“Uhm...uh, so...we need to….first, we’re…” Natalie fumbled over her words, and her brain sputtered as she tried to get it organized. But the stares of the people standing in front of her were making that exceedingly difficult. It felt like all of her thoughts were constantly emptying out of her brain, like water through a colander.

Natalie had been surprised at first to have been assigned a cadre of 23 campers from across several cabin sites to help her in the dining hall, and had been more pleasantly surprised that both Morgan and Joshua had also been assigned there with her. At least the two staff members had been there during the breakfast rush, but looking over the campers assigned to her, none of the group that had accompanied her that morning was there.

Instead, she had her worst nightmare come to life.

The 5 younger boys from Virgo weren’t an issue, and neither were the 9 survivors from the Orion cabin sites. Well, for the most part, the one injured survivor from Orion B, the cabin the demon bear had plowed through in their mad dash to safety, wasn’t present, still being treated at Andromeda. Natalie intended to apologize to her when she got better. If she got better.

But the rest of the group was a huge problem. As she had feared, her entire cabin group had been assigned to her, and to make things worse, the three surviving boys from Taurus they had escaped with were hers as well. None of them seemed outwardly angry with her and her cowardly actions, but that was probably only because Morgan and Joshua were there. She was sure that as soon as she was alone with any of them, they’d rip her apart. Victoria was especially good at hiding her true intentions, and Natalie still couldn’t tell whether or not the older girl had lied about where she hid the alcohol in their cabin. She had probably already coached the rest of them to lull her into a false sense of security, let her think that they had forgotten everything she had done to them, gotten the three other boys from Taurus killed by not calling out to them, and were just waiting for the perfect moment to-

“Natalie?” Joshua coughed, and she jumped. Realizing she had frozen in place, she blushed as she looked down to her feet. At least Zoe had followed through on that promise, Jenna had actually given her the shoes off of her own feet, brushing it off since they had confirmed that their cabin at Draco was still standing. Natalie had protested, but Jenna had practically thrown them at her before running out the door laughing, ensuring that Natalie had no choice but to accept them.

“Right, uh...where were we?” Natalie asked, and she could feel the sheer disdain coming off of the group in front of her as she struggled to concentrate. It was just so freaking hard to think about anything else right now, other than the guillotine of the inevitable conflict she had no idea when would drop.

“You were about to have us start getting lunch ready? I’m sure the camp is getting hungry, it’s going to be a bit later than normal.” Morgan said kindly.

Natalie flushed as she tried to organize her thoughts. If she wasn’t so bad at this, maybe they would have been able to have lunch out on time. “Right….uhm...lunch, we’ll keep it simple...Uhm...Sandwiches?”

There were a few confused glances at each other. “Okay, so where do we begin?” Morgan prodded, and Natalie turned away from the group as her mind, finally, focused on something other than the group in front of her.

“Uh, we’ll need bread, that’ll be in the dry goods section. Cheese, ham or turkey, lettuce...Might have to search the fridges for those. We’ll need to take an inventory later and figure out where everything is for easy access….oh, uhm...We’ll do the individual chips packets as well, and a piece of fruit...Morgan, are we having people come here for lunch?” Natalie asked.

Morgan shrugged. “I think that’s your call, boss.” She gave a half-hearted grin, and Natalie twitched for a moment, trying to make the decision. It would be easier, but how would they let people know when it was ready? Far as she knew, the radios were still down. And they’d have to deliver to Andromeda anyways, there were a number of people who wouldn’t be able to move, let alone the expanded first aid team.

“Uh, do we have radio contact back yet?” She asked, and Jordan reached for the radio on his belt and turned it on.

“-take them from here?”

“Can do, Allison. We’ll be there in a few minutes.” The whole group twitched as Joshua hurriedly lowered the volume, the radio echoing in the cavernous space. Natalie stuck a finger in her ear, trying to get rid of the ringing noise in it.

“I guess we’re back.” Joshua looked sheepish as he clipped the radio back on his belt.

Morgan rolled her eyes at him before she turned back to Natalie. “We should let the camp know ahead of time when to come down so they have time to wrap up what they're doing. How soon do you think we can have everything ready?” Morgan asked.

Natalie’s mind whirled as she looked over the group. With the number of people they had, and the number of sandwiches they had to prepare, it wouldn’t take too long, so long as they found everything quickly. She flew through the math in her head, and turned back to Morgan. “I’d say...half an hour? No, make it 45 minutes to be safe.” Natalie replied.

Morgan smiled as she grabbed the radio out of Joshua’s hand, moving towards the door to the dining hall to make the call. Abruptly, Natalie realized she had set herself a deadline she needed to get to work towards with people who hadn’t done this before, but it was too late, the die had been cast. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, turning back towards the group.

“Okay, uhm...Taurus group, look through the dry goods section around the corner for bread, and start getting stacks of two slices out on the counter over there. We’ll need the space, so put them close together.” She heard a few pairs of feet move away, and she continued.

“We need deli meats and cheeses, those will be in one of the walk-in fridges, along with the lettuce. On the outside, there’s clipboards listing what’s in there, so look at them and figure out where what you need is before going in. Don’t leave the doors open for long, we need to keep power consumption as low as possible. We’ll need...well, enough for two slices of deli meat per sandwich, and a slice of cheese, so once you find whatever they’re stored in, do the math for 150 sandwiches and get that. Oh, uhm...Ursa Minor, do that please.” Natalie winced as she heard her cabin group move away, and was finally able to relax a bit.

“What about us?” Natalie finally opened her eyes, seeing the Orion and Virgo campers still with her.

Natalie thought for a moment as options flowed through her mind. “Okay, uhm...Virgo, split into two groups. We need to find the boxes of individual packets of chips, they’ll also be in the dry goods section. We’ll need enough boxes for 150 packets out again, two of you should be able to handle that. The other three, there’s fruit in fridge B, we’ll need enough apples for 150 people again. Just apples this time.” Natalie finished, and the five Virgo boys moved away.

She turned to the remaining group of campers, her mind out of ideas for lunch, and yet there was still work that needed to be done. “Okay, for the rest of you...This isn’t lunch prep at this point, we’ve got enough hands on that. What I need you six to focus on is beginning the inventory process. I need to know how much we have of….well, everything. Split up into pairs, grab a notebook, and double-check each other's count as you go. One pair to dry goods, one to the fridges, one to the freezers.” Natalie finished.

One of the campers put his hand up. “Shouldn’t there be an inventory already? The kitchen staff would need to know what they have.” One of them pointed out, and Natalie froze. Of course they should, why hadn’t she thought of that, where would that be at?

Natalie turned to Joshua. As one of the staff members, he would be the only possible source of information on that point. “Uhm...Joshua, you wouldn’t happen to know where the kitchen staff might have kept something like that?” She asked.

Joshua cocked his head for a moment as he thought. “Best I could assume is in Bobby’s office, but she’s got her own keys for that. Short of breaking down the door or picking the lock, we can’t get in. And that door’s tough, heavy security for Bobby’s office so nothing’s messed with. We could ask maintenance for help with that, but with their list, I don’t think this is going to be a priority.” Joshua replied.

Natalie shook her head, turning back to the group in front of her. “Well, there’s your answer. We’ll look around to see if it’s anywhere else, but in the meantime, I need numbers, and fast. We need to know how much food we have in order to plan out how much we’ll need the other groups to gather in order to stay afloat, or at least stretch out our supply. So, uh…..Get to it?” Natalie finished, and the Orion girls moved off, grumbling slightly as they did.

“That went well.” Joshua said.

Natalie cringed. “That was terrible.”

Joshua shook his head, a small smile on his face. “It wasn’t that bad. Sure, you struggled at the beginning, but once you got going everything was good. What do you want me to do?” Joshua asked, and Natalie hesitated. Joshua grinned. “Don’t be afraid to order me around. You’re the boss here, I’m just here to make sure stuff gets done.”

“Uhm...In that case, can you take over making sure the sandwiches get done properly? I need to...uhm...see if we have sandwich baggies?” Natalie asked lamely.

Joshua quirked an eyebrow before shrugging. “Sure thing, I’ll make sure they’re done properly. Half of them ham, the other turkey, right?” He asked, and moved away after Natalie nodded at him.

“Oh, make sure they wash their hands and put gloves on!” Natalie called, and he gave a thumbs up over his shoulder. She breathed a sigh of relief, trying to get her heartbeat under control. She had realized as soon as he asked for a job that she had put both of the groups she wanted to avoid on the same job. Putting Joshua in charge of both Taurus and Ursa Minor was an easy out, for the moment.

“Camp’s been informed, they’ll be here right around 1:30. What’s next for us?” Morgan asked as she re-entered the kitchen.

Natalie turned to look at her. “We need to get the serving lines ready. Uh, serving trays should go by the sandwiches so they can load them in as they go. We’ll keep one separate for delivery to Andromeda once lunch gets going.” Morgan nodded, and they headed towards the racks of serving dishes.

Once they got moving, getting everything ready was a wonderfully simple affair. Having a checklist in her head to run through made things easy, and she was pleasantly surprised when all of the preparations easily fell into place with a few minutes to spare. They set out the serving trays full of sandwiches as the first group of campers and staff appeared at the entry doors, waving and begging to be let in. Natalie checked the clock and shook her head, faint amusement running through her. Not quite time yet.

“We’re still going to serve, and will probably continue to in order to make sure no one takes more than their fair share right off the bat. Chips and apples can stay in the box until we hand them out, no need to get another tray dirty. One sandwich, one bag of chips, and one apple for now.” Natalie instructed.

Morgan looked at her and nodded. “What about Andromeda?” Morgan asked.

Natalie grinned as she turned to her. “Already thought of that. I’m going to take a few campers with me to deliver their lunches. I need you and Joshua here to ensure that things run smoothly. Definitely more likely to have problems here than over there.” Natalie replied.

Morgan grinned at her, giving her a mock salute. “Sure thing. We’ll make sure things stay orderly. Same deal as breakfast lines?” She asked.

Natalie nodded. “Thanks Morgan. Uh, Virgo boys, you come with me! We’re going to Andromeda for a delivery.” She called, and Joshua pulled them and her aside for a second as they came near.

“You guys behave this time, alright? No wandering off. If Natalie comes back without you guys, I’m going to be very, very angry.” Joshua said, and Natalie frowned as they all nodded, looking a bit sullen. He looked towards her with an apologetic look on his face and introduced all of them to her. “Sorry, should have mentioned earlier. These kids went to look at the barrier by themselves, so they’re on a bit of a probation. You have any issue with them, let me know, all right?”

Natalie’s heartbeat picked up. “Uh...Sure? I’m sure they’ll be fine, right?” Had she already chosen wrong? Who else should she have asked instead? Orion was still busy doing inventory, so Virgo had been the only option, unless she was stupid enough to make a run to Andromeda with anyone from Taurus or Ursa Minor without an adult around. She liked her head where it was, thank you very much.

Harry grabbed one of the boxes, a disgruntled look on his face. “Let’s get going, sooner we get back, sooner we can have lunch.” Harry commented, and the rest of them followed suits before they headed for the front door.

As they reached the door, Natalie saw Finn fish out a key from his pocket and unlock the door from the outside, prompting a loud chorus of complaints from the kids with him, asking why he hadn’t unlocked it sooner.

“Are you ready for us?” He asked.

Natalie nodded to him, eyeing the ravenous group in front of them. “Soon as we’re through, you’re all set. These are for Andromeda, so no grabbing!” She called, and Finn shouted at his group to back off before letting them through. Natalie and the Virgo boys barely cleared the doorway before the campers rushed in, leaving them a bit dazed.

“Glad I’m not on the line, they look starved.” Noah said.

“I’m starved. Let’s get this over with.” Corey grumped, and Natalie winced as he stalked off towards the meeting halls. She felt a bit odd as she walked in their wake instead of ahead of them, but decided it was better that way. If any of them did try to run off, at least she’d notice when it happened.

“Natalie! You got a second?” Natalie turned as they approached the meeting halls, seeing Katsuki and Ruth approaching, a large group of campers behind them. Natalie looked back at her small group who had continued into Andromeda, and were already being helped by the lifeguards to start passing out their food.

“Uh, sure, give me a second to hand this off first?” Natalie replied, and Katsuki nodded. He sent Ruth and their group of campers ahead as she handed her box off to Jack.

Natalie returned to Katsuki, her mind already spinning with possible topics he might be about to ask her about. “What’s up?” She asked.

Katsuki pulled her away from Andromeda a few steps first, looking over his shoulder for a moment to make sure they were alone. “We’ve got a bit of an issue. We haven’t had much time to really dig into it, but the weeds we’ve been fighting in the farms all summer...Well, they’ve gotten a lot worse since yesterday.” Katsuki stated,

Natalie frowned. “Sorry, this is the first I’ve heard of this. What’s going on?” She asked. Katsuki explained about the horsetail weeds and their choking, destructive potential, and Natalie’s stomach started to twist as she realized what he was saying. “So wait, it was only in one corner of the farm yesterday, and now it’s popping up in how much of the farm?”

“We’re seeing offshoots in a few different places. It’s hard to say, but Ruth thinks it’s growing explosively. Probably about a quarter of the farmland is soon going to be completely choked out by the weeds if we don’t stop it.”

Natalie frowned, her head spinning. “How much food does that equal? I don’t know the conversion between farmland to food...weight? Produce?” Natalie fumbled.

Katsuki nodded. “We’ve got a wide variety of things, but put simply, if the whole field was ripe and able to be harvested at once, it would last our numbers about...4 days?” Katsuki replied.

“Is anything ripe yet? Can we harvest anything yet?” Natalie asked.

Katsuki nodded at her. “We’re going to get the stuff closest to the weeds first. It isn’t quite fully mature there, but it’ll be better than letting the weeds have it.”

“So how many days of food are we talking about here?” Natalie pressed, trying to come up with some solid figure to work with.

Katsuki frowned, his eyes going to the sky as he thought. “I’d say we could probably get one, maybe two days of food out of what we can get now? We’ll have to work hard to push back on the weeds so they don’t take over any more, or we might start losing crops to them before we can harvest them.” Katsuki replied.

“But either way, since they don’t have time to mature, we’re losing out on the amount of produce.” Natalie confirmed.

Katsuki nodded. “We’ll do our best to keep it at bay, but I’ve never seen anything like this. Neither has Ruth. We’re lucky we have a bigger group now, but even so, horsetail is tricky. Once all of this is over, we’re probably going to have to take drastic action to get rid of it before next year.” Katsuki replied.

Natalie raised her eyebrows. Next year? Would there be anyone willing to come back here after all of this? Katsuki must have sensed her confusion as he put a hand to his temples and rubbed at them, sighing. “Well, we’ll do our best anyways. Any idea what we’re looking at for what’s in the dining hall?” Katsuki asked.

Natalie shook her thoughts out of her head, trying to focus on the present. “I’ve got some of my team doing inventory. Bobby’s office is locked so we have to do it manually. Should have a better idea where we stand by dinner hopefully.” Natalie replied.

Katuski nodded. “Well, we’ll have to hope the fishing and hunting groups will have better luck.” He sighed, and Natalie silently agreed with him. Her best estimate before doing a full inventory was that they might have a week’s worth of food all together for everyone, so being able to gather more was going to be critical moving forwards.

A sudden yawn overtook her, and she blinked as she tried to fight it off unsuccessfully. Katuski smiled at her as she blushed. “I’d suggest going to bed soon after dinner. We’ve all been up for a long time now.” Katsuki said, and Natalie nodded. She hadn’t noticed before with all of the different things being thrown at her, but a sudden wave of exhaustion hit her, and she wished she could crawl into bed right then and there.

A sudden thought occurred to her as she remembered the destroyed state of her cabin. “How are we going to know where we’re supposed to be for beds for the night? Is there going to be some kind of assigned place for everyone?” Natalie asked.

Katsuki shrugged. “I assume someone will have figured it out by then I’ll ask around and see what I can turn up. You worry about the food situation for now.” Katsuki replied.

Natalie gave him a nod, although she hoped they would be able to choose where they slept. Being able to get away from her cabin group, even just for the night, would be a godsend. “Okay. You should get to the dining hall, last I saw it looked like the campers were going to clear the whole place out.” Natalie said.

Katsuki laughed. “How is that different from any other day? See you later.” He waved as he walked away.

Natalie turned back and headed back into Andromeda, quickly looking around to see the food being distributed to those inside. “Everything okay here?” She asked as Jack walked over to her, an empty box in his hands.

“Much better now, thanks to you and your group. How much more of the bottled waters do you have at the dining hall? We should probably make sure we don’t throw them out so we can refill them, right?” Jack asked.

Natalie nodded to him, adding it to the list of things to keep track of in her mind. “We’re working on inventory now, but yes. It’ll be a lot easier to keep water bottles swapping between here and there as needed, so we don’t have to bring down the huge jugs. Unless you think that’s a better idea.” Natalie asked.

Jack shrugged. “Might be a good idea to have some big jugs on hand, just in case. Allison and I were going to ask you about any help your crew could give in washing bandages but…” Jack trailed off, an odd emptiness in his eyes as Natalie fidgeted.

“Is...everything okay?” Natalie asked.

Jack sighed. “We’ll be fine. Allison’s just...taking this hard. She’ll bounce back in a bit though, don’t you worry. Nothing keeps her down for long.” Jack replied, and Natalie frowned. She wasn’t quite sure if he was telling the truth, but she didn’t know the lifeguard well enough to make the distinction either way.

“Natalie, we’re done! Can we go back for lunch now?” Natalie turned to see her Virgo group by the door, anxiously looking out towards the dining hall.

“Be right there, don’t you dare go off without me!” She replied. “Gotta keep those kids on a leash.”

Jack grinned, scratching at the back of his neck. “Pretty sure they’re not much younger than you are.”

Natalie huffed. “Sure feels like I’m older than them. Seriously, running off to the barrier, what idiots.” Jack frowned, eyeing the group for a second.

“Well, shouldn’t keep them waiting, or they might decide to run off again anyways. Never get between a growing boy and his stomach.” Jack’s face broke out into a grin again.

Natalie nodded. “Sure thing. We’ll be back around dinner time.” Natalie waved as she left, and had to quicken her pace to keep up with the boys, who kept threatening to run off back to the dining hall. The minute it was back in sight, they all broke out into a run, and Natalie sighed. At least they hadn’t tried to run off without her seeing where they went.

The familiar noise and chatter of the dining hall nearly bowled her over as she opened the doors, a wall of sounds that quickly became indecipherable as words. Morgan gave her a quick thumbs up from the head of the line, and Natalie relaxed as she copied the gesture back. Her eyes roved over the lines, quickly checking her group behind them. Victoria and the others seemed to be doing all right, even if she could see the annoyance in some of their body language.

“What’s our numbers look like?” Natalie asked as she approached. Morgan turned to look at her, a tired grin on her face.

“If my counting is correct, we should only have one more group on the way. Jeremy’s group.” Morgan added.

Natalie nodded. “Once they go through the line, feel free to grab lunch yourselves. Don’t want you all starving back there. But stay in place in case someone comes back for seconds.” Natalie replied.

“What’s the policy there?” Morgan asked.

Natalie shrugged. “At the moment, there won’t be too much extra, so it’s first come first serve. Depending on what our food situation looks like later, we may have to ration it and take that option off the table.” Natalie replied.

“Hopefully it won’t come to that too quickly.” Jeremy’s voice came from behind her, and Natalie turned as Jeremy, Yasmina and a few others arrived at the line, a tired, weary grin on his face. Natalie frowned. The rest of them looked hollow, and her gut twisted a bit at their blank stares as they filed into line.

“Are you all...okay?” Natalie asked Jeremy.

He frowned as Yasmina leaned into him, her eyes closed. “Hopefully they will be. We’re with the volunteer group. For the...cabin cleaning.” Natalie’s heart dropped, and she looked down at her shoes.

“Sorry.” She whispered.

Jeremy shook his head. “Don’t be, you didn’t know. It’s….been rough.” He sighed, and Yasmina nodded into his arm.

“If...If you need anything...I don’t know what, but…” Natalie stumbled over her words.

Jeremy smiled, despite it not reaching his eyes. “Thanks Natalie. We’ll let you know.” They stepped past her as the line shifted forwards, and Natalie sighed. “Oh, by the way, we dug out some things from your cabin earlier. Ursa Minor A, right? The stuff we could salvage from there is in Circinus.” Jeremy added.

Natalie’s heart leapt. “Thanks! I’ll take a look when I get the chance.” Natalie trembled in anticipation. The thin pajamas under her chef's coat were sticky with sweat, and she hoped that her own shoes had been found so she could return Jenna’s. She gave a meaningful glance at Morgan, who cracked a small smile.

“Go on, go freshen up. We’ll start chasing people out in about half an hour, so you’ve got that long, at least.” Morgan grabbed a sandwich from the pile and handed it around the line, and Natalie took it as she headed towards the door.

She barely remembered the quick trek back towards the meeting halls again, the sandwich in her hands completely disappearing as if by magic. Only the small weight in her stomach reminded her that, yes, she had eaten it and not had it actually just disappear.

A few small piles of broken and smashed trunks were placed around the room, and Natalie’s heart sank as she tried to figure out which one hers was in. She hadn’t put any identifying marks on it, none of the stickers or other decorations some of the other campers had put on theirs. It had been purchased specifically for this stay at camp, and she hadn’t known that decorating a trunk was even a thing until she saw some of the other girls in her cabin-

Her eyes finally landed on a familiar sight, a few familiar stickers arranged on a bent lid that looked like Emily’s trunk. After a moment of shifting things around, she found her trunk on the bottom of the pile, and she frowned. It was completely broken, shattered and bent beyond salvaging. There was a white garbage bag placed inside it’s remains, and she looked inside to see a pitifully small bundle of clothes, a few notebooks and pens, some toiletries-

Her broken and shattered cell phone slid into view, and she froze. Her hand was shaky as she took it, holding it tight to her chest.

If only they hadn’t had the argument that broke it, she could have had the one lifeline left to the outside world still in her hands. Sure, likely there wouldn’t be any cell service, but there had been plenty of pictures of family and friends in it’s memory, and Natalie’s heart ached as she wished she could just browse through them for a while. Getting to see their smiling faces again would have been a blessing in this hellhole of a trap.

But no, just another thing Victoria, Richard, and the others in her cabin and Taurus had to ruin.

Natalie wiped the tears from her eyes as she slid the broken phone into the pocket of her chef’s coat. Hopefully at some point, she could ask someone about getting access to a computer. Maybe there was a way to pull the photos off of the memory chip. It was an older phone, so it at least had a removable memory rather than built-in, which would have completely been useless here.

As she grabbed the only change of clothes she owned from the bottom of her bag, her eyes strayed towards Victoria’s trunk. After a moment, she sighed, shaking her head. Searching through someone else’s trunk, even in this situation, was below her.

Except....

Natalie looked back at it, her mind wondering, racing. Victoria’s trunk was mostly intact, except for the backside where the hinges had been squashed and broken. If Natalie wanted to, she could look through the trunk, and Victoria would never know.

The thought of finding and taking Victoria’s stupid alcohol and using it to cook with without her knowledge was almost too poetic. Maybe she could even make Victoria help with using it without her knowledge.

Natalie sat there, looking at Victoria’s trunk, wrestling with herself and her thoughts for a very long time.