the Thermal Lake
one click from the Refuge
10:05 AM

━━━━

"NO! PLEASE don't!" Amelia reached out her hands like she could grab Tina away from Ichabod and the three marines who flanked his sides. Her spear and crutch clattered to the ground.

The familiar burning of tears in her eyes started up again. Her joints were locked and her heart was pounding and her lungs had no air to let her think or feel beyond Please, Ichabod, please!

His face was coated with sweat, his mouth twisted in a snarl. The pistol - a real, proper pistol that no disabling device could stop - glinted malevolently against Tina's temple.

The girl was limp against Ichabod's side, her eyes half-closed. From the smoke curling from her clothes, she'd been shot with a volt-gun. Amelia felt her heart tighten. I'll kill you, she snarled in her fever-stricken mind. It was tough to swallow, and they all faced off. Ichabod was outnumbered, but he had a gun. A proper gun.

I'll kill you, Ichabod.

"Now there's a proposition," Ichabod sneered. He rolled his neck, and Amelia could hear the cracks. Beyond that, in the vegetation behind her, she heard chirping.

The battle had stilled; the marines under the waterfall were watching, and the rebels alongside her were holding tightly onto their weapons. Out of the corner of her eye, Amelia spied Lale running his thumb over the shaft of his spear. His grey eyes were hard.

"Let her go, Ichabod." She didn't know how Lale could sound so calm - it infuriated her. I've lost my family, she stared at Tina, then at the gun, calculating the odds. With her infected leg, she probably wouldn't make it anyway. If she could distract Ichabod and save 2039 ... Daryl ... then that was fine by her. Zoey ... Lale ...

She glanced at him again. "You've lost." Lale carried on. He was still rubbing the spear's edge. "Your marines have no weapons."

"So bold of you to assume," Ichabod retorted, but Amelia could hear his uncertainty. We've won. He just won't accept it. The flush of her sickness grew deeper with her anger. "This war has only just begun!"

Amelia couldn't throw herself towards him fast enough. She watched his finger move in slow-motion, pressing down on the trigger. Her heart skipped a beat as she plunged forward, seeing Lale throw the spear in her blurred peripheral vision.

She couldn't breathe or think or even cry as she stumbled to her knees, her skin shredding and ankle twisting with pain, but then Amelia realized she hadn't heard the gun go off.

Water dripped from the pistol's barrel. Lale's eyes were wide, and Tina's were open and furrowed. Dear God, was all Amelia could think, and she didn't know whether to be relieved or be afraid because the gun was pointed right at her, but that was what she had wanted, right?

To die for her friends and for Lale? For Zoey?

"No!" It was Lale's turn to roar. Ichabod shoved Tina away, and Amelia heard her head crack against the rock. She reached for her friend just as Lale barreled past, and right into the Brit.

The two men grappled with one another as panicked shouting ensued. Other marines from Ichabod's side were trickling up the side of the waterfall, and people were throwing their spears and getting clobbered down while all Amelia could do was watch and cradle Tina in her arms.

Wake up, Amelia felt a tear slide down her face as she dipped her head over her friend. Please, wake up.

Through the curtain of her curly hair, she could see the shadows of Ichabod and Lale twisting and grappling like gods over the gun, stepping precariously at the edge of the waterfall.

"Lale!" Amelia cried out, just as Ichabod brought his leg up and -

the Thermal Lake
one click from the Refuge
10:12 AM

━━━━

- brought his knee into his thigh, with made Lale hunch over with pain. Sweat and droplets of water stung his eyes, and the clouds of rain he could smell and taste through his open and heaving mouth were rumbling in the distance.

Lale tried to step back, his fingers dug deep into Ichabod's inner elbow and forcing the gun downwards, but Ichabod brought his knee upwards again, and it collided with his face.

Lale reeled back, his hold slipping as his one hand tore through Ichabod's dreadlocks and the other twisted as Ichabod back-pedaled. His face was a massive bruise of pain, and his eyes were watering and blurred, but he could see Amelia alongside him, his name ringing out through his ears.

For Amelia, he thought deliriously, but Ichabod grabbed him by his growing fringe and pulled him forward. Lale tried to get a grip in the silt, seeing the edge of the waterfall dangerously close, and the drop into the water so far, but his scalp was getting ripped from his skull and he yelled out and let go of Ichabod's arm to punch him in the face.

His knuckles connected, but then the gun slammed into his face and his broken nose exploded with pain again. Blood dripped down his chin and he tasted it on his tongue. He held onto Ichabod's wrist with weak, play-doh-like fingers, nails scratching on skin and trying to push the gun away.

"You've lost," Ichabod hissed into his ear, and Lale writhed from the threat in his words, his heart convulsing in fear. "Admit it, Lale. You're about to die, and I'll quite frankly by happy to see you go -"

Lale lashed out one last time with his other hand, but the gun went off and the pain ripped through his collarbone. He couldn't breathe or scream or even look to Amelia; could only stare into Ichabod's cold triumph-filled eyes. Darkness pricked the edge of his vision, and then he felt his grip slipping.

He let go of Ichabod's wrist and plunged downwards, just as another rumble of thunder broke out.

the Thermal Lake
one click from the Refuge
10:17 AM

━━━━

"Lale!" Her scream echoed and fractured and she could only watch with tear-filled eyes as he fell; before her gaze locked on Ichabod and narrowed.

"I'll kill you!" She howled, and her voice was the only one ringing out because everyone else was quiet and watching, she could feel it. It was just she and Ichabod, and Amelia would not fail in carrying out what Lale had meant to do.

Lale ... Oh, Lale ... Lale, the marine whose eyes were filled with a quiet storm. Lale, who never pushed her or blamed her for looking away when he tried to catch her eye. It was too much to bear, even thinking about him, and every instinct in her body was telling her to end the battle once and for all - either by getting killed herself, or killing Ichabod.

Thunder boomed over the jungle, and the air grew heavier. She glared up at Ichabod, knowing in her bones that the first option was far more possible. Ichabod had the gun, and Ichabod was not the one on his knees.

"No, Amelia." Ichabod aimed the gun at her and she stared down the dark, oily abyss of the barrel as horrified cries broke out from the spectators. Amelia knew no-one was close enough to save her, or even attempt to, and so she tightened her fists and whispered a good-bye in her mind to the friend laying at her knees.

"Quite the opposite."

She was going to die. She was going to die. Amelia felt her chin quiver but she kept staring upwards, her eyes narrowed and going through Ichabod. She was afraid, but she would it let him see it. She gritted her teeth in determination.

You will never win.

Ichabod's eyes narrowed like he'd heard her challenge, and she saw his finger tighten on the trigger, applying pressure slowly like he was teasing her.

There was a blur to her left, a figure of grey and thick black hair, and before Amelia could even cry out the shot rang through the air and Zoey collapsed onto her side, her hand outstretched to Amelia over the rock that was quickly wetted by her blood.

"No no no ..." Amelia abandoned Tina for the doctor, and the tears ran down more furiously as she gripped hold of Zoey's hand. There were shouts and people were swamping Ichabod, the threat of the gun forgotten, and it was Amelia could do nothing but weep as Zoey's hand tightened around her own.

"Why?" Amelia whispered, her grief stabbing into her heart with every beat. "Why, Zoey?"

the Thermal Lake
one click from the Refuge
10:19 AM

━━━━

Zoey focused on Amelia, though her face contorted with the effort of it. The doctor knew she was dying. The bullet had entered her chest and exited her back, and the blood was pooling too quickly to stop.

A hemothorax in the pleural cavity, Zoey thought, wincing with pain. Her lungs were on fire, and the oxygen in the air seemed to have vanished and been replaced with water. She was drowning. What a way to go.

"The world needs more people like you, Amelia." Zoey gripped onto Amelia's hand. The other girl was pale and her eyes were pooling with tears, but there was also something more.
An infection.

She wished she could tell Amelia where the antibodies were ... How to tie a bandage and a tourniquet and administer the heal-pads the right way, but she was running out of time and breath.

"Never forget that you're important." Zoey smiled, then tasted the blood and hid her teeth. Her heart rate was climbing, and she could feel her quickened pulse clamoring in her chest. "Amelia," Zoey said, but then she felt her chest tighten and she could get no more words out.

So many things she hadn't told her. She felt the tears build. So many things she never could. Zoey's vision blackened, and she looked away from Amelia.

Don't watch, she wanted to tell her. But she couldn't, and, with a quiver that raced through her entire body, Zoey died.

the Thermal Lake
one click from the Refuge
10:20 AM

━━━━

Amelia skidded down the side of the waterfall as fast as she dared with her gammy leg and tear-filled eyes, just as the rain started to fall, as if weeping for the loss of Zoey.

But not Lale. Amelia stumbled through the channel of freezing water, rounding the pool as she saw Lale's body wedged between the reeds. Please, not Lale!

"Lale!" Amelia pulled him ashore, her hands shaking at his stillness. There had been nothing she could've done for Zoey, but if she could save Lale, then she would.

She would.

"Lale, come on! Breathe, Lale!" He'd been face-down on the water; was that a good thing or a bad? Her thoughts were too scattered to think, her heart thumping too wildly like she was the one about die and not ... Not ...

Okay, okay, CPR. CPR. Chest compressions, right? One ... Two ... Three ... She didn't know how many she had to do in succession, so she kept pumping while panicking and bargaining with whatever god was up there.

"Let him live," she pleaded, her tears mixing the cold rain and running down her cheeks. Amelia put her mouth on his, forcing air into his lungs before pressing down on his chest again. "Just let him live!"

Amelia used mouth-to-mouth again, fingering his cheek and feeling her heart patter away and try and leap out of her chest. Lale ...

And then he twisted and she fell away and he coughed up all the water that had gotten into his lungs - and she had done it, she'd saved him, and it was all she could do to keep from collapsing into his arms because he still had a bullet wound, didn't he?

"Ichabod?" Lale breathed, his voice raw and eyes ringed with pain. He pressed a hand to his collarbone, where the blood was seeping out.

Her eyes flickered back up to the ridge, where so many bodies laid. Subdued rebels rounded up the last of the even more subdued marines that had been on Ichabod's side. No-one was jubilant.

Too many lives been lost.

"He's up there -"

A chirp interrupted her. A familiar one. Amelia twisted from facing Lale and gaped at the ridge, where a familiar young Tanycolagreus was staring down at her. He chirped again, but then it was accompanied by a roar.

Bad-man smell! Ed puffed up his small feathers and growled just like his new Friend-smells, who smelled like him but so different from Mother-smell, who he could see with his small eyes down in the Squishy Place. He'd met his other Friend-smells there at a kill, though he hadn't liked walking in the stickiness very much.

Mother-smell! Blood-smell! His heart was pattering in his chest. His gaze darted from Mother-smell to the Not-nice man he'd seen before, who was trying to worm away. His old Friend-smells were yelling and releasing fear noises, which made Ed feel uncertain.

Fear smell bad man! He hissed right at the bad-man, and his friend-smells at his side, their grown feathers glimmering red and russet brown, broken from the Dark Green place and lunged right for him.

Protect Mother-smell!

They watched with mouths gaping as the dinosaurs ripped into Ichabod until he stopped screaming, and then all was silent. The Tanycolagreuses dragged their kill back into the jungle with soft rumbles, dampened by the rain. Water roared down the waterfall.

Ed was still standing at the edge of the waterfall, his head tilted and tiny chest heaving. He eyed her for a few seconds longer as she smiled, despite everything that had happened. Despite the deaths and the betrayals, Amelia could still smile.

Thank you, Ed.

Like he had heard her, the young dinosaur flared his nostrils, and then followed his brethren into the leaves. The rebels and marines who had retreated before stood cautiously, not knowing what to do or say.

But Amelia did. She turned to Lale. Amelia knew deep down that her eyes had hardened and her hair was dirty and she was ill and wet with rain - but she also hoped that Lale wouldn't let that hold him back.

"Hold me, Lale," Amelia whispered. He took her in his arms carefully, and he didn't let go.

━━━━