From his short stint in medical school before his death, Ajay learned that it can be difficult to assess how accurate the memory of pain is. He knows is not very good. When he walks out at night, he hears the sound of screeching tires, of burning metal, and he's particularly unlucky when crossing the street, sometimes he hears a bang, metallic and loud like a gunshot, and he knows it is the sound of his body hitting a car. He never remembers how it aches.

The cold is like that. He's Canadian, built to handle the icy chill of winter. It is not even the end of October, and when he steps outside of the motel to see Este on the balcony, the wind blows and suddenly he is the coldest he has ever been. It is not snowing, and he knows the snow will come. It is colder in January than December, colder in March than it is that evening, but even still, Ajay is the coldest he has ever been. Likely, the coldest he will ever be.

Este doesn't glance over her shoulder, but she feels the presence of Ajay when the door closes. Something about the way it shuts, the quiet steps of his feet. It couldn't be anyone but him.

Then, he is beside her, leaning on the balcony as well, looking down into the parking lot beneath their feet. He doesn't say anything, and Este appreciates his lack of clever retort.

Other people leave the building, floating by in quiet pairings or smaller groups. It seems that none of them are poltergeists. None of them really want to bother anyone else. None but Este naturally.

Kaylee Wood-Roswell is dead. This time, she isn't coming back. Probably, she actually remembers the way she suffered at the hands of the husband they shared. Este never even liked Kaylee, never really wanted to learn about the woman who slept with her husband before and after her death. The choice was taken from her, but the most final force there is.

Maybe their province dies in the winter. Maybe it doesn't ever come back to life, but the snow melts. The grass, brown as it is, grows again. Oil is striped from the land, their economy is dead, and maybe it's a vicious cycle but it is a cycle. Kaylee has been removed from the circle of life.

Este grits her teeth. A lesser woman would swear.

"Were you friends?" Ajay asks.

Este chuckles to herself. The wind blows in her hair. She feels it whip in her face, snagging on her eyelashes. Some of it gets in her mouth. It's all horrid.

In the breeze, she looks so beautiful. So accursed. As a medic, Ajay is used to helping people, and he can admit he feels some sick satisfaction when he is able to help alleviate someone's aches. Maybe some others might think that is sweet, but he doesn't. His pleasure blossoms from the suffering of others.

"I don't have friends," Este points out.

Ajay rolls his eyes, "pretty thing like you? Every demon in Hell must be lined up around the block."

"Yeah, well my husband beat them there."

Ajay shifts his weight onto the opposite foot, adjusting his posture. He looks at her.

"You still look beautiful when you let other people see you," Ajay looks at her.

He thinks of her, by the pond in the forest through his drunk eyes, and he thinks of her drunk through his sober eyes. He thinks of long walks, of murder and forests, not just lives that were stolen from them, but the deaths.

Ajay never thinks about the life that was taken. It wasn't, not really. His heart beats, his eyes blink, and he breathes in air even if it is the coldest air he has ever felt.

"You don't actually think that," Este answers.

She doesn't look at him. She doesn't want to see him, and to think about how he just might be beautiful too.

"I do," Ajay says.

She shakes her head, "no, you don't."

"Tell me why I shouldn't," he leans in closer to her.

Ajay reaches a hand closer to her. She shifts to look at it. Slow and steady, waiting for her to bite, he reaches around the back of her. He touches her hair, runs a finger across the thick stand, following the contour of its wave.

It takes all of Este's concentration to keep her composure. Her throat is tight, and she thinks about that feeling. Maybe she felt that way when she died in the dirt.

"Tell me," he whispers, voice so quiet.

Este shivers, not from the cold.

"I'm angry," she glares at him. "And I'm done. There's no taking my life back. So, I'm going to take his. I'm going to kill the bastard who took everything from me. I'm going to make him suffer, and I'm going to kill him, and if I'm lucky he will come back to life just like I did so that I can kill him all over again."

She watches for something to flicker in Ajay's eyes. Nothing does. The wind blows again, and the strand of her hair slips from his fingers. Then, she walks away.

~~~~~

There is a small circular hole in the knob of the bathroom door, and so Leo uses a chopstick that was left with the restaurant takeout menus by the phone in their room. He jams it in the door to get into the bathroom. There he sees her. Fallon, curled up next to the toilet with her hair a mess of static and despair.

Leo never worked in victim services. He was never good at delivering bad news. Crying mothers were looking for soft eyes and smooth voices, but Leo was always harsh even before his face was scarred with burns.

The woman that died in front of Fallon spoke of something that burned. Something that would get them too. Everyone else was so frightened, but Leo wasn't. He's already been burned that way.

"Fresh air would be nice," he says to Fallon.

She doesn't answer, and he doesn't think it's appropriate to carry a girl incapable of speech out of a motel bathroom. So, he turns his head and opens the bathroom window. Cold air comes in.

Fallon peeks up and looks at Leo. He seems calm, unlike everyone else who saw Kaylee die. She hasn't thought about it, or really much of anything if she can avoid it over the past few days. The image lingers in her head. While Fallon doesn't remember her death, she read the reports. Fallon Evergreen, survived by her fiancée, Corrin Duke. A woman who saw her murdered and ran down the hall. The only memory Fallon has is the sound of Corrin screaming.

One more thing the two of them have in common. They have seen someone die. And Fallon cannot even talk to Corrin about it. When Audrey said Fallon couldn't tell her what to do. Fallon won't go see her grieving fiancée, the woman who survives her. After years of dealing with despair creeping in, Fallon knows what it means to survive. God, she misses Corrin.

"You look better," Leo glances over at her.

He squats down in front of her on the ground, offering her a hand. Fallon doesn't take it, instead patting the spot on the ground next to him. That, Leo does take. He sits next to her, knees pulled in close to himself since there isn't room to lounge on a motel bathroom floor.

"Nico's worried about you," she whispers to him.

Leo doesn't grin. He pats a hand on her knee, "we have that in common."

"I'm not very good at picking myself up," Fallon admits.

Desperate and terrible years always seemed to surround Fallon from both sides. Now, for the first time in perhaps her whole life, she can't be certain that she will always be sad. After all, she won't always be. Life is even more temporary than she had known it to be before.

"I'm not good at that either," Leo tells her.

He's calm under pressure, but this isn't pressure. This is a flattening, worse than the flatline on a heartbeat monitor. Well, maybe it's exactly that.

"We can make a pact," Leo explains. "We can hold each other accountable. So long as one of us stands, the other can join them."

Fallon nods her head, slowly but surely, "okay."

~~~

Not many of them stayed in the main room of their space. Only Kaia, Barry, and Nico remain there, separately still in a circle. None of them there for the same reason and all of them quiet.

Nico knows it would be rude to eavesdrop on Leo and Fallon, but at least it isn't rude to leave. They sit and they wonder. More than that they hope. Nico hopes the pair of them are in that bathroom okay together, since they both are suggest pessimists and even in their death Nico still smiles more often than not.

Barry is on another bed, not bothered to move. After all, a bunch of the women went out to smoke together, and Barry hates cigarette smoke. Eva is among them, as is Lydia, and Barry is fine to create space. If Barry knew then what they know now, they would never have taken their life atop her grave. The idea of it is a bit mortifying, if Barry is honest with themselves.

Life is so confusing. People always say it is precious, but Barry finds it odd since it seems so easy to take. Blood clots in brains stealing away lives and memories. It isn't even precious in its creation, since life can be made just as accidentally as it can be taken away.

Across from them both, Kaia sits in her thoughts. Clare didn't tell anyone about what happened to her. No stories of fiery infernos and crackling skin left her lips, and Kaia was a bit complicit in that matter. When Clare left, Kaia stayed.

She crosses the room to Nico and sits next to them.

"We should do something fun," she manages.

They offer her just the tiniest smile. Nico rotates to look at her and holds out their hands. One hand lower, palm up, and the other higher, palm down. Nico waits expectantly. Then, they begin to play concentration.

After they've cycled through animals and names twice, Barry has a headache. Nico stutters, losing their place, and both of them stop and giggle.

"This time do ways to die," Barry cuts in, voice cold.

Nico pulls their hands in closer to their chest. Kaia turns her head to glare at Barry, "bit much Barry, even for you."

"I'm not in the mood for games."

Nico pulls their arms in. It's so wrong. They should be upset. Kye is out there and missing Nico, and Nico is playing silly little games with Kaia in a motel.

"Then leave," Kaia rolls her eyes.

Barry stands up from the bed, stalking to the doorway. They twist the handle but turn back just before they step out.

"I tried, didn't I? Worked out well for me last time. But I'm here again."

They slam the door behind them. Nico jumps. Kaia feels her heart pounding.

~~~

It is a grey morning, one with wild whipping winds that bite the skin and yet Lydia, Eva, and Audrey went for a walk. Audrey's arms are pulled in tight to their chest, and while Lydia and Eva walk up ahead, Audrey thinks. Nobody is listening to her. Everybody is teaming up with Este, and they are giving up on knowing. People didn't ask enough of the right questions about the body. They need to know about the body.

Audrey's going to go back tomorrow, to find what there is left of Kaylee Wood-Roswell. Audrey can take samples. Maybe Audrey can try to figure out where the initial murder of Kaylee occurred, and then they can compare bodies. Audrey knows exactly the place where no one will bother them. Audrey and their bodies. The one Audrey manifests inside now, the one that was buried in their grave but not theirs, and a new exciting one. One that might cut open just as smoothly.

Audrey was never good at drawing. Their mother allowed for nothing but work, and perhaps art could have been something their mother picked, but it wasn't. Flashcards and study notes and calluses from writing and writing. An early diagnosis of carpal tunnel at fifteen. Maybe that's what Audrey should research next. They can check that body for carpal tunnel to see if it is as vexed as they are by the condition.

The other two don't wait for Audrey and they do not ask any questions of them either. Instead, Eva is walking to the corner store. She wants a slushie even in this cold. Slushies and cigarettes dying her tongue different colours. Lydia doesn't mind coming along it seems, and Eva is getting used to the company of others.

It's cold for Lydia though, and she has no interest in getting a slushie. She shivers as she walks. Then, she looks down at the cigarette between Eva's fingers.

"Can I?" she asks.

Eva stops walking abruptly. Lydia turns to look at her. Even still, Eva looks like something that has crawled out of the dirt. She turns her wrist, cocking it just to give Lydia access to her cigarette.

Then, Lydia leans in. With the cigarette still between Eva's fingers, she leans forward. Her gaze pours into Eva as she takes in a puff. Then, Lydia coughs, a fit taking over and she breaks eye contact. Eva cackles.

The two don't notice Audrey barreling past them toward the convenience store. Audrey doesn't notice them either.

"You can tell you grew up with the rich people," Eva laughs.

Lydia scrunches her nose.

"Hey, I did too," Eva shakes her head. "You must be a goody-two-shoes though. All the rich assholes I know would flinch at three lines of coke."

"Show me some coke and then we will talk," Lydia smirks.

With the cigarette still in her hand, Eva wraps an arm around Lydia's shoulder and squeezes, "why do I feel like we are about to become wonderful friends?"

~~~

After that meeting, Clare left, easily and silently. She neither fled like Este nor invited others along like Eva. She simply just walked out the room. Ambrose wasn't far behind, and maybe that made her grateful. Clare doesn't think of herself as particularly astute, but she knows better than to mention the inferno she faced when she returned to where she died.

Leo couldn't bear that kind of news since he still is not himself after the revelation about the pastor came out. Maybe it should have bothered Clare more. It did, definitely, but now believing her partner had a hand in her death and knowing what happens to women who look like Kaia, she isn't surprised.

And Kaia. Of course, she couldn't talk to Kaia. Not just because Kaia doesn't deserve sad things, but because Clare has seen the way the ceiling of the church basement feels especially low when Kaia stood in the room they all shared. Kaia is a queer woman from a people that were stripped of their traditions in the name of religion. As a Filipina, Clare can understand to some degree, although Clare's parents never really encouraged their Catholicism the way that many other families did.

Then there is Ambrose. A man unearthly, likely even in life. He walks beside her now. He is as stiff and beautiful as a marble statue. A man who knows this land and its forests, and all the things that have lived and died inside it. The only one who knew the pastor, a man clearly religious.

They walk the streets in the dark together. Beside her, Ambrose looks at her steps, at the the paved road beneath their feet. He keeps in step with her, a task easy enough once he gets used to the rhythm of Clare's body. He listens for his heartbeat, and finally turns his eyes towards the sky. The dark clouds above him hide the heavens. His suspicions are confirmed.

"I went back to where I died," Clare says. "I felt the fire of Hell."

Ambrose turns to look at her, steps still precisely in tune with her own. She looks at him. Tears brim in her eyes.

"Do you believe in Hell?" she asks, looking at him.

"I used to," Ambrose says. "When we first arrived."

His beliefs prior to his death have come back again. Ambrose's mother was the pious one. The woman who took him to church, who sobbed at night with a rosary in her hand when Ambrose would bring home a dead bird to bury. Maybe she thought he had killed it, but she never asked. There ought to be sin in ignorance. Then again, Ambrose himself is a fool. He speaks Latin, a dead language. He knows the history of all the old factories that have died in this town. He knows how all things end.

Hell implies beyond. When he saw Audrey's body after digging it up, he did not find God. When that woman died in the forest, he saw the bugs and worms taking over her. Sometimes, he thinks he can feel them crawling beneath his own skin. This is not beyond. It is wrong.

But here is Clare before him, saying just what the woman had said. It was burning. A fire. Forever and ever.

"Not anymore though?" Clare asks.

He shrugs.

"I just... I've always wanted proof of things," Clare says. "Or maybe not. Maybe I've just always wanted stories."

True crime podcasts and textbooks and histories and investigations. Stories and proof intertwined. What is this that she is telling herself? Is it proof of Hell or is it a story? Which makes herself feel better?

"The bible has many stories," Ambrose looks over at her. "It has created many more. This town, in part, exists because of the bible and the men who came here to proselytize. That is why Chelster has more tombstones in the church graveyard than it has people."

Clare nods slowly. The wind is so cold, and she cherishes it. Maybe this is purgatory, but on this walk she has come to appreciate it more. Skies without smoke even though they are just as grey. It is morning, and the day will only get warmer.

"What could it have been besides Hell?" she asks. "I wasn't there for very long. Kaia pulled me away."

Ambrose pauses, just for a second, finally slipping out of step with Clare. Maybe it is Hell. When he was young, Ambrose thought burying animals was doing them a favour. He had liked the interior of that casket, and thought it was only fair that they were brought back to rest. Now, he is sure he was right. What a deeply unpleasant thing to be unburied.

He stops and turns to Clare. She stops too, turning back to him. Ambrose's hand shakes as he reaches forward. She has a soft smile as she takes it.

Ambrose has always been odd. He's sweet though, she knows it.

"I don't know what it was," Ambrose admits. "I don't know why any of this has happened."

~~~~~

Okay, this chapter took a bit longer but it is long, and it also is going to make me break down sobbing. I love it. Like, I feel like so many characters get to shine in different ways. Also, if all is going according to plan, there should be ten chapters left, but there might be more. It feels so short because I've been working on this for like closing in on two years now, but it will probably be done before the new year which is crazy to think about.

What are your thoughts? As always, comment away!