Wrapped in White, Walking Away

“Grief doesn’t just break people—it rearranges them. And sometimes, what’s left decides to leave before it shatters again.”

The lively chatter that had been permeating the air tapered into a hushed silence as Jamie and I emerged from behind the tent, stepping into the collective gaze of the group gathered around the campfire. It was like walking into the eye of a storm—eerily still, yet thrumming with tension. Every movement slowed, and for a moment, the world narrowed to the crunch of dirt beneath my boots and the unbearable awareness of every stare.

A thick, uncomfortable lump of bile lodged in my throat, refusing to be swallowed. My anxiety surged like a tide breaching its bank, crawling up my spine, turning the skin at the back of my neck prickly and damp. I told myself the eyes weren’t on me. They were on Jamie—Jamie, with Duke cradled in his arms, wrapped now in the bedsheet like some tragic relic of a world that no longer made sense.

Still, I couldn’t shake the sensation that I, too, was being measured. Judged. Watched. That we all were.

"Jamie," Paul began, his voice catching faintly on the name, more fragile than I’d expected. His eyes scanned the circle, flitting across faces like someone searching for grounding. For permission. For courage.

"I know things are a bit painful right now, but we need to know when you last saw Joel."

Jamie’s steps halted, and for a beat, it was as if the whole camp held its breath with him. The silence around the fire deepened, the flames snapping faintly as if filling the void.

"It was just before the attack last night. He was in his bed in the tent when I took off after Duke."

His voice was steady, but something in the way he stood—shoulders squared, yet stiff—betrayed the exhaustion threading through his bones. It was the stance of someone who had lost something, then been asked to explain something else. As though grief had to answer questions before it was allowed to breathe.

"And when you returned?" Paul’s voice had softened, almost tiptoeing around the question now, as if it might shatter something irreparable if pressed too hard.

Jamie didn’t speak. Not right away. His mouth twitched slightly, and a shadow passed over his expression—pain, confusion, something murkier still. Then he shrugged, and that simple gesture said more than any words could have. He didn’t know. He hadn’t looked. He couldn’t face it.

"Then it's settled," Glenda said, her voice wrapping around the group like a thin woollen blanket. Not warm, but practical. Protective. Her arms folded around herself, her stance curling inwards, betraying the cold that no fire could ward off.

"Joel is missing."

The words struck with all the weight of a gavel. Final. Unyielding. A verdict no one wanted.

My eyes fluttered shut without conscious thought, as if darkness behind my lids might soften the blow. The throb behind my eyes, already a dull drumbeat since dawn, flared with renewed ferocity. My fingertips found my temples and pressed hard, as if I might massage the day away, or at least dull the edges of it. But it was no use. The ache was as stubborn as the grief curled up inside Jamie’s arms.

Could this day possibly get any worse? I thought bitterly.

But I knew better than to ask that aloud. Clivilius, it seemed, had a way of answering rhetorical questions far too literally.

Amidst the sombre assembly, Charity—who until now had lingered at the edge like some enigmatic spectre—stepped forward. Her movements were quiet but deliberate, her chin lifting as though she’d been waiting for just the right moment to disrupt the fog that had settled over us all.

She carried herself with the ease of someone long accustomed to control, her voice ringing out clear and unflinching: "I am certain Joel has been taken by the Portal Pirate. I will hunt him down and bring Joel back."

The statement cracked through the heavy air like flint on stone. Heads turned. Even the fire seemed to falter in its rhythm for a moment.

My eyes snapped to her, narrowing. Come again? My breath caught somewhere between incredulity and reluctant comprehension. Joel… taken? The words felt surreal, lifted from the pages of some B-grade sci-fi pulp. But Charity’s delivery left no room for speculation—no ‘maybe’, no ‘I suspect’, just a crisp certainty that landed like a command.

The earlier conversation clawed its way back into my mind: Portal Pirates. Pairs. Lost and separated. Violent. And now, according to her, one of them had taken Joel. It had sounded like the fever dream of a sleep-deprived survivalist at the time. Now it felt like a prophecy taking shape.

Before I could collect myself enough to challenge her, Jamie’s voice rang out. It was sharp, decisive, and carried the kind of conviction that doesn’t wait for permission.

"I'm coming with you."

My head snapped toward him. His expression was set in stone, shoulders squared, eyes locked on Charity like he'd already packed his resolve into a rucksack and slung it over his shoulder.

And just like that, the slow swell of anxiety in my chest spiked into a storm surge. My stomach clenched. That silent, dry sense of dread—the kind that wraps itself around your ribs and pulls—settled in.

Don’t be a bloody fool, Jamie, I screamed at him inside my own skull. My hands curled into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms. You're not equipped to take on a freakin’ Portal pirate! You’ve barely survived today, let alone whatever horror that thing might be dragging Joel toward.

But I said nothing.

Because grief makes people reckless. And Jamie—God help him—was burning with it.

Charity’s nod was like the crack of a judge’s gavel—curt, final, and completely devoid of empathy. "Prepare your things. We leave immediately." The words struck the gathering like a cold slap.

Seriously? My stomach dropped. She can’t be serious… is she?

The thought thundered through my mind, jostling for space amid the surge of disbelief. One moment we were still reeling—mourning, processing, bleeding—and the next, we were being shunted into some warpath fantasy with a woman who seemed part mercenary, part ice queen.

I looked at Jamie. His reaction was immediate—his features crumpling with a sudden, helpless fear. His wide eyes flicked to Duke’s covered form in his arms, and for a moment, he seemed caught in some liminal space, as if he’d forgotten how to breathe. The weight of everything he’d already endured pressed visibly on his shoulders.

Charity didn’t falter. Her gait was unhurried but precise as she stepped up to him. With a strange tenderness that somehow still felt like a command, she lifted his chin. Her fingers—steady and firm—tilted his face until their eyes met.

"If you want any chance of finding Joel alive, we must leave immediately."

It wasn’t a plea. It wasn’t even persuasion. It was an ultimatum, wrapped in stoicism and sealed with steel.

Hell no. The words shrieked silently inside me, so loud they almost escaped. No. No. No. Every instinct in me rebelled. The sheer gall of it—the inhuman calculus, the emotional detachment. Had she seriously just issued a 'him or the dog' mandate?

Jamie’s voice broke—small, cracked, human. "I need to say farewell to Duke first," he said, his arms clenching Duke firmly, trembling like the rest of him might fall apart if touched.

And then, with a look that might as well have been carved from obsidian, Charity delivered the coup de grâce.

"Life is full of decisions and consequences, Jamie. You need to make a choice: Joel or Duke."

My breath caught, sharp and furious. This hunter bitch is a freakin’ psychopath. I didn’t care how many panthers she’d slaughtered or how many daggers she could identify by smell alone—this wasn’t bravery. This was cold. This was monstrous. My fists balled at my sides, useless but itching all the same.

She was right, of course. That was the worst part. She was right. But Christ, there had to be a better way to say it.

The camp was wrapped in a suffocating silence, the kind that felt unnatural—forced, brittle, on the verge of shattering. Charity’s words still hung in the air like smoke from a distant fire—sharp, acrid, impossible to ignore. No one moved. Even the wind seemed to hesitate.

Then, slowly, Jamie’s eyes found mine.

There was a storm in them—guilt, grief, rage, love—all fighting for space in a single glance. And then he nodded. Just once. A small, almost imperceptible gesture.

Fuck no. My entire soul howled in protest. I wanted to scream, to shake him, to yell that this was cruel and unfair and completely fucked—but all that came out was stillness. My face—traitorous thing—offered only understanding, shaped by years of masking discomfort, grief, horror, for the sake of others. Empathy on autopilot.

My feet felt like lead as I approached him. Each step a betrayal. My chest was tight, as though my ribcage was being cinched inward, bone against bone.

I reached out. My hands, blessedly steady, extended toward Duke. Jamie’s grip faltered for just a breath—just long enough to make me want to cry again—and then he let go. Gently, slowly. The weight of Duke’s body shifted into my arms like a warm sandbag, still oddly solid. I cradled him close, trying to shield him from the gravity of this exchange, as if that might preserve something—dignity, peace, love.

A tear slipped down my cheek, a slow traitor tracing the edge of my jaw. I didn’t wipe it away.

"Duke knows you love him, Jamie. He won't ever forget that." My voice cracked slightly, a sniffle slicing the sentence in half. I hated how human it made me sound.

Jamie’s face crumpled. Tears cascaded freely now, unchecked. Raw. Honest. He bent down and pressed a kiss to Duke’s shrouded form, his lips lingering, trembling. "I'm so sorry, Duke," he whispered, and something about the way his voice broke on Duke’s name nearly unmade me.

I clenched my jaw, locking everything down tight—my breath, my sobs, my fury. I couldn’t afford to lose it. Not here. Not now.

And so I stood, holding the weight of loyalty and love in my arms, while the man who’d loved him let go.

Taking a moment to compose himself, Jamie inhaled deeply, as though drawing fortitude straight from the fabric of the air, as if by filling his lungs he could hold his grief at bay long enough to stand, to act, to become something other than broken. When he finally spoke, his voice carried a thread of steel stitched through the sorrow.

"I'll grab my things," he announced, his words simple but loaded, a reluctant submission to the path laid out before him. His gaze met Charity's, locking for a heartbeat, silent confirmation that he was ready to face whatever monsters lay beyond the borders of our makeshift camp.

I stared after him, disbelief congealing in my chest like tar—thick, sticky, impossible to shake. This can’t be happening. It felt like we were all unravelling, piece by piece, pulled apart by grief, by fear, by fucking Portal Pirates and shadow things and choices no one should have to make.

Then, unexpectedly, Jamie halted. A pause, a breath, and a look back over his shoulder. "Take good care of Henri for me," he said, and his voice—strong on the surface—carried an undertow of sorrow so deep I felt it pull at the edges of my heart.

Henri, sweet oblivious creature, perked up at the sound of his name. His tail gave a hopeful little wag, cheerful and guileless, before his snout dipped to the ground, suddenly captivated by some tantalising scent near a half-charred log. Smoke and grease and meat—remnants of last night's fire—called louder to him than the shifting tides of human sadness.

Paul stepped in, ever the pragmatic protector, and bent to scoop Henri into his arms. "We'll keep him safe, Jamie. You have my word," he said firmly, anchoring the moment in something solid, something dependable.

Jamie didn’t look back again. His shoulders squared, his posture stiff with determination and dread, he resumed his march toward the tent, Charity trailing him with the quiet ferocity of someone born to storms. They moved like a stormfront—calm on the surface, but heavy with electricity.

I stood frozen, the bedsheet still cradling Duke against my arms, and felt the weight of everything sink in.

"Oh, Henri," I murmured under my breath, my eyes falling on the dog now resting quietly in Paul's hold. His tongue lolled slightly from his mouth, the picture of uncomplicated happiness. His entire world had tilted, and yet he didn’t know it. He wouldn't understand why Jamie, his constant shadow, was about to vanish. He wouldn’t grasp why Duke’s spot would remain empty. All Henri would know was absence, in that slow, bewildered way animals do—a hopefulness at first, then confusion, and finally... the waiting.

And it broke me just a little more.

My introspection was shattered by Glenda's sudden outburst. She collapsed to her knees, her voice ripping through the tense air with a guttural, anguished cry. "Clivilius!" The name tore from her like a curse, her fists hammering the ground with such force that small clouds of dust rose around her trembling frame. It wasn’t just grief—it was surrender, a total unravelling of composure that made the hairs on my arms rise.

Oh my God, I can't take any more of this stupidity, I raged silently, the words sharp and metallic in the back of my throat. A spike of exasperation flared so intensely that it nearly knocked the breath from my lungs. I felt like I was standing in the eye of a storm, every shred of sense and logic being sucked away by the chaos around the campfire. My eyes glazed over deliberately, retreating behind a protective wall I had learned to build over years of bottling things up. I refused to bear witness to another breakdown. Not now. Not when I was barely holding the jagged pieces of myself together.

Without a word, I turned on my heel and walked. Each step away from the camp was an act of self-preservation, a calculated severing from the suffocating atmosphere of emotional wreckage behind me.

I hadn’t gone far when Paul’s voice rang out, threading through the murmur of crackling flames. "Beatrix, where are you going?" he called after me, his tone muddled with concern and a note of incredulity.

"Home," I shouted back over my shoulder. Home. It tasted foreign on my tongue—bittersweet, fantastical. A cruel joke, maybe. But in that moment, it was the only thing that felt remotely real. The only direction I could will myself toward.

"What? Now? What?" Paul’s bewildered protest trailed behind me, a sound I refused to absorb. My head throbbed, pulsing with a deep, rhythmic ache that made it hard to think, let alone entertain the idea of another argument. My temples pulsed in time with the surge of fury and fatigue coursing through me.

Scratches and bruises marked my skin like a roadmap of the nightmare I’d barely survived. My limbs ached from too many sleepless nights, from curling around grief and terror, from running when I should have collapsed. Even the earth itself felt adversarial—the fine red dust clinging to my ankles, grinding against my already irritated skin like sandpaper.

With Duke’s sheet still cradled in my arms, I had no free hand to wave Paul off—not that a dismissive flick of the wrist could encapsulate the warzone within me. My silence became its own declaration. I didn’t owe anyone an explanation. Not now.

I kept walking, leaving behind the flickering light of the campfire and the rising voices of broken people trying to make sense of the senseless. Every step brought me closer to the Portal’s looming presence, to that strange and terrifying doorway that had become my only remaining concept of escape—even if it led to nowhere.