Head back to the others. This is getting pretty intense.

“I think I’m going to head back to the others,” you tell Kenji as you shuffle into your sleeping bag. The cold was seeping into the tent already. The fire outside was low already. Hopefully, Stephanie doesn’t die while you and Kenji are inside your relatively warm room.

“Well,” Kenji begins. “I understand that you might not want to do all of this. I know Amara probably wouldn’t want me to waste the company’s resources on my little adventure here, especially since we’re making little to no money here.”

He laughs a little, his eyes getting lost in the corner of the tent. “But, when I saw this contract, I felt like I was called to do it.”

“What’s your vendetta against this?” You ask.

“Heh,” Kenji’s smile fades somewhat, and she blinks. “There’s something in the past I can’t fully bury.”

Silence comes next, and all you can hear is the crinkle of winter in the trees. Kenji exhales, letting all the air out from his lungs. A deep sadness comes over his expression. You’ve seen this look on some people before, but something about Kenji’s expression goes deeper.

“Flora, though,” he changes the subject. “What do you think of her?”

“We talked about it already,” you felt a little warm suddenly. You didn’t like how often Kenji was now bringing her up. You’ve lived with each other for months, and this new sudden interest made you feel under threat. You **** a friendly laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re developing feelings for her now.”

Kenji humors you by laughing too, but there’s almost no happiness in it. “I think you’ve developed feelings for her, or at least she has for you.”

You shrug, playing it like a cat shredding a scratch post. “No.”

“Yes,” Kenji says, this time laughing a little.

“I get it,” he says. “She’s a beautiful girl, and if I had to be honest, I would have been all over her if I was just a little younger.”

Kenji had given up shaving at one point, making him look older. You hadn’t shaved either, so you too probably looked like you were well into your thirties, especially this tired and in the dark. The man sitting on top of his sleeping bag shouldn’t have been even in his 30s but was presented as a man nearing his 40s—a stark reminder of what contracting does to the soul.

“You still got game,” you say.

“Of course I do,” he replies.

“But Amara would tear my legs off if I slept with any of her servants,” Kenji clears her throat. “Granted, Scarlet and I had a fling before we started this contract with the ARS.”

“No kidding?”

“A fling,” he reminds you. “Nothing serious. Just a man and woman thinking that any day could be our last. We hid our intimate background better than I anticipated, but you can’t hide anything from Amara for too long. She’ll find out your secrets sooner or later.”

You consider Flora and everything you’ve talked about. If Kenji has picked up on your relationship with her, then you can piece together Amara has too. There’s a pit in your stomach now, and you wish to comfort yourself somehow. Perhaps she sent you out here with Kenji so she could talk to Flora…interrogate her. Who knows what Alexandra knows?

The more thought you put into it, the more suspicion you’re spreading. Kenji has his eyes fixed on you. So, you decide to follow up. “She kind of fired me when we lost spoke directly to each other, so…I don’t think she cares about anything I’ve done.”

Kenji opens his mouth as if to do something more, but he stops himself. “Have a good night.”

And with that, Kenji rolls back into his sleeping bag. You do the same but quickly realize you aren’t going to be able to. The world outside is foreign and new. And after your last experience outside of an actual shelter, you couldn’t get any shut-eye in, so you just stared at the ceiling of your tent as it slowly became darker and darker.

…

…

At one point, you were actually able to fall asleep, but you woke up to the noise of rustling. Knowing that the ground was snow-covered, you figured it was Stephanie next door trying to get free. You nudge Kenji with your feet, but all he does is groan and roll around.

Meanwhile, Stephanie starts tugging on her bonds. You roll out of bed and move to her tent. With a click of your flashlight, you’re quickly upon her. She squints when you shine it on her face. She whimpers too. With the gag in her mouth, you don’t understand her either.

“What is it?” You ask angrily.

“MM! MMMF!! MM!!” She shivers.

You close the tent's flap and work your way over to her. “I’m going to take the gag out of your mouth, but you better be quiet. The last thing you’ll want is Kenji waking up and beating the shit out of you.”

Stephanie nods frantically, making motions with her heart. “P-please let me go.”

You scoff. “I can’t do that.”

“But you’ll let your buddy over there **** me until I tell him all the names of the men I slept with?”

“Yes,” you say. “I’m just not going to stick around and watch him do that.”

“Because why?”

“Not my forte,” you remark.

“I’ll do anything,” she pleads.

“Anything?”

She double-checks herself. “Well…Yes. I suppose?”

You grab her fingers and discover them to be ice cold. You shiver and shake your head. “If I let you go, you’ll die out there, but I can warm you up a little, I guess. Make your night a little more bearable.”

“You would?” She says, relieved to get something out of the situation.

“Well,” you look at her as she’s on her knees, surrounded by blankets, pillows, and furs. She’s mostly recovered from the beating Kenji put on her when you kidnapped her, but other than that, you can see her cute, double-crossing wife features under the blue bruises. “What can you bring to the table?”

“Wh-what do you mean?”