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"Wowza, Shipman."
Shauna whips around at the sound—and there she is, standing against the tree where Melissa was only minutes before, arms crossed over her chest and smirking at her in that way she knows will piss her off.
The sight of her makes Shauna's chest hurt, sends a roiling crack of thunder through her scarred heart. She hasn't seen her since—before. The start of winter. She didn't come after the bacchanal, after the baby, or after the cabin burned. Only now.
"Jackie." She breathes her name like a prayer. "What are you doing here?"
Jackie cocks her head to one side. "I could ask you the same thing. That was one hell of a display. Didn't think you had it in you, honestly."
"I didn't exactly give you permission to watch," Shauna bites back.
"Oh, I'm always watching you." Jackie gets in close, breath cold on Shauna's skin, and whispers, "Did she taste like the real thing?"
"Fuck you," Shauna says, because she doesn't know how to say anything else to Jackie, any of the feelings that have festered in her heart ever since she woke up to snow and a cold corpse where her best friend once was.
But Jackie just throws her head back. Her laughter is sharper than it ever was in life, like death has hardened her, whetted her edges till she's a knife of her own in Shauna's heart (but she always was, wasn't she?)
"You wish," Jackie spits. "If only you weren't such a fucking coward, maybe you could've been—"
"Shut up," Shauna says through gritted teeth, trying in vain to hold herself together. Her heart races at the thought of Jackie seeing her kiss Melissa, Jackie knowing what she felt, what she wanted. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I?" Jackie's grin has teeth. "So, tell me, Shauna. How do we compare? Was she better or worse than yours truly?"
"W–what?" Shauna splutters, dropping her gaze from Jackie's face as her cheeks burn.
A scoff from her bluish lips. "Oh, don't play dumb, Shipman. Remember the meat shed? You put lipstick on me only to—"
"Shut the fuck up!" Shauna shouts, shoving Jackie back against the tree. She brings the knife up to her throat, watches in wonder as a tiny drop of frozen blood bubbles up from her skin. She licks her lips on instinct.
Jackie's eyebrows raise briefly but her smile doesn't abate. Her hand comes up to Shauna's back, pulling her in as her own eyes darken.
That's not what you're hungry for.
"Make me."
Shauna hesitates for a second, brown eyes on hazel, and then she's kissing her, pushing Jackie into the tree the same way she did Melissa—only it's different, because it's Jackie, it's her Jackie, and she pulls her ever closer and she still smells like the perfume Shauna smelled on Jeff and she tastes like her favorite strawberry lip gloss just the way Shauna always imagined she would—
—and as suddenly as she came, Jackie's gone.
Shauna feels more alone than she's ever been, the hole in her blackened heart widening into a gaping maw that threatens to swallow her whole. She almost wants it to. Maybe it would be for the best.
She touches her lips, feeling the phantom kiss linger there: a wound that she knows will never heal. Her fingers come away stained with tears, and strawberries turn to ash in her mouth.