Rena | Alex, Max, Michael, Sarah

She took a deep breath, tracing the edges of the final peace offering that remained in her hands. Once or twice now, Michael had made mention of it, he’d asked her why she hadn’t opened it or why she was denying herself the peace of hearing his side of the story. Her fiance was annoyingly perfect, sticking up for the man that any other would be trying to keep her away from. Yet, Michael was healthy. So healthy, and good to a fault. It had been thirty-six hours, and Rena hadn’t slept. She hadn’t said much to anyone. Michael found her standing at the kitchen sink with blood running down her arm from a papercut and she was still as a statue, just watching it gush. He was hardly concerned about Alex, or about his future wife running away with a past love. He was worried about Rena’s heart, her past, her general state of being.

“It’s just-” He paused in the doorway, watching her turn the letter in her hands. “I’ve never seen you like this, I’m worried about you. I know there’s a lot in your past you can’t talk about, and I would never ask you to. I just want what’s best for you, whether that’s opening this letter or going to see someone about this or going to see him again-”

“Absolutely not. He’s out of my life. He made a choice,” Rena’s words were laced with venom that wasn’t directed at Michael but that he could recognize as agony and pain rather than malice. He tried his best to conceal his fascination with this man, the only who had ever elicited this kind of reaction out of her. If she ever got into any kind of disagreement with him, she was passive, willing to suppress her feelings to get through the conflict. Sometimes she shut down altogether. This was different, it was raw emotion, it was unhealed wounds.

“Rena,” he smiled softly at her, despite her intensity and inflexibility on the matter. He could tell his willingness to see this through was annoying her, but he didn’t feel as though she was truly absorbing what he had to say. Was he so wrong for trying to fix this for her before they spent the rest of their lives together? “I think you should hear what he has to say. For me. Whether you go see him in person, or whether you read the letter, you owe it to yourself to find peace. To put your past to rest before we spend our future together.”

“Peace was never an option.”

“Just, think about it. That’s all I’m asking.” He watched her with that soft, loving expression that often annoyed her. He had no right to love her the way he did. “I trust you, I feel confident in what we have and who you are.”

“If you’re so confident, why are you taking a stranger’s side instead of mine?” She sighed in desperation, getting up and pausing at Michael’s side to tell him that she loved him and she had to go or she would be late for her classes. Not long after, she disappeared into the chilly November morning, leaving her fiance and the letter behind.

…

Cold, it was cold. Too cold. She felt around for her jacket, but it wasn’t there. Just cold, concrete flooring and blinding, white fluorescent light. She shivered, she was always cold, and this was miserable. Where was she? Her head was pounding, and her thoughts were swimming through a foggy maze somewhere in her brain. Except the lights were off and there was no way out, they were just trapped somewhere in the haze of her mind.

“Rena,” a familiar voice mumbled from a distance. She couldn’t make out where it was coming from. Was this a dream? It was a weird dream.

“Maximilian? What is this?”

“Shh,” he whispered. It sounded urgent. Her eyes fluttered open once again, scanning the room. It was box-shaped and white, fluorescent light was emitted from the walls and ceiling. It was like a glass cube, except instead of clear there was light coming from it, blinding them. The floor was concrete, and it was freezing. Max was in another corner, and Alex across from them. She stayed in her corner, still shivering and wondering why there was one corner that went unoccupied. She wanted to be angry at either or both of the men in the room with her, but the fear-stricken expressions they wore told her that they hadn’t done this.

A speaker blared, shaking their cube. The voice was modulated and was largely indistinct. It emitted sound in English and Romanian in unison, creating even more confusion and fear. “You’ve all done something to go against The Plan, so it’s time for your punishment. One of you was injected with poison, and it’s up to the three of you to decide which one and kill them.” Rena glanced down at the ground, where four guns sat in the center of the ground. There was definitely supposed to be a fourth person here. “If you fail to kill the right person, you all die immediately. If you succeed, those still living will be set free. You have sixty hours until someone dies.”

Reyes | Drew, Sullivan

Reyes couldn’t help the tension that seemed to immediately disappear when Drew found her way to him. His formerly stiff stature was looser, gentler, and the way he felt inside changed tremendously. He had been rigid, uptight, and generally annoyed with the nth social gathering of the last week. It seemed that all the wrong people knew Reyes--all the best riders were socialites, and though he prided himself in keeping good company, he seemed to be keeping their company too much lately, and involuntarily.

The stiffness released from his shoulders as he breathed a sigh of annoyance. The chilly evening air burned his nose when he inhaled again. His intelligent gaze traced the outline of her irises before settling on her nose. The light from the fire was dim on the outskirts, but he could have sworn he noticed freckles on her nose that weren’t there before. He listened to what she had to say before replying. Sullivan was still stuck on the “thank God,” the man had muttered the second he’d seen her. Reyes hated most people, and in Sullivan’s opinion, Drew seemed like the very epitome of Reyes’s worst nightmare personality type. It was all too interesting for the shorter man to take his eyes off of.

“I’m not sure whether to be enamored that you solicited me for my intelligence or offended that you’re not swooning over my good looks,” he replied casually, that arrogant quarter-smile barely shifting his expression. It was minute, but he imagined Drew could read him by now. They spent enough time together, which was barely any, but enough by Reyes’s standard considering most of his time was spent in isolation or with horses.

At her second question, Reyes glanced to Sullivan. In all honesty, he couldn’t remember. It wasn’t stimulating enough for him to retain, he hadn’t walked away with any food for thought. Sullivan glanced back to Reyes with a knowing look the latter couldn’t place. Because he couldn’t remember, he deadpanned, “you, of course.”

Not wanting to take her away from the party for fear of growing tired of her and then not having anywhere to put her so he could go be alone with his thoughts, he remained beside Sullivan, letting the fact that the rather tall and muscular man looked like a child beside him boost his ego. He had a lot of respect for Sullivan, but it all diminished when they stood side by side.

He didn’t flinch when Drew flung herself around him, he was typically on his guard with her in the least on-his-guard way possible. She made him feel less stressed than most people, but she was still severely spontaneous to a fault and often made choices he didn’t anticipate. One such choice was having her arms wrapped around his midsection because she couldn’t reach his shoulders, her frame close enough to his that he could smell the alcohol wafting off of her. It hadn’t even been an hour into the party yet. “So, tell me, Miss Drew Meyer, what is the meaning of life to you at this instant?”

Sophie | Cam

Sophie’s attentions were held on a friendly blonde she couldn’t recall the name of, so it had taken her a moment to refocus on a taller, muscular blond man. She didn’t find him particularly attractive, but there were few that she did see for their looks. She emphasized the importance of someone’s heart well above the way they looked, which had landed her a very diverse group of friends from philanthropist supermodels to transformed drug dealers who had found their second chance at life in the arts. Still, this man--Cam, if he had introduced himself truthfully--seemed nice enough. A bit too friendly, but many were by this time--someone had snuck in alcohol and she and her brother had been watching it slowly poison each sober, reserved mind, turning everyone friendlier and much more comfortable with one another. She was yet to have anything, she hadn’t been offered. She assumed it was one of those situations where you had to know the right people, and she knew no one. Yet. This man and the girl before him were a fantastic start to their new life here.

Alexander Littlewood | Rena, Max

It was instinct, as soon as he felt the cool concrete - was it concrete, or some other material he didn’t care to figure out? - against his skin, without any resistance or barrier to keep the cold at bay, to try to pull his sleeves down. His hands closed around bare skin as he reached up, half-stunned with no clear purpose in mind other than this isn’t supposed to be happening someone stop this can someone please turn off the lights and leave me alone. Had he forgotten his jacket, somewhere along the line of passing out and waking up in whatever this hellhole was? He tried to study his surroundings, but as soon as he opened his eyes more than a crack the world swivelled - if such an unblinking white could move visibly - and his face was on the floor. Vaguely, he was aware of a metallic taste in his mouth, and the warm feeling of blood seeping out of the old cut on his jawbone. It was a moment until he tried to sit up, another until he was able to sit up - how the mighty had fallen, if he was struggling to stay upright when only sitting. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, stared blankly at it for a second, before properly absorbing it and touching his cheek again, almost as if it was a foreign object he needed to become reacquainted with.

The distant sound of someone’s voice - not someone’s voice, the only voice that could seize his attention like that - jerked him out of the daze, or whatever the dull state he found himself was called. It sounded far away, muffled as if spoken through a wall, but once he decided to brave the blinding light he found otherwise. “Maximilian. What is this?” She was barely a few metres away, in her own corner that seemed to be an exact replica of his, and it took a while to realize that whatever she’d said - it had flown past him, without him realizing that there was something to miss - hadn’t been directed at him.

Max. Of course the two people he wished he’d never see again - liar - were the ones he appeared to be trapped with in a tangible nightmare. It was more than his desire to stay away from them; he’d risked his life for both of theirs already, and even if he could lie and say he had no feelings left for Rena, he wouldn’t wish death on either of them. Part of him almost felt angry, if his half-conscious state could feel emotions, that after his efforts they were back at the same place they had begun two years prior. If he’d known that this would happen - I should have predicted this, I should have seen it coming, I should have done better - he could have enjoyed or at the bare minimum lived a few more months in Rena’s life. Everything he’d done, and everything he hadn’t, boiled down to the same worthlessness he thought was restricted to his mind.

Another noise, this time louder than the murmurs he was now aware Max and Rena had been exchanging, resounded in the small room. It was deafening enough that it took a few moments for him to process the words, or so he blamed his brain fog on the volume. He could sense it was more than that, that he still needed to pull himself out of his sleepy haze, but if he could create excuses he would use them.

If it was even possible, the speaker’s words pulled his thoughts away from their rabbit trail and back into reality. The closest thing to that, at least. Exaggeration was the world’s deadliest sin, after melodrama and codependency. The most logical way out would be to work as a group, analyse one another’s symptoms, decide which person who seemed healthy enough would be willing to kill another. That made the most sense as an immediate reaction - they had sixty hours, after all, to figure out this solutionless puzzle they’d been placed in - but something about it made him pull back.

He fought the need to recoil, to press himself as far away from the guns as possible, to grab one and pull the trigger to his own head. He toyed with the last idea for the longest of them all. The others were fleeting, nothing more than immediate, unthinking reactions, but maybe it was because of the thread of truth that ran through it that made him draw closer. He could shoot himself - save everyone the worry, and take a one-way ticket out of the horror he found himself in. (He didn't know whether he was referring to the warped game, the 'Plan', or life in general. He didn't want to know.) The scurry would be over, the frantic, badly-hidden glances as everyone tried to pretend they would never shoot another and yet still would stare between the guns and every other member in the room, would be bypassed completely. A win-win situation. He'd faced this before, between Max and his own life. He'd tried to change the odds, thought he'd succeeded for that short while that somehow was supposed to equal two years. Fool. You thoughtless fool. How imprudent he'd been - already, he was referring to it as if it was ancient history - how fixated on the temporary. They were playing a longer game than his two-step check. He'd fallen asleep in his comfort, and now he was paying for it. Karma, or whatever the word was for it. An eye for an eye. (Lee had said, in those even older days of Manchester, that that would make the whole world blind, but that felt irrelevant in his inner monologue.)

Almost without realising it, which was a feat in itself considering the effort needed for walking, he was barely a foot away from the pile of neatly packed guns. (Admittedly, the room was small enough that he could take two steps and touch the opposite wall. If he was able to walk properly, that is.) Only then, once he'd registered his surroundings enough to pull back his hand as if burnt, did he properly notice the amount. It hadn't seemed strange that one corner was empty: a four-cornered room was considered the most common, and although they'd clearly gone to great lengths to pull whatever this was off - kidnapping, the word flickered briefly in his mind - it made sense to use what was available. But four guns; that was more than an accident. No, this was purposeful.

What the purpose was, he still wasn’t sure. His mind refused to work as fast as he wanted it to - needed it to, since at least he was able to grasp the apparent desperation of the situation. It would have been funny, had he been able to see the humorous side, that the thing he most relied on was rendered useless in a scenario that he truly needed it. If he had a dollar for every person who had told him he shouldn’t depend on himself as much as he did, he’d never have needed to isolate himself from everyone else. Now, when the stakes had been raised higher than the cost of his pride, it failed. He should have known, he should have expected that something like this would happen. It didn’t matter that it was everything that should never have happened; he should have expected it. What was the point of trying to predict every motion if he couldn’t get it right?

Rena | Alex, Max

Rena was so, so cold. So cold, in fact, that she found herself unable to think about anything else. It had only been ten minutes and her entire body was clenched, stuck in the hold of the brutally frigid temperatures. Though it seemed unrealistic, she was almost completely convinced that this room--this bubble, this dungeon, this purgatory on Earth--was located outside. It felt exactly like the freezing temperatures that remained outside each day, that made her skin tingle and her breath visible no matter how many layers she put on. She was here now, stripped of the extremely warm coat she’d left her home with, and suffering terribly. The two men beside her didn’t seem quite as disturbed by the temperature, but judging by her last strands of common sense, it was only daytime. Nightfall would be upon them hours from now, and they’d have to either depend on each other to survive or to free them from this hell by way of death. Either way, the solution would involve mutual trust that each prisoner was unwilling to give or receive.

Rena glanced from one man to the next, studying their facial expressions. Max had been awake the longest judging by the fact that he seemed to know the most and overall had the greatest look of terror displayed across his features. He looked older now, more mature than the last time Rena had seen him. Loss had a way of aging people, she knew from experience after experience of it happening in her own life. It was a miracle she didn’t appear to be elderly by this point, given the fact that every single person she had ever cared for had left her in one way or another. The ones who were still living hurt just as much as those who had died, for though they left the hope of reconciliation in the future, they had made the actual choice to desert her when she needed them most. This brought her to the man to her left, the one she had spent so long trying to forget only to be slapped in the face with fate when she’d finally moved on. Fate did seem to have that kind of relationship with her, it preferred to abuse her where it favored others. As for the question of why, she could not fathom.

Where her gaze had softened when it fell upon Maximilian, it grew more coarse, more bitter when it landed on Alex. She watched him bitterly, filled with resentment towards him. Except it was only the top of the surface that was truly filled with bitterness and resentment. Deep down it was all hurt, grief, pain, loss, and the remnants of a love that she knew, that she mourned, that she’d lost and feared she could never find again in him or in anyone else. Since he’d shown up at her party, all she could think of was the way he looked at her. There was so much pain, so much angst, so much love and passion that distance had not seemed to overcome. She wasn’t sure why that affected her so much, Alex was not the first man to look at her that way, nor would he be the last. In fact, another on the long list of men to love Katarena Suta fully and completely was sitting to her other side, studying the guns in between them. She glanced down at them, then up at Max, then Alex. The urge to move closer to one or both of them amidst the violent trembling of her body suddenly overcame her, for she desired to speak freely with them without being heard. The chances of that seemed unlikely, for even if she could speak quietly enough with them to be undetected, the paranoia that had always lingered in her mind of a worst-case scenario--this worst-case scenario--would continue to run rampant until insanity eventually had its way with her.

Before she’d even moved, she coughed into her sleeve. A metallic taste she was all too familiar with overcame her, and when she glanced down at her white blouse, it was stained red with her blood. She wiped her mouth, trying not to make it obvious, but the blood on her white shirt and the noise alone had already gained the attention of both of the men that had once or still cared for her. Dread filled her, for in their situation, it was easy to assume she was the one who’d been poisoned. It was double as easy with a paranoid mind like hers. It was genius, really, an easy way to get them all dead. Whoever was at the head of this torturous experiment knew that both Alex and Max loved Rena too much to do anything to her, which automatically put death on all three of them. Still, she was left with a lot of unanswered questions, ones she had little doubt she’d go to the grave with.

“We need to work together,” Rena said, her gaze trained on the floor due to the resentment and anger at each companion that was threatening to bubble over. If she looked either in the eye, she’d go silent out of bitterness, and she knew they couldn’t afford that. Both deserved to be punished, but neither deserved to watch her die without earning back her forgiveness. “They want us to turn on ourselves and each other. We all know neither of you will kill me, but if you kill each other,” she glanced in Max’s direction, knowing full well that he’d easily pull the trigger on Alex, “or on yourselves,” she glanced towards Alex, but made minimal effort to even glance towards him. Her gaze barely fell on his shoes. “We all die. That’s what they want. None of us want it, but we’re going to have to keep each other alive for as long as we can.”

Max glanced towards the empty corner and the fourth gun silently, as not to draw attention to it. Rena nodded, showing that she too had noticed it and was curious as to why there was not a fourth person in the fourth corner. Had someone they loved already died? Had they been dragged off and tortured before the trio had even woken up? Was it symbolic of Viktor’s death? She couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Max gestured to Rena in the same way he had gestured to the corner. She gestured with her hands, asking him what he was pointing to. She looked behind her, wondering if she’d missed something. He studied her for a moment, contemplating what his next move would be. “Yeah, you’re right. We need to work together.”

His words were empty, Rena knew. They were apart of something she couldn’t place. He moved across the cube towards her, cupping her face in his hand. Instinctually, she glanced at Alex, but panicked at her subconscious reaction and let her gaze reach the empty corner once more. She hadn’t caught his reaction to whatever Max was up to, but still, she stiffened as if it were wrong, as if Alex were the one she should be saving gestures such as this for instead of the husband-to-be that was probably at home wondering where she was by now. She ignored the sinking feeling that came with the notion that he wouldn’t try to find her. Of course he’d notice her absence and not rest until she was found, wouldn’t he? Her thoughts disintegrated into nothingness as Max’s head lowered to whisper in her ear. What was this? What was he doing? It had to be a dream, it wasn’t realistic. It couldn’t be happening. Still, she listened to what he said, and the blood in her veins stopped pumping when she realized what he’d said. “There’s cuts all over you that have been cleaned up. On him, too.” She knew he was referring to Alex. “There’s someone out there that doesn’t want us dead, and I’m assuming it’s the person who’s supposed to be in the fourth corner of this room. If they wanted us dead, you’d be bleeding out from all the scratches on your body right now.”

Rena | Alex, Max

Hours passed. The silence was deafening, it was the loneliest Rena had felt in a long time in the company of others. These were once the very two people who could make her feel alive, filled with purpose, like the only woman in the room. Now she felt desperate and restricted from speaking, as if someone had dropped a thousand-pound weight on her vocal chords. The white cube was her worst nightmare, and though, as she typically did, she appeared completely fine from the outside, she was absolutely panicked and mere seconds from passing out at any given time. She clung to whatever false hope Max had given her with everything she had for fear that if there was no hope, her mind would be left to wander and dwell on things it shouldn’t. For one, what lurked on the other side of those walls. For two, who.

Though she knew death was imminent, exhaustion began to take over after an unknown number of hours had passed. She hadn’t slept since the night before the engagement party, and her body had started to shut down. Her mind raced with the notion of what Max had said. Did someone actually want her to survive, or had someone cleaned up her cuts after damaging her by mistake? Whatever level of internal bleeding she had sustained from being thrown around didn’t seem to be fatal, either. She coughed up blood a few more times, but after what she imagined was ten or so hours it subsided substantially. The only thing that kept her from sleeping was the violent shivering that she couldn’t shake, but the pain and the ache of muscles that had been straining for hours was no comparison to the compromise she would have to make to allow herself warmth. Letting down her guard with either man was impossible, so she continued to huddle in her corner, shaking terribly.

The trend of miserably shivering in her corner of the cube, glancing between the men whose looks of concern she felt every so often, then returning to wondering about the time, or about whether or not her fiance was looking for her, or whether anyone had even noticed she was gone continued for another hour or several--Rena did not know--until finally her mind presented her with a notion. If she had truly been poisoned, why didn’t she feel terrible by now? Of course, she did feel terrible, but she imagined dying would be worse. She imagined death would be excruciating, and this was not that in any sense. She wasn’t the one poisoned, was she?

Rena glanced from one man to the next. Her intelligent gaze absorbed the demeanors of each. Alex was panicking, as he had been known to do, and she began to feel herself absorbing that. Except, instead of trying to comfort him after feeling the emotions he was, she felt herself building an even higher wall. She felt more resentment and more bitterness than she had felt previously, to the point where she thought to herself that she would never be able to forgive him. He made promises to her, he lied to her, he made her believe that for once in her life she was worthy of the kind of love that people stuck around for. And then he abandoned her, just like all the others. Was she really such an invaluable waste of time, someone so unworthy of a second glance? Couldn’t someone stay for just a second, just to consider the notion that one day they might find her worthy of the slightest affection? The slightest priority?

Max seemed angry. He was so prone to anger, she remembered the way he had been, the things he had done to her too. He wasn’t guiltless in any of this either. He scared her, she knew that if anyone was going to commit murder in this trio it would be Max. He was selfish, she knew, and when his back was against the wall he would choose himself every time. Perhaps that was what made Viktor so selfless, it was a choice that was made for him from birth. Lost in thought, she almost didn’t notice Alex’s demeanor begin to change. He became looser, calmer, more candid in expression. He reminded her of the Alex she had been drunk at the wedding with, the one who had just begun to open up to the Rena that wanted all of him more than anything. And just for a second, just for one instant, right before her walls grew ten feet higher, she thought to herself about what it would be like to meet him all over again, to fall in love with him all over again, to relive every moment that cut her like glass at the end of their story.

Alexander Littlewood | Rena, Max

Alex was shaking again. As had been the routine for the past however many hours, his body alternated between shivering violently and falling into an almost-drunken stupor. Even in that, his hands still shook. It was cold, so cold. He would have given anything to feel warm, to feel something other than the numbness that seemed to consume him. As the time had passed, he’d crumpled from the unsteady position standing against the wall into a tight ball, although this too changed at irregular intervals. He needed to keep moving, he knew that, but even getting up seemed unsurmountable. Had it always been this hard? He couldn’t answer that. The time bubble that surrounded him kept memories of before - already, the cube was a separate era - at bay. He tried to look up from his quivering hands - the fingernails had taken a faintly blue shade, but somehow his skin was as colourless as usual - to look at Rena, at Max, at anything outside of his own thoughts. But his eyes were too heavy to complete the action, and so his gaze fell somewhere on the floor once again. He couldn’t tell what, exactly, he was looking at, since the room was empty of any identifying features. In an effort to warm up, he hauled himself off the ground, most of his weight on the wall. Everything blurred; he blinked to no avail. He was fine. He was fine.

A sharp cramp reminded him that he hadn't eaten yet that day, and he was quickly regretting that he ignored his body's needs before. It wasn't that he felt hungry, other than the physical signs, or that he particularly cared about his body; it was that he would do anything, anything, to stop the pain. (That should have told him that something was wrong enough for him to stop denying its existence. But he was excellent at ignoring his own physical needs, and even better at ignoring his thoughts. Selective ones, at least.) Another pang made him clutch his side as naturally as he could manage, fingers digging easily through the thin shirt. No one was looking - were they? Courtesy of the level his sight was at, he couldn't quite make out where their gazes were directed, and he couldn't risk it. (Risk what?) Slowly, reluctantly, he let go of the fabric he'd balled up in his hand, pausing only to straighten out the creases. His fingers shook as he smoothed the material. A badly-hidden grimace, and if he was sure of anything it was that his skin was paler than ever. Was he about to faint? He wasn't sure, and he didn't want to know. (Is anyone looking?) The world spun, and it was a second too late that he reached out to the wall for support. Even once his head had cleared enough to brave standing independently again, he didn't step away from it. Alex rested his head on the arm that was pressed against the wall, eyes almost fully-closed save for the occasional flicker at the ground. All thoughts of Rena or Max seeing had lost their meaning; somehow, it didn't feel like the most pressing issue. All he wanted, all he needed, was to shake off the dizziness and rising difficulty to breathe normally, and then he would be fine. One breath, and then another. He was fine. Of course he was.

Only once Alex found himself crumpled on the floor, apparently from sliding down from his only support, did he even vaguely question that. Was he fine? He had never been, and at this moment he doubted he ever would be. He was shaking again, more involuntarily and violently than his shivers, and despite the bitter cold he could feel sweat dripping down his forehead. Had they seen him yet? Was the pretence over, was everything ruined? His eyes fluttered closed. He didn't know, and he didn't care. The floor was comfortable, more comfortable than his propped up position before, and it was too tempting to stay here forever. (The physical restrictions, had he tried, would have made it impossible to get up, but he preferred thinking it was a decision made out of his own free will.) He was cold, too cold. Wasn't he supposed to sweat when he was hot? The question flickered briefly, but his mind was too heavy to ponder over it for long. He tried to take a deep breath, but broke off as soon as he had begun when his lungs refused to comply. He was fine.

Inhale, exhale. In the back of his mind, he knew that he would have to stand up soon - if not to feign health, then to keep his body moving. Some part of him was aware that if he closed his eyes again - and it was tempting, too tempting - he might never wake up. The thought wouldn't have terrified him quite as much if it hadn't been for the reality that if he died without Rena or Max killing him, they would die too. He would - and did - gamble with his own life, but when other people, other people who he cared about, came into play, it was a different story.

Breathe. Something caught in his throat, and as soon as he was aware enough to understand what it was he was dry-heaving to no avail. He was suddenly grateful that he hadn't eaten anything in the past two days. If the other two had to see him in this pitiful state, the least he could do was keep the room clean, especially since they were stuck in it - need you remind me? - for the next two days.

Only once his stomach had settled - momentarily, he still felt nauseous in the pit of his stomach - did Alex dare look up. Rena and Max were closer to him than he'd expected - they must have moved at some point in his pity party - but keeping their distance in case he actually brought something up. They seemed worried - you collapsed and were a moment away from retching up your intestines, of course they're worried - and he couldn't completely place why. Rena was the poisoned one, after all. Had something changed? Maybe her symptoms were getting worse. This was the only thought that truly registered enough to elicit an action. Dragging himself up into a sitting position, again against the wall because he didn't trust himself to stay upright, it took all his effort not to pass out there and then. Rena - it was Rena. What about Rena? He couldn't remember, but he knew he needed to. He'd been trying to do something; what was it? Rena.

The only thing he could do, most likely because it was a reflex instead of a choice, was to croak out a barely-audible whisper. "I'm fine."

Rena's face swam in front of him. She was saying something that he couldn't quite catch. You shouldn't talk underwater, he wanted to say. I can’t hear you. And then Max was there too, his face just as distorted, and the last thing he remembered before everything went black was a comment between the two he couldn't fully comprehend.

---

Alex's eyelids slowly flickered open. Rena was crouching beside him, murmuring something beneath her breath that he didn't absorb fully, and Max - out of his vision, which was still spotty and limited. The only way he'd been able to identify her was by the few strands of hair that hung just above his face. He spent a few moments looking at her without any thought processing. Rena. Rena is here. Everything will be fine. (He was too sluggish to argue that he was already fine.) Rena's here.

Alex blinked, the pause between opening his eyes again too long, and when he opened them again Rena had clearly realized he'd come to. Almost of its own accord, his hand reached out to touch her cheek. It was real; she was real. This wasn't another of his dreams. This was real. Rena. He'd said it out loud, but it could barely be called that: it was soft, nothing more than a hoarse sigh beneath his breath. Rena.

As soon as he was aware of it, he jerked his hand away. He couldn’t meet her gaze; not after that. He had no right to look at her like that. After everything he’d done, he had no right to any part of her, and least of all the thoughts that hounded him. She was going to be dead in the next two days, and she didn’t need his hindering presence. Pulling away, he struggled into a sitting position, and tried to put more distance between them unsuccessfully. His gaze swept back to hers, held it for a moment, before looking away just as guiltily as the moment before.

Of all the things he could have started with, he inevitably chose the most inconsequential of them. That was what he told himself, at least. "Did...did you read the - letters?" It was a struggle to speak, and even then it was more of a rasp. He wouldn't look at her, couldn't look at her. All it would take was one glance and he would be lost, and he couldn't afford that. Not now, when he had so much he needed to say but so little time to say it. Never, if he had any voice in the matter. Liar. A hundred things to say and a million reasons not to.

He wasn't sure whether he would rather have her read all of them or ignore every page, but the uncertainty, the anticipation of her answer was still there. Neither would be comfortable for sparking any further conversations, if he was even in a condition to talk. The former meant that she'd seen his secrets, breathed in his bared heart without any word from or to him. It reeked of vulnerability. The latter, though, stung even more than the threat of an open heart. It said she didn't care about him, she never had, and whatever wreckage he'd imagined he'd left behind had never existed. She was perfectly fine without him in her life, if not better than ever, and his even asking the question was making her uncomfortable.

And then he was meeting her green gaze steadily, and every other thought disappeared. It was as if not a day had passed, and he was collapsed on the barn floor again with Rena peering at him worriedly, he was knocking at her door past midnight to make sure that she was still alive, he was watching her sleep in his arms on the floor of her room, he was falling asleep on her on a long flight, he was lost in the Romanian crowds and clinging to his only lifeline, the only lifeline he'd ever been able to rely on properly: Rena. All of that, and so much more. She had never been restrained to a simple shade, but now even more than ever she was blinding. Blindingly intoxicating, and against his common sense he found himself falling, falling, into the gravity he'd once called home. Still called home, if he was being honest, on those darker days when all he needed was one small reason to tell him to keep going. She was always that reason, even before he'd known her to the extent he once had. The gravity she held over him had always been apparent, and now more than ever he was falling again. But this time, he couldn't stop it.

Surely she saw how much control it was taking not to cup her cheek, gaze into her eyes, do all the things he'd barely dreamed of for their two years apart? He wouldn't violate her boundaries like that, he could at least try not to hurt her more than he already had, but couldn't she see how tightly he was holding himself? The iron grip he had in his wrist tightened. The tips of his fingers were tingling, and although he knew the lack of blood supply was causing it he couldn't let go. If he loosened his grip, it would be more than his hand's freedom; any self-control would disintegrate, and that was a risk he could not take.

Rena | Alex, Max

Rena had resorted to arguing with Max about something trivial when out of the corner of her eye she detected the third man slumping over in his corner, unconscious. Instinctively she rushed over to his side, though it felt like the blood stopped pulsing through her veins at the confirmation of what she had been thinking: she wasn’t the one who was poisoned, Alex was. “No, no no no, this isn’t happening,” Rena muttered under her breath, kneeling over him. Max followed suit, but was quicker to jump in and keep the man upright, preventing him from hitting his head on the hard floor and further complicating his gradual demise. Something in Rena shifted, and an unfamiliar feeling washed over her. All she could think to describe it as was discomfort, the complication of the situation further hindered her ability to keep tabs on her emotions. As she stood back, disassociating from the nightmare they were living, she kept asking herself why Max had stepped in to keep him semi-upright and she hadn’t. What was she so afraid of? If her relationship with Michael was so solid, why did helping a dying friend create so much fear and insecurity in her soul?

Max lowered the limp figure to the cold floor, and still Rena couldn’t bring herself nearer to him. She was observing the scene before her like a museum exhibit; she could look but couldn’t touch. She had to keep her distance. Why did she have to keep her distance? Why was her body so stubborn, so unwilling to allow even the slightest of compromises to the large defense she’d created for herself in his absence? Why was she trying to protect herself from a man who was next to dead, whom she’d never have another opportunity to interact with?

“Please,” she whispered, “don’t go.” She’d forced herself a few inches closer to him for fear of judgment from Max, and the minutes that passed were spent in deep prayer for his soul. The lingering terror at the back of her mind manifested in a series of words that went something like he’s not going to heaven, there’s not even a chance that you’ll see him again. Not here, not in heaven, not in another life. He’ll be gone forever. “I haven’t figured out how to forgive you yet.” The line was so earnest, so vulnerable that even Max averted his eyes, feeling as though he was not intended to witness such a raw interaction, a glimpse into Rena’s soul. She’d never once been so open with him, so revealing of herself, though there was never a doubt that she’d loved him. She would have loved Max to the ends of the earth, and that was precisely why he found it so easy to hurt her, time and time again. He expected grace and forgiveness. How did he deserve it, and it was just out of Alex’s reach? In Max’s mind, her inability to forgive Alex resulted in something much higher than love, so very unobtainable for all but a select few. He couldn’t even find a name for it, just a feeling. He fell into prayer for the man’s soul not long after, wondering how Rena’s earnestness had so easily convinced him the man deserved a second chance at life, that they deserved a second chance at happiness.

It wasn’t long after Maximilian had started praying and Rena had begun making promises to God she couldn’t keep that Alex’s eyes fluttered open once more. The softest, most loving blue-eyed gaze fell onto Rena’s, and for once, she didn’t look away. A tear welled up, then fell down her cheek followed by another, then another, until she could no longer count them. He whispered her name, and her body stiffened. Was this goodbye? Which of these tender moments would be their last? “I’m here,” she whispered back, “you have to stay with me, okay? We have to work it out, this isn’t how it ends. I can’t forgive you yet.”

He jerked his hand away, and Rena flinched. Was it out of anger or guilt? Was the action intended to punish him or her? They exchanged a sorrowful glance. She felt another pang of resentment, of bitterness, of hurt. Her body started to remind her mind that he’d left her, he’d hurt her, she couldn’t let him back in.

Still, when he spoke, she answered. She couldn’t deny him peace in his last hours. “A few of them,” she replied softly. “I saved the rest for when I thought you’d return, and when I realized you weren’t coming back, I gave them up for safe keeping.” Max was sitting in the back corner of the cube, piecing together the events. This was the first time it had occurred to him that the ring on Rena’s left hand wasn’t from Alex. So much had happened he didn’t understand, and he knew he couldn’t ask in a time such as this. He remained quiet, listening. “I was deciding what to do with the letter you gave me the night of the party when they took me, what was it that you couldn’t risk saying to my face?”

Once again, his condition began to deteriorate. Another coughing spell left him weak enough to slump down onto the ground once more. Max began to get restless and desperate, back up on his feet and banging on the walls of the cube, talking about the fact that they needed to do something. Rena had given up, and in some small gesture of surrender to fate, sat next to him and pulled his massive frame closer to her shivering body. His upper half was sprawled across the entirety of her tiny frame, her right hand cupping his gaunt, sickly face. “Don’t go,” she whispered, as if she were speaking to a child. “You have to fight, God’s not done with you yet. He’s not done with us yet.”