Trigger Warning: Suicidal thoughts, domestic violence, and possibly transphobia.

If any of these are one of your triggers please email me at [email protected] and I will send you an edited version of this chapter without the passages that could be triggering or harmful to your mental health so that you can still enjoy the story without having to suffer to do so.

Love y'all! -ENBYsaurus RAWR!!! 💖

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-Boston Massachusetts, Saturday 1:12pm EST-

The tiny apartment had erupted into chaos all around Monica Bowman as disagreements, long built tensions, and resentment boiled over into heated shouting. Nothing had gone right, not one damn thing this entire time. She stood destitute in the no man's land between Brandon, and the strangers they had come to stay with. Her hand on her son's arm she tried to soothe away his anger, and apologize for the insults he hurled in his tear-filled outburst.

"Money isn't a problem I'll have close to twenty-thousand after the school cuts me my check to throw at this!" Brandon yelled.

"I keep telling you, it's not that easy!" Cameron shouted back, as he tried with one hand to push Emily back down the hall where she was supposed to be taking a nap. "All the flights are canceled. I'm trying my contacts, but just going off half-cocked like this if going to get us nowhere!"

Brandon let out a little shout, his fingers buried deeply into his densely curled hair. "That's why we're going to Nicaragua, or Panama!" he elaborated. "Mom and I had this whole thing planned out before your dumbasses got involved!"

"Kid," Cameron sighed as he blinked back tears. "Everywhere down south is closing their boarders. Poachers are flocking en masse. Not to mention the flyers. Containment isn't working or guaranteed, dinosaurs have made landfall. There are riots, looting. I know you made a lot of sacrifices to even get this far, and I'm grateful for that, but for now, until we can find a backdoor, we're stuck."

"That's great, that's just fucking great!" the young man bellowed. "While you're off trying to find the white rabbit what are the rest of us supposed to do?"

Cameron swallowed hard, choking on his own hopelessness. "Wait."

Turning an enraged Brandon sent a nearby lamp flying across the room from where it had sat on an end table next to the couch. "I'm going out." he announced, pausing only a moment to watch the chihuahua, tail between its legs, scurry for cover in the kitchen. "Don't wait up."

"Brandon!" Monica called after him. Fueled by anger, disappointment, loss, and even the fear of her son being out and about in an unfamiliar city for God knows how long it took for him to cool his head, she tried to stop him. It was too late, the front door was already slamming closed behind the young man.

Covering her face with her hands Monica started to cry.

What was she even doing here?

The whole flight over she hadn't been able to breathe. She wasn't scared of flying, not by a long shot, and yet the entire flight her heart was pounding out of her chest, and her nails dug deep into the armrests. Her neighbors had been driven to a sense of malaise and insecurity by her mere anxiety inducing presence, complaining about her often, though she'd done nothing wrong, or able to be corrected. Still, she hadn't been able to articulate it to her fellow passengers or even the helpful flight attendants, it hadn't been the flight she'd been afraid of. It had been the destination.

The entire way Monica hadn't been able shake the overwhelming feeling that she was going the wrong direction. That she had been getting farther, and farther away from Darius when she should have been charging straight for him.

Now, here, squatting in someone else's home, waiting for the solution to fall into her lap Monica knew that those feelings had been right all along. These people couldn't help her anymore than those on the other end of the 800 numbers could. They were just as desperate, and the simple fact that she wasn't alone in this mess anymore wasn't enough for her. Moreover, Monica had recently come to the realization that they were using her, or, more accurately, Brandon.

They were the Brooklynn's folks.

As such they were the custodians of the massive Brooklander empire. Their daughter made content, she had merch, she had makeup lines, her own flavor of potato chips, and even rumors of a movie. She had it all. But what she didn't have, was the money. It was shuttered away, locked in an account with a fixed allowance until her eighteenth birthday, and even then her parents would have almost no access to those same funds. In trying to be the best parents they could be, in trying to fend off even the slightest of temptations to dip into her growing bank account, they had locked themselves out of the very means of reaching her now that she needed them most.

It was a catch 22.

Then, of course came Monica and her big mouth, spilling out news of Brandon's student loan under the assumption that they would be pooling resources. The Meyers and Tillmans couldn't get them to Boston fast enough. Whenever, however, Cameron found their hole in the fence, it was Brandon who would be footing the bill.

Tears turned to bitter laugher when the thought struck her, that in order to save her youngest, she'd be throwingher oldest to the wolves. She was almost glad he'd broken that lamp. They deserved it.

No.

No, she thought to herself. They were scared patents trying to find a way to save their baby, just like she was. If situations were reversed Monica knew damn well that she'd have done the same. Besides, if they didn't care, if they didn't love their little girl, they would have jumped at making a profit out of this, allowing Brooklynn to become the face of the tragedy. They would have been leaping over themselves to declare her dead and get their hands on that cash. They would have done a million different, cold and calculating different things.

Instead they were all crammed together with a couple of strangers in an apartment paid for with teacher's salaries. They were good people, she reminded herself. They were just lost.

Snuffing her nose Monica listened to the couple discussing in a terse conversation, that the attorneys had called again, and what were they going to do about it. When Cameron loudly, and deliberately changed subjects to Emily's condition Monica finally broke herself free from her melancholy.

"He's right you know." she intoned, turning to look at the woman. "All this isn't good for you, or the baby. Trust me, I'm a nurse."

Moving to the broken lamp Monica left them to it, and began to tidy the largest pieces of porcelain first. Looking up after a minute she saw Cameron standing over her, the bristled end of a broom making its way into her workspace.

"I'm sorry about all this." the woman apologized.

"Don't be." Cameron shook his head. "I know what it's like to be a teenage boy, stressed, running without sleep, and on low blood sugar. Tempers flair. Only, he's got a lot more on his plate than finals."

"Yeah, yeah he does." Monica agreed as the two cleaned the mess her son had made.

"He'll be alright. And the girls will understand when they get back with the food, promise!" Emily smiled as brightly as she could from the hallway where she rested against the wall.

They were, all of them, trying way too hard to be accommodating.

Monica measured them with a look.

"I think, all of this shit would be a lot less stressful if we were honest with each other." she said.

Cameron and Emily exchanged nervous glances each trying to feign ignorance.

"Look, neither my son, nor I are stupid. We've overheard you talking, and put it all together. We know you need us for that money." Monica said plainly, stooping down to pick up the frightened dog who had been doing figure eights between her and Cameron as she spoke.

"Please, it's not like that-" Cameron said while at the same time Emily spit, "We'll pay you back!"

Monica, chihuahua tucked beneath her arm, twisted the plain, but much loved gold band she still wore around her finger for the calming strength it provided. "It's ok. We need you too. Can we just drop this act and talk to each other like the adults we are?"

Cameron held her gaze, and nodded.

Good, the woman thought. Her baby needed her, and these stupid games, and these insignificant bouts of ego weren't about to keep her from saving him.

"Thank you." Monica sighed, feeling better as a small amount of weight lifted from her shoulders. "Now, what can I do to help at this stage?"

-

-Portland Oregon, Saturday 10:40am PST-

The single most cruel part of life, was simply that it went on long after its worth in living. Joseph had thought this many a times over, throughout the course of the past few harrowing years. But one man's pain just wasn't enough of a cog out of place to disrupt anything. The clock just kept running. Counting down the time until the last star burnt out, and the universe harsh, and unforgiving went cold.

Besides, there was work to do, bills to be paid, and if he was so inclined, he should probably find something to eat, the man thought, but did nothing to enact change.

The answer was there. Somewhere. The key to finding his way out of the stagnant abyss in which he resided. He just hadn't found the right clues yet.

He felt like Matthias struggling to get at Martin's sword just to find the key to survival stolen from him, and missing. Only, he had no way to retrieve it from the snake's maw. Instead he was left here, unarmed, and waiting for Cluny's horde to take what they would.

He wasn't a hero.

He wasn't able to fight off the terrors that plagued his son. He just had to sit here, and wait, and watch, and pray. Pray that his wife would bring them both home to him.

Letting out a sob he turned towards the stack of books piled beside him on the couch. Joseph knew that he really needed to get back to work, but somehow he just couldn't do it.

He hadn't been sure for the longest time what his son had seen in these books. Fanciful tales of armor clad rodents up against impossible odds. But still he'd read every single one. These books were the safe place Ben had built for himself. Reading them gave them something to talk about, but more than that, it gave Joseph a means to feel close to his son, even when living so far away.

No, Joseph never got the appeal. Lord of the Rings was better, far and away, but his son wasn't interested in those.

Now though? Now it all made sense. Not matter how bleak, how tragic, or how impossible the situation each and every page dripped with one thing: Hope. Ben had always needed hope, and right now Joseph did too. So, even though he had work to do, and deadlines to meet the man reached out for a book and opened it.

"'Who says that I am dead, Knows nought at all...'" he read to himself in a quivering voice, struggling above all to cling to what these books meant to his son; that no matter what, there was always hope...

-

-Omaha Nebraska, Saturday 12:55pm DST-

Jamil stared hard at the concave hole his son had left in the wall. They'd yet to repair it, or even alert the landlord to the damage. It was just one more thing Jamil couldn't stomach to have on his plate. So it remained, a visual reminder of how fractured and broken his family was.

The plaster and paint had splintered, he took note, fracturing far and away from the point of impact. It looked, almost, like a spider's web. Jamil felt trapped. He felt trapped, as though he himself was bound within a spider's web. He could feel it, the tensile strength of a million different cords wrapping their way around him, and constricting the very air from his lungs.

He was the father. He was the husband. He was meant to be the provider and the head of house.

It was his job to make the choices no one else could, even when they were hard. Yet, his soul bled with uncertainty and fear.

He'd been waiting, biding his time, praying and putting his troubles into the hands of Allah. Still Jamil could find no answers. No willpower. How could he do it? How could he put a price on his daughter's life?

He was grateful, proud, even, to have been born an American, where he thought such a question would never arise. Yet, here it was presented to him many times over, by many different entities.

Jurassic World wanted to settle. They had been hounding the Fadoula family, and certainly thousands more to settle. Begging them to take the money and go quietly into the night. Asking them to forget, to forgive, to move on, as if their lives had forever felt that void they would now be forced to live with.

Then, there was the other side of the coin. The movement. The massive lawsuit. Attorneys representing a vast majority of the families left in ruins or handicapped by the incident wanting to use Yasmina's name, and her growing fame, coupled with that Brooklynn girl's to give a face to the suit being filed against Jurassic World.

Jamil had been offered quite a lucrative cut. Nothing stirred people to anger more than youth ended before its time, save for perhaps, youth with the clear potential for so much more. What more could these vultures in suits have asked for than a teenage celebrity, and an Olympic hopeful?

Then there was her life insurance.

Everyone needed answers. Everyone needed a price. Everyone wanted a piece of Jamil's soul, trading it away for money in his dead daughter's name.

He was supposed to have all of the answers but he didn't have a single one. Not even for the imam. There were prayers that needed saying, and no one to say them. Jamil just couldn't, wouldn't accept the one thing everyone seemed to be trying to tell him, that his daughter was dead.

Slow to react the man was only vaguely aware that his phone had begun to vibrate in his pocket. Pulling it out, he opened the notification marked by a red envelope. It was from the college. The summer semester was coming to an end, and with it the generous extension he'd been given was about to expire. Another cord wrapped around his neck, another helping piled onto his plate, and as the first bitter tears began to fall he couldn't find a single reason worth caring...

-

-Roundtop Texas, Saturday 1:20pm CST-

A week, her daddy had been in the ground for a whole week. Ana stared despondent at the wall straight in front of her, her hands working with the same circular motions that they had been for the past twenty minutes. The plate was clean, but she couldn't seem to put it down, wiping again, and again at the none existent filth with her dish-rag.

Her mind seemed to be a frantic race of questions, fears, and condemnable lines of self ridicule and hatred, but at the same time these thoughts were also mere whispers, buzzing little gnats swarming at the base of her skull. They lingered just under the nothingness. The nothingness that filled her head. The nothingness that filled her heart. The nothingness that filled her soul.

Ana was full of nothingness.

It was strange, impossible even, she thought, to be so full of nothing. But she was. There was just nothing there.

Empty.

Hollow.

But filled to the brim.

She felt so full of it, the nothingness, her skin stretched tight like a water balloon. She was so full that she thought she would burst. But it was all nothing. She was full of nothing.

Ana was so empty and devoid of all thought, and all feeling that the nothingness pressed out against her, making dark spots flood her vision with each and every heartbeat. The nothingness was trying to find a way to escape.

Was that what it had been like for her daddy? she wondered. Was he so full of emptiness, and nothing that he had to let it out somehow? Was that what had killed him? The emptiness that came when all the other terrible emotions had eaten up and destroyed whatever might have been inside you before?

At fourteen the girl was already well acquainted with the concepts of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation, though they had all been just that, concepts. She'd never truly experienced any of these things herself, well, except maybe for now. Now Ana felt like, in the worst way possible, she knew her father better than she ever had when he was alive. This was his secret. This was how he'd lived his life until he couldn't live it any longer. In this hell, at least, she was close to him.

Silent tears made deep craters in the blanket of suds that filled the sink.

Still, even with this polluted form of understanding the girl could feel the rotten cavity that devoured her from the inside out beginning to grow. In spite of her pain and terror and grief Ana just couldn't understand why he would do it. Why he would just leave them all here? Why would he risk... going there... by killing himself? she questioned, fighting back a shudder.

It wasn't even worth it, the thought chilled down the girl's spine.

It wasn't worth it.

It never had been.

It wasn't worth all the sorrow, the shame, the trying everything he could to save the ranch. It wasn't worth the emptiness he'd had to live with. But more than all this, it wasn't worth his life.

It, the ranch, was just a place. A worthless miserable place where they were all throwing their lives away. She thought bitterly, though not for the first time, as the tears began to flow freely now.

The work was hard, hot, long, and the rewards were few and far between. If it had been up to her they would have sold this place a long time ago, moved to the city and her parents could have gotten jobs doing anything else, anywhere else, and they could have made it work. They would have been happier anywhere but here, the girl who had always planned to get out of this meandering and destitute lifestyle as soon as she could, thought to herself.

Maybe if they had left all this behind, she'd still have a dad. But they didn't, and now she didn't. Now they were going to lose the ranch too. So what was the point? What was the point of his suicide if it changed nothing? Either way they would have lost, so, why?

Meaningless, she realized. His death had been absolutely meaningless. Their fate remained unaltered. That was what hurt the most.

If he'd held on, just a little while longer then, maybe, maybe they could have found a way to rebuild. They could have found a way to go on living, to find a way to be a family. Instead they were just a broken collection of strangers.

Tio Luis had brought Tia Eloisa and the boys up to help out after the funeral. They were all solemn, but set to their task. Abryan was stuck with this perpetual, distant stare and refused to set foot in the house. He worked hard all day, ate little, then slept in his dad's truck. He was quiet now, and quickly getting skinny, but he wouldn't talk to anyone. Ana felt for him, wished there was something she could do to help, but the more she tried the further he pulled away. So Ana stopped trying, with everyone.

All Georgia and the baby did was cry, while no matter how she tried Marisa was always in the way. All the boys did was work the ranch while Tia Eloisa, and Abuela cooked and cleaned. She hardly saw Tio Luis anymore, and most of the time Ana still had to remind herself that Mama wasn't dead too.

For all she loved her parents, a part of Ana had always resented them for the workload the girl was expected to shoulder. Now, that workload was unmanageable as her father lay dead and her mother grieved as if she, and she alone had experienced a loss, heedless and ignorant to her own children, as though their very existence had gone without notice or care. She was a selfish, miserable shell of her former self, and the fourteen year old hated her for it.

Mama might well as be dead, Ana thought then, the idea lancing her soul with fright and regret. Bitter, shame filled sobs wracked the girl's frame. She was a horrible, ungrateful, evil person, and if anyone deserved to die it was her.

Barely able to see past her tears Ana finally dropped the plate that had held her captive, tethering her to place. Watching as it quickly sank back down into the cool water she couldn't even begin to fathom as to why she had bothered with it in the first place. Nothing any of them did mattered, nor would it ever. Her family was in shambles, torn asunder by death, and debt. She was a terrible, ungrateful, unworthy brat, and the sooner she was out of this place, out of their lives the better.

Ana stopped, that was probably what daddy thought. In a flush of rage the teenager kicked the cupboard beneath the sink again, and again until in a flash of pain the wood splintered cutting deep serrations into her foot. Ana let out a scream that was one part pain, three parts pent rage before turning to storm to her room, leaving a bloody trail behind her.

In her bed she kicked and wailed and screamed with all her might until she couldn't fight it anymore. She was tired, she thought then, so tired. Half dozing, she didn't move when her aunt came to check on her. Tia Eloisa looked her foot over with a wet washcloth before passed a hand over her face. Ana didn't move even when the woman pressed a kiss into the girl's forehead. Though she knew she should, Ana felt nothing at the display of tender care and affection.

She only roused when moments later her cell buzzed in her pocket. It was a text, from Lauren.

"Any word on Sam?" It read.

"Sorry worried" came an immediate follow up.

"Hats stupid u r too, my bad." came a third.

Ana blinked back fresh tears.

Sam.

As if the situation couldn't get any worse, Ana didn't even have her big brother to rely on. He was missing, and probably dead too. The girl's heart ached at the idea.

Ana had been ten, going on eleven when her brother had changed. It stung, still, even as everyone else seemed to accept and move on where Ana couldn't. That was why her friends meant so much to her. They knew all her secrets, and guarded them well. They understood her struggle to come to terms with what she considered were her brother's delusions.

In a way, they felt more like family, because of it.

Her friends didn't get mad at her for "dead naming," or "misgendering" him. They listened to her whenever it all got too much to bear and she just had to yell, or vent, or cry. When it got down to it Ana just didn't understand and of it.

Why couldn't Sam just be gay? Even if he was a really effeminate gay man it was easier to understand, than...this. It was gross and wrong and weird. Besides it left a black mark on the family, they'd all lost friends, good graces at church, and became the targets of hatred and ridicule from strangers both online and in person.

Still, Ana would do anything to have her brother back, even if it meant feeding into the lies he was telling himself, for however long it took for him to realize his mistake.

"No," Ana tapped back. "Nothing yet. I hope he's ok but I'm scared."

"Me 2"

Rolling onto her back the girl hugged the lifeline that was her phone to her chest. Then Ana cried for her brother, realizing that in all this time, all of her tears had been for her daddy. She really was a terrible person, and an even worse sister...

-

-Westchester New York, Saturday 3:40pm EST-

Candy had been alone. She should have been used to it by now. Only child, orphaned in her teens. Working up to three jobs at once, living with roommates she barely knew. One abusive boyfriend after the next. Now, this: a blue clad shadow following after an emotionally distant man who's only redeeming feature was that at least he didn't hit her.

Still, just because she should have been used to it didn't mean she was.

Josiah never answered any of her calls. Niether did the people she had been foolish enough to once call her friends. Finding herself in the bottom of one bottle after another it wasn't long before the woman found herself wishing that she had someone, anyone to turn to.

It was no wonder she'd called Shawn when she did, she thought. Despite the snarky commentary the officers were giving her as to how she should have known better. Looking up at the men with a sense of loss and disbelief as she sat black-eyed and battered on the front steps of the house giving her statement Candy couldn't help but feel abandoned by them as well.

They didn't care, not really. Besides, the way they looked at it, she was asking for it, just like she'd been told before all those times she stayed with someone she shouldn't have. They just didn't understand how deep the loneliness could cut.

Still, Candy was very aware that all of the blame rested squarely on her. She'd called him up, he'd actually answered. He'd listened to her as she poured her guts out, and for the first time in a long time the woman felt seen, heard, valued, and maybe even... loved.

That's all she wanted, all she needed, to be loved.

So of course she invited him over. Of course she gave him the code to the gate. Of course she let him in through the front door. And of course they had a few drinks too many.

The fact that Shawn hadn't tried to make a move or take advantage of her inebriation, though a relief, was the first red flag. Candy should have known he'd planned to lift as much as he could, it wasn't the first time he'd stolen from her after all. She just felt so incredibly stupid for falling for it. More so, for having tried to stop him.

Everything was bound to be insured, she realized, but in her disbelief and sense of betrayal when she'd woken to find what he was doing the alcohol had fueled an idiotic amount of rage within the woman.

She'd tried to stop him, he'd beat the shit out of her. Tale as old as time. Only, now, she could actually afford the dental work, she thought, tonguing the painful space where a molar had broken. It was just another mistake she was too stupid to see she was making until after she'd made it. God she hated herself.

"Will you need help to the ambulance?" one of the cops asked as someone from the fire department wheeled a gurney to the bottom of the stairs.

Candy shook her head, regretting it instantly. She'd had worse.

Worse.

What could get worse than this? She wondered. She'd signed a kids death sentence. His dad had done everything he could to profit from it, and now they were both gone, and Candy was alone. Alone and stupid enough to let herself get beat and robbed by a man who'd done it before. She should really just take a handful of pills and quit while she was ahead she thought, gingerly making her way down towards the ambulance.