Cade buries him on a hill overlooking the campsite. The ground is softer here, lightened with the dew of the changing season, and it glows golden with the rising sun. Forty helps carry him up the small hike to the burial site. She feels it's the least she can do for Missy, who somehow thinks this is all Forty's fault. She's used to this, used to everyone blaming her for something she doesn't understand, but it doesn't hurt any less. Forty carries the weight of Missy's blame like the corpse of her grandfather on her shoulder, reminding her of yet another failure.

She doesn't know why she does it, but she sits beside the two siblings as they hold their vigil. Though death is not a foreign concept to her, this one feels different. It's intimate, so unlike the almost custodial cremations at the compound. Though Forty only knew of the man as he was dying, the strength of the siblings' morning makes the buried man feel like her grandpa too.

"He was the last thing we had keeping us all put together," Cade sniffles, pulling Missy closer into his embrace. The girl buries her head into the dirty t-shirt he wears, letting her grief be known with wracking sobs. "You know, he was the only one besides us who survived the attack. He was all we had left."

Forty can't pretend to know what he means, but she lays a comforting hand on his neck anyways. "He seemed to be very kind," she says honestly. What better way to remember someone than as a genuinely nice, loving person. Forty has never known someone like that. She's jealous the siblings got to know this man as he was alive.

"He was," Cade says, but his eyes aren't looking at the grave. He's somewhere farther, way beyond these wild lands. Forty can't even try to reach him.

She leaves them to talk in private and makes her way to the campsite. Khal, Kimi, Andres, and Thirty-Seven crowd around a smattering of tattered blankets, backs curved with defeat. Only Thirty-Seven looks up at her when she gets close. His brows are furrowed with concern, and Forty is saddened to realize he looks a lot like he did in the compound.

"There's no other option, we have to move." Khal's voice floats up among the quiet chatter. Forty sits down as quietly as possible next to Thirty-Seven, wishing she could melt into the atmosphere around them.

"Fuck! I'm tired of moving around. We finally found a place we could settle, and now this," Kimi snarls, running anxious hands through her hair.

Andres is uncharacteristically quiet, his expression somber. He looks like he's already resigned to the move. He must feel Forty's eyes on him because he looks up, something like a question in his dark brown irises. She shakes her head. She has no answers for him.

"Forty?" Thirty-Seven suddenly whispers beside her, just loud enough that only she can hear. "I need to tell you something."

He leads her past the earthen houses, deep within the trees. Here, the sun is nothing but dapples of light between leaves. It would be quite pretty without the circumstances. Thirty-Seven pauses under a large mulberry and slides down, his eyes heavy with bags. Forty stays standing, her nerves too frazzled to be in a relaxed position. "You have to tell me what he looked like," Thirty-Seven says. "I... I might know what it is."

Forty swallows a lump in her throat. She can go into heavy detail about what she saw in that room, but her mouth can't quite form the words. The implications of Thirty-Seven knowing the poison is exactly what Forty fears most. "It was like he was wasting away," she finally forces herself to say. "I could see his bones, his insides. He was melting."

Thirty-Seven nods solemnly. "Yeah, I know it well." He closes his eyes and Forty is sure he is somewhere lost in the compound, a thousand memories playing like a broken record. "Dr. Taft was trying to make a stronger sedative a couple years back, and he would use some of us to test it. You could fucking smell them, even if you couldn't see them. How much they suffered. They discontinued the trials after they lost too many specimens. I thought... I thought that was over." Thirty-Seven buries his head in his hands, his breaths coming out in short puffs. Instinctively, Forty drops to his side, places a comforting hand on his head. He leans into it just the slightest bit, his body more honest than his mouth.

"It wouldn't kill a bird?" she asks, just to make sure. Thirty-Seven shrugs.

"I really liked it here," Thirty-Seven sniffles, looking up to take in the surrounding area. "The people, the food, the music. It all felt right. I've never had that."

Forty ignores the sting in her chest at that last remark. You didn't have that with me? She stays silent beside him, rubbing small circles in his back. When she looks over, she notices just how long his hair has grown out, just how different he looks compared to when they first met. "I'm so sorry," she says. She doesn't know what she's apologizing for.

"Don't fucking do that it's all my fault shit. You and I both know it's not just about you. This is for us. He sent that poison out for us," Thirty-Seven says, leaning his head against his hand to observe Forty. She feels bare under his gaze. Though they've only known each other for a short time, it's hard to hide things from him.

"What are we going to do for them?" she asks, for once out of answers. Thirty-Seven shakes his head, his frustration palpable.

"It'll be better for them if we leave. They need to go too, but we can't be with them anymore." He sighs, unthinkingly tipping his head onto Forty's shoulder. She straightens her neck to make room for him. "I... I know you didn't like it here, but I want to say thank you for letting me stay. I really needed this, needed them."

Forty whips around to look at him, surprised. "Let you? I don't control you, Seven. I... I'm just glad you were happy here, even if it was for a little bit." She looks around at the natural light, the green foliage slowly giving way to browns and reds. "I don't know how to make you happy, but I want to try. I spent a lot of time thinking about you in the compound, but that was always the question I couldn't answer. I just wanted there to be a way where when we saw each other, we wouldn't be afraid."

He's silent, but Forty knows the words leave an impact. He watches the sun filter across the ground, admires the way it dances across Forty's face. She feels warm here, wanted even though there is so much separation between them, so much soiled history. This death today is another reminder that suffering has always brought them together. Forty hopes that one day there will be a happy reason they connect.

"I wanted to know about you too," Thirty-Seven confesses, averting his eyes. "Everyone has always been scared of me, and they treat me like I'm fucking feral. You didn't, even though I gave you every reason to. I can't just forget someone like that." He smiles wistfully, and Forty is struck by how beautiful he is when he's honest.

"W–we need to get to Naila's," Forty stutters. Thirty-Seven's face erupts in red, realizing what he's just said. He launches himself a foot away, from her, eyes averted. The space by her side feels empty without him there.

"I'll tell the others." Thirty-Seven scurries off quickly, almost hitting a tree in his haste. Forty chuckles to herself. This interaction has made her feel much better about this morning. Talking to him leaves less room for the self-hating thoughts to invade Forty's head. This is all you fault. He was poisoned because of you.

She knows that technically this is true. The poison was definitely released to the wildlife in an attempt to kill Thirty-Seven and Forty. If she hadn't escaped, if she had just put up with the venom trials and been a good specimen, this death would have been avoided. However, simmering under the surface, is the reality that Forty should not shoulder this blame. She didn't cook up this poison, didn't unleash it into the wilderness in an attempt to assassinate some escapees. She didn't test the poison on innocent specimens. She is not the cause of all this suffering.

Always there, always at the start of everything, there are humans. Forty has always been nothing but a tool for them, a bandaid for the mayhem they've caused themselves. She tries to tell herself this to keep the other thoughts out. She knows this is the truth, but she can't shake those learned habits of blame and self-hatred.

If she just gave herself over now, could Thirty-Seven and this group live in peace? Could there be a normal life for specimens like her, a way for them to be human in their own right? Or is this just some perpetual cycle. The lioness. Humans will always try and assert themselves over threats, even if that threat is living, breathing, and thinking. Forty's kind will always be in their way, and for that they will pay the ultimate price.

This world is not made for freaks like Forty.

☠️☠️☠️

They leave the next morning, splitting off from the group by the farm they first met at. Forty does not have many sincere goodbyes to say, but she tries with Missy and Cade. Looking at the girl now, Forty is sure her misgiving about Missy are correct. As she hugs Forty with a weak grip, sports the reddened eyes of a human who's cried too many salty tears, Forty knows. Somehow, the realization provides little hope for a future where humans and Chupas can coexist. Like Forty, Missy is an outlier.

Kimi of all people gives Forty a bag full of supplies. "It's a thank you for solving my little problem, even if it's temporary." She hugs Forty like Forty-Five did when she was able to talk normally for the first time, and Forty misses the girl all over again.

Cade gives Thirty-Seven his Motley Crüe record. Forty still doesn't understand why music means so much to him, but Thirty-Seven looks incredibly moved by the gift. He tucks it away safely in Forty's bag.

They get back onto the path they were originally traveling, the one dictated by the dirt road, and travel it for a few tiring but uneventful days. Forty and Thirty-Seven slip easily into their old banter, the momentary closeness in the camp abandoned with it.

"We should just go back to the fucking farm."

Thirty-Seven whispers it harshly enough that the doe him and Forty had been stalking looks up quickly, her ears erect. Sensing her flight, he tries to make a grab at the animal in a panic, but the deer easily bounds off further into the brush. Growling, he pounds a fist into the forest floor, the veins around his neck gray and his fangs half extended. Forty tries not to pay too much attention to him, instead focusing on catching the last scent of the doe. It's no use– the animal is already way out of their reach.

"I'm so... so hungry," Thirty-Seven whines, pressing his face into the dirt where the deer had been standing.  At the campsite, stored food meant they never went hungry. Now, as they travel further from the poisoned woods and into more populated areas, prey is sparse. Thirty-Seven is not happy with this change, his amiable hunts with Andres and Kimi in the area long gone. His features shift between normal and a half-transformation, his eyes tired. Forty takes that as her cue to walk out from behind the mesquite tree she'd been lingering around, watching Thirty-Seven curiously as he frowns at the sky.

"I am sure we will find another farm soon. We have only traveled fifteen miles from the other one," Forty says, trying to sound encouraging. It comes out emotionless, defeated, and Forty doesn't even believe her own words. She too feels the hunger like a knife in her stomach, for once wishing someone would show up with blood to drink. She might even wander back to the campsite and snack on a poisoned bird. "Why did you even talk when we were so close to killing it?"

Thirty-Seven's head whirls, his eyes angry. "Really? You're blaming this on me?"

While she knows she shouldn't have said it, now that he's on the defensive she feels the need to back up her opinion. "You can't talk when we are by prey. It spooks them. They can hear well." She crosses her arms, meeting his challenging eyes with a stare of her own. "It's not as easy as killing a penned goat or hunting in a group with traps."

Thirty-Seven's face erupts in red, immediately rolling over so Forty can't see his expression. "I– I know that," he grumbles, though his reaction tells Forty differently.

She sighs, plopping down in the fallen leaves caking the forest floor. The trees surrounding them are spindly now, the air cooler in the morning. After the rain storms the weather has moved into true fall, temperate during the day and chilly at night. Forty wonders what they will do if they don't reach Naila's by winter, though by all calculations they should. Forty knows they are about a quarter of the way there now, but the natural area surrounding the campsite and nearby farms is extensive and hard to navigate. Because she is the sole person in charge of directions she refrains from informing Thirty-Seven every time they get lost... which is unfortunately often. Ever since the camp, the man continues to only be occupied by food.

"When we were in the compound, you said you were fed six times a day," Forty says to Thirty-Seven's back, which shrugs.

"Give or take. Depended on how good I was the day before. Why does it matter?" He rolls over to face her again, his tangled hair decorated by the brown leaves and fallen mesquite pods littering the ground. Forty wants to reach over and pick them out, but she doesn't want to see him flinch again when she tries to touch him. Whatever spell they had in the campsite has given way to their old dance.

"I can't tell if you are being dramatic or actually need to feed that much," Forty admits, hunching over against the sudden wind. Her shirt has thinned out, now a faded yellow instead of white, littered with holes and tears. Both her and Thirty-Seven smell unpleasant, their foul moods creating a cloud of displeasure everywhere they go. Plus the dirt and sweat stains don't help.

"I do eat that much," Thirty-Seven says defensively, sitting up from his resting position. "You don't get it, you can't. It's like everything is just a distraction in between meals."

"You can't stand it," Forty states, and he nods quickly.

"It feels like there's something clawing me from the inside all the time. It's especially bad now that I've gone a while without human blood." He grips his shirt over his stomach, rubbing the butt of his wrist into it. "Damn Cade, promising me a human..."

Forty's mouth works faster than her brain. "If it's blood you need, you can take mine." She slides the remnants of her sleeve back to expose the spidery veins of her wrist, holding it out like a treat on a platter. Thirty-Seven gawks at her.

"Thanks, but no thanks. Your blood is the last thing I want right now." He shakes his head as if clearing a memory away. Forty flinches, lowering her arm quickly. Right. The bite. Thirty-Seven seems to notice her mood change because he scoots a little closer, just out of Forty's reach.

"It's not... it's not that I'm scared of you anymore," he begins, not meeting her eyes. Streaks of dirt decorate his eyebrow and cheekbone, but still his dark, dark eyes stand out like black holes on his face. "It's just that when I drink from you, I get the venom too."

Right. Forty had nearly forgotten. She reaches up to run a callused finger over the pink scars near her nose and mouth, the flesh still slightly raised. "I'm sorry," she says, though it's a reflex.

"Don't be. It's for both our own goods." He says a lot with a few words, the sentence laced with painful memories and blood.

"I don't know how we can find human blood out here," Forty admits, bringing her knees to her chest. She's been tired lately and has noticed they take more breaks. The hollows in Thirty-Seven's face are deeper, his limp pronounced. Forty remembers the effect of her withdrawal test all those years ago, the muscular atrophy, the brittle bones, the restless sleep. She doesn't know how long until Thirty-Seven absolutely needs human blood, not just the meager offerings of scavenged animals and defenseless livestock.

"I've never gone this long without human blood," he says, parroting Forty's sitting position. He meets her eyes when he speaks, not challenging or fearful but vulnerable, honest. "I don't know what will happen to me." He looks down at his hands, extends his claws on command. Forty sees the tips are already broken, the rest necroded and bent. When he pulls them back into the sheath he winces.

"You're right about me never being able to understand how you feel about blood," Forty says. "I don't need it, really. But this isn't about me. You have to tell me when you cannot wait any longer."

"What will you do then?" he asks, voice shaky. Forty smiles, shaking her head quickly.

"I won't be mad at you. I'll just need to figure out how to get it." She reaches a hand out towards him, thinks of that one day in the lab with her head on his shoulder, the morning in the woods with the same position. Do you like touch like me? Is this a comfort to you?

He looks down, his eyes mistrusting at first. Maybe there is something about the silence of the forest, the way the sun dapples the leaves and casts shadowed stripes on them, how the nippy wind lightly blushes their faces, and he softens. His shoulders relax, his eyes droop, and it looks like all the contours of pain and bad memories leave his face. He reaches out, brushes his fingers against hers, the sheaths of his nails still bloody and raw. His hand is rough, cracked, but his palm is warm and heavy in the nest of Forty's fingers. It feels almost delicate somehow, the way he places his hand on top of hers, like he's always been meant to follow her wherever she pulls him to.

"All that, from the lab, that's in the past," Forty says. "Maybe I don't get it like I don't understand blood, but I know I've hurt you. I don't... I don't know how to make you like me."

"I already do," Thirty-Seven says without thinking, his eyes looking anywhere but Forty. "And I'm trying to teach the rest of me to like you too."

"You're scared of my teeth," Forty concludes. "But not of me."

"I don't want to be, but when I see you with your fangs or your nails, I remember being strapped down, not able to do anything. You'd bite me, but all I could see was your teeth through that bright ass overhead light, and then all I knew was pain. It was like being set on fire, like all my nerves were being ripped out of my body. When you bit me that one day in the lab it was like that too, but when you moved it all disappeared. For the venom, it was never that way. It was always just pain."

He grips her hand tighter, pulls her towards him. She goes easily, long unafraid of him, the leaves shifting under her sore legs. She sits cross legged, just a few inches from touching his knees, and when he speaks he looks at her like the world is one dimensional and all that's left to see is her.

"And the worst part is even though I'm scared of you, I know I've hurt you too." He shifts the collar of her scrubs, the calluses on his fingertips a faint whisper of sensation on the raised scars on her shoulders. "But you're not afraid of me. You have just as much reason to flinch every time I get near you, but you don't. Am I some fucking coward? Why are you so brave and I can't shake this fear out of me?"

Forty shifts her shoulder downwards, covering the scar up again. His eyes don't leave the area though. "It's because I never thought of that attack as something to be scared of," she says. "I don't care that you meant to harm me that day. I've seen what they do to you, the monitors. You go for a fight first, pay the consequences later. I wasn't raised like that, you were." She smiles at him, running her nail lightly over his inflamed nail beds. He shivers, his eyes tired. "When you pounced on me, it was like my body knew what to do for the first time. I knew to bite you, knew to flip you. I felt alive for once."

"But that's not an excuse for what I did–"

"I forgive you," Forty says softly, and the tension leaves his shoulders. "If you can forgive me for everything, I can forgive you."

"But–"

Forty reaches out and clamps a hand over his mouth. He stares bug-eyed at her and she smiles in return. "It's no use dwelling on it. What matters is our new situation."

He doesn't try to argue when she moves her hand again. Instead, he leans forward into her space, resting his forehead against the sharp part of her shoulder. He turns his cheek against it, his nose brushing her neck, and for a moment Forty thinks he will bite her. Instead, he just sighs. "When I was there, I didn't get to do things like this. Even at the campsite, I didn't," Thirty-Seven says. "And I don't know why I want to do it with you."

"I think it's okay not to know," Forty soothes, leaning into the touch. Her cheek lays against the side of his head, the unruly black curls there tickling her nose. "I've always liked figuring things out, but sometimes it's more fun to just wonder."

She's brought back to that day in the connected room, the mirror the only thing separating them. How she wanted to reach out and understand him in a way that only touch could convey. Whether it was violence or intimacy, physical acts are what brought them together, and after years of always hesitating when reaching out to touch something, it feels nice to finally curl into the need. How far they both have come.

"In another life, we would have started out as friends," Forty says. Thirty-Seven chuckles.

"You believe in that human religion crap?" he murmurs, his eyelashes tickling her neck. She thinks of the cross sitting on Jane's breastbone, stories of good and evil and the gray areas in between.

"No," she says, meaning it. She doesn't like to think that life is dictated by such finite rules. "But it's nice to think we would have a do-over."

"Well," Thirty-Seven says, lifting his head up quickly. His cheeks are bright red, so flushed his eyes are pink. His hands retract to his side, shaking. "We can start now."

Forty smiles, a warm, airy feeling blossoming in her chest. It feels like when she met Forty-Five for the first time, the girl's welcome a spot of light in a dark tunnel. How happy she would be if she knew that Forty and Thirty-Seven were getting along now. "I'd like tha–"

"Ow."

Thirty-Seven slaps the back of his neck, bringing his palm back quickly to stare at the thing crushed on it. "What the fuck is that," he asks, all previous softness drained from his voice.

Forty turns his palm to her, the orange guts of a bee and the remainders of its body staring back at her. "That is a honeybee," she says. Thirty-Seven wipes the gore off on his shirt.

"It just fucking bit me," he growls, flicking the splintered wings onto the leafy ground.

"It stings," Forty corrects. "With venom."

His eyes shift back for a minute, shoulders raising shakily for a breath. "Is it... is it supposed to feel like this?" he asks, slurring. He falls forward, hand fisted in Forty's shirt. Forty lifts his head up by the hair, fear racing through her body when she sees swelling begin around his eyes and mouth.

"Oh my god," she breathes, lurching his head back down to see hives spread around his neck where some of the bee guts still stain the skin.

"Is... it bad?" Thirty-Seven wheezes, gripping her shirt tighter. She can smell his panic, hear the labored, wet breaths coming from his throat.

Forty remembers not too long ago when Jane had a small panic attack in the cafeteria. "I fucking told them they can't serve you anything with peanuts," she snarled, giving dagger eyes to the chef who hurriedly pulls the plate with the sandwich away. Jane reached into her lab coat pocket and pulled out a strange tube. Forty watched in shock as she tugged down the top of her pants, stabbing the tube into the meat of her thigh. Sighing, she pulled in deep breaths, meeting Forty's curious eyes a few minutes later. "It's an Epipen," she said, hoping that was enough of an explanation. Forty had never seen her stalwart monitor freak out like that before, though, so she pressed. "I'm allergic to peanuts. If I get near them I swell up and break out in hives. It can close my throat and shut off my breathing."

"Thirty-Seven," Forty mumbles, a tremor starting up in her hand. "Are you allergic to anything?"

"Wha- what?" Thirty-Seven forces out, eyes hazy.

Panic races up Forty's spine, making her blood run cold. She immediately stands up, pulling the man to his feet with her. It feels like the world is sharper, her vision zeroed in and nose already seeking out possible human smells. "You need an Epipen," she groans, pulling Thirty-Seven onto her back. His legs and arms are weak where they wrap around her neck and hips. All signs of aches and pains seem to disappear from her body, replaced by something akin to the fire in her veins when she first bit him.

By pure luck, she catches the smell of cattle. If what she's learned from the farm is true, cattle means a farmer will be nearby. Hopefully all humans carry an Epipen. After all, they are frail creatures. Forty sets a quick pace, breaking out into a sprint when Thirty-Seven's breathing becomes shallow. His head lulls against her shoulder. "For...ty," he coughs. "What's happening?"

"You're allergic to bees, and you're going to fucking die if I don't find that thing to stab you with," she huffs, following the scent trail like a woman possessed.

"Oh," Thirty-Seven says, then his head falls completely slack against her shoulder.