we're all mad here, [ white rabbits. ]

[ruby wolfe [d2] kaitlin.]

ALICE
 ballinger.

Alice moves on in a huff.

She's angry with the boys, if she's being honest, but she doesn't wan to be, so she bites her tongue and stomps ahead of them. Her footfalls slap against the cavern below her, echoing off the walls and practically begging another colony of those bats to come back and finish what the others had started. What they very well could have finished, if December and Brody hadn't finally stopped looking at each other and starting looking at their enemy.

Lips pressed in a hard line, brows furrowed, she doesn't want to say anything. Instead she trudges on, stopping every so often to crouch and inspect some of the plants along the earth. Plucks a few of them, shoves them into her bag, stuffs all her side pockets full of random plants and lets the other random array she'd collected in a daze after the bloodbath clatter against the stone. She can feel Portia Ballinger whispering over her shoulder about making sure they don't see her fury.

That's what makes her spin. She smacks the earth beside the mushrooms and stands with a huff, fists tight at her side, mushrooms crushed between them.

"You guys, what was that!"

She stomps her foot for good measure, hand gesturing back from where they came. What the hell good is a team if they aren't going to work together? They're going to get each other killed.

She looks at December, eyes furious and pleading all at once. Please, they say. Why don't you trust him like I do?

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[sidney]

BRODY
 loomis.

Brody pulls his knife free from the flesh of the last bat. Blood splatters and sprays across the cave, staining the ground and his brand new boots along with it, but he doesn't mind. Not really. He grew accustomed to such atrocities a long, long time ago. So now, he embraces it. He relishes in the last squeal of life as the entire swarm falls at their feet, defeated and sundered completely.

What was that?

His eyes move toward December where he stands, sword still in hand and chest heaving. Good fucking question, Brody thinks to himself as he flips his knife back and forth in his hand. He has such an urge to tighten his grip around the handle, square up, and aim right for the boy's heart. Just as he had shown Alice to do this morning. Something stops him, though. 

The look on her face before she storms off. Disappointed, upset, betrayed. Whatever it was, he didn't know exactly, but it made him sheathe his weapon and gather his things as quickly as he could. But he did say one more thing before he followed after Alice.

"Do that again," he whispers, leaning in close to December--a bit too close for comfort, "and I'll gut you." He doesn't break eye contact for a long time, at least twenty seconds, then just turns and walks away. 

He expected to have to sleep with one eye open as long as he was alone in here. But now with an alliance of his own, it would seem like he's in more danger than if he'd just stuck to himself. 

"Alice, wait up!"

Brody sighs and jogs after her, worried he made the wrong decision. Maybe he never should have intertwined his well-being with the likes of these people.

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[matt colekay d9a [arx]]

DECEMBER
 whitaker.

The last conversation he had with his father rings in his ears—"You dare to try this and I will pay someone handsomely to end you."—as Brody stands with his gazed fixed on his own. His father had backhanded him for the response; he knew not to make the same mistake twice.

"Dare you to try," he mutters under his breath towards Brody's back. The newly self-appointed leader turns away, keeps pace with Alice. December doesn't realize just how angry he is until his jaw starts to ache where his teeth were clenched. He let's his knuckles go white around the hilt of the sword, hears his brother's voice ringing in his ears as Alice spins to break the silence.

"What was that?"

You've wasted an opportunity!

It will only be more difficult now, buffoon.

It was obvious Alice was angry, too. Not that December didn't understand why—the saying goes 'teamwork makes the dream work' or something, right?—but he was too busy trying to fix the hole through his hand while keeping the end of his blade angled toward Brody to do much else. Especially work up the strength to tell her a good lie.

He knows if he opens his mouth he'll only say the wrong thing. So he doesn't. He stays silent, rolls his eyes and shrugs his shoulders because the exasperation is strangling him now.

She looks at him as if this were his fault. As if they weren't all trying to be the winner of the same damn game. As if maybe his failures from the day before were already enough for her to find him useless.

"Let's just go," he shoves past them both to take the lead. "Before something else shows up to kill us, yeah?"