In Cold Blood | Apply Fic

Chapter Sixteen: A Single Flame

Roselyn and Ethan run, hoping for any sign of Rosalynn. As they reach a bunch of trees with red marks painted on them, Roselyn stops, grabbing Ethan's arm in the process. He stops and turns to her, raising one eyebrow. She nods her head to the red paint.

"Dude, what?" Ethan asks.

"We said he needs to be able to find his way back. A painted trail is a painted trail, regardless of where it leads to."

She starts walking along the trail, keeping her hand on the trees with red paint.

"Ro, what do we do?" Ethan sighs.

"Stop asking me that like I have any goddamn clue what the fuck is happening and how to handle it. We just need to find Rosie right now and get all of us back to the house."

"I mean, you and Rosie really have taken fairly good control over absolutely everything that's happened so far."

"Come on," Roselyn scoffs. "If we had any control over this, we would still be at eight alive."

"Eight? We came up here with nine of us."

Roselyn stops and looks down, shaking her head. Ethan stops and rubs her back.

"After this started, I don't think we could've saved Eli. It's so hard to admit but I don't know if there's anything we could have done to keep the poor boy alive. How could we have saved him? He was way too drunk to reason with. If someone would have gone with him, two people would have been attacked instead of one. He's not scared of us."

"So what do we do then?"

"I don't know. I guess maybe the only way to have prevented this would have been if we never found that fucker."

She rubs her eyes, wanting to cry.

"If I would've just stayed on the fucking trail-"

"This isn't your fucking fault, Ro. Even if you found him, he's the one who decided that he needed to start killing us. None of this is your fault. Let's just get Rosie and the four of us can go back to the house. We're going to be okay."

"Bullshit. If we were going to be okay, there would be way more of us still alive."

Roselyn continues along the red trail, hoping that they'll come across Rosalynn or any other sign of her being along the red trail. The snow is quickly obscuring any footprints or other signs that someone was there. The path they were following was gone probably thirty feet after they started following it. After that, they stayed going in a straight line, hoping that they would find some sort of marked path.

"Hey Ro," Ethan croaks.

Roselyn stops in her tracks and turns around just as Ethan pulls out a pink knitted sweater from the snow, the one Rosalynn had been wearing that day. Roselyn freezes before she grabs it from him, turning it in her hands for a brief moment before throwing it down and picking up her pace down the path. Ethan grabs it, noticing it split open in the front. He looks closely at the cut for only a few seconds before following Roselyn. He passes her just as Rosalynn comes into sight. She's strung up between two trees, her breath coming out as tiny clouds of fog as her head hangs loosely. Ethan reaches her and tries to stop but slides on the mini ice lake at her feet, hitting the ground hard as the wind is knocked out of him. Roselyn sees Ethan fall and slows sooner, barely able to stop in front of Rosalynn. She grabs her face, lifting her head to look at her. She notices a thin layer of ice coating Rosalynn's now snowy white skin.

"Rosie, you need to look at me," Roselyn begs. "You're not allowed to die. You're our expert and best friend."

But Rosalynn doesn't answer the other girl. Ethan looks up as a final breath exits Rosalynn's mouth, then nothing. Any movement in her body is from Roselyn forcing her head around. Her breathing ceased, life drained from the entirety of her body. He feels tears pricking at the corner of his eyes. He gets himself to his feet and he grabs onto Roselyn's arms. He pulls her back from the other girl, making her look at him.