Lottie leans in. “Who did you love more than Jackie?”

That night, the ritual begins.

“The trees,” she whispers. “They have ears. But they also have a throat. We have to feed it.”

Outside, the snow has stopped. In its place is a full, bloated moon. And beneath it, Javi is found.

And somewhere, in the present-day basement, Misty smiles and picks up the gardening trowel again.

Misty cuts. Pus and something blacker than infection spill out. The smell is of rot and petrichor—like the forest exhaling. Lottie’s eyes roll back, white as snow. When she wakes an hour later, she is calm. She points a trembling finger at the cabin door.

The rules are simple: they sit in a circle. Lottie asks a question. Whoever holds the Queen of Hearts card must answer truthfully, or the group decides their “offering.” Misty, ever the enthusiast, draws first. The card is blank.

The cabin is a tomb of tension. Lottie’s wound—the one from Shauna’s knife—has festered. She lies on a blood-stained mattress, her forehead gleaming with a supernatural sheen. Misty, in her first real moment of pre-crash competence, holds a heated blade. “This will hurt,” she says, not unkindly. Lottie doesn’t scream. She chants in a low, guttural French that no one understands. “Qui… qui a tué le chasseur?” Who killed the hunter?