie. She runs the side of her boot along one of the ropes and swallows. If the mimics come before morning, they can do this together. But if not—if they wait until it’s just Aidan, Ollie, and Hannah left, Ollie will have to spring this trap alone. It feels like a suicide mission.
“What’ll you do if they come when you and Aidan are alone?” she asks Ollie.
He shrugs. “Do my best, I guess.”
“Hmm,” Hannah hums. “You might not have to worry about that. It might be time for you to test it now.”
Devin turns on her. “What does that mean?”
“Someone is coming.”
The clearing is eerily silent. Devin waits for Hannah to say she’s just making a joke of them. Instead, Hannah sniffs the air and her lips make a tight line. Devin’s eyes find Sheridan in the half dark, her fists white-knuckled around her sleep clothes. Aidan straightens against his tree, eyes darting to Ollie in panic.
“They’re circling,” Hannah says. She shudders. “I feel them nearby.”
“Circling?” Sheridan breathes, joining them.
“We need to set the trap now,” Devin says. “Obviously they know we’re trying to escape. I think … I think this is the only time we’ll get the element of surprise.”
“Are you sure?” Ollie asks.
She isn’t sure. She hasn’t been sure of a single thing in weeks, but if they’re going to strike back at the mimics, now is the time. If they wait, the mimics will only strike again when there’s less of them to fight back.
Wordlessly, Devin nods. She gestures to the rope. “I’ll light the first one. Don’t light yours until you see mine, okay?”
And normally, she knows Sheridan would fight her on this. She knows the old Ollie would say she’s being too aggressive, not thinking enough. But now, they both nod. Even Aidan, pale and afraid at the prospect of actually pulling this off, gives Devin a shaky thumbs-up.
They’re doing it—the thing Hannah said no one’s ever tried. The thing Josiah Templeton tried in his final moments. They’re inviting their monsters inside, and they’re burning it all down.
In the dark, they move Aidan to the center of the campsite. Ollie covers Hannah with a tarp to keep her out of the conflict. He scurries to his hiding place nearby, quickly ducking out of sight.
Devin gives Sheridan a small nod. The last streaks of dusk glow in her eyes and Devin nearly kisses her again, just in case. Instead, she clears her throat, taking Sheridan by the shoulder. “Don’t die.”
“I’ll try my best,” Sheridan whispers.
She slinks into the shadows and, just like that, Devin is alone.
She settles behind her tree, resting her forehead to the bark, breathing slowly to quiet her heart. They aren’t prepared for this, but after everything they’ve been through to get here, she can’t let this be the end. They strike now and escape tomorrow. No one left behind. That’s how it has to be.
Dark settles into the clearing, thick between the trees and shrubs. Aidan sits alone, and from a distance, it’s impossible to tell if he’s shaking. She hopes he can be brave enough to hold out until they have more than one mimic.
Eventually, there’s a rustling in the brush. But it doesn’t come from the trees above their campsite or the space in front of Aidan. It’s quiet, and it’s right behind Devin.
She spins, but it’s just Sheridan.
Devin’s muscles slacken. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry,” Sheridan whispers. “This is taking forever. Are we sure they’re coming?”
Devin arches a brow. “I mean, we’re not sure. But we don’t have a choice.”
“Can I hide with you?”
Devin glances at Aidan again. Sheridan’s post is on the other side of the clearing. It’s down to the three of them—Devin, Ollie, and Sheridan—to execute this plan. As much as she wants to wait this out with some company, wants to tangle their fingers together and make the quiet and the dark slightly more bearable, they can’t afford to attack from only two points. She sighs. “Are you scared?”
Sheridan shakes her head.
“You should stay over there, then,” Devin says. “Just until this is over.”
“I know,” Sheridan says. “I just missed you.”
Devin’s eyes narrow. In the dark, it’s hard to see Sheridan’s face, hard to tell if she’s joking. They’ve gotten softer with each other, sure, but Devin didn’t expect this bold-faced … kindness? It’s dizzying, like there are tears behind her eyes. The tenderness of it isn’t like the Sheridan she knows.
It isn’t like the Sheridan she knows.
Devin turns in time to see a glimpse of lavender tucked behind a tree across the clearing. Sheridan, still waiting in her hiding place. She realizes her mistake a moment too late. Before she can scream for help, not-Sheridan grabs a rock from the ground at her feet, bringing it down hard on Devin’s temple.